HEATS Project: UTRC is developing a new climate-control system for EVs that uses a hybrid vapor compression adsorption system with thermal energy storage. The targeted, closed system will use energy during the battery-charging step to recharge the thermal storage, and it will use minimal power to provide cooling or heating to the cabin during a drive cycle. The team will use a unique approach of absorbing a refrigerant on a metal salt, which will create a lightweight, high-energy-density refrigerant. This unique working pair can operate indefinitely as a traditional vapor compression heat pump using electrical energy, if desired. The project will deliver a hot-and-cold battery that provides comfort to the passengers using minimal power, substantially extending the driving range of EVs.

This report fulfills a request of the U.S. Army Engineer District, Portland, Oregon, to produce an interim report of estimates of route-specific fish passage proportions and survival rates for lower Columbia River dams in 2010 and 2011. The estimates are needed to update the Compass Model for the Columbia River Treaty and the new Biological Opinion before detail technical reports are published in late 2012. This report tabulates route-specific fish-passage proportions and survival rates for steelhead and Chinook salmon smolts passing through various sampled routes at John Day Dam, The Dalles Dam, and Bonneville Dam in 2010 and 2011. Results were compiled from analyses of data acquired in spring 2010 and 2011 studies that were specifically designed to estimate dam-passage and forebay-to-tailrace survival rates, travel time metrics, and spill passage efficiency, as stipulated by the 2008 Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion and the Columbia Basin Fish Accords. The study designs allowed for estimation of route-specific fish passage proportions and survival rates as well as estimation of forebay-passage survival, all of which are summarized herein.

Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy project sheet summarizing general information about the Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology (ADEPT) program including critical needs, innovation and advantages, impacts, and contact information. This sheet discusses more efficient power converters as part of the "Isolated Converter with Integrated Passives and Low Material Stress" project.

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 …

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Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy project sheet summarizing general information about the Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology (ADEPT) program including critical needs, innovation and advantages, impacts, and contact information. This sheet discusses energy efficient for LED driver components as part of the "Integrated Power Chip Converter for Solid-State Lighting" project.

This report discusses selected litigation to demonstrate how those events have changed the campaign finance landscape and affected the policy issues that may confront Congress, but it is not a constitutional or legal analysis. Campaign finance data appears throughout the report.

Social Security benefits received before a person attains full retirement age (FRA) are subject to an actuarial reduction for early retirement and also may be reduced by the Social Security Retirement Earnings Test (RET) if the beneficiary has earnings that exceed an annual threshold. This report explains how the RET is applied under current law and provides detailed benefit examples to show how the RET affects both the worker beneficiary and any family members (auxiliary beneficiaries) who receive benefits based on the worker beneficiary’s record. The report points out features of the RET that are not widely known or understood, such as the recomputation of benefits when a beneficiary attains FRA to adjust (increase) benefits to take into account months for which no benefit or a partial benefit was paid as a result of the RET. Finally, the report discusses policy issues related to the RET, including recent research on the effect of the RET on work effort and the decision to claim Social Security benefits.

This report contains an explanation of the major provisions of the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes. The discussion divides the federal estate tax into three components: the gross estate, deductions from the gross estate, and computation of the tax, including allowable tax credits. The federal estate tax is computed through a series of adjustments and modifications of a tax base known as the "gross estate." Certain allowable deductions reduce the gross estate to the "taxable estate," to which is then added the total of all lifetime taxable gifts made by the decedent. The tax rates are applied and, after reduction for certain allowable credits, the amount of tax owed by the estate is reached.

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This report provides basic information on congressional salaries and allowances. First, the report briefly summarizes the current salary of Members of Congress, limits on their outside earned income and honoraria, and applicable health insurance and retirement benefits.

This report examines three labor issues and arguments related to the pending U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement (CFTA; H.R. 5724 and S. 2830): violence against trade unionists; impunity (accountability for or punishment of the perpetrators); and worker rights protections for Colombians.

A potential major constraint affecting U.S. agricultural policy choices is the set of commitments made as part of membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), with its various agreements governing agriculture and trade, including dispute settlement. This report provides a brief overview of the WTO commitments most relevant for U.S. domestic farm policy. A key question that policymakers ask of virtually every new farm proposal is, how will it affect U.S. commitments under the WTO?

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This report discusses the reasons offered in support of suspending these provisions, as well as the drawbacks. This reports also presents data that estimates the number of households that these proposals would impact.

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

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This report provides information about reforms to the International Monetary Fund, Congress's role in the reform process, and how the reforms could affect U.S. interests at the IMF.