Ring-joint flanges were studied in thermal-cycle tests as part of the development work associated with Homogeneous Reactor Experiment No. 2 (HRE-2). The purpose of this study was to provide criteria for design, installation, and operation of joints that would remain leaktight under reactor operating temperatures and pressures. Joints ranging from 1/2 in., l500 lb to 4 in., 2500 lb and with various initial bolt loadings were cycled between room temperature and 636 deg F. It was demonstrated that when joints were made up to HRE-2 standards and specifications, leak rates of less than 0.25 x 10/sup -3/ g of water per day per inch of gasket pitch diameter could be routinely- attained. Undamaged gaskets could be reinstalled or new gaskets used with equal probability of achieving acceptable leak rates. The system installed in HRE-2 was provided with a high-pressure buffer system to ensure that the small amount of leakage to the cell would be nonradioactive. (auth)

Key findings from the Illinois Powerplant Productivity Improvement Study are: (1) the historic performance (equivalent availability) of large generating units in Illinois is below national average performance; (2) cost-effective opportunities to improve performance exist, and utilities pursue many of these; (3) there are no strong regulatory disincentives to the undertaking of productivity improvement projects, but no strong incentives either; (4) current utility practices, procedures, and management philosophy toward improved productivity are being strengthened; (5) areas in which immediate attention is warranted include application of reliability engineering tools to the analysis of powerplant availability and more vigorous pursuit of opportunities for performance improvements; (6) DOE systematic methodology for analysis of productivity improvement projects was demonstrated at three units and found to be useful; (7) the potential for improved productivity was estimated to be of the order of 2% in planned and forced outage rates; (8) if a 5% improvement were to be attained, cumulative (through 1990) constant-dollar benefits would be approximately $500 million; (9) formula regulatory incentive mechanisms are presently in a developmental or experimental phase, but adoption by the State of Illinois does not appear warranted at this time; and (10) the Illinois Commerce Commission can encourage improved productivity by …

Computer simulation of the three-dimensional temperature history in a multipass filled weldment was attempted by modifying a transient heat transfer code, HEATING5. The model includes temperature-dependent physical parameters, radiation and convection heat losses, turbulent and laminar convection in the molten pool, and variable arc velocity, intensity, and weld geometry. The model requires approximately 28 CPU min to simulate one second of welding. 15 figures, 8 tables.

This final report summarizes the effort and presents the results of a Phase II fabrication effort to build an industrial prototype of the LBL developed high energy neutral beam source. The effort was primarily concentrated on incorporating hard vacuum dielectric seals and a ceramic high voltage accelerator insulator. Several other design changes were incorporated for cost, reliability or life improvements to include: (1) accelerator grid locating dowel pins to aid final alignment, (2) plasma source to accelerator captive fasteners to aid filament replacement during source maintenance, (3) molybdenum cooling tubes on all accelerator grids, (4) additional fasteners in the plasma generator to facilitate hard seals, (5) modified suppressor grid rails and holders to simplify final grid alignment, (6) adjusting screws on exit grid rail holders to simplify final grid alignment, (7) addition of adjusting screws to the grid end pieces to simplify alignment, and (8) addition of accelerator hat shims to allow two different grid positioning locations.

BS>Some of the fundamental relationships in a nuclear rocket engine are discussed. The equations required to calculate the performance of the rocket are presented. The problems associated with these calculations are also pointed out. (auth)

