Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO examined the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) Heroin Signature Program and Domestic Monitor Program to determine why there were apparent discrepancies in the 1999 statistical data generated by these two programs, particularly in the data on Southwest Asia heroin. GAO focused on why the program data showed heroin seizure information for only one U.S. Pacific Coast international airport. In addition, GAO examined whether enough samples from heroin seizures were being furnished for analysis under the Heroin Signature Program and the extent to which DEA was committed to the Domestic Monitor Program. GAO concluded that the discrepancies in the 1999 statistical data generated by the programs were the result of the two programs' data not being comparable. The reason Heroin Signature Program data showed heroin seizure information for only one U.S. Pacific Coast international airport was because seizures at other Pacific Coast airports during 1999 did not meet federal prosecution guidelines. GAO further found that DEA officials responsible for administering the Heroin Signature Program received enough samples of the heroin seized by federal law enforcement agencies, but did not receive enough samples from state and local law enforcement agencies. …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Education runs two major federal student loan programs, the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program (FDLP) and the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). Under FDLP, students or their parents borrow money directly from the federal government through the schools the students attend. Under FFELP, money is borrowed from private lenders, and the federal government guarantees repayment if the borrowers default. GAO investigated concerns about Education's reliance on estimates to project FDLP costs and a lack of historical information on which to base those estimates. GAO found that developing a reasonable estimate of subsidy cost for loan programs is complex. Many assumptions must be taken into account and projections must be made for the life of the loans. Because FDLP's subsidy costs are determined largely by interest rates and interest rate fluctuations cannot be predicted with any certainty, it is unclear whether the current trend in negative subsidy costs for FDLP will continue. In addition, other factors, such as origination fees paid by borrowers, defaults, subsequent collections on defaulted loans and timing of loan repayments, affect the subsidy cost of FDLP. Although …

Email correspondence about an article on Asian festivals across Texas that was written for the February 2002 issue of Texas Highways magazine.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether penalties and interest on delinquent property taxes are cancelled in whole or in part if no notice has been sent as section 33.04(b) of the Tax Code requires (RQ-0255-JC)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a county commissioner may use county property to open and close graves in a private cemetery (RQ-0275-JC)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the wife of the chairman of the San Jacinto County Republican Party is prohibited from serving as a judge on the Early Voting Ballot Board (RQ-0276-JC)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether chapter 283 of the Local Government Code requires a municipality to apply a certificated telecommunications provider excavation permit ordinance to entities other than certificated telecommunication providers (RQ-0277-JC)

None

An initial design of the optics required for producing gamma-gamma collisions was produced for the NLC Zeroth Order Design Report (ZDR) submitted to the 1996 Snowmass workshop. The design incorporated only loose constraints from the interaction region requirements. In this paper we report progress on a design of a gamma-gamma interaction region which incorporates all constraints.

None

The performance of commercial high-performance fibers is examined for application to flywheel power supplies. It is shown that actual delivered performance depends on multiple factors such as inherent fiber strength, strength translation and stress-rupture lifetime. Experimental results for recent stress-rupture studies of carbon fibers will be presented and compared with other candidate reinforcement materials. Based on an evaluation of all of the performance factors, it is concluded that carbon fibers are preferred for highest performance and E-glass fibers for lowest cost. The inferior performance of the low-cost E-glass fibers can be improved to some extent by retarding the stress-corrosion of the material due to moisture and practical approaches to mitigating this corrosion are discussed. Many flywheel designs are limited not by fiber failure, but by matrix-dominated failure modes. Unfortunately, very few experimental results for stress-rupture under transverse tensile loading are available. As a consequence, significant efforts are made in flywheel design to avoid generating any transverse tensile stresses. Recent results for stress-rupture of a carbon fiber/epoxy composite under transverse tensile load reveal that these materials are surprisingly durable under the transverse loading condition and that some radial tensile stress could be tolerated in flywheel applications.

This report covers Argentina's political and economic conditions and relations with the United States in 2000.

