All technical project activities have been successfully completed. This effort included (1) completion of field testing using density tracers, (2) development of a spreadsheet based HMC simulation program, and (3) preparation of a menu-driven expert system for HMC trouble-shooting. The final project report is now being prepared for submission to DOE comment and review. The submission has been delayed due to difficulties in compiling the large base of technical information generated by the project. Technical personnel are now working to complete this report. Effort is being underway to finalize the financial documents necessary to demonstrate that the cost-sharing requirements for the project have been met.

Development of the ground-water flow model for the Death Valley Regional Groundwater Flow System (DVRFS) required integration of numerous supporting hydrogeologic investigations. The results from recharge, discharge, hydraulic properties, water level, pumping, model boundaries, and geologic studies were integrated to develop the required conceptual and 3-D framework models, and the flow model itself. To support the complex modeling process and the needs of the multidisciplinary DVRFS team, a hardware and software system called GeoPro (Geoscience Knowledge Integration Protocol) was developed. A primary function of GeoPro is to manage the large volume of disparate data compiled for the 100,000-square-kilometer area of southern Nevada and California. The data are primarily from previous investigations and regional flow models developed for the Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain projects. GeoPro utilizes relational database technology (Microsoft SQL Server{trademark}) to store and manage these tabular point data, groundwater flow model ASCII data, 3-D hydrogeologic framework data, 2-D and 2.5-D GIS data, and text documents. Data management consists of versioning, tracking, and reporting data changes as multiple users access the centralized database. GeoPro also supports the modeling process by automating the routine data transformations required to integrate project software. This automation is also crucial to streamlining pre- …

This Corrective Action Investigation Plan contains the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Operations Office's approach to collect the data necessary to evaluate corrective action alternatives appropriate for the closure of Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 271 under the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order. Corrective Action Unit 271 consists of 15 Corrective Action Sites (CASs) including: thirteen Septic Systems (25-04-01, 25-04-03, 25-04-04, 25-04-08, 25-04-09, 25-04-10, 25-04-11, 26-04-01, 26-04-02, 26-05-03, 26-05-04, 26-05-05, and 27-05-02), one Contaminated Water Reservoir (26-03-01), and one Radioactive Leachfield (26-05-01). The CASs addressed by CAU 271 are located at Guard Station 500, the Reactor Control Point (RCP), Bare Reactor Experiment - Nevada Tower, and Engine Test State-1 (ETS-1) facilities in Area 25; the Port Gaston and Project Pluto facilities in Area 26; and the Baker Site in Area 27 of the Nevada Test Site. Between 1 958 and 1973, the RCP and ETS-1 facilities supported the development and testing of nuclear reactors for space propulsion as part of the Nuclear Rocket Development Station. The Project Pluto facilities supported nuclear reactor testing for use as a ramjet propulsion system between 1961 and 1964, followed by similar use for other projects through the early 1980s. The …

No administrative or operations significant events are reported. Construction in the pile areas, separations areas, and the technical center is reported. The Southern Railroad connection, Richland paving and related work, and housing work is described. Personnel and visitor data is presented.

The Hanford Site Transuranic Waste Certification Plan establishes the programmatic framework and criteria within which the Hanford Site ensures that contract-handled TRU wastes can be certified as compliant with the WIPP WAC and TRUPACT-II SARP.

The Plasma Electrode Pockels Cell (PEPC) embodies technology essential to the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Together with a thin-film polarizer, PEPC functions as an optical switch for the main amplifier cavity, allowing optical pulses to be trapped, and then released, and enabling NIF to take advantage of the attendant gain and cost-savings. Details of the genesis, development, and prototyping of the PEPC are well documented. After moving from its laboratory setting to the NIF facility, PEPC--via its performance during the two-year NIF Early Light (NEL) campaign and its ongoing operation during facility build-out--has proven to be a fully functional system. When complete, NIF will accommodate 192 beams, capable of delivering 1.8 MJ to a fusion target. Forty-eight Plasma Electrode Pockels--driven by nearly 300 high-power, high-voltage pulse generators--will support this complement of beams. As deployed, PEPC is a complex association of state-of-the-art optics; low-voltage and high-voltage electronics; and mechanical, gas, and vacuum subsystems--all under computer control. In this paper, we briefly describe each of these elements, but focus on the pulse power aspects of the PEPC system.

