A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Preventive medicine, including immunizations for many diseases and screening for some types of cancer, holds the promise to extend and improve the quality of life for millions of Americans. Medicare now covers three preventive services for immunizations and three for screenings, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sponsors "interventions" to increase the use of preventive services. GAO found that the use of preventive services varies widely by service, state, ethnic group, income, and education. The greatest differences among ethnic groups were for immunization rates. Cancer screening rates tended to differ according to income and education level. CMS pays for interventions that promote breast cancer screenings and pneumonia and flu shots. Most of the techniques being used, such as reminder systems that medical offices can use to alert doctors and patients to needed cancer screenings, have been effective. CMS is evaluating what its current efforts have accomplished and expects the results later this year."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant makes $16.5 billion available to states each year, regardless of changes in the number of people receiving benefits. To qualify for their full TANF allotments, states must spend a certain amount of state money, referred to as maintenance-of-effort funds. As states implemented work-focused reforms during the strong economy of the 1990s, welfare caseloads dropped by more than 50 percent. GAO found that most former welfare recipients were employed at some point after leaving welfare, typically with earnings that did not raise them above the poverty level. Under welfare reform, spending shifted from monthly cash payments to services, such as child care and transportation. This shift reflects two key features of reform. First, many states have increased spending to engage more welfare families in work-related activities and to provide more intensive services. Second, many states have increased their efforts to provide services to low-income families not receiving welfare. Services for these families include child care, case management, and job retention and advancement services for families who have recently left welfare for employment as well as other low-income working families. Although …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Education has a history of financial management problems, including serious internal control weaknesses, that have affected the Department's ability to provide reliable financial information on its operations. GAO found that significant internal control weaknesses in payment processes and poor physical control over its computer assets led to fraud, improper payments, and lost assets. GAO also identified instances of grant and loan fraud and pervasive control breakdowns and improper payments in other areas, particularly involving purchasing cards."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO discussed the condition of culverts on fish-bearing streams in Oregon and Washington and the federal efforts to identify and restore culverts that are impeding fish passage on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service lands. This testimony is based on a November 2001 report (GAO-02-136), which described (1) the number of culverts that may impede fish passage on BLM and Forest Service lands in Oregon and Washington, (2) the factors affecting the agencies' ability to restore passage through culverts acting as barrier culverts, and (3) the results of the agencies' efforts to restore fish passage."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) authorization act for fiscal year 2000 limits expenditures for space station development to $25 billion and for shuttle launches to $17.7 billion. The act also requires NASA to (1) account for and report amounts obligated to date against the cost limits, (2) identify the amounts needed for future development and completion of the space station, and (3) arrange for GAO to verify the accounting within 60 days after submission of the budget request. Last year, GAO reported that NASA, as part of its fiscal year 2002 budget request, did not comply with the act's requirement to use obligations as its basis for reporting against the cost limits but instead used budget authority. The agency was also unable to provide detailed support for the amounts obligated against the limits for evaluation within the 60 days, but said that it could have provided the information if given more time. After a protracted effort, NASA has acknowledged that its systems cannot provide the data needed to support amounts obligated against the limits. NASA's inability to provide detailed data is due to its lack of …

Semiweekly newspaper from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas that includes local, national, and campus news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Mannford, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

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

Weekly student newspaper from the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas that includes campus news and commentaries along with advertising.

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are developing means to collect and identify fluid-based biological pathogens in the forms of proteins, viruses, and bacteria. To support detection instruments, we are developing a flexible fluidic sample preparation unit. The overall goal of this Microfluidic Module is to input a fluid sample, containing background particulates and potentially target compounds, and deliver a processed sample for detection. We are developing techniques for sample purification, mixing, and filtration that would be useful to many applications including immunologic and nucleic acid assays. Sample preparation functions are accomplished with acoustic radiation pressure, dielectrophoresis, and solid phase extraction. We are integrating these technologies into packaged systems with pumps and valves to control fluid flow and investigating small-scale detection methods.

Reconciliation report with an ending account balance of $941.54 reconciled for the period ending on March 29, 2002.

Semi-weekly newspaper from Seminole, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with extensive advertising.

