The objective of this project is to establish and set-up a laboratory that will facilitate research and development of new low-cost and high-efficiency solar energy utilization technologies at Purdue University. The outcome will help spur the creation of solar energy start-up companies and eventually a solar energy industry in Indiana that can help fulfill the growing national demand for solar energy.

Report concerning a variety of issues faced by the 112th Congress. Topics include trade negotiations with South Korea, Panama, Colombia, and China, export controls and sanctions, and international financial institutions.

This report discusses commercial ties between the United States and the 27-member European Union. While ties between the U.S. and EU are substantial, growing, and mutually beneficial, differences in regulatory approaches limit an even more integrated marketplace from developing. To deal with this situation, a variety of government-to-government efforts have been created to dismantle existing regulatory barriers and to prevent new ones from emerging.

Report that discusses the construction and history of the European Parliament (EP), its role in functions of the EU as well as internationally, various international supports and criticisms of the EP, and the EP's ties with the U.S. Congress.

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Report that discusses the levying of a value-added tax (VAT), a broad-based consumption tax, to potentially assist in resolving United States fiscal problems. It considers the experiences of the 29 nations with value-added taxes (VATs) in the 30-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which are relevant to the feasibility and operation of a possible U. S. VAT.

This document contains the calendar year 2011 schedule for the routine collection of samples for the Surface Environmental Surveillance Project and the Drinking Water Monitoring Project. Each section includes sampling locations, sampling frequencies, sample types, and analyses to be performed. In some cases, samples are scheduled on a rotating basis. If a sample will not be collected in 2011, the anticipated year for collection is provided. Maps showing approximate sampling locations are included for media scheduled for collection in 2011.

This report discusses the United Nations Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities; its purpose is to promote, protect, and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by persons with disabilities.

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The goals of the proposed research as stated in the proposal were to: • Build a suite of one-dimensional initial models of different metallicities and central densities. • Using the improved flame capturing scheme, simulate the explosion of a white dwarf with embedded Lagrangian tracer particles, and post-process the thermal histories of the tracers to reconstruct the nucleosynthesis of the explosion. • Survey the effects of a changing progenitor metallicity on the isotopic yields. Of particular interest is 1) whether the linear relation between the mass of 56Ni synthesized and the pro- genitor metallicity is moderated by the effect of electron captures in the core; and 2) how a varying central density alters the relation between metallicity and 56Ni mass. • Using these results, examine how the observed metallicity distribution would affect the brightness distribution of SNe Ia and the isotopic ratios about the Fe-peak.

Historically, the groundwater monitoring activities at the Department of Energy's Hanford Site in southeastern Washington State have been very "people intensive." Approximately 1500 wells are sampled each year by field personnel or "samplers." These individuals have been issued pre-printed forms showing information about the well(s) for a particular sampling evolution. This information is taken from 2 official electronic databases: the Hanford Well information System (HWIS) and the Hanford Environmental Information System (HEIS). The samplers used these hardcopy forms to document the groundwater samples and well water-levels. After recording the entries in the field, the samplers turned the forms in at the end of the day and other personnel posted the collected information onto a spreadsheet that was then printed and included in a log book. The log book was then used to make manual entries of the new information into the software application(s) for the HEIS and HWIS databases. A pilot project for automating this extremely tedious process was lauched in 2008. Initially, the automation was focused on water-level measurements. Now, the effort is being extended to automate the meta-data associated with collecting groundwater samples. The project allowed electronic forms produced in the field by samplers to be used in …

The detection of radioactive contraband is a critical problem in maintaining national security for any country. Emissions from threat materials challenge both detection and measurement technologies especially when concealed by various types of shielding complicating the transport physics significantly. The development of a model-based sequential Bayesian processor that captures both the underlying transport physics including scattering offers a physics-based approach to attack this challenging problem. It is shown that this processor can be used to develop an effective detection technique.

This report analyzes these two approaches for estimating the total cost of federal regulations. In discussing each approach, the report provides an overview of the advantages, a brief case study, and an analysis of the potential issues or inherent problems using the case study to illustrate the concepts.

