Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Authority of commissioners court to order an independent audit (RQ-1182)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Procedure for recieving and refunding a cash bail bond posted pursuant to article 17.02 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (RQ-1190)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether municipal court has jurisdiction over cases arising under nuisance ordinance prohibiting outdoor burning within 5,000 feet outside city limits (RQ-1212)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the commissioners court may pay the sheriff the same amount of longevity pay he received as deputy.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its January 1999 report on the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) major management challenges and program risks, focusing on: (1) corrective actions that HUD has taken or initiated on its major management challenges; (2) major management challenges that remain and limit HUD's effectiveness in carrying out its mission; and (3) further actions that are needed to resolve these challenges."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the status and management of the Superfund program and the outlook for the program's future, focusing on: (1) progress made toward cleaning up sites in the program; (2) continuing management problems; and (3) factors affecting Superfund's future workload."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its recently issued report and its ongoing and planned body of work on homelessness."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided an update to its report on the nonpayment of U.S. income taxes by foreign-controlled corporations (FCC) and U.S.-controlled corporations (USCC), focusing on comparisons of: (1) the percentages of FCCs and USCCs that filed income tax returns showing no tax liabilities for 1989 through 1995, the latest years for which data were available; and (2) selected characteristics, including age, industrial sector, and certain cost ratios, of large corporations--those with assets of $250 million or more or gross receipts of $50 million or more."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Economic Development Administration's (EDA) May 1998 report on its public works program, which created jobs in economically distressed communities, focusing on whether: (1) the report's results would be similar if additional variables that directly took into account the prior level of a county's employment or population were included in the analyses; (2) the report's job creation estimates include only new jobs or jobs relocated from another area; and (3) other technical issues might affect the reliability of the cost estimates presented."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), focusing on changes: (1) the OCR has made in its complaint resolution process since fiscal year (FY) 1993; and (2) in the timeliness and efficiency in resolving complaints between FY 1993 and FY 1997."

Recently there has been a lot of interest in models in which gravity becomes strong at the TeV scale. The observed weakness of gravitational interactions is then explained by the existence of extra compact dimensions of space, which are accessible to gravity but not to Standard Model particles. In this letter we consider graviton emission into these extra dimensions from a hot supernova core. The phenomenology of SN1987A places strong constraints on this energy loss mechanism, allowing us to derive a bound on the fundamental Planck scale. For the case of two extra dimensions we obtain a very strong bound of M {ge} 50 TeV, which corresponds to a radius R {le} 0.3 {micro}m. While there are a lot of sources of uncertainty associated with this bound, we find that pushing it down to the few-TeV range, which could in principle be probed by ground-based experiments, is disfavored. For three or more extra dimensions the SN1987A constraints do not exclude a TeV gravitational scale.

One new Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) groundwater monitoring well was installed at the 216-U-12 crib in September 1998 in support of Tri-Parly Agreement (Ecology 1996) milestone M-24-36. The new well is 299-W22-79 and is a downgradient well in the groundwater monitoring network. There are a total of six wells in the groundwater monitoring network for the 216-U-12 crib and their locations are shown on Figure 1. The groundwater assessment monitoring plan for the 216-U-12 crib (Chou and Williams 1993) describes the hydrogeology of the 200 West Area and the 216-U-12 crib area. An Interim Change Notice to the assessment plan provides justification for the well (Chou and Williams 1997). The new well was constructed to the specifications and requirements described in Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 173-160, and WAC-173-303, and in Chou and Williams (1997). This document compiles information on the drilling and construction, well development and permanent pump installation applicable to well 299-W22-79. Appendix A contains the geologist's log, the Well Construction Summary Report, and Well Summary Sheet (as-built diagram). Additional documentation concerning well construction is on file with Bechtel Hanford, Inc., Richland, Washington. English units are used in this report because they are used by drillers to …

