A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO evaluated the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) financial management activities to determine if they are sufficient to resolve financial management weaknesses identified through annual financial statement audits and other management-type reviews of HCFA's Medicare activities."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its review of the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) financial management activities for Medicare, focusing on challenges HCFA faces in establishing an adequate foundation for control and accountability over the Medicare program's financial operations."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed federal agencies' compliance with the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act, which directs federal agencies to use voluntary consensus standards, focusing on: (1) the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) and the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) activities in carrying out their oversight responsibilities under the act; (2) federal agencies' efforts in reporting their standards activities; and (3) progress made specifically by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in complying with the act."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the challenges that the Coast Guard faces in its fiscal year 2001 and future budget requests, focusing on: (1) the Coast Guard's progress in justifying and managing its Deepwater Capability Replacement Project; and (2) opportunities for improving the Coast Guard's operating efficiencies."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) National Water Quality Inventory, focusing on whether: (1) the information in EPA's National Water Quality Inventory is reliable and representative of water quality conditions nationwide; and (2) available data are sufficient to allow state officials to make key decisions about activities required by the Clean Water Act, such as identifying waters that do not meet water quality standards and developing strategies to address those waters."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) calendar years 1997 and 1998 accounting reports for the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, which provides assistance to the former Soviet Union, focusing on each report's: (1) compliance with its respective deadline for submission to Congress; and (2) accuracy and completeness."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed proposed changes and improvements to the military health system (MHS), focusing on: (1) the various proposals to expand the military health care benefit, especially those for older retirees, including describing the nature of the enhancement, the present or potential challenges in implementing these proposals, and overall cost implications; (2) the broader perspective of the appropriate size and structure of the military health system; and (3) the obstacles that impede improvements in the TRICARE program, particularly in terms of accessing appointments and claims processing."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its recent reports on the Air Force's Ranch Hand study, which was designed to investigate whether exposure to herbicides in Vietnam led to or would lead to adverse health effects, focusing on: (1) what impact the study has had on veterans' compensation decisions; and (2) how the study disseminated results and data, communicated its limitations, and implemented measures to ensure that it was conducted with scientific independence and appropriate outside scientific oversight."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the National Railroad Passenger Corporation's (Amtrak) use of Taxpayer Relief Act (TRA) funds, focusing on: (1) how much Amtrak has spent in TRA funds and what types of activities it has funded; (2) whether Amtrak used the funds in accordance with the act; (3) to what extent the Amtrak Reform Council and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have overseen Amtrak's use of TRA funds; and (4) observations on Amtrak's capital needs, its progress toward reaching operational self-sufficiency, and the administration's fiscal year 2001 budget request for Amtrak."

This report summarizes the proceedings of a CRS seminar for congressional staff on appropriations for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), held September 23, 1999 against a backdrop of congressional deliberations over increases in National Institute of Health (NIH’s) budget.

We examine strong field atomic physics in a wavelength region (3-4 microns) where very little work has previously been done. The soft photon energy allows the exploration of one-electron atoms with low binding energies (alkali metals). We find that photoionization spectra differ from rare gas studies at shorter wavelengths due to more complex ion core potentials. Harmonic generation is studied, and we find that harmonic bandwidths are consistent with theory and the possibility of compression to pulse widths much shorter than that of the driving pulse. Harmonic yields in the visible and W are sufficient for a complete study of their amplitude and phase characteristics.

Coal beneficiation is achieved by suspending coal fines in a colloidal suspension of microscopic gas bubbles in water under atmospheric conditions to form small agglomerates of the fines adhered by the gas bubbles. The agglomerates are separated, recovered and resuspended in water. Thereafter, the pressure on the suspension is increased above atmospheric to deagglomerate, since the gas bubbles are then re-dissolved in the water. During the deagglomeration step, the mineral matter is dispersed, and when the pressure is released, the coal portion of the deagglomerated gas-saturated water mixture reagglomerates, with the small bubbles now coming out of the solution. The reagglomerate can then be separated to provide purified coal fines without the mineral matter.

