A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) the implementation status of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) provisions in the group insurance market; (2) the price of coverage for certain individuals losing group insurance; (3) the extent of consumer understanding of HIPAA as well as federal, state, and private efforts undertaken to educate consumers about the law's protections; and (4) federal efforts undertaken to ensure HIPAA compliance."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the implications of H.R. 853 on the congressional budget process, focusing on: (1) the importance of the long-term perspective; (2) the long-term and insurance commitments in the budget; and (3) how this relates to the need for control, accountability, and transparency."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Labor's progress in making its 61 mission-critical systems year 2000 compliant, focusing on: (1) the systems operated by states to administer unemployment benefits payments for Labor's Unemployment Insurance Service (UIS); and (2) an assessment of the risks faced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Air Force's selection of a source of repair for depot maintenance work at the closing Sacramento Air Logistics Center (ALC), focusing on whether the: (1) Air Force's procedures for conducting the Sacramento competition provided substantially equal opportunity for the public and private offerors to compete for the work without regard to performance location; (2) procedures for conducting the competition were in compliance with 10 U.S.C. 2469a and other applicable laws and regulations; (3) appropriate consideration was given to factors other than cost; and (4) award resulted in the lowest total cost to the Department of Defense (DOD) for performance of the work."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Customs Service's efforts to curtail the exportation of stolen vehicles from the United States, focusing on: (1) applicable regulations for exporting used, self-propelled vehicles from the United States; (2) Customs policies and procedures for controlling the export of these vehicles; (3) methods used to illegally export these vehicles; and (4) improvements in operations being considered by Customs."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) new rule on Medicaid Program's state allotments for payment of Medicare Part B premiums for qualifying individuals for fiscal year (FY) 1999. GAO noted that: (1) the Social Security Act provides for the Medicaid program to pay all or part of the Medicare Part B premiums for beneficiaries belonging to two specific eligibility groups of low-income Medicare beneficiaries, referred to as qualifying individuals; (2) this notice announces the federal FY 1999 allotments that are available for state agencies to pay Medicare Part B premiums for these two eligibility groups; and (3) HCFA complied with the applicable requirements in promulgating the rule."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the year 2000 problem and its impact on the Global Positioning System (GPS)."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Education's efforts to ensure that its computer systems supporting critical student financial aid activities will be able to process information reliably through the turn of the century, focusing on: (1) the progress Education has made to date in making its information systems year 2000 compliant; and (2) the future tasks facing the department."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the total expenditures for the investigations conducted by independent counsels Robert B. Fiske, Jr., and Kenneth W. Starr."

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 the state or a county must reimburse a state district judge for expenses incurred by the judge in defending a mandamus action.

Weekly newspaper from Wylie, 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.

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

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

For the past year or so we have been examining the properties and limitations of the beam bugs in use in the ETA program at LLNL with a view toward improving the accuracy of beam position and current measurements. When considering measurements of beam position, it is very important to distinguish between relative and absolute position measurements. A relative position measurement determines only the amplitude and direction of the motion of the beam within the transport tube. If one knew where the beam was, one could determine its new position. A relative measurement is essentially independent of errors in mechanical fabrication or electrical components. The minimum measurable displacement is only limited by the strength of the electrical signals or the signal to noise ratio of the position signal. An absolute position measurement is much more challenging. All inaccuracies in mechanical components and fabrication, electrical components, installation and assembly errors must be considered and controlled along with the issues common to relative position measurements. However, if the object is to strike a small specific point on a target or pass the beam through a small hole, absolute beam position measurements are required. The following is a summary of our progress including …

This study demonstrates the potential of polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) for non-invasive in vivo detection and characterization of early, incipient caries lesions. PS-OCT generates cross-sectional images of biological tissue while measuring the effect of the tissue on the polarization state of incident light. Clear discrimination between regions of normal and demineralized enamel is first shown in PS-OCT images of bovine enamel blocks containing well-characterized artificial lesions. High-resolution, cross-sectional images of extracted human teeth are then generated that clearly discriminate between the normal and carious regions on both the smooth and occlusal surfaces. Regions of the teeth that appeared to be demineralized in the PS-OCT images were verified using histological thin sections examined under polarized light microscopy. The PS-OCT system discriminates between normal and carious regions by measuring the polarization state of the back-scattered 1310 nm light, which is affected by the state of demineralization of the enamel. Demineralization of enamel increases the scattereing coefficient, thus depolarizing the incident light. This study shows that PS-OCT has great potential for the detection, characterization, and monitoring of incipient caries lesions.

The State of Texas requires state agencies to purchase alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs). In 1996, Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) representatives added about 400 bi-fuel liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) pickup trucks to their fleet. The fleet managers were willing to share information about their fleets and the operation of these vehicles, so a study was launched to collect operations, maintenance, and cost data for selected LPG and gasoline vehicles (as controls) throughout 18 months of vehicle operation. This case study presents the results of that data collection and its subsequent analysis.

Low power Electromagnetic (EM) Wave sensors can measure general properties of human speech articulator motions, as speech is produced. See Holzrichter, Burnett, Ng, and Lea, J.Acoust.Soc.Am. 103 (1) 622 (1998). Experiments have demonstrated extremely accurate pitch measurements (< 1 Hz per pitch cycle) and accurate onset of voiced speech. Recent measurements of pressure-induced tracheal motions enable very good spectra and amplitude estimates of a voiced excitation function. The use of the measured excitation functions and pitch synchronous processing enable the determination of each pitch cycle of an accurate transfer function and, indirectly, of the corresponding articulator motions. In addition, direct measurements have been made of EM wave reflections from articulator interfaces, including jaw, tongue, and palate, simultaneously with acoustic and glottal open/close signals. While several types of EM sensors are suitable for speech articulator measurements, the homodyne sensor has been found to provide good spatial and temporal resolution for several applications.

Silicon micromachine designs include engines that consist of orthog- onally oriented linear comb drive actuators mechanically connected to a rotating gear. These gears are as small as 50 {micro}m in diameter and can be driven at rotation rates exceeding 300,000 rpm. Generally, these en- gines will run with non-uniform rotation rates if the drive signals are not properly designed and maintained over a range of system parameters. We present a method for producing constant rotation rates in a micro-engine driven by an orthogonal linkage system. We show that provided the val- ues of certain masses, springs, damping factors, and lever arms are in the right proportions, the system behaves as though it were symmetrical. We will refer to systems built in this way as being quasi-symmetrical. We show that if a system is built quasi-symmetrically , then it is possible to achieve constant rotation rates even if one does not know the form of the friction function, or the value of the friction. We analyze this case in some detail.

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

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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.

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