Publication of the University of Houston System describing campus events, academic programs and research, student and alumni activities, and other informatin of interest to the community.

Publication of the University of Houston System describing campus events, academic programs and research, student and alumni activities, and other informatin of interest to the community.

The objective of this research is to investigate the technical feasibility of producing solar-cell-quality sheet silicon to meet the DOE 1986 cost goal of 70 cents/watt. The silicon-on-ceramic approach is to coat a low-cost ceramic substrate with large-grain polycrystalline silicon by unidirectional solidification of molten silicon. Results are reported. A new silicon-coating system, SCIM-II, was designed and constructed. A design strategy to avoid buckling and breaking of substrates has been formulated, implemented, and verified. Detailed thermal modeling of the heating and cooling zones has been performed, and the results have been compared with experiment. A number of modifications have been made in SCIM-II to implement the strategy to minimize thermal stress and to improve reproducibility of coating conditions. Dip-coating has been continued in order to supply material for cell fabrication, since impure carbon parts have been used in the SCIM-coater while changes were still being made. The best cell had a total-area efficiency of 10.5% (AM1, AR) for a cell area of 5 cm/sup 2/. The highest efficiencies were produced with a PH/sub 3/ diffusion at 850/sup 0/C, followed by a slow cooldown at about 5/sup 0/C/min. Theoretical modeling of SOC solar cells shows that present cell performance is limited …

An important loss process in CTR plasmas is the process of dielectronic recombination, which proceeds via autoionizing states. At this date, however, this problem is not fully understood, largely because of the nearly complete lack of fundamental atomic data on high excited autoionizing states. In this document, we outline the continuation of a program to investigate the properties of autoionizing states of alkaline earth metals by means of a novel laser excitation technique developed at SRI. This approach will allow us to study, for the first time, autoionizing states of arbitrary n, and l in a controlled environment. Specifically, we plan to measure autoionization rates and branching ratios as a function of n and l and the effects of electric fields. These experiments should yield the basic atomic data, autoionization rates, required as inputs to sophisticated model calculations of dielectronic recombination rates.

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, Mark White, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification;Whether a county may expend proceeds of the sale of bonds and other county funds to construct permanent improvements on leased land.

Numerical analysis tools are used to characterize the fields reradiated by cultural scatterers like powerlines, pipelines and fences. These fields are then compared to the returns expected from deeply buried targets and suggestions are made for methods to identify and remove cultural noise from survey data.

A secondary, high temperature electrochemical cell especially adapted for lithium alloy negative electrodes, transition metal chalcogenide positive electrodes and alkali metal halide or alkaline earth metal halide electrolyte is disclosed. The cell is held within an elongated cylindrical container in which one of the active materials is filled around the outside surfaces of a pluraity of perforate tubular current collectors along the length of the container. Each of the current collector tubes contain a concentric atubular layer of electrically insulative ceramic as an interelectrode separator. The active material of opposite polarity in elongated pin shape is positioned longitudinally within the separator layer. A second electrically conductive tube with perforate walls can be swagged or otherwise bonded to the outer surface of the pin as a current cllector and the electrically insulative ceramic layer can be coated or otherwise layered onto the outer surface of this second current collector. Alternatively, the central pin electrode can include an axial core as a current collector.

The work focused on the occurrences of geopressures in Appalachia and selected California basins. In the former region, where geopressures have been observed, the pressure gradients for the most part were only slightly above normal as in the case of the Oriskany formation of Devonian age; this unit was also characterized by extremely high salinity. The one notable exception was in the Rome trough of West Virginia where Cambrian beds at depths below 10,000 feet display very high geopressures, approaching the lithostatic gradient, and the waters are only moderately saline. Though the geothermal gradient throughout Appalachian is relatively low, even in the Rome trough, the pressure, temperature and salinity values in this area indicate that the methane content of the Cambrian formation waters is in the range of 30 to 35 SCF/barrel. The two California areas researched included the contiguous Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. In the first, geopressures have been principally encountered in the Forbes formation of Cretaceous age, often at very shallow depths. Further waters are invariably characterized by very low salinity, far below the salinity of normal sea water, while the geothermal gradient in apparently higher in geopressured than in normally pressured zones. In the San Joaquin …

An improved collecting apparatus for small aquatic or airborne organisms such as plankton, larval fish, insects, etc. The improvement constitutes an apertured removal container within which is retained a collecting bag, and which is secured at the apex of a conical collecting net. Such collectors are towed behind a vessel or vehicle with the open end of the conical net facing forward for trapping the aquatic or airborne organisms within the collecting bag, while allowing the water or air to pass through the apertures in the container. The container is readily removable from the collecting net whereby the collecting bag can be quickly removed and replaced for further sample collection. The collecting bag is provided with means for preventing the bag from being pulled into the container by the water or air following therethrough.

A reusable system is described for removably attaching the upper end of a nuclear reactor duct tube to the lower end of a nuclear reactor fuel assembly handling socket. A transition ring, fixed to the duct tube's upper end, has an interior-threaded section with a first locking hole segment. An adaptor ring, fixed to the handling socket's lower end has an outside-threaded section with a second locking hole segment. The inside and outside threaded sections match and can be joined so that the first and second locking hole segments can be aligned to form a locking hole. A locking ring, with a locking pin, slides over the adaptor ring so that the locking pin fits in the locking hole. A swage lock or a cantilever finger lock is formed from the locking cup collar to fit in a matching groove in the locking ring to prevent the locking ring's locking pin from backing out of the locking hole.

