Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This document is a conceptual statement on the objectives of financial reporting by the federal government. It focuses on the uses, user needs, and objectives of such reporting. The objectives are designed to guide the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board in developing accounting standards to enhance the financial information reported by the federal government to (1) demonstrate its accountability, (2) provide useful information, and (3) help internal users of financial information improve the government's management. In addition to guiding the Board, the objectives may serve as useful guidance to others involved in federal financial reporting."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The armed services have had problems for years with their ability to adequately test their electronic combat systems. The success of the new Joint Service Electronic Combat Systems Tester Program in providing improved test capability is a positive development. Because the tester has identified many more faults in the F-15C and F/A-18C electronic combat systems than has the current test equipment, existing readiness, logistics, and maintenance problems with such systems could worsen. However, pilots would at least have greater knowledge about the readiness and reliability of their self-protection systems and their need for support from specialized aircraft designed to suppress enemy air defenses. GAO believes that it makes sense for the Air Force and Navy to consider using the new test equipment on their non-fighter aircraft."

This report identifies a number of issues likely to receive attention in connection with water infrastructure. It begins with a brief review of federal involvement, describes the current debate about funding needs, and then examines key issues, including what is the nature of the problems to be solved; who will play, and what is the federal role; and questions about mechanisms for delivering federal support, including state-by-state allotment of federal funds.

Due to the short wavelengths of X-rays and low numerical aperture of the Fresnel zone plates used as X-ray objectives, the depth of field is several microns. Within the focal depth, imaging a thick specimen is to a good approximation equivalent to projecting the specimen absorption. Therefore, computed tomography based on a tilt series of X-ray microscopic images can be used to reconstruct the local linear absorption coefficient and image the three-dimensional specimen structure. To preserve the structural integrity of biological objects during image acquisition, microscopy is performed at cryogenic temperatures. Tomography based on X-ray microscopic images was applied to study the distribution of male specific lethal 1 (MSL-1), a nuclear protein involved in dosage compensation in Drosophila melanogaster, which ensures that males with single X chromosome have the same amount of most X-linked gene products as females with two X chromosomes. Tomographic reconstructions of X-ray microscopic images were used to compute the local three-dimensional linear absorption coefficient revealing the arrangement of internal structures of Drosophila melanogaster cells. Combined with labelling techniques, nanotomography is a new technique to study the 3D distribution of selected proteins inside whole cells. We want to improve this technique with respect to resolution and specimen …

Powder Metallurgy (P/M) Alloy 690N{sub 2}, the P/M derivative of Inconel 690 (IN 690), has been shown to have a higher elevated temperature yield strength and superior stress corrosion cracking (SCC) resistance than IN 690. The property improvements seen in P/M Alloy 690N{sub 2} are due to interstitial nitrogen strengthening and precipitation hardening resulting from the formation of fine titanium/chromium--carbo-nitrides. The application of P/M Alloy 690N{sub 2} has had limited use, because of the high costs involved in producing wrought products from powder. Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) modeling to produce near net shapes should provide a more economical route for exploiting the benefits of Alloy 690N{sub 2}. The efforts involved in developing and verifying the P/M Alloy 690N{sub 2} HIP model are disclosed. Key to the deployment of HIP modeling is the development of the method to fabricate HIP powder containers via laser powder deposition.

The goal of the Savannah River Salt Waste Processing Program (SPP) is to evaluate the presently available technologies and select the most effective approach for treatment of high-level waste salt solutions currently stored in underground tanks at the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina. One of the three technologies currently being developed for this application is the Small-Tank Tetraphenylborate Process (STTP). This process uses sodium tetraphenylborate (TPB) to precipitate and remove radioactive cesium from the waste and monosodium titanate (MST) to sorb and remove radioactive strontium and actinides. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is demonstrating this process at the 1:4000 scale using a 20-L-capacity continuous-flow stirred-tank reactor (CSTR) system. Since March 1999, five operating campaigns of the 20-L CSTR have been conducted. The ultimate goal is to verify that this process, under certain extremes of operating conditions, can meet the minimum treatment criteria necessary for processing and disposing of the salt waste at the Savannah River Saltstone Facility. The waste acceptance criteria (WAC) for {sup 137}Cs, {sup 90}Sr, and total alpha nuclides are <40 nCi/g, <40 nCi/g, and <18 nCi/g, respectively. However, to allow for changes in process conditions, the SPP is seeking a level of …

