Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A 1992 GAO report found that the U.S. Postal Service's (USPS) use of the pay-as-you-go basis of accounting for the postretirement health benefit costs of employers participating in multiemployer plans was in accordance with existing private sector generally accepted accounting principles. GAO recently concluded that that report did not adequately consider the potential accounting ramifications of USPS's unique statutory obligations, which are not applicable to other multiemployer plans--both pension and other postretirement benefit plans. Given this, combined with the economic and competitive environment USPS now faces, ongoing efforts to transform USPS to address its financial and operational challenges, and both the Congress's and the public's call for more information and transparency in financial reporting, GAO concludes that now is an opportune time for USPS to reassess how best to account for and disclose this significant financial obligation."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 2001, the Department of the Treasury made 764 million payments valued at $549 billion to beneficiaries of federal programs, primarily programs administered by the Social Security Administration. Of these payments, 76 percent were made using electronic funds transfers (EFTs), potentially saving the government millions of dollars in costs associated with disbursing paper checks. In 1996, Congress passed legislation which required that federal payments except tax refunds be made electronically as of January 1999. The act also required that each person affected by this mandate have access to an account at a financial institution at a reasonable cost and with certain consumer protections. To meet this requirement, Treasury developed the Electronic Transfer Account (ETA). Most recipients of federal benefits have their payments deposited electronically. The number of recipients using EFT climbed steadily throughout the 1990s, rising from around half to more than three-quarters of all beneficiaries. Treasury and the Social Security Administration (SSA) have undertaken activities to increase the use of direct deposit, including developing marketing material and directly notifying check recipients of the advantages of using EFT, particularly safety and convenience. Although information describing the …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Exon-Florio amendment to the Defense Production Act authorizes the President to suspend or prohibit foreign acquisitions, mergers, or takeovers of U.S. companies if (1) there is credible evidence that a foreign controlling interest might threaten national security and (2) legislation, other than Exon-Florio and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, does not adequately or appropriately protect national security. The President delegated the authority to review foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies to an interagency group, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The Committee initiates investigations only when it cannot identify potential mitigation measures in the review period to resolve national security issues arising from the acquisitions or when it needs time beyond the 30-day review to negotiate potential mitigation measures and the companies involved are not willing to request withdrawal of their notification. The Committee's process for implementing Exon-Florio contains the following weaknesses that may have limited effectiveness: (1) the Committee has not established interim protections before allowing withdrawal when concerns were raised and the acquisition had already been completed (2) agreements between the Committee and companies contained nonspecific language that may make …

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a creating unit must review a development corporation's dissolution plan when the corporation is dissolving under article 5190.6, section 4A(k) of the Revised Civil Statutes, and related questions (RQ-0527-JC)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a towing company may provide certain services for the owner of a parking facility, and related questions (RQ-0528-JC)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Confidentiality of disability information collected by the Texas Board of Architectural Examiners, and related questions (RQ-0529-JC)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a particular special district must notify or obtain various political subdivisions’ consent before laying new or preparing existing water or sewer facilities located in county or municipal right-of-way, and related questions (RQ-0530-JC)

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

We report macroparticle simulations for comparison withmeasured results from a proton beam-halo experiment in a 52-quadrupoleperiodic-focusing channel. An important issue is that the inputphase-space distribution is not experimentally known. Three differentinitial distributions with different shapes predict different beamprofiles in the transport system. Simulations have been fairly successfulin reproducing the core of the measured matched-beam profiles and thetrend of emittance growth as a function of mismatch factor, butunderestimate the growth rate of halo and emittance for mismatched beams.In this study, we find that knowledge of the Courant-Snyder parametersand emittances of the input beam is not sufficient for reliableprediction of the halo. Input distributions iwth greater population inthe tails produce larger rates of emittance growth, a result that isqualitatively consistent with the particle-core model of halo formationin mismatched beams.

Weekly newspaper from Comanche, 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.

When waste glass is poured into metal canisters, it fractures, primarily due to temperature gradients induced during cooling. A technique to quantitatively determine the additional glass surface area due to fracture was developed based on this study.

The Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project is currently evaluating the future performance of the proposed U.S. high-level nuclear waste repository. Using the Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA) model, a stylized analysis was conducted to evaluate the relative importance of natural and engineered barriers to movement of radionuclides from the proposed repository. These stylized ''one-on'' analyses consist of sequentially adding features, components, and processes, associated with the natural and engineered barriers, incorporated within the TSPA model and evaluating the effect of these elements on repository performance, as measured by the total mean annual dose to a reasonably maximally exposed individual. The analyses are ''stylized'' in the sense that they are performed to gain insight only. They are not meant to represent a real physical system in most cases, and in some cases allow the TSPA model to simulate results using parameter ranges outside the normal bounds of the TSPA model. In particular, the analyses provide insight into the relative contributions of repository features and processes in a way that is not possible using the full TSPA performance-assessment model. For example, in the nominal scenario of the TSPA model, the contribution of the natural system is masked by the contribution of the …

This document describes a laboratory tracer facility which was used to show Duolite CS-100 resin's capability for removing cesium from supernate.

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) Project includes the undulator subsystem that has 33 undulator magnetic structures each 3.4 m long. Positioning of the LCLS undulators along the undulator line with an accuracy of 50 {micro}m in the vertical transverse direction is required. A prototype of the LCLS undulator has been built with a positioning system based on three stages with cam shafts. Each cam shaft produces reciprocating motion with a range of {+-}3 mm. A servomotor with integrated brake, incremental rotary encoder, servo amplifier, and controller is used with a 100:1 ratio gear box to drive each cam shaft. Resolution of the motion control is about 0.05 {micro}m. SmartMotors are connected in parallel through an RS-485 interface to the serial port of the computer. With this approach, the control system is easily expandable; up to 120 motors can be controlled with one serial port. Positioning accuracy of about 10 {micro}m for the LCLS undulator prototype is demonstrated.

Conventional annular Hall thrusters become inefficient when scaled to low power. An alternative approach, a 2.6-cm miniaturized cylindrical Hall thruster with a cusp-type magnetic field distribution, was developed and studied. Its performance was compared to that of a conventional annular thruster of the same dimensions. The cylindrical thruster exhibits discharge characteristics similar to those of the annular thruster, but it has a much higher propellant ionization efficiency. Significantly, a large fraction of multi-charged xenon ions might be present in the outgoing ion flux generated by the cylindrical thruster. The operation of the cylindrical thruster is quieter than that of the annular thruster. The characteristic peak in the discharge current fluctuation spectrum at 50-60 kHz appears to be due to ionization instabilities. In the power range 50-300 W, the cylindrical and annular thrusters have comparable efficiencies (15-32%) and thrusts (2.5-12 mN). For the annular configuration, a voltage less than 200 V was not sufficient to sustain the discharge at low propellant flow rates. The cylindrical thruster can operate at voltages lower than 200 V, which suggests that a cylindrical thruster can be designed to operate at even smaller power.

The purpose of this report is to describe the methodology and results obtained from a continuing DOE Office of Transportation Technologies (OTT) activity to estimate future effects of OTT projects on national energy use, petroleum consumption, criteria emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, and various measures of national income and employment. Assumptions are made about the future costs and characteristics of alternative vehicles and fuels. Models that take into account the value that vehicle buyers place on various vehicle characteristics are used to estimate the market penetration of new vehicle technologies. A different set of assumptions would yield results that are different from what is presented here. Analysis results quantify various benefits including: energy and petroleum reductions, carbon equivalent greenhouse gas emissions, criteria pollutant emissions reductions, and the associated economic impacts on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and jobs. The scope of this report addresses light vehicles including passenger automobiles, Class 1 and 2 trucks, and heavy trucks (Classes 3 through 8). The time period spans the present through the year 2030. All energy savings start from baseline projections of transportation sector energy use obtained from the ''Annual Energy Outlook,'' issued annually by the US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration (Ref. …

The history and recent progress of atmospheric neutrinos are reviewed. An emphasis is placed on results from experiments other than Super-Kamiokande.

The objective of this study was to develop further understanding of the effects of waste loading on glass leaching. Specifically, waste loadings up to 60 wt per cent oxides were investigated by leaching glasses in buffered and unbuffered solutions.

This paper presents the radiological effect on the offsite population from technetium-99 (Tc-99) releases associated with the disposal of the Savannah River Plant high-level waste.

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

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

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