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Veteran Affairs' (VA) laundry support services, focusing on: (1) the type and volume of laundry service VA provides; (2) how VA provides laundry services; (3) the cost VA incurs; and (4) the revenue VA generates from selling laundry services."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Management of the U.S. Postal Service's (USPS) e-commerce program has been fragmented, and implementation of e-commerce initiatives has varied at different business units. Overall, USPS' performance in this area has fallen short of expectations. Last year, the Postmaster General announced a sweeping management restructuring that changed both the reporting structure and program managers. USPS also revised its procedures for approving and implementing new Internet initiatives, including e-commerce. However, concerns persist about whether USPS' e-commerce initiatives are being cross-subsidized by other postal products and services. USPS managers contend that e-commerce products and services must cover their incremental costs. GAO found that this goal has not been met and it is unclear when it might be achieved. Without accurate, complete, and consistent financial information, USPS cannot assess its progress toward its financial performance goals for e-commerce. USPS also lacks clear and comprehensive policies and procedures for reporting direct and indirect revenues and costs for e-commerce and other new products and services. As a result, reporting inconsistencies are likely to continue. In contrast, USPS has reportedly developed privacy policies and practices for its e-commerce customers that exceed those required …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Outpatient medical appointment wait times reported by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), are unreliable. Wait times for outpatient medical appointments--referred to as medical appointments--are calculated as the number of days elapsed from the desired date, which is defined as the date on which the patient or health care provider wants the patient to be seen. The reliability of reported wait time performance measures is dependent on the consistency with which schedulers record the desired date in the scheduling system in accordance with VHA's scheduling policy. However, VHA's scheduling policy and training documents for recording desired date are unclear and do not ensure consistent use of the desired date. Some schedulers at Veterans Affairs medical centers (VAMC) that GAO visited did not record the desired date correctly. For example, three schedulers changed the desired date based on appointment availability; this would have resulted in a reported wait time that was shorter than the patient actually experienced. VHA officials acknowledged limitations of measuring wait times based on desired date, and described additional information used to monitor veterans' access to medical appointments, …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Pandemic influenza poses a threat to public health at a time when the United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO) has said that infectious diseases are spreading faster than at any time in history. The last major influenza pandemic occurred from 1918 to 1919. Estimates of deaths worldwide if a similar pandemic were to occur have ranged between 30 million and 384 million people. Individual countries and international organizations have developed and begun to implement a strategy for forestalling (that is, containing, delaying, or minimizing the impact of) the onset of a pandemic. Antivirals and vaccines may help forestall a pandemic. GAO was asked to examine (1) constraints upon the use of antivirals and vaccines to forestall a pandemic and (2) efforts under way to overcome these constraints. GAO reviewed documents and consulted with officials of the Departments of State and Health and Human Services (HHS), international organizations, and pharmaceutical manufacturers. WHO commented that the report was comprehensive and useful. HHS stressed that vaccines and antivirals must be viewed in a larger context. State and HHS commented that the term "forestall" is ambiguous and misleading. However, GAO …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to spend over $100 billion on capabilities and technologies to achieve the initial goals of the President's 2004 Vision for Space Exploration. In the past, NASA has had difficulty meeting cost, schedule, and performance objectives for some of its projects because it failed to adequately define project requirements and quantify resources. NASA will be further challenged by a constrained federal budget and a shrinking experienced NASA workforce. To help face these challenges and manage projects with greater efficiency and accountability, NASA recently updated its program and project management policy and is developing an agencywide systems engineering policy. GAO has issued a series of reports on the importance of obtaining critical information and knowledge at key junctures in major system acquisitions to help meet cost and schedule objectives. This report (1) evaluates whether NASA's policy supports a knowledge-based acquisition approach and (2) describes how NASA centers are implementing the agency's acquisition policies and guidance."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A number of factors—both external and internal to the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA)—have contributed to the increase in processing timeframes and subsequent growth in the backlog of veterans’ disability compensation claims. As the population of new veterans has swelled in recent years, the annual number of claims received by VBA has gone up. Compared to the past, these claims have a higher number of disabling conditions, and some of these conditions, such as traumatic brain injuries, make their assessment complex. Moreover, due to new regulations that have established eligibility for benefits for new diseases associated with Agent Orange exposure, VBA adjudicated 260,000 previously denied and new claims. Beyond these external factors, issues with the design and implementation of the compensation program have contributed to timeliness challenges. For example, the law requires the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to assist veterans in obtaining records that support their claim. However, VBA officials said that lengthy timeframes in obtaining military records—particularly for members of the National Guard and Reserve—and Social Security Administration (SSA) medical records impact VA’s duty to assist, possibly delaying a decision on a veteran’s disability claim. …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "(DOD) TRICARE Reserve Select (TRS) program allows most reservists to purchase coverage under TRICARE, the military health insurance program, when not on active duty. DOD intends to set premiums at a level equal to the expected costs of providing TRS benefits. The National Defense Authorization Act for 2007 required GAO to review TRS costs. As discussed with the committees of jurisdiction, GAO compared (1) the TRS premiums established by DOD to the reported costs of providing benefits under TRS in 2006 and (2) DOD's projected costs for TRS before implementation to DOD's reported costs for the program in 2005 and 2006. To do this work, GAO examined DOD analyses and interviewed DOD officials and external experts."

