A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed high school interscholastic athletics, focusing on the: (1) number of uninsured high school students in the United States and the extent to which the lack of health insurance poses a barrier to participation in high school athletic programs; and (2) strategies school districts have developed to provide health insurance and health care to high school sports participants."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the creation of a federal chief information officer (CIO), focusing on the: (1) structure and responsibilities of existing state and foreign governmentwide CIO models; (2) federal CIO approaches proposed by two bills; and (3) type of leadership responsibilities that a federal CIO should possess."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its assessment of the Army Corps of Engineers' draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Lower Snake River dams, focusing on whether the Corps: (1) followed applicable procedures and guidelines in preparing the draft EIS; and (2) used a reasonable methodology to analyze and present the effects of breaching, specifically with respect to electricity costs, transportation costs, and air quality."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) efforts to process discrimination complaints, focusing on the: (1) timeliness and ability of USDA's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to process employment discrimination complaints; and (2) reasons for delays in the implementing GAO's previous recommendations."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the regulation of the housing government-sponsored enterprises (GSE)."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the financial health of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, focusing on: (1) the activities of the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) home mortgage insurance program; (2) how the reserves of the Fund are estimated; (3) GAO's views on determining an adequate level of reserves; (4) actions that Congress and the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have taken or could take to influence the level of reserves; and (5) the impact that actions affecting the level of reserves could have on the federal budget."

Quarterly publication of the Texas Comptroller's Office regarding sales and use tax in the state of Texas, including an analysis by county, analysis by industry, and related notes.

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List consists of 2000-2002 Officers and Board of Directors' addresses and other contact information.

The Office of Fissile Materials Disposition is responsible for disposing of inventories of surplus US weapons-usable plutonium and highly enriched uranium as well as providing, technical support for, and ultimate implementation of, efforts to obtain reciprocal disposition of surplus Russian plutonium. On January 4, 2000, the Department of Energy issued a Record of Decision to dispose of up to 50 metric tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium using two methods. Up to 17 metric tons of surplus plutonium will be immobilized in a ceramic form, placed in cans and embedded in large canisters containing high-level vitrified waste for ultimate disposal in a geologic repository. Approximately 33 metric tons of surplus plutonium will be used to fabricate MOX fuel (mixed oxide fuel, having less than 5% plutonium-239 as the primary fissile material in a uranium-235 carrier matrix). The MOX fuel will be used to produce electricity in existing domestic commercial nuclear reactors. This paper reports the major waste-package-related, long-term disposal impacts of the two waste forms that would be used to accomplish this mission. Particular emphasis is placed on the possibility of criticality. These results are taken from a summary report published earlier this year.

If a repository were built at Yucca Mountain, it would rely on two distinct systems to prevent radioactive materials from escaping into the environment. These systems act as barriers to the movement of radionuclides. The first system involves natural barriers--the rocks, water, and climate at Yucca Mountain. The second system is comprised of an array of engineered, or man-made, barriers that give the repository defense in depth and add safety margins. These systems would work together to protect the public and the environment. The mountain's natural features present a formidable line of defense against possible movement by radionuclides. These barriers include Yucca Mountain's unique geology, the region's dry climate, and, in general, a range of enclosed water systems that should slow water that contains radioactive particles from reaching rivers or other groundwater systems. The mountain's natural barriers and planned man-made barriers should prevent most moisture from ever reaching the waste packages within a repository. Moreover, the natural barriers would slow the movement of radioactive particles that do dissolve in water. The engineering, or technological measures, that would be built into a repository at Yucca Mountain would help ensure that health and safety standards are maintained even if some components of …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO (1) identified lessons the federal government has learned from year 2000 applicable to improving federal information technology (IT) management; (2) identified lessons that individual agencies can apply to the management of future IT initiatives; and (3) discussed how the momentum generated by the government's year 2000 efforts can be sustained."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the financing of facilities for charter schools, focusing on: (1) the degree to which charter schools have access to traditional public school facility financing; (2) whether alternative sources of facility financing are available to charter schools; and (3) potential options generally available to the federal government if it were to assume a larger role in character school facility financing."

