Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on whether Ireland is a major transshipment point for international narcotics traffickers."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control (HCFAC) Program financial reports for fiscal years (FY) 1998 and 1999 as required by the the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the District of Columbia Courts' (DC Courts) fiscal year (FY) 2001 budget request and related issues, focusing on: (1) whether DC Courts' FY 2001 budget was reasonable; (2) what were DC Courts' obligations and payments for FY 1999 operations, including totals charged for the Criminal Justice Act, Counsel for Child Abuse and Neglect, and the Guardianship programs; and (3) what are the DC Courts' obligations and payments related to its court operations and defender services to date for FY 2000."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Office of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP) National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, focusing on: (1) whether ONDCP provided timely financial reports to Congress; (2) how funds for paid advertising were managed and disbursed; (3) whether ONDCP complied with certain statutory requirements regarding the obligation of funds; (4) what ONDCP has done to develop and implement guidelines for the Campaign in response to program requirements; (5) whether the evaluation designs for phases I, II, and III were appropriate and how well the phases I and II evaluations were implemented; and (6) how effective phases I and II of the Campaign were in influencing group awareness of different types of paid anti-drug media messages and drug attitudes."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed Department of Transportation (DOT) and private sector initiatives on hazardous materials training, focusing on: (1) the funding sources and expenditures for the Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness (HMEP) grants program; (2) whether the HMEP program and private sector efforts duplicate each other; and (3) whether the private sector's training initiatives meet federal training regulations and national training standards."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the increasing prices of Marine Corps spare parts, focusing on: (1) changes in the prices of reparable parts compared with the prices of similar items in the private sector and the reasons for the price changes; and (2) the accuracy of prices set by the Marine Corps."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software applications to improve human resource (HR) functions within federal agencies, focusing on: (1) how five federal agencies were using COTS systems/applications to improve their HR functions; and (2) for these five agencies, identify the agencies' reported estimated costs and expected benefits from using HR COTS systems."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) new rule on state allotments for payment of Medicare Part B premiums for qualifying individuals. GAO noted that: (1) the rule would announce that the federal fiscal year 2000 allotments that are available for state agencies to pay Medicare Part B premiums for two eligibility groups; and (2) HCFA complied with applicable requirements in promulgating the rule."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the role of testing and evaluation in product development, focusing on: (1) how the conduct of testing and evaluation affects commercial and Department of Defense (DOD) program outcomes; (2) how best commercial testing and evaluation practices compare with DOD's; and (3) what factors account for the differences in these practices."

The purpose of this report is to document the development of a radial grid that is suitable for evaluating the pathways and potential impacts of a release of radioactive materials to the environment within a distance of 84 kilometers.

This calculation produces standard statistical data on the consumption of locally produced food and tap water. The results of this calculation provide input parameters for the GENII-S (Leigh et al. 1993) computer code to support calculation of Biosphere Dose Conversion Factors (BDCF) for the nominal performance (groundwater contamination) scenario and the volcanic eruption (contamination of soil by volcanic ash deposition) scenario. The requirement and parameters for these data are identified in ''Identification Of The Critical Group (Consumption Of Locally Produced Food And Tap Water)'' (CRWMS M&O 2000a). This calculation is performed in accordance with the ''Development Plan for Calculation: Values and Consumption Rates of Locally Produced Food and Tap Water for the Receptor of Interest'' (CRWMS M&O 2000b).

The cooperative agreement for this project was finalized and signed during April 2000. The official project start date was April 11, 2000. Initial reporting requirements, including the completion of a Project Management Plan, Milestone Plan and Log, and a Hazardous Substance Plan, were completed and submitted to the DOE in early May 2000. Work on the project tasks was initiated in May 2000. During the course of this budget period, efforts will focus on enhancing reservoir characterization work that had been in progress prior to the start of this grant project, incorporation of this information into an existing 3-D full-field compositional model, and utilization of a ''window area'' of the model (representing a selected pilot area) to evaluate the impacts of horizontal laterals on recovery in the miscible nitrogen flood. The ''window area'' model will also be used to design the most effective configuration and placement of the lateral sections. The following is a summary of progress made between April 11, 2000 and June 30, 2000.

This document establishes the combination of design and operational configurations that will be used to provide heat removal from high-level waste tanks during Phase 1 waste feed delivery to prevent the waste temperature from exceeding tank safety requirement limits. The chosen method--to use the primary and annulus ventilation systems to remove heat from the high-level waste tanks--is documented herein.

