A staff study issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO provided information on the three components needed to ensure compliance with international environmental agreements."

Guidance issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This publication has been superseded by AIMD-00-21.3.1, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, November 1999. GAO published a guide on internal control standards for executive agency managers as required by the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act. The standards apply equally to program implementation and administration as well as financial operations, and they are intended to help both program and financial managers."

A staff study issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO provided information on the surface transportation challenges facing the nation in the 21st century. To understand these challenges and assess the potential direction surface transportation policy could take to address them, GAO sponsored a conference that brought together transportation experts to discuss the future of surface transportation in the United States."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO presented a guide on its revised government auditing standards to audit officials and others interested in government auditing standards. The standards require auditors to document in the working papers the basis for assessing control risk at the maximum level for assertions that are significantly dependent on computerized systems."

On 12 June 1998, the Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability (ARAC) learned from news reports about the accidental release of cesium-137 from a steel mill near Algeciras, Spain. We used the U.S. Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) gridded data for meteorological input into our diagnostic models. To better resolve near-release location and coastal meteorological conditions, we blended four days of WMO surface and upper air observations with the gridded data. Our calculations showed the plume initially traveled eastward over the Mediterranean Sea, turned northward into central Europe, and was split by the Alps. We determined the timing and amount of cesium released by fitting our modeled air concentrations to the available set of measurements. Accuracy statistics from a small set of ratios of measured to computed air concentrations paired in space and time were similar to those achieved from larger data sets in previous ARAC model evaluation studies on the continental scale.

In FY 1998, following the 50th Anniversary Year of Brookhaven National Laboratory, Brookhaven Science Associates became the new Managers of BNL. The new start is an appropriate time to take stock of past achievements and to renew or confirm future goals. During the 1998 NSLS Annual Users Meeting (described in Part 3 of this Activity Report), the DOE Laboratory Operations Board, Chaired by the Under Secretary for Energy, Ernest Moniz met at BNL. By chance all the NSLS Chairmen except Martin Blume (acting NSLS Chair 84-85) were present as recorded in the picture. Under their leadership the NSLS has improved dramatically: (1) The VUV Ring current has increased from 100 mA in October 1982 to nearly 1 A today. For the following few years 10 Ahrs of current were delivered most weeks - NSLS now exceeds that every day. (2) When the first experiments were performed on the X-ray ring during FY1985 the electron energy was 2 GeV and the current up to 100 mA - the X-Ray Ring now runs routinely at 2.5 GeV and at 2.8 GeV with up to 350 mA of current, with a very much longer beam half-life and improved reliability. (3) Starting in FY …

This report summarizes results of research activities conducted from 1995 through 1998 on identifying the spawning habitat requirements of fall chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River. The project investigated whether traditional spawning habitat models could be improved in order to make better predictions of available habitat for fall chinook salmon in the Snake River. Results suggest models could be improved if they used spawning area-specific, rather than river-specific, spawning characteristics; incorporated hyporheic discharge measurements; and gave further consideration to the geomorphic features that are present in the unconstrained segments of large alluvial rivers. Ultimately the recovery of endangered fall chinook salmon will depend on how well we are able to recreate the characteristics once common in alluvial floodplains of large rivers. The results from this research can be used to better define the relationship between these physical habitat characteristics and fall chinook salmon spawning site selection, and provide more efficient use of limited recovery resources. This report is divided into four chapters which were presented in the author's doctoral dissertation which he completed through the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University. Each of the chapters has been published in peer reviewed …

A laser imaging approach is presented that utilizes the adaptive property of photorefractive materials to produce a real-time measurement of ultrasonic traveling wave surface displacement and phase in all planar directions simultaneously without scanning. The imaging method performs optical lock-in operation. A single antisymmetric Lamb wave mode image produces direct quantitative determination of the phase velocity in all planar directions showing plate stiffness anisotropy. Excellent agreement was obtained with modeling calculations of the phase velocity in all planar directions for an anisotropic sheet material. The approach functions with diffusely scattering surfaces, subnanometer motions and at frequencies from Hz to GHz.

This paper describes the successes and challenges associated with Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) permitting of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory's (INEEL) Waste Experimental Reduction Facility (WERF) hazardous and mixed waste incinerator. Topics to be discussed include facility modifications and problems, trial burn results and lessons learned in each of these areas. In addition, a number of challenges remain including completion and final issue of RCRA Permit and implementation of all the permit requirements. Results from the trial burn demonstrated that the operating conditions and procedures will result in emissions that are satisfactorily protective of human health, the environment, and are in compliance with Federal and State regulations.

