Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2000, Medicare made more than $200 billion in payments to hundreds of thousands of health care providers who served nearly 40 million beneficiaries. Because of the program's vast size and complexity, GAO has included Medicare on its list of government areas at high risk for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. GAO first included Medicare on that list in 1990, and it remains there today. GAO has continually reported on the efforts of the Health Care Financing Administration -- recently renamed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) -- to safeguard Medicare payments and streamline operations. CMS relies on its claims administration contractors to run Medicare. As these contractors have become more aggressive in identifying and pursuing inappropriate payments, providers have expressed concern that Medicare has become to complex and difficult to navigate. CMS's oversight of its contractors has historically been weak. In the last two years, however, CMS has made substantial progress. GAO has identified several areas in which CMS still need improvement, especially in ensuring that contractors provide accurate, complete, and timely information to providers on Medicare billing rules and coverage policies."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony reviews the Department of Defense's (DOD) handling of appropriated funds from expired appropriation accounts. In 1990, Congress changed the law governing the use of appropriation accounts because it concluded that controls over them were not working. Without adequate controls, Congress was concerned that agencies could disburse money in amounts and for purposes that it had not approved. GAO found that DOD improperly charged appropriation accounts after they were closed. GAO also found that DOD did not establish the requisite systems, controls, and managerial attention required to properly account for its disbursements consistent with the 1990 account closing law, and as a result, DOD made at least $615 million of illegal or otherwise improper adjustments during fiscal year 2000 alone. DOD was aware of the limitations the account closing law placed on the availability of canceled appropriations and that the law was enacted because of previous abuses by DOD's use of old appropriations. DOD also knew that a major system used to control its use of appropriations allowed for disbursements to be charged in a way that was inconsistent with the law. However, DOD did nothing to …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), insures billions of dollars in home mortgage loans made by private lenders. HUD's 2020 Management Reform Plan, issued in 1997, sought to downsize and reform the agency, including its single-family mortgage insurance program. As part of its 2020 plan, HUD consolidated the single-family program's field activities at four new regional homeownership centers and specified resources for the centers. Although HUD has substantially streamlined FHA's single-family mortgage insurance programs, human capital issues remain a concern. This report reviews HUD's implementation of the homeownership center concept under the 2020 plan, focusing on (1) the deployment of center staff, (2) the training provided to the center staff, and (3) the centers' monitoring of contractors. GAO found that nearly half of the centers' staff remain in 71 field offices across the country, even though HUD envisioned that only a third of the staff would stay in the field offices. The deployment of staff across the centers is not consistent with their workload, and, as a result, the centers are having trouble supervising and making effective use …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Department of Justice's fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 and assesses Justice's progress in achieving selected key outcomes that were identified as important mission areas. Justice's overall progress toward achieving the key outcomes was difficult to ascertain because generally the performance report lacked fiscal year 2000 performance targets to measure success and lacked clear linkage between performance measures and outcomes. Justice did not set fiscal year 2000 performance targets for some measures because the measures were new, and for some measures Justice believes that setting performance targets could cause the public to perceive law enforcement as engaging in "bounty hunting" or pursuing arbitrary targets merely for the sake of meeting particular goals. Justice's strategies varied in the extent to which they included sufficient information to inform decisionmakers about initiatives to achieve these outcomes. GAO notes opportunities for Justice to improve the usefulness of its reports and plans."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In negotiating profit on contracts, the Department of Defense (DOD) requires contracting officers to set negotiating objectives by relying on guidelines in defense regulations. Congress mandated that DOD review its profit guidelines and consider whether modifying them would provide more incentive for contractors to develop and produce complex and innovative new technologies for weapon systems. After completing its review, DOD issued a final rule in December 2000 that added a technology incentive to its guidelines for setting profit objectives on negotiated defense contracts. This report reviews whether the new policy is (1) likely to achieve its intended objective of stimulating increased innovation and (2) consistent with the revised policies for acquiring weapons systems. GAO found that the new profit policy may have limited effect on incentivizing additional innovation because the policy has limited reach during research and development and it does not provide adequate guidance on when to apply the incentive. The policy may not reinforce DOD's emphasis on technology maturity in its guidance on the system acquisition process."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Department of Defense's (DOD) handling of appropriated funds from expired appropriation accounts. In 1990, Congress changed the law governing the use of appropriation accounts because it concluded that controls over them were not working. Without adequate controls, Congress was concerned that agencies could disburse money in amounts and for purposes that it had not approved. GAO found that DOD improperly charged appropriation accounts after they were closed. GAO also found that DOD did not establish the requisite systems, controls, and managerial attention required to properly account for its disbursements consistent with the 1990 account closing law. As a result, DOD made at least $615 million of illegal or otherwise improper adjustments during fiscal year 2000 alone. DOD was aware of the limitations the account closing law placed on the availability of canceled appropriations and that the law was enacted because of previous abuses by DOD. DOD also knew that a major system used to control its use of appropriations allowed for disbursements to be charged in a way that was inconsistent with the law. However, DOD did nothing to fix the system, …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress, the Department of Defense, and GAO have expressed concerns about the readiness of U.S. forces to carry out combat missions. To ensure that Army units can fulfill their missions, the Army decided to staff all active units at 100 percent with personnel at authorized grades and skills over fiscal years 2000-2003. The initiative has had mixed results. On the positive side, some combat divisions that have been routinely staffed at less than authorized levels are now staffed in the aggregate at 100 percent. On the negative side, because of the effort to staff the combat divisions and armored regiments at 100 percent, the staffing levels of some nondivisional units, including early deploying combat support units, have decreased. According to Army officials, some management decisions are affecting the Army's ability to achieve the goals for the manning initiative. The Army's ability to fully achieve and sustain its manning initiative goals will depend on its future management decisions on funding, recruiting, and retention."

