A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Graduate School provides extensive training opportunities to government employees and others. As a nonappropriated fund instrumentality, the Graduate School relies solely on income from the training it offers. During fiscal year 1999, the federal agencies GAO reviewed had 20 interagency agreements with the Graduate School totaling about $5.7 million. The agencies also had 531 contracts, totaling $29 million, with private companies for training and related services. The Graduate School's financial statements for fiscal year 1999 incorrectly identified the portion of revenue that was earned through interagency agreements. This misclassification occurred primarily because of the Graduate School's reporting policies."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Following the 2000 presidential election, concerns were raised about the election process, including the ability of some voting equipment to render a complete and accurate vote count. Furthermore, minorities and disadvantaged voters were seen as more likely to have their votes not counted because they may have used less reliable voting equipment than affluent white voters. GAO found that although the state in which counties are located had more of an effect on the number of uncounted presidential votes than did counties' demographic characteristics or voting equipment, there were statistically significant effects on uncounted presidential votes. State differences accounted for 26 percent of the total variation in uncounted presidential votes across counties. State differences may have included such factors as statewide voter education efforts, state standards for determining what is a valid vote, the use of straight party ballots, the number of candidates on the ballot, the use of provisional ballots, and the extent to which absentee or early voting occurred."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Information sharing and coordination are key elements in any defense against cyber attacks. The organizations GAO reviewed identified factors they considered critical to their success in building successful information-sharing relationships with and among their members. All of the organizations identified trust as essential to successful relationships. They said that trust could only be built over time and through personal relationships. One of the most difficult challenges identified was the initial reluctance of new members to share information. Other challenges included (1) developing agreements on the use and protection of shared information, (2) obtaining adequate funding for websites and meetings while avoiding contributions intended primarily to promote the interests of an individual organization, (3) maintaining a focus on emerging issues of interest to members, and (4) maintaining appropriately skilled professional and administrative staff."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Federal law requires that disabled persons have access to polling places on election day. State political subdivisions must ensure that polling places used in federal elections are accessible. Exceptions are allowed if all potential polling places have been surveyed, no accessible place is available, and the political subdivision cannot make one temporarily accessible. In these cases, disabled voters must either be reassigned to an accessible polling place or provided another means for voting on election day. All states have provisions that address voting by people with disabilities, but these provisions vary greatly. All states provide for one or more alternative voting methods or accommodations that may facilitate voting by people with disabilities. States and localities have made several efforts to improve voting accessibility for the disabled, such as modifying poling places, acquiring new voting equipment, and expanding voting options. Nevertheless, state and county election officials GAO surveyed cited various challenges to improving access."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In the event of a domestic terrorist attack or other major disasters, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is to provide backup medical resources to the military health system and local communities. VA now assists other federal agencies that have lead responsibility for responding to disasters, including terrorism. Its areas of responsibility include disaster simulation exercises and maintaining medical stockpiles. VA's efforts in these areas have enhanced national emergency preparedness by improving medical response procedures and by strengthening the security of federal pharmaceutical stockpiles to ensure rapid response to local authorities. VA also has resources that could play a role in future federal homeland security efforts. Its assets include the bricks, mortar, and human capital components of its health care system; graduate medical education programs; and expertise involving emergency backup and support activities. In managing large-scale medical emergencies arising from terrorist attacks, VA's emergency response capabilities have strengths and weaknesses. Determining how VA can best contribute to homeland security is especially timely given the extraordinary level of federal activity underway to manage large-scale disasters."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Events surrounding the 2000 presidential election raised concerns about the reliability of various types of voting equipment, the role of election officials, the disqualification of absentee ballots, and the accuracy of vote counts and recounts. As a result, public officials and various interest groups have proposed reforms to address perceived shortcomings. This report discusses: (1) voter registration; (2) absentee and early voting; (3) election day administration; and (4) vote counts, certification, and recounts."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Events surrounding the last presidential election raised concerns about the people, processes, and technology used to administer elections. GAO has already reported on the scope of congressional authority in election administration and voting assistance to military and overseas citizens. This report focuses on the status and use of federal voting equipment standards, which define minimum functional and performance requirements for voting equipment. The standards define minimum life-cycle management processes for voting equipment developers to follow, such as quality assurance. No federal agency has been assigned explicit statutory responsibility for developing voting equipment standards; however, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) developed voluntary standards for computer-based systems in 1990, and Congress has provided funding for this effort. No federal agency is responsible for testing voting equipment against the federal standards. Instead, the National Association of State Election Directors accredits independent test authorities who test voting equipment against the standards."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "One of the priorities of the U.S. Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Council is to improve financial performance through better financial management systems. The Bush administration has identified several management reform initiatives, including strategic management of human capital, improving financial performance and expanding e-government. Under the auspices of the Financial Systems Committee and Human Resources Committee of the CFO Council and the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program, an interagency team was established to develop strategies to build the work force capacity for financial system implementation projects."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As a result of events surrounding the November 2000 presidential election, public officials and various interest groups have proposed reforms to address perceived shortcomings of various election systems. The complexity and intricacy of the American electoral system suggests that the success of an election system depends on the appropriate integration of people, processes, and technology. This report presents an analytical framework that Congress could use as it weighs the merits of various reform proposals."

