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Office of Scientific & Technical Information Technical Reports
7,184
Congressional Research Service Reports
1,153
Government Accountability Office Reports
970
Texas State Publications
356
Texas Attorney General Opinions
128
End of Term Publications
56
Texas Register
56
Texas State Auditor's Office: Reports
48
USGS Topographic Map Collection
38
Federal Communications Commission Record
32
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10,092 Matching Results
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Department of Energy: Fundamental Reassessment Needed to Address Major Mission, Structure, and Accountability Problems
A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Energy (DOE) manages the nation's nuclear weapons production complex, cleans up the environmental legacy from the production of nuclear weapons, and conducts research and development into both energy and basic science. DOE launched several reforms in the 1990s to realign its organizational structure, reduce its workforce, strengthen contracting procedures by competitive awards practices, streamline oversight of activities, and delegate some responsibilities to the private sector. Despite these reforms, GAO found that management weaknesses persist because DOE's reforms were piecemeal solutions whose effect has been muted by three impediments to fundamental improvement: the department's diverse missions, dysfunctional organizational structure, and weak control of accountability. Management weaknesses and performance problems will likely continue unless DOE addresses these impediments in a comprehensive fashion."
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
United States. General Accounting Office.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Economic Development: Federal Assistance Programs for American Indians and Alaska Natives
A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Despite the recent success of casino gaming and other business ventures undertaken by some Native Americans and Alaska Natives, unemployment and poverty remain widespread in these communities. Many federal programs are available to help Native Americans with economic development, and some tribes are using these programs. Although agencies reported that their programs helped to create and retain jobs, little is known about the effectiveness of these programs. The preparation of performance plans and reports, the designation of agency points of contact, and the establishment of a single office to coordinate federal programs relating to Indian economic development could improve Native Americans' access to federal programs and provide federal decisionmakers with valuable performance information."
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
United States. General Accounting Office.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Effects of composition and exposure on the solar reflectance of Portland cement concrete
Increasing the solar reflectance (albedo) of a paved surface keeps it cooler in the sun, reducing convection of heat from pavement to air and thereby decreasing the ambient air temperature. Simulations of the influence of pavement albedo on air temperature in Los Angeles predict that increasing the albedo of 1,250 km2 of pavement by 0.25 would save cooling energy worth $15M yr-1, and reduce smog-related medical and lost-work expenses by $76M yr-1. Most sidewalks and a small fraction of roads and parking areas are paved with portland cement concrete, which can be made quite reflective through suitable choice of cement and aggregate. Variations with composition and environmental exposure of the albedos of portland cement concrete pavements were investigated through laboratory fabrication and exposure of 32 mixes of concrete. Twenty-four mixes yielded substandard, ''rough'' concretes due to high, unmet aggregate water demand. The albedos of the remaining eight ''smooth'' concrete mixes ranged from 0.41 to 0.77 (mean 0.59). Simulated weathering, soiling, and abrasion each reduced average concrete albedo (mean decreases 0.06, 0.05, and 0.19, respectively), though some samples became slightly more reflective through weathering or soiling. Simulated rain (wetting) strongly depressed the albedos of concretes (mean decrease 0.23) until their surfaces …
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Levinson, Ronnen & Akbari, Hashem
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Egypt-United States Relations
Among the current issues in U.S.-Egyptian relations are the shared concerns over the terrorist attacks against Egyptian police, religious, government, and tourist facilities, and what those attacks maysignal for Egypt’s domestic stability. The two nations may disagree over Egypt’s interpretation of applying human rights practices to Islamic terrorists. The two countries disagree over the speed and depth, but not the need for some of Egypt’s economic reforms. Egypt and the United States agree on the importance of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the need to continue current Arab-Israel peace talks, and the need for regional stability. The two nations agree on Egypt’s determination to introduce democratic reforms to Egypt.
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Mark, Clyde R.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Enhancements to modeling regional climate response and global variability
Efforts during this grant period focused on three main considerations: (a) developing and testing various climate scenarios with SEAM, a newly created model (b) model reconstruction efforts to speed up computations and (c) optimum realization statistics
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Baer, Ferdinand; Tribbia, Joseph J. & Taylor, Mark
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Financial Audit: U.S. Senate Stationery Room Revolving Fund's Fiscal Year 2000 Financial Statement
A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO audited the financial statement for the Senate Stationary Room Revolving Fund for fiscal year 2000. GAO found that (1) the statement is presented fairly in all material respects; (2) although internal control should be improved, the Stationary Room had effective internal controls over financial reporting and compliance with laws and regulations; and (3) there was no reportable noncompliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations GAO tested."
