Bill introduced by the Texas House of Representatives relating to the physician education loan repayment program.

Bill introduced by the Texas House of Representatives relating to the computation of the franchise tax.

The experimental CO stretching frequencies in the 1:1 adducts between (C5H5-nRn)3U and CO range from 1976 cm-1 in (C5H4SiMe3)3U(CO) to 1900 cm-1 in (C5HMe4)3U(CO). The origin of the large difference between the stretching frequencies in free (2143 cm-1) and coordinated CO and the large effect the substituents on the cyclopentadienyl ligands play in the difference is explored by DFT calculations with a small core effective core potential in which 32 electrons on uranium are explicitly treated. The results of these calculations, along with a NBO analysis, show that a sigma-bond is formed between CO and an empty sigma-orbital on the Cp'3U fragment composed of f sigma and d sigma parentage orbitals. The backbonding interaction, which results in lowering the CO stretching frequency, does not originate from non-bonding metal-based orbitals but from the filled ligand-based orbitals of pi-symmetry that are used for bonding in the Cp'3U fragment. This model, which is different from the backbonding model used in the d-transition metal complexes, rationalizes the large substituent effect in the 5f-metal complexes.

This report

This report provides an overview of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) budget and operations. It will be updated as needed to reflect congressional action on the FY2010 Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS), and Related Agencies Appropriations bill, the appropriations bill that includes the ATF account.

Ras Labs produces electroactive polymer (EAP) based materials and actuators that bend, swell, ripple and now contract (new development) with low electric input. This is an important attribute because of the ability of contraction to produce life-like motion. The mechanism of contraction is not well understood. Radionuclide-labeled experiments were conducted to follow the movement of electrolytes and water in these EAPs when activated. Extreme temperature experiments were performed on the contractile EAPs with very favorable results. One of the biggest challenges in developing these actuators, however, is the electrode-EAP interface because of the pronounced movement of the EAP. Plasma treatments of metallic electrodes were investigated in order to improve the attachment of the embedded electrodes to the EAP material. Surface analysis, adhesive testing, and mechanical testing were conducted to test metal surfaces and metal-polymer interfaces. The nitrogen plasma treatment of titanium produced a strong metal-polymer interface; however, oxygen plasma treatment of both stainless steel and titanium produced even stronger metal-polymer interfaces. Plasma treatment of the electrodes allows for the embedded electrodes and the EAP material of the actuator to work and move as a unit, with no detachment, by significantly improving the metal-polymer interface.

This report discusses the 2002 rule, focusing on how it changes which material and types of activities are regulated under Section 404 and the significance of these issues, especially for the mining industry.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Future Combat System (FCS) has been at the center of the Army's efforts to become a lighter, more agile, and more capable combat force by replacing existing combat systems with a family of manned and unmanned vehicles and systems, linked by an advanced information network. To meet the challenges of FCS's scope and schedule, the Army contracted with Boeing to be lead systems integrator (LSI), to help define, develop, and integrate FCS systems. Earlier this year, the Secretary of Defense proposed restructuring FCS to lower risk and address more near-term needs, shortly before FCS was to undergo a congressionally-mandated review to determine its future. The Department of Defense (DOD) and the Army have already begun to make programmatic and budgetary adjustments to FCS. This statement reviews aspects of FCS that should be considered for inclusion in future efforts, aspects that were problematic and need re-examination, and considerations for shaping future Army ground force modernization. The testimony is drawn from GAO's body of work on FCS management and acquisition strategy, including knowledge gaps, cost, affordability, oversight, and the Army/LSI relationship. GAO has made numerous recommendations aimed at managing FCS …

Ligands play critical roles during the catalytic reactions in metalloproteins through bond formation/breaking, protonation/deprotonation, and electron/spin delocalization. While there are well-defined element-specific spectroscopic handles, such as X-ray spectroscopy and EPR, to follow the chemistry of metal catalytic sites in a large protein matrix, directly probing particular ligand atoms like C, N, and O is challenging due to their abundance in the protein. FTIR/Raman and ligand-sensitive EPR techniques such as ENDOR and ESEEM have been applied to study metal-ligand interactions. X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) can also indirectly probe the ligand environment; its element-specificity allows us to focus only on the catalytic metal site, and EXAFS and XANES provide metal-ligand distances, coordination numbers, and symmetry of ligand environments. However, the information is limited, since one cannot distinguish among ligand elements with similar atomic number (i.e. C, N. and O). As an alternative and a more direct method to probe the specific metal-ligand chemistry in the protein matrix, we investigated the application of X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES). Using this technique we have identified the oxo-bridging ligands of the Mn{sub 4}Ca complex of photosystem II (PS II), a multisubunit membrane protein, that catalyzes the water oxidizing reaction. The catalytic mechanism has been studied intensively …

This report is intended to discuss the geographic impact of base closures and realignments; summarize federal economic assistance programs for communities and individuals affected by military base closures and realignments (BRAC); and highlight issues for Congress. The report will be updated as events warrant.

