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, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the staff of the Sunset Advisory Commission is entitled to receive confidential records, documents, and files and to attend confidential disciplinary hearings, deliberations, and other proceedings of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct (RQ-1066-GA).

None

None

None

None

None

None

Preliminary results from spectroscopic bottomonium studies of the {Upsilon}(2S) and {Upsilon} (3S) datasets collected by BABAR are presented.

This standard describes the LLNL Fire Protection Facility Survey Program. The purpose of this standard is to describe the type of facility surveys required to fulfill the requirements of DOE Order 420.1B, Facility Safety. Nothing in this standard is intended to prevent the development of a FHA using alternative approaches. Alternate approaches, including formatting, will be by exception only, and approved by the Fire Marshal/Fire Protection Engineering Subject Matter Expert in advance of their use.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Reactor (MITR-II) is a research reactor in Cambridge, Massachusetts designed primarily for experiments using neutron beam and in-core irradiation facilities. It delivers a neutron flux comparable to current LWR power reactors in a compact 6 MW core using Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) fuel. In the framework of its non-proliferation policies, the international community presently aims to minimize the amount of nuclear material available that could be used for nuclear weapons. In this geopolitical context, most research and test reactors both domestic and international have started a program of conversion to the use of Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) fuel. A new type of LEU fuel based on an alloy of uranium and molybdenum (UMo) is expected to allow the conversion of U.S. domestic high performance reactors like the MITR-II reactor. Toward this goal, core geometry and power distributions are presented. Distributions of power are calculated for LEU cores depleted with MCODE using an MCNP5 Monte Carlo model. The MCNP5 HEU and LEU MITR models were previously compared to experimental benchmark data for the MITR-II. This same model was used with a finer spatial depletion in order to generate power distributions for the LEU cores. The objective …

The design of power amplifiers in any semi-conductor process is not a trivia exercise and it is often encountered that the simulated solution is qualitatively different than the results obtained. Phenomena such as oscillation occurring either in-band or out of band and sometimes at subharmonic intervals, continuous spectrum noticed in some frequency bands, often referred to as chaos, and jumps and hysteresis effects can all be encountered and render a design useless. All of these problems might have been identified through a more rigorous approach to stability analysis. Designing for stability is probably the one area of amplifier design that receives the least amount of attention but incurs the most catastrophic of effects if it is not performed properly. Other parameters such as gain, power output, frequency response and even matching may suitable mitigation paths. But the lack of stability in an amplifier has no mitigating path. In addition to of loss of the design completely there are the increased production cycle costs, costs involved with investigating and resolving the problem and the costs involved with schedule slips or delays resulting from it. The Linville or Rollett stability criteria that many microwave engineers follow and rely exclusively on is not …

Turbochargers in commercial turbo-diesel engines are multi-material systems where usually the compressor rotor is made of aluminum or titanium based material and the turbine rotor is made of either a nickel based superalloy or titanium, designed to operate under the harsh exhaust gas conditions. The use of cast titanium in the turbine section has been used by Cummins Turbo Technologies since 1997. Having the benefit of a lower mass than the superalloy based turbines; higher turbine speeds in a more compact design can be achieved with titanium. In an effort to improve the cost model, and develop an industrial supply of titanium componentry that is more stable than the traditional aerospace based supply chain, the Contractor has developed component manufacturing schemes that use economical Armstrong titanium and titanium alloy powders and MgR-HDH powders. Those manufacturing schemes can be applied to compressor and turbine rotor components for diesel engine applications with the potential of providing a reliable supply of titanium componentry with a cost and performance advantage over cast titanium.

