Have you ever had raccoons fall through your ceiling? Discovered a nest of sparrows in your hanging flower basket? Or how about woke up one morning to discover deer have nibbled on your flower garden, reducing your blossoms to stems? If so, you're not alone. The paths of humans and wildlife cross all the time, and it is the aim of this handbook to make sure those paths cross as peacefully as possible. Andrea Dawn Lopez, a former manager at Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation, Inc., in San Antonio, Texas, has distilled her knowledge of dealing with wildlife in When Raccoons Fall through Your Ceiling. She tackles a wide variety of situations that occur when human and non-human worlds clash. Have you found a baby bird on your porch? Is a snake taking up residence in your garage? Or perhaps woodpeckers are drumming against your house? Lopez offers advice on how to deal humanely with each situation with tips on relocation, repelling, and when to call in the experts (for when the bears are rattling your trash cans). Wildlife rehabilitators and state wildlife officers across the world spend many hours answering questions on the phone, teaching in classrooms, and going to …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In light of the increasing significance and potential costs of dealing with transportation in the national park system, we reviewed the Park Service's administration of the Alternative Transportation Program. Specifically, we are reporting on the Park Service's processes for (1) ensuring that alternative transportation projects are needed and cost-effective, and (2) evaluating the performance of the program. It is important to point out that in addressing these issues our work focused on the agency's process for reviewing and approving projects. Accordingly, we did not evaluate whether any specific project was in fact needed and cost-effective. In conducting the work, we examined agency files for a sample of 20 projects--10 planning projects and 10 construction projects--that account for 54 percent of the total program funding for fiscal year 2001 through fiscal year 2003."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed several issues relating to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) workforce and management challenges. These issues are associated with NASA's proposed legislative provisions for additional flexibilities and authorities to help it address its human capital challenge. GAO found that agencies must ensure that their strategic human capital plans are results-oriented and data-driven. This includes developing appropriate information on the number and location of employees and their key competences and skills, as well as data on the profile of the workforce, and performance goals and measures for human capital approaches. NASA's legislative proposal for streamlined demonstration and alternative personnel system authority would provide a mechanism for converting a successful demonstration project, upon approval by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), to a permanent alternative personnel system, without the need for special legislation and without any limitation on the number of employees that would be covered by the project as is under current authority. Human capital systems should have appropriate transparency and adequate safeguards in order to help ensure that it is efficient, effective, credible, and equitable."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requested that we review the HOPE VI program. Because of the scope of the request, we agreed with the office of the Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Housing and Transportation, Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, to provide the information in a series of reports. This first report focuses on the financing of HOPE VI developments. We describe the extent to which grantees have (1) leveraged funds from other sources, particularly other federal sources; (2) leveraged funds specifically for community and supportive services; and (3) complied with HUD's funding limits for developing public housing units and budgeted additional funds not subject to these limits. Because the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 requires HUD to report HOPE VI cost information to Congress, we also discuss the extent to which HUD has complied with this requirement."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Because of the significance of IRS revenue collections to federal receipts and, in turn, to the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government, which GAO is required to audit, and Congress's interest in financial management at IRS, GAO audits IRS's financial statements annually to determine whether (1) the financial statements IRS prepares are reliable, (2) IRS management maintained effective internal controls, and (3) IRS complies with selected provisions of significant laws and regulations and its financial systems comply with the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act (FFMIA)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Because of its interest in this area, Congress asked that we address the following questions: (1) To what extent have federal contractors violated federal environmental, labor and employment, antitrust, consumer protection, and tax laws (the areas of law specified in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) rule)? and (2) What FAR rule implementation issues were identified in our work in response to the first question?"

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In the 1990s the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) dramatically downsized its staff, however, its mission did not decrease. As a consequence, HUD relies more heavily on private contractors, and needs to hold its contractors accountable for results. GAO was asked to determine if HUD has processes and practices in place to effectively oversee contractors, strategically manages its acquisition workforce, and has management information systems that support its acquisition workforce."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As directed in the Fiscal Year 2002 Legislative Branch Appropriations Conference Report and subsequent support letters from interested members of Congress, GAO conducted a pilot program in technology assessment that examined the use of biometric technologies for border control. Biometric technologies are available today and are being used for a variety of applications such as access control and criminal identification and surveillance. GAO considered a number of leading and emerging biometric technologies that could potentially be used for securing the nations borders. The seven leading biometric technologies include facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, hand geometry, iris recognition, retina recognition, signature recognition, and speaker recognition. To evaluate the effectiveness of biometrics in border control, it is important to recognize that the use of biometric technology would be but one component of the decision to support systems that determine who is allowed to enter the United States and who is not. Biometric technology can play a role in associating a person with travel documents such as visas and passports. When used at a border inspection, the biometric comparison can be used to help decide whether to admit a traveler …

None

Weekly student newspaper from San Antonio College in San Antonio, Texas that includes campus news along with advertising.

