A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed Medicare payments for ambulance services in rural areas, focusing on: (1) the challenges faced by rural ambulance providers; (2) how the upcoming fee schedule will affect rural providers relative to their current situation; and (3) what factors have affected claim denial rates for ambulance services."

The Engineered Barrier System Degradation, Flow, and Transport Process Model Report (EBS PMR) is one of nine PMRs supporting the Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA) being developed by the Yucca Mountain Project for the Site Recommendation Report (SRR). The EBS PMR summarizes the development and abstraction of models for processes that govern the evolution of conditions within the emplacement drifts of a potential high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada. Details of these individual models are documented in 23 supporting Analysis/Model Reports (AMRs). Nineteen of these AMRs are for process models, and the remaining 4 describe the abstraction of results for application in TSPA. The process models themselves cluster around four major topics: ''Water Distribution and Removal Model, Physical and Chemical Environment Model, Radionuclide Transport Model, and Multiscale Thermohydrologic Model''. One AMR (Engineered Barrier System-Features, Events, and Processes/Degradation Modes Analysis) summarizes the formal screening analysis used to select the Features, Events, and Processes (FEPs) included in TSPA and those excluded from further consideration. Performance of a potential Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste repository depends on both the natural barrier system (NBS) and the engineered barrier system (EBS) and on their interactions. Although the waste packages are generally …

Hydroxylated aromatic compounds (HACs) are common subsurface contaminants at many industrial sites, including DOE facilities. Under certain conditions, HACs can undergo oxidative coupling reactions that may lead to their sequestration, reducing their environmental mobility and toxicity. Mineral oxides and enzymes naturally present in most soils can catalyze these coupling reactions. We proposed to investigate (1) the role of abiotic/enzymatic coupling reactions on the sequestration of hydroxylated aromatic compounds (HACs) by natural geosorbents, (2) the effects of sorbent structure and chemical compositions on such processes; and (3) the conditions for induction of these biotic/enzymatic coupling reactions by addition of suitable catalysts and sorbents. Information gathered from this study will be useful in quantifying the behavior of this class of organic compounds in various subsurface contamination scenarios relevant to DOE facilities, and in specifying strategies for the selection and design of remediation technologies.

Elastic scattering of low (10-50 eV) kinetic energy electrons from free diatomic molecules is studied using a single-center expansion of the full molecular potential. Dynamic exchange and polarization are included in a local form. The calculated elastic differential scattering cross-sections (DCS) for electron impact on CO and N2 are in good agreement with available experimental data. The importance of using the full molecular potential instead of a two-center potential approach is pointed out. These corrections are small for energies above 50 eV, but they become increasingly important at lower energies. When discussing the angular distributions of elastically-scattered electrons from oriented molecules (like surface adsorbates), we show that these corrections are particularly significant. The results have implications for other electron scattering problems such as those encountered in low-energy photoelectron diffraction from both core and valence levels.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed efforts being undertaken by the Department of Transportation (DOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to reduce the number of truck-related fatalities, focusing on: (1) the motor carrier administration's overall strategy for reducing fatalities resulting from crashes involving large trucks; (2) specific actions the motor carrier administration is taking to meet this goal; (3) the extent to which the motor carrier administration has considered additional improvements suggested by the safety community, industry, and others; and (4) the bases for the motor carrier administration's estimates for the expected number of lives to be saved as a result of proposed revisions to its hours of service rules."

The monitoring of nuclear explosions on a global basis requires accurate event locations. As an example, under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the size of an on-site inspection search area is 1,000 square kilometers or approximately 17 km accuracy assuming a circular area. This level of accuracy is a significant challenge for small events that are recorded using a sparse regional network. In such cases, the travel-time of seismic energy is strongly affected by crustal and upper mantle heterogeneity and large biases can result. This can lead to large systematic errors in location and, more importantly, to invalid error bounds associated with location estimates. Corrections can be developed and integrated to correct for these biases. These path corrections take the form of both three-dimensional model corrections along with three-dimensional empirically based travel time corrections. LLNL is currently working to integrate a diverse set of three-dimensional velocity model and empirical based travel-time products into one consistent and validated calibration set. To perform this task, we have developed a hybrid approach that uses three-dimensional model corrections for a region and then uses reference events when available to improve the path correction. This Bayesian kriging approach uses the best apriori three-dimensional velocity model …

We carried out a set of experiments on the Omega laser facility at Rochester with Laser MegaJoule (LMJ) like indirect drive irradiation. We studied the irradiation non-uniformity with the foam ball radiography technique and the implosion symmetry with (D{sub 2} + Argon) filled capsules core emission. Cylindrical ''Nova scale 1'' thin wall hohlraums were used. Forty of the Omega beams, arranged in three cones on each side of the hohlraum (5, 5, and lo), were used to create the X-ray drive. Eight additional beams were used on a Ti source to radiograph the foam balls. The shaped laser pulse was about 3 ns duration. The radiation drive was measured on each shot. The images were recorded with a 5 prn resolution Gated X-ray Imager coupled to a CCD camera.

