Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to a review of the market competitiveness of the State's law enforcement salary schedule (Salary Schedule C).

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to determining whether the Division of Workers' Compensation monitors and manages development of new information technology systems to provide assurance that budgets are met and goals are achieved, whether selected information technology systems at the Division provide and maintain reliable, secure, and accurate data, and whether the Division issues appropriate and consistent disciplinary orders for workers' compensation providers and carriers that have committed violations or are identified as noncompliant.

"The Galveston Bay Program identified an "examination of the impacts of freshwater inflow and Bay circulation" as priority areas in its comprehensive conservation management action plan for 2001-2005. Specifically to ensure beneficial freshwater inflow necessary for a salinity, nutrient and sediment loading regime adequate to maintain the productivity of economically important and ecologically characteristic species in Trinity-San Jacinto Estuary." (p. 6).

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to determining whether the Executive Council of Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy Examiners (Council) is accurately reporting its performance measures to the Automated Budget and Evaluation System of Texas (ABEST) and has adequate controls in place over the collection, calculation, and reporting of its performance measures.

This report provides an overview of Arctic-related issues for Congress, and refers readers to more in-depth CRS reports on specific Arctic-related issues. Congressional readers with questions about an issue discussed in this report should contact the author or authors of the section discussing that issue. The authors are identified by footnote at the start of each section.

This report discusses two types of formulas used to allocate funding to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The two formulas are used in regards to two types of funding: regular and contingency.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

Report examining evacuation procedures using existing forecasting models in the gulf coast states and discusses ways to improve the use of forecasting models by government officials.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the common-law doctrine of incompatibility prohibits a member of the board of directors of the Agua Special Utility District from serving simultaneously as a member of the board of trustees of South Texas College (RQ-0813-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a property tax lien lender may exercise a right of forced sale after a property owner who has filed a deferment of taxes attains the age of 65 (RQ-0857-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether, under chapter 395, Local Government Code, a municipality may grant a credit for a water line project on sewer impact fees (RA-0860-GA)

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This report discusses about the CRS Issue on Canada. It points out about U.S. and Canada's cooperation in international security and Political Issue, both bilaterally and through numerous international organizations.

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After rapid growth in economic development and energy demand over the last three decades, China has undertaken energy efficiency improvement efforts to reduce its energy intensity under the 11th Five Year Plan (FYP). Since becoming the world's largest annual CO{sub 2} emitter in 2007, China has set reduction targets for energy and carbon intensities and committed to meeting 15% of its total 2020 energy demand with non-fossil fuel. Despite having achieved important savings in 11th FYP efficiency programs, rising per capita income and the continued economic importance of trade will drive demand for transport activity and fuel use. At the same time, an increasingly 'electrified' economy will drive rapid power demand growth. Greater analysis is therefore needed to understand the underlying drivers, possible trajectories and mitigation potential in the growing industrial, transport and power sectors. This study uses scenario analysis to understand the likely trajectory of China's energy and carbon emissions to 2030 in light of the current and planned portfolio of programs, policies and technology development and ongoing urbanization and demographic trends. It evaluates the potential impacts of alternative transportation and power sector development using two key scenarios, Continued Improvement Scenario (CIS) and Accelerated Improvement Scenario (AIS). CIS represents …

The low-{beta} magnet systems are located in the LHC insertion regions around the four interaction points. They are the key elements in the beams focusing/defocusing process and will allow proton collisions at a luminosity of up to 10{sup 34}cm{sup -2}s{sup -1}. Large radiation dose deposited at the proximity of the beam collisions dictate stringent requirements for the design and operation of the systems. The hardware commissioning phase of the LHC was completed in the winter of 2010 and permitted to validate this system safe operation. This paper presents the analysis used to qualify and quantify the safe operation of the low-{beta} magnet systems in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for the first years of operation.

This report presents the results of the evaluation of three ultrasonic sensors for detecting critical velocity during slurry transfer between the Hanford tank farms and the WTP.

We report time-resolved Kerr effect measurements of magnetization dynamics in ferromagnetic SrRuO{sub 3}. We observe that the demagnetization time slows substantially at temperatures within 15K of the Curie temperature, which is {approx} 150K. We analyze the data with a phenomenological model that relates the demagnetization time to the spin flip time. In agreement with our observations the model yields a demagnetization time that is inversely proportional to T-T{sub c}. We also make a direct comparison of the spin flip rate and the Gilbert damping coefficient showing that their ratio very close to k{sub B}T{sub c}, indicating a common origin for these phenomena.

The object of this work was to identify correlations between performance losses of Pt electrocatalysts on carbon support materials and the chemical and morphological parameters that describe them. Accelerated stress testing, with an upper potential of 1.2 V, was used to monitor changes to cathode properties, including kinetic performance and effective platinum surface area losses. The structure and chemical compositions were studied using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled with Digital Image Processing. As this is an ongoing study, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions, though a trend between support surface area overall performance loss was found to exist.

The U.S. Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory funded this research collaboration effort between NextEnergy and the University of Michigan, who successfully designed, built, and tested a reformer system, which produced highquality syngas for use in SOFC and other applications, and a novel reactor system, which allowed for facile illumination of photocatalysts. Carbon and raw biomass gasification, sulfur tolerance of non-Platinum Group Metals (PGM) based (Ni/CeZrO2) reforming catalysts, photocatalysis reactions based on TiO2, and mild pyrolysis of biomass in ionic liquids (ILs) were investigated at low and medium temperatures (primarily 450 to 850 C) in an attempt to retain some structural value of the starting biomass. Despite a wide range of processes and feedstock composition, a literature survey showed that, gasifier products had narrow variation in composition, a restriction used to develop operating schemes for syngas cleanup. Three distinct reaction conditions were investigated: equilibrium, autothermal reforming of hydrocarbons, and the addition of O2 and steam to match the final (C/H/O) composition. Initial results showed rapid and significant deactivation of Ni/CeZrO2 catalysts upon introduction of thiophene, but both stable and unstable performance in the presence of sulfur were obtained. The key linkage appeared to be the hydrodesulfurization activity of the …