A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Damage, theft, vandalism, and pranks occurred in the White House complex during the 2001 presidential transition. Several Executive Office of the President (EOP) staff claim that they observed (1) messy offices containing excessive trash or personal items, (2) numerous prank signs containing derogatory and offensive statements about the president, (3) government property that was damaged, and (4) missing items. Further, EOP staff believed that what they observed during the transition was done intentionally. Some former Clinton administration staff acknowledged that they observed some damaged items and prank signs. However, the former Clinton administration staff said that (1) the amount of trash found during the transition was what could be expected; (2) they did not take the missing items; (3) some furniture was unintentionally broken before the transition, and little money was spent on repairs and upkeep during the administration; and (4) many of the reported observations were not of vandalism. This report makes several recommendations regarding the prevention and documentation of vandalism during future presidential transitions."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The issue of homeland security crosscuts numerous policy domains, impinging on the expertise and resources of every level of government, the private sector, and the international community. GAO found that although combating terrorism crossed organizational boundaries, it did not sufficiently coordinate the activities of the 40 federal entities involved, resulting in duplication and gaps in coverage. The homeland security efforts of public and private entities do not yet represent a unified approach, although key supporting elements for such an approach are emerging. Progress has been made in developing a framework to support a more unified effort. Other remaining key elements--a national strategy, establishment of public and private sector partnerships, and the definition of key terms--are either not in place yet or are evolving. At the same time, key terms, such as "homeland security," have not been defined officially; consequently, certain organizational, management, and budgetary decisions cannot currently be made across agencies. In the interim, the potential exists for an uncoordinated approach to homeland security that may lead to duplication of efforts or gaps in coverage, misallocation of resources, and inadequate monitoring of expenditures."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress passed the D.C. Family Court Act of 2001 to reform court practices and establish procedures to improve interactions between the District of Columbia's Family Court, of D.C. Superior Court, and social service agencies in the District. The act directed the Mayor to prepare a plan to integrate the computer systems of District agencies with those of the Court. The fiscal year 2002 D.C. Appropriations Act authorized $200,000 for integrating the computer systems and $500,000 for social workers to implement family court reform. The act also required the Mayor to prepare a plan for these funds and mandated that the plan be issued on July 8, 2002. The Mayor's plan provides such useful information as (1) an outline of the District's current health and human services information technology environment and its information needs and limitations regarding the Family Court, (2) planned and possible short- and long-term initiatives to integrate the District's computer systems with those of the Family Court, (3) five technological integration priorities, and (4) how the $200,000 in appropriated funds will be spent. However, the District has not yet completed essential analyses, such as …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' February 1992 Final Interim Feasibility Study and Environmental Impact Statement reported that deepening the Delaware River ship channel from 40 to 45 feet was economically justified and environmentally feasible. However, GAO found that it does not provide a reliable basis for deciding whether to proceed with the project. GAO identified several miscalculations, invalid assumptions, and the use of significantly outdated information on the Corps' benefits estimate. In addition, several unresolved issues and uncertainties were not factored into the Corps' economic analysis, the outcome of which could either increase or decrease the benefits and costs of the project. Because of these shortcomings, the actual economic merits of the project will be unclear until the Corps reanalyzes it. The Corps of Engineers has largely addressed the environmental concerns of federal and state environmental agencies. However, several unresolved issues remain, including the issuance of a permit from the state of Delaware governing construction projects that affect state waters."

The state of Iowa is considering adpoting ASHRAE 90.1-1999 as its commercial building energy code. In an effort to evaluate whether or not this is an appropraite code for the state, the potential benefits and costs of adopting this standard are considered. Both qualitative and quantitative benefits are assessed. The energy simulation and economic results suggest that adopting ASHRAE 90.1-1999 would provide postitive net benefits to the state relative to the building and design requirements currently in place.

Final report of the Amtrak Reform Council describing their activities and findings regarding the Council's proposed action plan for restructuring the national intercity rail passenger system in the face of Amtrak's failure to achieve operational self-sufficiency.

