This report summarizes and describes the EPA's (Environmental Protection Agency) final revisions to the NAAQS (National Ambient Air Quality Standards). The summary also explores how the revisions are contentious in certain areas that may not be meeting those standards which materializes as congressional oversight.

The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) was asked by Liquid Waste Operations to characterize Tank 19F closure samples. Tank 19F slurry samples analyzed included the liquid and solid fractions derived from the slurry materials along with the floor scrape bottom Tank 19F wet solids. These samples were taken from Tank 19F in April 2009 and made available to SRNL in the same month. Because of limited amounts of solids observed in Tank 19F samples, the samples from the north quadrants of the tank were combined into one Tank 19F North Hemisphere sample and similarly the south quadrant samples were combined into one Tank 19F South Hemisphere sample. These samples were delivered to the SRNL shielded cell. The Tank 19F samples were analyzed for radiological, chemical and elemental components. Where analytical methods yielded additional contaminants other than those requested by the customer, these results were also reported. The target detection limits for isotopes analyzed were based on detection values of 1E-04 {micro}Ci/g for most radionuclides and customer desired detection values of 1E-05 {micro}Ci/g for I-129, Pa-231, Np-237, and Ra-226. While many of the target detection limits, as specified in the technical task request and task technical and quality assurance plans were …

The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) was asked by Liquid Waste Operations to characterize Tank 18F closure samples. Tank 18F slurry samples analyzed included the liquid and solid fractions derived from the 'as-received' slurry materials along with the floor scrape bottom Tank 18F wet solids. These samples were taken from Tank 18F in March 2009 and made available to SRNL in the same month. Because of limited amounts of solids observed in Tank 18F samples, the samples from the north quadrants of the tank were combined into one North Tank 18F Hemisphere sample and similarly the south quadrant samples were combined into one South Tank 18F Hemisphere sample. These samples were delivered to the SRNL shielded cell. The Tank 18F samples were analyzed for radiological, chemical and elemental components. Where analytical methods yielded additional contaminants other than those requested by the customer, these results were also reported. The target detection limits for isotopes analyzed were 1E-04 {micro}Ci/g for most radionuclides and customer desired detection values of 1E-05 {micro}Ci/g for I-129, Pa-231, Np-237, and Ra-226. While many of the minimum detection limits, as specified in the technical task request and task technical and quality assurance plans were met for the species …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2001, Government Accountability Office (GAO) has designated strategic human capital management as a high-risk area because of the federal government's long-standing lack of a consistent approach to such management. In 2007, the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD(I)) began developing a human capital system--called the Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System (DCIPS)--to manage Department of Defense (DOD) civilian intelligence personnel. In response to a congressional request, GAO examined the extent to which DOD has (1) incorporated internal safeguards into DCIPS and monitored the implementation of these safeguards and (2) developed mechanisms to identify employee perceptions about DCIPS. GAO analyzed guidance, interviewed appropriate officials, and conducted discussion groups with employees at select DOD components. At the end of GAO's review, legislation was enacted that impacts, among other things, how DCIPS employees will be paid."

Draft annual report for the Cumulative Effects Study for the US Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Rapid changes in the telecommunications industry, such as the development of broadband technologies, present new regulatory challenges for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to determine (1) the extent to which FCC's bureau structure presents challenges for the agency in adapting to an evolving marketplace; (2) the extent to which FCC's decision-making processes present challenges for FCC, and what opportunities, if any, exist for improvement; and (3) the extent to which FCC's personnel management and workforce planning efforts face challenges in ensuring that FCC has the workforce needed to achieve its mission. GAO reviewed FCC documents and data and conducted literature searches to identify proposed reforms, criteria, and internal control standards and compared them with FCC's practices. GAO also interviewed current and former FCC chairmen and commissioners, industry stakeholders, academic experts, and consumer representatives."

