A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Dioxins--chemical compounds that share structural and biological characteristics--have been linked to human illnesses, including cancer. Often the byproducts of combustion and industrial processes, complex mixtures of dioxins enter the food chain and human diet through emissions into the air. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) noted the potential human health risks of dioxins in the 1970s when animal studies showed them to be among the most potent cancer-causing chemicals. EPA derived its estimates of human dietary exposure to dioxins in the United States from (1) chemically analyzed samples of 10 food types, (2) toxicity estimates of levels of individual dioxins in these foods, and (3) estimates of the quantities of these foods consumed by Americans. To develop more reliable national estimates of dietary exposure, EPA incorporated into its analysis some food studies that were nationally representative. Although both EPA and the WHO have assessed the human health risks of dioxins during the last decade, some of their objectives and processes have differed. Nonetheless, the analytical methods used and the conclusions reached have much in common. A major difference in the assessments …

A Sn-25 at.% Li alloy has been fabricated by starting with pure Sn and Li. The alloy was cast into various shapes and sent to researchers in several organizations in the United States and abroad for property measurements. The fabrication procedure involved gradual addition of Li from a separate vessel into a vessel that contained Sn; continuous stirring of the mixture during Li addition increased the Li content of the alloy gradually from 0 to the final value of 25 at.%. The melting temperature of the alloy was 334 C; its density was 6.36 g/cm{sup 3}. Results are presented on microstructure, chemical composition, phase distribution, and microhardness of the alloy. Several experiments were conducted to evaluate the chemical reactivity of the alloy with air, water, and steam. Results showed that the alloy undergoes catastrophic oxidation when T >250 C in air and develops an oxide scale in water at temperatures up to 95 C. Exposure in low-pressure steam at 200 C caused significant swelling and cracking of the alloy.

The authors report preparation procedures for some lithium and barium titanate compounds. The procedures utilize inexpensive, commercial TiCl{sub 4} in an aqueous HCl solution. The main preparation steps consist of chloride elimination by distillation with nitric acid, addition of hydroxides of Li (or Ba), evaporation of sols to dry powders, and thermal treatment to titanates. Thermal and X-ray analyses indicate that the formation temperatures are lower than the corresponding temperatures necessary for conventional solid-state reactions. These temperatures can be further decreased by addition of ascorbic acid during formation of Ti nitrate sols. Spherical powders (with particle diameters of < 100 {micro}m) are obtained by solvent extraction of water from sol drops emulsified in 2-ethylheksanol-1. Final correction of the composition of the spherical powders is carried out by an impregnation process.

This report discusses U.S. policy regard farm commodities. Greater public awareness of the size of commodity program payments reaching a comparatively small number of very large farms has focused the attention of Congress on payment limits. Limits on commodity program payments have been imposed since 1970. As part of the emergency economic assistance packages enacted each of the past three years, the payment limits have been doubled. In addition, a mechanism has been developed that allows farms to circumvent the limit on loan deficiency payments, namely commodity certificates

Shielding for the APS will be such that the individual worker dose will be ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) and less than 5 mSv/yr (500 mrem/yr). The APS shielding policy requires that the average worker dose be below 2 mSv/yr (200 mrem/yr). Worker dose is monitored, and frequent area-surveys are performed by health physics personnel. For cases in which surveys indicate elevated hourly dose rates that may impact worker exposure, additional local shielding is provided to reduce the radiation field to an acceptable level. Passive monitors are used throughout the facility to integrate doses in various areas. The results are analyzed for trends of increased doses, and shielding in these areas is evaluated and improved, as appropriate.

Thin films of YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 7-x} (YBCO) were grown on MgO buffered metallic substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The MgO buffer films, which provide the initial biaxial texture, had been grown on polished Hastelloy C276 (HC) tapes using inclined substrate deposition (ISD). The ISD process is promising for the fabrication of coated superconductor wires because it produces biaxially textured template films on nontextured substrate at high deposition rates. Biaxially aligned MgO films were deposited at deposition rates of 20 to 100 {angstrom}/sec. The buffer films were deposited on these template films before ablation of the YBCO films by PLD. The microstructure was studied by scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. X-ray pole figure analysis and {phi}- and {omega}-scans were used for texture characterization. Good in- and out-of-plane textures were observed on the ISD MgO films ({approx}1.5 {micro}m thick). The full width at half maximums were 9.2{sup o} for the MgO (002) {phi}-scan and 5.4{sup o} for the {omega}-scan. Cube-on-cube epitaxial growth of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) and ceria (CeO{sub 2}) films on the ISD MgO films was also achieved by PLD. A superconducting critical temperature of 90 K, with a sharp transition, and transport critical current density of …

Information glut is one of the primary characteristics of the electronic age. Managing such large volumes of information (e.g., keeping track of the types, where they are, their relationships, who controls them, etc.) can be done efficiently with an intelligent, user-oriented information management system. The purpose of this paper is to describe a concept for managing information resources based on an intelligent information technology system developed by the Argonne National Laboratory for managing digital libraries. The Argonne system, Intelligent Query (IQ), enables users to query digital libraries and view the holdings that match the query from different perspectives.

