Beam interaction with background gas and walls produces ubiquitous clouds of stray electrons that frequently limit the performance of particle accelerator and storage rings. Counterintuitively we obtained the electron cloud accumulation by measuring the expelled ions that are originated from the beam-background gas interaction, rather than by measuring electrons that reach the walls. The kinetic ion energy measured with a retarding field analyzer (RFA) maps the depressed beam space-charge potential and provides the dynamic electron cloud density. Clearing electrode current measurements give the static electron cloud background that complements and corroborates with the RFA measurements, providing an absolute measurement of electron cloud density during a 5 {micro}s duration beam pulse in a drift region of the magnetic transport section of the High-Current Experiment (HCX) at LBNL.

This report considers the transition in government meant to stabilize Afghanistan. Moreover, the report discusses the new constitution and the benefits of it, such as women participating in politics. The report also discusses the NATO led troops in the region.

This final report summarizes research undertaken collaboratively between Princeton University, the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory on the Princeton University campus, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the University of California, Los Angeles between September 1, 2000, and November 30, 2006, to do fundamental research on ocean iron fertilization as a means to enhance the net oceanic uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere. The approach we proposed was to develop and apply a suite of coupled physical-ecological-biogeochemical models in order to (i) determine to what extent enhanced carbon fixation from iron fertilization will lead to an increase in the oceanic uptake of atmospheric CO2 and how long this carbon will remain sequestered (efficiency), and (ii) examine the changes in ocean ecology and natural biogeochemical cycles resulting from iron fertilization (consequences). The award was funded in two separate three-year installments: • September 1, 2000 to November 30, 2003, for a project entitled “Ocean carbon sequestration by fertilization: An integrated biogeochemical assessment.” A final report was submitted for this at the end of 2003 and is included here as Appendix 1. • December 1, 2003 to November 30, 2006, for a follow-on project under the same grant number …

This final report summarizes research undertaken collaboratively between Princeton University, the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory on the Princeton University campus, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the University of California, Los Angeles between September 1, 2000, and November 30, 2006, to do fundamental research on ocean iron fertilization as a means to enhance the net oceanic uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere. The approach we proposed was to develop and apply a suite of coupled physical-ecologicalbiogeochemical models in order to (i) determine to what extent enhanced carbon fixation from iron fertilization will lead to an increase in the oceanic uptake of atmospheric CO2 and how long this carbon will remain sequestered (efficiency), and (ii) examine the changes in ocean ecology and natural biogeochemical cycles resulting from iron fertilization (consequences). The award was funded in two separate three-year installments: • September 1, 2000 to November 30, 2003, for a project entitled “Ocean carbon sequestration by fertilization: An integrated biogeochemical assessment.” A final report was submitted for this at the end of 2003 and is included here as Appendix 1. • December 1, 2003 to November 30, 2006, for a follow-on project under the same grant number …

This report provides information about the Regulation and Issues for Congress in Chemical Facility Security. The proposed security regulations will preempt local and facility submission.

Compton scattering of intense laser pulses with ultrarelativistic electron beams has proven to be an attractive source of high-brightness x-rays with keV to MeV energies. This type of x-ray source requires the electron beam brightness to be comparable with that used in x-ray free-electron lasers and laser and plasma based advanced accelerators. We describe the development and commissioning of a 1.6 cell RF photoinjector for use in Compton scattering experiments at LLNL. Injector development issues such as RF cavity design, beam dynamics simulations, emittance diagnostic development, results of sputtered magnesium photo-cathode experiments, and UV laser pulse shaping are discussed. Initial operation of the photoinjector is described.