None

The approach of the Campus Earthquake Program (CEP) is to combine the substantial expertise that exists within the UC system in geology, seismology, and geotechnical engineering, to estimate the earthquake strong motion exposure of UC facilities. These estimates draw upon recent advances in hazard assessment, seismic wave propagation modeling in rocks and soils, and dynamic soil testing. The UC campuses currently chosen for application of our integrated methodology are Riverside, San Diego, and Santa Barbara. The procedure starts with the identification of possible earthquake sources in the region and the determination of the most critical fault(s) related to earthquake exposure of the campus. Combined geological, geophysical, and geotechnical studies are then conducted to characterize each campus with specific focus on the location of particular target buildings of special interest to the campus administrators. We drill, sample, and geophysically log deep boreholes next to the target structure, to provide direct in-situ measurements of subsurface material properties, and to install uphole and downhole 3-component seismic sensors capable of recording both weak and strong motions. The boreholes provide access below the soil layers, to deeper materials that have relatively high seismic shear-wave velocities. Analyses of conjugate downhole and uphole records provide a basis …

This report reviews the causes and goals of railway restructuring in other countries and describes the advantages and disadvantages of alternative models of rail regulatory regimes.

This report describes the National Science Foundation (NSF) that was created by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended (P.L. 81-507).

This report provides information about the Country Applicability of the U.S. Normal Trade Relations (Most-Favored-Nation) Status. The United States extends unlimited and permanent NTR treatment to all its trading partners.

None

None

This report outlines the approximately $8.3 billion in grants for economic and technical assistance to the States of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) by the United States in an effort to encourage a transition to democracy and free market economics. The report also covers the various departments and agencies providing grant assistance.

Reconciliation report with an ending account balance of $1,622.07 reconciled for the period ending on August 30, 2002.

The original filter recommended by PNNL for the RASA is somewhat difficult to dissolve and has been discontinued by the manufacturer (3M) because the manufacturing process (substrate blown microfiber, or SBMF) has been superceded by a simpler process (scrim-free blown microfiber, or BMF). Several new potential filters have been evaluated by PNNL and by an independent commercial lab. A superior product has been identified which provides higher trapping efficiency, higher air flow, is easier to dissolve, and is thinner, accommodating more filters per RASA roll. This filter is recommended for all ground-based sampling, and with additional mechanical support, it could be useful for airborne sampling, as well.

This summer workshop successfully exposed beginning graduate students, research technicians from industry, and other scientists to modern concepts and experimental protocols in an area that both DOE and NSF perceived to be lacking in U.S. science. 70 students participated in this workshop over 5 summers. Each summer, 12-16 students spent 2-4 weeks at The Ohio State University covering four distinct modules through lectures, laboratory sessions, and interaction with internationally recognized eminent scientists.

Accurate description of transport pathways on the gross scale, the location of contamination, and characterization of heterogeneity within the vadose zone, are now realized as vital for proper treatment, confinement and stabilization of subsurface contamination at Department of Energy (DOE) waste sites. Electromagnetic (EM) methods are ideal for these tasks since they are directly sensitive to the amount of fluid present in porous media, as well as fluid composition. At many DOE sites it is necessary to employ lower frequency (<1 MHz) or diffusive electromagnetic fields because of the inability of ground penetrating radar (GPR) to penetrate to sufficient depths. The high frequency impedance method, which operated in the diffusive frequency range (10 Hz to 1 MHz), as well as the low end of the spectrum employed by GPR (1MHz-10 MHz), is an ideal technique to delineate and map the aforementioned targets. The method has clearly shown the potential to provide needed information on variations in subsurface saturation due to local storage tanks and perched water zones, as well as mapping geological structures related to the subsurface hydrological properties and heterogeneity within the vadose zone. Although it exhibits certain advantages over other EM methods, the impedance method comes with a …

The Hanford Site has 177 underground waste storage tanks that are known to retain and release bubbles composed of flammable gases. Characterizing and understanding the behavior of these bubbles is important for the safety issues associated with the flammable gases for both ongoing waste storage and future waste-retrieval operations. The retained bubbles are known to respond to small barometric pressure changes, though in a complex manner with unusual hysteresis occurring in some tanks in the relationship between bubble volume and pressure, or V-P hysteresis. With careful analysis, information on the volume of retained gas and the interactions of the waste and the bubbles can be determined.

