We summarize four of our group's high-risk/high-payoff research projects funded by the Intelligence Technology Innovation Center (ITIC) in conjunction with our DHS-funded pathogen informatics activities. These are (1) quantitative assessment of genomic sequencing needs to predict high quality DNA and protein signatures for detection, and comparison of draft versus finished sequences for diagnostic signature prediction; (2) development of forensic software to identify SNP and PCR-RFLP variations from a large number of viral pathogen sequences and optimization of the selection of markers for maximum discrimination of those sequences; (3) prediction of signatures for the detection of virulence, antibiotic resistance, and toxin genes and genetic engineering markers in bacteria; (4) bioinformatic characterization of virulence factors to rapidly screen genomic data for potential genes with similar functions and to elucidate potential health threats in novel organisms. The results of (1) are being used by policy makers to set national sequencing priorities. Analyses from (2) are being used in collaborations with the CDC to genotype and characterize many variola strains, and reports from these collaborations have been made to the President. We also determined SNPs for serotype and strain discrimination of 126 foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV) genomes. For (3), currently >1000 probes …

This data report discusses the methods and philosophy used to characterize two samples of sludge and one sample of drainable liquid from tank 241-AY-102 at the Hanford Site. Archived samples of sludge and drainable liquid from tank 241-AY-102 were characterized in the laboratory in order to evaluate analytical methods for testing tank waste and determine the composition and leaching characteristics of this material. The tests included physical characterization, quantitative analysis of waste composition, and short-term water leach and acid digestion of the waste material. The water leach tests were conducted over time periods of one day, two weeks, and one month to determine if contact time had an impact on leachability. Comparisons of the results of the water leach tests with the acid digestions allow for an estimation of the water leachable percentage of an element. The average water leachability of Tc-99 was measured at 20% over the one-month time frame of the leach tests. There did not appear to be any temporal change in water leachability by comparing the results of the three sampling intervals. Approximately 24 to 48% of the total Cs-137 in the sludge is water leachable over a time period of one day to one month. …

Cracks found in many of the double-shell tank (DST) pump and valve pits bring into question the ability of the pits to provide secondary containment and remain in compliance with State and Federal regulations. This study was commissioned to identify viable options for maintain/restoring secondary containment capability in these pits. The basis for this study is the decision analysis process which identifies the requirements to be met and the desired goals (decision criteria) that each option will be weighed against. A facilitated workshop was convened with individuals knowledgeable of Tank Farms Operations, engineering practices, and safety/environmental requirements. The outcome of this workshop was the validation or identification of the critical requirements, definition of the current problem, identification and weighting of the desired goals, baselining of the current repair methods, and identification of potential alternate solutions. The workshop was followed up with further investigations into the potential solutions that were identified in the workshop and through other efforts. These solutions are identified in the body of this report. Each of the potential solutions were screened against the list of requirements and only those meeting the requirements were considered viable options. To expand the field of viable options, hybrid concepts that combine …

This report describes an investigation by the Tribology Section of Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) into the use of near-frictionless carbon (NFC) coatings for spark-ignited, direct-injected (SIDI) engine fuel systems. Direct injection is being pursued in order to improve fuel efficiency and enhance control over, and flexibility of, spark-ignited engines. SIDI technology is being investigated by the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) as one route towards meeting both efficiency goals and more stringent emissions standards. Friction and wear of fuel injector and pump parts were identified as issues impeding adoption of SIDI by the OTT workshop on ''Research Needs Related to CIDI and SIDI Fuel Systems'' and the resulting report, Research Needs Related to Fuel Injection Systems in CIDI and SIDI Engines. The following conclusions were reached: (1) Argonne's NFC coatings consistently reduced friction and wear in existing and reformulated gasolines. (2) Compared to three commercial DLC coatings, NFC provided the best friction reduction and protection from wear in gasoline and alternative fuels. (3) NFC was successfully deposited on production fuel injectors. (4) Customized wear tests were performed to simulate the operating environment of fuel injectors. (5) Industry standard lubricity test results were consistent with customized wear tests …

