A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Unlike other federal programs that make expenditures under the direct control of the government, Medicare constitutes a promise to pay for covered medical services provided to its beneficiaries by about one million providers. Given this open-ended entitlement, it is essential that appropriate and effective rules and policies be specified so that only necessary services are provided and reimbursed. Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have promulgated an extensive body of statutes, regulations, policies, and procedures on what shall be paid for and under what circumstances. Information that carriers give to physicians is often difficult to use, out of date, inaccurate, and incomplete. Medicare bulletins that carriers use to communicate with physicians are often poorly organized and contain dense legal language. Similarly, other means of communicating with physicians, such as toll-free provider assistance lines and websites, have problems with accuracy and completeness. Although all carriers issue bulletins, operate call centers, and maintain websites, each carrier develops its own communications policies and strategies. This approach results in a duplication of effort as well as variations in the quality of carrier communications. CMS provides little …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report presents the results of GAO's audits of the financial statements of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for fiscal years 2001 and 2000. GAO was able to provide unqualified opinions on IRS's fiscal years 2001 and 2000 financial statements because IRS senior management and staff made extraordinary efforts to compensate for serious internal control and systems deficiencies. Despite these efforts, IRS found it extremely difficult to meet the February 27 reporting deadline set by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB intends to significantly accelerate this deadline in the future. Beginning with fiscal year 2004, IRS will be required to issue its financial statements by November 15--only 6 weeks after the end of the fiscal year. Moreover, the Department of Treasury has established a goal of completing its fiscal year 2002 audit, including those of its component entities, and issuing its department wide accountability report by November 15, 2002. To meet this goal and sustain an unqualified opinion on its financial statements, IRS will need to make systemic changes in how it processes transactions, maintains its financial records, and reports its financial results. At …

During the last 20 years, utilities and researchers have begun to understand the value in the collection and analysis of interruption cost data. The continued investigation of the monetary impact of power outages will facilitate the advancement of the analytical methods used to measure the costs and benefits from the perspective of the energy consumer. More in-depth analysis may be warranted because of the privatization and deregulation of power utilities, price instability in certain regions of the U.S. and the continued evolution of alternative auxiliary power systems.

This user's guide documents the capabilities and functions of the Expanded Time Phase Force Deployment Data (TPFDD) Editor (ETEdit) software application. Step-by-step procedures for using ETEdit are provided in Chapter 5. Although ETEdit is primarily an editing tool for use with various software applications, it can also be used as a stand-alone application or in tandem with another application. It provides force module data that allow you to display and modify movement requirements, as well as to display the requirement line numbers (RLNs) for both detail and parent hierarchy. The primary purpose of ETEdit is to make changes to TPFDDs. Because it has been designed as a separate application, you can apply the ETEdit capabilities for use with other models.

This paper summarizes the extensive structural analysis and design of the support saddles for the Extended Barrel of the ATLAS Tilecalorimeter that has taken place at Argonne National Laboratory over the past several months. This work has been a continuation and expansion of work that has taken place over the course of several years within the ATLAS Tilecalorimeter collaboration. This paper will be divided into four main sections. Section 1 is the introduction to the analysis and will give a brief history of the work that had previously been done. Section 2 examines the design and structural analysis that has occurred on the support saddles. The design of the support saddles has evolved over the last few months. There are three main analyses of the saddles that are discussed in Section 2. First, the forces that act upon the support saddles and the resulting deflections and stresses are examined when the support saddle is subjected only to gravity loading. Next, the saddles are examined when subjected to a combination of gravity and a seismic load of .15g in the X, Y, and Z directions. Finally, the saddles are analyzed when subjected to a combination of gravity, magnetic, and seismic loading. …

