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President George W. Bush has unveiled a plan to create a new Department of Homeland Security (H.R. 5005, introduced by request). The new department would be formed by consolidating all or part of 22 of the more than 100 different government organizations that are currently involved in antiterrorist activities. As part of this proposal, the recently created Transportation Security Administration (TSA) would be removed from the Department of Transportation (DOT) and transferred to the new entity. This report summarizes these and other arguments on both sides of this issue.

This report briefly examines the accounting system that failed to provide a clear picture of the firm’s true condition, the independent auditors and board members who were unwilling to challenge Enron’s management, the Wall Street stock analysts and bond raters who missed the trouble ahead, the rules governing employer stock in company pension plans, and the unregulated energy derivatives trading that was the core of Enron’s business. The report also describes related legislation that has received floor or committee action and will be updated regularly.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Critical infrastructure protection (CIP) enhances the security of the nation's cyber and physical public and private infrastructure. Federal agencies and other public and private entities rely extensively on computerized systems and electronic data to support their missions. CIP issues involve developing a national CIP strategy, improving analysis and warning capabilities, improving information sharing on threats and vulnerabilities, and addressing pervasive weaknesses in federal information security. Although the national strategy for homeland security acknowledges the need to address these challenges, much work remains to successfully implement it."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the high-risk program areas and management challenges at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). For many years, management and oversight weaknesses have made its programs vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. The current administration has placed improving HUD's management among its highest priorities and wants to remove the high-risk designation from all HUD programs by 2005. Human capital management is the most pressing management challenge facing HUD. HUD has begun the initial stages of workforce planning; it has completed its resource estimation and allocation process, which estimates the staff needed to handle the current workload in each office, and a detailed analysis of potential staff losses due to retirement. However, the Department does not have a comprehensive workforce plan. Effective acquisition management is of increasing importance because, as HUD downsized its staff, it relied more and more on outside contractors to accomplish its mission. HUD has made progress in the past few years improving its acquisition management practices, but it faces the challenge of ensuring that, where it relies on contractors to perform its mission, it will hold these contractors accountable for …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the planned National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). Today's polar-orbiting environmental satellite program is a complex infrastructure encompassing two satellite systems, supporting ground stations, and four central data processing centers that provide general weather information and specialized environmental products to a variety of users, including weather forecasters, the military, and the public. NPOESS will merge the two satellite systems into a single state-of-the-art environment monitoring satellite system, at a significant cost savings. To handle this increased volume of satellite data, the four processing centers will need to build up their respective infrastructures, and they will need to efficiently incorporate new data into their weather products and models."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Looming retirements during the next 5 years at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have brought the need for workforce planning to the forefront. HUD has done some workforce planning and has determined how many staff it needs to meet its current workload, but it does not have a comprehensive strategic workforce plan to guide its recruiting, hiring, and other key human capital efforts. Workforce planning steps taken include a detailed analysis of HUD's potential staff losses and completion of HUD's resource estimation and allocation process, which estimates the staff needed to handle the current workload in each office. Some of the Public and Indian Housing (PIH) managers and staff reported that the lack of workforce planning makes it difficult to accomplish mission-related activities and provide customer service. The issue of greatest concern for PIH managers and staff is the staffing shortage. Because HUD lacks a comprehensive strategic workforce plan, some PIH managers and staff were uncertain about what work should be done and the best mix of staff knowledge, skills, and abilities to do it."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In the fall of 1998, when hurricanes Mitch and Georges struck Central America and the Caribbean, the United States and other donors responded by providing emergency relief, such as food, water, medical supplies, and temporary shelter. Also, In May 1999, Congress passed emergency supplemental legislation that provided $621 million for a disaster recovery and reconstruction fund for the affected countries, as well as reimbursement for costs incurred by U.S. departments and agencies during the immediate relief phase. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other departments and agencies made significant achievements in helping the affected countries rebuild their infrastructure and recover from the hurricanes. USAID and others used the disaster recovery assistance to bring about economic recovery, improve public health and access to education, provide permanent housing for displaced families, and improve disaster mitigation and preparedness. To achieve these broad objectives, USAID funded infrastructure construction and repair, technical assistance and training, loans for farmers and small businesses, and some equipment. In addition to its normal controls, USAID ensured that the funds were spent for intended purposes. USAID coordinated its activities with 12 other departments and …

