Prince George`s Community College (PGCC), in collaboration with the Prince George`s County Public School System (PGCPS) modified the Exploring Our World, a mathematics, science, and technology program, during the spring of 1996. The second year of that program was delivered to twenty-six rising seventh and eighth grade, students, and one rising ninth grader during the period July 9, 1996 to August 2, 1996. As in 1995, Dr. Baldwin coordinated and supervised the program; Charles Hoffman was the teacher, Patricia Crosson was the counselor; Kishma Brown was the paid college mentor; and Dante Brown was a volunteer high school mentor. Exploring Our World met six hours per day, four days each week, for four weeks. One day each week was devoted to a field trip, while the other three days were spent on-campus in a variety of classroom,library, computer laboratory, and science laboratory activities. Each student was randomly assigned to one of six groups. Each group conducted a research project and presented project results to parents, staff, and other participants on the night before the last day of the program. This report contain a summary of second year of this program.

In the computation of transverse wake field effects in accelerators, it is necessary to compute expressions of the form given in equations (1). It is usually desired to compute this a large number of times, the values of z{sub i} and x{sub i} being different at each iteration, other quantities remaining the same. The problem in practical applications is that the computational work grows as N{sub m}{sup 2}. Thus even using parallel computation to achieve speedup, the elapsed time to obtain a result still increases linearly with N{sub m}. The authors introduce here an approximate method of evaluating the sum in (1) whose computational work increases only as N{sub m}logN{sub m}. It involves some significant initial computation which does not have to be repeated at each subsequent iteration. The basis of the approach is to replace the individual contributions of a group of distant macroparticles with a local series expansion. In this respect it is similar in spirit to the so called fast multipole method.

Manganese-based sorbents have been investigated for the removal of hydrogen sulfide (the primary sulfur bearing compound) from hot coal gases. Four formulations of Mn-based sorbents were tested in an ambient-pressure fixed-bed reactor to determine steady state H₂S concentrations, breakthrough times and effectiveness of the sorbent when subjected to cyclic sulfidation and regeneration testing. In previous reports, the sulfidation and regeneration results from cyclic testing done at 550 and 600 °C were presented. Manganese-based sorbents with molar ratios > 1:1 Mn:Substrate were effective in reducing the H₂S concentration in simulated coal gases to less than 100 ppmv over five cycles. Actual breakthrough time for formulation C6-2-1100 was as high as 73% of breakthrough time based on wt% Mn in sorbent at 600 °C. Regeneration tests determined that loaded pellets can be essentially completely regenerated in air/steam mixture at 750 °C with minimal sulfate formation. In this report, the performance of the leading formulation (designated C6-2) was investigated for high temperature removal of H₂S from simulated coal-derived fuel gas under varying sorbent induration temperature, reaction temperature, and superficial gas velocity. Sulfidation experiments were performed in an ambient pressure fixed-bed reactor between 500 °C and 600 °C. Four tests were conducted with each …

A swept-frequency ultrasonic interferometry technique is used for noninvasively determining acoustic properties of fluids inside containers. Measurements over a frequency range 1-15 MHz on six liquid chemicals are presented. Measurements were made with the liquid inside standard rectangular optical glass cells and stainless steel cylindrical shells. A theoretical model based on one-dimensional planar acoustic wave propagation through multi-layered media is employed for the interpretation of the observed resonance (interference) spectrum. Two analytical methods, derived from the transmission model are used for determination of sound speed, sound attenuation coefficient, and density of liquids from the relative amplitude and half-power peak width of the observed resonance peaks. Effects of the container material and geometrical properties, path-length, wall thickness are also studied. This study shows that the interferometry technique and the experimental method developed are capable of accurate determination of sound speed, sound attenuation, and density in fluids completely noninvasively. It is a capable and versatile fluid characterization technique and has many potential NDE applications.

High strength food wastes of about 15-20 billion pounds solids are produced annually by US food producers. Low strength food wastes of 5-10 billion pounds/yr. are produced. Estimates of the various components of these waste streams are shown in Table 1. Waste paper/lignocellulosic crops could produce 2 to 5 billion gallons of ethanol per year or other valuable chemicals. Current oil imports cost the US about $60 billion dollars/yr. in out-going balance of trade costs. Many organic chemicals that are currently derived from petroleum can be produced through fermentation processes. Petroleum based processes have been preferred over biotechnology processes because they were typically cheaper, easier, and more efficient. The technologies developed during the course of this project are designed to allow fermentation based chemicals and fuels to compete favorably with petroleum based chemicals. Our goals in this project have been to: (1) develop continuous fermentation processes as compared to batch operations; (2) combine separation of the product with the fermentation, thus accomplishing the twin goals of achieving a purified product from a fermentation broth and speeding the conversion of substrate to product in the fermentation broth; (3) utilize food or cellulosic waste streams which pose a current cost or disposal …