The purpose of this project was to conduct basic research leading to significant improvements in the state-of-the-art of geophysical imaging of the shallow subsurface. Geophysical techniques are commonly used for underground imaging for site characterization and restoration monitoring. in order to improve subsurface imaging, the objective was to develop improved methods for interpreting geophysical data collected in the field, by developing better methods for relating measured geophysical properties, such as seismic velocity and electrical conductivity, to hydrogeology parameters of interest such as porosity, saturation, and soil composition. They met the objectives using an approach that combined laboratory experiments, comparison to available field data, rock physics theories, and modeling, to find relationships between geophysical measurements, hydrogeological parameters and soil composition. The primary accomplishments of this project in the last year (FY99) were that they completed the laboratory measurements of ultrasonic velocities in soils at low pressures and the measurements of complex electrical conductivity in those same soils; they used x-ray computed microtomography to image the microstructure of several soil samples; they used rock physics theories and modeling to relate the geophysical measurements to the microstructure and hydrological properties; they developed a theoretical technique for relating compressional and shear wave velocities to …

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

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

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

Newsletter of the Texas Department of Health discussing the news, activities, and events of the organization and other information related to health in Texas.

Daily newspaper from Sapulpa, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

This tiedown evaluation meets the requirement imposed by HNF-6550, Safety Evaluation for Packaging (Onsite) T Plant Canyon Items, (O'Brien 2000). O'Brien (2000) requires that any items prepared for shipment from T Plant to the burial grounds that are not bounded by the analysis in O'Brien (2000) must have a separate, approved, engineered tiedown analysis. The width of the overpack box is 9 ft. 7 in. This width is wider than the maximum width authorized in O'Brien (2000), which is 8 ft.

The density of threading dislocations (TD) in GaN grown directly on flat sapphire substrates is typically greater than 10{sup 9}/cm{sup 2}. Such high dislocation densities degrade both the electronic and photonic properties of the material. The density of dislocations can be decreased by orders of magnitude using cantilever epitaxy (CE), which employs prepatterned sapphire substrates to provide reduced-dimension mesa regions for nucleation and etched trenches between them for suspended lateral growth of GaN or AlGaN. The substrate is prepatterned with narrow lines and etched to a depth that permits coalescence of laterally growing III-N nucleated on the mesa surfaces before vertical growth fills the etched trench. Low dislocation densities typical of epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO) are obtained in the cantilever regions and the TD density is also reduced up to 1 micrometer from the edge of the support regions.

The 1994 Accident Sequence Precursor (ASP) human reliability analysis (HRA) methodology was developed for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) in 1994 by the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). It was decided to revise that methodology for use by the Simplified Plant Analysis Risk (SPAR) program. The 1994 ASP HRA methodology was compared, by a team of analysts, on a point-by-point basis to a variety of other HRA methods and sources. This paper briefly discusses how the comparisons were made and how the 1994 ASP HRA methodology was revised to incorporate desirable aspects of other methods. The revised methodology was renamed the SPAR HRA methodology.

All stations planned for the International Monitoring System (IMS) must be certified by the Provisional Technical Secretariat (PTS) prior to acceptance to ensure that the monitoring stations initially meet the required specifications. Working Group B of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty has established requirements for the quality, availability, and surety of data received at the International Data Centre (IDC). These requirements are verified by the PTS during a 3-component process that includes initial station assessment, testing and evaluation, and certification. Sandia National Laboratories has developed procedures, facilities, and tools that can be used to assist in evaluating IMS stations for compliance with certification requirements. System evaluation includes station design reviews, component testing, and operational testing of station equipment. Station design is evaluated for security and reliability considerations, and to ensure that operational procedures and documentation are adequate. Components of the station are tested for compliance with technical specifications, such as timing and noise levels of sampled data, and monitoring of tamper detection equipment. Data sent from the station in an IMS-standard format (CD-1 or IMS-1) are analyzed for compliance with the specified protocol and to ensure that the station data (sensor and state-of-health) are accurately transmitted. Data …

Sandia National Laboratories has continued to evaluate the performance of infrasound sensors that are candidates for use by the International Monitoring System (IMS) for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. The performance criteria against which these sensors are assessed are specified in ``Operational Manual for Infra-sound Monitoring and the International Exchange of Infrasound Data''. This presentation includes the results of efforts concerning two of these sensors: (1) Chaparral Physics Model 5; and (2) CEA MB2000. Sandia is working with Chaparral Physics in order to improve the capability of the Model 5 (a prototype sensor) to be calibrated and evaluated. With the assistance of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Sandia is also conducting tests to evaluate the performance of the CEA MB2000. Sensor models based on theoretical transfer functions and manufacturer specifications for these two devices have been developed. This presentation will feature the results of coherence-based data analysis of signals from a huddle test, utilizing several sensors of both types, in order to verify the sensor performance.