This report provides an overview and discussion of the legal basis and congressional precedents regarding a congressional "censure" of the President.

This report summarizes proposed and enacted legislative initiatives to change child nutrition programs (including WIC program) during 1997 and 1998.

This Corrective Action Decision Document has been prepared for Corrective Action Unit 340, the NTS Pesticide Release Sites, in accordance with the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order of 1996 (FFACO, 1996). Corrective Action Unit 340 is located at the Nevada Test Site, Nevada, and is comprised of the following Corrective Action Sites: 23-21-01, Area 23 Quonset Hut 800 Pesticide Release Ditch; 23-18-03, Area 23 Skid Huts Pesticide Storage; and 15-18-02, Area 15 Quonset Hut 15-11 Pesticide Storage. The purpose of this Corrective Action Decision Document is to identify and provide a rationale for the selection of a recommended corrective action alternative for each Corrective Action Site. The scope of this Corrective Action Decision Document consists of the following tasks: Develop corrective action objectives; Identify corrective action alternative screening criteria; Develop corrective action alternatives; Perform detailed and comparative evaluations of the corrective action alternatives in relation to the corrective action objectives and screening criteria; and Recommend and justify a preferred corrective action alternative for each Corrective Action Site.

This report describes work performed to provide details of the microstructure in high-quality hydrogenated amorphous silicon and related alloys for the nanometer size scale. The materials studied were prepared by current state-of-the-art deposition methods, as well as new and emerging deposition techniques. The purpose was to establish the role of microstructural features in controlling the opto-electronic and photovoltaic properties. The approach centered around the use of the uncommon technique of small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), which is highly sensitive to microvoids and columnar-like microstructure. Nanovoids of H-rich clusters with 1 to 4 nm sizes in a-Si:H at the 1 vol.% level correlate with poor solar-cell and opto-electronic behavior. Larger-scale features due either to surface roughness or residual columnar-like structures were found in present state-of-the-art device material. Ge alloying above about 10 to 20 at.% typically leads to significant increases in heterogeneity , and this has been shown to be due in part to non-uniform Ge distributions. Ge additions also cause columnar-like growth, but this can be reduced or eliminated by enhanced ion bombardment during growth. In contrast, C alloying typically induces a random nanostructure consisting of a narrow size distribution of 1-nm-sized objects with a high density, consistent with the notably …

This report describes results achieved during phase I of a four-phase subcontract to develop and understand thin-film solar cell technology associated with CuInSe2 and related alloys, a-Si and its alloys, and CdTe. Modules based on all these thin films are promising candidates to meet DOE long-range efficiency, reliability, and manufacturing cost goals. The critical issues being addressed under this program are intended to provide the science and engineering basis for developing viable commercial processes and to improve module performance. The generic research issues addressed are: (1) quantitative analysis of processing steps to provide information for efficient commercial-scale equipment design and operation; (2) device characterization relating the device performance to materials properties and process conditions; (3) development of alloy materials with different bandgaps to allow improved device structures for stability and compatibility with module design; (4) development of improved window/heterojunction layers and contacts to improve device performance and reliability; and (5) evaluation of cell stability with respect to illumination, temperature, and ambient and with respect to device structure and module encapsulation.

In general, Micropower Impulse Radar (MIR) depends on Ultra-Wideband (UWB) transmission systems. UWB technology can supply innovative new systems and products that have an obvious value for radar and communications uses. Important applications include bridge-deck inspection systems, ground penetrating radar, mine detection, and precise distance resolution for such things as liquid level measurement. Most of these UWB inspection and measurement methods have some unique qualities, which need to be pursued. Therefore, in considering changes to Part 15 the FCC needs to take into account the unique features of UWB technology. MIR is applicable to two general types of UWB systems: radar systems and communications systems. Currently LLNL and its licensees are focusing on radar or radar type systems. LLNL is evaluating MIR for specialized communication systems. MIR is a relatively low power technology. Therefore, MIR systems seem to have a low potential for causing harmful interference to other users of the spectrum since the transmitted signal is spread over a wide bandwidth, which results in a relatively low spectral power density.

