The 112th Congress, in both its legislative and oversight capacities, faces numerous international trade and finance issues. In addition to the broader congressional oversight of the economic and political context of the current U.S. participation in the global economy, this report highlights major international trade and finance issues Congress may address this year and next.

This report summarizes work to develop a high efficiency LED-based MR16 lamp downlight at OSRAM SYLVANIA under US Department of Energy contract DE-EE0000611. A new multichip LED package, electronic driver, and reflector optic were developed for these lamps. At steady-state, the lamp luminous flux was 409 lumens (lm), luminous efficacy of 87 lumens per watt (LPW), CRI (Ra) of 87, and R9 of 85 at a correlated color temperature (CCT) of 3285K. The LED alone achieved 120 lumens per watt efficacy and 600 lumen flux output at 25 C. The driver had 90% electrical conversion efficiency while maintaining excellent power quality with power factor >0.90 at a power of only 5 watts. Compared to similar existing MR16 lamps using LED sources, these lamps had much higher efficacy and color quality. The objective of this work was to demonstrate a LED-based MR16 retrofit lamp for replacement of 35W halogen MR16 lamps having (1) luminous flux of 500 lumens, (2) luminous efficacy of 100 lumens per watt, (3) beam angle less than 40{sup o} and center beam candlepower of at least 1000 candelas, and (4) excellent color quality.

The University of Arizona (University) research reactor is a TRIGA swimming pool type reactor designed by General Atomics and constructed at the University in 1958. The reactor first went into operation in December of 1958 under U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license R-52 until final shut down on May 18, 2010. Initial site characterization activities were conducted in February 2009 during ongoing reactor operations to assess the radiological status of the Nuclear Reactor Laboratory (NRL) excluding the reactor tank, associated components, and operating systems. Additional post-shutdown characterization activities were performed to complete characterization activities as well as verify assumptions made in the Decommissioning Plan (DP) that were based on a separate activation analysis (ESI 2009 and WMG 2009). Final status survey (FSS) activities began shortly after the issuance of the FSS plan in May 2011. The contractor completed measurement and sampling activities during the week of August 29, 2011.

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The advances in high-voltage switching developed in this project allow a camera user to rapidly vary the number of output frames from 1 to 25. A high-voltage, variable-amplitude pulse train shifts the deflection location to the new frame location during the interlude between frames, making multiple frame counts and locations possible. The final deflection circuit deflects to five different frame positions per axis, including the center position, making for a total of 25 frames. To create the preset voltages, electronically adjustable {+-}500 V power supplies were chosen. Digital-to-analog converters provide digital control of the supplies. The power supplies are clamped to {+-}400 V so as not to exceed the voltage ratings of the transistors. A field-programmable gated array (FPGA) receives the trigger signal and calculates the combination of plate voltages for each frame. The interframe time and number of frames are specified by the user, but are limited by the camera electronics. The variable-frame circuit shifts the plate voltages of the first frame to those of the second frame during the user-specified interframe time. Designed around an electrostatic image tube, a framing camera images the light present during each frame (at the photocathode) onto the tube’s phosphor. The phosphor persistence …

This report discusses the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in the Energy Policy and Consevation Act, which was authorized to help prevent a repetition of the economic dislocation caused by the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargo. The Government Accountability Office recently observed that the proportion of crude oil grades in the SPR has been growing less compatible with the heavier grades of crude oil that U.S. refineries have been upgrading to handle. This finding has raised questions about the SPR's effectiveness during a long-term oil disruption involving heavy oil.

During the start-up of Run II of the Tevatron Collider program, several issues surfaced which were not present, or not seen as detrimental, during Run I. These included the repeated deterioration of the closed orbit requiring orbit smoothing every two weeks or so, the inability to correct the closed orbit to desired positions due to various correctors running at maximum limits, regions of systematically strong vertical dipole corrections, and the identification of very strong coupling between the two transverse degrees-of-freedom. It became apparent that many of the problems being experienced operationally were connected to a deterioration of the main dipole magnet alignment, and remedial actions were undertaken. However, the alignment alone was not enough to explain the corrector strengths required to handle transverse coupling. With one exception, strong coupling had generally not been an issue in the Tevatron during Run I. Based on experience with the Main Ring, the Tevatron was designed with a very strong skew quadrupole circuit to compensate any quadrupole alignment and skew quadrupole field errors that might present themselves. The circuit was composed of 48 correctors placed evenly throughout the arcs, 8 per sector, evenly placed in every other cell. Other smaller circuits were installed but …

This report discusses the current political and foreign policy status of Morocco, especially with regard to its relationship with the United States and its struggles combating terrorism.

ATF2 is a final-focus test beam line which aims to focus the low emittance beam from the ATF damping ring to a vertical size of about 37 nm and to demonstrate nanometer level beam stability. Several advanced beam diagnostics and feedback tools are used. In December 2008, construction and installation were completed and beam commissioning started, supported by an international team of Asian, European, and U.S. scientists. The present status and first results are described.

