A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) believes it is increasingly likely that an adversary will use chemical or biological weapons against U.S. forces to degrade superior U.S. conventional warfare capabilities, placing servicemembers' lives and effective military operations at risk. To reduce the effects of such an attack on military personnel, DOD has determined the quantity of chemical and biological protective suits, masks, breathing filters, gloves, boots, and hoods that are needed based on projected wartime requirements. DOD's assessment process is unreliable for determining the risk to military operations. DOD's 2000 report is inaccurate because it includes erroneous inventory data and wartime requirements. Inadequate inventory management is an additional risk factor because readiness can be compromised by DOD's inventory management practices, which prevent an accurate accounting of the availability or adequacy of its protective equipment."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Dietary supplements marketed as anti-aging therapies may pose a potential for physical harm to senior citizens. Evidence from the medical literature shows that a variety of frequently used dietary supplements can have serious health consequences for seniors. Particularly risky are products that may be used by seniors who have underlying diseases or health conditions that make the use of the product medically inadvisable or supplements that interact with medications that are being taken concurrently. Studies have also found that these products sometimes contain harmful contaminants or much more of an active ingredient than is indicated on the label. Although GAO was unable to find any recent, reliable estimates of the overall economic harm to seniors from these products, it did uncover several examples that illustrate the risk of economic harm. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have identified several products that make advertising or labeling claims with insufficient substantiation, some costing consumers hundreds or thousands of dollars apiece. The potential for harm to senior citizens from health products making questionable claims has been a concern for public health and law enforcement officials. …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "States provide health care coverage to low-income uninsured children largely through two federal-state programs--Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Medicaid was established in 1965 to provide health care coverage to low-income adults and children. Medicaid expenditures for health services to 22.3 million children totaled $32.4 billion in 1998. Congress established SCHIP in 1997 to provide health care coverage to children living in poor families whose incomes exceed the eligibility requirements for Medicaid. SCHIP expenditures for health services to nearly 2 million children totaled $2 billion in 1999. In implementing SCHIP, states could opt to expand their Medicaid programs or establish a separate child health program distinct from Medicaid that uses specified public or private insurance plans offering a minimum benefit package. Thirty-five states have chosen SCHIP approaches that are, to varying degrees, separate from their Medicaid programs. Because eligibility for Medicaid and SCHIP can vary with a child's age, children may, at different ages, need to move from one program to the other. Access to care, therefore, is affected by the extent to which health plans and providers are available and participate in …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Proposals to expand pension coverage and promote pension savings have recently received much attention. In the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, for example, Congress raised statutory limits on tax-deferred pension contributions and benefits and made other changes to the law governing qualified pension plans. Some believe that increasing these limits will encourage employers to start new plans and improve existing plan coverage, especially for employees of small businesses. Others contend that these measures will primarily benefit higher-paid individuals and may not improve pension coverage for low-or moderate-income workers. Forty-seven percent of all workers participated in a pension plan, and 36 percent of all workers participated in a defined contribution (DC) plan. Most pension plan participants had low or moderate earnings (less than $40,000 per year) and were men. About eight percent of all DC participants, or 3.1 million people, were likely direct beneficiaries of a simultaneous increase in all the statutory contribution limits GAO analyzed. Higher earners were more likely than low and moderate earners, and men were more likely than women, to benefit directly from such an increase; this was also …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Presidential Decision Directive 25 states that U.S. involvement in international peacekeeping operations must be selective and effective. Toward this end, the directive established guidance that U.S. officials must consider before deciding whether to support proposed operations, including whether the operations advanced U.S. interests, had realistic criteria for ending the operations, and had appropriate forces and financing to accomplish their missions. The directive established these factors as an aid for executive decision-making and not as criteria for supporting particular operations. Executive branch officials thoroughly considered all Presidential Decision Directive 25 factors before deciding to support the authorization or expansion of peacekeeping operations in East Timor, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the time the decisions were made, executive branch assessments identified at least one Directive 25 shortfall in all of the proposed operations and several shortfalls in six of them. Executive branch officials nonetheless decided to support the operations because they believed that these shortfalls were outweighed by the presence of other Directive 25 factors and various other factors, including U.S. interests in the region. Executive branch officials provided Congress with considerable information …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) 203(K) Home Rehabilitation Mortgage Insurance Program helps promote the rehabilitation and repair of housing by combining, in one insured mortgage, the funds needed to purchase and rehabilitate a single-family home. The loans are made by banks and other private lenders from their own funds and are insured by HUD's Federal Housing Administration. The program's history of waste, fraud, and abuse prompted a GAO review of HUD program oversight about two years ago. The 203(K) program is inherently more risky than HUD's principal single-family loan insurance program because its rehabilitation component makes it more complex and susceptible to misuse. HUD's Inspector General and others noted such risks in 1997 and 1998 reports on the department's management of the program. HUD was not adequately targeting 203(K) loans and lenders for review, properly training and overseeing consultants/inspectors, and monitoring nonprofit organization's participation in the program."

