This report reviews recent efforts to limit youth access to cigarettes through enforcement of federal and state laws prohibiting tobacco sales to minors. Under the federal Synar Amendment, states must conduct compliance checks and enforce their minimum age-of-sale laws or risk losing block grant funds

This report provides background on veterans preference in federal employment, and discusses issues raised during deliberation in the 105th Congress of two bills to amend existing law.

The activities that have been carried out this quarter include continued planning and development of the geothermal system thermal-well data-base that will be one of the main contract results. The authors are continuing to modify the specifications of the database and continuing initial input. They have added several additional areas to their inventory of the geothermal areas for which data are available in the literature (published and open file) and on open file as described in the third quarterly report. A map was enclosed with the second quarterly report that gave the preliminary location of sites of various categories of wells. They will include a revised map with the next quarterly report when all of the sites, including the new ones described below, have been located and added to the index map. In particular in the last quarter the authors have added about 100 wells in west Texas in the transPecos region from a previously proprietary report that they recently obtained. In addition they have made arrangements to obtain thermal data collected by AMAX Geothermal during their exploration activities. The number of wells is large, several hundred, and the sites are spread throughout the western US from New Mexico and …

This project addressed the sequence selectivities of DNA binding by intercalating agents. Methods analogous to chemical DNA sequencing were developed to quantitatively investigate sequence selectivities of DNA binding of several DNA intercalators including benzo(a)pyrene diol epoxides, ethidium, copper-phenanthroline complexes, and the anticancer drug actinomycin D. Computer programs were developed to extract sequence selectivities from large data sets. A photoaffinity analog approach was validated for determining the sequence selectivities of ethidium and actinomycin D. Several `non-traditional` binding sites were identified for each ligand examined. Actinomycin D was shown to bind single stranded DNA, as well as double stranded DNA, with high affinity and sequence selectivity. All of the compounds studied were intercalators, but they differ significantly in side chain complexity.

This report summarizes characterization requirements, data availability, and data acquisition plans in support of the Phase 1 Waste Feed Readiness to Proceed Mid-Level Logic. It summarizes characterization requirements for the following program planning documents: Waste Feed Readiness Mid-Level Logic and Decomposition (in development); Master blue print (not available); Tank Waste Remediation System (TWRS) Operations and Utilization Plan and Privatization Contract; Enabling assumptions (not available); Privatization low-activity waste (LAW) Data Quality Objective (DQO); Privatization high-level waste (HLW) DQO (draft); Problem-specific DQOs (in development); Interface control documents (draft). Section 2.0 defines the primary objectives for this report, Section 3.0 discusses the scope and assumptions, and Section 4.0 identifies general characterization needs and analyte-specific characterization needs or potential needs included in program documents and charts. Section 4.0 also shows the analyses that have been conducted, and the archive samples that are available for additional analyses. Section 5.0 discusses current plans for obtaining additional samples and analyses to meet readiness-to-proceed requirements. Section 6.0 summarizes sampling needs based on preliminary requirements and discusses other potential characterization needs. Many requirements documents are preliminary. In many cases, problem-specific DQOs have not been drafted, and only general assumptions about the document contents could be obtained from the authors. …

A major function of the Tank Waste Remediation System (TWRS) is to characterize waste in support of waste management and disposal activities at the Hanford Site. Analytical data from sampling and analysis, in addition to other available information about a tank are compiled and maintained in a tank characterization report (TCR). This report and its appendices serve as the TCR for the single-shell tank series consisting of 241-T-201, -T-202, -T-203, and -T-204. The objectives of this report are: (1) to use characterization data in response to technical issues associated with T-200 series tank waste and (2) to provide a standard characterization of this waste in terms of a best-basis inventory estimate. Section 2.0 summarizes the response to technical issues, Section 3.0 shows the best-basis inventory estimate, Section 4.0 makes recommendations about the safety status of the tank and additional sampling needs. The appendices contain supporting data and information. Appendix A contains historical information for 241-T-201 to T-204, including surveillance information, records pertaining to waste transfers and tank operations, and expected tank contents derived from a process knowledge-based computer program. Appendix B summarizes sampling events, sample data obtained before 1989, and the most current sampling results. Appendix C reports the statistical …

In order to prevent activation of the beam pipe walls and components of a high power ion accelera- tor: beam loss must be minimized. Here we present self-consistent, 3D particle-in-cell simulations of longi- tudinally mismatched beams including the effects of rf non-linearities using parameters based on the Acceler- ator Production of Tritium linac design. In particular, we explore the evolution of the longitudinal halo distri- bution, i.e., the distribution of particles in longitudinal phase space with oscillation amplitudes significantly larger than amplitudes of particles in the main body or ''core'' of the beam. When a particle reaches a suf- ficiently large amplitude longitudinally it can he lost from the rf bucket and consequently loses synchro- nism with thr rf wave. Such particles will lose energy and so be poorly matched to the transverse focusing field and consequently can be lost transversely. We compare the present simulations in which all particles contribute self-consistently to the self-field to predic- tions of a core/test particle model in which the core distribution has uniformly distributed charge and does not evolve self-consistently. Effects of self-consistent, non-linear space-charge forces, non-linear rf focusing on envelope mismatch induced beam halo are explored through comparisons of both models.

