A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the level of enrollment in the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary (QMB) program and the Specified Low-Income Medicare Beneficiary (SLMB) program, focusing on: (1) the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of: (a) Medicare beneficiaries who enroll as a QMB or SLMB; and (b) Medicare beneficiaries who qualify for QMB or SLMB but do not enroll; (2) reasons why eligible beneficiaries are not enrolled; and (3) strategies to increase enrollment."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the District of Columbia's compliance with Public Law 105-100, focusing on whether: (1) any District employees were authorized, as of September 1998, to take home official vehicles; and (2) these employees were aware of the statutory restriction on using District government vehicles for other than official business, including home-to-work transportation."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Federal Reserve System's (FRS) efforts to remedy the year 2000 problem for its internal computer systems."

The objectives of this working group were to provide the ''Future Light Source Community'' information on: Electron-Laser interaction based sources; Plasma based radiation sources and accelerators; and Present and future high-power laser technology. A summary of presentations, discussions and opinions is presented next. At the end of this report, a few references are given. The list is very far from being complete but is meant as a start for further exploring the various topics discussed in this working group. Based on presentations and discussions during the workshop, a summarizing table of the performance of three different types of laser systems has been made. The emphasis is on listing performance parameters of solid state, FEL and gas based lasers, relevant to the development of a future fourth generation light source. Two types of solid state lasers capable of producing peak power in the multi-terawatt range are described: Nd:glass and Ti:sapphire lasers [1]. The main development for these lasers is towards higher average power levels: from the 10 W to the > 100 W level. An infrared FEL has recently produced 1 kW average power but with peak power on the order of 0.1 GW [2]. A terawatt class, short pulse CO{sub …

Weekly newspaper from Sulphur Springs, 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.

Fusion devices based on the adiabatic (or shock) compression of the plasma by electromagnetically driven liner need specific energy sources capable of delivering a high current (~10 MA) in the pulses 0.1 - 1 microsecond long. In the present experimental facilities, the plasma load is situated very close to the pulse-power energy source. In the future fusion devices, one would have to place a plasma load at a considerable distance from the energy source (to avoid strong neutron and thermo-mechanical damage to the source). Several versions of the stand-off energy sources are considered. All are based on the idea of an "assembly" - an object where the plasma load is nested and which contains all necessary circuitry that allows conversion of the energy delivered to the assembly into the magnetic energy. Such "assemblies" will be dropped (or inserted) into the reaction chamber at a desired rate and energized by a stand-off energy source. Four specific concepts have been mentioned.

This website contains the papers presented on November 17, 1998 during the session, "Proliferation Prevention in the Commercial Fuel Cycle," at the American Nuclear Society meeting in Washington, DC. The abstracts are in a separate section; individual papers also contain the author's bio and e-mail address. In the session planning phase, it was suggested that the following questions and other relevant issues be addressed: * What are the difficulties and issues with defining and enforcing international standards for the physical protection of Pu and HEU (beyond the Convention on the Physical protection of Nuclear Material, which primarily addresses transportation)? * How do we (or can we) keep nuclear technology in general, and reprocessing and enrichment technologies in particular, from spreading to undesirable organizations (including governments), in light of Article IV of the NPT? Specifically, can we (should we) prevent the construction of light-water reactors in Iran; and should we support the construction of light-water reactors in North Korea? * Are there more proliferation-resistant fuel cycles that would be appropriate in developing countries? * Can the concept of "nonproliferation credentials" be defined in a useful way? * Is there historical evidence to indicate that reprocessing (or enrichment of HEU) in the …

Two recent developments enable induction accelerators to achieve better and more consistent performance with higher efficiency. First, better and more consistent performance is achieved with insulating coatings that allow magnetic cores to be annealed after winding. Second, losses are reduced by a factor of 2-3 with nanocrystalline alloys, while the flux swing is only slightly reduced to 2.0 T compared with 2.3 T with economical amorphous alloys. One metric for selecting between the alloys is the cost-of-electricity, COE. A systems code optimizes an accelerator and compares the COE for higher flux-swing amorphous and higher-efficiency nanocrystalline materials and for several variations in assumptions.

An article in The New York Times National Report written by Richard L. Berke about the conversation around gay issues in Texas. Featured are Governor George Bush's views on gay issues and Charles C. Francis' approval of Bush as well as others in the Republican Party who have spoken on the issue.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the status of 10 federal agencies' efforts to implement the Brownfield National Partnership Action Agenda, focusing on: (1) comparing federal agencies' planned financial assistance to brownfields, which are abandoned, idle, or underused industrial facilities, to their actual spending for brownfields in fiscal years (FY) 1997 and 1998; (2) describing the purposes of these obligations; and (3) determining the extent to which agencies met the Partnership's goals and objectives."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Army's M939 series 5-ton tactical cargo truck, focusing on the: (1) extent to which accidents involving the truck have occurred; and (2) results of Army studies on the truck's design and its plans to address any identified deficiencies."