As part of its continuing Environmental Surveillance Program, regional river and lake-bottom sediments have been collected annually by Los Alamos National Laboratory (the Laboratory) since 1974 and 1979, respectively. These background samples are collected from three drainage basins at ten different river stations and five reservoirs located throughout northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Radiochemical analyses for these sediments include tritium, strontium-90, cesium-137, total uranium, plutonium-238, plutonium-239,-240, americium-241, gross alpha, gross beta, and gross gamma radioactivity. Detection-limit radioactivity originates as worldwide fallout from aboveground nuclear weapons testing and satellite reentry into Earth's atmosphere. Spatial and temporal variations in individual analyte levels originate from atmospheric point-source introductions and natural rate differences in airborne deposition and soil erosion. Background radioactivity values on sediments reflect this variability, and grouped river and reservoir sediment samples show a range of statistical distributions that appear to be analyte dependent. Traditionally, both river and reservoir analyte data were blended together to establish background levels. In this report, however, we group background sediment data according to two criteria. These include sediment source (either river or reservoir sediments) and station location relative to the Laboratory (either upstream or downstream). These grouped data are statistically evaluated through 1997, and background …

The NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) was constructed in collaboration with NASA for the purpose of performing radiation effect studies for the NASA space program. The results of commissioning of this new facility were reported in [l]. In this report we will describe the results of the first run. The NSRL is capable of making use of heavy ions in the range of 0.05 to 3 GeV/n slow extracted from BNL's AGS Booster. Many modes of operation were explored during the first run, demonstrating all the capabilities designed into the system. Heavy ion intensities from 100 particles per pulse up to 12 x 10{sup 9} particles per pulse were delivered to a large variety of experiments, providing a dose range up to 70 Gy/min over a 5 x 5 cm{sup 2} area. Results presented will include those related to the production of beams that are highly uniform in both the transverse and longitudinal planes of motion [2].

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The variable frequency drive centrifugal submersible pump, Redi-Flo2a made by Grundfosa, was selected for universal application for Hanford Site groundwater monitoring. Specifications for the selected pump and five other pumps were evaluated against current and future Hanford groundwater monitoring performance requirements, and the Redi-Flo2 was selected as the most versatile and applicable for the range of monitoring conditions. The Redi-Flo2 pump distinguished itself from the other pumps considered because of its wide range in output flow rate and its comparatively moderate maintenance and low capital costs. The Redi-Flo2 pump is able to purge a well at a high flow rate and then supply water for sampling at a low flow rate. Groundwater sampling using a low-volume-purging technique (e.g., low flow, minimal purge, no purge, or micropurges) is planned in the future, eliminating the need for the pump to supply a high-output flow rate. Under those conditions, the Well Wizard bladder pump, manufactured by QED Environmental Systems, Inc., may be the preferred pump because of the lower capital cost.

Critical to the success of high gain ion beam driven targets for IFE is the tradeoff between target gain and the required focal spot size. A target design has been developed which uses the internal structure of the hohlraum to achieve radiation symmetry using beam spots with almost triple the allowed focal spot area relative to the earlier distributed radiator designs at comparable driver energy. An analysis is presented of the tradeoff between implosion robustness and the target fabrication specifications for survival against hydrodynamic instabilities during the implosion. A key issue for laser driven direct drive (DD) targets is control of hydrodynamic instability growth while achieving adequate gain for IFE. The goal of DD targets for IFE is to maximize gain through use of features such as wetted foams and laser zooming to increase absorption and use of a high-z coating to reduce laser imprint and achieve optimal control of instability growth. Because of advances in hohlraum design, laser driven indirect drive targets may have adequate gain for IFE for laser drivers with an efficiency of 10% or more. A key issue for the fast ignition concept is the ability to couple the hot electrons produced in high intensity laser …

