Decision and Risk Analysis capabilities will be developed for industry consideration and possible adoption within Year 1. These tools will provide a methodology for merging qualitative ranking of technology maturity and acknowledged risk contributors with quantitative metrics that drive investment decision processes. Methods and tools will be initially introduced as applications to the A650.1 case study, but modular spreadsheets and analysis routines will be offered to industry collaborators as soon as possible to stimulate user feedback and co-development opportunities.

A look at the history of U.S.-Israeli relationships and current Israeli issues such as border security, defense, Israel-Palestinian conflicts, economy, and democracy.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "While the most recent national data show instruction time for PE decreased from 2000 to 2006, officials GAO interviewed stated that school sports opportunities have generally increased in recent years. Specifically, the percentage of schools that offered PE at least 3 days a week decreased from 2000 to 2006, but the percentage of schools that required students in each grade to take some PE increased during the same period. For example, the estimated percentage of schools that required PE in ninth grade increased from 13 percent in 2000 to 55 percent in 2006. Moreover, states, districts, and schools appear to have increased emphasis on the quality of PE programs, such as helping students develop lifelong fitness skills, according to national data and GAO interviews. Data on high school students show that participation in PE varies by grade level but not by gender or across racial groups. In addition, most state, district, and school officials GAO interviewed said opportunities to participate in interscholastic sports have increased, particularly for girls, and that many schools have responded to increased demand by adding new sports teams over the last few …

The Savannah River Site (SRS) has conducted performance assessment (PA) calculations to determine the risk associated with closing liquid waste tanks. The PA estimates the risk associated with a number of scenarios, making various assumptions. Throughout all of these scenarios, it is assumed that the carbon-steel tank liners holding the liquid waste do not sorb the radionuclides. Tank liners have been shown to form corrosion products, such as Fe-oxyhydroxides (Wiersma and Subramanian 2002). Many corrosion products, including Fe-oxyhydroxides, at the high pH values of tank effluent, take on a very strong negative charge. Given that many radionuclides may have net positive charges, either as free ions or complexed species, it is expected that many radionuclides will sorb to corrosion products associated with tank liners. The objective of this report was to conduct a literature review to investigate whether Pu, U, Np, Am and Tc would sorb to corrosion products on tank liners after they were filled with reducing grout (cementitious material containing slag to promote reducing conditions). The approach was to evaluate radionuclides sorption literature with iron oxyhydroxide phases, such as hematite ({alpha}-Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3}), magnetite (Fe{sub 3}O{sub 4}), goethite ({alpha}-FeOOH) and ferrihydrite (Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} {center_dot} 0.5H{sub 2}O). The …

We present a new measurement of the mass of the Milky Way (MW) based on observed properties of its largest satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds (MCs), and an assumed prior of a {Lambda}CDM universe. The large, high-resolution Bolshoi cosmological simulation of this universe provides a means to statistically sample the dynamical properties of bright satellite galaxies in a large population of dark matter halos. The observed properties of the MCs, including their circular velocity, distance from the center of the MW, and velocity within the MW halo, are used to evaluate the likelihood that a given halo would have each or all of these properties; the posterior probability distribution function (PDF) for any property of the MW system can thus be constructed. This method provides a constraint on the MW virial mass, 1.2{sup +0.7} - {sub 0.4}(stat.){sup +0.3} - {sub 0.3}(sys.) x 10{sup 12} M {circle_dot} (68% confidence), which is consistent with recent determinations that involve very different assumptions. In addition, we calculate the posterior PDF for the density profile of the MW and its satellite accretion history. Although typical satellites of 10{sup 12} M {circle_dot} halos are accreted over a wide range of epochs over the last 10 Gyr, …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Even though FDA met all medical device performance goals for 510(k)s, the elapsed time from submission to final decision has increased substantially in recent years. This time to final decision includes the days FDA spends reviewing a submission as well as the days FDA spends waiting for a device sponsor to submit additional information in response to a request by the agency. FDA review time excludes this waiting time, and FDA review time alone is used to determine whether the agency met its performance goals. Each fiscal year since FY 2005 (the first year that 510(k) performance goals were in place), FDA has reviewed over 90 percent of 510(k) submissions within 90 days, thus meeting the first of two 510(k) performance goals. FDA also met the second goal for all 3 fiscal years it was in place by reviewing at least 98 percent of 510(k) submissions within 150 days. Although FDA has not yet completed reviewing all of the FY 2011 submissions, the agency was exceeding both of these performance goals for those submissions on which it had taken action. Although FDA review time decreased slightly …

