Daily publication of the U.S. Office of the Federal Register contains rules and regulations, proposed legislation and rule changes, and other notices, including "Presidential proclamations and Executive Orders, Federal agency documents having general applicability and legal effect, documents required to be published by act of Congress, and other Federal agency documents of public interest" (p. ii). Table of Contents starts on page iii.

This report looks at political instability that has plagued the country since 2009. It address other concerns that Congress has about the country as well, specifically threats to Madagascar's unique ecosystem.

This report discusses the evolution of a national critical infrastructure policy and the institutional structures established to implement it. Critical infrastructure includes physical assets used to produce and distribute services such as electricity (including the power plants and electric grid), communications, and computers. The report highlights five issues of Congressional concern: identifying critical assets; assessing vulnerabilities and risks; allocating resources; information sharing; and regulation.

This report discusses the current political and foreign policy status of Morocco, especially with regard to its relationship with the United States and its struggles combating terrorism.

This report discusses the current situation in Madagascar and U.S. concerns about foreign aid spending, the countries unique ecosystem, and the country's political and developmental challenges. In March 2009, under pressure from mutinous soldiers and large crowds of protestors, President Ravalomanana fled the country; the military conferred state authority to Rajoelina, who has since held power under a self-declared transitional government. Following coups elsewhere in Africa in 2008, the African Union, the United States, and the European Union, among others, warned against an unconstitutional transfer of power on the island nation and have since suspended most foreign aid.

This report discusses the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) FY2011 appropriations bill, which includes funding for the Department of the Treasury, the Executive Office of the President (EOP), the judiciary, the District of Columbia, and 26 independent agencies, including the Small Business Administration and the United States Postal Service.

This report covers ways in which the 112th Congress can introduce relevant legislation to safeguard pipelines that transport natural gas, oil, and other hazardous liquids across the United States. While an efficient and fundamentally safe means of transport, many pipelines carry materials with the potential to cause public injury and environmental damage; the networks are also widespread and vulnerable to accidents and terrorist attack.

This report looks at ways which the 112th Congress can introduce legislation to safeguard water quality in the U.S., and reasons for doing so. Although progress has been made in achieving the goals established in the Clean Water Act (CWA) to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters, long-standing problems persist, and new problems have emerged. Water quality problems are diverse, ranging from pollution runoff, to toxic substances discharged from factories and sewage treatment plants.

This report provides background information and issues for Congress on multiyear procurement (MYP) and block buy contracting (BBC), which are special contracting mechanisms that Congress permits the Department of Defense (DOD) to use for a limited number of defense acquisition programs. Potential issues for Congress concerning MYP and BBC include whether to use MYP and BBC in the future more frequently, less frequently, or about as frequently as they are currently used, and whether to create a permanent statute to govern the use of BBC, analogous to the permanent statute (10 U.S.C. 2306b) that governs the use of MYP.

This report discusses broad themes related to U.S. nuclear cooperation with other countries.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2002, the federal government has offered long-term care insurance to its employees, retirees, and certain others through the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP). Enrollees pay the full cost of their premiums. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) oversees the program. OPM has held two competitive processes to select contractors to insure enrollees and administer FLTCIP, although interest in and competition for these contracts has been limited. In 2009, soon after OPM's award of FLTCIP's second 7-year contract to John Hancock Life Insurance Company (John Hancock), 66 percent of enrollees were notified that their premiums would increase up to 25 percent in order to compensate for how the actuarial assumptions used to set premiums differed from the program's experience. GAO was asked to review FLTCIP. In this report, GAO describes (1) factors affecting carriers' interest in FLTCIP, (2) how the actuarial assumptions used to set FLTCIP premiums have changed since the program's inception, and (3) OPM's oversight of actuarial assumptions and experience and program communications. To do so, GAO interviewed officials from six carriers that in 2009 insured over 60 percent of all long-term …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To carry out complex national security initiatives--such as combating illicit financing of terrorist activities, undertaking development projects in conflict zones, and countering piracy off the Horn of Africa--U.S. government agencies must coordinate with a large number of organizations in their planning efforts. Our prior work on the federal government's national security initiatives has determined that U.S. agencies face a number of challenges to effectively collaborating with one another, potentially resulting in gaps and overlaps in policy implementation. In particular, we have found that agencies face challenges to developing overarching strategies to achieve common goals, creating effective mechanisms for operating across agencies, and sharing sensitive information. For example, our work has shown that the Department of State (State) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have different planning time frames than the Department of Defense (DOD), which poses a challenge for the three organizations. This report summarizes and formally transmits the enclosed briefing in response to Section 1055 of the Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, which required us to examine the need for and implications of a common alignment of world regions in …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past decade, hedge funds, private equity funds, and other private funds proliferated but were largely unregulated, causing members of Congress and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) staff to raise questions about investor protection and systemic risk. To address this potential regulatory gap, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) brought certain advisers to private funds under the federal securities laws, requiring them to register with SEC. The Dodd-Frank Act also requires GAO to examine the feasibility of forming a self-regulatory organization (SRO) to provide primary oversight of private fund advisers. This report discusses (1) the feasibility of forming such an SRO, and (2) the potential advantages and disadvantages of a private fund adviser SRO. To address the mandate, GAO reviewed federal securities laws, SEC staff's recently completed study on its investment adviser examination program that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, past regulatory and legislative proposals to create an SRO for investment advisers, and associated comment letters. GAO also interviewed SEC and SRO staffs, other regulators, and various market participants and observers. We provided a draft of this report to …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Explosives represent a continuing threat to aviation security. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), seeks to ensure through the Electronic Baggage Screening Program (EBSP) that checked-baggage-screening technology is capable of detecting explosives. Generally, the explosives detection system (EDS) is used in conjunction with explosives trace detection (ETD) machines to identify and resolve threats in checked baggage. As requested, GAO assessed the extent to which: (1) TSA revised explosives detection requirements and deployed technology to meet those requirements, and (2) TSA's approach to the current EDS acquisition meets best practices for schedules and cost estimates and includes plans for potential upgrades of deployed EDSs. GAO analyzed EDS requirements, compared the EDS acquisition schedule against GAO best practices, and interviewed DHS officials. This is a public version of a sensitive report that GAO issued in May 2011."

