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Statistics indicating Internet usage are imprecise. It is difficult to measure the scale of the Internet (or the World Wide Web), calculate the number and types of users (age, sex, race, gender, location, etc.), or forecast future growth. This report discusses the inherent complexities of estimating Internet and electronic commerce growth and describes various types of Internet statistics, discussing how to evaluate them and providing Web addresses for locating them. In addressing these topics, it is important to understand how the statistics are compiled, how they are used, and what their limitations are.

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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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a county is authorized to pay one half of the health premiums of county retirees and their dependents for an indefinite period of time and related questions (RQ-0244-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a person who is employed outside the service area of a local workforce development board may represent the private sector on the board, and related questions (RQ-0240-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the qualification and granting of a youth-development-association-use tax exemption under section 11.19 of the Tax Code constitute a "change of use" for purposes of section 23.55 of the Tax Code such that agricultural "rollback" tax is triggered (RQ-0245-JC)

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The determination of royalty payments for natural gas produced from outer-continental shelf (OCS) leases falls to the Minerals and Management Service (MMS). Gas royalty payments are determined by multiplying the gross sales value by a royalty rate. Disagreement over the interpretation of key values in the formula has led to several lawsuits between MMS and the gas industry. With the deregulation of the gas market, determining the sale of gas produced and sold from OCS leases has become more difficult. To help resolve these pricing issues, MMS is pilot-testing a royalty-in-kind program. Royalty-in-kind payments mean that royalty payments are paid in the form of physical gas. MMS and the industry believe that this is an appropriate solution to some pricing issues, but that it is not suitable to all transactions."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Bureau of the Census' participation in a Los Angeles symposium on the challenges facing the African American community has been criticized. Concerns have been raised about whether the event was being held for political purposes and whether federal funding was inappropriately used. GAO concludes that the Bureau's participation complied with federal regulations prohibiting agencies from using appropriated funds for publicity and propaganda. According to the Bureau, its presence at the symposium was strictly for informational purposes and did not promote the agency. GAO found no evidence that the event had any political connections; the Democratic National Convention, which was held two days later, was not connected to the symposium. The Bureau's decision to partner with the organizers of the event was consistent with its policy to work with any organization that can reach traditionally hard-to-count populations, such as African Americans. The Bureau viewed the symposium as an opportunity to further the goals of its outreach program. The cost to participate in the symposium was nominal, according to Bureau officials. Posters costing about $117, promotional items from its Los Angeles office's inventory, and compensatory time for two employees …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Army's current accounting practices and manual procedures for calculating operating materials and supplies (OM&S) balances caused accounting errors that understated the Army's fiscal year 1999 OM&S balance by at least $1.5 billion. In addition, ammunition held at retail-level installations for training purposes was excluded from the financial reports."

Ion heating and acceleration has been studied in the well-characterized reconnection layer of the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment [M. Yamada et al., Phys. Plasmas 4, 1936 (1997)]. Ion temperature in the layer rises substantially during null-helicity reconnection in which reconnecting field lines are anti-parallel. The plasma out flow is sub-Alfvonic due to a downstream back pressure. An ion energy balance calculation based on the data and including classical viscous heating indicates that the ions are heated largely due to non-classical mechanisms. The Ti rise is much smaller during co-helicity reconnection in which field lines reconnect obliquely. This is consistent with a slower reconnection rate and a smaller resistivity enhancement over the Spitzer value. These observations indicate strongly that non-classical dissipation mechanisms can play an important role both in heating the ions and in facilitating the reconnection process.

ICFA plays an important role as a forum for discussions transcending national or regional boundaries on the future of high-energy accelerators and their associated particle physics, detectors and technology. It is probably true that, to paraphrase an old expression, if ICFA didn't exist, something very similar would have to be invented. As appeared to be true in the 1970s, projects in our field are becoming so large and costly that no single country or group of countries can carry them out alone; more and more international discussion and cooperation is needed. This will be especially relevant if the next major accelerator is a linear e + e - collider in the hundreds of GeV energy range.

