A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Debt Collection Improvement Act (DCIA) of 1996 requires that agencies refer eligible debts delinquent more than 180 days that they have been unable to collect to the Department of the Treasury for payment and offset and to Treasury or a Treasury-designated debt collection center for cross-servicing. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made progress in referring eligible delinquent debts for collection during fiscal year 2001. Much of the referral volume was late in the year, however, and substantial unreferred balances remained at the end of the fiscal year. Inadequate procedures and controls hampered prompt identification and referral of both eligible non-Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP) and MSP debts. The delayed referral of non-MSP debts resulted from problems with the CMS debt-referral system and insufficient CMS monitoring of contractor referrals. The low level of MSP debt referrals resulted primarily from limited contractor efforts and insufficient CMS monitoring of contractor performance. Although GAO did not test whether selected CMS debts had been reasonably excluded from referral and reached no overall conclusion about the appropriateness of CMS exclusions, GAO found that CMS did not report reliable Medicare …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Private landowners own more than two-thirds of the continental United States' 1.9 billion acres. Recognizing the critical role that private landowners play in managing soil, water, and wildlife habitat, Congress directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to improve stewardship practices on these lands. USDA currently has more than 70 million acres of privately-owned land enrolled in programs that offer landowners financial incentives to implement conservation practices to protect or improve soil and water quality and wildlife habitat. USDA's conservation efforts address specific environmental concerns, target funding toward state and local environmental priority areas, and promote partnerships with state or local entities to leverage limited funding. State technical committee members indicated that although USDA's conservation programs are generally effective, some targeted programs are more effective than others. Committee members cited several elements of the current programs that hinder achievement of environmental objectives and indicated a preference for more flexibility in new or existing programs. More than two-thirds of members considered program provisions that prohibit landowners from receiving compensation for maintaining previously implemented landowner-financed conservation practices to be a hindrance. Members would like to be able to …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Safe Drinking Water Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set a drinking water standard for radon. In a proposed rule issued in November 1999, EPA presented a unique and complex drinking water regulation for radon. GAO found that EPA's analysis of the costs to implement the proposed radon rule has several strengths. EPA's estimates of the typical costs for water systems to buy and install radon removal technologies--a key determinant of total national costs--are reasonable for estimating national compliance costs. Moreover, EPA used recommendations from an expert panel to estimate the costs to install and maintain radon removal equipment. EPA also developed a range of annual cost estimates, rather than a single estimate, to account for uncertainty about the extent to which the less costly alternative standard will be adopted by states. EPA's analysis of the national annual costs to comply with its proposed radon drinking water rule has several limitations that, if corrected, would likely increase EPA's best estimate of these costs. EPA made two errors in estimating the various costs associated with programs to reduce radon levels in indoor air under …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress passed the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) to establish a single, overarching policy framework for the management of government information resources. The act established information resources management (IRM) as an approach governing the collection, dissemination, security, privacy, and management of information. The act also created the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to provide leadership, policy direction, and oversight of governmentwide IRM. It further required OIRA to develop and maintain a governmentwide strategic IRM plan and charged that office with responsibilities for general IRM policy and information technology. Although OIRA designated the Chief Information Officers Council's strategic plan for fiscal years 2001-2002 as the governmentwide strategic IRM plan required by the PRA, this does not constitute an effective and comprehensive strategic vision. OIRA has issued policy and implementing guidance, conducted oversight activities, and taken various steps in each of the functional areas. GAO found that the documents cited by OMB during it's review did not, separately or collectively, meet the requirements for a governmentwide strategic IRM plan established by PRA."