The scientific community has recently experienced an overall effort to reduce the physical size of many experimental components to the nanometer size range. This size is unique as the characteristics of this regime involve aspects of pure physics, biology, and chemistry. One extensively studied example of a nanometer sized experimental component, which acts as a junction between these three principle scientific theologies, is deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA). These biopolymers not only contain the biological genetic guide to code for the production of life-sustaining materials, but are also being probed by physicists as a means to create electrical circuits and furthermore as controllable architectural and sensor motifs in the chemical disciplines. Possibly the most common nano-sized component between these sciences are nanoparticles composed of a variety of materials. The cross discipline employment of nanoparticles is evident from the vast amount of literature that has been produced from each of the individual communities within the last decade. Along these cross-discipline lines, this dissertation examines the use of several different types of nanoparticles with a wide array of surface chemistries to understand their adsorption properties and to construct unique miniaturized analytical and immunoassay platforms. This introduction will act as a …

The project described in this report was conducted by personnel from Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Grand Junction Office (ORNL/GJ). The purpose was to refine information regarding groundwater contamination emanating from the Atlas Corporation's former uranium mill in Moab, Utah.

The project described in this report was conducted by personnel from Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Grand Junction Office (ORNL/GJ). This report has been prepared as a companion report to the Limited Groundwater Investigation of the Atlas Corporation Moab Mill, Moab, Utah. The purpose of this report is to present the results of the tailings pile seepage modeling effort tasked by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The NASA SPACE RADIATION LABORATORY (NSRL) has been constructed and started operations at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2003. The NSRL facility will be used by NASA to perform radiation effect studies on materials and biological samples for the space program. The facility utilizes proton and heavy-ion beams of energies from 50 to 3000 MeVln which are accelerated by the AGS Booster synchrotron accelerator. To date, {sup 1}H, {sup 12}C, {sup 56}Fe, {sup 48}Ti, and {sup 197}Au ion beams of various magnetic rigidities have been extracted from the Booster, and transported by the NSRL beam transport line to the sample location which is located 100 m from the extraction point. The NSRL beam transport line has been designed to employ octupole magnetic elements which transform the normal (Gaussian) beam distribution at the location of the sample into a beam with rectangular cross section, and uniformly distributed over the sample. When using the octupole magnetic elements to obtain the uniform beam distribution on the sample, no beam-collimation is applied at any location along the NSRL beam transport line and the beam focusing on the sample is purely magnetic. The main subject of this paper will be the performance of the octupoles …

This presentation, Working With NREL, was given by Casey Porto at the Industry Growth Forum in Golden, Colorado, November 5, 2009.

The primary objective of this project was to evaluate carbon exchange dynamics across a region of North America between the Great Plains and the East Coast. This region contains about 40 active carbon cycle research (AmeriFlux) sites in a variety of climatic and landuse settings, from upland forest to urban development. The core research involved a scaling strategy that uses measured fluxes of CO{sub 2}, energy, water, and other biophysical and biometric parameters to train and calibrate surface-vegetation-atmosphere models, in conjunction with satellite (MODIS) derived drivers. To achieve matching of measured and modeled fluxes, the ecosystem parameters of the models will be adjusted to the dynamically variable flux-tower footprints following Schmid (1997). High-resolution vegetation index variations around the flux sites have been derived from Landsat data for this purpose. The calibrated models are being used in conjunction with MODIS data, atmospheric re-analysis data, and digital land-cover databases to derive ecosystem exchange fluxes over the study domain.

A screen for the systematic identification of cis-regulatory elements within large (>100 kb) genomic domains containing Hox genes was performed by using the basal chordate Ciona intestinalis. Randomly generated DNA fragments from bacterial artificial chromosomes containing two clusters of Hox genes were inserted into a vector upstream of a minimal promoter and lacZ reporter gene. A total of 222 resultant fusion genes were separately electroporated into fertilized eggs, and their regulatory activities were monitored in larvae. In sum, 21 separable cis-regulatory elements were found. These include eight Hox linked domains that drive expression in nested anterior-posterior domains of ectodermally derived tissues. In addition to vertebrate-like CNS regulation, the discovery of cis-regulatory domains that drive epidermal transcription suggests that C. intestinalis has arthropod-like Hox patterning in the epidermis.

This interim change notice updates the assessment plan to reflect the current wells in the monitoring system and the current constituent list for Waste Management Area TX-TY.

This interim change notice updates the assessment plan to refelct the current wells in the monitoring system and the current constituent list for Waste Management Area T.

