Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on whether the greater discretion allowed to banks as opposed to securities broker/dealers under accounting standards and practices may have resulted in less transparency in the value of asset-backed securities held by banks, focusing on: (1) mortgage-backed securities (MBS); (2) the accounting treatment applied to securities (including MBS) held by banks and broker/dealers; and (3) the accounting for securities holdings by the six largest bank holding companies and whether such holdings might have affected the transparency of financial statements."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided an interpretation of certain parts of Title 7 of its Policy and Procedures Manual for Guidance of Federal Agencies, focusing on whether it is acceptable: (1) for disbursing officers to authorize payment without reviewing evidence transmitted directly by an authorized employee attesting to the receipt and acceptance of goods and services; (2) for disbursing officers to authorize payment after reviewing the vendor's invoice and vendor maintained delivery data without first reviewing evidence of receipt and acceptance by a government official; and (3) to verify receipt and acceptance after payment authorization based on review of a statistically selected sample of invoices in lieu of conducting prepayment verification. GAO noted that the Department of Defense's (DOD) Inspector General (IG) requested clarification of GAO's guidance because it was reviewing the propriety of the process used to authorize payments for certain fuel purchases."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the government's best-value awards to contractors other than those submitting the lowest-priced offers."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the steps needed to improve financial management at the Department of Defense (DOD), focusing on: (1) the impact of financial management weaknesses on DOD's ability to efficiently and economically carry out its operations; (2) efforts DOD has initiated, and additional actions that are necessary, to improve financial management systems and controls in the short term; and (3) enhancements needed in updating DOD's Biennial Financial Management Improvement Plan--its long-term blueprint for financial management reform."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the remaining year 2000 computing challenges facing the federal government, focusing on the: (1) actions that the federal government has taken to improve its year 2000 approach; (2) status of the federal government's remediation of its mission-critical systems, with a particular focus on those that are not yet compliant; (3) reported status of state-administered federal programs; and (4) remaining challenges facing the government in ensuring the continuity of business operations, namely end-to-end testing and contingency planning."

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a county judge may practice law in the courts of his county.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Authority of county attorney to provide legal services to commissioners court, and related questions.

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

Semi-weekly newspaper from Clifton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

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

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

The results of this study establish a framework for evaluation of the cost impact of many performance parameters in coated conductor manufacturing systems. Since the cost and concepts are based on early developmental results and engineering judgment, the study should be updated periodically based on latest data to enhance its usefulness. The study should be expanded to include other promising processes under consideration or development for manufacture of coated conductors. Review of this study by as wide a group of experts from industry, national laboratories and universities as possible is desirable to facilitate improving accuracy of the estimates and communication on the issues involved. The results for the case of achieving the $10/kA-m goal at a J{sub c} of 10{sup 5} a/cm{sup 2} applicable to applications requiring a magnetic field perpendicular to the direction of current flow may be viewed as somewhat discouraging. However, there is ample margin for improvement due to continued development and engineering that could enable meeting the goal of $10/kA-m.

The authors investigate finite pulse effects in self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE), especially the role of coherent spontaneous emission (CSE) in the start and the evolution of the free-electron laser (FEL) process. When the FEL interaction is negligible, they solve the one-dimensional Maxwell equation exactly and clarify the meaning of the slowly varying envelope approximation (SVEA). In the exponential gain regime, they solve the coupled Vlasov-Maxwell equations and extend the linear theory to a bunched beam with energy spread. A time-dependent, non-linear simulation algorithm is employed to study the CSE effect for a general beam distribution.

Microstructural analyses by several advanced metallographic techniques were conducted on austenitic stainless steel mockup and core shroud welds that had cracked in boiling water reactors. Contrary to previous beliefs, heat-affected zones of the cracked Type 304L, as well as 304 SS core shroud welds and mockup shielded-metal-arc welds, were free of grain-boundary carbides, which shows that core shroud failure cannot be explained by classical intergranular stress corrosion cracking. Neither martensite nor delta-ferrite films were present on the grain boundaries. However, as a result of exposure to welding fumes, the heat-affected zones of the core shroud welds were significantly contaminated by oxygen and fluorine, which migrate to grain boundaries. Significant oxygen contamination seems to promote fluorine contamination and suppress thermal sensitization. Results of slow-strain-rate tensile tests also indicate that fluorine exacerbates the susceptibility of irradiated steels to intergranular stress corrosion cracking. These observations, combined with previous reports on the strong influence of weld flux, indicate that oxygen and fluorine contamination and fluorine-catalyzed stress corrosion play a major role in cracking of core shroud welds.

