A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The District of Columbia's fiscal year 2000 performance report is an improvement in that it meets some of the statutory requirements that the previous year's report did not. However, the extensive changes that the District made to its fiscal year 2000 performance goals during the fiscal year undermine the report's usefulness because the District did not include critical information needed by Congress and other stakeholders. Such information, identifying how, when, and why specific goals were altered and the decision-making and accountability implications of those changes, is important to Congress and others so that they can have confidence in the validity and completeness of the reported performance data. Also, the report does not cover all significant activities of the District government. Sustained progress is needed to address the critical performance and other management challenges that the District faces. The District recognizes the shortcomings with its performance management efforts and has stated a commitment to addressing them. The effective implementation of the various initiatives underway in the District is vital to the success of the District's efforts to create a more focused, results-oriented approach to management and decision-making--an …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews changes in fastener industry practice "resulting from or apparently resulting from" the small-lot exemption of the Fastener Quality Act. GAO found no evidence that the fastener industry changed any practices resulting from, or apparently resulting from, the small-lot exemption. The Customs Service's limited tests of imported fasteners in 2001 found no evidence of substandard fasteners and no evidence of any decline in the quality of fasteners from the results of tests Customs conducted in 1998."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Although the District of Columbia, the Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority, and Congress have achieved an enormous accomplishment in restoring the District to financial viability, many of the challenges the District faced in the past continue. The District and Congress need current, reliable information about the District's financial condition and developing trends in order to promptly respond to any pressures or warning signs that could indicate that future difficulties lie ahead. Toward that end, the District must ensure that its new financial management system is effectively implemented and provides decision makers with reliable and timely data. In addition, since 1995, Congress has put in place a number of reporting requirements to help provide the financial, planning, and performance information that it needs to conduct effective oversight and make decisions. Congress may wish to consider additional mechanisms to ensure that it and the District have the information needed to help the District maintain its financial viability and address its current and emerging challenges. Such mechanisms must be considered and implemented within a context that seeks to balance two sets of values: the overriding importance of Home Rule and …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. tax system is based on voluntary reporting. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reviews all tax returns after they are filed to ensure compliance with tax laws governing this voluntary system. Despite these efforts, each year billions of dollars in taxes owed are not voluntarily reported and paid, which could result in reduced revenue to fund federal programs, higher tax rates, or both. There are three types of voluntary compliance measures: filing compliance, which measures the percent of taxpayers who file returns in a timely manner; payment compliance, which measures the percent of tax payments that are paid in a timely manner; and reporting compliance, which measures the percent of actual tax liability that is reported accurately on returns. This report reviews the status of IRS' plans to measure voluntary reporting compliance as well as six other federal programs that currently measure voluntary compliance. GAO found that IRS has tried to develop an approach for measuring voluntary compliance. It has established objectives and guiding principles for developing this measure as well as developed database software to collect and analyze data. As of March 2001, IRS' …

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A summary of measurements from the first year's run at RHIC is presented. The second year's run at RHIC is presently underway with Au+Au (300 {micro}b{sup -1}) and p-p (3.5 pb{sup -1}) collisions planned at {radical}s{sub NN} = 200 GeV.

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.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Both the United States and the European Union (EU) began providing trade preferences to eligible developing countries in the early 1970s. These trade preferences, which reduced tariffs and product quotas, are "nonreciprocal," meaning that beneficiaries need not reciprocate with lower tariffs for donor export countries. This report discusses (1) the volume of U.S. and EU nonreciprocal preferential trade, (2) the U.S. and EU approaches to nonreciprocal trade preferences, (3) the tariff preferences offered by the U.S. and EU nonreciprocal trade programs, and (4) the extent to which U.S. and EU program beneficiaries take advantage of the tariff preferences offered under the programs. GAO found that the volume of imports receiving preferential tariff rates under U.S. and EU nonreciprocal trade preference programs in 1999 represented a relatively small share of total U.S. and EU imports, at two percent ($18 billion) and six percent ($45 billion), respectively. The U.S. and EU approaches to nonreciprocal preferential trade have evolved in similar ways since their inception in the early 1970s. U.S. and EU programs have included increasingly more products, particularly to the poorest countries, and have, over time, relaxed customs …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) issued antiarmor munitions master plans beginning in 1985 and updated the plans annually until 1990. These antiarmor plans focused on the Cold War armored threat and on the weapons that would be needed to prevail in a Central European Scenario. Congress expressed concern that the military continued to develop and procure an increasing number of tank-killing weapons at a time when potential adversaries had smaller numbers of armored forces. Congress told DOD to develop an Antiarmor Munitions Master Plan to identify the projected armor threat and the projected quantity of all antiarmor weapons, with the purpose of identifying and eliminating excess anti armor capability. This report reviews the plan to determine if it provides the data and analysis specified in the Fiscal Year 2000 Defense Appropriations conference report and provides data and analysis needed to support the services' current antiarmor acquisition plans. GAO found that DOD's July 2000 Antiarmor Munitions Master Plan did not provide the data and analysis specified in the Fiscal Year 2000 Defense Appropriations conference report. The plan provided limited data and analysis to support the services' current …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "During its review of 2001 agency budget justifications, GAO found several capital project funding requests that lacked total project cost information and for which it was not always clear whether requested funding would provide a useful, stand-alone asset. Without this information, Congress cannot consider the full costs of proposed commitments or determine if it is funding an asset that will be useful without additional funding. This report provides several examples of agency capital project funding request information that could be improved."

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The energy required to ignite compressed deuterium-tritium fuel is a strong function of the fuel density. Through a series of detailed numerical simulations, peak fuel densities have been calculated as a function of the peak radiation drive temperature. Note that the time dependence of the radiation temperature (pulse shaping) has been optimized to obtain maximum density for each scaling point. A simple analytic scaling is developed, which agrees well with the numerical results. These scaling results are then used to obtain the required ignition energy as a function of peak drive temperature.

MACE is a program that searches for finite models of first-order statements. The statement to be modeled is first translated to clauses, then to relational clauses; finally for the given domain size, the ground instances are constructed. A Davis-Putnam-Loveland-Logeman procedure decides the propositional problem, and any models found are translated to first-order models. MACE is a useful complement to the theorem prover Otter, with Otter searching for proofs and MACE looking for countermodels.

Numerous studies have been done on developing new electrolytes for lithium batteries with high ionic conductivity, and good chemical and electrochemical stability. In addition to the research on new salts and solvents, the use of cation receptors to reduce ion pairing in non-aqueous electrolytes has been considered as an approach to improve the properties of electrolytes. Although both cation and anion receptors enhance the dissociation of ion pairs and increase the conductivity of electrolytes, the use of anion receptors is more attractive for a lithium battery electrolyte because anion receptors increase the lithium transference number in the electrolyte. However, most available neutral anion receptors complex with anions through hydrogen binding and cannot be used in lithium batteries. Recently, we have reported on synthesis of a series of new neutral boron compounds as anion receptors based on the idea that electron-deficient boron would complex the anion of the ion pair. The anion complexation effect of these boron compounds was further enhanced by attaching electron-withdrawing groups. Here we report synthesis of another new family of boronate compounds. The effect of these new compounds on conductivity of lithium salts in non-aqueous solution was studied. The molecular weights of these new boronate compounds are …

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) is presently designing and building the 2.5 MeV injector for the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS). The design includes various beam intercepting devices such as beam stops and slits. The target power densities can be as high as 500 kW/cm{sup 2} with a beam stopping range of 25 to 30 microns, producing stresses well above yield in most materials. In order to analyze the induced temperatures and stresses, a finite element model has been developed. The model has been written parametrically to allow the beam characteristics, target material, dimensions, angle of incidence and mesh densities to be easily adjusted. The heat load is applied to the model through the use of a 3-dimensional table containing the calculated volumetric heat rates. The load is based on a bi-gaussian beam shape which is absorbed by the target according to a Bragg peak distribution. The results of several analyses using the SNS Front End beam are presented.

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Three types of intercalation Compounds, LiMn{sub 2}O{sub 4} with spinel structure, LiNiO{sub 2} and LiCoO{sub 2} with layered structure are widely studied as cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Among them, LiCoO{sub 2} is the most widely used cathode material in commercial lithium battery cells. LiNiO{sub 2} has same theoretical capacity as LiCoO{sub 2}, but is less expensive. However its application in lithium batteries has not been realized due to serious safety concerns. Substituting a portion of Ni in LiNiO{sub 2} with other cations has been pursued as a way to improve its safety characteristics. It was reported that Co doped LiNi{sub 0.8}Co{sub 0.2}O{sub 2} showed better thermal stability than pure LiNiO{sub 2}. Many new materials have been developed aimed in increasing the capacity and improving the thermal stability and cyclability. Most of these new materials are based on these three types of materials and modified their compositions and structures by doping. However, most of the efforts on developing new cathode materials have been done on the empirical base without guidelines from the systematic studies on the relationship between the performance and the structural changes of the cathode materials. Exploring this relationship is very important not only in guiding the development …

This report examines the capabilities of existing commercial nuclear fuel fabrication facilities to convert depleted uranium hexafluoride (UF{sub 6}) to uranium oxide (UO{sub 2}). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) needs this information to determine whether using such capacity to convert DOE's inventory of depleted UF{sub 6} to a more stable form is a reasonable alternative that should be considered in the site-specific environmental impact statement for construction and operation of depleted UF{sub 6} conversion facilities. Publicly available information sources were consulted to ascertain the information summarized in this report. For domestic facilities, the information summarized includes currently operating capacity to convert depleted UF{sub 6} to UO{sub 2}; transportation distances from depleted UF{sub 6} storage locations near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky, to the facilities; and regulatory requirements applicable to nuclear fuel fabrication and transportation of depleted UF{sub 6}. The report concludes that the total currently operating capability of U.S. commercial nuclear fuel fabricators to convert UF{sub 6} to UO{sub 2} is approximately 5,200 metric tons of UF{sub 6} per annum (tUF{sub 6}/a). This total includes 666 tUF{sub 6}/a scheduled for shutdown by the end of 2001. However, only about 300 tUF{sub 6}/a of this capacity could …

This report discusses the Federal Emergency Immigrant Education Program.

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