This report summarizes technical progress over the first ten months of the second year of the Optical Fiber Sensor Technologies for Efficient and Economical Oil Recovery program, funded by the Federal Energy Technology Center of the US Department of Energy, and performed by the Photonics Laboratory of the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. The main objective for this three and one-half year program is the development and demonstration of cost-effective, reliable optical fiber sensors for the measurement of temperature, pressure, flow, and acoustic waves in downhole environments for use in oil recovery.

It may be labeled sport utility vehicle, SUV, sport-ute, suburban assault vehicle, or a friend of OPEC (Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries). It has been the subject of comics, the object of high-finance marketing ploys, and the theme of Dateline. Whatever the label or the occasion, this vehicle is in great demand. The popularity of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) has increased dramatically since the late 1970s, and SUVs are currently the fastest growing segment of the motor vehicle industry. Hoping to gain market share due to the popularity of the expanding SUV market, more and more manufacturers are adding SUVs to their vehicle lineup. One purpose of this study is to analyze the world of the SUV to determine why this vehicle has seen such a rapid increase in popularity. Another purpose is to examine the impact of SUVs on energy consumption, emissions, and highway safety.

The United States Transuranium and Uranium Registries (USTUR) comprise a human tissue research program studying the deposition, biokinetics and dosimetry of the actinide elements in humans with the primary goals of providing data fundamental to the verification, refinement, or future development of radiation protection standards for these and other radionuclides, and of determining possible bioeffects on both a macro and subcellular level attributable to exposure to the actinides. This report covers USTUR activities during the year from February 1999 through January 2000.

As a generator of transuranic (TRU) and TRU mixed waste destined for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the Hanford Site must ensure that its TRU waste meets the requirements of US. Department of Energy (DOE) 0 435.1, ''Radioactive Waste Management,'' and the Contact-Handled (CH) Transuranic Waste Acceptance Criteria for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP-WAC). WIPP-WAC requirements are derived from the WIPP Technical Safety Requirements, WIPP Safety Analysis Report, TRUPACT-II SARP, WIPP Land Withdrawal Act, WIPP Hazardous Waste Facility Permit, and Title 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 191/194 Compliance Certification Decision. The WIPP-WAC establishes the specific physical, chemical, radiological, and packaging criteria for acceptance of defense TRU waste shipments at WIPP. The WPP-WAC also requires that participating DOE TRU waste generator/treatment/storage sites produce site-specific documents, including a certification plan, that describe their program for managing TRU waste and TRU waste shipments before transferring waste to WIPP. Waste characterization activities provide much of the data upon which certification decisions are based. Waste characterization requirements for TRU waste and TRU mixed waste that contains constituents regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) are established in the WIPP Hazardous Waste Facility Permit Waste Analysis Plan (WAP). The …

The United States Department of Energy has prepared an Environmental Assessment (DOE/EA-1300) (EA) which analyzes the potential environmental effects of developing operating and maintaining a commercial/industrial park in Area 22 of the Nevada Test Site, between Mercury Camp and U.S. Highway 95 and east of Desert Rock Airport. The EA evaluates the potential impacts of infrastructure improvements necessary to support fill build out of the 512-acre Desert Rock Sky Park. Two alternative actions were evaluated: (1) Develop, operate and maintain a commercial/industrial park in Area 22 of the Nevada Test Site, and (2) taking no action. The purpose and need for the commercial industrial park are addressed in Section 1.0 of the EA. A detailed description of the proposed action and alternatives is in section 2.0. Section 3.0 describes the affected environment. Section 4.0 the environmental consequences of the proposed action and alternative. Cumulative effects are addressed in Section 5.0. Mitigation measures are addressed in Section 6.0. The Department of Energy determined that the proposed action of developing, operating and maintaining a commercial/industrial park in Area 22 of the Nevada Test Site would best meet the needs of the agency.

This annual report summarizes the progress of three years of a three-year grant awarded to the Center for Bioenvironmental Research (CBR) at Tulane and Xavier Universities. The objective of this project is to determine how environmental contaminants, namely hydrocarbons, can act as hormones or anti-hormones in different species present in aquatic ecosystems. The three major areas of research include (1) a biotechnology based screening system to identify potential hormone mimics and antagonists; (2) an animal screening system to identify biomarkers of endocrine effects; and (3) a literature review to identify compounds at various DOE sites that are potential endocrine disruptors. Species of particular focus in this study are those which can serve as sentinel species (e.g., amphibians) and, thus, provide early warning signals for more widespread impacts on an ecosystem and its wildlife and human inhabitants. The focus of the literature research was to provide an analysis of the contaminants located on or around various Department of Energy (DOE) sites that are or have the potential to function as endocrine disruptors and to correlate the need for studying endocrine disruptors to DOE's programmatic needs. Previous research within the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane and Xavier Universities has focused on …