The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 identify a number of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) as candidates for regulation. Should regulations be imposed on HAP emissions from coal-fired power plants, a sound understanding of the fundamental principles controlling the formation and partitioning of toxic species during coal combustion will be needed. With support from the Federal Energy Technology Center (FETC), the Electric Power Research Institute, the Lignite Research Council, and VTT (Finland), Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has teamed with researchers from USGS, MIT, the University of Arizona (UA), the University of Kentucky (UK), the University of Connecticut (UC), the University of Utah (UU) and the University of North Dakota Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) to develop a broadly applicable emissions model useful to regulators and utility planners. The new Toxics Partitioning Engineering Model (ToPEM) will be applicable to all combustion conditions including new fuels and coal blends, low-NO combustion systems, and new power generation x plants. Development of ToPEM will be based on PSI's existing Engineering Model for Ash Formation (EMAF). This report covers the reporting period from 1 July 1998 through 30 September 1998. During this period distribution of all three Phase II coals was completed. Standard analyses …

In this paper the monthly mean vorticity and divergence at 200 hPa are compared from four data sources: The NCEP/NCAR reanalyses 1958 through 1994, the ECMWF (ERA) reanalyses, 1979 through 1994, a NCAR CCM3 integration using prescribed SSTs from 1979 through 1993, and the NCAR CSM 300 year integration. The NCEP, ERA and CCM3 all provide data for the period 1979 through1993. The timescales examined are the annual cycle and interannual variations. The annual mean vorticity of the ERA and NCEP match very closely. The annual cycle is likewise close except in the eastern equatorial Pacific and Indian Ocean. Compared to the reanalyses, the models have adequate annual means but suffer in the depiction of the annual cycle in the regions of the jet maxima and in some regions of the Tropics. The CSM appears to inherit errors from the CCM3 and apparently add some new ones. The annual mean divergence shows a much larger difference between the reanalyses. This is most pronounced in the Tropics especially over the African and South American land masses. The models also show large differences, with the CSM being an outlier in the tropical Pacific. For many tropical and extratropical locations even the annual …

This report provides an overview of applications within the DOE complex which could benefit from the use of modular robotics technology during remediation operations. Each application area contains one or more specific tasks which are presently conducted by humans under hazardous conditions or which are deemed highly impractical, or are altogether impossible without automation. Five major areas were investigated for specific needs with respect to automation. Information was collected on Mixed Waste Operations, Contaminant Automated Analysis, Tanks, Decontamination and Dismantlement and Automated Plutonium Processing. During this investigation, information was gathered from available literature, telephone interviews with informed personnel and on-site visits. This data serves to provide design requirements and guidelines for the design of a family of modular actuators, which will be used to construct manipulators suited to each task. In addition, a survey of existing modular manipulator designs is presented. This survey addresses modular manipulators developed inside government labs and in universities for such applications as space exploration or controls research. It also addresses efforts at commercially viable industrial manipulators which have been built. This survey of robotic systems provides the reader with a glimpse into what technology currently exists in the way of modular manipulator automation and, to …

The objectives of our participation in the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program were (1) to improve GCM treatment of subgrid-scale variability of cloud-radiation interaction, and (2) to study the effect of variability on GCM climate simulations. Specifically, the studies focused on the development of a ''mosaic'' approach to parameterize the variability associated with cloud vertical ''geometric association'' and horizontal ''inhomogeneity''; and the evaluation and improvement of radiative effects of aerosols and layer clouds. These studies were conducted using the shortwave and longwave radiation and cloud parameterizations employed in the SUNY-Albany regional climate model and the NCAR-CCM3 global climate model. The measurements at the ARM Southern Great Plains were used to evaluate and improve these GCM parameterizations. In addition, we also used the cloud resolving model simulations to supplement the cloud statistics, in particular the cloud geometric association and vertical water/ice distribution.

The usefulness of logistic discrimination was examined in an effort to learn how it performs in a regional seismic setting. Logistic discrimination provides an easily understood method, works with user-defined models and few assumptions about the population distributions, and handles both continuous and discrete data. Seismic event measurements from a data set compiled by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) of Chinese events recorded at station WMQ were used in this demonstration study. PNNL applied logistic regression techniques to the data. All possible combinations of the Lg and Pg measurements were tried, and a best-fit logistic model was created. The best combination of Lg and Pg frequencies for predicting the source of a seismic event (earthquake or explosion) used Lg{sub 3.0-6.0} and Pg{sub 3.0-6.0} as the predictor variables. A cross-validation test was run, which showed that this model was able to correctly predict 99.7% earthquakes and 98.0% explosions for this given data set. Two other models were identified that used Pg and Lg measurements from the 1.5 to 3.0 Hz frequency range. Although these other models did a good job of correctly predicting the earthquakes, they were not as effective at predicting the explosions. Two possible biases were discovered which affect …

