Newspaper from Rose State College in Midwest City, Oklahoma that includes national, local, and campus news along with advertising.

This report discusses the issue of U.S. economic assistance to sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting the importance of continued assistance in light of U.S. national security and also various U.S.-led efforts to promote reform amongst African citizens themselves. U.S. assistance finds its way to Africa through a variety of channels, including the USAID-administered DA program, food aid programs, and indirect aid provided through international financial institutions and the United Nations.

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

Analytical expressions for three P-wave attenuation mechanisms in rocks are given and numerically-compared. The mechanisms are: (1) Biot loss, in which flow occurs at the scale of the wavelength between the peaks and troughs of a P wave; (2) squirt loss, in which flow occurs at the grain scale between microcracks the grains and the adjacent pores; and (3) mesoscopic loss, in which flow occurs at intermediate scales between the various lithological bodies that are present in an averaging volume of earth material. Each mechanism is of importance over different frequency bands. Typically, Biot loss is only important at the highest of ultrasonic frequencies (> 1 MHz), squirt-loss (when it occurs) is important in the range of 10 kHz to 1 MHz, while mesoscale loss dominates at the lower frequencies (<10 kHz) employed in seismology.

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

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

This document provides information on the construction of three new RCRA wells at Waste Management Area U in September 2001.

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

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress created the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997 to reduce the number of uninsured children in families with incomes that are too high to qualify for Medicaid. Financed jointly by the states and the federal government, SCHIP encourages state participation by offering a higher federal matching rate than the Medicaid program. Concerns have been raised that states might inappropriately enroll Medicaid-eligible children in SCHIP and thus obtain higher federal matching funds than allowed under Medicaid. The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) concluded that Medicaid-eligible children were not being enrolled in SCHIP by the 13 states that administer separate child health care programs. Furthermore, the issue of appropriate enrollment is not limited to states with completely separate child health programs but also applies to those states with combination programs and Medicaid expansions, which also receive the higher SCHIP matching rate. The OIG could not conclude whether states were reducing the number of uninsured children and meeting the objectives and goals they established in their SCHIP programs. The OIG found that some states had set program goals without considering …

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

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Most major U.S. airlines began realizing net operating losses early in the 2001, and all of the major U.S. passenger carriers except Southwest Airlines reported losses for the year. Travelers throughout the nation shared in the difficulties. In October 2000, the typical or median small community that GAO analyzed had service from two airlines, with a total of nine daily departing flights. Forty-one percent of the communities were served by only one airline with size being the most obvious factor for service limitations. However, the level of service also varied by the level of local economic activity. The total number of daily departures from these small communities declined by 19 percent between October 2000 and October 2001. Although carriers had reduced total departure levels at small communities before September 11th, airlines made even more reductions after that date. Because profitability is so critical to airline decisions about what markets to serve and how to serve them, the changes in service levels in small communities can be traced to economic factors. Two such factors--the economic decline that began in early 2001 and the collapse of airline passenger …

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

Weekly newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news and advertising of interest to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community.

News release about a DART Job Fair.

News release about a DART Job Fair.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 seeks to maximize the collection of billions of dollars of nontax delinquent debt owed to the federal government. The act requires agencies to refer eligible debts delinquent more than 180 days to the Department of the Treasury for payment offset and to Treasury or a Treasury-designated debt collection center for cross-servicing. The Treasury Offset Program includes the offset of benefit payments, vendor payments, and tax refunds. Cross-servicing involves locating debtors, issuing demand letters, and referring debts to private collection agencies. The Farm Service Agency (FSA) has initiatives to ensure the timely referral of all delinquent debt. However, the agency's failure to make the act a priority has left key provisions of the legislation unimplemented and has severely reduced opportunities for collection. FSA lacks effective procedures and controls to identify and promptly refer eligible delinquent debts to Treasury for collection action. GAO identified several obstacles to FSA's establishment and implementation of an effective and complete debt-referral process. In the four states with the highest dollar amounts of federal debt excluded from the Treasury Offset Program, GAO reviewed FSA's use of …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 seeks to maximize collections of delinquent nontax debt owed to the federal government. However, the act also seeks to reduce losses by requiring proper screening of potential borrowers and information sharing within and among federal agencies. The major information sources of data on delinquent federal debtors are credit bureau reports, the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Credit Alert Interactive Voice Response System (CAIVRS), and the Financial Management Service's (FMS) Treasury Offset Program's (TOP) database. There is no effective mechanism for federal implementation of the act's debtor bar provision. Although credit bureau reports, CAIVRS, and FMS's TOP database each contain some information on delinquent federal nontax debtors, none provides all-inclusive, timely data or maintains them long enough to serve as an adequate data source for successfully barring future financial assistance to currently delinquent debtors or those who did not meet their past obligations. The TOP database, with modifications, now provides an adequate reference point for identifying delinquent debtors to deny them additional financial assistance. Maximizing the TOP database as a delinquency reporting tool would require several changes, such as …

