This report is a letter about a review of the Quality Assurance Project Plan for the INEL Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Waste Characterization Project.'' The author of the letter recommended the approval of the quality assurance program. However in his review, several observations were made and were requested to be added to the program. Examples of these observations were safety of personnel involved in the program, safe characterization of hazardous materials studied, quality of calibrations required for measurement objectives, and reporting of hazardous sampling. (MB)

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO updated its previous reports on agencies' use of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions to publish final rule notices, focusing on: (1) how many agencies had no Agenda entries that were characterized as Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) of 1980, section 610 reviews, whether agencies are interpreting the review requirements consistently, and why certain agencies that appeared subject to the requirements had no entries; (2) how many of the section 610 review entries in these Agendas appeared to meet the notification requirements in subsection 610(c); (3) if the section 610 review entries did not appear to meet the statutory requirements, why certain agencies' entries were characterized as section 610 reviews; and (4) whether any federal agencies had revised their section 610 review plans."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) the extent and seriousness of forest-health-related problems in national forests in the interior West; (2) the status of efforts by the Forest Service to address the most serious of these problems; and (3) barriers to successfully addressing these problems and options for overcoming them."

Atomic hydrogen inside solid H{sub 2} increases the energy density by 200 MegaJoules/m{sup 3}, for each percent mole fraction stored. How many atoms can be stored in solid hydrogen To answer this, we need to know: (1) how to produce and trap hydrogen atoms in solid hydrogen, (2) how to keep the atoms from recombining into the ground molecular state, and (3) how to measure the atom density in solid hydrogen. Each of these topics will be addressed in this paper. Hydrogen atoms can be trapped in solid hydrogen by co-condensing atoms and molecules, external irradiation of solid H{sub 2}, or introducing a radioactive impurity inside the hydrogen lattice. Tritium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen, is easily condensed as a radioactive isotopic impurity in solid H{sub 2}. Although tritium will probably not be used in future rockets, it provides a way of applying a large, homogenious dose to solid hydrogen. In all of the data presented here, the atoms are produced by the decay of tritium and thus knowing how many atoms are produced from the tritium decay in the solid phase is important. 6 refs., 6 figs.

The authors are investigating mechanisms of energy storage and release in tritiated solid hydrogens, by a variety of techniques including ESR, NMR and thermal and optical emission. The nuclear decay of a triton in solid hydrogen initiates the conversion of nuclear energy into stored chemical energy by producing unpaired hydrogen atoms which are trapped within the molecular lattice. The ability to store large quantities of atoms in this manner has been demonstrated and can serve as a basis for new forms of high energy density materials. This paper presents preliminary results of a study of the optical emission from solid hydrogen containing tritium over the visible and near infrared (NIR) spectral regions. Specifically, they have studied optical emission from DT and T{sub 2} using CCD, silicon diode and germanium diode arrays. 8 refs., 6 figs.

Rock varnish is a microns-thick manganese- and iron-rich coating that forms on exposed rock surfaces in arid and semi-arid environments. Empirical correlations of the varnish cation ratio (K+Ca)/Ti with age have been used to estimate ages of geomorphic surfaces, with varnish chemistry generally acquired by either proton-induced x-ray emission (PIXE) analysis of natural varnish surfaces. Chemical analyses of rock varnish with SEM/EDX utilize a sequence of accelerating voltages to vary penetration depths into the sample. Using elemental x-ray maps of natural varnish surfaces with SEM/EDX, penetration into the substrate can be recognized at accelerating voltages where contamination with substrate is inferred from SEM/EDX chemical analyses. This demonstrates the ability of the SEM method to obtain varnish chemistry with minimal inclusion of substrate. Calculations of theoretical x-ray depth-distribution ({phi}({rho}z)) curves in varnish indicate that at an accelerating voltage of 10 kV most of the emitted electrons are generated in the upper 0.5 micron of a sample. At a higher voltage of 30 kV most of the signal is still restricted to the upper 2 microns, representing a very small percentage of total varnish volume in many cases. The ability of the SEM method to obtain empirical correlations of the chemistry of …

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.

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.

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 executive director of the Lubbock Housing Authority may serve as a member of the City of Lubbock Civil Service Commission (RQ-1022)

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 a district clerk may also serve as a reserve deputy sheriff (RQ-977)

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 a member of the Texas Southern University Board of Regents to serve as a volunteer, uncompensated coach (RQ-1025)

This invention is comprised of a process of preparing an actinide compound of the formula An{sub x}Z{sub y} wherein An is an actinide metal atom selected from the group consisting of thorium, uranium, plutonium, neptunium, and americium, x is selected from the group consisting of one, two or three, Z is a main group element atom selected from the group consisting of nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen and sulfur and y is selected from the group consisting of one, two, three or four, by admixing an actinide organometallic precursor wherein said actinide is selected from the group consisting of thorium, uranium, plutonium, neptunium, and americium, a suitable solvent and a protic Lewis base selected from the group consisting of ammonia, phosphine, hydrogen sulfide and water, at temperatures and for time sufficient to form an intermediate actinide complex, heating said intermediate actinide complex at temperatures and for time sufficient to form the actinide compound, and a process of depositing a thin film of such an actinide compound, e.g., uranium mononitride, by subliming an actinide organometallic precursor, e.g., a uranium amide precursor, in the presence of an effective amount of a protic Lewis base, e.g., ammonia, within a reactor at temperatures and for time …

