A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The military exchange services operate a wide range of retail activities, such as department stores, florist shops, barber and beauty shops, gas stations, and restaurants. Hamburger restaurants represent a major segment of the exchange services' name-brand, fast-food sales. The exchange services use either a direct or an indirect method to operate these restaurants. Under the direct method, the exchange service enters into a franchise agreement with a name-brand company to sell its product on a military installation. As the franchisee, the exchange service builds and operates the restaurant and directly employs and trains the personnel. In turn, the exchange service receives all of the revenues and profits and usually pays the company a licensing fee plus a percentage of the restaurant's sales. Under the indirect method, the exchange service contracts with a name-brand company that, in turn, builds the restaurant and either operates it as a company restaurant or provides a licensed operator. The company or its licensed operator hires, trains, and pays the restaurant personnel and usually pays annual fees and commissions to the exchange service on the basis of restaurant's sales. Under this agreement, …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Workers' compensation "occupational accident" policies were brought to the reinsurance market by Unicover Managers, Inc., a reinsurance pool manager and intermediary. Reinsurance is the acceptance by one insurance company of a portion of the risk or claims loss underwritten by another insurance company for a share of the premium to support that risk. In a reinsurance pool arrangement, several reinsurers combine their capital and delegate underwriting authority to a pool manager that is normally not exposed to risk from the reinsurance. Losses from the failed Unicover venture came in the wake of rapid, high-volume, multilevel reinsurance of portions of workers' compensation policies that were initially underpriced in the aggregate because of a highly competitive market. Reinsurance activities had the effect of subsidizing unprofitable workers' compensation insurance at the expense of insurance companies that reinsured the business. Five rating agencies took a series of rating downgrade actions on two of the five insurance companies GAO reviewed. The other three insurance companies experienced substantial losses but were not downgraded because either the insurer was more than adequately capitalized or the parent organization made capital contributions to cover the anticipated losses …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews trade adjustment assistance and other assistance programs, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement Transitional Adjustment Assistance (NAFTA-TAA) program, to determine if they have helped distressed communities deal with the adverse impacts of trade. GAO conducted case studies in six such trade-impacted communities, all of which experienced major trade-related plant closures and layoffs in the mid- to late-1990s. Two communities lost a large percentage of local jobs in sudden plant closures and experienced economic crises. The other communities experienced rolling layoffs or a series of smaller plant closures that dislocated as many or more workers but did so gradually. Experiences in the communities GAO visited indicate that Temporary Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and NAFTA-TAA assistance to dislocated workers, although substantial, could be implemented more effectively. Program administrators and training providers in each community said that the programs have structural problems that impede effective service delivery. One factor that influenced the implementation of training benefits in many communities is that a significant percentage of dislocated workers needed to earn a high school equivalency degree or take remedial courses before they could even start a …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Energy (DOE) maintains millions of classified documents containing highly sensitive nuclear weapons design and production information. Allegations that the Peoples Republic of China obtained nuclear warhead designs from an employee of DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory, as well as the disappearance of two computer hard drives containing highly sensitive weapons information from that same laboratory, have raised concerns about how effectively DOE protects classified information, particularly the most sensitive classified information that is contained in vaults and computer systems. DOE's security program consists of many strategies for protecting and controlling classified information, such as controlling access to classified information through physical and administrative barriers and determining whether a person's work requires a "need to know" the information. DOE has recently increased protection for top-secret documents by revising its Classified Matter Protection and Control Manual, which provides detailed requirements for the protection and control of classified matter. This report reviews the (1) extent to which DOE's Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories have implemented DOE's established access controls and need-to-know requirements for classified vaults and computer systems containing the most sensitive classified information as …

This report contains the emergency food assistance program and emergency feeding needs.

This paper reviews the physics and applications of Normal-Insulator-Superconductor (NIS) tunnel junctions. The current-voltage properties of NIS junctions are diode-like with a strong temperature dependence. Hence, these structures can be used as sensitive thermometers at temperatures well below the energy gap, {Delta}, of the superconducting electrode. For junction voltages comparable to {Delta}/q, current flow removes energy from the normal electrode. This property has been exploited to build refrigerators capable of cooling thin-film circuits from 0.3 K to 0.1 K. Calorimeters and bolometers for the detection of X-rays and millimeter-wave radiation, respectively, have successfully been built from NIS junctions. NIS junctions have also been used to probe the superconducting state. Finally, recent ideas for the use of NIS junctions as simple circuit elements are described.

