Representatives and Senators: Trends in Member Characteristics Since 1945

[Excerpt] This report provides profiles of Senators and Representatives in selected Congresses since 1945. It includes data based on Representatives and Senators serving on the first day of the 79th, 82nd, 87th, 92nd, 97th, 102nd, and 107th – 112th Congresses for several demographic characteristics, as well as the tenure of Member service in Congress. The characteristics discussed include age, including the oldest and youngest members of the House and Senate; congressional service tenure; sex; previous occupation; race and ethnicity; education; religion; and military service. Following the written summaries of each characteristic, the report provides a number of tables that provide the detailed data by the category on which the summaries are based. All data tables appear in the “Member Characteristics Data Tables” section

Staff Pay Levels for Selected Positions in Senators’ Offices, FY2009-FY2013

[Excerpt] This report provides pay data for 16 staff position titles that are typically deployed in Senators’ offices. The positions include the following: Administrative Director; Casework Supervisor; Caseworker; Chief of Staff; Communications Director; Counsel; Executive Assistant; Field Representative; Legislative Assistant; Legislative Correspondent; Legislative Director; Press Secretary; Scheduler; “Specials Director,” a combined category that includes the job titles Director of Projects, Director of Special Projects, Director of Federal Projects, Director of Grants, Projects Director, or Grants Director; Staff Assistant; and State Director. Senators’ staff pay data for the years FY2009-FY2013 were derived from a random sampling of Senators’ offices in which at least one staff member worked in a position in each year

Staff Pay Levels for Selected Positions in House Member Offices, 2009-2013

[Excerpt] This report provides pay data for 13 staff position titles that are typically deployed in the offices of Members of the House. The positions include the following: Caseworker; Chief of Staff; Counsel; District Director; Executive Assistant; Field Representative; Legislative Assistant; Legislative Correspondent; Legislative Director; Office Manager; Press Secretary; Scheduler; and Staff Assistant. House Member staff pay data for the years 2009-2013 were developed based on a random sampling of staff for each position in each year

Model system studies with a phase separated membrane bioreactor

The operation and evaluation of a bioreactor designed for high intensity oxygen transfer in a microgravity environment is described. The reactor itself consists of a zero headspace liquid phase separated from the air supply by a long length of silicone rubber tubing through which the oxygen diffuses in and the carbon dioxide diffuses out. Mass transfer studies show that the oxygen is film diffusion controlled both externally and internally to the tubing and not by diffusion across the tube walls. Methods of upgrading the design to eliminate these resistances are proposed. Cell growth was obtained in the fermenter using Saccharomyces cerevisiae showing that this concept is capable of sustaining cell growth in the terrestial simulation

Large nuclear spin polarization in gate-defined quantum dots using a single-domain nanomagnet

The electron-nuclei (hyperfine) interaction is central to spin qubits in solid state systems. It can be a severe decoherence source but also allows dynamic access to the nuclear spin states. We study a double quantum dot exposed to an on-chip single-domain nanomagnet and show that its inhomogeneous magnetic field crucially modifies the complex nuclear spin dynamics such that the Overhauser field tends to compensate external magnetic fields. This turns out to be beneficial for polarizing the nuclear spin ensemble. We reach a nuclear spin polarization of ~50%, unrivaled in lateral dots, and explain our manipulation technique using a comprehensive rate equation model

The Effect of Changes in the Federal Disability Programs on State and Local General Assistance Programs

Since early 1981, there has been a large-scale removal of persons from the SSI and Social Security disability programs as a result of the Social Security Disability Amendments of 1980. This article reports on the findings of a national survey designed to determine whether the removal of persons from the federal disability programs had an impact on state and local General Assistance programs and the extent to which older recipients of General Assistance are in need of long-term income assistance for health and other reasons. Some states and jurisdictions have noticed an increase in applications as a result of federal cutoffs and tightened administrative policies which is an indicator that state and local programs are sensitive to changes in federal policies. Since General Assistance programs are serving persons terminated from federal disability programs and a significant number of older clients who are in need of long-term income assistance, this article suggests that consideration should be given to modifying the disability criteria for the SSI program, at least for older persons

The Effect of Changes in the Federal Disability Programs on State and Local General Assistance Programs

Since early 1981, there has been a large-scale removal of persons from the SSI and Social Security disability programs as a result of the Social Security Disability Amendments of 1980. This article reports on the findings of a national survey designed to determine whether the removal of persons from the federal disability programs had an impact on state and local General Assistance programs and the extent to which older recipients of General Assistance are in need of long-term income assistance for health and other reasons. Some states and jurisdictions have noticed an increase in applications as a result of federal cutoffs and tightened administrative policies which is an indicator that state and local programs are sensitive to changes in federal policies. Since General Assistance programs are serving persons terminated from federal disability programs and a significant number of older clients who are in need of long-term income assistance, this article suggests that consideration should be given to modifying the disability criteria for the SSI program, at least for older persons

Dissipative heating and nonthermal distributions in black hole accretion flaring events

The center of the Milky Way galaxy contains a supermassive black hole called Sgr A*, which has been observed at radio, mm, X-ray, and near infrared (NIR) wavelengths. The NIR emission flares about once per day with the flaring state being about an order of magnitude brighter than the non-flaring state. These flares have a flat spectrum that drops off at high frequency much slower than would be expected from thermal emission alone. This thesis describes work to model these flares using general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) and radiative transfer calculations with a nonthermal kappa distribution function (which effectively adds a power-law tail to the thermal distribution) for electrons accelerated by resistive heating in reconnecting current sheets. This approach is well supported by the literature on the acceleration of electrons in magnetized plasma, which shows that current sheets do accelerate electrons and those electrons can have a distribution function similar to a kappa distribution. In axisymmetric (two dimensional) simulations presented here, a model with a constant fraction of electrons in the kappa distribution is able to enhance NIR emission but is unable to produce any substantial variability in the NIR flux density. Similar models that heat electrons through resistive dissipation are able to produce flares. In three-dimensional standard and normal evolution (SANE) and magnetically arrested disk (MAD) models, the total current in the simulation showed only small variability. This resulted in some small-scale variability in the light curve, but no flares are observed. In all cases, nonthermal models were able to reproduce the observed spectral slope of Sgr A* in the NIR region