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Chinese officials and opinion leaders claim that recent U.S. actions contrary to the interests of the People's Republic of China (PRC) have convinced the Beijing regime that the U.S. Government is determined to do what it can to weaken and hold back China's growing power. Dismissing evidence of often fractious debate over China policy in the United States, Beijing leaders are said to see a consensus among policymakers in the The United States that is directed at working against China's emerging strength and influence in world affairs. The U.S. specialists are unsure if Chinese leaders are misguided but sincere in their views, or if Chinese leaders are using anti-U.S. themes for tactical advantage in boosting their political standing at home, in seeking concessions from the United States, or as a defensive strategy to deflect criticism of Chinese actions seen by many international experts as bordering on irresponsible. Regardless of Chinese motives, some Americans urge that the United States make concessions and take steps to reassure Beijing of U.S. intentions and restore the wide range of U.S.-China contacts cut off as a result of U.S.-Chinese friction in recent weeks. Other Americans judge that U.S. interests would be better served by a …

U.S.-China economic ties have expanded substantially over the past several years. China is now the third largest U.S. trading partner, its second largest source of imports, and its fourth largest export market. However, U.S.-China commercial ties have been strained by a number of issues, including a surging U.S. trade deficit with China, China's refusal to float its currency, and failure to fully comply with its World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments, especially its failure to provide protection for U.S. intellectual property rights (IPR). This report explores these issues in detail, especially concerning the lack of protection for U.S. IPR.

An island nation located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore's economic and strategic importance far exceeds its small size. Known for its excellent harbor -- the world's busiest by shipping tonnage -- the country has prospered as a center for financial services, manufacturing, tourism, and oil refining. Despite friction over trade and human rights issues, U.S.-Singapore relations are important to the promotion of regional trade, development, and security.

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.

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 a school district violates the law by installing a video surveillance camera in a student locker or gymnasium to identify students who allegedly are stealing property (ID# 31560)

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 an appraisal district is authorized to maintain and provide location information for the provision of 9-1-1 service (RQ-707)

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 the Open Meetings Act, Government Code chapter 551, applies to an HIV health services planning council established pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 300ff-12 or an HIV care consortium established pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 300ff-22(a)(1).

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 Local Government Code section 152.031, the district judge who appoints the county auditor may include in the county auditor's salary a set car allowance.

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 appointed members of the Texas Peace Officers' Memorial Advisory Committee to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education continue to serve until replaced or reappointed.

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 the Texas Board of Criminal Justice may adopt a policy allowing the relatives of a murder victim to attend the execution of the perpetrator (ID# 35948)

A three phase research and development program has resulted in the development and commercialization of a Cyclone Melting System (CMS{trademark}), capable of being fueled by pulverized coal, natural gas, and other solid, gaseous, or liquid fuels, for the vitrification of industrial wastes. The Phase 3 research effort focused on the development of a process heater system to be used for producing value added glass products from the vitrification of boiler/incinerator ashes and industrial wastes. The primary objective of the Phase 3 project was to develop and integrate all the system components, from fuel through total system controls, and then test the complete system in order to evaluate its potential for successful commercialization. The demonstration test consisted of one test run with a duration of 105 hours, approximately one-half (46 hours) performed with coal as the primary fuel source (70% to 100%), the other half with natural gas. Approximately 50 hours of melting operation were performed vitrifying approximately 50,000 lbs of coal-fired utility boiler flyash/dolomite mixture, producing a fully-reacted vitrified product.

The main objective of this project is the transfer of technologies, methodologies, and findings developed and applied in this project to other operators of Slope and Basin Clastic Reservoirs. This project will study methods to identify sands with high remaining oil saturation and to recomplete existing wells using advanced completion technology. The identification of the sands with high remaining oil saturation will be accomplished by developing a deterministic 3-D geologic model and by using a state of the art reservoir management computer software. The wells identified by the geologic and reservoir engineering work as having the best potential will be logged with a pulsed acoustic cased-hole logging tool. The application of the logging tools will be optimized in the lab by developing a rock-log model. The wells that are shown to have the best oil production potential will be recompleted. The recompletions will be optimized by evaluating short radius and ultra-short radius lateral recompletions. Technical progress is reported for the following tasks: Reservoir characterization; reservoir engineering; 3-D geologic modeling; pulsed acoustic logging; and technology transfer.

The design of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is based on conversion of 1.05 {mu}m wavelength light (1{omega}) into third harmonic light (3{omega}) by passage through KDP frequency conversion crystals. It is important for proper coupling of radiation into the targets that the final beam impinging upon the target should have little 1{omega} or 2{omega} light. It is also desirable to avoid direct line-of sight for neutrons between the target and the KDP crystals, in order to prevent damage. These issues can be overcome by employing diffraction gratings immediately before the final NIF focusing lens to direct the 3{omega} beam to the target. A single grating design is highly dispersive, and may introduce intolerable divergence into the beam. In order to overcome this limitation, we propose to use a grating pair. This will provide transverse offset of the beam and eliminate the dispersion while offering several other advantages.

