The work described in this report was focused on generating fundamental data on fingerprint components which will be used to develop advanced forensic techniques to enhance fluorescent detection, and visualization of latent fingerprints. Chemical components of sweat gland secretions are well documented in the medical literature and many chemical techniques are available to develop latent prints, but there have been no systematic forensic studies of fingerprint sweat components or of the chemical and physical changes these substances undergo over time.

The results from the Michigan demonstration establish that this type of approach can be very effective for NORM sites. The advantages include (1) greatly reduced per sample analytical costs; (2) a reduced reliance on soil sampling and ex situ gamma spectroscopy analyses; (3) the ability to combine characterization with remediation activities in one fieldwork cycle; (4) improved documentation; and (5) ultimately better remediation, as measured by greater precision in delineating soils that are not in compliance with requirements from soils that are in compliance. In addition, the demonstration showed that the use of real-time technologies, such as the RadInSoil, can facilitate the implementation of a Multi-Agency Radiation Survey and Site Investigation Manual (MARSSIM)-based final status survey program

This project is designed to develop engineering and modeling tools for a family of NO{sub x}control technologies utilizing biomass as a reburning fuel. During the eighth reporting period (July 1--September 26, 1999), Antares Group Inc, under contract to Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, evaluated the economic feasibility of biomass reburning options for Dunkirk Station. This report includes summary of the findings; complete information will be submitted in the next Quarterly Report.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the federal government's management of chemical and biological medical supplies, focusing on the: (1) accuracy and currency of the inventory tracking systems for federal medical stockpiles that would be used to treat the civilian population following a chemical or biological terrorist attack; and (2) internal controls in place to manage the stockpiles."

If a known transformation of a random variable X is normally distributed with mean {mu} and variance {sigma}{sup 2}, then the mean, variance, and any other distributional property of X can be expressed in terms of {mu} and {sigma}{sup 2}. For example, if X is lognormally distributed, i.e., X {approx} {Lambda}({mu}, {sigma}{sup 2}) or (equivalently) Y = log(X) {approx} N({mu}, {sigma}{sup 2}), then the expected value, variance, median, and mode of X are, respectively, E(X) = exp({mu} + {sigma}{sup 2}/2), var (X) = exp(2{mu} + {sigma}{sup 2})(exp({sigma}{sup 2}) - 1), med(X) = exp({mu}), and mode(X) = exp({mu} - {sigma}{sup 2}). Exact and optimal (uniformly most accurate unbiased) confidence limit procedures have been developed for linear functions of {mu} and {sigma}{sup 2} (Land, 1971, 1973) and, therefore, because confidence limits for a parameter are invariant under smooth, monotone transformations of that parameter, for the mean and mode of a lognormal distribution. In fact, the lognormal distribution is the only one whose mean can be expressed as a function of a non-trivial linear combination of {mu} and {sigma}{sup 2} (Land, 1971), but other functions, including those arising in connection with other normalizing transformations, can be approximated locally by linear functions for which …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) plans to develop a pilot program to use commercial sources to improve the collection of DOD claims under aircraft engine warranties, focusing on the: (1) benefits obtained by some private sector users of aircraft engine warranty services; and (2) efforts DOD has made the evaluate the feasibility of establishing a pilot program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the District of Columbia (DC) Courts' management of its escrow and other bank accounts, focusing on whether DC Courts: (1) properly reconciled its bank accounts; (2) had adequate controls over fines and fees collected; and (3) had authority to retain amounts deposited into the Crime Victims Fund account."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on improper payments in light of the projected future growth of federal expenditures, focusing on the: (1) amounts reported by agencies as improper payments in their fiscal year (FY) 1998 financial statements prepared pursuant to the Chief Financial Officers (FO) Act of 1990; (2) types of federal programs at risk of disbursing improper payments; (3) reported causes of improper payments across the federal government; and (4) extent to which agencies are addressing improper payments in their performance plans under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993."

The goal of the program is to identify the optimal operating window for black liquor gasification. The goals during this year are to prepare the PEFR for operation, conduct a series of preliminary screening tests to bracket BLG operating conditions, and develop a process model that can guide identification of the optimal operating window.