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The following are proposed activities for quarter 1 (6/15/00-9/14/00): (1) Finalize the allocation of funds within TAMU to co-principal investigators and the final task lists; (2) Acquire 3 D computer code for coal combustion and modify for cofiring Coal:Feedlot biomass and Coal:Litter biomass fuels; (3) Develop a simple one dimensional model for fixed bed gasifier cofired with coal:biomass fuels; and (4) Prepare the boiler burner for reburn tests with feedlot biomass fuels. The following were achieved During Quarter 5 (6/15/00-9/14/00): (1) Funds are being allocated to co-principal investigators; task list from Prof. Mukhtar has been received (Appendix A); (2) Order has been placed to acquire Pulverized Coal gasification and Combustion 3 D (PCGC-3) computer code for coal combustion and modify for cofiring Coal: Feedlot biomass and Coal: Litter biomass fuels. Reason for selecting this code is the availability of source code for modification to include biomass fuels; (3) A simplified one-dimensional model has been developed; however convergence had not yet been achieved; and (4) The length of the boiler burner has been increased to increase the residence time. A premixed propane burner has been installed to simulate coal combustion gases. First coal, as a reburn fuel will be used to …

The main objective of this project is for a university-industry consortium to develop a comprehensive model for fracture carbonate reservoirs based on the ''data cube'' concept using the Michigan Basin as a prototype. This project combined traditional historical data with 2D and 3D seismic data as well as data from modern logging tools in a novel way to produce a new methodology for characterizing fractured reservoirs in carbonate rocks. Advanced visualization software was used to fuse the data and to image it on a variety of scales, ranging from basin-scale to well-scales.

Magic Lantern and Honeywell FM and T worked together to develop lower-cost, visible light solid-state laser sources to use in laser projector products. Work included a new family of video displays that use lasers as light sources. The displays would project electronic images up to 15 meters across and provide better resolution and clarity than movie film, up to five times the resolution of the best available computer monitors, up to 20 times the resolution of television, and up to six times the resolution of HDTV displays. The products that could be developed as a result of this CRADA could benefit the economy in many ways, such as: (1) Direct economic impact in the local manufacture and marketing of the units. (2) Direct economic impact in exports and foreign distribution. (3) Influencing the development of other elements of display technology that take advantage of the signals that these elements allow. (4) Increased productivity for engineers, FAA controllers, medical practitioners, and military operatives.

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FIRE is a compact, high field tokamak being studied as an option for the next step in the US magnetic fusion energy program. FIRE's programmatic mission is to attain, explore, understand, and optimize alpha-dominated plasmas to provide the knowledge necessary for the design of attractive magnetic fusion energy systems. This study began in 1999 with broad participation of the US fusion community, including several industrial participants. The design under development has a major radius of 2 m, a minor radius of 0.525 m, a field on axis of 10T and capability to operate at 12T with upgrades to power supplies. Toroidal and poloidal field magnets are inertially cooled with liquid nitrogen. An important goal for FIRE is a total project cost in the $1B range. This paper presents an overview of the engineering details which were developed during the FIRE preconceptual design study in FY99 and 00.

In July of 1997, the 2H-Evaporator was shutdown due to the inability to lift material from the vessel. Inspections of the gravity drain line (GDL) showed a scale deposit coating the inside of the line. A Sample of the material was obtained and analyses performed. Plans are to chemically clean the evaporator pot by dissolving the solids in a 1.5M nitric acid solution containing depleted uranium.

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The solution-mediated synthesis and single crystal structure of (CN{sub 3}H{sub 6}){sub 2} {center_dot} Zn(HPO{sub 3}){sub 2} are reported. This phase is built up from a three-dimensional framework of vertex-linked ZnO{sub 4} and HPO{sub 3} building units encapsulating the extra-framework guanidinium cations. The structure is stabilized by template-to-framework hydrogen bonding. The inorganic framework shows a surprising similarity to those of some known zinc phosphates. Crystal data: (CN{sub 3}H{sub 6}){sub 2} {center_dot} Zn(HPO{sub 3}){sub 2}, AI,= 345.50, orthorhombic, space group Fdd2 (No. 43), a = 15.2109 (6) {angstrom}, b = 11.7281 (5) {angstrom}, c = 14.1821 (6) {angstrom}, V = 2530.0 (4){angstrom}{sup 3}, Z = 8, T = 298 (2)K, R(F) = 0.020, wR(F) = 0.025.