Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Construction of legislation extending date on which public land sold to City of Corpus Christi would revert to the state (ID# 39575)

Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether Government Code section 497.010, which criminalizes the sale of inmate-made products on the open market, applies to the Texas Youth Commission (RQ-1009)

Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the board of an independent school district may hire as a teacher the spouse of a trustee (RQ-1075)

This document presents a definition of tank turnover. Also, DOE and PC responsibilities; TWRS DST permitting requirements; TWRS Authorization Basis (AB) requirements; TWRS AP Tank Farm operational requirements; unreviewed safety question (USQ) requirements are presented for two cases (i.e., tank modifications occurring before tank turnover and tank modification occurring after tank turnover). Finally, records and reporting requirements, and documentation which will require revision in support of transferring a DST in AP Tank Farm to a privatization contractor are presented.

Transcript of a public hearing held by the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals held April 16,1998 in New York. This hearing includes testimony from judges and attorneys of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the topic of the restructuring and possible division of the Ninth Circuit.

This report discusses Bank Loan Denial for Nuclear Proliferation under Section 102(b) of the Arms Export Control Act as Applicable to India and Pakistan.

Several courts in the various circuits have considered whether the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination applies to fear of incrimination in foreign countries, and they have come to divergent conclusions. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in United States v. Balsys, and on June 25, 1998, decided that a witness may not invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in which only a foreign prosecution is possible. This report provides background on United States v. Balsys and examines the court's opinion.

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H.R. 400 and S. 507 are similar but different omnibus patent reform proposals. Both bills generally transform the Patent and Trademark Office into a government corporation; require publication of patent applications 18 months after filing, subject to certain exceptions that differ in these bills; and extend the patent term for certain delays in patent issuance. S. 507 also contains provisions on patent reexamination reform. This report summarizes and compares the bills and reviews arguments for and against the proposals.

Concerns over financing federal elections have become a seemingly perennial aspect of our political system. This report discusses the debate regarding campaign finance regulation.

The DZERO VLPC Cryostat and the Superconducting Solenoid both require an insulating Vacuum of 10{sup -5} Torr or less. There is a vacuum system on the Detector Platform consisting of 2 Turbomolecular vacuum pumps and their associated piping, valves, instrumentation that are dedicated to this task. This vacuum equipment requires an operator interface and control logic in order to function properly. The operator interface allows an operator to monitor, control and configure the proper pumping setup required at any given time. The control logic is needed to protect the Vacumm vessels and Vacuum equipment from catastrophic events that may harm them. This is typically done with interlock chains or strings.

This document presents a definition of tank turnover; DOE responsibilities; TWRS DST permitting requirements; TWRS Authorization Basis (AB) requirements; TWRS AP Tank Farm operational requirements; unreviewed safety question (USQ) requirements; records and reporting requirements, and documentation which will require revision in support of transferring a DST in AP Tank Farm to a privatization contractor for use during Phase 1B.

CQ Inc. and its project team members--Howard University, PrepTech Inc., Fossil Fuel Sciences, the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and industry advisors--are applying mature coal cleaning and scientific principles to the new purpose of removing potentially hazardous air pollutants from coal. The team uniquely combines mineral processing, chemical engineering, and geochemical expertise. This project meets more than 11 goals of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the National Energy Strategy, and the 1993 Climate Change Action Plan. During this project: (1) Equations were developed to predict the concentration of trace elements in as-mined and cleaned coals. These equations, which address both conventional and advanced cleaning processes, can be used to increase the removal of hazardous air pollutant precursors (HAPs) by existing cleaning plants and to improve the design of new cleaning plants. (2) A promising chemical method of removing mercury and other HAPs was developed. At bench-scale, mercury reductions of over 50 percent were achieved on coal that had already been cleaned by froth flotation. The processing cost of this technology is projected to be less than $3.00 per ton ($3.30 per tonne). (3) Projections were made of the average trace element concentration in cleaning plant solid waste streams from …

Electroless deposition of palladium thin-films on a surface of microporous ceramic substrate has been used to develop a new class of perm-selective inorganic membrane. In the last report, we presented a numerical method to analyze the stability in single-stage gas permeation. In this reporting period, we present our modeling work on dehydrogenation of cyclohexane in Pd-Ceramic membrane reactor. A model for studying dehydrogenation of cyclohexane in a membrane reactor is developed. Radial diffusion is considered to account for the concentration gradient in radial direction due permeation through the membrane. The model equations are derived for systems with reaction and without reaction. In the non-reaction case, a mixture of argon, benzene, cyclohexane, and hydrogen is used in the reaction side and argon is used as sweep gas in the separation side. Currently, we are working on the details of numerical solution of the model equations.

