Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, damaging critical infrastructure, such as oil platforms, pipelines, and refineries; water mains; electric power lines; and cellular phone towers. The infrastructure damage and resulting chaos disrupted government and business functions alike, producing cascading effects far beyond the physical location of the storm. Our nation's critical infrastructures and key resources--including those cyber and physical assets essential to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety--continue to be vulnerable to a wide variety of threats. Because the private sector owns approximately 85 percent of the nation's critical infrastructure and key resources--banking and financial institutions, telecommunications networks, and energy production and transmission facilities, among others--it is vital that the public and private sectors form effective partnerships to successfully protect these assets. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), giving the department wide-ranging responsibilities for leading and coordinating the overall national critical infrastructure protection effort. The act required DHS to (1) develop a comprehensive national plan for securing the nation's critical infrastructures and key resources and (2) recommend measures to protect critical infrastructure and key …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The availability of spare parts and other critical items provided through the Department of Defense's (DOD) supply chains affects the readiness and capabilities of U.S. military forces. Since 1990, GAO has designated DOD supply chain management as a high-risk area. In 2005, DOD developed a plan aimed at addressing supply chain problems and having GAO remove this high-risk designation. DOD's plan focuses on three areas: requirements forecasting, asset visibility, and materiel distribution. GAO was asked to provide its views on (1) DOD's progress in developing and implementing the initiatives in its plan, (2) the results of recent work relating to the three focus areas covered by the plan, and (3) the integration of supply chain management with efforts to improve defense business operations. GAO also addressed broader issues of logistics governance and strategic planning. This testimony is based on prior GAO reports and analysis. To determine whether to retain the high-risk designation for supply chain management, GAO considers factors such as whether DOD makes substantial progress implementing improvement initiatives; establishes a program to validate the effectiveness of the initiatives; and completes a comprehensive, integrated strategy."

Despite more than thirty years having elapsed since the discovery of CP violation, our understanding about the source and the nature of this phenomenon is still very limited. In the standard model of particle physics, CP violation is due to the presence of an non-irreducible weak phase in the Cabibbo-Kabayashi-Maskawa(CKM) matrix. Up to now, all the experimental results are in good agreement with the standard model. However, it is important for us to over-constrain the CKM quark-mixing matrix and explore the possibility of new physics beyond the standard model. The B meson provides an ideal place to measure CP violation due to its heavy mass and potentially large CP-violating effects. In particular, the angle {gamma} of the Unitary Triangle relating the elements of the CKM matrix is extremely crucial in terms of CP violation and constraints on the new physics models. Various methods using B{sup -} {yields} D{sup 0}K{sup -} decays have been proposed to measure based on the interference between the V{sub cb} and V{sub ub} amplitudes. Despite the simple concept, the measurement turns out to be experimentally challenging due to the small branching fraction and the small value of {tau}{sub B}, the amplitude ratio between the two contributing …

Using in situ photoelectron spectroscopy at near ambient conditions, we compare the interaction of water with four different model biomaterial surfaces: self-assembled thiol monolayers on Au(111) that are functionalized with methyl, hydroxyl, and carboxyl groups, and phosphatidylcholine (POPC) lipid films on Silicon. We show that the interaction of water with biomaterial surfaces is mediated by polar functional groups that interact strongly with water molecules through hydrogen bonding, resulting in adsorption of 0.2-0.3 ML water on the polar thiol films in 700 mTorr water pressure and resulting in characteristic N1s and P2p shifts for the POPC films. Provided that beam damage is carefully controlled, in situ electron spectroscopy can give valuable information about water adsorption which is not accessible under ultra-high vacuum conditions.

We report a versatile biofunctional subwavelength photonic device platform for real-time detection of biological molecules. Our devices contain lipid bilayer membranes fused onto metal oxide nanowire waveguides stretched across polymeric flow channels. The lipid bilayers incorporating target receptors are submersed in the propagating evanescent field of the optical cavity. We show that the lipid bilayers in our devices are continuous, have very high mobile fraction, and are resistant to fouling. We also demonstrate that our platform allows rapid membrane exchange. Finally we use this device for detection of specific DNA sequences in solution by anchoring complementary DNA target strands in the lipid bilayer. This evanescent wave sensing architecture holds great potential for portable, all-optical detection systems.

