Recent criticism of the Clinton Administration's policies toward China, Japan and other East Asian countries has contended that the United States is exerting much less influence and is becoming marginal in determining developments in this economically vibrant and strategically important area. Although there are important costs to U.S. influence associated with disputes with Beijing, Tokyo and others, an assessment of the U.S.-Japanese-Chinese triangular relationship that currently dominates trends in the region shows that the United States is likely to continue its influential position in post Cold War East Asia.

New materials and new design concepts are being incorporated in a new approach to an old idea -- flywheel energy storage -- to create an important alternative to the electrochemical storage battery for use in electric vehicles or for stationary applications, such as computer back-up power or utility load-leveling. We visualize such EMBs (electromechanical batteries) as being modular in character, with small (1--5 kWh) modules being used for power-conditioning and for vehicular use, and paralleled 25 kWh modules being used for bulk storage, i.e., load-leveling, applications. In a funded program at the Laboratory two fractional kWh, 200 kW (design peak power) modules have been constructed and subjected to shake-down testing. Their design for high peak power was prompted by awareness of a particular commercial need, as a component in a power-line conditioning device. In addition to such stationary applications, the high power capability of our EMB designs makes them attractive for use in hybrid-electric vehicles. Important elements of the LLNL program include the development of passive magnetic bearings and the application of new high-efficiency permanent magnet arrays to an ironless generator/motor. Use of these particular elements, together with a multi-ring design for the flywheel rotor, is particularly conducive to a …

This document provides methods to account for the different effects of different gases on the atmosphere. It discusses the rationale and uses for simplified measures to represent human-related effects on climate and provides a brief introduction to a major index, the global warming potential (GWP) index. Appendix 7.A analyzes the science underlying the development of indices for concerns about climate, which is still evolving, evaluates the usefulness of currently available indices, and presents the state of the art for numerical indices and their uncertainties. For concerns about climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been instrumental in examining relative indices for comparing the radiative influences of greenhouse gases. The IPCC developed the concept of GWPs to provide a simple representation of the relative effects on climate resulting from a unit mass emission of a greenhouse gas. Alternative measures and variations on the definition of GWPs have also been considered and reported.

Feasibility of producing nano-phase Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} with improved properties, and ultrafine-grained nano-phase transparent Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} by working with amorphous nano-size powders without the use of sintering aids was investigated. The approach uses cryogenic compaction of nano-size particles under liquid nitrogen followed by pressureless sintering.

The Federal Internetworking Requirements Panel (FIRP) was established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to reassess Federal requirements for open systems networks and to recommend policy on the Government`s use of networking standards. The Panel was chartered to recommend actions which the Federal Government can take to address the short and long-term issues of interworking and convergence of networking protocols--particularly the Internet Protocol Suite (IPS) and Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocol suite and, when appropriate, proprietary protocols. The Panel was created at the request of the Office of Management and Budget in collaboration with the Federal Networking Council and the Federal Information Resources Management Policy Council. The Panel`s membership and charter are contained in an appendix to this report.

Plasma kinetic theory and some examples of microinstabilities are briefly reviewed. Although the velocity space configuration of any EBIS is inherently susceptible to a number of classical beam microinstabilities, the small radial dimension of an EBIS plasma may prevent modes from occurring in EBIS traps due to physical limitation. In EBIS devices with high electron beam compression, where the potential for beam microinstabilities is great, the radial dimension is smaller than the Debye length, which renders plasma kinetic theory invalid. Potential for parametric instabilities exists due to coupling of structure excited modes into plasma modes by various mode-mode coupling ``decay`` processes.

The objective for this research is to optimize the design and operation of the bench scale batch reactor (SCTBR) for coal liquefaction at short contact times (0.01 to 10 minutes or longer). This reactor is simple enough and low enough in cost to serve as a suitable replacement for the traditional tubing-bomb reactors for many coal liquefaction and other high-pressure, high-temperature reaction studies. The liquefaction of selected Argonne Premium coals and the role of organic oxygen components of the coal and their reaction pathways at very low conversions are being investigated.

