The dollar declined abruptly in value against the yen in the second quarter of 1994, spurring the central banks of seventeen nations to coordinate a series of intervention efforts in the world's currency trading markets. In addition, the dollar's decline sparked discussions of the possible policy moves the United States and other nations might take to stem the fluctuations in the value of the dollar. Economic theory and empirical evidence indicate that the underlying movement of the exchange rate is tied to the long-term, macroeconomic movements of the economy, or to the combined movements of the economies of different countries, such as the United States and Japan. These macroeconomic factors account for at least half of the overall movement of exchange rates.

NATO's Partnership for Peace program seeks to encourage eligible states, above all the states of the former Warsaw Pact and the former Soviet Union, to build democracy and undertake greater responsibilities in international security. The program could open the door to, but does not promise, NATO membership. U.S. and NATO relations with Russia are likely to be the determining factor in deciding whether states move from Partnership to NATO membership.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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.

Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether wagering on the outcome of sporting events constitutes illegal gambling under section 47.02 of the Penal Code (ID# 25193)

Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether, under article XVI, section 67 of the Texas Constitution and section 815.103 of the Government Code, the Employees Retirement System of Texas may invest its funds in equity swap contracts (RQ-668)

Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether section 52.026(c) of the Family Code requires the county sheriff to transport a child to juvenile court proceedings in the absence of an order adopted by the juvenile board and approved by the commissioners court and related question (ID# 22390)

Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a commissioners court may assess a fee to a funeral home to cover transportation and administrative services provided by the county, and related questions (ID# 24298)

Unique tests of quantum mechanics, which can only be performed at a 0-factory, are proposed for Da0ne. Each of these tests consists of measuring the difference between the predicted and the actual amount of interference between two processes leading from a single pure initial state to a single pure final state of a kaon system. Estimates are made of the upper limits that will be set for the amount of violation if the predictions of quantum mechanics turn out to be correct. They are of the order a fraction of one percent. For the case where, on the contrary, a significant violation is found, several decoherence mechanisms are considered.

This document is a plan which serves as the contractual agreement between the Characterization Program, Sampling Operations, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and PNL tank vapor program. The scope of this plan is to provide guidance for the sampling and analysis of vapor samples from tank 241-TX-118.

The objective is to characterize more completely the biochemical ability of the bacterium, Rhodococcus rhodochrous IGTS8, to cleave carbon-sulfur bonds with emphasis on data that will allow the development of a practical coal biodesulfurization process. Another approach for increasing the desulfurization activity of the IGTS8 cultures is to produce strains genetically that have higher activity. The goal of this part of research is to achieve strain improvement by introducing a stronger promoter using genetic engineering techniques. The promoter regulates the transcription of the genes for the desulfurization enzymes, and a stronger promoter, would up-regulate the expression of these genes, resulting in cells with higher desulfurization activity. Promoter probe vectors are used to identify and isolate promoters from a DNA library of the experimental organism. The major accomplishments have been to obtain high biodesulfurization activity in nonaqueous, media, especially using freeze-dried cells, and to have isolated strong promoters from R. rhodochrous IGTS8 which will be used to engineer the organism to produce strains with higher biocatalytic activity.

The CIF will treat hazardous and mixed low-level radioactive waste in a rotary kiln and secondary combustion chamber. A high efficiency air pollution control system follows the secondary chamber. The rotary kiln is designed with a gas seal at each end of its rotating barrel which provides a barrier between the interior of the kiln and outside air. The internal pressure of the rotary kiln will be maintained below atmospheric pressure, so exterior air passing the seals is forced into the kiln`s interior. Positive pressure may be applied in the seal labyrinth, adding a barrier to flow. Both CIF seals will be covered entirely with exhaust hoods, drawing air over the outside of the seal and into a HEPA filtered exhaust system. Cam follower misalignment on a John Zink rotary kiln seal caused damage to the seal`s rotor. The misalignment was quantified, corrected, and checked to verify straightness. The primary purpose of the correction was to allow seal testing 1 to continue, but the information is applicable to the Consolidated Incineration Facility (CIF) since two large seals of similar design will be installed there. Cam follower straightness was off as much as 3.5{degrees}, causing followers to run untrue on the …

Glass fusion laser systems typically use a master oscillator-power amplifier (MOPA) architecture, where control of the optical pulse temporal and spatial parameters is accomplished mainly in the master oscillator and low power optics. The pulses from this low power ``front end`` are amplified in the power amplifier, which modifies the pulse shape temporally and spatially. Nonlinear frequency conversion crystals following the amplifier further change the pulse before it reaches the target. To effectively control the optical pulse on target for different types of experiments, and compensate for nonlinearity in the preceding optics, the front end system must be versatile enough to easily control many pulse parameters over a large range. The front end pulse generation system described in this article represents a new approach to this problem. The proposed National Ignition Facility (NIF) has 192 beamlines, each of which requires an input pulse of up to 12 Joules in around 4 ns equivalent square pulse length. Considerations of laser architecture for supplying each of these beamlines from a central oscillator system were crucial in the design of the front end. Previous lasers have used bulk optics to split a single oscillator signal and report beams to multiple amplifier chains. A …

Superconducting tunnel junctions have the potential to serve as high-resolution, high-efficiency x-ray detectors for astrophysical and industrial applications. When irradiated by X rays, each X ray excites over 10{sup 6} charge carriers which cause the detector to generate a pulse of current. We present an analysis of pulse shapes from detectors we have constructed and operated. We fit the decay of the current pulse to a simple model that considers two classes of carrier loss. One model considers only the normal recombination of the charge carriers with themselves, the other included additional losses due to recombination sites in the within the detector medium. We found that both mechanisms most be taken into account. We also found a small variation in pulse shape depending on which layer of the tunnel junction absorbed the X ray. We expect that this analysis will be a useful tool in comparing different detector designs and operating conditions.

