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We built a bi-directional scatter diagnostics to measure and quantify losses due to scattering and absorption of harmonic conversion crystals (DKDP) for the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The main issues to be addressed are (1) amount of total energy reaching the target if the target hole was {+-}200 {micro}rad in size, (2) distribution of energy inside the target hole, (3) collateral damage of other optics by scattered light. The scatter diagnostics enables angle-resolved measurements at 351 nm, and is capable of both near specular transmission and large angle scatter measurements. In the near specular setup, the transmission can be measured within {+-}65 {micro}rad up to {+-}60 mrad acceptance angle. A silicon photo detector and a scientific-grade CCD camera provide total energy and energy distribution. A linear swing arm detection system enables large angle scatter measurements of 360{sup o}, in principal, with step sizes as small as 0.01{sup o} and different collection angle ranging between 1 and 20 mad. In this paper, scatter effects from laser damage and final finishing process of DKDP are discussed.

This report describes results from analyses performed to characterize the consolidated sludge samples collected from the Hanford K East Basin in March and April 1999. The consolidated sludge samples were collected to provide additional material needed for the evaluation and design of systems that will be used to manage the K Basin sludge (i.e., disposition the sludge to T Plant for interim storage). The analytical results given in this report add to the knowledge on the composition of the K Basin sludge and provide specific information on this sludge necessary to plan and understand subsequent process testing. The following analyses were performed: weight percent (wt%) solids determination; uranium analysis by kinetic phosphorescence; plutonium isotope analysis by extraction chromatographic separation followed by alpha energy analysis (AEA); gross beta analysis; gamma energy analysis (GEA); and metals analysis by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES).

We investigated chemical etching as a possible means to mitigate the growth of UV laser-induced surface damage on fused silica. The intent of this work is to examine the growth behavior of existing damage sites that have been processed to remove the UV absorbing, thermo-chemically modified material within the affected area. The study involved chemical etching of laser-induced surface damage sites on fused silica substrates, characterizing the etched sites using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and laser fluorescence, and testing the growth behavior of the etched sites upon illumination with multiple pulses of 351nm laser light. The results show that damage sites that have been etched to depths greater than about 9 {micro}m have about a 40% chance for zero growth with 1000 shots at fluences of 6.8-9.4 J/cm{sup 2}. For the etched sites that grow, the growth rates are consistent with those for non-etched sites. There is a weak dependence of the total fluorescence emission with the etch depth of a site, but the total fluorescence intensity from an etched site is not well correlated with the propensity of the site to grow. Deep wet etching shows some promise for mitigating damage growth in fused silica, but fluorescence does not …

For FY2001, twenty-one continuing resolutions became law. These measures extended funding for the outstanding FY2001 regular appropriations bills from October 1, 2000, through midnight, December 21, 2000.

The main research activity is to study various scattering processes which occur in H{sup -} collisions with atomic (specifically, noble gas and atomic hydrogen) targets in the intermediate energy region. These processes include: elastic scattering, single- and double-electron detachment, and target excitation/ionization.

This report presents the results of particle size analyses and calorimetry testing performed on selected single-pull sludge samples collected from the Hanford K East Basin between December 1998 and June 1999. The samples were collected as isolated cores predominantly from areas that had not been previously sampled (e.g., North Loadout Pit, Dummy Elevator Pit, Tech View Pit), or from areas in which the sludge composition had been altered since the last sampling (e.g., Weasel Pit). Particle size analyses were performed by washing wet sludge samples through a series of four sieves with openings of 250, 500, 1410, and 4000 {micro}m. The loaded sieves were weighed before and after drying to obtain wet and dry particle size distributions. Knowledge of the particle size distribution is needed to design and predict the performance of the systems that will be used to retrieve, transport, and recover sludge. Also, sieving provides an opportunity to observe the components in the sludge. For example, during sieving of the sludge sample from the North Loadout Pit, significant quantities of organic ion exchange beads were observed. The uranium metal content and the particle size of the uranium metal in the K Basin sludge will largely determine the chemical …