Diseases and conditions affecting the lower urinary tract are a leading cause of dysfunctional sexual health, incontinence, infection, and kidney failure. The growth, differentiation, and repair of the bladder's epithelial lining are regulated, in part, by fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-7 and -10 via a paracrine cascade originating in the mesenchyme (lamina propria) and targeting the receptor for FGF-7 and -10 within the transitional epithelium (urothelium). The FGF-7 gene is located at the 15q15-q21.1 locus on chromosome 15 and four exons generate a 3.852-kb mRNA. Five duplicated FGF-7 gene sequences that localized to chromosome 9 were predicted not to generate functional protein products, thus validating the use of FGF-7-null mice as an experimental model. Recombinant FGF-7 and -10 induced proliferation of human urothelial cells in vitro and transitional epithelium of wild-type and FGF-7-null mice in vivo.To determine the extent that induction of urothelial cell proliferation during the bladder response to injury is dependent on FGF-7, an animal model of partial bladder outlet obstruction was developed. Unbiased stereology was used to measure the percentage of proliferating urothelial cells between obstructed groups of wild-type and FGF-7-null mice. The stereological analysis indicated that a statistical significant difference did not exist between the two groups, …

The Disposable Solid Waste Cask (DSWC) is a shielded cask capable of transporting, storing, and disposing of six non-fuel core components or approximately 27 cubic feet of radioactive solid waste. Five existing DSWCs are candidates for use in storing and disposing of non-fuel core components and radioactive solid waste from the Interim Examination and Maintenance Cell, ultimately shipping them to the 200 West Area disposal site for burial. A series of inspections, studies, analyses, and modifications were performed to ensure that these casks can be used to safely ship solid waste. These inspections, studies, analyses, and modifications are summarized and attached in this report. Visual inspection of the casks interiors provided information with respect to condition of the casks inner liners. Because water was allowed to enter the casks for varying lengths of time, condition of the cask liner pipe to bottom plate weld was of concern. Based on the visual inspection and a corrosion study, it was concluded that four of the five casks can be used from a corrosion standpoint. Only DSWC S/N-004 would need additional inspection and analysis to determine its usefulness. The five remaining DSWCs underwent some modification to prepare them for use. The existing cask …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), a retirement savings and investment plan for federal workers, held approximately $210 billion in retirement assets for 3.7 million participants, as of February 2007. TSP is managed by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB). In light of questions about TSP oversight, we examined (1) the current structure for overseeing FRTIB, (2) how the statutorily defined fiduciary responsibilities of FRTIB compare to the responsibilities of private plan sponsors and how FRTIB fulfills its responsibilities, (3) how FRTIB's investment policies differ from those of private plan sponsors, and (4) FRTIB's statutory responsibilities to educate plan participants about TSP and other retirement issues and how these responsibilities compare with those of private and state and local government employee plan sponsors."

This report discusses the increased presence of foreign students in graduate science and engineering programs and in the scientific workforce that has been and continues to be of concern to some in the scientific community. Enrollment of U.S. citizens in graduate science and engineering programs has not kept pace with that of foreign students in those programs. Many in the scientific community maintain that in order to compete with countries that are rapidly expanding their scientific and technological capabilities, the country needs to bring to the United States those whose skills will benefit society and will enable us to compete in the new-technology based global economy. This report analyzes this issue in detail and includes discussion of related legislation.

This report outlines Congressional concerns regarding Haiti including fostering democratic development, stability, and security; the cost and effectiveness of U.S. aid; protecting human rights; combating narcotics trafficking; addressing Haitian migration; and alleviating poverty. Bills addressing those concerns have been introduced in the 110th Congress.

A new type of compact induction accelerator is under development at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that promises to increase the average accelerating gradient by at least an order of magnitude over that of existing induction machines. The machine is based on the use of high gradient vacuum insulators, advanced dielectric materials and switches and is stimulated by the desire for compact flash x-ray radiography sources. Research describing an extreme variant of this technology aimed at proton therapy for cancer will be described. Progress in applying this technology to several applications will be reviewed.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began operations in March 2003, it has faced the daunting task of bringing together 22 diverse agencies and developing an integrated financial management system to provide timely, reliable, and useful financial information. GAO was asked to determine (1) whether DHS has fully developed plans for implementing and/or migrating to an integrated departmentwide financial management system, (2) the potential usefulness of the work products received for the funds spent on the financial modernization effort, and (3) going forward, how DHS can incorporate best practices into its plans for migrating to an integrated departmentwide financial management system. GAO interviewed key DHS officials, reviewed relevant DHS policy and procedure documents, and analyzed work products related to the financial modernization effort."