Four new Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) groundwater monitoring wells were installed at the single-shell tank farm Waste Management Area (WMA) TX-TY during August through November of 1998 in fi,dfillment of Tri-Party Agreement (Eoology 1996) milestone M-24-38. The wells are 299-W1O-26, 299-W14-13, 299-W14-14, and 299-W15-40. Well 299-W1O-26 is located outside the east fence of the TY tank farm and replaces downgradient well299-W1O-18; well 299-W14-13 is located along the east fence near the northeast corner of the TX tank f- and replaces downgradient well 299-W14-12; well 299-W14-14 is located outside the east fence in the south ha.lfof the TX tank fiirm and is anew downgradient well; and well 299-W15-40 is located on the west side of the TX tank farm and is anew upgradient well. The locations of all wells in the monitoring network are shown on Figure 1. The groundwater monitoring plan for WMA TX-TY (Caggiano and Goodwin 1991) describes the hydrogeology of the 200 West Area and WMA TX-TY. An Interim Change Notice to the groundwater monitoring plan provides justification for the new wells. The new wells were constructed to the speciii- cations and requirements described in Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 173-160 and WAC 173-303. This document compiles …

Electronic absorption and resonance Raman (RR) spectra of the ferric form of barley grain peroxidase (BP 1) at various pH values both at room temperature and 20 K are . reported, together with EPR spectra at 10 K. The ferrous forms and the ferric complex with fluoride have also been studied. A quantum mechanically mixed-spin (QS) state has been identified. The QS heme species co-exists with 6- and 5-cHS heroes; the relative populations of these three spin states are found to be dependent on pH and temperature. However, the QS species remains in all cases the dominant heme spin species. Barley peroxidase appears to be further characterized by a splitting of the two vinyl stretching modes, indicating that the vinyl groups are differently conjugated with the porphyrin. An analysis of the presently available spectroscopic data for proteins from all three peroxidase classes suggests that the simultaneous occurrence of the QS heme state as well as the splitting of the two vinyl stretching modes is confined to class III enzymes. The former point is discussed in terms of the possible influences of heme deformations on heme spin state. It is found that moderate saddling alone is probably not enough to cause …

The effect of excluded volume on the coil size of dilute linear polymers was investigated by off-lattice Monte Carlo simulations. The radius of gyration R{sub g} was evaluated for a wide range of chain lengths at several temperatures and at the athermal condition. The theta temperature and the corresponding theta chain dimensions were established for the system, and the dependence of the size expansion factor, a{sub s} = R{sub g} /(R{sub g}){sub {theta}}, on chain length N and temperature T was examined. For long chains and at high temperatures, a{sub s} is a function of N/N{sub s}{sup 2} alone, where the length scale N{sub s}{sup 2} depends only on T. The form of this simulations-based master function compares favorably with {alpha}{sub s}(M/M{sub s}{sup 2}), an experimental master curve for linear polymers in good solvents, where M{sub s}{sup 2} depends only on polymer-solvent system. Comparisons when N{sub s}{sup 2}(T) and M{sub s}{sup 2}(system) are reduced to common units, numbers of Kuhn steps, strongly indicate that coil expansion in even the best of good solvents is small relative to that expected for truly athermal solutions. An explanation for this behavior is proposed, based on what would appear to be an inherent difference …

There is a need to establish a commonly acceptable format for storing beta-gated coincidence data for stations in the International Monitoring System (IMS) for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). The current aerosol RMS type data format is not applicable for radioxenon in that the current format contains implicit assumptions specific to conventional gamma-ray spectrometry. Some assumptions in the current RMS format are not acceptable for the beta-gated spectra expected from the U.S. Department of Energy PNNL Automated Radioxenon Sampler-Analyzer (ARSA) and other similar systems under use or development from various countries. The RMS data format is not generally applicable for radioxenon measurements in the CTBT for one or more of the following main reasons: 1) The RMS format does not currently support 2-dimensional data. That is, the RMS data format is setup for a simple l-dimensional gamma-ray energy histogram. Current data available from the ARSA system and planned for other radioxenon monitors includes spectral information from gamma-rays and betas/conversion electrons. It is worth noting that the beta/conversion electron energy information will be used to separate the contributions from the different radioxenons. 2) The RMS data format assumes that the conversion between counts and activity can be calculated based (in part) …

