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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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;Effect of Hop wood v. State of Texas on Various Scholarships programs of the University of Houston(ID# 39347).

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; Reconsideration of Attorney General Letter Opinion No. 96-060 (1996) and related questions (ID# 38863)

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 a home-rule city to adopt an ordinance restricting or prohibiting cigarette vending machines.

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: Whether public housing authorities may administer federal housing assistance program involving payment of rent outside of their geographical boundaries.

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: Authority of personal bond office to report findings to magistrate.

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 person who creates and distributes a do-it-yourself kit for inmates' use in proceedings before the Board of Pardons and Parole is engaged in unauthorized practice of law.

The calculations contained in this analysis document establish the technical basis for the volume, frequency, and flushing fluid to be utilized for routine Waste Retrieval Sluicing System (WRSS) process line flushes. The WRSS was installed by Project W-320, Tank 24 I-C-106 Sluicing. The double contained pipelines being flushed have 4 inch stainless steel primary pipes. The flushes are intended to prevent hydrogen build up in the transfer lines and to provide ALARA conditions for maintenance personnel.

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The effect of dissolved oxygen level on fatigue life of austenitic stainless steels is discussed and the results of a detailed study of the effect of the environment on the growth of cracks during fatigue initiation are presented. Initial test results are given for specimens irradiated in the Halden reactor. Impurities introduced by shielded metal arc welding that may affect susceptibility to stress corrosion cracking are described. Results of calculations of residual stresses in core shroud weldments are summarized. Crack growth rates of high-nickel alloys under cyclic loading with R ratios from 0.2-0.95 in water that contains a wide range of dissolved oxygen and hydrogen concentrations at 289 and 320 C are summarized.

Preliminary research in our laboratory has demonstrated that boric acid is an effective lubricant with an unusual capacity to reduce sliding fiction (providing friction coefficients as low as 0.02) and wear of metallic and ceramic materials. More recent studies have revealed that water or methanol solutions of boric acid can be used to prepare strongly bonded layers of boric acid on aluminum surfaces. It appears that boric acid molecules have a strong tendency to bond chemically to the naturally oxidized surfaces of aluminum and its alloys and to make these surfaces very slippery. Recent metal formability tests indicated that the boric acid films formed on aluminum surfaces by spraying or dipping worked quite well; improving draw scale performance by 58 to 75%. These findings have increased the prospect that boric acid can be formulated and optimized as an effective boundary lubricant and used to solve the friction, galling, and severe wear problems currently encountered in cold-forming of aluminum products. Accordingly, the major goal of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness and lubrication capacity of thin boric acid films formed on aluminum surfaces by simple dipping or spraying processes and to describe the lubrication mechanisms under typical metal forming conditions. …

Thin film samples of a simple embedded nanocluster system consisting of solid Xe precipitates in Al have been subjected to 1 MeV electron irradiation in a high-voltage electron microscope. High-resolution images have been recorded on videotape in order to monitor the changes to the system resulting from the passage of electrons through the film. Inspection of the video recordings (in some cases frame-by-frame) reveals that complex, rapid processes occur under the electron beam. These include, movement of small clusters, coalescence of neighboring clusters, shape changes, the apparent melting and resolidification of the Xe, and the creation and annealing of extended defects within the Xe lattice. A tentative interpretation of some of the observations is presented in terms of the electron-induced displacement processes at the surface of the clusters.

This paper presents results from our on-going efforts to characterize semiconductor thin films for direct x-ray conversion. We deposit these thin films onto an amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) readout array with the overall goal of developing a large area x-ray detector for protein crystallography, and for other x-ray imaging fields.

The structure and electrochemical potential of monoclinic Li{sub 1+x}V{sub 3}O{sub 8} were calculated within the local-density-functional-theory framework by use of plane-wave-pseudopotential methods. Special attention was given to the compositions 1+x=1.2 and 1+x=4, for which x-ray diffraction structure refinements are available. The calculated low-energy configuration for 1+x=4 is consistent with the three Li sites identified in x-ray diffraction measurements and predicts the position of the unobserved Li. The location of the tetrahedrally coordinated Li in the calculated low-energy configuration for 1+x=1.5 is consistent with the structure measured by x-ray diffraction for Li{sub 1.2}V{sub 3}O{sub 8}. Calculations were also performed for the two monoclinic phases at intermediate Li compositions, for which no structural information is available. Calculations at these compositions are based on hypothetical Li configurations suggested by the ordering of vacancy energies for Li{sub 4}V{sub 3}O{sub 8} and tetrahedral site energies in Li{sub 1.5}V{sub 3}O{sub 8}. The internal energy curves for the two phases cross near 1+x=3. Predicted electrochemical potential curves agree well with experiment.

