A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "For more than 60 years, the United Services Organization (USO), in partnership with the Department of Defense (DOD), has provided support and entertainment to U.S. armed forces, relying heavily on private contributions and on funds, goods, and services from DOD. To assist USO, Congress, beginning in fiscal year 2000, provided a total of $23.8 million in grants to be awarded through DOD as seed money for an endowment fund. The availability of these funds to USO, along with DOD's ongoing support funded in its regular annual appropriations, represents a substantial financial commitment. GAO determined (1) the source and amount of DOD's support to USO in fiscal years 2000-2002 and (2) the sufficiency of internal controls to provide reasonable assurance that federal funds are used in an appropriate manner. GAO focused its audit on USO World Headquarters' activities and audited a limited selection of USO transactions for the 3 fiscal years."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "With the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program taking effect in 1997, child care assistance became a significant strategy for helping welfare recipients move into the workforce and for helping other low-income families stay off welfare. Since 1997, states have used federal funds from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) and TANF along with state funds to expand child care assistance programs. However, given the current budget problems in most states and the competing demands for TANF and state funds, it is possible that states have changed their child care policies and the availability of child care assistance to low-income families."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A provision in the 2002 Farm Bill requires grocery stores to identify certain commodities--beef, pork and lamb, fish and shellfish, fruits and vegetables, and peanuts--by country of origin. This provision also requires that an initial voluntary program be followed by a mandatory program by September 30, 2004. GAO was asked to identify existing programs that might be useful to USDA in crafting the new program, to update a 1998 USDA survey of major U.S. trading partners' country-of-origin labeling practices, and to assess the reasonableness of the assumptions and methodology USDA used for estimating first year record-keeping costs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Despite a drop in injury and fatality rates since the formation of the Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), mining is still a dangerous industry. Focusing on underground coal mines, GAO assessed how well MSHA oversees its process for reviewing and approving critical types of mine plans and the extent to which MSHA's inspections and accident investigations processes help ensure the safety and health of underground coal miners."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In the mid-1990s, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Kennedy Center) officials recognized a need for additional parking and better site access. As a precursor to a planned project to construct an 8-acre plaza and two additional buildings at the site, the Kennedy Center is currently in the process of constructing a garage expansion and site improvement project. GAO did this study because of congressional concerns over project delays and costs as well as challenges that the Kennedy Center faces as it pursues this major construction effort. GAO's objectives were to (1) compare the garage expansion and site improvement project's current costs, time frames, and scope with the estimates provided to congressional stakeholders in 1997 and 1998 and (2) identify what challenges the Kennedy Center faces in managing large construction projects."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) matches information returns filed by third parties, including federal agencies, with taxpayers' income tax returns to determine whether taxpayers have filed a return and/or reported all of their income. A correct taxpayer identification number (TIN) is necessary to enable IRS to match these returns. Prior GAO reviews have shown that federal agency payment records often include invalid TINs, particularly for vendors. GAO was asked to study federal agencies' compliance with filing information returns for service payments made to vendors, IRS's efforts to improve agencies' compliance, and whether additional measures could improve their compliance."

Assessments were performed to evaluate compliance with the airborne radionuclide emission monitoring requirements in the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP - U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 40, Part 61, Subpart H) and Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 246-247: Radiation Protection - Air Emissions. In these assessments, potential unabated offsite doses were evaluated for emission locations at facilities owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and operated by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) on the Hanford Site. This report describes the inventory-based methods and provides the results for the assessment performed in 2003.

This report provides documentation of the design and certification of drop pad (targets) at the National Transportation Research Center (NTRC) Packaging Research Facility(PRF). Based on the evaluation performed, it has been demonstrated that the small (interior) drop pad (target) meets the regulatory definition of a flat, essentially unyielding, horizontal surface for packages weighing up to 3,150 lb (1,432 kg). The large (exterior) drop pad (target) meets the regulatory definition of a flat, essentially unyielding, horizontal surface for packages weighing up to 28,184 lb (12,811 kg).

This report provides an overview of the implementation phase of the department organization and management of the Homeland Security.

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We propose to establish the feasibility of a passive aerosol sampler for bio-agent collection through laboratory experiments and theoretical analysis. The passive sampler, unlike the typical active sampler, does not require pumps and complex fixtures, and thereby allows for large-scale field monitoring not possible with current active samplers. We plan to conduct experiments using model (both biological and non-biological) aerosols generated in an instrumented test chamber and compare the particles collected on various passive samplers to conventional filter samplers, commercial aerosol measuring instruments and to conventional surface swipes. Theoretical analysis will be used to design prototype passive samplers and to compare experimental results with theory. A successful feasibility study will be used to seek outside funding for applications that will greatly enhance current LLNL programs such as NARAC's atmospheric dispersal modeling, NAI's programs in bioagent monitoring in public locations and fixed sampling stations, and EPD's environmental monitoring and decontamination research. In addition, the feasibility study will position us favorably for responding to new calls for proposals by NIH and EPA for large scale environmental studies.

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As the world’s largest stock exchange and a key part of the U.S. economy, the NYSE is a central focus of Congress’s oversight of financial markets. This report sets out the basic issues in NYSE governance and market structure.

This report provides an overall summary of contents from the House Rules manual.

