Hazard classification process at LLNL (open access)

Hazard classification process at LLNL

An essential part of Integrated Safety Management is the identification of hazards in the workplace and the assessment of possible consequences of accidents involving those hazards. The process of hazard classification suggested by the DOE orders on Safety Analysis is the formalization of this identification and assessment for hazards that might cause harm to the public or workers external to the operation. Possible injury to workers in the facility who are exposed to the hazard is not considered in the designation of the hazard classification for facilities at LLNL, although worker safety is discussed in facility Safety Basis documentation.
Date: May 1, 1998
Creator: Hildum, J. S., LLNL
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
High-speed wide area, data intensive computing: A Ten Year Retrospective (open access)

High-speed wide area, data intensive computing: A Ten Year Retrospective

Modern scientific computing involves organizing, moving, visualizing, and analyzing massive amounts of data from around the world, as well as employing large-scale computation. The distributed systems that solve large-scale problems will always involve aggregating and scheduling many resources. Data must be located and staged, cache and network capacity must be available at the same time as computing capacity, etc. Every aspect of such a system is dynamic: locating and scheduling resources, adapting running application systems to availability and congestion in the middleware and infrastructure, responding to human interaction, etc. The technologies, the middleware services, and the architectures that are used to build useful high-speed, wide area distributed systems, constitute the field of data intensive computing. This paper explores some of the history and future directions of that field.
Date: May 1, 1998
Creator: Johnston, William E.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Long-term surveillance plan for the Burro Canyon disposal cell, Slick Rock, Colorado (open access)

Long-term surveillance plan for the Burro Canyon disposal cell, Slick Rock, Colorado

This long-term surveillance plan (LTSP) describes the US Department of Energy (DOE) long-term care program for the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project Burro Canyon disposal cell in San Miguel County, Colorado. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) developed regulations for the issuance of a general license for the custody and long-term care of UMTRA Project disposal sites in 10 CFR Part 40. The purpose of this general license is to ensure that the UMTRA Project disposal sites are cared for in a manner that protects the public health and safety and the environment. Before each disposal site is licensed, the NRC requires the DOE to submit a site-specific LTSP. The DOE prepared this LTSP to meet this requirement for the Burro Canyon disposal cell. The general license becomes effective when the NRC concurs with the DOE`s determination that remedial action is complete at the Burro Canyon disposal cell and the NRC formally accepts this LTSP. Attachment 1 contains the concurrence letters from NRC. This LTSP describes the long-term surveillance program the DOE will implement to ensure that the Burro Canyon disposal cell performs as designed. The program is based on site inspections to identify threats to disposal cell …
Date: May 1, 1998
Creator: unknown
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Computer-assisted comparison of analysis and test results in transportation experiments (open access)

Computer-assisted comparison of analysis and test results in transportation experiments

As a part of its ongoing research efforts, Sandia National Laboratories` Transportation Surety Center investigates the integrity of various containment methods for hazardous materials transport, subject to anomalous structural and thermal events such as free-fall impacts, collisions, and fires in both open and confined areas. Since it is not possible to conduct field experiments for every set of possible conditions under which an actual transportation accident might occur, accurate modeling methods must be developed which will yield reliable simulations of the effects of accident events under various scenarios. This requires computer software which is capable of assimilating and processing data from experiments performed as benchmarks, as well as data obtained from numerical models that simulate the experiment. Software tools which can present all of these results in a meaningful and useful way to the analyst are a critical aspect of this process. The purpose of this work is to provide software resources on a long term basis, and to ensure that the data visualization capabilities of the Center keep pace with advancing technology. This will provide leverage for its modeling and analysis abilities in a rapidly evolving hardware/software environment.
Date: May 10, 1998
Creator: Knight, R.D.; Ammerman, D.J. & Koski, J.A.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Comprehensive integrated planning: A process for the Oak Ridge Reservation, Oak Ridge, Tennessee (open access)

Comprehensive integrated planning: A process for the Oak Ridge Reservation, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

