Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a judge who has issued a warrant of arrest for a defendant under article 42.12(10)(c), Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, is authorized to set bail for that defendant (ID# 39565)

Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the Board of Directors of the Harris County Appraisal District may contract with the board of directors of an overlapping appraisal district to designate a single appraisal review board to hear taxpayer protests about the appraisal of property located in areas common to both districts (RQ-994)

This Enhanced Characterization of the Repository Block Requirements Document (ECRB-RD) provides applicable design and construction requirements for the Enhanced Characterization of the Repository Block (ECRB) East-West Drift and its associated equipment. This document also identifies the applicable requirements from the Exploratory Studies Facilities Design Requirements (ESFDR) Document (YMPICM-00 19, Revision 2, ICN- 1) for design and construction of the ECRB East-West Drift, ground support, constructor support utilities and components. These requirements have been tailored specifically for the ECRB East-West Drift design and construction. The allocated requirements for the ECRB East-West Drift are in Sections III through VI. The requirements in sections III through VI contain requirement numbers from the ESFDR, Rev 2, ICN-1 for reference back to the ESFDR. Each requirement in the ECRB-RD also identifies a trace to the Site Design and Test Requirements Document (YMP/CM-0021, Rev. 2, ICN-1) and 10CFR60 similar to the style used in the ESFDR. These traces to 10CFR60 are consistent with the 1995 version of 10CFR60 used by the SD&TRD and the ESFDR. Those ESFDR requirements statements that were technically modified are identified as such and those that were derived as part of this allocation are also identified. An activity evaluation has been performed …

This evaluation examines the compatibility of coating Instacote with existing High-Level Waste facilities and safety practices. No significant incompatibilities are identified. The following actions need to be completed as indicated when applying Instacote on waste tank tops:(1) Prior to application in ITP facilities, the final product should be tested for chemical resistance to sodium tetraphenylborate solutions or sodium titanate slurries.(2) Any waste contaminated with Part A or B that can not be removed by the vendor such as for radiological contamination, HLW must hold the waste until HLW completes a formal assessment of the waste, disposal criteria, and impact.(3) Prior to the start of any application of the coating, each riser needs to be evaluated for masking and masking applied if needed.(4) At the conclusion of an application actual total weight of material applied to a waste tank needs to documented and sent to the tank top loading files for reference purposes.(5) Verify that the final product contains less than 250 ppm chloride.

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The research results have demonstrated that extending collinear fast beam laser spectroscopy to resonance-excitation field-ionization spectroscopy yielded a novel ultrasensitive method to identify minute amounts of radioactive and stable isotopes. The authors have mainly performed measurements involving the trace detection of the various isotopes of Kr, Tl and Xe. In particular the technique is capable to monitor the long-lived radioactive isotopes used as tracers in the well logging industry and also in the biosphere in a range, where nuclear radiation counting techniques do not have the required isotopic selectivity and sensitivity. The authors are working in two directions. Both applications are based on the ultra sensitive detection of {sup 85}Kr, namely: trace detection of {sup 85}Kr to map the reservoir structure of large oil fields; trace detection of {sup 85}Kr in environmental air samples to monitor nuclear activities and nuclear materials processing on a global scale. The authors are in contact with the BP company for practically implementing the oil field related work and have asked for samples from their Alaskan fields.

Over 50 scientists from DOE-DP, DOE-ER, the national laboratories, academia and industry attended a workshop held on November 5-7, 1997 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Workshop participants were charged to address two questions: Is there a need for a national center for materials analysis using positron techniques and can the capabilities at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory serve this need. To demonstrate the need for a national center, the workshop participants discussed the technical advantages enabled by high positron currents and advanced measurement techniques, the role that these techniques would play in materials analysis and the demand for the data. Livermore now leads the world in materials analysis capabilities by positrons due to developments in response to demands of stockpile stewardship. The Livermore facilities now include the world`s highest current beam of keV positrons, a scanning pulsed positron microprobe under development capable of three dimensional maps of defect size and concentration, an MeV positron beam for defect analysis of large samples, and electron momentum spectroscopy by positrons. It was concluded that the positron microprobe under development at LLNL and other new instruments that would be relocated at LLNL at the high current keV source are an exciting step forward in providing …

EUV Lithography (EUVL) is a leading candidate as a stepper technology for fabricating the ``0.1 {micro}m generation`` of microelectronic circuits. EUVL is an optical printing technique qualitatively similar to DUV Lithography (DUVL), except that 11-13nm wavelength light is used instead of 193-248nm. The feasibility of creating 0.1{micro}m features has been well-established using small-field EUVL printing tools and development efforts are currently underway to demonstrate that cost-effective production equipment can be engineered to perform full-width ring-field imaging consistent with high wafer throughput rates Ensuring that an industrial supplier base will be available for key components and subsystems is crucial to the success of EUVL. In particular, the projection optics are the heart of the EUVL imaging system, yet they have figure and finish specifications that are beyond the state-of-the-art in optics manufacturing. Thus it is important to demonstrate that industry will be able to fabricate and certify these optics commensurate with EUVL requirements. Indeed, the goal of this paper is to demonstrate that procuring EUVL projection optical substrates is feasible. This conclusion is based on measurements of both commercially-available and developmental substrates. The paper discusses EUVL figure and finish specifications, followed by examples of ultrasmooth and accurate surfaces, and concludes with …

This report provides an overview of the issues regarding the Visa waiver pilot program.

The Visa Waiver Pilot Program (VWPP) allows aliens traveling from certain designated countries to come to the United States as temporary visitors without having the immigration documents normally required to enter the United States. Some maintain it fosters international travel to the United States and eases the workload of the consular offices abroad. Others observe that it by-passes the most important screening step of who is permitted to enter the United States, cautioning that it may inadvertently stimulate immigration violations. The program was scheduled to expire on September 30, 1997, but temporary extensions were included in both Continuing Resolutions. The Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary (CJS) FY1998 appropriations act (P.L. 105- 119) contains an extension through April 30, 1998. Bills to formally extend the program have passed the Senate (S. 1178) and have been reported by the House Committee on the Judiciary (H.R. 2578). H.R. 2578 is expected to come to the House floor before the April recess.

Ministers of the 29 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have struggled since 1995 to negotiate a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). Negotiations on many aspects of a final agreement have progressed rapidly, but OECD members have been unable to resolve numerous thorny issues before the latest deadline set for the OECD Ministerial meeting in April 1998. U.S. negotiators have indicated that they will not sign the present agreement without significant changes and oppose establishing another deadline.