In this paper we present a new design of the Focusing DIRC for the Barrel PID to be used at the proposed Super-B factory. The new imaging optics is made of a solid Fused Silica block with a double folded optics using two mirrors, one cylindrical and one flat, focusing photons on a detector plane conveniently accessible for the detector access. The design assumes that the BaBar bar boxes are re-used without any modification, including the wedges and windows. Each bar box will have its own focusing block, which will contain 40 H-9500 (or H-8500) MaPMTs according to present thinking. There are 12 bar boxes in the entire detector, so the entire SuperB FDIRC system would have 480 MaPMTs. The design is very compact and therefore reduces sensitivity to the background. The chosen MaPMTs are fast enough to be able both to reject the background and to perform the chromatic correction. The 3D optics simulation is coded with the Mathematica program. The work in this paper was a basis of the LDRD proposal made to SLAC in 2009 [1].

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "State juvenile justice systems face critical problems when it comes to juvenile delinquency issues such as reentry--when offenders return home from incarceration--and substance abuse. GAO was asked to review juvenile reentry and substance abuse program research and efforts by the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to provide information on effective programs (i.e., whether a program achieves its intended goal) and cost-beneficial programs (i.e., whether the benefits of programs exceeded their costs). This report addresses (1) expert opinion and available research on these types of reentry and substance abuse programs, (2) the extent to which OJJDP assesses its efforts to disseminate information on effective programs, and (3) OJJDP's plans to accomplish its research and evaluation goals. GAO, among other things, reviewed academic literature, and OJJDP's dissemination efforts and research goals. GAO also interviewed OJJDP officials and a nonprobability sample of 26 juvenile justice experts selected based on their experience with juvenile reentry and substance abuse issues."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Members of Congress and state agencies have raised questions about complaints that some Medicare Advantage (MA) organizations and their agents inappropriately marketed their health plans to Medicare beneficiaries. Inappropriate marketing may include activities such as providing inaccurate information about covered benefits and conducting prohibited marketing practices. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is responsible for oversight of MA organizations and their plans. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to examine (1) the extent to which CMS has taken compliance and enforcement actions, (2) how CMS has helped beneficiaries affected by inappropriate marketing and the problems beneficiaries have encountered, and (3) information CMS has about the extent of inappropriate marketing. To do this work, GAO reviewed relevant laws and policies; analyzed Medicare data on beneficiary complaints, compliance actions and enforcement actions; and interviewed officials from CMS and selected state departments of insurance, state health insurance assistance programs, and MA organizations."

Understanding catalytic hydrogen generation is fundamental to the safe operation of the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) Chemical Process Cell (CPC). Two Sludge Receipt and Adjustment Tank (SRAT) simulations were completed at the Aiken County Technology Laboratory (ACTL) of the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) using a nitrite-free starting simulant. One simulation was trimmed with Rh and Hg and the other with Ru and Hg. The two noble metals were trimmed at the upper end of the recent Rh-Ru-Hg study. Mercury was trimmed at 1.5 wt% in the total solids. Excess acid comparable in quantity to that in the recent Rh-Ru-Hg matrix study was used. In spite of the favorable conditions for hydrogen generation, virtually no hydrogen production was observed during either SRAT simulation. The Rh test result confirmed the postulated significance of nitrite ion to the catalytic reactions producing hydrogen in CPC testing with normal DWPF sludge simulants. As for Ru, however, previous testing has shown that Ru activated for hydrogen generation only after nitrite destruction. Therefore, Ru could have potentially been catalytically active from the start of the nitrite-free SRAT test, but no such activity was seen. The nitrite-free Ru test result suggests that the intermediate form detected …

This report discusses Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Act, which was enacted by the 108th Congress as Section 1057 of the FY2004 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 108-136). It includes background of the SAFER Act, appropriations from FY2009-FY2010, reauthorization of the program in the House and Senate, and information about program implementation.