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) Defense Export Loan Guarantee (DELG) Program, focusing on: (1) the level of program activity to date; (2) the program's financial status; (3) other sources of financing available to borrowing countries; (4) comparing DELG Program characteristics with other U.S. government export financing programs; and (5) examining issues related to the planned fiscal year 1999 transfer of DELG Program responsibilities within DOD."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Energy (DOE) manages the nation's nuclear weapons production complex, cleans up the environmental legacy from the production of nuclear weapons, and conducts research and development into both energy and basic science. DOE launched several reforms in the 1990s to realign its organizational structure, reduce its workforce, strengthen contracting procedures by competitive awards practices, streamline oversight of activities, and delegate some responsibilities to the private sector. Despite these reforms, GAO found that management weaknesses persist because DOE's reforms were piecemeal solutions whose effect has been muted by three impediments to fundamental improvement: the department's diverse missions, dysfunctional organizational structure, and weak control of accountability. Management weaknesses and performance problems will likely continue unless DOE addresses these impediments in a comprehensive fashion."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the: (1) amount of federal funding and support provided to the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, California, and the 1996 Olympic Games held in Atlanta, Georgia, and the planned amount for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah; (2) types of Olympic-related projects and activities receiving federal funding and support; (3) federal policies and legislative authorizations for providing federal funding and support; and (4) procedures existing to ensure that federal funding and support were properly awarded and used."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO audited the financial statement for the Senate Stationary Room Revolving Fund for fiscal year 2000. GAO found that (1) the statement is presented fairly in all material respects; (2) although internal control should be improved, the Stationary Room had effective internal controls over financial reporting and compliance with laws and regulations; and (3) there was no reportable noncompliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations GAO tested."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Despite the recent success of casino gaming and other business ventures undertaken by some Native Americans and Alaska Natives, unemployment and poverty remain widespread in these communities. Many federal programs are available to help Native Americans with economic development, and some tribes are using these programs. Although agencies reported that their programs helped to create and retain jobs, little is known about the effectiveness of these programs. The preparation of performance plans and reports, the designation of agency points of contact, and the establishment of a single office to coordinate federal programs relating to Indian economic development could improve Native Americans' access to federal programs and provide federal decisionmakers with valuable performance information."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO assessed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) performance in the following five key tax filing season activities: (1) processing individual tax returns and refunds, (2) increasing the extent to which individual income tax returns are filed electronically, (3) answering telephone calls and providing quality telephone service, (4) providing accurate and timely face-to-face assistance at its Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TAC), and (5) providing services via the Internet. GAO found that IRS' performance during the 2001 filing season varied. Although there was less information available on which to base a judgement than in past filing seasons, IRS' processing of 130 million individual income tax returns and 94 million refunds in 2001 went smoothly. IRS addressed problems quickly, with relatively minor impact on taxpayers. About 31 percent of all individual income tax returns were filed electronically in 2001--an increase of 13.7 percent compared to 2000. That rate of increase was below IRS' goal of 20 percent and the lowest percentage since 1996. IRS has identified several impediments, but it lacks enough information to determine why about 40 million individual income tax returns were prepared on computers but filed on …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the assets the Department of Defense (DOD) has contributed to reducing the illegal drug supply, focusing on: (1) DOD's plan for supporting U.S. counterdrug efforts and how DOD measures its effectiveness; (2) changes in the level of DOD support for counterdrug activities from fiscal year (FY) 1992 through FY 1999 and the reasons for the changes; and (3) obstacles DOD faces in providing counterdrug assistance to foreign governments."

A fast beam damper system is currently being built for the Tevatron. The system is similar to the Super Damper system in the main ring with increased bandwidth and a pulsed high power mode for injection errors. The purpose of this writeup is to describe the basics of the system, and some of the reasoning behind its design. Calculations of expected performance are also included.

Ion-plated aluminum films on uranium will not provide adequate protection for 25 years. Magnetron-plated aluminum films on uranium are much better than ion-plated ones. Kel-F 800 films on uranium can provide adequate protection for 25 years. Their use in production must be delayed until the following factors are sorted out: water permeability in Kel-F 800 must be determined between 30 and 60/sup 0/C; the effect of UF/sub 3/, at the Kel-F/metal interface, on the permeability of water must be assessed; and the effect of crystallinity on water permeability must be evaluated. Applying Kel-F films on aluminum ion-plated uranium provides a good interim solution for long term storage.

This report is part of the Web-at-Risk project. Several enhancement ideas for future releases of the Web Archiving Service (WAS) have been identified. In order to refine and prioritize these ideas as well as elicit new enhancement ideas, 16 project curators participated in an online exercise between November 27 and December 16, 2007. The exercise employed a Delphi technique that consisted of a series of three online questionnaires, each available for a five or six day period. This report describes the exercise and reports the results.

This report documents salient features of version 3.3 of the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM3.3) and of three climate simulations in which the resolution of its latitude-longitude grid was systematically increased. For all these simulations of global atmospheric climate during the period 1980-1999, observed monthly ocean surface temperatures and sea ice extents were prescribed according to standard Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) values. These CAM3.3 resolution experiments served as control runs for subsequent simulations of the climatic effects of agricultural irrigation, the focus of a Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project. The CAM3.3 model was able to replicate basic features of the historical climate, although biases in a number of atmospheric variables were evident. Increasing horizontal resolution also generally failed to ameliorate the large-scale errors in most of the climate variables that could be compared with observations. A notable exception was the simulation of precipitation, which incrementally improved with increasing resolution, especially in regions where orography plays a central role in determining the local hydroclimate.

SLAC Archives and History Office (AHO) backlog of unprocessed material is over 3,000 cubic feet and growing. Because much of this material was directly transferred to off-site storage, the provenance and contents are a mystery. The costs of off-site storage, lack of knowledge of the contents, and the impending federal regulations in 2009 concerning storage facilities all suggest the need for a long-term plan for the backlog. AHO presents these options to SLAC management: (1) Continue with the status quo, adding new accessions to OffSite Records Management, LLC (hereinafter referred to as OffSite) storage; (2) Pull the backlog back a segment at a time for box-level processing, determine what is in each box, get rid of extraneous material, and return what is left to OffSite storage; (3) Gradually retrieve the backlog for thorough, folder-level processing and then transfer to the Federal Records Center in San Bruno (hereinafter referred to as FRC) or the Archives side of the operations at the National Archives and Records Administration in San Bruno (hereinafter referred to as NARA); and (4) Gradually retrieve the backlog for a combination of box-level processing with return to OffSite storage and thorough folder-level processing with transfer to FRC or NARA.