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
United States. General Accounting Office.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
GSA On-line Procurement Programs Lack Documentation and Reliability Testing
Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The General Services Administration's (GSA) two online procurement systems--GSA Advantage! and information Technology Solutions Shop--lack basic management controls to ensure the systems produce reliable data, can not be inappropriately modified, and provide continuous service. These controls are increasingly important because government agencies are expected to increase their use of these systems and GSA relies heavily on contractors for systems operations and maintenance. Moreover, Congress and other oversight entities need to be able to rely on these systems to assess the effectiveness of government contracting programs."
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
United States. General Accounting Office.
Object Type:
Text
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Horizontal gene transfer as adaptive response to heavy metal stress in subsurface microbial communities. Final report for period October 15, 1997 - October 15, 2000
Horizontal gene transfer as adaptive response to heavy metal stress in the presence of heavy metal stress was evaluated in oligotrophic subsurface soil laboratory scale microcosms. Increasing levels of cadmium (10, 100 and 1000 mM) were applied and an E. coli donor was used to deliver the target plasmids, pMOL187 and pMOL222, which contained the czc and ncc operons, and the helper plasmid RP4. Plasmid transfer was evaluated through monitoring of the heavy metal resistance and presence of the genes. The interactive, clearly revealed, effect of biological and chemical external factors on the extent of plasmid-DNA propagation in microbial communities in contaminated soil environments was observed in this study. Additionally, P.putida LBJ 415 carrying a suicide construct was used to evaluate selective elimination of a plasmid donor.
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Smets, B. F.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Initiation, Growth and Mitigation of UV Laser Induced Damage in Fused Silica
Laser damage of large fused silica optics initiates at imperfections. Possible initiation mechanisms are considered. We demonstrate that a model based on nanoparticle explosions is consistent with the observed initiation craters. Possible mechanisms for growth upon subsequent laser irradiation, including material modification and laser intensification, are discussed. Large aperture experiments indicate an exponential increase in damage size with number of laser shots. Physical processes associated with this growth and a qualitative explanation of self-accelerated growth is presented. Rapid growth necessitates damage growth mitigation techniques. Several possible mitigation techniques are mentioned, with special emphasis on CO{sub 2} processing. Analysis of material evaporation, crack healing, and thermally induced stress are presented.
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Rubenchik, A M & Feit, M D
Object Type:
Article
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Inspectors General: Department of Defense IG Peer Reviews
Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The 1997 peer review of the Department of Defense (DOD) Inspector General (IG) done by the Environmental Protection Agency IG resulted in a qualified opinion. The peer review report questioned the quality assurance system used by the DOD IG and said that the reviewed audits did not fully comply with Government Auditing Standards. The 2000 peer review done by the Department of the Treasury IG for Tax Administration (TIGTA) also resulted in a unqualified opinion. Although TIGTA cited several problems, the peer review report concluded that the quality assurance system used by the DOD IG reasonably ensured compliance with auditing standards. However, after the peer review had been completed, a letter was sent to Congress, the press, and others questioning the integrity of the documentation that the DOD IG provided to the TIGTA peer review staff. A DOD IG internal investigation later confirmed that the work papers for one of the audits chosen for peer review had been altered and destroyed. The report concluded that these actions violated Government Auditing Standards, internal DOD IG audit policies, and the expectations of the external peer review staff. TIGTA then withdrew …
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
United States. General Accounting Office.
Object Type:
Text
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Isotopically controlled semiconductors
Semiconductor bulk crystals and multilayer structures with controlled isotopic composition have attracted much scientific and technical interest in the past few years. Isotopic composition affects a large number of physical properties, including phonon energies and lifetimes, bandgaps, the thermal conductivity and expansion coefficient and spin-related effects. Isotope superlattices are ideal media for self-diffusion studies. In combination with neutron transmutation doping, isotope control offers a novel approach to metal-insulator transition studies. Spintronics, quantum computing and nanoparticle science are emerging fields using isotope control.
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Haller, Eugene E.