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Air pollution is a serious problem in the region of the Great Smoky Mountains. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may designate non-attainment areas by 2003 for ozone. Pollutants include nitrogen oxides (NO{sub x}), sulfur dioxide (SO{sub 2}), carbon monoxide (CO), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), lead, and particulate matter (PM), which are health hazards, damage the environment, and limit visibility. The main contributors to this pollution are industry, transportation, and utilities. Reductions from all contributors are needed to correct this problem. While improvements are projected in each sector over the next decades, the May 2000 Interim Report issued by the Southern Appalachian Mountains Initiative (SAMI) suggests that the percentage of NO{sub x} emissions from transportation may increase.

Pressures up to a few 100 GPa and temperatures as high as a few 1000 K have been achieved with high dynamic pressures using a two-stage light-gas gun. Results are reviewed for molecular fluids, metallic hydrogen, solids, implications for planetary interiors, and structures and properties of materials recovered intact from high dynamic pressures.

This report provides information about the Background and Issues on Clean Water Act Section 401. Section 401 of the clean water act requires that an applicant for a federal license or permit provide a certification that any discharges from the facility will comply with the act.

This report summarizes the results of an extension of grant DE-FG05-93ER45493. The research goal was to have undergraduate students involved in a study of the effects of doping on the properties of BSCCO superconductors. Specifically the students investigated the effects in both bulk samples and in single crystals (whiskers). Of equal importance was the opportunity afforded minority students in a four-year institution to participate in state-of-the-art research and increase the number of students entering graduate school in science, engineering and mathematics. Over 75% of the undergraduates involved with the research enrolled in graduate school. The project in collaboration with Clemson University was able to identify and support an African American graduate student who will receive his doctorate in December of 2001.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has a large quantity of low-level waste, in the form of concrete monoliths, that are stored in large concrete vaults in ORNL's Melton Valley Storage Tanks (MVST). During FY 2000, a number of the monoliths were transferred from the concrete vaults to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)-certified lead-shielded cask and shipped to the Nevada Test Site (NTS) for disposal. This activity has resulted in (1) increased radiation exposure both when the monoliths were transferred to the lead-shielded cask and when they were unloaded and buried at the NTS and (2) high cask rental and shipping costs for the program, and (3) the accumulation of empty vaults at ORNL which will also have to be disposed of at NTS, adding a significant additional transportation cost. As a result, Department of Energy (DOE)--Oak Ridge has been exploring ways to ship the MVST cask with its monolith to the NTS for disposal as a unit. To do this, the MVST cask would have to be self-certified as meeting IP-2 package requirements.

Simulations of electron transport are carried out by solving the Fokker-Planck equation in the diffusive approximation. The system of a single laser hot spot, with open boundary conditions, is systematically studied by performing a scan over a wide range of the two relevant parameters: (1) Ratio of the stopping length over the width of the hot spot. (2) Relative importance of the heating through inverse Bremsstrahlung compared to the thermalization through self-collisions. As for uniform illumination [J.P. Matte et al., Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 30 (1988) 1665], the bulk of the velocity distribution functions (VDFs) present a super-Gaussian dependence. However, as a result of spatial transport, the tails are observed to be well represented by a Maxwellian. A similar dependence of the distributions is also found for multiple hot spot systems. For its relevance with respect to stimulated Raman scattering, the linear Landau damping of the electron plasma wave is estimated for such VD Fs. Finally, the nonlinear Fokker-Planck simulations of the single laser hot spot system are also compared to the results obtained with the linear non-local hydrodynamic approach [A.V. Brantov et al., Phys. Plasmas 5 (1998) 2742], thus providing a quantitative limit to the latter method: The hydrodynamic …

The objectives of this research remain as stated in our proposal of November 1997. We report on progress in the quantification of uncertainty and prediction, with applications to flow in porous media and to shock wave physics. The main strength of this work is an innovative theory for the quantification of uncertainty based on models for solution errors in numerical simulations. We also emphasize a deep connection to application communities, including those in DOE Laboratories.

