Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 requires each federal agency to issue a regulation adjusting its covered maximum civil monetary penalties for inflation by October 23, 1996, and requires them to make necessary adjustments at least once every 4 years thereafter. The Food and Drug Administration's Office of the Chief Counsel indicated that at least 14 of the agency's civil penalties are covered by the act, but the agency had not adjusted any of them for inflation."

Samples of Sungate windshield material provided by PPG were analyzed to ascertain failure mechanisms observed at the interface between a copper busbar and the electrically conductive coating in use. Samples of “failed” windshield material were characterized using optical and electron microscopy, as well as surface analysis methods. These were compared to corresponding samples of “good” coatings. The primary failure mechanism of the coated windshield appears to be related to electrical discharges that originate where air-filled gaps are present between the copper busbar and the conductive coating. Gaps are produced by irregularities or wrinkles in the copper busbar that may result from the installation process.

Residential building practice currently ignores the lossesof energy and water caused by the poor design of hot water systems. Theselosses include: combustion and standby losses from water heaters, thewaste of water (and energy) while waiting for hot water to get to thepoint of use; the wasted heat as water cools down in the distributionsystem after a draw; heat losses from recirculation systems and thediscarded warmth of waste water as it runs down the drain. Severaltechnologies are available that save energy (and water) by reducing theselosses or by passively recovering heat from wastewater streams and othersources. Energy savings from some individual technologies are reported tobe as much as 30 percent. Savings calculations of prototype systemsincluding bundles of technologies have been reported above 50 percent.This roundtable session will describe the current practices, summarizethe results of past and ongoing studies, discuss ways to think about hotwater system efficiency, and point to areas of future study. We will alsorecommend further steps to reduce unnecessary losses from hot waterdistribution systems.

The ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code provides rules for the construction of nuclear power plant components. Figures I-9.1 through I-9.6 of Appendix I to Section III of the Code specify fatigue design curves for structural materials. However, the effects of light water reactor (LWR) coolant environments are not explicitly addressed by the Code design curves. Existing fatigue strain-vs.-life ({var_epsilon}-N) data illustrate potentially significant effects of LWR coolant environments on the fatigue resistance of pressure vessel and piping steels. This report provides an overview of fatigue crack initiation in austenitic stainless steels in LWR coolant environments. The existing fatigue {var_epsilon}-N data have been evaluated to establish the effects of key material, loading, and environmental parameters (such as steel type, strain range, strain rate, temperature, dissolved-oxygen level in water, and flow rate) on the fatigue lives of these steels. Statistical models are presented for estimating the fatigue {var_epsilon}-N curves for austenitic stainless steels as a function of the material, loading, and environmental parameters. Two methods for incorporating environmental effects into the ASME Code fatigue evaluations are presented. The influence of reactor environments on the mechanism of fatigue crack initiation in these steels is also discussed.

The massive amounts of time-varying datasets being generated demand new visualization and quantification techniques. Visualization alone is not sufficient. Without proper measurement information/computations real science cannot be done. Our focus is this work was to combine visualization with quantification of the data to allow for advanced querying and searching. As part of this proposal, we have developed a feature extraction adn tracking methodology which allows researcher to identify features of interest and follow their evolution over time. The implementation is distributed and operates over data In-situ: where it is stored and when it was computed.

Tribal Energy Program under DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy provides financial and technical assistance to Tribes for feasibility studies and shares the cost of implementing sustainable renewable energy installations on tribal lands.

From vehicle acquisition and credit trading to exemptions and outreach activity, the Annual Report summarizes the State& Alternative Fuel Provider Program accomplishments during FY 2002/MY2001.

High redshift radio galaxies are great cosmological tools for pinpointing the most massive objects in the early Universe: massive forming galaxies, active super-massive black holes and proto-clusters. They report on deep narrow-band imaging and spectroscopic observations of several z > 2 radio galaxy fields to investigate the nature of giant Ly-{alpha} nebulae centered on the galaxies and to search for over-dense regions around them. They discuss the possible implications for our understanding of the formation and evolution of massive galaxies and galaxy clusters.

From Summary: This report will summarize the major provisions of the American with Disabilities Acts(ADA) and will discuss selected recent issues, including the Supreme Court cases.

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Weekly newspaper from Albany, Texas that includes local, county, and state news along with extensive advertising.