Manage the Site Systems Engineering process to provide a traceable integrated requirements-driven, and technically defensible baseline. Through the Site Integration Group(SIG), Systems Engineering ensures integration of technical activities across all site projects. Systems Engineering's primary interfaces are with the RL Project Managers, the Project Direction Office and with the Project Major Subcontractors, as well as with the Site Planning organization. Systems Implementation: (1) Develops, maintains, and controls the site integrated technical baseline, ensures the Systems Engineering interfaces between projects are documented, and maintain the Site Environmental Management Specification. (2) Develops and uses dynamic simulation models for verification of the baseline and analysis of alternatives. (3) Performs and documents fictional and requirements analyses. (4) Works with projects, technology management, and the SIG to identify and resolve technical issues. (5) Supports technical baseline information for the planning and budgeting of the Accelerated Cleanup Plan, Multi-Year Work Plans, Project Baseline Summaries as well as performance measure reporting. (6) Works with projects to ensure the quality of data in the technical baseline. (7) Develops, maintains and implements the site configuration management system.

Recent work at Sandia National Laboratories, Imperial College, and the U.K. utility PowerGen, has identified an important mechanism believed to have a large influence on unburned carbon levels from pulverized coal-fired boilers. That mechanism is char carbon crystalline rearrangements on subsecond times scales at temperatures of 1800 - 2500 K, which lead to char deactivation in the flame zones of furnaces. The so-called thermal annealing of carbons is a well known phenomenon, but its key role in carbon burnout has only recently been appreciated, and there is a lack of quantitative data in this time/temperature range. In addition, a new fundamental tool has recently become available to study crystalline transformations, namely high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) fringe imaging, which provides a wealth of information on the nature and degree of crystallinity in carbon materials such as coal chars. Motivated by these new developments, this University Coal Research project has been initiated with the following two goals:  to determine transient, high-temperature, thermal deactivation kinetics as a function of parent coal and temperature history.  to characterize the effect of this thermal treatment on carbon crystalline structure through high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and specialized, quantitative image analysis. Work is currently …

This document summarizes a framework for the development of a bilateral United States�Russian geologic repository initiative to enable cooperative work on the science and technology of geologic disposal of high-level nuclear wastes and fissile-containing materials. Three different types of integrated technical activities in Russia are employed to focus and organize a Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (RW) FY00 initiative. We have specified the items for initial negotiations with the Russians for start-up activities in FY99 and early FY00. These first interactions will generate other activities which, by utilizing Russia�s unique capabilities, may assist us in the development and validation of the US geologic repository program. The current International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) cooperative study of 30years of heat effects on underground hardrock rock media at the closed city of Krasnoyarsk-26 (Zheleznorgorsk) is but one example of such a Russian geologic repository analogue project that may assist the US geologic repository program.

This issue of the ICF Quarterly Report focuses on the final section of the 192-arm, 1.8-MJ National Ignition Facility (NIF). We describe both technological advances necessary for optimal utilization of the delivered energy and the hohlraum physics resulting from extremely high energy densities. Two articles belong to the first category. The conversion of infrared light to ultraviolet occurs at the tripler in the NIF's Final Optics Assembly. It is then necessary to separate any unconverted (first- and second-harmonic) light from the tripled-frequency light passed to the target. Large-Aperture Color-Separation Gratings for Diverting Unconverted Light Away from the NIF Target describes the design and fabrication of novel diffraction gratings that fulfill this function. In both direct- and indirect-drive ICF, the symmetry of the capsule as it compresses is crucial. The NIF will have 48 clusters of four beams incident on targets. Optimization of Beam Angles for the National Ignition Facility (p. 15) presents the rationale used to assign beam angles for cylindrical indirect drive while still allowing direct-drive and tetrahedral indirect-drive experiments to be performed.

In mid-December 1997, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published in the Federal Register a proposed rule to establish national standards for the marketing of organically produced foods. 1 The purpose of the rule is to give consumers confidence in the legitimacy of all products sold as organic, permit legal action against these who use the term fraudulently, and increase the supply and variety of available organic products, especially of meat and poultry products,

This closure report provides the documentation for closure of the Cactus Spring Waste Trenches Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 426. The site is located on the Tonopah Test Range,approximately 225 kilometers (140 miles) northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. CAU 426 consists of one Corrective Action Site which is comprised of four waste trenches. The trenches were excavated to receive solid waste generated in support of Operation Roller Coaster, primarily the Double Tracks Test in 1963, and were subsequently backfilled. The Double Tracks Test involved the use of live animals to assess the biological hazards associated with the non-nuclear detonation of plutonium-bearing devices (i.e., inhalation uptake of plutonium aerosol) (DOE, 1996). The remedial alternative proposed Nevada Division of Environmental Protection proposed the capping method. The closure activities were completed in accordance with the approved Corrective Action Plan and consisted of constructing an engineered cover in the ar ea of the trenches, constructing/planning a vegetative cover, installing a perimeter fence and signs, implementing restrictions on future use, and preparing a post-closure monitoring plan. Closure activities for CAU 426 have been completed in accordance with the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection approved Corrective Action Plan as documented in this Closure Report.

