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; Reconsideration of Attorney General Letter Opinion No. 96-060 (1996) and related questions (ID# 38863)

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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Authority of a home-rule city to adopt an ordinance restricting or prohibiting cigarette vending machines.

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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether public housing authorities may administer federal housing assistance program involving payment of rent outside of their geographical boundaries.

The computer code LATIS is used to simulate midplane and backplane spallation resulting from short pulsed laser absorption. A 1-D planar geometry is simulated with an exponential laser absorption profile. The laser pulse length is assumed to be much shorter than the sound transit time across the laser absorption length. The boundary conditions are a fixed front plane and free backplane (backplane spall) and a free front plane and a fixed midplane (midplane spall). The NBS/NRC equation of state for water is used with a self- consistent yet empirical material strength and failure model. The failure model includes the effects of void nucleation, growth and coalescence. Definite signatures of the nucleation and coalescence thresholds are found in the back surface motion for backplane spallation.

This paper reviews the All Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics open publications on hydrodynamic instability in strong media.

This report summarizes work performed under contract No. DE-FC07-94ID13283, {open_quotes}Advanced Power Conversion Based on the Aerocapacitors{trademark}.{close_quotes} Under this contract high power density, high energy density, organic electrolyte Aerocapacitors{trademark} were developed and characterized for power conversion applications. Pilot facilities for manufacturing prototype AA-size Aerocapacitors{trademark} were put in place. The low ESR and good frequency response of these devices show that they are ideal components for high discharge rate and low to moderate frequency (< 10 kHz) applications such as power conversion.

The Department of Energy`s (DOE) Office of Science and Technology Decontamination and Decommissioning (D&D) Focus Area, led by the Federal Energy Technology Center, has been charged with improving upon baseline D&D technologies with the goal of demonstrating and validating more cost-effective and safer technologies to characterize, deactivate, survey, decontaminate, dismantle, and dispose of surplus structures, buildings, and their contents at DOE sites. The D&D Focus Area`s approach to verifying the benefits of the improved D&D technologies is to use them in large-scale technology demonstration (LSTD) projects at several DOE sites. The Fernald Environmental Management Project (FEMP) was selected to host one of the first three LSTD`s awarded by the D&D Focus Area. The FEMP is a DOE facility near Cincinnati, Ohio, that was formerly engaged in the production of high quality uranium metal. The FEMP is a Superfund site which has completed its RUFS process and is currently undergoing environmental restoration. With the FEMP`s selection to host an LSTD, the FEMP was immediately faced with some challenges. The primary challenge was that this LSTD was to be integrated into the FEMP`s Plant 1 D&D Project which was an ongoing D&D Project for which a firm fixed price contract had been …

The management of surplus weapons plutonium is an important and urgent task with profound environmental, national, and international security implications. In the aftermath of the Cold War, Presidential Policy Directive 13, and various analyses by renown scientific, technical, and international policy organizations have brought about a focused effort within the Department of Energy to identify and implement paths for the long term disposition of surplus weapons- usable plutonium. The central goal of this effort is to render surplus weapons plutonium as inaccessible and unattractive for reuse in nuclear weapons as the much larger and growing stock of plutonium contained in spent fuel from civilian reactors. One disposition option being considered for surplus plutonium is immobilization, in which the plutonium would be incorporated into a glass or ceramic material that would ultimately be entombed permanently in a geologic repository for high-level waste.

The identification and definition of the authorization basis for the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) facility and operations are essential for compliance to DOE Order 5480.21, Unreviewed Safety Questions. The authorization basis, as defined in the Order, consists of those aspects of the facility design basis, i.e., the structures, systems and components (SSCS) and the operational requirements that are considered to be important to the safety of operations and are relied upon by DOE to authorize operation of the facility. These facility design features and their function in various accident scenarios are described in WHC-SD-CP-SAR-021, Plutonium Finishing Plant Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR), Chapter 9, `Accident Analysis.` Figure 1 depicts the relationship of the Authorization Basis to its components and other information contained in safety documentation supporting the Authorization Basis. The PFP SSCs that are important to safety, collectively referred to as the `Safety Envelope` are discussed in various chapters of the FSAR and in WHC-SD-CP-OSR-010, Plutonium Finishing Plant Operational Safety Requirements. Other documents such as Criticality Safety Evaluation Reports (CSERS) address and support some portions of the Authorization Basis and Safety Envelope.

The Oak Ridge Centers for Manufacturing Technology (ORCMT) and Apeiron Incorporated have collaborated on an effort to develop a frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) fiber lidar system for dimensional metrology of internal threads, gears, and splines. The purpose of this effort was to assist a small company in developing an instrument that would exceed the performance of competing foreign instruments and provide measurement capabilities necessary to assure compliance for NASA facilities and other industrial facilities. The two parties collaborated on design, assembly, and bench testing of the prototype instrument. The prototype system was targeted to have the capability of profiling internally machined gears and threads to an accuracy of less than a micron.

The Plutonium Finishing Plant Heating Ventilation and Cooling system provides for the confinement of radioactive releases to the environment and provides for the confinement of radioactive contamination within designated zones inside the facility. This document identifies the components and procedures necessary to ensure the HVAC system provides these functions. Appendices E through J provide a snapshot of non-safety class HVAC equipment and need not be updated when the remainder of the document and Appendices A through D are updated.

A variety of geophysical methods including the spectrum of seismic, electrical, electromagnetic and potential field techniques have supported characterization, monitoring and experimental studies at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The geophysical studies have provided significant understanding of the nature of site deformation, tectonics and stability. Geophysical methods have delineated possible brine reservoirs beneath the underground facility and have defined the disturbed rock zone that forms around underground excavations. The role of geophysics in the WIPP project has evolved with the project. The early uses were for site characterization to satisfy site selection criteria or factors. As the regulatory framework for WIPP grew since 1980, the geophysics program supported experimental and field programs such as Salado hydrogeology and underground room systems and excavations. In summary, the major types of issues that geophysical studies addressed for WIPP are: Site Characterization; Castile Brine Reservoirs; Rustler/Dewey Lake Hydrogeology; Salado Hydrogeology; and Excavation Effects. The nature of geophysics programs for WIPP has been to support investigation rather than being the principal investigation itself. The geophysics program has been used to define conceptual models (e.g., the Disturbed Rock Zone-DRZ) or to test conceptual models (e.g., high transmissivity zones in the Rustler Formation). The geophysics program …

A training and qualification program for nuclear criticality safety technical staff personnel has been developed and implemented. All personnel who are to perform nuclear criticality safety technical work are required to participate in the program. The program includes both general nuclear criticality safety and plant specific knowledge components. Advantage can be taken of previous experience for that knowledge which is portable such as performance of computer calculations. Candidates step through a structured process which exposes them to basic background information, general plant information, and plant specific information which they need to safely and competently perform their jobs. Extensive documentation is generated to demonstrate that candidates have met the standards established for qualification.

The highlight for the first quarter was the presentation of research progress and findings at the DPI Symposium on March 5, 1997. Since that presentation, additional progress was slowed down due to the decreased budget funding for year two, and consequently, the decrease in time-effort of the principal investigators. This report summarizes the progress in each of the topical areas to date. A research article has been prepared for publication for the Optical Character Recognition project; two progress reports are included for the Logical Analysis project; and two progress reports for the Knowledge Representation project. Research activities for the Tipster Technology project will resume this fall.