Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Title III of the proposed Department of Homeland Security legislation would task the new department with developing national policy and coordinating the federal government's research and development efforts for responding to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. It would also transfer to the new department responsibility for certain research and development programs and other activities, including those of the Department of Energy (DOE). If properly implemented, this proposed legislation could lead to a more efficient, effective and coordinated research effort that would provide technology to protect our people, borders, and critical infrastructure. However, the proposed legislation does not specify that a critical role of the new department will be to establish collaborative relationships with programs at all levels of government and to develop a strategic plan for research and development to implement the national policy it is charged with developing. In addition, the proposed legislation is not clear on the role of the new department in setting standards for the performance and interoperability of new technologies so that users can be confident that the technologies they are purchasing will perform as intended. Some of the proposed transfers of …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Water and energy are inexorably linked--energy is needed to pump, treat, and transport water and large quantities of water are needed to support the development of energy. However, both water and energy may face serious constraints as demand for these vital resources continues to rise. Two examples that demonstrate the link between water and energy are the cultivation and conversion of feedstocks, such as corn, switchgrass, and algae, into biofuels; and the production of electricity by thermoelectric power plants, which rely on large quantities of water for cooling during electricity generation. At the request of this committee, GAO has undertaken three ongoing studies focusing on the water-energy nexus related to (1) biofuels and water, (2) thermoelectric power plants and water, and (3) oil shale and water. For this testimony, GAO is providing key themes that have emerged from its work to date on the research and development and data needs with regard to the production of biofuels and electricity and their linkage with water. GAO's work on oil shale is in its preliminary stages and further information will be available on this aspect of the energy-water nexus later …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the progress being made in addressing the year 2000 computing challenge, focusing on: (1) the federal government's progress and the challenges that remain in correcting its systems; (2) state and local government year 2000 issues; and (3) the readiness of key public infrastructure and economic sectors."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses federal agency processes for approval of state information technology (IT) projects supporting state-administered federal human services programs. Federal approval and funding processes for state IT development and acquisition projects for the Child Support Enforcement, Child Welfare, and Food Stamps programs require the establishment of federal funding participation rates, the documentation that states must submit, and the time frames in which the federal agency must respond to the request. Assessment of the federal approval and funding process requires complete and reliable data that track a request from agency receipt until the agency finally approves or disapproves the request. However, such information is not readily available and the process cannot be thoroughly assessed because (1) the system used by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) headquarters to manage the approval process does not track the life cycle of a request and (2) the Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) and CMS regional offices do not have a central tracking system. However, in a vast majority of cases, agencies responded to states' IT planning and acquisition …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Title III of the proposed Homeland Security Act of 2002 would transfer responsibility for certain chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear research and development programs and activities to the new department. The proposed Department of Homeland Security would develop national policy for, and coordination of, the federal government's civilian research and development efforts to counter chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. Although the new department could improve coordination of existing research and development programs, the proposed transfer of control and priority setting for research from the organizations where the research would be conducted could be disruptive. Transferring control over these programs, including priority setting, to the new department has the potential to disrupt some programs that are critical to basic public health. The President's proposal is not clear on how both the homeland security and the biomedical research objectives would be accomplished. However, if an agency's mission fits with homeland security, its transfer to the new department is appropriate."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "On June 18, the President transmitted draft legislation to Congress for the creation of a Department of Homeland Security to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce America's vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recovery from attacks that do occur. As proposed, functions of the Homeland Security Department's Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Division would include (1) receiving and analyzing law enforcement information, intelligence, and other information to detect and identify potential threats; (2) assessing the vulnerabilities of the key resources and critical infrastructures; (3) developing a comprehensive national plan for securing these resources and infrastructures; and (4) taking necessary measures to protect these resources and infrastructures, in coordination with other executive agencies, state and local governments, and the private sector. To create this division, six federal organizations that currently play a pivotal role in the protection of national critical infrastructures would be transferred to the new department. Potential benefits for this division include more efficient, effective, and coordinated programs; better control of funding through a single appropriation for the new department and through establishing budget priorities for transferred functions based on their homeland security …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO followed up on its report on Amtrak's financial performance, focusing on: (1) Amtrak's overall financial performance in fiscal year (FY) 1998; (2) the prospects for Amtrak to meet its financial goals for operating self-sufficiency outlined in its most recent strategic business plan; and (3) the extent to which current and anticipated federal funding and recently enacted legislative reforms aimed at helping Amtrak better control its costs are likely to help improve its financial condition."

The technology for producing high fields in large superconducting magnets has increased greatly in recent years, but must increase still more in the future. In this paper, we examine the present state of the art vis-a-vis the needs of a next-generation fusion machine and outline a program to provide for those needs. We also highlight recent developments that suggest the program goals are within reach.