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Using the eight guiding principles of Integrated Safety Management (ISM) - Worker Involvement - will move the work force on a forward path from just doing work to doing work safely. This path can be achieved by changing the safety culture in the work place. The work force is more likely to accept a process that will allow them to be accountable for their own safety if they feel ownership through Worker Involvement. The marrying of the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) and ISM will give workers this ownership. One of the concerns in implementing ISM is that, unless you keep it simple by applying the five core functions and eight guiding principles, you may over load the work force with more information then they need. If you can show them how their job applies to the five core functions, along with using VPP to change their safety culture, you will build a work force that will set the standards for doing work safely. Using INEEL's experience, this paper focuses on input from the work force and the culture necessary to implement ISM.

The Single Heater Test is the first of the in-situ thermal tests conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy as part of its program of characterizing Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the potential site for a proposed deep geologic repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste. The Site Characterization Plan (DOE 1988) contained an extensive plan of in-situ thermal tests aimed at understanding specific aspects of the response of the local rock-mass around the potential repository to the heat from the radioactive decay of the emplaced waste. With the refocusing of the Site Characterization Plan by the ''Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program Plan'' (DOE 1994), a consolidated thermal testing program emerged by 1995 as documented in the reports ''In-Situ Thermal Testing Program Strategy'' (DOE 1995) and ''Updated In-Situ Thermal Testing Program Strategy'' (CRWMS M&O 1997a). The concept of the Single Heater Test took shape in the summer of 1995 and detailed planning and design of the test started with the beginning fiscal year 1996. The overall objective of the Single Heater Test was to gain an understanding of the coupled thermal, mechanical, hydrological, and chemical processes that are anticipated to occur in the local rock-mass …

We have developed a wafer fusion technology to achieve integration of semiconductor materials and heterostructures with widely disparate lattice parameters, electronic properties, and/or optical properties for novel devices not now possible on any one substrate. Using our simple fusion process which uses low temperature (400-600 C) anneals in inert N{sub 2} gas, we have extended the scope of this technology to examine hybrid integration of dissimilar device technologies. As a specific example, we demonstrate wafer bonding vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) to transparent AlGaAs and GaP substrates to fabricate bottom-emitting short wavelength VCSELs. As a baseline fabrication technology applicable to many semiconductor systems, wafer fusion will revolutionize the way we think about possible semiconductor devices, and enable novel device configurations not possible by epitaxial growth.

In order to be competitive in the changing electric power industry, and to promote energy efficiency and conservation, electric power providers need to have access to information on the power system to a level of detail that has not been available in the past. This level of detail extends beyond the usual voltage, current, power, and energy quantities obtained from traditional utility SCADA systems.

This study is concerned with model selection of lifetime and survival distributions arising in engineering reliability or in the medical sciences. We compare various distributions, including the gamma, Weibull and lognormal, with a new distribution called geometric extreme exponential. Except for the lognormal distribution, the other three distributions all have the exponential distribution as special cases. A Monte Carlo simulation was performed to determine sample sizes for which survival distributions can distinguish data generated by their own families. Two methods for decision are by maximum likelihood and by Kolmogorov distance. Neither method is uniformly best. The probability of correct selection with more than one alternative shows some surprising results when the choices are close to the exponential distribution.

Sludge generated during surface-water transport or biological treatment of selenium laden agricultural drainage water contains high concentrations (20-100 mg/kg) of selenium. Finding safe and economical sludge disposal methods requires understanding of the biogeochemical processes that change selenium speciation (after placed at a disposal site). Two experiments, each comparing 3 treatments for sludge disposal has resulted in data on changes in selenium speciation spanning an eight year period. Treatments included direct application to upland soils and application with tillage to depths of 15 cm and 30 cm. Soil cores, soil water samples and groundwater monitoring were used to track changes in selenium speciation and transport of re-oxidized forms of selenium. Measurements demonstrate the slow re-oxidation of reduced forms of selenium, largely elemental and organically associated forms, to selenate and selenite. Downward transport of these re-oxidized forms of selenium are driven by winter rains. Field measured re-oxidation rates for these field trials are presented and compared to selenium re-oxidation rates in formerly ponded areas at Kesterson Reservoir, California.

The difficulties in designing a cooperative team are significant. Several of the key questions that must be resolved when designing a cooperative control architecture include: How do we formulate, describe, decompose, and allocate problems among a group of intelligent agents? How do we enable agents to communicate and interact? How do we ensure that agents act coherently in their actions? How do we allow agents to recognize and reconcile conflicts? However, in addition to these key issues, the software architecture must be designed to enable multi-robot teams to be robust, reliable, and flexible. Without these capabilities, the resulting robot team will not be able to successfully deal with the dynamic and uncertain nature of the real world. In this extended abstract, we first describe these desired capabilities. We then briefly describe the ALLIANCE software architecture that we have previously developed for multi-robot cooperation. We then briefly analyze the ALLIANCE architecture in terms of the desired design qualities identified.

