Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the planning-related provisions of titles I and II of S. 1320--the Public Lands Planning and Management Improvement Act of 1999, focusing on the: (1) statutory basis for the Forest Service's mission priorities; (2) clarity of the mission statement in S. 1320; and (3) extent to which the bill addresses identified planning deficiencies."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) efforts to implement the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, focusing on IRS': (1) reorganization processes; (2) performance management system; and (3) systems modernization efforts."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the impact of fraudulent documents on the effectiveness of the employment verification system established by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and efforts to reduce such fraudulent use."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the utilization of health care assets owned by the Department of Veterans' Affairs and operated by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), focusing on: (1) VHA's hospital utilization; and (2) efforts to implement an asset realignment process."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the President's recent proposal to reform Medicare."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Energy's (DOE) progress toward the external regulation of nuclear and worker safety at its facilities, focusing on: (1) DOE's changing positions on the desirability of external regulation for its facilities; (2) the disagreement between DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on the potential costs and value added of external regulation; and (3) the uncertainties for the future of external regulation in DOE."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) antiarmor master plan, focusing on: (1) changes in armored threats from 1990 to 1997; (2) comparing the number and makeup of the 1990 antiarmor weapon inventory with those of the 1998 inventory; and (3) funding trends of past and future antiarmor procurements."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified weaknesses in the Department of Energy's (DOE) personnel practices."

Microtomography has successfully been used to characterize loss of structural integrity of wood. Tomographic images were generated with the newly developed third generation x-ray computed microtomography (XCMT) instrument at the X27A beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS). The beamline is equipped with high-flux x-ray monochromator based on multilayer optics developed for this application. The sample is mounted on a translation stage with which to center the sample rotation, a rotation stage to perform the rotation during data collection and a motorized goniometer head for small alignment motions. The absorption image is recorded by a single-crystal scintillator, an optical microscope and a cooled CCD array detector. Data reconstruction has provided three-dimensional geometry of the heterogeneous wood matrix in microtomographic images. Wood is a heterogeneous material composed of long lignocellulose vessels. Although wood is a strong natural product, fungi have evolved chemical systems that weaken the strength properties of wood by degrading structural vessels. Tomographic images with a resolution of three microns were obtained nonintrusively to characterize the compromised structural integrity of wood. Computational tools developed by Lindquist et al (1996) applied to characterize the microstructure of the tomographic volumes.

We give a pedagogical introduction to hard photoproduction processes at HERA, including the production of jets, hadrons, and prompt photons. Recent theoretical developments in the three areas are reviewed. In summary, hard photoproduction processes can provide very useful information on the hadronic structure of the photon, in particular on the gluon density, which is complimentary to the information coming from deep inelastic photon-photon scattering at electron-positron colliders. Among the different hadronic final states, jets are most easily accessible experimentally and phenomenologically. On the other hand, inclusive hadron production offers the possibility to test the universality of hadron fragmentation functions and measure the photon structure down to very low values of p{sub T} and x{sub {gamma}}. Prompt photon production suffers from a reduced cross section and limited data, but allows for the additional testing of photon fragmentation functions.

A molecular dynamics (MD) analysis of conservation of momentum through a shock front is presented. The MD model uses a non-traditional boundary condition that allows simulation in the reference frame of the shock front. Higher order terms proportional to gradients in the density are shown to be non-negligible at the shock front. The simulation is used to study the sequence of thermodynamic states during shock loading. Melting is observed in the simulations, though above the thermodynamic melt curve as is common in homogeneous simulations of melting. High strain-rate tensile loading is applied to the growth of nanoscale voids in copper. Void growth is found to occur by plasticity mechanisms with dislocations emerging from the void surface. [molecular dynamics, shock loading, conservation of momentum, shock melting, void growth]

Within the next few decades, several hundred thousand tons of metal and several million cubic meters of concrete are expected to be removed from nuclear facilities across the US Department of Energy (DOE) complex as a result of decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) activities. These materials, together with large quantities of tools, equipment, and other items that are commonly recovered from site cleanup or D&D activities, constitute non-real properties that warrant consideration for release from regulatory control for reuse or recycle, as permitted and practiced under current DOE policy. The provisions for implementing this policy are contained in the Draft Handbook for Controlling Release for Reuse or Recycle of Non-Real Property Containing Residual Radioactive Material published by DOE in 1997 and distributed to DOE Field Offices for interim use and implementation. This manual describes a computer management tool, P2Pro(RSM), that implements the first 5 steps of the 10-step process stipulated by the Handbook. P2Pro(RSM) combines an easy-to-use Windows interface with a comprehensive database to facilitate the development of authorized release limits for non-real property.

