This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, focusing particularly on the influence of the Taliban and other militant groups and on the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. This report also discusses the U.S.-Afghanistan relationship and U.S. efforts under the Obama Administration to provide military, reconstructive, and stabilization aid.

During Phase 1 of the Weyburn Project (2000-2004), 4D reflection seismic data were used to map CO{sub 2} migration within the Midale reservoir, while an extensive fluid sampling program documented the geochemical evolution triggered by CO{sub 2}-brine-oil-mineral interactions. The aim of this task (3b.11) is to exploit these existing seismic and geochemical data sets, augmented by CO{sub 2}/H{sub 2}O injection and HC/H{sub 2}O production data toward optimizing the reservoir model and thereby improving site characterization and dependent predictions of long-term CO{sub 2} storage in the Weyburn-Midale reservoir. Our initial project activities have concentrated on developing a stochastic inversion method that will identify reservoir models that optimize agreement between the observed and predicted seismic response. This report describes the technical approach we have followed, the data that supports it, and associated implementation activities. The report fulfills deliverable D1 in the project's statement of work. Future deliverables will describe the development of the stochastic inversion tool that uses geochemical data to optimize the reservoir model.

With wind energy expanding rapidly in the U.S. and abroad, and with an increasing number of communities considering wind power development nearby, there is an urgent need to empirically investigate common community concerns about wind project development. The concern that property values will be adversely affected by wind energy facilities is commonly put forth by stakeholders. Although this concern is not unreasonable, given property value impacts that have been found near high voltage transmission lines and other electric generation facilities, the impacts of wind energy facilities on residential property values had not previously been investigated thoroughly. The present research collected data on almost 7,500 sales of singlefamily homes situated within 10 miles of 24 existing wind facilities in nine different U.S. states. The conclusions of the study are drawn from eight different hedonic pricing models, as well as both repeat sales and sales volume models. The various analyses are strongly consistent in that none of the models uncovers conclusive evidence of the existence of any widespread property value impacts that might be present in communities surrounding wind energy facilities. Specifically, neither the view of the wind facilities nor the distance of the home to those facilities is found to have …

This fact sheet tracks the current heads of government in Central and South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. It provides the dates of the last and next elections for the head of government and the national independence date for each country.

Conventional petroleum, natural gas, and coal are the primary sources of energy that have underpinned modern civilization. Their continued availability in the projected quantities required and the impacts of emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) on the environment are issues at the forefront of world concerns. New primary sources of energy are being sought that would significantly reduce the emissions of GHGs. One such primary source that can help supply energy, water, and fertilizer without GHG emissions is available in the heretofore unexploited thermal gradients of the tropical oceans. The world's oceans are the largest natural collector and reservoir of solar energy. The potential of ocean energy is limitless for producing base-load electric power or ammonia as the hydrogen carrier and fresh water from seawater. However, until now, ocean energy has been virtually untapped. The general perception is that ocean thermal energy is limited to tropical countries. Therefore, the full potential of at-sea production of (1) ammonia as a hydrogen carrier and (2) desalinated water has not been adequately evaluated. Using ocean thermal plantships for the at-sea co-production of ammonia as a hydrogen carrier and desalinated water offer potential energy, environmental, and economic benefits that support the development of the technology. …

We study the unoccupied electronic structure and dynamics of chemisorbed atoms and molecules on metal surfaces by time resolved two-photon photoemission (TR-2PP). spectroscopy, low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (LT-STM), and theory. Our research concerns simple atomic adsorbates such as alkali and alkaline earth atoms, which provide fundamentally important models for adsorbate-surface interactions, and more complex adsorbates such as fullerenes on noble metals, which illustrate emergent interfacial properties that derive from intrinsic molecular attributes, and moleculemolecule and molecule-surface interactions. Our goal is to understand how these interactions contribute to formation of the interfacial electronic structure, and how thus formed electronic properties affect interfacial phenomena of importance to energy transduction and storage. Moreover, we explore how the interfacial electronic excitation drives dynamical phenomena such as charge transfer and surface femtochemistry.

This report discusses U.S. security assistance to Taiwan (calling itself Republic of China (ROC)), including policy issues for Congress and legislation.

This report provides background data on United States arms sales agreements with and deliveries to its major purchasers during calendar years 2001-2008, made through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.

This report provides an overview of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child's (CRC) background and structure and examines evolving U.S. policy toward the Convention, including past and current Administration positions and congressional perspectives.

Develops the tools to investiage the hypothesis that the savings in repository space associated with the implementation of advanced nuclear fuel cycles can result in sufficient cost savings to offset the higher costs of those fuel cycles.

