Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO’s recent work highlights the types of challenges facing the Department of Defense (DOD) as it strives to attain audit readiness and reengineer its business processes and systems. The urgency in addressing these challenges has been increased by the goals of an auditable DOD Statement of Budgetary Resources (SBR) by the end of fiscal year 2014 and a complete set of auditable financial statements by the end of fiscal year 2017. For example, GAO’s 2011 reporting highlights difficulties the DOD components experienced in attempting to achieve an auditable SBR. These include:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Federal agencies conducted the regulatory analyses required by various federal statutes for all 54 regulations issued pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) that GAO reviewed. As part of their analyses, the agencies generally considered, but typically did not quantify or monetize, the benefits and costs of these rules. Most of the federal financial regulators, as independent regulatory agencies, are not subject to executive orders that require comprehensive benefit-cost analysis in accordance with guidance issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Although most financial regulators are not required to follow OMB's guidance, they told GAO that they attempt to follow it in principle or spirit. GAO's review of selected rules found that regulators did not consistently follow key elements of the OMB guidance in their regulatory analyses. For example, while some regulators identified the benefits and costs of their chosen regulatory approach in proposed rules, they did not evaluate their chosen approach compared to the benefits and costs of alternative approaches. GAO previously recommended that regulators more fully incorporate the OMB guidance into their rulemaking policies, and the …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Tier 1 hybrid capital instruments, particularly trust preferred securities, have been heavily used by bank holding companies because of their financial advantages, but they are not as effective in absorbing losses as traditional forms of Tier 1 capital, such as common equity. As of December 31, 2010, almost two-thirds of all top-level bank holding companies that were subject to capital requirements included hybrid instruments in their Tier 1 capital, for a total value of $157 billion. Hybrid instruments such as trust preferred securities have offered institutions the benefit of lower-cost capital, largely because of their debt-related features—including tax-deductible dividends. These instruments also are accessible to a broader range of potential investors. However, trust preferred securities do not absorb losses like other Tier 1 instruments because of their obligation to repay principal and dividends. Trust preferred securities may provide limited financial flexibility in times of stress, but they may also hinder efforts to recapitalize troubled banking institutions."

This project was a program to develop high-throughput methods to identify and characterize spatially localized multiprotein complexes in bacterial cells. We applied a multidisciplinary “systems engineering” approach to the detailed characterization of localized multi-protein structures in vivo – a problem that has previously been approached on a fragmented, piecemeal basis.

Issues concerning and which can be influenced by Congress regarding unemployment rates.

This report analyzes recent developments concerning transmission cost allocation leading up to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Order No. 1000, as well as the contents of the order and their potential impact on the transmission planning process in the future.

Congressional Research Service (CRS) report entailing information about data options for the English Language Acquisition State Grants Formula (Title III-A) in regards to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Topics include, additional LEP data considerations, census data, a description of allocations etc..

This report provides an analysis of the value of energy tax incentives relative to primary energy production levels. This report also summarizes the results of recently published studies by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) evaluating energy subsidies across various technologies.

This report covers two proposed permit drafts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding Vessel General Permits (VGPs): one for large vessels to replace the 2008 VGP (draft VGP), and one for smaller vessels that currently are covered by a congressionally-enacted temporary moratorium (draft sVGP).

In November 2011 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed two Clean Water Act permits to regulate certain types of discharges from vessels into U.S. waters. This report is an overview of the proposed permits and two key issues: inclusion of numeric performance standards to limit ballast water discharges from vessels, and controversies about the role of states in regulating vessel discharges.

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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Containment Program performed a review of nuclear test-related data for the Norbo underground nuclear test in U8c to assist in evaluating this legacy site as a test bed for application technologies for use in On-Site Inspections (OSI) under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This request is similar to one made for the Salut site in U8c (Pawloski, 2012b). Review of the Norbo site is complicated because the test first exhibited subsurface collapse, which was not unusual, but it then collapsed to the surface over one year later, which was unusual. Of particular interest is the stability of the ground surface above the Norbo detonation point. Proposed methods for on-site verification include radiological signatures, artifacts from nuclear testing activities, and imaging to identify alteration to the subsurface hydrogeology due to the nuclear detonation. Aviva Sussman from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has also proposed work at this site. Both proposals require physical access at or near the ground surface of specific underground nuclear test locations at the Nevada Nuclear Security Site (NNSS), formerly the Nevada Test Site (NTS), and focus on possible activities such as visual observation, multispectral measurements, and shallow and deep geophysical …