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; With respect to information requested from the Texas Health Care Information Council, whether the Council may charge fees under section 108.012 of the Health and Safety Code or section 552.262 of the Government Code, and related questions (RQ-0425-JC)

This is a Technical Report under a program funded by the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to obtain the necessary information to assess the viability of lower cost alternatives to commercially available activated carbon for mercury control in coal-fired utilities. During this reporting period, several sorbent samples have been tested by URS in their laboratory fixed-bed system. The sorbents were evaluated under conditions simulating flue gas from power plants burning Powder River Basin (PRB) and low sulfur eastern bituminous coals. The equilibrium adsorption capacities of the sorbents for both elemental and oxidized mercury are presented. A team meeting discussing the overall program and meetings with Midwest Generation and Wisconsin Electric Power Company (WEPCO) concerning field testing occurred during this reporting period.

We have developed cermet membranes that nongalvanically separate hydrogen from gas mixtures. The highest measured hydrogen flux was 16.2 cm{sup 3} (STP)/min-cm{sup 2} for an ANL-3a membrane at 900 C. For ANL-3 membranes with thickness of 0.04-0.5 mm, permeation rate is limited by the bulk diffusion of hydrogen through the metal phase. The effect of hydrogen partial pressure on permeation rate confirmed this conclusion and suggested that higher permeation rates may be obtained by decreasing the membrane thickness. Permeation rate in a syngas atmosphere for times up to 190 h showed no degradation in performance, which indicates that ANL-3 may be suitable for long-term, practical hydrogen separation.

With the advent of a rapidly proliferating international computer network, it became feasible to consider remote operation of instrumentation normally operated locally. For modern electron microscopes, the growing automation and computer control of many instrumental operations facilitated the task of providing remote operation. In order to provide use of NCEM TEMs by distant users, a project was instituted in 1995 to place a unique instrument, a Kratos EM-1500 operating at 1.5MeV, on-line for remote use. In 1996, the Materials Microcharacterization Collaboratory (MMC) was created as a pilot project within the US Department of Energy's DOE2000 program to establish national collaboratories to provide access via the Internet to unique or expensive DOE research facilities as well as to expertise for remote collaboration, experimentation, production, software development, modeling, and measurement. A major LBNL contribution to the MMC was construction of DeepView, a microscope-independent computer-control system that could be ported to other MMC members to provide a common graphical user-interface (GUI) for control of any MMC instrument over the wide area network.

A sacrificial layer is usually used to release electroformed microstructures. Because of the chemistry applied to the sacrificial layer, only a limited number of metals can be used for electroforming. A novel method to fabricate freestanding electroformed copper structures is presented. A graphite substrate allows the release of the metal part, by abrasive removal of the graphite after electroforming. Results on fabrication of high-aspect-ratio freestanding copper grids are presented; these can be used as x-ray collimator in medical imaging to reduce scattered radiation. This process has potential application to the fabrication of injection molds and microparts on pick-and-place carriers for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

This document presents a set of guidelines for authors who wish to express themselves more clearly to foreign readers, or readers whose first language is not American English. Topics include idioms, technical terms, jargon, word meaning, acronyms, and international conventions of measurement. The guidelines will help writers of technical documents present their ideas more effectively to audiences that may include individuals whose first language is not American English, including audiences with individuals from other English-speaking countries.

Today's restrictive environmental regulations encourage paper mills to close their water systems. Closed water systems increase the level of contaminants significantly. Accumulations of solid suspensions are detrimental to both the papermaking process and the final products. To remove these solids, technologies such as flotation using dissolved air (DAF), centrifuging, and screening have been developed. Dissolved Air Flotation systems are commonly used to clarify whitewater. These passive systems use high pressure to dissolve air into whitewater. When the pressure is released, air micro-bubbles form and attach themselves to fibers and particles, which then float to the surface where they are mechanically skimmed off. There is an economic incentive to explore alternatives to the DAF technology to drive down the cost of whitewater processing and minimize the use of chemicals. The installed capital cost for a DAF system is significant and a typical DAF system takes up considerable space. An alternative approach, which is the subject of this project, involves a dual method combining the advantages of chemical flocculation and in-line ultrasonic clarification to efficiently remove flocculated contaminants from a water stream

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.