The efficacy of captive broodstock programs depends on high in-culture survival and the fitness of cultured salmon after release, either as adults or juveniles. Continuing captive broodstock research designed to improve technology is being conducted to cover all major life history stages of Pacific salmon. The following summarizes some of the work performed and results from the FY 2001 performance period: (1) The incidence of male maturation of age-1 chinook salmon was significantly reduced by reducing growth in the first year of rearing. (2) Experimentally manipulated growth rates of captively-reared coho salmon had significant effects on female maturation rate, egg size, and fecundity, and the effects were stage-specific (i.e., pre-smolt vs. post-smolt). (3) A combination of Renogen and MT239 vaccination of yearling chinook salmon given an acute R. salmoninarum challenge had a significantly longer survival time than the mock-vaccinated group. The survival time was marginally higher than was seen in acutely challenged fish vaccinated with either Renogen or MT239 alone and suggests that a combination vaccine of Renogen and MT239 may be useful as both a prophylactic and therapeutic agent against BKD. (4) Full-sib (inbred) groups of chinook salmon have thus far exhibited lower ocean survival than half-sib and non-related …

The 2000 FCRPS Biological Opinion (BO) suggested two statistical hypothesis tests to assess the RPA compliance by the years 2005 and 2008. With the decision rules proposed in the BO, Skalski and Ngouenet (2001) developed a compliance framework based on classical t-tests and used Monte-Carlo simulations to calculate power curves. Unfortunately, the two-sample t tests proposed in the BO only have moderate-to-low probability of correctly assessing the true status of the smolt survival recovery. We have developed a superior two-phase regression statistical model for testing the RPA compliance. The two-phase regression model improves the statistical power over the standard two-sample t-tests. In addition, the two-phase regression model has a higher probability of correctly assessing the true status of the smolt survival recovery. These classical statistical power curve approaches do not incorporate prior knowledge into the decision process. Therefore, we propose to examine Bayesian methods that complement classical statistics in situations where uncertainty must be taken into account. The Bayesian analysis will incorporate scientific/biological knowledge/expertise to thoroughly assess the RPA compliance in 2005 and 2008.

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Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) of plutonium and americium from soil was successfully demonstrated using supercritical fluid carbon dioxide solvent augmented with organophosphorus and beta-diketone complexants. Spiked Idaho soils were chemically and radiologically characterized, then extracted with supercritical fluid carbon dioxide at 2,900 psi and 65°C containing varying concentrations of tributyl phosphate (TBP) and thenoyltrifluoroacetone (TTA). A single 45 minute SFE with 2.7 mol% TBP and 3.2 mol% TTA provided as much as 88% ± 6.0 extraction of americium and 69% ± 5.0 extraction of plutonium. Use of 5.3 mol% TBP with 6.8 mol% of the more acidic beta-diketone hexafluoroacetylacetone (HFA) provided 95% ± 3.0 extraction of americium and 83% ± 5.0 extraction of plutonium in a single 45 minute SFE at 3,750 psi and 95°C. Sequential chemical extraction techniques were used to chemically characterize soil partitioning of plutonium and americium in pre-SFE soil samples. Sequential chemical extraction techniques demonstrated that spiked plutonium resides primarily (76.6%) in the sesquioxide fraction with minor amounts being absorbed by the oxidizable fraction (10.6%) and residual fractions (12.8%). Post-SFE soils subjected to sequential chemical extraction characterization demonstrated that 97% of the oxidizable, 78% of the sesquioxide and 80% of the residual plutonium could be removed …

A source release model was developed to determine the release of contaminants into the shallow subsurface, as part of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) evaluation at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory's (INEEL) Subsurface Disposal Area (SDA). The output of the source release model is used as input to the subsurface transport and biotic uptake models. The model allowed separating the waste into areas that match the actual disposal units. This allows quantitative evaluation of the relative contribution to the total risk and allows evaluation of selective remediation of the disposal units within the SDA.

Hadron production cross sections are calculated in the perturbative QCD frame work. Parton distribution functions are obtained from a strip-soliton model. The fragmentation functions are derived from the Lund model of string breaking.

A combined experimental and numerical investigation is under way to investigate heat transfer enhancement techniques that may be applicable to large-scale air-cooled condensers such as those used in geothermal power applications. The research is focused on whether air-side heat transfer can be improved through the use of finsurface vortex generators (winglets,) while maintaining low heat exchanger pressure drop. A transient heat transfer visualization and measurement technique has been employed in order to obtain detailed distributions of local heat transfer coefficients on model fin surfaces. Pressure drop measurements have also been acquired in a separate multiple-tube row apparatus. In addition, numerical modeling techniques have been developed to allow prediction of local and average heat transfer for these low-Reynolds-number flows with and without winglets. Representative experimental and numerical results presented in this paper reveal quantitative details of local fin-surface heat transfer in the vicinity of a circular tube with a single delta winglet pair downstream of the cylinder. The winglets were triangular (delta) with a 1:2 height/length aspect ratio and a height equal to 90% of the channel height. Overall mean fin-surface Nusselt-number results indicate a significant level of heat transfer enhancement (average enhancement ratio 35%) associated with the deployment of the …