Object Type:
Article
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance
None
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Mark, Clyde R.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Israeli-United States Relations
None
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Mark, Clyde R.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Joint FBI and Justice Investigation of Alleged Misconduct by Senior FBI Personnel in 1997 and Our Queries About the Possibility of Similar Misconduct in 2001
Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This letter responds to allegations of improper conduct by senior Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) personnel in connection with an October 1997 retirement dinner for former FBI Assistant Director Larry Potts. The allegations asserted that a conference was scheduled at the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Virginia, to provide a reason for senior FBI personnel to travel to Mr. Potts' retirement dinner in Arlington, Virginia, at government expense. GAO determined that the October 1997 FBI investigation of the alleged improper scheduling of a training conference was thorough. FBI and Justice Department investigators reviewed the actions of eight FBI Senior Executive Service (SES) employees. The FBI's Deputy Director issued letters of censure to three of the eight. Two individuals retired before receiving proposed letters of censure. The three remaining individuals were not disciplined because they either had attended both the training conference and the retirement dinner or had some other explanation for traveling to Washington, D.C. The FBI's Law Enforcement Ethics Unit did a study in September 1999 that concluded that a perception existed of a double standard in disciplining SES and non-SES employees. The travel cost to the …
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
United States. General Accounting Office.
Object Type:
Text
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Libya
None
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Mark, Clyde R.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
McDade-Murtha Amendment: A Sketch of Legislation in the 107th Congress Concerning Ethical Standards for the Justice Department Litigators
None
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
unknown
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Modeling of the Deformation of Living Cells Induced by Atomic Force Microscopy
We describe finite element modeling of the deformation of living cells by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Cells are soft systems, susceptible to large deformations in the course of an AFM measurement. Often the local properties, the subject of the measurement, are obscured by the response of the cell as a whole. The Lagrangian finite deformation model we have developed and implemented in finite elements analysis offers a solution to this problem. The effect of the gross deformation of the cell can be subtracted from the experimentally measured data in order to give a reproducible value for local properties. This facilitates concurrent experimental efforts to measure the mechanical properties at specific receptor sites on the membrane of a living cell.
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Rudd, Robert E.; McElfresh, Michael; Baesu, Eveline; Balhorn, Rod; Allen, Michael J. & Belak, James
Object Type:
Article
System:
The UNT Digital Library
MULTISCALE THERMOHYDROLOGIC MODEL
The purpose of the Multiscale Thermohydrologic Model (MSTHM) is to describe the thermohydrologic evolution of the near-field environment (NFE) and engineered barrier system (EBS) throughout the potential high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain for a particular engineering design (CRWMS M&O 2000c). The process-level model will provide thermohydrologic (TH) information and data (such as in-drift temperature, relative humidity, liquid saturation, etc.) for use in other technical products. This data is provided throughout the entire repository area as a function of time. The MSTHM couples the Smeared-heat-source Drift-scale Thermal-conduction (SDT), Line-average-heat-source Drift-scale Thermohydrologic (LDTH), Discrete-heat-source Drift-scale Thermal-conduction (DDT), and Smeared-heat-source Mountain-scale Thermal-conduction (SMT) submodels such that the flow of water and water vapor through partially-saturated fractured rock is considered. The MSTHM accounts for 3-D drift-scale and mountain-scale heat flow, repository-scale variability of stratigraphy and infiltration flux, and waste package (WP)-to-WP variability in heat output from WPs. All submodels use the nonisothermal unsaturated-saturated flow and transport (NUFT) simulation code. The MSTHM is implemented in several data-processing steps. The four major steps are: (1) submodel input-file preparation, (2) execution of the four submodel families with the use of the NUFT code, (3) execution of the multiscale thermohydrologic abstraction code (MSTHAC), and (4) binning …
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Buscheck, T.A.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
North American Free Trade Agreement: Coordinated Operational Plan Needed to Ensure Mexican Trucks' Compliance With U.S. Standards
