At-tank supplemental pretreatment including both filtration and small column ion exchange is currently under evaluation to facilitate salt waste retrieval and processing in the Hanford tank farms. Spherical resorcinol formaldehyde (sRF) resin is the baseline ion exchange resin for use in the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). This document provides background and technical rationale to assist in determining whether spherical resorcinol formaldehyde (sRF) is also the appropriate ion exchange resin for supplemental LAW pretreatment processes and compares sRF with crystalline silicotitanate (CST) as potential supplemental pretreatment ion exchange media.

In April 2010 an explosion occurred on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, reportedly killing 11 people, and, according to federal experts, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Millions of barrels of oil are believed to have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. As the oil spreads, the implications for harm to wildlife grow. The United States has many laws that protect wildlife from harm. This report discusses three: the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

The project goals covered both the residential and commercial windows markets and involved a range of audiences such as window manufacturers, builders, homeowners, design professionals, utilities, and public agencies. Essential goals included: (1) Creation of 'Master Toolkits' of information that integrate diverse tools, rating systems, and incentive programs, customized for key audiences such as window manufacturers, design professionals, and utility programs. (2) Delivery of education and outreach programs to multiple audiences through conference presentations, publication of articles for builders and other industry professionals, and targeted dissemination of efficient window curricula to professionals and students. (3) Design and implementation of mechanisms to encourage and track sales of more efficient products through the existing Window Products Database as an incentive for manufacturers to improve products and participate in programs such as NFRC and ENERGY STAR. (4) Development of utility incentive programs to promote more efficient residential and commercial windows. Partnership with regional and local entities on the development of programs and customized information to move the market toward the highest performing products. An overarching project goal was to ensure that different audiences adopt and use the developed information, design and promotion tools and thus increase the market penetration of energy efficient fenestration …

This report provides background information regarding political violence and the peace process in Northern Ireland. It includes further information about the devolved government and recurrent crises (1999-2002, 2003-2007 and 2008-2010), implementation of police reforms, recent events and ongoing challenges, relevant U.S. policy, and recent legislation.

This report documents an energy audit performed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Redhorse Corporation (Redhorse) conducted on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) control tower and base building in Boise, Idaho. This report presents findings of the energy audit team that evaluated construction documents and operating specifications (at the 100% level) followed by a site visit of the facility under construction. The focus of the review was to identify measures that could be incorporated into the final design and operating specifications that would result in additional energy savings for FAA that would not have otherwise occurred.

This report documents the findings from an onsite audit of the John Seiberling Federal building located in Akron, Ohio. The Federal landlord for this building is the General Services Administration (GSA). The focus of the audit was to identify various no-cost or low-cost energy efficiency opportunities that, once implemented, would reduce in either electrical and gas consumption and increase the operational efficiency of the building. This audit also provided an opportunity to identify potential capital cost projects that should be considered in the to acquire additional energy (electric and gas) and water savings to further increase the operational efficiency of the building.

This report discusses how the total debt of the federal government can increase, a historical overview of debt limits, and how the current economic slowdown has led to higher deficits and thereby a series of debt limit increases, as well as legislation related to these increases.

Scientific applications already generate many terabytes and even petabytes of data from supercomputer runs and large-scale experiments. The need for transferring data chunks of ever-increasing sizes through the network shows no sign of abating. Hence, we need high-bandwidth high speed networks such as ESnet (Energy Sciences Network). Network reservation systems, i.e. ESnet's OSCARS (On-demand Secure Circuits and Advance Reservation System) establish guaranteed bandwidth of secure virtual circuits at a certain time, for a certain bandwidth and length of time. OSCARS checks network availability and capacity for the specified period of time, and allocates requested bandwidth for that user if it is available. If the requested reservation cannot be granted, no further suggestion is returned back to the user. Further, there is no possibility from the users view-point to make an optimal choice. We report a new algorithm, where the user specifies the total volume that needs to be transferred, a maximum bandwidth that he/she can use, and a desired time period within which the transfer should be done. The algorithm can find alternate allocation possibilities, including earliest time for completion, or shortest transfer duration - leaving the choice to the user. We present a novel approach for path finding in …

The Smart Grid opens the door to the development of many companion technologies which will in turn enable the development of a variety of devices for household electricity-consuming appliances that can communicate with it; especially, many major appliance manufacturers (such as Whirlpool and General Electric) have made public commitments to design their appliances to be Smart Grid-compatible over the next several years. Yet during that same time period, customers will purchase many millions of long-lasting appliances which are not compatible with the Smart Grid. This research project's purpose is to bring significant Smart Grid compatibility to previously-installed appliances that were not specifically designed for any Smart Grid communications, in a way that is both economical and attractive for users who want to share in the energy cost savings and reduction of peak power demand opportunities provided by the evolving Smart Grid infrastructure. The focus of this effort is to identify and research smart control solutions which take advantage of the effective strategies of demand-response (DR) communications from utilities [including time-of-day (TOD) and peak-demand pricing options] and function apart from any need for operational changes to be designed into the non-smart appliances. Our Phase I concepts promote technological advancements for enabling …

This month's issue has the following articles: (1) A Leader in High-Pressure Science--Commentary by William H. Goldstein; (2) Diamonds Put the Pressure on Materials--New experimental capabilities are helping Livermore scientists better understand how extreme pressure affects a material's structure; (3) Exploring the Unusual Behavior of Granular Materials--Livermore scientists are developing new techniques for predicting the response of granular materials under pressure; (4) A 1-Ton Device in a Briefcase--A new briefcase-sized tool for nuclear magnetic resonance is designed for onsite analysis of suspected chemical weapons; and (5) Targets Designed for Ignition--A series of experiments at the National Ignition Facility is helping scientists finalize the ignition target design.