Dimensional changes in PBX materials resulting from temperature change are of interest to engineers, designers and modelers. In this paper we present data from recent measurements made on LX17-1, as well as on the material's binder and its energetic constituent. LX17-1 is made from 7.5% KEL-F 800 binder combined with 92.5% wet aminated TATB energetic crystals. Due apparently to the anisotropic expansionary behavior of the TATB, the material exhibits irreversible growth, in addition to the usual reversible expansions and contractions associated with temperature change. In an effort understand reversible and irreversible growth behavior and to verify consistency between our measurements and those made historically, measurements were performed on billet pressed LX17-1, on die pressed TATB, and on KEL-F alone. It is important to realize that, for materials involving TATB, expansionary behavior results from the combined effects of reversible and irreversible (ratchet growth) phenomena.

Uncertainties in climate observations are revealed when alternate observationally based data sets are compared. General circulation model-based ''reanalyses'' of meteorological observations will yield different results from different models, even if identical sets of raw unanalyzed data form their starting points. We have examined 25 longitude-latitude fields (including selected levels for three-dimensional quantities) encompassing atmospheric climate variables for which the PCMDI observational data base contains two or more high-quality sources. For the most part we compare ECMWF with NCEP reanalysis. In some cases, we compare in situ and/or satellite-derived data with reanalysis. To obtain an overview of the differences for all 25 fields, we use a graphical technique developed for climate model diagnosis: a ''portrait diagram'' displaying root-mean-square differences between the alternate data sources. With a few exceptions (arising from the requirement that RMS differences be normalized to accommodate different units of variables) the portrait diagrams indicate areas of agreement and disagreement that can be confirmed by examining traditional graphics such as zonal mean plots. In accord with conventional wisdom, the greatest agreement between alternate data sets--hence the smallest implied observational uncertainty--occurs for upper tropospheric zonal wind. We also find fairly good agreement between reanalysis and more direct measures of precipitation, …

We have demonstrated that a bulk absorber coupled to a TES can serve as a good gamma-ray spectrometer. Our measured energy resolution of 70 eV at 60 keV is among the best measurements in this field. We have also shown excellent agreement between the noise predictions and measured noise. Despite this good result, we noted that our detector design has shortcomings with a low count rate and vulnerabilities with the linearity of energy response. We addressed these issues by implementation of an active negative feedback bias. We demonstrated the effects of active bias such as additional pulse shortening, reduction of TES change in temperature during a pulse, and linearization of energy response at low energy. Linearization at higher energy is possible with optimized heat capacities and thermal conductivities of the microcalorimeter. However, the current fabrication process has low control and repeatability over the thermal properties. Thus, optimization of the detector performance is difficult until the fabrication process is improved. Currently, several efforts are underway to better control the fabrication of our gamma-ray spectrometers. We are developing a full-wafer process to produce TES films. We are investigating the thermal conductivity and surface roughness of thicker SiN membranes. We are exploring alternative …

None

OAK-B135 The Arabidopsis transcription factor LEAFY (LFY) acts upstream of homeotic genes such as AGAMOUS (AG) to confer floral identity on meristems that arise after the transition to reproductive development. Compared to the genetic circuitry regulating the establishment of floral meristem identity, little is known about its maintenance. Previous experiments with fly heterozygous plants and ag mutants grown in conditions that reduce the floral inductive stimulus have shown that both genes are required to prevent reversion of floral to inflorescence meristems. Here, we present evidence that LFY maintains floral meristem identity independently of AG, and that the primary role of LFY is either direct repression of shoot identity genes or repression of an intermediate factor that activates shoot identity genes. The latter conclusions were deduced from the phenotypes conferred by a gain-of-function transgene, LFY:VP16, that appears to act as a dominant negative, or antimorphic, allele during maintenance of floral meristem identity. These observations contrast with previous findings that LFY acts as a direct activator of floral homeotic genes, supporting the hypothesis that the transcriptional activity of LFY is dependent on specific co-regulators.