Economic impacts on individual consumers from possible revisions to U.S. residential-type central air conditioner energy-efficiency standards are examined using a life-cycle cost (LCC) analysis. LCC is the consumer's cost of purchasing and installing a central air conditioner and operating it over its lifetime. This approach makes it possible to evaluate the economic impacts on individual consumers from the revised standards. The methodology allows an examination of groups of the population which benefit or lose from suggested efficiency standards. The results show that the economic benefits to consumers due to modest increases in efficiency are significant. For an efficiency increase of 20percent over the existing minimum standard (i.e., 12 SEER), 35percent of households with central air conditioners experience significant LCC savings, with an average savings of $453, while 25percent show significant LCC losses, with an average loss of $158 compared to apre-standard LCC average of $5,170. The remainder of the population (40percent) are largely unaffected.

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.

A common feature of many of the current environmental issues is that the immediate impact of risks, although considered to be small by many scientists, are uncertain and potentially wide spread and significant in the long term and thus of concern to potentially affected groups. The need to formulate decisions and commit major resources in the face of these uncertainties has led to the introduction of new environmental decision making frameworks that have as a central feature consideration of the broader environmental context and a greater involvement of the affected parties in the process. Various research activities and case studies are described which are targeted at aiding further development of the decision making frameworks into a more widely useable and effective approach.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

This report is a guide to one of the thirteen regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittees.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Return-to-work practices used in the private sector and in foreign countries reflect the understanding that some people with disabilities can and do return to work. Although the Social Security Administration (SSA) has begun to focus more on return to work, it has yet to adopt a complete strategy for implementing this new approach. The Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 is expected to enhance work incentives for people with disabilities, but fundamental policy weaknesses in the Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs persist. SSA needs to develop a comprehensive return-to-work strategy that emphasizes its return-to-work incentives. In developing this strategy, SSA can supplement what it learns from the experiences of the Ticket to Work demonstrations with the return-to-work approaches of other disability systems to identify elements of a new system that could help each individual realize his or her productive potential. Adopting a comprehensive return-to-work strategy will require fundamental changes to the underlying philosophy of the DI and SSI programs."

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

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

SPHERE simulations calibrated to CTX are shown to predict the correct temperature (0.12 KeV) for SSPX sustainment Shot 4624. Agreement with the temperature suggests that the Rechester-Rosenbluth thermal diffusivity included in the SPHERE heat transport equation is essentially correct. Substituting parallel heat loss as suggested by NIMROD calculations gives a temperature four times too low, while omitting Rechester-Rosenbluth transport but retaining ion classical transport gives a temperature that is 50% too high. Less certain is the magnetic buildup equation in SPHERE representing the spheromak load as a resistance adjusted to give the correct magnetic field--as is essential to obtain the correct temperature by ohmic heating. While extrapolation for long pulses using the Shot 4624 resistance does give higher magnetic field and higher temperature, the actual resistance during sustainment is still highly uncertain. In Section 6, we present a new resistance model in rough agreement with Shot 4624, but much work remains to be done. Understanding the spheromak resistance during sustainment is the main theoretical challenge for the model.

Computer-aided design and manufacture (CAD/CAM) have enabled advances in the design and manufacture of many accelerator components, though government procurement rules tend to inhibit its use. We developed and executed a method that provides adequate documentation for the procurement process, industrial vendor manufacturing processes, and laboratory installation activities. We detail our experiences in the design and manufacture of 60 separate and unique PEP-II Low Energy Ring Interaction Region vacuum chambers totaling {approx} 140m in length as an example of how we used this technique, reducing design effort and manufacturing risk while streamlining the production process. We provide ''lessons learned'' to better implement and execute the process in subsequent iterations. We present our study to determine the estimated savings in the design and production of the Spallation Neutron Source room temperature linac if this process were utilized.

This report provides an overview of how the genetic information contained in DNA is used for identification, and a discussion of issues associated with those uses.