A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO summarized from available research what is known about adverse drug events (ADE), focusing on the: (1) different types and causes of ADEs; (2) evidence on the overall incidence and cost of ADEs in the United States; and (3) measures that have been proposed to reduce the number and severity of ADEs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on states' efforts to ensure the safety and health of children in child care settings, focusing on: (1) the most critical licensing and enforcement activities that help states ensure the safety and health of children in child care; (2) the extent to which states conduct these critical activities for their regulated providers; and (3) how states ensure that nonregulated providers receiving block grant funds meet the law's safety and health requirements."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the pricing of genetically modified seeds, focusing on the: (1) prices of Roundup Ready soybean seeds and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn seeds in the United States and Argentina; and (2) major reasons for the price differences, if any, between the two countries for these seeds."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Archer-Shaw Social Security reform proposal, focusing on: (1) the extent to which the proposal achieves sustainable solvency and how it would affect the U.S. economy and the federal budget; (2) the balance struck between the twin goals of income adequacy (level and certainty of benefits) and individual equity (rates of return on individual contributions); and (3) how readily such changes could be implemented, administered, and explained to the public."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed three agencies' annual performance plans to determine whether the plans met congressional requirements, focusing on: (1) which aspects of congressional information needs were met by the agency's annual performance plan or some other source; (2) where those needs were not met, and what accounted for the discrepancies or gaps in the information provided; and (3) what options agencies could use to practically and efficiently provide the desired performance information."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the impact of loan sales on tenants and properties, focusing on: (1) the impact on tenants as project-based assistance contracts expire; and (2) the steps that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has taken to ensure that mortgage purchasers honor the tenant protections."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) use of "radiation dose reconstruction" as a tool for determining veterans' eligibility for benefits, focusing on: (1) studies that assessed the validity of dose reconstruction for estimating veterans' radiation exposure and discussing the issue with experts in the field and other knowledgeable individuals; (2) what activities are in place to oversee the dose reconstruction process; and (3) alternatives for deciding veterans' claims for compensation related to radiation exposure."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO identified the private sector's key principles for strategically and effectively managing their human capital to provide federal agencies with information and examples to help them improve their human capital management."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) efforts to implement changes to the Medicare program, focusing on HCFA's implementation of the: (1) expansion of the partial hospitalization benefit; and (2) more recent changes under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) to determine whether HCFA is acting upon lessons learned from the partial hospitalization program."

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 Energy's (DOE) decision to select a commercial reactor for the production of tritium and to designate an accelerator to function as a backup, focusing on: (1) whether the cost estimates used by the Secretary of Energy during the process of selecting between the tritium production technology options were comparable and adequately supported; (2) what management, technological, and legal activities could affect the completion of the commercial reactor option on schedule and within budget; and (3) whether DOE's current plan for the development and design of the accelerator option is an effective backup that DOE could construct and operate within cost and schedule estimates."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO analyzed the costs of operating five Superfund cleanup sites, focusing on: (1) what portion of the total funds the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spent on each site was used to pay contractors for remedial actions as opposed to other activities and how the contractors spent these funds; and (2) whether the actual cost for remedial actions differed from the estimated costs and if so, why."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on management actions needed to answer basic research questions about Gulf War Illnesses, focusing on the: (1) amount of money the Departments of Veterans' Affairs (VA), Defense (D0D), and Health and Human Services (HHS) spent on research and investigation of Gulf War veterans' illnesses and health concerns in the fiscal years 1997 and 1998, including current and projected spending by the Office of the Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Gulf War Illnesses; (2) productivity of this research spending, including the extent to which the Coordinating Board has determined that federal research objectives have been satisfied, and the extent to which the research has resulted in peer-reviewed publications and the identification of the causes or successful treatments for Gulf War veterans' illnesses; (3) extent of coordination between the Research Working Group of the Coordinating Board and the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses; and (4) Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses' contract management."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) shift to a risk-informed regulation, focusing on the: (1) views of NRC's staff on the quality of the work that NRC performs, the management of and staff's involvement in changes occurring in the agency, and the move to a risk-informed regulatory approach; and (2) status of NRC's efforts to develop a strategy to implement a risk-informed regulatory approach."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information from state and federal agencies on the number of cramming complaints nationwide, focusing on: (1) determining whether they were seeing an increase or decrease in cramming complaints during 1999; (2) learning whether they were taking additional actions to protect consumers from cramming; and (3) obtaining updated information about their enforcement actions against crammers during 1999."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on enrollment in the Department of Defense's (DOD) pilot Medicare health maintenance organization (HMO) for military retirees, focusing on: (1) how successful the demonstration has been in enrolling eligible beneficiaries; (2) what influenced retirees to join DOD's pilot HMOs; and (3) what factors accounted for differences in enrollment rates across demonstration sites."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the development of competition in telecommunications markets, focusing on the: (1) development of competition in local telephone markets and the market strategies employed by new carriers in five states under the 1996 Telecommunications Act; and (2) key issues affecting that development and the enforcement activities of federal and state regulators to address those issues."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on mandatory country-of-origin labelling for beef and lamb, focusing on the potential: (1) compliance costs associated with mandatory country-of-origin labelling for fresh and processed beef and lamb; (2) enforcement costs associated with such a requirement; (3) trade issues associated with such a requirement; and (4) benefits of mandatory country-of-origin labelling."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the role and functioning of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, focusing on: (1) whether the issues listed for consideration by the Working Group in Executive Order 12631 have been considered; (2) what additional issues have been considered by the Working Group and how they were identified; and (3) the nature of coordination and cooperation within the Working Group and the views of members of Congress and Working Group participants about whether it needs to be formalized in statute."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how the Department of State has implemented its new responsibilities for U.S. policy regarding U.S. participation in the Universal Postal Union (UPU)."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the risk-focused approaches used by the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), focusing on: (1) the general characteristics of the regulators' risk-focused approach to examinations of large, complex banks, explaining how they differ from past examination practices; (2) comparing the implementation of the Federal Reserve's and OCC's risk-focused examination approaches; and (3) the challenges faced by both agencies as they continue to implement their examination programs for large, complex banks."

The North Texas Commission retained the University of North Texas Center for Economic Development and Research to summarize, evaluate and critique 18 "business climate" and "quality of life" surveys that were released in 1999. In particular, they were asked to identify data or perceptions from these studies that might be helpful to the Commission in formulating strategies for either capitalizing on the region's assets or dealing with its shortcomings.

This report, by the University of North Texas Center for Economic Development and Research, discusses the issues involved with population growth in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

The cracking resistance of Alloy 600, Alloy 690 and their welds, EN82H and EN52, was characterized by conducting J{sub IC} rising load tests in air and hydrogenated water and cooldown testing in water under constant-displacement conditions. All test materials displayed excellent toughness in air and high temperature water, but Alloy 690 and the two welds were severely embrittled in low temperature water. In 54 C water with 150 cc H{sub 2}/kg H{sub 2}O, J{sub IC} values were reduced by 70% to 95%, relative to their air counterpart. The toughness degradation was associated with a fracture mechanism transition from microvoid coalescence to intergranular fracture. Comparison of the cracking response in water with that for hydrogen-precharged specimens tested in air demonstrated that susceptibility to low temperature crack propagation (LTCP) is due to hydrogen embrittlement of grain boundaries. The effects of water temperature, hydrogen content and loading rate on LTCP were studied. In addition, testing of specimens containing natural weld defects and as-machined notches was performed to determine if low temperature cracking can initiate at these features. Unlike the other materials, Alloy 600 is not susceptible to LTCP as the toughness in 54 C water remained high and a microvoid coalescence mechanism was …

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