A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Quality is key to success in U.S. space and missile defense programs, but quality problems exist that have endangered entire missions along with less-visible problems leading to unnecessary repair, scrap, rework, and stoppage; long delays; and millions in cost growth. For space and missile defense acquisitions, GAO was asked to examine quality problems related to parts and manufacturing processes and materials across DOD and NASA. GAO assessed (1) the extent to which parts quality problems affect those agencies' space and missile defense programs; (2) causes of any problems; and (3) initiatives to prevent, detect, and mitigate parts quality problems. To accomplish this, GAO reviewed all 21 systems with mature designs and projected high costs: 5 DOD satellite systems, 4 DOD missile defense systems, and 12 NASA systems. GAO reviewed existing and planned efforts for preventing, detecting, and mitigating parts quality problems. Further, GAO reviewed regulations, directives, instructions, policies, and several studies, and interviewed senior headquarters and contractor officials."

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

This report examines the legislation and oversight by Congress to protect the United States against terrorist threats, especially from chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. Radiological dispersal devices (RDDs) are one type of CBRN weapon. Explosive-driven "dirty bombs" are an often-discussed type of RDD, though radioactive material can also be dispersed in other ways. This report also provides background for understanding the RDD threat and responses.

Evaporation rates of K2O, Na2O, and FeO from chondrule-like liquids and the associated potassium isotopic fractionation of the evaporation residues were measured to help understand the processes and conditions that affected the chemical and isotopic compositions of olivine-rich Type IA and Type IIA chondrules from Semarkona. Both types of chondrules show evidence of having been significantly or totally molten. However, these chondrules do not have large or systematic potassium isotopic fractionation of the sort found in the laboratory evaporation experiments. The experimental results reported here provide new data regarding the evaporation kinetics of sodium and potassium from a chondrule-like melt and the potassium isotopic fractionation of evaporation residues run under various conditions ranging from high vacuum to pressures of one bar of H2+CO2, or H2, or helium. The lack of systematic isotopic fractionation of potassium in the Type IIA and Type IA chondrules compared with what is found in the vacuum and one-bar evaporation residues is interpreted as indicating that they evolved in a partially closed system where the residence time of the surrounding gas was sufficiently long for it to have become saturated in the evaporating species and for isotopic equilibration between the gas and the melt. A diffusion …

This poster describes a microchannelplate (MCP)–based, gated x-ray imager developed by National Security Technologies, LLC (NSTec), and Sandia National Laboratories(SNL) over the past several years. The camera consists of a 40 mm × 40 mm MCP, coated with eight 4 mm wide microstrips. The camera is gated by sending subnanosecond high-voltage pulses across the striplines. We have performed an extensive characterization of the camera, the results of which we present here. The camera has an optical gate profile width (time resolution) as narrow as 150 ps and detector uniformity of better than 30% along the length of a strip, far superior than what was achieved in previous designs. The spatial resolution is on the order of 40 microns for imaging applications and a dynamic range of between ~100 and ~1000. We also present results from a Monte Carlo simulation code developed by NSTec over the last several years. Agreement between the simulation results and the experimental measurements is very good.

Evaluating the impacts and effectiveness of energy efficiency programs is likely to become increasingly important for state policymakers and program administrators given legislative mandates and regulatory goals and increasing reliance on energy efficiency as a resource. In this paper, we summarize three activities that the authors have conducted that highlight the expanded role of evaluation, measurement and verification (EM&V): a study that identified and analyzed challenges in improving and scaling up EM&V activities; a scoping study that identified issues involved in developing a national efficiency EM&V standard; and lessons learned from providing technical assistance on EM&V issues to states that are ramping up energy efficiency programs. The lessons learned are summarized in 13 EM&V issues that policy makers should address in each jurisdiction and which are listed and briefly described. The paper also discusses how improving the effectiveness and reliability of EM&V will require additional capacity building, better access to existing EM&V resources, new methods to address emerging issues and technologies, and perhaps foundational documents and approaches to improving the credibility and cross jurisdictional comparability of efficiency investments. Two of the potential foundational documents discussed are a national EM&V standard or resource guide and regional deemed savings and algorithm databases.

On May 9, 2011, ORISE conducted verification survey activities including scans, sampling, and the collection of smears of the remaining soils and off-gas pipe associated with the 802 Fan House within the HFBR (High Flux Beam Reactor) Complex at BNL. ORISE is of the opinion, based on independent scan and sample results obtained during verification activities at the HFBR 802 Fan House, that the FSS (final status survey) unit meets the applicable site cleanup objectives established for as left radiological conditions.

This note was originally one of the parts of the work on a 50 MeV and 500 MeV Rb{sup +} driver and part of work on delay lines for a 60 GeV U{sup +12} driver. It is slightly expanded here to make it more generally applicable. The emphasis is on beam manipulations such as joining and separating beams at the two ends of a driver and providing various time delays between beams as required by the target.

Experimental equation-of-state (EOS) data are difficult to obtain for warm dense matter (WDM)–ionized materials at near-solid densities and temperatures ranging from a few to tens of electron volts–due to the difficulty in preparing suitable plasmas without significant density gradients and transient phenomena. We propose that the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT) facility can be used to create a temporally stationary and spatially uniform WDM. DARHT has an 18 MeV electron beam with 2 kA of current and a programmable pulse length of 20 ns to 200 ns. This poster describes how Monte Carlo n-Particle (MCNP) radiation transport and LASNEX hydrodynamics codes were used to demonstrate that the DARHT beam is favorable for avoiding the problems that have hindered past attempts to constrain WDM properties. In our concept, a 60 ns pulse of electrons is focused onto a small, cylindrical (1 mm diameter × 1 mm long) foam target, which is inside a stiff high-heat capacity tube that both confines the WDM and allows pressure measurements. In our model, the foam is made of 30% density Au and the tamper is a B4C tube. An MCNP model of the DARHT beam investigated electron collisions and the amount of energy deposited …

This slide show documents aerial radiation surveys over Japan. Map product is a compilation of daily aerial measuring system missions from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to 80 km radius. In addition, other flights were conducted over US military bases and the US embassy.

The Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) complex located on the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) site in Niskayuna, New York, was constructed in the late 1940s to research the chemical separation of plutonium and uranium (Figure A-1). SPRU operated as a laboratory scale research facility between February 1950 and October 1953. The research activities ceased following the successful development of the reduction oxidation and plutonium/uranium extraction processes. The oxidation and extraction processes were subsequently developed for large scale use by the Hanford and Savannah River sites (aRc 2008a). Decommissioning of the SPRU facilities began in October 1953 and continued through the 1990s.

This report raises several issues for Congress, Including: (I) the priority for countering RDDs vs other CBRN, (II) how to improve radio logical forensics capability, (III) whether to modify certain personnel reliability standards etc.

This report includes a list of books and internet sources that may help members of congress and staff locate student financial aid information for prospective, current, or graduating college and university students.

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Daily publication of the U.S. Office of the Federal Register contains rules and regulations, proposed legislation and rule changes, and other notices, including "Presidential proclamations and Executive Orders, Federal agency documents having general applicability and legal effect, documents required to be published by act of Congress, and other Federal agency documents of public interest" (p. ii). Table of Contents starts on page iii.

Proceedings of the House of Representatives of Texas for the 14th day of the first called session of the 82nd Legislature documenting legislation, reports, discussions, votes, and points-of-order.