Central tendency and upper limit concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) measured in indoor air are summarized and reviewed. Data were obtained from published cross-sectional studies of residential and office buildings conducted in North America from 1990through the present. VOC concentrations in existing residences reported in 12 studies comprise the majority of the data set. Central tendency and maximum concentrations are compared between new and existing residences and between existing residences and office buildings. Historical changes in indoor VOC concentrations since the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 are explored by comparing the current data set with two published reviews of previous data obtained primarily in the 1980s. These historical comparisons suggest average indoor concentrations of some toxic air contaminants, such as 1,1,1-trichloroethane have decreased.

Ultra fast, sub-nanosecond (picosecond to femtosecond) duration, laser pulses present unique challenges when performing laser safety analysis involving mode-locked lasers, which operate at pulse repetition frequencies above the critical frequency in the near infrared wavelength bands. Two specific cases are presented, one such case that agrees and one that disagrees with the general rule on critical frequency. The results show that in all cases the appropriate maximum permissible exposure is always the smallest of the values calculated from ANSI rule 1, 2 and 3.

This report summarizes the results and rationale for radiological dose calculations for the maximally exposed individual during fusion accident conditions. Early doses per unit activity (Sieverts per TeraBecquerel) are given for 535 magnetic fusion isotopes of interest for several release scenarios. These data can be used for accident assessment calculations to determine if the accident consequences exceed Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy evaluation guides. A generalized yearly dose estimate for routine releases, based on 1 Terabecquerel unit releases per radionuclide, has also been performed using averaged site parameters and assumed populations. These routine release data are useful for assessing designs against US Environmental Protection Agency yearly release limits.

The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA) and the Federal Power Act (FPA) were enacted to eliminate unfair practices and other abuses by electricity and gas holding companies by requiring federal control and regulation of interstate public utility holding companies. Comprehensive energy legislation has passed the House and Senate. The House passed H.R. 6 on April 11, 2003. On July 31, 2003, the Senate suspended debate on S. 14, inserted the text of H.R. 4 (107th Congress) as a substitute, and passed H.R. 6. A conference agreement was reached November 17, 2003, and passed by the House the next day. H.R. 6 includes an electricity title that would, in part, repeal PUHCA, would prospectively repeal the mandatory purchase requirement under PURPA, and would create an electric reliability organization. On June 15, 2004, H.R. 4503, a comprehensive energy policy bill, passed the House.

This report details the constitutional standards that currently apply to indirect aid programs and summarizes all of the pertinent state and federal court decisions, including the Ohio case that will be heard by the Supreme Court. On September 25, 2001, the Supreme Court agreed to review a case raising the controversial issue of the constitutionality of education vouchers. In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris the Sixth Circuit held Ohio’s Pilot Scholarship Program, which provided up to $2500 to help low-income students in Cleveland’s public schools attend private schools in the city, to violate the establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment.

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NASCSP has been providing The Orientation for New Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) State Directors and Staff yearly for the past four years. This report is a general description of the trainings and supporting documentation from the most recent event. The Orientation and Training provides attendees with a comprehensive overview of the WAP from the federal, state, and local perspectives. A variety of presenters make information available on a wide range of subjects deemed necessary to effectively operate the Program. During the first day of training, staff from the Department of Energy WAP office, NASCSP, the National Energy Assistance Director's Association, Economic Opportunity Studies, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory present materials and participate in open discussion with the attendees about the federal program requirements. Some of the day's subjects include: History of the WAP; Funding, Rules, Regulations, and Program Guidance Documents; WAP State Plan Application Process and Submission; Training and Technical Assistance Activity; Administration and Federal/State Monitoring Requirements; and National Significance of WAP and the Political Process. The second day focuses on implementation strategies for the Program. Presenters from state offices and local management provide their perspective on the following subjects: Utility Restructuring Integration Strategies; Program Expansion Issues; Integration of New …

