A briefing report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report provides information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) disability severance program, which provides a lump-sum payment for service members with a disability. GAO found that the administration of disability severance, like medical retirement pay, follows service-specific procedures using DOD guidance. The services assess members' fitness for duty along a scale ranging from 0 to 100 percent in gradations of 10. Members unfit for duty who have 20 or more years of military service with any disability rating or who are assigned a disability rating of 30 percent or higher receive medical retirement payment. In contrast, the lump-sum disability severance payment is made to members unfit for duty who have less than 20 years of military service and who are assigned a disability rating less than 30 percent. In fiscal year 2000, the number of assessments resulting in disability severance payment was more than double the number of assessments resulting in medical retirement. The services and DOD could not provide GAO with data on how much it costs to make disability decisions or issue payments or how long it takes. DOD does not provide special …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "If the federal government is to effectively manage the tasks and programs assigned to it through legislation, it must have a sufficient and qualified workforce. One important element that agencies must consider in their workforce planning is the number and kinds of employees who will retire during the next five years. GAO projects that the number of employees retiring will be roughly equivalent to the decrease in employees during any downsizing, and will affect the ability of agencies to accomplish their missions. GAO believes that agencies must ensure that they will have an adequate workforce to carry out their missions. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has begun to stress to agencies the importance of integrating strategic human capital management into agency planning. OPM has also been focusing more attention on developing workforce planning tools to help agencies."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Federal agencies are using Internet "cookies" to enable electronic transactions and track visitors on their websites. Cookies are text files that have unique identifiers and are used to store and retrieve information that allow websites to recognize returning users, track on-line purchases, or maintain and serve customized web pages. This report discusses whether (1) federal websites complied with the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) guidance on the use of cookies and (2) the guidance provided federal agencies with clear instructions on the use of cookies. GAO reviewed 65 websites randomly selected from the General Services Administration's government domain registry database between November 2000 and January 2001 to determine whether they used persistent cookies and whether such use was disclosed in the website's privacy policy. As of January 2001, most of the websites reviewed were following OMB's guidance on the use of cookies. Of the 65 sites GAO reviewed, 57 did not use persistent cookies on their websites, eight used persistent cookies, four did not disclose such use in their privacy policy, and the remaining four sites using persistent cookies did provide disclosure but did not …

Measurements at ORNL were made on the Kahn moisture sensor which Doble Engineering wants to evaluate for use in SF{sub 6} circuit breakers. Test conducted at ORNL indicate that vacuum conditions, as might be found in SF{sub 6} circuit breakers prior to filling with SF{sub 6}, could lead to significant changes in calibration, resulting in erroneous readings of moisture content. Similar effects might also be observed in cases where SF{sub 6} byproducts are present, due the reactivity of some of these byproducts with water.

This project involved collaboration between InnerDyne, Inc., and radiopharmaceutical research programs at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) which explored new strategies for the development and animal testing of radioactive rhenium-188-labeled implantable stent sources for the treatment of coronary restenosis after angioplasty and the development of chemical species radiolabeled with the palladium-103 radioisotope for the treatment of cancer. Rhenium-188 was made available for these studies from radioactive decay of tungsten-188 produced in the ORNL High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR). Stent activation and coating technology was developed and provided by InnerDyne, Inc., and stent radiolabeling technology and animal studies were conducted by InnerDyne staff in conjunction with investigators at BNL. Collaborative studies in animals were supported at sites by InnerDyne, Inc. New chemical methods for attaching the palladium-103 radioisotope to bifunctional chelate technologies were developed by investigators at ORNL.

Since 1990, Congress has faced an annual, contentious decision on whether, and under what conditions, to renew normal trade relations (NTR) status with China for another year. This annual exercise occurred because under U.S. law, China's NTR status is temporary, and the President has to recommend its renewal each year by June 3. In 2000, the 106th Congress considered and passed H.R. 4444, which would eliminate the annual NTR renewal process and grant permanent NTR to China. The President signed the bill into law on October 10, 2000, as P.L. 106-286. But this Act only grants permanent NTR to China once it joins the World Trade Organization. Although this was expected to occur by late 2000, it has not yet happened and is now unlikely to occur until the end of 2001. Consequently, the President again this year will be compelled to recommend another temporary extension of China's NTR status for one year if this status is to continue uninterrupted. The NTR renewal is subject to enactment of a joint resolution of disapproval by Congress.

This TRD is organized as a five-volume set (Figure 1.1). The five volumes include this overview and one volume for each of the four installations that stockpile ACW. Volume 1 provides programmatic information on the technologies associated with ACW remediation. The four remaining volumes provide details regarding the application of ACWA technology systems to ACW at the four stockpile locations: Anniston Army Depot (ANAD), Pine Bluff Arsenal (PBA), Pueblo Chemical Depot (PCD), and Blue Grass Army Depot (BGAD). To adequately assess the ACWA situation at any given U.S. Army facility, Volume 1 and the volume specifically dedicated to the facility of interest should be reviewed. Section 1.2 of this volume provides an overview of the ACW unitary stockpile. The section identifies all stockpile locations, the types of munitions contained in the stockpile at each location, and the chemical agents and energetic materials in the various ACW; it also provides chemical and physical property information for these chemicals. Section 1.3 provides an overview of the DOD's process for selecting the ACWA technologies. As this section indicates, demonstration testing for the Demo I and Demo II technologies has been completed. Section 1.4 identifies and summarizes each of the primary technologies that make …

This report contains information regarding the Current Economic Conditions, Recent Macroeconomic Developments, Posture of Monetary and Fiscal Policy, Summary of Current Developments, Sources of GDP Growth, Economic Forecasts 2001, and Promotion of Economic Growth. The report also presents statistics regarding the Growth Rate of Real GDP v. Final Sales, Civilian Unemployment Rate, Rate of Change in the Consumer Price Index, Rate of Change in the GDP Deflators, Rate of Change in Labor Costs, U.S. Foreign Trade Deficit, Alternative Measures of Fiscal Policy, The Growth Rates of the Monetary Aggregates, etc.