For a 5 TeV e{sup +}e{sup -} linear collider in the deep quantum regime, the energy loss due to beam-strahlung during the collision of the e{sup +}e{sup -} beams is expected to substantially influence the effect center-of-mass energy distribution of the colliding particles. In this paper, the author has estimated the feasibility of the measurement of the extra neutral gauge bosons Z' on the Z' pole at a 5 TeV e{sup +}e{sup -} linear collider including the effects of the beam-beam interaction.

The various steps involved in computing the moments (density, velocity, and temperature) of the ion and electron distributions measured with the Los Alamos Magnetospheric Plasma Analyzer (MPA) are described. The assumptions, constants, and algorithms contained in the FORTRAN code are presented, as well as the output parameters produced by the code.

Many types of home electronic equipment draw electric power when switched off or not performing their principal functions. Standby power use (or ''leaking electricity'') for most appliances ranges from 1 - 20 watts. Even though standby use of each device is small, the combined standby power use of all appliances in a home can easily exceed 50 watts. Leaking electricity is already responsible for 5 to 10 percent of residential electricity use in the United States and over 10 percent in Japan. An increasing number of white goods also have standby power requirements. There is a growing international effort to limit standby power to around one watt per device. New and existing technologies are available to meet this target at little or no extra cost.

FRAM is the acronym for Fixed-energy Response-function Analysis with Multiple efficiency. This software was developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory originally for plutonium isotopic analysis. Later, it was adapted for uranium isotopic analysis in addition to plutonium. It is a code based on a self-calibration using several gamma-ray peaks for determining the isotopic ratios. The versatile-parameter database structure governs all facets of the data analysis. User editing of the parameter sets allows great flexibility in handling data with different isotopic distributions, interfering isotopes, and different acquisition parameters such as energy calibration and detector type.

This report presents the results of a study to test a new method for developing descriptions of hard-to-price products. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is responsible for collecting data to estimate price indices such as the Consumers Price Index (BLS) is responsible for collecting data to estimate price indices such as the Consumers Price Index (CPI). BLS accomplishes this task by sending field staff to places of business to price actual products. The field staff are given product checklists to help them determine whether products found today are comparable to products priced the previous month. Prices for non-comparable products are not included in the current month's price index calculations. A serious problem facing BLS is developing product checklists for dynamic product areas, new industries, and the service sector. It is difficult to keep checklists up-to-date and quite often simply to develop checklists for service industry products. Some people estimates that upwards of 50 % of US economic activity is not accounted for in the CPI

Direct Chemical Oxidation (DCO) is an ambient-pressure, low-temperature (<100 C), and aqueous-based process for general-purpose destruction of the organic fraction of hazardous or mixed waste. It uses the peroxydisulfate anion (S{sub 2}O{sub 8}{sup 2{minus}}) in acid or base solutions. The byproduct of the oxidation reaction, typically sodium or ammonium hydrogen sulfate, may be recycled electrolytically to produce the oxidant. The oxidation kinetic reaction is first order with respect to the peroxydisulfate concentration, expressed in equivalents. The rate constant is constant for nearly all dissolved organic compounds: k{sub a} = 0.01 {+-} 0.005 min{sup {minus}1}. This reflects a common rate-determining step, which is the decomposition of the peroxydisulfate anion into the chemically active derivative, the sulfate radical anion, SO{sub 4}{sup {minus}}. This decomposition is promoted in DCO by raising the operating temperature into the range of 80-100 C. Rates are given for approximately 30 substances with diverse functional groups at low concentrations, and for a number of solid and liquid wastes typical of nuclear and chemical industries. The process has been scale up for treatment studies on chlorinated hydrocarbons, in which the hydrolysis of solvent mixtures was followed by oxidation of products in a series of stirred tank reactors. Cost estimates, …

The following two abstracts are for the 2 feature stories in this issue of ''Science and Technology Review''. (1) ''Leveraging Science and Technology in the National Interest''--A sampling of current projects at Lawrence Livermore demonstrates the many ways in which the Laboratory's science and technology support Department of Defense missions. These projects range from engineering and fabricating munitions and explosives to developing the advanced computer codes that optimize warhead design or assess their hazards. The Penetration Augmented Munition is a portable, multistage weapon that not only provides offensive capability for diminishing adversaries' mobility and capability but also gives US soldiers an additional margin of security in a hostile encounter. Livermore's fiber-composite sabot makes weapons more lethal and is particularly effective in tank warfare. The GLO (global local optimizer) code optimizes the design of shaped-charge warheads, while the CHEETAH thermochemical code improves explosives formulation. CALE, a multiuse mechanical code, is used to help the Air Force assess missile launch site safety and in particular to predict hazards from propellant that falls to the ground when rockets misfire. ALE3D, now being upgraded, will increase the capability of codes to assess safety hazards. (2) ''Extracting Valuable Information from Acoustic Waves''--Lawrence Livermore researchers are …