The Oak Ridge Comprehensive Integrated Plan is intended to assist the US Department of Energy (DOE) and contractor personnel in implementing a comprehensive integrated planning process consistent with DOE Order 430.1, Life Cycle Asset Management and Oak Ridge Operations Order 430. DOE contractors are charged with developing and producing the Comprehensive Integrated Plan, which serves as a summary document, providing information from other planning efforts regarding vision statements, missions, contextual conditions, resources and facilities, decision processes, and stakeholder involvement. The Comprehensive Integrated Plan is a planning reference that identifies primary issues regarding major changes in land and facility use and serves all programs and functions on-site as well as the Oak Ridge Operations Office and DOE Headquarters. The Oak Ridge Reservation is a valuable national resource and is managed on the basis of the principles of ecosystem management and sustainable development and how mission, economic, ecological, social, and cultural factors are used to guide land- and facility-use decisions. The long-term goals of the comprehensive integrated planning process, in priority order, are to support DOE critical missions and to stimulate the economy while maintaining a quality environment.
Date: May 1, 1998
Creator: unknown
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Independent verification of plutonium decontamination on Johnston Atoll (1992--1996) (open access)

Independent verification of plutonium decontamination on Johnston Atoll (1992--1996)

The Field Command, Defense Special Weapons Agency (FCDSWA) (formerly FCDNA) contracted Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Environmental Technology Section (ETS) to conduct an independent verification (IV) of the Johnston Atoll (JA) Plutonium Decontamination Project by an interagency agreement with the US Department of Energy in 1992. The main island is contaminated with the transuranic elements plutonium and americium, and soil decontamination activities have been ongoing since 1984. FCDSWA has selected a remedy that employs a system of sorting contaminated particles from the coral/soil matrix, allowing uncontaminated soil to be reused. The objective of IV is to evaluate the effectiveness of remedial action. The IV contractor`s task is to determine whether the remedial action contractor has effectively reduced contamination to levels within established criteria and whether the supporting documentation describing the remedial action is adequate. ORNL conducted four interrelated tasks from 1992 through 1996 to accomplish the IV mission. This document is a compilation and summary of those activities, in addition to a comprehensive review of the history of the project.
Date: May 1, 1998
Creator: Wilson-Nichols, M. J.; Wilson, J. E.; McDowell-Boyer, L. M.; Davidson, J. R.; Egidi, P. V. & Coleman, R. L.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Density equalizing map projections (cartograms) in public health applications (open access)

Density equalizing map projections (cartograms) in public health applications

In studying geographic disease distributions, one normally compares rates among arbitrarily defined geographic subareas (e.g. census tracts), thereby sacrificing some of the geographic detail of the original data. The sparser the data, the larger the subareas must be in order to calculate stable rates. This dilemma is avoided with the technique of Density Equalizing Map Projections (DEMP){copyright}. Boundaries of geographic subregions are adjusted to equalize population density over the entire study area. Case locations plotted on the transformed map should have a uniform distribution if the underlying disease risk is constant. On the transformed map, the statistical analysis of the observed distribution is greatly simplified. Even for sparse distributions, the statistical significance of a supposed disease cluster can be calculated with validity. The DEMP algorithm was applied to a data set previously analyzed with conventional techniques; namely, 401 childhood cancer cases in four counties of California. The distribution of cases on the transformed map was analyzed visually and statistically. To check the validity of the method, the identical analysis was performed on 401 artificial cases randomly generated under the assumption of uniform risk. No statistically significant evidence for geographic non-uniformity of rates was found, in agreement with the original analysis …
Date: May 1, 1998
Creator: Merrill, D.W.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
The economic impact of the Department of Energy on the state of New Mexico fiscal year 1997 (open access)

The economic impact of the Department of Energy on the state of New Mexico fiscal year 1997

The US Department of Energy (DOE) provides a major source of economic benefits in New Mexico. The agency`s far-reaching economic influence within the state is the focus of this report. Economic benefits arising from the various activities and functions of both DOE and its contractors have accrued to the state continuously for over 50 years. For several years, DOE/Albuquerque Operations Office (AL) and New Mexico State University (NMSU) have maintained inter-industry, input-output modeling capabilities to assess DOE`s impacts on the state of New Mexico and the other substate regions most directly impacted by DOE activities. One of the major uses of input-output techniques is to assess the effects of developments initiated outside the economy such as federal DOE monies that flow into the state, on an economy. The information on which the models are based is updated periodically to ensure the most accurate depiction possible of the economy for the period of reference. For this report, the reference periods are Fiscal Year (FY) 1996 and FY 1997. Total impacts represents both direct and indirect impacts (respending by business), including induced (respending by households) effects. The standard multipliers used in determining impacts result from the inter-industry, input-output models uniquely developed for …
Date: May 29, 1998
Creator: Lansford, Robert R.; Nielsen, Tommie G.; Schultz, Jane; Adcock, Larry D.; Gentry, Lucille M.; Ben-David, Shaul et al.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library