Three experiments using the {sup 174}Yb({sup 25}Mg,5n) reaction at a beam energy of 130 MeV have been performed utilizing the Early Implementation of GAMMASPHERE. The goal of these experiments was to study the decay of the known superdeformed states in {sup 194}Pb to the normal low-lying levels in this nucleus. The statistical decay of these band appears to be suppressed with respect to its {sup 194}Hg isobar. A single discrete transition at 2.746(2) MeV in coincidence with both the superdeformed band and the normal states through which it decays has been identified in these experiments. The evidence for this transition and a discussion of its placement will be presented.

UGIMAG is manufacturing the NdFeB permanent magnet blocks to be used in undulator A now being assembled by STI Optronics. The authors would like to be able to compare measurements made at the plant with those made at ANL and potentially with those made at the STI facility. Since there are no permanent magnet standard samples, measurement systems are compared by trading sets of magnets set aside as standards. APS has ten NdFeB permanent magnet blocks supplied by Sumitomo that they use to make these comparisons. These magnet samples have been extensively measured on the APS system. The data include the three vector components of the total magnetic dipole moment of the blocks as well as the spherical coordinates of the vector.

We have developed a copper vapor laser based micromachinig system using advanced beam quality control and precision wavefront tilting technologies. Precision microdrilling has been demonstrated through percussion drilling and trepanning using this system. With a 30-W copper vapor from running at multi-kHz pulse repetition frequency, straight parallel holes with size varying from 500 microns to less than 25 microns and with aspect ratio up to 1:40 have been consistently drilled with good surface finish on a variety of metals. Micromilling and microdrilling on ceramics using a 250-W copper vapor laser have also been demonstrated with good result. Materialographic sections of machined parts show little (submicron scale) recast layer and heat affected zone.

The structure in question is an existing personnel access platform located in the D-Zero Assembly Building. This platform is used to access the preamplifiers located on the central calorimeter. The platform will need to be shortened to a 'fold-out' length of 36 in. due to some modifications recently made to the detector. The purpose of this note is to determine whether this modification affects the safety and the rated load of the platform. Three of the load carrying members were analyzed; the gusset supports, the hinge supports, and the hinge pins. The long and short beams which make up the platform's flooring were not analyzed. The long beams will not be affected by this modification because there is no change in the length of their moment arms. The short beams will be affected, but will see a smaller bending stress because of the decrease in the length of their moment arms. Any weld results previously found will also not be affected.

No Abstract. There are two copies in the file. They are similar, but different.

The Photovoltaic Manufacturing Technology (PVMaT) Project was initiated in 1990 to help the US photovoltaic (PV) industry extend its world leadership role in manufacturing and commercially developing PV modules and systems. It is being conducted in several phases, staggered to support industry progress. The four most recently awarded subcontracts (Phase 2B) are now completing their first year of research. They include two subcontracts on CdTe, one on Spheral Solar[trademark] Cells, and one on cast polysilicon. These subcontracts represent new technology additions to the PVMaT Project. Subcontracts initiated in earlier phases are nearing completion, and their progress is summarized. An additional phase of PVMaT, Phase 4A, is being initiated which will emphasize product-driven manufacturing research and development. The intention of Phase 4A is to emphasize improvement and cost reduction in the manufacture of full-system PV products. The work areas may include, but are not limited to, issues such as improvement of module manufacturing processes; system and system component packaging, integration, manufacturing, and assembly; product manufacturing flexibility; and balance-of-system development with the goal of product manufacturing improvements.

Tritium-release kinetics studies have been conducted on eight beryllium specimen disks, irradiated in the European Community/United States of America (EC/USA) Collaborative SIBELIUS irradiation test. These studies, measuring tritium-release rate versus time over several temperatures, have generated a series of well-characterized tritium release curves. These release curves are presented, along with supporting information, to provide input data in support of tritium transport prediction models and code development.

The FEMP Baseline establishes the basis for integrating environmental activity technical requirements with their cost and schedule elements. The result is a path forward to successfully achieving the FERMCO mission. Specific to cost management, the FEMP Baseline has been incorporate into the FERMCO Project Control System (PCS) to provide a time-phased budget plan against which contractor performance is measured with an earned value management system. The result is the Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB), an important tool for keeping cost under control.

This Technical Evaluation of Equipment Maintenance (TEEM) is provided principally to document vendor suggested maintenance requirements and deviations from vendor suggested requirements, and provide documentation to support PM procedures. As additional maintenance activities are identified, they will be documented in later revisions. This TEEM is applicable to four single-person manlifts. The report documents preventive maintenance evaluations, semi-annual checks, safety rules before the use of the manlifts, and routine service checks.