The Department of Energy (DOE) Insulation Fact Sheet has been revised to reflect developments in energy conservation technology and the insulation market. A nationwide insulation cost survey was made by polling insulation contractors and builders, and the results are reported here. These costs, along with regional weather data, regional fuel costs, and fuel-specific system efficiencies were used to produce recommended insulation levels for new and existing houses. This report contains all of the methodology, algorithms, assumptions, references, and data resources that were used to produce the 1997 DOE Insulation Fact Sheet.

Subsurface sludge and/or surface coating material have been collected for four N Reactor fuel elements from K West Basin and one element from K East Basin. It is proposed that examinations of the fairly small volumes of recovered material proceed in order to identify the constituents and their potential impacts on fuel and sludge processing. Lists of potential examination techniques and material allocations are given in this report.

Shape overlays provide a means of statically imposing a physical region containing specified material properties onto a zoned mesh. In the most general case, material interface boundaries are unrelated to mesh zone boundaries, causing zones to contain a mixture of materials, and the mesh itself is not uniform in physical space. We develop and apply an algorithm for shape overlays on nonorthogonal, nonuniform meshes in two dimensions. Examples of shape generation in a multiblock uid dynamics code are shown.

Pollution Prevention/Waste Minimization (P2/WMin) is the Department of Energy`s preferred approach to environmental management. The P2/WMin mission is to eliminate or minimize waste generation, pollutant releases to the environment, use of toxic substances, and to conserve resources by implementing cost-effective pollution prevention technologies, practices, and polices.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), through an Interagency Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), has initiated a three-phase program with the Consortium for Coal-Water Slurry Fuel Technology, with the aim of developing technologies which can potentially decrease DOD`s reliance on imported oil by increasing its use of coal. The program is being conducted as a cooperative agreement between the Consortium and DOE. Work in Phase II focused on emissions reductions, coal beneficiation/preparation studies, and economic analyses of coal use. Work in Phase III focused on coal preparation studies, pilot-scale NO{sub x} reduction studies, economic analyses of coal use, and evaluation of deeply-cleaned coal as boiler fuel. Coal preparation studies were focused on continuing activities on particle size control, physical separations, surface-based separation processes, and dry processing. Preliminary pilot-scale NO{sub x} reduction catalyst tests were conducted when firing natural gas in Penn State`s down-fired combustor. This is the first step in the scale-up of bench-scale results obtained in Phase II to the demonstration boiler scale when firing coal. The economic study focused on community sensitivity to coal usage, regional/national economic impacts of new coal utilization technologies, and constructing a national energy portfolio. The evaluation of deeply-cleaned coal as …

Work on the funded project was completed during this period. The final report will be issued within the next week. The Pickliq{reg_sign} Process has been found to be economically viable in the copper industry and is expected to be viable in steel-hydrochloric acid applications with the development of a new hydrochloric acid regeneration process associated with the Pickliq{reg_sign} Process.

The Technique for Human Error Analysis (ATHEANA) is a newly developed human reliability analysis (HRA) methodology that aims to facilitate better representation and integration of human performance into probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) modeling and quantification by analyzing risk-significant operating experience in the context of existing behavior science models. The fundamental premise of ATHEANA is that error-forcing contexts (EFCs), which refer to combinations of equipment/material conditions and performance shaping factors (PSFs), set up or create the conditions under which unsafe actions (UAs) can occur. ATHEANA is being developed in the context of nuclear power plant (NPP) PRAs, and much of the language used to describe the method and provide examples of its application are specific to that industry. Because ATHEANA relies heavily on the analysis of operational events that have already occurred as a mechanism for generating creative thinking about possible EFCs, a database, called the Human Events Reference for ATHEANA (HERA), has been developed to support the methodology. Los Alamos National Laboratory`s (LANL) Human Factors Group has recently joined the ATHEANA project team; LANL is responsible for further developing the database structure and for analyzing additional exemplar operational events for entry into the database. The Action Characterization Matrix (ACM) is …

Report on affirmative action in Texas after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Hopwood v. University of Texas School of Law.

This report provides a selection of materials for locating information on foreign countries and international organizations. In the general information section, it presents sources giving an overview of politics, economics, and recent history. A specialized information section cites sources on human rights, immigration, international organizations, military strengths, terrorism, and other topics. Included are titles of some of the most frequently consulted bibliographic sources that are available for use in many libraries. Electronic information on foreign countries is also provided, via the Internet, by agencies of the federal government, international organizations, and related sources. Included is a list of foreign chanceries located in Washington, D.C.

This report provides information concerning the authority to impose sanctions, lists the 14 areas that have been subject to sanctions since 1990, describes their status as of October 1997, and discusses the role of sanctions and alternatives under the Act.