Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) new rule on migratory bird hunting. GAO noted that: (1) the rule establishes the early-seasons frameworks from which states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands may select dates and other options available to them for 2000-2001 migratory bird hunting season; and (2) the FWS complied with the applicable requirements in promulgating the rule."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on whether agencies were adhering to the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) memorandum requiring federal agencies to post privacy policies on their Internet Websites, focusing on: (1) whether agencies have clearly labelled and easily accessed privacy policies posted on their principal Web sites; (2) whether agencies' privacy policies posted on their principal Web sites inform visitors about what information an agency collects, why the agency collects it, and how the agency will use the information; (3) how selected agencies have interpreted the requirement to post privacy policies at major entry points; and (4) whether selected agencies have posted privacy policies on Web pages where the agency collects substantial personal information or when applicable, notices that refer to the Privacy Act of 1974."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the causes of the bankruptcies of large corporations owning nursing homes and the implications for nursing home residents, focusing on: (1) the adequacy of Medicare's payment rates for skilled nursing services furnished in nursing homes; (2) the relationship between the changes wrought by the Balanced Budget Act and recent nursing home bankruptcies; and (3) what exists to protect patients."

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Marine sediment remediation at the United Heckathorn Superfund Site was completed in April 1997. Water and mussel tissues were sampled in January 1998 from four stations near Lauritzen Canal in Richmond, California, for the first post-remediation monitoring of marine areas near the United Heckathorn Site. Dieldrin and DDT were analyzed in water samples, tissue samples from resident mussels, and tissue samples from transplanted mussels deployed for 4 months. Concentrations of dieldrin and total DDT in water and total DDT in tissue were compared to pre-remediation data available from the California State Mussel Watch program (tissues) and the Ecological Risk Assessment for the United Heckathorn Superfund Site (tissues and water). Biomonitoring results indicated that pesticides were still bioavailable in the water column, and have not been reduced from pre-remediation levels. Annual biomonitoring will continue to assess the effectiveness of remedial actions at the United Heckathorn Site.

Fully turbulent inflow past a shallow cavity is investigated for the configuration of an axisymmetric cavity mounted in a pipe. Emphasis is on conditions giving rise to coherent oscillations, which can lead to locked-on states of flow tones in the pipe-cavity system. Unsteady surface pressure measurements are interpreted using three-dimensional representations of amplitude-frequency-inflow velocity; these representations are constructed for a range of cavity depth. Assessment of these data involves a variety of approaches. Evaluation of pressure gradients on plan views of the three-dimensional representations allows extraction of the frequencies of the instability (Strouhal) modes of the cavity oscillation. These frequency components are correlated with traditional models originally formulated for cavities in a free-stream. In addition, they are normalized using two length scales; inflow boundary-layer thickness and pipe diameter. These scales are consistent with those employed for the hydrodynamic instability of the separated shear layer, and are linked to the large-scale mode of the shear layer oscillation, which occurs at relatively long cavity length. In fact, a simple scaling based on pipe diameter can correlate the frequencies of the dominant peaks over a range of cavity depth. The foregoing considerations provide evidence that pronounced flow tones can be generated from a …

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The Master Pump Shutdown System (MPSS) will be installed in the 200 Areas of the Hanford Site to monitor and control the transfer of liquid waste between tank farms and between the 200 West and 200 East areas through the Cross-Site Transfer Line. The Safety Function provided by the MPSS is to shutdown any waste transfer process within or between tank farms if a waste leak should occur along the selected transfer route. The MPSS, which provides this Safety Class Function, is composed of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), interconnecting wires, relays, Human to Machine Interfaces (HMI), and software. These components are defined as providing a Safety Class Function and will be designated in this report as MPSS/PLC. Input signals to the MPSS/PLC are provided by leak detection systems from each of the tank farm leak detector locations along the waste transfer route. The combination of the MPSS/PLC, leak detection system, and transfer pump controller system will be referred to as MPSS/SYS. The components addressed in this analysis are associated with the MPSS/SYS. The purpose of this failure and reliability analysis is to address the following design issues of the Project Development Specification (PDS) for the MPSS/SYS (HNF 2000a): (1) Single …

The HEPA Filter Differential Pressure Fan Interlock System PLC ladder logic software was tested using a Software Verification and Validation (V&V) Test Plan as required by the ''Computer Software Quality Assurance Requirements''. The purpose of his document is to report on the results of the software qualification.

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are brief, randomly located, releases of gamma-ray energy from unknown celestial sources that occur almost daily. The study of GRBs has undergone a revolution in the past three years due to an international effort of follow-up observations made possible by the instantaneous distribution of reliable GRB coordinate information over the internet provided by NASA's GCN (GRB Coordinates Network). The 3-year LDRD project described here, done in collaboration with the workers responsible for the GCN, was the very first serious system to actively utilize the GCN and thus played a major role in the development of the GCN and the dramatic increase in our understanding of GRBs. The scientific objective of this project was to measure the intensity of any prompt visible radiation accompanying the gamma-ray emission utilizing a small but sensitive robotic telescope that responded to GCN triggers by rapidly taking images of the GCN error box. The instrument developed for this project, LOTIS, was the first of its kind, and the longest running, collecting data on over 75 GRBs during its 3 year running period. The results of LOTIS and the other follow-up programs have now shown that GRBs are at cosmological distances and interact …

