A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the use of pesticides in schools, focusing on: (1) what federal requirements govern the use of pesticides in schools; (2) what information exists on the use of pesticides in schools; (3) what data exist on the incidences of short- and long-term illnesses linked to the exposure to pesticides in schools, and to the extent data are available, what does this data show; and (4) what actions are the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states taking, where appropriate, to reduce the use of pesticides in schools, and what are the results of their efforts."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) progress in eliminating asset management control weaknesses, focusing on: (1) the implementation of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act's mandate to remove revenue officers from the asset sale function; and (2) other internal control weaknesses identified in GAO's 1992 testimony."

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) procedures for the disposal and destruction of excess firearms, items with national security implications, and pharmaceuticals."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) use of seizure authority, focusing on whether: (1) IRS targeted the most noncompliant taxpayers; (2) IRS brought affected taxpayers into compliance; (3) IRS exercised appropriate discretion in conducting seizures; and (4) IRS' implementation of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 would address any weaknesses found in the pre-Restructuring Act seizure process."

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COAMPS/LODI simulations of the tracer experiments at Diablo Canyon on August 31, September 2, and September 4, 1986 had mixed results. Simulated tracer concentrations on August 31 differed significantly from the measured concentrations. The model transported SF{sub 6} too far south and did not predict transport of SF{sub 6} north along highway 101 or into See Canyon. Early in the day the model rapidly transported SF{sub 6} away from the release point while observations suggested the tracer stayed close to Diablo Canyon for 1-2 hours. For September 2, simulations agreed very well with the measurements. The model accurately predicted the change of wind direction from north northwest to east northeast at the release point. It also predicted the advection of tracer over Mot-r-0 Bay and through the Los Osos Valley toward San Luis Obispo in excellent agreement with the observations. On September 4, the calculated transport of SF{sub 6} from Diablo Canyon had defects similar to those on August 31, a trajectory too far south and limited intrusion of tracer north along highway 101. Conversely, simulations of the Freon release from Los Osos Cemetery on September 4 corresponded well with observations. Since the simulations used only global meteorological data and …

LLNL has an ongoing research and development project that includes developing data acquisition systems with remote wireless communication for monitoring the vibrations of large civil engineering structures. In order to establish the capability of performing remote sensing over an extended period of time, the researchers needed to apply this technology to a real structure. The construction of the National Ignition Facility provided an opportunity to test the data acquisition system on a large structure to monitor whether the facility is remaining within the strict ambient vibration guidelines. This document will briefly discuss the NIF ambient vibration requirements and summarize the vibration measurements performed during the Spring and Summer of 1999. In addition, a brief description of the sensors and the data acquisition systems will be provided in Appendix B.

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 Defense's (DOD) purchasing and pricing of commercially available spare parts, focusing on: (1) a comparative analysis between the purchasing and pricing practices of selected commercial passenger and freight airline companies and the practices of DOD; and (2) how airlines and DOD ensure that they are obtaining reasonable prices when buying commercial items from sole-source suppliers."

The goal of our research is to develop a fundamental quantitative understanding of the role of physical heterogeneities on DNAPL migration and remediation in aquifers. Such understanding is critical to cost effectively identify the location of the subsurface zone of contamination and design remediation schemes focused on removing the source of the contamination, the DNAPL itself. To reach this goal, the following objectives for the proposed research are defined: Objective 1: Develop fundamental understanding of the physics of DNAPL migration processes within heterogeneous porous media: (a) Conduct a suite of two-dimensional physical experiments within controlled and systematically varied heterogeneous porous media at scales up to one meter. Vary system parameters to consider a range of capillary and bond numbers within these heterogeneous porous structures. (b) Develop a new DNAPL migration model based on an up-scaling of invasion percolation (UP) to model the migration process. Compare the model predictions to experimental results. Accomplishing objective 1 provides a series of experiments against which we will be able to evaluate the validity of existing multi-phase flow theory as formulated in both percolation codes and in continuum flow codes. These experimental results will also provide new insights into DNAPL migration behavior. Development of the …

A Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel Task Team (RRTT) was chartered by the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Spent Fuel Management with the responsibility to recommend a course of action leading to a final technology selection for the interim management and ultimate disposition of the foreign and domestic aluminum-based research reactor spent nuclear fuel (SNF) under DOE''s jurisdiction. The RRTT evaluated eleven potential SNF management technologies and recommended that two technologies, direct co-disposal and an isotopic dilution alternative, either press and dilute or melt and dilute, be developed in parallel. Based upon that recommendation, the Westinghouse Savannah River Company (WSRC) organized the SNF Alternative Technology Program to further develop the direct co-disposal and melt and dilute technologies and provide a WSRC recommendation to DOE for a preferred SNF alternative management technology. A technology risk assessment was conducted as a first step in this recommendation process to determine if either, or both, of the technologies posed significant risks that would make them unsuitable for further development. This report provides the results of that technology risk assessment.