The Transuranic Waste Characterization Quality Assurance Program Plan required each US Department of Energy (DOE) site that characterizes transuranic waste to be sent the Waste Isolation Pilot Plan that addresses applicable requirements specified in the QAPP.

TRLAN is a program designed to find a small number of extreme eigenvalues and their corresponding eigenvectors of a real symmetric matrix. Denote the matrix as A, the eigenvalue as {lambda}, and the corresponding eigenvector as x, they are defined by the following equation, Ax = {lambda}x. There are a number of different implementations of the Lanczos algorithm available. Why another one? Our main motivation is to develop a specialized version that only target the case where one wants both eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a large real symmetric eigenvalue problems that can not use the shift-and-invert scheme. In this case the standard non-restarted Lanczos algorithm requires one to store a large number of Lanczos vectors which can cause storage problem and make each iteration of the method very expensive. The underlying algorithm of TRLAN is a dynamic thick-restart Lanczos algorithm. Like all restarted methods, the user can choose how many vectors can be generated at once. Typically, th e user chooses a moderate size so that all Lanczos vectors can be stored in core. This allows the restarted methods to execute efficiently. This implementation of the thick-restart Lanczos method also uses the latest restarting technique, it is very effective in …

The applicant proposes to design and synthesize a series of fluorine-18-labeled radiopharmaceuticals to be used as amyloid imaging agents for positron emission tomography (PET). The investigators will conduct comprehensive iterative in vitro and in vivo studies based upon well defined acceptance criteria in order to identify lead agents suitable for human studies. The long term goals are to apply the selected radiotracers as potential diagnostic agents of Alzheimer's disease (AD), as surrogate markers of amyloid in the brain to determine the efficacy of anti-amyloid therapeutic drugs, and as tools to help address basic scientific questions regarding the progression of the neuropathology of AD, such as testing the "amyloid cascade hypothesis" which holds that amyloid accumulation is the primary cause of AD.

The DNA Files is a radio documentary which disseminates genetics information over public radio. The documentaries explore subjects which include the following: How genetics affects society. How human life began and how it evolved. Could new prenatal genetic tests hold the key to disease prevention later in life? Would a national genetic data base sacrifice individual privacy? and Should genes that may lead to the cure for cancer be privately owned? This report serves as a project update for the second quarter of 1998. It includes the spring/summer 1998 newsletter, the winter 1998 newsletter, the program clock, and the latest flyer.

This project focused on a molecular and biochemical characterization of the protein methyltransferases responsible for methylation of the LS and SS in Rubisco, and the associated functional consequences accompanying these modifications. Our results provided some of the most informative structural and mechanistic understandings of SET domain protein methyltransferases. These results also positioned us to provide the first unambiguous assignment of the kinetic reaction mechanism for SET-domain protein methyltransferases, and to design and engineer an alternative substrate for Rubisco LSMT, enabling substrate specificity and functional significance studies. We demonstrated that the minimal substrate recognized by Rubisco LSMT is free lysine as well as monomethyllysine, an observation corroborated both by structural analyses as well as enzymatic activity and subsequent product distribution analyses. Ternary complexes between Rubisco LSMT and free lysine compared to complexes with monomethyllysine demonstrated that the structural basis for multiple methyl group additions is a consequence of hydrogen-bond driven spatial shifts in the amino group of Lys-14, which maintains the direct in-line geometry necessary for SN2 nucleophilic attack. The structural observations are also consistent with the previous proposal that the multiplicity of methyl group additions takes place through a processive mechanism, with successive methyl group additions to an enzyme protein …

Sandia is a national security laboratory operated for the U.S. department of Energy by the Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company. Sandia designs all non-nuclear components for the nation's nuclear weapons, performs a wide variety of energy research and development projects, and works on assignments that respond to national security threats - both military and economic. They encourage and seek partnerships with appropriate U.S. industry and government groups to collaborate on emerging technologies that support their mission. Today, Sandia has two primary facilities, one in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and one in Livermore, California. They employ about 7,600 people and manage about $1.4 billion of work per year. In 1995, a decision was made to move from their in-house developed systems to commercial software. This decision was driven partly by Y2K compliance issues associated with the existing operating system and support environment. Peoplesoft was selected for human resources and Oracle for manufacturing and financial. They implemented Peoplesoft for human resources (HR) in 1997. They then implemented 7 Oracle modules in manufacturing in October 1998, including WIP, BOM, engineering, quality, inventory, MRP, cost management and limited HR/purchasing/receiving functionality required to support manufacturing. In March of 1999, they brought a portion of their …

