A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report discusses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. Although FEMA did not attain all of its goals for selected key outcomes in its fiscal year 2000 annual performance report, FEMA did make progress toward achieving the outcomes. FEMA's progress varied for each outcome, and the information presented in the performance report did not always provide enough information to allow an independent assessment of FEMA's progress in achieving the outcome. In general, FEMA's strategies for achieving these key outcomes appeared to be clear and reasonable. Although FEMA has more work to do on the outcomes GAO reviewed, its fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan reflect continued improvement compared with the prior year's report and plan. FEMA has refined its performance goals and made them more outcome oriented. FEMA's fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan generally addressed the management challenges GAO cited in earlier reports. The report and plan indicate that FEMA has taken some actions …

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issues regulations to strengthen aviation safety and security and to promote the efficient use of airspace. FAA's rulemaking is a complicated process intended to ensure that all aspects of any regulatory change are fully analyzed before any change goes into effect. During the last 40 years, many reports have documented problems in FAA's rulemaking efforts that have delayed the formulation and finalization of its rules. This report reviews FAA's rulemaking process. GAO reviewed 76 significant rules and found that FAA's rulemaking process varied widely. These rules constituted the majority of FAA's workload of significant rules from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2000. GAO found that FAA had begun about 60 percent of the rulemaking projects by Congress and about a third of the rulemaking projects recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board within six months. For one-fourth of the mandates and one-third of the recommendations however, at least five years passed before FAA began the process. Once the rule was formally initiated, FAA took a median time of two and a half years to proceed from formal initiation of the …

A briefing report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As the Department of Defense (DOD) enters the 21st century, the average ages of its weapon systems and equipment are increasing, primarily because DOD has not routinely replaced items bought during the Cold War. According to DOD officials, the aging of weapon systems and equipment reduce readiness. To keep pace with the maintenance required for aging systems and equipment, the military services have diverted funds from modernization accounts to operating and support accounts. DOD faces major challenges as it continues to implement its current tactical aircraft modernization plans. The Navy and the Air Force will be inable to procure enough new tactical aircraft to reduce the average age of tactical aircraft. During the next 11 years, the average age will continue to increase, especially in the Air Force. The upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review provides an opportunity to assess whether the issue of aging requires concerted attention."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Under Title III of the Older Americans Act, the Administration on Aging (AoA) distributes grants to states on the basis of their proportional share of the total elderly population in the United States. These grants are then disbursed to more than 600 area agencies nationwide, and are used to fund group and in-home meals, as well as support services, including transportation and housekeeping. The grants are further subdivided by these agencies to more than 4,000 local service providers. AoA requires that states obligate these funds by September 30 of the fiscal year in which they are awarded. Also, states must spend this money within two years after the fiscal year in which it is awarded. During this time AoA does not limit or monitor the amount of unspent funds that states may carry over to the succeeding fiscal year. GAO examined whether states were using Title III carryover funds to expand their meal service programs for the elderly beyond a level sustainable by their annual allotments alone. GAO found that the buildup and use of Title III carryover funds to support elderly nutrition services does not …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) New Starts program has provided state and local agencies with more than $6 billion in the last eight years to help design and construct transit projects. Although the funding for this program is higher than it has ever been, the demand for these resources is also extremely high. FTA was directed to prioritize projects for funding by evaluating, rating, and recommending potential projects on the basis of specific financial and project justification criteria. This report discusses (1) the refinements made to FTA's evaluation and rating process since last year, (2) how New Starts projects were selected for FTA's New Starts report and budget request for fiscal year 2002, and (3) FTA's remaining New Starts commitment authority. GAO found that FTA made several refinements to its rating process. For instance, potential grantees were more strictly assessed on their ability to build and operate proposed projects than in the past. FTA also made several technical changes and established new performance measures to evaluate the program. New Starts projects were selected by evaluating 40 new projects for 2002 and developing ratings for 26 of …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) spent about $35 billion in 2000 on the Medicare+Choice program--the managed care alternative to Medicare's fee-for-service program. During that time, almost 6.3 million Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in health plans offered by managed care organizations (MCO) that participate in the Medicare+Choice program. Each year, any MCO choosing to participate in the Medicare+Choice program must submit to CMS an adjusted community rate proposal for each plan that it intends to offer. The proposal identifies the health services the MCO will provide to its Medicare members and the estimated cost to provide those services. It also shows the estimated payments that the MCO expects to receive for providing these services. This report shows that CMS' approach in the first year met the requirements of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) and laid the foundation for future years audit process. The audits done by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG) and three CPA firms in 2000 were in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards (GAAS) and generally followed CMS' audit program, including the …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report provides information on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) management and oversight of project grants. Specifically, GAO examines (1) the dollar amounts of project grants EPA awarded in fiscal years 1996 through 1999 and the program activities they funded, by grantee type; (2) how the activities funded by the project grants align with the Government Performance and Results Act goals and objectives identified by EPA; and (3) the extent to which EPA uses its authority to deviate from relevant regulations in awarding grants. GAO found that EPA awarded about 17,000 project grants totaling more than $2.8 billion in fiscal years 1996 through 1999. Five categories accounted for nearly 80 percent of all project grant funds (1) general investigations, surveys or studies involving air and water quality; (2) research; (3) studies and cleanups of specific hazardous waste sites; (4) nonprofit organizations; and (5) training activities. EPA identified about 82 percent of the $1.4 billion in project grants awarded in fiscal years 1999 and 2000 as supporting four strategic goals under the Results Act. GAO found this to be the case in 93 of 100 grants reviewed. …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Federal law states that not more than 50 percent of annual depot maintenance funding can be used for work by private sector contractors. In an earlier report, GAO could not determine whether the Department of Defense (DOD) had complied with the 50-percent limitation. More recent GAO testimony highlighted continuing and pervasive weaknesses in DOD's financial management systems, operations, and controls that impair its ability to accurately accumulate and report reliable budget execution and cost data. This report found that the military had mixed results complying with the 50-50 requirement for private sector workloads in fiscal years 1999 and 2000. The projections of the Army, Air Force, and Navy in DOD's report for fiscal years 2001 through 2005 are neither accurate nor reasonable estimates of the future allocations of public and private sector workloads. The services placed much less emphasis on the future-years data and reports. The reported projections use incorrect data and questionable assumptions and are inconsistent with existing budgets and management plans. DOD's report should be viewed with caution because it does not provide the best data available to DOD decisionmakers and congressional overseers, and …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO audited the financial statements for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) Bank Insurance Fund, Savings Association Insurance Fund, and FSLIC Resolution Fund for 2000 and 1999. GAO found that (1) the financial statements of each fund are presented fairly in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles; (2) although certain internal controls should be improved, FDIC had effective internal control over financial reporting and compliance with laws and regulations; and (3) there was no reportable noncompliance with the laws and regulations."

This report discusses the use of committees as crucial centers of policymaking, oversight of federal agencies, and public education is an organizing principle of the contemporary Congress.

This report discusses the violent crime control and law enforcement act of 1994, the federal death penalty that became available as a possible punishment for a substantial number of new and existing civilian offenses.

Review and test speeds of various encryption technologies using Entrust Software. Multiple encryption algorithms are included in the product. Algorithms tested were IDEA, CAST, DES, and RC2. Test consisted of taking a 7.7 MB Word document file which included complex graphics and timing encryption, decryption and signing. Encryption is discussed in the GIAC Kickstart section: Information Security: The Big Picture--Part VI.

This report discusses what a farm bill is and the process of renewing one every year. This report specifically covers the farm bill for 2002 and the issues that come with it. Moreover, the report highlights the importance of exports within the U.S. agricultural economy and how this is a key interest in the renewal of farm bills.

Deposit summary of $45.00 made on May 9, 2001, and a letter to Michael Milliken from Daniel C. Graney, membership chair of the San Antonio Club regarding membership dues.

Reconciliation report with an ending account balance of $425.00 reconciled for the period ending on March 30, 2001.

Reconciliation report with an ending account balance of $425.00 reconciled for the period ending on May 9, 2001.

Reconciliation report with an ending account balance of $539.54 reconciled for the period ending on October 31, 2001. Also, a pamphlet from Dallas National Bank covering information about Select ATM.

Deposit summary of $35.00 made on August 9, 2001.

Over 130 soil samples were collected from three soil borings in support of the VZFTS. The first boring was sampled just prior to the first injection test. The other two borings were sampled after completion of the injection tests. These soil samples were collected using a 7.6 cm (3 in) ID splitspoon sampler, with internal 15 cm (6 in.) long Lexan? liners. The samples ranged in depth from 4 to 17 m (13.5 to 56.5 ft), and were submitted to various laboratories for hydraulic property characterization and/or geochemical/tracer analyses. Preliminary results indicate that the major concentration front of the bromide tracer reached a relative depth of 5 m (below the injection point) 8 days after the final water injection and had migrated to a relative depth of about 7 m, 4 days later.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) embarked on a new initiative to strengthen the technical defensibility of the predictions being made with a site-wide groundwater flow and transport model at the U.S. Department of Energy Hanford Site in southeastern Washington State. In FY 2000, the focus of the initiative was on the characterization of major uncertainties in the current conceptual model that would affect model predictions. The long-term goals of the initiative are the development and implementation of an uncertainty estimation methodology in future assessments and analyses using the site-wide model. This report focuses on the development and implementation of an uncertainty analysis framework.

The purpose of this memo is to put down, in one place, a number of commonly used accelerator formulae. I'll also comment briefly on the derivation of these relationships. Nothing in this memo is my original work. All of this was developed many years ago by the brilliant founders of the field of Accelerator Physics. The widely used differential relationships between beam momentum (p), dipole magnetic field (B), orbit length (L), and revolution frequency (f) are given in Table 1.

18th Edition of TOP500 List of World's Fastest Supercomputers Released MANNHEIM, GERMANY; KNOXVILLE, TENN.; BERKELEY, CALIF. In what has become a much-anticipated event in the world of high-performance computing, the 18th edition of the TOP500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers was released today (November 9, 2001). The latest edition of the twice-yearly ranking finds IBM as the leader in the field, with 32 percent in terms of installed systems and 37 percent in terms of total performance of all the installed systems. In a surprise move Hewlett-Packard captured the second place with 30 percent of the systems. Most of these systems are smaller in size and as a consequence HP's share of installed performance is smaller with 15 percent. This is still enough for second place in this category. SGI, Cray and Sun follow in the number of TOP500 systems with 41 (8 percent), 39 (8 percent), and 31 (6 percent) respectively. In the category of installed performance Cray Inc. keeps the third position with 11 percent ahead of SGI (8 percent) and Compaq (8 percent).

In order to prepare policies and plans to reduce GHG emissions, national policy-makers need information on the costs and benefits of different mitigation options in addition to their carbon implications. Policy-makers must weigh the costs, benefits, and impacts of climate change mitigation and adaptation options, in the face of competition for limited resources. The policy goal for mitigation options in the land use sector is to identify which mix of options is likely to best achieve the desired forestry service and production objectives at the least cost, while attempting to maximize economic and social benefits, and minimize negative environmental and social impacts. Improved national-level cost estimates of response options in the land use sector can be generated by estimating the costs and benefits of different forest management practices appropriate for specific country conditions which can be undertaken within the constraint of land availability and its opportunity cost. These co st and land use estimates can be combined to develop cost curves, which would assist policy-makers in constructing policies and programs to implement forest responses.

Radionuclide and metal contaminants are present in the vadose zone and groundwater throughout the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) weapons complex. Demonstrating in situ immobilization of these contaminants in vadose zones or groundwater plumes is a cost-effective remediation strategy. However, the implementation of in situ remediation requires definition of the mechanism that controls sequestration of the contaminants. One such mechanism for metals and radionuclides is co-precipitation of these elements in authigenic calcite and calcite overgrowths. Calcite, a common mineral in many aquifers and vadose zones in the arid western U.S., can incorporate divalent metals such as strontium, cadmium, lead, and cobalt into its crystal structure by the formation of solid solutions. The rate at which trace metals are incorporated into calcite is a function of calcite precipitation kinetics, adsorption interactions between the calcite surface and the trace metal in solution, solid solution properties of the trace metal in calcite, and also the surfaces upon which the calcite is precipitating. A fundamental understanding of the coupling of calcite precipitation and trace metal partitioning and how this may occur in aquifers and vadose environments is lacking. The focus of the research proposed here is to investigate the facilitated partitioning of metal and …