Periodic paper series discussing information about occupational training, labor markets, and related information in Texas.

Periodic paper series discussing information about occupational training, labor markets, and related information in Texas. This issue focuses on integrating the federal content model O*NET with existing skill standards systems to create a more skilled workforce.

Periodic paper series discussing information about occupational training, labor markets, and related information in Texas.

Newsletter of the Texas Department of Health discussing the news, activities, and events of the organization and other information related to health in Texas. This newsletter contains information on Child Mortality in Texas from 1980-1995 and Texas Department of Health Regional Offices.

Text of laws in Texas related to alcohol, including the sale, serving, and taxation as well as other regulations and penalties.

The development and employment of a new diagnostic instrument for characterizing intense, heavy ion beams is reported on. This instrument, the ''Gated Beam Imager'' or ''GBI'' was designed for use on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Heavy Ion Fusion Project's ''Small Recirculator'', an integrated, scaled physics experiment and engineering development project for studying the transport and control of intense heavy ion beams as inertial fusion drivers in the production of electric power. The GBI allows rapid measurement and calculation of a heavy ion beam's characteristics to include all the first and second moments of the transverse phase space distribution, transverse emittance, envelope parameters and beam centroid. The GBI, with appropriate gating produces a time history of the beam resulting in a 4-D phase-space and time ''map'' of the beam. A unique capability of the GBI over existing diagnostic instruments is its ability to measure the ''cross'' moments between the two transverse orthogonal directions. Non-zero ''cross'' moments in the alternating gradient lattice of the Small Recirculator are indicative of focusing element rotational misalignments contributing to beam emittance growth. This emittance growth, while having the same effect on the ability to focus a beam as emittance growth caused by non-linear effects, is in …

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Feasibility study for growing biomass crops on reclaimed phosphate mining land and producing ethanol from them proposes a combination of sugarcane and cellulosic crops with both conventional sugar and cellulosic ethanol production facilities.

The immobilization of 13.5 wt% PuO{sub 2} in a zirconolite-rich Synroc has been demonstrated at the 50 g PuO{sub 2} scale in cans produced by hot isostatic pressing (HIPing) at 1280 C. The wasteform also contains more than an equimolar amount of neutron poisons such as Gd, Sm and Hf. The scale-up technology for production of Pu-containing cans of Synroc by HIPing has been demonstrated at the 10 kg scale using CeO{sub 2} as an analog for PuO{sub 2}. The characterization of the products has shown that Ce is a good analog for Pu in zirconolite-rich Synroc produced by HIPing. Post-production thermal tests simulating the effects of a HLW glass pour in a surrounding canister have shown that the Synroc is stable and there is no exsolution of PuO{sub 2} or CeO{sub 2}.

This report is a compilation of work by several different organizations and includes the NREL researched report, 'Biomass to Ethanol, Facility Design, Cost Estimate, and Financial Evaluation' Volumes I and II.

Charged vector D*{sup +}(2010) meson production is studied in a high energy neutrino bubble chamber experiment with mean neutrino energy of 141 GeV. The D*{sup +} are produced in (5.6 {+-} 1.8)% of the neutrino charged current interactions, indicating a steep increase of cross section with energy. The mean fractional hadronic energy of the D*{sup +} meson is 0.55 {+-} 0.06.

The status of the multiwire proportional chambers in the FERMILAB E781 experiment and a general description of the readout system are given. This essay will describe the system of multiwire proportional chambers (MWPC) that are part of the Fermilab experiment E781 setup. Multiwire proportional chambers are often used in particle physics experiments because they can determine the position of charged particles very accurately (less than a millimeter). The E781 experiment which is also called SELEX (SEgmented LargE-X) is a spectrometer designed to study the production and decay of charmed baryons. MWPCs are part of the 3-stage charged particle spectrometer (Figure 1). Each spectrometer stage includes a bending magnet and chambers. More information about E781 experiment is given in the Appendix. In the following, some basic concepts of MWPCs will be given briefly. After that the multiwire proportional chambers (M1PWC and M3PWC) that are used in the E781 fixed target experiment will be described. Then a general description of the readout system for both M1PWC and M3PWC setups will follow. Finally the tests done on both sets of chambers will be explained in detail.

