Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "SARS is a highly contagious respiratory disease that infected more than 8,000 individuals in 29 countries principally throughout Asia, Europe, and North America and led to more than 800 deaths as of July 11, 2003. Due to the speed and volume of international travel and trade, emerging infectious diseases such as SARS are difficult to contain within geographic borders, placing numerous countries and regions at risk with a single outbreak. While SARS did not infect large numbers of individuals in the United States, the possibility that it may reemerge raises concerns about the ability of public health officials and health care workers to prevent the spread of the disease in the United States. GAO was asked to assist the Subcommittee in identifying ways in which the United States can prepare for the possibility of another SARS outbreak. Specifically, GAO was asked to determine 1) infectious disease control measures practiced within health care and community settings that helped contain the spread of SARS and 2) the initiatives and challenges in preparing for a possible SARS resurgence."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "States receive federal funds under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to help students with disabilities reach their postsecondary goals, and various federal programs offer services that can assist these youth. However, research has documented that youth with disabilities are less likely to transition into postsecondary education and employment. Congress requested that GAO provide information on (1) the proportion of IDEA students completing high school with a diploma or alternative credentials, and their postsecondary status; (2) the transition problems being reported and state and local actions to address them; and (3) the types of transition services provided by the vocational rehabilitation, the Workforce Investment Act youth, and the Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency programs, and the factors affecting participation of IDEA youth."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins ""Pay.gov" is an Internet portal sponsored and managed by the Department of the Treasury's Financial Management Service (FMS) and operated at three Federal Reserve facilities. Pay.gov is intended to allow the public to make certain non-income-tax-payments to the federal government securely over the Internet. FMS estimates that Pay.gov eventually could annually process 80 million transactions valued at $125 billion annually. Because of the magnitude of transaction volume and dollar value envisioned for Pay.gov, GAO was asked to determine whether FMS (1) conducted a comprehensive security risk assessment and (2) implemented and documented appropriate security measures and controls for the system's protection."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "World Trade Organization (WTO) members rely on trade remedies in the form of duties or other import restrictions to protect their industries from injury due to unfair foreign trade practices or unexpected import surges. There is congressional concern that the WTO, created in 1995 to administer trade rules, is interfering with this ability. There is also congressional concern that the WTO is not treating the United States fairly in resolving trade remedy disputes. A congressional requester asked GAO to identify trends in WTO trade remedy disputes since 1995, including the outcomes of these disputes and how they affected members' ability to impose trade remedies. The requester also asked GAO to discuss the standards of review that the WTO applies when ruling on trade remedy disputes and to present U.S. agencies' and legal experts' views on the WTO's application of these standards and related trade remedy issues. In their comments on a draft of this report, the Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission stated that the report needed to put more emphasis on U.S. agencies' concerns about the potential adverse impact of WTO rulings …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The audit market for large public companies is an oligopoly, with the largest firms auditing the vast majority of public companies and smaller firms facing significant barriers to entry into the market. Mergers among the largest firms in the 1980s and 1990s and the dissolution of Arthur Andersen in 2002 significantly increased concentration among the largest firms, known as the "Big 4." These four firms currently audit over 78 percent of all U.S. public companies and 99 percent of all public company sales. This consolidation and the resulting concentration have raised a number of concerns. To address them, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 mandated that GAO study (1) the factors contributing to the mergers; (2) the implications of consolidation on competition and client choice, audit fees, audit quality, and auditor independence; (3) the impact of consolidation on capital formation and securities markets; and (4) barriers to entry faced by smaller accounting firms in competing with the largest firms for large public company audits."

This document is intended to serve as a operator manual for remote control of the TEC x-ray diffraction system. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the operation of the SaraTEC{trademark} 1630 Acquisition Manager software for the TEC 1630 X-Ray Diffraction System. This manual describes the operation of the new TEC Remote Serial Control Module (RCSM) that runs on the TEC computer and Run-the-System that runs on the motion control computer. The basic goal is to add enough control of the TEC system to enable stress mapping. In stress mapping, the specimen is positioned using our X-Y-Z-Phi translation system and data is collected using the TEC system. The process is then repeated for the next position using a table of preset positions. X-Y-Z-Phi axis management is handled by ''Run-the-System'', the LabVIEW program originally developed for the Neutron Residual Stress Mapping Facility, running on a separate computer from the one that controls the TEC. Run-the-System also manages all remote start, stop, and configuration commands that are sent to the TEC system. The two computers communicate over an RS-232 serial line.