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Metal matrix composites (MMCs) containing matrices with nanometer grain sizes have been produced from pure aluminum nano-powders (particle sizes 50-200 nm) with SiC reinforcement (particle sizes 3-10 {micro}m). The pure Al nano-powders were produced using an exploding wire technique. Dynamic loading using a magnetic impulse technique has been used to compact the MMC to high density. The dynamic compaction process results in excellent wetting of the SiC particles by the nanocrystalline Al powders, and the retention of a nano-crystalline grain size in the MMC. Microstructural analysis of the resulting MMC showed a highly uniform distribution of Sic particles with no visible defects or pores and the absence of deleterious phases (such as Al{sub 4}C{sub 3}) at the interfaces between the aluminum nano-grains and the SiC particles. The microstructures produced and the evolution of microstructure during dynamic compaction has also been studied using TEM and found to progress in three stages. These three stages are described.

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The fieldwork associated with Task 1 (Baseline Assessment) was completed this quarter. Detailed cyclone inspections completed at all but one plant during maintenance shifts. Analysis of the test samples is also currently underway in Task 4 (Sample Analysis). A Draft Recommendation was prepared for the management at each test site in Task 2 (Circuit Modification). All required procurements were completed. Density tracers were manufactured and tested for quality control purposes. Special sampling tools were also purchased and/or fabricated for each plant site. The preliminary experimental data show that the partitioning performance for all seven HMC circuits was generally good. This was attributed to well-maintained cyclones and good operating practices. However, the density tracers detected that most circuits suffered from poor control of media cutpoint. These problems were attributed to poor x-ray calibration and improper manual density measurements. These conclusions will be validated after the analyses of the composite samples have been completed.

In recent years the study of the rare decays of kaons has had three primary motivations. The first is the search for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). Virtually all attempts to redress the theoretical shortcomings of the Standard Model (SM) predict some degree of lepton flavor violation (LFV). Decays such as K{sub L} {yields} {mu}{sup {+-}}e{sup {-+}} have very good experimental signatures and can consequently be pursued to remarkable sensitivities. These sensitivities correspond to extremely high energy scales in models where the only subpression is that of the mass of the exchanged field. There are also theories that predict new particles created in kaon decay or the violation of symmetries other than lepton flavor. The second is the potential of decays that are allowed but that are extremely suppressed in the SM. In several of these, the leading component is a G.I.M.-suppressed [1] one-loop process that is quite sensitive to fundamental SM parameters such as V{sub td}. These decays are also potentially very sensitive to BSM physics. Finally there are a number of long-distance-dominated decays which can test theoretical techniques such as chiral Lagrangians that purport to explain the low-energy behavior of QCD. Knowledge of some of these decays …

Predictions of increasing levels of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) and the specter of global warming have intensified research efforts to identify ways to sequester carbon. A number of novel avenues of research are being considered, including bioprocessing methods to promote and accelerate biosequestration of CO{sub 2} from the environment through the growth of organisms such as coccolithophorids, which are capable of sequestering CO{sub 2} relatively permanently. Calcium and magnesium carbonates are currently the only proven, long-term storage reservoirs for carbon. Whereas organic carbon is readily oxidized and releases CO{sub 2} through microbial decomposition on land and in the sea, carbonates can sequester carbon over geologic time scales. This proposal investigates the use of coccolithophorids--single-celled, marine algae that are the major global producers of calcium carbonate--to sequester CO{sub 2} emissions from power plants. Cultivation of coccolithophorids for calcium carbonate (CaCO{sub 3}) precipitation is environmentally benign and results in a stable product with potential commercial value. Because this method of carbon sequestration does not impact natural ecosystem dynamics, it avoids controversial issues of public acceptability and legality associated with other options such as direct injection of CO{sub 2} into the sea and ocean fertilization. Consequently, cultivation of coccolithophorids could be carried …

In December 1998, LBNL Director Charles Shank and LLNL Director Bruce Tarter signed a Memorandum of Agreement to create the Heavy-Ion Fusion Virtual National Laboratory (HIF-VNL) with the purpose of improving the efficiency and productivity of heavy ion research through coordination of the two laboratories' efforts under one technical director. In 1999, PPPL Director Robert Goldston signed the VNL MOA for PPPL's heavy-ion fusion group to join the VNL. LBNL and LLNL each contribute about 45% of the $10.6 M/yr trilab VNL effort, and PPPL contributes currently about 10% of the VNL effort. The three labs carry out collaborative experiments, theory and simulations of a variety of intense beam scientific issues described below. The tri-lab HIF VNL program is part of the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES) fusion program. A short description of the four major tasks areas of HIF-VNL research is given in the next section. The task areas are: High Current Experiment, Final Focus/Chamber Transport, Source/Injector/Low Energy Beam Transport (LEBT), and Theory/Simulation. As a result of the internal review, more detailed reviews of the designs, costs and schedules for some of the tasks have been completed, which will provide more precision in the scheduled completion dates …