This report provides a complete summary of the work undertaken and results obtained under US Department of Energy grant DF-FG02-05 ER 63947, Radiation leukaemogenesis at low doses. There is ample epidemiological evidence indicating that ionizing radiation is carcinogenic in the higher dose range. This evidence, however, weakens and carries increasing uncertainties at doses below 100-200 mSv. At these low dose levels the form of the dose-response curve for radiation-induced cancer cannot be determined reliably or directly from studies of human populations. Therefore animal, cellular and other experimental systems must be employed to provide supporting evidence on which to base judgements of risk at low doses. Currently in radiological protection a linear non-threshold (LNT) extrapolation of risk estimates derived from human epidemiological studies is used to estimate risks in the dose range of interest for protection purposes. Myeloid leukaemias feature prominently among the cancers associated with human exposures to ionising radiation (eg UNSCEAR 2006; IARC 2000). Good animal models of radiation-induced acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) are available including strains such as CBA, RFM and SJL (eg Major and Mole 1978; Ullrich et al 1976; Resnitzky et al 1985). Early mechanistic studies using cytogenetic methods in these mouse models established that the …

This report discusses how Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) programs are funded by Congress and what they have been used for in recent years: recovery efforts following terrorist attacks, riots, and natural disasters.

This report discusses the use of biomass as an energy feedstock, which is emerging as a potentially viable alternative to address U.S. energy security concerns, foreign oil dependence, rural economic development, and diminishing sources of conventional energy. Biomass (organic matter that can be converted into energy) may include food crops, crops for energy (e.g., switchgrass or prairie perennials), crop residues, wood waste and byproducts, and animal manure. This report discusses legislation regarding biomass, the evolving definition of biomass, and the positions of supporters and detractors of biomass as an alternative energy source.

Some diagnostics at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), including the Gamma Reaction History (GRH) diagnostic, require multiple channels of data to achieve the required dynamic range. These channels need to be stitched together into a single time series, and they may have non-uniform and redundant time samples. We chose to apply the popular cubic smoothing spline technique to our stitching problem because we needed a general non-parametric method. We adapted one of the algorithms in the literature, by Hutchinson and deHoog, to our needs. The modified algorithm and the resulting code perform a cubic smoothing spline fit to multiple data channels with redundant time samples and missing data points. The data channels can have different, time-varying, zero-mean white noise characteristics. The method we employ automatically determines an optimal smoothing level by minimizing the Generalized Cross Validation (GCV) score. In order to automatically validate the smoothing level selection, the Weighted Sum-Squared Residual (WSSR) and zero-mean tests are performed on the residuals. Further, confidence intervals, both analytical and Monte Carlo, are also calculated. In this paper, we describe the derivation of our cubic smoothing spline algorithm. We outline the algorithm and test it with simulated and experimental data.

This report tracks the process by which Congress provides the funding for U.S. assessed contributions to the regular budgets of the United Nations, its agencies, and U.N. peacekeeping operation accounts, as well as for U.S. voluntary contributions to U.N. system programs and funds. It includes information on the President's request and the congressional response, as well as congressional initiatives during this legislative process. Basic information is provided to help the reader understand this process.

This report provides background on various approaches to ballast water management and reviews current ballast water management laws and programs.

This report provides the information related to the fishery, aquaculture, and marine mammal issues in the 111th Congress

The Endangered Species Act has been one of the more contentious environmental laws. This may stem from its strict substantive provisions, which can affect the use of both federal and nonfederal lands and resources. This report discusses oversight issues and legislation introduced in the 11th Congress to address Endangered Species Act implementation and management of endangered and threatened species.

This report discusses oversight issues and legislation introduced in the 111th Congress to address Endangered Species Act (ESA) implementation and management of endangered and threatened species.

Abstract Benchmarking of full-wave solvers for ICRF simulations is performed using plasma profiles and equilibria obtained from integrated self-consistent modeling predictions of four ITER plasmas. One is for a high performance baseline (5.3 T, 15 MA) DT H-mode plasma. The others are for half-field, half-current plasmas of interest for the pre-activation phase with bulk plasma ion species being either hydrogen or He4. The predicted profiles are used by seven groups to predict the ICRF electromagnetic fields and heating profiles. Approximate agreement is achieved for the predicted heating power partitions for the DT and He4 cases. Profiles of the heating powers and electromagnetic fields are compared.

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This report collects statistics from a variety of sources on casualties sustained during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), which began on October 7, 2001, and is ongoing. OEF actions take place primarily in Afghanistan, but OEF casualties also include American casualties in other countries, listed within this report.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which declared three firearms provisions of the D.C. Code unconstitutional, a flurry of legislation was introduced both in Congress and in the District of Columbia Council. This report provides an analysis of the District's firearms laws and congressional proposals.

Since the emerging of second generation sequencing technologies, the evaluation of different sequencing approaches and their assembly strategies for different types of genomes has become an important undertaken. Next generation sequencing technologies dramatically increase sequence throughput while decreasing cost, making them an attractive tool for whole genome shotgun sequencing. To compare different approaches for de-novo whole genome assembly, appropriate tools and a solid understanding of both quantity and quality of the underlying sequence data are crucial. Here, we performed an in-depth analysis of short-read Illumina sequence assembly strategies for bacterial and archaeal genomes. Different types of Illumina libraries as well as different trim parameters and assemblers were evaluated. Results of the comparative analysis and sequencing platforms will be presented. The goal of this analysis is to develop a cost-effective approach for the increased throughput of the generation of high quality microbial genomes.