Groundwater irrigation is critical to food production and, in turn, to humankind's relationship with its environment. The development of groundwater in Santa Clara Valley, California during the early twentieth century is instructive because (1) responses to unsustainable resource use were largely successful; (2) the proposals for the physical management of the water, although not entirely novel, incorporated new approaches which reveal an evolving relationship between humans and the hydrologic cycle; and (3) the valley serves as a natural laboratory where natural (groundwater basin, surface watershed) and human (county, water district) boundaries generally coincide. Here, I investigate how water resources development and management in Santa Clara Valley was influenced by, and reflective of, a broad understanding of water as a natural resource, including scientific and technological innovations, new management approaches, and changing perceptions of the hydrologic cycle. Market demands and technological advances engendered reliance on groundwater. This, coupled with a series of dry years and laissez faire government policies, led to overdraft. Faith in centralized management and objective engineering offered a solution to concerns over resource depletion, and a group dominated by orchardists soon organized, fought for a water conservation district, and funded an investigation to halt the decline of well …

Anaerobic biological processes can result in PCE and TCE destruction through conversion to cis-dichloroethene (cDCE) then to vinyl chloride (VC), and finally to ethene. Here, the chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons (CAHs) serve as electron acceptors in energy metabolism, requiring electron donors such as hydrogen from an external source. The purpose of this study was to learn more about the biochemistry of cDCE and VC conversion to ethene, to better understand the requirements for electron donors, and to determine factors affecting the rates of CAH degradation and organism growth. The biochemistry of reductive dehalogenation of VC was studied with an anaerobic mixed culture enriched on VC. In other studies on electron donor needs for dehalogenation of cDCE and VC, competition for hydrogen was found to occur between the dehalogenators and other microorganisms such as methanogens and homoacetogens in a benzoate-acclimated dehalogenating methanogenic mixed culture. Factors affecting the relative rates of destruction of the solvents and their intermediate products were evaluated. Studies using a mixed PCE-dehalogenating culture as well as the VC enrichment for biochemical studies suggested that the same species was involved in both cDCE and VC dechlorination, and that cDCE and VC competitively inhibited each other's dechlorination rate.

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Utility partnership upgrades energy system to help meet the General Services Administration's (GSA) energy-saving goals.

There is a well-known story about the blind man examining the elephant: the part of the elephant examined determines his perception of the whole beast. Perhaps bioinformatics--the shotgun marriage between biology and mathematics, computer science, and engineering--is like an elephant that occupies a large chair in the scientific living room. Given the demand for and shortage of researchers with the computer skills to handle large volumes of biological data, where exactly does the bioinformatics elephant sit? There are probably many biologists who feel that a major product of this bioinformatics elephant is large piles of waste material. If you have tried to plow through Web sites and software packages in search of a specific tool for analyzing and collating large amounts of research data, you may well feel the same way. But there has been progress with major initiatives to develop more computing power, educate biologists about computers, increase funding, and set standards. For our purposes, bioinformatics is not simply a biologically inclined rehash of information theory (1) nor is it a hodgepodge of computer science techniques for building, updating, and accessing biological data. Rather bioinformatics incorporates both of these capabilities into a broad interdisciplinary science that involves both conceptual …

The Nevada Test Site Resource Management Plan published in December of 1998 (DOE/NV--518) describes the Nevada Test Site stewardship mission and how its accomplishment will preserve the resources of the ecoregion while accomplishing the objectives of the mission. As part of the Nevada Test Site Resource Management Plan, DOE Nevada Operations Office has committed to perform and publish an annual summary review of DOE Nevada Operations' stewardship of the Nevada Test Site. This annual summary includes a description of progress made toward the goals of the Nevada Test Site Resource Management Plan, pertinent monitoring data, actions that were taken to adapt to changing conditions, and any other changes to the Nevada Test Site Resource Management Plan.

A substantial portion of the US population suffers frequently from communicable respiratory illnesses, allergy and asthma symptoms, and sick building syndrome symptoms. We now have increasingly strong evidence that changes in building design, operation, and maintenance can significantly reduce these illnesses. Decreasing the prevalence or severity of these health effects would lead to lower health care costs, reduced sick leave, and shorter periods of illness-impaired work performance, resulting in annual economic benefits for the US in the tens of billions of dollars. Increasing the awareness of these potential health and economic gains, combined with other factors, could help bring about a shift in the way we design, construct, operate, and occupy buildings. The current goal of providing marginally adequate indoor environments could be replaced by the goal of providing indoor environments that maximize the health, satisfaction, and performance of building occupants. Through research and technology transfer, DOE and its contractors are well positioned to help stimulate this shift in practice and, consequently, improve the health and economic well-being of the US population. Additionally, DOE's energy-efficiency interests would be best served by a program that prepares for the potential shift, specifically by identifying and promoting the most energy-efficient methods of improving …

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Executive Order 13123 directs Federal agencies to expand their use of renewable energy at Federal facilities. It also requires the Secretary of Energy to develop goals for the amount of energy generated from renewable resources-such as solar, wind, and biomass-that will be used at those facilities by a certain year. This paper lists key provisions of the Executive Order dealing with renewable energy. It also describes (1) the Federal sector's extensive prior experience with renewable resources and energy systems, and (2) progress up to date (Spring 2000) in meeting the goals of the Executive Order. This progress included a Federal Working Group tasked with developing goals and guidelines for Federal use of renewable energy systems. The next step was to submit a draft goal and plan to the Secretary of Energy for approval and implementation among Federal agencies.

