Test Report documenting the successful completion of the Operational Test Procedure for the AZ-101 Gamma Carts. Gamma carts are in support of the AZ-101 Mixer Pump Test.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed a partnership between the federal government and three domestic automobile manufacturers called the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV), focusing on: (1) the progress made to date toward achieving the partnership goals; (2) the historical federal funding levels; (3) the technologies being developed under PNGV; and (4) a comparison of the overall research and development activities of the automobile manufacturer participants with research sponsored by the partnership."

This report examines the evolving copyright doctrine of fair use within the context of copyrighted works published or placed on the Internet. American courts have been examining the various property rights of copyright owners concurrently with the unauthorized use of these copyrighted materials by Web site operators, Internet consumers, access providers, and other interested parties. This report analyzes the early fair use copyright cases concerning Internet use, as well as the most recent judicial interpretations.

A research program to investigate the performance and potential for failure of Service Level 1 coating systems used in nuclear power plant containment is in progress. The research activities are aligned to address phenomena important to cause failure as identified by the industry coatings expert panel. The period of interest for performance covers the time from application of the coating through 40 years of service, followed by a medium-to-large break loss-of-coolant accident scenario, which is a design basis accident (DBA) scenario. The interactive program elements are discussed in this report and the application of these elements to the System 5 coating system (polyamide epoxy primer, carbon steel substrate) is used to evaluate performance.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Education's redesigned discretionary grants process, focusing on: (1) Education's progress in implementing the redesigned awards process; (2) the management controls used to help ensure a fair peer review process and the costs of peer review; and (3) the extent to which grant awards are consistent with the results of peer review and the legislation governing individual grant programs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the General Services Administration's (GSA) Repairs and Alterations Program, focusing on: (1) the extent of repairs and alterations that have been identified at government-owned buildings managed by GSA; (2) factors that impede GSA's ability to satisfy its repair and alteration needs; and (3) GSA's efforts to improve its management of repairs and alterations."

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Radiological characterization and monitoring is an important component of environmental management activities throughout the Department of Energy complex. Gamma-ray spectroscopy is the technology most often used for the detection of radionuclides. However, radionuclides which cannot easily be detected by gamma-ray spectroscopy, such as pure beta emitters and transuranics, pose special problems because their quantification generally requires labor intensive radiochemical separations procedures that are time consuming and impractical for field applications. This project focused on a technology for measuring transuranics and pure beta emitters relatively quickly and has the potential of being field deployable. The technology combines ion exchange liquid chromatography and on-line alpha/beta pulse shape discriminating scintillation counting to produce simultaneous alpha and beta chromatograms. The basic instrumentation upon which the project was based was purchased in the early 1990's. In its original commercial form, the instrumentation was capable of separating select activation/fission products in ionic forms from relatively pure aqueous samples. We subsequently developed the capability of separating and detecting actinides (thorium, uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium, and curium) in less than 30 minutes (Reboul, 1993) and realized that the potential time savings over traditional radiochemical methods for isolating some of these radionuclides was significant. However, at that time, the …

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) Military Housing Privatization Initiative, focusing on the: (1) status of the housing privatization initiative; (2) accuracy of the services' life-cycle cost analyses comparing the cost of proposed privatization projects to comparable projects financed through military construction funds; and (3) progress DOD is making in coordinating and integrating the initiative with other family housing programs."

This document lists safety class (SC) and safety significant (SS) components for the Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning (HVAC) and specifies the critical characteristics for Commercial Grade Items (CGI), as required by HNF-PRO-268 and HNF-PRO-18 19. These are the minimum specifications that the equipment must meet in order to properly perform its safety function. There may be several manufacturers or models that meet the critical characteristics for any one item. The Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) HVAC System includes sub-systems 25A through 25K. Specific system boundaries and justifications are contained in HNF-SD-CP-SDD-005, ''Definition and Means of Maintaining the Ventilation System Confinement Portion of the PFP Safety Envelope.'' The procurement requirements associated with the system necessitates procurement of some system equipment as Commercial Grade Items in accordance with HNF-PRO-268, ''Control of Purchased Items and Services.''

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) power marketing administrations (PMA), focusing on: (1) how the PMAs set their rates to recover costs; (2) how the PMAs' ratesetting practices compare to those of investor-owned and publicly owned utilities; and (3) the impact of the PMAs' ability to defer repayment of portions of their debt on their future competitiveness."

The goal of the project was to develop a wireless communications system, including communications, command, and control software, to remotely monitor the environmental state of a process or facility. Proof of performance would be tested and evaluated with a prototype demonstration in a functioning facility. AR Designs' participation provided access to software resources and products that enable network communications for real-time embedded systems to access remote workstation services such as Graphical User Interface (GUI), file I/O, Events, Video, Audio, etc. in a standardized manner. This industrial partner further provided knowledge and links with applications and current industry practices. FM and T's responsibility was primarily in hardware development in areas such as advanced sensors, wireless radios, communication interfaces, and monitoring and analysis of sensor data. This role included a capability to design, fabricate, and test prototypes and to provide a demonstration environment to test a proposed remote sensing system. A summary of technical accomplishments is given.

