A briefing report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Employers face potential tax, regulatory, and liability barriers when they establish telecommuting programs for their employees. Telecommuting refers to working from remote locations rather than an employer-provided location. Even though telecommuting has grown, some proponents are concerned that various laws and regulations discourage employers from establishing these programs. Many telecommuting proponents believe that significant obstacles to increased use of telecommuting involve internal management concerns on (1) assessing whether the employer has the types of positions and employees suitable for a telecommuting program, (2) maintaining security over sensitive company data while monitoring the actions of remote workers, and (3) ensuring that telecommuting activities do not adversely affect profits. A number of state and federal laws and regulations were also cited as potential barriers to telecommuting by those GAO interviewed. However, several of those laws and regulations cited as potential barriers predate the move toward the more technological and information-based economy in which telecommuting has developed. Thus their application to telecommuting is evolving and is somewhat unclear at this time."

A statement of record issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Advances in the use of information technology (IT) and the Internet continue to change the way that federal agencies communicate, use and disseminate information, deliver services, and do business. Electronic government (e-government) refers to the use of technology, particularly web-based Internet applications, to enhance the access to and delivery of government information and service to citizens, business partners, employees, other agencies, and entities. This testimony discusses the status of federal e-government initiatives, the key challenges facing the government in implementing these initiatives, and the chief information officer (CIO) approach proposed by the E-Government Act of 2001. GAO found that federal agencies have launched an array of e-government applications, including using the Internet to collect and disseminate information and forms; buy goods and services; submit bids and proposals; and apply for licenses, grants, and benefits. Many of these initiatives have the potential to increase the speed and efficiency with which citizens and businesses interact with the government. However, the government faces several challenges in transitioning to an electronic environment. Among other issues, the government must minimize the risks associated with the dissemination of personal information and …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Office of Multifamily Housing Assistance Restructuring (OMHAR) administers the mark-to-market program, which was created to preserve the affordability of low-income rental housing while reducing the long-term costs of Section 8 project-based assistance. Legislative authorization for both the mark-to-market program and OMHAR is scheduled to terminate on September 30, 2001. If the legislative authority for the mark-to-market program provided for in Subtitle A of the Multifamily Assisted Housing Reform and Affordability Act of 1997 is allowed to expire, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates it will have to reduce the rents to market levels of well over 1,000 properties without having the tools to mitigate the potential effects of such reductions. If the reduced rents do not provide sufficient revenues to cover the properties' operating expenses, mortgage payments, and repair needs, owners may be forced to reduce expenditures for maintenance or other operating expenses or may default on their mortgages. Such action could result in deteriorating property conditions and substantial claims against the Federal Housing Administration insurance fund, which, in turn, could adversely affect property residents and lead to a decrease in the …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the results of GAO's review of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) rulemaking process and ways to improve its efficiency. GAO found that the time FAA took to formally initiate a rule in response to a congressional mandate or a National Transportation Safety Board recommendation varied widely. Between fiscal year 1995 and fiscal year 2000, FAA initiated most such rules within two years, but some rules were initiated many years later. During the entire six-year period GAO reviewed FAA's median time for the final rule phase--about 15 months--was comparable to that of four other federal regulatory agencies. Over a shorter, more recent period, FAA took longer to complete this phase. In 1998, FAA developed reforms to address problems the pace of rulemaking, including the timing of management's involvement, the administration of the process, and human capital management issues. However, the reforms have yet to shorten the rulemaking process because they have not been fully or effectively implemented. Shifting priorities, some brought about by external events and some by internal circumstances, have continued to delay the pace of rulemaking. In addition, difficult policy issues have sometimes remained …

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 employers share of employment taxes on state "supplemental salary compensation" paid to a county judge pursuant to section 26.006(a) of the Government Code from the State provided funds, and related questions(RQ-0356-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 section 25.092 of the Education Code, which relates to minimum attendance for class credit, is applicable to a student who is exempt from compulsory attendance under section 25.086.

