This report addresses the computational mechanics research and support for aerodynamics and hydraulics at Tfhrc.

This Report is about the environmental protection program at Argonne National Laboratory site environmental report for the calendar year 2011. It also discusses about the status of Argonne Environmental protection activities with respect to compliance with the various laws and regulations, along with environmental management, sustainability efforts.

This report provides a historical examination of the Small Business Administration's (SBA) size standards, assesses competing views concerning how to define a small business, and discusses how various proposals to change the SBA's size standards -- including those adopted under the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 -- might affect program eligibility. It also discusses H.R. 585, the Small Business Size Standard Flexibility Act of 2011, which would authorize the SBA's Office of Chief Counsel for Advocacy to approve or disapprove a size standard proposed by a federal agency if it deviates from the SBA's size standards.

This report discusses the 112th Congress' measures to reduce the federal budget deficit and how this may influence congressional debate over the third-ranking U.S. aid recipient, Pakistan-a country vital to U.S. national security interests but that some say lacks accountability and even credibility.

This study evaluated the residues generated from copper-catalyzed peroxide oxidation (CCPO) of Tank 48H simulant. The first step of the CCPO calls for pH adjustment of the simulant, and early testing used either 15 wt% or 50 wt % nitric acid to reach a slurry pH of between 12 and 5. Residues obtained by ambient temperature pH adjustment with 50 wt % nitric acid followed by oxidation with 50 wt % hydrogen peroxide at 35, 50, and 65 �C (from a recently conducted Copper Catalyzed Peroxide Oxidation or CCPO) were also analyzed. Slurry samples at pH 7 or lower especially made from adding nitric acid at the process equivalent of one gallon per minute had the largest enthalpy of decomposition. The thermogravimetric characteristics of some samples from the CCPO test generated at pH 9 or lower exhibited rapid weight loss. Taken together, residues generated at pH 9 or lower may be classified as energetic upon decomposition in confined spaces or under adiabatic conditions. Therefore, additional testing is recommended with larger (up to 50 mL) samples in an adiabatic calorimeter. To minimize risk of formation of energetic byproducts, an intermediate slurry pH of 9 or greater is recommended following the acidification …

This report examines the antipoverty effects of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits during the past recession and the economic recovery. It includes estimates of the effects on the poverty rate for the unemployed, for those receiving UI, and for families that report at least one family member receiving UI. It also estimates how much of reported UI benefits went directly to decreasing family poverty levels. This report's analysis shows that UI benefits appear to reduce the prevalence of poverty significantly among the population that receives them.

Dynamic stabilization of the ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability of a heavy ion fusion target induced by a beam wobbling system is studied. Using a sharp-boundary model and Courant-Synder theory, it is shown, with an appropriately chosen modulation waveform, that the instability can be sta- bilized in certain parameter regimes. It is found that the stabilization e ect has a strong dependence on the modulation frequency and the waveform. Modulation with frequency comparable to the instability growth rate is the most e ective in terms of stabilizing the instability. A modulation with two frequency components can result in a reduction of the growth rate larger than the sum of that due to the two components when applied separately.

This report answers several frequently asked questions about military health care, including: how the system is structured, a TRICARE summary, TRICARE eligibility and plan options, cost of military health care to beneficiaries, relationship of TRICARE to MEDICARE, how the Affordable Care Act affects TRICARE, long-term trends of defense health care costs, and a summary of the fund which funds TRICARE - the Medicare Eligible Retiree Health Care fund.

This report describes the open economy and society of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as U.S. concern over proliferation of advanced technology due to the open economy and the UAE's lax export controls. It discusses these issues in relation to a recently-signed U.S.-UAE civilian nuclear agreement and also provides a general description of the UAE's government and political structure, as well as the effects of the recent global economic downturn on the UAE in general and on the city of Dubai in particular.

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Abstract High energy physics has been one of the signature research programs at the University of Rochester for over 60 years. The group has made leading contributions to experimental discoveries at accelerators and in cosmic rays and has played major roles in developing the theoretical framework that gives us our ``standard model'' of fundamental interactions today. This award from the Department of Energy funded a major portion of that research for more than 20 years. During this time, highlights of the supported work included the discovery of the top quark at the Fermilab Tevatron, the completion of a broad program of physics measurements that verified the electroweak unified theory, the measurement of three generations of neutrino flavor oscillations, and the first observation of a ``Higgs like'' boson at the Large Hadron Collider. The work has resulted in more than 2000 publications over the period of the grant. The principal investigators supported on this grant have been recognized as leaders in the field of elementary particle physics by their peers through numerous awards and leadership positions. Most notable among them is the APS W.K.H. Panofsky Prize awarded to Arie Bodek in 2004, the J.J. Sakurai Prizes awarded to Susumu Okubo and …