A hybrid-heating microwave oven provides the energy to heat small 10-gram samples of spent metal tritide storage bed material to release tenaciously held decay product {sup 3}He. Complete mass balance procedures require direct measurement of added or produced gases on a tritide bed, and over 1100 C is necessary to release deep trapped {sup 3}He. The decomposition of non-radioactive CaCO{sub 3} and the quantitative measurement of CO{sub 2} within 3% of stoichiometry demonstrate the capabilities of the apparatus to capture generated (released) gases.

This GFSI Risk Management Plan (RMP) describes the strategy for assessing and managing project risks for the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) that are specifically within the control and purview of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and identifies the risks that formed the basis for the DOE contingency included in the performance baseline. DOE-held contingency is required to cover cost and schedule impacts of DOE activities. Prior to approval of the performance baseline (Critical Decision-2) project cost contingency was evaluated during a joint meeting of the Contractor Management Team and the Integrated Project Team for both contractor and DOE risks to schedule and cost. At that time, the contractor cost and schedule risk value was $41.3M and the DOE cost and schedule risk contingency value is $39.0M. The contractor cost and schedule risk value of $41.3M was retained in the performance baseline as the contractor's management reserve for risk contingency. The DOE cost and schedule risk value of $39.0M has been retained in the performance baseline as the DOE Contingency. The performance baseline for the project was approved in December 2006 (Garman 2006). The project will continue to manage to the performance baseline and change control thresholds identified in …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), dual-eligible beneficiaries--individuals with both Medicare and Medicaid coverage--have their drug costs covered under Medicare Part D rather than under state Medicaid programs. The MMA requires the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to enroll these beneficiaries in a Medicare prescription drug plan (PDP) if they do not select a plan on their own. CMS enrolled about 5.5 million dual-eligible beneficiaries in late 2005 and about 634,000 who became dually eligible during 2006. GAO was asked to testify on (1) CMS's process for enrolling new dual-eligible beneficiaries into PDPs and its effect on access to drugs and (2) how CMS set the effective coverage date for certain dual-eligible beneficiaries and its implementation of this policy. This testimony is based on the GAO report, Medicare Part D: Challenges in Enrolling New Dual-Eligible Beneficiaries (GAO-07-272)."

Known fossil fuel reserves, especially coal, can support global energy demands for centuries to come, if the environmental problems associated with CO{sub 2} emissions can be overcome. Unlike other CO{sub 2} sequestration candidate technologies that propose long-term storage, mineral sequestration provides permanent disposal by forming geologically stable mineral carbonates. Carbonation of the widely occurring mineral olivine (e.g., forsterite, Mg{sub 2}SiO{sub 4}) is a large-scale sequestration process candidate for regional implementation, which converts CO{sub 2} into the environmentally benign mineral magnesite (MgCO{sub 3}). The primary goal is cost-competitive process development. As the process is exothermic, it inherently offers low-cost potential. Enhancing carbonation reactivity is key to economic viability. Recent studies at the U.S. DOE Albany Research Center have established that aqueous-solution carbonation using supercritical CO{sub 2} is a promising process; even without olivine activation, 30-50% carbonation has been achieved in an hour. Mechanical activation (e.g., attrition) has accelerated the carbonation process to an industrial timescale (i.e., near completion in less than an hour), at reduced pressure and temperature. However, the activation cost is too high to be economical and lower cost pretreatment options are needed. We have discovered that robust silica-rich passivating layers form on the olivine surface during carbonation. As …