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This report describes work to examine the gas generation behavior of actual K East (KE) Basin floor and canister sludge. The path forward for management of the K Basin Sludge is to retrieve, ship, and store the sludge at T Plant until final processing at some future date. Gas generation will impact the designs and costs of systems associated with retrieval, transportation and storage of sludge. The overall goals for this testing were to collect detailed gas generation rate and composition data to ascertain the quantity and reactivity of the metallic uranium (and other reactive species) present in the K Basin sludge. The gas generation evaluation included four large-scale vessels (850 ml) and eight small-scale vessels (30 ml) in an all-metal, leak tight system. The tests were conducted for several thousand hours at ambient and elevated temperatures (32 C, 40 C, 60 C, 80 C, and 95 C) to accelerated the reactions and provide conclusive gas generation data within a reasonable testing period. The sludge used for these tests was collected from the KE Basin floor and canister barrels (containing damaged spent fuel elements) using a consolidated sampling technique (i.e., material from several locations was combined to form ''consolidated samples''). …

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We have developed a new sol-gel route to synthesize several transition and main-group metal oxide aerogels. The approach is straightforward, inexpensive, versatile, and it produces monolithic microporous materials with high surface areas. Specifically, we report the use of epoxides as gelation agents for the sol-gel synthesis of chromia aerogels and xerogels from simple Cr(III) inorganic salts. The dependence of both gel formation and its rate was studied by varying the solvent used, the Cr(III) precursor salt, the epoxide/Cr(III) ratio, as well as the type of epoxide employed. All of these variables were shown to affect the rate of gel formation and provide a convenient control of this parameter. Dried chromia aerogels were characterized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and nitrogen adsorption/desorption analyses, results of which will be presented. Our studies have shown that rigid monolithic gels can be prepared from many different metal ions salts, provided the formal oxidation state of the metal ion is greater than or equal to +3. Conversely, when di-valent transition metal salts are used precipitated solids are the products.

The purpose of this work was to screen different lots of ultrafine 1,3,5-triamine 2,4,6-trinitrobenzene (TATB) for chemical differences, which may include synthesis and formulation byproducts, decomposition products, and contaminants. The approach used here permits analysis of trapped species as volatile and semivolatile chemicals within a solid. This procedure involves preconcentration of species from the TATB matrix into a surrounding headspace followed by a preconcentration and collection step using solid phase microextraction (SPME) collection. The sample is prepared by sealing it in a glass ampule with a few milliliters of water, ultrasonicating the solution, and then sampling the headspace using SPME collection. Water couples in the ultrasonic energy to fracture the TATB, which permits the release of nonpolar species into the gas phase. However, polar species will favor the aqueous phase and require a separate analysis procedure, which is not included here. Following SPME collection, the sample is transferred to a gas chromatography/mass spectrometer (GCMS) for analysis. In this work, we analyzed and interpreted outgas signatures from four different lots (1169-135MPS-001, 4271-135M-002, 91190-135M-003, and 98170-135M-001) of ultrafine TATB. Lot 98170-135M-001 is a reprocessing of Lot 4271-135M-002, which was washed to remove the water-soluble polysaccharides. The pedigree for these materials are found …

Semiweekly newspaper from Boerne, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Harper, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Emory, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

In 1982, Congress authorized the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP), a Federal grant-in-aid program to improve commercial motor carrier safety. MCSAP was reauthorized in 1986, 1991, and 1998. In June 1997, in anticipation of and preparation for reauthorization, a MCSAP Formula Workgroup convened to analyze requirements for a new allocation formula and to develop the formula. Because of provisions in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), a major change in approach was to consider including performance (i.e., safety improvements) in the formula. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) actively participated in the Workgroup activities, provided technical assistance in evaluating factors and conducting scenario analyses, prepared regulatory language for the Federal Register Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), analyzed NPRM comments and recommended responses to the comments, assisted with preparation of the Federal Register Final Rule, developed the final spreadsheet, and prepared an informational brochure on MCSAP for use by the States. The allocation of MCSAP funds for FY2001 will use the new formula.