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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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, Jim Mattox, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a general law municipality may fund a longevity pay system for its employees.

The Pennsylvania State University is conducting a superclean coal-water slurry (SCCWS) program for the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with the objective of demonstrating the capability of effectively firing SCCWS in industrial boilers designed for oil. Penn State has entered into a cooperative agreement with DOE to determine if SCCWS (a fuel containing coal with less than 3% ash and 0.9% sulfur) can effectively be burned in oil-designed industrial boilers without adverse impact on boiler rating, maintainability, reliability, and availability. The project will provide information on the design of new systems specifically configured to fire these clean coal-based fuels. The project consists of three phases: (1) design, permitting, and test planning, (2) construction and start up, and (3) operations and disposition. The boiler testing will determine if the SCCWS combustion characteristics, heat release rate, slagging and fouling factors, erosion and corrosion limits, and fuel transport, storage, and handling can be accommodated in an oil-designed boiler. In addition, the proof-of-concept demonstration will generate data to determine how the properties of SCCWS and its parent coal affect boiler performance. Economic factors associated with retrofitting and operating boilers will be identified to assess the viability of future oil-to-coal …

The Pennsylvania State University is conducting a superclean coal-water slurry (SCCWS) program for the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with the objective of demonstrating the capability of effectively firing SCCWS in industrial boilers designed for oil. Penn State has entered into a cooperative agreement with DOE to show that SCCWS (a fuel containing coal with less than 3% ash and 0.9% sulfur) can effectively be burned in oil-designed industrial boilers without adverse impact on boiler rating, maintainability, reliability, and availability. The project will provide information on the design of new systems specifically configured to fire these clean coal-based fuels. The project consists of three phases: (1) design, permitting, and test planning, (2) construction and start up, and (3) operations and disposition. The boiler testing will determine if the SCCWS combustion characteristics, heat release rate, slagging and fouling factors, erosion and corrosion limits, and fuel transport, storage, and handling can be accommodated in an oil-designed boiler. In addition, the proof-of-concept demonstration will generate data to determine how the properties of SCCWS and its parent coal affect boiler performance. Economic factors associated with retrofitting and operating boilers will be identified to assess the viability of future oil-to-coal …

A new optical technique for quantitatively measuring the spectral density of passive scalar fluctuations in a turbulent flow has been developed. The technique exploits the photorefractive properties of BaTiO{sub 3} to separate the optical signal of the turbulent field from the coherent illumination background. It is a major improvement over existing techniques in that it is non-intrusive, has excellent frequency response and spatial resolution, and is capable of simultaneously measuring two components of the three-dimensional spectral density, {Phi}{theta}({kappa}). The technique is thus especially well suited to the directly study of anisotropic flows. We have applied this technique to study the spectrum of temperature fluctuations in a fully developed turbulent channel flow with heat addition. The flow is highly anisotropic, yet the spectrum in directions transverse to the flow is seen to exhibit an inertial--convective subrange behavior which is characteristic of isotropic flows. The spectral behavior in the flow direction, due to the direct influence of the mean strain rate, is observed to be markedly different. 17 refs., 7 figs.

Fe substitution for Cu in YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub y} can give information about the local environment on the two crystallographic Cu sites through Mossbauer effect measurements. In this paper, we explore the possibility of forcing larger amounts of Fe onto the Cu (2) site which represents the CuO planes. At values near y = 6, the chain Cu (1) site is characteristic for Cu{sup +} in its linear 0 coordination and should preclude Fe occupation. We therefore prepared materials at elevated temperatures under N{sub 2} where y {approximately}6. Oxygenation to y {approximately}7 was achieved at temperatures where metal diffusion is minimized. We used Mossbauer spectroscopy to determine the Fe site occupancy. Site preference can be expressed in terms of a distribution ratio r = MCul/ MCu2. Creating materials with low r allows studying the effects of spatially constrained Fe on T{sub c}, separating influences from the spatially more complex Cu (1) site.