A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Multiple-award task and delivery order contracts were intended to streamline the acquisition of goods and services. Prior GAO reviews cited concerns that some agencies using these contracts were not attaining the level of competition Congress had initially envisioned. In response, Congress required that additional guidance be published in the Federal Acquisition Regulation and asked GAO if the guidance conformed to the law and agencies were complying with it. To evaluate compliance, GAO examined how agencies provided vendors with a fair opportunity to be considered for orders, clearly described the services or supplies needed, and complied with capital planning requirements."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Recent concerns about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (Service) endangered species listing and critical habitat decisions have focused on the role that "sound science" plays in the decision-making process--whether the Service bases its decisions on adequate scientific data and properly interprets those data. In this report, GAO assesses the extent to which (1) the Service's policies and practices ensure that listing and critical habitat decisions are based on the best available science and (2) external reviewers support the scientific data and conclusions that the Service used to make those decisions. In addition, GAO highlights the nature and extent that litigation is affecting the Service's ability to effectively manage its critical habitat program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long faced problems managing its grants, which constitute over one-half of the agency's annual budget, or about $4 billion. EPA uses grants to implement its programs to protect human health and the environment and awards grants to thousands of recipients, including state and local governments, tribes, universities, and nonprofit organizations. EPA's ability to efficiently and effectively accomplish its mission largely depends on how well it manages its grant resources. As requested, GAO determined (1) major challenges EPA faces in managing its grants and how it has addressed these challenges in the past, (2) extent to which EPA's recently issued policies and grants management plan address these challenges, and (3) promising practices, if any, that could assist EPA in addressing these challenges."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The terrorist attacks on New York City created the most costly disaster in U.S. history. In response, the President pledged at least $20 billion in aid to the city. Approximately $7.4 billion of this aid is being provided through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) public assistance program, which provides grants to state and local governments to respond to and recover from disasters. The Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works requested that GAO determine (1) what activities FEMA supported in the New York City area through its public assistance program after the terrorist attacks; (2) how the federal government's response to this terrorist event differed from FEMA's traditional approach to providing public assistance in past disasters; and (3) what implications FEMA's public assistance approach in the New York City area may have on the delivery of public assistance should other major terrorist attacks occur in the future."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As of the 2002-2003 school year, nearly 2,700 charter schools operated in 36 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Charter schools are public schools that are exempt from certain state and local regulations in exchange for agreeing to certain student performance goals. To increase their understanding of problems faced during the start-up process, Congress included a provision in the Omnibus Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2003 (P.L. 108-7), which required GAO to report on charter school start-ups, including a comparison with charter schools in the District of Columbia. This report examines (1) the challenges faced by charter school start-ups across the nation and the resources available in various states to address these challenges and (2) how the District of Columbia compares in terms of charter school challenges and resources. To address these objectives, GAO analyzed federal, state, and D.C. charter school laws and interviewed Education and District officials, including representatives of the D.C. charter school authorizing boards, the D.C. public school system, and various city offices. GAO also conducted a discussion group consisting of District charter school experts and D.C. charter school founders."

The hydrogen (H{sub 2}) gas generation rate for neptunium dioxide (NpO{sub 2}) samples produced on a laboratory scale using the HB-Line Phase II flowsheet has been measured following exposure to 75% relative humidity (RH). As expected, the observed H{sub 2} generation rates for these samples increase with increasing moisture content. A maximum H{sub 2} generation rate of 1.8 x 10{sup -6} moles per day per kilogram (mol {center_dot} day{sup -1} kg{sup -1}) was observed for NpO{sub 2} samples with approximately one and one-half times (1 1/2 X) the expected specific surface area (SSA) for the HB-Line Phase II product. The SSA of NpO{sub 2} samples calcined at 650 C is similar to plutonium dioxide (PuO{sub 2}) calcined at 950 C according to the Department of Energy (DOE) standard for packaging and storage of PuO{sub 2}. This low SSA of the HB-Line Phase II product limits moisture uptake to less than 0.2 weight percent (wt %) even with extended exposure to 75% RH.

