Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Defense Security Cooperation Agency's (DSCA) decision to lower the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program's administrative fee from 3 percent to 2.5 percent, focusing on how the: (1) FMS program recovers its costs, as required by the Arms Export Control Act; and (2) projected sales levels made through the program will affect cost recovery in the future."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on 8(a) contracting activities for fiscal years (FY) 1996 through 1998 in certain offices within the Department of the Treasury, focusing on: (1) a comparison of Departmental Offices' 8(a) contract goals with Treasury's departmentwide 8(a) contract goals; (2) the total number of Departmental Offices' contracts and 8(a) contracts as well as the percentage of total Departmental Offices' contract expenditures used for 8(a) contracts; (3) the distribution of Departmental Offices' 8(a) contracts by dollar value and type of goods/services procured; and (4) whether five Departmental Offices' 8(a) contracts adhered to regulations that limit the amount of work that can be subcontracted."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Health and Human Services' Independent Living Program (ILP) and the needs of youths leaving the foster care system, focusing on: (1) the problems faced by foster care youths once they leave care; (2) what is known about the extent of services provided by ILP; and (3) what is known about the effectiveness of ILP."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the status of efforts to implement the Single Audit Act Amendments of 1996, focusing on: (1) the importance of the 1996 amendments; (2) the actions taken to implement them; and (3) ways in which the refinements will continue to evolve and benefit future single audit efforts."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the weaknesses of the Customs Service's Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) project."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Caribou Recovery Program, focusing on the: (1) amount and source of funds expended on the woodland caribou recovery program; (2) results of the program, including the outcome of efforts to augment the population and the impact of the recovery efforts on land use; and (3) future direction of the recovery program."

'The Plutonium Immobilization Facility will encapsulate plutonium in ceramic pucks and seal the pucks inside welded cans. Remote equipment will place these cans in magazines and the magazines in a Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) canister. The DWPF will fill the canister with glass for permanent storage. This report discusses the Plutonium Immobilization can loading conceptual design and includes a process block diagram, process description, preliminary equipment specifications, and several can loading issues. This report identifies loading pucks into cans and backfilling cans with helium as the top priority can loading development areas.'

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

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

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

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

Semi-weekly newspaper from Livingston, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with advertising.

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

'A series of subcritical noise measurements were performed on fresh and spent University of Missouri Research Reactor fuel assemblies. These experimental measurements were performed for the purposes of providing benchmark quality data for validating transport theory computer codes and nuclear cross-section data used to perform criticality safety analyses for highly enriched, uranium-aluminum Material Test Reactor fuel assemblies. A mechanical test rig was designed and built to hold up to four fuel assemblies and neutron detectors in a subcritical array. The rig provided researchers with the ability to evaluate the reactivity effects of variable fuel/detector spacing, fuel rotation, and insertion of metal reflector plates into the lattice.'

'The Plutonium Immobilization Facility will encapsulate plutonium in ceramic pucks and seal the pucks inside welded cans. Remote equipment will place these cans in magazines and the magazines in a Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) canister. The DWPF will fill the canister with glass for permanent storage. This report discusses the Plutonium Immobilization can loading conceptual design and includes a process block diagram, process description, preliminary equipment specifications, and several can loading issues. This report identifies loading pucks into cans and backfilling cans with helium as the top priority can loading development areas.'

'Engineers at the Savannah River Technology Center have designed, built, and installed a fully automated small field-of-view, lens-coupled, digital radiography imaging system. The system is installed in one of the Savannah River Site''s production facilities to be used for the evaluation of production components. Custom software routines developed for the system automatically acquire, enhance, and diagnostically evaluate critical geometric features of various components that have been captured radiographically. Resolution of the digital radiograms and accuracy of the acquired measurements approaches 0.001 inches. To date, there has been zero deviation in measurement repeatability. The automated image acquisition methodology will be discussed, unique enhancement algorithms will be explained, and the automated routines for measuring the critical component features will be presented. An additional feature discussed is the independent nature of the modular software components, which allows images to be automatically acquired, processed, and evaluated by the computer in the background, while the operator reviews other images on the monitor. System components were also a key in gaining the required image resolution. System factors such as scintillator selection, x-ray source energy, optical components and layout, as well as geometric unsharpness issues are considered in the paper. Finally the paper examines the numerous quality …

Thermal analysis of spent fuel storage casks has generally been based on the assumption that heat released by the fuel assemblies is transported to the cask cavity only by conduction through the walls of the basket. This conservative assumption was adopted to compensate for uncertainties in modeling heat transfer in the cavity of a spent fuel cask. During recent years, some applications have submitted safety analysis reports for spent fuel storage casks that challenge this assumption. They offer two methods which include the fuel assemblies, as well as the walls of the basket, as part of the path for heat transfer to the cask cavity. A third method, the consideration of a fuel assembly as a homogeneous log, is explored in a study described in this report.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on military servicemembers' perceptions regarding the impact women have had on selected combat-oriented units, focusing on: (1) the perceptions of men and women on their personal readiness; (2) the readiness of men and women in their unit; and (3) unit readiness."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on interagency counterterrorist operations, focusing on: (1) how agencies worked together in counterterrorist operations and special events; (2) strengths and weaknesses of international and domestic counterterrorist exercises; and (3) agency and interagency processes to capture and share lessons learned."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the World Bank's efforts to reform its employee grievance process, focusing on: (1) the Grievance Process Review Committee's principal findings and recommendations to make the system more fair and credible and steps the Bank plans to take to implement these recommendations; and (2) key issues that Bank management will face as it moves to implement these recommendations."

As part of the Soviet-Designed Reactor Safety (SDRS) element of the International Nuclear Safety Program (INSP), the US Department of Energy (US DOE) is funding a plant safety evaluation (PSE) project for the Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant (NvNPP). The Novovoronezh PSE Project is a multi-faceted project with participants from sixteen different international organizations from five different countries scattered across eleven time zones. The purpose of this project is to provide a thorough Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) and Deterministic Safety Analysis (DSA) for Units 3 and 4 of the NvNPP. In addition, this project provides assistance to the operation organizations in meeting their international commitments in support of safety upgrades, and their regulatory requirements for the conduct of safety analyses. Managing this project is a complex process requiring numerous management tools, constant monitoring, and effective communication skills. Employing management tools to resolve unanticipated problems one of the keys to project success. The overall scope, programmatic context, objectives, project interactions, communications, practical hindrances, and lessons learned from the challenging performance of the PSE project are summarized in this paper.

A round robin test program was conducted with a glass that was developed for use as a standard test material for acceptance testing of low-activity waste glasses made with Hanford tank wastes. The program was conducted to measure the between-laboratory reproducibility of composition analysis and durability test results. Participants were free to select the methods used to analyze the glass composition. The durability tests closely followed the Product Consistency Test (PCT) Method A, except that tests were conducted at both 40 and 90 C, and parallel tests with a reference glass were not required. Samples that had been crushed, sieved, and washed to remove fines were provided to participants for tests and analyses. The results are presented in this paper. While the results are still being analyzed, the reproducibility of both the composition and PCTs results compare favorably with the results of round robins conducted with other glasses.

Funeral program for James Clay Pinchback, born September 24, 1920 and died May 9, 1999. The funeral was held Thursday, May 13, 1999 at St. Paul United Methodist Church, officiated by Terrence K. Hayes. He was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery near San Antonio, Texas.

Weekly newspaper from Rio Grande City, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.