Heavy beam loading in the PEP-II B Factory along with large ring circumferences places unique requirements upon the low-level rf (LLRF) system. RF feedback loops must reduce the impedance observed by the beam while ignoring the cavity transients caused by the ion clearing gap. Special attention must be placed on the cavity tuner loops to allow matching the ion clearing gap transients in the high energy ring and the low energy ring. A wideband fiber optic connection to the longitudinal feedback system allows a rf station to operate as a powerful ''sub-woofer'' to damp residual low order coupled bunch motion. This paper describes the design and performance of the VXI based, EPICS controlled, PEP-II low-level rf system(s). Baseband in-phase and quadrature (IQ) signal processing using both analog and modern digital techniques are used throughout the system. A family of digital down converters provide extremely accurate measurements of many rf signals throughout the system. Each system incorporates a built-in network analyzer and arbitrary rf function generator which interface with Matlab to provide a wide range of functions ranging from automated configuration of each feedback loop to cavity FM processing. EPICS based sequences make the entire system a turn-key operation requiring minimal …

In linacs with high single-bunch charge, and tight tolerances for energy spread and emittance growth, controlling the short-range wakefield effects becomes extremely important. The effects of the wakefields, in turn, depend on the bunch length and also on the bunch shape. It was shown in the linac of the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC), for example, that by shaping the bunch, the final rms energy spread could be greatly reduced, compared to for the standard Gaussian bunch shape[1]. Therefore, in machines with high single-bunch charge, a method of measuring bunch shape can be an important beam diagnostic. In a linac with low single-bunch charge, the longitudinal bunch shape can be obtained relatively easily from a single measurement of the beam's final energy spectrum, provided that the final to initial energy ratio is large. One merely shifts the average phase of the beam, so that it rides off-crest sufficiently to induce an energy variation that is monotonic with longitudinal position. Then, by knowing the initial and final energies, the rf wave number, and the average beam phase, one can directly map the spectrum into the bunch shape. In a linac with high single-bunch charge, however, due to the effect of the longitudinal …

Rain gauge measurements were compared with radar-estimated storm total precipitation for 43 rain events that occurred at ten locations. Gauge-to-radar ratios (G/R) were computed for each case. The G/R ratio is strongly related to precipitation type, with the mean G/R slightly less than 1.00 for high-reflectivity gradient cases and greater than 2.00 (factor of 2 radar underestimation) for low-reflectivity gradient cases. both precipitation types indicated radar underestimate at the nearest ranges. However, the high-reflectivity gradient cases indicated radar overestimation at further ranges, while the low-reflectivity gradient cases indicated significant radar underestimation at all ranges. Occurrences of radar overestimates may have been related to high reflectivity returns from melting ice, bright-band effects in stratiform systems and hail from convective systems. Bright-band effects probably were responsible for improving the radar underestimates in the second range interval (50-99.9 km) for the low-reflectivity gradient cases. Other possibilities for radar overestimates are anomalous propagation (AP) of the radar beam. Smith, et al. (1996) concluded that bright band and AP lead to systematic overestimate of rainfall at intermediate ranges.

Funeral program for Calvin Bryant, born February 7, 1928 and died April 8, 1999. The funeral was held Wednesday, April 14, 1999 at Second Baptist Church, officiated by Rev. Robert L. Jemerson. Funeral arrangements were made through Sunset Memorial Park and Funeral Home and he was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery near San Antonio, Texas

Funeral program for Mrs. Grace East Nious, born May 10, 1918 and died April 8, 1999. The funeral was held Wednesday, April 14, 1999 at Calvary Baptist Church, officiated by Rev. Robert Miller, Pastor. Funeral arrangements were made through Hardy's Mortuary and she was buried in Meadowlawn Memorial Park in San Antonio, Texas. Includes a resolution from the congregation of Calvary Baptist Church.

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

This is the final progress report for the experimental nuclear physics program at Georgia State University (GSU) under the leadership of Gus Petitt. In June, 1996, Professor Petitt retired for health reasons and the DOE contract was extended for another year to enable the group to continue it's work. This year has been a productive one. The group has been heavily involved in the E866 experiment at Fermilab where we have taken on the responsibility of developing a new level-3 trigger for the experiment. Bill Lee, the graduate student in our group expects to obtain his thesis data from the run extension currently in progress, which focuses on the A dependence of J/{psi}'s and {Upsilon}'s from beryllium, tungsten, and iron targets. In the past year and a half the GSU group has led the development of a new level-3 software trigger system for E866. Our work on this project is described.

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

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

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