In his review of radionuclides for dating purposes, Roth noted that there were a large number of nuclides, normally considered ''stable'' but which are radioactive with a very long half-life. Roth suggested that I review the data on the half-life values of these long-lived nuclides for the 2001 Atomic Weights Commission meeting in Brisbane. I provided a report, BNL-NCS-68377, to fulfill Roth's request. Peiser has now made a similar suggestion that I review these data for our next Commission meeting in Ottawa for their possible inclusion in our Tables. These half-life values for long-lived nuclides include those due to various decay modes, {alpha}-decay, {beta}-decay, electron capture decay, {beta}{beta}-decay, proton decay and spontaneous fission decay. This data review (post Brisbane) provides an update to the recommendation of the 2001 review.

From the history of the Commission, it began with a large number of members. It was found that it was difficult to gain agreement by correspondence between such a large group. A smaller group was elected to operate by correspondence and make decisions. It operated successfully for a half century in this manner. With funding available, the Commission membership grew larger but they.discussed all matters face to face at Commission meetings. Subcommittees were appointed to pursue specialized topics and members reported and discussed their subcommittee results directly to the Commission at the face to face meetings. With the change in the bylaws, future face to face meetings will no longer be an option for the members of the Commission and its subcommittees, unless all members provide their own funds or those of their host institutions. The funding and membership restrictions are all serious topics, which require a thorough discussion.

The Rare Isotope Accelerator project involves generating heavy-element ion beams for use in a fragmentation target line to produce beams for physics research. The main beam, after passing through the fragmentation target, may be dumped into a beam dump located in the vacuum cavity of the first dipole magnet. For a dump beam power of 100 kW, cooling is required to avoid excessive high temperatures. The proposed dump design involves rotating cylinders to spread out the energy deposition and turbulent subcooled water flow through internal water cooling passages to obtain high, nonboiling, cooling rates.

During discussions within the Inorganic Chemistry Division Committee, that dealt with the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements and the official IUPAC position on its presentation, the following question was raised. When the various chemical elements are presented, each with their appropriate atomic weight value, how should the radioactive elements be presented? The Atomic Weights Commission has treated this question in a number of different ways during the past century, almost in a random manner. This report reviews the position that the Commission has taken as a function of time, as a prelude to a discussion in Ottawa about how the Commission should resolve this question for the future.

Numerical simulation has become a widely practiced andaccepted technique for studying flow and transport processes in thevadose zone and other subsurface flow systems. This article discusses asuite of codes, developed primarily at Lawrence Berkeley NationalLaboratory (LBNL), with the capability to model multiphase flows withphase change. We summarize history and goals in the development of theTOUGH codes, and present the governing equations for multiphase,multicomponent flow. Special emphasis is given to space discretization bymeans of integral finite differences (IFD). Issues of code implementationand architecture are addressed, as well as code applications,maintenance, and future developments.