Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The results of the Defense Department (DOD) financial audit for fiscal year 2000 highlight long-standing financial management weaknesses that continue to plague the military. These weaknesses not only hamper the department's ability to produce timely and accurate financial management information but also unnecessarily increase the cost of carrying out its missions. Although DOD has made incremental improvement, it has a long way to go to overcome its long-standing, serious financial management weaknesses as part of a comprehensive, integrated reform of the department's business support operations. Such an overhaul must include not only DOD's financial management and other management challenges but also its high-risk areas of information technology and human capital management. Personnel throughout the department must share the common goal of reforming the department's business support structure. Without reengineering, DOD will have little chance of radically improving its cumbersome and bureaucratic processes."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses (1) how well the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is providing service to taxpayers and ensuring compliance with tax laws, and (2) IRS' progress in its long-term effort to modernize. GAO found that IRS posted mixed results in 2001 in collecting revenues, providing taxpayer service, and enforcing tax laws. On the plus side, IRS processed millions of tax returns and issued refunds without significant problems, taxpayers had an easier time getting through to telephone assistors, and IRS said that it made progress in correcting weaknesses that threatened the security of electronically filed tax information. On the down side, the quality of service provided to taxpayers who visited taxpayer assistance centers, trends in audit rates and enforcement programs, and productivity all experienced troubling declines. With respect to modernization, IRS is making incremental progress in overhauling its organization, performance management system, business processes, and information technology. IRS is also making important progress in implementing its new organizational structure, developing a blueprint for modernizing its business processes and information systems, and more fully defining its strategic direction. However, IRS progress has fallen short of expectations. For example, IRS is …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Children fall ill with many of the same diseases as adults and are often treated with the same drugs. However, only about 25 percent of drugs used today have been labeled for pediatric patients. The lack of pediatric testing and labeling can place children at risk of under- or overdosing, and the lack of age-appropriate formulations, such as liquids or chewable tablets, can result in improper administration of drugs. The pediatric exclusivity provision of the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997 has successfully encouraged drug sponsors to generate needed information on how drugs work in children. A wide range of drugs are being studied in many therapeutic areas. The infrastructure for conducting pediatric trials has also been greatly strengthened, which should help to support continued progress. Although several drug labels have been changed to incorporate findings from research done under the pediatric exclusivity provision, label changes typically occur long after the Food and Drug Administration has granted the extension of market exclusivity. In addition, there continues to be little incentive to conduct pediatric research on off-patent drugs."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the challenges facing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as it moves from its traditional regulatory approach to a risk-informed, performance-based approach. GAO found that NRC's implementation of a risk-informed approach for commercial nuclear power plants is a complex, multiyear undertaking that requires basic changes to the regulations and processes NRC uses to ensure the safe operation of these plants. NRC needs to overcome several inherent difficulties as it seeks to apply a risk-informed regulatory approach to the nuclear material licensees, particularly in light of the large number of licensees and the diversity of activities they conduct. NRC will have to demonstrate that it is meeting its mandate (under the Government Performance and Results Act) of increasing public confidence in NRC as an effective regulator. NRC also faces challenges in human capital management, such as replacing a large percentage of its technical staff and senior managers who are eligible to retire. NRC has developed a five-year plan to identify and maintain the core competencies it needs and has identified legislative options to help resolve its aging staff problem."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (FTAA) would eliminate tariffs and create common trade and investment rules within the 34 democratic nations of the Western Hemisphere. The trade ministers for FTAA faced an ambitious agenda at the April 2001 meetings. Accommodations reached by the ministers on controversial issues, such as labor and the environment, antidumping, and nations with small economies, allowed countries to set forth basic principles while keeping topics on the table for future resolution. As a result of the movement on these controversial issues, the trade ministers were able to set out clear objectives and deadlines to promote progress during the next 18 months of the negotiations. The trade ministers told negotiating groups to (1) eliminate material that is in dispute to the maximum extent possible; (2) develop recommendations by April 1, 2002, on the methods and ground rules for negotiation; and (3) develop, where appropriate, inventories of tariffs, nontariff barriers, subsidies, and other practices that distort trade. To build public support for the FTAA process, and to promote transparency in the negotiating process, the trade ministers agreed to publicly release the draft text of …