The development of a technically sound protocol for detecting the subsurface release of noble gas radionuclides is critical to the successful operation of an on site inspection (OSI) under the CTBT and has broad ramifications for all aspects of the OSI regime including the setting of specifications for both sampling and analysis equipment used during an OSI. With NA-24 support, we are investigating a variety of issues and concerns that have significant bearing on policy development and technical guidance regarding the detection of noble gases and the creation of a technically justifiable OSI concept of operation. The work at LLNL focuses on optimizing the ability to capture radioactive noble gases subject to the constraints of possible OSI scenarios. This focus results from recognizing the difficulty of detecting gas releases in geologic environments - a lesson we learned previously from the LLNL Non-Proliferation Experiment (NPE). Evaluation of a number of important noble gas detection issues, potentially affecting OSI policy, has awaited the US re-engagement with the OSI technical community. Thus, there have been numerous issues to address during the past 18 months. Most of our evaluations of a sampling or transport issue necessarily involve computer simulations. This is partly due to …

In this note, the authors examine the following hypothetical scenario: replacing existing 8-mm gap chambers with an in-vacuum undulator (IVU) one by one until they hit the boundary condition of 16-mA single-bunch operation. This is a continuation of a previous technical note on the topics of IVUs. The authors evaluated the impedance of IVU for various gaps. The result showed that the present 8-mm gap chamber can be replaced by the 8.754-mm IVU while maintaining the same 16-mA operational current. The estimates in this note make certain simplifying assumptions bearing on the effectiveness of nonlinear tapers. Subsequent evaluation of the effect of such tapers for APS parameters has cst considerable doubt on their usefulness. This results from the fact that APS has a fairly short electron bunch compared to the vacuum chamber dimensions. Investigation of other methods to decrease the impedance is on-going.

This report provides an overview of the water quality issues in the 114th Congress.

This report provides information about Cybersecurity Issues and Challenges. People who perform cyberattacks generally fall into various categories like criminals, spies, nation-state warriors, terrorists, etc.

For gas-fired residential water heating, the U.S. and Canada is predominantly supplied by minimum efficiency storage water heaters with Energy Factors (EF) in the range of 0.59 to 0.62. Higher efficiency and higher cost ($700 - $2,000) options serve about 15% of the market, but still have EFs below 1.0, ranging from 0.65 to 0.95. To develop a new class of water heating products that exceeds the traditional limit of thermal efficiency, the project team designed and demonstrated a packaged water heater driven by a gas-fired ammonia-water absorption heat pump. This gas-fired heat pump water heater can achieve EFs of 1.3 or higher, at a consumer cost of $2,000 or less. Led by Stone Mountain Technologies Inc. (SMTI), with support from A.O. Smith, the Gas Technology Institute (GTI), and Georgia Tech, the cross-functional team completed research and development tasks including cycle modeling, breadboard evaluation of two cycles and two heat exchanger classes, heat pump/storage tank integration, compact solution pump development, combustion system specification, and evaluation of packaged prototype GHPWHs. The heat pump system extracts low grade heat from the ambient air and produces high grade heat suitable for heating water in a storage tank for domestic use. Product features that …

This report examines the current policies on the application of benefits to same-sex partners, analyzes the bills currently pending in the 111th Congress, and reviews the policy debate on extending benefits to same-sex partners. This report is about federal benefits for same-sex partners and not about same-sex relationships in general.

This report explains dynamic scoring, including the types of effects incorporated and the types of models used, as well as what groups conduct or have conducted macroeconomic analysis of tax changes.

This report discusses the trade preferences and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) most-favored-nation (MFN) requirements, World Trade Organization (WTO) waivers for preferential trade agreements, and WTO waivers for U.S. preference programs.

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A system of customized spatial light modulators has been installed onto the front end of the laser system at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The devices are capable of shaping the beam profile at a low-fluence relay plane upstream of the amplifier chain. Their primary function is to introduce 'blocker' obscurations at programmed locations within the beam profile. These obscurations are positioned to shadow small, isolated flaws on downstream optical components that might otherwise limit the system operating energy. The modulators were designed to enable a drop-in retrofit of each of the 48 existing Pre Amplifier Modules (PAMs) without compromising their original performance specifications. This was accomplished by use of transmissive Optically Addressable Light Valves (OALV) based on a Bismuth Silicon Oxide photoconductive layer in series with a twisted nematic liquid crystal (LC) layer. These Programmable Spatial Shaper packages in combination with a flaw inspection system and optic registration strategy have provided a robust approach for extending the operational lifetime of high fluence laser optics on NIF.

This report provides an introduction to South Korea's new world role and it discusses South Korea's nuclear energy program and nuclear plant export program.