Successful operation of large-scale high-power lasers, such as those in use and planned at LLNL and elsewhere, require optical elements that can withstand extremely high fluences without suffering damage. Of particular concern are gratings used for pulse compression. Laser induced damage to bulk dielectric material originates with coupling of the electric field of the radiation to bound electrons, proceeding through a succession of mechanisms that couple the electron kinetic energy to lattice energy and ultimately to macroscopic structural changes (e.g. fracture, melting, ablation, etc.). The constructive interference that is responsible for the diffractive behavior of a grating or the reflective properties of a multilayer dielectric stack can enhance the electric field above values that would occur in unstructured homogeneous material. The presence of nonuniform electric fields, resulting from diffractive coherence, has the potential to affect damage thresholds We describe aspects of LLNL work directed towards understanding the influence of dielectric structures upon damage, with particular emphasis on electric fields within multilayer dielectric stacks.

Successful operation of large-scale high-power lasers, such as those in use and planned at LLNL and elsewhere, require optical elements that can withstand extremely high fluences without suffering damage. Of particular concern are dielectric diffraction gratings used for beam sampling and pulse compression. Laser induced damage to bulk dielectric material originates with coupling of the electric field of the radiation to bound electrons, proceeding through a succession of mechanisms that couple the electron kinetic energy to lattice energy and ultimately to macroscopic structural changes (e.g. melting). The constructive interference that is responsible for the diffractive behavior of a grating or the reflective properties of a multilayer dielectric stack can enhance the electric field above values that would occur in unstructured homogeneous material. Much work has been done to model damage to bulk matter. The presence of nonuniform electric fields, resulting from diffractive coherence, has the potential to affect damage thresholds and requires more elaborate theory. We shall discuss aspects of work directed towards understanding the influence of dielectric structures upon damage, with particular emphasis on computations and interpretation of electric fields within dielectric gratings and multilayer dielectric stacks, noting particularly the interference effects that occur in these structures.

The objective of the subcontract was to provide further research on the approach to mathematics education embodied in the workbook ``This is Mega-Mathematics!`` essentially produced under the subcontract and its preceding informal (alas!) cooperative arrangements. The workbook is now widely and freely distributed on the Internet under the copyright of the Los Alamos National Labs. This research was to consist of: (1) the development and dissemination of materials, (2) experimentation with use of the materials in classroom visits and other events, (3) communication of the ideas embodied in the materials to various forums concerned with mathematics education reform, (4) the development of connections to the computer games industry, (5) the development of new workbook-type materials, (6) publications, (7) the development of connections to Science Museums, (8) the development of uses of the Internet to make MegaMath materials and ideas available through that medium, (9) the stimulation of and coordination with other projects in mathematics education reform. All of these objectives have been accomplished in what should be regarded as one of the most interesting and cost-effective projects ever undertaken in mathematics education, a testimony to the vision and creative imagination of the Los Alamos Labs.

Frequently, velocimeter targets are illuminated by a laser beam passing through a hole in a mirror. This mirror is responsible for diverting returning light from a target lens to a velocity interferometer system for any reflector (VISAR). This mirror is often a significant distance from the target lens. Consequently, at certain target focus positions the returning light is strongly vignetted by the hole, causing a loss of signal. The authors find that they can prevent loss of signal and greatly increase the useful depth of focus by attaching a cylindrical lens to the target lens.

Chirped pulse amplification is increasingly used to produce intense ultrashort laser pulses. When high-efficiency gratings are the dispersive element, as in the LLNL Petawatt laser, their susceptibility to laser induced damage constitutes a limitation on the peak intensities that can be reached. To obtain robust gratings, it is necessary to understand the causes of short-pulse damage, and to recognize the range of design options for high efficiency gratings. Metal gratings owe their high efficiency to their high conductivity. To avoid the inevitable light absorption that accompanies conductivity, we have developed designs for high efficiency reflection gratings that use only transparent dielectric materials. These combine the reflectivity of a multilayer dielectric stack with a diffraction grating. We report here our present understanding of short-pulse laser induced damage, as it applies to dielectric gratings.

The Living Systems Energy Module, renamed Voyage from the Sun, is a twenty-lesson curriculum designed to introduce students to the major ways in which energy is important in living systems. Voyage from the Sun tells the story of energy, describing its solar origins, how it is incorporated into living terrestrial systems through photosynthesis, how it flows from plants to herbivorous animals, and from herbivores to carnivores. A significant part of the unit is devoted to examining how humans use energy, and how human impact on natural habitats affects ecosystems. As students proceed through the unit, they read chapters of Voyage from the Sun, a comic book that describes the flow of energy in story form (Appendix A). During the course of the unit, an ``Energy Pyramid`` is erected in the classroom. This three-dimensional structure serves as a classroom exhibit, reminding students daily of the importance of energy and of the fragile nature of our living planet. Interactive activities teach students about adaptations that allow plants and animals to acquire, to use and to conserve energy. A complete list of curricular materials and copies of all activity sheets appear in Appendix B.

This report is a monthly summary for September 1995 for work performed by IIT Research Institute under DOE contract number DE-AC05-93OR22160. Financial data and milestones for September 1995 are included in the report.