Highlights of this issue include stories on the latest additions to the Chrysler and Ford flexible fuel lineup, a series of meetings held last spring to assess the availability of cellulase preparations used for bioethanol production, an update on regional biomass energy programs, and more.

Holography has been used successfully in combination with conventional optics for the first time in a large cryogenic bubble chamber, the 15-Foot Bubble Chamber at Fermilab, during a physics run. The innovative system combined the reference beam with the object beam, illuminating a conical volume of {approx} 1.4 m{sup 3}. Bubble tracks from neutrino interactions with a width of {approx} 120 {micro}m have been recorded with good contrast. The ratio of intensities of the object light to the reference light striking the film is called the Beam Branching Ratio. We obtained in our experiment an exceedingly small minimum-observable ratio of (0.54 {+-} 0.21) x 10{sup -7}. The technology has the potential for a wide range of applications.

DOE has a major initiative under way to demonstrate two high-efficiency gasification systems for converting biomass into electricity. As this fact sheet explains, the Biomass Power Program is cost-sharing two scale-up projects with industry in Hawaii and Vermont that, if successful, will provide substantial market pull for U.S. biomass technologies, and provide a significant market edge over competing foreign technologies.

The U.S. Department of Energy maintains two major test facilities in support of its Solar Thermal Electric Program--Sandia's National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and NREL's High-Flux Solar Furnace (HFSF) in Golden, Colorado. Manufacturers can use the NSTTF to test new designs, ideas, and products in an outdoor environment much like the environment the equipment will be in when it is used in the field; the operational characteristics and size of NREL's 10-kilowatt HFSF make it ideal for testing prototype hardware and calibrating flux gauges, which are used to measure levels of concentrated sunlight.

In 1991, the U.S. Department of Energy, in cooperation with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), initiated a collaborative process to define a residential energy efficiency rating program linked with energy-efficient mortgage (EEM) financing. During this process, the collaborative, consisting of a broad-based group representing stakeholder organizations, identified the need for quality control procedures to evaluate and verify the energy prediction methods used by Home Energy Rating System (HERS) providers. Such procedures were needed so a variety of locally developed rating systems would have equal opportunity to qualify under the umbrella of a national HERS/EEM system by meeting minimum technical requirements (National Renewable Energy Laboratory).

A variety of prototype high penetration wind-diesel hybrid power systems have been implemented with different amounts of energy storage. They range from systems with no energy storage to those with many hours worth of energy storage. There has been little consensus among wind-diesel system developers as to the appropriate role and amount of energy storage in such systems. Some researchers advocate providing only enough storage capacity to supply power during the time it takes the diesel genset to start. Others install large battery banks to allow the diesel(s) to operate at full load and/or to time-shift the availability of wind-generated electricity to match the demand. Prior studies indicate that for high penetration wind-diesel systems, short-term energy storage provides the largest operational and economic benefit. This study uses data collected in Deering, Alaska, a small diesel-powered village, and the hybrid systems modeling software Hybrid2 to determine the optimum amount of short-term storage for a particular high penetration wind-diesel system. These findings were then generalized by determining how wind penetration, turbulence intensity, and load variability affect the value of short term energy storage as measured in terms of fuel savings, total diesel run time, and the number of diesel starts.

