A briefing report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the World Trade Organization's (WTO) dispute settlement system, focusing on: (1) how WTO members have used the new system, primarily on cases involving the United States; and (2) the impact of these cases on foreign trade practices and U.S. laws and regulations, and their overall commercial effects."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on TRICARE centralized appointment scheduling, focusing on the: (1) proportion of appointments scheduled by TRICARE contractors for beneficiaries in the four TRICARE regions with centralized systems; and (2) factors that affect the contractors' ability to schedule appointments."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the process used by the Public Buildings Service (PBS) to procure leased space for federal agencies, focusing on the: (1) approaches 3 of the General Services Administration's 11 regional offices use to lease space, including how each region determines an agency's space requirements, identifies and assesses potential space, and communicates with actual offerors; and (2) effect of solicitation practices on competition."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The judiciary is in the midst of a multibillion-dollar courthouse construction program. New courthouses are being built to house new judgeships created because of increasing caseloads and to replace obsolete courthouses occupied by existing judges. For years, there has been a debate about whether district judges could share courtrooms to save taxpayer dollars without compromising judicial administration. In 1997, GAO issued a report calling for better courtroom use data and analysis to enhance facility planning. In response, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC) contracted with Ernst & Young to study the judiciary's facilities program in 1999. As part of the study, AOUSC asked Ernst & Young to analyze courtroom utilization, assignment, and sharing by judges. GAO found that the Ernst & Young study did not provide the type of data and analysis that GAO and other research organizations, such as the Rand Institute for Civil Justice and the Federal Judicial Center, have determined would be needed to help resolve the courtroom-sharing issue."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on issues related to the safety of children who may be exposed to pesticides in agricultural settings, focusing on: (1) what federal requirements govern the safe use of pesticides, particularly as they relate to protecting children in agricultural settings; (2) what information is available on the acute and chronic effects of agricultural pesticide exposure, particularly on children; and (3) what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has done to ensure that its Worker Protection Standard considers the needs of children and is being adequately implemented and enforced."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO compared the planned funding levels for the common years of the Department of Defense's (DOD) fiscal years (FY) 2000 and 2001 Future Years Defense Program (FYDP)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) national fish hatcheries, focusing on whether: (1) the activities carried out at the national fish hatcheries are consistent with their statutory authorizations; and (2) changes in existing laws would be appropriate to provide better direction to FWS on which programs to emphasize and to authorize FWS to make changes in how it manages the hatcheries."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) programs for resolving pension-plan deviations from tax-exemption requirements, focusing on: (1) the frequency and types of pension plan qualification failures that were detected and corrected through IRS audits; (2) the frequency and types of pension plan qualification failures that were identified by pension plan sponsors and reported to IRS for approval of the correction; (3) the sanctions established under IRS' audit program with the compliance fees that could have been imposed if the same qualification failures had been self-reported by the pension plans to IRS; and (4) whether any cost-effective means, other than pension plan audits, have been identified that would detect unreported qualification failures."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Advance Pricing Agreement Program, focusing on the: (1) extent of advance pricing agreements (APA) use by U.S. taxpayers, including those that have had transfer pricing disputes with the IRS; (2) timeliness of IRS' APA processing; and (3) results of IRS' review of taxpayers' annual reports on compliance with APAs."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of Defense Programs seeks to maintain the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing. This report discusses the Department of Energy's (DOE) management of its National Nuclear Security Administration's Stockpile Stewardship Program, focusing on the program's plans, budgeting, organization, and life extension process. Although the Office of Defense Programs has tried to address some of the challenges facing the Stockpile Stewardship Program, more improvements are needed. The Office of Defense Programs has developed an extensive planning process to improve the management of its Stockpile Stewardship program. So far, however, the plans are missing vital information. The Office has developed a new structure for its fiscal year 2001 budget that can improve the overall management of the Stockpile Stewardship Program. Several external and internal studies have found that the Office of Defense Programs has a dysfunctional organization with unclear lines of authority that lead to a lack of accountability. Finally, one of the nine types of nuclear weapons in the current stockpile has begun the life extension process--a step that will be necessary to keep the …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) computer-generated low-dollar notices, focusing on notices involving: (1) amounts due of less than $5; and (2) refunds of less than $1."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Medicaid program and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), focusing on the differences between both programs with regard to outreach, application and eligibility determination, screening and enrollment, and benefits."