A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on how the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the enlargement of the European Union (EU) may affect U.S. allies' ability to sustain or increase their defense budgets, focusing on: (1) projected defense spending for several European countries; (2) budgetary effects of EMU implementation and EU enlargement; and (3) other significant factors that may affect countries' ability to share in the costs of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) over the long run."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the status of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program, focusing on: (1) the underlying problems in the program that led to test failures; (2) whether program restructuring efforts address these underlying problems; and (3) how this restructuring will affect THAAD's User Operational Evaluation System."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) proposal to expand the definition of "poor performing" nursing homes to include homes with repeated actual harm violations (G-level deficiencies)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) efforts to integrate and coordinate its various year 2000 end-to-end test activities, focusing on whether: (1) DOD's plans recognize relationships and dependencies among these test and evaluation activities; and (2) DOD has established the management controls to ensure that its various year 2000 end-to-end test and evaluation activities are effectively integrated."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Bureau of Indian Affairs' methods of establishing the lease value of Indian land, focusing on: (1) how the Bureau uses appraisals and other methods to establish the lease value of Indian land; (2) how its appraisal methods compare to those of other federal and state agencies and of private appraisers and what other methods are used to value federal, state, and private leases; (3) what impediments to leasing Indian trust land have been identified; (4) what alternatives to appraisals could be used to establish the lease value of Indian land, including any changes in federal laws and regulations that would be required; and (5) what efforts the Bureau has made to improve its appraisal methods."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the American Fisheries Act, focusing on whether the act had negatively affected the market for pollock fillets, including any reduction in their supply."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA) and the Indian Health Service's (IHS) management of contract support funding under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, focusing on: (1) to what extent and for what reasons contract support costs and the associated funding shortfalls changed over the past decade, and what can be expected in the future for these costs; (2) how the shortfalls in funding for contract support costs affected tribes; and (3) whether the act's provisions for contract support costs have been consistently implemented."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the increasing outbreaks of harmful algae, focusing on the: (1) available information on harmful algae and their effects on human health and the environment; and (2) status of federal efforts to address the problem of harmful algae, particularly the coordination of research and management strategies among the federal agencies."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the financial statements of the Bank Insurance Fund, the Savings Association Insurance Fund, and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation Resolution Fund for the years ended December 31, 1998 and 1997. GAO also reviewed: (1) the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) management's assertions regarding the effectiveness of its internal control as of December 31, 1998; and (2) FDIC's compliance with laws and regulations during 1998."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program, focusing on: (1) changes in CSE welfare collections since 1994; (2) the net savings/cost experiences of state and federal CSE programs; (3) those states that have experienced declines in CSE welfare collections and how these declines affected their state's CSE program funding; and (4) the future implications of caseload declines and welfare reform changes for the CSE program."

The purpose of this scoping calculation is to support preliminary design of the Waste Package (WP) transporter radiation shield configuration. Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) is highly radioactive and site personnel must be protected during the period that the WPs are emplaced. Personnel protection is accomplished via a heavily shielded WP transporter that moves the waste from the surface to the emplacement drift. All previous WP transporter shielding calculations have assumed a Design Basis Fuel (DBF) in which the fuel burnup is uniform (e.g. Ref. 7.3, Ref. 7.4, and Ref. 7.12). In reality, SNF burnup varies significantly from one end of the fuel assembly to the other. Since source strengths are dependent upon fuel burnup, a model which varies the fuel burnup along the assembly axis will produce a more accurate depiction of the radiation field surrounding the WP transporter. The objective of this calculation is to determine the need for using the actual axial profile, as opposed to the uniform burnup assumption, in the WP transporter shield design. The scope of the calculation is as follows: (1) Determine the impact of axial source term variation on WP transporter contact dose rates. (2) Determine appropriate shielding modifications to account for expected …

