A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed Medicare Choice program payment issues, focusing on: (1) whether program spending for Medicare Choice plan enrollees has exceeded what Medicare-covered care for these beneficiaries would have cost in the fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare program; and (2) the extent to which payments to individual plans differ from expected FFS costs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) efforts to implement the maintenance, repair, and operations prime vendor program, focusing on: (1) how much the program is being used and how selected installations are using the program; and (2) whether DOD has a mechanism for evaluating the program's effectiveness relative to other procurement alternatives and for identifying and addressing implementation obstacles."

This data qualification report uses technical assessment and corroborating data methods according to Attachment 2 of AP-SIII.2Q, Rev. 0, ICN 2, ''Qualification of Unqualified Data and the Documentation of Rationale for Accepted Data'', to qualify major ion and pH data. This report was prepared in accordance with Data Qualification Plan TDP-NBS-GS-00003 1, Revision 2. Additional reports will be prepared to address isotopic and precipitation-related data. Most of the data considered in this report were acquired and developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The data qualification team considers the sampling and analytical protocols employed by the USGS over the time period of data acquisition to be state-of-the-art. The sample collection methodologies have evolved with no significant change that could affect the quality of the data considered in this report into the currently used Hydrologic Procedures that support the Yucca Mountain Project-approved USGS Quality Assurance Program Plan. Consequently, for USGS data, the data collection methods, documentation, and results are reasonable and appropriate in view of standard practice at the time the data were collected. A small number of data sets were collected by organizations other than the USGS and were reviewed along with the other major ion and pH data using …

Semiweekly newspaper from Seminole, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

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

This report describes the methodology used in conducting the K Basins Hazard Analysis, which provides the foundation for the K Basins Final Safety Analysis Report. This hazard analysis was performed in accordance with guidance provided by DOE-STD-3009-94, Preparation Guide for U. S. Department of Energy Nonreactor Nuclear Facility Safety Analysis Reports and implements the requirements of DOE Order 5480.23, Nuclear Safety Analysis Report.

The purpose of this Acceptance Test Procedure and Operability Test Procedure (ATP/OTP)is to verify the operability of newly installed Loss on Ignition (LOI) equipment, including a model 1608FL CMTM Furnace, a dessicator, and balance. The operability of the furnace will be verified. The arrangement of the equipment placed in Glovebox 157-3/4 to perform LOI testing on samples supplied from the Thermal Stabilization line will be verified. In addition to verifying proper operation of the furnace, this ATP/OTP will also verify the air flow through the filters, verify a damper setting to establish and maintain the required differential pressure between the glovebox and the room pressure, and test the integrity of the newly installed HEPA filter. In order to provide objective evidence of proper performance of the furnace, the furnace must heat 15 crucibles, mounted on a crucible rack, to 1000 C, according to a program entered into the furnace controller located outside the glovebox. The glovebox differential pressure will be set to provide the 0.5 to 2.0 inches of water (gauge) negative pressure inside the glovebox with an expected airflow of 100 to 125 cubic feet per minute (cfm) through the inlet filter. The glovebox inlet G1 filter will be …

This report documents the results of laboratory investigations into the hydrodynamic character of the CST compared to DWPF frit and discusses attempts to alter the hydrodynamic character of the CST. This report documents the manner in which this material was produced.

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Weekly newspaper from Mannford, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Hardware performance counters are CPU registers that count data loads and stores, cache misses, and other events. Counter data can help programmers understand software performance. Although CPUs typically have multiple counters, each can monitor only one type of event at a time, and some counters can monitor only certain events. Therefore, some CPUs cannot concurrently monitor interesting combinations of events. Software multiplexing partly overcomes this limitation by using time sharing to monitor multiple events on one counter. However, counter multiplexing is harder to implement for multithreaded programs than for single-threaded ones because of certain difficulties in managing the length of the time slices. This paper describes a software library called MPX that overcomes these difficulties. MPX allows applications to gather hardware counter data concurrently for any combination of countable events. MPX data are typically within a few percent of counts recorded without multiplexing.

It is shown that high rate extrusion is a viable production process for obtaining desirable microstructures and mechanical properties in ultrahigh carbon steels (UHCSs). The coefficient of friction for extrusion was determined for the UHCSs as well as five other materials and shown to be a function of stress--decreasing with increasing stress. The extruded UHCSs deform by a diffusion-controlled dislocation creep process. Stacking fault energies have been calculated from the extrusion data and observed to decrease with increasing concentrations of silicon, aluminum and chromium. Microstructures are either ultrafine pearlite when extruded above the eutectoid temperature or ultrafine spheroidite when extruded below the eutectoid temperature. The resulting strength--ductility properties are shown to be superior to those obtained in high-strength low alloy steels.

