Air infiltration is an important factor in heat loss and indoor air quality; in modern well-insulated homes, it may account for as much as half of the total heat loss. Due to the recent emphasis by home buyers and manufacturers on energy efficiency, tighter homes are being constructed. In the past, it was assumed that natural infiltration would provide adequate ventilation to maintain acceptable indoor air quality, but this is no longer the case in modern energy-efficient homes. This report summarizes the results of infiltration measurements made on two groups of manufactured homes in the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) service area: 131 energy-efficient homes constructed under RCDP, and a control group of 29 homes not participating in energy-efficiency programs.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on families no longer receiving welfare, focusing on: (1) the extent to which states have reported information on the condition of families who have left welfare in the following key areas: (a) economic status; (b) family composition; and (c) family and child well-being; (2) generalizable state studies on what is known about the status of former welfare families in the key areas; and (3) federal and state efforts to improve the usefulness of the data obtained through these state efforts."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the potential threat to the public's health from antimicrobial resistant bacteria, focusing on: (1) what is known about the public health burden--in terms of illnesses, deaths and treatment costs--due to antimicrobial resistance; (2) potential future burden, given what is known about the development of resistance in microbes and usage of antimicrobials; and (3) federal efforts to gather and provide information about resistance."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO evaluated the Department of the Interior's High-Level Implementation Plan for improving its management of the Indian trust funds and resources under its control, focusing on whether the Interior has reasonable assurance that: (1) the High-Level Plan provides an effective solution for addressing its long-standing problems; and (2) its acquisition of a new asset and land records management service will cost effectively satisfy trust management needs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on antibiotic resistance issues that may stem from the use of antibiotics in agriculture, focusing on the: (1) use of antibiotics in agriculture and the implications of that use for human health; (2) federal roles and responsibilities for overseeing the use of antibiotics in agriculture; and (3) issues surrounding the debate over whether to further regulate or restrict the use of antibiotics in agriculture."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reported on the results of the financial-related audit, conducted by KPMG Peat Marwick LLP, of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's (MedPAC) Schedules of Expenditures and Budgetary Resources for the year ended September 30, 1998."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on year 2000 costs and funding at 41 federal agencies and organizations, focusing on the: (1) agency-reported year 2000 costs through fiscal year (FY) 1998 and the agency processes used to track these costs; (2) reported status of FY 1999 obligations for year 2000 activities; (3) estimated year 2000 costs for FY 1999 and the planned uses of emergency funds; and (4) estimated year 2000 costs for FY 2000."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the labelling requirements for fresh produce, focusing on: (1) the potential costs associated with the compliance and enforcement of a mandatory country-of-origin labelling requirement at the retail level for fresh produce; (2) the potential trade issues associated with such a requirement; (3) the potential impact of such a requirement on the ability of the federal government and the public to respond to outbreaks of illness caused by contaminated fresh produce; and (4) consumers' views of country-of-origin labelling."

The objectives of this contract are to discover and evaluate the catalytic properties of novel homogeneous, heterogeneous, or combination catalytic systems for the production of alcohol fuel extenders from syngas, to evaluate analytically and on the bench scale novel reactor concepts for use in converting syngas to liquid fuel products, and to develop on the bench scale the best combination of chemistry, reactor, and total process configuration to achieve the minimum product cost for conversion of syngas to liquid fuel products. Methanol production and heterogeneous catalysis utilizing transition elements supported on metal oxides with spinel structure are discussed. 12 figs., 16 tabs.

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.

The production capabilities for and field testing of the heat recovery system are described briefly. Drawings are included.

Electrostatic beneficiation of dry coal has received significant attention in the last decade. In this process the coal is ground and then charged, either by corona charging or by triboelectrification (friction charging). Coal and minerals receive different levels of charge -- often opposite polarities in the case of triboelectrification -- and can then be separated based on differences in electrical mobility. Problems associated with the techniques include rapid deposition of particles on the electrodes, thus, effecting further separation. The goal of this project is to optimize the electrostatic coal cleaning process to remove pyrites and inorganic materials through studies of the electrostatic properties of powdered coal, in-situ measurements of the electrodynamics of coal and mineral particles inside the separator, and development of self-cleaning collector plates for continuous separation.

This report discusses pulse propagation in inhomogeneous optical waveguides and fibers.

Transgenic animals are used in industry and in biomedical research in order to provide in vivo experimental model systems. Sperm cells have been reported used as vectors in the production of transgenic animals before, however no approach has of yet proven to be successful. Fertilizing eggs with genetically modified sperm would be advantageous in that sperm are readily accessible and stable, and eggs can be fertilized by modified sperm cells in vivo. Recent elucidations regarding the unique manner of DNA packaging in sperm chromatin by protamines has provided us with the insight for developing a method of introducing foreign DNA into sperm which is likely to succeed where others have failed. We have developed a method for mimicking the in vivo system of sperm chromatin toroid subunits in vitro, concentrating these toroids, and fluorescent visualization. Our present work concerns development of a method to successfully deliver DNA across the cell membranes and into the nucleus.