Vortec Corporation, the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) and DOE/Paducah propose to complete the technology demonstration and the implementation of the Material Handling System developed under Contract Number DE-AC21-92MC29120. The demonstration testing and operational implementation will be done at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The scope of work, schedule and cost for the activities are included in this proposal. A description of the facility to be constructed and tested is provided in Exhibit 1, attached. The USEC proposal for implementation at Paducah is presented in Exhibit 2, and the commitment letters from the site are included in Exhibit 3. Under our agreements with USEC, Bechtel Jacobs Corporation and DOE/Paducah, Vortec will be responsible for the construction of the demonstration facility as documented in the engineering design package submitted under Phase 4 of this contract on August 9, 2001. USEC will have responsibility for the demonstration testing and commercial implementation of the plant. The demonstration testing and initial commercial implementation of the technology will be achieved by means of a USEC work authorization task with the Bechtel Jacobs Corporation. The initial processing activities will include the processing of approximately 4,250 drums of LLW. Subsequent processing of LLW and TSCA/LLW will be …

The Fe-16 at. (8.5 wt) % Al alloy, known as FAPY, has been identified as a superior material for heating element applications. However, while the 15-lb heats melted at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) could be processed into wire, the large heat melted at Hoskins Manufacturing Company (Hoskins) could not be processed under commercial processing conditions. The primary objective of the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) was to demonstrate that wire of the FAPY alloy could be produced under commercial conditions from air-induction-melted (AIM) heats. The specific aspects of this CRADA included: (1) Melting 15-lb heats by AIM or vacuum-induction melting (VIM) at ORNL. (2) Development of detailed processing steps including warm drawing and annealing temperature and time during cold-drawing steps. (3) Melting of 1400-lb heats at Hoskins by the Exo-Melt{trademark} process and their chemical analysis and microstructural characterization. (4) Development of tensile properties of sections of ingots from the large heats in the ascast, hot-worked, and hot- and cold-worked conditions. (5) Microstructural characterization of cast and wrought structures and the fractured specimens. (6) Successful demonstration of processing of AIM heats at Hoskins to heating element wire. The aspects of this CRADA listed above have demonstrated that the …

This report describes a novel approach developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for the estimation of the uncertainty in the prediction of the neutron multiplication factor for spent nuclear fuel. This technique focuses on burnup credit, where credit is taken in criticality safety analysis for the reduced reactivity of fuel irradiated in and discharged from a reactor. Validation methods for burnup credit have attempted to separate the uncertainty associated with isotopic prediction methods from that of criticality eigenvalue calculations. Biases and uncertainties obtained in each step are combined additively. This approach, while conservative, can be excessive because of a physical assumptions employed. This report describes a statistical approach based on Monte Carlo sampling to directly estimate the total uncertainty in eigenvalue calculations resulting from uncertainties in isotopic predictions. The results can also be used to demonstrate the relative conservatism and statistical confidence associated with the method of additively combining uncertainties. This report does not make definitive conclusions on the magnitude of biases and uncertainties associated with isotopic predictions in a burnup credit analysis. These terms will vary depending on system design and the set of isotopic measurements used as a basis for estimating isotopic variances. Instead, the report …

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

This plan ensures the quality of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) DOE 3013 Standard Plutonium Packaging System (PuPS) can welds meet the requirements stipulated in the DOE Standard 3013-00 ''Stabilization, Packaging, and Storage of Plutonium-Bearing Materials'' (Reference 1) and G-ESR-G-00035, Revision 1 dated July 26, 2000, ''Savannah River Site Stabilization and Packaging Requirements for Plutonium Bearing Materials for Storage.'' (Reference 2) This plan also meets the requirements for a weld qualification plan as stipulated in the G-ESR-G-00035. The Outer Can weld must meet ASME VIII & IX. The Outer Can welds will be evaluated initially and during production. The initial evaluation will be done by performing the following: ASME IX welding procedure qualification, ASME IX operator qualification, and a 25 can Dummy Outer Can (DOC) verification run. During production, product cans and DOCs will be evaluated. Product cans will be evaluated by a combination of visual examination of the weld faces and the use of helium leak checking. The DOCs will be examined by visual examination, leak check, radiographic examination and metallographic examination. Appendix 2 summarizes the requirements of each of these evaluations. The Inner Can weld must meet the leak tightness requirements of DOE 3013. The Inner Can …

The Ion Doppler Spectrometer instrument on the Sustained Spheromak Physics experiment is described, along with background about it's operation. Results are presented from recent experimental runs, and the data is compared to the results of simple statistical models of heat exchange in two species gasses.