This article discusses inter- and intramolecular experimental and calculated equilibrium isotope effects.

Internal combustion engines are a major source of airborne particulate matter (PM). The size of the engine PM is in the sub-micrometer range. The number of engine particles per unit volume is high, normally in the range of 10{sup 12} to 10{sup 14}. To measure the size distribution of the engine particles dilution of an aerosol sample is required. A diluter utilizing a venturi ejector mixing technique is commercially available and tested. The purpose of this investigation was to determine if turbulence created by the ejector in the mini-dilutor changes the size of particles passing through it. The results of the NaCl aerosol experiments show no discernible difference in the geometric mean diameter and geometric standard deviation of particles passing through the ejector. Similar results were found for the DOP particles. The ratio of the total number concentrations before and after the ejector indicates that a dilution ratio of approximately 20 applies equally for DOP and NaCl particles. This indicates the dilution capability of the ejector is not affected by the particle composition. The statistical analysis results of the first and second moments of a distribution indicate that the ejector may not change the major parameters (e.g., the geometric mean …

Student newspaper of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma that includes national, local, and campus news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

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

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

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

Thirteen segmented aluminum honeycomb samples (5 in. diameter and 1.5 in. height) have been crushed in an experimental configuration that uses a drop table impact machine. The 38.0 pcf bulk density samples are a unique segmented geometry that allows the samples to be crushed while maintaining a constant cross-sectional area. A crush weight of 175 lb was used to determine the rate sensitivity of the honeycomb's highest strength orientation, T-direction, in a dynamic environment of {approx}50 fps impact velocity. Experiments were conducted for two honeycomb manufacturers and at two temperatures, ambient and +165 F. Independent measurements of the crush force were made with a custom load cell and a force derived from acceleration measurements on the drop table using the Sum of Weighted Accelerations Technique with a Calibrated Force (SWAT-CAL). Normalized stress-strain curves for all thirteen experiments are included and have excellent repeatability. These data are strictly valid for material characteristics in the T orientation because the cross-sectional area of the honeycomb did not change during the crush. The dynamic crush data have a consistent increase in crush strength of {approximately}7--19% as compared to quasi-static data and suggest that dynamic performance may be inferred from static tests. An uncertainty analysis …

Daily newspaper from Sapulpa, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

A whole tank composite sample from Hanford waste tank 241-AN-103 was received at the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) and chemically characterized. Prior to characterization the sample was diluted to {approximately}5 M sodium concentration. The filtered supernatant liquid, the total dried solids of the diluted sample, and the washed insoluble solids obtained from filtration of the diluted sample were analyzed. A mass balance calculation of the three fractions of the sample analyzed indicate the analytical results appear relatively self-consistent for major components of the sample. However, some inconsistency was observed between results where more than one method of determination was employed and for species present in low concentrations. A direct comparison to previous analyses of material from tank 241-AN-103 was not possible due to unavailability of data for diluted samples of tank 241-AN-103 whole tank composites. However, the analytical data for other types of samples from 241-AN-103 we re mathematically diluted and compare reasonably with the current results. Although the segments of the core samples used to prepare the sample received at SRTC were combined in an attempt to produce a whole tank composite, determination of how well the results of the current analysis represent the actual composition of the …

This paper describes the testing of columns. The columns will be prepared and tested in duplicate. The resin will be retained in the column by means of quartz wool, but will be unobstructed on the top of the resin bed.

A sample from Hanford waste tank 241-AZ-102 was received at the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) and chemically characterized. The sample containing supernate and a small amount of sludge solids was analyzed as-received. The filtered supernatant liquid, the total dried solids of the sample, and the washed insoluble solids obtained from filtration of the sample were analyzed. A mass balance calculation of the three fractions of the sample analyzed indicate the analytical results appear relatively self-consistent for major components of the sample. However, some inconsistency was observed between results were more than one method of determination was employed and for species present in low concentrations. The actinides isotopes, plutonium, americium, and curium, present analytical challenges due to the low concentration of these species and the potential for introduction of small amounts of contamination during sampling handling resulting in large uncertainties. A direct comparison to previous analyses of material from tank 241-AZ-102 showed good agreement with the filtered supernatant liquid. However, the comparison of solids data showed poor agreement. The poor agreement shown between the current results for the solids samples and previous analyses most likely results from the uncertainties associated with obtaining small solids samples from a large non-homogenized waste …