This report collects statistics from a variety of sources on casualties sustained during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). OEF actions took place primarily in Afghanistan; however, OEF casualties also include American casualties in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Yemen.

This report examines the importance to the U.S. economy of China's investment in U.S. securities, as well as the policy implications of its holdings for both the United States and China.

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This report provides an overview of how DNA is used to investigate crimes and help protect the innocent. It also reviews current statutory law on collecting DNA samples, sharing DNA profiles generated from those samples, and providing access to post-conviction DNA testing. The report also includes a summary of grant programs authorized by Congress to assist state and local governments with reducing DNA backlogs, provide post-conviction DNA testing, and promote new technology in the field.

This report provides a brief overview of the key issues for Congress related to Egypt and information on U.S. foreign aid to Egypt. The United States has provided significant military and economic assistance to Egypt since the late 1970s. U.S. policy makers have routinely justified aid to Egypt as an investment in regional stability, built primarily on long-running military cooperation and on sustaining the March 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

This is EPA's environmental justice small grants for the fiscal year 2012. The small grants are arranged by regions.

This report provides a primer on the federal crop insurance program.

The overriding objective for this project is to develop an efficient and accurate method for capturing strong discontinuities and fine smooth flow structures of disparate length scales with unstructured grids, and demonstrate its potentials for problems relevant to DOE. More specifically, we plan to achieve the following objectives: 1. Extend the SV method to three dimensions, and develop a fourth-order accurate SV scheme for tetrahedral grids. Optimize the SV partition by minimizing a form of the Lebesgue constant. Verify the order of accuracy using the scalar conservation laws with an analytical solution; 2. Extend the SV method to Navier-Stokes equations for the simulation of viscous flow problems. Two promising approaches to compute the viscous fluxes will be tested and analyzed; 3. Parallelize the 3D viscous SV flow solver using domain decomposition and message passing. Optimize the cache performance of the flow solver by designing data structures minimizing data access times; 4. Demonstrate the SV method with a wide range of flow problems including both discontinuities and complex smooth structures. The objectives remain the same as those outlines in the original proposal. We anticipate no technical obstacles in meeting these objectives.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Based on an initial evaluation of the California High Speed Rail Authority's (Authority) cost estimates, GAO found that they exhibit certain strengths and weaknesses when compared to best practices in GAO's Cost Guide. Adherence with the Cost Guide reduces the risk of cost overruns and missed deadlines. GAO's preliminary evaluation indicates that the cost estimates are comprehensive in that they include major components of construction and operating costs. However, they are not based on a complete set of assumptions, such as how the Authority expects to adapt existing high-speed rail technology to the project in California. The cost estimates are accurate in that they are based on the most recent project scope, include an inflation adjustment, and contain few mathematical errors. And while the cost estimates' methodologies are generally documented, in some cases GAO was unable to trace the final cost estimate back to its source documentation and could not verify how certain cost components, such as stations and trains, were calculated. Finally, the Authority evaluated the credibility of its estimates by performing both a sensitivity analysis (assessing changes in key cost inputs) and an independent cost estimate, …

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Wood is a potential source for biofuels such as ethanol if it can be digested into sugars and fermented by yeast. Biomass derived from wood is a challenging substrate for ethanol production since it is made of lignin and cellulose which cannot be broken down easily into fermentable sugars. Some insects, and termites in particular, are specialized at using enzymes in their guts to digest wood into sugars. If termite gut enzymes could be made abundantly by a recombinant protein expression vector system, they could be applied to an industrial process to make biofuels from wood. In this study, a large cDNA library of relevant termite genes was made using termites fed a normal diet, or a diet with added lignin. A subtracted library yielded genes that were overexpressed in the presence of lignin. Termite gut enzyme genes were identified and cloned into recombinant insect viruses called baculoviruses. Using our PERLXpress system for protein expression, these termite gene recombinant baculoviruses were prepared and used to infect insect larvae, which then expressed abundant recombinant termite enzymes. Many of these expressed enzymes were prepared to very high purity, and the activities were studied in conjunction with collaborators at Purdue University. Recombinant termite …