Presently the Heavy Ion Fusion Virtual National Laboratory is researching ion sources and injector concepts to understand how to optimize beam brightness over a range of currents (50-2000 mA argon equivalent). One concept initially accelerates millimeter size, milliamp beamlets to 1 MeV before merging them into centimeter size, ampere beams. Computer simulations have shown the final brightness of the merged beams is dominated by the emittance growth of the merging process, as long as the beamlets ion temperature is below a few eV. Thus, a RF multicusp source capable of high current density can produce beams with better brightness compared to ones extracted from a colder source with a large aperture and lower current density. As such, experiments have begun to develop a RF multicusp source capable of delivering one amp of extracted beam current. It is expected that it will require 10 kW of 13 MHz RF power delivered via a quartz shielded, one and half turn, four inch diameter antenna. Important considerations in the development of the source include the dependence of current density and beam ion temperature on consumed RF power and gas pressure. A fast rise time ({approx}100 ns) for the extracted beam pulse must also …

Two-dimensional, steady flow of a liquid metal slender jet pouring from a nozzle in the presence of a transverse, nonuniform magnetic field is studied. The surface tension has been neglected, while gravity is shown to be not important. The main aim of the study is to evaluate the importance of the inertial effects. It has been shown that for gradually varying fields characteristic for the divertor region of a tokamak, inertial effects are negligible for N > 10, where N is the interaction parameter. Thus the inertialess flow model is expected to give good results even for relatively low magnetic fields and high jet velocity. Simple relations for the jet thickness and velocity have been derived. The results show that the jet becomes thicker if the field increases along the flow and thinner if it decreases.

The objective of this project is to demonstrate at pilot scale the use of solid honeycomb catalysts to promote the oxidation of elemental mercury in the flue gas from coal combustion. The project is being funded by the U.S. DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory under Cooperative Agreement DE-FC26-01NT41185. EPRI, Great River Energy (GRE), and City Public Service (CPS) of San Antonio are project co-funders. URS Group is the prime contractor. The mercury catalytic oxidation process under development uses catalyst materials applied to honeycomb substrates to promote the oxidation of elemental mercury in the flue gas from coal-fired power plants that have wet lime or limestone flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems. Oxidized mercury is removed in the wet FGD absorbers and co-precipitates in a stable form with the byproducts from the FGD system. The co-precipitated mercury does not appear to adversely affect the disposal or reuse properties of the FGD byproduct. The current project will test previously identified, effective catalyst materials at a larger, pilot scale and in a commercial form, so as to provide engineering data for future full-scale designs. The pilot-scale tests will continue for up to 14 months at each of two sites to provide longer-term catalyst life …

With the advent of fast computer systems, Scientists are now able to generate terabytes of simulation data. Unfortunately, the shear size of these data sets has made efficient exploration of them impossible. To aid scientists in gathering knowledge from their simulation data, we have developed an ad-hoc query infrastructure. Our system, called AQSim (short for Ad-hoc Queries for Simulation) reduces the data storage requirements and access times in two stages. First, it creates and stores mathematical and statistical models of the data. Second, it evaluates queries on the models of the data instead of on the entire data set. In this paper, we present two simple but highly effective statistical modeling techniques for simulation data. Our first modeling technique computes the true mean of systematic partitions of the data. It makes no assumptions about the distribution of the data and uses a variant of the root mean square error to evaluate a model. In our second statistical modeling technique, we use the Andersen-Darling goodness-of-fit method on systematic partitions of the data. This second method evaluates a model by how well it passes the normality test on the data. Both of our statistical models summarize the data so as to answer …

Report on the role of the State Board of Education in selecting textbooks.

None

Congress will play a vital role in many e-commerce policy issues, including Internet taxation, encryption and electronic authentication (i.e., digital signatures), intellectual property protection (i.e., patent or copyright infringement), computer network security, and privacy safeguards for individuals and organizations, as well as consideration of how European Union (EU) and World Trade Organization (WTO) policies may affect U.S. e-commerce activities. This report addresses the complexities of measuring e-commerce growth, and provides background information on government and private firms’ methods for estimating it.