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

CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc. (CH2M HILL) is in the process of identifying and developing supplemental process technologies to accelerate the tank waste cleanup mission. A range of technologies is being evaluated to allow disposal of Hanford waste types, including transuranic (TRU) process wastes. Ten Hanford single-shell tanks (SSTs) have been identified whose contents may meet the criteria for designation as TRU waste: the B-200 series (241-B-201, -B-202, -B 203, and B 204), the T-200 series (241-T-201, T 202, -T-203, and -T-204), and Tanks 241-T-110 and -T-111. CH2M HILL has requested vendor proposals to develop a system to transfer and package the contact-handled TRU (CH-TRU) waste retrieved from the SSTs for subsequent disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Current plans call for a modified ''dry'' retrieval process in which a liquid stream is used to help mobilize the waste for retrieval and transfer through lines and vessels. This retrieval approach requires that a significant portion of the liquid be removed from the mobilized waste sludge in a ''dewatering'' process such as centrifugation prior to transferring to waste packages in a form suitable for acceptance at WIPP. In support of CH2M HILL's effort to procure a TRU waste handling …

This report details the information related to Country-of-Origin labeling for foods.

Weekly newspaper from Wylie, 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.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, 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.

This is the eleventh Quarterly Technical Report for DOE Cooperative Agreement No: DE-FC26-00NT40954. The goal of the project is to develop and demonstrate a software framework to enable virtual simulation of Vision 21 plants. During the last quarter much progress was made in software development. The CO wrapper for the integration of Alstom Power proprietary code INDVU was upgraded to CO V1.0.0 and was successfully integrated with an Aspen Plus flowsheet. The V21-Controller and the Fluent CO wrapper were upgraded to CO V.1.0.0, and the testing and debugging of the upgraded V21-Controller was completed. Two Aspen Plus analysis tools (sensitivity analysis and optimization) were successfully tested in an integrated simulation. Extensive testing of the integrated software was continued. A list of suggested enhancements was given to the software development team. Work on software documentation was started. Work on preparing the release version progressed: Several enhancements were made in the V21-Controller and the Fluent Configuration Wizard GUIs. Work to add persistence functionality to the V21-Controller was started. During the last quarter good progress was made in software demonstration. Demo Case 1 simulations were completed. This case, a conventional steam cycle with a CFD model representing the boiler module, was successfully demonstrated …

As they are expected to occupy a large portion of the lattice, wiggler insert ions will introduce significant linear and nonlinear perturbations to the single-particle dynamics in the NLC Main Damping Rings (MDR). The nonlinearities are of particular concern as a sufficiently large Dynamic Aperture (DA) is required for high injection efficiency. The main content of this report is a study of the wigglers impact on the DA of the NLC-MDR latest lattice design. The particle dynamics is modeled by transfer maps calculated by integration through the wiggler fields. For field representation we employed a 3D multipole expansion derived from the field data that were obtained with the aid of a magnet design code. Additional contents of this paper include an investigation of a simplified model of wiggler consisting of a sequence of standard magnet elements (where thin octupoles are used to represent the dominant nonlinearities) and the suggestion of a possible correction scheme to compensate the wiggler nonlinearities.

High powered laser rock drilling was studied as a revolutionary method for drilling and completing deep gas and oil wells. The objectives of this 2002 to 2003 fiscal year research were to study the concept that large diameter holes can be created by multiple overlapping small beam spots, to determine the ability of lasers to drill rock submerged to some depth in water, to demonstrate the possibilities of lasers for perforating application, and to determine the wavelength effects on rock removal. Laser technology applied to well drilling and completion operations is attractive because it has the potential to reduce drilling time, create a ceramic lining that may eliminate the need for steel casing, provide additional monitor-on-drilling laser sensors and improve well performance through improved perforation. The results from this research will help engineering design on a laser-based well drilling system.