A statement of record issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The United States is bound by five international environmental agreements related to climate change (Framework Convention), desertification (Desertification Convention), the earth's ozone layer (Montreal Protocol), endangered species (CITES), and North American environmental cooperation (North American Agreement). However, the United States fell short of meeting a commitment or pledge in two areas--providing financial assistance to other nations and timely reporting. Agencies use informal means, such as meetings and informal communications, to track their actions to fulfill commitments under the five agreements. GAO found few studies that evaluated the effectiveness of the U.S. actions. These few studies generally concluded that the actions examined had positive effects."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report describes the schedule, cost, and technical status of the 155mm Lightweight Howitzer program. The Army-Marine Corps Lightweight Howitzer Joint Program Office directs this program's development, with a British company as the prime contractor. Since GAO's April 2000 report (See GAO-01-603R), all key milestones have slipped because a 2-year low-rate initial production phase has been added to provide production representative howitzers for operational testing. Correspondingly, the full-rate production decision has slipped from September 2002 to October 2004. Since April 2001, total program cost estimates have increased from $1,209.0 million to $1,365.2 million, principally as the result of the large number of design modifications resulting from developmental testing and restructuring the program to add a low-rate initial production phase. In addition, the costs for the towed artillery digitization increased by $51 million. Technical problems--such as the durability of the optical fire control, bore sight retention, and accuracy--have been addressed through design changes. However, some of these changes have not yet been tested, and the Marine Corps Operational Test and Evaluation Activity has yet to review test data that the program office believes shows the howitzer has met accuracy …

The PHOBOS experiment at RHIC has measured the multiplicity of primary charged particles as a function of centrality and pseudorapidity in Au+Au collisions at {radical}(s{sub NN}) = 19.6, 130 and 200 GeV. Two observations indicate universal behavior of charged particle production in heavy ion collisions. The first is that forward particle production, over a range of energies, follows a universal limiting curve with a non-trivial centrality dependence. The second arises from comparisons with pp/{bar p}p and e{sup +}e{sup -} data. <N{sub ch}>/<N{sub part}/2> in nuclear collisions at high energy scales with {radical}s in a similar way as N{sub ch} in e{sup +}e{sup -} collisions and has a very weak centrality dependence. These features may be related to a reduction in the leading particle effect due to the multiple collisions suffered per participant in heavy ion collisions.

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This report covers research activities for the second half of the second project year (October 6, 2001, through April 5, 2002). This work includes description and analysis of cores, correlation of geophysical well logs, reservoir mapping, petrographic description of thin sections, cross plotting of permeability and porosity data, and development of horizontal drilling strategies for the Little Ute and Sleeping Ute fields in Montezuma County, Colorado. Geological characterization on a local scale focused on reservoir heterogeneity, quality, and lateral continuity, as well as possible compartmentalization, within these fields. This study utilizes representative core, geophysical logs, and thin sections to characterize and grade each field's potential for drilling horizontal laterals from existing development wells.

Beginning in the summer of 2000, California experienced serious energy supply problems, sharp increases in wholesale (and retail) electricity and natural gas prices, and isolated blackouts. In response to the rapidly worsening electricity situation in California in late 2000, the state set, as an initial goal, the reduction of the state's peak demand for the summer of 2001 by 5,000 megawatts. To meet this goal, the governor and legislature took a variety of steps to enhance supply, encourage rapid voluntary reductions in demand, and provide incentives for actions that would result in load reductions. Three bills-Assembly Bill 970, Senate Bill X1 5 and Assembly Bill X1 29-allocated roughly $950 million for consumption and demand reduction programs. The governor also enacted a variety of additional measures, including the ''Flex Your Power'' (media awareness and direct business involvement) campaign, requirements for retail sector outdoor lighting reductions, and toughening of energy efficiency building codes. There were, in fact, significant reductions in electricity demand in California during the summer of 2001 and the large number of expected supply disruptions was avoided. To understand the nature of these demand reductions and the motivations for consumer response, Washington State University (WSU) undertook a study for the …

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the Salt and Mud Slough tributaries as sources of oxygen demanding materials entering the San Joaquin River (SJR). Mud Slough and Salt Slough are the main drainage arteries of the Grasslands Watershed, a 370,000-acre area west of the SJR, covering portions of Merced and Fresno Counties. Although these tributaries of the SJR are typically classified as agricultural, they are also heavily influenced by Federal, State and private wetlands. The majority of the surface water used for both irrigation and wetland management in the Grassland Watershed is imported from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta through the Delta-Mendota Canal. In this study, they measured algal biomass (as chlorophyll a), organic carbon, ammonia, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), and other measures of water quality in drainage from both agricultural and wetland sources at key points in the Salt Slough and Mud Slough tributaries. This report includes the data collected between June 16th and October 4th, 2001. The objective of the study was to compare agricultural and wetland drainage in the Grasslands Watershed and to determine the relative importance of each return flow source to the concentration and mass loading of oxygen demanding materials entering the SJR. Additionally, …

The evolution of thickened chemical agent released at supersonic velocities, due to a missile defense intercept or a properly functioning warhead, has been misunderstood. Current and historical experimental and modeling efforts have attributed agent breakup to a variety of droplet breakup mechanisms. According to this model, drops of agent fragment into subsequent generations of smaller drops until a stable drop size is reached. Recent experimental data conducted in a supersonic wind tunnel show that agent breakup is not driven by any droplet breakup mechanism. The breakup of agent is instead governed by viscoelastic behavior and aerodynamic history effects. This viscoelastic breakup mechanism results in the formation of threads and sheets of liquid, instead of drops. The evolution and final state of agent released has broad implications not only for aerobreakup models, but also for all atmospheric dispersion models.