The Saltstone facility at Savannah River Site (SRS) has a grout hopper tank to provide agitator stirring of the Saltstone feed materials. The tank has about 300 gallon capacity to provide a larger working volume for the grout nuclear waste slurry to be held in case of a process upset, and it is equipped with a mechanical agitator, which is intended to keep the grout in motion and agitated so that it won't start to set up. The primary objective of the work was to evaluate the flow performance for mechanical agitators to prevent vortex pull-through for an adequate stirring of the feed materials and to estimate an agitator speed which provides acceptable flow performance with a 45{sup o} pitched four-blade agitator. In addition, the power consumption required for the agitator operation was estimated. The modeling calculations were performed by taking two steps of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling approach. As a first step, a simple single-stage agitator model with 45{sup o} pitched propeller blades was developed for the initial scoping analysis of the flow pattern behaviors for a range of different operating conditions. Based on the initial phase-1 results, the phase-2 model with a two-stage agitator was developed …

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's most energetic laser system, is operational at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Since the completion of the construction project in March 2009, NIF has completed nearly 150 target experiments for the National Ignition Campaign (NIC), High Energy Density Stewardship Science (HEDSS) in the areas of radiation transport, material dynamics at high pressure in the solid state, as well as fundamental science and other national security missions. NIF capabilities and infrastructure are in place to support all of its missions with over 50 X-ray, optical and nuclear diagnostic systems and the ability to shoot cryogenic targets and DT layered capsules. NIF is now qualified for use of tritium and other special materials as well as to perform high yield experiments and classified experiments. DT implosions with record indirect-drive neutron yield of 4.5 x 10{sup 14} neutrons have been achieved. A series of 43 experiments were successfully executed over a 27-day period, demonstrating the ability to perform precise experiments in new regimes of interest to HEDSS. This talk will provide an update of the progress on the NIF capabilities, NIC accomplishments, as well as HEDSS and fundamental science experimental results and an update of the …

A large centralized geothermal heat pump system was installed to provide ice making, space cooling, space heating, process water heating, and domestic hot water heating for an ice arena in Eagan Minnesota. This paper provides information related to the design and construction of the project. Additionally, operating conditions for 12 months after start-up are provided.

None

Data taken during the final shallow-site run of the first tower of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS II) detectors have been reanalyzed with improved sensitivity to small energy depositions. Four {approx}224 g germanium and two {approx}105 g silicon detectors were operated at the Stanford Underground Facility (SUF) between December 2001 and June 2002, yielding 118 live days of raw exposure. Three of the germanium and both silicon detectors were analyzed with a new low-threshold technique, making it possible to lower the germanium and silicon analysis thresholds down to the actual trigger thresholds of {approx}1 and {approx}2 keV, respectively. Limits on the spin-independent cross section for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) to elastically scatter from nuclei based on these data exclude interesting parameter space for WIMPs with masses below 9 GeV/c{sup 2}. Under standard halo assumptions, these data partially exclude parameter space favored by interpretations of the DAMA/LIBRA and CoGeNT experiments data as WIMP signals, and exclude new parameter space for WIMP masses between 3 and 4 GeV/c{sup 2}.

Electroweak radiative corrections to observable quantities of Moeller scattering of polarized particles are calculated. We emphasize the contribution induced by infrared divergent parts of cross section. The covariant method is used to remove infrared divergences, so that our results do not involve any unphysical parameters. When applied to the kinematics of SLAC E158 experiment, these corrections reduce the parity violating asymmetry by about -6.5% at E = 48 GeV and y = 0.5, and kinematically weighted 'hard' bremsstrahlung effect for SLAC E158 is {approx} 1%.

3D Silicon sensors fabricated at FBK-irst with the Double-side Double Type Column (DDTC) approach and columnar electrodes only partially etched through p-type substrates were tested in laboratory and in a 1.35 Tesla magnetic field with a 180 GeV pion beam at CERN SPS. The substrate thickness of the sensors is about 200 {mu}m, and different column depths are available, with overlaps between junction columns (etched from the front side) and ohmic columns (etched from the back side) in the range from 110 {mu}m to 150 {mu}m. The devices under test were bump bonded to the ATLAS Pixel readout chip (FEI3) at SELEX SI (Rome, Italy). We report leakage current and noise measurements, results of functional tests with Am{sup 241} {gamma}-ray sources, charge collection tests with Sr90 {beta}-source and an overview of preliminary results from the CERN beam test.

