Weekly newspaper from Bogata, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

E-mail from Arnold Aprill to Sterling Houston, prominent San Antonio playwright. He has received a script for one of Houston's plays, Cameoland, and is writing to comment on several parts of the story. This includes notations on character development, music, and imagery.

This paper highlights the results of initial investigations conducted to support the development of an integrated treatment process to convert pyrophoric metallic uranium wastes to a non-pyrophoric waste that is acceptable for land disposal. Several dissolution systems were evaluated to determine their suitability to dissolve uranium metal and that yield a final waste form containing uranium specie(s) amenable to precipitation, stabilization, adsorption, or ion exchange. During initial studies, one gram aliquots of uranium metal or the uranium alloy U-2%Mo were treated with 5 to 60 mL of selected reagents. Treatment systems screened included acids, acid mixtures, and bases with and without addition of oxidants. Reagents used included hydrochloric, sulfuric, nitric, and phosphoric acids, sodium hypochlorite, sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide. Complete dissolution of the uranium turnings was achieved with the H{sub 3}PO{sub 4}/HCI system at room temperature within minutes. The sodium hydroxide/hydrogen peroxide, and sodium hypochlorite systems achieved complete dissolution but required elevated temperatures and longer reaction times. A ranking system based on criteria, such as corrosiveness, temperature, dissolution time, off-gas type and amount, and liquid to solid ratio, was designed to determine the treatment systems that should be developed further for a full-scale process. The highest-ranking systems, nitric acid/sulfuric …

A new computer program, the SX Solver, has been developed to analyze solvent-extraction equilibria. The program operates out of Microsoft Excel and uses the built-in Solver function to minimize the sum of the square of the residuals between measured and calculated distribution coefficients. The extraction of nitric acid by tributyl phosphate has been modeled to illustrate the programs use.

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

Weekly newspaper from Comanche, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Semi-weekly newspaper from Livingston, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with advertising.

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

Buildings often do not perform as well in practice as expected during pre-design planning, nor as intended at the design stage, nor even as measured during commissioning and maintenance operations. While this statement is generally considered to be true, it is difficult to quantify the impacts and long-term economic implications of a building in which performance does not meet expectations. This leads to a building process that is devoid of quantitative feedback that could be used to detect and correct problems both in an individual building and in the building process itself. A key element in this situation is the lack of a standardized method for documenting and communicating information about the intended and actual performance of a building. This deficiency leads to several shortcomings in the life-cycle management of building information. Planners have no means of clearly specifying their expectations. Designers do not concisely document their design intent. Commissioning personnel have no standardized method for documenting the results of performance testing. Post-occupancy building performance cannot readily be compared to expectations in an attempt to evaluate and improve design and operation decisions. Lastly, without quantification of the magnitude of performance problems it is difficult to motivate building process participants to …

Most existing computer codes for modeling environmental pathways were developed to satisfy a specific objective (e.g., perform analyses to demonstrate regulatory compliance). Over time, the codes have been written in various computer languages and software environments that are often not compatible with each other. In recent years, largely driven by advances in industrial software, a new concept for software development based on modularization has emerged. This approach entails the development of common modules or components that can be shared by and used in different applications that have certain common needs. Although modularization promises advantages over the traditional approach, a number of issues must be fully addressed and resolved before the approach can be accepted as a new paradigm for environmental modeling. This paper discusses these issues, provides demonstrations of open integration techniques, and provides recommendations and a course of action for future development.

The present simulations performed with the Monte Carlo code MCNP-POLIMI [1] have the scope of evaluating the associated-particle sealed tube neutron generator (APSTNG) for use as an interrogation source in the source-driven noise analysis method for the assay of nuclear materials. In the Nuclear Materials Identification System (NMIS) developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the time dependent cross-correlation of the timed neutron source and detector responses is one of the signatures acquired. Previous studies and measurements have demonstrated the sensitivity of this and other related signatures to fissile mass [2-3]. In a recent report [4], we outlined the advantages of the APSTNG interrogation source for use with NMIS when compared with the Cf-252 source. In particular, we showed that when the distance between the source and the sample and the sample and the detectors is large, the APSTNG source outperforms the Cf-252 in sensitivity to fissile mass. This is the case when performing measurements of items that are placed inside containers. The purpose of this report is to investigate the advantages of using the APSTNG source in reducing the effect of floor reflections in the signatures acquired. To this end, a large number of MCNP-POLIMI Monte Carlo simulations were …

The subject of this thesis is the nondestructive assay (NDA) of nuclear materials. NDA is made possible by the fact that fissile and fertile transuranic isotopes emit characteristic radiations. Fission Multiplicity Detection (FMD) is the name of the standard technique used in NDA of nuclear materials in the 1960s and 1970s. It was characterized by the use of fast plastic scintillating detectors. These systems were used in both active and passive mode. These FMD systems were eventually replaced by thermal well counters as the standard NDA technique. The thermal well counters use {sup 3}He detectors embedded in a moderator. Among the passive neutron assay techniques, neutron multiplicity counting (NMC) in a thermal well counter is the preferred technique for the determination of fissile mass when spontaneous fission yields are significant. it is used in conjunction with gamma-ray spectroscopy to determine the isotopic composition of a sample. The major problem with the use of fast plastic detectors as used in FMD is that both neutrons and gamma rays are detected. The pulses from the two are indistinguishable. The disadvantages of this indistinguishability between neutron and gamma rays is explained further in the explanation of NMIS multiplicity in Section 2.5.

