This report details the legislative, political, and legal contexts of H.J.Res 78 (Religious Freedom Amendment) and analyzes its legal effect.

None

This report provides information about the Foreign Policy Agency Reorganization in the 105th Congress. This report also provides the background on foreign policy consolidation issues, discusses foreign policy implications, and tracks legislation.

None

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO updated its report on frequently asked questions on the federal debt, focusing on: (1) how debt is defined and measured; (2) who holds federal debt; (3) how much it has grown in recent years; and (4) its significance to the national economy."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the benefits of constructing the Lewis and Clark Rural Water Project, focusing on: (1) what benefits could derive from the Lewis and Clark project; (2) who could receive these benefits; and (3) how these benefits are valued."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Medicare Subvention Demonstration Program, focusing on the sufficiency of the Department of Defense's (DOD) data systems for: (1) determining DOD's historical level of effort (LOE) and Medicare payments; and (2) managing the demonstration and assessing its cost effects."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on: (1) the status of the Department of Labor's efforts to improve the Davis-Bacon Act wage determination process; and (2) whether the changes Labor is making are likely to address the timeliness and accuracy of wage determinations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Farm Service Agency (FSA), focusing on the: (1) number of FSA county offices with three or fewer permanent full-time employees; (2) characteristics of these offices, including their proximity to another county office, their workload, the level of FSA program benefits delivered, the relative contribution of farming to total county income, and the number of farms and farmland acres in the counties served by these offices; and (3) ways in which varying the criteria associated with these characteristics can affect the number of county offices that are candidates for closure and consolidation."

The Alder Mine, an abandoned gold, silver, copper, and zinc mine in Okanogan County, Washington, produces heavy metal-laden effluent that affects the quality of water in a tributary of the Methow River. The annual mass loading of heavy metals from two audits at the Alder Mine was estimated to exceed 11,000 kg per year. In this study, water samples from stations along Alder Creek were assayed for heavy metals by ICP-AES and were found to exceed Washington State's acute freshwater criteria for cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), selenium (Se), and zinc (Zn).

We present preliminary results of a new measurement of the b quark fragmentation function in Z{sup 0} decays using a novel kinematic B hadron energy reconstruction technique. The measurement is performed using 150,000 hadronic Z{sup 0} events recorded in the SLD experiment at SLAC between 1996 and 1997. The small and stable SLC beam spot and the CCD-based vertex detector are used to reconstruct topological B-decay vertices with high efficiency and purity, and to provide precise measurements of the kinematic quantities used in this technique. We measure the B energy with good efficiency and resolution over the full kinematic range. We compare the scale B hadron energy distribution with several functional forms of the B hadron energy distribution and predictions of several models of b quark fragmentation. Several functions including JETSET + Peterson are excluded by the data. The average scaled energy of the weakly decaying B hadron is measured to be x{sub B} = 0.719 {+-} 0.005 (stat) {+-} 0.007 (syst) {+-} 0.001 (model) (preliminary).

This publication presents an overview of the Energy information Administration`s recent monthly energy statistics. The statistics cover the major activities of US production, consumption, trade, stocks, and prices for petroleum, natural gas, coal, electricity, and nuclear energy. Also included are international energy and thermal and metric conversion factors. Two brief ``energy plugs`` (reviews of EIA publications) are included, as well.

This report from the Amarillo National REsource Center for PLutonium provides research highlights and provides information regarding the public dissemination of information. The center is a a scientific resource for information regarding the issues of the storage, disposition, potential utilization and transport of plutonium, high explosives, and other hazardous materials generated from nuclear weapons dismantlement. The center responds to informational needs and interpretation of technical and scientific data raised by interested parties and advisory groups. Also, research efforts are carried out on remedial action programs and biological/agricultural studies.

Energy Related Inventions Program Number 613 was a two year program to commercialize a unique new wear material, Metal Reinforced Carbon Composite, MRCC. The program was designed to manufacture sample components of MRCC for evaluation by potential users and manufacturers. As a result of the program Burton Technologies Inc. and Rotary Power International are forming a joint company to manufacture, market and license MRCC materials to a wide range of industries.

The goals of work done this quarter were (1) to analyze the preliminary seismic inversion model for the Grayburg A, B, and C sequences and the upper San Andres formation; (2) modify the inversion model to improve its accuracy and to include the deeper Holt Formation; and (3) test various rock property quantities against the improved model and other seismic attributes using refined analysis boundaries. A satisfactory inversion model and porosity analysis remains to be accomplished, but much has been learned about the modeling and analysis processes. Qualitative comparison of sonic logs with the inversion model traces in profile view shows great similarity and success is being made toward good quantitative results.

The Project is under budget and generally on schedule. The current status is shown in the Milestone Schedule Status Report included as Appendix A. Task 7--Component Development and Optimization and Task 11--Subsystem Test Operation and evaluation are shown to be slightly behind schedule. Also, addition of Kalina technology may delay completion of Task 8. However, Phase 2 will be completed on schedule. The Project and plans for the POCTF were presented to the Richmond Power and Light Board of Directors. Technology transfer activities included delivering papers at two conferences, submitting paper abstracts for two other conferences and organizing a Technical Session for a conference. Under Task 7 the 200 acfm CeraMem filter test rig was installed at Richmond Power and Light and testing commenced. Low-NO{sub x} firing system work was essentially completed. In Task 8 integrating and optimizing the performance and design of the boiler, turbine/generator and heat exchangers of the Kalina cycle is proceeding but it has required much more time than anticipated. Preliminary designs of this equipment are nearly complete. Plant design and licensing activities will restart in April. The test designs and plan created in Task 9 were previously submitted and approved, although the plan for the …

This describes a test program to establish the in-situ material properties of the reinforced concrete in Building 221-U for comparison to the original design specifications. Field sampling and laboratory testing of concrete and reinforcing steel structural materials in Building 221-U for design verification will be undertaken. Forty seven samples are to be taken from radiologically clean exterior walls of the canyon. Laboratory testing program includes unconfined compressive strength of concrete cores, tensile strength of reinforcing steel, and petrographic examinations of concrete cores taken from walls below existing grade.