Thank you for your interest in the activities of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Computation Directorate. This collection of articles from the Laboratory's Science & Technology Review highlights the most significant computational projects, achievements, and contributions during 2002. In 2002, LLNL marked the 50th anniversary of its founding. Scientific advancement in support of our national security mission has always been the core of the Laboratory. So that researchers could better under and predict complex physical phenomena, the Laboratory has pushed the limits of the largest, fastest, most powerful computers in the world. In the late 1950's, Edward Teller--one of the LLNL founders--proposed that the Laboratory commission a Livermore Advanced Research Computer (LARC) built to Livermore's specifications. He tells the story of being in Washington, DC, when John Von Neumann asked to talk about the LARC. He thought Teller wanted too much memory in the machine. (The specifications called for 20-30,000 words.) Teller was too smart to argue with him. Later Teller invited Von Neumann to the Laboratory and showed him one of the design codes being prepared for the LARC. He asked Von Neumann for suggestions on fitting the code into 10,000 words of memory, and flattered him about ''Labbies'' …

The overall objective of this project is the three phase development of an Early Entrance Coproduction Plant (EECP) which produces at least one product from at least two of the following three categories: (1) electric power (or heat), (2) fuels, and (3) chemicals using ChevronTexaco's proprietary gasification technology. The objective of Phase I is to determine the feasibility and define the concept for the EECP located at a specific site; develop a Research, Development, and Testing (RD&T) Plan to mitigate technical risks and barriers; and prepare a Preliminary Project Financing Plan. The objective of Phase II is to implement the work as outlined in the Phase I RD&T Plan to enhance the development and commercial acceptance of coproduction technology. The objective of Phase III is to develop an engineering design package and a financing and testing plan for an EECP located at a specific site. The project's intended result is to provide the necessary technical, economic, and environmental information needed by industry to move the EECP forward to detailed design, construction, and operation. The partners in this project are TES (a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco), General Electric (GE), Praxair, and Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) in addition to the U.S. Department …

The overall objective of this project is the three phase development of an Early Entrance Coproduction Plant (EECP) which produces at least one product from at least two of the following three categories: (1) electric power (or heat), (2) fuels, and (3) chemicals using ChevronTexaco's proprietary gasification technology. The objective of Phase I is to determine the feasibility and define the concept for the EECP located at a specific site; develop a Research, Development, and Testing (RD&T) Plan to mitigate technical risks and barriers; and prepare a Preliminary Project Financing Plan. The objective of Phase II is to implement the work as outlined in the Phase I RD&T Plan to enhance the development and commercial acceptance of coproduction technology. The objective of Phase III is to develop an engineering design package and a financing and testing plan for an EECP located at a specific site. The project's intended result is to provide the necessary technical, economic, and environmental information needed by industry to move the EECP forward to detailed design, construction, and operation. The partners in this project are TES (a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco), General Electric (GE), Praxair, and Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) in addition to the U.S. Department …

This document summarizes Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's (LLNL) plan for fusion research on the DIII-D Tokamak, located at General Atomics (GA) in San Diego, California, in the time period FY04-FY08. This document is a companion document to the DIII-D Five-Year Program Plan; which hereafter will be referred to as the ''D3DPP''. The LLNL Collaboration on DIII-D is a task-driven program in which we bring to bear the full range of expertise needed to complete specific goals of plasma science research on the DIII-D facility. This document specifies our plasma performance and physics understanding goals and gives detailed plans to achieve those goals in terms of experimental leadership, code development and analysis, and diagnostic development. Our program is designed to be consistent with the long-term mission of the DIII-D program as documented in the D3DPP. The overall DIII-D Program mission is ''to establish the scientific basis for the optimization of the tokamak approach to fusion energy production''. LLNL Magnetic Fusion Energy (MFE) supports this mission, and we contribute to two areas of the DIII-D program: divertor physics and advanced tokamak (AT) physics. We lead or contribute to the whole cycle of research: experimental planning, diagnostic development, execution of experiments, and detailed …