This report discusses the political future of various countries in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. A change in the leadership in these countries could significantly affect their policies toward the United States and their willingness to cooperate with the United States in achieving the stability needed to advance U.S. interests in this important region.

The annual budget resolution sets forth total spending and revenue levels for at least five fiscal years. The spending amounts are allocated, or “crosswalked,” to the House and Senate committees having jurisdiction over discretionary spending (the Appropriations Committees) and direct spending (the legislative committees). This report very briefly discusses the allocations and subdivisions portions of the congressional budget process.

This document describes how to set up the Whole-Building Energy (WBE) module of the Whole-Building Diagnostician (WBD) for use in monitoring whole-building and major end-use energy consumption. It is a companion to the Instructions for Installation of the Whole-Building Diagnostician Software Release 2.10-162. This document describes how to set up the WBE software to collect new data or process data in existing data bases.

The Savannah River Site (SRS) plans to disposition its legacy H-Canyon neptunium to Oak Ridge National Laboratory after converting it to oxide in HB-Line. Neptunium oxide, (NpO{sub 2}) was produced at the Savannah River Technology Center using the anticipated HB-Line flowsheet conditions. The oxide was produced from a neptunium nitrate solution via anion exchange, oxalate precipitation, and calcination at either 600 C or 650 C. The 98 grams of NpO{sub 2} produced in the laboratory should be representative of material produced in HB-Line and is to be used for gas generation testing to support radioactive material transportation safety analysis as part of the neptunium stabilization and disposition program at SRS. Results of each step of the oxide production will be presented.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

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

We report a spin-unrestricted density functional theory (DFT) solution at the symmetric dimer structure for cluster models of Si(100). With this solution, it is shown that the symmetric structure is a minimum on the DFT potential energy surface, although higher in energy than the buckled structure. In restricted DFT calculations the symmetric structure is a saddle point connecting the two buckled minima. To further assess the effects of electron correlation on the relative energies of symmetric versus buckled dimers on Si(100), multireference second order perturbation theory (MRMP2) calculations are performed on these DFT optimized minima. The symmetric structure is predicted to be lower in energy than the buckled structure via MRMP2, while the reverse order is found by DFT. The implications for recent experimental interpretations are discussed.

Fracture and fatigue-crack growth properties are examined for a series of Mo-Mo3Si-Mo5SiB2 containing alloys, which utilize a continuous a-Mo matrix to achieve unprecedented room-temperature fracture resistance (>20 MPaAm). Mechanistically, these properties are explained in terms of toughening by crack trapping and crack bridging by the more ductile a-Mo phase.

Using Corbino samples they have observed oscillatory dc conductance in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron system when it is subjected to crossed microwave and magnetic fields. At the strongest of the oscillation minima the conductance is found to be vanishingly small, indicating a macroscopic insulating state associated with this minimum. With increasing voltage bias, a crossover from Ohmic to electron-heating regime is observed.

A new diagnostic for the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) is described whose function is to measure ion rotation and temperature at the plasma edge. The diagnostic is sensitive to C III, C IV, and He II intrinsic emission, covering a radial region of 15 cm at the extreme edge of the outboard midplane. Thirteen chords are distributed between toroidal and poloidal views, allowing the toroidal and poloidal rotation and temperature of the plasma edge to be simultaneously measured with 10 ms resolution. Combined with the local pressure gradient and the EFIT code reconstructed magnetic field profile, the edge flow gives a measure of the local radial electric field.

