This document summarizes the Tanks Focus Area (TFA's) process of collecting, analyzing, and responding to high-level radioactive tank waste science and technology needs developed from across the DOE complex in FY 2000. The document also summarizes each science and technology need, and provides an initial prioritization of TFA's projected work scope for FY 2001 and FY 2002.

Using Chandra X-ray observations of nine nearby, X-ray luminous elliptical galaxies with good optical velocity dispersion measurements, we show that a tight correlation exists between the Bondi accretion rates calculated from the observed gas temperature and density profiles and estimated black hole masses, and the power emerging from these systems in relativistic jets. The jet powers, which are inferred from the energies and timescales required to inflate cavities observed in the surrounding X-ray emitting gas, can be related to the accretion rates using a power law model of the form log (P{sub Bondi}/10{sup 43} erg s{sup -1}) = A + B log (P{sub jet}/10{sup 43} erg s{sup -1}), with A = 0.62 {+-} 0.15 and B = 0.77 {+-} 0.18. Our results show that a significant fraction of the energy associated with the rest mass of material entering the Bondi accretion radius (2.4{sub -0.7}{sup +1.0} per cent, for P{sub jet} = 10{sup 43} erg s{sup -1}) eventually emerges in the relativistic jets. Our results have significant implications for studies of accretion, jet formation and galaxy formation. The observed tight correlation suggests that the Bondi formulae provide a reasonable description of the accretion process in these systems, despite the likely presence …

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We describe searches for decays to two-body charmless final states {eta}'{eta}, {eta}'{pi}{sup 0} and {eta}{pi}{sup 0} of B{sup 0} mesons produced in e{sup +}e{sup -} annihilation. The data, collected with the BABAR detector at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, represent 232 million produced B{bar B} pairs. The results for branching fractions are, in units of 10{sup -6} (upper limits at 90% C.L.): {Beta}(B{sup 0} {yields} {eta}'{eta}) = 0.2{sub -0.5}{sup +0.7} {+-} 0.4 (< 1.7), {Beta}(B{sup 0} {yields} {eta}{pi}{sup 0}) = 0.6{sub -0.4}{sup +0.5} {+-} 0.1 (< 1.3), and {Beta}(B{sup 0} {yields} {eta}'{pi}{sup 0}) = 0.8{sub -0.6}{sup +0.8} {+-} 0.1 (< 2.1). The first error quoted is statistical and the second systematic.

This project concerned the application of a catalytic combustion system that has been married to a micro-turbine device. The catalytic combustion system decomposes the VOC's and transmits these gases to the gas turbine. The turbine has been altered to operate on very low-level BTU fuels equivalent to 1.5% methane in air. The performance of the micro-turbine for VOC elimination has some flexibility with respect to operating conditions, and the system is adaptable to multiple industrial applications. The VOC source that was been chosen for examination was the emissions from coal upgrading operations. The overall goal of the project was to examine the effectiveness of a catalytic combustion based system for elimination of VOCs while simultaneously producing electrical power for local consumption. Project specific objectives included assessment of the feasibility for using a Flex-Microturbine that generates power from natural gas while it consumes VOCs generated from site operations; development of an engineering plan for installation of the Flex-Microturbine system; operation of the micro-turbine through various changes in site and operation conditions; measurement of the VOC destruction quantitatively; and determination of the required improvements for further studies. The micro-turbine with the catalytic bed worked effectively to produce power on levels of fuel …

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This report provides background information on the UAE nuclear program, reviews developments to date, analyzes proposed nuclear cooperation with the United States, and discusses relevant legislative proposals and options.