X-ray Photoemission Electron Microscopy unites the chemical specificity and magnetic sensitivity of soft x-ray absorption techniques with the high spatial resolution of electron microscopy. The discussed instrument possesses a spatial resolution of better than 50 nm and is located at a bending magnet beamline at the Advanced Light Source, providing linearly and circularly polarized radiation between 250 and 1300 eV. We will present examples which demonstrate the power of this technique applied to problems in the field of thin film magnetism. The chemical and elemental specificity is of particular importance for the study of magnetic exchange coupling because it allows separating the signal of the different layers and interfaces in complex multi-layered structures.

The low aspect ratio and low magnetic field of the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) create many challenges for plasma diagnostics and control, as well as opportunities for studying new plasma phenomena. This paper describes the diagnostics now installed for studies of confinement, stability and edge plasma phenomena, and some of the diagnostic developments planned for the near future. The design of the plasma control system and plans for its development are also presented.

SAM (Sequential Access through Meta-data) is the data access system for the D0 high energy physics (HEP) experiment at Fermilab. The system is being developed and used to handle the Petabyte-scale experiment data. The D0 applications, like virtually all HEP applications, are data-intensive, which poses special problems for the data management and job control facilities in the distributed environment. The fundamental problem is to bring the user applications and the data together, and SAM attacks the problems from both sides. First, we describe how the system moves the data through the distributed disk cache. Second, we describe how SAM interacts with the batch system to synchronize parallel user jobs with the data availability. All the design solutions herein have been implemented in a real system that handles the mission-critical data of the D0 experiment; thus, we present our work from the standpoint of real experience.

The main objective of the Unsteady Aerodynamics Experiment is to provide information needed to quantify the full-scale, three-dimensional, unsteady aerodynamic behavior of horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs). To accomplish this, an experimental wind turbine configured to meet specific research objectives was assembled and operated at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The turbine was instrumented to characterize rotating-blade aerodynamic performance, machine structural responses, and atmospheric inflow conditions. Comprehensive tests were conducted with the turbine operating in an outdoor field environment under diverse conditions. Resulting data are used to validate aerodynamic and structural dynamics models, which are an important part of wind turbine design and engineering codes. Improvements in these models are needed to better characterize aerodynamic response in both the steady-state post-stall and dynamic-stall regimes. Much of the effort in the first phase of the Unsteady Aerodynamics Experiment focused on developing required data acquisition systems. Complex instrumentation and equipment was needed to meet stringent data requirements while operating under the harsh environmental conditions of a wind turbine rotor. Once the data systems were developed, subsequent phases of experiments were then conducted to collect data for use in answering specific research questions. A description of the experiment configuration used during Phase V …

Generation of accelerating plasma waves using two counter-propagating laser beams is considered. Colliding-beam accelerator requires two laser pulses: the long pump and the short timing beam. We emphasize the similarities and differences between the conventional laser wakefield accelerator and the colliding-beam accelerator (CBA). The highly nonlinear nature of the wake excitation is explained using both nonlinear optics and plasma physics concepts. Two regimes of CBA are considered: (i) the short-pulse regime, where the timing beam is shorter than the plasma period, and (ii) the parametric excitation regime, where the timing beam is longer than the plasma period. Possible future experiments are also outlined.

Sequestration of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems is a low-cost option that may be available in the near-term to mitigate increasing atmospheric CO{sub 2} concentrations, while providing additional benefits. Storing carbon in terrestrial ecosystems can be achieved through maintenance of standing aboveground biomass, utilization of aboveground biomass in long-lived products, or protection of carbon (organic and inorganic) compounds present in soils. There are potential co-benefits from efforts to sequester carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. For example, long-lived valuable products (wood) are produced, erosion would be reduced, soil productivity could be improved through increased capacity to retain water and nutrients, and marginal lands could be improved and riparian ecosystems restored. Another unique feature of the terrestrial sequestration option is that it is the only option that is ''reversible'' should it become desirable or permissible. For example, forests that are created are thus investments which could be harvested should CO{sub 2} emissions be reduced in other ways to acceptable levels 50-100 years from now.

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