This report describes nine rules in seven categories that are at the core of recent critical analyses, with background on the rule and its requirements and, where possible, a discussion of the rule's potential costs and benefits.

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This report discusses China's naval modernization effort , that encompasses a broad array of weapon acquisition programs, including anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), submarines, and surface ships. It also points out an overview of China's Naval Modernization Effort.

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We report the most direct experimental verification of Mott-Hubbard and charge-transfer insulators through x-ray emission spectroscopy in transition-metal (TM) fluorides. The p-d hybridization features in the spectra allow a straightforward energy alignment of the anion-2p and metal-3d valence states, which visually shows the difference between the two types of insulators. Furthermore, in parallel with the theoretical Zaanen-Sawatzky-Allen diagram, a complete experimental systematics of the 3d Coulomb interaction and the 2p-3d charge-transfer energy is reported and could serve as a universal experimental trend for other TM systems including oxides.

During the start-up of Run II of the Tevatron Collider program, several issues surfaced which were not present, or not seen as detrimental, during Run I. These included the repeated deterioration of the closed orbit requiring orbit smoothing every two weeks or so, the inability to correct the closed orbit to desired positions due to various correctors running at maximum limits, regions of systematically strong vertical dipole corrections, and the identification of very strong coupling between the two transverse degrees-of-freedom. It became apparent that many of the problems being experienced operationally were connected to a deterioration of the main dipole magnet alignment, and remedial actions were undertaken. However, the alignment alone was not enough to explain the corrector strengths required to handle transverse coupling. With one exception, strong coupling had generally not been an issue in the Tevatron during Run I. Based on experience with the Main Ring, the Tevatron was designed with a very strong skew quadrupole circuit to compensate any quadrupole alignment and skew quadrupole field errors that might present themselves. The circuit was composed of 48 correctors placed evenly throughout the arcs, 8 per sector, evenly placed in every other cell. Other smaller circuits were installed but …

In support of DOE/EERE's Fuel Cell Technologies Program Hydrogen Sorption Center of Excellence (HSCoE), UNC conducted Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) measurements that contributed spectroscopic information as well as quantitative analysis of adsorption processes. While NMR based Langmuir isotherms produce reliable H2 capacity measurements, the most astute contribution to the center is provided by information on dihydrogen adsorption on the scale of nanometers, including the molecular dynamics of hydrogen in micropores, and the diffusion of dihydrogen between macro and micro pores. A new method to assess the pore width using H2 as probe of the pore geometry was developed and is based on the variation of the observed chemical shift of adsorbed dihydrogen as function of H2 pressure. Adsorbents designed and synthesized by the Center were assessed for their H2 capacity, the binding energy of the adsorption site, their pore structure and their ability to release H2. Feedback to the materials groups was provided to improve the materials’ properties. To enable in situ NMR measurements as a function of H2 pressure and temperature, a unique, specialized NMR system was designed and built. Pressure can be varied between 10-4 and 107 Pa while the temperature can be controlled between 77K and room …

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