Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses (1) the status of the 2001 tax filing season, (2) the status of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) business systems modernization effort, and (3) the security of IRS' electronic filing system. GAO found that although the 2001 filing season appears to be running smoothly, some matters require further attention. For example, IRS has had problems with the personal identification number assigned to electronic filers. Although data indicate that taxpayers are having an easier time reaching IRS to ask questions, concerns persist about the productivity of its telephone assistors. With respect to business systems modernization, GAO has long held that IRS needs to establish fundamental modernization management controls before it begins to build and implement modernized systems. IRS has made some progress in this area, but it is still not where it needs to be. GAO is concerned that IRS is allowing its system acquisition projects to get ahead of its capabilities for managing them. Lastly, GAO's review of IRS' electronic filing systems last year showed that IRS had ineffective controls to ensure the security of those systems and electronically-transmitted taxpayer data. IRS moved promptly to …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The rapid pace of technological change and innovation has offered unprecedented opportunities for both the government and commercial sectors to use information technology (IT) to improve performance, reduce costs, and enhance service. A range of issues have emerged about how to best manage and integrate complex information technologies and management processes so that they are aligned with mission goals, strategies, and objectives. Although IT can help the government provide services more efficiently and at lower costs, many challenges must be overcome to increase the government's ability to use the information resources at its disposal effectively, securely, and with the best service to the American people. A central focal point such as a federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) can help ensure that attention to IT issues is sustained and increase the likelihood that progress is charted and achieved. Although GAO's research has found that there is no one right way to establish a CIO position, critical success factors GAO found in leading organizations, such as aligning the position for value creation, are extremely important considerations. Finally, the experiences of statewide CIOs offer a rich set of experiences to draw …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses internal control weaknesses in the Department of Education's payment process. GAO identified internal control weaknesses that sharply increase Education's vulnerability to improper payments. GAO classified the weaknesses into the following four broad categories: (1) poor segregation of duties, (2) lack of supervisory review, (3) inadequate audit trails, and (4) inadequate computer systems' application controls. GAO found that some individuals at Education can control the entire payment process for some transactions. As a result, individuals could be using agency funds for personal expenses. GAO also found that Education has serious deficiencies in its process for reviewing and approving purchases made with government credit cards. During fiscal year 2000, Education employees made more than $8 million in purchases using their government purchase cards. Without proper review and approval of these expenditures, improper use of the government charge cards may go undetected. Regarding audit trails, Education lacks adequate control over changes made to sensitive information for certain types of payments, including contracting and third party drafts. Finally, weaknesses in Education's information systems controls increases the risk of unauthorized access or disruption in services and make Education's sensitive grant …

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 community college district may voluntarily reduce its adopted tax rate in the same tax year (RQ-0300-JC).

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 the district judge of Smith County to amend the salaries of the county auditor's office and related questions.(RQ-0302-JC).

This report provides an overview of the retrospective of the fruit and vegetable issues in the 106th congress.

Interest in the synthesis of semiconductor nanoparticles has been generated by their unusual optical and electronic properties arising from quantum confinement effects. We have synthesized silicon and germanium nanoclusters by reacting Zintl phase precursors with either silicon or germanium tetrachloride in various solvents. Strategies have been investigated to stabilize the surface, including reactions with RLi and MgBrR (R = alkyl). This synthetic method produces group IV nanocrystals with passivated surfaces. These nanoparticle emit over a very large range in the visible region. These particles have been characterized using HRTEM, FTIR, UV-Vis, solid state NMR, and fluorescence. The synthesis and characterization of these nanoclusters will be presented.

Transmission electron microscopy study of plan-view and cross-section samples of epitaxial laterally overgrown (ELOG) GaN samples is described. Two types of dislocation with the same type of Burgers vector but different line direction have been observed. It is shown that threading edge dislocations bend to form dislocation segments in the c-plane as a result of shear stresses developed in the wing material along the stripe direction. It is shown that migration of these dislocations involves both glide and climb. Propagation of threading parts over the wing area is an indication of high density of point defects present in the wing areas on the ELOG samples. This finding might shed new light on the optical properties of such samples.