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; Release of "provisional autopsy report" maintained by a justice of the peace (RQ-0380-JC)

The US Department of Energy Environmental and Waste Management Tanks Focus Area selected as a strategic initiative the need to identify and develop technologies for remediation of tanks that are known or are suspected to leak. This investigation identified and evaluated technical options for single-shell tank waste retrieval applicable to retrieve waste from potentially leaking tanks. Technologies that minimize leakage use minimal water, and dry retrieval technologies were evaluated. Safety, cost, authorization basis, and schedule risks were identified for each technology to provide River Protection Program with information to evaluate technical and programmatic risk. A workshop was held to identify technology needs and solutions. These approaches grouped into five categories: those related to waste dislodging, waste conveyance, both waste dislodging and conveyance, the deployment platform, and technologies related to leak detection, monitoring, and mitigation. Based on the ranking, six technologies were selected as potential candidates for further evaluation. These items were prioritized into four technologies to recommend for further evaluation 1) Air assisted TORE(R). The TORE(R) produces a precessing vortex core with the ability to convey solids at pre-determined slurry concentrations over great distances. The dry TORE(R) concept uses air to develop the vortex to fluidize dry solids. The TORE(R)the …

This report discusses the China's Labor condition and Chinese government attempt to implement laws and programs that protect labor rights and provide social welfare benefits while punishing labor rights activists and independent union organizer.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) requires that pulses from each of the 192 laser beams be positioned on target with an accuracy of 50 {micro}m rms. Beam quality must be sufficient to focus a total of 1.8 MJ of 0.351-{micro}m light into a 600-{micro}m-diameter volume. An optimally flat beam wavefront can achieve this pointing and focusing accuracy. The control system corrects wavefront aberrations by performing closed-loop compensation during laser alignment to correct for gas density variations. Static compensation of flashlamp-induced thermal distortion is established just prior to the laser shot. The control system compensates each laser beam at 10 Hz by measuring the wavefront with a 77-lenslet Hartmann sensor and applying corrections with a 39-actuator deformable mirror. The distributed architecture utilizes SPARC AXi computers running Solaris to perform real-time image processing of sensor data and PowerPC-based computers running VxWorks to compute mirror commands. A single pair of SPARC and PowerPC processors accomplishes wavefront control for a group of eight beams. The software design uses proven adaptive optic control algorithms that are implemented in a multi-tasking environment to economically control the beam wavefronts in parallel. Prototype tests have achieved a closed-loop residual error of 0.03 waves rms. aberrations, the spot size …

This report documents tests performed to verify that the monitoring system for the 296-Z-7 ventilation stack meets the applicable regulatory criteria regarding the placement of the air sampling probe, sample transport, and stack flow measurement accuracy

This report documents the U.S. Department of Transportation Specification 7A Type A compliance test and evaluation results of the Standard Waste Box. Testing and evaluation activities documented herein are on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy-Headquarters, Office of Safety, Health and Security (EM-5), Germantown, Maryland. Duratek Federal Services, Inc., Northwest Operations performed an evaluation of the changes as documented herein under Docket 01-53-7A.

IIEC, a division of CERF, has developed an extensive base of experience implementing activities that support climate action by developing USIJI projects in transitional countries within Asia, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and southern Africa. IIEC has been able to provide a range of technical and policy assistance to governments and industry in support of sustainable energy use. IIEC continues to work in key countries with local partners to develop and implement energy efficiency policies and standards, develop site-specific projects, and assist governing bodies to establish national priorities and evaluation criteria for approving GHG-mitigation projects. As part of this project, IIEC focused on promoting a series of activities in Thailand and South Africa in order to identify GHG mitigation projects and work within the national approval process of those countries. The sections of this report outline the activities conducted in each country in order to achieve that goal.

