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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Superfund Program, focusing on: (1) the status in the Superfund cleanup process of the sites on EPA's list of the nation's most hazardous sites, called the National Priorities List (NPL); and (2) for the 609 NPL sites GAO included in its review where cleanups have not been completed, what work has been accomplished, what work remains, and when the remaining work will be completed."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided a list of open recommendations to help solve problems in areas it designated as major management challenges in its January 1999 Performance and Accountability Report Series."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO assessed the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) property, plant, and equipment (PP&E) and inventory asset accountability problems, focusing on: (1) the key issues FAA must resolve in order to achieve accountability over its PP&E and inventory; and (2) whether FAA is taking appropriate actions to resolve these issues in a timely manner."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) health care system, focusing on: (1) DOD's estimates of the extent of health care fraud and abuse; (2) DOD's efforts to reduce health care fraud and abuse in civilian settings; and (3) initiatives and incentives that could improve DOD's antifraud efforts."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) portfolio of section 8 properties that are not insured by the Federal Housing Administration, focusing on: (1) section 8 rental assistance provided to properties in HUD's uninsured portfolio; (2) the financial benefits that may be available to state and local housing agencies that participate in the section 8 program; and (3) the ways HUD and the state agencies oversee the physical and financial condition of the properties in their respective uninsured section 8 portfolios and the information they have on the physical and financial condition of these properties."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the implications of establishing individual social security accounts, focusing on: (1) the effect individual social security accounts might have on the existing annuities market; (2) factors that affect the amount of annuity payments; and (3) the potential role of the federal government in regulating the annuities market if individual accounts were established."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on issues associated with the theft of stock used to create airline tickets, focusing on: (1) the number and value of the airline ticket stock stolen annually; (2) financial implications associated with the use of stolen ticket stock; (3) issues that are potentially associated with the use of stolen ticket stock; and (4) technological interventions and other initiatives designed to detect the use of stolen ticket stock."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the quality of the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) information security at its National Finance Center (NFC)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the approaches that agencies have proposed or adopted to verify and validate performance information."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO assessed how best practices offer improvements to the way the Department of Defense (DOD) incorporates new technology into weapon system programs, focusing on: (1) the impact of technology maturity on product outcomes; (2) best practices for managing new technologies and incorporating them into products; and (3) ways DOD can adapt these practices to get better outcomes on weapon system programs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) fiscal year (FY) 2000 annual performance plan."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO updated its previous report on the U.S. Postal Service's National Change of Address (NCOA) program, focusing on: (1) the actions the Service has taken in response to GAO's 1996 report; and (2) whether any additional actions are needed to strengthen the Service's oversight of the program."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO updated its previous report on agencies' fiscal year (FY) 1999 experiences in linking plans and budgets under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, focusing on: (1) identifying agencies that allocated program activity funding to performance goals in their FY 2000 performance plans; and (2) the progress agencies have shown in making these allocations."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) implementation of the Earned Income Credit (EIC) recertification requirement, focusing on the purpose of certain form letters that IRS has been sending to taxpayers in conjunction with this recertification process."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO updated its previous report on the Department of Energy's (DOE) fiscal year (FY) 2000 budget request, focusing on: (1) selected projects and activities by the Office of Environmental Management in which part or all of the FY 2000 budget request or budget authority from previous years is not needed; and (2) GAO's analysis of Environmental Management's and Defense Programs' carryover funds from prior years to determine if funds are available that could be used to reduce DOE's FY 2000 budget request."

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The Construction Safety Program (CSP) for NIF sets forth the responsibilities, guidelines, rules, policies and regulations for all workers involved in the construction, special equipment installation, acceptance testing, and start-up of NIF at LLNL during the construction period of NIF. During this period, all workers are required to implement measures to create a universal awareness which promotes safe practice at the work site, and which will achieve NIF's management objectives in preventing accidents and illnesses. Construction safety for NIF is predicated on everyone performing their jobs in a manner that prevents job-related disabling injuries and illnesses. Integrated Safety Management (ISM) is practiced in the execution of all activities associated with the NIF Project. The seven Principles of ISM are: (1) Line management is responsible for safety. (2) Clear roles and responsibilities are established and maintained. (3) Personnel possess competence commensurate with responsibilities. (4) Resource allocations are balanced, making ES and H a priority in project planning and execution. (5) Safety requirements are identified and implemented. (6) Hazard controls are tailored to the project work. (7) Operations are authorized before work begins.

Monthly newsletter discussing news and activities related to the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program, articles about weather and atmospheric phenomena, and other related topics.