The amount of water present during placement and subsequent curing of saltstone has the potential to impact several properties important for grout quality. An active drain water system can remove residual standing water and expose the surface of the placed saltstone to air. Oxidation of the saltstone may result in an increase in the leachability of redox sensitive elements. A dry surface can lead to cracking, causing an increase in hydraulic conductivity. An inactive drain water system can allow standing water that generates unnecessary hydrostatic head on the vault walls. Standing water that cannot be removed via the drain system will be available for potential incorporation into subsequent grout placements. The objective of this work is to study the impact of standing water on grout quality pertaining to disposal units. A series of saltstone mixes was prepared and cured at ambient temperature to evaluate the impact of standing water on saltstone placement. The samples were managed to control drying effects on leachability by either exposing or capping the samples. The water to premix ratio was varied to represent a range of processing conditions. Samples were analyzed for density, leachability, and hydraulic conductivity. Report SRNL-STI-2012-00546 was issued detailing the experimental procedure, …

This report considers issues that may be of interest to Congress as it considers the strength and duration of further U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, to 2014 and beyond.

This report provides an overview of the sociopolitical and economic situation in Iran, and discusses Iran's ballistic missile and space launch programs.

This report looks at Kuwait's relationships with its neighbors in the Persian Gulf, and its own political system which has been in turmoil since 2006.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Legacy Management conducted annual sampling at the Rulison, Colorado, site for the Long-Term Hydrologic Monitoring Program (LTHMP) on May 8, 2012. The samples were shipped to GEL Laboratories in Charleston, South Carolina, for analysis. All requested analyses were successfully completed. Samples were analyzed for gamma-emitting radionuclides by high-resolution gamma spectrometry; tritium was analyzed using two methods. The conventional tritium method has a detection limit on the order of 400 pCi/L, and a select set of samples was analyzed for tritium using the enriched method, which has a detection limit on the order of 3 pCi/L.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

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A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Veterans Affairs (VA), and Defense (DOD) administer programs that include preventive health activities such as health screenings and education campaigns, but the departments reported that they do not track department-wide spending on these activities. Departments reported that determining such spending is challenging because these activities can be integrated with other health activities. For fiscal year 2011, the departments provided to GAO a mix of information related to spending for preventive health activities, and noted limitations. These limitations included incomplete estimates, estimates that included activities that were prevention-related but not specifically for clinical preventive services or community-oriented preventive health activities, and estimates that represented funding--not spending--information. Funding estimates represent amounts available to the departments at a particular time, but not necessarily actual spending. For fiscal year 2011, HHS combined estimates of spending for prevention for one agency with estimates of funding for nine other HHS agencies for a total of about $24 billion; however, the estimate did not include the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which oversees health coverage programs for over 100 million individuals. VA and DOD …

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This report is divided into two parts. The first part discusses right to work (RTW) laws themselves. It provides a brief legislative history on the federal role in the regulation of unions, a summary of the origin and development of RTW laws, a discussion of recent events at the state level, and federal legislation related to RTW. The second part of the report reviews the varied empirical research on the effects of RTW laws. Specifically, it will discuss the mixed evidence indicating relationships between RTW laws and other economic outcomes.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since implementation of the Screening Partnership Program (SPP) in 2004, 29 airports have applied to the program, citing various advantages and relatively few disadvantages. Of the 25 approved, 16 are participating in the program, 6 are currently in the contractor procurement process, and the remainder withdrew from participation because their commercial airline services were discontinued. In 2011, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) denied applications for 6 airports because, according to TSA officials, the airports did not demonstrate that participation in the program would "provide a clear and substantial advantage to TSA security operations." After enactment of the Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 (FAA Modernization Act) in February 2012, TSA revised its SPP application, removing the "clear and substantial advantage" question. Four of the 6 airports that had been denied in 2011 later reapplied and were approved. In GAO's survey and in interviews with airport operators (of SPP and non-SPP airports) and aviation stakeholders, improved customer service and increased staffing flexibilities were most commonly cited as advantages or potential advantages of the SPP. Individual Federal Security Directors we interviewed cited reduced involvement in …