The health of FFTF systems was assessed assuming a continued facility standby condition. The review was accomplished in accordance with the guidelines of FFTF-EI-083, Plant Evaluation Program. The attached document includes an executive summary of the significant conclusions and assessment reports for each system evaluated.

This work is intended to contribute to the foundations for formalizing industrial ecology analyses of energy systems (systems for energy generation, transfer. or transformation) and to examine how the tools for performing these analyses can also enhance the field of industrial ecology in other applications. We discuss requirements for studying materials and energy , cycling in industrial processes. with particular emphasis on energy generating systems, through explicit inclusion of entropy concepts in industrial ecology considerations. This perspective is intended to contribute to the theoretical basis for industrial ecology, to the development of tools for comparing the ecological (human and environmental health. and institutional) impacts of energy generating and other industrial processes, and to possible changes in engineering curricula with emphasis on design.

The engineering team of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) has developed a highly optimized hardware design that satisfies stringent cost, performance and schedule requirements. After a 3-year effort, the design will culminate at the end of FY98 with the completion of major Title II design reviews. Every element of the facility from optic configuration, facility layout and hardware specifications to material selection, fabrication techniques and part tolerancing has been examined to assure the minimum cost per joule of laser energy delivered on target. In this paper, the design of the major subsystems will be discussed from the perspective of this optimization emphasis. Focus will be placed on the special equipment hardware which includes laser, beam transport, opto-mechanical , system control and target area systems. Some of the unique features in each of these areas will be discussed to highlight how significant cost savings have been achieved while maintaining reasonable and acceptable performance risk. Key to the success has also been a vigorous development program that commenced nearly 4 years ago and has been highly responsive to the specific needs of the NIF project. Supporting analyses and prototyping work that evolved from these parallel activities will also be discussed.

Business needs have driven the development of commercial database systems since their inception. As a result, there has been a strong focus on supporting many users, minimizing the potential corruption or loss of data, and maximizing performance metrics like transactions per second, or TPC-C and TPC-D results. It turns out that these optimizations have little to do with the needs of the scientific community, and in particular have little impact on improving the management and use of large-scale high-dimensional data. At the same time, there is an unanswered need in the scientific community for many of the benefits offered by a robust DBMS. For example, tying an ad-hoc query language such as SQL together with a visualization toolkit would be a powerful enhancement to current capabilities. Unfortunately, there has been little emphasis or discussion in the VLDB community on this mismatch over the last decade. The goal of the paper is to identify the specific issues that need to be resolved before large-scale scientific applications can make use of DBMS products. This topic is addressed in the context of an evaluation of commercial DBMS technology applied to the exploration of data generated by the Department of Energy`s Accelerated Strategic Computing …

Recently both the Alcator C-Mod and DIII-D tokamaks observed significant recombination of major ion species in the divertor region during detachment. For sufficiently low temperatures the mixture of neutral atoms and ions can be optically thick to line radiation. The optical depth of the recombined region to Ly{alpha} radiation can be very large and opacity effects and radiation trapping can dramatically change the heat flux to the divertor walls. This paper presents an analysis of the effect of line radiation on volume recombination using CRETIN, a multi-dimensional, non-local thermodynamic equilibrium simulation code that includes the atomic kinetics and radiative transport processes necessary to model this complex environment.

The Low Level Waste (LLW) Process Gloveboxes are designed to: receive a 55 gallon drum in an 85 gallon overpack in the Entry glovebox (GBIOI); and open and sort the waste from the 55 gallon drum, place the waste back into drum and relid in the Sorting glovebox (GB 102). In addition, waste which requires further examination is transferred to the LLW RWM Glovebox via the Drath and Schraeder Bagiess Transfer Port (DO-07-201) or sent to the Sample Transfer Port (STC); crush the drum in the Supercompactor glovebox (GB 104); place the resulting puck (along with other pucks) into another 85 gallon overpack in the Exit glovebox (GB 105). The status of the waste items is tracked by the Data Management System (DMS) via the Plant Control System (PCS) barcode interface. As an item is moved from the entry glovebox to the exit glovebox, the Operator will track an items location using a barcode reader and enter any required data on the DMS console. The Operational Test Procedure (OTP) will perform evolution`s (described below) using the Plant Operating Procedures (POP) in order to verify that they are sufficient and accurate for controlled glovebox operation.

The Basis for Interim Operation (BIO) document for K Reactor in Cold Standby and the L- and P-Reactor Disassembly Basins was prepared in accordance with the draft DOE standard for BIO preparation (dated October 26, 1993).