This study examined the adsorption (Kd) of tetraphenylborate decomposition products - triphenylborane (3PB), diphenylborinic acid (2PB), and phenylboronic acid (1PB) from a simulated waste solution. The focus areas included three adsorbents: activated carbon, silica bonded with octyldecylsilane (C18), and silica bonded with a quaternary ammonium salt (Quat). The study examined the adsorbents at two concentrations, 100 and 200 g/L in salt simulant.

The purpose of the tests is to seismically qualify the Safety Class Process Hood Components in the Cold Vacuum Drying Facility (CVDF).

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the representation of women and minorities in the U.S. Postal Service's Career Executive Service (PCES), focusing on: (1) the overall extent that women and minorities have been represented in the PCES, fiscal years (FY) 1995 through 1999, and have been selected for positions in the PCES, particularly executive positions, in FY 1999; and (2) efforts under way by the Service to promote diversity within the PCES."

This report examines economic issues relating to across-the-board tax cuts, focusing primarily on distributional issues. The report is divided into four sections. The first section provides a general overview of the tax system. The next discusses recent proposals relating to across-the-board tax cuts. The third section discusses methods of evaluating alternative types of across-the-board tax cuts. The final section briefly discusses issues of efficiency, simplicity, and stabilization policy.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Effective coordination of the many agencies that participate in a criminal justice system is key to overall success. Although any criminal justice system faces coordination challenges, the unique structure and funding of the District of Columbia (D.C.) criminal justice system, in which federal and D.C. jurisdictional boundaries and dollars are blended, creates additional challenges. Almost every stage of D.C.'s criminal justice process presents such challenges, and participating agencies are sometimes reluctant to coordinate because the costs to implement needed changes may fall on one or more federally funded agencies, while any savings accrue to one or more D.C. funded agencies, or vice versa. The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) was established and staffed as an independent entity to improve systemwide coordination and cooperation. During its two and a half-year existence, CJCC has served as a useful, independent, discussion forum at a modest cost. It has had notable success in several areas in which agencies perceived a common interest, such as developing technology that permits greater information sharing. It has been less successful in other areas, such as papering, in which forging consensus on the need for …

In Situ Gaseous Reduction (ISGR) is a technology developed by DOE for the remediation of soil waste sites contaminated with hexavalent chromium. This document presents information associated with characterization activities conducted at the 183-DR site at Hanford, which is associated with a significant groundwater contaminant plume and was formerly a water treatment facility that utilized chromate as a corrosion inhibitor. Geotechnical and chemical data were collected during the excavation of trenches and the drilling of two vadose zone boreholes to support a possible ISGR demonstration at 183-DR. Although elevated total chromium and trace levels of hexavalent chromium were identified from one of the trenches and one of the boreholes, it appears that the boreholes missed the vadose zone contaminant source responsible for the chromium groundwater plume located downgradient of the 183-DR site. Recommendations are provided, however, for future work at 183-DR that may serve to identify the source for the groundwater plume and possibly provide an opportunity for an ISGR demonstration.

In Situ Gaseous Reduction (ISGR) is a technology developed by DOE for the remediation of soil waste sites contaminated with hexavalent chromium. This document presents information associated with characterization activities conducted at the 183-DR site at Hanford, which is associated with a significant groundwater contaminant plume and was formerly a water treatment facility that utilized chromate as a corrosion inhibitor. Geotechnical and chemical data were collected during the excavation of trenches and the drilling of two vadose zone boreholes to support a possible ISGR demonstration at 183-DR. Although elevated total chromium and trace levels of hexavalent chromium were identified from one of the trenches and one of the boreholes, it appears that the boreholes missed the vadose zone contaminant source responsible for the chromium groundwater plume located downgradient of the 183-DR site. Recommendations are provided, however, for future work at 183-DR that may serve to identify the source for the groundwater plume and possibly provide an opportunity for an ISGR demonstration.

The child tax credit was enacted as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. The current credit is $500 per qualifying child. President Bush has proposed increasing the child tax credit to $1,000 per qualifying child. The President has also proposed making permanent the temporary rule in current law that allows the child tax credit to offset a taxpayer’s alternative minimum tax.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report updates the status of corrective measures taken by federal agencies to address internal control weaknesses that could affect the United States' ability to effectively respond to chemical or biological terrorist attacks. GAO, which cited these weaknesses in 1999, found that the agencies have significantly improved accountability over the medical supplies needed to treat victims of chemical or biological terrorism. However, ensuring that supplies are current, accounted for, and readily available depends in large part on successful collaboration with other entities. Until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Office for Emergency Preparedness (OEP) formalize ad hoc arrangements with other entities covering the storage, management, stock rotation, and transporting of supplies, they run the risk that, in the event of a chemical or biological attack, the appropriate supplies will be unavailable. Also, unless the agencies' inventory requirements lists are up-to-date and reflect their own identified needs, the agencies cannot guarantee that they have the supplies on hand to fulfill their mission."

Senate action on its committee funding for the 107th Congress was modified as a result of the power-sharing agreement established by S. Res. 8 of January 5, 2001.1 This agreement assures Republicans and Democrats of equal staffing resources on all committees, and supplants Senate rules that require minority party control of at least one-third of each committee’s staff positions. Despite some delays in its normal timetable, the Senate, on March 8, 2001, agreed to a biennial funding resolution by unanimous consent.