A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report examines selected logistics, funding, and readiness issues pertaining to the AH-64 Apache helicopter program. GAO found that the Apache's identified sustainment systems technical support requirements have not been fully met in fiscal years 2000 and 2001. In fiscal year 2000, funding fell short of the $28.6 million needed for Apache sustainment support. The military projects that it will be able to meet only 56 percent of the Apache's sustainment support requirements for fiscal years 2001-2003. Furthermore, because the Apache sustainment support projects must compete with other weapon systems for limited funding, some Apache projects have been delayed or limited in scope. GAO also found that the procurement of parts for the Apache is hampered by an outdated inventory system. The technical manuals used by field and depot personnel lack critical technical drawings and specifications, and the Army must resort to other methods, such as reverse engineering, to compensate for the lack of data. Finally, the Army has several unfunded requirements for Apache component upgrades for fiscal years 2001 and 2002. GAO found, however, that these issues have not prevented the Apache fleet from meeting …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses GAO's three-stage approach for addressing the federal government's human capital challenges. First, agencies must take all administrative steps available to them under current laws and regulations to manage their people for results. While much of what agencies need to accomplish these steps is already available to them, they will need the sustained commitment from top management and the support from both the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management to do so. Second, the Administration and Congress should pursue selected legislative opportunities to put new tools and flexibilities in place that will help agencies attract, motivate, and retain employees--both overall and, especially, in connection with critical occupations. Third, all interested parties should work together to determine the nature and extent of more comprehensive human capital (or civil service) reforms that should be enacted over time. These reforms should include placing greater emphasis on skills, knowledge, and performance in connection with federal employment and compensation decisions, rather than the passage of time and rate of inflation, as is often the case today."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses three issues on selected U.S. Customs Service programs and operations. First, concerning the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), a more capable import processing system designed to replace Customs' current aging and error-prone system, GAO concluded that Customs' plan constituted a reasonable first step on a complex, long-term modernization program. Pursuant to its obligation to review ACE expenditures, GAO plans to continue monitoring Customs' ongoing modernization efforts. Second, GAO found that Customs' Office of Regulations and Rulings headquarters did not issue the majority of its rulings in a timely manner. Finally, GAO found that if proposed legislation on Customs officers' night pay had been in effect during fiscal year 1999, the officers would have received about $6 million in night differential pay. Furthermore, across the five ports GAO reviewed, the impact on officers' pay varied widely because of the differences in shift patterns."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The research and development environment has changed dramatically during lst several decades. The government is no longer in the driver's seat, but it still needs access to research and technology advances. At the same time, its effort to compete for access must be balanced against a range of commercial, economic, legal, and other interests. The vehicles discussed in this testimony (the Bayh-Dole Act and Department of Defense "other transaction" authority) are among the tools that the government can use to attract new players to the research and development arena and to maintain access to advances. However, effective use of these tools requires good training and a greater exercise of reasoned discretion among program officials and contracting officers. The Defense Department has taken a very good first step in developing appropriate guidance. However, the next steps are more critical: providing the training and assurances that the guidance will be appropriately implemented."

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The task was to compute the maximum aluminum-oxide and oxide-coolant temperatures of assemblies cladded in 99 plus percent aluminum. The assemblies considered were the Mark VB, VE, V5, 15 and 25. These assemblies consist of nested slug columns with individual uranium slugs cladded in aluminum cans. The CREDIT code was modified to calculate the oxide film thickness and the aluminum-oxide temperature at each axial increment. The information in this report will be used to evaluate the potential for cladding corrosion of the Mark 25 assembly.