The objective of this project is to address waterflood problems of the type found in Morrow sandstone reservoirs in southwestern Kansas and in Cherokee Group reservoirs in southeastern Kansas. Two demonstration sites operated by different independent oil operators are involved in this project. The Stewart Field is located in Finney County, Kansas and is operated by PetroSantander, Inc. Te Nelson Lease is located in Allen County, Kansas, in the N.E. Savonburg Field and is operated by James E. Russell Petroleum, Inc. General topics to be addressed are (1) reservoir management and performance evaluation, (2) waterflood optimization, and (3) the demonstration of recovery processes involving off-the-shelf technologies which can be used to enhance waterflood recovery, increase reserves, and reduce the abandonment rate of these reservoir types. In the Stewart Project, the reservoir management portion of the project conducted during Budget Period 1 involved performance evaluation. This included (1) reservoir characterization and the development of a reservoir database, (2) volumetric analysis to evaluate production performance, (3) reservoir modeling, (4) laboratory work, (5) identification of operational problems, (6) identification of unrecovered mobile oil and estimation of recovery factors, and (7) identification of the most efficient and economical recovery process. To accomplish these objectives …

The objective of this project is to demonstrate incremental reserves from Osagian and Meramecian (Mississippian) dolomite reservoirs in western Kansas through application of reservoir characterization to identify areas of unrecovered mobile oil. The project addresses producibility problems in two fields: Specific reservoirs target the Schaben Field in Ness County, Kansas, and the Bindley Field in Hodgeman County, Kansas. The producibility problems to be addressed include inadequate reservoir characterization, drilling and completion design problems, non-optimum recovery efficiency. The results of this project will be disseminated through various technology transfer activities. At the Schaben demonstration site, the Kansas team will conduct a field project to demonstrate better approaches to identify bypassed oil within and between reservoir units.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed issues concerning financial reporting and internal controls related to the Special Fund established by the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), focusing on: (1) the feasibility of actuarially calculating the unfunded liability of the LHWCA Special Fund; (2) whether controls exist to prevent inappropriate claims from being referred to the Special Fund; (3) whether recipient data are matched against other agencies' databases to reduce the risk of payments being made to ineligible recipients; (4) whether there are equitable distributions of assessments among the insurance carriers/self-insured employers as compared to their claim levels; and (5) the status of changes to the Longshore computer systems."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) funds, focusing on: (1) how LTCM's positions became large and leveraged enough to be deemed a potential systemic threat; (2) what federal regulators knew about LTCM and when they found out about its problems; (3) what the extent of coordination among regulators was; and (4) whether regulatory authority limits regulators' ability to identify and mitigate potential systemic risk."

The results presented in this report demonstrate the capabilities of Advanced Technology Corporation's patented Portable/In Situ Stress-Strain Microprobe (TM) (SSM) System and its Automated Ball Indentation (ABI) test techniques to nondestructively measure the yield strength, the stress-strain curve, and the fracture toughness of ferritic steel samples and components in a reliable and accurate manner.

Efficient and complete recovery of petroleum reserves from existing oil wells has proven difficult due to a lack of robust instrumentation that can monitor processes in the downhole environment. Commercially available sensors for measurement of pressure, temperature, and fluid flow exhibit shortened lifetimes in the harsh downhole conditions, which are characterized by high pressures (up to 20 kpsi), temperatures up to 250 C, and exposure to chemically reactive fluids. Development of robust sensors that deliver continuous, real-time data on reservoir performance and petroleum flow pathways will facilitate application of advanced recovery technologies, including horizontal and multi-lateral wells. The main objective of the research program is to develop cost-effective, reliable fiber sensor instrumentation for real-time monitoring and /or control of various key parameters crucial to efficient and economical oil production. This report presents the detailed research work and technical progress from October 1, 1998 to September 30, 1999. The research performed over the first year of the program has followed the schedule as proposed, and solid research progress has been made in specification of the technical requirements, design and fabrication of the SCIIB sensor probes, development of the sensor systems, development of DSP-based signal processing techniques, and construction of the test …