The total inventory of fourteen radionuclides, three metals, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) has been calculated for the twenty-two Old Solvent Tanks (OSTs). The inventory calculations are based upon extensive characterization data of the multiple liquid and sludge samples taken from the OSTs. In addition, the total inventory of sixteen actinides (including error) has been calculated. The actinide inventory will be useful for criticality safety considerations.

None

The entire history of the discoveries of K{sub L}{sup o} and violations of T and CP began at Brookhaven. It is most appropriate for us to hold today's special seminar on CP Violation in K decay in this laboratory. Forty-five years ago, in the same paper on parity nonconservation, it was also pointed out that there is no proof of T symmetry in the weak interaction, nor of C invariance. That paper was submitted to the Physical Review (then, also located at BNL) on June 22, 1956. A month later, Lederman and his collaborators discovered a long-lived neutral V particle (now called K{sub L}{sup o}) at the Cosmotron using the cloud chamber. This discovery was presented as a rigorous proof of C symmetry. In the same summer at Brookhaven, in collaboration with Oehme and Yang, I did the analysis on the neutral kaon system, assuming T, C and CP violations (but based on CPT symmetry). In that work, the two non-orthogonal eigen-states {psi}{sub +} and {psi}{sub -} (now K{sub S}{sup o} and K{sub L}{sup o}) were characterized by a non-orthogonality parameter {alpha} ({approx_equal} 2 Re{epsilon} in today's notation), which was shown to be small, because of unitarity. We then went …

Phase-space analysis of neutron optics has revealed that neutron imaging by Bragg reflection from thick bent perfect crystals can be non-dispersive (independent of the neutron wavelength), like with an optical mirror. The corresponding devices, called Bragg mirrors (BM), can be used for neutron imaging at pulsed neutron sources. Using a position sensitive detector (PSD) and time-of-flight analysis (TOF), a BM imaging system will make it possible to collect both real space mapping data and scattering space data simultaneously. Each pixel of PSD will correspond to a point in the sample and will contain a segment of the diffraction pattern (useful for strain, texture or phase analysis), or of an inelastic spectrum. In this paper the resolution and efficiency of BM in TOF diffraction experiments are calculated and compared with the usual sequential method of mapping. Experimental tests performed at steady state neutron sources showed sub-millimeter spatial resolution in the one-dimensional case.

This report summarizes results obtained from the environmental monitoring program at the Savannah River Plant during 1973. A brief discussion of plant releases to the environment and radioactivity detected in the environment is presented in the text and tables. The appendix contains tables of results from environmental sample analyses, sensitivities of laboratory analyses, and maps of sampling locations.

A design goal for VULCAN, the SNS engineering diffractometer, is to enable spatial mapping with 0.1 mm resolution. Because the targeted applications often involve the use of large samples or special environment, slits cannot be used for this purpose. In this paper, methods to achieve 0.1 mm spatial resolution are outlined. For the incident beam, a new compact focusing device is proposed. The device is made of a stack of bent silicon wafers, each having a reflective multilayer (supermirror) deposited on one side and a neutron-absorbing layer on the other side. The optimal design to minimize the optical spatial aberrations is discussed and Monte-Carlo simulation results are presented. For the diffracted beam, imaging devices made from thick packets of diffracting bent silicon wafers (known as the Bragg Mirrors) could be used. The requirements to achieve a sharp imaging together with a large phase-space acceptance window are discussed and preliminary testing results are presented.

This report addresses Milestone M4900, ''Simulant Mixing Sample Analysis Results,'' and contains the data generated during the ''Mixing of Process Heels, Process Solutions, and Recycle Streams: Small-Scale Simulant'' task. The Task Technical and Quality Assurance Plan for this task is BNF-003-98-0079A. A report with a narrative description and discussion of the data will be issued separately.