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This report provides an overview of District of Columbia-related policy and funding issues of interest to Congress. The United States Constitution gives Congress exclusive legislative authority over the affairs of the District of Columbia. As a result, the 108th Congress may debate a number of funding, governance, and constitutional issues affecting the District of Columbia, including approval of the city’s budget, enactment of a general federal payment, budget autonomy for the city, and voting representation in Congress. In addition, Congress will consider whether to continue to include in the District’s appropriations bills for FY2003 and FY2004, a number of controversial general provisions that District officials claim infringe on the principles of home rule.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Carpenter Technology Corporation (CarTech) participated in an in-kind cost share cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) effort under the auspices of the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Technology Maturation Program to explore the feasibility for scale up of developmental ORNL alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels by conventional casting and rolling techniques. CarTech successfully vacuum melted 301b heats of four AFA alloy compositions in the range of Fe-(20-25)Ni-(12-14)Cr-(3-4)Al-(l-2.5)Nb wt.% base. Conventional hot/cold rolling was used to produce 0.5-inch thick plate and 0.1-inch thick sheet product. ORNL subsequently successfully rolled the 0.1-inch sheet to 4 mil thick foil. Long-term oxidation studies of the plate form material were initiated at 650, 700, and 800 C in air with 10 volume percent water vapor. Preliminary results indicated that the alloys exhibit comparable (good) oxidation resistance to ORNL laboratory scale AFA alloy arc casting previously evaluated. The sheet and foil material will be used in ongoing evaluation efforts for oxidation and creep resistance under related CRADAs with two gas turbine engine manufacturers. This work will be directed to evaluation of AFA alloys for use in gas turbine recuperators to permit higher-temperature operating conditions for improved efficiencies and reduced …

The purpose of this study was to investigate the economic appropriateness of several enhanced oil recovery processes that are available to a small mature oil field located in southwest Arkansas and to implement the most economic efficient process evaluated. The State of Arkansas natural resource laws require that an oilfield is to be unitized before conducting a secondary recovery project. This requires all properties that can reasonably be determined to include the oil productive reservoir must be bound together as one common lease by a legal contract that must be approved to be fair and equitable to all property owners within the proposed unit area.

The light-front wavefunction formalism provides a physical, but rigorous, representation for angular momentum in a relativistic quantum field theory. Each n-particle LFWF {psi}{sub n}(x{sub i}, {rvec k}{sub {perpendicular}}i,S{sub i}{sup z}) in the Fock state expansion of a hadron in QCD is frame-independent and satisfies angular momentum conservation J{sup z} = {summation}{sub i=1}{sup n} S{sub i}{sup z} + {summation}{sub i=1}{sup n-1} L{sub i}{sup z}, summed over the n - 1 independent intrinsic orbital angular momenta L{sub i}{sup z} = -i [{rvec k}{sub i}{sup x} {partial_derivative}/{partial_derivative}k{sub i}{sup y} - {rvec k}{sub i}{sup y} {partial_derivative}/{partial_derivative}k{sub i}{sup x}]. Gluons propagate with physical polarization S{sub g}{sup z} = {+-} 1 in light-cone gauge A{sup +} = 0. All of these features are illustrated by the Fock state expansion of the electron in terms of its fermion-boson components.

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This report is on Ballast Water Management to Combat Invasive Species.

This report summarizes the reasons for the Endangered Species Act (ESA) listings and outlines efforts to protect ESA-listed species.

Assimilate partitioning refers to the systemic distribution of photoassimilate from sites of primary assimilation (source tissue) to import-dependent tissues and organs (sinks). One of the defining questions in this area is how plants balance source productivity with sink demand. We discovered a sucrose-sensing signal transduction pathway that controls the activity of BvSUT1, a proton-sucrose symporter in sugar beet leaf tissue. Sucrose symporters are responsible for sucrose accumulation in the phloem of many plants and, therefore, they mediate the pivotal step in the long-distance transport of photoassimilate to non-photosynthetic tissues, such as roots and seed. We previously showed that sucrose transport activity is directly proportional to the transcription rate of BvSUT1 and that symporter mRNA and protein have high rates of turnover with half-lives on the order of 2 h. We further demonstrated that symporter transcription is regulated by sucrose levels in the leaf and that sucrose-dependent regulation of BvSUT1 transcription is mediated, at least in part, by a protein phosphorylation relay pathway. The goal of the experiments during this current grant were to use genetic and molecular approaches to identify essential components of this vital regulatory system. The initial objectives were to: (1) to characterize Arabidopsis mutants we've isolated that …

This report provides an overview of Medicare, the nation's federal insurance program, which pays for covered health care services of qualified beneficiaries.

A 3-D simulation model study was run using CMG's STARS thermal model, and showed that a 122 meter (400 foot) horizontal well should produce up to 64 cubic meters per day of oil (400 B/D) when the heated oil bank hits the well.

