Guidance issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This publication supersedes GAO-01-145G, GAO's Congressional Protocols, November 2000. This report supersedes GAO-01-145G, GAO's Congressional Protocols November 2000, and GAO-03-198G, GAO's Congressional Protocols: Addendum I, November 2002. This document contains updated protocols governing GAO's work for the Congress. Since we implemented the original protocols in November 2000, we have monitored their application, and several areas were identified as needing additional clarity to enhance our ability to better serve the Congress. The refinements in this edition reflect feedback from Members of Congress and their staffs since the original implementation and, more specifically, comments received between November 2003 and June 2004 on proposed revisions to the protocols. These protocols continue to provide a means of holding GAO accountable for commitments made to the Congress and ensuring that GAO is consistent in dealing with all committees and Members. In order to address existing and growing workload imbalances and provide more transparency about our decision-making criteria, these revised protocols clarify our authority to conduct work, delineate our priorities for initiating work, and identify the factors we consider before accepting congressional requests for work."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2003, 31 residents died in nursing home fires in Hartford, Connecticut, and Nashville, Tennessee. Federal fire safety standards enforced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) did not require either home to have automatic sprinklers even though they have proven very effective in reducing the number of multiple deaths from fires. GAO was asked to report on (1) the rationale for not requiring all homes to be sprinklered, (2) the adequacy of federal fire safety standards for nursing homes that lack automatic sprinklers, and (3) the effectiveness of state and federal oversight of nursing home fire safety."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "During fiscal year 2002, Medicaid--a program jointly funded by the federal government and the states--provided health care coverage for about 51 million low-income Americans. That year, Medicaid benefit payments reached approximately $244 billion, of which the federal share was about $139 billion. The program is administered by state Medicaid agencies with oversight provided by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in the Department of Health and Human Services. Medicaid's size and diversity make it vulnerable to improper payments that can result from fraud, abuse, or clerical errors. States conduct program integrity activities to prevent, or detect and recover, improper payments. This report provides information on (1) the types of provider fraud and abuse problems that state Medicaid programs have identified, (2) approaches states take to ensure that Medicaid funds are paid appropriately, and (3) CMS's efforts to support and oversee state program integrity activities. To address these issues, we compiled an inventory of states' Medicaid program integrity activities, conducted site visits in eight states, and interviewed CMS's Medicaid program integrity staff."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2002, GAO reported that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) needed to improve its communications with providers who deliver medical care to beneficiaries. GAO reported that 85 percent of the responses it received to 61 calls made to call centers operated by Medicare carriers--contractors that help manage the Medicare program--were incorrect or incomplete. GAO also found that CMS's primary oversight tools were insufficient to ensure accuracy in communication. GAO was asked whether call centers now provide correct and complete information to providers. GAO (1) reviewed carriers' effectiveness in providing correct and complete responses to policy-oriented telephone inquiries and CMS's efforts to improve communications with providers and (2) evaluated CMS's efforts to provide oversight of carrier call centers."

The technique of in-situ wide angle diffraction has been used to study materials such as Si and Cu. We have extended our studies of shocked single crystal materials to include Fe (001) that is shock compressed by direct laser irradiation using the OMEGA and Janus lasers. A series of experiments was conducted in Fe at pressures above the Hugoniot Elastic Limit. Transient x-ray was used to record the response of multiple lattice planes simultaneously. This technique of wide-angle diffraction provides information on the lattice response both parallel and oblique to the shock propagation direction. In these experiments, compressions of up to 14% in the (002) planes were observed. Details on the experiments and analysis of the dynamic lattice compression will be presented.

Since the collapse of Enron Corp. in late 2001, there has been a series of scandals involving major U.S. corporations. Recurring elements in the scandals include improper or fraudulent accounting, self-enrichment by corporate officers, stock trading on inside information, and the destruction or falsification of business records. This report tracks post-Enron criminal charges.

This report provides a brief description of each tax cut proposal, including major proposals offered by the Democrats in both the House and the Senate during 2003. It discusses the distributional affects of the proposals and potential effects on short and long term economic growth.

