Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "On April 8, 2003, GAO testified before the House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on Government Efficiency and Financial Management at a hearing on our report on the U.S. government's consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2002. This letter responds to questions related to our testimony from the Subcommittee's Chairman and the Ranking Minority Member and to subsequent questions from the Vice Chairman that the Chairman asked us to answer for the record."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Congress passed Public Law 106-429 because it was concerned about the sufficiency of external audits of the financial operations of the World Bank Group, a set of multilateral development banks. This law provides that GAO report on the sufficiency of such audits of each Bank Group entity. GAO addressed (1) the extent that the external auditor was providing assurance on internal control over financial reporting, operations, and compliance with key provisions of bank charters and policies in conjunction with financial statement audits and (2) the role the Bank Group's audit committee plays in providing oversight of external financial statement audits and internal control."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 required that GAO review the Department of Defense's (DOD) use of the authority to install telephone lines and any necessary telecommunications equipment in the homes of persons who provide voluntary services for the military. These volunteers, in addition to their other social service activities, provide a link between military units and the families of servicemembers deployed away from home. The legislation required us to submit the results of our review within 2 years after the department issued implementing regulations. The department issued its regulation in March 2002. This report discusses (1) the extent of the military services' use of the authority and (2) the internal controls that have been established to ensure equipment is used only for authorized purposes."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Balancing our nation's security and commercial needs is a longstanding issue that is especially important in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that changed the nation's security environment. Addressing this challenge now falls principally to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Border and Transportation Security directorate. Within this directorate, responsibility has been assigned primarily to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (BCBP). BCBP consists of the inspections component of the former U.S. Customs Service; the Border Patrol and Inspections component of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, and a former component of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Achieving the balance between security and commercial needs is greatly affected by BCBP's commercial and border and immigration control workload. Regarding commercial workload, in fiscal year 2002, the former U.S. Customs Services processed 24.9 million trade import entries valued at over $1.1 trillion and collected $23.8 billion in duties and fees; it also processed about 6 million cargo containers arriving at U.S. sea ports. While the cargo workload has stabilized somewhat as a result of the recent global …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) needs up-to-date information on voluntary compliance in order to assess and improve its programs. IRS's last detailed study of voluntary compliance was done in the late 1980s, so the compliance information IRS is using today is not current. IRS is now carrying out the National Research Program (NRP), through which IRS auditors are reviewing about 47,000 randomly selected tax year 2001 individual tax returns. In June 2002, GAO reported that NRP was necessary, that its design was sound, and that it appeared to meet IRS's goals of acquiring useful compliance data while minimizing burden on taxpayers with returns in the sample. GAO was asked to review IRS's implementation of NRP. GAO reviewed IRS's method of gathering internal and third-party data (casebuilding) and IRS's process of reviewing casebuilding materials to determine if audits are necessary (classification) and assessed IRS's plans to ensure consistent data collection while minimizing burden on taxpayers."

Bill introduced by the Texas House of Representatives relating to granting statutory authority to certain governmental entities to reduce certain expenditures and to the operation of certain funds.

Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to the continuation and functions of the Board of Law Examiners and to eligiblity for taking the examination for a license to practice law.

Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to prescription drug benefits under the group health benefit programs for certain governmental employees and retired employees.

Letter from Becky L. Levy to "Filers" on June 16, 2003 discussing a semiannual campaign finance report with the Texas Ethics Commission due on July 15, 2003. Includes information about electronic filing and exemptions from the electronic filing requirement with the Texas Ethics Commission.

A process for the deposition of yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) films, on porous substrates, has been developed. These films have possible applications as electrolyte membranes in fuel cells. The films were deposited from colloidal suspensions through the vacuum infiltration technique. Films were deposited on both fully sintered and partially sintered substrates. A critical cracking thickness for the films was identified and strategies are presented to overcome this barrier. Green film density was also examined, and a method for improving green density by changing suspension pH and surfactant was developed. A dependence of film density on film thickness was observed, and materials interactions are suggested as a possible cause. Non-shorted YSZ films were obtained on co-fired substrates, and a cathode supported solid oxide fuel cell was constructed and characterized.