The PHOBOS experiment at RHIC has measured the multiplicity of primary charged particles as a function of centrality and pseudorapidity in Au+Au collisions at {radical}(s{sub NN}) = 19.6, 130 and 200 GeV. Two observations indicate universal behavior of charged particle production in heavy ion collisions. The first is that forward particle production, over a range of energies, follows a universal limiting curve with a non-trivial centrality dependence. The second arises from comparisons with pp/{bar p}p and e{sup +}e{sup -} data. <Nch>/<N{sub part}/2> in nuclear collisions at high energy scales with {radical}s in a similar way as N{sub ch} in e{sup +}e{sup -} collisions and has a very weak centrality dependence. These features may be related to a reduction in the leading particle effect due to the multiple collisions suffered per participant in heavy ion collisions.

Free electron lasers operating in the 0.1 to 1.5 nm wavelength have been proposed for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and DESY (Germany). The unprecedented brightness and associated fluence predicted for pulses <300 fs pose new challenges for optical components. A criterion for optical component design is required, implying an understanding of x-ray-matter interactions at these extreme conditions. In our experimental effort, the extreme conditions are simulated by currently available sources ranging from optical lasers, through x-ray lasers (at 14.7 nm) down to K-alpha sources ({approx}0.15 nm). In this paper we present an overview of our research program, including (a) Results from the experimental campaign at a short pulse (100 fs-5 ps) power laser at 800 nm, (b) K-a experiments, and (c) Computer modeling and experimental project using a tabletop high brightness ps x-ray laser at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

As with all electromagnet radiation, polarization of x-rays is a general phenomenon. Such polarization has been known since the classic experiments of Barkla in 1906. The general implementation of polarization to x-ray analysis had to await the fixed geometry of energy-dispersive systems. The means of optimizing these systems is shown in this review paper. Improved detection limits are the result.

Contemporary microprocessors provide a rich set of integrated performance counters that allow application developers and system architects alike the opportunity to gather important information about workload behaviors. These counters can capture instruction, memory, and operating system behaviors. Current techniques for analyzing data produced from these counters use raw counts, ratios, and visualization techniques to help users make decisions about their application source code. While these techniques are appropriate for analyzing data from one process, they do not scale easily to new levels demanded by contemporary computing systems. Indeed, the amount of data generated by these experiments is on the order of tens of thousands of data points. Furthermore, if users execute multiple experiments, then we add yet another dimension to this already knotty picture. This flood of multidimensional data can swamp efforts to harvest important ideas from these valuable counters. Very simply, this paper addresses these concerns by evaluating several multivariate statistical techniques on these datasets. We find that several techniques, such as statistical clustering, can automatically extract important features from this data. These derived results can, in turn, be feed directly back to an application developer, or used as input to a more comprehensive performance analysis environment, such as …

Although programming models and languages appear to be converging, the computational workloads and communication patterns for scientific applications vary dramatically, depending, in part, on the nature of the problem the applications are solving. In this paper, we investigate the scalability, architectural requirements, and inherent behavioral characteristics of eight scalable scientific applications. We provide a comparative analysis of these applications and isolate their performance characteristics using empirical measurements. We refine our analysis into precise explanations of the factors that influence performance and scalability for each application; we distill these factors into common traits and overall recommendations. Initially, we examine the overall scalability of each application. Then, based on these results, we iteratively investigate the primary factors that affect scalability and performance using a combination of measurement techniques, such as message tracing and monitoring hardware counters, until we can understand each application's primary performance properties and the root causes of those properties.

Traditional techniques for performance analysis provide a means for extracting and analyzing raw performance information from applications. Users then reason about and compare this raw performance data to their performance expectations for important application constructs. This comparison can be tedious, difficult, and error-prone for the scale and complexity of today's architectures and software systems. To address this situation, we present a methodology and prototype that allows users to assert performance expectations explicitly in their source code using performance assertions. As the application executes, each performance assertion in the application collects data implicitly to verify the assertion. By allowing the user to specify a performance expectation with individual code segments, the runtime system can jettison raw data for measurements that pass their expectation, while reacting to failures with a variety of responses. We present several compelling uses of performance assertions with our operational prototype including raising a performance exception, validating a performance model, and adapting an algorithm to an architecture empirically at runtime.