This report discusses the legal issues considered by Congress on whether to permit drilling for oil and gas in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

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Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Medicare's home health benefit provides skilled nursing and other services to beneficiaries who are homebound. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had a long-standing policy that beneficiaries who regularly attend adult day care were not considered homebound, particularly if the purpose of attending was to receive nonmedical or custodial care. In 2000, Congress indicated that Medicare beneficiaries who attended adult day care could still be considered homebound if they still met the other homebound requirements. GAO found that this clarification will have little effect on program costs or access to services because the number of affected individuals is small. On the basis of National Long Term Care Survey data, GAO estimates that 0.2 percent of elderly Medicare beneficiaries who attended adult day care had mobility or cognitive impairments that might make some eligible for Medicare home health services."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Government Performance and Results Act (GRPA) requires federal agencies to set goals for program performance and to report annually on their progress toward achieving those goals. Agencies need to produce credible performance data to provide transparency of government operations so that Congress, program managers, and others can make informed decisions. The Reports Consolidation Act of 2000 requires agencies to assess the completeness and reliability of their performance data. However, GAO found that only five of the 24 Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act agencies' assessed the completeness and the reliability of their performance data in the transmittal letters accompanying their performance reports for fiscal year 2000. The other agencies somewhat discussed the quality of their performance data elsewhere in their performance reports. None of the agencies identified any material inadequacies with their performance data. However, concerns about the quality of performance data were identified by the inspector general as either a major management challenge or included in the discussion of other challenges for 11 of the 24 agencies. Although not required, discussing the performance reports in the standard or method used to assess the completeness and …

This document summarizes progress on Cooperative Agreement DE-FC26-01NT41185, Pilot Testing of Mercury Oxidation Catalysts for Upstream of Wet FGD Systems, during the time period January 1, 2002 through March 31, 2002. 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 …

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This report summarizes the results of sampling five groundwater monitoring wells in the vicinity of the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in 2001. Information on general sampling practices, quality assurance practices, parameter concentrations, representativeness of sampling results, and cumulative cancer risk are presented. The information is provided to support a conditional No Longer Contained-In Determination for the Snake River Plain Aquifer in the vicinity of the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report discusses the budgetary implications of selected program reforms discussed in GAO work but not yet implemented or enacted. To help congressional budget and appropriations committees identify ways to reduce federal spending or increase revenues, this year's report contains more than 100 examples of budget options organized by budget function. Where possible, budgetary savings estimates provided by the Congressional Budget Office or the Joint Committee on Taxation are presented."

This is the final technical report for the project titled ''Synthesis and optimization of integrated chemical processes''. Progress is reported on novel algorithms for the computation of all heteroazeotropic compositions present in complex liquid mixtures; the design of novel flexible azeotropic separation processes using middle vessel batch distillation columns; and theory and algorithms for sensitivity analysis and numerical optimization of hybrid discrete/continuous dynamic systems.

The Federal Emergency Management System (FEMIS) is an emergency management planning and response tool. The FEMIS System Administration Guide provides information on FEMIS System Administrator activities as well as the utilities that are included with FEMIS.

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.

New US Environmental Protection Agency regulations are forcing locomotive manufacturers and railroads to reduce pollutant emissions from locomotive operation. All new locomotives must meet strict standards when they are built, and existing locomotives must comply when they are rebuilt. Emissions can be reduced either by adjusting combustion parameters, which incurs a fuel penalty, or by turning the diesel engine off when the train is not moving and would otherwise be idling. The latter reduces fuel consumption, but requires installation of a device--such as an auxiliary power unit (APU)--to ensure that the engine can be restarted in cold weather and to supply hotel loads for the crew. Without a financial incentive, capital-short railroads will opt to achieve compliance in the least costly way. However, if they have the option of selling emissions credits from reducing emissions below regulated levels, it would be in their best interest to install additional equipment to minimize emissions. These credits could be purchased by businesses with compliance costs greater than either the cost of the credits or the fines they would have had to pay for non-compliance. The result is a financial benefit for both parties, and a net reduction in emissions, because the seller is …