A novel, light-weight, hand-held gamma-ray detector with directional sensitivity is being designed. The detector uses a set of multiple rings around two cylindrical surfaces, which provides precise location of two interaction points on two concentric cylindrical planes, wherefrom the source location can be traced back by back projection and/or Compton imaging technique. The detectors are 2.0 × 2.0 mm europium-doped strontium iodide (SrI2:Eu2+) crystals, whose light output has been measured to exceed 120,000 photons/MeV, making it one of the brightest scintillators in existence. The crystal’s energy resolution, less than 3% at 662 keV, is also excellent, and the response is highly linear over a wide range of gamma-ray energies. The emission of SrI2:Eu2+ is well matched to both photo-multiplier tubes and blue-enhanced silicon photodiodes. The solid-state photomultipliers used in this design (each 2.0 × 2.0 mm) are arrays of active pixel sensors (avalanche photodiodes driven beyond their breakdown voltage in reverse bias); each pixel acts as a binary photon detector, and their summed output is an analog representation of the total photon energy, while the individual pixel accurately defines the point of interaction. A simple back-projection algorithm involving cone-surface mapping is being modeled. The back projection for an event cone …

Three sections of primary transfer pipeline removed from the 241-SY Tank Farm in Hanford's 200 West area, labeled as SN-285, SN-286, and SN-278, were analyzed for the presence and amount of corrosion and erosion on the inside surface of the transfer pipe. All three sections of pipe, ranging in length between 6 and 8 in., were received at the 222-S Laboratory still in the pipe-in-pipe assembly. The annular spaces were filled with urethane foam injected into the pipes for as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) purposes. The 3-in. primary transfer pipes were first separated from the outer encasement, 6-in. pipes. The pipes were cut into small sections, or coupons, based upon the results of a non-destructive pipe wall thickness measurement which used an ultrasonic transducer. Following removal of the foam, the coupons were subjected to a series of analytical methods utilizing both optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy to obtain erosion and corrosion information. The ultrasonic transducer analysis of the SN-285 primary pipe did not show any thinned locations in the pipe wall which were outside the expected range for the 3-in. schedule 40 pipe of 216 mils. A coupon was cut from the thinnest area on the pipe, and …

This report focuses instead on the nature and measurement of retail food price inflation and its relationship to consumers.

Under the continuing DOE support, we have: o assembled the basic experiment setup and then continued expanding it to include diverse diagnostics and to accommodate gas jet targets in addition to metal foils; o conducted an extensive study of our novel laser, significantly enhanced laser beam diagnostics, and improved relevant laser parameters; o turned our experiments into a truly international endeavor with active collaboration of close to 20 researchers in US, UK, and Germany; o conducted the first ever experiments with proton and ion acceleration by lasers interacting with overcritical plasma of gas jets; o for the first time directly observed radiation pressure acceleration of protons, including quasi-monoenergetic spectra promising for future applications; o for the first time directly observed quasi-stable, bubble-like plasma structures that likely evolved from relativistic laser-plasma solitons (post-solitons). Thus, we have confirmed a strong potential of a picosecond TW CO2 laser as a research tool in laser-plasma science and as a promising vehicle for future applications of laser ion acceleration. This has led to apparent increase of the interest in mid-IR laser ion acceleration. In particular, another major research group began extensive proton acceleration experiments with their own CO2 laser at UCLA. As a result, the …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The number of nonfatal and fatal general aviation accidents decreased from 1999 through 2011; more than 200 fatal accidents occurred in each of those years. Airplanes—particularly single-engine piston airplanes—flying personal operations were most often involved in accidents. Most general aviation accidents are attributed to pilot error and involved a loss of aircraft control. Some segments of the industry experienced accidents disproportionately to their total estimated annual flight hours. For example, among the airplane categories we reviewed, experimental amateur-built airplanes were involved in 21 percent of the fatal accidents but accounted for only 4 percent of the estimated annual flight hours. In another example, corporate operations were involved in about 1 percent of fatal accidents while accounting for 14 percent of estimated annual flight hours. We can draw some conclusions about general aviation accident characteristics, but limitations in flight activity and other data preclude a confident assessment of general aviation safety. The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) survey of general aviation operators, on which the agency bases its annual flight-hour estimates, continues to suffer from methodological and conceptual limitations, even with FAA’s efforts to improve it over the …

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