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

A novel approach has been implemented on DIII-D to allow the correct determination of the plasma poloidal velocity from charge exchange spectroscopy measurements. Unlike usual techniques, the need for detailed atomic physics calculations to properly interpret the results is alleviated. Instead, the needed atomic physics corrections are self-consistently determined directly from the measurements, by making use of specially chosen viewing chords. Modeling results are presented that were used to determine a set of views capable of measuring the correction terms. We present the analysis of a quiescent H-mode discharge, illustrating that significant modifications to the velocity profiles are required in these high ion temperature conditions. We also present preliminary measurements providing the first direct comparison of the standard cross-section correction to the atomic physics calculations.

Beam ion transport in the presence of low frequency MHD activity in National Spherical Tokamak Experiment (NSTX) plasma is modeled numerically and analyzed theoretically in order to understand basic underlying physical mechanisms responsible for the observed fast ion redistribution and losses. Numerical modeling of the beam ions flux into the NPA in NSTX shows that after the onset of low frequency MHD activity high energy part of beam ion distribution, E{sub b} > 40keV, is redistributed radially due to stochastic diffusion. Such diffusion is caused by high order harmonics of the transit frequency resonance overlap in the phase space. Large drift orbit radial width induces such high order resonances. Characteristic confinement time is deduced from the measured NPA energy spectrum and is typically {approx} 4msec. Considered MHD activity may induce losses on the order of 10% at the internal magnetic field perturbation {delta}B/B = {Omicron} (10{sup -3}), which is comparable to the prompt orbit losses.

Although the application of passive tamper indicating device (TID) systems will always have their place in specific material storage applications, the implementation of an active seal system with remote interrogation/monitoring capabilities presents opportunities not previously achievable. This paper discusses the Savannah River Site (SRS) K-Area's progress over the past few years to successfully implement and operate a remote material monitoring system using an active seal platform. Active TID systems are evolving to allow true remote monitoring of seal state data as well as incorporating monitoring of other variables such as material condition, facility status and/or environmental surroundings. Since 1996, K-Area has been testing and evaluating various TID systems for site-wide use. From the origins of a joint effort between SRS/Sandia National Labs/Russian Federation in 1999 to demonstrate transparency with active monitoring systems to having the first International Atomic Energy Agency recognized dual containment/surveillance system using active seals in the United States, K-Area has been successful in implementing a system which using an internally authenticated active TID to provide remote material monitoring. The Sandia-developed T-1 Electronic Sensor Platform (ESP), the primary component of the ''dual surveillance'' system installed in K-Area, has received ''authorization for use'' by both DOE-SR and the IAEA. …

Toroidicity Alfven Eigenmodes (TAE) in ITER can be driven unstable by two groups of energetic particles, the 3.5 MeV {alpha}-particle fusion products and the tangentially injected 1MeV beam ions. Stability conditions are established using the perturbative NOVA/NOVA-K codes. A quasi-linear diffusion model is then used to assess the induced redistribution of energetic particles.

This annual report describes progress in the third year of the three-year project entitled ''Midcontinent Interactive Digital Carbon Atlas and Relational Database (MIDCARB)''. The project assembled a consortium of five states (Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio) to construct an online distributed Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) covering aspects of carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) geologic sequestration (http://www.midcarb.org). The system links the five states in the consortium into a coordinated regional database system consisting of datasets useful to industry, regulators and the public. The project has been extended and expanded as a ''NATional CARBon Sequestration Database and Geographic Information System (NATCARB)'' to provide national coverage across the Regional CO{sub 2} Partnerships, which currently cover 40 states (http://www.natcarb.org). Advanced distributed computing solutions link database servers across the five states and other publicly accessible servers (e.g., USGS) into a single system where data is maintained and enhanced at the local level but is accessed and assembled through a single Web portal and can be queried, assembled, analyzed and displayed. This project has improved the flow of data across servers and increased the amount and quality of available digital data. The online tools used in the project have improved …

We report on the behavior of ELMs in NBI-heated H-mode plasmas in NSTX. It is observed that the size of Type I ELMs, characterized by the change in plasma energy, decreases with increasing density, as observed at conventional aspect ratio. It is also observed that the Type I ELM size decreases as the plasma equilibrium is shifted from a symmetric double-null toward a lower single-null configuration. Type III ELMs have also been observed in NSTX, as well as a high-performance regime with small ELMs which we designate Type V. These Type V ELMs are consistent with high bootstrap current operation and density approaching Greenwald scaling. The Type V ELMs are characterized by an intermittent n=1 MHD mode rotating counter to the plasma current. Without active pumping, the density rises continuously through the Type V phase. However, efficient in-vessel pumping should allow density control, based on particle containment time estimates.