The Undulator A at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) is a planar permanent magnet hybrid device optimized for generating x-rays from 3 keV to 45 keV by using the first, third, and fifth radiation harmonics. It also produces x-rays above this energy. For high-energy experiments, users are relying on using higher harmonics, which has become possible because of improved undulator technology over the past decade. The Undulator A has been designed to provide continuous energy coverage with no significant drop in brilliance when switching between the harmonics, i.e., the tuning curve from one harmonic to the next intersect. The undulator has a period length of 3.30 cm and has 72 magnetic periods (144 poles) for a total length of 2.4 m. The undulator was initially described in Technical Bulletin ANL/APS/TB-3 (1993) [1] and subsequently in ANL/APS/TB-17 (1994) [2]. Both documents were published before the first undulator had been delivered to the APS so that the information given was based on design specifications. A three-dimensional (3D) magnetic modeling code was used to estimate the magnetic field vs. gap, and computer simulations were used to predict the on-axis brilliance, flux, and power for the APS design lattice using an ideal undulator magnetic …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will provide $25 billion in compensation and pension benefits in fiscal year 2002 to more than three million veterans, dependents and survivors. For years, the compensation and pension claims process has been subject to long long waits for decision and large claims backlogs. VA's goal for fiscal year 2003 is to complete accurate decisions on rating-related claims in an average of 100 days. To achieve this, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) is focusing on increasing production of rating decisions and reducing the inventory of claims to about 250,000. As of the end of March 2002, VBA was completing claims in an average of 224 days and had an inventory of about 412,000 claims. VBA is trying to significantly increase regional offices' rating decision production to reduce the inventory, and, in turn, reduce the time required to complete decisions. VBA expects to increase production by hiring more staff and increasing the proficiency of new staff. Although VBA has recently increased its production and reduced its inventory, meeting its production and inventory reduction and its timeliness goals will be challenging."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The events of September 11 imposed new demands on the federal budget, while pent-up demands from years of fighting deficits remain. In the past, GAO has suggested four broad principles for a budget process. That process should (1) provide information on the long-term impact of decisions, both macro--linking fiscal policy to the long-term economic outlook--and micro--providing recognition of the long-term spending implications of government commitments; (2) provide information and focus on important macro trade-offs--e.g., between investment and consumption; (3) provide information to make informed trade-offs between missions and between the different policy tools of government; and (4) be enforceable, provide for control and accountability, and be transparent, using clear, consistent definitions. New rules and goals will be necessary to ensure fiscal discipline and to focus on long term implications of decisions. The federal government still needs a decision-making framework to evaluate choices between today's and future needs. Amending the current Budget Enforcement Act without setting realistic caps and addressing mandatory programs is unlikely to be successful because the original act used limited actions to achieve a balanced budget. A budget process appropriate for the early 21st century needs …

In this paper, we study the effects of compression on bitmap indexes. The main operations on the bitmaps during query processing are bitwise logical operations such as AND, OR, NOT, etc. Using the general purpose compression schemes, such as gzip, the logical operations on the compressed bitmaps are much slower than on the uncompressed bitmaps. Specialized compression schemes, like the byte-aligned bitmap code(BBC), are usually faster in performing logical operations than the general purpose schemes, but in many cases they are still orders of magnitude slower than the uncompressed scheme. To make the compressed bitmap indexes operate more efficiently, we designed a CPU-friendly scheme which we refer to as the word-aligned hybrid code (WAH). Tests on both synthetic and real application data show that the new scheme significantly outperforms well-known compression schemes at a modest increase in storage space. Compared to BBC, a scheme well-known for its operational efficiency, WAH performs logical operations about 12 times faster and uses only 60 percent more space. Compared to the uncompressed scheme, in most test cases WAH is faster while still using less space. We further verified with additional tests that the improvement in logical operation speed translates to similar improvement in query …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The District of Columbia school system, with help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), has made considerable progress in fixing roofs, replacing windows, repairing bathrooms, and completing other maintenance work that has been neglected for years. The D.C. school system is now addressing the more complex task of modernizing--either through renovation or through new construction--virtually every public school in the city. In April 1998, the school system entered into an agreement with the Corps for engineering, procurement, and technical assistance. In December 2000, the D.C. Board of Education approved a facility master plan that would modernize 10 schools annually over 10 to 15 years at a cost of $1.3 billion. Historically significant buildings cannot be razed, however, and are costly to redesign. So far, construction costs are running significantly higher than estimated by the facility master plan. The scope of the work has been expanded to recognize community needs for some special facilities. In examining the Washington Gas Light Company's records of quality inspections for the work it managed for the school system, GAO found that 77 percent of all projects lacked evidence of quality inspections. …