Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Medicare spending growth remains one of the most pressing and complex issues facing the Congress and the nation. During calendar year 2001, the most recent year for which complete data were available at the time of our review, over 40 million Medicare enrollees received $240.9 billion in benefits from the trust funds maintained for Hospital Insurance and Supplementary Medical Insurance, Medicare's two components. The Boards of Trustees of the trust funds are required to report annually on the current and projected financial status of the Medicare program to the Congress and the American people. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) Office of the Actuary (OACT) provides estimates to the boards to assist them in setting certain assumptions about HI and SMI future performance that are needed to prepare long-range and short-range projections of the financial status of the trust funds for the Trustees' reports. Based on the boards' assumptions, OACT then prepares the projections and the Trustees' reports for the boards. In its 2002 annual report, the Board of Trustees estimated that, under current rules, HI expenditures would begin to exceed tax revenue in calendar year …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia inherited the world's largest arsenal of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. The Soviets' extensive military resources and autocratic rule allowed it to maintain and secure this vast arsenal. As Russia adopted economic reforms and moved toward an open society, its economy and central controls deteriorated, making it difficult to maintain security at these weapons sites. Recognizing these difficulties, the Congress authorized funds for programs to help destroy Russian weapons and improve WMD security. The events of September 11th have increased U.S. concerns that terrorists might obtain nuclear materials or weapons at poorly secured sites. GAO has reviewed U.S. threat reduction and nonproliferation efforts in Russia since 1993."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The combined Federal Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) programs, commonly referred to as Social Security, provide protection against loss of earnings due to retirement, death, or disability. During calendar year 2001, the most recent year for which complete data were available at the time of our review, about 46 million people, including 91 percent of Americans age 65 or older, received $432 billion in benefits from the trust funds maintained for these programs. The Board of Trustees of the trust funds is required to report annually on the current and projected financial status of the Social Security programs to the Congress and the American people. The Social Security Administration's (SSA) Office of the Chief Actuary (OACT) provides estimates to the board to assist them in setting demographic, economic, and programmatic assumptions about OASDI's future performance that are needed to prepare long-range and short-range projections of the financial status of the trust funds for the trustees' reports. Based on the board's assumptions, OACT then prepares the projections and the trustees' report for the board. In its 2002 annual report, the Board of Trustees estimated that, under current rules, …

The processes of crystallization and solid deposit formation that led to the shutdown of the 2H evaporator operation at the Savannah River Site (SRS) and that could possibly cause similar problems in the future or in other evaporators need to be better understood. Through experimentation, thermodynamic modeling, and correlation of scaling to historical tank farm operations, progress has been made in developing guidelines as to the concentrations of silicon and aluminum that can be processed by evaporators while avoiding unacceptable levels of scale formation. However, because of limitations of the thermodynamic model and an insufficient amount of operational data at slightly supersaturated concentration levels, uncertainty still exists regarding acceptable feed concentrations. The objective of this effort is to provide information that can be used in defining acceptable levels of silicon and aluminum in evaporator feed solutions. Data collected previously showed that particle formation reactions can be rapid at evaporator temperatures for elevated silicon and aluminum concentrations. However, insufficient data exists to estimate the silicon and aluminum concentrations above which solids will form in the time frame of evaporator processing. The work described in this report was designed to determine the induction period for solutions of decreasing aluminum and silicon concentration …

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate relating to recognizing February 24-26, 2003, as Tyler Days at the State Capitol.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate relating to congratulating Dr. Arthur K. Smith and his wife, June, on the occasion of his retirement as chancellor of the University of Houston System and as president of the University of Houston.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate relating to honoring the Westside All-Stars of Fort Worth for being the 2002 Southwest Little League Champions and semifinalists in the 56th Annual Little League World Series.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate relating to honoring the Texas Historical Commission on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate relating to providing for a joint session to hear the state of the judiciary address.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate relating to recognizing February 24, 2003, as Liberty County Day 2003 at the State Capitol.