During the PEP-II LER commissioning run in July 1998 the beam profile in the tune up dump profile monitor just before LER injection showed an anomalous parabolic shape. The sextupole component of the field of bend magnets B2 and B4 in the beginning of the south injection tunnel (SIT) was thought to be the cause of this. An off-line model of the B2/B4 bend magnet field was created using DIMAD. Results of particle tracking simulated in DIMAD were compared with on-line lattice diagnostic data and observations of the beam profile on the tune up dump screen.

Dynamic focusing has been proposed [1] as a way to eliminate a conventional collimation and final focus system in linear colliders, and is a scheme that is more readily extended to colliders at several TeV center-of-mass energy. In this paper we examine several outstanding issues, in particular, the optimization of the lens and main beam parameters. Simulations of the lens-lens, lens-main, and main-main beam collisions using a modified version of the GUINEAPIG beam-beam code are in progress.

Modeling and simulation in support of adaptive ecosystem management can be better accomplished through a dynamic, integrated, and flexible approach that incorporates scientific and technological components into a comprehensive ecosystem-modeling framework. The Integrated Dynamic Landscape Analysis and Modeling System (IDLAMS) integrates ecological models and decision support techniques, through a geographic information system (GIS)-based framework. The Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) sponsored the development of IDLAMS. Initially built upon a GIS framework, IDLAMS is migrating to an object-oriented (OO) architectural framework. An object-oriented architecture is more flexible and modular. It allows disparate applications and dynamic models to be integrated in a manner that minimizes (or eliminates) the need to rework or recreate the system as new models are added to the suite. In addition, an object-oriented design makes it easier to provide run-time feedback among models, thereby making it a more dynamic tool for exploring and providing insight into the interactions among ecosystem processes. Finally, an object-oriented design encourages the reuse of existing technology because OO-IDLAMS is able to integrate disparate models, databases, or applications executed in their native languages. Reuse is also accomplished through a structured approach to building a consistent and reusable object library. This reusability can …

A number of important processes utilizing supercritical fluids have been either implemented or are emerging for extractions, separations and a wide range of cleaning applications. Supercritical fluids can be reasonable solvents yet share many of the advantages of gases including miscibility with other gases (i.e. hydrogen and oxygen), low viscosities and high diffusivities. Carbon dioxide has the further advantages of being nontoxic, nonflammable, inexpensive and currently unregulated. The use of compressed gases, either as liquids or supercritical fluids, as reaction media offers the opportunity to replace conventional hazardous solvents and also to optimize and potentially control the effect of solvent on chemical and material processing. The last several years has seen a significant growth in advances in chemical synthesis, catalytic transformations and materials synthesis and processing. The authors report on results from an exploratory program at Los Alamos National Laboratory aimed at investigating the use of dense phase fluids, particularly carbon dioxide, as reaction media for homogeneous, heterogeneous and phase-separable catalytic reactions in an effort to develop new, environmentally-friendly methods for chemical synthesis and processing. This approach offers the possibility of opening up substantially different chemical pathways, increasing selectivity at higher reaction rates, facilitating downstream separations and mitigating the need …

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

Funeral program for Erma J. Duke, born February 11, 1930 and died April 4, 1999. The funeral was held April 9, 1999 at Emmanuel AME Church, officiated by Rev. I. V. Tolbert. Funeral arrangements were made through the Lewis Funeral Home and she was buried in Union Hill Cemetery in Luling, Texas.

The scientific basis for handwriting individuality and the expertise of handwriting examiners has been questioned in several court cases and law review articles. The criticisms were originally directed at the proficiency and expertise of forensic document examiners (FDE's). However, these criticisms also illustrate the lack of empirical data to support and validate the premises and methodology of handwriting examination. As a result the admissibility and weight of FDE testimony has been called into question. These assaults on the scientific integrity of handwriting analysis have created an urgent need for the forensic document examination community to develop objective standards, measurable criteria and a uniform methodology supported by properly controlled studies that evaluate and validate the significance of measurable handwriting characteristics.

Semiweekly newspaper from Boerne, 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.

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

The objective of this analysis is to develop a repository layout, for Feature No. 13, that will accommodate self-shielding waste packages (WP) with an areal mass loading of 25 metric tons of uranium per acre (MTU/acre). The scope of this analysis includes determination of the number of emplacement drifts, amount of emplacement drift excavation required, and a preliminary layout for illustrative purposes.

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