''Intelligent Extruder'' described in this report is a software system and associated support services for monitoring and control of compounding extruders to improve material quality, reduce waste and energy use, with minimal addition of new sensors or changes to the factory floor system components. Emphasis is on process improvements to the mixing, melting and de-volatilization of base resins, fillers, pigments, fire retardants and other additives in the :finishing'' stage of high value added engineering polymer materials. While GE Plastics materials were used for experimental studies throughout the program, the concepts and principles are broadly applicable to other manufacturers materials. The project involved a joint collaboration among GE Global Research, GE Industrial Systems and Coperion Werner & Pleiderer, USA, a major manufacturer of compounding equipment. Scope of the program included development of a algorithms for monitoring process material viscosity without rheological sensors or generating waste streams, a novel detection scheme for rapid detection of process upsets and an adaptive feedback control system to compensate for process upsets where at line adjustments are feasible. Software algorithms were implemented and tested on a laboratory scale extruder (50 lb/hr) at GE Global Research and data from a production scale system (2000 lb/hr) at GE …

The goals of this project were to isolate, characterize, and sequence the Dlx3/Dlx7 bigene cluster from twelve different species of mammals. The Dlx3 and Dlx7 genes are known to encode homeobox transcription factors involved in patterning of structures in the vertebrate jaw as well as vertebrate limbs. Genomic sequences from the respective taxa will subsequently be compared in order to identify conserved non-coding sequences that are potential cis-regulatory elements. Based on the comparisons they will fashion transgenic mouse experiments to functionally test the strength of the potential cis-regulatory elements. A goal of the project is to attempt to identify those elements that may function in coordinately regulating both Dlx3 and Dlx7 functions.

This report identifies the colleges and universities attended by representatives and delegates in the 107th Congress grouped by state.

This report identifies the colleges and universities attended by Senators serving in the 108th Congress.

This report is one of two that re-examines the forecasted impact of individual programs currently within the Buildings Technology Program (BT) and the Weatherization and Intergovernmental Program (WIP) that appeared in the FY2000 Presidential Budget request. This report outlines the effects of re-estimating the FY 2000 budget request based on overlaying project data from subsequent years essentially revised out-year forecasts of project benefits. It shows that year-to-year long-term projections of primary energy savings can vary widely as models improve and programs change. Note that the FY2000 budget request was originally analyzed under the former Office of Building Technology, State and Community Programs (BTS), where BT and WIP were previously combined. Throughout the document, reference will be made to the predecessor of the BT and WIP programs, BTS, as FY2000 reflected that organization. A companion report develops potential methods for allowing inherent risk to be captured in the project benefits analysis. The point estimates in this paper are not influenced by uncertainty or risk. That report develops potential methods for allowing inherent risk to affect the benefits analysis via Monte Carlo simulation.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) estimated the fiscal year (FY) 2004 energy, environmental, and financial benefits (i.e., metrics) of the technologies and practices in the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) former Office of Building Technology, State and Community Programs (BTS) within the DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). During the development of the estimates, EERE went through a large-scale reorganization, resulting in the reallocation of the former BTS projects (along with the other former offices) into two new Program Offices: the Office of Building Technologies Program (BT) and the Office of Weatherization and Intergovernmental Program (WIP). The remainder of this document will refer to these projects as BT/WIP for the sake of simplicity. This effort is referred to as GPRA Metrics because it stems from the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993, which mandates the reporting of performance goals and measures. The benefits developed for EERE through the GPRA Metrics effort are submitted to EERE's Office of Planning, Budget Formulation, and Analysis (PBFA) as part of EERE's budget request. The GPRA estimates are also used in the formulation of EERE's performance measures. This report includes sections that detail the approach and methodology …