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Palladium used at Savannah River (SR) for process tritium storage is currently obtained from a commercial source. In order to understand the processes involved in preparing this material, SR is supporting investigations into the chemical reactions used to synthesize this material. The material specifications are shown in Table 1. An improved understanding of the chemical processes should help to guarantee a continued reliable source of Pd in the future. As part of this evaluation, a work-for-others contract between Westinghouse Savannah River Company and Ames Laboratory (AL) was initiated. During FY98, the process for producing Pd powder developed in 1986 by Dan Grove of Mound Applied Technologies, USDOE (the Mound muddy water process) was studied to understand the processing conditions that lead to changes in morphology in the final product. During FY99 and FY00, the process for producing Pd powder that has been used previously at Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories (the Sandia/LANL process) was studied to understand the processing conditions that lead to changes in the morphology of the final Pd product. During FY01, scale-up of the process to batch sizes greater than 600 grams of Pd using a 20-gallon Pfaudler reactor was conducted by the Iowa State University …

President Bush has issued a comprehensive energy policy initiative, which includes limited energy tax measures; the Administration has criticized such measures as being inconsistent with its free market philosophy. Several of the issues that drove energy policy and energy tax policy during the 106th Congress are extant: 1) tax incentives to increase the supply of oil and gas; 2) energy tax issues relating to energy conservation and energy efficiency; 3) energy tax issues relating to alternative fuels; 4) energy taxes/subsidies and residential energy costs; and 5) issues relating to electricity restructuring. In addition, there are certain energy tax provisions that are either expiring or are time-sensitive that the 107th Congress may choose to take action on.

The purpose of this research was to characterize the oxidation behavior of several model (TiAl, TiAl-Nb, TiAl-Cr, TiAl-Cr-Nb) and engineering alloys (XD, K5, Alloy 7, WMS) after long-term isothermal exposure ({approx}7000 h) at 704 C, and after shorter time exposure ({approx}1000 h) at 800 C in air. High-resolution field emission and microprobe scanning electron microscopy were used to characterize the scales formed on these alloys. Similarities and differences observed in the scales are correlated with the various ternary and quaternary microalloying additions.

Practical and inexpensive testing methods were developed to investigate stress-rupture properties of a polymeric composite with chopped glass fiber reinforcement for automotive applications. The material was tested in representative automotive environments to generate experimental data. The results indicate that environments have substantial effects on the stress-rupture behavior. The data were analyzed and developed into stress-rupture design criteria to address one of the durability aspects of the material for automotive structural applications.

A new module, PURM (Probability tables for the Unresolved Region using Monte Carlo), has been developed for the AMPX-2000 cross-section processing system. PURM uses a Monte Carlo approach to calculate probability tables on an evaluator-defined energy grid in the unresolved-resonance region. For each probability table, PURM samples a Wigner spacing distribution for pairs of resonances surrounding the reference energy. The resonance distribution is sampled for each spin sequence (i.e., {ell}-J pair), and PURM uses the {Delta}{sub 3}-statistics test to determine the number of resonances to sample for each spin sequence. For each resonance, PURM samples the resonance widths from a Chi-square distribution for a specified number of degrees of freedom. Once the resonance parameters are sampled, PURM calculates the total, capture, fission and scatter cross sections at the reference energy using the single-level Breit-Wigner formalism with appropriate treatment for temperature effects. Probability tables have been calculated and compared with NJOY. The probability tables and cross-section values that are calculated by PURM and NJOY are in agreement, and the verification studies with NJOY establish the computational capability for generating probability tables using the new AMPX module PURM.

AMPX-2000 is a modular system of FORTRAN computer programs that relate to nuclear analysis with a primary emphasis on tasks associated with the production and use of multigroup and continuous energy cross-sections. AMPX-2000 accepts basic cross-section data from ENDF/B libraries. As opposed to previous versions of AMPX, the current version processes the latest ENDF/B version VI formats. AMPX-2000 can be used to generate a variety of multigroup libraries that can be used with modern transport codes to perform nuclear analyses. Continuous energy or ''point'' cross-section libraries can be produced for use in Monte Carlo codes and other applications. In addition, AMPX has an internal multigroup format that can be read by various AMPX modules as well as codes outside the system.

