Monthly bulletin documenting changes in legislation, judicial rulings, and other regulatory updates related to telephone, electric, and other utility services in Texas.

Monthly report providing tabular statistical information about motor vehicle accidents in Texas during 1990, with data broken out by various criteria including number of persons, locations, types of accidents, time of day, and other factors.

Monthly report providing tabular statistical information about motor vehicle accidents in rural areas of Texas during 1990, with data broken out by various criteria including number of persons, locations, types of accidents, time of day, and other factors.

Monthly report detailing all Texas automobile, pickup, and motorcycle theft data, broken down into tabular lists according to various criteria.

Magazine discussing natural resources, parks, hunting and fishing, and other information related to the outdoors in Texas.

Newsletter dedicated to traveling in Texas, including information about news, locations, and events of interest to visitors as well as statistics and summaries of travel in the state.

Newsletter of the Texas Board of Nurse Examiners discussing news and updates related to the Board's activities, changes to licensing and regulations, and other information of interest to nurses.

Periodic newsletter discussing information related to legislation, state finance, and other topics related to Texas government. This issue focuses on the Texas homestead law, including history, attempts to change it, public confusion, and more.

Magazine containing news and information that pertains to Emergency Medical Service (EMS) providers.

Report on the Edwards aquifer in the Austin region, including test well findings, core testing, drilling logs, core analysis, and more.

Newsletter issued by the Texas Council on Vocational Education discussing news, events, and other relevant information related to technical and vocational education for adults in Texas.

The Commission published a Notice of Proposed Rule-making on Maintenance of Nuclear Power Plants on November 28, 1988, spelling out NRC's expectations in maintenance. In preparing the proposed rule, the NRC reviewed maintenance practices in other countries and considered maintenance approaches in other industries in this country. As a result of the review of maintenance practices, it was concluded that certain practices in the following areas have been found to contribute significantly to effective maintenance: (1) systems approach; (2) effectiveness monitoring; (3) technician qualifications and motivation; and (4) maintenance organization. 87 refs., 26 figs., 2 tabs.

In FY 1987, a program was initiated to demonstrate technology for recovering transuranic (TRU) elements from defense wastes. This hot demonstration was to be carried out with solution from the dissolution of irradiated fuels. This recovery would be accomplished with both PUREX and TRUEX solvent extraction processes. Work planned for this program included preparation of a shielded-cell facility for the receipt and storage of spent fuel from commercial power reactors, dissolution of this fuel, operation of a PUREX process to produce specific feeds for the TRUEX process, operation of a TRUEX process to remove residual actinide elements from PUREX process raffinates, and processing and disposal of waste and product streams. This report documents the work completed in planning and starting up this program. It is meant to serve as a guide for anyone planning similar demonstrations of TRUEX or other solvent extraction processing in a shielded-cell facility.

This 1989 Annual Report from Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) to the US Department of Energy (DOE) describes research in environment, safety, and health conducted during fiscal year 1989. The report again consists of five parts, each in a separate volume. This volume contains 20 papers. Part 4 of the Pacific Northwest Laboratory Annual Report of 1989 to the DOE Office of Energy Research includes those programs funded under the title Physical and Technological Research.'' The Field Task Program Studies reported in this document are grouped by budget category and each Field Task proposal/agreement is introduced by an abstract that describes the projects reported in that section. These reports only briefly indicate progress made during 1989. 74 refs., 29 figs., 6 tabs.

This report contains the description of a procedure for selecting scenarios that are potentially important to the isolation of high- level radioactive wastes in deep geologic formations. In this report, the term scenario is used to represent a set of naturally occurring and/or human-induced conditions that represent realistic future states of the repository, geologic systems, and ground-water flow systems that might affect the release and transport of radionuclides from the repository to humans. The scenario selection procedure discussed in this report is demonstrated by applying it to the analysis of a hypothetical waste disposal site containing a bedded-salt formation as the host medium for the repository. A final set of 12 scenarios is selected for this site. 52 refs., 48 figs., 5 tabs.

In this research program, we have adopted the approach that by measuring fundamental properties (i.e, the complex refractive index, m) of the fly ash which participates in the radiation transfer, we can use well established theoretical principles (Mie theory) to compute the radiative properties of dispersions of fly ash as found in coal combustors. With this approach one can, understand the underlying principles that affect the radiative properties of an ash dispersion and more confidently predict how variations in the characteristics of the ash dispersion cause variations in its radiative properties. An important criterion in this approach is that the fly ash particles be spherical, homogeneous, and isotropic. Fortunately, fly ash particles are formed at high temperatures at which most of them are molten, leading primarily to spherical particles. Furthermore, one should expect that molten particles will be reasonably homogeneous and isotropic. On cooling, most fly ash particles form glassy spheres which are homogeneous and isotropic. Some ash particles form hollow shells (cenospheres) while others form as particles with bubbles'' or voids, but most fly ash particles are well approximated as homogeneous isotropic spheres. In the following sections we review some of the underlying principles that affect the radiative properties …

