A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Small Business Administration's (SBA) 7(a) program, initially established in 1953, provides loan guarantees to small businesses that cannot obtain credit in the conventional lending market. In fiscal year 2006, the program assisted more than 80,000 businesses with loan guarantees of nearly $14 billion. This report examines (1) the program's purpose, based on its legislative history, and performance measures; (2) evidence of constraints, if any, affecting small businesses' access to credit; (3) the types of small businesses served by 7(a) and conventional loans; and (4) differences in SBA's estimates and reestimates of the program's credit subsidy costs. GAO analyzed agency documents, studies on the small business lending market, and data on the characteristics of small business borrowers and loans."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimates that $68 billion of the annual $345 billion gross tax gap for 2001 was due to sole proprietors, who own unincorporated businesses by themselves, underreporting their net income by 57 percent. A key reason for this underreporting is well known. Unlike wage and some investment income, sole proprietors' income is not subject to withholding and only a portion is subject to information reporting to IRS by third parties. GAO was asked to (1) describe the nature and extent of sole proprietor noncompliance, (2) how IRS's enforcement programs address it, and (3) options for reducing it. GAO analyzed IRS's recent random sample study of reporting compliance by individual taxpayers, including sole proprietors."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Intended to enhance the security of U.S. citizens and visitors, United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program encompasses the pre-entry, entry, status management, and exit of foreign national travelers who enter and leave the United States at 285 air, sea, and land ports of entry. GAO was asked to determine whether Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has implemented appropriate controls to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information and systems used to support the US-VISIT program. To do this, GAO examined the controls over the systems operated by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that support the US-VISIT program."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress and the Department of State (State) initiated changes to the visa process to increase security, but these changes also increased the amount of time needed to adjudicate a visa. Although maintaining security is of paramount importance, State has acknowledged that long waits for visas may discourage legitimate travel to the United States, potentially costing the country billions of dollars in economic benefits over time, and adversely influencing foreign citizens' opinions of our nation. GAO testified in 2006 that a number of consular posts had long visa interview wait times. This report examines (1) State's data on visa interview wait times, (2) actions State has taken to address wait times, and (3) State's strategy for dealing with projected growth in visa demand."

Recent computations of scattering amplitudes show that N = 8 supergravity is surprisingly well behaved in the ultraviolet and may even be ultraviolet finite in perturbation theory. The novel cancellations necessary for ultraviolet finiteness first appear at one loop in the guise of the ''no-triangle hypothesis''. We study one-loop amplitudes in pure Einstein gravity and point out the existence of cancellations similar to those found previously in N = 8 supergravity. These cancellations go beyond those found in the one-loop effective action. Using unitarity, this suggests that generic theories of quantum gravity based on the Einstein-Hilbert action may be better behaved in the ultraviolet at higher loops than suggested by naive power counting, though without additional (supersymmetric) cancellations they diverge. We comment on future studies that should be performed to support this proposal.

In Refs. [1] - [3], I suggest a concerted computational effort to study profile control of spheromaks, in anticipation that it is timely to incorporate the q < 1 regime of RFP's and spheromaks into an integrated advanced toroidal confinement program, together with improvements in tokamaks and stellarators now being pursued. For profile control of spheromaks by neutral beam injection, with care to avoid super-Alfvenic beam instability the main issue is excitation of tearing modes that can be studied using the NIMROD code already calibrated to MST and SSPX. In this note, I show that profile control on spheromaks could be demonstrated in a device the size of SSPX, leading ultimately to a very compact ignition facility, and possibly modular fusion reactors with a shorter development path.

This year's conference on Drosophila research illustratedwell the current focus of Drosophila genomics on the comprehensiveidentification of functional elements in the genome sequence, includingmRNA transcripts arising from multiple alternative start sites and splicesites, a multiplicity of noncoding transcripts and small RNAs,identification of binding sites for transcription factors, sequenceconservation in related species and sequence variation within species.Resources and technologies for genetics and functional genomics aresteadily being improved, including the building of collections oftransposon insertion mutants and hairpin constructs for RNA interference(RNAi). The conference also highlighted progress in the use of genomicinformation by many laboratories to study diverse aspects of biology andmodels of human disease. Here we will review a few highlights of especialinterest to readers of Genome Biology.