The United States and Mexico have a special relationship under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which removes trade and investment barriers between the countries. The relationship has been strengthened by presidential visits, including President Clinton's February 1999 trip to Mexico and President Zedillo's June 2000 trip to the United States, and by regular contacts between cabinet-level officials. Major issues of concern to Congress are trade, immigration, drug trafficking, and political rights.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) installed two Advanced Research Turbines (ART) at the National Wind Technology Center near Boulder, Colorado, to use as full-scale test beds for ongoing research efforts, including three-dimensional blade aerodynamics and the effects of various control methods on turbine loads and performance. The Westinghouse WWG-0600 was selected as a baseline configuration for the ART turbines. The first turbine, ART-1, is currently operational and has been used to collect a baseline set of performance and loads data. A second turbine, ART-2A, incorporates several major modifications and may be upgraded further to a configuration designated aRT-2B. Possible features of the ART-2B turbine include a multi-degree of freedom hum and newly designed rotor blades. Global energy concepts, L.L.C. provided engineering support to NREL in designing the components for the ART-2B turbine. This document provides a summary of work performed by GEC on the aerodynamic design of ART-2B rotor blades.

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The dose-to-curie (DTC) methodology used at SRS was developed in early 1994 by Health Physics Technology (HPT) for inclusion in the Site Waste Information Tracking System (WITS). DTC is used to estimate the nuclide activity in a waste container based on the measured dose rate from the container. The DTC method is a simple and easy to apply method that can provide a reasonable estimate of the container activity by nuclide when properly applied. In order to make the method practical, numerous assumptions had to be made and limitations placed on its use. Many of these assumptions and limitations can only be procedurally controlled and must be well understood by these individuals in order to assure proper application numerous the method. These limitations are addressed in this report.

This report, PNNL-11911 Rev. 1, was published in July 2000 and replaces PNNL-11911, which was published in September 1998. The revision corrects tissue concentration units that were reported as dry weight but were actually wet weight, and updates conclusions based on the correct reporting units. Marine sediment remediation at the United Heckathorn Superfund Site was completed in April 1997. Water and mussel tissues were sampled in January 1998 from four stations near Lauritzen Canal in Richmond, California, for the first post-remediation monitoring of marine areas near the United Heckathorn Site. Dieldrin and DDT were analyzed in water samples, tissue samples from resident mussels, and tissue samples from transplanted mussels deployed for 4 months. Concentrations of dieldrin and total DDT in water and total DDT in tissue were compared to pre-remediation data available from the California State Mussel Watch program (tissues) and the Ecological Risk Assessment for the United Heckathorn Superfund Site (tissues and water). Chlorinated pesticide concentrations in water samples were similar to pre-remediation levels and did not meet remediation goals. Mean dieldrin concentrations in water ranged from 0.65 ng/L to 18.1 ng/L and were higher than the remediation goal (0.14 ng/L) at all stations. Mean total DDT concentrations in …

Schiller Associates examined the measurement and verification (M and V) plans and activities for seven Western Region Super Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC) projects to learn how federal agencies are implementing M and V and what factors influence M and V plan development. This report describes the method used to examine the M and V plans and presents the findings. The goals were to find common factors that influenced M and V plan development and implementation, assess risks to the agency as a result of particular M and V plans, and develop recommendations for improving M and V plan development and implementation. Participating agencies and sites were: (1) National Park Service, Yosemite National Park, CA; (2) Veterans Affairs, VA Medical Center, San Francisco, CA; (3) US Forest Service, USFS Laboratory, Corvallis, OR; (4) Federal Aviation Administration, ATRCC, Auburn, WA; (5) US Department of Defense, Defense Manpower Data Center, Monterey, CA; (6) US Coast Guard, Coast Guard Station, Alameda, CA; and (7) US Navy, Pt. Mugu, Oxnard, CA.

This paper describes an object-oriented approach to music composition and sound design. The approach unifies the processes of music making and instrument building by using similar logic, objects, and procedures. The composition modules use an abstract representation of musical data, which can be easily mapped onto different synthesis languages or a traditionally notated score. An abstract base class is used to derive classes on different time scales. Objects can be related to act across time scales, as well as across an entire piece, and relationships between similar objects can replicate traditional music operations or introduce new ones. The DISCO (Digital Instrument for Sonification and Composition) system is an open-ended work in progress.

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This compilation was undertaken to update the data used in calculation of curie and heat loadings of waste containers in the Solid Waste Management Facility. The data has broad general use and has been cross-checked extensively in order to be of use in the Materials Accountability arena. The fission product cross-sections have been included because they are of use in the Environmental Remediation and Waste Management areas where radionuclides which are not readily detectable need to be calculated from the relative fission yields and material dispersion data.

Optical and ray-tracing analysis of the new APS front ends for undulator-only operation are presented.

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The main tasks of the cadmium telluride portion of this project include the development of simplified processing for fabricating high-efficiency CdTe solar cells, studies on the long-term stability of CdTe devices, and the development of alternative transparent conducting oxides, window layers, and back contacts. The second portion of this project focused on CIGS solar cells. The main tasks include the development of a manufacturable process for CIGS devices and the development of high-band-gap alloys for use in tandem cell structures. Additional objectives include development of improved junction formation processing and contributing to the overall understanding of these materials and devices. Because the processing is manufacturing-driven, the authors use an all solid-state, simplified two-step process that relaxes the level of deposition control required.