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The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is responsible for developing new and environmentally acceptable energy technologies that will offer the nation safe options for energy supply and efficient systems for energy use. Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc., (Energy Systems) operates ORNL under a management and operating contract. The purpose of the audit was to review and evaluate the effectiveness of site development planning activities at ORNL. A site development plan is a long-range master plan for the acquisition, development, utilization, and disposal of land and physical facilities at a specific US Department of Energy (DOE) facility. ORNL did not have a current site development plan and had not submitted updates to the old plan. This condition existed because the DOE Field Office, Oak Ridge (OR), and ORNL management had not implemented their responsibilities set forth in applicable DOE orders for site development planning. As a result, DOE had no assurance that ORNL real property holdings would be planned and developed economically and efficiently.

Radiological dose to the offsite maximum individual or the 50-mile population is often estimated assuming that operational atmospheric releases originate from the geographical center of the Savannah River Site. Historically, meteorological data collected from instrumentation on the H-Area tower have been utilized to estimate atmospheric dispersion from centrally located releases.'' This paper examines the effect on dose predictions using meteorological data from seven onsite towers located at A, C, D, F, H, K, and P areas to describe meteorological conditions at the central release location. Maximum individual dose estimates using both annual and short-term average air concentrations are well within 20% of the mean prediction. Population dose estimates are also within 20% of the mean prediction. Population dose estimates are also within 20% of the mean except for two-hour doses using H-Area meteorological data, which is less than the average estimate by about 30%.

The production of hydroxyl radicals by the radiolytic decomposition of water vapor following alpha decay of {sup 222}Rn can be used to produce an ultrafine sulfuric acid aerosol in the presence of SO{sub 2}. In the past, the production of this aerosol appeared to have a limiting threshold in as much as sufficient conversion of SO{sub 2} to SO{sub 4} must be attained to achieve the concentration required for nucleation. This appeared to occur when the bulk average acidity reached an adequately high value. The threshold curve for the onset of the sulfuric acid aerosol formation is a function of the H{sub 2}O, SO{sub 2} and Rn concentrations. The hydroxyl radical formation is dependent on the H{sub 2}O and Rn concentrations. The mass conversion rate of SO{sub 2} to H{sub 2}SO{sub 4} has been studied by measuring the airborne H{sub 2}SO{sub 4} concentration by ion chromatography after it has been collected on a filter and leached into solution. 39 refs., 9 figs.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the actions taken by the Department of Defense (DOD) to improve the accuracy of its cost reporting for contract services."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Army's Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) program, focusing on: (1) the causes and effects of the contractor's delays in delivering acceptable trucks; and (2) the Army's actions to mitigate corrosion problems on FMTV trucks."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the factors causing the federal payroll to increase while the number of federal employees decreased during downsizing, focusing on the extent to which each major factor contributed to the increase in the federal payroll during fiscal years (FY) 1993 through 1997."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Forest Service's progress in improving its accounting and financial reporting, focusing on Forest Service's efforts to: (1) achieve financial accountability; (2) become more accountable for its performance; and (3) better align its budget with its strategic goals and objectives."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) management of health care assets."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manage their wildfire programs, focusing on the: (1) process the Forest Service and BLM use to determine the amount of funds needed to prepare for fighting fires; (2) roles and responsibilities of the National Interagency Fire Center in mobilizing firefighting resources; and (3) types of agreements reached among federal, state, and local firefighting organizations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the cost and realization of national security objectives at Russia's Mayak nuclear complex and Shchuch'ye chemical weapons storage depot, focusing on whether the: (1) Mayak project will be completed on schedule and within past Department of Defense (DOD) estimates of its total cost to the United States; (2) United States has made progress in ensuring that the completed Mayak facility would achieve U.S. national security objectives by safely and securely storing retired materials taken only from dismantled nuclear weapons; (3) Shchuch'ye project will be completed on schedule and the status of DOD efforts to estimate its total cost to the United States; and (4) completed Shchuch'ye facility will achieve U.S. national security objectives by helping Russia destroy the Shchuch'ye depot's stocks and accelerate elimination of all Russian chemical weapons under the Chemical Weapons Convention."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) distribution of depot maintenance workloads, focusing on: (1) DOD's compliance with the percentage requirement in 10 U.S.C. 2466; (2) comparing the results of DOD's recent report of fiscal year (FY) 1998 workload with prior years' reports; (3) the continuing weaknesses in the accuracy, completeness, and consistency of reported data; and (4) improvements in DOD's guidance, data collection processes, oversight, and opportunities to further improve the quality of future reports."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Caribou Recovery Program, focusing on the: (1) amount and source of funds expended on the woodland caribou recovery program; (2) results of the program, including the outcome of efforts to augment the population and the impact of the recovery efforts on land use; and (3) future direction of the recovery program."

This research uses several techniques to measure the concentration of catalyst sites and determine their stoichiometry for the catalyzed gasification of carbon. Both alkali and alkaline earth oxides are effective catalysts for accelerating the gasification rate of coal chars, but only a fraction of the catalyst appears to be in a form that is effective for gasification, and the composition of that catalyst is not established. Transient techniques with {sup 13}C labeling, are being used to study the surface processes, to measure the concentration of active sites, and to determine the specific reaction rates. We have used secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) for both high surface area samples of carbon/alkali carbonate mixtures and for model carbon surfaces with deposited alkali atoms. SIMS provides a direct measure of surface composition. The combination of these results can provide knowledge of catalyst dispersion and composition, and thus indicate the way to optimally utilize carbon gasification catalysts.