Series of tests were conducted following ASTM Standard Procedure C1733 to evaluate the repeatability of the test and the effects of several test parameters, including the solution-to-soil mass ratio, test duration, pH, and the concentrations of contaminants in the solution. This standard procedure is recommended for measuring the distribution coefficient (K{sub d}) of a contaminant in a specific soil/groundwater system. One objective of the current tests was to identify experimental conditions that can be used in future interlaboratory studies to determine the reproducibility of the test method. This includes the recommendation of a standard soil, the range of contaminant concentrations and solution matrix, and various test parameters. Quantifying the uncertainty in the distribution coefficient that can be attributed to the test procedure itself allows the differences in measured values to be associated with differences in the natural systems being studied. Tests were conducted to measure the uptake of Cs and Sr dissolved as CsCl and Sr(NO{sub 3}){sub 2} in a dilute NaHCO{sub 3}/SiO{sub 2} solution (representing contaminants in a silicate groundwater) by a NIST standard reference material of San Joaquin soil (SRM 2709a). Tests were run to measure the repeatability of the method and the sensitivity of the test response …

We are planning to construct a new control room at SLAC to unify and improve the operation of the LCLS, SPEAR3, and FACET accelerator facilities, and to provide the space and flexibility needed to support the LCLS-II and proposed new test beam facilities. The existing control rooms for the linac and SPEAR3 have been upgraded in various ways over the last decade, but their basic features have remained unchanged. We propose to build a larger modern Accelerator Control Room (ACR) in the new Research Support Building (RSB) which is currently under construction at SLAC. Shifting the center of control for the accelerator facilities entails both technical and administrative challenges. In this paper, we describe the history, concept, and status of this project.

The project objective was the discovery of new ligands for performing metal ion separations. The research effort entailed the preparation of new metal ion complexing agents and polymers and their evaluation in metal ion separation processes of solvent extraction, synthetic liquid membrane transport, and sorption. Structural variations in acyclic, cyclic, and bicyclic organic ligands were used to probe their influence upon the efficiency and selectivity with which metal ion separations can be performed. A unifying feature of the ligand structures is the presence of one (or more) side arm with a pendent acidic function. When a metal ion is complexed within the central cavity of the ligand, ionization of the side arm(s) produces the requisite anion(s) for formation of an overall electroneutral complex. This markedly enhances extraction/transport efficiency for separations in which movement of aqueous phase anions of chloride, nitrate, or sulfate into an organic medium would be required. Through systematic structural variations, new ligands have been developed for efficient and selective separations of monovalent metal ions (e.g., alkali metal, silver, and thallium cations) and of divalent metal ion species (e.g., alkaline earth metal, lead, and mercury cations). Research results obtained in these fundamental investigations provide important insight for the …

The authors present improved measurements of the branching fractions and CP-asymmetries fin the B{sup 0} {yields} {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}, B{sup 0} {yields} {pi}{sup 0}{pi}{sup 0}, and B{sup +} {yields} {rho}{sup +}{rho}{sup 0} decays, which impact the determination of {alpha}. The combined branching fractions of B {yields} K{sub 1}(1270){pi} and B {yields} K{sub 1}(1400){pi} decays are measured for the first time and allow a novel determination of {alpha} in the B{sup 0} {yields} {alpha}{sub 1}(1260){sup {+-}}{pi}{sup {-+}} decay channel. These measurements are performed using the final dataset collected by the BaBar detector at the PEP-II B-factory. The primary goal of the experiments based at the B factories is to test the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) picture of CP violation in the standard model of electroweak interactions. This can be achieved by measuring the angles and sides of the Unitarity Triangle in a redundant way.

The microwave radiometer 3-channel (MWR3C) provides time-series measurements of brightness temperatures from three channels centered at 23.834, 30, and 89 GHz. These three channels are sensitive to the presence of liquid water and precipitable water vapor.