A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) funding of Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act projects, focusing on: (1) what process HUD uses to select projects for funding, whether this process is consistent with relevant statutes, and how HUD treats new projects and projects that have been funded in the past (renewal projects); (2) the extent to which HUD funds projects that communities rank as high-priority under their Continuums of Care, and why some high-priority projects are not funded while some low-priority projects are funded; and (3) whether communities face any common problems when applying for funds from HUD, and what actions are needed to correct these problems."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed various laws, rules, and policies related to the political activities of U.S. Attorneys, focusing on: (1) what laws and Department of Justice (DOJ) rules and policies govern U.S. Attorneys' involvement in Hatch Act partisan political activities; (2) what types of activities are permitted and what types are prohibited; (3) to what extent have U.S. Attorneys been involved in Hatch Act partisan political activities; (4) what DOJ rules and policies govern U.S. Attorneys' involvement in issue-oriented political activities; (5) to what extent have U.S. Attorneys been involved in issue-oriented political activities; and (6) what statutory or other provisions govern U.S. Attorney Offices' expenditure of federal funds and resources for political activities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Army Corps of Engineers' environmental impact statement (EIS) of the Lower Snake River dams, focusing on: (1) extent to which the Corps followed applicable procedures and guidelines in preparing the draft EIS; and (2) reasonableness of the methodology the Corps used to analyze and present the effects of breaching the dams, specifically with respect to electricity costs, transportation costs, and air quality."

Two computer modules are being constructed to model a new process for syngas upgrading and purification. The first module simulates the physical processes occurring in a fluid bed reactor where both gas and solid compositions and flow rates vary significantly along the axis of the reactor. The second module simulates the chemistry and mass transfer between the gas and solid phases. Primitive forms of the two modules have been developed and exercised over a range of performance parameters. These early tests verify that the modules will need to be expanded to model the reactors as series of individual zones in order to attain satisfactory predictive performance.

The Ministry of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation (Minatom) is one of Russia's largest and most influential federal bodies. Throughout 1999 its head, Yevgeny Adamov, has worked to increase the Ministry's commercial competitiveness by consolidating redundant facilities and tightening control over subsidiary organizations. Economic difficulties and budget constraints, however, have hindered Minatom's ability to achieve many of its programs and goals. As a result, the Ministry has continued, renewed or initiated contracts with several countries possessing questionable commitments to nonproliferation and has sought to expand its role in international nuclear waste management and spent fuel reprocessing in order to raise new sources of revenue. While many of these programs are not likely to come to fruition, others raise significant nonproliferation and environmental concerns. This paper reviews select programs driving Minatom's efforts to raise funds, comments on their potential viability, and highlights areas likely to be of particular concern for the United States over the next three to five years.

Ground surface subsidence resulting from the March 1992 JUNCTION underground nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) imaged by satellite synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) wholly occurred during a period of several months after the shot (Vincent et al., 1999) and after the main cavity collapse event. A significant portion of the subsidence associated with the small (less than 20 kt) GALENA and DIVIDER tests probably also occurred after the shots, although the deformation detected in these cases contains additional contributions from coseismic processes, since the radar scenes used to construct the deformation interferogram bracketed these two later events, The dimensions of the seas of subsidence resulting from all three events are too large to be solely accounted for by processes confined to the damage zone in the vicinity of the shot point or the collapse chimney. Rather, the subsidence closely corresponds to the span dimensions predicted by Patton's (1990) empirical relationship between spall radius and yield. This suggests that gravitational settlement of damaged rock within the spall zone is an important source of post-shot subsidence, in addition to settlement of the rubble within the collapse chimney. These observations illustrate the potential power of InSAR as a tool for …

Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) is a numerical technique for locally tailoring the resolution computational grids. Multilevel algorithms for solving elliptic problems on adaptive grids include the Fast Adaptive Composite grid method (FAC) and its parallel variants (AFAC and AFACx). Theory that confirms the independence of the convergence rates of FAC and AFAC on the number of refinement levels exists under certain ellipticity and approximation property conditions. Similar theory needs to be developed for AFACx. The effectiveness of multigrid-based elliptic solvers such as FAC, AFAC, and AFACx on adaptively refined overlapping grids is not clearly understood. Finally, a non-trivial eye model problem will be solved by combining the power of using overlapping grids for complex moving geometries, AMR, and multilevel elliptic solvers.

