A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "million members of the armed forces have been deployed in service to the United States. Congress enacted the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act to recognize the needs of those servicemembers who are deployed in the midst of pursuing postsecondary education or repaying student loans. GAO was asked to determine (1) how the Department of Education has implemented HEROES, (2) the policies and practices federal student loan lenders have in place to assist borrowers serving on active duty, and (3) the policies and practices postsecondary schools have to assist students who are serving on active duty. To address these objectives, GAO interviewed representatives from the nine largest Federal Family Education Loan program lenders, surveyed a random sample of postsecondary schools, and visited four colleges and universities."

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This report provides information about the Federal Contract Labor Standards Statutes.It also presents a brief historical introduction to the three federal labor contract statutes.

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This report is a brief assessment of the role of Check 21 in a payments system that is increasingly dominated by electronic payments.

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The Shortwave Spectroradiometer (SWS), measures the absolute visible and near infrared spectralradiance (units of watts per meter square per nanometer per steradian) of the zenith directly above the instrument. The SWS is a moderate resolution sensor comprised of two Zeiss spectrometers (MMS 1 NIR enhanced and NIR-PGS 2.2) for visible and near-infrared detection in the wavelength range 350 – 2170 nm. The sampling frequency is 1 Hz. The spectral resolution is 8 nm for the MMS 1 NIR and 12 nm for the NIR-PGS 2.2. The light collector is a narrow field of view (1.4°) collimator at the front end of a high-grade custom-made fiber optic bundle. The SWS does daily daytime measurements. The SWS is located in a darkroom, constructed by Southern Great Plains (SGP) site personnel within the optical trailer, to permit calibrations to be conducted without the necessity of moving the instrument to a different location. Calibrations are performed at regularly scheduled times using the ARM 12” integrating sphere.

This presentation will highlight the U.S. Department of Energy's FutureGen Initiative. The nearly $1 billion government-industry project is a stepping-stone toward future coal-fired power plants that will produce hydrogen and electricity with zero-emissions, including carbon dioxide. The 275-megawatt FutureGen plant will initiate operations around 2012 and employ advanced coal gasification technology integrated with combined cycle electricity generation, hydrogen production, and carbon capture and sequestration. The initiative is a response to a presidential directive to develop a hydrogen economy by drawing upon the best scientific research to address the issue of global climate change. The FutureGen plant will be based on cutting-edge power generation technology as well as advanced carbon capture and sequestration systems. The centerpiece of the project will be coal gasification technology that can eliminate common air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides and convert them to useable by-products. Gasification will convert coal into a highly enriched hydrogen gas, which can be burned much more cleanly than directly burning the coal itself. Alternatively, the hydrogen can be used in a fuel cell to produce ultra-clean electricity, or fed to a refinery to help upgrade petroleum products. Carbon sequestration will also be a key feature that will set …

The authors searched for decays of the type B{sub (s)}{sup 0} {yields} h{sup +}h{prime}{sup -} (where h, h{prime} = K or {pi}) in a sample corresponding to 180 pb{sup -1} of p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV, collected by the upgraded Collider Detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. A total signal of approximately 900 events was reconstructed, and the relative branching fractions ({Beta}) of each decay mode were determined with a likelihood fit.

The silicon microelectronics industry is the technological driver of modern society. The whole industry is built upon one major invention--the solid-state transistor. It has become clear that the conventional transistor technology is approaching its limitations. Recent years have seen the advent of magnetoelectronics and spintronics with combined magnetism and solid state electronics via spin-dependent transport process. In these novel devices, both charge and spin degree freedoms can be manipulated by external means. This leads to novel electronic functionalities that will greatly enhance the speed of information processing and memory storage density. The challenge lying ahead is to understand the new device physics, and control magnetic phenomena at nanometer length scales and in reduced dimensions. To meet this goal, we proposed the silicon nanocrystal system, because: (1) It is compatible with existing silicon fabrication technologies; (2) It has shown strong quantum confinement effects, which can modify the electric and optical properties through directly modifying the band structure; and (3) the spin-orbital coupling in silicon is very small, and for isotopic pure {sup 28}Si, the nuclear spin is zero. These will help to reduce the spin-decoherence channels. In the past fiscal year, we have studied the growth mechanism of silicon-nanocrystals embedded in …

This report describes version 1.0 of GBL-2D, a geometric Boolean library for 2D objects. The library is written in C++ and consists of a set of classes and routines. The classes primarily represent geometric data and relationships. Classes are provided for 2D points, lines, arcs, edge uses, loops, surfaces and mask sets. The routines contain algorithms for geometric Boolean operations and utility functions. Routines are provided that incorporate the Boolean operations: Union(OR), XOR, Intersection and Difference. A variety of additional analytical geometry routines and routines for importing and exporting the data in various file formats are also provided. The GBL-2D library was originally developed as a geometric modeling engine for use with a separate software tool, called SummitView [1], that manipulates the 2D mask sets created by designers of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). However, many other practical applications for this type of software can be envisioned because the need to perform 2D Boolean operations can arise in many contexts.