Roof bolting is the most popular method for underground openings in the mining industry, especially in the bedded deposits such as coal, potash, salt etc. In fact, all U.S. underground coal mine entries are roof-bolted as required by law. However, roof falls still occur frequently in the roof bolted entries. The two possible reasons are: the lack of knowledge of and technology to detect the roof geological conditions in advance of mining, and lack of roof bolting design criteria for modern roof bolting systems. This research is to develop a method for predicting the roof geology and stability condition in real time during roof bolting operation. Based on such information, roof bolting design criteria for modern roof bolting systems will be developed for implementation in real time. The retrofitting works for a dedicated roof bolter for this research has been completed. The laboratory tests performed using this machine on simulated roof blocks have been conducted. The analysis performed on the testing data showed promising signs to detect the rock interface, fractures, as well as the rock types. The other tasks were progressing as planned.

The formulation, synthesis, characterization and hydration kinetics of hydroceramic waste forms designed as potential hosts for existing INEEL calcine high-level wastes have been established as functions of temperature and processing time. Initial experimentations were conducted with several aluminosilicate pozzolanic materials, ranging from fly ash obtained from various power generating coal and other combustion industries to reactive alumina, natural clays and ground bottled glass powders. The final selection criteria were based on the ease of processing, excellent physical properties and chemical durability (low-leaching) determined from the PCT test produced in hydroceramic. The formulation contains vermiculite, Sr(NO32), CsC1, NaOH, thermally altered (calcined natural clay) and INEEL simulated calcine high-level nuclear wastes and 30 weight percent of fluorinel blend calcine and zirconia calcine. Syntheses were carried out at 75-200 degree C at autogeneous water pressure (100% relative humidity) at various time intervals. The resulting monolithic compact products were hard and resisted breaking when dropped from a 5 ft height. Hydroceramic host mixed with fluorinel blend calcine and processed at 75 degree C crumbled into rice hull-side grains or developed scaly flakes. However, the samples equally possessed the same chemical durability as their unbroken counterparts. Phase identification by XRD revealed that hydroceramic host crystallized …

The wettability of Berea and chalk samples for gas-oil and gas-water fluids were altered from strong liquid-wetting to intermediate gas-wetting. Two polymers, FC-722 and FC-759, were used to alter the wettability. FC-759 is soluble in water and some 20 times less expensive than FC-722. Gas and liquid relative permeabilities were measured before and after wettability alteration. The results demonstrate a significant increase in liquid-phase relative permeability. Gas-phase relative permeability for a fixed saturation may increase or decrease. However, because of the very high liquid mobility and reduced liquid saturation, the gas mobility also increases for a fixed pressure drop. A number of liquid injectivity tests were also carried out. The results reveal that the liquid-phase mobility can increase significantly when the wettability of rocks is altered from strong liquid-wetting to intermediate gas-wetting. All the results show clearly that the application of wettability alteration to intermediate gas-wetting may significantly increase deliverability in gas condensate reservoirs.

The central goal of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is demonstration of controlled thermonuclear ignition. The mainline ignition target is a low-Z, single-shell cryogenic capsule designed to have weakly nonlinear Rayleigh-Taylor growth of surface perturbations. Double-shell targets are an alternative design concept that avoids the complexity of cryogenic preparation but has greater physics uncertainties associated with performance-degrading mix. A typical double-shell design involves a high-Z inner capsule filled with DT gas and supported within a low-Z ablator shell. The largest source of uncertainty for this target is the degree of highly evolved nonlinear mix on the inner surface of the high-Z shell. High Atwood numbers and feed-through of strong outer surface perturbation growth to the inner surface promote high levels of instability. The main challenge of the double-shell target designs is controlling the resulting nonlinear mix to levels that allow ignition to occur. Design and analysis of a suite of indirect-drive NIF double-shell targets with hohlraum temperatures of 200 eV and 250 eV are presented. Analysis of these targets includes assessment of two-dimensional radiation asymmetry as well as nonlinear mix. Two-dimensional integrated hohlraum simulations indicate that the x-ray illumination can be adjusted to provide adequate symmetry control in hohlraums specially …

Annual report documenting statistics and analysis of contracts awarded to historically underutilized business (HUBs) by Texas state agencies, including procurement goals and performances, 2000 and 2001 total expenditure charts.

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

Funeral program for Mr. James Wilbur Hood, Jr. The funeral was held October 15, 2001 at F. E. Lewis Memorial Chapel, officiated by Dr. Prenza L. Woods. Funeral arrangements were made through Lewis Funeral Home and he was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery near San Antonio, Texas.

Funeral program for Mrs. Danny Barnes Moore, born October 26, 1911 and died October 9, 2001. The funeral was held October 15, 2001 at West End Baptist Church, officiated by Dr. A. Bernard Devers, I. Funeral arrangements were made through Sutton-Sutton Mortuary, Inc. and she was buried in Meadowlawn Memorial Park in San Antonio, Texas.