Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Our analysis of DOD’s fiscal year 2011 update relating to the BRAC 2005 budget submission to Congress shows that one-time implementation costs grew from $21 billion originally estimated by the BRAC Commission in 2005 to about $35.1 billion, an increase of about $14.1 billion, or 67 percent, largely due to increased construction costs. We compared the BRAC Commission’s 2005 estimates to DOD’s fiscal year 2011 budget submission and found that 14 of 182 BRAC recommendations accounted for about 72 percent of the cost increase, or about $10.2 billion. Our analysis of those 14 recommendations shows that increased construction costs resulted primarily from additional building projects and additions to planned projects, which DOD deemed necessary after implementation began. For example, one-time costs for realigning the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency more than doubled from $1.1 billion to $2.6 billion, with military construction accounting for nearly $726 million of that increase due to additional supporting facilities the agency identified as essential to the mission. Overall, military construction costs for the BRAC 2005 round increased 86 percent, from $13.2 billion estimated by the BRAC Commission to $24.5 billion according to DOD’s fiscal year …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "NGA modified the original scope of work for the Technology Center but met the original data-storage requirement. DOD has limited written guidance on what constitutes a complete and usable facility. However, NGA, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and Army officials believe the Technology Center constitutes a complete and usable facility because it meets its intended purpose of creating 10 petabytes of data storage to replace the data-storage capabilities at the sites that were closed by the implementation of BRAC Recommendation 168. Although the construction of NGA’s new Technology Center was planned as part of the implementation of a BRAC recommendation to consolidate various NGA satellite locations at a new NGA facility, advances in data-storage technology led NGA to revise downward the space in the Technology Center that it would need to fit out to accommodate its data-storage needs. NGA also increased the electrical density in the new facility, even though the amount of space was reduced. As a result, NGA modified the original scope of work for the center during the course of the BRAC construction project, and one of the two floors of the new building …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified 45 programs that supported employment for people with disabilities in fiscal year 2010, reflecting a fragmented system of services. The programs were administered by nine federal agencies and overseen by even more congressional committees. All programs overlapped with at least one other program in that they provided one or more similar employment service to a similar population—people with disabilities. The greatest overlap occurred in programs serving veterans and servicemembers (19 programs) and youth and young adults (5 programs). In addition, GAO identified seven programs that did not limit eligibility to any particular population and were potentially available to veterans and servicemembers or youth. Some overlapping programs, such as those with specific eligibility requirements, have less potential for duplication—providing the same services to the same beneficiaries—than others. However, even when the potential for duplication of services is low, there may be inefficiencies associated with operating multiple programs that provide similar services to similar populations. Coordination across programs may help address fragmentation and potential duplication, but officials that GAO surveyed reported only limited coordination. However, among six selected programs that only serve people with disabilities—including the …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

This report discusses how the current legislative framework for cybersecurity might need to be revised.

This report looks at the cost of funding the Coast Guard's program of record's (POR) call for procuring eight National Security Cutters (NSCs), 25 Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPCs), and 58 Fast Response Cutters (FRCs) as replacements for 90 aging Coast Guard cutters and patrol craft. It also addresses issues for maintenance, future acquisition, and definitions of the types of cutters.

This report discusses the current state of Bahrain, which has undergone substantial political reforms since the late 1990s, but which still suffers from tension between the Shiite majority and the Sunni-led government. This report focuses particularly on Bahrain's relationship with Iran and Bahrain's relationship with the United States.

This report provides background information on the negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program that began in the early 1990s under the Clinton Administration. As U.S. policy toward Pyongyang evolved through the George W. Bush presidency and into the Obama Administration, the negotiations moved from mostly bilateral to the multilateral Six-Party Talks (made up of China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States).

This report focuses on potential Navy shipboard lasers for countering surface, air, and ballistic missile threats. It does not discuss the use of lasers on Navy aircraft or submarines, or the use of lasers by other military services.

This report provides background information and potential oversight issues for Congress on the CVN-78 program. CVN-78, CVN-79, and CVN-80 are the first three ships in the Navy's new Gerald R. Ford (CVN- 78) class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs).