The purpose of this calculation is to determine the effects on long-term dose from disposing of selected U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) spent nuclear fuel (DSNF) in high integrity cans (HICs). The Civilian Radioactive Waste Management System Management and Operating contractor (CRWMS M&O) prepared the calculation as part of Performance Assessment (PA) activities for the DOE Yucca Mountain Project. DSNF encompasses approximately 2,500 MTHM (metric tons heavy metal) consisting of over 200 fuel types that have been categorized into 11 groups, referred to as Groups 1 to 11, to facilitate their performance assessment (DOE 1999a, Sec. 5). DSNF and high level waste (HLW) have been allocated 7,000 MTHM or 10% of the 70,000 MTHM of nuclear waste scheduled for disposal at Yucca Mountain (DOE 1999a, Sec. 8.1). Of the 7,000 MTHM, 2,333 will be DSNF, or 93% of all 2,500 MTHM of DSNF, and 4,667 MTHM equivalent will be HLW (DOE 1999a, Sec. 8.1). The DOE spent fuels selected for HIC disposal are those that are poorly characterized, fragmented, or damaged, and the HIC concept is intended to provide additional protection by delaying the radionuclide release to ensure that environmental and/or regulatory standards are met.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) performance during the 2000 tax filing season. Except for a few relatively minor glitches, which were not unexpected given the enormity of the IRS processing task, the processing systems worked well. On the other hand, although taxpayers had an easier time reaching IRS by telephone compared to 1999, IRS' performance was still well below the level achieved in 1998. GAO identified several opportunities for improvement. In some areas, such as with the volunteer assistance programs and the assistance provided by IRS' walk-in sites and area distribution centers, the opportunities centered around performance measures. In those areas, it was not easy to assess the agency's performance because either IRS lacked good measures or there were problems with the data behind the measures. Other improvement opportunities centered around management oversight-the kind of oversight that would enhance the level of service provided by better ensuring that (1) training materials and computer equipment were delivered to the volunteer assistance sites on time and in working condition and (2) data being entered on the website by various IRS offices are current and consistent."

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether article XI, section 11 of the Texas Constitution requires municipality to fill by special election a vacancy in its governing body arising from an automatic resignation (RQ-0286-JC)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a county commissioners court may condition acceptance of bids for country public works project on attendance at a mandatory prebid conference (RQ-266)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a person who is sentenced to pay a fine and to deferred adjudication probation after pleading guilty to a class C misdemeanor in county court is entitled to an expunction of his arrest record (RQ-0258-JC)

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Third party payments represent blank-form financial instruments that government employees use to pay for expenses when traditional payments are not feasible or possible. GAO surveyed government entities on their use of third party payments. Forty of the 86 entities that responded to GAO's survey reported that they had used third party payment instruments at some time during fiscal years 1997 through 1999. Although the number of reported payment transactions declined 3.7 percent for these 40 entities during this period, the reported total dollar amount associated with these transactions rose 13.4 percent. On the basis of the transaction data reported, the average dollar value of each payment rose 17.6 percent. Among the 40 entities, the most common reasons cited for using third party payment instruments were (1) to pay for small purchases of supplies and services; (2) to pay contractors that either could not or would not accept government checks, electronic funds transfers, or credit card payments; (3) to make emergency payments; (4) to provide immediate reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses; or (5) as an alternative to disbursing a cash advance. In response to questions about whether entities used internal …

We present a comparison of two algorithms for solving the equations of unsteady inviscid compressible flow in a Eulerian frame. The first algorithm is a staggered grid Lagrange plus remap scheme. The Lagrange step in this method is a time-centered version of the scheme due to Tipton, while the remap step employs a variant of the corner transport upwind scheme due to Colella. The second algorithm is a spatially operator-split version of the higher-order Godunov scheme for gas dynamics due to Colella. They use the two methods to compute solutions to a number of one- and two-dimensional problems. The results show the accuracy and performance of the two schemes to be generally equivalent. In a 1984 survey paper by Woodward and Colella, staggered grid, Lagrange plus remap, artificial viscosity schemes did not compare favorably with cell-centered direct Eulerian higher-order Godunov methods. They examine, therefore, how certain features of the staggered grid scheme discussed here contribute to its improved accuracy. They show in particular that the improved accuracy of the present scheme is due in part to the use of a monotonic artificial viscosity in the Lagrange step and the use of an improved upwind method in the remap step.

Heat pipes are often proposed as cooling system components for small fission reactors. SAFE-300 and STAR-C are two reactor concepts that use heat pipes as an integral part of the cooling system. Heat pipes have been used in reactors to cool components within radiation tests (Deverall, 1973); however, no reactor has been built or tested that uses heat pipes solely as the primary cooling system. Heat pipe cooled reactors will likely require the development of a test reactor to determine the main differences in operational behavior from forced cooled reactors. The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of a systems code capable of modeling the coupling between the reactor kinetics and heat pipe controlled heat transport. Heat transport in heat pipe reactors is complex and highly system dependent. Nevertheless, in general terms it relies on heat flowing from the fuel pins through the heat pipe, to the heat exchanger, and then ultimately into the power conversion system and heat sink. A system model is described that is capable of modeling coupled reactor kinetics phenomena, heat transfer dynamics within the fuel pins, and the transient behavior of heat pipes (including the melting of the working fluid). The paper …

Diblock/silica films with multi-bilayer vesicular mesostructures of large characteristic length scales were synthesized through evaporation-induced self-assembly of PS-b-PEO. The present system is believed to be the first to yield diblock/silica films with multi-bilayer vesicular mesostructures through solvent evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA). The ready formation in the present system is argued to be the polydispersity of polymer chains.