This document provides the results of the acceptance test procedure performed under document number: HNF-2501, Rev 0. This Acceptance Test Procedure has been prepared to demonstrate the Hanford Site Emergency Alerting System functions as required by Specification WHC-S0454, Rev. 1 and project criteria.

During the test of the LEDA injector on the CRITS RFQ, an automatic data acquisition system has been implemented. The purpose was to measure the sparking rate of this CW RFQ. The RF level has some influences on vacuum, but there is no evidence of any reciprocal effect. The raw sparking rate is very difficult to interpret, since burst of sparks bias the statistics. A more convenient and useful interpretation is the number of sparking seconds. At the nominal field level (1.75 Kilp), the sparking-second rate is 0.5 per minute without beam. It strongly depends on the field, with a logarithmic law: 4.5 decade/Kilp. With beam, the sparking rate jumps to 3.0 per minute. As far as tested, it depends neither on the beam current (20 to 80 mA) nor on the field (1.5 to 1.7 Kilp tested). With sparking rates as measured here, one could not hope to build an RFQ that would be free of sparks over a several months continuous operation. Such a requirement, based on an extrapolation of the curves presented here, would lead to a maximal electric field much lower than the Kilpatrick value, an unreasonable requirement for a functional RFQ. A conclusion is that …

Synchrotron-based 13 nm measurements of scatter from individual mirrors and an assembled imaging system for Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography have been compared to a model of image formation in the presence of scatter. The theory uses a Power Spectral Density description of the constituent optics to describe modifications to the image due to scatter. Reasonable agreement between measurements and theory was obtained for both individual mirrors and the assembled system. 9 refs., 4 figs.

The surface topography of optics fabricated for Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography has been measured using a combination of phase-measuring interferometry and atomic force microscopy. Power Spectral Densities were computed over spatial frequencies extending from 2.0{times}10{sup {minus}8} nm{sup {minus}1} to 7.7{times}10{sup {minus}2} nm{sup {minus}1}. Roughness values for frequencies greater than 1.0{times}10{sup {minus}6} were 0.64 nm rms for a spherical optic and 0.95 nm rms for an aspheric optic. These values are significantly larger than 0.088 nm rms, which as obtained using a spherical optic representative of current limits in surface polishing technology. 9 refs., 4 figs.

Methane oxidative coupling experiments were conducted in a packed-bed reactor using La/MgO catalyst. The results were in agreement with those reported in the literature. Oxygen permeability through an oxygen-conductive dense membrane was measured. The oxygen permeability was about 20% of the reported values and increased with the sweep flow rate of helium in the tube side. Blank runs under methane coupling conditions were carried out with no catalyst packed in the dense membrane tube. Nearly 100% CO{sub 2} selectivity was observed, suggesting that the membrane material is a facile total oxidation catalyst. After the experiment the membrane tube was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy.

This appendix contains the structural embankment analysis of the following Line D tunnel sections: 6(T/21), 5(21/21), 3(21/21), 2(21/21), 1(21/21), 2(21/24), 6(T/21), 3(23/23), 5(21/21)S, and 5(2/8). The structural assessment is for each section being covered with a 30 ft tuff berm used as shielding in the event of a beam spill. Each tunnel section is subject to vertical and horizontal loads estimated as 115 lbs/ft{sup 2} for each 1 ft or overburden and horizontal loads equivalent to 0.2948 of the vertical load, due to the weight of the tuff berm placed over the structure. The profile of the berm is based on preliminary shielding assessments. Shear, axial and bending stresses are determined with the associated tunnel deformations.

Using high-temperature high-speed liquid centrifuges for lanthanides and actinides separation was originally proposed as a physical separation method in the Los Alamos ADTT/ATW concept [C. Bowman, LA-UR-92-1065 (1992)]. The authors investigated centrifugal separation in a concerted effort of experiments, theoretical analysis and numerical simulations. They discovered that owing to the ionic-composition-dependence of the sedimentation coefficients for the fission products and actinides, separation by grouping of molecular densities would not work in general in the molten salt environment. Alternatively the lanthanides and actinides could be transferred to a liquid metal carrier (e.g. bismuth) via reductive extraction and then separated by liquid centrifuges, but the material and technical challenges are severe. Meanwhile the authors have established that the reductive extraction procedure itself can be used for desired separations. Unlike conventional aqueous-based reprocessing technologies, reductive extraction separation uses only reagent (Li) that reconstitutes carrier salts (LiF-BeF{sub 2}) and a processing medium (Bi) that can be continuously recycled and reused, with a nearly-pure fission products waste stream. The processing units are compact and reliable, and can be built at relatively low cost while maintaining high throughput. Therefore the research effort on developing liquid centrifuges for separations in ADTT/ATW was terminated in late 1995. This …