Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses (1) how internal control weaknesses make the departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Education vulnerable to, and in some cases have resulted in, improper and questionable payments and (2) strategies these and other federal agencies can use to better manage their improper payments. Despite a climate of increased scrutiny, most improper payments associated with federal programs continue to go unidentified as they drain taxpayer resources away from the missions and goals of our government. GAO found that both HUD and Education lacked fundamental internal controls over their purchase card programs that would have minimized the risk of improper purchases. Combined with a lack of monitoring, environments were created at HUD and Education where improper purchases could be made with little risk of detection. One of the most important internal controls in the purchase card process is the review of supporting documentation and approval of each purchase by the approving official. Another control that is effective in helping to prevent improper purchases is the blocking of certain merchant category codes. This control, available as part of the agencies' purchase card contracts with the card …

A collection of numerical methods are presented for the advection or remapping of material properties on unstructured and staggered polyhedral meshes in arbitrary Lagrange-Eulerian calculations. The methods include several new procedures to track and capture sharp interface boundaries, and to partition radiation energy into multi-material thermal states. The latter is useful for extending and applying consistently single material radiation diffusion solvers to multi-material problems.

We present the z-dependent spectral measurement results for the second harmonic of the SASE FEL radiation before and after saturation. The measurements were performed at the Advanced Photon Source FEL with the fundamental wavelength of 530 nm. The spectral properties of the second harmonic are compared with those of the fundamental and with the theoretical expectations.

D0 has implemented and calibrated a k{perpendicular} jet algorithm for the first time in a p{bar p} collider. We present two results based on 1992-1996 data which were recently published: the subjet multiplicity in quark and gluon jets and the central inclusive jet cross section. The measured ratio between subjet multiplicities in gluon and quark jets is consistent with theoretical predictions and previous experimental values. NLO pQCD predictions of the k{perpendicular} inclusive jet cross section agree with the D0 measurement, although marginally in the low p{sub T} range. We also present a preliminary measurement of thrust cross sections, which indicates the need to include higher than {alpha}{sub s}{sup 3} terms and resumation in the theoretical calculations.

Authenticated two-party Diffie-Hellman key exchange allows two principals A and B, communicating over a public network, and each holding a pair of matching public/private keys to agree on a session key. Protocols designed to deal with this problem ensure A (B resp.)that no other principals aside from B (A resp.) can learn any information about this value. These protocols additionally often ensure A and B that their respective partner has actually computed the shared secret value. A natural extension to the above cryptographic protocol problem is to consider a pool of principals agreeing on a session key. Over the years several papers have extended the two-party Diffie-Hellman key exchange to the multi-party setting but no formal treatments were carried out till recently. In light of recent developments in the formalization of the authenticated two-party Diffie-Hellman key exchange we have in this thesis laid out the authenticated group Diffie-Hellman key exchange on firmer foundations.

Inorganic contaminants, such as heavy metals and radionuclides, can adhere to insoluble Fe(III) minerals resulting in decreased mobility of these contaminants through subsurface environments. Dissimilatory Fe(III)-reducing bacteria (DIRB), by reducing insoluble Fe(III) to soluble Fe(II), may enhance contaminant mobility. The Savannah River Site, South Carolina (SRS), has been subjected to both heavy metal and radionuclide contamination. The overall objective of this project is to investigate the release of inorganic contaminants such as heavy metals and radionuclides that are bound to solid phase soil Fe complexes and to elucidate the mechanisms for mobilization of these contaminants that can be associated with microbial Fe(III) reduction. This is being accomplished by (i) using uncontaminated and contaminated soils from SRS as prototype systems, (ii) evaluating the diversity of DIRBs within the samples and isolating cultures for further study, (iii) using batch microcosms to evaluate the bioavailability of Fe(III) from pure minerals and SRS soils, (iv) developing kinetic and mass transfer models that reflect the system dynamics, and (v) carrying out soil column studies to elucidate the dynamics and interactions amongst Fe(III) reduction, remineralization and contaminant mobility.

From the start of operations of the Advanced Photon Source storage ring, we have observed small thermally related dipole sources appearing soon after filling. Because there are many like sources occurring at about the same time, it has been difficult to locate them. Some sources have recently been located with a specially configured orbit correction running while the vacuum chamber temperature is changed. Vacuum chamber motion, seen as an apparent orbit change, can also be estimated from the results.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) on December 11, 2001, represented a major step in the reform efforts of the U.S.'s fourth largest trading partner. When implemented, these reforms will liberalize and modernize China's economy and trading activities, including its industrial, services, and agricultural sectors. However, understanding the implications of China's accession depends on a thorough analysis of the complex terms of China's membership in the WTO. In this initial study, one of several GAO will conduct for the Congress on China-WTO issues, GAO systematically analyzed (1) the scope and types of China's WTO commitments; and (2) the interrelationships among commitments set forth in China's accession agreement. U.S. Trade Representative and other agency officials provided technical and editorial comments on this report, which GAO incorporated as appropriate."

