A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The LOCAL TV Act required that GAO perform an annual audit of the (1) administration of the provisions of the Act, and (2) financial position of each applicant who receives a loan guarantee under the Act, including the nature, amount, and purpose of investments made by the applicant. In fiscal year 2002, the LOCAL TV Program was funded; however, because it was not fully implemented in that year, there were no loan guarantee applicants for GAO to audit. Therefore, this report primarily addresses whether program administration during fiscal year 2002 satisfied the provisions of the Act."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The federal government has been a key participant in the efforts to provide aid to the New York City area to help it respond to and recover from the September 11 terrorist attacks. The President pledged, and the Congress subsequently authorized, about $20 billion in federal aid. This federal aid was provided primarily through four sources: the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Transportation (DOT), and the Liberty Zone tax benefits--a set of tax benefits targeted to lower Manhattan. These sources provided 96 percent, or $19.63 billion, of the committed federal aid to the New York City area. It has been over 2 years since the attacks occurred, and many efforts have been undertaken to aid the New York City area to cope with the disaster and its many impacts. GAO was asked to describe how much and what type of federal assistance was provided to the New York City area through these four sources and how the federal government's response to this disaster differed from previous disasters. We provided a draft of this report to …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The federal government makes consolidation loans available to help borrowers manage their student loan debt. By combining loans into one and extending the repayment period, a consolidation loan reduces monthly repayments, which may lower default risk and, thereby, reduce federal costs of loan defaults. Consolidation loans also allow borrowers to lock in a fixed interest rate--an option not available for other student loans--and are available to borrowers regardless of financial need. GAO was asked to examine (1) how consolidation borrowers differ from nonconsolidation borrowers; (2) how federal costs have been affected by recent interest rate and loan volume changes; and (3) the extent to which repayment options--other than consolidation--are available to help simplify and reduce loan repayments."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The rapidly rising costs of health care, along with an increasing concern for the quality of care and the safety of patients, are driving health care organizations to use information technology (IT) to automate clinical care operations and their associated administrative functions. Among its other functions, IT is now being used for electronic medical records, order management and results reporting, patient care management, and Internet access for patient and provider communications. It also provides automated billing and financial management. The Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions asked GAO to identify cost savings and other benefits realized by health care organizations that have implemented IT both in providing clinical health care and in the administrative functions associated with health care delivery. GAO analyzed information from 10 private and public health care delivery organizations, 3 health care insurers, and 1 community data network."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO has previously reviewed facets of Treasury's Financial Management Service's (FMS) cross-servicing efforts. These reviews did not include FMS's handling of nontax debts that were returned to FMS uncollected by its private collection agency (PCA) contractors because FMS officials did not consider the cross-servicing program to be fully mature. During fiscal years 2000, 2001, and 2002, FMS's PCA contractors returned about $3.9 billion of uncollected debts to FMS. This report focuses primarily on (1) actions taken by FMS on uncollected nontax debts returned from its PCA contractors and (2) actions taken, if any, by FMS and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ensure that federal agencies are reporting their eligible uncollectible nontax debts to IRS as income to debtors."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Small Business Administration (SBA) has recognized that it needs to realign its current organizational structure and processes to improve its ability to fulfill its primary mission--supporting the nation's small businesses. In July 2002, SBA announced that it was initiating a transformation effort to increase the public's awareness of SBA's services and products and make its processes more efficient. GAO evaluated SBA's progress in implementing its transformation initiatives and challenges that have impeded or could impede implementation and whether SBA's transformation incorporates practices GAO has identified in previous work that are important to successful organizational change."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Despite extensive research on the progress that women have made toward equal pay and career advancement opportunities over the past several decades, there is no consensus about the magnitude of earnings differences between men and women and why differences may exist. According to data from the Department of Labor's Current Population Survey (CPS), women have typically earned less than men. Specifically, in 2001, the published CPS data showed that for full-time wage and salary workers, women's weekly earnings were about three-fourths of men's. However, this difference does not reflect key factors, such as work experience and education, that may affect the level of earnings individuals receive. Studies that attempt to account for key factors have provided a more comprehensive estimate of the earnings difference. However, recent information is lacking because many studies on earnings differences relied on data that predated the mid-1990s. But, even when accounting for these factors, questions remain about the size of and reasons for any earnings difference. To provide insight into these issues, Congress asked that we examine the factors that contribute to differences in men's and women's earnings."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past 10 years, GAO, the Congress, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and others have raised numerous concerns about the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. GAO was asked to assess (1) the adequacy of the Commission's project management procedures, (2) whether the Commission's controls over contracting services and managing contracts are sufficient, and (3) the extent of recent oversight of the Commission's financial activities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over 55 percent of the nearly 130 million taxpayers in tax year 2001 used a paid tax preparer. However, using a preparer may not assure that taxpayers pay the least amount due. Last year, GAO estimated that as many as 2 million taxpayers overpaid their 1998 taxes by $945 million because they failed to itemize deductions and half of these used preparers. GAO was asked to (1) obtain the views of taxpayers about paid preparers and examples of preparer performance including any problems and (2) describe the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS's) oversight of problem preparers; the challenges facing IRS in dealing with problem preparers, especially the Office of Professional Responsibility; and the efforts to address those challenges. To obtain the views of taxpayers who used preparers, GAO surveyed a national representative sample of taxpayers."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1996, the Department of Defense (DOD) initiated the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) to provide greater long-range ballistic missile detection capabilities than its current system. The initial SBIRS architecture included "High" and "Low" orbiting space-based components and ground processing segments. SBIRS has been technically challenging, and in October 2001, SBIRS Low was transferred from the Air Force to the Missile Defense Agency. The Air Force expected to field SBIRS High by 2004, but numerous problems have led to schedule overruns. In the fall of 2001, DOD identified potential cost growth of $2 billion. To determine the causes of the significant cost growth, DOD convened an Independent Review Team. In August 2002, the Air Force restructured the program to address the findings of the team's assessment. Our report (1) describes the key elements of the restructured program and (2) identifies problems and potential risks still facing the program."