We have performed high resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) image simulations to qualitatively assess the visibility of various structural defects in ultra-thin gate oxides of MOSFET devices, and to quantitatively examine the accuracy of HRTEM in performing gate oxide metrology. Structural models contained crystalline defects embedded in an amorphous 16 {angstrom}-thick gate oxide. Simulated images were calculated for structures viewed in cross-section. Defect visibility was assessed as a function of specimen thickness and defect morphology, composition, size and orientation. Defect morphologies included asperities lying on the substrate surface, as well as ''bridging'' defects connecting the substrate to the gate electrode. Measurements of gate oxide thickness extracted from simulated images were compared to actual dimensions in the model structure to assess TEM accuracy for metrology. The effects of specimen tilt, specimen thickness, objective lens defocus and coefficient of spherical aberration (C{sub s}) on measurement accuracy were explored for nominal 10{angstrom} gate oxide thickness. Results from this work suggest that accurate metrology of ultra-thin gate oxides (i.e. limited to several per cent error) is feasible on a consistent basis only by using a C{sub s}-corrected microscope. However, fundamental limitations remain for characterizing defects in gate oxides using HRTEM, even with the new …

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

This report discusses selected Environmental Issues and Policies of China.

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Article on rate coefficients and mechanistic analysis for the reaction of hydroxyl radicals with 1,1-dichloroethylene and trans-1,2-dichloroethylene over an extended temperature range.

Article on kinetic studies of the reaction of hydroxyl radicals with trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene.

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.

Weekly newspaper from Emory, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Document of a fax from Sue Wyll to Pam Clayton and Jean Vining. The message consists of the sponsorship agreement form and an order form for a sponsorship ad. The front of the booklet of documents has a message from Sue to contact her if any issues arise.

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

Multi megawatt accelerators can deliver sufficient power to a target to destroy it in a few pulses. In order to look at the response of solid and liquid targets under these high power pulses, we are developing optical methods of measuring surface deformations with time resolutions limited by laser pulse lengths. These methods can be used to examine the surfaces of solids and liquids during elastic deformation and unstable hydrodynamic flows. We present preliminary results of a system designed for target tests using the Brookhaven AGS and the Argonne CHM linac.

The purpose of this numerical model is to determine the optimum ventilation exhaust flow rate for the reactor room. The influence of steam produced in the reactor vessel, on the reactor room pressures, is included in the model. A parametric study of the affect of various steam mass flow rates is included in this document. The affect of steam on the conditions in the reactor room is significant at modest flow rates.

We report on the experimental results of the dielectric based two beam accelerator (step-up transformer). By using a single high charge beam, we have generated and extracted a high power RF pulse from a 7.8 GHz primary dielectric structure and then subsequently transferred to a second accelerating structure with higher dielectric constant and smaller transverse dimensions. We have measured the energy change of a second (witness) beam passing through the acceleration stage. The measured gradient is > 4 times the deceleration gradient. The detailed experiment of set-up and results of the measurements are discussed. Future plans for the development of a 100 MeV demonstration accelerator based on this technique is presented.

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The Next Linear Collider (NLC) Collaboration is planning to construct an Engineering Test Facility (ETF) at Fermilab. As presently envisioned, the ETF would comprise a fundamental unit of the NLC main linac to include X-band klystrons and modulators, a delay-line power-distribution system (DLDS), and NLC accelerating structures that serve as loads. The principal purpose of the ETF is to validate stable operation of the power-distribution system, first without beam, then with a beam having the NLC pulse structure. This paper concerns the possibility of configuring and using the ETF to accelerate beam with an NLC pulse structure, as well as of doing experiments to measure beam-induced wakefields in the rf structures and their influence back on the beam.

Two laser beam tracing codes, AXIAL and CYLINDER, have been written to determine a laser beam path through plane and cylindrical interfaces. For cylindrical interfaces, an equation set was derived which describes the path of the laser beam. For plane interfaces, it was not possible to derive a single equation set. Instead, it was necessary to divide the domain up into small elements or regions. The laser beam path was then determined by calculating the path of the laser beam through each region. AXIAL and CYLINDER can be used to determine where an LDA should be positioned so that velocity measurements can be made at a specified point.

To assess the importance of iron to hydrazine stability, the study of hydrazine oxidation by nitric acid has been extended to investigate the iron-catalyzed oxidation. This report describes those results.