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "From the end of the seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, Spain made land grants to individuals, towns, and groups to promote development in what is now the American Southwest. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War, the United States agreed to recognize ownership of property of every kind in the ceded areas. Many persons, including grantee heirs, scholars, and legal experts, still claim that the United States did not protect the property of Mexican-Americans and their descendants, particularly the common lands of community grants. Land grant documents contain no direct reference to "community land grants" nor do Spanish and Mexican laws define or use this term. GAO did find, however, that some grants refer to lands set aside for general communal use or for specific purposes, including hunting, pasture, wood gathering, or watering. Scholars, the land grant literature, and popular terminology commonly use the phrase "community land grants" to denote land grants that set aside common lands for the use of the entire community. GAO adopted this broad definition in determining which Spanish and Mexican land grants can be identified as …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Until the mid-nineteenth century, Spain made land grants to towns and individuals to promote development in the frontier lands that now constitute the American Southwest. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War, the United States agreed to recognize ownership of property of every kind in the ceded areas. Many people, including grantee heirs, scholars, and legal experts, still claim that the United States did not protect the property of Mexican-Americans and their descendants, particularly the common lands of community grants. Land grant documents contain no direct reference to "community land grants," nor do Spanish and Mexican laws define or use this term. GAO did find, however, that some grants refer to lands set aside for general communal use or for specific purposes, including hunting, pasture, wood gathering, or watering. Scholars, the land grant literature, and popular terminology commonly use the phrase "community land grants" to denote land grants that set aside common lands for the use of the entire community. GAO adopted this broad definition in determining which Spanish and Mexican land grants can be identified as community land grants. GAO identified …

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

This comprehensive supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) literature review is divided into three major sections. The first section describes the electronic literature search details including the abstract service used and the different topics searched. This section also contains an overview of the seven search topics that yielded relevant references along with a brief synopsis of the most significant literature citations. These seven groupings are (1) chemical warfare agents; (2) explosives; (3) hazardous chemicals; (4) poisons, toxins and mycotoxins; (5) toxic (lethal) chemical and toxicants; (6) pesticides in soil; and (7) pesticides from plant and animal tissues. The second section contains tables of each of these groupings. Each of the seven tables contains entries for individual literature citations listed along with the specific compounds or compound classes that are addressed. The third section refers to the abstracts used in the literature search.

This report is categorized into four categories: (I) Some Basic Facts About the Child Care Workforce, (II) Job Growth and Turnover Among Child Caregivers, (III) Child Caregiver Wager and Wage Growth and (IV) Initiatives to improve the Compensation of the Child Care Workforce.

Initial measurements are reported for the Mercury laser system, a scalable driver for rep-rated inertial fusion energy. The performance goals include 10% electrical efficiency at 10 Hz and 100 J with a 2-10 ns pulse length. We report on the first Yb:S-FAP crystals grown to sufficient size for fabricating full size (4 x 6 cm) amplifier slabs. The first of four 160 kW (peak power) diode arrays and pump delivery systems were completed and tested with the following results: 5.5% power droop over a 0.75 ms pulse, 3.95 nm spectral linewidth, far field divergence of 14.0 mrad and 149.5 mrad in the microlensed and unmicrolensed directions respectively, and 83% optical-to-optical transfer efficiency through the pump delivery system.

Heavy Ion Fusion (HIF) is exploring a promising path to a practical inertial-confinement fusion reactor. The associated heavy ion driver will require a large number of focusing quadrupole magnets. A concept for a superconducting quadrupole array, using many simple racetrack coils, was developed at LLNL. Two, single-bore quadrupole prototypes of the same design, with distinctly different conductor, were designed, built, and tested. Both prototypes reached their short sample currents with little or no training. Magnet design, and test results, are presented and discussed.

Internal-stress plasticity is a Newtonian creep mechanism which operates at low applied stress levels, when there is a concurrent internal stress. Common sources of internal stress are thermal-expansion or phase-transformation mismatch; in this work we explore the possibility of chemically-induced internal stresses. We report tensile creep experiments on the BCC {beta}-phase of Ti-6A1-4V, in which dynamic gradients of hydrogen concentration were introduced through cycling of the test atmosphere (between Ar/H{sub 2} mixture and pure Ar) under low applied stresses. Under these conditions, we observe Newtonian deformation at rates much higher than for constant-composition conditions, as expected for internal stress plasticity. Also, we present an analytical model which considers chemical, elastic, and creep strains during chemical cycling under stress, and find good agreement with the experimental results.

Student newspaper of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma that includes national, local, and campus news along with advertising.

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