A new technique to estimate the shape attribute of plutonium assemblies using the Nuclear Materials Identification System (NMIS) is described. The proposed method possesses a number of advantages. It is passive no external radiation source is required to estimate the shape of plutonium assemblies. Instead, inherent gamma and neutron emissions from spontaneous fission of {sup 240}Pu and subsequent induced fission of {sup 239}Pu are detected to estimate the shape attribute. The technique is also stationary: shape is estimated without scanning the assembly by moving the detectors relative to the assembly. The proposed method measures third order correlations between triplets of gamma/neutron-sensitive detectors. The real coincidence of a pair of gammas is used as a ''trigger'' to approximately identify the time of a spontaneous or induced fission event. The spatial location of this fission event is inferred from the real coincidence of a subsequent neutron with the initial pair of correlated gammas by using the neutron's time-of-flight (approximately the delay between the gamma pair and the neutron) and the fission neutron spectra of {sup 240}Pu and {sup 239}Pu. The spatial distribution of fission sites and hence the approximate shape of the plutonium assembly is thereby inferred by measuring the distribution of …

Synchrotron X-ray microtomography shows vesicular structures for toluene/cement mixtures, prepared with 1.22 to 3.58 wt% toluene. Three-dimensional imaging of the cured samples shows spherical vesicles, with diameters ranging from 20 to 250 {micro}m; a search with EPMA for vesicles in the range of 1-20 {micro}m proved negative. However, the total vesicle volume, as computed from the microtomography images, accounts for less than 10% of initial toluene. Since the cements were cured in sealed bottles, the larger portion of toluene must be dispersed within the cement matrix. Evidence for toluene in the cement matrix comes from {sup 29}Si MAS NMR spectroscopy, which shows a reduction in chain silicates with added toluene. Also, {sup 2}H NMR of d{sub 8}-toluene/cement samples shows high mobility for all, toluene and thus no toluene/cement binding. A model that accounts for all observations follows: For loadings below about 3 wt%, most toluene is dispersed in the cement matrix, with a small fraction of the initial toluene phase separating from the cement paste and forming vesicular structures that are preserved in the cured cement. Furthermore, at loadings above 3 wt%, the abundance of vesicles formed during toluene/cement paste mixing leads to macroscopic phase separation (most toluene floats to …

At high pressures and temperatures, many molecular solids become unstable and transform into denser extended phases. Recently, we have discovered evidences for two novel extended phases of carbon dioxide at high pressures and temperatures: (1) an ionic form of dimeric CO,, C02+C03*- at 8-13 GPa and above 2000 K [I] and (2) a polymeric phase CO,-V above 35 GPa and 1800 K [2,3]. These extended phases can be quenched at room temperature at low pressures, from which their molecular and crystal structures have been determined. These transitions occur to soften highly repulsive intermolecular potentials via delocalization of electrons at high pressures and temperatures. Based on these and other previous results, we conjecture that three fundamental mechanisms of high-pressure chemistry are ionization, polymerization, and metallization, occurring in high-density molecular solids and fluids. [carbon dioxide, polymeric COZ, ionic CO, dimer, high-pressure chemistry, electron delocalization]

The introduction of Toyota's hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), the Prius, in Japan has generated considerable interest in HEV technology among US automotive experts. In a follow-up survey to Argonne National Laboratory's two-stage Delphi Study on electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EVs and HEVs) during 1994-1996, Argonne researchers gathered the latest opinions of automotive experts on the future ''top-selling'' HEV attributes and costs. The experts predicted that HEVs would have a spark-ignition gasoline engine as a power plant in 2005 and a fuel cell power plant by 2020. The projected 2020 fuel shares were about equal for gasoline and hydrogen, with methanol a distant third. In 2020, HEVs are predicted to have series-drive, moderate battery-alone range and cost significantly more than conventional vehicles (CVs). The HEV is projected to cost 66% more than a $20,000 CV initially and 33% more by 2020. Survey respondents view batteries as the component that contributes the most to the HEV cost increment. The mean projection for battery-alone range is 49 km in 2005, 70 km in 2010, and 92 km in 2020. Responding to a question relating to their personal vision of the most desirable HEV and its likely characteristics when introduced in the US …

