Transcript of a public hearing held by the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals held March 25, 1998 in Dallas, Texas. This hearing includes testimony from judges and an attorney of the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on the possible restructuring of the Fifth Circuit.

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A theory of tapered laser cooling for fast circulating ion beams in a storage ring is constructed. The authors describe the fundamentals of this new cooling scheme, emphasizing that it might be the most promising way to beam crystallization. The cooling rates are analytically evaluated to study the ideal operating condition. They discuss the physical implication of the tapering factor of cooling laser, and show how to determine its optimum value. Molecular dynamics method is employed to demonstrate the validity of the present theory.

The assembly of an optical system requires the correction of aberrations in the entire imaging field by making selected rigid-body motions of the optical elements. We present a rigorous method for determining which adjustment motions, called compensators, to use for alignment. These compensators are found by employing techniques from linear algebra that choose the most independent vectors from a set which are interdependent. The method finds the smallest number of compensators to correct for misalignments of a given magnitude. As an example the method is applied to a four-mirror scanning ring-field EUV lithography system. It is shown that out of 32 degrees of freedom in the configuration of the optical elements, only eight compensators are required on the optics. By adjusting these compensators a misaligned configuration giving a 30 {lambda} wavefront error can be assembled to {lambda}/50 in the absence of measurement noise.

New computational physics methods for estimating constitutive property parameterizations in ground water aquifers were developed and demonstrated in this project. The dynamical and statistical axioms of physics, embodied in partial differential equations (PDES) of kinetic theory, are employed to constrain interpolations of hydraulic head (pressure) and transmissivity (permeability) between sparsely measured datum points. These methods can apparently be applied in numerous approaches to parameter estimation. To demonstrate the basic concepts and techniques developed in this work, examples are considered for steady-state, two-dimensional, heterogeneous, ground water flow models, given (i) discrete borehole observations of hydraulic head and transmissivity and (ii) governing kinetic equations for Darcy flow behavior. Estimations of spatially dependent parameters from sparsely measured data are treated as mathematically ill- posed problems because infinitely many parameter distributions (realizations) that are consistent with the data generally exist. Potential difficulties associated with ill-posedness in mean flow realizations are mitigated by requiring that acceptable realizations respect the observed data, are solutions of forward and inverse PDEs for physical continuity, respect information sampling principles, and are distributed by spatial interpolations that themselves are optimal solutions of the governing PDEs between measured datum points. To accomplish these requisites, adaptive numerical grid Galerkin techniques were applied …

This supporting document has been prepared to make the Kaiser Engineers Hanford Company Project W-320 Tank 106-C Waste Retrieval Study Analysis Session Report readily retrievable. This facilitated session was requested by Westinghouse Hanford Company (WHC) to review the characterization data and select the best alternatives for a double-shell receiver tank and for a sluicing medium for Tank 106-C waste retrieval. The team was composed of WHC and Kaiser Engineers Hanford Company (KEH) personnel knowledgeable about tank farm operations, tank 106-C requirements, tank waste characterization and analysis, and chemical processing. This team was assembled to perform a structured decision analysis evaluation and recommend the best alternative-destination double-shell tank between tanks 101-AY and 102-AY, and the best alternative sluicing medium among dilute complexant (DC), dilute noncomplexant (DNC), and water. The session was facilitated by Richard Harrington and Steve Bork of KEH and was conducted at the Bookwalter Winery in Richland from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. from July 27 through July 29, 1993. Attachment 1 (Scope Statement Sheet) identifies the team members, scope, objectives, and deliverables for the session.

The Hanford Site, located adjacent to and north of Richland, Washington, is operated by the US Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office (RL). The 324 Building is located in the 300 Area of the Hanford Site. The 324 Building was constructed in the 1960s to support materials and chemical process research and development activities ranging from laboratory/bench-scale studies to full engineering-scale pilot plant demonstrations. In the mid-1990s, it was determined that dangerous waste and waste residues were being stored for greater than 90 days in the 324 Building Radiochemical Engineering Cells (REC) and in the High-Level Vault/Low-Level Vault (HLV/LLV) tanks. [These areas are not Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) permitted portions of the 324 Building.] Through the Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order (Tri-Party Agreement) Milestone M-89, agreement was reached to close the nonpermitted RCRA unit in the 324 Building. This closure plan, managed under TPA Milestone M-20-55, addresses the identified building areas targeted by the Tri-Party Agreement and provides commitments to achieve the highest degree of compliance practicable, given the special technical difficulties of managing mixed waste that contains high-activity radioactive materials, and the physical limitations of working remotely in the areas within the subject …

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), being constructed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), comprises 192 laser beams, Figure 1. The lasing medium is neodymium in phosphate glass with a fundamental frequency (1{omega}) of 1.053 {micro}m. Sum frequency generation in a pair of conversion crystals (KDP/KD*P) produces 1.8 Mj of the third harmonic light (3{omega} or {lambda}=0.35). On NIF the frequency conversion crystals are part of the Final Optics Assembly (FOA), whose two principal functions are to convert the laser light to 3{omega} and focus it on target. In addition, the FOA provides a vacuum window to the target chamber, smoothes the on- target irradiance profile, moves the unconverted light away from the target, and provides signals for alignment and diagnostics. The FOA has four Integrated Optics Modules (IOM), Figure 4, each of which contains two 41 cm square crystals are mounted with the full edge support to micro radian angular and micron flatness tolerances. This paper is intended to be an overview of the important factors that affect frequency conversion on NIF. Chief among these are angular errors arising from crystal growth, finishing, and mounting. The general nature of these errors and how they affect frequency conversion, and finally the …

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) supports an applied superconductivity program entitled ''Superconductivity Program for Electric Power Systems.'' Activities within this program contribute to development of the high-temperature superconductor (HTS) technology needed for industry to proceed with the commercial development of electric power applications such as motors, generators, transformers, transmission cables, and current limiters. Research is conducted in three categories: wire development, systems technology development, and Superconductivity Partnership Initiative (SPI). Wire development activities are devoted to improving the critical current density (J{sub c}) of short-length HTS wires, whereas systems technology development focuses on fabrication of long-length wires, coils, and on magnets. The SPI activities are aimed at development of prototype products. Significant progress has been made in the development of (HTSs) for various applications: some applications have already made significant strides in the marketplace, while others are still in the developmental stages. For successful electric power applications, it is very important that the HTS be fabricated into long-length conductors that exhibit desired superconducting and mechanical properties. Several parameters of the PIT technique must be carefully controlled to obtain the desired properties. Long lengths of Bi-2223 tapes with respectable superconducting properties have been fabricated by a carefully designed thermomechanical treatment process. …

For constituents who want to learn more about the topics that interest them, the Congressional Research Service has prepared this guide to locate information in libraries. It includes sources of background information (encyclopedias, almanacs, business directories, statistics, and biographical directories), current information from newspapers and magazines, organizations, foundations, government, politics, legislation, and books and periodicals. It lists a number of Internet search engines. This report will be updated from time to time.

This report discusses the vote on H.R. 2400, the "Building Efficient Surface Transportation and Equity Act of 1997"(BESTEA), an omnibus bill to fund surface transportation into the next century.