This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, as well as the Afghan government. This report also discusses Afghanistan's relationship with the United States, particularly U.S. efforts to urge President Hamid Karzai to address corruption within the Afghan government.

Radiation portal monitors used for interdiction of illicit materials at borders include highly sensitive neutron detection systems. The main reason for having neutron detection capability is to detect fission neutrons from plutonium. The currently deployed radiation portal monitors (RPMs) from Ludlum and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) use neutron detectors based upon 3He-filled gas proportional counters, which are the most common large neutron detector. There is a declining supply of 3He in the world, and thus, methods to reduce the use of this gas in RPMs with minimal changes to the current system designs and sensitivity to cargo-borne neutrons are being investigated. Four technologies have been identified as being currently commercially available, potential alternative neutron detectors to replace the use of 3He in RPMs. Reported here are the results of tests of a newly designed boron-lined proportional counter option. This testing measured the neutron detection efficiency and gamma ray rejection capabilities of a system manufactured by Reuter Stokes.

This report analyzes the implications of raising the conforming loan limit in high-cost areas.

This report provides information about the Intellectual Property and Innovation Issues on Follow-On Biologics. Biologics which are sometimes referred as biotechnology have begun to play an increasingly important role in the U.S health care.

This report discusses the applicability of the Hague Convention and current U.S. laws, both civil and criminal, which seek to address the quandary of children abducted by a parent to foreign nations.

This report provides an overview of Lebanese politics, recent events in Lebanon, and current issues in U.S.-Lebanon relations and will be updated to reflect major developments.

This report discusses the President's Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 budget request for the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies appropriations bill, which provides funding for the planning, design, construction, alteration, and improvement of facilities used by active and reserve military components worldwide.

This report focuses on this nexus of immigration law and health care reform in the major health care reform bills that are receiving action.

Accelerator Technology Corp. (ATC) has successfully completed its Phase 1 effort to devel-op rf plasma torch synthesis of MgB2 superconducting powder. The overall objective is to de-velop a way to introduce homogeneous alloying of C and SiC impurities into phase-pure MgB2. Several groups have attained remarkable benefits from such alloying in raising the upper critical field Hc2 from ~14 T to ~30 T (bulk) and ~50 T (thin films). But no one has succeeded in pro-ducing that benefit homogeneously, so that current transport in a practical powder-in-tube (PIT) conductor is largely the same as without the alloying. ATC has conceived the possibility of attaining such homogeneity by passing aerosol suspen-sions of reactant powders through an rf plasma torch, with each reactant transported on a stream-line that heats it to an optimum temperature for the synthesis reaction. This procedure would uniquely access non-equilibrium kinetics for the synthesis reaction, and would provide the possi-bility to separately control the temperature and stoichiometry of each reactant as it enters the mixing region where synthesis occurs. It also facilitates the introduction of seed particles (e.g. nanoscale SiC) to dramatically enhance the rate of the synthesis reaction compared to gas-phase synthesis in rf plasma reported by …

This report analyzes the FY2010 request, recent-year funding trends, and congressional action for FY2010, which includes the July 9 House approval of H.R. 3081, the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill for FY2010, and July 9 Senate Appropriations Committee passage of its bill (S. 1434).

This report focuses on current developments in Taiwan, analyzing how those developments are affecting choices the United States makes about its policy toward Taiwan specifically and toward the People's Republic of China (PRC) more broadly.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of the Treasury (Treasury) provided $81.1 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) aid to the U.S. auto industry, including $62 billion in restructuring loans to Chrysler Group LLC (Chrysler) and General Motors Company (GM). In return, Treasury received 9.85 percent equity in Chrysler, 60.8 percent equity and $2.1 billion in preferred stock in GM, and $13.8 billion in debt obligations between the two companies. As part of Government Accountability Office's (GAO) statutory responsibilities for providing oversight of TARP, this report addresses (1) steps Chrysler and GM have taken since December 2008 to reorganize, (2) Treasury's oversight of its financial interest in the companies, and (3) considerations for Treasury in monitoring and selling its equity in the companies. GAO reviewed documents on the auto companies' restructuring and spoke with officials at Treasury, Chrysler, and GM, and individuals with expertise in finance and the auto industry."

This report provides information on Africa Command's (AFRICOM) mission, structure, interagency coordination, and its basing and manpower requirements. The report also gives a broad overview of U.S. strategic interests in Africa and the role of U.S. military efforts on the continent as they pertain to the creation of Africa Command.

This report provides an overview of actions taken by Congress to provide FY2011 appropriations for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS). It also provides an overview of FY2010 appropriations for agencies and bureaus funded under the CJS bill.