The research program of the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) routinely utilizes the H-mode confinement regime to test and extend beta and pulse length limits. As in conventional aspect ratio tokamaks, NSTX observes a variety of edge localized modes (ELMs) in H-mode. Hence a significant part of the research program is dedicated to ELMs studies.

LUX is a design concept for an ultrafast X-ray science facility, based on an electron beam accelerated to GeV energies in are circulating linac. Included in the design are short duration (200 fs or shorter FWHM) light sources using multiple stages of higher harmonic generation, seeded by a 200-250 nm laser of similar duration. This laser modulates the energy of a group of electrons within the electron bunch; this section of the electron bunch then produces radiation at a higher harmonic after entering a second, differently tuned undulator. Repeated stages in a cascade yield increasing photon energies up to 1 keV. Most of the undulators in the cascade operate in the low-gain FEL regime. Harmonic cascades have been designed for each pass of the recirculating linac up to a final electron beam energy of 3.1 GeV. For a given cascade, the photon energy can be selected over a wide range by varying the seed laser frequency and the field strength in the undulators. We present simulation results using the codes GENESIS and GINGER, as well as the results of analytical models which predict FEL performance. We discuss lattice considerations pertinent for harmonic cascade FELs, as well as sensitivity studies and …

Preliminary results on the measurement of the top quark mass at the Tevatron Collider are presented. In the dilepton decay channel, the CDF Collaboration measures m{sub t} = 175.0{sub -16.9}{sup +17.4}(stat.){+-}8.4(syst.) GeV/c{sup 2}, using a sample of {approx} 126 pb{sup -1} of proton-antiproton collision data at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV (Run II). In the lepton plus jets channel, the CDF Collaboration measures 177.5{sub -9.4}{sup +12.7}(stat.) {+-} 7.1(syst.) GeV/c{sup 2}, using a sample of {approx} 102 pb{sup -1} at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. The D0 Collaboration has newly applied a likelihood technique to improve the analysis of {approx} 125 pb{sup -1} of proton-antiproton collisions at {radical}s = 1.8 TeV (Run I), with the result: m{sub t} = 180.1 {+-} 3.6(stat.) {+-}3.9(syst.) GeV/c{sup 2}. The latter is combined with all the measurements based on the data collected in Run I to yield the most recent and comprehensive experimental determination of the top quark mass: m{sub t} = 178.0 {+-} 2.7(stat.) {+-} 3.3(syst.) GeV/c{sup 2}.

Weekly newspaper from Dell City, 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.

Funeral program for Willer Bernice (McClain) Kirven, born November 24, 1915 and died July 11, 2004. The funeral was held Friday, July 16, 2004 at St. Philip's Episcopal Church, officiated by Father David Wendell. Funeral arrangements were made through Lewis Funeral Home and she was buried in Meadowlawn Memorial Park in San Antonio, Texas.

The use of isoconversional, sometimes called model-free, kinetic analysis methods have recently gained favor in the thermal analysis community. Although these methods are very useful and instructive, the conclusion by some that model fitting is a poor approach is largely due to improper use of model fitting, such as fitting a single heating rate or multiple heating rates separately. The current paper shows the ability of model fitting to correlate reaction data over very wide time-temperature regimes for three polymers of interest for formulating high explosives: Estane 5703 P (poly [ester urethane] block copolymer), Viton A (vinylidene-hexafluoropropene copolymer), and Kel-F 800 (vinylidene-chlorotrifluorethene copolymer). The Kel-F required two parallel reactions--one describing an early decomposition process accounting for {approx}1% weight loss and a second autocatalytic reaction describing the remainder of pyrolysis. Essentially no residue was obtained. Viton A and Estane also required two parallel reactions for primary pyrolysis. For Viton A, the first reaction is also a minor, early process, but for Estane, it accounts for 42% of the mass loss. In addition, these to polymers yield 2-3% of residue, and the amount depends on the heating rate. This is an example of a competitive reaction between volatilization and char formation, which …

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Video footage from the NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story. This story aired at 4 P.M.