The southwest edge of Eurasia is a tectonically and structurally complex region that includes the Caspian and Black Sea basins, the Caucasus Mountains, and the high plateaus south of the Caucasus. Crustal and upper mantle velocities show great heterogeneity in this region and regional phases display variations in both amplitudes and travel time. Furthermore, due to a lack of quality data, the region has largely been unexplored in terms of the detailed lithospheric seismic structure. A unified high-resolution 3D velocity and attenuation model of the crust and upper mantle will be developed and calibrated. This model will use new data from 23 new broadband stations in the region analyzed with a comprehensive set of techniques. Velocity models of the crust and upper mantle will be developed using a joint inversion of receiver functions and surface waves. The surface wave modeling will use both event-based methods and ambient noise tomography. Regional phase (Pg, Pn, Sn, and Lg) Q model(s) will be constructed using the new data in combination with existing data sets. The results of the analysis (both attenuation and velocity modeling) will be validated using modeling of regional phases, calibration with selected events, and comparison with previous work. Preliminary analyses …

We explore various relations for the detonation energy and velocity as they relate to the inverse radius of the cylinder. The detonation rate-inverse slope relation seen in reactive flow models can be used to derive the familiar Eyring equation. Generalized inverse radii can be shown to fit large quantities of cylinder results. A rough relation between detonation energy and detonation velocity is found from collected JWL values. Cylinder test data for ammonium nitrate mixes down to 6.35 mm radii are presented, and a size energy effect is shown to exist in the Cylinder test data. The relation that detonation energy is roughly proportional to the square of the detonation velocity is shown by data and calculation.

It is shown how quantum mechanical time correlation functions [defined, e.g., in Eq. (1.1)] can be expressed, without approximation, in the same form as the linearized approximation of the semiclassical initial value representation (LSC-IVR), or classical Wigner model, for the correlation function [cf. Eq. (2.1)], i.e., as a phase space average (over initial conditions for trajectories) of the Wigner functions corresponding to the two operators. The difference is that the trajectories involved in the LSC-IVR evolve classically, i.e., according to the classical equations of motion, while in the exact theory they evolve according to generalized equations of motion that are derived here. Approximations to the exact equations of motion are then introduced to achieve practical methods that are applicable to complex (i.e., large) molecular systems. Four such methods are proposed in the paper--the full Wigner dynamics (full WD) and the 2nd order WD based on 'Winger trajectories', and the full Donoso-Martens dynamics (full DMD) and the 2nd order DMD based on 'Donoso-Martens trajectories'--all of which can be viewed as generalizations of the original LSC-IVR method. Numerical tests of these four versions of this new approach are made for two anharmonic model problems, and for each the momentum autocorrelation function (i.e., …

Python is widely used in scientific computing to facilitate application development and to support features such as computational steering. Making full use of some of Python's popular features, which improve programmer productivity, leads to applications that access extremely high numbers of dynamically linked libraries (DLLs). As a result, some important Python-based applications severely stress a system's dynamic linking and loading capabilities and also cause significant difficulties for most development environment tools, such as debuggers. Furthermore, using the Python paradigm for large scale MPI-based applications can create significant file IO and further stress tools and operating systems. In this paper, we present Pynamic, the first benchmark program to support configurable emulation of a wide-range of the DLL usage of Python-based applications for large scale systems. Pynamic has already accurately reproduced system software and tool issues encountered by important large Python-based scientific applications on our supercomputers. Pynamic provided insight for our system software and tool vendors, and our application developers, into the impact of several design decisions. As we describe the Pynamic benchmark, we will highlight some of the issues discovered in our large scale system software and tools using Pynamic.

Currently proposed ERL and high average power FEL projects require electron beam sources that can generate {approx}1nC bunch charges at high repetition rates. Many proposed sources are based around either high voltage DC or microwave RF guns, each with its particular set of technological limits and system complications. We propose a novel solution that greatly diminishes high voltage breakdown issues while also decreasing peak RF power requirements in a warm copper device, and that has the benefit of mapping the rf oscillation period much more closely to the required beam repetition rate. We present the initial RF and mechanical design for a 750kV electron source and beam injection system utilizing a gun resonant in the VHF band. Beam dynamics simulations demonstrate excellent beam quality preservation and transport.

This report discusses the Navy-Marine corps amphibious and maritime prepositioning ship programs. The Navy is proposing to maintain in coming years a Navy with 31 amphibious ships and an additional squadron of 14 Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future), or MPF(F), ships.

During the period September, 2001, through August, 2006, the Lehigh University Industrial Assessment Center provided assessments for 147 companies in the Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In reports sent to the companies, a total of 1,079 assessment recommendations were suggested, with an annual cost savings of $22,980,654, to save energy, reduce waste, and improve productivity. The energy saved if all ARs were implemented would be 1,843,202 MMBtu.

This dissertation describes a measurement of the rate ofnuclear muon capture by the proton, performed by the MuCap Collaborationusing a new technique based on a time projection chamber operating inultraclean, deuterium-depleted hydrogen gas at room temperature and 1 MPapressure. The hydrogen target's low gas density of 1 percent compared toliquid hydrogen is key to avoiding uncertainties that arise from theformation of muonic molecules. The capture rate was obtained from thedifference between the mu- disappearance rate in hydrogen--as determinedfrom data collected in the experiment's first physics run in fall2004--and the world averagefor the mu+ decay rate. After combining theresults of my analysis with the results from another independent analysisof the 2004 data, the muon capture rate from the hyperfine singlet groundstate of the mu-p atom is found to be Lambda_S = 725.0 +- 17.4 1/s, fromwhich the induced pseudoscalar coupling of the nucleon, gP(q2 = -0.88m2mu)= 7.3 +- 1.1, is extracted. This result for gP is consistent withtheoretical predictions that are based on the approximate chiral symmetryof QCD.