During the first quarter of the above contract, all the elements of Task 1 were completed. The first quarterly report presented an overview of a wetland and its increasing use in industrial wastewater treatment. An idealized, reaction engineering description of wetlands was presented to demonstrate how the various processes that occur in a wetland can be modeled. Previous work on the use of wetlands to remove BOD, TSS, Phosphorus and Nitrogen was reviewed. Recent literature on the application of wetland technology to the treatment of petroleum-related wastewater was critically evaluated and an outline of the research plans for the first year was delineated. Further, our literature search (nominally completed under Task 1) unearthed more recent studies (some unpublished) and a summary was included in the second quarterly report. In the second quarterly report, results of our efforts on the construction of a laboratory-type wetland were also reported. Initial studies on the use of wetland amendments such as modified-clays and algae cells were presented and discussed. Adsorption of heavy metal ions, Cu{sup 2+} and Cr(VI) onto soils drawn from the laboratory-type wetland built as a part of this contract has been undertaken and these results are presented and discussed in this …

This report consists of two parts. Part 1 describes the development of novel analytical methods needed to predict the BOM performance and the subsequent performance degradation of the mutually obstructed RTGs for the CRAF and Cassini missions. Part II applies those methods to the two missions, presents the resultant predictions, and discusses their programmatic implications. The results indicate that JPL's original power demand goals could have been met with two standard GPHS RTGs for each mission. However, JPL subsequently raised both the power demand profile and the duration for both missions, to the point where two standard RTGs could no longer provide the desired power margin. Each mission can be satisfied by adding a third RTG, and in the case of the Cassini mission the use of three RTGs appears to be unavoidable. In the case of the CRAF mission, there appears to be a possibility that modest modifications of the RTGs' design and/or operating scheme and meet the missions' power demand without the addition of a third RTG. The potential saving in cost and schedule pressure prompted Fairchild to undertake a study of various obvious and not-so-obvious stratagems, either singly or in combination, to determine whether they would make …

Three-axis particle impact probes detect particle impact vectors along x-, y-, and z-axes by means of a head mounted on the outer end of a shaft that is flexibly mounted in silicone rubber at the top of a housing so as to enable motion imparted to the head upon impact to be transmitted to a grounded electrode secured to the shaft within the housing. Excitable electrodes are mounted in the housing in a fixed position, spaced apart from the ground electrode and forming, with the ground electrode, capacitor pairs. Movement of the ground electrode results in changes in capacitance, and these differences in capacitance are used for measurement or derivation of momentum vectors along each of the three axes. In one embodiment, the ground electrode is mounted at the base of the shaft and is secured to a silicone rubber layer at the top of the housing, providing for cantilevered movement. In another embodiment, the shaft is mounted at its mid point in a flexible bushing so that it undergoes pivotal movement around that point.

This report is a letter about a review of the ``Quality Assurance Project Plan for the INEL Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Waste Characterization Project.`` The author of the letter recommended the approval of the quality assurance program. However in his review, several observations were made and were requested to be added to the program. Examples of these observations were safety of personnel involved in the program, safe characterization of hazardous materials studied, quality of calibrations required for measurement objectives, and reporting of hazardous sampling. (MB)

This report documents the characterization of the latest batch of shells produced in the Ballistic Furnace System at the Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia, that we received in mid-February, 1999. The batch consisted of three cassettes containing 36 shells in each cassette. An initial sphericity measurement was done, each shell was weighed, and shells were selected that were spherical enough to run on the Sphere Mapper AFM.

The goal of this project was to develop, through experiments and modeling, a better understanding of the physics issues and machining techniques related to short-pulse laser materials processing. Although we have successfully demonstrated many types of cuts in a wide range of materials, our general short-pulse machiing scientific knowledge and our ability to model the complex physical processes involved are limited. During this past year we made good progress in addressing some of these issues, but there remain many unanswered questions. Section 2 begins with a theoretical look at short-pulse laser ablation of material using a 1-D radiation-hydrodynamic code which includes a self-consistent description of laser absorption and reflection from an expanding plasma. In Section 3 we present measurements of scaling relationships, hole drilling progression, electric field and polarization effects, and a detailed look at the interesting structures formed during hole drilling of metals under various conditions. Section 4 describes the consequences of the presence of a prepulse before the main drilling pulse. In Section 5 we take a brief look at the plasma plume: how it can be useful, and how we can avoid it. Finally, Section 6 contains a couple of examples of machining non-metals. The laser system …

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO published a summary of recommendations made by the Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) Board Review Panel regarding the CAS Board and the CAS system. The panel believes that reforms are needed to encourage the participation of new commercial companies in government procurement and to reduce the burden of government unique accounting requirements on smaller companies. The panel believes that: (1) there should be changes to CAS' location, membership, and staffing; (2) there should be changes in CAS applicability thresholds; (3) Congress should provide contracting agencies with responsibility for contract administration related to CAS; and (4) an overall review of the CAS and its attendant requirements is warranted to judge whether the standards should be streamlined."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Attorney General's strategy for enforcing workplace immigration laws, focusing on: (1) the effectiveness of the employment verification process in preventing employers from hiring unauthorized aliens; (2) the Immigration and Naturalization Service's (INS) efforts to improve the employment verification process; (3) the level of effort INS and the Department of Labor (DOL) devoted to worksite enforcement activities and the results of these activities; and (4) changes being made to INS' worksite enforcement program."

The testing of single shell tanks to determine breathing rates. Inert tracer gases helium, and sulfur hexafluoride will be injected into the tanks AX-103, BY-105, C-107 and U-103. Periodic samples will be taken over a three month interval to determine actual headspace breathing rates.

This talk deals with the investigation of secondary interactions in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions using the Monte Carlo event generator HIJET.

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.