Today's 911 system is built on an infrastructure of analog technology that does not support many of the features that most Americans expect are part of an emergency response. Efforts to splice newer, digital technologies onto this aging infrastructure have created points of failure where a call can be dropped or misdirected, sometimes with tragic consequences. This report discusses efforts to modernize and update 911 emergency response technology, the funding for such efforts, and related pieces of legislation.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Judicial Conference of the United States, the federal judiciary's principal policymaking body, uses 1,500 annual weighted case filings per authorized judgeship (judgeship position) in a bankruptcy court as an indicator of the need for additional bankruptcy judgeships for that court. Total annual weighted case filings for any specific bankruptcy court is the sum of the weights associated with each of the cases filed in the court in a year. Total annual weighted case filings per judgeship represent the estimated average amount of judge time that would be required to complete the cases filed in a specific bankruptcy court in a year. In May 2003 GAO testified on whether weighted case filings were a reasonably accurate measure of the case-related workload of bankruptcy judges. The accuracy of weighted case filings rests in turn on the soundness of the methodology used to develop them. GAO's work focused on whether the methodologies used to develop the current case weights and to revise and update those weights were likely to result in reasonably accurate measures of bankruptcy judges' case-related workload. This statement is based on GAO's May 2003 testimony on weighted …

Soft x-ray zone plate microscopy is a powerful nano-analytic technique used for a wide variety of scientific and technological studies. Pushing its spatial resolution to 10 nm and below is highly desired and feasible due to the short wavelength of soft x-rays. Instruments using Fresnel zone plate lenses achieve a spatial resolution approximately equal to the smallest, outer most zone width. We developed a double patterning zone plate fabrication process based on a high-resolution resist, hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ), to bypass the limitations of conventional single exposure fabrication to pattern density, such as finite beam size, scattering in resist and modest intrinsic resist contrast. To fabricate HSQ structures with zone widths in the order of 10 nm on gold plating base, a surface conditioning process with (3-mercaptopropyl) trimethoxysilane, 3-MPT, is used, which forms a homogeneous hydroxylation surface on gold surface and provides good anchoring for the desired HSQ structures. Using the new HSQ double patterning process, coupled with an internally developed, sub-pixel alignment algorithm, we have successfully fabricated in-house gold zone plates of 12 nm outer zones. Promising results for 10 nm zone plates have also been obtained. With the 12 nm zone plates, we have achieved a resolution of 12 …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As evidenced by the spring 2009 outbreak of the H1N1 virus, an influenza pandemic remains a real threat to the nation and the world and has the potential to shut down work critical to the smooth functioning of society. This testimony addresses (1) the extent to which federal agencies have made pandemic plans to protect workers who cannot work remotely and are not first responders; (2) the pandemic plans selected agencies have for certain occupations performing essential functions other than first response; and (3) the opportunities to improve agencies' workforce pandemic plans. The issues discussed in the testimony are based on the GAO report, Influenza Pandemic: Increased Agency Accountability Could Help Protect Federal Employees Serving the Public in the Event of a Pandemic (GAO-09-404, June 12, 2009). In this report, GAO recommended that the Homeland Security Council (HSC) request that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) monitor and report to the Executive Office of the President on the readiness of agencies to continue operations while protecting their employees in the event of a pandemic. To help carry out its oversight role, the Congress may want to consider requiring …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The African continent is important to U.S. economic, strategic, and foreign policy interests, and efforts have been made to improve commerce and connectivity to benefit the two regions. However, the continent has the highest aviation accident rate in the world, which has hindered progress. Recognizing the importance of improving aviation safety in Africa, the United States and the international aviation community have worked to improve aviation safety in Africa. This congressionally requested report discusses (1) challenges in improving aviation safety in Africa, (2) key U.S. efforts to improve aviation safety in Africa and the extent to which they address the identified challenges, and (3) international efforts to improve aviation safety in Africa. To address these issues, GAO synthesized literature and aviation safety data, interviewed federal officials, and visited four African countries."