In this quarter we completed the manufacture and bench testing of the first prototype of the MT-24/LF system to be used in the natural IP survey. The MT-24/LF will dramatically reduce field costs by simplifying field operations through the use of high accuracy GPS synchronization between wide band high accuracy (24 bit) autonomous recording systems. The simplification of field operations comes about from the elimination of the need for long lengths of telemetry cable and also from the elimination of trained operators for field data acquisition. Instead, all data is now synchronized by GPS and recorded to compact Flash media which is quickly and efficiently recovered and brought back to base for processing.

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Although Pd/Cu site interchange in the non-Fermi liquid (NFL) material UCu{sub 4}Pd has been observed, the relationship between this disorder and the NFL behavior remains unclear. In order to better compare to the UCu{sub 5-x}Pd{sub x} phase diagram, they report results from Pd K edge x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) experiments on this series (x = 0.3-1.5) that determine the fraction of Pd atoms on the nominally Cu (16e) sites, s. They find that for these unannealed samples, s is at least 17% for all the samples measured, even for x < 1.0, although it does climb monotonically beyond its minimum at x = 0.7. These data are compared to changes in the lattice parameter as a function of x.

Analyses of alternative futures often present results for a limited set of scenarios, with little if any sensitivity analysis to identify the factors affecting the scenario results. This approach creates an artificial impression of certainty associated with the scenarios considered, and inhibits understanding of the underlying forces. This paper summarizes the economic and carbon savings sensitivity analysis completed for the Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future study (IWG, 2000). Its 19 sensitivity cases provide insight into the costs and carbon-reduction impacts of a carbon permit trading system, demand-side efficiency programs, and supply-side policies. Impacts under different natural gas and oil price trajectories are also examined. The results provide compelling evidence that policy opportunities exist to reduce carbon emissions and save society money.

The rate of thermonuclear reactions in hot plasmas as a function of local plasma temperature determines the way in which thermonuclear ignition and burning proceeds in the plasma. The conventional model approach to calculating these rates is to assume that the reacting nuclei in the plasma are in Maxwellian equilibrium at some well-defined plasma temperature, over which the statistical average of the reaction rate quantity {sigma}v is calculated, where {sigma} is the cross-section for the reaction to proceed at the relative velocity v between the reacting particles. This approach is well-understood and is the basis for much nuclear fusion and astrophysical nuclear reaction rate data. The Thermonuclear Data File (TDF) system developed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Warshaw 1991), which is the topic of this report, contains data on the Maxwellian-averaged thermonuclear reaction rates for various light nuclear reactions and the correspondingly Maxwellian-averaged energy spectra of the particles in the final state of those reactions as well. This spectral information closely models the output particle and energy distributions in a burning plasma, and therefore leads to more accurate computational treatments of thermonuclear burn, output particle energy deposition and diagnostics, in various contexts. In this report we review and derive …

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Integration of MPC and A systems at Russian facilities has moved beyond the project end dates and the systems have been operational for some time at a number of Russian sites. At some of these sites, system of performance testing is resulting in data that is being analyzed to determine the health and operability of the system. Naturally, as the systems are young, a number of operational problems are being discovered and solved by Russian scientists and technicians. This paper explains the performance testing program including the types of systems being analyzed. It also discusses the tools and process used to analyze the data and the actions taken. It will discuss the organizations that support this activity and their success in establishing this function at the referenced sites.

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The Buildings for the 21st Century newsletter is produced by the Office of Building Technology, State and Community Programs and contains information on building programs, events, products, and initiatives, with a focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy. The summer issue includes information on technology roadmap initiatives, new energy computer simulation software, an educational CD with energy lessons for teachers, a CD with energy-saving tips, a study on the efficiency of clothes washers, a loan program in New York, and a calendar of meetings and conferences.

The objective of this research was to enhance the basic understanding of the role of glass batch chemistry (more specifically via control of frit composition) on the overall melting process for Macrobatch 3 (MB3). The overall strategy for the frit development activities was to explore frit compositional regions which challenged ''acceptable'' predicted property behavior.