The MIT Plasma Fusion Center magnet technology development effort, in support of the DOE/PETC MHD program, has culminated in two recent innovations which, when combined, will not only improve the reliability of commercial scale MHD magnets but will also reduce their cost by a factor of two. The first of these is a new form of Cable In Conduit Conductor (CICC) designed specifically for large scale DC superconducting magnets and the second is a highly efficient, quasi-momentless force containment which is made possible by the new conductor.

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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Authority of the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission to require a municipality to obtain permission to regulate on-site facilities (RQ-588)

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: How a school district should determine that a design/build contract will provide the school district with the best value for purposes of Education Code section 44.031(a), and related questions (RQ-870)

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: Authority of the Secretary of State to adopt rules restricting use of state funds for voter registration under chapter 19 of the Election Code (RQ-524)

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 Lubbock county hospital district may contribute funds for construction of an international cultural center at Texas Tech University(RQ-502).

Small scale crucible studies were performed by Schumacher to examine the effects of formate and nitrate on glass redox at high copper levels. The results of the crucible studies were used to determine the regions where copper precipitates in the glass. However, durability tests were not performed on the glass samples. Studies were performed in the 774 Research Melter using a simulated feed from the Purex 4 Campaign in the Integrated DWPF Melter System (IDMS). Three runs were performed with this simulated feed. The first used the feed as it was received to determine a baseline. The results from the second and third campaigns were compared to the baseline. The second run increased the copper concentration. The third increased the copper and formate concentrations. The purpose of these experiments was to investigate melter performance and glass durability using a feed with increased copper concentration. The Purex 4 feed did not contain the target amounts of sludge and Precipitate Hydrolysis Aqueous (PHA). Less than 20% of the feed slurry consisted of simulated sludge, making it a low waste-loading feed. The use of this feed with significantly more copper added than anticipated in the DWPF, showed no indication of copper precipitating in …

This project is concerned with the development of an a coal-fired low-emission boiler system. During march, separate kick-off meetings were held with PSI Powerserve, Raytheon and B&W`s Environmental Equipment Division to begin work on Phase I Task 5, the Commercial Plant Design. In addition, a meeting was held with MIT to discuss and review work completed and schedule work remaining on the project.

We have used the transpiration method to measure volatilities of Pu and Am from PuO{sub 2}(s) and PuO{sub 2}/2% AmO{sub 2}(s) in the presence of steam and oxygen at temperatures of 1230--1430 K. We find the volatile species to be PuO{sub 2}(OH){sub 2}(g) and AmO{sub 2}(OH){sub 2}(g) at vapor pressures on the order of 10{sup {minus}10} atm and 10 {sup {minus}12} atm respectively under measurement conditions. For the Pu volatilization reaction, PuO{sub 2}(s) + 1/2 0{sub 2}(9) + H{sub 2}0(g) = PuO{sub 2}(OH){sub 2}(g), we obtain a free energy of reaction of {Delta}G{sup O}{sub T} = 231.3--0.0109 T in kj/mol, and for the Am volatilization reaction, AmO{sub 2}(s.s. in PuO{sub 2}) + 1/2 0{sub 2}(9) + H{sub 2}0(g) = AmO{sub 2}(OH){sub 2}(g), we obtain AG{sup O}{sub T} = 223.9--0.0109 T in kj/mol. We apply these results to the Rocky Flats Plant Fluidized Bed Incinerator to assess the amount of volatile Pu and Am produced in the secondary combustor chamber. Taking operating conditions of 550C combustor temperature, 40 kmols/h of total gas flow at 1 atm pressure, 0.1 atm 0{sub 2}(9), 0.05 atm H{sub 2}0(g), PuO{sub 2} (s) containing 200 ppm AmO{sub 2} in the bed, and 6000 h of operating …

Training new users of complex machines is often an expensive and time-consuming process. This is particularly true for special purpose systems, such as those frequently encountered in DOE applications. This paper presents a computer-based training system intended as a partial solution to this problem. The system extends the basic virtual reality (VR) training paradigm by adding a multimedia component which may be accessed during interaction with the virtual environment: The 3D model used to create the virtual reality is also used as the primary navigation tool through the associated multimedia. This method exploits the natural mapping between a virtual world and the real world that it represents to provide a more intuitive way for the student to interact with all forms of information about the system.