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The effectiveness and appropriateness of the International Monetary Fund's lending programs to poor countries have been widely debated, generally centering on whether the program has improved these countries' economies. In response to some of these concerns and as part of a concerted international effort to reduce poverty, the Fund expanded the goals of its lending program to its poorest members in 1999 to include an explicit focus on poverty reduction. To underscore this focus, the Fund renamed its concessional lending program the Poverty Reduction and Frowth Facility. GAO found that although the design of the facility does not differ significantly from the Fund's previous program, some elements of the new program are emphasized more now than in the past. The one major design change--getting countries to take ownership of their macroeconomic framework--is difficult to achieve for three reasons. First, many recipient governments have limited capacity to independently analyze and effectively negotiate the macroeconomic framework, which reduces the opportunity for country-specific elements to be addressed. Second, it is difficult to effectively engage nongovernmental organizations in a dialogue on these very complex matters. Finally, a national dialogue on …

A test methodology for measuring temperature, impedance, pH, and electrochemical potential distributions within a sludge-packed tube support plate crevice in a laboratory test is described. The method successfully showed that there were large concentration gradients between the tube and tube support plate sides of the crevice. The testing also showed that strong bases concentrated more effectively than strong acids, and that the crevice pH, when exposed to seawater-based solutions, increased with increasing superheat and decreasing bulk concentration. The large variations in the crevice chemistry observed under heat transfer were eliminated upon shutdown. These new test data suggest that it might be beneficial to evaluate the variation in the extent of stress corrosion cracking with tube support plate elevation found in some steam generators in light of local chemistry changes, as well as the variation in tubing temperature. Because of the large crevice chemistry gradients during boiling heat transfer and their subsequent homogenization upon test shutdown, the results suggest reassessing the use of hideout return measurements and tube deposit analyses in industry to infer the crevice chemistry under heat transfer conditions.

PNNL conducted a walk-through audit of Marine Corps Air Station at Camp Pendleton. The audit inspected a significant portion of the site and identified a large number of similar energy saving opportunities across all building types.

The purpose of this Fire Hazards Analysis Technical Report (hereinafter referred to as Technical Report) is to assess the risk from fire within individual fire areas to ascertain whether the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) fire safety objectives are met. The objectives, identified in DOE Order 420.1, Change 2, Fire Safety, Section 4.2, establish requirements for a comprehensive fire and related hazards protection program for facilities sufficient to minimize the potential for: (1) The occurrence of a fire or related event; (2) A fire that causes an unacceptable on-site or off-site release of hazardous or radiological material that will threaten the health and safety of the employees, the public, and the environment; (3) Vital DOE programs suffering unacceptable interruptions as a result of fire and related hazards; (4) Property losses from a fire and related events exceeding defined limits established by DOE; and (5) Critical process controls and safety class systems being damaged as a result of a fire and related event.

When exposed to deaerated high purity water, Alloy X-750 is susceptible to both high temperature (> 249 C) intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) and intergranular low temperature (< 149 C) fracture (LTF). However, the microstructural and microchemical factors that govern environmentally assisted cracking (EAC) susceptibility are poorly understood. The present study seeks to characterize the grain boundary microstructure and microchemistry in order to gain a better mechanistic understanding of stress corrosion crack initiation, crack growth rate, and low temperature fracture. Light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, orientation imaging microscopy, scanning Auger microscopy, and thermal desorption spectroscopy were performed on selected heats of Alloy X-750 AH. These data were correlated to EAC tests performed in 338 C deaerated water. Results show that grain boundary MC-type [(Ti,Nb)C] carbides and increased levels of grain boundary phosphorus correlate with an increase in LTF susceptibility but have little effect on the number of initiation sites or the SCC crack growth rate. Thermal desorption data show that multiple hydrogen trapping states exist in Alloy X-750 condition AH. Moreover, it appears that exposure to high temperature (> 249 C), hydrogen deaerated water increases the hydrogen concentration in strong hydrogen trap states and degrades the resistance …