A long-standing goal of nuclear theory is to determine the properties of atomic nuclei based on the fundamental interactions among the protons and neutrons (i.e., nucleons). By adopting nucleon-nucleon (NN), three-nucleon (NNN) and higher-nucleon interactions determined from either meson-exchange theory or QCD, with couplings fixed by few-body systems, we preserve the predictive power of nuclear theory. This foundation enables tests of nature's fundamental symmetries and offers new vistas for the full range of complex nuclear phenomena. Basic questions that drive our quest for a microscopic predictive theory of nuclear phenomena include: (1) What controls nuclear saturation; (2) How the nuclear shell model emerges from the underlying theory; (3) What are the properties of nuclei with extreme neutron/proton ratios; (4) Can we predict useful cross sections that cannot be measured; (5) Can nuclei provide precision tests of the fundamental laws of nature; and (6) Under what conditions do we need QCD to describe nuclear structure, among others. Along with other ab initio nuclear theory groups, we have pursued these questions with meson-theoretical NN interactions, such as CD-Bonn and Argonne V18, that were tuned to provide high-quality descriptions of the NN scattering phase shifts and deuteron properties. We then add meson-theoretic NNN …

This report presents a summary of the body of federal environmental statutes that together constitute the main authorities of EPA, but this report is not comprehensive in terms of discussing all federal statutes that may authorize certain activities of the agency.

The next-generation very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray observatory, the Cherenkov Telescope Array, will feature dozens of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs), each with thousands of pixels of photosensors. To be affordable and reliable, reading out such a mega-channel array requires event recording technology that is highly integrated and modular, with a low cost per channel. We present the design and performance of a chip targeted to this application: the TeV Array Readout with GSa/s sampling and Event Trigger (TARGET). This application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) has 16 parallel input channels, a 4096-sample buffer for each channel, adjustable input termination, self-trigger functionality, and tight window-selected readout. We report the performance of TARGET in terms of sampling frequency, power consumption, dynamic range, current-mode gain, analog bandwidth, and cross talk. The large number of channels per chip allows a low cost per channel ($10 to $20 including front-end and back-end electronics but not including photosensors) to be achieved with a TARGET-based IACT readout system. In addition to basic performance parameters of the TARGET chip itself, we present a camera module prototype as well as a second-generation chip (TARGET 2), both of which have been produced.

We demonstrate the strain release of LaAlO{sub 3} epitaxial film on SrTiO{sub 3} (001) by inserting ultra-thin 'SrAlO{sub x}' buffer layers. Although SrAlO{sub x} is not a perovskite, nor stable as a single phase in bulk, epitaxy stabilizes the perovskite structure up to a thickness of 2 unit cells (uc). At a critical thickness of 3 uc of SrAlO{sub x}, the interlayer acts as a sliding buffer layer, and abruptly relieves the lattice mismatch between the LaAlO{sub 3} filmand the SrTiO{sub 3} substrate, while maintaining crystallinity. This technique may provide a general approach for strain relaxation of perovskite film far below the thermodynamic critical thickness. A central issue in heteroepitaxial filmgrowth is the inevitable difference in lattice constants between the filmand substrate. Due to this lattice mismatch, thin film are subjected to microstructural strain, which can have a significan effect on the filmproperties. This challenge is especially prominent in the rapidly developing fiel of oxide electronics, where much interest is focused on incorporating the emergent physical properties of oxides in devices. Although strain can be used to great effect to engineer unusual ground states, it is often deleterious for bulk first-orde phase transitions, which are suppressed by the strain and …

The transport and magnetic properties of La{sub 0.7}Sr{sub 0.3}MnO{sub 3} thin-films grown by pulsed laser deposition on (LaAlO{sub 3}){sub 0.3}(SrAl{sub 0.5}Ta{sub 0.5}O{sub 3}){sub 0.7} single crystal substrates have been investigated. A systematic series with various thicknesses of La{sub 0.7}Sr{sub 0.3}MnO{sub 3} was used to establish a phase diagram - which showed a clear difference compared to films grown on SrTiO{sub 3} substrates, highlighting the importance of film thickness and substrate strain. At 8 unit cells, the boundary between the metallic and insulating ground states, a second abrupt metal-insulator transition was observed at low temperatures, which could be tuned with by magnetic field, and is interpreted as a signature of electronic phase separation.