This report summarizes what is known from open sources about the North Korean nuclear weapons program - including weapons-usable fissile material and warhead estimates - and assesses current developments in achieving denuclearization.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since the Deepwater Horizon incident, the oil and gas industry has improved its capabilities to respond to a subsea well blowout—the uncontrolled release of oil or gas from a well on the ocean floor—in the Gulf of Mexico. In particular, operators have formed two new not-for-profit organizations that can quickly make available well containment equipment, services, and expertise. Among the equipment that these organizations can provide are capping stacks—devices used to stop the flow of oil or gas from a well. This improved well containment response equipment consists primarily of existing technologies that have been modified to support well containment, according to industry representatives."

The DOE EPSCoR implementation grant, with the support from the State of Oklahoma and from the three universities, Oklahoma State University, University of Oklahoma and Langston University, resulted in establishing of the Oklahoma Center for High Energy Physics (OCHEP) in 2004. Currently, OCHEP continues to flourish as a vibrant hub for research in experimental and theoretical particle physics and an educational center in the State of Oklahoma. All goals of the original proposal were successfully accomplished. These include foun- dation of a new experimental particle physics group at OSU, the establishment of a Tier 2 computing facility for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and Tevatron data analysis at OU and organization of a vital particle physics research center in Oklahoma based on resources of the three universities. OSU has hired two tenure-track faculty members with initial support from the grant funds. Now both positions are supported through OSU budget. This new HEP Experimental Group at OSU has established itself as a full member of the Fermilab D0 Collaboration and LHC ATLAS Experiment and has secured external funds from the DOE and the NSF. These funds currently support 2 graduate students, 1 postdoctoral fellow, and 1 part-time engineer. The grant initiated …

The ILC positron system uses novel helical undulators to create a powerful photon beam from the main electron beam. This beam is passed through a titanium target to convert it into electron-positron pairs. The target is constructed as a 1 m diameter wheel spinning at 2000 RPM to smear the 1 ms ILC pulse train over 10 cm. A pulsed flux concentrating magnet is used to increase the positron capture efficiency. It is cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures to maximize the flatness of the magnetic field over the 1 ms ILC pulse train. We report on prototyping effort on this system.

An experiment was conducted to determine the puncture resistance of 15 gloves that are used or proposed for use in the Tritium Facility at Savannah River Site (SRS). These data will serve as a baseline for characterization and may be incorporated into the glove procurement specification. The testing was conducted in agreement with ASTM D120 and all of the gloves met or exceeded the minimum requirements. Butyl gloves exhibited puncture resistance nearly 2.5 times the minimum requirements at SRS while Polyurethane was nearly 7.5x the minimum.

Memorandum containing replacement pages for the 2011 fiscal year combined financial report for the University of North Texas System, with a summary of the changes at the start.

Prototype lighting panels and luminaires were fabricated using DuPont Displays’ solution-processed small-molecule OLED technology. These lighting panels were based on a spatially-patterned, 3-color design, similar in concept to an OLED display panel, with materials chosen to maximize device efficacy. The majority of the processing steps take place in air (rather than high vacuum). Optimization of device architecture, processing and construction was undertaken, with a final prototype design of 50 cm{sup 2} being fabricated and tested. Performance of these panels reached 35 lm/W at illuminant-A. A unique feature of this technology is the ability to color tune the emission, and color temperatures ranging from 2700 to > 6,500K were attained in the final build. Significant attention was paid to low-cost fabrication techniques.