Studies of the effects of low doses of ionizing radiation require sources of radiation which are well characterized in terms of the dose and the quality of the radiation. One of the best measures of the quality of neutron irradiation is the dose mean lineal energy. At very low dose rates this can be determined by measuring individual energy deposition events, and calculating the dose mean of the event size. However, at the dose rates that are normally required for biology experiments, the individual events can not be separated by radiation detectors. However, the total energy deposited in a specified time interval can be measured. This total energy has a random variation which depends on the size of the individual events, so the dose mean lineal energy can be calculated from the variance of repeated measurements of the energy deposited in a fixed time. We have developed a specialized charge integration circuit for the measurement of the charge produced in a small ion chamber in typical neutron irradiation experiments. We have also developed 4.3 mm diameter ion chambers with both tissue equivalent and carbon walls for the purpose of measuring dose mean lineal energy due to all radiations and due …

A single step diffusion followed by precise etching of the diffused layer has been developed to obtain a diffusion profile appropriate for high efficiency GaSb thermophotovoltaic cells. The junction depth was controlled through monitoring of light current-voltage (I-V) curves (photovoltaic response) during the post diffusion emitter etching process. The measured photoresponses (prior to device fabrication) have been correlated with the quantum efficiencies and the open circuit voltages in the fabricated devices. An optimum junction depth for obtaining highest quantum efficiency and open circuit voltage is presented based on diffusion lengths (or monitoring carrier lifetimes), carrier mobility and typical diffused impurity profile in GaSb.

A computational study of microinstabilities in general geometry is presented. The ion gyrokinetic is solved as an initial value problem. The advantage of this approach is the accurate treatment of some important kinetic effects. The magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium is obtained from a three-dimensional local equilibrium model. The use of a local magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium model allows for a computationally-efficient systematic study of the impact of the magnetic structure on microinstabilities.

Compositionally homogeneous, crack-free bulk crystals of Ga{sub 1-x}In{sub x}Sb with x as high as 0.4 has been grown for the first time using a self-solute feeding method. A balance between the growth rate and the spacing between the solute and the growth interface has been found to be crucial in maintaining uniform alloy composition.

We present a second-order Godunov algorithm for multidimensional, ideal MHD. Our algorithm is based on the unsplit formulation of Colella (J. Comput. Phys. vol. 87, 1990), with all of the primary dependent variables centered at the same location. To properly represent the divergence-free condition of the magnetic fields, we apply a discrete projection to the intermediate values of the field at cell faces, and apply a filter to the primary dependent variables at the end of each time step. We test the method against a suite of linear and nonlinear tests to ascertain accuracy and stability of the scheme under a variety of conditions. The test suite includes rotated planar linear waves, MHD shock tube problems, low-beta flux tubes, and a magnetized rotor problem. For all of these cases, we observe that the algorithm is second-order accurate for smooth solutions, converges to the correct weak solution for problems involving shocks, and exhibits no evidence of instability or loss of accuracy due to the possible presence of non-solenoidal fields.

Dielectronic satellite spectra of helium-like argon, recorded with a high-resolution X-ray crystal spectrometer at the National Spherical Torus Experiment, were found to be inconsistent with existing predictions resulting in unacceptable values for the power balance and suggesting the unlikely existence of non-Maxwellian electron energy distributions. These problems were resolved with calculations from a new atomic code. It is now possible to perform reliable electron temperature measurements and to eliminate the uncertainties associated with determinations of non-Maxwellian distributions.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Employees in the securities industry must submit to binding arbitration in most employment disputes. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is responsible for overseeing these arbitration programs--the largest being run by NASD and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The Congress asked GAO to examine (1) the circumstances under which NASD and NYSE will arbitrate employment and employment discrimination disputes, and their procedures for selecting and evaluating their arbitrators; (2) the characteristics and outcomes of arbitrated employment and employment discrimination disputes at NASD and NYSE over the last 10 years; and (3) how SEC oversees the arbitration programs at NASD and NYSE and the results of these oversight activities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO is conducting a series of reviews in response to a congressional request to identify ways to improve the Department of Defense's (DOD's) availability of high-quality spare parts for ships, aircraft, vehicles, and weapons systems. This report focuses on the effectiveness of the U.S. Navy's spare parts support to deployed ships. It examines (1) the extent to which the Navy is meeting its spare parts supply goals, (2) the reasons for any unmet supply goals, and (3) the effects of spare parts supply problems on ship operations, mission readiness, and costs. To conduct the review, GAO looked at data on parts requisitions, maintenance work orders, and casualty reports for various Navy ship deployments between fiscal years 1999 and 2003."