Batteries in hybrid power applications that include intermittent generators, such as wind turbines, experience a very irregular pattern of charge and discharge cycles. Because battery life is dependent on both depth and rate of discharge (and other factors such as temperature, charging strategy, etc.), estimating battery life and optimally sizing batteries for hybrid systems is difficult. Typically, manufacturers give battery life data, if at all, as cycles to failure versus depth of discharge, where all discharge cycles are assumed to be under conditions of constant temperature, current, and depth of discharge. Use of such information directly can lead to gross errors in battery lifetime estimation under actual operating conditions, which may result in either a higher system cost than necessary or an undersized battery bank prone to early failure. Even so, most current battery life estimation algorithms consider only the effect of depth of discharge on cycle life. This paper will discuss a new battery life prediction method, developed to investigate the effects of two primary determinants of battery life in hybrid power applications, varying depths of discharge and varying rates of discharge. A significant feature of the model is that it bases its analysis on battery performance and cycle …

The Photovoltaic Manufacturing Technology (PVMaT) project is helping the U.S. photovoltaic (PV) industry extend its world leadership role in manufacturing and stimulate the commercial development of PV modules and systems. Initiated in 1990, PVMaT is being carried out in several directed and staggered phases to support industry`s continued progress. Thirteen subcontracts awarded in FY 1996 under Phase 4A emphasize improvement and cost reduction in the manufacture of full-system PV products. Areas of work in Phase 4A included, but were not limited to, issues such as improving 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. These Phase 4A, product-driven manufacturing research and development (R&D) activities are now completing their second phase. Progress under these Phase 4A and remaining Phase 2B subcontracts from the earlier PVMaT solicitation are summarized in this paper. Evaluations of the success of this project have been carried out in FY 1995 and late FY 1996. This paper examines the 1997 cost/capacity data that have been collected from active PVMaT manufacturers.

The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) has developed a set of Work Smart Standards for the Lab. The effort incorporated the Lab`s performance-based contract into the Necessary and Sufficient (N and S) Standards identification process of the DOE. A rigorous protocol identified hazards in the workplace and standards that provide adequate protection of workers, public, and the environment at reasonable cost. The intensive process was a joint effort between the Lab and DOE and it required trained teams of knowledgeable experts in three fields: (1) actual required work conditions at Jefferson Lab; (2) laws, regulations, DOE directives and performance-based contracts; and (3) Environmental Health and Safety (EH and S), Rad Con, and QA. The criteria for selection of the teams, the database designed and used for the process, and lessons learned are discussed.

Lanczos algorithm is a very effective method for finding extreme eigenvalues of symmetric matrices. It requires less arithmetic operations than similar algorithms, such as, the Arnoldi method. In this paper, the authors present their parallel version of the Lanczos method for symmetric generalized eigenvalue problem, PLANSO. PLANSO is based on a sequential package called LANSO which implements the Lanczos algorithm with partial re-orthogonalization. It is portable to all parallel machines that support MPI and easy to interface with most parallel computing packages. Through numerical experiments, they demonstrate that it achieves similar parallel efficiency as PARPACK, but uses considerably less time.

This document details the responsibilities and requirements for the design, technical documents, fabrication, testing, and installation of the SHMS-E and SHMS-E+ continuous gas monitors. The SHMS-E is identical in function to a SHMS-B but has the interface to accommodate an analytical module containing a gas chromatograph and a B and K photo acoustic gas monitor. Temporary addition of the analytical module adds the ``+`` to the SHMS-E designation. The analytical module is temporary in all installations.

Amendment V.13.B.b to the approved closure plan (DOE-RL 1995a) requires that a soil sampling and analysis plan be prepared and submitted to the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) for review and approval. Amendment V.13.B.c requires that a diagram of the 3718-F Alkali Metal Treatment and Storage Facility unit (the treatment, storage, and disposal [TSD] unit) boundary that is to be closed, including the maximum extent of operation, be prepared and submitted as part is of the soil sampling and analysis plan. This document describes the sampling and analysis that is to be performed in response to these requirements and amends the closure plan. Specifically, this document supersedes Section 6.2, lines 43--46, and Section 7.3.6 of the closure plan. Results from the analysis will be compared to cleanup levels identified in the closure plan. These cleanup levels will be established using residential exposure assumptions in accordance with the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) Cleanup Regulation (Washington Administrative Code [WAC] 173-340) as required in Amendment V.13.B.I. Results of all sampling, including the raw analytical data, a summary of analytical results, a data validation package, and a narrative summary with conclusions will be provided to Ecology as specified in Amendment V.13.B.e. The …