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Handling the power and particle exhaust in fusion reactors based on tokamaks is a challenging problem [1,2]. To bring the energy flux to the divertor plates to an acceptable level (< 10 MW/m2), it is desirable to significantly increase poloidal flux expansion in the divertor area. Some recent ideas include that of a so-called X divertor [3] and a 'snowflake' divertor [4]. We use an acronym SF to designate the latter. In this paper we concentrate on the SF divertor. The general idea behind this configuration is that, by a proper selection of divertor (poloidal field) coils, one can make the null point of the second, not of the first order as in the standard divertor. The separatrix in the vicinity of the X point then acquires a characteristic hexapole structure (Fig. 1), reminiscent of a snowflake, whence the name. The fact that the field has a second-order null, leads to a significant increase of the flux expansion. It was noted in Ref. [4] that the SF configuration is topologically unstable: if the current in the divertor coils is somewhat higher than the one that provides the SF configuration, it becomes a single-null X-point configuration. Conversely, if the coil current …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since its creation, the Social Security number (SSN) has evolved beyond its intended purpose to become the identifier of choice for public and private sector entities, and it is now used for myriad non-Social Security purposes. This is significant because a person's SSN, along with name and date of birth, are the key pieces of personal information used to perpetrate identity theft. Consequently, the potential for misuse of the SSN has raised questions about how private and public sector entities obtain, use, and protect SSNs. Accordingly, this testimony focuses on describing the (1) use of SSNs by government agencies, (2) use of SSNs by the private sector, and (3) vulnerabilities that remain to protecting SSNs. For this testimony, we primarily relied on information from our prior reports and testimonies that address public and private sector use and protection of SSNs. These products were issued between 2002 and 2006 and are listed in the Related GAO Products section at the end of this statement. We conducted our reviews in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is home to the spot cheddar cheese market, which impacts the prices of virtually all cheese traded in the United States, producer milk prices, and milk futures contracts. The spot cheese market, formerly the National Cheese Exchange (NCE) in Wisconsin, has been and continues to be the subject of concerns about price manipulation. GAO was asked to examine (1) the market's structure and ongoing concerns about price manipulation; (2) market oversight and efforts to address potential manipulation; and (3) how the market impacts federal milk pricing. In response, GAO compared the markets at NCE and CME, analyzed trading data, collected information about the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) oversight, and met with industry participants, academics, and agency officials."

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Vacuum arc ion sources, commonly also known as "Mevva" ionsources, are used to generate intense pulsed metal ion beams. It is knownthat the mean charge state of the ion beam lies between 1 and 4,depending on cathode material, arc current, arc pulse duration, presenceor absence of magnetic field at the cathode, as well background gaspressure. A characteristic of the vacuum arc ion beam is a significantdecrease in ion charge state throughout the pulse. This decrease can beobserved up to a few milliseconds, until a "noisy" steady-state value isestablished. Since the extraction voltage is constant, a decrease in theion charge state has a proportional impact on the average ion beamenergy. This paper presents results of detailed investigations of theinfluence of arc parameters on the temporal development of the ion beammean charge state for a wide range of cathode materials. It is shown thatfor fixed pulse duration, the charge state decrease can be reduced bylower arc current, higher pulse repetition rate, and reduction of thedistance between cathode and extraction region. The latter effect may beassociated with charge exchange processes in the dischargeplasma.

Plutonium is a very complex element lying near the middle of the actinide series. On the lower atomic number side of Pu is the element neptunium; its 5f electrons are highly delocalized or itinerant, participating in metallic-like bonding. The electrons in americium, the element to the right of Pu, are localized and do not participant significantly in the bonding. Plutonium is located directly on this rather abrupt transition. In the low-temperature {alpha} phase ground state, the five 5f electrons are mostly delocalized leading to a highly dense monoclinic crystal structure. Increases in temperature take the unalloyed plutonium through a series of five solid-state allotropic phase transformations before melting. One of the high temperature phases, the close-packed face centered cubic {delta} phase, is the least dense of all the phases, including the liquid. Alloying the Pu with Group IIIA elements such as aluminum or gallium retains the {delta} phase in a metastable state at ambient conditions. Ultimately, this metastable {delta} phase will decompose via a eutectoid transformation to {alpha} + Pu{sub 3}Ga. These low solute-containing {delta}-phase Pu alloys are also metastable with respect to low temperature excursions or increases in pressure and will transform to a monoclinic crystal structure at low …