In the context of the LHC experiments, the physics of bottom flavoured hadrons enters in different contexts. It can be used for QCD tests, it affects the possibilities of B decays studies, and it is an important source of background for several processes of interest. The physics of b production at hadron colliders has a rather long story, dating back to its first observation in the UA1 experiment. Subsequently, b production has been studied at the Tevatron. Besides the transverse momentum spectrum of a single b, it has also become possible, in recent time, to study correlations in the production characteristics of the b and the b. At the LHC new opportunities will be offered by the high statistics and the high energy reach. One expects to be able to study the transverse momentum spectrum at higher transverse momenta, and also to exploit the large statistics to perform more accurate studies of correlations.

The TNT project developed software technologies in scalable personal telecommunications (SPT), Reservation Protocol 2 (RSVP2), Scalable Computing Infrastructure (SCOPE), and Network Infrastructure Activities (NIA). SPT = developed many innovative protocols to support the use of videoconferencing applications on the Internet. RSVP2 = developed a new reference model and further standardization of RSVP. SCOPE = developed dynamic resource discovery techniques and distributed directory services in support of resource allocation for large distributed systems and computations. NIA = provided policy, operational, and support to the transitioning Internet.

This report describes the results of an independent review team brought in to assess CH2M HILL Hanford's readiness and ability to support the RPP's move into its next major phase - retrieval and delivery of tank waste to the Privatization Contractor.

The 200 Area Interim Storage Area Technical Safety Requirements define administrative controls and design features required to ensure safe operation during receipt and storage of canisters containing spent nuclear fuel. This document is based on the 200 Area Interim Storage Area, Annex D, Final Safety Analysis Report which contains information specific to the 200 Area Interim Storage Area.

Repositories have been in use at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories for storage of ten grams or less explosives samples for about twenty years. A previous Repository testing program detailed in UCID 19219 reported that a standard repository would contain ten grams of high explosive but the repository drawer would open. It further recommended a non-propagating array that would allow storage of quantities of explosives in a repository drawer, however; the capability of the proposed nonpropagating array was never verified. A series of tests was undertaken to verify the capability of the proposed array to provide non-propagation between 10-gram samples stored within that array and to document the extent of damage to the stored explosives, the array and the repository. Testing has verified that the standard four-drawer repository configured per UCID 19219 may store a 10-gram explosive sample without propagation to the other materials stored in the repository. Should a detonation of a 10-gram sample occur, the four-drawer repository will be damaged but does not appear to create a significant fragment hazard and does not sustain significant damage. The drawer containing the test charge opens quickly and fully releasing the detonation overpressure. Testing of a standard two-drawer repository verified that the …

Initiation and detonation properties are dramatically affected by an energetic material's microstructural properties. Sol-gel chemistry allows intimacy of mixing to be controlled and dramatically improved over existing methodologies. One material goal is to create very high power energetic materials which also have high energy densities. Using sol-gel chemistry we have made a nanostructured composite energetic material. Here a solid skeleton of fuel, based on resorcinol-formaldehyde, has nanocrystalline ammonium perchlorate, the oxidizer, trapped within its pores. At optimum stoichiometry it has approximately the energy density of HMX. Transmission electron microscopy indicated no ammonium perchlorate crystallites larger than 20 nm while near-edge soft x-ray absorption microscopy showed that nitrogen was uniformly distributed, at least on the scale of less than 80 nm. Small-angle neutron scattering studies were conducted on the material. Those results were consistent with historical ones for this class of nanostructured materials. The average skeletal primary particle size was on the order of 2.7 nm, while the nanocomposite showed the growth of small 1 nm size crystals of ammonium perchlorate with some clustering to form particles greater than 10 nm.