At ultrarelativistic energies, ionization cross sections exceed electron capture cross sections by several orders of magnitude (1,2). Effectively, all electrons transferred to a highly relativistic heavy ion moving in a solid or gaseous target medium are stripped in a relatively short distance. Above ~20 GeV/nucleon, the principal mechanism for electron capture is from pair production (ECPP) (2). The total cross sections for ECPP are te&nically important for making reliable predictions of operating limitations for relativistic heavy-ion colliders, e.g., RHIC and LHC (3). In ECPP, it is expected that ~30% of capture proceeds to excited states of the capturing ion. Some of these relatively weakly bound electrons are radiatively long-lived and easily lost in secondary collisions in solid targets, making measurements of their contributions to total capture experimentally difficult. Electrons lost from high-energy ions in collisions with target atoms form a cusp-shaped spectral peak in the forward direction in the laboratory frame centered at the velocity of the moving ion (4-5). The shape of this electron loss to projectile continuum (ELC) peak has been shown (5,6) to depend on the initial atomic bound state from which the electron is ionized. We have measured and compared ELC electrons from direct ionization of …

This paper introduces new octant-range, composite-type Gauss and mid-point rule angular quadrature formulas for neutron and photon transport computations. A generalization to octant-range quadratures is also introduced in order to allow for discontinuities at material interfaces for two- and three-dimensional transport problems which can be modeled with 60-degree triangular or hexagonal mesh subdivisions in the x-y plane.

Final report of research on carbon metabolism of photosynthesis. The feedback from carbon metabolism to primary photosynthetic processes is summarized, and a comprehensive list of published scientific papers is provided.

This Corrective Action Decision Document identifies and rationalizes the U.S. Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office's selection of a recommended corrective action alternative appropriate to facilitate the closure of Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 321, Weather Station Fuel Storage, under the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order. Corrective Action Unit 321 is located at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) in Area 22, and consists of a single Corrective Action Site (CAS) 22-99-05, Fuel Storage Area. This CAS contains a fuel storage area approximately 325 by 540 feet, which was used to store fuel and other petroleum products necessary for motorized operations at the historical Camp Desert Rock facility, which was operational from 1951 to 1958. The corrective action investigation conducted in February 1999 found the only contaminant of concern above preliminary action levels to be total petroleum hydrocarbons as diesel-range organics at two sample locations. During this investigation, the two corrective action objectives identified were (1) to prevent or mitigate exposure to near-surface soil containing contaminants of concern, and (2) to prevent spread of contaminants of concern beyond the corrective action unit. Based on the corrective action objectives, the two corrective action alternatives developed for consideration were: Alternative 1 - No …

An ultrasonic sensor system and method of use for measuring transit time through a liquid sample, comprising at least one ultrasonic transducer coupled to a precision time interval counter. The timing circuit captures changes in transit time, representing small changes in the velocity of sound transmitted, over necessarily small time intervals (nanoseconds) and uses the transit time changes to identify the presence of non-conforming constituents in the sample.

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The authors are entering the final phase of development for this project. Work has been imparted to define the components of the flexible battery charger control board. Detailed analog and digital circuits are complete. Improved analog to digital and digital to analog converters have been selected for use with the control board. The control board schematics are complete and construction of the hardware is in progress. The programming of the circuit board modules is underway. The documentation and circuit schematic drawings are in process. The test stand has added the integration of a dedicated fast computer/microprocessor to control the test stand. This will allow measurements to be taken and recorded more often. This has required modification of the software. The software is being debugged. The modules to be controlled by the test stand microprocessor include the charger module, the battery simulator, the discharge pulse, and discharger. Integrating these components will greatly enhance design and testing. An SCR charger power module has been has been designed, built, and debugged. The circuits for the battery simulator and discharge pulse have been detailed and debugged. The discharge pulse characteristics have been defined and designed. The charger power and discharge pulse modules can be …

An ink coating method was developed for CIS absorber deposition. The technique involves four processing steps: (1) preparation of a Cu-In alloy powder, (2) preparation of an ink using this powder, (3) deposition of the ink on a substrate in the form of a precursor layer, and (4) selenization to convert the Cu-In precursor into a fused CIS film. Absorbers grown by this low-cost, large-area method were used in the fabrication of 10.5% efficient solar cells.