Attractive high-temperature mechanical properties and oxidation/hot corrosion resistance have been achieved in a new family of Cr{sub 2}Ta-reinforced Cr alloys. However, inadequate room-temperature toughness remains a key challenge, with the best Cr-Cr{sub 2}Ta alloys exhibiting only modest toughness in the range of 12-14 MPa m{sup 1/2}. The addition of MgO has been shown to significantly improve the room-temperature mechanical properties of unalloyed Cr and was investigated as a means for improving the room-temperature mechanical properties of the Cr-Cr{sub 2}Ta alloys. Microstructural analysis of a series of Cr and Cr-6MgO base alloys was used to investigate the proposed ductilization mechanism of nitrogen gettering by a MgCr{sub 2}O{sub 4} spinel phase, which forms during consolidation of Cr and MgO powders. Nitride and related impurity precipitates have been linked to reduced ductility in Cr at room-temperature. Surprisingly, nitride (and carbide) impurity precipitates were found i n hot-pressed Cr-6 MgO base alloys despite room-temperature tensile ductility of 5%. These precipitates were found adjacent to MgO/MgCr{sub 2}O{sub 4} particles and were somewhat more blunt than those observed in unalloyed Cr. The addition of TiO{sub 2} to unalloyed Cr resulted in similar morphological changes to the nitride and carbide impurity precipitates; however, the TiO{sub 2} dispersed …

In this article we extend our earlier studies of the azimuthal dependences of low energy projectiles scattered in large angle quasi-binary collisions from Au(110). Measurements are presented for 20 keV Ar{sup 9+} at normal incidence, which are compared with our earlier measurements for this ion at 5 keV and 10{sup 0} incidence angle. A deconvolution procedure based on MARLOWE simulation results carried out at both energies provides information about the energy dependence of projectile neutralization during interactions just with the atoms along the top ridge of the reconstructed Au(110) surface corrugation, in comparison to, e.g., interactions with atoms lying on the sidewalls. To test the sensitivity of the agreement between the MARLOWE results and the experimental measurements, we show simulation results obtained for a non-reconstructed Au(110) surface with 20 keV Ar projectiles, and for different scattering potentials that are intended to simulate the effects on scattering trajectory of a projectile inner shell vacancy surviving the binary collision, In addition, simulation results are shown for a number of different total scattering angles, to illustrate their utility in finding optimum values for this parameter prior to the actual measurements.

Last year at LINAC2000 [1] the authors reported their initial verification of the round beam (comparable transverse emittances) to flat beam (high transverse emittance ratio) transformation described by Brinkmann, Derbenev, and Floettmann [2]. Further analysis of the data has confirmed that a transverse emittance ratio of approximately 50 was observed. Graphics representing observational detail are included here, and future plans outlined.

In year 2002 the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) will be fitted with a source of cold neutrons to upgrade and expand its existing neutron scattering facilities. The in-reactor components of the new source consist of a moderator vessel containing supercritical hydrogen gas moderator at a temperature of 20K and pressure of 15 bar, and a surrounding vacuum vessel. They will be installed in an enlarged beam tube located at the site of the present horizontal beam tube, HB-4; which terminates within the reactor's beryllium reflector. These components must withstand exceptional service conditions. This report describes the reasons and factors underlying the choice of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy for construction of the in-reactor components. The overwhelming considerations are the need to minimize generation of nuclear heat and to remove that heat through the flowing moderator, and to achieve a minimum service life of about 8 years coincident with the replacement schedule for the beryllium reflector. 6061-T6 aluminum alloy offers the best combination of low nuclear heating, high thermal conductivity, good fabricability, compatibility with hydrogen, superior cryogenic properties, and a well-established history of satisfactory performance in nuclear environments. These features are documented herein. An assessment is given of the expected performance of …

The average total neutron cross sections of {sup 233}U, {sup 235}U, and {sup 239}Pu were obtained from transmission measurements in the unresolved resonance region up to several hundred keV neutron energy. The method used for the calculation of the self-shielding effect is described. A statistical model analysis of the results was performed and the s-, p- and d-wave neutron strength functions were obtained.