A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The negotiations to establish a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which would eliminate tariffs and create common trade and investment rules within the 34 democratic nations of the Western Hemisphere, are among the most significant ongoing multilateral trade negotiations for the United States. Two meetings held in April 2001 offer opportunities to inject momentum and set an ambitious pace for the next, more difficult phase of the negotiations. Because of the significance of the FTAA initiative, this report (1) discusses the progress that has been made in the free trade negotiations so far, (2) identifies the challenges that must be overcome to complete a free trade agreement, and (3) discusses the importance of the April meetings of trade ministers and national leaders of participating countries. GAO found that the FTAA negotiations have met the goals and deadlines set by trade ministers. Significant challenges remain, including market access concessions and doubts that key Western Hemisphere leaders will have the political will to embrace the agreement. The April meetings of trade ministers will serve as a transition from the initial proposal phase to the substantive negotiations …

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report provides GAO's assessment of what it has been able to accomplish in fiscal year 2000 and presents its plans for continued progress through fiscal year 2002."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The components, military services, and agencies of the Department of Defense (DOD) share many risks in their use of globally networked computer systems to perform operational missions. Many reports of vulnerabilities, organized intrusions, and theft related to department systems and networks have underscored weaknesses in DOD systems. In January 1998, DOD responded to these risks by announcing its plans for a Defense-wide Information Assurance Program to promote integrated, comprehensive, and consistent information assurance (IA) practices across the department. Although the program has addressed issues related to DOD's departmental IA goals, established new IA policy, improved communication across the department, and introduced mechanisms for monitoring IA efforts throughout DOD, many IA issues remain unaddressed. Given the high priority that DOD puts on IA, GAO believes the the program should have made progress on more of its implementation plan objectives by this time and gone further with the ones it has begun to address. Top-level DOD management has not carried out oversight commensurate with the program's high-priority role and the program has not received the resources that were judged necessary by DOD when the program was initiated. DOD …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Despite methodological limitations, demonstration studies provide program managers and policymakers with some useful information on the types of Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition service interventions that can have positive results for participants. However, only one recent demonstration study provides any information on the costs associated with implementing various interventions. Given the limited resources available to provide WIC nutrition services, information on the costs to provide effective services could play a critical role in managers' decisions to implement the intervention and policymakers' decisions on funding the intervention."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Several Department of Defense (DOD) components have software and systems process improvement (SPI) programs that are aligned closely to the best practices embodied in the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) IDEAL model and thus provide excellent examples of SPI. Elsewhere in DOD, however, such programs are lacking. Where they do exist, these programs are being credited with producing higher quality software and systems products faster and at less expense, whether managed in a centralized or decentralized fashion. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) has an important leadership role to play in expanding SPI across the department. In particular, it can seize opportunities to build upon and leverage the existing base of SPI programs within DOD's components and help ensure that all of its components realize the strategic value (i.e., benefits that exceed costs) that both private and public-sector organizations, including some DOD components, attribute to these programs. Although OSD faces funding choices among competing leadership initiatives, such as its efforts to conduct software acquisition maturity assessments and collect software metrics, these are some of the very tasks that are embedded within an effective SPI program. …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report updates the status of corrective measures taken by federal agencies to address internal control weaknesses that could affect the United States' ability to effectively respond to chemical or biological terrorist attacks. GAO, which cited these weaknesses in 1999, found that the agencies have significantly improved accountability over the medical supplies needed to treat victims of chemical or biological terrorism. However, ensuring that supplies are current, accounted for, and readily available depends in large part on successful collaboration with other entities. Until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Office for Emergency Preparedness (OEP) formalize ad hoc arrangements with other entities covering the storage, management, stock rotation, and transporting of supplies, they run the risk that, in the event of a chemical or biological attack, the appropriate supplies will be unavailable. Also, unless the agencies' inventory requirements lists are up-to-date and reflect their own identified needs, the agencies cannot guarantee that they have the supplies on hand to fulfill their mission."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report provides information on three alternative work programs at GAO (1) part-time employment, which is defined to include employees who work a minimum of 32 hours and a maximum of 64 hours in a two week pay period, (2) maxiflex, which permits employees to work longer hours some days so that they are able to compress their schedules to fewer than 10 days in a two week pay period, and (3) flexiplace, which permits employees to work somewhere other than their principal place of business."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Telecommunications services are increasingly critical to transforming the way the federal government does business; communicates internally and externally; and interacts with citizens, industry, and state, local, and foreign governments. Electronic government services based on reliable, secure, and cost-effective telecommunications can enable agencies to streamline the way they do business, reduce paperwork and delays, and increase operational efficiencies. It is important that a far-reaching program, such as the FTS2001 program, take full advantage of new services offered by industry; that agencies effectively and efficiently implement these telecommunications services to improve operations; and that the program be successfully implemented to maximize benefits to the taxpayers. Despite progress, the government did not meet its deadlines for transition to FTS2001 and has not yet completed this effort. The government missed its deadline for several reasons, including a lack of sufficient information to effectively oversee and manage this complex transition, slowness in completing all the contract modifications needed to add transition-critical services to the FTS2001 contracts, slowness of some customer agencies to order FTS2001 services, staffing shortfalls and billing problems on the part of FTS2001 contractors, and local exchange