The Mixed Waste Focus Area (MWFA) Characterization Development Strategy delineates an approach to resolve technology deficiencies associated with the characterization of mixed wastes. The intent of this strategy is to ensure the availability of technologies to support the Department of Energy� s (DOE) mixed waste low-level or transuranic (TRU) contaminated waste characterization management needs. To this end the MWFA has defined and coordinated characterization development programs to ensure that data and test results necessary to evaluate the utility of non-destructive assay technologies are available to meet site contact handled waste management schedules. Requirements used as technology development project benchmarks are based in the National TRU Program Quality Assurance Program Plan. These requirements include the ability to determine total bias and total measurement uncertainty. These parameters must be completely evaluated for waste types to be processed through a given nondestructive waste assay system constituting the foundation of activities undertaken in technology development projects. Once development and testing activities have been completed, Innovative Technology Summary Reports are generated to provide results and conclusions to support EM-30, -40, or -60 end user/customer technology selection. The Active and Passive Computed Tomography non-destructive assay system is one of the technologies selected for development by the …

This paper summarizes the talks on alpha particle transport which were presented at the 5th International Atomic Energy Agency's Technical Committee Meeting on "Alpha Particles in Fusion Research" held at the Joint European Torus, England in September 1997.

Long-pulse fusion physics experiments can be performed economically via resistive electromagnets designed for thermally steady-state operation. Possible fusion experiments using resistive electromagnets include long-pulse ignition with deuterium-tritium fuel. Long-pulse resistive electromagnets are alternatives to today's delicate and costly superconductors. At any rate, superconducting technology is now evolving independent of fusion, so near-term superconducting experience may not ultimately be useful.

Junction formation in CuInSe2 (CIS) has been studied by exposing thin films and single-crystal samples to solutions containing NH4OH and CdSO4. The treated samples were analyzed by secondary ion mass spectrometry to determine the amount and distribution of Cd deposited on the surface of the films. Cadmium is found to react with the surface for all the solution exposure times and temperatures studied. The reaction rapidly approaches the endpoint and remains relatively unchanged for subsequent solution exposure. Cadmium in-diffusion, as measured by secondary ion mass spectrometry, is obscured by topography effects in the thin-film samples and by ion-beam mixing and topography in the single-crystal sample.

The importance of the parallel flow of primary and impurity ions in the Scrape-Off layer (SOL) of divertor tokamaks has been recognized recently. Impurity accumulation on the closed flux surfaces is determined in part by their parallel flow in the SOL. In turn, the parallel transport of the impurity ions is determined in part by drag from the primary ion flow. Measurement of flow in the DIII-D tokamak has begun recently. We describe initial results of modeling plasma ion flow using the 2-D code UEDGE in this paper. We assume the impurity (carbon) arises from chemical and physical sputtering from the walls surrounding the DIII-D plasma. We include six charge states of carbon in our simulations. We make detailed compaison with a multitude of SOL plasma diagnostics, including the flow measurement, to verify the UEDGE physics model. We begin the paper with a brief description of the plasma and neutral models in the UEDGE code in Section 2. We then present initial results of flow simulations and compare them with experimental measurement in Section 3. We conclude with a discussion of the dominant physics processes identified in the modeling in Section 4.

In this project the authors study new nanocrystalline and nanocomposite structures that have high potential for permanent-magnet development. These materials, which can be synthesized to have either very high or intermediate coercivities, have many applications in electric power, transportation, and information-storage industries. There is great interest in further development of understanding and application of these materials. Brief discussions are given for the following research highlights: (A) Fundamental electronic, magnetic and micromagnetic studies; (B) Intrinsic and magnet hardening studies of carbides and alloys; and (C) Nanostructured and nanocomposite films.

Separations requested SRTC study the autocatalytic decomposition of the hydroxylamine nitrate which may occur in the presence of concentrated nitric acid with respect to making-up cold feed solutions. The data obtained from this study will provide Separations an envelope within which safe operations can be conducted.

The safety analysis of the FB-Line Facility indicates that the operation of FB-Line to support the current mission does not present undue risk to the facility and co-located workers, general public, or the environment.

This Systems Engineering Implementation Plan (SEIP) describes the processes, products, and organizational responsibilities implemented by Project W-519 to further define how the project`s mission, defined initially by the Tank Waste Remediation System Phase 1 Privatization Infrastructure Project W-503 Mission Analysis Report (Hoertkorn 1997), will be accomplished using guidance provided by the Tank Waste Remediation System Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP) (Peck 1998). This document describes the implementation plans for moving from a stated mission to an executable cost, schedule, and technical baseline and to help ensure its successful completion of those baselines.

The long-range goal of the US Heavy Ion Fusion (HIF) program is to develop heavy ion accelerators capable of igniting inertial fusion targets to generate fusion energy for electrical power production. Accelerators for heavy ion fusion consist of several subsystems: ion sources, injectors, matching sections, combiners, induction acceleration sections with electric and magnetic focusing, beam compression and bending sections, and a final-focus system to focus the beams onto the target. We are currently assembling or performing experiments to address the physics of all these subsystems. This paper will discuss some of these experiments.