877 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Regulatory policy issues and the Clean Air Act: An interim report on the state implementation workshops
The National Regulatory Research Institute (NRRI), with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), conducted two workshops on state public utility commission implementation of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (CAAA). The first workshop was held in Charlotte, North Carolina for southern and eastern states in April 1992 and the second was held in St. Louis, Missouri for Midwestern states in May. The workshops had four objectives: (1) discuss key issues and concerns on CAAA implementation, (2) encourage a discussion among states on issues of common interest, (3) attempt to reach consensus, where possible, on some key issues, and (4) provide the workshop participants with information and materials to assist in developing rules, orders, and procedures in their state. Of primary interest from the federal perspective was for workshop participants to return to their states with additional background and understanding of how state commission actions may affect implementation of the CAAA and enable them to provide guidance to their jurisdictional utilities. It was hoped this would reduce some of the uncertainty utilities face and assist in the development of an efficient allowance market. The basic format of the workshops was that invited speakers made presentations on specific issues. {open_quotes}Primary participants{close_quotes} from each state and other workshop attendees then discussed the issues raised by the speakers and other related concerns. The primary participants were state commissioners, commission staff, representatives from state consumer advocate organizations, EPA, DOE, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Other attendees were utility representatives, consultants, and other interested parties. All participants were given a workbook with excerpts from an NRRI report on CAAA implementation and papers or outlines from speakers
Recommended from our members
Research report: Summary of key state issues of FERC orders 888 and 889
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission`s (FERC) Order 888 is perhaps the most important and far reaching FERC electricity order in decades. The consequences on the structure of the industry and how the industry is regulated are significant departures from past methods and regulatory philosophy. This will undoubtedly have a dramatic impact on the manner in which state public utility commissions, which are also undergoing or considering dramatic change, regulate their jurisdictional electric utilities. This report summarizes and discusses the actions that the FERC is taking and their profound repercussions on the industry and state commissions. The report is not a comprehensive summary of the entire order. Rather, it is intended to highlight the order`s more important features and discuss what this could mean for the states. The report is organized into eight sections; the first seven address Order 888 and the last section (section 8) addresses Order 889. Section 1 through 5 summarize and discuss the main features of Order 888. Section 6 (on jurisdiction) and Section 7 (on property rights) interpret the likely consequences of the order. Section 8, summarizes the FERC`s Open Access Same Time System (OASIS) and discusses some concerns about its real-world application
Effect of annealing on glassy dynamics and non-Fermi liquid behavior in UCu_4Pd
Longitudinal-field muon spin relaxation (LF-muSR) experiments have been
performed in unannealed and annealed samples of the heavy-fermion compound
UCu_4Pd to study the effect of disorder on non-Fermi liquid behavior in this
material. The muon spin relaxation functions G(t,H) obey the time-field scaling
relation G(t,H) = G(t/H^gamma) previously observed in this compound. The
observed scaling exponent gamma = 0.3 pm 0.1, independent of annealing. Fits of
the stretched-exponential relaxation function G(t) = exp[-(Lambda t)^K] to the
data yielded stretching exponentials K < 1 for all samples. Annealed samples
exhibited a reduction of the relaxation rate at low temperatures, indicating
that annealing shifts fluctuation noise power to higher frequencies. There was
no tendency of the inhomogeneous spread in rates to decrease with annealing,
which modifies but does not eliminate the glassy spin dynamics reported
previously in this compound. The correlation with residual resistivity
previously observed for a number of NFL heavy-electron materials is also found
in the present work.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to 10th International Conference on
Muon Spin Rotation, Relaxation, and Resonance, Oxford, UK, August 200
Sawja: Static Analysis Workshop for Java
Static analysis is a powerful technique for automatic verification of
programs but raises major engineering challenges when developing a full-fledged
analyzer for a realistic language such as Java. This paper describes the Sawja
library: a static analysis framework fully compliant with Java 6 which provides
OCaml modules for efficiently manipulating Java bytecode programs. We present
the main features of the library, including (i) efficient functional
data-structures for representing program with implicit sharing and lazy
parsing, (ii) an intermediate stack-less representation, and (iii) fast
computation and manipulation of complete programs
Unscreened Hartree-Fock calculations for metallic Fe, Co, Ni, and Cu from ab-initio Hamiltonians
Unscreened Hartree-Fock approximation (HFA) calculations for metallic Fe, Co,
Ni, and Cu are presented, by using a quantum-chemical approach. We believe that
these are the first HFA results to have been done for crystalline 3d transition
metals. Our approach uses a linearized muffin-tin orbital calculation to
determine Bloch functions for the Hartree one-particle Hamiltonian, and from
these obtains maximally localized Wannier functions, using a method proposed by
Marzari and Vanderbilt. Within this Wannier basis all relevant one-particle and
two-particle Coulomb matrix elements are calculated. The resulting
second-quantized multi-band Hamiltonian with ab-initio parameters is studied
within the simplest many-body approximation, namely the unscreened,
self-consistent HFA, which takes into account exact exchange and is free of
self-interactions. Although the d-bands sit considerably lower within HFA than
within the local (spin) density approximation L(S)DA, the exchange splitting
and magnetic moments for ferromagnetic Fe, Co, and Ni are only slightly larger
in HFA than what is obtained either experimentally or within LSDA. The HFA
total energies are lower than the corresponding LSDA calculations. We believe
that this same approach can be easily extended to include more sophisticated
ab-initio many-body treatments of the electronic structure of solids.Comment: 11 papes, 7 figures, 5 table
Downhole well log and core montages from the Mount Elbert Gas Hydrate Stratigraphic Test Well, Alaska North Slope
This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Marine and Petroleum Geology 28 (2011): 561-577, doi:10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2010.03.016.The BPXA-DOE-USGS Mount Elbert Gas Hydrate Stratigraphic Test Well was an integral part of an ongoing project to determine the future energy resource potential of gas hydrates on the Alaska North Slope. As part of this effort, the Mount Elbert well included an advanced downhole geophysical logging program. Because gas hydrate is unstable at ground surface pressure and temperature conditions, a major emphasis was placed on the downhole-logging program to determine the occurrence of gas hydrates and the in-situ physical properties of the sediments. In support of this effort, well-log and core data montages have been compiled which include downhole log and core-data obtained from the gas-hydrate-bearing sedimentary section in the Mount Elbert well. Also shown are numerous reservoir parameters, including gas-hydrate saturation and sediment porosity log traces calculated from available downhole well log and core data
âEthnic groupâ, the state and the politics of representation
The assertion, even if only by implication, that âethnic groupâ categories represent ârealâ tangible entities, indeed identities, is commonplace not only in the realms of political and policy discourse but also amongst contemporary social scientists. This paper, following Brubaker (2002), questions this position in a number of key respects: of these three issues will dominate the discussion that follows.