carriers' difficulties …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "About one million taxpayers per year, as well as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), incur costs to abate tax assessments created due to tax exemption errors. Avoiding the errors, or correcting them earlier, could reduce the burden on taxpayers of complying with tax laws. IRS has taken one step intended to help taxpayers avoid these errors--revising instructions for claiming exemptions. In another step, aimed at correcting some exemption errors that continue to be made, IRS decided to check name and social security number errors for spousal exemption claims during returns processing. In addition, IRS is considering implementing earlier--during returns processing--checks for dependent exemption errors and taxpayer contacts if the checks do not correct exemption errors. Doing such checks and contacts earlier is worthwhile. Although the cost savings to IRS are unknown, many taxpayers would benefit. However, IRS did not provide GAO with any details or documentation about how or when decisions would be made. Little is known about how to reduce nonexemption errors that lead to assessments being abated. Because more than one million taxpayers were burdened by such assessments, research to reduce the errors is …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report presents the results of GAO's audits of expenditures reported by six offices of independent counsel and one office of special counsel for the six months ending September 30, 2000. GAO found the statements of expenditures for the offices of independent counsel and office of special counsel were presented fairly in all material respects. There were no material weaknesses in internal controls over financial reporting (including safeguarding of assets) and no reportable noncompliance with the laws and regulations GAO tested."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Electronic dissemination of government documents can reduce distribution costs and make government information more usable and accessible. However, the transition to a paperless environment will require that several challenges be overcome. Transferring the depository library program to the Library of Congress entails both advantages and disadvantages. In studies done in 1993 and 1994, the Library concluded that the depository library program was not inconsistent with the mission and functions of the Library and that it might be appropriate for the Library to oversee this program. However, the Government Printing Office (GPO) believes that the Library is not an appropriate home for the depository library program because the Library's mission and operations are inconsistent with a large-scale information dissemination program. In addition, the studies and librarian organizations raised concerns about the potential negative effects of the transfer on public access to information and the availability of funds to maintain the current program. If a decision is made to transfer the depository library program, the concerns raised by library organizations and employee unions should be addressed. One option for addressing these issues is to form a GPO/Library transition …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Comptroller General discusses GAO's report on the U.S. government's consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2000. This is the fourth consecutive year that GAO has been unable to express an opinion on the U.S. government's consolidated financial statements. Material weaknesses in internal control and accounting and reporting issues prevented GAO from being able to provide Congress and the American people with an opinion as to whether the government's consolidated financial statements are fairly stated in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. These material weaknesses also affected the reliability of information in the Management's Discussion and Analysis included in the financial report and other financial management information--including information used to manage the government and budget information reported by agencies--which is taken from the same data sources as the financial statements."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Effective coordination of the many agencies that participate in a criminal justice system is key to overall success. Although any criminal justice system faces coordination challenges, the unique structure and funding of the District of Columbia (D.C.) criminal justice system, in which federal and D.C. jurisdictional boundaries and dollars are blended, creates additional challenges. Almost every stage of D.C.'s criminal justice process presents such challenges, and participating agencies are sometimes reluctant to coordinate because the costs to implement needed changes may fall on one or more federally funded agencies, while any savings accrue to one or more D.C. funded agencies, or vice versa. The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) was established and staffed as an independent entity to improve systemwide coordination and cooperation. During its two and a half-year existence, CJCC has served as a useful, independent, discussion forum at a modest cost. It has had notable success in several areas in which agencies perceived a common interest, such as developing technology that permits greater information sharing. It has been less successful in other areas, such as papering, in which forging consensus on the need for …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In June 2000, the House Committee on Science identified a significant discrepancy between an amount reported in the National Aeronautic and Space Administration's (NASA) audited financial statements for fiscal year 1999 and its submission in the President's Budget for fiscal year 2001. NASA's 1999 financial statement was misstated by a reported $644 million. The misstatement was in the "Recoveries of Prior Year Obligations" line of the statement. NASA had relied on an ad hoc process that included a data call from the reporting units' (nine centers and headquarters) separate systems and a compilation of reported amounts using a spreadsheet. In addition, when compiling these data, NASA headquarters mistakenly added amounts that were not relevant to the recoveries line. Headquarters officials said that the error resulted from their misinterpretation of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance on what to include in the recoveries line. NASA is now acquiring and implementing a single, commercial off-the-shelf core accounting system that it believes will solve the problem. In its audit of NASA's financial statements for fiscal year 1999, Arthur Andersen did not detect the error in NASA's Statement …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In June 1998, The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued guidance on the fair and responsible use of the False Claims Act in civil health care matters. This report evaluates DOJ's efforts to ensure compliance with the guidance and focuses on the application of the guidance in two recent DOJ initiatives-the Prospective Payment System (PPS) Transfer and Pneumonia Upcoding Project. GAO found that DOJ has taken steps to further strengthen its oversight of compliance with its False Claims Act guidance. These steps include (1) reviewing each U.S. Attorneys Office's compliance with the guidance as part of the periodic evaluation of all U.S. Attorneys' Offices, (2) requiring all U.S. Attorneys' Offices involved in civil health care fraud control to certify their compliance with the guidance, (3) forming working groups to coordinate national initiatives, and (4) maintaining ongoing contacts with participating U.S. Attorneys' Offices to help ensure that they are complying with the guidance. GAO also found that DOJ is implementing the PPS Transfer and Pneumonia Upcoding projects in a manner consistent with the guidance."