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) mandates GAO to review states' and localities' use of funds made available under the act. Currently, we are examining the efforts of selected states and local educational agencies (LEA) to ensure appropriate uses of Recovery Act funds. In North Carolina, we have been reviewing efforts undertaken by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and selected LEAs to administer and oversee the use of Recovery Act funds under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) education stabilization funds; Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA Title I), as amended; and Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as amended. According to Education regulations, grant funds may only be used for allowable costs and reasonable fees or profit to cost-type contractors, and state and local governments must follow the cost principles set out in OMB Circular No. A-87 for determining allowable costs. North Carolina's Office of Economic Recovery & Investment (OERI) issued management directives regarding the use of Recovery Act funds for procurement of goods and services. According to state officials, …

This report provides background on China's economic rise; describes its current economic structure; identifies the challenges China faces to maintain economic growth; and discusses the challenges, opportunities, and implications of China's economic rise for the United States.

This report discusses legislation related to the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement Act (H.R. 1886), the Afghanistan-Pakistan Security and Prosperity Enhancement Act (H.R. 1318), and the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 (H.R. 2410). It also discusses the Afghanistan and Pakistan Reconstruction Opportunity Zones Act (S. 496). The report also discusses how this legislation represents a political and symbolic importance for U.S. relationships with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This report discusses the current state of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its current relationship with the United States, and future initiatives to further develop U.S.-Saudi relations.

This report provides an overview discussion on the modernization of U.S. military tactical aircraft, meaning fighter aircraft, strike-fighters, and attack planes. This CRS report discusses and presents FY2010 legislative activity on issues relating to U.S. tactical aircraft in general. For several years now, a central issue relating to tactical aircraft in general has been the overall affordability of the Department of Defense's (DOD's) plans for modernizing the tactical aircraft force. A second key issue concerns the future of the U.S. industrial base for designing and manufacturing tactical aircraft.

Iran is subject to a wide range of U.S. sanctions, restricting trade with, investment, and U.S. foreign aid to Iran, and requiring the United States to vote against international lending to Iran. A formal U.S. effort to curb international energy investment in Iran began in 1996 with the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA). ISA was first passed at a time of tightening U.S. sanctions on Iran. Most notable was a 1995 ban on U.S. trade with and investment in Iran. That ban has since been modified slightly to allow for some bilateral trade in luxury and humanitarian-related goods. In the 110th Congress, two bills passed the House (H.R. 1400 and H.R. 7112) that would add several ISA provisions.

The United States and Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 1991; it entered into force in December 1994 and is due to expire in December 2009. The United States and Russia have held several meetings to discuss options for continuing their arms control relationship. This report provides background information about the START Treaty and reviews the discussions about a possible successor to START. It also presents a range of alternatives that the United States and Russia might consider if they choose to follow START with a new framework for the arms control process.

The federal government loses both individual and corporate income tax revenue from the shifting of profits and income into low-tax countries, often referred to as tax havens. The revenue losses from this tax avoidance and evasion are difficult to estimate, but some have suggested that the annual cost of offshore tax abuses may be around $100 billion per year. Recent actions by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the G-20 industrialized nations have targeted tax haven countries, focusing primarily on evasion issues. There are also a number of legislative proposals that address these issues including the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act (S. 506, H.R. 1265); draft proposals by the Senate Finance Committee; two other related bills, S. 386 and S. 569; and a proposal by President Obama. This report discusses this issue in detail.

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Repeating earthquakes (REs) are sequences of events that have nearly identical waveforms and are interpreted to represent fault asperities driven to failure by loading from aseismic creep on the surrounding fault surface at depth. We investigate the occurrence of these REs along faults in central California to determine which faults exhibit creep and the spatio-temporal distribution of this creep. At the juncture of the San Andreas and southern Calaveras-Paicines faults, both faults as well as a smaller secondary fault, the Quien Sabe fault, are observed to produce REs over the observation period of March 1984-May 2005. REs in this area reflect a heterogeneous creep distribution along the fault plane with significant variations in time. Cumulative slip over the observation period at individual sequence locations is determined to range from 5.5-58.2 cm on the San Andreas fault, 4.8-14.1 cm on the southern Calaveras-Paicines fault, and 4.9-24.8 cm on the Quien Sabe fault. Creep at depth appears to mimic the behaviors seen of creep on the surface in that evidence of steady slip, triggered slip, and episodic slip phenomena are also observed in the RE sequences. For comparison, we investigate the occurrence of REs west of the San Andreas fault within the …