Technology developments occurring in the past few years have resulted in the initial commercialization of phosphoric acid (PA) fuel cells. Ongoing research and development (R and D) promises further improvement in PA fuel cell technology, as well as the development of proton exchange membrane (PEM), molten carbonate (MC), and solid oxide (SO) fuel cell technologies. In the long run, this collection of fuel cell options will be able to serve a wide range of electric power and cogeneration applications. A fuel cell converts the chemical energy of a fuel into electrical energy without the use of a thermal cycle or rotating equipment. In contrast, most electrical generating devices (e.g., steam and gas turbine cycles, reciprocating engines) first convert chemical energy into thermal energy and then mechanical energy before finally generating electricity. Like a battery, a fuel cell is an electrochemical device, but there are important differences. Batteries store chemical energy and convert it into electrical energy on demand, until the chemical energy has been depleted. Depleted secondary batteries may be recharged by applying an external power source, while depleted primary batteries must be replaced. Fuel cells, on the other hand, will operate continuously, as long as they are externally supplied …

Two new Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) groundwater monitoring wells were installed at the single-shell tank fm Waste Management Area (WMA) T in August through November of 1998 in fixlfilhnent of Tri-Party Agreement (Ecology 1996) Milestone M-24-37. The wells are 299-W1O-23 and 299-W1O-24. Well 299-W1O-23 repIaces well 299-W1O-15 and well 299-W1O-24 replaces well 299-WI 1-27; both new wells are located north of WMA T and are downgradient monitoring wells. The locations of alI wells in the extended monitoring network for WMA T are shown on Figure 1. The groundwater monitoring plan for WMA T (Caggiano and Goodwin 1991) describes the hydro- geology of the 200 West Area and WMA T. An Interim Change Notice to the groundwater monitoring plan provides justification for the new wells. The new wells were constructed to the specifications and requirements described in Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 173-160 and WAC 173-303. This document compiles tiormation on the ~lling and construction, well development pump install- ation, and sediment testing applicable to wells 299-W1O-23 and 299-W1O-24. Appendix A contains copies of the geologist's log, the Well Construction Summary Repo~ and Well Summary Sheet (as-built diagram); Appendix B contains results of laborato~ analyses of particIe size distribution, pHj …

In two recent publications relativistic electron flow in cylindrical magnetically-insulated transmission lines (MITL) was analyzed and modeled under the assumption of negligible electron pressure. Cylindrical MITLs were used because of their common occurrence, and because they are the simplest case of finite width. The authors show in this report that the models apply equally to MITLs of any cross section.

One new Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) groundwater monitoring well was installed during September 1998 at the single-shell tank farm Waste Management Area (WMA) B-BX-BY. The well is 299-E33-44 and is located east of the BY single-shell tank farm. The well is a new upgradient monitoring well drilled in support of the groundwater assessment program at WMA B-BX-BY. This document is a compilation of information on the drilling and construction well development pump installation, and sediment testing and analyses applicable to well 299-E33-44. Appendix A contains copies of the geologist's log, the Well Construction Summary Report and Well Summary Sheet (as-built diagram); Appendix B contains results of Laboratory analyses completed on samples of sediment from the well and Appendix C contains geophysical logs. An aquifer test (slug test) was done in the well after well completion. Results from the aquifer test will be published elsewhere. Additional documentation concerning well construction is on file with Bechtel Hanford Inc., Richland, Washington.