We describe a Chandra X-ray target-of-opportunity project designed to isolate the site of TeV flaring in the radio galaxy M87. To date, we have triggered the Chandra observations only once (2010 April) and by the time of the first of our nine observations, the TeV flare had ended. However, we found that the X-ray intensity of the unresolved nucleus was at an elevated level for our first observation. Of the more than 60 Chandra observations we have made of the M87 jet covering nine years, the nucleus was measured at a comparably high level only three times. Two of these occasions can be associated with TeV flaring, and at the time of the third event, there were no TeV monitoring activities. From the rapidity of the intensity drop of the nucleus, we infer that the size of the emitting region is of order a few light days x the unknown beaming factor; comparable to the same sort of estimate for the TeV emitting region. We also find evidence of spectral evolution in the X-ray band which seems consistent with radiative losses affecting the non-thermal population of the emitting electrons within the unresolved nucleus.

This report contains the export clause on the limitation on Congress's taxing power. It also discusses about Tax v. User Fee and Modern Application of the Clause.

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This slide-show is about data analysis in photonic Doppler velocimetry. The digital down shift subtracts a specified velocity (frequency) from all components in the Fourier frequency domain and generates both the down shifted in-phase and out-of-phase waveforms so that phase and displacement can be extracted through a continuous unfold of the arctangent.

This report is categorized into seven categories: (I) Introduction, (II) Higher Education and the Research Mission, (III) University Research-Industry Partnerships, (IV) The Changing Institutional Context of Research, (V) Distribution of Funding for Academic Research and Development, (VI) The National Academies' Committee on Research Universities and (VI) Policy Considerations.

This report outlines issues regarding the taxation of aliens since several pieces of current legislation have been introduced that would impose restrictions for claiming child tax credits or for claiming credits and refunds. The report includes an overview of immigration status, resident or nonresident aliens, taxation of income for various classifications, and Social Security and medicare taxes.

This program is focused on the experimental determination of the effects of key hydrogen side impurities on the performance of PEM fuel cells. Experimental data has been leveraged to create mathematical models that predict the performance of PEM fuel cells that are exposed to specific impurity streams. These models are validated through laboratory experimentation and utilized to develop novel technologies for mitigating the effects of contamination on fuel cell performance. Results are publicly disseminated through papers, conference presentations, and other means.

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During the period of this project, the Holographic Detector for Clouds 2 (HOLODEC 2) instrument has advanced from a laboratory-proven instrument with some initial field testing to a fully flight-tested instrument capable of providing useful cloud microphysics measurements. This can be summarized as 'Technology Readiness Level 8: Technology is proven to work - Actual technology completed and qualified through test and demonstration.' As part of this project, improvements and upgrades have been made to the optical system, the instrument power control system, the data acquisition computer, the instrument control software, the data reconstruction and analysis software, and some of the basic algorithms for estimating basic microphysical variables like droplet diameter. Near the end of the project, the instrument flew on several research flights as part of the IDEAS 2011 project, and a small sample of data from the project is included as an example. There is one caveat in the technology readiness level stated above: the upgrades to the instrument power system were made after the flight testing, so they are not fully field proven. We anticipate that there will be an opportunity to fly the instrument as part of the IDEAS project in fall 2012.

Bimetallic surfaces with tunable chemical properties have attracted broad attention in recent years due to their ample potential for heterogeneous catalysis applications. The local chemical properties of constituents are strongly altered from their parent metals by 'ligand effect', a term encompassing the influences of charge transfer, orbital rehybridization and lattice strain. In comparison to the aforementioned, the 'ensemble effect' associated with particular arrangements of the active constituents have received much less attention, despite their notable importance towards the determination of reactivity and selectivity of bimetallic catalysts. We performed theoretical studies for understanding the ensemble effects on bimetallic catalysis: (i) simulations for the formation of different ensembles on PdAu and PtAu nanoclusters; (ii) studies of the size, shape, and substrate dependence of their electronic properties; and (iii) simulations for model reactions such as CO oxidation, methanol, ethylene and water dehydrogenation on PdAu and PtAu nanoclusters. In close collaboration with leading experimental groups, our theoretical research elucidated the fundamentals of Au based bimetallic nanocatalysts.

This manual documents the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Fire Protection Program. Department of Energy (DOE) Orders 420.1B, Facility Safety, requires LLNL to have a comprehensive and effective fire protection program that protects LLNL personnel and property, the public and the environment. The manual provides LLNL and its facilities with general information and guidance for meeting DOE 420.1B requirements. The recommended readers for this manual are: fire protection officers, fire protection engineers, fire fighters, facility managers, directorage assurance managers, facility coordinators, and ES and H team members.