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed whether federal agencies have the capacity to monitor and enforce trade agreements, focusing on: (1) the federal structure for monitoring and enforcing trade agreements; (2) the increasing complexity of the federal monitoring and enforcement task and key activities that federal agencies must perform; and (3) whether the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) have the capacity to handle their monitoring and enforcement workload, that is, whether their human capital resources and support mechanisms enable them to perform needed monitoring and enforcement activities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO audited the financial statements of the Capitol Preservation Fund for the fiscal years ended September 30, 1999 and 1998, and the related statements of activities and statements of cash flows for the fiscal years then ended."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) whistleblower protection, focusing on the: (1) actions VA has taken since October 29, 1994--the enactment of the 1994 Whistleblower Protection Act amendments--to inform its employees about their rights to protection against reprisal when reporting misconduct; (2) extent to which VA employees are aware of their rights to such protection; (3) extent to which VA employees are willing to report misconduct in VA operations, should they become aware of it; and (4) number and disposition of whistleblower reprisal complaints filed by VA employees with agencies responsible for providing whistleblower protection."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the readiness of the Army National Guard's Enhanced Brigades, focusing on: (1) whether the brigades are meeting training and personnel readiness goals; (2) the key reasons for any continuing difficulties in meeting these goals; and (3) whether the Army has an effective system for assessing brigade readiness and the time required for the brigades to be ready for war."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) multiple collection notices, focusing on: (1) how many individual taxpayers were sent multiple notices to collect the same tax assessment, particularly after IRS received full payment of the assessment; and (2) IRS' reasons for sending collection notices after receiving full payment."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the implementation of the Federal Activities Inventory Reform (FAIR) Act of 1998, focusing on: (1) the overall initial implementation of the FAIR Act; (2) the clarity and understandability of five agencies' FAIR Act inventories; (3) the extent to which these agencies exempted commercial activities from competition; and (4) supplemental information that enhanced the understandability of agencies' inventories."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS) fisheries buyback programs, focusing on: (1) the extent to which the buyback programs have affected fishing capacity; (2) potential ways the buyback programs can be made more effective; and (3) NMFS' efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of buyback programs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Office of Professional Responsibility's (OPR) operations, focusing on: (1) how OPR conducts its inquiries into allegations of misconduct by Department of Justice attorneys; (2) to what extent OPR's workload, as well as budget, have changed; (3) the possible range of disciplinary actions and procedures if employee misconduct is found; (4) OPR's oversight relationship with similar offices in other Justice components; (5) the degree to which OPR has implemented GAO's prior recommendations; and (6) how OPR is monitoring and implementing the Hyde Attorneys Fees Amendment and the Citizens Protection Act."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed whether the District of Columbia's annual performance report contained all the information required by law and, if not, why. This report transmits GAO's comments on the Mayor's performance report for fiscal year (FY) 1999, which was due on March 1, 2000, but was issued on March 7, 2000."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Air Force's engineering and manufacturing development program for the F-22 aircraft, focusing on: (1) the extent to which the F-22 development program is meeting its performance, schedule, and cost goals; (2) whether the Air Force is likely to complete the development program as planned without exceeding the cost limitation established by the act; and (3) whether GAO had access to sufficient information to make informed judgments on matters covered in this report."

Oak Ridge National Laboratory was tasked by the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center (Huntsville, AL) to evaluate the mathematical basis of existing software tools used to assist the Army with the characterization of sites potentially contaminated with unexploded ordnance (UXO). These software tools are collectively known as SiteStats/GridStats. The first purpose of the software is to guide sampling of underground anomalies to estimate a site's UXO density. The second purpose is to delineate areas of homogeneous UXO density that can be used in the formulation of response actions. It was found that SiteStats/GridStats does adequately guide the sampling so that the UXO density estimator for a sector is unbiased. However, the software's techniques for delineation of homogeneous areas perform less well than visual inspection, which is frequently used to override the software in the overall sectorization methodology. The main problems with the software lie in the criteria used to detect nonhomogeneity and those used to recommend the number of homogeneous subareas. SiteStats/GridStats is not a decision-making tool in the classical sense. Although it does provide information to decision makers, it does not require a decision based on that information. SiteStats/GridStats provides information that is supplemented by visual inspections, land-use …

Collapse surfaces are developed for thick perforated plates containing a triangular penetration pattern with ligament efficiencies of 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.5 using elastic-perfectly plastic FEA analysis. The FEA data was fit to a fourth-order collapse function which is appropriate for the development of an equivalent solid elastic-perfectly plastic plasticity model for perforated plates with triangular penetration patterns. This type of model can be conveniently used to develop a limit load capability for perforated plate analysis. It was shown that the fourth-order function is reasonable for ligament efficiencies between 0.15 to 0.5. Comparing the fourth-order collapse function to FEA data suggests that an alternate collapse function is needed for ligament efficiencies less than 0.15. A linear interpolation method was shown to be appropriate for ligament efficiencies between 0.15 and 0.5.