A simple method for optimizing the carbon coatings on non-conductive battery cathode material powders has been developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The enhancement of the electronic conductivity of carbon coating enables minimization of the amount of carbon in the composites, allowing improvements in battery rate capability without compromising energy density. The invention is applicable to LiFePO{sub 4} and other cathode materials used in lithium ion or lithium metal batteries for high power applications such as power tools and hybrid or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The market for lithium ion batteries in consumer applications is currently $5 billion/year. Additionally, lithium ion battery sales for vehicular applications are projected to capture 5% of the hybrid and electric vehicle market by 2010, and 36% by 2015 (http://www.greencarcongress.com). LiFePO{sub 4} suffers from low intrinsic rate capability, which has been ascribed to the low electronic conductivity (10{sup -9} S cm{sup -1}). One of the most promising approaches to overcome this problem is the addition of conductive carbon. Co-synthesis methods are generally the most practical route for carbon coating particles. At the relatively low temperatures (<800 C) required to make LiFePO{sub 4}, however, only poorly conductive disordered carbons are produced from organic precursors. Thus, the …

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Aquaculture — the farming of fish, shellfish, and other aquatic animals and plants in a controlled environment — is expanding rapidly abroad, with more modest advances in the United States. This report discusses the federal laws and regulations that guide the management of resources in open ocean and near-shore coastal areas.

This report summarizes the subsidies that are available for about 25 agricultural commodities representing about one-third of gross farm sales.

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This Project was a collaborative effort between Murray Daw (Clemson) and Daryl Chrzan (LBNL/UCB). The main goal of this project was to accomplish the first-ever first principles calculations of the structure of the screw dislocation in Fe and to study the effects of stress and magnetization. The calculations were completed and reported at conferences. During the work on this project, the collaboration also tackled an important related question - the effect of periodic boundary conditions in dislocation dalculations on the stress-state. The solution to the problem for this particular case has had much broader impact than the specific results of the calculation in iron. This technique was published in Computational Materials Science, and has been applied recently to the study of dislocations on nanotubes (submitted). Finally, the collaboration considered the application of scaling formalism to a simple problem of dislocation emission from a single, stress-actived source. The result is a very elegant, compact solution to a simple textbook problem, which was published in Phil Mag. This result lays the foundation for continuing work on applying scaling formalism to dynamics of more complex dislocation problems.

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program is funding this project to improve the methodology of ground-based remote sensing of the vertical distribution of aerosol and cloud optical properties, and their effect on atmospheric radiative transfer. Remotely-sensed and in situ observed aerosol, cloud physical, and optical properties collected during the May 2003 Aerosol Intensive Operational Period (AIOP) and the Aerosol Lidar Validation Experiment (ALIVE), conducted from September 11-22, 2005, are the basis for the investigation. We have used ground-based lidar, airborne sunphotometer and in situ measurements and other data to evaluate the vertical profile of aerosol properties. We have been pursuing research in the following three areas: (1) Aerosol Best Estimate Product--Sensitivity Study: ARM is developing an Aerosol Best Estimate (ABE) Value Added Product (VAP) to provide aerosol optical properties at all times and heights above its sites. The ABE is used as input for the Broadband Heating Rate Profile (BBHRP) VAP, whose output will be used to evaluate the radiative treatment of aerosols and clouds in climate models. ARM has a need to assess how much detail is required for the ABE and if a useful ABE can be derived for the tropical and arctic climate research facilities (CRFs) where …

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This report reviews and analyzes the situation, concerns, and activities of Afro-descendants in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking nations of Latin America. It then discusses current U.S. foreign aid programs, as well as multilateral initiatives, that have directly or indirectly assisted Afro-Latinos. The report concludes with a discussion of potential policy options that have been proposed should the United States elect to provide further support for Afro-Latinos.

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This report provides an overview of China's economic development, challenges China faces to maintain growth, and the implications of China's rise as a major economic power for the United States.

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This report presents a side-by-side comparison of the major provisions of those bills and includes a glossary of common terms.

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