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This report discusses the experimental program conducted at ANL to study the performance of in-situ-formed magnetite for the removal of Sr, Pu, Np, U, Am, and Cs from the Savannah River Site (SRS) tank waste. The boundaries for the experimental work were defined based on the operational envelope developed earlier in collaboration with SRS. In situ formed ''magnetite'' is actually a mixture of Fe(II) and Fe(III) oxides and hydroxides, including magnetite. Decontamination factor (DF) values were measured for both magnetite and monosodium titanate (MST). Magnetite DF values were found to be superior to MST for all isotopes studied. DF values for Pu, Np, and Sr, achieved within 30 minutes of magnetite formation were orders of magnitude larger than the needed values. DF values for U and Am were less than the former three but still acceptable, and greater than MST. DF values for Cs were very low. Conditions were found under which magnetite filtered rapidly and faster than MST. Further tests are needed to make concrete conclusions on the magnetite performance relative to MST in a cross-flow filtration setup.

Combustion Specialists, Inc. has just completed a project designed to develop the capability to monitor and control the formation of deposits on the outside of boiler tubes inside an operating kraft recovery furnace. This project, which was carried out in the period from April 1, 2001 to January 31, 2003, was funded by the Department of Energy's Inventions and Innovations program. The primary objectives of the project included the development and demonstration of the ability to produce clear images of deposits throughout the convective sections of operating recovery boilers using newly developed infrared imaging technology, to demonstrate the automated detection and quantification of these deposits using custom designed image processing software developed as part of the project, and to demonstrate the feasibility of all technical elements required for a commercial ''smart'' sootblowing control system based on direct feedback from automated imaging of deposits in real-time. All of the individual tasks have been completed and all objectives have been substantially achieved. Imaging of deposits throughout the convective sections of several recovery boilers has been demonstrated, a design for a combined sootblower/deposit inspection probe has been developed and a detailed heat transfer analysis carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of this design, …

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is conducting a collection of baseline data that will serve as an index for describing the way in which grant applications/proposals are developed and tracked at grant recipient organizations. The type of information to be collected includes (1) estimate of burden, both time and cost, to the applicant organization (2) descriptiion of the overall development and tracking systems used by the applicant, and (3) data that can be compared after the implementation of either a streamlined paper or electronic system.

This testing was undertaken to develop material true stress-true strain curves for elastic-plastic material behavior for use in performing transient analysis. Based on the conclusions of this test, the true stress-true strain curves derived herein are valid for use in elastic-plastic finite element analysis for structures fabricated from these materials. In addition, for the materials tested herein, the ultimate strain values are greater than those values cited as the limits for the elastic-plastic strain acceptance criteria for transient analysis.

This test program was undertaken to determine the flaw tolerance and to quantify the strength margin-to-failure of high yield strength steel fillet welded specimens. The tests demonstrate adequate margin-to-failure for HY-100 specimens fabricated with matched welding systems. In the use of high yield (HY) steel materials in designs required to accommodate rapidly applied dynamic loads, the concern was raised where the possibility of decreased flaw tolerance and premature failure by unstable ductile tearing could limit their use. Tests were developed and conducted to demonstrate adequate margin-to-failure in HY-100 fillet and partial penetration welded structures. In addition, inelastic analytical predictions were performed to assess the accuracy of such predictive tools compared to actual test data. Results showed that adequate margin-to-failure exists when using matched welding systems.

During the second half of the 1990's, Coal Bed Methane (CBM) production increased dramatically nationwide to represent a significant new source of income and natural gas for many independent and established producers. Matching these soaring production rates during this period were the advancements in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technologies generating terra-bytes of new data for the oil and gas industry. Coupled to these accelerating initiatives are many environmental concerns relating to production wastes and water table depletion of fresh water resources. It is these concerns that prompted a vital need within the industry for the development of Best Management Practices (BMPs) and mitigation strategies utilizing GIS technologies for efficient environmental protection in conjunction with effective production of CBM. This was accomplished by developing a framework to take advantage of a combination of investigative field research joined with leading edge GIS technologies for the creation of environmentally characterized regions of study. Once evaluated these regions had BMP's developed to address their unique situations for Coal Bed Methane production and environmental protection. Results of the project will be used to support the MBOGC's Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement as required by the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) and by the BLM for NEPA …