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Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) of near-surface Alloy 22 metal can be propagated by yield-point levels (45 ksi) of residual weld tensile stresses. This is a serious concern for welds in the Alloy 22 canister employed in the Yucca Mountain Project (YMP) Waste Package, particularly in closure welds that cannot be stress relieved by conventional heat treating. This work shows that compressive shock waves, driven into a weldment by laser peening, replaces its detrimental tensile stresses of 30-80 ksi with compressive stresses of 2-25 ksi or better that retard SCC. This benefit occurs in the top 1.5 mm (or more) of the material without appreciable heating. It was also found that quenching after solution annealing and shot peening during production of Alloy 22 plate imparts compressive stresses of 35-105 ksi near the surface, a very large buffer against SCC. This means that if seam-welded hollow canisters likewise gain compressive stresses upon post-weld annealing and quenching, and if closure welds are laser peened, all surfaces of the canister would be under compression, thereby precluding SCC of the Alloy 22 canister. Laser peening may plastically deform as much as the top 10% of the metal (about 2 mm out of the 25-mm plate …

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A new method for determining the year of birth, the year of death, and hence, the age at death, of post-bomb and recently deceased elephants has been developed. The technique is based on Accelerator Mass Spectrometry radiocarbon analyses of small-sized samples extracted from along the length of a ge-line of an elephant tusk. The measured radiocarbon concentrations in the samples from a tusk can be compared to the {sup 14}C atmospheric bomb-pulse curve to derive the growth years of the initial and final samples from the tusk. Initial data from the application of this method to two tusks will be presented. Potentially, the method may play a significant role in wildlife management practices of African national parks. Additionally, the method may contribute to the underpinnings of efforts to define new international trade regulations, which could, in effect, decrease poaching and the killing of very young animals.

In September 1993 DOE through Argonne National Laboratory awarded Wilbur Wright College a grant to develop an Environmental Technician training program. The primary goals included developing a comprehensive curriculum for the best possible training of environmental technicians as well as the building of a state-of-the-art facility to serve these students. The specific goal of the creation of the Environmental Technology Department was to train participants in identifying, auditing, sampling, and managing hazardous substances, handling in routine use, as well as responding to chemical emergencies, and in minimizing the generation of hazardous waste through pollution prevention. The development of the facilities included a state-of-the-art classroom with projection equipment and satellite connection, a computer lab, and a fully equipped wet science laboratory. The program was intended to make available a range of education options for students. Because of the accomplishments of the Environmental Technology Department, it must be considered a success that continues after the completion of the grant.

An electron-electron coincidence [or (e,2e)] technique was used to investigate atomic ionization by electron impact in the neighborhood of autoionizing resonances. Differing binary (I{sup +}) and recoil (I{sup -}) lobe intensities in coplanar (e,2e) ejected-electron angular distributions were analyzed in terms of interference cross-terms, between opposite parity final-state continua, that change sign when {theta}{sub ej} {yields} {theta}{sub ej} + 180{sup o} in the angular distributions. The magnitude of these cross-terms varies rapidly with ejected-electron energy across overlapping autoionizing resonances. The energy variation in the interference terms may be examined by obtaining the sum (I{sup +} + I{sup -}) and difference (I{sup +} - I{sup -}) of (e,2e) energy spectra measured at ejected-electron angles 180{sup o} apart.

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This is one report in the series of reports that discuss the campaign finance practices and related issues. Concerns over financing federal elections have become a seemingly perennial aspect of our political system, centered on the enduring issues of high campaign costs and reliance on interest groups for needed campaign funds. The report talks about the today’s paramount issues such as perceived loopholes in current law and the longstanding issues: overall costs, funding sources, and competition.

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This report discusses the issue facing Congress on whether to continue to support the executive branch’s prosecution of medical marijuana patients and their providers, in accordance with marijuana’s status as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, or whether to relax federal marijuana prohibition enough to permit the medical use of botanical cannabis products by seriously ill persons, especially in states that have created medical marijuana programs under state law.

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This report is a compilation of legislation on Iraq from 1990 to the present. The list is composed of resolutions and public laws relating to military action and/or diplomatic pressure to be taken against Iraq.1 The list does not include foreign aid appropriations bills passed since FY1994 that deny U.S. funds to any nation in violation of the United Nations sanctions regime against Iraq.2 Also, measures that were not passed only in either the House or the Senate are not included (with the exception of the proposals in the 107th Congress).

This report details the gun control legislation in the 107th Congress. The contents include Gun-related statistics, federal regulation of firearms, and possible issues for the 107th Congress.

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