Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed several issues concerning service contracting trends and challenges facing the government. The government has had long-standing difficulties in managing service contracts, and it is clear that agencies are not doing all they can to ensure that they are acquiring services that meet their needs in a timely and cost-effective manner. Agencies have begun efforts to address their strategic human capital needs; however, no agency has completed a strategic human capital management plan for their acquisition workforce. Overall, agencies' plans reflected different levels of attention to human capital, ranging from merely identifying human capital challenges to putting forward solutions to address those challenges, such as by defining actual plans, committing resources, and assigning accountability."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress and the Health Care Financing Administration recognized that certain services needed to be excluded from the skilled nursing facility (SNF) prospective payment system (PPS) rate to help ensure beneficiary access to appropriate care and to financially protect the SNFs that take care of high-cost patients. The criteria used to identify services--high cost, infrequently provided during a SNF stay and likely to be overprovided--and the services currently excluded appear reasonable. Even so, questions remain about whether beneficiaries have appropriate access to services that are covered in the rate or whether additional services should have been excluded. A second concern is that Medicare coverage for excluded facility services has been shifted from part A to part B, which will increase beneficiary liability. and program spending might increase because certain services are excluded only when provided in hospital settings, thus discouraging the use of less expensive, clinically appropriate sites of service. Finally, excluding services from the PPS rate when they are provided in emergency rooms may lead to overuse of emergency rooms, unnecessarily increasing Medicare spending. The Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) does not plan to …

This report provides an overview of the immigration legalization and status adjustment legislation.

Progress in development of CFD models has shown their great potential for prediction of air flow, heat dissipation, and dispersion of air pollutants in the urban environment. Work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has progressed using the finite element code FEM3 which has been ''massively parallelized'' to produce flow fields and pollutant dispersion in a grid encompassing many city blocks and with high resolution. While it may be argued that urban CFD models are not yet economical for emergency response applications, there are many applications in assessments and air quality management where CFD models are unrivaled in the level of detail that they provide. We have conducted field experiments to define the flow field and air tracer dispersion around buildings as a means of critiquing and evaluating the CFD models. The first experiment, the ''B170 study'', was a study of flow field, turbulence, and tracer dispersion in separation zones around a complex, single building. The second was the URBAN 2000 experiment in downtown Salt Lake City where flow fields and tracers were studied in nested resolution from the single building scale up to larger scales of 25 city blocks, and out to 6 km. For the future an URBAN 2003 …

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

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

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This annual progress and performance evaluation report discusses the groundwater remedial actions in the 100 Area, including the interim actions at the 100-HR-3 and 100-KR-4 Operable Units, and also discusses the expedited response action in the 100-NR-2 operable unit.

A unique approach to crack-free joining of heterogeneous ceramics is demonstrated by the use of sialon polytypoids as Functionally Graded Materials (FGM) as defined by the phase diagram in the system, Si3N4-Al2O3. Polytypoids in the Al2O3-Si3N4 system offer a path to compatibility for such heterogeneous ceramics. The first part of the dissertation describes successful hot press sintering of multilayered FGM's with 20 layers of thickness 500 mm each. Transmission Electron Microscopy was used to identify the polytypoids at the interfaces of different areas of the joint. It has been found that the 15R polytypoid was formed in the Al2O3-contained layers and the 12H polytypoid was formed in the Si3N4-contained layers. The second part of the dissertation discusses the mechanical properties of these polytypoidally joined Si3N4-Al2O3. The thermal stresses of this FGM junction were analyzed using a finite element analysis program (FEAP) taking into account both coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and modulus variations. From this analysis, the result showed a dramatic decrease in radial, axial and hoop stresses as the FGM changes from three layers to 20 graded layers. Scaling was considered, showing that the graded transition layer should constitute about 75 percent or more of the total sample thickness …

The DOE National Center of Excellence for Metals Recycle (NMR) proposes to define and implement a complex-wide directed reuse strategy for surplus radiologically impacted lead (Pb) as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's commitment to the safe and cost-effective recycle or reuse of excess materials and equipment across the DOE complex. NMR will, under this proposal, act on behalf of the DOE Office of Environmental Management, Office of Technical Program Integration (specifically EM-22), as the Department's clearinghouse for DOE surplus lead and lead products by developing and maintaining a cost-effective commercially-based contaminated lead recycle program. It is NMR's intention, through this directed reuse strategy, to mitigate the adverse environmental and economic consequences of managing surplus lead as a waste within the complex. This approach would promote the safe and cost-effective reuse of DOE's scrap and surplus lead in support of the Department's goals of resource utilization, energy conservation, pollution prevention and waste minimization. This report discusses recommendations for supplemental radiological limits for the directed reuse of contaminated lead and lead products by the DOE within the nuclear industry. The limits were selected--with slight modification--from the recently published American National Standards Institute and Health Physics Society standard N13.12 titled Surface …

This annual progress and performance evaluation report discusses the groundwater remedial actions in the 100 Area, including the interim actions at the 100-HR-3 and 100-KR-4 Operable Units, and also discusses the expedited response action in the 100-NR-2 operable unit.