We report a strong correlation between the location of Mn sites in ferromagnetic Ga{sub 1-x}Mn{sub x}As measured by channeling Rutherford backscattering and by particle induced x-ray emission experiments and its Curie temperature. The concentrations of free holes determined by electrochemical capacitance-voltage profiling and of uncompensated Mn{sup ++} spins determined from SQUID magnetization measurements are found to depend on the concentration of unstable defects involving highly mobile Mn interstitials. This leads to large variations in T{sub c} of Ga{sub 1-x}Mn{sub x}As when it is annealed at different temperatures in a narrow temperature range. The fact that annealing under various conditions has failed to produce Curie temperatures above {approx}110K is attributed to the existence of an upper limit on the free hole concentration in low-temperature-grown Ga{sub 1-x}Mn{sub x}As.

In an inertial fusion energy (FE) thick-liquid chamber design such as HYLEE-II, a molten-salt is used to attenuate neutrons and protect the chamber structures from radiation damage. In the case of a fast ignition inertial fusion system, advanced targets have been proposed that may be self-sufficient in terms of tritium breeding (i.e., the amount of tritium bred in target exceeds the amount burned). This aspect allows for greater freedom when selecting a liquid for the protective blanket, given that lithium-bearing compounds are no longer required. The present work assesses the characteristics of many single, binary, and ternary molten-salts using the NIST Properties of Molten Salts Database. As an initial screening, salts were evaluated for their safety and environmental (S and E) characteristics, which included an assessment of waste disposal rating, contact dose, and radioactive afterheat. Salts that passed the S and E criteria were then evaluated for required pumping power. The pumping power was calculated using three components: velocity head losses, frictional losses, and lifting power. The results of the assessment are used to identify those molten-salts that are suitable for potential liquid-chamber fast-ignition IFE concepts, from both the S and E and pumping power perspective. Recommendations for further analysis …

Weekly newspaper from Archer City, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Stamford, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Funeral program for Linda Penson Brown, born July 28, 1920. The funeral was held Thursday, January 17, 2002 at Calvary Baptist Church, officiated by Rev. Kevin Nelson. Funeral arrangements were made through Lewis Funeral Home and she was buried in Meadowlawn Memorial Park in San Antonio, Texas.

Weekly newspaper from Rio Grande City, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

Traditionally, waste management studies for fusion energy have used the Waste Disposal Rating (WDR) to evaluate if radioactive material from irradiated structures could qualify for shallow land burial. However, given the space limitations and the negative public perception of large volumes of waste, there is a growing international motivation to develop a fusion waste management system that maximizes the amount of material that can be cleared or recycled. In this work, we present an updated assessment of the waste management options for the HYLIFE-II inertial fusion energy (IFE) power plant, using the concept of Clearance Index (CI) for radioactive waste disposal. With that purpose, we have performed a detailed neutronics analysis of the HYLIFE-II design, using the TART and ACAB computer codes for neutron transport and activation, respectively. Whereas the traditional version of ACAB only provided the user with the WDR as an index for waste considerations, here we have modified the code to calculate Clearance Indexes using the current International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) clearance limits for radiological waste disposal. The results from the analysis are used to perform an assessment of the waste management options for the HYLIFE-II IFE design.

This paper describes the application of four evolutionary algorithms to the identification of feature subsets for classification problems. Besides a simple GA, the paper considers three estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs): a compact GA, an extended compact GA, and the Bayesian Optimization Algorithm. The objective is to determine if the EDAs present advantages over the simple GA in terms of accuracy or speed in this problem. The experiments used a Naive Bayes classifier and public-domain and artificial data sets. In contrast with previous studies, we did not find evidence to support or reject the use of EDAs for this problem.

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Successful development of Heavy Ion Fusion (HIF) will require scientific and technology advances in areas of targets, drivers and chambers. Design work on heavy ion targets indicates that high gain (60-130) may be possible with a -3-6 MJ driver depending on the ability to focus the beams to small spot sizes. Significant improvements have been made on key components of heavy ion drivers, including sources, injectors, insulators and ferromagnetic materials for long-pulse induction accelerator cells, solid-state pulsers, and superconducting quadrupole magnets. The leading chamber concept for HIF is the thick-liquid-wall HYLEE-II design, which uses an array of flibe jets to protect chamber structures from x-ray, debris, and neutron damage. Significant progress has been made in demonstrating the ability to create and control the types of flow needed to form the protective liquid blanket. Progress has also been made on neutron shielding for the final focus magnet arrays with predicted lifetimes now exceeding the life of the power plant. Safety analyses have been completed for the HYLEE-II design using state-of-the-art codes. Work also continues on target fabrication and injection for HE. A target injector experiment capable of > 5 Hz operation has been designed and construction will start in 2002. Methods …

Weekly newspaper from The Colony, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.