Lack of a safe disposal method for radioactive nuclear waste (RNW) is a problem of staggering proportion and impact. A typical LWR fission reactor will produce the following RNW in one year: minor actinides (i.e. {sup 237}Np, {sup 242-243}Am, {sup 243-245}Cm) {approx}40 kg, long-lived fission products (i.e, {sup 99}Tc, {sup 93}Zr, {sup 129}I, {sup 135}Cs) {approx}80 kg, short lived fission products (e.g. {sup 137}Cs, {sup 90}Sr) {approx}50kg and plutonium {approx}280 kg. The total RNW produced by France and Canada amounts to hundreds of metric tonnes per year. Obtaining a uniform policy dealing with RNW has been blocked by the desire on one hand to harvest the energy stored in plutonium to benefit society and on the other hand the need to assure that the stockpile of plutonium will not be channeled into future nuclear weapons. In the meantime, the quantity and handling of these materials represents a potential health hazard to the world's population and particularly to people in the vicinity of temporary storage facilities. In the U.S., societal awareness of the hazards associated with RNW has effectively delayed development of U.S. nuclear fission reactors during the past decade. As a result the U.S. does not benefit from the large …

The development of a new class of laser systems: capable of producing intense radiation in the mid-infrared (MIR) regime (photon energies between 0.3 and 0.4 eV), opens the possibility of observing multiphoton processes in a new class of systems with lower ionization potentials than those previously studied. Of particular interest are the alkali metal atoms, which are true one-(valence)-electron systems. We present theoretical calculations of above threshold ionization (ATI) and high harmonic generation (HHG) from alkali metal atoms subject to 3-4 {micro}m laser irradiation. The ATI calculations, which use a multiple gauge propagation method, show a striking dependence in the production of high-order photoelectrons on the electron-ion potential. The HHG calculations illustrate the importance of the strong ground-to-first excited state coupling in multiphoton processes in the alkali metals.

The authors have designed and assembled two generations of integrated micro-optical systems that deliver pump light and detect broadband laser-induced fluorescence in micro-fluidic chemical separation systems employing electrochromatography. The goal is to maintain the sensitivity attainable with larger, tabletop machines while decreasing package size and increasing throughput (by decreasing the required chemical volume). One type of micro-optical system uses vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) as the excitation source. Light from the VCSELs is relayed with four-level surface relief diffractive optical elements (DOEs) and delivered to the chemical volume through substrate-mode propagation. Indirect fluorescence from dye-quenched chemical species is collected and collimated with a high numerical aperture DOE. A filter blocks the excitation wavelength, and the resulting signal is detected as the chemical separation proceeds. Variations of this original design include changing the combination of reflective and transmissive DOEs and optimizing the high numerical aperture DOE with a rotationally symmetric iterative discrete on-axis algorithm. The authors will discuss the results of these implemented optimizations.

Two types of tests, dipping tests and dip-coating tests were carried out on small steel cylinders using pure aluminum and 380 alloy to investigate the mechanism of die soldering during aluminum die casting. Optical and scanning electron microscopy were used to study the morphology and composition of the phases formed during soldering. A soldering mechanism is postulated based on experimental observations. A soldering critical temperature is postulated at which iron begins to react with aluminum to form an aluminum-rich liquid phase and solid intermetallic compounds. When the temperature at the die surface is higher than this critical temperature, the aluminum-rich phase is liquid and joins the die with the casting during the subsequent solidification. The paper discusses the mechanism of soldering for the case of pure aluminum and 380 alloy casting in a steel mold, the factors that promote soldering, and the strength of the bond formed when soldering occurs. conditions, an aluminum-rich soldering layer may also form over the intermetallic layer. Although a significant amount of research has been conducted on the nature of these intermetallics, little is known about the conditions under which soldering occurs.

The simple formula, {l_angle}P{sub r}{r_angle}=(E{sub o}{sup 2}/{eta})({lambda}{sup 2}/8{pi}), for the received power of an antenna with a matched load in an over-moded cavity actually holds for an antenna of any shape and size. This can be seen from the close connection between the correlation tensor of the cavity field at two different points and the imaginary part of the free-space dyadic Green's function.

Colloidal suspensions near 100 {micro}g/L can be pumped from below ground. Designing injection solutions that optimally mobilize colloids in the field also promotes desorption processes. As an example, in manipulating chromium-containing colloids, injected sorbate also served to displace the ion exchangeable chromate load in that subsurface region.