This annual progress and performance evaluation report discusses the groundwater remedial actions in the 100 Area, including the interim actions at the 100-HR-3 and 100-KR-4 Operable Units, and also discusses the expedited response action in the 100-NR-2 operable unit.

This annual progress and performance evaluation report discusses the groundwater remedial actions in the 100 Area, including the interim actions at the 100-HR-3 and 100-KR-4 Operable Units, and also discusses the expedited response action in the 100-NR-2 operable unit.

An extensive and systematic verification, validation and data testing effort using diverse Monte Carlo and deterministic methods with ENDF/B data (Versions V.2 and VI.5) is in progress. Methods verification is obtained by comparing independent methods, including continuous-energy Monte Carlo methods using the VIM and MCNP codes and 1D and 2D transport calculations using multigroup cross section sets generated with the ETOE-II/MC-2 system combined with the TWODANT code. Each of these code systems relies on independently processed data libraries. Inter-comparison of these results is used for verification. Further verification is achieved by comparing and plotting the point-wise cross section libraries of VIM and MCNP. Where possible, benchmark models are taken from both the ICSBEP Handbook and the CSEWG Benchmark Specifications. Inter-comparison of these results quantifies the generally small differences between these references. Calculations are repeated with both ENDF/B-V.2 and ENDF/B-VI.5 data. Inter-comparison of these results quantifies their data dependence. Analyses of criticality and reaction rate ratios are used for the validation and data testing. Calculated neutron balances and neutron energy spectra are also obtained and analyzed to explain the observed differences.

Semiweekly newspaper from Levelland, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

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

Target location is a common problem in acoustical imaging using either passive or active data inversion. Time-reversal methods in acoustics have the important characteristic that they provide a means of determining the eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of the scattering operator for either of these problems. Each eigenfunction may often be approximately associated with an individual scatterer. The resulting decoupling of the scattered field from a collection of targets is a very useful aid to localizing the targets, and suggests a number of imaging and localization algorithms. Two of these are linear subspace methods and maximum-entropy imaging.

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Atomic mixing in multicomponent gases and plasmas is usually described as a diffusional process. The diffusional description is an approximation to a more general dynamical description in which the motion of each individual species or material is governed by its own momentum equation, with appropriate coupling terms to represent the exchange of momentum between different species. These equations are not new, but they are scattered in the literature. Here we summarize the form of these species momentum equations, and the coupling coefficients therein, in sufficient detail to facilitate their inclusion and use to simulate atomic mixing in hydrodynamics codes.

The Criticality Safety Section at LLNL has a formal set of procedures to guide the administrative and technical work of the section. Two of these procedures, ''Response to a Criticality Safety Infraction'' and ''CSG Criticality Safety Non-Compliance and Audit Tracking System,'' provide combined guidance for response, tracking, and trending for procedural non-compliances. Combined with a database, this system provides a framework to systematically respond to, document, track and trend criticality safety non-compliances, as well as audit findings.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Grace Carr. She graduated from the University of Illinois in 1942 and accepted a job with Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica, California, where most of the C-47s flown in World War II were made. She recalls that the factory was covered with netting which acted as camouflage from the air. She also remembers gas rationing, difficulty finding new tires and having to drive with parking lights at night to avoid disclosing the factory to enemy aircraft. She left Douglas to work at Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock Corporation, as the Head of Payroll. The shipyard repaired ships damaged in the war and she recalls one Russian ship with both males and females onboard.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with James Carr. He was born in Benton County, Indiana on February 17, 1914. Upon graduation from high school in 1932 he hopped a freight train to California. He enlisted in the 38th Infantry Division, Indiana National Guard in December 1940. After Pearl Harbor he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and transferred to the 30th Infantry Division. He embarked on the troopship SS Brazil for the transit to England, during which he recounts several experiences. He remembers London, including bombings by the German Luftwaffe and V-1 flying bombs. He was placed in charge of the motor pool and joined the invasion of France six days after D-Day. He describes the ensuing confusion and his company getting separated from the Regiment. During a battle he recalls observing General Bradley arriving to discuss whether Carr's regimental commander should be court-martialed for refusing to follow an order that he considered suicidal. The commander was exonerated, but was transferred to another battalion. Eventually his regiment joined up at the Battle of the Bulge, where they remained just outside the front lines providing and maintaining vehicles used in the assault. After the battle, …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Alex Taylor. Taylor was born April 3, 1921 in Scott, Louisiana. He worked in the rice and cane fields during his youth before joining the Navy in 1939. He was sent to Norfolk, Virginia for boot camp and recalls being in a segregated navy. He was assigned as mess attendant on the USS Dobbin (AD-3). He recalls the attack on Pearl Harbor and his role as an ammunition handler below decks. Taylor was assigned to the USS Enterprise (CV-6) in 1942 as a mess cook 3rd class. He was later assigned as the officers cook and eventually promoted to chief cook. Taylor tells of two friends that died in battle aboard ship. He describes visiting Nagasaki after the Japanese surrender. He discusses the changes that occurred after desegregation of the Armed Forces was ordered. Mrs. Taylor tells of being a young woman traveling to Bremerton, Washington by train to be with her husband and then returning home when Alex’s ship went to sea. She tells of buying a home with the money out of an allotment check she received each month.

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