Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on short- and long-form questionnaire response rates, focusing on the: (1) 2000 Census; (2) 1998 Census Dress Rehearsal; (3) 1990 Census; and (4) 1988 Census Dress Rehearsal."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO followed up on its report on the high-interest direct loans made by the Rural Housing Service (RHS), focusing on whether a significant number of borrowers continue to pay above-market interest rates on direct single-family housing loans."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed issues relating to mutual fund fees, focusing on: (1) the trend in mutual fund advisers' costs and profitability; (2) the trend in mutual fund fees; (3) how mutual funds compete; (4) how fees are disclosed to fund investors and how industry participants view these disclosures; and (5) what mutual fund directors' responsibilities are regarding fees and how industry participants view directors' activities."

As part of a project for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Sandia National Laboratories Intelligent Systems and Robotics Center is developing and testing the feasibility of using a cooperative team of robotic sentry vehicles to guard a perimeter, perform a surround task, and travel extended distances. This paper describes the authors most recent activities. In particular, this paper highlights the development of a Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) leapfrog capability that allows two or more vehicles to alternate sending DGPS corrections. Using this leapfrog technique, this paper shows that a group of autonomous vehicles can travel 22.68 kilometers with a root mean square positioning error of only 5 meters.

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; Whether a county may pay the employer's share of employment taxes on state "supplemental salary compensation" paid to a county attorney pursuant to section 46.0031 of the Government Code from the state-provided funds (RQ-0166-JC)

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; Whether a county or a surviving relative must provide for the disposition of a deceased pauper's remains, and related questions (RQ-0167-JC)

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; Whether law enforcement officers are authorized to take a seventeen-year-old into custody simply because he or she has been reported as a missing child under chapter 63 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and related questions (RQ-0169-JC)

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; Whether the repeal of a federal cooperative purchasing program affects authority given to Texas agencies and political subdivisions under Texas law (RQ-0172-JC)

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Generation of debris from targets and by x-ray ablation of surrounding materials will be a matter of concern for experimenters and the operations staff at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Target chamber and final optics protection, for example debris shield damage, and efficient facility operation drive the interest for the NIF staff. Experimenters are primarily concerned with diagnostic survivability, separation of mechanical versus radiation induced test object response in the case of effects tests, and radiation transport through the debris field when the net radiation output is used to benchmark computer codes. In addition, radiochemical analysis of activated capsule debris during ignition shots can provide a measure of the ablator. Conceptual design of the Debris Monitor and Rad-Chem Station, one of the NIF core diagnostics, is presented. Methods of debris collection, particle size and mass analysis, impulse measurement, and radiochemical analysis are given. A description of recent experiments involving debris collection and impulse measurement on the OMEGA and Pharos lasers is also provided.

This system design description (SDD) is for the Cold Vacuum Drying (CVD) Facility overhead crane and hoist system. The overhead crane and hoist system is a general service system. It is located in the process bays of the CVD Facility, supports the processes required to drain the water and dry the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) contained in the multi-canister overpacks (MCOs) after they have been removed from the K-Basins. The location of the system in the process bay is shown.

Heretofore unknown flow regimes of air-water counterflow through a pair of transparent vertical parallel cross corrugated plates were observed via high-speed video. Air flows upward driven by pressure gradient and water, downward driven by gravity. The crimp geometry of the corrugations was drawn from typical corrugated sheets used as filling material in modern structured packed towers. Four regimes were featured, namely, rivulet, bicontinuous, flooding fronts, and flooding waves. It is conceivable that the regimes observed might constitute the basis for understanding how gas and liquid phases contend for available space in the interstices of structured packings in packed towers. Flow regime transitions were expressed in terms of liquid load (liquid superficial velocity) and gas flow factor parameters commonly used in pressure drop and capacity curves. We have carefully examined the range of parameters equivalent to the ill-understood high-liquid-flow operation in packed towers. More importantly, our findings should prove valuable in validating improved first-principles modeling of gas-liquid flows in these industrially important devices.

This report discusses Environmental Protection Issues in the 106th Congress.

The remediation of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) site includes the removal of about 37 kg of uranium. Of that inventory, about 23 kg have already been removed from the piping system and chemisorbed in 25 NaF traps. This material is being stored in Building 3019. The planned recovery of {approx}11 kg of uranium from the fuel salt will generate another 15 to 19 NaF traps. The remaining 2 to 3 kg of uranium are present in activated charcoal beds, which are also scheduled to be removed from the reactor site. Since all of these materials (NaF traps and the uranium-laden charcoal) are not suitable for long-term storage, they will be converted to a chemical form [uranium oxide (U{sub 3}O{sub 8})], which is suitable for long-term storage. This document describes the process that will be used to recover and convert the uranium in the NaF traps into a stable oxide for long-term storage. Included are a description of the process, equipment, test results, and lessons learned. The process was developed for remote operation in a hot cell. Lessons learned from the prototype testing were incorporated into the process design.