Semi-weekly newspaper from Clifton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The solution of hydrogen and hydride formation in FCC substitutional solid solution Pd0.9Rh0.1-xAlx alloys have been examined. In contrast to some other Pd ternary alloys, a linear relation does not obtain between the H capacity and x for the Pd0.9Rh0.1-xAlx alloys investigated here where the H capacity of the alloys is estimated from the H content of the steeply rising part of the isotherms in the hydride phase regions. A linear increase of the dilute phase H solubility with x for these Pd0.9Rh0.1-xAlx alloys does, however, obtain for these alloys. Although Pd-Rh binary alloys have broader plateaux than does Pd itself, small amounts of Al substituted into Pd0.85Rh0.15 or Pd0.80Rh0.20 alloys can reduce or eliminate the two phase regions, the plateaux; there is, however, not much effect on the dilute phase solubilities. For example, small amounts of Al substituted into the Pd0.85Rh0.15 or Pd0.80Rh0.20 alloys eliminate the plateaux. On the other hand, alloying Pd with Al to form binary alloys with Xal equals 0.015 or 0.030 does not eliminate the plateaux which are present in these binary alloys up to Xal equals 0.075 (298 K). Small amounts of Al substitution do not have such a dramatic effect on the plateau …

The objective of this project is to design, construct and field demonstrate a 3-MMscfd membrane system to recover natural gas liquids (NGL) and remove water from raw natural gas. The gas processed by the membrane system will meet pipeline specifications for dew point and Btu value, and the process is likely to be significantly less expensive than glycol dehydration followed by propane refrigeration, the principal competitive technology. The BP-Amoco gas processing plant in Pascagoula, MS was finalized as the location for the field demonstration. Detailed drawings of the MTR membrane skid (already constructed) were submitted to the plant in February, 2000. However, problems in reaching an agreement on the specifications of the system compressor delayed the project significantly, so MTR requested (and was subsequently granted) a no-cost extension to the project. Following resolution of the compressor issues, the goal is to order the compressor during the first quarter of 2002, and to start field tests in mid-2002. Information from potential users of the membrane separation process in the natural gas processing industry suggests that applications such as fuel gas conditioning and wellhead gas processing are the most promising initial targets. Therefore, most of our commercialization effort is focused on promoting …

Three LNA and mixer combinations in 0.6{micro}m and 0.4{micro}m standard CMOS processes for direct-conversion receiver of 2.4GHz ISM band short-range wireless data-link applications are described in this paper. Taking low power dissipation as first consideration, these designs, employing differential common-source LNA and double balanced mixer architectures, achieve total conversion gain as high as 42.4dB, DSB noise figure as low as 9.5dB, output-referred IP3 as high as of 21.3dBm at about 4mA DC current consumption. This proves it is possible to apply standard CMOS process to implement receiver front-end with low power dissipation for this kind of application, but gain changeable LNA is needed to combat the dominant flicker noise of the mixer in order to achieve acceptable sensitivity and dynamic range at the same time.

The major emphasis of Public Key Infrastructure has been to provide a cryptographically secure means of authenticating identities. While there are a number of proposed standards for authorization structures and protocols based on X.509 or other key-based identities, none have been widely adopted. As part of an effort to use X.509 identities to provide authorization in highly distributed environments, we have developed and deployed an authorization service based on X.509 identified users and access policy contained in certificates signed by X.509 identified stakeholders. The major goal of this system, called Akenti, is to produce a usable authorization system for an environment consisting of distributed resources used by geographically and administratively distributed users.

In support of a slurry wear evaluation in the pretreatment filtration and evaporation systems of RPP-WTP, Engineering Modeling and Simulation Group (EMSG) has developed the computational models to help guide component design and scaling decisions and to assist in the full-scale analyses. This report deals with the filtration system. In this project, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods were applied to ensure that the test facility design would capture the erosion phenomena expected in the full-scale cross-flow ultrafiltration facility. The literature survey was initially performed to identify the principal mechanisms of erosion for a solids laden fluid.

This paper addresses the modeling problem of the linear accelerator RF system in SNS. Klystrons are modeled as linear parameter varying systems. The effect of the high voltage power supply ripple on the klystron output voltage and the output phase is modeled as an additive disturbance. The cavity is modeled as a linear system and the beam current is modeled as the exogenous disturbance. The output uncertainty of the low level RF system which results from the uncertainties in the RF components and cabling is modeled as multiplicative uncertainty. Also, the feedback loop uncertainty and digital signal processing signal conditioning subsystem uncertainties are lumped together and are modeled as multiplicative uncertainty. Finally, the time delays in the loop are modeled as a lumped time delay. For the perturbed open loop system, the closed loop system performance, and stability are analyzed with the PI feedback controller.

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

B-roll video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.

Metal matrix composites (MMCs) are promising engineering materials for a wide spectrum of applications. There are many possible matrix-reinforcement combinations including MMCs containing copper or copper alloy matrices [1-3]. The present study is concerned with copper reinforced with SiC particles. The materials studied here were processed from nano-scale matrix powders and consolidated using dynamic compaction.