This report discusses the U.S. policy toward the Central Asia. It provides background information and most recent developments in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. U.S. objectives have included promoting free markets, democratization, human rights, energy development, and the forging of East-West and Central Asia-South Asia trade links.

Report that discusses the legal definition of the term "educational," as well as the constitutional implications of that definition.

Report discussing the National Drug Control Strategy, the National Drug Control Budget, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP) evaluation of the National Drug Control Strategy implementation. It also provides an analysis of selected legislative and oversight issues that Congress may consider when debating the reauthorization of ONDCP.

This report examines the TANF cash assistance caseload, focusing on how the composition and characteristics of families receiving assistance have changed over time.

This report discusses the 2002 rule (the Clean Water Act), 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.

This report provides an overview of Judge Kavanaugh's jurisprudence and discusses his potential impact on the Court if he were to be confirmed to succeed Justice Kennedy. It focuses upon those areas of law where Justice Kennedy can be seen to have influenced the High Court's approach to certain issues or served as a fifth and deciding vote on the Court, with a view toward how Judge Kavanaugh might approach these same issues.

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This report discusses the ongoing conflict in Syria and U.S. policy regarding the conflict and potential resolutions.

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This report provides the results of analyses that focused on the chemical species that pertain to the sodium aluminosilicate formation potential for archived Tank 38H and 43H subsurface samples from January 2010 through April 2013. Analyses included warm acid strike preparation followed by analysis of silicon, aluminum, and sodium and water dilution preparation followed by analysis for anions. The Tank 43H and 38H supernatant liquid silicon measurements for the January 2010 through April 2013 time period exhibit a slight increasing trend. Over this time period, the silicon concentration in the Tank 43H and Tank 38H samples averaged 179 mg/L and 235 mg/L, respectively. Comparison of Tank 43H sample results from 2005 through April 2013 to the previously developed process control models indicates that the current formation of sodium aluminosilicate in the 2H system is due to the seeded direct precipitation of cancrinite and sodalite.

Savannah River Site plays a critical role in the Tritium Production Supply Chain for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The entire process includes: • Production of Tritium Producing Burnable Absorber Rods (TPBARs) at the Westinghouse WesDyne Nuclear Fuels Plant in Columbia, South Carolina • Production of unobligated Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) at the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) in Portsmouth, Ohio • Irradiation of TPBARs with the LEU at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Watts Bar Reactor • Extraction of tritium from the irradiated TPBARs at the Tritium Extraction Facility (TEF) at Savannah River Site • Processing the tritium at the Savannah River Site, which includes removal of nonhydrogen species and separation of the hydrogen isotopes of protium, deuterium and tritium.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is responsible for the retrieval, treatment, immobilization, and disposal of Hanford’s tank waste. A key aspect of the River Protection Project (RPP) cleanup mission is to construct and operate the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). The WTP will separate the tank waste into high-level and low-activity waste (LAW) fractions, both of which will subsequently be vitrified. The projected throughput capacity of the WTP LAW Vitrification Facility is insufficient to complete the RPP mission in the time frame required by the Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order, also known as the Tri-Party Agreement (TPA), i.e. December 31, 2047. Supplemental Treatment is likely to be required both to meet the TPA treatment requirements as well as to more cost effectively complete the tank waste treatment mission. The Supplemental Treatment chosen will immobilize that portion of the retrieved LAW that is not sent to the WTP’s LAW Vitrification facility into a solidified waste form. The solidified waste will then be disposed on the Hanford site in the Integrated Disposal Facility (IDF). Fluidized Bed Steam Reforming (FBSR) offers a moderate temperature (700-750°C) continuous method by which LAW can be processed …

In our work to date, we made two significant advances. First we demonstrated element-selective demagnetization dynamics for the first time, with a record time resolution for x-ray probing of 55 fs. Second, in new work, we were able to probe the timescale of the exchange interaction in magnetic materials, also for the first time. Our measurements were made using the transverse magneto-optic Kerr effect (T-MOKE) geometry, since the reflectivity of a magnetic material changes with the direction of the magnetization vector of a surface. In our experiment, we periodically reversed the magnetization direction of a grating structure made of Permalloy (Ni80Fe20) using an external magnetic field. To achieve maximum contrast, we used HHG light spanning the M-shell (3p) absorption edges of Fe and Ni. Our characterization of the static magnetization of a Permalloy sample shows high magnetic asymmetry at photon energies just above and below the absorption edges at 55 eV and 65 eV, respectively. This result is in excellent agreement with measurements done on the same using a synchrotron source.