Gated, microchannel-plate-based (MCP) framing cameras have been deployed worldwide for 0.2 - 9 keV x-ray imaging and spectroscopy of transient plasma phenomena. For a variety of spectroscopic and imaging applications, the angular sensitivity of MCPs must be known for correctly interpreting the data. We present systematic measurements of angular sensitivity at discrete relevant photon energies and arbitrary MCP gain. The results can been accurately predicted by using a simple 2D approximation to the 3D MCP geometry and by averaging over all possible photon ray paths.

As evidenced by the popularity of MPI (Message Passing Interface), message passing is an effective programming technique for managing coarse-grained concurrency on distributed computers. Unfortunately, debugging message-passing applications can be difficult. Software complexity, data races, and scheduling dependencies can make programming errors challenging to locate with manual, interactive debugging techniques. This article describes Umpire, a new tool for detecting programming errors at runtime in message passing applications. Umpire monitors the MPI operations of an application by interposing itself between the application and the MPI runtime system using the MPI profiling layer. It, then, checks its MPI behavior for specific errors. The initial collection of programming errors includes deadlock detection, mismatched collective operations, and resource exhaustion. They present an evaluation that demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach.

We present first principle molecular dynamics simulations for selected point defects on the (001) stoichiometric carbon terminated surface of cubic Silicon Carbide. In particular we investigated missing units and coordination defects. The results of our calculations are compared with recent experiments, in particular we discuss simulated STM images, which are in good agreement with measured ones.

Sustained operation of high average power solid-state lasers currently requires an adaptive resonator to produce the optimal beam quality. We describe the architecture of a real-time adaptive control system for correcting intra-cavity aberrations in a heat capacity laser. Image data collected from a wavefront sensor are processed and used to control phase with a high-spatial-resolution deformable mirror. Our controller takes advantage of recent developments in low-cost, high-performance processor technology. A desktop-based computational engine and object-oriented software architecture replaces the high-cost rack-mount embedded computers of previous systems.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with George Beeler. Beeler joined the Army in April of 1943. He was assigned to a Military Police battalion with the 45th Infantry Division. In December, he was transferred to Baltimore. He completed Officer Candidate School in the spring of 1944. In December, Beeler completed additional schooling as a marine repair officer. In June of 1945 he deployed to Hickman Field in Hawaii, serving as a shipment officer, in preparation for the invasion of Japan. He continued his service after the war ended, receiving his discharge around July of 1946.

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.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with George Beeler. Beeler joined the Army in April of 1943. He was assigned to a Military Police battalion with the 45th Infantry Division. In December, he was transferred to Baltimore. He completed Officer Candidate School in the spring of 1944. In December, Beeler completed additional schooling as a marine repair officer. In June of 1945 he deployed to Hickman Field in Hawaii, serving as a shipment officer, in preparation for the invasion of Japan. He continued his service after the war ended, receiving his discharge around July of 1946.

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

Once considered the nation's most regulated industry, the electric utility industry is evolving into a more competitive environment. Currently, the focus of this development is the generating sector, where the advent of new generating technologies has lowered both entry barriers to competitors of traditional utilities and the marginal costs of those competitors below those of some traditional utilities. This technological advance has combined with legislative initiatives, such as the Energy Policy Act (EPACT), to encourage the introduction of competitive forces into the electric generating sector.

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

This document highlights the Discom{sup 2}'s Distance computing and communication team activities at the 1999 Supercomputing conference in Portland, Oregon. This conference is sponsored by the IEEE and ACM. Sandia, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National laboratories have participated in this conference for eleven years. For the last four years the three laboratories have come together at the conference under the DOE's ASCI, Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiatives rubric. Communication support for the ASCI exhibit is provided by the ASCI DISCOM{sup 2} project. The DISCOM{sup 2} communication team uses this forum to demonstrate and focus communication and networking developments within the community. At SC 99, DISCOM built a prototype of the next generation ASCI network demonstrated remote clustering techniques, demonstrated the capabilities of the emerging Terabit Routers products, demonstrated the latest technologies for delivering visualization data to the scientific users, and demonstrated the latest in encryption methods including IP VPN technologies and ATM encryption research. The authors also coordinated the other production networking activities within the booth and between their demonstration partners on the exhibit floor. This paper documents those accomplishments, discusses the details of their implementation, and describes how these demonstrations support Sandia's overall strategies in ASCI networking.