First, there is an interrogation of the proposition that those to whom the categories/labels refer constitute sociologically meaningful âgroupsâ as distinct from (mere) human collectivities. Secondly, there is the question of how these categories emerge, i.e. exactly what series of events, negotiations and contestations lie behind their construction and social acceptance. Thirdly, and as a corollary to the latter point, we explore the process of reification that leads to these categories being seen to represent âreal things in the worldâ (ibid.)
Helicity Analysis of Semileptonic Hyperon Decays Including Lepton Mass Effects
Using the helicity method we derive complete formulas for the joint angular
decay distributions occurring in semileptonic hyperon decays including lepton
mass and polarization effects. Compared to the traditional covariant
calculation the helicity method allows one to organize the calculation of the
angular decay distributions in a very compact and efficient way. In the
helicity method the angular analysis is of cascade type, i.e. each decay in the
decay chain is analyzed in the respective rest system of that particle. Such an
approach is ideally suited as input for a Monte Carlo event generation program.
As a specific example we take the decay () followed by the nonleptonic decay for which we show a few examples of decay distributions which are
generated from a Monte Carlo program based on the formulas presented in this
paper. All the results of this paper are also applicable to the semileptonic
and nonleptonic decays of ground state charm and bottom baryons, and to the
decays of the top quark.Comment: Published version. 40 pages, 11 figures included in the text. Typos
corrected, comments added, references added and update
Interatomic potentials for atomistic simulations of the Ti-Al system
Semi-empirical interatomic potentials have been developed for Al, alpha-Ti,
and gamma-TiAl within the embedded atomic method (EAM) by fitting to a large
database of experimental as well as ab-initio data. The ab-initio calculations
were performed by the linear augmented plane wave (LAPW) method within the
density functional theory to obtain the equations of state for a number of
crystal structures of the Ti-Al system. Some of the calculated LAPW energies
were used for fitting the potentials while others for examining their quality.
The potentials correctly predict the equilibrium crystal structures of the
phases and accurately reproduce their basic lattice properties. The potentials
are applied to calculate the energies of point defects, surfaces, planar faults
in the equilibrium structures. Unlike earlier EAM potentials for the Ti-Al
system, the proposed potentials provide reasonable description of the lattice
thermal expansion, demonstrating their usefulness in the molecular dynamics or
Monte Carlo studies at high temperatures. The energy along the tetragonal
deformation path (Bain transformation) in gamma-TiAl calculated with the EAM
potential is in a fairly good agreement with LAPW calculations. Equilibrium
point defect concentrations in gamma-TiAl are studied using the EAM potential.
It is found that antisite defects strongly dominate over vacancies at all
compositions around stoichiometry, indicating that gamm-TiAl is an antisite
disorder compound in agreement with experimental data.Comment: 46 pages, 6 figures (Physical Review B, in press
Decay of Nb94 and Nb94m
Gamma rays in Mo94 following the decay of Nb94 have been studied using coincidence and directional correlation measurements. The 700 keV transition was found to be in coincidence with the 873 keV gamma ray. The intensity of the crossover transition of 1573 keV was found to be less than 0.1 % of the 873 keV gamma ray intensity. The directional correlation of the 700 keV - 873 keV cascade was measured and the corrected expansion coefficients were found to be A2 = 0.0965 +/- 0.0076 and A4 = 0.019 +/- 0.011. These data indicate spins of 4 and 2 for the 1573 keV and 873 keV levels, respectively. Gamma rays following the decay of Nb94m were studied with proportional and scintillation counters. The conversion coefficient [alpha]K of the 42 keV gamma ray in the decay of 6.6 min Nb94m was measured to be 1600 +/- 350 and the branching ratio of the transition from Nb94m to the 873 keV level of Mo94 was found to be 0.19 +/- 0.03 %. The intensity ratio of the 600 keV beta ray to the 1.3 MeV beta ray in the decay of Nb94m was determined to be 3.0 +/- 0.6 %. These measurements support a spin and parity of 3- for the isomeric state.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/32305/1/0000373.pd
- âŠ