In September 2008 a large-scale testing operation (referred to as the INL-2 test) was performed within a two-story building (PBF-632) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The report “Operational Observations on the INL-2 Experiment” defines the seven objectives for this test and discusses the results and conclusions. This is further discussed in the introduction of this report. The INL-2 test consisted of five tests (events) in which a floor (level) of the building was contaminated with the harmless biological warfare agent simulant Bg and samples were taken in most, if not all, of the rooms on the contaminated floor. After the sampling, the building was decontaminated, and the next test performed. Judgmental samples and probabilistic samples were determined and taken during each test. Vacuum, wipe, and swab samples were taken within each room. The purpose of this report is to study an additional four topics that were not within the scope of the original report. These topics are: 1) assess the quantitative assumptions about the data being normally or log-normally distributed; 2) evaluate differences and quantify the sample to sample variability within a room and across the rooms; 3) perform geostatistical types of analyses to study spatial correlations; and 4) …

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This report discusses the United States' relationship with India as it relates to nuclear arsenals and nuclear nonproliferation policies. The report includes background information on India's nuclear history and nuclear weapons-specific U.S. legislation.

Predictive modeling capabilities for wave propagation in a jointed geologic media remain a modern day scientific frontier. In part this is due to a lack of comprehensive understanding of the complex physical processes associated with the transient response of geologic material, and in part it is due to numerical challenges that prohibit accurate representation of the heterogeneities that influence the material response. Constitutive models whose properties are determined from laboratory experiments on intact samples have been shown to over-predict the free field environment in large scale field experiments. Current methodologies for deriving in situ properties from laboratory measured properties are based on empirical equations derived for static geomechanical applications involving loads of lower intensity and much longer durations than those encountered in applications of interest involving wave propagation. These methodologies are not validated for dynamic applications, and they do not account for anisotropic behavior stemming from direcitonal effects associated with the orientation of joint sets in realistic geologies. Recent advances in modeling capabilities coupled with modern high performance computing platforms enable physics-based simulations of jointed geologic media with unprecedented details, offering a prospect for significant advances in the state of the art. This report provides a brief overview of these …

This report provides an Overview of Census Bureau Data on Recipients for child support.

This report provides an overview of major legal issues likely to arise as a result of executive and legislative action to close the Guantanamo detention facility. It discusses legal issues related to the transfer of Guantanamo detainees, the continued detention of such persons in the United States, and the possible removal of persons brought into the country. It also discusses selected constitutional issues that may arise in the criminal prosecution of detainees, emphasizing the procedural and substantive protections that are utilized in different adjudicatory forums.

This report provides a brief overview of Iran's nuclear program and describes the legal basis for the actions taken by the IAEA board and the Security Council. It will be updated as events warrant.

This report discusses whether or not the current health insurance market structure hinders the U.S. health system's ability to reach the policy goals of expanding health insurance coverage and containing health care costs. The report describes the forces that have shaped the health insurance industry. Reasons for high market concentration are discussed, along with profitability measures for the industry. Finally, options for Congress regarding the health insurance industry are analyzed.

Our plan was to identify and obtain blood from 36 individuals from the Mayak-in-utero exposed cohort who were exposed in utero only to gamma ray does doses fro 5 to 20 cGy. Our goal is to do mFISH and in a new development, single-arm mFISH on these samples to measure stable chromosome aberrations in these now adult individuals. The results were compared with matched control individuals (same age, same gender) available from the large control population which we are studying in the context of our plutonium worker study. The long term goal was to assess the results both in terms of the sensitivity of the developing embryo/fetus to low doses of ionizing radiation, and in terms of different potential mechanisms (expanded clonal origin vs. induced instability) for an increased risk.

This report discusses the process of naming Navy ships, which have traditionally been chosen and announced by the Secretary of the Navy. Congress in recent years has proposed, and sometimes passed, legislation regarding the naming of specific ships.

This report discusses various aspects of the nonprofit and charitable sector, including the sector's size and scope, funding, and relationship with the federal government.

This report discusses the new temporary unemployment benefit, the various tiers of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC08) program, as well as related legislation.

This report provides an overview of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and describes its background, objectives, and structure, including the role of the Convention's monitoring body, the CEDAW Committee. It examines U.S. policy and issues in the U.S. ratification debate, including the Convention's possible impact on U.S. sovereignty, its effectiveness in combating discrimination, and its role as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy.