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 …

Transmission Electron Microscopy developed from an imagingtool into a quantitative electron beam characterization tool that locallyaccesses structure, chemistry, and bonding in materials with sub Angstromresolution. Experiments utilize coherently and incoherently scatteredelectrons. In this contribution, the interface between gallium nitrideand sapphire as well as thin silicon gate oxides are studied tounderstand underlying physical processes and the strength of thedifferent microscopy techniques. An investigation of the GaN/sapphireinterface benefits largely from the application of phase contrastmicroscopy that makes it possible to visualize dislocation corestructures and single columns of oxygen and nitrogen at a closest spacingof 85 pm. In contrast, it is adequate to investigate Si/SiOxNy/poly-Siinterfaces with incoherently scattered electrons and electronspectroscopy because amorphous and poly crystalline materials areinvolved. Here, it is demonstrated that the SiOxNy/poly-Si interface isrougher than the Si/SiOx interface, that desirable nitrogen diffusiongradients can be introduced into the gate oxide, and that a nitridationcoupled with annealing increases its physical width while reducing theequivalent electrical oxide thickness to values approaching 1.2 nm.Therefore, an amorphous SiNxOy gate dielectric seems to be a suitablesubstitute for traditional gate oxides to further increase device speedby reducing dimensions in Si technology.

This report summarizes an investigation of the performance of two active desiccant cooling systems that were installed as pilot systems in two locations--a college dormitory and a research laboratory--during the fall of 1999. The laboratory system was assembled in the field from commercially available Trane air-handling modules combined with a standard total energy recovery module and a customized active desiccant wheel, both produced by SEMCO. The dormitory system was a factory-built, integrated system produced by SEMCO that included both active desiccant and sensible-only recovery wheels, a direct-fired gas regeneration section, and a pre-piped Trane heat pump condensing section. Both systems were equipped with direct digital control systems, complete with full instrumentation and remote monitoring capabilities. This report includes detailed descriptions of these two systems, installation details, samples of actual performance, and estimations of the energy savings realized. These pilot sites represent a continuation of previous active desiccant product development research (Fischer, Hallstrom, and Sand 2000; Fischer 2000). Both systems performed as anticipated, were reliable, and required minimal maintenance. The dehumidification/total-energy-recovery hybrid approach was particularly effective in all respects. System performance showed remarkable improvement in latent load handling capability and operating efficiency compared with the original conventional cooling system and with …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Molluscan shellfish--oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops--cause more than 100,000 illnesses annually, according to the most recent available estimates made by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Unlike meat and most other seafood products, which are normally cooked before consumption, shellfish are often eaten raw, increasing the risk of illness. The severity of illnesses that occur from contaminated shellfish varies from mild gastrointestinal discomfort to death. The vibrio vulnificus (V. vulnificus) bacteria in shellfish, primarily raw oysters, have caused 275 reported illnesses and 143 deaths since 1989. FDA, state regulators, and shellfish industry representatives formed the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference (ISSC) in 1982 to promote uniform shellfish policies for the safe harvesting, processing, and distribution of fresh and frozen shellfish. In 1997, FDA required processors of seafood, including shellfish, to implement Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) systems. Processors of raw molluscan shellfish must identify likely safety hazards establish controls to prevent or reduce contamination to acceptable levels. This report reviews (1) FDA's approach to oversight of state and foreign shellfish safety programs and (2) the ISSC's strategy for reducing the illnesses and deaths associated with V. …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan. OPM's mission, in part, is to provide strategic human capital management leadership and services to federal agencies. OPM's fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan contain many goals that measure the extent of their activities, but there are few goals and measures that assess the actual state of strategic human capital management in the federal government or the specific contributions that OPM's programs and initiatives make. Although OPM does not directly control these outcomes in federal agencies, it needs to measure the results to assess how well its leadership services are working. OPM recognizes this weakness and is working with human resource directors at federal agencies to develop a series of human capital measures. In its report and plan, OPM also need to strengthen goals and measures to improve their reliability, link its internal human capital goals to OPM programs, and establishing a program management performance goal to assess fraud and error in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program."

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

By accurately profiling the users via their unique attributes, it is possible to view the intrusion detection problem as a classification of authorized users and intruders. This paper demonstrates that artificial neural network (ANN) techniques can be used to solve this classification problem. Furthermore, the paper compares the performance of three neural networks methods in classifying authorized users and intruders using synthetically generated data. The three methods are the gradient descent back propagation (BP) with momentum, the conjugate gradient BP, and the quasi-Newton BP.

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The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Jack Taylor. Taylor joined the Navy through the V-5 program and went straight to flight training in December, 1942. He earned his wings and a commission in December 1943 and was sent to the fleet. He landed aboard USS Essex (CV-) and was assigned to VF-15 in June, 1944 and participated in raids against targets in the Philippines, on Formosa and the Palaus. Taylor stayed in combat until November before his air group returned to the US. Taylor reigned his commission after the war and went on to found the Enterprise Rent-A-Car company after the war.

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A 32-stage centrifugal contactor underwent proof-of-concept testing for its potential use in caustic-side solvent extraction for removal of cesium from radioactive waste now stored in underground tanks at the Savannah River Site. This contactor met the performance goals. Maintaining this performance, however, depends on adequate temperature management. Subsequent calculations and measurements determined the effect of several sources of heat on the temperature of the liquid inside the contactor stages: heats of solvation and dilution, heat generated by the rotor in the mixing zone, and heat from the motor used to spin the rotor. The results indicated that over 90% of the heat comes from the motors, generating 12 W of thermal energy per stage. It was concluded that satisfactory temperature management of the contactor should be achievable by cooling the extraction section to remove 12 W of heat per stage.

A 7.5 MHz RF cavity and power amplifier have been built and tested at Fermilab as part of the proton Driver Design Study. The project goal was to achieve the highest possible 7.5 MHz accelerating gradient at 15 Hz with a 50% duty cycle. To reduce beam loading effects, a low shunt impedance (500{Omega}) design was chosen. The 46 cm long single gap cavity uses 5 inductive cores, consisting of the nanocrystalline soft magnetic alloy Finemet, to achieve a peak accelerating voltage of 15 kV. The 95 cm OD tape wound cores have been cut in half to increase the cavity Q and are cooled from both sides using large water-cooled copper heat sinks. The prototype cavity has a shunt impedance of 550{Omega}, Q = 11, and is powered by a 200 kW cw cathode driven tetrode amplifier. Both cavity and amplifier designs are described. Results from recent cavity tests coalescing beam in the Fermilab Main Injector is also presented.

The Fermilab Main Injector can produce intense 120 GeV/c proton beams for fixed target experimentation. Two deflecting mode RF systems can be used to separate charged kaons from a momentum selected secondary beam, consisting of pions, kaons and protons, using a time of flight method. We present the RF design of a 3.9 GHz superconducting cavity which operates in the deflecting (TM110) pi-mode and the dependence of the RF parameters on the cavity shape, as determined with finite difference calculations. End cell compensation has been treated, providing cell-to-cell field flatness. First results from measurements on a prototype cavity are shown. We demonstrated that it is possible to tune the deflecting mode of a cell cavity with bead pull measurements. Effects relating the polarization of the modes are discussed.

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From mid-April through the end of June 2001, a Facility Environmental Vulnerability Assessment (FEVA) was performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The primary goal of this FEVA was to establish an environmental vulnerability baseline at ORNL that could be used to support the Laboratory planning process and place environmental vulnerabilities in perspective. The information developed during the FEVA was intended to provide the basis for management to initiate immediate, near-term, and long-term actions to respond to the identified vulnerabilities. It was expected that further evaluation of the vulnerabilities identified during the FEVA could be carried out to support a more quantitative characterization of the sources, evaluation of contaminant pathways, and definition of risks. The FEVA was modeled after the Battelle-supported response to the problems identified at the High Flux Beam Reactor at Brookhaven National Laboratory. This FEVA report satisfies Corrective Action 3A1 contained in the Corrective Action Plan in Response to Independent Review of the High Flux Isotope Reactor Tritium Leak at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, submitted to the Department of Energy (DOE) ORNL Site Office Manager on April 16, 2001. This assessment successfully achieved its primary goal as defined by Laboratory management. The assessment team was able …

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A United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET) was established in October 1999 following the entrance of U.N.-sponsored international peacekeepers into East Timor. These measures came in response to Indonesian instigated violence against East Timorese who had voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia in a referendum of August 30, 1999. UNTAET’s mandate is broad. It is to help East Timor recover from the violence through humanitarian aid and reconstruction of facilities that were damaged or destroyed. It is to help East Timor establish a functioning government, which will take over from the United Nations when East Timor formally becomes independent.

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