Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This correspondence responds to follow-up questions to GAO's July 27, 2000, testimony before Congress on patient safety and quality of care at the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA). The Patient Safety Centers of Inquiry and VA's Office of Research and Development are not directly linked organizationally. The four centers of Inquiry do not report to and are not funded by the Office of Research and Development. The Directors of the four centers report to either the Veterans Integrated Service Networks or Medical Center manager where they are located. The work at the Centers of Inquiry address some but not all of the known principal adverse and sentinel events at VA medical facilities. The key challenges to improving patient safety include setting goals, planning, and communicating the priority of patient safety to its employees. VA's patient safety program has not been fully implemented, because it is too early to predict whether, in the final analysis, it will be a model for other health care organizations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A strong competitive workforce is necessary for success in today's era of technological advances and increased global competition. Congress wants to ensure that employment and training programs foster a coherent and efficient approach to helping individuals find jobs in an environment characterized by changing labor demands. GAO identified 40 federally funded employment and training programs for which a key program goal is providing assistance to persons trying to find employment or improve their job skills. The most frequently cited target populations were Native Americans, youths, and veterans. Several programs target the same populations and provide similar services. This overlap could result in inefficiencies and redundancies. To assess whether such overlap is creating duplication among programs, agencies need to collect and analyze information on the eligibility requirements for the target populations. Federal regulations, such as the Government Performance and Results Act, provide agencies with the opportunity to coordinate their activities with other agencies. It also provides agencies with a framework to measure and evaluate the progress of their efforts."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Concerns about the effects of the globalization of national economies and the rapid pace of economic change have focused attention on federal programs designed to assist U.S. workers displaced by foreign trade and increased imports. GAO reviewed two programs run by the Department of Labor. The Trade Adjustment Assistance Program (TAA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement Transitional Adjustment Assistance Program (NAFTA-TAA) have spent more than $1.3 billion in the past five years to help workers make the transition to new jobs, but it is unclear how effective these programs are in achieving their goals. Limited data indicate that 75 percent of workers who left the programs found jobs, but that many earned far less than their prior salaries. Training participation rates for both programs are low due to such factors as low unemployment rates and a healthy economy. GAO identified several factors that affected the delivery of services, including: (1) non-standardized eligibility criteria, (2) open-ended training enrollment, and (3) overall program administration. Further review of available data indicates that weak internal controls may result in the payment of benefits to ineligible beneficiaries."

This monitoring plan includes well and constituent lists, and summarizes sampling, analytical, and quality control requirements. Changes from the previous monitoring plan include elimination of two radionuclides from the analyte list and some minor changes in the statistical analysis.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

We estimate possible ranges of tritium inventories for an inertial fusion energy (IFE) target fabrication facility producing various types of targets and using various production technologies. Target fill is the key subtask in determining the overall tritium inventory for the plant. By segmenting the inventory into multiple, parallel production lines--each with its own fill canister--and including an expansion tank to limit releases, we are able to ensure that a target fabrication facility would meet the accident dose goals of 10 mSv (1 rem) set forth in the Department of Energy's Fusion Safety Standards. For indirect-drive targets, we calculate release fractions for elements from lithium to bismuth and show that nearly all elements meet the dose goal. Our work suggests directions for future R&D that will help reduce total tritium inventories and increase the flexibility of target fabrication facilities.

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The objective of this calculation is to evaluate the criticality risk in the surface facility for design basis events (DBE) involving Department of Energy (DOE) Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) standardized canisters (Civilian Radioactive Waste Management System [CRWMS] Management and Operating Contractor [M&O] 2000a). Since some of the canisters will be stored in the surface facility before they are loaded in the waste package (WP), this calculation supports the demonstration of concept viability related to the Surface Facility environment. The scope of this calculation is limited to the consideration of three DOE SNF fuels, specifically Enrico Fermi SNF, Training Research Isotope General Atomic (TRIGA) SNF, and Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) SNF.

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Particularly since the Tiananmen Square incident of June 4, 1989, the U.S. Congress has considered two diametrically opposed types of action regarding China's nondiscriminatory, or most-favored-nation (MFN; normal-trade-relations) tariff status in trade with the United States. One has been its total withdrawal, the other--of more recent origin--its extension on a permanent basis.

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This fact sheet describes the wind energy deployment efforts and green power programs in the state of New Jersey.

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The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a Department of Energy (DOE) facility located in Aiken, South Carolina that is operated by the Westinghouse Savannah River Company (WSRC). At SRS Draeger tubes are used to identify the amount and type of a particular chemical constituent in the atmosphere. Draeger tubes rely on a chemical reaction to identify the nature and type of a particular chemical constituent in the atmosphere. Disposal practices for these tubes were identified by performing a hazardous waste evaluation per the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Additional investigations were conducted to provide guidance for their safe handling, storage and disposal. A list of Draeger tubes commonly used at SRS was first evaluated to determine if they contained any material that could render them as a RCRA hazardous waste. Disposal techniques for Draeger tubes that contained any of the toxic contaminants listed in South Carolina Hazardous Waste Management Regulations (SCHWMR) R.61-79. 261.24 (b) and/or contained an acid in the liquid form were addressed.

Traditionally, the figures of merit used in designing a PET scanner are spatial resolution, noise equivalent count rate, noise equivalent sensitivity, etc. These measures, however, do not directly reflect the lesion detectability using the PET scanner. Here we propose to optimize PET scanner design directly for lesion detection. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of lesion detection can be easily computed using the theoretical expressions that we have previously derived. Because no time consuming Monte Carlo simulation is needed, the theoretical expressions allow evaluation of a large range of parameters. The PET system parameters can then be chosen to achieve the maximum SNR for lesion detection. The simulation study shown in this paper was focused a single ring PET scanner without depth of interaction measurement. Randoms and scatters were also ignored.

In this study, we investigated the friction and wear performance of diamondlike carbon films (DLC) derived from increasingly hydrogenated methane plasmas. The films were deposited on steel substrates by a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition process at room temperature and the tribological tests were performed in dry nitrogen. Tests results revealed a close correlation between the hydrogen in source gas plasma and the friction and wear coefficients of the DLC films. Specifically, films grown in plasmas with higher hydrogen-to-carbon ratios had much lower friction coefficients and wear rates than did films derived from source gases with lower hydrogen-to-carbon ratios. The lowest friction coefficient (0.003) was achieved with a film derived from 25% methane--75% hydrogen, while a coefficient of 0.015 was found for films derived from pure methane. Similar correlations were observed for wear rates. Films derived from hydrogen-rich plasmas had the least wear, while films derived from pure methane suffered the highest wear. We used a combination of surface analytical methods to characterize the structure and chemistry of the DLC films and worn surfaces.

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Subcommittees on Energy and Water Development Appropriations.