The kinetics of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) was studied in alkaline electrolyte at 293-333K on Pt(hkl) surfaces by means of the rotating ring-disk electrode technique with solution phase peroxide detected at the ring electrode. The ORR on Pt(hkl) was found to be highly structure sensitive with activities increasing in the sequence (111) > (100) > (110)(1x2). Very similar apparent activation energies (37-45 {+-} 5 kJmol-1, {eta} = 0.35 V) were found on all three surfaces. Furthermore, at elevated temperature, significantly smaller amounts of peroxide are formed in agreement with enhanced peroxide reduction rates by increasing temperature. We found that the Tafel slopes on all three single crystal surfaces decrease with increasing temperature, indicating that the logi-E relationship is not represented by a classical Butler-Volmer expression. Based on the kinetic analysis of the polarization curves and from simulations of logi-E curves, we propose that the rate of the ORR on Pt(hkl) in alkaline solution is mainly determined by the potential/temperature dependent surface coverage by OH{sub ad}. We propose two modes of action of the OH{sub ad}: (i) OH{sub ad} blocks the adsorption of O{sub 2} on active platinum sites; and (ii) OH{sub ad} alters the adsorption energy of intermediates which …

The Department of Energy (DOE) has developed a set of containers for the handling, interim storage, transportation, and disposal in the national repository of DOE spent nuclear fuel (SNF). This container design, referred to as the standardized DOE SNF canister or standardized canister, was developed by the Department's National Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Program (NSNFP) working in conjunction with the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) and the DOE spent fuel sites. This canister had to have a standardized design yet be capable of accepting virtually all of the DOE SNF, be placed in a variety of storage and transportation systems, and still be acceptable to the repository. Since specific design details regarding the storage, transportation, and repository disposal of DOE SNF were not finalized, the NSNFP recognized the necessity to specify a complete DOE SNF canister design. This allowed other evaluations of canister performance and design to proceed as well as providing standardized canister users adequate information to proceed with their work. This paper is an update of a paper presented to the 1999 American Nuclear Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Pressure Vessels and Piping (PVP) Conference. It discusses recent progress achieved in various areas to enhance acceptance …

A steady-state model of the Sodium-Bearing Waste steam reforming process at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has been performed using the commercial ASPEN Plus process simulator. The preliminary process configuration and its representation in ASPEN are described. As assessment of the capability of the model to mechanistically predict product stream compositions was made, and fidelity gaps and opportunities for model enhancement were identified, resulting in the following conclusions: 1) Appreciable benefit is derived from using an activity coefficient model for electrolyte solution thermodynamics rather than assuming ideality (unity assumed for all activity coefficients). The concentrations of fifteen percent of the species present in the primary output stream were changed by more than 50%, relative to Electrolyte NRTL, when ideality was assumed; 2) The current baseline model provides a good start for estimating mass balances and performing integrated process optimization because it contains several key species, uses a mechanistic electrolyte thermodynamic model, and is based on a reasonable process configuration; and 3) Appreciable improvement to model fidelity can be realized by expanding the species list and the list of chemical and phase transformations. A path forward is proposed focusing on the use of an improved electrolyte thermodynamic property method, …

A systematic methodology is presented and applied for the identification of requirements and issues pertaining to the planning for, and transition to, long term stewardship (LTS). The method has been applied to three of the twelve identified LTS functions. The results of the application of the methodology to contaminated and uncontaminated federal real property in those three functions are presented. The issues that could be seen as impediments to the implementation of LTS are also identified for the three areas under consideration. The identified requirements are significant and in some cases complex to implement. It is clear that early and careful planning is required in all circumstances.

The effects of closure decisions for used nuclear facilities can extend centuries into the future. Yet, the longevity of decisions made over the past half century has been poor. Our goal is an improved decision framework for decommissioning, stewardship, and waste management. This paper describes our overall framework. Companion papers describe the underlying philosophy of the KONVERGENCE Model for Sustainable Decisions1 and implications for a class of intractable decision problems.2 Where knowledge, values, and resources converge (the K, V, and R in KONVERGENCE), you will find a sustainable decision – a decision that works over time. Our approach clarifies what is needed to make and keep decisions over relevant time periods. The process guides participants through establishing the real problem, understanding the universes of knowledge, values, resources, and generating alternatives. We explore three classes of alternatives – reusable (e.g. greenfield), closed (e.g. entombed structures), and adaptable. After testing for konvergence of alternatives among knowledge, values, resources, we offer suggestions to diagnose divergence, to reduce divergence by refining alternatives to address identified weaknesses, and to plan to keep konvergence over the life of the decision. We believe that decisions made via this method will better stand the test of time – …

United States Department of Energy Order 435.1, Radioactive Waste Management, includes requirements for assessing the long-term performance of radioactive waste disposal facilities and also for environmental monitoring of the performance of those facilities throughout the time of institutional control. It is also specified that performance assessment and composite analysis modeling should be integrated with environmental monitoring in order to provide a means to assess the adequacy of the assumptions that were made for the modeling. This paper describes the development of action levels, which are expected concentrations at different locations in the subsurface based on modeling conducted for the performance assessment and composite analysis for the low-level waste disposal facility at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. First year comparisons of measured concentrations with the action level have shown that migration appears to be occurring at a much lower rate than predicted by the models. This supports the conclusion that the modeling is conservative and conclusions based on the modeling are likewise conservative.