Report discussing the U.S. Navy's Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) class aircraft carrier program, including the CVN-78, CVN-79 and CVN-80, which are the first of the class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs). The report provices background on the program and funding, as well as related issues for Congress.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

The discovery and understanding of new, improved materials to advance fuel cell technology are the objectives of the Cornell Fuel Cell Institute (CFCI) research program. CFCI was initially formed in 2003. This report highlights the accomplishments from 2006-2009. Many of the grand challenges in energy science and technology are based on the need for materials with greatly improved or even revolutionary properties and performance. This is certainly true for fuel cells, which have the promise of being highly efficient in the conversion of chemical energy to electrical energy. Fuel cells offer the possibility of efficiencies perhaps up to 90 % based on the free energy of reaction. Here, the challenges are clearly in the materials used to construct the heart of the fuel cell: the membrane electrode assembly (MEA). The MEA consists of two electrodes separated by an ionically conducting membrane. Each electrode is a nanocomposite of electronically conducting catalyst support, ionic conductor and open porosity, that together form three percolation networks that must connect to each catalyst nanoparticle; otherwise the catalyst is inactive. This report highlights the findings of the three years completing the CFCI funding, and incudes developments in materials for electrocatalyts, catalyst supports, materials with structured and …

This effort falls under the technetium management initiative and will provide data for those who will make decisions regarding the handling and disposition of technetium. To that end, the objective of this effort is to challenge Purolite{reg_sign} A530E against a double-shell tank simulant from tank 241-AN-105 spiked with pertechnetate (TcO{sub 4}{sup -}). The Purolite{reg_sign} A530E is commercially available and is currently being used at the 200 West Pump and Treat Groundwater Treatment Plant to remove pertechnetate. It has been demonstrated that Purolite{reg_sign} A530E is highly effective in removing TcO{sub 4}{sup -} from a water matrix. Purolite{reg_sign} A530E is the commercial product of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Biquat{trademark} resin. Further work has demonstrated that technetium-loaded A530E achieves a leachability index in Cast Stone of 12.5 (RPP-RPT-39195, Assessment of Technetium Leachability in Cement-Stabilized Basin 43 Groundwater Brine).

The current ATF2 Ultra-Low beta proposal was designed to achieve 20nm vertical IP beam size without considering the multipolar components of the FD magnets. In this paper we describe different scenarios that avoid the detrimental effect of these multipolar errors to the beam size at the interaction point (IP). The simplest approach consists in modifying the optics, but other solutions are studied as the introduction of super-conducting wigglers to reduce the emittance or the replacement of the normal-conducting focusing quadrupole in the Final Doublet (NC-QF1FF) with a super-conducting quadrupole one (SC-QF1FF). These are fully addressed in the paper.

ES12: The 24th Annual Workshop on Recent Developments in Electronic Structure Theory was held June 5-8, 2012 at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC 27109. The program consisted of 24 oral presentations, 70 posters, and 2 panel discussions. The attendance of the Workshop was comparable to or larger than previous workshops and participation was impressively diverse. The 136 participants came from all over the world and included undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and senior scientists. The general assessment of the Workshop was extremely positive in terms of the high level of scientific presentations and discussions, and in terms of the schedule, accommodations, and affordability of the meeting.

Verso Paper Corp. implemented a portfolio of 13 commercially available proven industrial technologies each exceeding 30% minimum threshold efficiency and at least 25% efficiency increase. These sub-projects are a direct result of a grant received from the Department of Energy (DOE) through its FOA 0000044 (Deployment of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Systems, District Energy Systems, Waste Energy Recovery Systems, and Efficient Industrial Equipment), which was funded by the American Recovery Act. These were installed at 3 sites in 2 states and are helping to reduce Verso costs, making the facilities more competitive. This created approximately 100 construction jobs (FTE's) and reduced impacted Verso facilities' expense budgets. These sub-projects were deployed at Verso paper mills located in Jay, Maine, Bucksport, Maine, and Sartell, Minnesota. The paper mills are the economic engines of the rural communities in which these mills are located. Reinvestment in waste energy recovery capital improvements is providing a stimulus to help maintain domestic jobs and to competitively position the US pulp and paper industry with rising energy costs. Energy efficiency improvements are also providing a positive environmental impact by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the quantity of wastewater treated and discharged, and fossil fuel demand. As a result …

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey calibration is revisited to obtain the most accurate photometric calibration. A small but significant error is found in the flat-fielding of the Photometric telescope used for calibration. Two SDSS star catalogs are compared and the average difference in magnitude as a function of right ascension and declination exhibits small systematic errors in relative calibration. The photometric transformation from the SDSS Photometric Telescope to the 2.5 m telescope is recomputed and compared to synthetic magnitudes computed from measured filter bandpasses.