The purpose of this report is to provide additional numerical modeling and data evaluation for the Atlas tailings pile near Moab, Utah. A previous report (Tailings Pile Seepage Model: The Atlas Corporation Moab Mill, Moab, Utah, January 9, 1998) prepared for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by Oak Ridge National Laboratory/Grand Junction (ORNL/GJ) presented the results of steady-state modeling of water flow and subsequent discharge to the underlying groundwater system. At the request of the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), this model was expanded to evaluate the impact of drainage from the tailings pile in addition to recharge from precipitation in a transient mode simulation. In addition, the FWS requested transient simulations of contaminant transport in the alluvial aquifer. Subsequently, NRC requested an evaluation of additional hydrologic issues related to the results presented in the Tailings Pile Seepage Model (ORNL/GJ 1998a) and the Limited Groundwater Investigation (ORNL/GJ 1998b). Funding for the report was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy. The following section lists the individual tasks with subsequent sections providing the results. A map for the Atlas Moab Mill site is presented in Fig. 1.1.

The variable frequency drive centrifugal submersible pump, Redi-Flo2a made by Grundfosa, was selected for universal application for Hanford Site groundwater monitoring. Specifications for the selected pump and five other pumps were evaluated against current and future Hanford groundwater monitoring performance requirements, and the Redi-Flo2 was selected as the most versatile and applicable for the range of monitoring conditions. The Redi-Flo2 pump distinguished itself from the other pumps considered because of its wide range in output flow rate and its comparatively moderate maintenance and low capital costs. The Redi-Flo2 pump is able to purge a well at a high flow rate and then supply water for sampling at a low flow rate. Groundwater sampling using a low-volume-purging technique (e.g., low flow, minimal purge, no purge, or micropurgea) is planned in the future, eliminating the need for the pump to supply a high-output flow rate. Under those conditions, the Well Wizard bladder pump, manufactured by QED Environmental Systems, Inc., may be the preferred pump because of the lower capital cost.

A method is described for jointly using time-lapse multiple-offset cross-borehole ground-penetrating radar (GPR) travel time measurements and hydrological measurements to estimate field-scale soil hydraulic parameters and parameters of the petrophysical function, which relates soil porosity and water saturation to the effective dielectric constant. We build upon previous work to take advantage of a wide range of GPR data acquisition configurations and to accommodate uncertainty in the petrophysical function. Within the context of water injection experiments in the vadose zone, we test our inversion methodology with synthetic examples and apply it to field data. The synthetic examples show that while realistic errors in the petrophysical function cause substantial errors in the soil hydraulic parameter estimates,simultaneously estimating petrophysical parameters allows for these errors to be minimized. Additionally, we observe in some cases that inaccuracy in the GPR simulator causes systematic error in simulated travel times, making necessary the simultaneous estimation of a correction parameter. We also apply the method to a three-dimensional field setting using time-lapse GPR and neutron probe (NP) data sets collected during an infiltration experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford site in Washington. We find that inclusion of GPR data in the inversion procedure allows for …

We report the ongoing work of our group in hydrodynamics and radiation hydrodynamics with astrophysical applications. During the period of the existing grant, we have carried out two types of experiments at the Omega laser. One set of experiments has studied radiatively collapsing shocks, obtaining data using a backlit pinhole with a 100 ps backlighter and beginning to develop the ability to look into the shock tube with optical or x-ray diagnostics. Other experiments have studied the deeply nonlinear development of the Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability from complex initial conditions, using dual-axis radiographic data with backlit pinholes and ungated detectors to complete the data set for a Ph.D. student. We lead a team that is developing a proposal for experiments at the National Ignition Facility and are involved in experiments at NIKE and LIL. All these experiments have applications to astrophysics, discussed in the corresponding papers. We assemble the targets for the experiments at Michigan, where we also prepare many of the simple components. We also have several projects underway in our laboratory involving our x-ray source. The above activities, in addition to a variety of data analysis and design projects, provide good experience for graduate and undergraduates students. In the …

This report provides an overview of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and discusses current legal and legislative developments.