Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO described how the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) and its contractors monitor third-party billing companies' involvement in the submission of claims to Medicare."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO published a functional requirements document for seized property and forfeited assets systems that will provide the capability for financial managers and others to control and account for seized property and forfeited assets."

Thermal fatigue failures of solder joints in electronic devices often arise from cyclic shear strains imposed by the mismatched thermal expansion coefficients of the materials that bind the joint as temperature changes are encountered. Increased solder joint reliability demands a fundamental understanding of the metallurigical mechanisms that control the fatigue to design accurate accelerated probative tests and new, more fatigue resistant solder alloys. The high temperatures and slow strain rates that pertain to thermal fatigue imply that creep is an important deformation mode in the thermal fatigue cycle. In this work, the creep behaviour of a solder joint is studied to determine the solder's microstructural response to this type of deformation and to relate this to the more complex problem of thermal fatigue. It is shown that creep failures arise from the inherent inhomogeneity and instability of the solder microstructure and suggest that small compositional changes of the binary near-eutectic Pn-Sn alloy may defeat the observed failure mechanisms. This work presents creep and thermal fatigue data for several near-eutectic Pb-Sn solder compositions and concludes that a 58Sn-40Pb-2In and a 58Sn-40Pb-2Cd alloy show significantly enhanced fatigue resistance over that of the simple binary material. 80 refs., 33 figs., 1 tab.

The Environmental Protection Department/Environmental Monitoring Section (EPD/EMS) administers the Savannah River Site's (SRS) Groundwater Monitoring Program. During fourth quarter 1991, EPD/EMS conducted extensive sampling of monitoring wells. EPD/EMS established two sets of criteria in 1986 to assist in the management of sample results. The flagging criteria do not define contamination levels; instead, they aid personnel in sample scheduling, interpretation of data, and trend identification. Beginning in 1991, the flagging criteria are based on EPA drinking water standards and method detection limits. A detailed explanation of the current flagging criteria is presented in the Flagging Criteria section of this document. Analytical results from fourth quarter 1991 are listed in this report.

The methods of impedance tomography may be employed to obtain images of subsurface electrical and conductivity variations. For practical reasons, voltages and currents are usually applied at locations on the ground surface or down a limited number of boreholes, but almost never over the entire surface of the region being investigated. The geophysical inversion process can be facilitated by constructing algorithms adopted to these particular geometries and to the lack of complete surface data. In this paper we assume that the fluctuations in conductivity are small compared to the background value. The imaging of these fluctuations is carried out exactly within the constraints imposed by the problem geometry. Several possible arrangements of injection and monitoring electrodes are considered. In two dimensions include: Cross-line geometry, current input along one line (borehole) and measurements along a separate parallel line. Single-line geometry, injection and monitoring using the same borehole. Surface reflection geometry, all input and measurement along the ground surface. Theoretical and practical limitations on the image quality produced by the algorithms are discussed. They are applied to several sets of simulated data, and the images produced are displayed and analyzed.

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; Interpretation of Senate Bill 667, establishing program to assist individuals with hearing or speech impairment to purchase specialized telecommunications device for telephone access (ID# 39619)

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; Status of work performed by county attorney while he simultaneously held the office of municipal judge (RQ-1053)

The Environmental Protection Department/Environmental Monitoring Section (EPD/EMS) administers the Savannah River Site`s (SRS) Groundwater Monitoring Program. During fourth quarter 1991, EPD/EMS conducted extensive sampling of monitoring wells. EPD/EMS established two sets of criteria in 1986 to assist in the management of sample results. The flagging criteria do not define contamination levels; instead, they aid personnel in sample scheduling, interpretation of data, and trend identification. Beginning in 1991, the flagging criteria are based on EPA drinking water standards and method detection limits. A detailed explanation of the current flagging criteria is presented in the Flagging Criteria section of this document. Analytical results from fourth quarter 1991 are listed in this report.

The Hanford Site Canister Storage Building (CSB Bldg. 212H) will be utilized to interim store Phase 1 HLW products. Project W-464, Immobilized High-Level Waste Interim Storage, will procure an onsite transportation system and retrofit the CSB to accommodate the Phase 1 HLW products. The Conceptual Design Report establishes the Project W-464 technical and cost basis.

This paper describes some recent developments in adaptive contact algorithms for the transient analysis of penetration and material failure. A failure criterion is defined for volumes of potentially failing material on each side of a contact surface. As material within an element fails, the element is removed from the calculation and the contact surface is adaptively redefined to include the newly exposed outer material boundary. This contact algorithm admits arbitrary combinations of shell and solid elements to facilitate the representation of composite or honeycomb structures. The algorithms and their application are illustrated with several large-scale simulations using the explicit transient analysis code DYNA3D.

Generation of high charge state heavy metallic ions including uranium has been successful in a number of EBIS (Electron Beam Ion Source) devices. The best results have been obtained in devices utilizing injection of primary, low charge state, ions from an external ion source into the EBIS trap for further ionization into higher charge states. In one such device, named EBIT (Electron Beam Ion Trap), a MeVVA ion source is used as an injector of primary metallic ions into the EBIT trap. The authors fabricated and experimented with a MeVVA metallic ion source. This source was recently installed on SuperEBIS, and has successfully injected titanium and uranium ions into the SuperEBIS trap.

A time-of-flight (TOF) spectrometer for determining ion species and charge states which are produced by ion sources has been constructed. It will be used to analyze the output of SuperEBIS, an Electron Beam Ion Source (EBIS) presently being assembled at BNL. Its design closely follows that of Weisgerber, which is based on the original work of Mamyrin. The spectrometer has been tested with an ion beam from a MEVVA ion source using titanium and uranium cathodes.