The Integrated Status and Effectiveness Monitoring Program (ISEMP-BPA project No.2003-0017) has been created as a cost effective means of developing protocols and new technologies, novel indicators, sample designs, analytical, data management and communication tools and skills, and restoration experiments that support the development of a region-wide Research, Monitoring and Evaluation (RME) program to assess the status of anadromous salmonid populations, their tributary habitat and restoration and management actions. The most straightforward approach to developing a regional-scale monitoring and evaluation program would be to increase standardization among status and trend monitoring programs. However, the diversity of species and their habitat, as well as the overwhelming uncertainty surrounding indicators, metrics, and data interpretation methods, requires the testing of multiple approaches. Thus, the approach ISEMP has adopted is to develop a broad template that may differ in the details among subbasins, but one that will ultimately lead to the formation of a unified RME process for the management of anadromous salmonid populations and habitat across the Columbia River Basin. ISEMP has been initiated in three pilot subbasins, the Wenatchee/Entiat, John Day, and Salmon. To balance replicating experimental approaches with the goal of developing monitoring and evaluation tools that apply as broadly as possible …

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On February 11, 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush, in a speech to the National Defense University stated: ''The world must create a safe, orderly system to field civilian nuclear plants without adding to the danger of weapons proliferation. The world's leading nuclear exporters should ensure that states have reliable access at reasonable cost to fuel for civilian reactors, so long as those states renounce enrichment and reprocessing. Enrichment and reprocessing are not necessary for nations seeking to harness nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.'' This concept would require nations to choose one of two paths for civilian nuclear development: those that only have reactors and those that contain one or more elements of the nuclear fuel cycle, including recycling. ''Fuel cycle'' states would enrich uranium, manufacture and lease fuel to ''reactor'' states and receive the reactor states' spent fuel. All parties would accede to stringent security and safeguard standards, embedded within a newly invigorated international regime. Reactor states would be relieved of the financial, environmental (and political) burden of enriching and manufacturing fuel and dealing with spent fuel. Fuel cycle states would potentially earn money on leasing the fuel and perhaps on sales of reactors to the reactor states. Such …

The bilateral relationship between the U.S. and the People's Republic of China (PRC) is vitally important, touching on a wide range of areas including, among others, economic policy, security, foreign relations, and human rights. This report addresses relevant policy questions in current U.S.-China relations, discusses trends and key legislation in the current Congress, and provides a chronology of developments and high-level exchanges.

The primary focus of this 3-year project was to develop and put to use an instrument to test experimentally the effect of pressure on body centered cubic (BCC) metals and other materials of interest to the Stockpile Stewardship program. Well-resolved materials testing requires measurements of load and deformation rate be measured at separable conditions of temperature, pressure, and plastic strain. The new apparatus at the heart of this work, the Deformation-DIA (D-DIA), began the project as a design concept. Its principal feature would be the capability to extend the conditions for such controlled materials testing from the current pressure limit of about 3 to almost 15 GPa, a factor of 5 increase. Once constructed and successfully tested, the plan of the project was to deform samples of BCC metals at arbitrary temperature and high pressures in order to provide preliminary measurements of strength and to prove its worth to the Stockpile Stewardship program. The project has been a stunning success. Progress toward demonstrating the worth of the D-DIA as a workhorse instrument for materials strength measurement at high pressure was given a huge boost by the fact that the machine itself functioned flawlessly from the very start, allowing the investigators …

Studies of diagenesis caused by fluid migration or other events are commonly hindered by a lack of temporal control. Our results to date demonstrate that a paleomagnetic/geochemical approach can be used to date fluid migration as well as burial diagenetic events. Our principal working hypothesis is that burial diagenetic processes (e.g., maturation of organic-rich sediments and clay diagenesis) and the migration of fluids can trigger the authigenesis of magnetic mineral phases. The ages of these events can be constrained by comparing chemical remanent magnetizations (CRMs) to independently established Apparent Polar Wander Paths. While geochemical (e.g. stable isotope and organic analyses) and petrographic studies provide important clues for establishing these relationships, the ultimate test of this hypothesis requires the application of independent dating methods to verify the paleomagnetic ages. Towards this end, we have used K-Ar dating of illitization as an alternative method for constraining the ages of magnetic mineral phases in our field areas.