LiFePO{sub 4}, Li{sub 0.98}Mg{sub 0.01}FePO{sub 4}, and Li{sub 0.96}Ti{sub 0.01}FePO{sub 4} were synthesized via a sol-gel method, using a variety of processing conditions. For comparison, LiFePO{sub 4} was also synthesized from iron acetate by a solid state method. The electrochemical performance of these materials in lithium cells was evaluated and correlated to mean primary particle size and residual carbon structure in the LiFePO{sub 4} samples, as determined by Raman microprobe spectroscopy. For materials with mean agglomerate sizes below 20 {micro}m, an association between structure and crystallinity of the residual carbon and improved utilization was observed. Addition of small amounts of organic compounds or polymers during processing results in carbon coatings with higher graphitization ratios and better electronic properties on the LiFePO{sub 4} samples and improves cell performance in some cases, even though total carbon contents remain very low (<2%). In contrast, no performance enhancement was seen for samples doped with Mg or Ti. These results suggest that it should be possible to design high power LiFePO{sub 4} electrodes without unduly compromising energy density by optimizing the carbon coating on the particles.

GaInAsSb/AlGaAsSb/InAsSb/GaSb epitaxial layers were bonded to semi-insulating GaAs handle wafers with SiO{sub x}/Ti/Au as the adhesion layer for monolithic interconnection of thermophotovoltaic (TPV) devices. Epitaxial transfer was completed by removal of the GaSb substrate, GaSb buffer, and InAsSb etch-stop layer by selective chemical etching. The SiO{sub x}/TiAu provides not only electrical isolation, but also high reflectivity and is used as an internal back-surface reflector. Characterization of wafer-bonded epitaxy by high-resolution x-ray diffraction and time-decay photoluminescence indicates minimal residual stress and enhancement in optical quality. 0.54-eV GaInAsSb cells were fabricated and monolithically interconnected in series. A 10-junction device exhibited linear voltage building with an open-circuit voltage of 1.8 V.

There is considerable interest in transport models that will permit the simulation of neutral particle transport through stochastic mixtures. Chord length sampling techniques that simulate particle transport through binary stochastic mixtures consisting of spheres randomly arranged in a matrix have been implemented in several Monte Carlo Codes [1-3]. Though the use of these methods is growing, the accuracy and efficiency of these methods has not yet been thoroughly demonstrated for an application of particular interest--a high temperature gas reactor fuel pebble element. This paper presents comparison results of k-infinity calculations performed on a LEUPRO-1 pebble cell. Results are generated using a chord length sampling method implemented in a test version of MCNP [3]. This Limited Chord Length Sampling (LCLS) method eliminates the need to model the details of the micro-heterogeneity of the pebble. Results are also computed for an explicit pebble model where the TRISO fuel particles within the pebble are randomly distributed. Finally, the heterogeneous matrix region of the pebble cell is homogenized based simply on volume fractions. These three results are compared to results reported by Johnson et al [4], and duplicated here, using a cubic lattice representation of the TRISO fuel particles. Figures of Merit for the …

Laser pulse compression/amplification through Raman backscattering in plasmas can be facilitated by using multi-frequency pump laser beams. The efficiency of amplification is increased by suppressing the Raman instability of thermal fluctuations and seed precursors. Also the focusability of the amplified radiation is enhanced due to the suppression of large-scale longitudinal speckles in the pump wave structure.

The objective of this calculation is twofold. First, to determine whether or not separation of interlocking drip shield (DS) segments occurs during vibratory ground motion. Second, if DS separation does not occur, to estimate the area of the DS for which the residual 1st principal stress exceeds a certain limit. (The area of DS plate-1 and DS plate-2 [see Attachment I] where the residual 1st principal stress exceeds a certain limit will be, for brevity, referred to as ''the damaged area'' throughout this document; also, DS plate-1 and DS plate-2 will be referred to, for brevity, as ''DS plates'' henceforth.) The stress limit used throughout this document is defined as 50 percent of yield strength of the DS plate material, Titanium Grade 7 (Ti-7) (SB-265 R52400), at temperature of 150 C. A set of 15 calculations is performed at two different annual frequencies of occurrence (annual exceedance frequency): 10{sup -6} per year (1/yr) and 10{sup -7} 1/yr . (Note: Due to computational problems only five realizations at 10{sup -7} 1/yr are presented in this document.) Additionally, one calculation is performed at the annual frequency of occurrence of 5 {center_dot} 10{sup -4} 1/yr. The scope of this document is limited to …

Develop and test advanced near vertical to wide-angle seismic methods for structural imaging and material properties estimation of the shallow subsurface for environmental characterization efforts.