Assessment of the performance of engineered capillary barriers at the potential Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository site, in which 1.67-m-diameter waste packages are to be emplaced in 5-m-diameter tunnels according to current design, brings up aspects not commonly considered in more typical applications of capillary barriers (e.g., near-surface landfills). Engineered capillary barriers typically consist of two layers of granular materials with a sloping interface, in which the contrast in capillarity between the layers keeps infiltrating water in the upper layer. One issue is the effect of thermohydrologic processes that would occur at elevated repository temperatures (and temperature gradients). For example, backfill materials may be altered from that of the as-placed material by the hydrothermal regime imposed by the emplacement of waste in the repository, changing hydrologic properties in a way that degrades the performance of the barrier. A reduction of permeability in the upper layer might diminish the capacity of the upper layer to divert incoming seepage or to cause a ''vapor lid'' whereby buoyant vapor flow would be trapped, then condense and drain onto waste packages. Other concerns are the result of highly spatially and temporally variable seepage distribution and the very limited spatial scale available for flow attenuation …

This project is designed to develop a family of novel NO{sub x} control technologies, called Second Generation Advanced Reburning which has the potential to achieve 90+ NO{sub x} control in coal fired boilers at a significantly lower cost than Selective Catalytic Reduction. The eighth reporting period in Phase II (July 1--September 26, 1999) included combined chemistry-mixing modeling on advanced gas reburning and experimental activities in support of modeling. Modeling efforts focused on description of AR-Lean--combination of basic reburning and co-injection of N-agent with overfire air. Modeling suggests that efficiency of AR-Lean strongly depends on the amount of the reburning fuel, temperature of flue gas at the point of OFA/N-agent injection, and evaporation time of N-agent. The model describes the most important features of AR-Lean and can be used for AR-Lean optimization.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Superfund program, focusing on the: (1) status of the program's funding and expenditures, including information on the Superfund trust fund to date and the moneys appropriated from it to federal agencies other than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Superfund activities; (2) costs to responsible parties for all site cleanups and these parties' related transaction costs from 1980 through 1998, categorized before and after December 1995, when the authority for Superfund taxes expired; and (3) cleanup status of the 640 nonfederal sites, as of April 1999, and the estimated total and annual costs to complete cleanups of these sites."

This report describes the activity undertaken by the project members under MORGANTOWN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY CENTER (METC) contract No. DE-AC21-95MC32185 to develop a project that will provide a commercial use for Coal Mine Methane (CMM). In particular, the report describes a project to convert CMM into Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and to market that LNG to the transportation sector in and around the I-79 corridor near Morgantown, West Virginia. The report discusses the sources of CMM and provides estimates of the extent of the resource specifically dedicated to the project. It discusses the novel refrigeration technology that will be employed to convert the CMM to LNG and the gas conditioning technology that will be used to bring the raw CMM up to cryogenic processing specifications. Summary capital and operating cost estimates are furnished for the project and specific monetary and schedule requirements are identified so the project can be examined in its entirety. The report discusses the immediate market potential for the successful commercial sale of LNG into the nearby market and provides estimates of future market penetration into local, regional and wider markets. Lastly, the report comments on the environmental effects of the project and extrapolates these benefits to future …

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A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Financial Management Service's (FMS) Year 2000 program, focusing on whether FMS is: (1) effectively managing its year 2000 testing; and (2) taking adequate steps to mitigate the year 2000 risks associated with four mission-critical systems that were not implemented by the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) March 1999 deadline."

The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) must help Federal agencies reduce energy costs by delivering effective outreach programs. It is crucial that all professionals involved with the management of Federal facilities receive a clear message that FEMP offers effective information, education, tools, training, and resources. To achieve this objective, American Ideas and Designs, Inc., d/b/a Greening America, assisted FEMP in continuing a comprehensive energy efficiency outreach program titled ''You Have the Power.'' The ''You Have the Power'' campaign emphasized the ability of individual Federal employees, Federal agencies, and stakeholder organizations to easily access FEMP's energy efficiency tools and resources through a set of integrated interagency delivery programs.

These effluent technical specifications address requirements for the 324/327 facilities, which are undergoing stabilization activities. Effluent technical specifications are imposed to protect personnel, the environment and the public, by ensuring adequate implementation and compliance with federal and state regulatory requirements and Hanford programs.

Initial drilling of wells on a uniform spacing, without regard to reservoir performance and characterization, must become a process of the past. Such efforts do not optimize reservoir development as they fail to account for the complex nature of reservoir heterogeneities present in many low permeability reservoirs, and carbonate reservoirs in particular. These reservoirs are typically characterized by: o Large, discontinuous pay intervals o Vertical and lateral changes in reservoir properties o Low reservoir energy o High residual oil saturation o Low recovery efficiency