The Argonne Wakefield Accelerator has been successfully used for conducting wakefield experiments in dielectric loaded structures and plasmas. Although the initial wakefield experiments were successful, higher drive beam quality would substantially improve the wakefield accelerating gradients. For this reason they have built a new 1-1/2 cell L-band photocathode RF gun. This gun is expected to produce 10-100 nC bunches with 2-5 ps rms pulse length and normalized emittance less than 100 mm mrad. The gun will initially have a copper photocathode, which will soon be replaced by a high quantum efficiency cesium telluride one, allowing the generation of a train of high charge bunches. the beam energy at the exit of the gun cavity will be in the range 7.5-10 MeV. A standing-wave linac structure operating at the same frequency (1.3 GHz) will increase the beam energy to about 15 MeV. This beam will be used in high-gradient wakefield acceleration experiments and other high intensity electron beam applications. Traveling-wave dielectric loaded structures, operating at 7.8 and 15.6 GHz, will be excited by the propagation of single bunches or by trains of up to 32 electron bunches, reaching gradients in excess of 100 MV/m over distances of the order of 1 …

The HLW salt waste (salt cake and supernate) now stored at the SRS must be treated to remove insoluble sludge solids and reduce the soluble concentration of radioactive cesium radioactive strontium and transuranic contaminants (principally Pu and Np). These treatments will enable the salt solution to be processed for disposal as saltstone, a solid low-level waste.

The purpose of this task was to investigate on a laboratory-scale the interactions of molten aluminum with stainless steel under hypothetical severe reactor accident conditions. This experimental effort provided data necessary to assess the susceptibility of the reactor vessel to breaching (general through-wall failure of vessel) in accident scenarios where contact of molten aluminum and stainless steel may occur. This report summarizes the results of the extensive experimental program.

The Nuclear Materials Identification System (NMIS) detector-detector cross correlation signatures collected from passive measurements for plutonium assemblies are highly sensitive to its position with respect to the detectors. This position sensitivity coupled with an optimum configuration of four detectors about the assembly can theoretically be used to extract the shape distribution of the {sup 240}Pu in the assembly. This process is currently being simulated at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory by using four detectors arranged in a tetrahedron and {sup 252}Cf sources as surrogates for the {sup 240}Pu.

The intermittent nature of the wind resource, together with short-term power fluctuations, are the two principal issues facing a utility with wind power plants in its power grid. To mitigate these issues, utilities, wind power plant developers, and operators need to understand the nature of wind power fluctuations and how they affect the electrical power system, as well as to analyze ancillary service requirements with real wind power plant output data. To provide the necessary data, NREL conducted a study to collect at least 2 years of long-term, high-frequency (1-hertz [Hz]) data from several medium- to large-scale wind power plants with different wind resources, terrain features, and turbine types. Researchers then analyzed the data for power fluctuations, frequency distribution of wind power (by deriving a probability distribution function of wind power plant output variations), spatial and temporal diversity of wind power, and wind power capacity credit issues. Results of these analyses can provide data on the potential effects of wind power plants on power system regulation.

Molecular procedures were used to identify Thiothrix spp. in biofilms from sulfide-rich waters in two distinct Florida ecosystems. These Thiothrix spp.-containing biofilms at these sites have been consistently observed for over 10 years. Clonal libraries of biofilm 16S rDNA from each site contained rDNA sequences that were 99 to 99.5 percent similar to Thiothrix unzii.

The objective for this task is to understand and apply the control of glass batch chemistry (frit composition) and/or changes in chemical processing strategies to improve the overall melting process for Macrobatch 3 (MB3) (Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) sludge-only processing). For melt rate limited systems, a small increase in melting efficiency translates into substantial savings by reducing operational costs without compromising the quality of the final waste product. This report summarizes the key information collected during the FY01 melt-rate testing completed to support the conclusion that switching from Frit 200, the frit currently used to prepare all the glass produced in radioactive processing, to Frit 320 should improve the melt rate during processing of DWPF MB3 sludge (Note: MB3 is referred to as Sludge Batch 2 in the High-Level Waste System Plan). The report also includes recommendations that should be addressed prior to implementation of the new frit and future research that should be completed to further improve melt rate. No analysis has been completed to determine if Frit 320 can be used in processing of other sludge macrobatches. The testing in this report is based on dried-slurry testing of a MB3 melter feed prepared from nonradioactive simulants. Additional …