The final project report for SEED SERDP ER - 2134 describes the development of permeable active amendment concrete (PAAC), which was evaluated through four tasks: 1) development of PAAC; 2) assessment of PAAC for contaminant removal; 3) evaluation of promising PAAC formulations for potential environmental impacts; and 4) assessment of the hydraulic, physical, and structural properties of PAAC. Conventional permeable concrete (often referred to as pervious concrete) is concrete with high porosity as a result of an extensive and interconnected void content. It is made from carefully controlled amounts of water and cementitious materials used to create a paste that forms a coating around aggregate particles. The mixture has a substantial void content (e.g., 15% - 25%) that results in a highly permeable structure that drains quickly. In PAAC, the aggregate material is partly replaced by chemically-active amendments that precipitate or adsorb contaminants in water that flows through the concrete interstices. PAAC combines the relatively high structural strength, ample void space, and water permeability of pervious concrete with the contaminant sequestration ability of chemically-active amendments to produce a new material with superior durability and ability to control contaminant mobility. The high surface area provided by the concrete interstices in PAAC …

This report provides an up-to-date account of the non-Pt based chemistries available in the literature for making non-oxide, chalcogen-based aerogels, called chalcogels. In each case, a combination of multiple precursors is required to make the chalcogels and, in most cases, the precursors are not commercially available and must be prepared in the laboratory. References for the preparation details of these precursors have been provided for each. An account of the chalcogels made at PNNL is also given in this report along with iodine sorption efficiencies for three very diverse chalcogel chemistries. A brief account of consolidation options is provided.

A new roadway lighting demonstration project was initiated in late 2010, which was planned in conjunction with other upgrades to NE Cully Boulevard, a residential collector road in the northeast area of Portland, OR. With the NE Cully Boulevard project, the Portland Bureau of Transportation hoped to demonstrate different light source technologies and different luminaires side-by-side. This report documents the initial performance of six different newly installed luminaires, including three LED products, one induction product, one ceramic metal halide product, and one high-pressure sodium (HPS) product that represented the baseline solution. It includes reported, calculated, and measured performance; evaluates the economic feasibility of each of the alternative luminaires; and documents user feedback collected from a group of local Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) members that toured the site. This report does not contain any long-term performance evaluations or laboratory measurements of luminaire performance. Although not all of the installed products performed equally, the alternative luminaires generally offered higher efficacy, more appropriate luminous intensity distributions, and favorable color quality when compared to the baseline HPS luminaire. However, some products did not provide sufficient illumination to all areas—vehicular drive lanes, bicycle lanes, and sidewalks—or would likely fail to meet design criteria over the …

This study, supported by the US Department of Energy, Wind Powering America Program, Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Chesapeake Bay Foundation, analyzed barriers to wind energy development in the Mid-Atlantic region along with options for overcoming or mitigating them. The Mid-Atlantic States including Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia, have excellent wind energy potential and growing demand for electricity, but only two utility-scale projects have been installed to date. Reasons for this apathetic development of wind resources were analyzed and quantified for four markets. Specific applications are: 1) Appalachian mountain ridgeline sites, 2) on coastal plains and peninsulas, 3) at shallow water sites in Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, and 4) at deeper water sites off the Atlantic coast. Each market has distinctly different opportunities and barriers. The primary barriers to wind development described in this report can be grouped into four categories; state policy and regulatory issues, wind resource technical uncertainty, economic viability, and public interest in environmental issues. The properties of these typologies are not mutually independent and do interact. The report concluded that there are no insurmountable barriers to land-based wind energy projects and they could be economically viable today. Likewise potential sites …

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