Sovereign debt, also called public debt or government debt, refers to debt incurred by governments. Since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, public debt in advanced economies has increased substantially. A number of factors related to the financial crisis have fueled the increase, including fiscal stimulus packages, the nationalization of private-sector debt, and lower tax revenue. Even if economic growth reverses some of these trends, such as by boosting tax receipts and reducing spending on government programs, aging populations in advanced economies are expected to strain government debt levels in coming years.

An experimental project was initiated to characterize mass loss when heating different polymer glovebox glove material samples to three elevated temperatures, 90, 120, and 150 C. Samples from ten different polymeric gloves that are being considered for use in the tritium gloveboxes were tested. The intent of the study was to determine the amount of material lost. These data will be used in a subsequent study to characterize the composition of the material lost. One goal of the study was to determine which glove composition would least affect the glovebox atmosphere stripper system. Samples lost most of the mass in the initial 60 minutes of thermal exposure and as expected increasing the temperature increased the mass loss and shortened the time to achieve a steady state loss. The most mass loss was experienced by Jung butyl-Hypalon{reg_sign} at 146 C with 12.9% mass loss followed by Piercan Hypalon{reg_sign} at 144 C with 11.4 % mass loss and Jung butyl-Viton{reg_sign} at 140 C with 5.2% mass loss. The least mass loss was experienced by the Jung Viton{reg_sign} and the Piercan polyurethane. Unlike the permeation testing (1) the vendor and fabrication route influences the amount of gaseous species that is evolved. Additional testing …

To™Hajiilee Economic Development, Inc. (TEDI) is the economic development entity representing the ToHajiilee Chapter of the Navajo Nation, also known as the CaÃoncito Band of Navajo (CBN). Using DOE funding, TEDI assembled a team of qualified advisors to conduct a feasibility study for a utility-scale 30 MW Photovoltaic (PV) solar power generation facility on TEDI trust lands. The goal for this project has been to gather information and practical business commitments to successfully complete the feasibility analysis. The TEDI approach was to successively make informed decisions to select an appropriate technology best suited to the site, determine environmental viability of the site, secure options for the sale of generated power, determine practicality of transmission and interconnection of power to the local grid, and secure preliminary commitments on project financing. The feasibility study has been completed and provides TEDI with a practical understanding of its business options in moving forward with developing a solar project on CBN tribal lands. Funding from DOE has allowed TEDI and its team of professional advisors to carefully select technology and business partners and build a business model to develop this utility-scale solar project. As a result of the positive feasibility findings, TEDI is moving forward …

This report summarizes work carried out by the Ultrascale Visualization Climate Data Analysis Tools (UV-CDAT) Team for the period of July 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011. It discusses highlights, overall progress, period goals, and collaborations and lists papers and presentations. The UV-CDAT team is positioned to address the following high-level visualization requirements: (1) Alternative parallel streaming statistics and analysis pipelines - Data parallelism, Task parallelism, Visualization parallelism; (2) Optimized parallel input/output (I/O); (3) Remote interactive execution; (4) Advanced intercomparison visualization; (5) Data provenance processing and capture; and (6) Interfaces for scientists - Workflow data analysis and visualization construction tools, Visualization interfaces.

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "According to senior State officials, the overarching U.S. policy goal in Yemen is to create a stable and secure state. To achieve that goal, the U.S. assistance strategy has for years included both a security element focused on counterterrorism activities and a civilian element focused on development activities. In 2009, in response to the increasing economic, social, and political challenges facing Yemen, the U.S. government undertook a comprehensive review of its policy toward Yemen. This review led to a whole-of-government strategy that still includes both security and civilian assistance, but that, according to U.S. officials, is more integrated than in prior years. The strategy seeks to simultaneously address security needs as well as the underlying economic, social, and political grievances that can lead to violent extremism. U.S. officials told us that assistance activities under this strategy have had to adjust to the changing security situation on the ground. Further, officials told us they have recently begun reviewing the strategy itself in light of the political changes under way in Yemen."