Scene-Based Wave Front Sensing uses the correlation between successive subimages to determine phase aberrations which blur digital images. Adaptive Optics technology uses deformable mirrors to correct for these phase aberrations and make the images clearer. The correlation between temporal subimages gives tip-tilt information. If these images do not have identical image content, tip-tilt estimations may be incorrect. Motion detection is necessary to help avoid errors initiated by dynamic subimage content. In this document, I will discuss why edge detection fails as a motion detection method on low resolution images and how thresholding the normalized variance of individual pixels is successful for motion detection.

The STK Bladestore is a disk subsystem consisting of ATA disks, fiber channel connectivity, and a RAID controller (LSI manufactured). There are essentially four host connections and four backend fiber connections. The host side ports are 2Gb/sec and with their advertised 400MB/sec bandwidth, the disk side ports are 1GB/sec. Our goal is to test this flavor of disk to see what the real world performance might be.

The two policy committees are different in structure and operation, a contrast that appears to be rooted in different leadership styles within the two party organizations. Republican leadership has traditionally been shared among Senators other than the party floor leader; customarily, the Democratic leadership positions of party floor leader, chair of the Democratic Policy Committee, and chair of the Democratic Conference have been posts held by the same person. This report covers the history of the two Senate policy committees and explains their structure, operation, and functions.

This report provides information about the Status and Current Issues of Conservation Reserve Program. The CRP enacted in 1985 provides payment to the farmers to take highly erodible or environmentally sensitive cropland out of production for ten years or more.

To address concerns about crab entrainment during maintenance dredging at the Mouth of the Columbia River, direct measurements of crab entrainment rates were conducted during the summer of 2002 from River Mile 3 to River Mile+3. The entrainment rate for all age classes over all sampling in the MCR was 0.0603 crabs per cy. The sex ratio of the older crabs entrained in the MCR was significantly skewed to the females. A modified DIM was used to calculate the entrainment (E), Adult Equivalent Loss (AEL) at Age 2+ and Age 3+ and the Loss to the Fishery (LF) for the dredged volumes accomplished in 2002 and for the five-year average dredged volumes (both for the Essayons and the contractor dredges). For both sets of projections, the coefficients of variation on the E, AEL, and LF were all under 5%. For the MCR total dredged volume (4,600,378 cy) in the summer of 2002, the estimated AEL at age 2+ was 180,416 crabs with 95% confidence limits from 163,549 to 197,283 crabs. The AEL at age 3+ estimated for the summer 2002 in the MCR was 81,187 with 95% confidence limits from 73,597 to 88,777 crabs. The projected LF for summer 2002 …

CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc. (CH2M HILL) is in the process of identifying and developing supplemental process technologies to accelerate the tank waste cleanup mission. One technology targets disposal of Hanford transuranic (TRU) process wastes stored in single-shell tanks (SSTs). Ten Hanford SSTs are candidates for designation as contact-handled TRU waste type: the B-200 series tanks (241-B-201, -B-202, -B-203, and -B-204), the T-200 series tanks (241-T-201, -T-202, -T-203, and -T-204), and Tanks 241-T-110 and T-111. Current plans identify a process in which these wastes are retrieved from the tanks, either dry or with a recycled liquid stream to help mobilize the waste in the tank and through transfer lines and vessels, dewatered to remove excess liquid, and transferred to waste packages in a form suitable for disposal. CH2M HILL seeks to procure a process for dewatering, handling, and packaging the contact-handled TRU waste after it is retrieved. An understanding of waste physical properties is needed to support design of the SST TRU handling and packaging system and to produce suitable physical simulants to test such a process. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been tasked with developing these waste simulants. This report summarizes PNNL's assessment of available waste physical property …

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This report discusses recent attempts at legislative action regarding changes to the computation of benefits under Social Security Amendments of 1977 (P.L. 95-216), which directly affected retirees born in the 5- to 15-year period after 1916. These persons fall in the "notch" between previous Social Security legislation and those affected by the amendments.

The OXY-operated Class 2 Project at West Welch is designed to demonstrate how the use of advanced technology can improve the economics of miscible CO{sub 2} injection projects in lower quality Shallow Shelf Carbonate reservoirs. The research and design phase (Budget Period 1) primarily involved advanced reservoir characterization. The current demonstration phase (Budget Period 2) is the implementation of the reservoir management plan for an optimum miscible CO{sub 2} flood design based on the reservoir characterization. Although Budget Period 1 for the Project officially ended 12/31/96, reservoir characterization and simulation work continued during the Budget Period 2. During the seventh annual reporting period (8/3/00-8/2/01) covered by this report, work continued on interpretation of the interwell seismic data to create porosity and permeability profiles which were distributed into the reservoir geostatistically. The initial interwell seismic CO{sub 2} monitor survey was conducted and the acquired data processed and interpretation started. Only limited well work and facility construction were conducted in the project area. The CO{sub 2} injection initiated in October 1997 was continued, although the operator had to modify the operating plan in response to low injection rates, well performance and changes in CO{sub 2} supply. CO{sub 2} injection was focused in …

The objective of this research is to develop a fundamental understanding of the physico-chemical mechanisms that cause foaminess in the DOE High Level (HLW) and Low Activity radioactive waste separation processes and to develop and test advanced antifoam/defoaming agents. Antifoams developed for this research will be tested using simulated defense HLW radioactive wastes obtained from the Hanford and Savannah River sites.