This report is designed to be a readily accessible source of facts and figures on the FY2003 defense budget. Part I presents basic data on the national defense budget request, including figures on budget authority and outlays for the Department of Defense and for the national defense budget function. Part II shows trends in overall defense spending, including figures on the growth and decline of defense spending, on defense outlays as a share of federal expenditures, on defense outlays as a share of gross domestic product, and on foreign military spending. Part III defines key defense budget terms.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "To control the export of defense items, the U.S. government requires exporters to obtain a license from the State Department. A license is not required to export many defense items to Canada, currently the only country-specific exemption to the licensing requirement. In May 2000, the U.S. government announced the Defense Trade Security Initiative, which included a proposal to grant Canadian-like export licensing exemptions to other qualified countries. Since the initiative was announced, the State Department has been negotiating such exemptions with the United Kingdom and Australia. Exporters have been implementing the Canadian exemption inconsistently. Moreover, some exporters are interpreting reporting requirements about the use of the exemption differently. The U.S. government has mechanisms in place to reduce the risk of defense items being inappropriately exported, but there are associated limitations. U.S. Customs officials attributed these enforcement weaknesses to a lack of information and resources, including inspectors to staff ports. In addition, there are competing demands on the agency, which include the prevention of terrorism, and the interdiction of illicit drugs, illegal currency, and stolen vehicles. Experience with the Canadian exemption shows that three areas need to …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed federal agencies' use of "seat management"--an information technology (IT) outsourcing alternative for distributed computing services. Under "seat management," contractor-owned desktop and other computing hardware, software, and related services are bundled and provided on the basis of a fixed price per unit. No single overarching reason emerged for agencies adoption of seat management. The most common rationales were to improve IT management, improve user support and productivity, and upgrade agency IT. All six agencies GAO reviewed reported that their seat management approaches had yielded positive results, such as better IT management and desk-help support. However, GAO could not determine whether any of the agencies were achieving expected costs benefits because they did not perform sufficient up-front analyses of their baseline and projected costs and benefits or routinely monitor all actual seat management costs and benefits. Four of the six agencies identified risks associated with seat management, such as possible cost overruns, schedule delays, or contractor performance problems. However, none of the agencies prioritized their risks, and only one identified actions to mitigate risks before implementing seat management. Agencies and seat management contractors have identified the …

The full-flow mechanical safeguard device (FFMSGD) has been developed under contract to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to address problems with the reliability of ceramic candle filter elements installed on high-temperature, high-pressure (HTHP) Hot Gas Cleanup (HGCU) filters. Although systems candle filters are expected to perform satisfactorily when in good operating condition, the failure of even a single filter element can increase the filter system outlet dust loading enough to potentially damage gas turbine blades, contaminate other downstream processes, and limit the availability of the power system. Filter failure safeguard devices that are installed on each individual candle filter element are envisioned as a guarantee of a candle filter system's ability to withstand some number of element failures and continue operation without these negative consequences. The intention of the FFMSGD is to provide this guarantee without incurring any significant pressure drop penalty or constraining the filter system's reverse-pulse cleaning procedures. The FFMSGD provides a clear flow path for filtered and reverse-flow cleaning gases when its filter element is intact, and activates to provide a positive mechanical seal against gas flow in either direction when its filter element breaks or fails. This activation is induced by the increase in the …

Foster Wheeler Development Corporation is working under DOE contract No. DE-FC26-00NT40972 to develop a partial gasification module (PGM) that represents a critical element of several potential coal-fired Vision 21 plants. When utilized for electrical power generation, these plants will operate with efficiencies greater than 60% while producing near zero emissions of traditional stack gas pollutants. The new process partially gasifies coal at elevated pressure producing a coal-derived syngas and a char residue. The syngas can be used to fuel the most advanced power producing equipment such as solid oxide fuel cells or gas turbines or processed to produce clean liquid fuels or chemicals for industrial users. The char residue is not wasted; it can also be used to generate electricity by fueling boilers that drive the most advanced ultra-supercritical pressure steam turbines. The unique aspect of the process is that it utilizes a pressurized circulating fluidized bed partial gasifier and does not attempt to consume the coal in a single step. To convert all the coal to syngas in a single step requires extremely high temperatures ({approx}2500 to 2800 F) that melt and vaporize the coal and essentially drive all coal ash contaminants into the syngas. Since these contaminants can …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1999, the Department of Education (Education) has offered a 0.25 percent interest rate reduction to borrowers who agree to an electronic debit (EDA) program. Borrowers pay a lower interest rate, while the federal government receives fewer late payments. Any revenue loss to the federal government from a reduced interest rate would be more than offset by a gain in revenue because some EDA borrowers who had previously paid by check would stop making periodic payments in excess of their scheduled amount due. By ceasing to make these prepayments, these borrowers would not pay off their loans as soon as they would have without signing up for EDA and, therefore, incur additional interest costs over the life of their loans. Although actual EDA enrollments have exceeded original estimates, Education lacks data on prepayment patterns after borrowers enroll in the program. Education has not informed borrowers of the cost implications of EDA participation, nor has it systematically informed borrowers of their prepayment options. GAO estimates that Education saved $1.5 million in administrative costs in fiscal year 2001 because it did not have to mail bills to EDA …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) runs two programs--the Heroin Signature Program and the Domestic Monitor Program--that provide information on trends in heroin trafficking. The only programs of their kind in this country, these two program conduct chemical analyses to pinpoint the geographic origin of heroin being sold on the streets. The Domestic Monitor Program determines (1) the source of heroin that has been bought undercover in 23 U.S. cities and (2) the purity and price of heroin at the retail level. The Heroin Signature Program provides law enforcement with information on the origins of heroin at the wholesale and retail level in some U.S. cities. Data from the two programs are included in intelligence and investigative reports provided to DEA and other federal law enforcement agencies, which use this information to adjust their drug enforcement efforts. The quantity of heroin seized by the Customs Service at ports-of-entry but not sent to DEA for testing may make a difference in the results reported by DEA. All seizures at ports-of-entry forwarded to DEA are tested for geographic source, according to DEA officials. However, Customs is not required to …