Letter from State Senator of District 14 Gonzalo Barrientos, supporting First Baptist Church on its project to record their history as the oldest Baptist church for African- Americans.

Photograph used for a story in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper.

The objective of the study was to determine the minimum tank size for the Cold Test Facility process testing of Hanford tank waste. This facility would support retrieval of waste in 75-ft-diameter DSTs with mixer pumps and SSTs with fluidic mixers. The cold test model will use full-scale mixer pumps, transfer pumps, and equipment with simulated waste. The study evaluated the acceptability of data for a range of tank diameters and depths and included identifying how the test data would be extrapolated to predict results for a full-size tank.

In Situ Gaseous Reduction (ISGR) is a technology developed by DOE for the remediation of soil waste sites contaminated with hexavalent chromium. This document presents information associated with characterization activities conducted at the 183-DR site at Hanford, which is associated with a significant groundwater contaminant plume and was formerly a water treatment facility that utilized chromate as a corrosion inhibitor. Geotechnical and chemical data were collected during the excavation of trenches and the drilling of two vadose zone boreholes to support a possible ISGR demonstration at 183-DR. Although elevated total chromium and trace levels of hexavalent chromium were identified from one of the trenches and one of the boreholes, it appears that the boreholes missed the vadose zone contaminant source responsible for the chromium groundwater plume located downgradient of the 183-DR site. Recommendations are provided, however, for future work at 183-DR that may serve to identify the source for the groundwater plume and possibly provide an opportunity for an ISGR demonstration.

This report documents the results of glass formulation efforts for Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) high level waste (HWL) calcine. Two waste compositions were used during testing. Testing started by using the Run 78 calcine composition and switched to simulated Blend calcine composition when it became available. The goal of the glass formulation efforts was to develop a frit composition that will accept higher waste loading that satisfies the glass processing and product acceptance constraints. 1. Melting temperature of 1125 ? 25?C 2. Viscosity between 2 and 10 Pa?s at the melting temperature 3. Liquidus temperature at least 100?C below the melting temperature 4. Normalized release of B, Li and Na each below 1 g/m2 (per ASTM C 1285-97) Glass formulation efforts tested several frit compositions with variable waste loadings of Run 78 calcine waste simulant. Frit 107 was selected as the primary candidate for processing since it met all process and performance criteria up to 45 mass% waste loading. When the simulated Blend calcine waste composition became available Frits 107 and 108 compositions were retested and again Frit 107 remained the primary candidate. However, both frits suffered a decrease in waste loading when switching from the Run …

Weekly student newspaper from San Antonio College in San Antonio, Texas that includes campus news along with advertising.

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

Semi-weekly newspaper from Clifton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The advanced CFDRC software package was installed on a SUN-SPARC dual processor workstation (UTPA funded). The literature pertinent to the project was collected. The physical model was set and all parameters and variables were identified. Based on the physical model, the geometric modeling and grid generation processes were performed using the CFD-GEOM (Interactive Geometric Modeling and Grid Generation software). A total number of 11160 cells (248 x 45) were generated. The venturis in the cascade were modeled as two-dimensional axisymmetric convergent nozzles around the jet. With the cascade being added to the jet, the geometric complexity of the problem increased; which required multi-domain structured grid systems to be connected and matched on the boundaries. The natural gas/propane jet diffusion flame is being numerically analyzed. The numerical computations are being conducted using the CFDRC-ACE+ (advanced computational environment) software package. The results are expected soon.