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, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a home-rule municipality may adopt instant runoff voting.

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, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether foreclosed properties in the Veterans' Housing Assistance Program are exempt from ad valorem property taxes.

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, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a “member of a fire or police department” in section 142.0013 of the Local Government Code includes employees other than fire protection personnel or licensed peace officers (RQ-0595-JC)

This report discusses child support distribution policy. The general rules in effect as of October 1, 2000 are that child support collected during the time a family receives cash welfare belongs to the state; current child support and arrearages (past-due payments) that are owed to a family that is no longer receiving welfare belongs to the family; and child support owed to a family that never received welfare belongs to the family.

The effect of chromium additions to the weldability of Fe-Al based overlay claddings are currently being investigated for the corrosion protection of boiler tubes in Low NOx furnaces. The primary objective of this research is to identify weldable (crack-free) Fe-Al-Cr weld overlay coating compositions that provide corrosion resistance over long exposure times. During the current project phase, preliminary corrosion testing was conducted on several ternary Fe-Al-Cr alloys in two types of gaseous corrosion environments. These long-term corrosion tests were used to develop a target weld composition matrix and serve as a base line for future corrosion tests. Preliminary Fe-Al based welds with various aluminum concentrations and one ternary Fe-Al-Cr weld overlay were successfully deposited using a Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) process and cracking susceptibility was evaluated on these coatings.

This report documents the first year's effort towards a 3-year program to develop micropilot ignition systems for existing pipeline compressor engines. In essence, all Phase I goals and objectives were met. We intend to proceed with the Phase II research plan, as set forth by the applicable Research Management Plan. The objective for Phase I was to demonstrate the feasibility of micropilot ignition for large bore, slow speed engines operating at low compression ratios. The primary elements of Micropilot Phase I were to develop a single-cylinder test chamber to study the injection of pilot fuel into a combustion cylinder and to develop, install and test a multi-cylinder micropilot ignition system for a 4-cylinder, natural gas test engine. In all, there were twelve (12) tasks defined and executed to support these two (2) primarily elements in a stepwise fashion. Task-specific approaches and results are documented in this report. Research activities for Micropilot Phase I were conducted with the understanding that the efforts are expected to result in a commercial product to capture and disseminate the efficiency and environmental benefits of this new technology. An extensive state-of-art review was conducted to leverage the existing body of knowledge of micropilot ignition with respect …

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A number of elastomers, used as flange gaskets in the piping system of the Savannah River Plant tritium facilities, are being examined to identify those compounds more radiation-resistant that the currently specified Buna-N rubber and to study the mechanism of tritium radiation damage. This paper discusses this study.

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

Funeral program for Suvilla Shoaf Thomas, born April 27, 1911 and died February 28, 2003. The funeral was held March 4, 2003 at St. Paul United Methodist Church, officiated by Pastor Terrence K. Hayes. Funeral arrangements were made through Sutton-Sutton Mortuary, Inc., and she was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery near San Antonio, Texas.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a relapsing-remitting disorder of the central nervous system that results in the loss of the myelin sheaths insulating nerve fibers (axons). Strong evidence suggests that MS is an autoimmune disease mediated by T-cell and antibody responses against myelin antigens. Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) is a 26 kD to 28 kD an integral membrane protein of the central nervous system implicated as a target for autoaggressive antibodies in MS. To date, the conformation of MOG in association with the myelin membrane is unknown and the exact nature of the interactions between this protein and disease-inducing immune responses have not been determined. Since membrane associated proteins are typically characterized by decreased correlation times, solution state NMR methodologies are often impracticable. Membrane proteins are also often difficult to crystallize for X-ray diffraction studies, Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop new structure characterization tools for this important class of biomolecules. The research described here overviews the initial stages of our effort to develop an integrated, NMR based approach to structural studies of MOG over the many structural domains it is postulated to posses. The structural knowledge gained about this important MS antigen in its native environment will contribute …

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Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall.

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