The performance of beryllium-based multilayer coatings designed to reflect light of wavelengths near 11 nm, at normal incidence, is presented. These multilayer coatings are of special interest for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL). The beryllium-based multilayers investigated were Mo/Be, Ru/Be and a new material combination Mo,CiBe. The highest reflectivity achieved so far is 70% at 11.3 mn with 70 bilayers of Mo/Be. However, even though high reflectivity is very important, there are other parameters to satisfy the requirements for an EUVL production tool. Multilayer stress, thermal stability, radiation stability and long term reflectance stability are of equal or greater importance. An experimental characterization of several coatings was carried out to determine the reflectivity, stress, microstructure, and long term stability of these coatings. Theoretically calculated reflectivities are compared with experimental results for different material pairs; differences between experimental and theoretical reflectivities and bandwidths are addressed. Keywords: Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, reflective coatings, multilayer deposition, beryllium.

At Argonne National Laboratory we are developing a process to convert hydrocarbon fuels to a clean hydrogen feed for a fuel cell. The process incorporates a partial oxidation/steam reforming catalyst that can process hydrocarbon feeds at lower temperatures than existing commercial catalysts. We have tested the catalyst with three diesel-type fuels: hexadecane, low-sulfur diesel fuel, and a regular diesel fuel. We achieved complete conversion of the feed to products. Hexadecane yielded products containing 60% hydrogen on a dry, nitrogen-free basis at 800 C. For the two diesel fuels, higher temperatures, >850 C, were required to approach similar levels of hydrogen in the product stream. At 800 C, hydrogen yield of the low sulfur diesel was 32%, while that of the regular diesel was 52%. Residual products in both cases included CO, CO{sub 2}, ethane, ethylene, and methane.

We present a new shape measure for tetrahedral elements that is optimal in the sense that it gives the distance of a tetrahedron from the set of inverted elements. This measure is constructed from the condition number of the linear transformation between a unit equilateral tetrahedron and any tetrahedron with positive volume. We use this shape measure to formulate two optimization objective functions that are differentiated by their goal: the first seeks to improve the average quality of the tetrahedral mesh; the second aims to improve the worst-quality element in the mesh. Because the element condition number is not defined for tetrahedral with negative volume, these objective functions can be used only when the initial mesh is valid. Therefore, we formulate a third objective function using the determinant of the element Jacobian that is suitable for mesh untangling. We review the optimization techniques used with each objective function and present experimental results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the mesh improvement and untangling methods. We show that a combined optimization approach that uses both condition number objective functions obtains the best-quality meshes.

Variable-speed, horizontal axis wind turbines use blade-pitch control to meet specified objectives for three regions of operation. This paper focuses on controller design for the constant power production regime. A simple, rigid, non-linear turbine model was used to systematically perform trade-off studies between two performance metrics. Minimization of both the deviation of the rotor speed from the desired speed and the motion of the actuator is desired. The robust nature of the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller is illustrated, and optimal operating conditions are determined. Because numerous simulation runs may be completed in a short time, the relationship of the two opposing metrics is easily visualized. Traditional controller design generally consists of linearizing a model about an operating point. This step was taken for two different operating points, and the systematic design approach was used. A comparison of the optimal regions selected using the n on-linear model and the two linear models shows similarities. The linearization point selection does, however, affect the turbine performance slightly. Exploitation of the simplicity of the model allows surfaces consisting of operation under a wide range of gain values to be created. This methodology provides a means of visually observing turbine performance based upon the two metrics …

Argonne National Laboratory is providing support for a criticality safety analysis project that is being performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The ANL role is to provide the covariance information needed by ORNL for this project. The ENDF/B-V evaluation is being used for this particular criticality analysis. In this evaluation, covariance information for several isotopes or elements of interest to this analysis is either not given or needs to be reconsidered. For some required materials, covariance information does not exist in ENDF/B-V: {sup 233}U, {sup 236}U, Zr, Mg, Gd, and Hf. For others, existing covariance information may need to be re-examined in light of the newer ENDF/B-V evaluation and recent experimental data. In this category are the following materials: {sup 235}U, {sup 238}U, {sup 239}Pu, {sup 240}Pu, {sup 241}Pu, Fe, H, C, N, O, Al, Si, and B. A reasonable estimation of the fractional errors for various evaluated neutron cross sections from ENDF/B-V can be based on the comparisons between the major more recent evaluations including ENDF/B-VI, JENDL3.2, BROND2.2, and JEF2.2, as well as a careful examination of experimental data. A reasonable method to construct correlation matrices is proposed here. Coupling both of these considerations suggests a method to construct …