Hanford Seismic Monitoring provides an uninterrupted collection of high-quality raw and processed seismic data from the Hanford Seismic Network (HSN) for the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractors. Hanford Seismic Monitoring also locates and identifies sources of seismic activity and monitors changes in the historical pattern of seismic activity at the Hanford Site. The data are compiled, archived, and published for use by the Hanford Site for waste management, Natural Phenomena Hazards assessments, and engineering design and construction. In addition, the seismic monitoring organization works with the Hanford Site Emergency Services Organization to provide assistance in the event of a significant earthquake on the Hanford Site. The HSN and the Eastern Washington Regional Network (EWRN) consist of 42 individual sensor sites and 15 radio relay sites maintained by the Hanford Seismic Monitoring staff. The HSN uses 21 sites and the EWRN uses 36 sites; both networks share 16 sites. The networks have 46 combined data channels because Gable Butte and Frenchman Hills East are three-component sites. The reconfiguration of the telemetry and recording systems was completed during the first quarter. All leased telephone lines have been eliminated and radio telemetry is now used exclusively. For the HSN, there were …

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.

On July 13, 2000, the House passed H.R. 4811, the FY 2001 Foreign Operations bill, containing language prohibiting the use of any funds in the bill for the United Nations World Heritage Fund. This Fund provides technical assistance to countries requesting help in protecting World Heritage sites. On May 20, 1999, the House passed (by voice vote) the American Land Sovereignty Protection Act (H.R. 883), which requires congressional approval to add any additional U.S. national parks and monuments to the World Heritage List, a UNESCO-administered list established by the 1972 World Heritage Convention. This paper describes the operation of the UNESCO Convention and will be updated periodically.

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

Hanford Seismic Monitoring provides an uninterrupted collection of high-quality raw and processed seismic data from the Hanford Seismic Network (HSN) for the US Department of Energy and its contractors. Hanford Seismic Monitoring also locates and identifies sources of seismic activity and monitors changes in the historical pattern of seismic activity at the Hanford Site. The data are compiled, archived, and published for use by the Hanford Site for waste management, Natural Phenomena Hazards assessments, and engineering design and construction. In addition, the seismic monitoring organization works with the Hanford Site Emergency Services Organization to provide assistance in the event of a significant earthquake on the Hanford Site. The HSN and the Eastern Washington Regional Network (EWRN) consist of 42 individual sensor sites and 15 radio relay sites maintained by the Hanford Seismic Monitoring staff. The HSN uses 21 sites and the EWRN uses 36 sites; both networks share 16 sites. The networks have 46 combined data channels because Gable Butte and Frenchman Hills East are three-component sites. The reconfiguration of the telemetry and recording systems was completed during the first quarter. All leased telephone lines have been eliminated and radio telemetry is now used exclusively. For the HSN, there were …

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The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven, beginning operation this year, and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, beginning operation {approximately}2005, will provide an unprecedented range of energies and luminosities that will allow us to probe the Gluon-Quark plasma. At RHIC and LHC, at central rapidity typical estimates of energy densities and temperatures are e * 1-10 GeV/fm3 and T0 * 300 - 900 MeV. Such energies are well above current estimates for the GQ plasma. Initially, this hot, dense plasma is far from local thermal equilibrium, making the theoretical study of transport phenomena, kinetic and chemical equilibration in dense and hot plasmas, and related issues a matter of fundamental importance. During the last few years a consistent framework to study collective effects in the Gluon-Quark plasma, and a microscopic description of transport in terms of the hard thermal (and dense) loops resummation program has emerged. This approach has the potential of providing a microscopic formulation of transport, in the regime of temperatures and densities to be achieved at RHIC and LHC. A parallel development over the last few years has provided a consistent formulation of non-equilibrium quantum field theory that provides a real-time description of phenomena out …

A brief review is given of recent progress in fabrication of high voltage GaN and AlGaN rectifiers, GaN/AlGaN heterojunction bipolar transistors, GaN heterostructure and metal-oxide semiconductor field effect transistors. Improvements in epitaxial layer quality and in fabrication techniques have led to significant advances in device performance.

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