Each node in a message-passing multicomputer typically has several communication links. However, the maximum aggregate communication speed of a node is often less than the sum of its individual link speeds. Such computers are called node bandwidth limited (NBL). The NBL constraint is important when choosing algorithms because it can change the relative performance of different algorithms that accomplish the same task. This paper introduces a model of communication performance for NBL computers and uses the model to analyze the overall performance of three algorithms for vector combining (global sum) on the Intel Touchstone DELTA computer. Each of the three algorithms is found to be at least 33% faster than the other two for some combinations of machine size and vector length. The NBL constraint is shown to significantly affect the conditions under which each algorithm is fastest.

The objective of this project is to produce one or more microorganisms capable of the organic and inorganic sulfur in coal. The original specific technical objectives of the project were to: (1) clone and characterize the genes encoding the enzymes of the 4S'' pathway (sulfoxide/sulfone/sulfonate/sulfate) for release of organic sulfur from coal; (2) return multiple copies of genes to the original host to enhance the biodesulfurization activity of that organism; (3) transfer this pathway into a fast-growing chemolithotrophic bacterium; (4) conduct a batch-mode optimization/analysis of scale-up variables. By letter of September 3, 1991, from the Project Manager at Department of Energy, Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center, these objectives of this project were redirected toward finding and developing suitable vectors for Thiobacillus strains. All work on bacterial strains from Lehigh University was terminated since they did not contain desulfurization traits represented by the 4S'' pathway.

The purpose and objective of this design analysis are to develop controls considered necessary and sufficient to implement the requirements for the controlled drilling and blasting excavation of operations support alcoves and test support alcoves in the Exploratory Studies Facility (ESF). The conclusions reached in this analysis will flow down into a construction specification ensuring controlled drilling and blasting excavation will be performed within the bounds established here.

Thousands of worldwide observing stations provide meteorological information near the earth's surface as often as once each hour. This surface data may be plotted on geographical maps to provide the meteorologist useful information regarding weather patterns for a region of interest. This report describes the components and applications of a graphical user interface which have been developed to visualize surface observations at any global location and time of interest.

Measurements of uptake of tritium by humans and laboratory animals following exposure to tritiated hydrogen gas, HT, suggest that the radiotoxicity of HT is four orders of magnitude less than that of tritiated water, HTO. However, this analysis does not take into account the conversion of HT into HTO following release into the environment. Experimental releases of HT have demonstrated that HT release to the environment is converted to HTO by soil microorganisms. In this report two methods are used to estimate the effect of HT to HTO conversion on the inhalation dose of individuals exposed to tritium downwind of a release of HT. From this analysis it is predicted that the ratio of dose from inhalation of tritium following an atmospheric release of HT, as compared to inhalation of HTO, is closer to 0.01 than the 0.0001 attributed to simple HT inhalation. Under meteorologic conditions which keep the HT release near the surface and promote optimum soil microbial activity, the analysis suggests that the ratio of dose from an atmospheric HT release could be as high as 25% of that from an atmospheric HTO release.

The major objectives of the project are to: (1) demonstrate the performance of three combustion NO{sub x} control technologies; (2) determine the short-term NO{sub x} emission trends for each of the operating configurations; (3) determine the dynamic long-term NO{sub x} emission characteristics for each of the operating configurations using sophisticated statistical techniques; (4) evaluate progressive cost-effectiveness (i.e., dollars per ton of NO{sub x} removed) of the low NO{sub x} combustion technologies tested; and (5) determine the effects on other combustion parameters (e.g., CO production, carbon carry-over, particulate characteristics) of applying the low NO{sub x} combustion technologies. (VC)

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'The Plutonium Immobilization Facility will encapsulate plutonium in ceramic pucks and seal the pucks inside welded cans. Remote equipment will place these cans in magazines and the magazines in a Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) canister. The DWPF will fill the canister with glass for permanent storage. This report discusses the Plutonium Immobilization can loading conceptual design and includes a process block diagram, process description, preliminary equipment specifications, and several can loading issues. This report identifies loading pucks into cans and backfilling cans with helium as the top priority can loading development areas.'

The objective of this project is to produce one or more microorganisms capable of removing the organic and inorganic sulfur in coal. The specific technical objectives of the project are to: clone and characterize the genes encoding the enzymes of the 4S'' pathway (sulfoxide/sulfone/sulfonate/sulfate) for release of organic sulfur from coal; return multiple copies of genes to the original host to enhance the biodesulfurization activity of that organism; transfer this pathway into a fast-growing chemolithotrophic bacterium; and conduct a batch-mode optimization/analysis of scale-up variables.

Until 1988, solutions containing nitric acid, odium hydroxide, low levels of radionuclides (mostly tritiated water) and some metals were discharged to unlined seepage basins at the F and H Areas of the Savannah River Site (SRS) as part of normal operations. The basins are now being closed according to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCA). As part of the closure, a Part B Post-Closure Care Permit is being prepared. The Part B permit requires information on contaminant concentrations in stream bed sediments in the adjacent Four Mile Creek, which are reported herein. 5 refs., 1 fig., 2 tabs.