We have studied the transverse coherent bunch instabilities for the Advanced Light Source (ALS). We have in particular applied a Hamiltonian formalism to obtain the linearized averaged equations of motion (i.e. the one turn map) for the resistive wall effect to obtain the corresponding localized kick when the beta function is varying along the lattice. We have also included a 2-dimensional model for the transverse higher order cavity modes. In addition, we have used power series maps to represent the lattice which enabled us to include non-linear effects. These models have been implemented in a computer code and numerical simulations have been carried out for ALS. The model was successfully verified against analytical calculations in cases where they overlap. The non-linear effects from the lattice proved to be important, since they led to a qualitative change of the dynamics for the stored beam. We also studied the injection process in some detail and found that the non-linear effects also fundamentally change the injection dynamics.

Since surfactants are often present as mixtures, effort is being made to understand the synergetic and competitive forces involving determining adsorption of surfactants from their mixtures. Adsorption of tetradecyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (TTAC) and polyethoxylated nonyl phenol (NP-15) surfactant mixture at the alumina-water interface was studied during this reporting period. It was found that the nonionic surfactant NP-15 does not adsorb on alumina by itself, but was forced to adsorb by cationic TTAC. The adsorption density and the nature of adsorption isotherm of NP-15 were markedly dependent upon the quantity of TTAC present in the mixture and the procedure of surfactant addition. In the low concentration range the adsorption of both TTAC and NP-15 was enhanced by coadsorption, but in the high concentration range the adsorption of TTAC was depressed due to the competitive adsorption and steric hindrance. Electrokinetic behavior of alumina suspensions was also monitored along with the adsorption in order to delineate the role of electrostatic force in determining the mechanism of adsorption. Surface tension of surfactant mixtures before and after adsorption was measured to obtain information needed for developing mechanisms.

The goal of this project is the development of a commercially viable, cobalt-based Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) catalyst for use in a slurry bubble column reactor. Cobalt-based catalysts have long been known as being active for F-T synthesis. They typically possess greater activity than iron-based catalysts, historically the predominant catalyst being used commercially for the conversion of syngas based on coal, but possess two disadvantages that somewhat lessen its value: (1) cobalt tends to make more methane than iron does, and (2) cobalt is less versatile with low H{sub 2}/CO ratio syngas due to its lack of water-gas shift activity. Therefore, the major objectives of this work are (1) to develop a cobalt-based F-T catalyst with low (< 5 %) methane selectivity, (2) to develop a cobalt-based F-T catalyst with water-gas shift activity, and (3) to combine both these improvements into one catalyst. It will be demonstrated that these catalysts have the desired activity, selectivity, and life, and can be made reproducibly. Following this experimental work, a design and a cost estimate will be prepared for a plant to produce sufficient quantities of catalyst for scale-up studies.

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.

The TMACS Software Project Test Procedures translate the project`s acceptance criteria into test steps. Software releases are certified when the affected Test Procedures are successfully performed and the customers authorize installation of these changes. This Test Procedure tests the TMACS Alarm management functions.

The TMACS Software Project Test Procedures translate the project`s acceptance criteria into test steps. Software releases are certified when the affected Test Procedures are successfully performed and the customers authorize installation of these changes. This Test Procedure tests the TMACS Trending functions.

The TMACS Software Project Test Procedures translate the project`s acceptance criteria into test steps. Software releases are certified when the affected Test Procedures are successfully performed and the customers authorize installation of these changes. This Test Procedure tests the TMACS SACS Interface functions.

The TMACS Software Project Test Procedures translate the project`s acceptance criteria into test steps. Software releases are certified when the affected Test Procedures are successfully performed and the customers authorize installation of these changes. This Test Procedure tests the TMACS Acromag Software Driver (Bridge Code).