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, Mark White, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether various statutes apply to the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation.

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, Mark White, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether negotiation of contract terms prior to acceptance of bid violated article 2368a, V.T.C.S.

Weekly report of the Texas Crop and Livestock Reporting Service on turkey poult numbers in Texas and compared with other states. It includes compiled statistics across six consecutive weeks, from the week ending January 31 to the week ending February 28, during 1980 and 1981 for turkey eggs set and poults hatched.

The status for related beneficial uses including agriculture, greenhousing, and geothermal wetlands is presented. Data published for the geothermal fluids found in areas of China have been examined and compared with the geothermal fluids used in the agriculture evaluations in the United States. This comparison indicates that the geothermal fluids found in parts of China are similar to those used in the US agriculture experiments. Greenhousing is addressed largely from the standpoint of hardware systems and technology being employed or being proposed in the United States.

TMX experimental data on ambipolar potential control and on the accompanying electrostatic confinement are reported. New results on the radial dependence of the central-cell confining potential are given. Radial and axial particle losses as well as scaling of the central-cell axial confinement are discussed.

TMX experimental data on ambipolar potential control and on the accompanying electrostatic confinement are reported. New results on the radial dependence of the central-cell confining potential are given. Radial and axial particle losses as well as scaling of the central-cell axial confinement are discussed.

The point code TANDEM has been used to survey the range of plasma parameters which can be attained in MFTF-B. The code solves for the electron and ion densities and temperatures in the central cell, yin-yang, barrier, and A-cell regions as well as the plasma potential in each region. In these studies, the A-cell sloshing ion beams were fixed while the neutral beams in the yin-yang and central cell, the gas feed in the central cell, and the applied ECRH power ..beta.., central cell ion density and temperature, and the confining potential are discussed.

The large potentials and potential gradients in tandem mirrors have several effects. Some of these are discussed, together with supporting data from TMX. These include: azimuthal averaging by the E x B rotation, reduction of radial outward drifts (from high order multipoles) by the rapid E x B azimuthal velocity, neoclassical-resonant diffusion, Joule heating of central cell ions due to non-ambipolar transport in the radial electric field, low frequency instabilities, and differences between the details of the electron behavior and theory.

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.

A subkilovolt spectrometer has been produced to permit high-energy-resolution, time-dependent x-ray intensity measurements. The diffracting element is a curved mica (d = 9.95A) crystal. To preclude higher order (n > 1) diffractions, a carbon x-ray mirror that reflects only photons with energies less than approx. 1.1 keV is utilized ahead of the diffracting element. The nominal energy range of interest is 800 to 900 eV. The diffracted photons are detected by a gold-surface photoelectric diode designed to have a very good frequency response, and whose current is recorded on an oscilloscope. A thin, aluminium light barrier is placed between the diffracting crystal and the photoelectric diode detector to keep any uv generated on or scattered by the crystal from illuminating the detector. High spectral energy resolution is provided by many photocathodes between 8- and 50-eV wide placed serially along the diffracted x-ray beam at the detector position. The spectrometer was calibrated for energy and energy dispersion using the Ni L..cap alpha../sub 1/ /sub 2/ lines produced in the LLNL IONAC accelerator and in third order using a molybdenum target x-ray tube. For the latter calibration the carbon mirror was replaced by one surfaced with rhodium to raise the cut-off energy …

A modified Voitenko compressor generated a Mach-130 air shock in an outlet pipe open to the atmosphere. Fiber optics transmitted luminosity associated with propagation of the air shock to an external display board, which was scanned with a high-speed streaking camera. We describe the computerized microdensitometer scanning technique for converting the film records to pseudo-3D, isodensity, and density profiles. The isodensity contours can be displayed using different colors to facilitate analysis. This technique can achieve resolutions of 1 ns and 2 ..mu..m. We give examples of the pseudo-3D, isodensity, and density profile plots for the experiment. The microdensitometer output was digitized for input to data display programs run on a CDC 7600. These results were used to provide submicrosecond accuracy for shock propagation over a 5 m of the outlet pipes. In addition, we obtained information about gas flow behind the shock front. Other current or possible applications for the technique are measurement of: target implosion in laser fusion, flash x-ray data in hydrodynamic and ballistic experiments, temperature profiles for high energy (> 10/sup 5/ K) gas dynamics, and dynamic events in weapons testing.

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.

Strict limitations on the emission of H/sub 2/S from new geothermal power plants in The Geysers area of northern California have been imposed by Lake and Northern Sonoma County Air Pollution Control Districts. Lake County, under new source review rules, has stipulated that specific technologies shall be utilized to limit H/sub 2/S emissions to 5 lb/h as a condition for determination of compliance. The status of these technologies as well as other ongoing technology development efforts to conserve steam and abate H/sub 2/S are evaluated. Although projections indicate that it may be possible to meet the 5 lb/h limit, there is no firm assurance of achievement at this time because of the unproven, full-scale performance status of some key technologies specified by the air pollution control districts.

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, Mark White, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification;Registration of cattle brands under article 6899j V.T.C.S