The HERMES Laser-Driven Target Task Force (Argonne, Erlangen and Illinois) is charged with developing a polarized H/D target for use in the HERA ring at DESY. Rapid progress was made in the beginning of 1996, leading us to the decision to test the target in a realistic experimental environment. In particular, polarizations of 0.6 and flows above 10{sup 18} atoms{center_dot}s{sup {minus}1} have been achieved on the bench. The laser-driven target and a simple detector system are currently installed in Cooler storage ring at the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility in order to test its applicability to nuclear physics experiments. Target polarizations are being measured using the {rvec H}(p, p) and {rvec D}(p, p) reactions. Initial tests were reasonably successful and the target is well along toward becoming viable for nuclear physics.

The Advanced Photon Source third generation synchrotrons light source needs a stabilized particle beam position to produce high brightness and low emittance radiation. Global orbit correction control is introduced and is utilized to satisfy the demanding needs of the accelerator. This paper presents the experimental results for determining an effective and optimal controller to meet the global orbit correction requirements. These requirements include frequency/time domain demands consisting of vibrational noise attenuation, limiting of controller gains for stability and improving the system time response. Experiments were conducted with a digital signal processor implementing various PID sets to make comparisons between simulations and experiments. Measurements at these PID sets supported the results of software simulation.

Epitaxial Fe wedges with a thickness gradation from 0--20 {angstrom} were grown on diamond(100) at room temperature, subsequently annealed, and investigated with reflection high-energy electron diffraction and the surface magneto-optical Kerr effect. The results indicate that for <5 monolayer thicknesses the Fe grows on C(100) as smooth, epitaxial fcc films, which are not ferromagnetic, but that thicker films undergo a transition to become rough and the ordinary bcc ferromagnetic phase.

In a round robin effort between the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Institut de Protection et de Surete Nucleaire in France, and the Russian Research Centre-Kurchatov Institute, Argonne National Laboratory conducted 16 modified ring stretch tensile tests on unirradiated samples of Zr-1Nb cladding, which is used in Russian VVER reactors. Tests were conducted at two temperatures (25 and 400 C) and two strain rates (0.001 and 1 s{sup {minus}1}). At 25 C and 0.001 s{sup {minus}1}, the yield strength (YS), ultimate tensile strength (UTS), uniform elongation (UE), and total elongation (TE) were 201 MPa, 331 MPa, 18.2%, and 57.6%, respectively. At 400 C and 0.001 s{sup {minus}1}, the YS, UTS, UE, and TE were 109 MPa, 185 MPa, 15.4%, and 67.7%, respectively. Finally, at 400 C and 1 s{sup {minus}1}, the YS, UTS, UE, and TE were 134 MPa, 189 MPa, 18.9%, and 53.4%, respectively. The high strain rate tests at room temperature were not successful. Test results proved to be very sensitive to the amount of lubrication used on the inserts; because of the large contact area between the inserts and specimen, too little lubrication leads to significantly higher strengths and lower elongations being reported. It is also important to …

Twelve different uranium alloys and compounds with uranium densities greater than 13.8 g/cc were fabricated into fuel plates. Sixty-four experimental fuel plates, referred to as microplates, with overall dimensions of 76.2 mm x 22.2 mm x 1.3 mm and elliptical fuel zone of nominal dimensions of 51 mm x 9.5 mm, began irradiation in the Advanced Test Reactor on August 23, 1997. The fuel test matrix consists of machined or comminuted (compositions are in weight%) U-10Mo,U-8Mo, U-6Mo, U-4Mo, U-9Nb-3Zr, U-6Nb-4Zr, U-5Nb-3Zr, U-6Mo-1Pt, U-6Mo-0.6 Ru, 10Mo-0.05Sn, U{sub 2}Mo and U{sub 3}Si{sub 2}(as a control). The low enriched ({sup 235}U < 20%) fuel materials were cast, powdered, mixed with aluminum dispersant at a volume ratio of 1:3, compacted and hot rolled to form the microplates. Spherical atomized powders of two fuels, U-10Mo and U{sub 3}Si{sub 2}, were utilized to make microplates and included in the irradiation test as well. The experimental design and fabrication steps employed in the selection and production of the fueled microplates is discussed.

Sensory information is critical to the telerobotic operation of mobile robots. In particular, visual sensors are a key component of the sensor package on a robot engaged in urban military operations. Visual sensors provide the robot operator with a wealth of information including robot navigation and threat assessment. However, simple countermeasures such as darkness, smoke, or blinding by a laser, can easily neutralize visual sensors. In order to provide a robust visual sensing system, an infrared sensor is required to augment the primary visual sensor. An infrared sensor can acquire useful imagery in conditions that incapacitate a visual sensor. A simple approach to incorporating an infrared sensor into the visual sensing system is to display two images to the operator: side-by-side visual and infrared images. However, dual images might overwhelm the operator with information, and result in degraded robot performance. A better solution is to combine the visual and infrared images into a single image that maximizes scene information. Fusing visual and infrared images into a single image demands balancing the mixture of visual and infrared information. Humans are accustom to viewing and interpreting visual images. They are not accustom to viewing or interpreting infrared images. Hence, the infrared image …

This report provides background on United States policy regarding conventional arms transfers to Latin America. It focuses on the development of U.S. policy toward arms sales and transfers to Latin America, and the debate over modifying existing policy and practices regarding such sales and transfers to countries in this region.