This project investigates and collects fundamental partitioning data for a variety of sparingly soluble subsurface contaminants (e.g., TCE, etc.) between vapor, aqueous phase, and matrices containing substantial quantities of biomass and biomass components. Due to the difficulty of obtaining these measurements, environmental models have generally used solubility constants of chemicals in pure water or, in a few rare cases, simple linear models. Our prior EMSP work has shown that the presence of biological material can increase effective solubilities by an order of magnitude for sparingly soluble organics; therefore, the previous simple approaches are not valid and are extremely poor predictors of actual bio-influenced partitioning. It is likely that environmental contaminants will partition in a similar manner into high-biomass phases (e.g. biobarriers and plants) or humic soils. Biological material in the subsurface can include lipids, fatty acids, humic materials, as well a s the lumped and difficult to estimate 'biomass'. Our measurements include partition into these biological materials to allow better estimation. Fundamental data collected will be used in mathematical models predicting transport and sorption in subsurface environments, with the impacts on bioremediation being evaluated based on this new information. Our 2-D Win95/98 software program, Biofilter 1.0, developed as a part …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report assesses the compliance by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) with the requirements of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. Overall, GAO found that OMB and CBO substantially complied with the act, although some of the required OMB and CBO reports were issued late. GAO's work was done in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Liquefied petroleum gas (propane) has thousands of uses in homes, farms, and workplaces and is widely available in the United States. Although propane can be stored and handled safely, serious propane-related accidents have resulted in death and the destruction of property. At times, the efforts of local emergency personnel to respond to such accidents have been impeded by lack of hazard and safety information. This report describes (1) relevant revisions to the 1998 version of the code that were published in the 2001 version, as well as the process used to revise the code, (2) the views of key stakeholders about whether the 2001 version of the code provides local emergency response personnel with enough information to prepare for and respond to emergencies involving propane, and (3) the status of state and local government adoption of the 2001 code. The 2001 version of the NFPA code strengthens provisions of previous versions regarding information on the off-site effects of accidental propane releases. According to the nine key stakeholders interviewed by GAO, the 2001 version of the code would make more information available to local emergency response personnel. …

Even on small boilers, the prevention of scale formation can produce substantial energy savings. Scale creates a problem because it typically possesses a thermal conductivity an order of magnitude less than the corresponding value of bare steel.

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This fact sheet discusses how to keep a home cool using natural ventilation, attic ventilation, mechanical ventilation, fans, whole-house fans, and evaporative or swamp coolers.

Prior to human missions to Mars, infrastructures on Mars that support human survival must be prepared. robotic teams can assist in these advance preparations in a number of ways. This paper addresses one of these advance robotic team tasks--the site preparation task--by proposing a control structure that allows robot teams to cooperatively solve this aspect of infrastructure preparation. A key question in this context is determining how robots should make decisions on which aspect of the site preparation t6ask to address throughout the mission, especially while operating in rough terrains. This paper describes a control approach to solving this problem that is based upon the ALLIANCE architecture, combined with performance-based rough terrain navigation that addresses path planning and control of mobile robots in rough terrain environments. They present the site preparation task and the proposed cooperative control approach, followed by some of the results of the initial testing of various aspects of the system.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Each year the United States produces about 7 billion gallons of fluid drinking milk that generate $22 billion in retail sales. Farmers, cooperatives, wholesale milk processors, and retailers all work to move milk from the dairy farm to the consumer. Each of these entities performs a distinct function in the production, processing, distribution, and sale of milk, and each receives a portion of the retail price of a gallon of milk. Fluid milk prices at the farm-level have fallen sharply, prompting Congress to authorize almost a billion dollars in emergency assistance to dairy farmers in the last three years. Fluid milk prices at the retail level, however, have not experienced a similar decline. Concerns have been raised about this growing price spread between farm and retail milk prices. This report examines (1) factors that influence the price of milk as it moves from the farm to the consumer, (2) the proportionate breakdown of the retail price of a gallon of milk received by farmers, cooperatives, wholesale milk processors, and retailers, (3) how changes in farm and retail milk prices affect the farm-to-retail milk price spread, (4) …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Department of Commerce's fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan required by the Government Performance and Results Act to assess Commerce's progress on achieving selected key outcomes. Commerce's combined performance report and performance plan is a significant improvement over its fiscal year 1999 performance report and fiscal year 2001 performance plan and addresses the recommendations made in GAO's June 2000 report. Furthermore, the report indicates that Commerce has made progress toward achieving two of the selected key outcomes. However, progress toward achieving the remaining two outcomes is unclear largely because of weaknesses related to measuring performance. Specifically, some of the measures are output-oriented, rather than outcome oriented; some measures have known limitations, which Commerce acknowledges; many of the measures used to assess performance in the past are being discontinued for the future; and Commerce plans to rely on one, narrowly focused measure to demonstrate progress for each performance goal related to these key outcomes. Furthermore, other data exist within the International Trade Administration (ITA) that could support additional measures related to these performance goals."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Department of Labor's fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan required by the Government Performance and Results Act. GAO found that Labor appears to be making progress in achieving the key outcomes in its strategic plan. Labor has increased its target levels for some goals for fiscal year 2002 and generally provided sound strategies for achieving these new targets. GAO continues to have concerns about some of the measures Labor uses. GAO is most concerned about the way in which Labor addresses two of its management challenges--information technology and strategic human capital management. Given the breadth of these goals, goal achievement cannot be fully assessed with the performance indicators Labor proposes. Without better indicators that more accurately and comprehensively measure performance toward the goal, Labor will be unable to fully assess its progress in these areas."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Department of the Interior's fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance report plan required by the Government Performance and Results Act. Specifically, GAO discusses Interior's progress in achieving the following four outcomes: (1) maintaining the health of federally managed land, water, and renewable resources; (2) ensuring visitors' satisfaction with the availability, accessibility, diversity, and quality of national parks; (3) meeting the federal government's responsibility to preserve and protect Indian trust lands and resources; and (4) ensuring the safe and environmentally sound development of mineral resources. GAO could not judge the agency's progress in promoting the health of federally managed land, water, and renewable resources because the goals Interior has reported do not foster a broad or departmentwide approach to measuring progress. Although the Park Service's strategies for continuing to meet and exceed its visitor satisfaction and visitor education goals appear clear and reasonable, the agency's fiscal year 2002 performance plan lacks information on the strategic human capital management strategies to achieve this outcome. GAO cannot judge the Bureau of Indian Affairs' progress in protecting Indian trust lands and resources …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Department of the Treasury's fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance report plan required by the Government Performance and Results Act. Specifically, GAO discusses Treasury's progress in addressing several key outcomes that are important to Treasury's mission. In general, GAO could not adequately determine Treasury's progress on five key outcomes because the fiscal year 2000 performance report lacked at least some measures needed to directly assess each of the outcomes. However, other information that GAO reviewed and GAO's past work suggest that Treasury may be at risk of not achieving these outcomes. In assessing Treasury's strategies, GAO identified shortcomings in its plans for each of the outcomes it reviewed. Chief among the limitations common to both the Treasury's fiscal year 1999 and 2000 performance reports was that the performance goals and measures of Treasury's agencies were not always directly reflected in the broader departmental goals, limiting the reports' usefulness in determining whether these agencies are making progress in meeting their strategic goals in general and the outcomes GAO reviewed in particular. Treasury improved the fiscal year 2000 report by …