Prior studies of Alloy 600 and Alloy X-750 have shown the existence of a maximum in stress corrosion cracking (SCC) susceptibility in high temperature water (e.g., at 360 C), when testing is conducted over a range of dissolved (i.e., aqueous) hydrogen (H{sub 2}) concentrations. It has also been shown that this maximum in SCC susceptibility tends to occur in proximity to the nickel/nickel oxide (Ni/NiO) phase transition, suggesting that oxide phase stability may affect primary water SCC (PWSCC) resistance. Previous studies have estimated the Ni/NiO transition using thermodynamic calculations based on free energies of formation for NiO and H{sub 2}O. The present study reports experimental measurements of the Ni/NiO transition performed using a contact electric resistance (CER) instrument. The CER is capable of measuring the surface resistance of a metal to determine whether it is oxide-covered or oxide-free at a given condition. The transition aqueous hydrogen (H{sub 2}) concentration corresponding to the Ni/NiO equilibrium was measured at 288, 316, 338 and 360 C using high purity Ni specimens. The results showed an appreciable deviation (i.e., 7 to 58 scc H{sub 2}/kg H{sub 2}O) between the measured Ni/NiO transition and the theoretical Ni/NiO transition previously calculated using free energy data from …

This paper quantifies the nickel alloy stress corrosion crack growth rate (SCCGR) dissolved hydrogen level functionality. SCCGR has been observed to exhibit a maximum in proximity to the nickel/nickel oxide phase transition. The dissolved hydrogen level SCCGR dependency has been quantified in a phenomenological model in terms of the stability of nickel oxide not the dissolved hydrogen level. The observed SCCGR dependency has been extended to lower temperatures through the developed model and Contact Electrical Resistance (CER) measurements of the nickel/nickel oxide phase transition. Understanding obtained from this hydrogen level SCC functionality and complementary SCC subprocesses test results is discussed. Specifically, the possible SCC fundamental subprocesses of corrosion kinetics, hydrogen permeation and pickup have also been measured for nickel alloys. Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS) analysis has been performed on SCCGR specimens tested in heavy water (D{sub 2}O).

The objective of this CRADA is to establish a new approach to fluid transfer and array construction. This new approach will involve a high-speed, multiplexed fluid distribution valve and ink jet valves. It will enable the parallel handling of multiple reagents for a system that will have multiple applications in addition to the high-speed construction of microarrays. The primary tasks involve proof of principle experiments aimed at establishing key components of the technology and evaluating various optional configurations. The basic platform for evaluating the technology will be set-up by the Contractor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and will employ custom valving prepared by Rheodyne. The test platform will consist of a motion controller, 3-axes of motion, software, and pneumatic control; and will be used to evaluate the hybrid valve.

Work in materials other than silicon for MEMS applications has typically been restricted to metals and metal oxides instead of more ''exotic'' semiconductors. However, group III-V and II-VI semiconductors form a very important and versatile collection of material and electronic parameters available to the MEMS and MOEMS designer. With these materials, not only are the traditional mechanical material variables (thermal conductivity, thermal expansion, Young's modulus, etc.) available, but also chemical constituents can be varied in ternary and quaternary materials. This flexibility can be extremely important for both friction and chemical compatibility issues for MEMS. In addition, the ability to continually vary the bandgap energy can be particularly useful for many electronics and infrared detection applications. However, there are two major obstacles associated with alternate semiconductor material MEMS. The first issue is the actual fabrication of non-silicon micro-devices and the second impediment is communicating with these novel devices. We have implemented an essentially material independent fabrication method that is amenable to most group III-V and II-VI semiconductors. This technique uses a combination of non-traditional direct write precision fabrication processes such as diamond turning, ion milling, laser ablation, etc. This type of deterministic fabrication approach lends itself to an almost trivial assembly …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Many studies have found significant alcohol consumption among youth, even though the purchase and public possession of alcohol by persons under the age of 21 are illegal in every state and the District of Columbia. This report discusses (1) the amount of federal funds earmarked for preventing underage drinking in fiscal year 2000 and (2) funded programs in fiscal year 2000 that included efforts to publicize in the media the problem of underage drinking. An estimated $71 million of fiscal year 2000 appropriated federal funds specifically targeted the prevention of underage drinking. In addition, many federal agencies had program activities that addressed prevention of underage drinking but for which agency officials could not isolate funding specific to alcohol."

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

This report contains the statues and current issues of Conservation Reserve Program.

Semiweekly newspaper from Boerne, Texas that includes local, state, and national 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.

For many years it has been speculated that excited nuclei would undergo a liquid to vapor phase transition. For even longer, it has been known that clusterization in a vapor carries direct information on the liquid-vapor equilibrium according to Fisher's droplet model. Now the thermal component of the 8 GeV/c pion + 197 Au multifragmentation data of the ISiS Collaboration is shown to follow the scaling predicted by Fisher's model, thus providing the strongest evidence yet of the liquid to vapor phase transition.

Tri-weekly student newspaper from Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

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