The Tank Farm Vadose Zone (TFVZ) Project conducts activities to characterize and analyze the long-term environmental and human health impacts from tank waste releases to the vadose zone. The project also implements interim measures to mitigate impacts, and plans the remediation of waste releases from tank farms and associated facilities. The scope of this document is to report data needs that are important to estimating long-term human health and environmental risks. The scope does not include technologies needed to remediate contaminated soils and facilities, technologies needed to close tank farms, or management and regulatory decisions that will impact remediation and closure. This document is an update of ''A Summary and Evaluation of Hanford Site Tank Farm Subsurface Contamination''. That 1998 document summarized knowledge of subsurface contamination beneath the tank farms at the time. It included a preliminary conceptual model for migration of tank wastes through the vadose zone and an assessment of data and analysis gaps needed to update the conceptual model. This document provides a status of the data and analysis gaps previously defined and discussion of the gaps and needs that currently exist to support the stated mission of the TFVZ Project. The first data-gaps document provided the …

Over the last few years, the B factories have established the Cabbibo-Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism of CP violation in the Standard Model through the study of the decays of B mesons. The focus of Belle and BaBar has now expanded to the search for signatures of new physics beyond the Standard Model, particularly through examination of flavor-changing neutral-current transitions, which proceed through diagrams involving virtual loops. These decays are suppressed in the Standard Model, increasing sensitivity to new-physics effects but decreasing branching fractions. Exploiting large and growing datasets, BaBar and Belle have made many measurements in loop decays where a b quark transitions to an s quark, observing hints of possible deviations from Standard Model expectations in CP-violating measurements.

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This report details the information related to U.S food and Agricultural imports from China. The contents include import trends, U.S import safeguards, FDA import refusals, and Chinese food safety challenges.

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This report briefly discusses the context in which federal budget process changes are made and identifies selected reform proposals by major category.

The report is about the Impact on U.S. Trade and Implications for U.S. Trade Policy. The economic impact of FTAs and Relevant Legislation. United States has proposed to engage in negotiations to establish bilateral and free trade agreements with a number of trading partners.

This report discusses the issues surrounding whether or not the U.S. should grant Russia permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) following its accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO). The change in Russia's trade status will require legislation to lift the restrictions of Title IV of the Trade Act of 1974 as they apply to Russia, which includes the "freedom-of-emigration" requirements of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.

The linearized approximation to the semiclassical initial value representation (LSC-IVR) has been used together with the thermal Gaussian approximation (TGA) (TGA/LSC-IVR) to simulate quantum dynamical effects in realistic models of two condensed phase systems. This represents the first study of dynamical properties of the Ne13 Lennard-Jones (LJ) cluster in its liquid-solid phase transition region (temperature from 4 K to 14 K). Calculation of the force autocorrelation function shows considerable differences from that given by classical mechanics, namely that the cluster is much more mobile (liquid-like) than in the classical case. Liquid para-hydrogen at two thermodynamic state points (25 K and 14 K under nearly zero external pressure) has also been studied. The momentum autocorrelation function obtained from the TGA/LSC-IVR approach shows very good agreement with recent accurate path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) results at 25 K. The self-diffusion constants calculated by the TGA/LSC-IVR are in reasonable agreement with those from experiment and from other theoretical calculations. These applications demonstrate the TGA/LSC-IVR to be a practical and versatile method for quantum dynamics simulations of condensed phase systems.

Nevada Test Site (NTS) has transitioned from its historical and critical role of weapons testing to another critical role for the nation. This new role focuses on being a integral element in solving the multiple challenges facing the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) with nuclear material management. NTS is positioned to be a solution for other NNSA sites challenged with safe nuclear materials storage and disposition. NNSA, with site involvement, is currently transforming the nuclear stockpile and supporting infrastructure to meet the 2030 vision. Efforts are under way to consolidate and modernize the production complex . With respect to the nuclear material stockpile, the NNSA sites are currently reducing the complex nuclear material inventory through disposition and consolidation. This includes moving material from other sites to NTS. State of the art nuclear material management and control practices at NTS are essential for NTS to ensure that assigned activities are accomplished in a safe, secure, efficient, and environmentally responsible manner. NTS activities and challenges will be addressed.

This report provides information about the Broadband Loan and Grant Programs in the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service. Broadband access enables a number of beneficial applications to the individual user and communities.