In February of 1999, a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) was undertaken between Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Special Metals Corporation - Huntington Alloys (formerly INCO Alloys International, Inc.) to develop a modified wrought austenitic stainless alloy with considerably more strength and corrosion resistance than alloy 800H or 800HT, but with otherwise similar engineering and application characteristics. Alloy 800H and related alloys have extensive use in coal flue gas environments, as well as for tubing or structural components in chemical and petrochemical applications. The main concept of the project was make small, deliberate elemental microalloying additions to this Fe-based alloy to produce, with proper processing, fine stable carbide dispersions for enhanced high temperature creep-strength and rupture resistance, with similar or better oxidation/corrosion resistance. The project began with alloy 803, a Fe-25Cr-35NiTi,Nb alloy recently developed by INCO, as the base alloy for modification. Smaller commercial developmental alloy heats were produced by Special Metal. At the end of the project, three rounds of alloy development had produced a modified 803 alloy with significantly better creep resistance above 815 C (1500 C) than standard alloy 803 in the solution-annealed (SA) condition. The new upgraded 803 alloy also had the potential for …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) to assess the agency's progress in achieving selected key outcomes that are important to EPA's mission. EPA reported reasonable progress in achieving its key outcomes. Specifically, EPA reported (1) attaining air quality standards in more areas of the country and reducing emissions of toxic pollutants, (2) making strides in achieving its goal of safe and clean drinking water, (3) making progress in cleaning up hazardous waste sites, and (4) making progress in ensuring that food is free from unsafe pesticide residues. Although EPA made several improvements to its fiscal year 2000 performance report, it still falls short in providing information on crosscutting goals and measures. EPA's 2002 performance plan's goals and performance measures address some, but not all, major management challenges."

The LBNL Superconducting Magnet Program is extending accelerator magnet technology to the highest possible fields. A 1 meter long, racetrack dipole magnet, utilizing state-of-the-art Nb{sub 3}Sn superconductor, has been built and tested. A record dipole filed of 14.7 Tesla has been achieved. Relevant features of the final assembly and tested results are discussed.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Payments to farmers under federal farm programs have reached an historic high--over $20 billion in fiscal year 2000. Nearly half of U.S. farms are receiving payments for income or price support purposes and/or for engaging in activities such as land conservation. These payments, in total, made up almost one-half of net farm income in fiscal year 2000. Despite the annual influx of billions of federal dollars to the farm sector, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that the number of farms has been declining about one percent per year, with the most notable declines in small family farms and young farmers. GAO reviewed USDA's annual surveys of U.S. farm operations--called the Agricultural Resource Management Study--and state and crop information from its Program Payments Reporting System to (1) determine the distribution of farm payments over the past decade by farm size, operators' age, state, and crop and (2) identify the major barriers that make it difficult for young people to enter farming. GAO found that in recent years, over 80 percent of farm payments have been made to large- and medium-sized farms, while small farms have …

The authors have measured the reaction propagation rate (RPR) in weapons-grade, ultrafine octahydro-1,3,57-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocine (HMX) powder in a diamond anvil cell over the pressure range 0.7-35 GPa. In order to have a cross-comparison of their experiments, they carried out a series of experiments on nitromethane (NM) up to 15 GPa. The results on NM are indistinguishable from previous measurements of Rice and Folz. In comparison to high-pressure, NM, the burn process for solid HMX is not spatially uniform.