While one can discuss various sequestration options at a national or global level, the actual carbon management approach is highly site specific. In response to the need for a better understanding of carbon management options, Battelle in collaboration with Mitsubishi Corporation, has developed a state-of-the-art Geographic Information System (GIS) focused on carbon capture and sequestration opportunities in the United States. The GIS system contains information (e.g., fuel type, location, vintage, ownership, rated capacity) on all fossil-fired generation capacity in the Untied States with a rated capacity of at least 100 MW. There are also data on other CO2 sources (i.e., natural domes, gas processing plants, etc.) and associated pipelines currently serving enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects. Data on current and prospective CO2 EOR projects include location, operator, reservoir and oil characteristics, production, and CO2 source. The system also contains information on priority deep saline aquifers and coal bed methane basins with potential for sequestering CO2. The GIS application not only enables data storage, flexible map making, and visualization capabilities, but also facilitates the spatial analyses required to solve complex linking of CO2 sources with appropriate and cost-effective sinks. A variety of screening criteria (spatial, geophysical, and economic) can be employed …

Laboratory measurements of the electrical resistivity of intact and fractured representative geothermal reservoir rocks were performed to investigate the resistivity contrast caused by active boiling and to infer saturation and fracture location in a large-scale field test. Measurements were performed to simulate test conditions with confining pressures up to 100 bars and temperatures to 145 C. Measurements presented are a first step toward making the search for fractures using electrical methods quantitatively. Intact samples showed a gradual resistivity increase when pore pressure was decreased below the phase-boundary pressure of free water, while fractured samples show a larger resistivity change at the onset of boiling. The resistivity change is greatest for samples with the most exposed surface area. Analysis of a field test provided the opportunity to evaluate fracture detection using electrical methods at a large scale. Interpretation of electrical resistance tomography (ERT) images of resistivity contrasts, aided by laboratory derived resistivity-saturation-temperature relationships, indicates that dynamic saturation changes in a heated rock mass are observable and that fractures experiencing drying or resaturation can be identified. The same techniques can be used to locate fractures in geothermal reservoirs using electrical field methods.

We present a detailed analysis of K-shell emission from laser-produced rapidly-expanding aluminum plasmas. This work forms part of a series of experiments performed at the Vulcan laser facility of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK. 1-D planar expansion was obtained by over-illuminating Al-microdot targets supported on CH plastic foils. The small size of the Al-plasma ensured high spatial and frequency resolution of the spectra, obtained with a single crystal spectrometer, two vertical dispersion variant double crystal spectrometers, and a vertical dispersion variant Johann Spectrometer. The hydrodynamic properties of the plasma were measured independently by spatially and temporally resolved Thomson scattering, utilizing a 4{omega} probe beam. This enabled sub- and super- critical densities to be probed relative to the 1{omega} heater beams. The deduced plasma hydrodynamic conditions are compared with those generated from the 1-D hydro-code Medusa, and the significant differences found in the electron temperature discussed. Synthetic spectra generated from the detailed term collisional radiative non-LTE atomic physics code Fly are compared with the experimental spectra for the measured hydrodynamic parameters, and for those taken from Medusa. Excellent agreement is only found for both the H- and He-like Al series when careful account is taken of the temporal evolution of the …

Semiweekly newspaper from Boerne, 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.

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Ensemble concert at the UNT College of Music Merrill Ellis Theater.

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

Contamination is anathema in reservoir production. Some of the contamination is a result of welding and some appears after welding but existed before. Oxygen was documented to be a major contributor to discoloration in welding. This study demonstrates that it can be controlled and that some of the informal cleaning processes contribute to contamination.