This grant was a continuation of research conducted at the University of Florida under Grant No. DE-FG05-91ER45462 in which we investigated the energy bandgap shifts produced in semiconductor quantum dots of sizes between 1.5 and 40 nm. The investigated semiconductors consisted of a series of Column 2-6 compounds (CdS, CdSe, CdTe) and pure Column IV elements (Si and Ge). It is well-known of course that the 2-6 semiconductors possess a direct-gap electronic structure, while the Column IV elements possess an indirect-gap structure. The investigation showed a major difference in quantum confinement behavior between the two sets of semiconductors. This difference is essentially associated with the change in bandgap energy resulting from size confinement. In the direct-gap semiconductors, the change in energy (blue shift) saturates when the crystals approach 2-3 nm in diameter. This limits the observed shift in energy to less than 1 eV above the bulk value. In the indirect-gap semiconductors, the energy shift does not show any sign of saturation and in fact, we produced Si and Ge nanocrystals with absorption edges in the UV. The reason for this difference has not been determined and will require additional experimental and theoretical studies. In our work, we suggest, but …

The Busted Butte Unsaturated-Zone Transport Test Facility is located approximately 8 km southeast of Yucca Mountain, and was designed to address uncertainties associated with flow and transport in the UZ site-process models for Yucca Mountain. Busted Butte Phase 2 consisted of a 10m x 10m x 7m test block. From July 1988 through October 2000, complex tracer mixtures were injected continuously at 77 discrete points located along eight parallel 10-m boreholes arranged in two horizontal planes. In August 1999, iodide was added to the tracer mixture to explore the effects of initial hydraulic transients. During the course of the experiment, porewater samples were collected at regular intervals using sorbing-paper collection pads, emplaced into fifteen horizontal and inclined 10-m collection boreholes, oriented perpendicular to the injection boreholes. Potential travel distances ranged from 20 cm to over 500 cm. Nonreactive tracer and weakly sorbing lithium breakthrough was observed at most of the collection points during the injection period. Following termination of injection, approximately 800 rock samples were collected using overcore and mineback techniques, and analyzed for tracer concentration. Rock analyses are discussed in a subsequent paper. To complement complex 3-dimensional finite-element modeling of the entire block, bromide, iodide, and lithium breakthrough onto …

The study of the electrochemical behavior of Alloy 22 has been carried out in various concentrated environments using different sample configurations. Comparisons were made between the electrochemical behaviors of Alloy 22 in concentrated chloride solutions, and in concentrated chloride solutions with nitrate ions (NO{sub 3}{sup -}). In other experiments, the effect of fluoride ions (F{sup -}) was investigated. These comparative studies were performed at various temperatures. The rate of corrosion was found to increase with increase in temperature. The presence of nitrate ions reduced corrosion attack on Alloy 22. F{sup -} was found to be more benign to Alloy 22 compared with chloride ions (Cl{sup -}). However a combination of F{sup -} and Cl{sup -} was found to initiate deeper crevices compared with the only Cl{sup -} in the electrolyte.

A new motor drive, the switched reluctance motor drive, has been developed for hybrid-electric vehicles. The motor drive has been designed, built and tested in the test bed at a near vehicle scale. It has been shown that the switched reluctance motor drive is more suitable for traction application than any other motor drive.

Despite over 50 years of experience in transporting radioactive tank wastes to and from equipment and tanks at the Department of Energy's Hanford, Savannah River, and Oak Ridge sites, waste slurry transfer pipelines and process piping become plugged on occasion. At Hanford, several tank farm pipelines are no longer in service because of plugs. At Savannah River, solid deposits in the outlet line of the 2H evaporator have resulted in an unplanned extended downtime. Although waste transfer criteria and guidelines intended to prevent pipeline plugging are in place, they are not always adequate. To avoid pipeline plugging in the future, other factors that are not currently embodied in the transfer criteria may need to be considered. The work summarized here is being conducted to develop a better understanding of the chemical and waste flow dynamics during waste transfer. The goal is to eliminate pipeline plugs by improving analysis and engineering tools in the field that incorporate this understanding.