The authors have measured the reaction propagation rate (RPR) in weapons-grade, ultrafine octahydro-1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocine (HMX) powder in a diamond anvil cell over the pressure range 0.7-35 GPa. In order to have a cross-comparison of their experiments, they carried out a series of experiments on nitromethane (NM) up to 15 GPa. The results on NM are indistinguishable from previous measurements of Rice and Folz. In comparison to high-pressure NM, the burn process for solid HMX is between 5-10 times faster at pressures above 10 GPa.

This report provides a summary of context of globalization and its implications for U.S. National Security.

The proposed research aims to develop a fundamental understanding of important biological and physical chemical parameters for effective decontamination of metal surfaces using environmentally benign aqueous-based biopolymer solutions. Understanding how heavy metal-chelating biopolymers coat and interact with contaminated surfaces will benefit the development of novel, safe, easy-to-apply decontamination methodologies for removal of radionuclides and heavy metals. The benefits of these methodologies will include the following: decreased exposure hazards for workers; decreased secondary waste generation; increased efficiency of decontamination; positive public appeal and development of novel, nature-friendly business opportunities; and lower cost of cleanup to the government.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Department of Health and Human Service's (HHS) fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 to assess HHS' progress in achieving selected key outcomes that are important to its mission. It is difficult to fully assess the HHS' progress in fiscal year 2000 toward achieving the outcomes GAO reviewed because lags in reporting performance data are common for many of its components such as the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the Food and Drug Administration. In some cases, the delays are associated with the need to obtain performance data from states and local organizations. Some HHS components are working to improve the timeliness of data submitted by others and, in some instances, have reported trend data to show that progress is being made. For example, both ACF and CDC supplied fiscal year 1999 performance data in their current performance reports--data that were not available until this year. It is likely that ACF's …

Compact high flux neutron generators are developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The neutron production is based on D-D or D-T reaction. The deuterium or tritium ions are produced from plasma using either a 2 MHz or 13.56 MHz radio frequency (RF) discharge. RF-discharge yields high fraction of atomic species in the beam which enables higher neutron output. In the first tube design, the ion beam is formed using a multiple hole accelerator column. The beam is accelerated to energy of 80 keV by means of a three-electrode extraction system. The ion beam then impinges on a titanium target where either the 2.4 MeV D-D or 14 MeV D-T neutrons are generated. The MCNP computation code has predicted a neutron flux of {approximately}10{sup 11} n/s for the D-D reaction at beam intensity of 1.5 A at 150 kV. The neutron flux measurements of this tube design will be presented. Recently new compact high flux tubes are being developed which can be used for various applications. These tubes also utilize RF-discharge for plasma generation. The design of these tubes and the first measurements will be discussed in this presentation.

Accurate description of transport pathways on the gross scale, the location of contamination, and characterization of heterogeneity within the vadose zone, are now realized as vital for proper treatment, confinement and stabilization of subsurface contamination at Department of Energy (DOE) waste sites. Electromagnetic (EM) methods are ideal for these tasks since they are directly sensitive to the amount of fluid present in porous media, as well as fluid composition. At many DOE sites it is necessary to employ lower frequency (<1 MHz) or diffusive electromagnetic fields because of the inability of ground penetrating radar (GPR) to penetrate to sufficient depths. The high frequency impedance method, which operated in the diffusive frequency range (10 Hz to 1 MHz), as well as the low end of the spectrum employed by GPR (1MHz-10 MHz), is an ideal technique to delineate and map the aforementioned targets. The method has clearly shown the potential to provide needed information on variations in subsurface saturation due to local storage tanks and perched water zones, as well as mapping geological structures related to the subsurface hydrological properties and heterogeneity within the vadose zone. Although it exhibits certain advantages over other EM methods, the impedance method comes with a …

A frequency selective surface (FSS) structure has been fabricated for use in a thermophotovoltaic system. The FSS provides a means for reflecting the unusable light below the bandgap of the thermophotovoltaic cell while transmitting the usable light above the bandgap. This behavior is relatively independent of the light's incident angle. The fabrication of the FSS was done using optical lithography and a phase-shift mask. The FSS cell consisted of circular slits spaced by 1100 nm. The diameters and widths of the circular slits were 870 nm and 120 nm, respectively. The FSS was predicted to pass wavelengths near 7 {micro}m and reflect wavelengths outside of this pass-band. The FSSs fabricated performed as expected with a pass-band centered near 5 {micro}m.