Transmission electron microscopy studies were applied to study GaN crystals doped with Mg. Both: bulk GaN:Mg crystals grown by a high pressure and high temperature process and those grown by metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition (MOCVD) have been studied. Structural dependence on growth polarity was observed in the bulk crystals. Spontaneous ordering (formation of polytypoids) was observed for growth in the N to Ga polar direction (N polarity). On the opposite site of the crystal (growth in the Ga to N polar direction) Mg-rich pyramidal defects with base on the basal planes and with walls inclined about 45O to these planes, empty inside (pinholes) were observed. A high concentration of these pyramidal defects was also observed in the MOCVD grown crystals. For samples grown with Mg delta doping planar defects were also observed especially at the early stages of growth followed by formation of pyramidal defects. TEM and x-ray studies of InxGa{sub 1{minus}x}N crystals for the range of 28-45% nominal In concentration shows formation of two sub-layers: strained and relaxed, with a much lower In concentration in the strained layer. Layers with the highest In concentration were fully relaxed.

This report documents the C version of the MCAPM (Monte Carlo All Particle Method) generator and collision physics library of subroutines. The Monte Carlo data generator (gen2000) reads cross sections and distributions that describe in-flight reactions from a binary library and creates an internal data library. The collision routines (bang2000) use this internal library to perform the physics of interaction of particles with the background material. Particles modeled with MCAPM-C are neutrons, charged particles (p, d, t, {sup 3}He, and {alpha}), and {gamma}'s. MCAPM-C is written in (nearly) standard C, and versions exist for Sun Solaris, Compaq Unix, IBM AIX, SGI Irix, and Linux. The library and its data files are installed on LC's Compass, TC, Forest, Blue, and Sky machines. This report describes the contents and format of the library, physics assumptions made, and the interface to the library's subroutines.

The effect of post-growth thermal treatment of the InAs/GaAs quantum dots is investigated in this work. The photoluminescence (PL) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies of samples annealed at temperatures up to 950 degrees C are presented. A complete dissolution of QDs and substantial broadening of the wetting layer (WL) can be seen from TEM. We propose that the thermally induced modification of the WL rather than QDs can be responsible for a blue-shift and narrowing of PL peaks in structures containing InAs/GaAs QDs.

Since the discovery of surfactant-templated silica by Mobil scientists in 1992, mesostructured silica has been synthesized in various forms including thin films, powders, particles, and fibers. In general, mesostructured silica has potential applications, such as in separation, catalysis, sensors, and fluidic microsystems. In respect to these potential applications, mesostructured silica in the form of thin films is perhaps one of the most promising candidates. The preparation of mesostructured silica films through preferential solvent evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) has recently received much attention in the laboratories. However, no amphiphile/silica films with reverse mesophases have ever been made through this EISA procedure. Furthermore, templates employed to date have been either surfactants or poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(propylene oxide)-b-poly(ethylene oxide) triblock copolymers, such as pluronic P-123, both of which are water-soluble and alcohol-soluble. Due to their relatively low molecular weight, the templated silica films with mesoscopic order have been limited to relatively small characteristic length scales. In the present communication, the authors report a novel synthetic method to prepare mesostructured amphiphilic/silica films with regular and reverse mesophases of large characteristic length scales. This method involves evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) of amphiphilic polystyrene-block-poly(ethylene oxide) (PS-b-PEO) diblock copolymers. In the present study, the PS-b-PEO diblocks are denoted as, for example, …

Rhodopseudomonas palustris is a common soil and water bacterium that makes its living by converting sunlight to cellular energy and by absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide and converting it to biomass. This microbe can also degrade and recycle components of the woody tissues of plants, wood being the most abundant polymer on earth. Because of its intimate involvement in carbon management and recycling, R. palustris was selected by the DOE Carbon Management Program to have its genome sequenced by the Joint Genome Institute (JGI). This award provided funds for the preparation of R. palustris genomic DNA which was then supplied to the JGI in sufficient amounts to enable the complete sequencing of the R. palustris genome. The PI also supplied the JGI with technical information about the molecular biology of R. palustris.

An integrated approach, combining the continuum theory of sintering and Potts model based mesostructure evolution analysis, is used to solve the problem of bi-layered structure sintering. Two types of bi-layered structures are considered: layers of the same material with different initial porosity, and layers of two different materials. The effective sintering stress for the bi-layer powder sintering is derived, both at the meso- and the macroscopic levels. Macroscopic shape distortions and spatial distributions of porosity are determined as functions of the dimensionless specific time of sintering. The effect of the thickness of the layers on shrinkage, warpage, and pore-grain structure is studied. Ceramic ZnO powders are employed as a model experimental system to assess the model predictions.

TART2000 is a coupled neutron-photon, 3 Dimensional, combinatorial geometry, time dependent Monte Carlo radiation transport code. This code can run on any modern computer. It is a complete system to assist you with input Preparation, running Monte Carlo calculations, and analysis of output results. TART2000 is also incredibly FAST; if you have used similar codes, you will be amazed at how fast this code is compared to other similar codes. Use of the entire system can save you a great deal of time and energy. TART2000 is distributed on CD. This CD contains on-line documentation for all codes included in the system, the codes configured to run on a variety of computers, and many example problems that you can use to familiarize yourself with the system. TART2000 completely supersedes all older versions of TART, and it is strongly recommended that users only use the most recent version of TART2000 and its data files.