This report details development paths for advanced versions of ASHRAE Standard 152, Method of Test for Determining the Design and Seasonal Efficiencies of Residential Thermal Distribution Efficiency. During the course of conversations within the ASHRAE committee responsible for developing the standard (SPC152P), three areas of development for Standard 152 were proposed: (1) extend the scope of the standard to include thermal comfort variables; (2) extend the scope of the standard to include small commercial buildings; and (3) improve the existing standard with respect to accuracy and economy of effort. Research needs associated with each of the three options are identified.

The research focuses on the high-resolution characterization of degradation microstructures and microchemistries in specimens tested under controlled conditions for the environment and for the material where in-service complexities can be minimized. Thermodynamic and kinetic modeling of crack-tip processes is employed to analyze corrosion-induced structures and gain insights into degradation mechanisms. Novel mechanistic ''fingerprinting'' of crack-tip structures is used to isolate causes of environmental cracking in tandem with quantitative measurements of crack growth. Sample preparation methods and advanced analytical techniques are used to characterize corrosion/oxidation reactions and crack-tip structures at near atomic dimensions in order to gain insight into fundamental environmental cracking mechanisms. Reactions at buried interfaces, not accessible by conventional approaches, are being systematically interrogated. Crack-growth experiments in high-temperature water environments are evaluating and isolating the effects of material condition (matrix strength, grain boundary composition and precipitation) on stress corrosion cracking (SCC). The fundamental understanding of crack advance mechanisms will establish the basis to design new corrosion-resistant alloys for current light-water reactors and advanced reactor systems.

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Weekly student newspaper from San Antonio College in San Antonio, Texas that includes campus news along with advertising.

Semi-weekly newspaper from Clifton, 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.

Working within the context of the Southern States Biobased Alliance (SSBA) and with officials in each state, the Southern States Energy Board (SSEB) is identifying bioenergy-related policies and programs within each state to determine their impact on the development, deployment or use of bioenergy. In addition, SSEB will determine which policies have impacted industry's efforts to develop, deploy or use biobased technologies or products. As a result, SSEB will work with the Southern States Biobased Alliance to determine how policy changes might address any negative impacts or enhance positive impacts.

This report describes activities for the fourth quarter of work performed under this agreement. A second round of atmospheric testing was conducted as scheduled on September 2 through September 4, 2003. The test results demonstrated a much-improved rate of carbon dissolution with gas yields close to expectations. Additional atmospheric testing to demonstrate a commercially feasible feed and oxygen injection method is scheduled for the week of December 8, 2003.

