The Shane 3 meter telescope was recollimated in August 1998 to remove aberrations that were perceived to affect image quality in good seeing conditions. The Lick Adaptive Optics system is capable, indirectly, of measuring the static aberrations introduced by the telescope primary and secondary mirror pair. Since A0 runs were scheduled both before and after the collimation, this allowed a comparison of the pre and post collimation telescope aberrations. The absolute calibration of the wavefront measurement is complicated by the indirect measurement technique, which uses the shape of the deformable mirror in its closed-loop corrected position as an indicator of telescope wavefront. The shape of the deformable mirror is not measured directly, but is inferred from the voltages applied to its piezoelectric actuators. The actuators are known to have temperature-dependent hysteresis and is thus a source of error in this technique. In November, an interferometer was added to the A0 system which will allow more direct measurements of corrected wavefront in future tests. Data from six measurements in July (pre-collimation) and nine measurements in September and November (post-collimation) were analyzed. The resulting phase maps show a slight difference in the wavefront with some improvement in the coma and spherical zernike …

This document summarizes the impact of radionuclide releases from Savannah River Site (SRS) facilities from 1954 through 1996. The radionuclides reported here are those whose release resulted in the highest dose to people living near SRS.

This report presents a summary of the definitive data validation and verification for the 1998 semiannual tritium surveys for Fourmile Branch and the F- and H-Area Seeplines. The project was performed under the direction of WSRC EAS/Ecology. This report was prepared under the direction of EPD/EMS.

Work has proceeded intensely with the objective of completing the commercial prototype system prior to the end of the contract period. At the time of this report, testing and refinement of the commercial version of the system has not been completed. During this reporting period, several major milestones were reached and many significant lessons were learned. These are described. The experimental retrofit system has achieved all performance objectives in engine dynamometer tests. The prototype commercial version of the system will begin demonstration service on the first of several Santa Maria Area Transit (SMAT) transit buses on February 1, 1999. The commercial system has been redesignated the Electronic Diesel Smoke Reduction System (EDSRS) replacing the original internal pseudonym ADSC. The focus has been narrowed to a retrofit product suitable for installation on existing mechanically-governed diesel engines. Included in this potential market are almost all diesel-powered passenger cars and light trucks manufactured prior to the introduction of the most recent clean diesel engines equipped with particulate traps and electronic controls. Also included are heavy-duty trucks, transit vehicles, school buses, and agricultural equipment. This system is intended to prevent existing diesel engines from overfueling to the point of visible particulate emissions (smoke), while …

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993 allows U.S. special operations forces (SOF) to train under the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program in foreign countries, and does not prohibit training in nations where human rights violations have been reported. Such training includes instructing host government military units in lethal and nonlethal skills. Controversy has erupted over JCET missions in countries whose militaries are suspected or known to have committed human rights abuses. This report describes relevant legislation, SOF, JCET, alleged human rights abuses, and recent congressional initiatives and discusses further options and issues.

Facilities such as the Savannah River Site (SRS), which contain the potential for hazardous atmospheric releases, rely on the predictive capabilities of dispersion models to assess possible emergency response actions. The operational design in relation to domain size and forecast time is presented, along with verification of model results over extended time periods with archived surface observations.

A miniature mass spectrometer, based on the time-of-flight principle, has been developed for the detection of chemical warfare agent precursor molecules. The instrument, with minor modifications, could fulfill many of the needs for sensing organic molecules in various Defense Programs, including Enhanced Surveillance. The basic footprint of the instrument is about that of a lunch box. The instrument has a mass range to about 300, has parts-per-trillion detection limits, and can return spectra in less than a second. The instrument can also detect permanent gases and is especially sensitive to hydrogen. In volume, the device could be manufactured for under $5000.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) identified and described practices that were applied in some federal agencies' 1999 performance plans that might, if consistently applied, improve the usefulness of all agencies' annual performance plans; and (2) provided examples from agencies' fiscal year 1999 performance plans that illustrate each practice."

Sirrine Environmental Consultants provided technical oversight of the installation of eighteen groundwater monitoring wells and six exploratory borings around the location of the Burial Ground Expansion.

Sirrine Environmental Consultants provided technical oversight of the installation of eighteen groundwater monitoring wells and six exploratory borings around the location of the Burial Ground Expansion.

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Customs Service's management of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), focusing on whether Customs has adequately justified ACE cost-effectiveness."

Models exist that ascribe the nuclear magnetic fields to the presence of a single nucleon whose spin is not neutralized by pairing it up with that of another nucleon; other models assume that the generation of the magnetic field is shared among some or all nucleons throughout the nucleus. All models predict the same magnetic field external to the nucleus since this is an anchor provided by experiments. The models differ, however, in their predictions of the magnetic field arrangement within the nucleus for which no data exist. The only way to distinguish which model gives the correct description of the nucleus would be to use a probe inserted into the nucleus. The goal of our project was to develop exactly such a probe and to use it to measure fundamental nuclear quantities that have eluded experimental scrutiny. The need for accurately knowing such quantities extends far beyond nuclear physics and has ramifications in parity violation experiments on atomic traps and the testing of the standard model in elementary particle physics. Unlike scattering experiments that employ streams of free particles, our technique to probe the internal magnetic field distribution of the nucleus rests on using a single bound electron. Quantum …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on whether the Air Force complied with relevant policy and congressional notification requirements in reaching a decision to deactivate the 38th Engineering Installation Wing (EIW) at Tinker Air Force Base (AFB), Oklahoma, focusing on: (1) the scope of the Air Force's planned action; (2) whether it is subject to the requirements of Office and Management Budget (OMB) Circular A-76 and 10 U.S.C. 2461; and (3) whether an analysis was completed to examine the cost-effectiveness of the planned action."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the potential effect of using adjusted population counts on the distribution of federal grant funding, focusing on: (1) 25 large formula grant programs; (2) identifying those programs that rely, at least in part, on census data to apportion funding; and (3) for selected programs, analyzing the extent to which funding would shift among states if adjusted population counts were used to apportion funds."