Nickel alloys such as Alloy 600 undergo Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC) in pure water at temperatures between about 260 C and the critical point. Increasing the level of Cr in Ni-Fe-Cr alloys increases SCC resistance in aerated and deaerated water. The mechanism is not understood. The effect of Cr composition on oxide microstructure and corrosion kinetics of Ni-Fe-Cr alloys was determined experimentally, to evaluate whether the anodic dissolution model for SCC can account for the effect of Cr on SCC. The alloy corrosion rate and corrosion product oxide microstructure is strongly influenced by the Cr composition. Corrosion kinetics are parabolic and influenced by chromium concentration, with the parabolic constant first increasing then decreasing as Cr increases from 5 to 39%. Surface analyses using Analytical Electron microscopy (AEM) and Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES) show that the corrosion product film that forms initially on all alloys exposed to high purity high temperature water is a nickel rich oxide. With time, the amount of chromium in the oxide film increases and corrosion proceeds toward the formation of the more thermodynamically stable spinel or hexagonal Cr-rich oxides, similar to high temperature gaseous oxidation. Due to the slower diffusion kinetics at the temperatures of water …

During the development of a standard for the safe, long-term storage of {sup 233}U-containing materials, several areas were identified that needed additional experimental studies. These studies were related to the perceived potential for the radiolytic generation of large pressures or explosive concentrations of gases in storage containers. This report documents the results of studies on the sorption of water by various uranium oxides and on the gamma radiolysis of uranium oxides containing various amounts of sorbed moisture. In all of the experiments, {sup 238}U was used as a surrogate for the {sup 233}U. For the water sorption experiments, uranium oxide samples were prepared and exposed to known levels of humidity to establish the water uptake rate. Subsequently, the amount of water removed was studied by heating samples in a oven at fixed temperatures and by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA)/differential thermal analysis (DTA). It was demonstrated that heating at 650 C adequately removes all moisture from the samples. Uranium-238 oxides were irradiated in a {sup 60}Co source and in the high-gamma-radiation fields provided by spent nuclear fuel elements of the High Flux Isotope Reactor. For hydrated samples of UO{sub 3}, H{sub 2} was the primary gas produced; but the total gas pressure …

The objectives of this work was to: (1) synthesize responsive, amphiphilic systems; (2) characterize molecular structure and solution behavior; (3) measure rheological properties of the aqueous fluids including behavior in fixed geometry flow profiles and beds; and (4) to tailor polymer compositions for in situ rheology control under simulated reservoir conditions.

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An offgas emissions inventory and liquid stream characterization of the Idaho New Waste Calcining Facility (NWCF) Evaporator Tank System (ETS), formerly known as the High Level Liquid Waste Evaporator (HLLWE), has been completed. The emissions rates of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds, multiple metals, particulate, and hydrochloric acid were measured in accordance with an approved Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPjP) and Test Plan that invoked U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard sample collection and analysis procedures. Offgas samples were collected during the start up and at the end of evaporator batches when it was hypothesized the emissions would be at peak rates. Corresponding collection of samples from the evaporator feed overhead condensate, and bottoms was made at approximately the same time as the emissions inventory to support material balance determinations for the evaporator process. The data indicate that organic compound emissions are slightly higher at the beginning of the batch while metals emissions, including mercury, are slightly higher at the end of the evaporator batch. The maximum emissions concentrations are low for all constituents of primary concern. Mercury emissions were less than 5 ppbv, while the sum of HCl and Cl2 emissions was less than 1 ppmv. The sum of …

Coal bed methane (CBM) wells are being developed in increasing numbers throughout the United States. These are wells that are drilled into coal seams to withdraw ground water (produced water) to reduce the hydrostatic pressure on the coal seam. The reduced pressure allows methane gas to migrate to the well bore where it moves to the surface and is collected. Where possible, operators prefer to discharge the produced water into nearby streams, rivers, or other surface water bodies. Depending on the chemical characteristics of the produced water, different levels of treatment are applied to the produced water before discharge. In some locations, produced water cannot be discharged and is injected, reused, or evaporated. Although the CBM industry is producing ''natural'' gas, such gas may not necessarily be covered under the existing national regulations for discharges from the oil and gas industry. This paper describes the existing national discharge regulations, the ways in which CBM produced water is currently being managed, the current CBM discharge permitting practices, and how these options might change as the volume of produced water increases because of the many new wells being developed.

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