The development of nonradioactive waste simulants to support the River Protection Project - Waste Treatment Plant bench and pilot-scale testing is crucial to the design of the facility. The report documents the simulants development to support the SRTC programs and the strategies used to produce the simulants.

A method for treatment and disposal of the Hanford High Level Waste has been proposed for BNFL, Inc. In this process, a portion of the Hanford High Level Waste will be pretreated to concentrate radionuclides prior to vitrification. This task examines the stability of one of the ion exchange resins, SuperLig (TM) 639, toward irradiation. These tests were conducted using simulated Hanford High Level Waste containing pertechnetate ion as a stand-in for pertechnetate.

A study was funded by High Level Waste Management to determine the effect of increasing the wind speed threshold for High-Level Waste projects using windbreaks. It was also requested to determine the conditions enabling particles to be transported up and over a windbreak and to include the effect of forced ventilation up to 300 cfm.

Organisms living on the earth are exposed to solar radiation, including its ultraviolet (UV) components (for general reviews, the reader is referred to Smith [1] and Young et al. [2]). UV wavelength regions present in sunlight are frequently designated as UVB (290-320 nm) and UVA (320-400 nm). In today's solar spectrum, UVA is the principal UV component, with UVB present at much lower levels. Ozone depletion will increase the levels of UVB reaching the biosphere, but the levels of UVA will not be changed significantly [3]. Because of the high efficiency of UVB in producing damage in biological organisms in the laboratory experiments, it has sometimes been assumed that UVA has little or no adverse biological effects. However, accumulating data [4, 5], including action spectra (efficiency of biological damage as a function of wavelength of radiation; see Section 5) for DNA damage in alfalfa seedlings [6], in human skin [7], and for a variety of plant damages (Caldwell, this volume) indicate that UVA can induce damage in DNA in higher organisms. Thus, understanding the differential effects of UVA and UVB wavebands is essential for estimating the biological consequences of stratospheric ozone depletion.

Radiation can damage cellular components, including DNA. Organisms have developed a panoply of means of dealing with DNA damage. Some repair paths have rather narrow substrate specificity (e.g. photolyases), which act on specific pyrimidine photoproducts in a specific type (e.g., DNA) and conformation (double-stranded B conformation) of nucleic acid. Others, for example, nucleotide excision repair, deal with larger classes of damages, in this case bulky adducts in DNA. A detailed discussion of DNA repair mechanisms is beyond the scope of this article, but one can be found in the excellent book of Friedberg et al. [1] for further detail. However, some DNA damages and paths for repair of those damages important for photobiology will be outlined below as a basis for the specific examples of genetic and molecular analysis that will be presented below.

An environmental monitoring program has been in existence at SRP since 1951. The original preoperational surveys have evolved into an extensive environmental monitoring program in which sample types from approximately 500 locations are analyzed for radiological and/or nonradiological parameters. The results of these analyses for 1981 are presented in this report.

The recently discovered dynamical diffraction effect ''neutron camel'' was used for the residual stress measurements in a thick Si(111) crystal coated with a 2000 {angstrom} thick Ni film. The observed asymmetry of the back-face rocking curve corresponds to the bending radius of {approx} 19 km and the tension force applied to the Ni film is {approx} 90 N/m. Relative deformation of the Si crystallographic cells in the vicinity of diffractive surfaces is |{partial_derivative}u{sub z}/{partial_derivative}z| {approx} 1.6 x 10{sup -6}.

The overall objective of this small-scale simulant mixing study was to identify the processes within the Hanford Site River Protection Project-Waste Treatment Plant (RPP-WTP) that may generate precipitates and to identify the types of precipitates formed. This information can be used to identify where mixtures of various solutions will cause precipitation of solids, potentially causing operational problems such as fouling equipment or increasing the amount of High Level Waste glass produced. Having this information will help guide protocols for flushing or draining tanks, mixing internal recycle streams, and mixing waste tank supernates. This report contains the discussion and thermodynamic chemical speciation modeling of the raw data.

This report examines significant contributions to inelastic behavior of common building systems and develops frequency dependent force reduction factors that may be used with the results from linear elastic analyses models.

A moving diffractor changes the energy of elastically diffracted neutrons by the Doppler effect. Depth-graded multilayers can diffract neutrons over a large band of energy. Using a pulsed neutron source, such a depth-graded multilayer, decelerating synchronously with the incident neutron pulse, can shift the reflected neutrons into a compressed energy window. This focusing in energy is associated with a broadening of the pulse in time, but the process does not involve a significant decrease in the neutron phase-space density. The proposed method can be used to design long pulse or quasi-continuous sources of cold, very cold or ultra cold neutrons (UCN). The analysis concentrates on enhanced production of UCN at pulsed neutron sources.