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

20th Edition of TOP500 List of World's Fastest Supercomputers Released MANNHEIM, Germany; KNOXVILLE, Tenn.;&BERKELEY, Calif. In what has become a much-anticipated event in the world of high-performance computing, the 20th edition of the TOP500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers was released today (November 15, 2002). The Earth Simulator supercomputer installed earlier this year at the Earth Simulator Center in Yokohama, Japan, is with its Linpack benchmark performance of 35.86 Tflop/s (trillions of calculations per second) retains the number one position. The No.2 and No.3 positions are held by two new, identical ASCI Q systems at Los Alamos National Laboratory (7.73Tflop/s each). These systems are built by Hewlett-Packard and based on the Alpha Server SC computer system.

This progress report covers continuing work to develop a temperature probe for a coal gasifier. A workable probe design requires finding answers to crucial questions involving the probe materials. We report on attempts to answer those questions. We designed, assembled, and tested a portable test fixture that can give relative quantitative data on the condition of phosphors. It needs a more-sensitive detector for optimum performance. We ordered an appropriate detector. An experimental test of the survivability of thermographic phosphor in an ambient environment similar to that in a slagging gasifier showed no substantial deterioration of the phosphor. We consider this result so important that we delayed the date of publication of this report by one month to accommodate it. We assembled the first version of a prototype probe and were preparing to test it at the time of this report.

In this quarter we focus on the membrane synthesis via interphase impregnation and slip casting. The slip casting method shows very promising. A well-organized hydrotalcite layer has been deposited on the porous ceramic substrate. Under SEM examination, few defects were recognized. In addition, its particle size in the range of {approx}500{angstrom} is comparable to our existing Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} membrane with 100{angstrom} pore size. This membrane could be qualified for post-treatment with CVD/I to seal the opening to become a CO{sub 2}-affinity membrane. On the other hand, the hydrotalcite membrane prepared via impregnation requires further refinement. After 4th impregnation defects in the range of 0.2 micron were observed under SEM examination, likely due to the incomplete coverage. In the next quarter, we will improve the in-situ technique to overcome this problem.

None

None

By early 2000, fifteen oil and gas State Agencies were using RBDMS or a RBDMS utility to handle a significant amount or all of their data management needs. There are three additional State slated to begin implementation this year. There are an additional twelve State agencies that are not utilizing this technology that have proven to be very useful for so many other States. This project will allow for the base RBDMS install in all State oil and gas agency that desire it.

The project is designed to understand current and magnetic field generation in plasmas and other magnetohydrodynamic systems. The experiments will investigate the generation of a dynamo using liquid Na.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "On November 21 and 22, 2002, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will consider the admission of new members to the alliance. To facilitate congressional deliberations on NATO enlargement, the United States Senate mandated in 1998 that GAO review and assess a report that Congress directed the President to provide on countries seeking membership in NATO. The President submitted a classified report to Congress on August 26, 2002. To fulfill its mandate, GAO determined if the report met the Senate's requirements and if the cost estimates were sound."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2001, the United States Postal Service reported that it lost about $6.3 million in remittances (cash and checks) to robberies, internal theft, and mishandling. One particular loss--a June 2001 theft of over $3.2 million from a Phoenix, Arizona, postal facility by a Career Service employee--received considerable media attention. Pursuant to the request of the Chairman, House Committee on Government Reform, we agreed to review Service policies and procedures for the security of remittances by addressing the following questions: (1) Does the Service have reasonable physical controls and security to safeguard its remittances? (2) Does the Service have policies for conducting background checks of employees who process remittances? (3) Does the Service provide training to its employees who process remittances?"

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

Funeral program for Gerline McCluskey Broner, born November 5, 1948 and died November 8, 2002. The funeral was held Friday, November 15, 2002 at Calvary Baptist Church, officiated by Reverend Kevin Nelson. Funeral arrangements were made through Carter-Taylor-Williams Mortuary and she was buried in Meadowlawn Memorial Park in San Antonio, Texas.

Funeral program for Deacon Ernest Leroy Anthony, born April 28, 1929 and died November 2002. The funeral was held November 15, 2002 at Shiloh Baptist Church, officiated by Rev. Andrew Wilson. The funeral arrangements were made through Sutton-Sutton Mortuary, Inc. and he was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery near San Antonio, Texas.