The purpose of this report is to investigate the potential for damage to the multi-canister overpack (MCO) during impact from an eccentric accidental drop onto the standard storage tube, overpack storage tube, service station or sampling/weld station. Damage to the storage tube and sample/weld station is beyond the scope of this report. The results of this analysis are required to show the following: (1) If a breach resulting in unacceptable release of contamination could occur in the MCO. (2) If the dropped MCO could become stuck in the storage tube after the drop. (3) Maximum deceleration of the spent nuclear fuel baskets. The model appropriate for the standard storage tubes with the smaller gap is the basis for the analysis and results reported herein in this SNF-5204, revision 2 report. Revision 1 of this report is based on a model that includes the larger gap appropriate for the overpack tubes.

Legislation was enacted in 1998 to replace in U.S. statutes the misleading term "most-favored-nation" with "normal trade relations" or another appropriate term. The United States accords general most- favored-nation (nondiscriminatory) treatment as a matter of statutory policy to all trading partners except those whose MFN tariff status has been suspended by specific legislation. Virtually all such suspensions have been carried out under the mandate of the Trade Agreements Extension Act of 1951.

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Recent results on dijet production in single diffraction and double pomeron exchange at the Tevatron are presented. Single diffraction results are compared with predictions from Monte Carlo models and expectations from results obtained in diffractive deep inelastic scattering experiments at HERA. Double pomeron exchange results are compared with corresponding single diffraction results to test factorization.

The authors present the latest results about the top quark obtained at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider by the CDF and D0 experiments. Production cross section and mass measurements are briefly summarized. They report on studies of the top P{sub T} distribution in t{anti t} production and of the mass of the t{anti t} system. Properties on the top decay are reviewed: {Lambda}(t{r_arrow}Wb)/{Lambda}(t{r_arrow}Wq), helicity of the W's from top decay and correlations of decay products. Finally, new results on searches for electroweak production of single top are reported.

A theoretical analysis of laser-driven collisional ejection of inner-shell electrons is presented to explain the previously observed anomalous kilovolt L-shell x-ray emission spectra from atomic Xe cluster targets excited by intense sub-picosecond 248nrn ultraviolet radiation. For incident ponderomotively-driven electrons photoionized by strong above threshold ionization, the collisional ejection mechanism is shown to be highly l-state and significantly n-state (i.e. radially) selective for time periods shorter than the collisional dephasing time of the photoionized electronic wavefunction. The resulting preference for the collisional ejection of 2p electrons by an ionized 4p state produces the measured anomalous Xe(L) emission which contains direct evidence for (i) the generation of Xe{sup 27+}(2p{sup 5}3d{sup 10}) and Xe{sup 28+}(2p{sup 5}3d{sup 9}) ions exhibiting inner-shell population inversion and (ii) a coherent correlated electron state collision responsible for the production of double 2p vacancies. For longer time periods, the selectivity of this coherent impact ionization mechanism is rapidly reduced by the combined effects of intrinsic quantum mechanical spreading and dephasing--in agreement with the experimentally observed and extremely strong {minus}{lambda}{sup {minus}6} pump-laser wavelength dependence of the efficiency of inner-shell (2p) vacancy production in Xe clusters excited in underdense plasmas.

A molecular dynamics (MD) study of the lithium ultraphosphate glass series, xLi{sub 2}O{center_dot}(1{minus}x)P{sub 2}O{sub 5} (0 {le} x < 0.5) was used to investigate the changes in the Li environment with increasing modifier concentration. The results from the MD simulations indicate that no major structural variations in the Li coordination environment are observed. Changes in the type of oxygen coordinated to the modifier are observed and correlate with the T{sub g} minimum. Additionally, changes in the number of shared phosphorus vertices are observed with increasing modifier concentration, in support of recent models involving the role of the modifier in the extended range structure of phosphate glasses. Empirical calculations of the {sup 6}Li NMR chemical shifts directly from the MD simulation structures is also reported and compared to recent experimental solid-state NMR results.

A highly selective, coherent impact ionization mechanism is proposed for the efficient generation of inner-shell population inversion in laser-driven plasmas. The theoretical analysis is consistent with observed L-shell (2p{l_arrow}3d) emission spectra from laser-excited Xe clusters.

The authors present a review of recent QCD related results from the Fermilab Tevatron fixed target and collider experiments. Topics include studies of jet and photon production, and intermediate vector boson production and decay.

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