This project is designed to develop a family of novel NO{sub x} control technologies, called Second Generation Advanced Reburning which has the potential to achieve 90+ NO{sub x} control in coal fired boilers at a significantly lower cost than Selective Catalytic Reduction. The seventh reporting period in Phase II (April 1-June 30, 1999) included experimental activities and combined chemistry-mixing modeling on advanced gas reburning. The goal of combustion tests was to determine the efficiency of advanced reburning using coal as the reburning fuel. Tests were conducted in Boiler Simulator Facility (BSF). Several coals were tested. The modeling effort was focused on the description of N-agent injection along with overfire air. Modeling identified process parameters that can be used to optimize the AR-Lean process.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory was awarded ten Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP) research grants in fiscal year 1996, six in fiscal year 1997, and eight in fiscal year 1998. This section summarizes how each grant addresses significant U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) cleanup issues, including those at the Hanford Site. The technical progress made to date in each of these research projects is addressed in more detail in the individual progress reports contained in this document. This research is focused primarily in five areas: Tank Waste Remediation, Decontamination and Decommissioning, Spent Nuclear Fuel and Nuclear Materials, Soil and Groundwater Clean Up, and Health Effects.

The program objective was the development of equipment and processes to produce compressed natural gas (CNG) from liquified natural gas (LNG) for heavy duty vehicular applications. The interest for this technology is a result of the increased use of alternative fuels for the reduction of emissions and dependency of foreign energy. Technology of the type developed under this program is critical for establishing natural gas as an economical alternative fuel.

The Facility for the Analysis of Chemical Thermodynamics (FACT) computer code was used to calculate the vaporization and condensation behavior of germanium (Ge) and lead (Pb) in coal gasification systems. Since condensation occurs at specific temperatures, the elements can concentrate in deposits that foul or corrode structures within an integrated gasification combined-cycle system or form very small particles that may be sticky in particle filter systems or be difficult to collect in a particulate-control cyclone. The calculations were performed in two steps: (1) vaporization from ash constitutents at 1600C at a system pressure of 22.9 atm and (2) condensation of GeX and PbX components at lower temperatures. The calculations indicate that Ge vaporizes as GeS and GeO and condenses through chemical vapor deposition as solid GeO2, Pb vaporizes primarily as PbS, with some Pb metal, and condenses as PbS as high as 880C for concentrations in the feed of 100 ppm on a mass basis. Although these concentrations would never be expected in the raw fuel, such levels could be reached if by-product dusts are recirculated into the gasifier feed material. Therefore, the calculations are useful in determining the maximum amount of recirculated material that can be allowed in the …

This report describes the development, construction and testing of the Electromagnetic Valve System (EVS), conducted as a project entitled ''Improved Liquid Steel Feeding System for Slab Casters''. This program ran from November 1992 to January 1995. Many of the technical issues in bringing the EVS to the steel industry were identified and resolved during the course of the program. During this time, significant hardware improvements in Westinghouse's electromagnetic valve were made to easily integrate it with existing continuous casting processes,. An improved refractory nozzle was developed and tested which had superior thermal shock and anti-cracking performance. In addition, several trials were conducted with molten steel to verify the proof-of-principle of the electromagnetic valve and its auxiliary equipment. However, improvements in other conventional pouring technologies have greatly diminished the potential value of this project to the steel industry. A such, the program w as canceled by the American Iron and Steel Institute after the conclusion of Phase I

Studies of neoclassical tearing modes have remained the dominant area of research on this grant. This year articles and reports on our previous research projects in collaboration with GA colleagues on a new nonlinear tearing mode model, seed island excitation from geometrically coupled perturbations, the combination of flow shear and viscosity on magnetic islands, and ITER projections got published. A major new theoretical achievement by our group was the development of generalized reduced MHD equations that include flow shear effects. The potential importance of this work was recognized by its having been selected for an invited oral talk at the most recent Sherwood Theory Conference. These new equations facilitate a self-consistent treatment of the effects of flow shear on neoclassical tearing modes, the study of which is just beginning. It is anticipated that the subcontract sublet to S.E. Kruger will allow him to continue this research work in close collaboration with C.C. Hegna and GA colleagues, and in particular to apply the resultant theory to DIII-D data on such effects. In addition, seed island formation induced by geometrically coupled perturbations was simulated using the neofar code, and the neoclassical tearing mode in DIII-D shot 86144.02250 was simulated using the NIMROD …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on U.S. rule of law assistance programs and activities, focusing on the: (1) amount of U.S. rule of law funding provided worldwide in fiscal years 1993-1998; and (2) U.S. Departments and agencies involved in providing rule of law assistance."