In an effort to increase the U.S. energy reserves and lower costs for finding and retrieving oil, the USDOE created a solicitation to encourage industry to focus on means to operate in small diameter well-Microhole. Partially in response to this solicitation and because Western Well Tool's (WWT) corporate objective to develop small diameter coiled tubing drilling tractor, WWT responded to and was awarded a contract to design, prototype, shop test, and field demonstrate a Microhole Drilling Tractor (MDT). The benefit to the oil industry and the US consumer from the project is that with the MDT's ability to facilitate Coiled Tubing drilled wells to be 1000-3000 feet longer horizontally, US brown fields can be more efficiently exploited resulting in fewer wells, less environmental impact, greater and faster oil recovery, and lower drilling costs. Shortly after award of the contract, WWT was approached by a major oil company that strongly indicated that the specified size of a tractor of 3.0 inches diameter was inappropriate and that immediate applications for a 3.38-inch diameter tractor would substantially increase the usefulness of the tool to the oil industry. Based on this along with an understanding with the oil company to use the tractor in …

CERES is a dilepton experiment at the CERN SPS, known for its observation of enhanced production of low mass efe- pairs in collisions between heavy nuclei [1]. The upgrade of CERES in 1997-1998 by a radial Time Projection Chamber (TPC) [2] allowed to improve the momentum resolution and the particle identification capability while retaining the cylindrical symmetry. The upgraded experiment is shown in Fig. 1. The upgrade also extended the sensitivity of CERES to hadrons and made possible results like those described below. The measurement of central Pb+Au collisions at the maximum SPS energy of 158 GeV per nucleon in the fall of 2000 was the first run of the fully upgraded CERES and at the same time the last run of this experiment. About 30 million Pb+Au collision events at 158 GeV per nucleon were collected, most of them with centrality within the top 7% of the geometrical cross section {sigma}{sub G} = 6.94 b. Small samples of the 20% and the minimum bias collisions, as well as a short run at 80 AGeV, were recorded in addition. The dilepton mass spectra from this experiment were published in [3]. In this talk I present two particular results of hadron …

We discuss recent progress in studies of QCD thermodynamics with almost physical light quark masses and a physical value of the strange quark mass. We summarize results on the transition temperature in QCD and analyze the relation between deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration.

Following the success of the Anole test of portable detection system, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Domestic Nuclear Detection Office organized a test and evaluation campaign for personal radiation detectors (PRDs), also known as 'Pagers'. This test, 'Bobcat', was conducted from July 17 to August 8, 2006, at the Nevada Test Site. The Bobcat test was designed to evaluate the performance of PRDs under various operational scenarios, such as pedestrian surveying, mobile surveying, cargo container screening, and pedestrian chokepoint monitoring. Under these testing scenarios, many operational characteristics of the PRDs, such as gamma and neutron sensitivities, positive detection and false alarm rates, response delay times, minimum detectable activities, and source localization errors, were analyzed. This paper will present the design, execution, and methodologies used to test this equipment for the DHS.

Current pulsed laser and synchrotron x-ray sources provide new opportunities for Time-Of- Flight (TOF) based photoemission spectroscopy to increase photoelectron energy resolution and efficiency compared to current standard techniques. The principals of photoelectron timing front formation, temporal aberration minimization, and optimization of electron beam transmission are presented. We have developed these concepts into a high resolution Electron Optical Scheme (EOS) of a TOF Electron Energy Analyzer (TOF-EEA) for photoemission spectroscopy. The EOS of the analyzer includes an electrostatic objective lens, three columns of transport lenses and a 90 degree energy band pass filter (BPF). The analyzer has two modes of operation: Spectrometer Mode (SM) with straight passage of electrons through the EOS undeflected by the BPF, allowing the entire spectrum to be measured, and Monochromator Mode (MM) in which the BPF defines a certain energy window inside the scope of the electron energy spectrum.

In today's world, the use of parallel programming and architectures is essential for simulating practical problems in engineering and related disciplines. Remarkable progress in CPU architecture (multi- and many-core, SMT, transactional memory, virtualization support, etc.), system scalability, and interconnect technology continues to provide new opportunities, as well as new challenges for both system architects and software developers. These trends are paralleled by progress in parallel algorithms, simulation techniques, and software integration from multiple disciplines. In its 6th year ParSim continues to build a bridge between computer science and the application disciplines and to help with fostering cooperations between the different fields. In contrast to traditional conferences, emphasis is put on the presentation of up-to-date results with a shorter turn-around time. This offers the unique opportunity to present new aspects in this dynamic field and discuss them with a wide, interdisciplinary audience. The EuroPVM/MPI conference series, as one of the prime events in parallel computation, serves as an ideal surrounding for ParSim. This combination enables the participants to present and discuss their work within the scope of both the session and the host conference. This year, ten papers with authors in ten countries were submitted to ParSim, and after a quick …