The role of hydrogen in enhancing the photoluminescence (PL) yield observed from Si nanocrystals embedded in SiO{sub 2} has been studied. SiO{sub 2} thermal oxides and bulk fused silica samples have been implanted with Si and subsequently annealed in various ambients including hydrogen or deuterium forming gases (Ar+4%H{sub 2} or Ar+4%D{sub 2}) or pure Ar. Results are presented for annealing at temperatures between 200 and 1100 C. Depth and concentration profiles of H and D at various stages of processing have been measured using elastic recoil detection. Hydrogen or deuterium is observed in the bulk after annealing in forming gas but not after high temperature (1100 C) anneals in Ar. The presence of hydrogen dramatically increases the broad PL band centered in the near-infrared after annealing at 1100 C but has almost no effect on the PL spectral distribution. Hydrogen is found to selectively trap in the region where Si nanocrystals are formed, consistent with a model of H passivating surface states at the Si/SiO{sub 2} interface that leads to enhanced PL. The thermal stability of the trapped H and the PL yield observed after a high temperature anneal have been studied. The hydrogen concentration and PL yield are unchanged …

Two new Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCR4) groundwater monitoring wells were installed at the single-shell tank f- Waste Management Area (WMA) U in October 1998 in fi,dfillrnent of Tri-PaQy Agreement (Ecology 1996) milestone M-24-39. The wells are 299-W19-41 and 299-W19-42. Well 299-W19-41 is located east of the southeastern comer of the WMA and replaces downgradient well 299-W19-32. Well 299-W19-42 is located east of the WNIA near the northeastern comer and is a new downgradient monitoring well. The locations of all wells in the monitoring network are shown on Figure 1. The groundwater monitoring plan for WMA U (Caggiano and Goodwin 1991) describes the hydrogeology of the 200 West Area and WMA U. An Interim Change Notice to the groundwater monitoring plan provides justification for the new wells. The new wells were constructed to the specifications and requirements described in Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 173-160 and WAC 173-303. This document compiles Mormation on the drilling and Construction well development pump installation, and sedment testing applicable to wells 299-W19-41 and 299-W19-42. Appendix A contains the geologist's log, the Well Construction Summary Reportj and Well Summary Sheet (as-built diagram); Appendix B contains results of laboratory measurements of particle size distribution pm conductivity, …

Nanostructured particles exhibiting well-defined pore sizes and pore connectivities (1-, 2-, or 3-dimensional) are of interest for catalysis, chromatography, controlled release, low dielectric constant fillers, and custom-designed pigments and optical hosts. During the last several years considerable progress has been made on controlling the macroscopic forms of mesoporous silicas prepared by surfactant and block copolymer liquid crystalline templating procedures. Typically interfacial phenomena are used to control the macroscopic form (particles, fibers, or films), while self-assembly of amphiphilic surfactants or polymers is used to control the mesostructure. To date, although a variety of spherical or nearly-spherical particles have been prepared, their extent of order is limited as is the range of attainable mesostructures. They report a rapid, aerosol process that results in solid, completely ordered spherical particles with stable hexagonal, cubic, or vesicular mesostructures. The process relies on evaporation-induced interfacial self-assembly (EISA) confined to a spherical aerosol droplet. The process is simple and generalizable to a variety of materials combinations. Additionally, it can be modified to provide the first aerosol route to the formation of ordered mesostructured films.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has recently publicly released its second-generation advanced vehicle simulator called ADVISOR 2.0. This software program was initially developed four years ago, and after several years of in-house usage and evolution, the tool is now available to the public through a new vehicle systems analysis World Wide Web page. ADVISOR has been applied to many different systems analysis problems, such as helping to develop the SAE J1711 test procedure for hybrid vehicles and helping to evaluate new technologies as part of the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) technology selection process. The model has been and will continue to be benchmarked and validated with other models and with real vehicle test data. After two months of being available on the Web, more than 100 users have downloaded ADVISOR. ADVISOR 2.0 has many new features, including an easy-to-use graphical user interface, a detailed exhaust aftertreatment thermal model, and complete browser-based documentation. Future work will include adding to the library of components available in ADVISOR, including optimization functionality, and linking with a more detailed fuel cell model.