Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on how the Customs Service's Office of Regulatory Audit is conducting compliance assessment audits in the context of the Customs Service Modernization Act, focusing on: (1) procedures established by the act; and (2) Customs' policies and procedures for conducting the audits to identify any problems that might warrant GAO's further review."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed federal oversight of depository institutions' Internet banking activities, focusing on: (1) the risks posed by Internet banking and the extent of any industrywide Internet banking-related problems; (2) the methods used by regulators to track depository institutions' plans to provide Internet banking services; (3) how regulators examined Internet banking activities; and (4) the extent to which regulators examined firms providing Internet banking support services to depository institutions."

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 polygraph examiner who in the course of an examination learns that a child has been abused or neglected must report that information to the appropriate authorities, and related questions (RQ-923)

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 county may pay the autopsy expenses performed as part of an inquest into a death that occurs in a neighboring county (RQ-1155)

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 the Texas Board of Human Services may adopt a rule that authorizes a personal-care facility to provide "occasional nursing services" to its residents (RQ-1170)

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 commissioners court may accept a donation conditioned upon spending the money to improve a particular county road (RQ 1171)

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 public school employee may simultaneously serve as a county commissioner and draw a salary therefor (RQ-0011)

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: Permissible methods of disposing of property forfeited to the state under chapter 59 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (RQ-0027)

The goal of the Russian Navy Fuels Program is to incorporate nuclear fuel that is in the custody of the Russian Navy into a materials protection, control and accounting program. In addition to applying MPC and A upgrades to existing facilities, a program is underway to train site personnel in MPC and A activities. The goal is to assure that the upgraded facilities are managed, operated and maintained in an effective, sustainable manner. Training includes both the conceptual and necessary operational aspects of the systems and equipment. The project began with a Needs Assessment to identify priorities and objectives of required training. This led to the creation of a series of classes developed by Kurchatov Institute. One course was developed to allow attendees to get a general understanding of goals and objectives of nuclear MPC and A systems in the context of the Russian Navy. A follow-on course provided the detailed skills necessary for the performance of specialized duties. Parallel sessions with hands-on exercises provided the specific training needed for different personnel requirements. The courses were presented at KI facilities in Moscow. This paper reviews the work to date and future plans for this program.

GaN Schottky diodes were exposed to N₂ or H₂ Inductively Coupled Plasmas prior to deposition of the rectifying contact. Subsequent annealing, wet photochemical etching or (NH₄)₂S surface passivation treatments were examined for their effect on diode current- voltage characteristics. We found that either annealing at 750 °C under N₂, or removal of ~500-600 Å of the surface essentially restored the initial I-V characteristics. There was no measurable improvement in the plasma-exposed diode behavior with (NH₄)₂S treatments.

This document describes the Cold Vacuum Drying Facility (CVDF) condensate collection system (CCS). The function of the CCS is to collect cooling coil condensate from air-handling units in the CVDF and to isolate the condensate in collection tanks until the condensate is determined to be acceptable to drain to the effluent drain collection basin.

Site Treatment Plans (STPs) developed through the Federal Facilities Compliance Act pose many technical and administrative challenges. Legacy wastes managed under these plans require Land Disposal Restriction (LDR) compliance through treatment and ultimate disposal. Although capacity has been defined for most of the Department of Energy wastes, many waste streams require further characterization and many need additional treatment and handling beyond LDR criteria to be able to dispose of the waste. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the Hazardous Waste Management Division has developed a comprehensive Legacy Waste Program. The program directs work to manage low level and mixed wastes to ensure compliance with nuclear facility rules and its STP. This paper provides a survey of work conducted on these wastes at LLNL. They include commercial waste treatment and disposal, diverse forms of characterization, inventory maintenance and reporting, on-site treatment, and treatability studies. These activities are conducted in an integrated fashion to meet schedules defined in the STP. The processes managing wastes are dynamic due to required integration of administrative, regulatory, and technical concerns spanning the gamut to insure safe proper disposal.

The U.S. Department of Energy�s Hydropower Program developed the Hydropower Evaluation Software to model the undeveloped hydropower resources in the United States based on environmental, legal, and institutional constraints. This Hydropower Resource Assessment effort has identified 5,677 sites that have an undeveloped total capacity of about 30,000 megawatts. The Hydropower Evaluation Software uses the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission�s Hydroelectric Power Resource Assessment database to identify sites with undeveloped hydropower capacity and the estimated megawatts of undeveloped capacity at each site. The software integrates this information with environmental values from the National Park Service�s National Rivers Inventory database. Other constraints to development that are modeled include Federal and state legislative protection for river segments that have been identified as being wild and scenic river segments. River segments containing threatened and/or endangered wildlife and fish are also modeled for their influence on hydropower development. The amount that each attribute affects the likelihood of development is dependent on the prior development of a site.

Corrosion reactions in a flooded MCO are examined to determine the impact of aluminum corrosion products (from aluminum basket grids and spacers) on bound water estimates and subsequent fuel/environment reactions during storage. The mass and impact of corrosion products were determined to be insignificant, validating the choice of aluminum as an MCO component and confirming expectations that no changes to the Technical Databook or particulate mass or water content are necessary.

This document describes the Cold Vacuum Drying Facility (CVDF) fire protection system (FPS). The FPS provides fire detection, suppression, and loss limitation for the CVDF structure, personnel, and in-process spent nuclear fuel. The system provides, along with supporting interfacing systems, detection, alarm, and activation instrumentation and controls, distributive piping system, isolation valves, and materials and controls to limit combustibles and the associated fire loadings.