Coherent control of elementary optical excitations is a key issue in ultrafast materials science. Manipulation of electronic and vibronic excitations in solids as well as chemical and biological systems on ultrafast time scales has attracted a great deal of attention recently. In semiconductors, coherent control of vibronic excitations has been demonstrated for bulk acoustic and optical phonons generated in superlattice structures. The bandwidth of these approaches is typically fully utilized by employing a 1-D geometry where the laser spot size is much larger than the superlattice repeat length. In this presentation we demonstrate coherent control of optically generated picosecond surface acoustic waves using sub-optical wavelength absorption gratings. The generation and detection characteristics of two material systems are investigated (aluminum absorption gratings on Si and GaAs substrates).

This report describes the experimental work performed at Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) during fiscal year (FY 2006) under the Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC (BSC) Memorandum Purchase Order (MPO) contract number B004210CM3X. Because this experimental work is focused on the dissolution and precipitation behavior of neptunium, the report also includes, or incorporates by reference, earlier results that are relevant to presenting a more complete understanding of the likely behavior of neptunium under experimental conditions relevant to the Yucca Mountain repository. Important results relevant to the technical bases, validations, and conservatisms in current source term models are summarized. The CSNF samples were observed to corrode following the general contour of the surface rather than via (for instance) grain boundary attack. This supports the current approach of estimating the effective surface area of corroding CSNF based on the geometric surface area of fuel pellet fragments. It was observed that the neptunium and plutonium concentrations in corroded CSNF samples were somewhat higher at and near the corrosion front (i.e., at the interface between the alteration product ''rind'' layer and the underlying fuel) than in the bulk fuel. The neptunium and plutonium at the corrosion front and in the uranyl alteration layer were found to …

In 2003 the X(3872) particle was discovered by the Belle collaboration. Despite results collected since then, the nature of the state still remains unclear. In this contribution we report on new results on properties of the X(3872) state using data collected with CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. The dipion mass spectrum and angular distributions are used to determine the J{sup PC} quantum numbers of the state.

This report describes the SummitView 1.0 computer code developed at Sandia National Laboratories. SummitView is designed to generate a 3D solid model, amenable to visualization and meshing, that represents the end state of a microsystem fabrication process such as the SUMMiT (Sandia Ultra-Planar Multilevel MEMS Technology) V process. Functionally, SummitView performs essentially the same computational task as an earlier code called the 3D Geometry modeler [1]. However, because SummitView is based on 2D instead of 3D data structures and operations, it has significant speed and robustness advantages. As input it requires a definition of both the process itself and the collection of individual 2D masks created by the designer and associated with each of the process steps. The definition of the process is contained in a special process definition file [2] and the 2D masks are contained in MEM format files [3]. The code is written in C++ and consists of a set of classes and routines. The classes represent the geometric data and the SUMMiT V process steps. Classes are provided for the following process steps: Planar Deposition, Planar Etch, Conformal Deposition, Dry Etch, Wet Etch and Release Etch. SummitView is built upon the 2D Boolean library GBL-2D [4], …

Table 1 shows that the systems efficiency, coal (HHV) to power, is 35%. Table 2 summarizes the auxiliary power consumption within the plant. Thermoflex was used to simulate the power block and Aspen Plus the balance of plant. The overall block flow diagram is presented in Figure A1.3-1 and the key unit process flow diagrams are shown in subsequent figures. Stream data are given in Table A1.3-1. Equipment function specifications are provided in Tables A1.3-2 through 17. The overall plant scheme consists of a cryogenic air separation unit supplying 95% purity O{sub 2} to GE type high pressure (HP) total quench gasifiers. The raw gas after scrubbing is treated in a sour shift unit to react the CO with H{sub 2}O to form H{sub 2} and CO{sub 2}. The gas is further treated to remove Hg in a sulfided activated carbon bed. The syngas is desulfurized and decarbonized in a Selexol acid gas removal unit and the decarbonized syngas after humidification and preheat is fired in GE 7H type steam cooled gas turbines. Intermediate pressure (IP) N{sub 2} from the ASU is also supplied to the combustors of the gas turbines as additional diluent for NOx control. A portion of …

An impedancemetric method for NO{sub x} sensing using an yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) based electrochemical cell is described. The sensor cell consists of a planar YSZ electrolyte and two identical YSZ/Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3} composite electrodes exposed to the test gas. The sensor response to a sinusoidal ac signal applied between the two electrodes is measured via two parameters calculated from the complex impedance, the modulus |Z| and phase angle {Theta}. While either of these parameters can be correlated to the NO{sub x} concentration in the test gas, {Theta} was found to provide a more robust metric than |Z|. At frequencies below approximately 100 Hz, {Theta} is sensitive to both the NO{sub x} and O{sub 2} concentrations. At higher frequencies, {Theta} is predominantly affected by the O{sub 2} concentration. A dual frequency measurement is demonstrated to compensate for changes in the O{sub 2} background between 2 and 18.9%. Excellent sensor performance is obtained for NO{sub x} concentrations in the range of 8-50 ppm in background. An equivalent circuit model was used to extract fitting parameters from the impedance spectra for a preliminary analysis of NO{sub x} sensing mechanisms.

Advanced gas-cooled reactors offer the potential advantage of higher efficiency and enhanced safety over present day nuclear reactors. Accurate simulation models of these Generation IV reactors are necessary for design and licensing. One design under consideration by the Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) program is a modular, prismatic gas-cooled reactor. In this reactor, the lower plenum region may experience locally high temperatures that can adversely impact the plant's structural integrity. Since existing system analysis codes cannot capture the complex flow effects occurring in the lower plenum, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes are being employed to model these flows [1]. The goal of the present study is to validate the CFD calculations using experimental data.