Atomistic modeling methods were employed to investigate the effects of impurity elements on the metallurgy, irradiation embrittlement, and environmentally assisted cracking of nickel-base alloys exposed to nuclear environments. Calculations were performed via ab initio atomistic modeling methods to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the results. A Griffith-type fracture criterion was used to quantitatively assess the effect of elements or element pairs on the grain boundary cohesive strength. In order of most embrittling to most strengthening, the elements are ranked as: He, Li, S, H, C, Zr, P, Fe, Mn, Nb, Cr, and B. Helium is strongly embrittling (-2.04 eV/atom lowering of the Griffith energy), phosphorus has little effect on the grain boundary (0.1 eV/atom), and boron offers appreciable strengthening (1.03 eV/atom increase in the Griffith energy). Calculations for pairs of elements (H-Li, H-B, H-C, H-P, and H-S) show little interaction on the grain boundary cohesive energy, so that for the conditions studied, linear superposition of elemental effects is a good approximation. These calculations help explain metallurgical effects (e.g. why boron can strengthen grain boundaries), irradiation embrittlement (e.g. how boron transmutation results in grain boundary embrittlement), as well as how grain boundary impurity elements can affect environmentally assisted cracking (i.e. …

The remediation of DNAPLs in subsurface environments is often limited by the heterogeneous distribution of the organic fluid. The fraction of DNAPL that is in the high conductivity regions of the subsurface can often be recovered relatively easily, although DNAPL in lower conductivity regions is much more difficult to extract, either through direct pumping or remediation measures based on interface mass transfer. The distribution of DNAPL within the vadose zone is affected by a complex interplay of heterogeneities in the porous matrix and the interfacial properties defining the interactions among all fluid and solid phases. Decreasing the interfacial tension between a DNAPL and water in the vadose zone could change the spreading of the DNAPL, thereby increase the surface area for mass transfer and the effectiveness of soil vapor extraction remediation.

The objective of this project is to develop an improved ultra-lightweight cement using ultra-lightweight hollow glass spheres (ULHS). This report discusses testing that was performed for analyzing the alkali-silica reactivity of ULHS in cement slurries. Laboratory testing during the tenth quarter focused on evaluation of the alkali-silica reaction of eight different cement compositions, four of which contain ULHS. The original laboratory procedure for measuring set cement expansion resulted in test specimen erosion that was unacceptable. A different expansion procedure is being evaluated. This report provides a progress summary of ASR testing. The testing program initiated in November produced questionable initial results so the procedure was modified slightly and the testing was reinitiated. The results obtained with the modified procedure showed improvement over data obtained with the original procedure, but questionable data were obtained from several of the compositions. Additional modification of test procedures for compositions containing TXI Lightweight cement are being implemented and testing is ongoing.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "While the Treasury generally pays lower interest rates on U.S. Savings Bonds than it does on other forms of borrowing from the public, it also incurs substantially higher administrative costs to issue and redeem the paper savings bond certificates. To determine whether these higher administrative costs exceed its interest rate savings, Treasury's Bureau of the Public Debt uses a spreadsheet model to compare the costs of issuing Series EE and Series I savings bonds with those of issuing marketable Treasury securities. GAO was asked to review this model to judge its reliability in measuring the relative costs of Treasury's borrowing alternatives."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Building on reform initiatives instituted after the Mexican financial crisis, the IMF implemented new initiatives in the mid-1990s to better anticipate, prevent, and resolve sovereign financial crises. GAO was asked to assess (1) the IMF's framework for anticipating financial crises, (2) the status of key IMF reform initiatives to prevent financial crises, and (3) new IMF proposals to resolve future financial crises."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The United States has been providing assistance to Colombia since the early 1970s to help reduce illegal drug activities. In fiscal years 2000-03 alone, the United States provided over $2.5 billion. Despite this assistance, Colombia remains the world's leading producer and distributor of cocaine and a major source of the heroin used in the United States. The report discusses the status of U.S. counternarcotics assistance to the Colombian Army and for a U.S.-supported Colombian police aerial eradication program. It also addresses challenges Colombia and the United States face in sustaining these programs."

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

This report discusses how the Senate now interprets and implements these two constitutional provisions. What follows focuses on the most important rules and the most common practices; it does not attempt to cover all the precedents the Senate has established or all the procedures that may be invoked. This report also assumes a familiarity with some other aspects of the Senate's floor procedures.