This project, carried out at the Colorado School of Mines, addresses long-term research and development issues related to polycrystalline thin-film solar cells. Our general research approach is based on combining activities aimed at improving cell performance and stability with activities aimed at increasing our fundamental understanding of the properties of materials making up the cells: CdTe, CdS, multilayer back-contact, and transparent conducting oxide (TCO) from contact. We emphasize the relation between structural and electronic materials properties and various processing procedures, as well as the microscopic mechanisms responsible for the cell performance and its degradation. Section 1 presents studies of degradation under stressing of the cells with differently processed CdTe and different back contents. Section 2 presents studies of deep traps in the electrodeposited (ED) CdTe cells performed in collaboration at NREL. Section 3 reports studies of the spectral dependencies of photocurrent, and their spatial distribution over the cross-section of the ED CdTe cells were performed using near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM). Section 4 discusses the impedance spectroscopy of CdTe and CdS thin films. Section 5 presents studies of band spectrum and electron scattering in transparent conducting oxides. Appendices present data on personnel involved in the studies, laboratory improvements, and publications.

We have investigated the incorporation of americium and curium in selected zirconia-based materials in conjunction with a research program at the ''Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique'' that addresses transmutation of long-lived radioactive elements. Both cubic zirconia and pyrochlore oxides An{sub 2}Zr{sub 2}O{sub 7} (An = Am, Cm) are considered in the work reported here. The strategy proposed is to treat americium and curium together in the same transmutation process. There are several incentives for this approach. One is the radiotoxicity benefits while another is avoiding the difficult separation of Am and Cm. A third point is that curium must already be considered as it is generated in large amounts as a result of irradiating pure americium targets. Outlined here are our efforts to examine the behavior of Am and Cm in selected uranium-free hosts, which avoids the generation of additional actinide products. The general concept consists of irradiating the host targets for extended periods, which would be then disposed in a suitable repository (the so-called ''once through option''). The host matrix selected for Am and Cm must meet various criteria, such as a low neutron capture cross-section, a high melting point, phase stability, low oxygen potential, etc. Several potential candidates have …

Azimuthal anisotropy of final particle distributions was originally introduced as a signature of transverse collective flow. We show that finite anisotropy in momentum space can result solely from the shape of the particle emitting source. However, by comparing the differential anisotropy to recent data from STAR collaboration we can exclude such a scenario, but instead show that the data favour strong flow as resulting from a hydrodynamical evolution.

This report summarizes the activities of the Analytical Chemistry Laboratory (ACL) at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2000 (October 1999 through September 2000). This annual progress report, which is the seventeenth in this series for the ACL, describes effort on continuing projects, work on new projects, and contributions of the ACL staff to various programs at ANL. The ACL operates within the ANL system as a full-cost-recovery service center, but it has a mission that includes a complementary research and development component: The Analytical Chemistry Laboratory will provide high-quality, cost-effective chemical analysis and related technical support to solve research problems of our clients--Argonne National Laboratory, the Department of Energy, and others--and will conduct world-class research and development in analytical chemistry and its applications. The ACL handles a wide range of analytical problems that reflects the diversity of research and development (R&D) work at ANL. Some routine or standard analyses are done, but the ACL operates more typically in a problem-solving mode in which development of methods is required or adaptation of techniques is needed to obtain useful analytical data. The ACL works with clients and commercial laboratories if a large number of routine analyses are required. Much …

Feature extraction and evaluation are two procedures common to the development of any pattern recognition application. These features are the primary pieces of information which are used to train the pattern recognition tool, whether that tool is a neural network, a fuzzy logic rulebase, or a genetic algorithm. Careful selection of the features to be used by the pattern recognition tool can significantly streamline the overall development and training of the solution for the pattern recognition application. This report summarizes the development of an integrated, computer-based software package called the Feature Extraction Toolbox (FET), which can be used for the development and deployment of solutions to generic pattern recognition problems. This toolbox integrates a number of software techniques for signal processing, feature extraction and evaluation, and pattern recognition, all under a single, user-friendly development environment. The toolbox has been developed to run on a laptop computer, so that it may be taken to a site and used to develop pattern recognition applications in the field. A prototype version of this toolbox has been completed and is currently being used for applications development on several projects in support of the Department of Energy.

Monthly student newspaper from St. Philip's College in San Antonio, Texas that includes campus news along with advertising.