This document provides functional, performance, and design criteria for the RAPID Mitigation System. In addition, critical interface, design assumptions, and analytical requirements are identified.

Green power marketing-the business of selling electricity products or services based in part on their environmental values-is still in an early stage of development. This Topical Issues Brief presents a summary of early results with green power marketing under retail competition, covering both fully competitive markets and relevant direct access pilot programs. The brief provides an overview of green products that are or were offered, and discusses consumers' interest in these products. Critical issues that will impact the availability and success of green power products under retail competition are highlighted.

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the: (1) Department of Defense's (DOD) progress in establishing an organization to address Gulf War illnesses issues; and (2) thoroughness of DOD's Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses' (OSAGWI) investigations into and reporting on incidents of veterans' potential exposure to chemical or biological warfare agents during the Gulf War."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the federal approach to meeting the needs of the homeless, focusing on: (1) identifying and describing characteristics of the federal programs specifically targeted, or reserved, for the homeless, and key nontargeted programs available to assist low-income people generally; (2) identifying the amounts and types of funding for these programs in fiscal year (FY) 1997; and (3) determining if federal agencies have coordinated their efforts to assist homeless people and developed outcome measures for their targeted programs."

From our work with baseline ceramics containing Pu, or Ce substituted for Pu, doped with sets of inactive impurity ions (with supposedly the same valency) and sintered in different atmospheres, the conclusion is that all ions of similar size and valency are indeed crystal-chemically equivalent unless there are volatility problems. However, the real question appears to be what are the appropriate valency states of the multivalent impurity ions under given sintering conditions. For example, when sintered in highly reducing atmospheres (in this case 3.7 % hydrogen in argon) Mo, W, Zn, Fe, Cu, Co and Ni are reduced to metal. The partitioning across the different phases present is apparently not even. The elements from the nominal 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+ and 6+ families will preferentially move to certain phases or result in the formation of new phases if sufficient amounts are present. If the phases of the baseline ceramic (pyrochlore-zirconolite, brannerite and rutile) are saturated with these ions, new phases will form to take up the excess impurity ions. Additional such phases detected in this work included ulvospinel, perovskite, magnetoplumbite, loveringite-like phases, metallic alloys and powellite/scheelite. The Pu and Ce-doped samples give similar results to each other. While samples sintered …

None

A Nuclear Criticality Safety Evaluation (NCSE) has been performed for the 9965, 9968, 9972, 9973, 9974, and 9975 SRS-designed shipping casks. This was done in support of the recertification effort for the 9965 and 9968, and the certification of the newly designed 9972-9975 series. The analysis supports the use of these packages as Fissile Class I for shipment of fissionable material from the SRS FB-Line, HB-Line, and from Lawrence Livermore national Laboratory. six different types of material were analyzed with varying Isotopic composition, of both oxide and metallic form. The mass limits required to support the fissile Class I rating for each of the envelopes are given in the Table below. These mass limits apply if DOE approves an exception as described in 10 CFR 71.55(c), such that water leakage into the primary containment vessel does not need to be considered in the criticality analysis. If this exception is not granted, the mass limits are lower than those shown below. this issue is discussed in detail in sections 5 and 6 of the report.One finding from this work is important enough to highlight in the abstract. The fire tests performed for this family of shipping casks indicates only minimal charring …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Army Corps of Engineers' Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), focusing on the: (1) Corps' cost and schedule estimates for cleaning up the FUSRAP sites; (2) Corps' progress in meeting milestones for site cleanups, FUSRAP staffing levels, and environmental document preparation; and (3) transition of the program from the Department of Energy (DOE) to the Corps."

This quarterly report describes technical activities performed under Contract No. DE-AC21-94MC31160. The analyses of hot gas stream cleanup (HGCU) ashes and descriptions of filter performance studied under Task 1 of this contract are designed to address problems with filter operation that are apparently linked to characteristics of the collected ash. This report includes a description of a device developed to harden a filter cake on a filter element so that the element and cake can subsequently be encapsulated in epoxy and studied in detail. This report also reviews the status of the HGCU data base of ash and char characteristics. Task 1 plans for the remainder of the project include characterization of additional samples collected during site visits to the Department of Energy/Southern Company Services Power Systems Development Facility (PSDF), encapsulation of an intact filter cake from the PSDF, and completion and delivery of the HGCU data bank. Task 2 of this project concerns the testing and failure analyses of new and used filter elements and filter materials. Task 2 work during the past quarter consisted of hoop tensile and axial compressive stress-strain responses of McDermott ceramic composite and hoop tensile testing of Techniweave candle filters as-manufactured and after exposure …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Medicare Incentive Payment program to determine if: (1) it is an effective mechanism for improving access to care for Medicare beneficiaries and underserved populations other than Medicare beneficiaries; and (2) the program's goals, performance measures, and financial controls provide a sound structure for continuing or expanding the program."