The purpose of this Corrective Action Plan (CAP) is to provide the strategy and methodology to close the Area 22 Weather Station Fuel Storage. The CAU will be closed following state and federal regulations and the FFACO (1996). Site characterization was done during February 1999. Soil samples were collected using a direct-push method. Soil samples were collected at 0.6-m (2-ft) intervals from the surface to 1.8 m (6 ft) below ground surface. The results of the characterization were reported in the Corrective Action Decision Document (CADD) (DOE, 1999b). Soil sample results indicated that two locations in the bermed area contain total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) as diesel at concentrations of 124 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) and 377 mg/kg. This exceeds the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP) regulatory action level for TPH of 100 mg/kg (Nevada Administrative Code, 1996). The TPH-impacted soil will be removed and disposed as part of the corrective action.

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Hankin and Reeves' (1988) approach to estimating fish abundance in small streams has been applied in stream-fish studies across North America. However, as with any method of population estimation, there are important assumptions that must be met for estimates to be minimally biased and reasonably precise. Consequently, I investigated effects of various levels of departure from these assumptions via simulation based on results from an example application in Hankin and Reeves (1988) and a spatially clustered population. Coverage of 95% confidence intervals averaged about 5% less than nominal when removal estimates equaled true numbers within sampling units, but averaged 62% - 86% less than nominal when they did not, with the exception where detection probabilities of individuals were >0.85 and constant across sampling units (95% confidence interval coverage = 90%). True total abundances averaged far (20% - 41%) below the lower confidence limit when not included within intervals, which implies large negative bias. Further, average coefficient of variation was about 1.5 times higher when removal estimates did not equal true numbers within sampling units (C{bar V} = 0.27 [SE = 0.0004]) than when they did (C{bar V} = 0.19 [SE = 0.0002]). A potential modification to Hankin and Reeves' approach …

Federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCS) area unique class of research and development (R and D) facilities that share aspects of private and public ownership. Some FFRDCS have been praised as national treasures, but FFRDCS have also been the focus of much criticism through the years. This paper traces the history of FFRDCS through four periods: (1) the World War II era, which saw the birth of federal R and D centers that would eventually become FFRDCS; (2) the early Cold War period, which exhibited a proliferation of FFRDCS despite their unclear legislative status and growing tension with an increasingly capable and assertive defense industry, (3) there-evaluation and retrenchment of FFRDCS in the 1960s and early 1970s, which resulted in a dramatic decline in the number of FFRDCS; and (4) the definition and codification of the FFRDC entity in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Congress and the executive branch worked together to formalize regulations to control FFRDCS. The paper concludes with observations on the status of FFRDCS at the end of the twentieth century.

The purpose of this Corrective Action Plan (CAP) is to provide the strategy and methodology to close the Area 22 Sewage Lagoons site. The CAU will be closed following state and federal regulations and the FFACO (1996). Site characterization was done during September 1999, Soil samples were collected using a direct-push method and a backhoe. Soil samples were collected from the sludge bed, sewage lagoons, strainer box, and Imhoff tank areas. Characterization of the manholes associated with the septic system leading to the Imhoff tank was done during March 2000. The results of the characterization were reported in the Corrective Action Decision Document (CADD) (DOE/NV, 2000). Soil sample results indicated that the only constituent of concern (COC) detected above Preliminary Action Levels (PALs) was total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) as diesel-range organics. This COC was detected in three samples from the sludge bed at concentrations up to 580 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg). This exceeds the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP) regulatory action level for TPH of 100 mg/kg (Nevada Administrative Code, 1996). Excavation of the area during characterization uncovered asphalt debris, four safety poles, and strands of barbed wire. The TPH-impacted soil and debris will be removed and disposed in …

The radiation pressure coupling with vacuum fluctuations gives rise to energy damping and decoherence of an oscillating particle. Both effects result from the emission of pairs of photons, a quantum effect related to the fluctuations of the Casimir force. We discuss different alternative methods for the computation of the decoherence time scale. We take the example of a spherical perfectly-reflecting particle, and consider the zero and high temperature limits. We also present short general reviews on decoherence and dynamical Casimir effect.

This project consists of a multimedia presentation that explains the technological capabilities of Los Alamos National Laboratory. It takes the form of a human-computer interface built around the metaphor of the universe. The project is intended promote Laboratory capabilities to a wide audience. Multimedia is simply a means of communicating information through a diverse set of tools--be they text, sound, animation, video, etc. Likewise, Los Alamos National Laboratory is a collection of diverse technologies, projects, and people. Given the ample material available at the Laboratory, there are tangible benefits to be gained by communicating across media. This paper consists of three parts. The first section provides some basic information about the Laboratory, its mission, and its needs. The second section introduces this multimedia presentation and the metaphor it is based on along with some basic concepts of color and user interaction used in the building of this project. The final section covers construction of the project, pitfalls, and future improvements.