This Corrective Action Investigation Plan contains the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Operations Office's approach to collect the data necessary to evaluate corrective action alternatives appropriate for the closure of Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 165 under the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order. Corrective Action Unit 165 consists of eight Corrective Action Sites (CASs): CAS 25-20-01, Lab Drain Dry Well; CAS 25-51-02, Dry Well; CAS 25-59-01, Septic System; CAS 26-59-01, Septic System; CAS 25-07-06, Train Decontamination Area; CAS 25-07-07, Vehicle Washdown; CAS 26-07-01, Vehicle Washdown Station; and CAS 25-47-01, Reservoir and French Drain. All eight CASs are located in the Nevada Test Site, Nevada. Six of these CASs are located in Area 25 facilities and two CASs are located in Area 26 facilities. The eight CASs at CAU 165 consist of dry wells, septic systems, decontamination pads, and a reservoir. The six CASs in Area 25 are associated with the Nuclear Rocket Development Station that operated from 1958 to 1973. The two CASs in Area 26 are associated with facilities constructed for Project Pluto, a series of nuclear reactor tests conducted between 1961 to 1964 to develop a nuclear-powered ramjet engine. Based on site history, the …

Wind-energy researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a new, light-weight, modular data acquisition system capable of acquiring long-term, continuous, multi-channel time-series data from operating wind-turbines. New hardware features have been added to this system to make it more flexible and permit programming via telemetry. User-friendly Windows-based software has been developed for programming the hardware and acquiring, storing, analyzing, and archiving the data. This paper briefly reviews the major components of the system, summarizes the recent hardware enhancements and operating experiences, and discusses the features and capabilities of the software programs that have been developed.

Yucca Mountain licensing will require estimation of ground motions from probabilistic seismic hazard analyses (PSHA) with annual probabilities of exceedance on the order of 10{sup -6} to 10{sup -7} per year or smaller, which correspond to much longer earthquake return periods than most previous PSHA studies. These long return periods for the Yucca Mountain PSHA result in estimates of ground motion that are extremely high ({approx} 10 g) and that are believed to be physically unrealizable. However, there is at present no generally accepted method to bound ground motions either by showing that the physical properties of materials cannot maintain such extreme motions, or the energy release by the source for such large motions is physically impossible. The purpose of this feasibility study is to examine recorded ground motion and rock property data from nuclear explosions to determine its usefulness for studying the ground motion from extreme earthquakes. The premise is that nuclear explosions are an extreme energy density source, and that the recorded ground motion will provide useful information about the limits of ground motion from extreme earthquakes. The data were categorized by the source and rock properties, and evaluated as to what extent non-linearity in the material has …

The genome sequence of the solvent producing bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC824, has been determined by the shotgun approach. The genome consists of a 3.94 Mb chromosome and a 192 kb megaplasmid that contains the majority of genes responsible for solvent production. Comparison of C. acetobutylicum to Bacillus subtilis reveals significant local conservation of gene order, which has not been seen in comparisons of other genomes with similar, or, in some cases, closer, phylogenetic proximity. This conservation allows the prediction of many previously undetected operons in both bacteria.

It is proposed to build a regional outpatient medical clinic at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), Batavia, Illinois, to exploit the unique therapeutic characteristics of high energy proton beams. The Fermilab location for a proton therapy facility (PTF) is being chosen for reasons ranging from lower total construction and operating costs and the availability of sophisticated technical support to a location with good access to patients from the Chicago area and from the entire nation. 9 refs., 4 figs., 26 tabs.