The authors compare the polarized optical spectra of the organic metal {beta}{double_prime}-(ET){sub 2}SF{sub 5}CHFSO{sub 3} and the {beta}{double_prime}-ET{sub 2}SF{sub 5}CHFCF{sub 2}SO{sub 3} metal/insulator material with those of the first fully organic superconductor {beta}{double_prime}-ET{sub 2}SF{sub 5}CH{sub 2}SO{sub 3}. The small chemical modification of the counterion has a dramatic effect on the spectral and charge transport properties of these materials, and they discuss their electronic structure in terms of band structure, many-body effects, and disorder. Based on structural differences in the anion pocket of the three salts, they conclude that the unusual electronic excitations observed in the {beta}{double_prime}-(ET){sub 2}SF{sub 5}CHFCF{sub 2}SO{sub 3} metal/insulator material are caused by disorder-related localization.

A high-precision cryogenically-cooled crystal monochromator has been developed for the APS diagnostics beamline. The design permits simultaneous measurements of the particle beam size and divergence. It provides for a large rotation angle, {minus}15{degree} to 180{degree}, with a resolution of 0.0005{degree}. The roll angle of the crystal can be adjusted by up to {+-}3{degree} with a resolution of 0.0001{degree}. A vertical translational stage, with a stroke of {+-}25 mm and resolution of 8 {micro}m, is provided to enable using different parts of the same crystal or to retract the crystal from the beam path. The modular design will allow optimization of cooling schemes to minimize thermal distortions of the crystal under high heat loads.

Argonne National Laboratory is developing a process to convert hydrocarbon fuels to clean hydrogen feeds for a polymer electrolyte fuel cell. The process incorporates an autothermal reforming catalyst that can process hydrocarbon feeds at lower temperatures than existing commercial catalysts. The authors have tested the catalyst with three diesel-type fuels: hexadecane, certified low-sulfur grade 1 diesel, and a standard grade 2 diesel. Hexadecane yielded products containing 60% hydrogen on a dry, nitrogen-free basis at 850 C, while maximum hydrogen product yields for the two diesel fuels were near 50%. Residual products in all cases included CO, CO{sub 2}, ethane, and methane. Further studies with grade 1 diesel showed improved conversion as the water:fuel ratio was increased from 1 to 2 at 850 C. Soot formation was reduced when the oxygen:carbon ratio was maintained at 1 at 850 C. There were no significant changes in hydrogen yield as the space velocity and the oxygen:fuel ratio were varied. Tests with a microchannel monolithic catalyst yielded similar or improved hydrogen levels at higher space velocities than with extruded pellets in a packed bed.

The authors carry out a comparative study of the energetic and dynamics of Si-Si, Ge-Ge, and Ge-Si ad-dimers on top of a dimer row in the Si(001) surface, using first-principles calculations. The dynamic appearance of a Ge-Si dimer is distinctively different from that of a Si-Si or Ge-Ge dimer, providing a unique way for its identification by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Its rocking motion, observed in STM, actually reflects a 180{degree} rotation of the dimer, involving a piecewise-rotation mechanism. The calculated energy barrier of 0.74 eV is in good agreement with the experimental value of 0.82 eV.

Simulations of granular packings in 2-D by throwing disks in a rectangular die are performed. Different size distributions as bimodal, uniform and gaussian are used. Once the array of particles is done, a relaxation process is carried on using a large-amplitude, low-frequency vertical shaking. This relaxation is performed a number N of times. Then, the authors measure the density of the package, contact distribution, coordination number distribution, entropy and also the disks size distribution vs. height. The dependence of all these magnitudes on the number N of shakings used to relax the packing and on the size distribution parameters are explored and discussed.