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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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.

Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation must defer enforcing general reach-range requirements against gasoline pump credit-card readers until the federal government has adopted reach-range requirements specifically applicable to the credit card readers (RQ-1141)

Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether municipal utility district may contract with county for provision of additional security patrols in district (RQ-1013)

Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Regional water planning groups established by section 16.053, Water Code (RQ-1135)

The Argonne Wakefield Accelerator group develops accelerating structures based on dielectric loaded waveguides. We use high charge short electron bunches to excite wakefields in dielectric loaded structures, and a second (low charge) beam to probe the wakefields left behind by the drive beam. We report measurements of beam parameters and also initial results of the dielectric loaded accelerating structures. We have studied acceleration of the probe beam in these structures and we have also made measurements on the RF pulses that are generated by the drive beam. Single drive bunches, as well as multiple bunches separated by an integer number of RF periods have been used to generate the accelerating wakefields.

The motivation for parity experiments in simple atomic systems is that the atomic physics is known precisely so they directly test the weak interactions. We review the status of the parity experiments that have been done in atomic hydrogen and suggest some possibilities for experiments in helium like ions.

Recently we created La/Fe multilayers with a helical magnetic structure imprinted from the conditions of growth rather than by the magnetic interactions between layers. Each sublayer was 30{angstrom} thick, and during deposition the sample was rotated in an external field of 3 Oe. a field strong enough to magnetize the Fe layer being deposited but not sufficient to perturb the magnetization of the Fe layers already grown. As a result adjacent Fe layers formed a helical structure with a chirality and periodicity determined by the rotational direction and speed of the substrate and the rate of deposition. Following this discovery, an extensive set of experiments (mainly using Kerr effect magnetometry and polarized neutron reflectivity) was undertaken to ascertain the stability of imprinted magnetic structures, and to understand the onset of magnetization during growth. La/Fe imprinted helical magnetic structures (of different La and Fe thicknesses) were found to be stable in time and to be permanently erased only by magnetic fields larger than 90 Oe.

The magnetic properties of La/Fe multilayers were tested by magneto-optical Kerr effect and polarized neutron reflectometry. The experiments indicated that above a layer thickness t{sub la} = 25{angstrom} the magnetic state of the virgin sample is represented by a spiral-like arrangement of magnetizations of subsequent Fe layers, whereas each Fe layer itself is ferromagnetic. Polarized neutron reflectometry shows that the helix has predominantly one chirality over the entire surface area of several cm{sup 2}. Tine magnetic spiral structure is imprinted during the growth process by rotating the sample in a small residual magnetic field. External magnetic field of 90 Oe are sufficient to erase the magnetic structure irreversibly.

This report summarizes development of borehole-miner extendible-nozzle water-jetting technology for dislodging and retrieving salt cake, sludge} and supernate to remediate underground storage tanks full of radioactive waste. The extendible-nozzle development was based on commercial borehole-miner technology.

At the Argonne Chemistry Division efforts are underway to develop a sub-picosecond electron beam pulse radiolysis facility for chemical studies. The target output of the accelerator is to generate electron pulses that can be adjusted from 3nC in .6ps to 100nC in 45ps. In conjunction with development of the accelerator a state-of-the-art ultrafast laser system is under construction that will drive the linac's photocathode and provide probe pulses that are tunable from the UV to IR spectral regions.

The initial observations of superconductivity at temperatures above 77 K in copper-oxide based materials was surprising from a variety of different perspectives. Among the unexpected findings were reports of superconductivity for the series RBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 7} where R is a rare earth (Y, Nd-Tm), which may carry a large, local magnetic moment. Superconductivity was subsequently demonstrated for all 4f analogs in this series except Ce, Pr, and Tb. In addition to the RBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 7} series, there are several other CuO based series of superconductors that are formed by substituting R ions. The most studied of these are listed in Table 1, together with the f ions that form isostructural compounds and their superconducting critical temperatures (T{sub c}). The presence of an R ion with a large magnetic moment does not significantly influence the superconductivity. In contrast, even the presence of small concentrations of magnetic impurity ions in a conventional superconductor inhibits superconductivity by interfering with the formation of Cooper pairs. Most R ions substitute into an isostructural series with no observable effect on the superconducting properties of the material. As can be seen from Table 1, there are notable exceptions to this observation. In particular, the rare-earth …

We plan to resonantly excite plasma wakefields using a train of electron bunches separated by an-integer number of plasma wavelengths. The multiple electron bunches are generated by a photocathode based RF gun by splitting the laser beam into temporally separated pulses. The amplitude of the wakefields generated by the sequence of bunches is expected to be higher than that generated if all charge had been in only one bunch, because this single bunch would be considerably longer than the individual sub-bunches due to space charge effects in our gun.

Quantum-based atomistic simulations are being used to study fundamental deformation and defect properties relevant to the multiscale modeling of plasticity in bcc metals at both ambient and extreme conditions. Ab initio electronic-structure calculations on the elastic and ideal-strength properties of Ta and Mo help constrain and validate many-body interatomic potentials used to study grain boundaries and dislocations. The predicted C(capital Sigma)5 (310)[100] grain boundary structure for Mo has recently been confirmed in HREM measurements. The core structure, (small gamma) surfaces, Peierls stress, and kink-pair formation energies associated with the motion of a/2(111) screw dislocations in Ta and Mo have also been calculated. Dislocation mobility and dislocation junction formation and breaking are currently under investigation.