The US DOE Office of Fissile Material Disposition is examining options for placing fissile materials that were produced for fabrication of weapons, and now are deemed to be surplus, into a condition that is substantially irreversible and makes its use in weapons inherently more difficult. The principal fissile materials subject to this disposition activity are plutonium and uranium containing substantial fractions of plutonium-239 uranium-235. The data in this report, prepared as technical input to the fissile material disposition Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) deal only with the disposition of plutonium that contains well over 80% plutonium-239. In fact, the data were developed on the basis of weapon-grade plutonium which contains, typically, 93.6% plutonium-239 and 5.9% plutonium-240 as the principal isotopes. One of the options for disposition of weapon-grade plutonium being considered is the power reactor alternative. Plutonium would be fabricated into mixed oxide (MOX) fuel and fissioned (``burned``) in a reactor to produce electric power. The MOX fuel will contain dioxides of uranium and plutonium with less than 7% weapon-grade plutonium and uranium that has about 0.2% uranium-235. The disposition mission could, for example, be carried out in existing power reactors, of which there are over 100 in the United …

In fiscal year 2005, the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to undertake a broad array of tasks to either directly or indirectly address the barriers that faced much of the Great Plains states and their efforts to produce and transmit wind energy at the time. This program, entitled Great Plains Wind Energy Transmission Development Project, was focused on the central goal of stimulating wind energy development through expansion of new transmission capacity or development of new wind energy capacity through alternative market development. The original task structure was as follows: Task 1 - Regional Renewable Credit Tracking System (later rescoped to Small Wind Turbine Training Center); Task 2 - Multistate Transmission Collaborative; Task 3 - Wind Energy Forecasting System; and Task 4 - Analysis of the Long-Term Role of Hydrogen in the Region. As carried out, Task 1 involved the creation of the Small Wind Turbine Training Center (SWTTC). The SWTTC, located Grand Forks, North Dakota, consists of a single wind turbine, the Endurance S-250, on a 105-foot tilt-up guyed tower. The S-250 is connected to the electrical grid on the 'load side' of the electric meter, and the power …

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The need for better assessments of the ``external`` benefits and costs of environmental effects of various fuel cycles was identified during the development of the National Energy Strategy. The growing importance of this issue was emphasized by US Department of Energy (DOE) management because over half of the states were already pursuing some form of social costing in electricity regulation and a well-established technical basis for such decisions was lacking. This issue was identified as a major area of controversy--both scientifically and politically--in developing energy policies at the state and national level. In 1989, the DOE`s Office of Domestic and International Energy Policy commissioned a study of the external environmental damages and benefits of the major fuel cycles involved in electric power generation. Over the next 3-year period, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Resources for the Future conducted the study and produced a series of documents (fuel cycle documents) evaluating the costs of environmental damages of the coal, oil, natural gas, biomass, hydroelectric, and nuclear fuel cycles, as well as the Background Document on methodological issues. These documents described work that took almost 3 years and $2.5 million to complete and whose implications could be far reaching. In 1992, the …

Design modifications of a five-probe focusing collimator coincidence radioisotope scanning system are described. Clinical applications of the system were tested in phantoms using radioisotopes with short biological half-lives, including /sup 75/Se, /sup 192/Ir, /sup 43/K, /sup 130/I, and /sup 82/Br. Data processing methods are also described. (CH)

This Corrective Action Investigation Plan (CAIP) contains the U.S. Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office's approach to collect the data necessary to evaluate corrective action alternatives appropriate for the closure of Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 490 under the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order. Corrective Active Unit 490 consists of four Corrective Action Sites (CASs): 03-56-001-03BA, Fire Training Area (FTA); RG-56-001-RGBA, Station 44 Burn Area; 03-58-001-03FN, Sandia Service Yard; and 09-54-001-09L2, Gun Propellant Burn Area. These CASs are located at the Tonopah Test Range near Areas 3 and 9. Historically, the FTA was used for training exercises where tires and wood were ignited with diesel fuel. Records indicate that water and carbon dioxide were the only extinguishing agents used during these training exercises. The Station 44 Burn Area was used for fire training exercises and consisted of two wooden structures. The two burn areas (ignition of tires, wood, and wooden structures with diesel fuel and water) were limited to the building footprints (10 ft by 10 ft each). The Sandia Service Yard was used for storage (i.e., wood, tires, metal, electronic and office equipment, construction debris, and drums of oil/grease) from approximately 1979 to 1993. The Gun Propellant Burn Area …

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