A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) allowed Mexican commercial trucks to travel throughout the United States. Because of concerns about the safety of these vehicles, the United States has limited Mexican truck operations to commercial zones near the border. Relatively few Mexican carriers are expected to operate beyond these commercial zones once the United States fully opens its highways to Mexican carriers. Specific regulatory and economic factors that may limit the number of Mexican carriers operating beyond the commercial zones include (1) the lack of established business relationships beyond the U.S. commercial zones that permit drivers to return to Mexico carrying cargo, (2) difficulties obtaining competitively priced insurance, (3) congestion and delays in crossing the U.S.-Mexico border that make long-haul operations less profitable, and (4) high registration fees. Over time, improvements in trucking and border operations may increase the number of Mexican commercial vehicles traveling beyond the commercial zones. GAO found that the Department of Transportation (DOT) lacks a fully developed or approved plan to ensure that Mexican-domiciled carriers comply with U.S. safety standards. DOT has not secured permanent space at any of the 25 …
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
United States. General Accounting Office.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Nuclear Waste: Technical, Schedule, and Cost Uncertainties of the Yucca Mountain Repository Project
A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The administration's energy policy reflects renewed interest in expanding nuclear power as a source of electricity. However, the nation lacks a facility to permanently dispose of spent fuel from commercial power plants. The Department of Energy (DOE) has been studying Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a possible repository for these highly radioactive wastes. GAO believes that it may be premature for the Secretary of Energy to recommend Yucca Mountain as a suitable site. Once the President considers the site qualified for a license application and recommends the site to Congress, the Nuclear Waste Policy act requires DOE to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) within five to eight months. DOE will be unable to submit an acceptable application to NRC within the statutory time frames for several years because of unresolved technical issues. DOE is unlikely to achieve its goal of opening a repository at Yucca Mountain by 2010, and it does not have a reliable estimate of when, and at what cost, such a repository can be opened."
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
United States. General Accounting Office.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
On The Road With..., Volume 1, Number 14, Winter 2001
Newsletter of the Texas Rural Passenger Safety Education program discussing news and events about the program, as well as product recalls and topics related transportation safety issues.
Date:
Winter 2001
Creator:
Texas Agricultural Extension Service
Object Type:
Journal/Magazine/Newsletter
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Palestinians and Middle East Peace: Issues for the United States
None
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Mark, Clyde R.
Object Type:
Report
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Particle Cleanliness Validation System
The Particle Cleanliness Validation System (PCVS) is a combination of a surface particle collection tool and a microscope based data, reduction system for determining the particle cleanliness of mechanical and optical surfaces at LLNL. Livermore is currently constructing the National Ignition Facility (NIF), a large 192 beam laser system for studying fusion physics. The laser is entirely enclosed. in aluminum and stainless steel vessels containing several environments; air, argon, and vacuum. It contains uncoated optics as well as hard dielectric coated and softer solgel coated optics which are, to varying degrees, sensitive to opaque particles, translucent particles, and molecular contamination. To quantify the particulate matter on structural surfaces during vendor cleaning and installation, a novel instrument has been developed to-both collect surface particles and to quantify the number and size distribution of these particles. The particles are collected on membrane filter paper which is ''swiped'' on a test surface for a proscribed distance to collect sufficient particles to significantly exceed the cleanliness of the filter paper. The swipe paper is then placed into a cassette for protection from further. contamination and transported to a microscope with x-y motorized stage and image analysis software, The surface of the swipe paper is …
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
Stowers, I.F. & Ravizza, D.L.
Object Type:
Article
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Proposed Alliance Between American Airlines and British Airways Raises Competition Concerns and Public Interest Issues
Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As part of their plan to form an international alliance, American Airlines (AA) and British Airways (BA) have sought immunity from antitrust laws in the United States and Europe. The extent to which the alliance might come to dominate the routes between major U.S. cities and London will depend on whether other airlines are able to enter this market under an open skies agreement. Some passengers may benefit from the larger network created by an AA/BA alliance, but GAO believes that the overall benefits of such an alliance may be limited for several reasons. First, continuing constraints in slots, gates, and terminal facilities at London's Heathrow Airport and BA's corporate strategy for reducing its overall capacity would limit potential benefits. Second, several carriers are already serving many of the markets that the AA/BA alliance plans to serve. Third, neither AA nor BA claim that the alliance would generate substantial operational savings that could be passed on to stockholders, employees, and customers. A full review of the competitive effects of this and other alliances is needed because GAO's analysis suggests that a grant of antitrust immunity could enable the …
Date:
December 21, 2001
Creator:
United States. General Accounting Office.
Object Type:
Text
System:
The UNT Digital Library