The fast simulator RADICAL and the Actinic Inspection Tool (AIT) are used in advance of availability of high volume manufacturing quality exposure tools, resists, and masks to assess the expected defect printability levels in production conditions. AIT images are analyzed to qualitatively demonstrate general trends in defect printability: defects smaller than 0.5nm tall on the multilayer surface can cause an unacceptable critical dimension (CD) change, CD change increases for taller defects, and defect printability varies asymmetrically through focus. RADICAL is used to derive quantitative limits for defect size and demonstrate the effects of focus and illumination for 22nm and 16nm dense lines. For 22nm dense lines at best focus a 0.8nm tall defect causes a 10% CD change. For 16nm lines a 0.4nm tall defect causes a 10% CD change. The CD is shown to be more sensitive to buried defects out of focus, but less sensitive to defects in focus if annular or dipole illumination is used.

The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) offers an operational space characterized by high-beta (βt = 39%, βN > 7, βN/βno-wall N > 1.5) and low aspect ratio (A > 1.27) to leverage the plasma parameter dependences of RWM stabilization and plasma rotation damping physics giving greater confidence for extrapolation to ITER. Significant new capability for RWM research has been added to the device with the commissioning of a set of six nonaxisymmetric magnetic field coils, allowing generation of fields with dominant toroidal mode number, n, of 1–3. These coils have been used to study the dependence of resonant field amplification on applied field frequency and RWMstabilization physics by reducing the toroidal rotation profile belowits steady-state value through non-resonant magnetic braking. Modification of plasma rotation profiles shows that rotation outside q = 2.5 is not required for passive RWM stability and there is large variation in the RWM critical rotation at the q = 2 surface, both of which are consistent with distributed dissipation models.

We present results for the measurement of {phi} meson production via its charged kaon decay channel {phi} {yields} K{sup +}K{sup -} in Au + Au collisions at {radical}s{sub NN} = 62.4, 130, and 200 GeV, and in p + p and d + Au collisions at {radical}s{sub NN} = 200 GeV from the STAR experiment at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The midrapidity (|y| < 0.5) {phi} meson transverse momentum (p{sub T}) spectra in central Au + Au collisions are found to be well described by a single exponential distribution. On the other hand, the p{sub T} spectra from p + p, d + Au and peripheral Au + Au collisions show power-law tails at intermediate and high p{sub T} and are described better by Levy distributions. The constant {phi}/K{sup -} yield ratio vs beam species, collision centrality and colliding energy is in contradiction with expectations from models having kaon coalescence as the dominant mechanism for {phi} production at RHIC. The {Omega}/{phi} yield ratio as a function of p{sub T} is consistent with a model based on the recombination of thermal s quarks up to p{sub T} {approx} 4 GeV/c, but disagrees at higher transverse momenta. The measured …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "After the planned retirement of the space shuttle in 2010, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will face a cargo resupply shortfall for the International Space Station of approximately 40 metric tons between 2010 and 2015. NASA budgeted $500 million in seed money to commercial partners to develop new cargo transport capabilities through its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) project. NASA used its other transaction authority to award agreements to commercial partners. These agreements are not federal government contracts, and are therefore generally not subject to federal laws and regulations that apply to federal government contracts. GAO previously reported concerns about whether COTS vehicles would be developed in time to meet the shortfall. Subsequently, GAO was directed by the explanatory statement accompanying the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, to examine NASA's management of the COTS project and its expenditures. In addition, GAO was asked to examine (1) NASA's reliance on commercial partners to meet the space station's cargo resupply needs; and (2) progress or challenges in developing commercial space transport capabilities. GAO analyzed NASA reports, briefings, and other information and held interviews with NASA and commercial …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The National Park Service (Park Service) in the Department of the Interior (Interior) annually receives hundreds of millions of dollars in donated funds, goods, and services to support its 391 parks and other sites. But concerns have been raised about potential accompanying risks, such as undue donor influence, new long-term maintenance costs, or commercialization of parks. To address these concerns, the Park Service has developed and refined policies for managing donations, but questions remain about the agency's ability to do so effectively. GAO was asked to examine (1) how donations and related partnerships have supported the Park Service, (2) the policies and processes the agency uses to manage donations and how well they are working, and (3) what the agency could do to enhance its management of donations and related partnerships. GAO reviewed applicable legal and policy documents, interviewed Interior and Park Service officials and partner organizations, and visited selected national parks."

This report provides background information relating to the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) in the Office of the Secretary of State. This office was created in mid-2004 as part of the Bush Administration's efforts to develop adequate civilian organizational structures, procedures, and personnel to respond effectively to post-conflict, "stabilization and reconstruction" situations, most especially in Afghanistan and Iran. This report also discusses proposals and tracks related legislative action.

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