Operations and maintenance continued this month at the Electric Power Research Institute`s (EPRI`s) Environmental Control Technology Center (ECTC). Testing for the month involved the Dry Sorbent Injection (DST) test block with the Carbon Injection System. The 1.0 MW Cold- Side Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) unit, the 0.4 MW Mini- Pilot Wet Scrubber, and the 4.0 MW Pilot Wet Scrubber remained idle this month in a cold-standby mode and were inspected regularly. These units remain available for testing as future project work is identified.

The Single Heater Test (SHT) is one of two in-situ thermal tests included in the site characterization program for the potential underground nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. The heating phase of the SHT started in August 1996, and was completed in May 1997 after 9 months of heating. The coupled processes in the unsaturated fractured rock mass around the heater were monitored by numerous sensors for thermal, hydrological, mechanical and chemical data. In addition to passive monitoring, active testing of the rock mass moisture content was performed using geophysical methods and air injection testing. The extensive data set available from this test gives a unique opportunity to improve the understanding of the thermal-hydrological situation in the natural setting of the repository rocks. The present paper focuses on the 3-D numerical simulation of the thermal-hydrological processes in the SHT using TOUGH2. In the comparative analysis, they are particularly interested in the accuracy of different fracture-matrix-interaction concepts such as the Effective Continuum (ECM), the Dual Continuum (DKM), and the Multiple Interacting Continua (MINC) method.

The primary objective of the project is to construct a subsurface transect of Cretaceous strata that were deposited in the Kansas-Colorado-Utah corridor, going from marine sequences that contain organic-carbon-rich hydrocarbon source rocks in Kansas and eastern Colorado to nearshore coal-bearing units in western Colorado and Utah. The drilling transect will provide continuous, unweathered samples for inorganic, organic, and isotopic geochemical studies and mineralogical investigations to determine the characteristics of hydrocarbon source rocks. This transect also will provide information on the extent of thermal maturation and migration of hydrocarbons in organic-carbon-rich strata along a burial gradient. In addition, the eastern Colorado hole will provide characteristics of an important fractured reservoir (the Pierre Shale) in the Florence oil field, the oldest continuously producing field in the United States (>100 years; 600 wells; >14 Mbbls).

This report should be useful for tracking appropriations and authorization actions on the DOE R&D programs, and the potential implications of those actions.

This report focuses on the R&D programs. It divides the programs into four categories: energy resources R&D, science, national security R&D, and environmental quality R&D. Those categories, which approximate the way DOE has divided up its programs, are set up to keep similar research activities together.(1) R&D funding is concentrated in the first three. The report gives a description of the programs within each category including their research objectives and the activities where significant budget changes were requested for FY1999. It then describes the request, and congressional appropriation and authorization action. There follows a discussion of issues about the FY1999 request that are emerging during congressional consideration of the budget.

In the second quarter of calendar year 1998, no work was performed on the present project. The 20 MMBtu/hr combustor-boiler facility was not operated during this period. The total test days on the Philadelphia facility to the end of June 1998 remained at 108 as in the previous quarter. Of these, 34 tests were part of the other DOE project. The test days on the other project are listed here because they demonstrate the durability of the combustor, which is one of the objectives of the present project. As noted previously, this exceeds the planned 63 test days for this project. All key project objectives have been exceeded including combustor durability, automated combustor operation, NO{sub x} emissions as low as 0.07 lb/MMBtu and SO{sub 2} emissions as low as 0.2 lb/MMBtu. In addition, a novel post-combustion NO{sub x} control process has been tested on a 37 MW and 100 MW utility boiler. Any further tests will depend on the results of evaluations of current and prior tests. The only effort remaining on this project is facility disassembly and Final Report. Also, as part of the commercialization effort for this combustor technology, Coal Tech is developing alternative designs of the combustor …

The goal of this research is to engineer enzymes to be efficient and economically attractive catalysts for the chemical industry. The author is attempting to demonstrate generally-applicable approaches to enzyme improvement as well as develop specific catalysts for potential industrial application. Progress on three tasks are described: Random mutagenesis of pNB esterase--improved activity and stability; Directed evolution of subtilisin E to enhance thermostability; and Methods for invitro recombination.