Dispersion modeling of non-radiological airborne emissions associated with the construction and operation of three alternatives for high-level waste salt disposition at the Savannah River Site has been completed. The results will be used by Department of Energy-Savannah River in the preparation of the salt disposition supplemental environmental impact statement. Estimated maximum ground-level concentrations of applicable regulated air pollutants of the site boundary and at the distance to a hypothetical, co-located onsite worker are summarized in tables. In all cases, model estimated ambient concentrations are less than regulatory standards.

We are attempting to understand the solid phase chemistry of the high level nuclear waste (HLW) stored in tanks at Hanford. Because this waste is compositionally complex, our approach is to study experimentally the aging dynamics of simplified systems whose bulk chemistry approximates that of the tank sludges. After a basic understanding of these dynamics has been attained we plan to increase the compositional complexities one component at a time, in order to assess the influence of each component. Results will allow for reliable prediction of sludge phase chemistry over a range of sludge compositions. Iron and aluminum comprise the bulk of most HLW sludges, so we chose to begin by studying the behavior of iron-aluminum systems. Fe/Al ratios were chosen to approximate those relevant to the solutions that produced the sludge. Aluminum and iron concentrations in the various process fluids are summarized and compared to our experimental starting solutions in Table 1 (process solution data from Krumhansl, personal communication, 1998). Our low aluminum experiments serve as direct analogues to both Bismuth Phosphate and low-Fe PUREX waste. Cornell and Giovanoli (1985) found that, in a pure iron system at 70 C, a 10-fold or even 50-fold increase in suspension concentration …

AR coating design for multi-junction solar cells can be more challenging than in the single junction case. Reasons for this are discussed. Analytical expressions used to optimize AR coatings for single junction solar cells are extended for use in monolithic, series interconnected multi-junction solar cell AR coating design. The result is an analytical expression which relates the solar cell performance (through J{sub SC}) directly to the AR coating design through the device reflectance. It is also illustrated how AR coating design can be used to provide an additional degree of freedom for current matching multi-junction devices.

Low Power EM radar-like sensors have made it possible to measure properties of the human speech production system in real-time, without acoustic interference. This greatly enhances the quality and quantify of information for many speech related applications. See Holzrichter, Burnett, Ng, and Lea, J. Acoustic. Soc. Am. 103 (1) 622 (1998). By using combined Glottal-EM- Sensor- and Acoustic-signals, segments of voiced, unvoiced, and no-speech can be reliably defined. Real-time Denoising filters can be constructed to remove noise from the user's corresponding speech signal.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Alvin, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Concert presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall.

The primary goal was the characterization of tryptophan (Trp)-independent biosynthesis of the auxin indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). Our work and that of others indicates that indole is a precursor to IAA in a Trp-independent pathway and the objectives of this grant have been the isolation of indole-metabolizing genes from Arabidopsis.

The purpose of this report, is to document closure of design review open items, resulting from design reviews conducted for the SY-101 Respond And Pump In Days (RAPID) Transfer System. Results of the various design reviews were documented in the Design Review Report for The SY-101 Rapid Mitigation System, HNF-4519. In that report, twenty-three open items were identified. In this report the 23 items are reviewed and statused.

Daily newspaper from Sapulpa, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The Safety Analysis Report documents the safety authorization basis for the Receiving Basin for Offsite Fuels (RBOF) and the Resin Regeneration Facility (RRF) at the Savannah River Site (SRS). The present mission of the RBOF and RRF is to continue in providing a facility for the safe receipt, storage, handling, and shipping of spent nuclear fuel assemblies from power and research reactors in the United States, fuel from SRS and other Department of Energy (DOE) reactors, and foreign research reactors fuel, in support of the nonproliferation policy. The RBOF and RRF provide the capability to handle, separate, and transfer wastes generated from nuclear fuel element storage. The DOE and Westinghouse Savannah River Company, the prime operating contractor, are committed to managing these activities in such a manner that the health and safety of the offsite general public, the site worker, the facility worker, and the environment are protected.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing effluent limitations guidelines to govern discharges of cuttings from wells drilled using synthetic-based muds. To support this rulemaking, Argonne National Laboratory was asked by EPA and the US Department of Energy (DOE) to collect current information about those onshore commercial disposal facilities that are permitted to receive offshore drilling wastes. Argonne contacted state officials in Louisiana, Texas, California and Alaska to obtain this information. The findings, collected during October and November 1999, are presented by state.

Diamond growth from hydrogen-poor plasmas results in diamond structures that are profoundly different from conventionally CVD-grown diamond. High concentration of carbon dimers in the microwave plasma results in a high rate of heterogeneous renucleation leading to formation of nanocrystalline diamond with a typical grain size of 3--10 nm. Therefore, up to 10% of carbon atoms are located in the grain boundaries. In this paper the authors report on density-functional based tight-binding molecular dynamics calculations of the structure of a {Sigma}13 twist (100) grain boundary in diamond. Beginning with a coincidence site lattice model, simulated annealing of the initial structure was performed at 1,500 K followed by relaxation toward lower temperatures. About one-half of the carbons in the grain boundary are found to be three-coordinated. Coordination numbers, bond length and bond angle distributions are analyzed and compared to those obtained in previous studies.