With the Nation's coal-burning utilities facing the possibility of tighter controls on mercury pollutants, the U.S. Department of Energy is funding projects that could offer power plant operators better ways to reduce these emissions at much lower costs. Sorbent injection technology represents one of the simplest and most mature approaches to controlling mercury emissions from coal-fired boilers. It involves injecting a solid material such as powdered activated carbon into the flue gas. The gas-phase mercury in the flue gas contacts the sorbent and attaches to its surface. The sorbent with the mercury attached is then collected by the existing particle control device along with the other solid material, primarily fly ash. During 2001, ADA Environmental Solutions (ADA-ES) conducted a full-scale demonstration of sorbent-based mercury control technology at the Alabama Power E.C. Gaston Station (Wilsonville, AL). This unit burns a low-sulfur bituminous coal and uses a hot-side electrostatic precipitator (ESP) in combination with a Compact Hybrid Particulate Collector (COHPAC{trademark}) baghouse to collect fly ash. The majority of the fly ash is collected in the ESP with the residual being collected in the COHPAC baghouse. Activated carbon was injected between the ESP and COHPAC units to collect the mercury. Short-term mercury removal …

The objective of this project is to develop an improved ultra- lightweight cement using ultra-lightweight hollow glass spheres (ULHS). This report discusses testing that was performed for analyzing the alkali-silica reactivity of ULHS in cement slurries.

This is the third Quarterly Technical Report for DOE Cooperative Agreement No: DE-FC26-03NT41728. The objective of this program is to measure the oxidation of mercury in flue gas across SCR catalyst in a coal-fired power plant burning low rank fuels using a slipstream reactor containing multiple commercial catalysts in parallel. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and Argillon GmbH are providing co-funding for this program. This program contains multiple tasks and good progress is being made on all fronts. During this quarter, the second set of mercury measurements was made after the catalysts had been exposed to flue gas for about 2,000 hours. There was good agreement between the Ontario Hydro measurements and the SCEM measurements. Carbon trap measurements of total mercury agreed fairly well with the SCEM. There did appear to be some loss of mercury in the sampling system toward the end of the sampling campaign. NO{sub x} reductions across the catalysts ranged from 60% to 88%. Loss of total mercury across the commercial catalysts was not observed, as it had been in the March/April test series. It is not clear whether this was due to aging of the catalyst or to changes in the sampling system made …

In an x-ray driven reentrant cone fast ignition target the x-ray spectrum contains a high energy component that casuses preheating of the reentrant cone and mixing of the gold into the collapsing shell. Direct laser drive might avoid this problem.

Geologic carbon sequestration is the capture of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) and its storage in deep geologic formations. Geologic CO{sub 2} storage verification will be needed to ensure that CO{sub 2} is not leaking from the intended storage formation and seeping out of the ground. Because the ultimate failure of geologic CO{sub 2} storage occurs when CO{sub 2} seeps out of the ground into the atmospheric surface layer, and because elevated concentrations of CO{sub 2} near the ground surface can cause health, safety, and environmental risks, monitoring will need to be carried out in the near-surface environment. The detection of a CO{sub 2} leakage or seepage signal (LOSS) in the near-surface environment is challenging because there are large natural variations in CO{sub 2} concentrations and fluxes arising from soil, plant, and subsurface processes. The term leakage refers to CO{sub 2} migration away from the intended storage site, while seepage is defined as CO{sub 2} passing from one medium to another, for example across the ground surface. The flow and transport of CO{sub 2} at high concentrations in the near-surface environment will be controlled by its high density, low viscosity, and high solubility in water relative to air. Numerical simulations …

The second annual report of ''Improving CO{sub 2} Efficiency for Recovery Oil in Heterogeneous Reservoirs'' presents results of laboratory studies with related analytical models for improved oil recovery. All studies have been undertaken with the intention to optimize utilization and extend the practice of CO{sub 2} flooding to a wider range of reservoirs. Many items presented in this report are applicable to other interest areas: e.g. gas injection and production, greenhouse gas sequestration, chemical flooding, reservoir damage, etc. Major areas of studies include reduction of CO{sub 2} mobility to improve conformance, determining and understanding injectivity changes in particular injectivity loses, and modeling process mechanisms determined in the first two areas. Interfacial tension (IFT) between a high-pressure, high-temperature CO{sub 2} and brine/surfactant and foam stability are used to assess and screen surfactant systems. In this work the effects of salinity, pressure, temperature, surfactant concentration, and the presence of oil on IFT and CO{sub 2} foam stability were determined on the surfactant (CD1045{trademark}). Temperature, pressure, and surfactant concentration effected both IFT and foam stability while oil destabilized the foam, but did not destroy it. Calcium lignosulfonate (CLS) can be used as a sacrificial and an enhancing agent. This work indicates that on …