The Vertical Integration of Science, Technology, and Applications (VISTA) project is an initiative to employ modern information and communications technology for rapid and effective application of basic research results by end users. Developed by the Pacific Northwest Laboratory, VISTA's purpose is to develop and deploy information systems (software or software/hardware products) to broad segments of various markets. Inherent in these products would be mechanisms for accessing PNL-resident information about the problem. A goal of VISTA is to incorporate existing, commercially available user interface technology into the VISTA UIMS. Commercial systems are generally more complete, reliable, and cost-effective than software developed in-house. The objective of this report is to examine the current state of commercial user interface software and discuss the implications of selections thereof. This report begins by describing the functionality of the user interface as it applies to users and application developers. Next, a reference model is presented defining the various operational software layers of a graphical user interface. The main body follows which examines current user interface technology by sampling a number of commercial systems. Both the window system and user interface toolkit markets are surveyed. A summary of the current technology concludes this report. 15 refs., 3 …

The purpose of this study is to examine the variability in the annual average indoor radon concentration. The TMC has been collecting annual average radon data for the past 5 years in 33 residential structures in Mesa County, Colorado. This report is an interim report that presents the data collected up to the present. Currently, the plans are to continue this study in the future. 62 refs., 3 figs., 12 tabs.

Motional Stark effect produces large net linear polarization of hydrogenic beam emissions. Measurement of the polarization direction permits to determine the local magnetic field pitch angle. Design of a single point, spatially scannable, high-sensitivity polarimeter installed on DIII-D is described. Excellent signal-to-noise ratio with good temporal and spatial resolution was obtained in preliminary measurements of magnetic field pitch angle. 9 refs., 3 figs.

We focus on the potentialities of nucleon-antinucleon ({bar N}N) annihilation as a means of producing new mesonic states. The case for the existence of quasinuclear {bar N}N bound states is discussed in detail. Strong evidence for a 2{sup ++}(0{sup +}) state of this type has been obtained at LEAR in annihilation from the p-wave (L = 1) {bar N}N system, in support of earlier sightings of this object in L = 0 annihilation at Brookhaven. In the next generation of LEAR experiments, the emphasis shifts to the search for mesons containing dynamical excitations of the gluonic field, namely glueballs and hybrids (Q{bar Q}g). We discuss some features of the masses, decay branching ratios and production mechanisms for these states, and suggest particular {bar N}N annihilation channels which are optimal for their discovery. 59 refs., 15 figs.

Bacteria induce the precipitation of calcium carbonate in the laboratory and in nature by altering their chemical environment. Geologists are recognizing the possibility that bacterially induced precipitates may form significant mineral deposits, unfortunately, there are currently no sound criteria by which they can be recognized in recent sediments, or in the rock record. Cultures of aerobic and facultative bacteria from cyanobacterial mats on Andros Island, Bahamas, and Baffin Bay, Texas, induced the precipitation of calcium carbonate under controlled conditions. Crusts, the largest features formed, are composed of 5--200{mu}m diameter bundles which are, in turn, composed of numerous individual crystals. The smallest observed features are 0.1--0.4{mu}m spheres and rods which comprise some individual crystals and crystal bundles. Crystal bundles resembling rhombohedra, tetragonal disphenoids, tetragonal dipyramids, and calcite dumbbells appear to be uniquely bacterial in origin, and they have all been observed in recent sediments. Swollen rods, discs, curved dumbbells, and 50--200{mu}m optically continuous crystals resembling brushes may be uniquely bacterial in origin, however, they have not been reported by other laboratories nor observed in natural settings. Presence of any of these forms in recent sediments should be taken as strong evidence for bacterial influence. Spheres and aragonite dumbbells have also been …

The objective of this research is to elucidate the role of various chemical additives on ethanol synthesis over Rh- and Ni-based catalysts. Chemical additives used for this study will include S, P, Ag, Cu, Mn, and Na which have different electronegativities. The effect of additives on the surface state of the catalysts, heat of adsorption of reactant molecules, reaction intermediates, reaction pathways, reaction kinetics, and product distributions is/will be investigated by a series of experimental studies of NO adsorption, reaction probing, study state rate measurement, and transient kinetic study. A better understanding of the role of additive on the synthesis reaction may allow us to use chemical additives to manipulate the catalytic properties of Rh- and Ni-based catalysts for producing high yields of ethanol from syngas.

The basic properties of {Lambda} hypernuclei, which can exist as particle-stable systems with spectroscopies analogous to those of ordinary nuclei, are reviewed. We discuss shell-model calculations for the structure of {Lambda} hypernuclei and their production via the (K{sup {minus}},{pi}{sup {minus}}) and ({pi}{sup +},K{sup +}) reactions. The prospects for investigating hypernuclear structure at high-energy electron accelerator facilities via the (e,e{prime}K) or ({gamma},K) reactions, which are kinematically similar to the ({pi}{sup +},K{sup +}) reaction, but which favor spin-slip transitions, are considered. 53 refs., 12 figs., 2 tabs.

The tables contained in this Appendix A describe the information needs for a pressurized water reactor (PWR) with a large, dry containment. To identify these information needs, the branch points in the safety objective trees were examined to decide what information is necessary to (a) determine the status of the safety functions in the plant, i.e., whether the safety functions are being adequately maintained within predetermined limits, (b) identify plant behavior (mechanisms) or precursors to this behavior which indicate that a challenge to plant safety is occurring or is imminent, and (c) select strategies that will prevent or mitigate this plant behavior and monitor the implementation and effectiveness of these strategies. The information needs for the challenges to the safety functions are not examined since the summation of the information needs for all mechanisms associated with a challenge comprise the information needs for the challenge itself.