Ultrafast magnetic field pulses as short as 2 ps are able to reverse the magnetization in thin in-plane magnetized cobalt films. The field pulses are applied in the plane of the film and their direction encompasses all angles with the magnetization. At right angle to the magnetization maximum torque is exerted on the spins. In this geometry a precessional magnetization reversal can be triggered by fields as small as 184 kA/m. Applications in future ultrafast magnetic recording schemes can be foreseen.

We re-examine the problem of simultaneously describing in a consistent way all radiative and leptonic decays of light mesons (V {yields} P{gamma}, P {yields} V{gamma}, P {yields} {gamma}{gamma}, V {yields} e{sup +}e{sup -}). For this purpose, we rely on the Hidden Local Symmetry model in both its anomalous and non-anomalous sectors. We show that the SU(3) symmetry breaking scheme proposed by Bando, Kugo and Yamawaki, supplemented with nonet symmetry breaking in the pseudoscalar sector, allows one to reach a nice agreement with all data, except for the K*{sup {+-}} radiative decay. An extension of this breaking pattern allows one to account for this particular decay mode too. Considered together, the whole set of radiative decays provides a pseudoscalar mixing angle {theta}{sub P} {approx_equal} and a value for {theta}{sub V} which is {approx_equal} 3{sup o} from that of ideal mixing. We also show that it is impossible, in a practical sense, to disentangle the effects of nonet symmetry breaking and those of glue inside the {eta}{prime}, using only light meson decays.

Report that references the average post-exit results from each program and service, taking into account the job market and other factors that would have affected the results.

Faced with deregulation and increasingly aggressive competition, utilities are looking for new products and services to increase revenues, improve customer loyalty and retention, and establish barriers to market erosion. With open access now a reality, and retail wheeling just around the corner, business expansion via new products and services is now the central goal for most utilities in the United States. It may seem surprising that solar thermal energy as applied to heating domestic hot water - an idea that has been around for a long time - offers what utilities and their residential customers want most in a new product/service. This document not only explains how and why, it shows how to get into the business and succeed on a commercial scale.

Reliable measurement of steam-water relative permeability functions is of great importance for geothermal reservoir performance simulation. Despite their importance, these functions are poorly known due to the lack of fundamental understanding of steam-water flows, and the difficulty of making direct measurements. The Stanford Geothermal Program has used an X-ray CT (Computer Tomography) scanner to obtain accurate saturation profiles by direct measurement. During the last five years, the authors have carried out experiments with nitrogen-water flow and with steam-water flow, and examined the effects of heat transfer and phase change by comparing these sets of results. In porous rocks, it was found that the steam-water relative permeabilities follow Corey type relationships similar to those in nitrogen-water flow, but that the irreducible gas phase saturation is smaller for steam than for nitrogen. The irreducible saturations represent substantial fractions of the recoverable energy in place yet are hard to determine in the field. Understanding the typical magnitude of irreducible saturations will lead to a much clearer forecast of geothermal field performance. In fracture flow, indirect measurements suggested that the relative permeabilities follow a linear (or ''X-curve'') behavior - but there is still considerable uncertainty in the knowledge of this behavior.

This Record of Technical Change provides updates to the technical information included in ''Corrective Action Investigation Plan for Corrective Action Unit 406: Area 3 Building 03-74 and Building 03-58 Underground Discharge Points and Corrective Action Unit 429: Area 3 Building 03-55 and Area 9 Building 09-52 Underground Discharge Points, Tonopah Test Range, Nevada'' Revision 0