This report provides descriptions and background information on Russian government organization and power, the Russian military's role, and U.S. policy toward Russia. Specific topics covered include Russian governmental structures and background, Vladimir Putin's rise to power, human rights concerns, opposition groups, the economy of Russia and the impact of sanctions, the foreign relations of Russia with other countries in Europe, NATO, the EU, China, Syria, and the U.S., the Ukraine conflict and Russian military aggression. U.S. policies toward Russia, U.S. sanctions on Russia, and cyber warfare.

This report discusses the Department of Defense's acquisition reform provisions in the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018. The main areas of acquisition addressed by these provisions are commercial items, service contracts, Other Transaction (OT) authority, intellectual property, and acquisition system management.

This report illustrates the appropriations for various parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for fiscal year 2018 compared with funding levels for fiscal year 2017 in a series of charts and tables.

This report provides background on China's economic rise; describes its current economic structure; identifies the challenges China faces to maintain economic growth; and discusses the challenges, opportunities, and implications of China's economic rise for the United States.

This report examines the issues related to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the state and substance of the negotiations (to the degree that the information is publically available), the specific areas under negotiation, the policy and economic contexts in which the TPP would fit, and the issues for Congress that the TPP presents.

This report provides background regarding domestic terrorists--detailing what constitutes the domestic terrorism threat as suggested by publicly available U.S. government sources. It also illustrates some of the key factors involved in assessing this threat.

1.0 Overview The TSA systems VM-250AGN portal monitor is a set of two pillars made to detect nuclear material in a vehicle. Each pillar contains two polyvinyl toluene (PVT) plastic gamma ray detectors and four 3He neutron detectors, as well as a power supply and electronics to process the output from these detectors. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has designed and built a continuous high-resolution PVT readout (CHRPR) for the TSA portal to allow spectral readout from the gamma and neutron detectors. The CHRPR helps differentiate between different types of radioactive material through increased spectroscopic capability and associated developments. The TSA VM-250AGN continually monitors the natural neutron and gamma ray background which occurs around the pillars. When the system is installed, the two pillars are placed on either side of a roadway, and a vehicle presence sensor records the passage of cars between them. When radiation measurements exceed a preset alarm threshold, the system alarms to let the user know that a radioactive material is present. Time-stamped measurements are continually sent to a computer, where they can be recorded via a Windows terminal or the TSA RAVEN software. For each pillar in the original TSA model, output from each detector is …

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Coherent electron cooling (CEC) has a potential to significantly boost luminosity of high-energy, high-intensity hadron-hadron and electron-hadron colliders. In a CEC system, a hadron beam interacts with a cooling electron beam. A perturbation of the electron density caused by ions is amplified and fed back to the ions to reduce the energy spread and the emittance of the ion beam. To demonstrate the feasibility of CEC we propose a proof-of-principle experiment at RHIC using SRF linac. In this paper, we describe the setup for CeC installed into one of RHIC's interaction regions. We present results of analytical estimates and results of initial simulations of cooling a gold-ion beam at 40 GeV/u energy via CeC. We plan to complete the program in five years. During first two years we will build coherent electron cooler in IP2 of RHIC. In parallel we will develop complete package of computer simulation tools for the start-to-end simulation predicting exact performance of a CeC. The later activity will be the core of Tech X involvement into the project. We will use these tools to predict the performance of our CeC device. The experimental demonstration of the CeC will be undertaken in years three to five of …

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