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It has recently been suggested that in certain special nonsupersymmetric type II string compactifications, at least the first two perturbative contributions to the cosmological constant {Lambda} vanish. Support for perturbative vanishing beyond 1-loop (as well as evidence for the absence of some nonperturbative contributions) has come from duality arguments. There was also a direct 2-loop computation which was incomplete; in this note we explain the deficiency of the previous 2-loop calculation and discuss the complete 2-loop computation in two different models. The corrected analysis yields a vanishing 2-loop contribution to {Lambda} in these models.

The overall objective of this program was to develop regenerable sorbents for use in the temperature range of 343 to 538 C (650 to 1000 F) to remove hydrogen sulfide (H{sub 2}S) from coal-derived fuel gases in a fluidized-bed reactor. The goal was to develop sorbents that are capable of reducing the H{sub 2}S level in the fuel gas to less than 20 ppmv in the specified temperature range and pressures in the range of 1 to 20 atmospheres, with chemical characteristics that permit cyclic regeneration over many cycles without a drastic loss of activity, as well as physical characteristics that are compatible with the fluidized bed application.

As part of an overall safety evaluation of the Ula Complex, a seismic evaluation of structures, systems, and components (SSC) was conducted. A team of seismic, safety, and operation engineers from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Bechtel Nevada (BN) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was chartered to perform the seismic evaluation. The UlA Complex is located in Area 1 of the Nevada Test Site (NTS) in Nevada. The complex is a test facility for physics experiments in support of the Science Based Stockpile Stewardship Program. The Ula Complex consists of surface and subsurface facilities. The subsurface facility is a tunnel complex located 963 feet below the surface. The seismic evaluation of U 1 a Complex is required to comply with the DOE Natural Phenomena Policy. This policy consists of an order, an implementing guide, and standards which provide guidance for design and evaluation of SSCs, categorization of SSCs, characterization of site, and hazard level definition.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

Electrometallurgical treatment is a compact, inexpensive method that is being developed at Argonne National Laboratory to deal with spent nuclear fuel, primarily metallic and oxide fuels. In this method, metallic nuclear fuel constituents are electrorefined in a molten salt to separate uranium from the rest of the spent fuel. Oxide and other fuels are subjected to appropriate head end steps to convert them to metallic form prior to electrorefining. The treatment process generates two kinds of high-level waste--a metallic and a ceramic waste. Isolation of these wastes has been developed as an integral part of the process. The wastes arise directly from the electrorefiner, and waste streams do not contain large quantities of solvent or other process fluids. Consequently, waste volumes are small and waste isolation processes can be compact and rapid. This paper briefly summarizes waste isolation processes then describes development and characterization of the two waste forms in more detail.

The DART code is based upon a thermomechanical model that can predict swelling, recrystallization, fuel-meat interdiffusion and other issues related with MTR dispersed FE behavior under irradiation. As a part of a common effort to develop an optimized version of DART, a comparison between DART predictions and CNEA miniplates irradiation experimental data was made. The irradiation took place during 1981-82 for U3O8 miniplates and 1985-86 for U{sub 3}Si{sub x} at Oak Ridge Research Reactor (ORR). The microphotographs were studied by means of IMAWIN 3.0 Image Analysis Code and different fission gas bubbles distributions were obtained. Also it was possible to find and identify different morphologic zones. In both kinds of fuels, different phases were recognized, like particle peripheral zones with evidence of Al-U reaction, internal recrystallized zones and bubbles. A very good agreement between code prediction and irradiation results was found. The few discrepancies are due to local, fabrication and irradiation uncertainties, as the presence of U{sub 3}Si phase in U{sub 3}Si{sub 2} particles and effective burnup.

The temperature dependence of the oxygen flux across the BaCe0G03 dense membrane (BCG membrane) tube was investigated. In the temperature range of 688C to 955C, the increase in the oxygen flux with temperature obeyed the Arrhenius law. An increase in the helium sweep flow membrane tube. rate in the tube side resulted in an increase in the oxygen flux through the The oxygen fluxes through the BCG dense membrane tube were measured at different oxygen partial pressures in the shell side. The oxygen flux increased with the oxygen partial pressure in the shell side. The BCG dense membrane was tested in a membrane reactor for the catalytic oxidative coupling of methane. The BCG membrane is not a complete combustion catalyst, and the catalytic activity of the BCG membrane was found to be much higher than the Argonne dense membrane. As the oxygen partial pressure in the shell side increased, the C2 decreased while the C2 yield remained unchanged, indicating that non-selective, reactions still played a significant role in the membrane reactor.

The structure of a completely amorphous zircon was determined by time-of-flight neutron diffraction at Argonne's Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS). The sample of metamict zircon (ZrSiO{sub 4}),initially doped to 8.85 weight percent {sup 238}Pi, had been completely amorphized by alpha-recoil damage since its synthesis in 1981 at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The measured diffraction structure factor, S(Q), indicated a completely amorphous sample, with no signs of residual zircon microcrystallinity. The pair distribution function obtained indicated that the structure was that of an oxide glass, retaining the Si-0, Zr-0, and O-O bond lengths of crystalline zircon.