Oxide heterointerfaces are emerging as one of the most exciting materials systems in condensed matter science. One remarkable example is the LaAlO{sub 3}/SrTiO{sub 3} (LAO/STO) interface, a model system in which a highly mobile electron gas forms between two band insulators, exhibiting two dimensional superconductivity and unusual magnetotransport properties. An ideal tool to tune such an electron gas is the electrostatic field effect. In principle, the electrostatic field can be generated by bound charges due to polarization (as in the normal and ferroelectric field effects) or by adding excess free charge. In previous studies, a large modulation of the carrier density and mobility of the LAO/STO interface has been achieved using the normal field effect. However, little attention has been paid to the field effect generated by free charges. This issue is scarcely addressed, even in conventional semiconductor devices, since the free charges are typically not stable. Here, we demonstrate an unambiguous tuning of the LAO/STO interface conductivity via free surface charges written using conducting atomic force microscopy (AFM). The modulation of the carrier density was found to be reversible, nonvolatile and surprisingly large, {approx}3 x 10{sup 13} cm{sup -2}, comparable to the maximum modulation by the normal field effect. …

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This report provides information about Health Insurance where people buy insurance to protect themselves against the possibility of financial loss in the future. Americans obtain insurance in different settings and a variety of methods.

This report gives an overview of current intelligence issues of interest to the 112th Congress. It includes background and analysis including most recent development, ongoing Congressional concerns, specific issues for the 112th Congress, and a summary of related legislation from the 109th through the 112th Congresses.

This report examines the ways in which the Senate has handled the 160 Supreme Court nominations the President has sent to the Senate. As the purpose of this report is to examine the forms taken by Senate proceedings on these 160 nominations, it treats each nomination as a separate case. It is not couched in terms of the smaller number of different individuals nominated or the ultimate outcome the confirmation process may have had for each individual.

Many highly developed Monte Carlo tools for the evaluation of cross sections based on tree matrix elements exist and are used by experimental collaborations in high energy physics. As the evaluation of one-loop matrix elements has recently been undergoing enormous progress, the combination of one-loop matrix elements with existing Monte Carlo tools is on the horizon. This would lead to phenomenological predictions at the next-to-leading order level. This note summarises the discussion of the next-to-leading order multi-leg (NLM) working group on this issue which has been taking place during the workshop on Physics at TeV Colliders at Les Houches, France, in June 2009. The result is a proposal for a standard interface between Monte Carlo tools and one-loop matrix element programs.

An integrated detailed sedimentologic, stratigraphic, and geochemical study of Utah's Green River Formation has found that Lake Uinta evolved in three phases (1) a freshwater rising lake phase below the Mahogany zone, (2) an anoxic deep lake phase above the base of the Mahogany zone and (3) a hypersaline lake phase within the middle and upper R-8. This long term lake evolution was driven by tectonic basin development and the balance of sediment and water fill with the neighboring basins, as postulated by models developed from the Greater Green River Basin by Carroll and Bohacs (1999). Early Eocene abrupt global-warming events may have had significant control on deposition through the amount of sediment production and deposition rates, such that lean zones below the Mahogany zone record hyperthermal events and rich zones record periods between hyperthermals. This type of climatic control on short-term and long-term lake evolution and deposition has been previously overlooked. This geologic history contains key points relevant to oil shale development and engineering design including: (1) Stratigraphic changes in oil shale quality and composition are systematic and can be related to spatial and temporal changes in the depositional environment and basin dynamics. (2) The inorganic mineral matrix of …

We present first-principles calculations of the structural and electronic properties of liquid nitrogen in the pressure-temperature range of 0-200 GPa and 2000-6000 K. The molecular-polymerization and molecular-atomic liquid phase boundaries have been mapped over this region. We find the polymeric liquid to be metallic, similar to what has been reported for the higher-temperature atomic fluid. An explanation of the electronic properties is given based on the structure and bonding character of the transformed liquids. We discuss the structural and bonding differences between the polymeric liquid and insulating solid cubic-gauche nitrogen to explain the differences in their electronic properties. Furthermore, we discuss the mechanism responsible for charge transport in polymeric nitrogen systems to explain the conductivity of the polymeric fluid and the semi-conducting nature of low-temperature amorphous nitrogen.

This report discusses the free trade agreement between United States and South Korea, and the potential economic implications for both the United States and South Korea. This report assesses the results of a number of models that are being used to generate estimates of the effect of the KORUS FTA on employment. These studies were chosen specifically because they estimate (or can be used to estimate) data on employment effects of the trade agreement.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has established a mechanism for partnership that integrates the high-performance computing capabilities of the National Labs, the network and cyber technology expertise of leading information technology companies, and the long-term research vision of leading academic cyber programs. The Cyber Science and Security Center is designed to be a working partnership among Laboratory, Industrial, and Academic institutions, and provides all three with a shared R&D environment, technical information sharing, sophisticated high-performance computing facilities, and data resources for the partner institutions and sponsors. The CSSC model is an institution where partner organizations can work singly or in groups on the most pressing problems of cyber security, where shared vision and mutual leveraging of expertise and facilities can produce results and tools at the cutting edge of cyber science.