Electron cooling of completely stripped gold ions {sup 197}Au{sup 79+} in RHIC is considered for the store energy, {gamma} = 108. The optimal parameters of the required electron storage ring are discussed and proposed. The cooling time is calculated as 15 minutes, which would allow not only to avoid the beam loss due to the intra-beam scattering, but also reduce the transverse emittance and increase the luminosity several times.

This document is a report of the Light Duty Utility Arm (LDUA) drawing walkdown. The purpose of this walkdown was to validate the essential configuration of the LDUA in preparation of deploying the equipment in a Hanford waste tank. The LDUA system has, over the course of its development, caused the generation of a considerable number of design drawings. The number of drawings is estimated to be well over 1,000. A large number consist of vendor type drawings, furnished by both Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and SPAR Aerospace Limited (SPAR). A smaller number, approximately 200, are H-6 type drawing sheets in the Project Hanford Management Contract (PHMC) document control system. A preliminary inspection of the drawings showed that the physical configuration of the LDUA did not match the documented configuration. As a result of these findings, a scoping walkdown of 20 critical drawing sheets was performed to determine if a problem existed in configuration management of the LDUA system. The results of this activity showed that 18 of the 20 drawing sheets were found to contain errors or omissions of varying concern. Given this, Characterization Engineering determined that a walkdown of the drawings necessary and sufficient to enable safe …

ER-20-6{number_sign}1 was cored to determine fracture and lithologic properties proximal to the BULLION test cavity. Selected samples from ER-20-6{number_sign}1 were subjected to matrix and/or fracture diffusion experiments to assess solute movement in this environment. Micrographic analysis of these samples suggests that the similarity in bulk chemical composition results in very similar mineral assemblages forming along natural fractures. These samples are all part of the mafic-poor Calico Hills Formation and exhibit fracture-coating mineral assemblages dominated by mixed illite/smectite clay and illite, with local opaline silica (2,236 and 2, 812 feet), and zeolite (at 2,236 feet). Based on this small sample population, the magnitude to which secondary phases have formed on fracture surfaces bears an apparently inverse relationship to the competency of the host lithology, reflected by variations in the degree of fracturing and the development of secondary phases on fracture surfaces. In the flow breccia at 2,851 feet, thinly developed, localized coatings are developed along persistent open fracture apertures in this competent rock type. Fractures in the devitrified lava from 2,812 feet are irregular, and locally blocked by secondary mineral phases. Natural fractures on the zeolitized tuff from 2,236 feet are discontinuous and irregular and typically obstructed with secondary mineral phases. …

The critical energy inkstructures include gas, OL and electric power. These Mrastructures are complex and interdependent nmvorks that are vital to the national secwiy and social well being of our nation. Many electric power systems depend upon gas and oil, while fossil energy delive~ systems depend upon elecnic power. The control mechanisms for these Mrastructures are often referred to as SCADA (Supmivry CkmdandDaU Ac@itz&z) systems. SCADA systems provide remote monitoring and centralized control for a distributed tmnsportation infmsmucture in order to facilitate delivery of a commodi~. AIthough many of the SCADA concepts developed in this paper can be applied to automotive mmsponation systems, we will use transportation to refer to the movement of electrici~, gas, and oil. \ Recently, there have been seveml reports suggesting that the widespread and increasing use of SCADA for control of energy systems provides an increasing opportuni~ for an advers~ to cause serious darnage to the energy inbstmcturei~. This damage could arise through cyber infiltration of the SCADA networks, by physically tampering with the control networks, or through a combination of both means. SCADA system threats decompose into cyber and physical threats. One solution to the SCADA security problem is to design a standard for …

Estimation of leaf photosynthetic rate (A) from leaf nitrogen content (N) is both conceptually and numerically important in models of plant, ecosystem and biosphere responses to global change. The relationship between A and N has been studied extensively at ambient CO{sub 2} but much less at elevated CO{sub 2}. This study was designed to (1) assess whether the A-N relationship was more similar for species within than between community and vegetation types, and (2) examine how growth at elevated CO{sub 2} affects the A-N relationship. Data were obtained for 39 C{sub 3} species grown at ambient CO{sub 2} and 10 C{sub 3} species grown at ambient and elevated CO{sub 2}. A regression model was applied to each species as well as to species pooled within different community and vegetation types. Cluster analysis of the regression coefficients indicated that species measured at ambient CO{sub 2} did not separate into distinct groups matching community or vegetation type. Instead, most community and vegetation types shared the same general parameter space for regression coefficients. Growth at elevated CO{sub 2} increased photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency for pines and deciduous trees. When species were pooled by vegetation type, the A-N relationship for deciduous trees expressed on …

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The specific aims of this project were as follows: (1) to design primers to each predicted open reading frame (ORF) in M. jannaschii and M. thermoautotrophicum to allow the amplification of a unique target sequence that will represent the corresponding coding region on a complete genome chip (2) to amplify each target sequence from M. jannaschii and M. thermoautotrophicum and verify that these PCR products are the expected DNA fragment (3) to establish a relational database that will track the production of target DNAs and the nucleotide sequence used to represent each ORF.