Document 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: What information a law enforcement agency is authorized to give to a public school district or private school under article 15.27 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (RQ-628)

Document 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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether article 4582b of the Revised Civil Statutes and Texas Funeral Service Commission rules preclude a funeral establishment designating the embalming facilities of another funeral establishment as its embalming room, from retaining a licensed embalmer as an independent contractor, and related questions (RQ-0054)

Document 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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a committee appointed by a commissioners court to recommend the selection of an architect is subject to the Open Meetings Act (RQ-0063)

High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned missions appear to be feasible using a lightweight, high efficiency, span-loaded, Solar Powered Aircraft (SPA) which includes a Regenerative Fuel Cell (RFC) system and novel tankage for energy storage. An existing flightworthy electric powered flying wing design was modified to incorporate present and near-term technologies in energy storage, power electronics, aerodynamics, and guidance and control in order to design philosophy was to work with vendors to identify affordable near-term technological opportunities that could be applied to existing designs in order to reduce weight, increase reliability, and maintain adequate efficiency of components for delivery within 18 months. The energy storage subsystem for a HALE SPA is a key driver for the entire vehicle because it can represent up to half of the vehicle weight and most missions of interest require the specific energy to be considerably higher than 200 W-hr/kg for many cycles. This stringent specific energy requirement precludes the use of rechargeable batteries or flywheels and suggests examination of various RFC designs. An RFC system using lightweight tankage, a single fuel cell (FC) stack, and a single electrolyzer (EC) stack separated by the length of a spar segment (up to 39 ft), has specific …

SuperEBIS was designed to have a solenoidal magnetic field of a 5 Tesla strength with a 120 cm long bore. The field was specified to be straight within 1 part in 10000 within the bore, and uniform to within 1 part in 1000 within the central 90 cm. Magnetic field measurements were performed with a computerized magnetic field measuring setup that was borrowed from W. Sampson`s group. A preliminary test was made of a scheme to determine if the magnetic and mechanical axes of the solenoid coincided, and, if not, by how much.

In the period of March 1, 1992 to May 30, 1992 considerable progress has been made in the development of the stress transport model for rapid granular flows in a rotating frame of reference. The derivation of thermodynamically consistent constitutive equations were complete. It was shown that the model contains the existing kinetics theories as special limiting cases. The model predictions for the special case of rapid simple shear flows were evaluated and the results are compared with the simulation data. Progress also has been made in formulation of the thermodynamically consistent rate dependent model for turbulent two-phase flows. The thermodynamically admissible constitutive equations were derived, and the case of a simple shear flow was also studied. The kinetic model for rapid flows of granular materials, which includes frictional losses, was used and the special case of gravity flows down an inclined chute was studied. The computational modeling for rapid granular flows in complex geometries was further developed. The design for the experimental simple shear flow device was further improved, and the construction of the device has started.

The Instrument and External Dosimetry Section provides the calibration service for all portable radiation monitoring measuring and test equipment used on the Hanford Site. This document outlines the quality assurance (QA) plan for the Instrument Calibration and Evaluation Program. The scope of the QA plan in outlined, requirement specifications are provided, and QA program/organization and impact level are discussed.

In the period of March 1, 1992 to May 30, 1992 considerable progress has been made in the development of the stress transport model for rapid granular flows in a rotating frame of reference. The derivation of thermodynamically consistent constitutive equations were complete. It was shown that the model contains the existing kinetics theories as special limiting cases. The model predictions for the special case of rapid simple shear flows were evaluated and the results are compared with the simulation data. Progress also has been made in formulation of the thermodynamically consistent rate dependent model for turbulent two-phase flows. The thermodynamically admissible constitutive equations were derived, and the case of a simple shear flow was also studied. The kinetic model for rapid flows of granular materials, which includes frictional losses, was used and the special case of gravity flows down an inclined chute was studied. The computational modeling for rapid granular flows in complex geometries was further developed. The design for the experimental simple shear flow device was further improved, and the construction of the device has started.

This paper discusses the technical progress of a US Department of Energy Innovative Clean Coal Technology project demonstrating advanced wall-fired combustion techniques for the reduction of nitrogen oxide(NO{sub x}) emissions from coal-fired boilers. The primary objective of the demonstration is to determine the performance of two low NO{sub x} combustion technologies applied in a stepwise fashion to a 500 MW boiler. A target of achieving 50 percent NO{sub x} reductions has been established for the project. The main focus of this paper is the presentation of the low NO{sub x} burner (LNB) short and long-term tests results.

Positive-muon spin rotation ({mu}{sup +}SR) has been carried out in the recently discovered rare-earth boron carbide superconductors RNi{sub 2}B{sub 2}C, R = Ho, Er and Tm. For R = Ho and Er zero-field {mu}{sup +}SR measurements showed a well-defined internal field below the Neel temperatures (TN {approx} 5.5 K) coexisting with the superconducting state down to 0.1 K. The observed temperature dependence of the order parameter in R = Ho is consistent with a 2-dimensional Ising model. For R = Tm a spontaneous internal field appears above 30 K, whose magnitude saturates below about 3 K at a value corresponding to a rare earth moment much smaller than for Ho and Er. Transverse-field {mu}{sup +}SR measurements in R = Tm showed a superconducting penetration depth A = 1,200 {Angstrom}. The temperature dependence of {lambda} is consistent with conventional s-wave pairing.