The overall objective of this project is to demonstrate that a development program based on advanced reservoir management methods can significantly improve oil recovery at the Nash Draw Pool (NDP). The plan includes developing a control area using standard reservoir management techniques and comparing its performance to an area developed using advanced reservoir management methods. Specific goals are (1) to demonstrate that an advanced development drilling and pressure maintenance program can significantly improve oil recovery compared to existing technology applications and (2) to transfer these advanced methodologies to oil and gas producers in the Permian Basin and elsewhere throughout the U.S. oil and gas industry.

The transverse mass spectra and mid-rapidity yields for {Xi}s and {Omega}s plus their anti-particles are presented. The 10% most central collision yields suggest that the amount of multi-strange particles produced per produced charged hadron increases from SPS to RHIC energies. A hydrodynamically inspired model fit to the spectra, which assumes a thermalized source, seems to indicate that these multi-strange particles experience a significant transverse flow effect, but are emitted when the system is hotter and the flow is smaller than values obtained from a combined fit to {pi}, K, p and {lambda}s.

The U.S. Department of Energy and ADA Environmental Solutions are engaged in a project to develop commercial flue gas conditioning additives. The objective is to develop conditioning agents that can help improve particulate control performance of smaller or under-sized electrostatic precipitators on utility coal-fired boilers. The new chemicals will be used to control both the electrical resistivity and the adhesion or cohesivity of the fly ash. There is a need to provide cost-effective and safer alternatives to traditional flue gas conditioning with SO{sub 3} and ammonia. This quarterly report summarizes project activity for the period April-June, 2003. In this period there was limited activity and no active field trials. Results of ash analysis from the AEP Conesville demonstration were received. In addition, a site visit was made to We Energies Presque Isle Power Plant and a proposal extended for a flue gas conditioning trial with the ADA-51 cohesivity additive. It is expected that this will be the final full-scale evaluation on the project.

Real-time horizon sensing on continuous mining (CM) machines is becoming an industry tool. Installation and testing of production-grade Horizon Sensor (HS) systems has been ongoing this quarter at Monterey Coal Company (ExxonMobil), Mountain Coal Company West Elk Mine (Arch), Deserado Mining Company (Blue Mountain Energy), and The Ohio Valley Coal Company (TOVCC). Monitoring of system function, user experience, and mining benefits is ongoing. All horizon sensor components have finished MSHA (U.S.) and IEC (International) certification.

The advanced tokamak program on DIII-D is targeting the full integration of high-beta and high-bootstrap/noninductive current fraction for long-pulse lengths and the high confinement consistent with these features. Central to achieving these simultaneously is access to the highest ideal beta limits possible to maximize the headroom for experimental operation with RWM control. A study of the ideal-MHD stability is done for plasmas modeled after DIII-D advanced tokamak plasmas, varying the plasma elongation, triangularity, and outboard squareness. The highest beta(sub)N limits reach 6-7 for the n=1 kink mode for all elongation, outer squareness values, and plasma triangularity equals 0.8.

Noninductive current drive can be accomplished through ponderomotive forces with high efficiency when the potential changes sign over the interaction region. The effect can practiced upon both ions and electrons. The current drive efficiencies, in principle, might be higher than those possible with conventional radio-frequency current-drive techniques, since different considerations come into play.

Historically, the U.S. electric power industry was vertically integrated, and utilities were responsible for system planning, operations, and reliability management. As the nation moves to a competitive market structure, these functions have been disaggregated, and no single entity is responsible for reliability management. As a result, new tools, technologies, systems, and management processes are needed to manage the reliability of the electricity grid. However, a number of simultaneous trends prevent electricity market participants from pursuing development of these reliability tools: utilities are preoccupied with restructuring their businesses, research funding has declined, and the formation of Independent System Operators (ISOs) and Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) to operate the grid means that control of transmission assets is separate from ownership of these assets; at the same time, business uncertainty, and changing regulatory policies have created a climate in which needed investment for transmission infrastructure and tools for reliability management has dried up. To address the resulting emerging gaps in reliability R&D, CERTS has undertaken much-needed public interest research on reliability technologies for the electricity grid. CERTS' vision is to: (1) Transform the electricity grid into an intelligent network that can sense and respond automatically to changing flows of power and emerging problems; …