This document describes the Cold Vacuum Drying Facility (CVDF) crane and hoist system. The overhead crane and hoist system is located in the process bays of the CVDF. It supports the processes required to drain the water and dry the spent nuclear fuel contained in the multi-canister overpacks after they have been removed from the K-Basins. The cranes will also be used to assist maintenance activities within the bays, as required.

This document describes the Cold Vacuum Drying (CVD) Facility civil - structural system. This system consists of the facility structure, including the administrative and process areas. The system's primary purpose is to provide for a facility to house the CVD process and personnel and to provide a tertiary level of containment. The document provides a description of the facility and demonstrates how the design meets the various requirements imposed by the safety analysis report and the design requirements document.

This document describes the Cold Vacuum Drying Facility (CVDF) instrument air (IA) system that provides instrument quality air to the CVDF. The IA system provides the instrument quality air used in the process, HVAC, and HVAC instruments. The IA system provides the process skids with air to aid in the purging of the annulus of the transport cask. The IA system provides air for the solenoid-operated valves and damper position controls for isolation, volume, and backdraft in the HVAC system. The IA system provides air for monitoring and control of the HVAC system, process instruments, gas-operated valves, and solenoid-operated instruments. The IA system also delivers air for operating hand tools in each of the process bays.

Research carried out at ORNL has led to the development of solid state thin-film rechargeable lithium and lithium-ion batteries. These unique devices can be fabricated in a variety of shapes and to any required size, large or small, on virtually any type of substrate. Because they have high energies per unit of volume and mass and because they are rechargeable, thin-film lithium batteries have potentially many applications as small power supplies in consumer and special electronic products. Initially, the objective of this project was to develop thin-film battery powered products. Initially, the objective of this project was to develop thin-film battery powered transdermal electrodes for recording electrocardiograms and electroencephalograms. These ''active'' electrode would eliminate the effect of interference and improve the reliability in diagnosing heart or brain malfunctions. Work in the second phase of this project was directed at the development of thin-film battery powered implantable defibrillators.

The US Department of Defense (DoD), in cooperation with other federal agencies, has taken many initiatives to improve its ability to support civilian response to a domestic biological terrorism incident. This paper discusses one initiative, the 911-Bio Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations (ACTDs), conducted by the Office of the Secretary of Defense during 1997 to better understand: (1) the capability of newly developed chemical and biological collection and identification technologies in a field environment; (2) the ability of specialized DoD response teams to use these new technologies within the structure of cooperating DoD and civilian consequence management organizations; and (3) the adequacy of current modeling tools for predicting the dispersal of biological hazards. This paper discusses the experience of the ACTDs from the civilian community support perspective. The 911-Bio ACTD project provided a valuable opportunity for DoD and civilian officials to learn how they should use their combined capabilities to manage the aftermath of a domestic biological terrorism incident.

This report provides an overview of the wind resource, economics and operation of the recently installed wind turbines in conjunction with diesel power for the Naval Air Landing Field (NALF), San Clemente Island (SCI), California Project. The primary goal of the SCI wind power system is to operate with the existing diesel power plant and provide equivalent or better power quality and system reliability than the existing diesel system. The wind system is also intended to reduce, as far as possible, the use of diesel fuel and the inherent generation of nitrogen-oxide emissions and other pollutants. The first two NM 225/30 225kW wind turbines were installed and started shake-down operations on February 5, 1998. This report describes the initial operational data gathered from February 1998 through January 1999, as well as the SCI wind resource and initial cost of energy provided by the wind turbines on SCI. In support of this objective, several years of data on the wind resources of San Clemente Island were collected and compared to historical data. The wind resource data were used as input to economic and feasibility studies for a wind-diesel hybrid installation for SCI.

Biomass is a primary fuel for much of the world's population. In some developing countries it can contribute 80-90% of total primary energy consumption. In Asia as a whole we estimate that biomass contributes about 22 EJ, almost 24% of total energy use. Much of this biomass is combusted in inefficient domestic stoves and cookers, enhancing the formation of products of incomplete combustion (PIC), many of which are greenhouse gases. An inventory of the combustion of biofuels (fuelwood, crop residues, and dried animal waste) in Asia is used to develop estimates of the emissions of carbon-containing greenhouse gases (CO{sub 2},CO, CH{sub 4}, and NMHC) in Asian countries. The data are examined from two perspectives: total carbon released and total global warming potential (GWP) of the gases. We estimate that blofuels contributed 573 Tg-C in 1990, about 28% of the total carbon emissions from energy use in Asia. China (259 Tg-C) and India (187 Tg-C) were the largest emitting countries by far. The majority of the emissions, 504 Tg-C, are in the form of CO{sub 2}; however, emissions of non-CO{sub 2} greenhouse gases are significant: 57 Tg-C as CO, 6.4 Tg-C as CH{sub 4}, and 5.9 Tg-C as NMHC. Because of …

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The United States and the Russian Federation entered into a cooperative agreement in 1994 that resulted in a nuclear weapons non-proliferation program within the United States (US) Department of Energy (DOE) currently known as the Russia/Newly Independent States (NIS) Nuclear Material Security Task Force. In 1996, a project was initiated with the Murmansk Shipping Company to enhance material protection, control, and accounting of highly enriched nuclear fuel assemblies used for the Icebreaker Fleet. The commissioning ceremony for this project is scheduled for August 1999. This paper describes the physical protection, material control, and accounting measures implemented for the Icebreaker Fleet.