This research effort is a part of the Light-Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program, which is a research and development (R&D) program sponsored by Department of Energy (DOE), performed in close collaboration with industry R&D programs, to provide the technical foundations for licensing and managing the long-term, safe, and economical operation of current nuclear power plants. The LWRS program serves to help the U.S. nuclear industry adopt new technologies and engineering solutions that facilitate the continued safe operation of the plants and extension of the current operating licenses. The introduction of advanced technology in existing nuclear power plants may help to manage the effects of aging systems, structures, and components. In addition, the incorporation of advanced technology in the existing LWR fleet may entice the future workforce, who will be familiar with advanced technology, to work for these utilities rather than more newly built nuclear power plants. Advantages are being sought by developing and deploying technologies that will increase safety and efficiency. One significant opportunity for existing plants to increase efficiency is to phase out the paper-based procedures (PBPs) currently used at most nuclear power plants and replace them, where feasible, with computer-based procedures (CBPs). PBPs have ensured safe operation of …

A short review of current efforts to determine the highly excited state spectrum of QCD, and in particular baryons, using lattice QCD techniques is presented. The determination of the highly excited spectrum of QCD is a major theoretical and experimental challenge. The experimental investigation of the excited baryon spectrum has been a long-standing element of the hadronic-physics program, an important component of which is the search for so-called 'missing resonances', baryonic states predicted by the quark model based on three constituent quarks but which have not yet been observed experimentally. Should such states not be found, it may indicate that the baryon spectrum can be modeled with fewer effective degrees of freedom, such as in quark-diquark models. In the past decade, there has been an extensive program to collect data on electromagnetic production of one and two mesons at Jefferson Lab, MIT-Bates, LEGS, MAMI, ELSA, and GRAAL. To analyze these data, and thereby refine our knowledge of the baryon spectrum, a variety of physics analysis models have been developed at Bonn, George Washington University, Jefferson Laboratory and Mainz. To provide a theoretical determination and interpretation of the spectrum, ab initio computations within lattice QCD have been used. Historically, the calculation …

Charged lepton flavor violating processes are unobservable in the standard model, but they are predicted to be enhanced in several extensions to the standard model, including supersymmetry and models with leptoquarks or compositeness. We present a search for such processes in a sample of 99 x 10{sup 6} {Upsilon}(2S) decays and 117 x 10{sup 6} {Upsilon}(3S) decays collected with the BABAR detector. We place upper limits on the branching fractions {Beta}({Upsilon}(nS) {yields} e{sup {+-}}{tau}{sup {-+}}) and {Beta}({Upsilon}(nS) {yields} {mu}{sup {+-}}{tau}{sup {-+}}) (n = 2, 3) at the 10{sup -6} level and use these results to place lower limits of order 1 TeV on the mass scale of charged lepton flavor violating effective operators.

Following recommendations made in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7, which established a national policy for the identification and increased protection of critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) by Federal departments and agencies, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2006 developed the Enhanced Critical Infrastructure Protection (ECIP) program. The ECIP program aimed to provide a closer partnership with state, regional, territorial, local, and tribal authorities in fulfilling the national objective to improve CIKR protection. The program was specifically designed to identify protective measures currently in place in CIKR and to inform facility owners/operators of the benefits of new protective measures. The ECIP program also sought to enhance existing relationships between DHS and owners/operators of CIKR and to build relationships where none existed (DHS 2008; DHS 2009). In 2009, DHS and its protective security advisors (PSAs) began assessing CIKR assets using the ECIP program and ultimately produced individual protective measure and vulnerability values through the protective measure and vulnerability indices (PMI/VI). The PMI/VI assess the protective measures posture of individual facilities at their 'weakest link,' allowing for a detailed analysis of the most vulnerable aspects of the facilities (Schneier 2003), while maintaining the ability to produce an overall protective measures …

Advanced Natural Language Processing Tools for Web Information Retrieval, Content Analysis, and Synthesis. The goal of this SBIR was to implement and evaluate several advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools and techniques to enhance the precision and relevance of search results by analyzing and augmenting search queries and by helping to organize the search output obtained from heterogeneous databases and web pages containing textual information of interest to DOE and the scientific-technical user communities in general. The SBIR investigated 1) the incorporation of spelling checkers in search applications, 2) identification of significant phrases and concepts using a combination of linguistic and statistical techniques, and 3) enhancement of the query interface and search retrieval results through the use of semantic resources, such as thesauri. A search program with a flexible query interface was developed to search reference databases with the objective of enhancing search results from web queries or queries of specialized search systems such as DOE's Information Bridge. The DOE ETDE/INIS Joint Thesaurus was processed to create a searchable database. Term frequencies and term co-occurrences were used to enhance the web information retrieval by providing algorithmically-derived objective criteria to organize relevant documents into clusters containing significant terms. A thesaurus provides …

There is a general consensus that robots could be beneficial in performing tasks within hazardous radiological environments. Most control of robots in hazardous environments involves master-slave or teleoperation relationships between the human and the robot. While teleoperation-based solutions keep humans out of harms way, they also change the training requirements to accomplish a task. In this paper we present a research methodology that allowed scientists at Idaho National Laboratory to identify, develop, and prove a semi-autonomous robot solution for search and characterization tasks within a hazardous environment. Two experiments are summarized that validated the use of semi-autonomy and show that robot autonomy can help mitigate some of the performance differences between operators who have different levels of robot experience, and can improve performance over teleoperated systems.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's New Architectures Testbed recently evaluated Exegy's Text Miner appliance to assess its applicability to high-performance, automated native language analysis. The evaluation was performed with support from the Computing Applications and Research Department in close collaboration with Global Security programs, and institutional activities in native language analysis. The Exegy Text Miner is a special-purpose device for detecting and flagging user-supplied patterns of characters, whether in streaming text or in collections of documents at very high rates. Patterns may consist of simple lists of words or complex expressions with sub-patterns linked by logical operators. These searches are accomplished through a combination of specialized hardware (i.e., one or more field-programmable gates arrays in addition to general-purpose processors) and proprietary software that exploits these individual components in an optimal manner (through parallelism and pipelining). For this application the Text Miner has performed accurately and reproducibly at high speeds approaching those documented by Exegy in its technical specifications. The Exegy Text Miner is primarily intended for the single-byte ASCII characters used in English, but at a technical level its capabilities are language-neutral and can be applied to multi-byte character sets such as those found in Arabic and Chinese. The system is …

Hunton formation in Oklahoma has been the subject of attention for the last ten years. The new interest started with the drilling of the West Carney field in 1995 in Lincoln County. Subsequently, many other operators have expanded the search for oil and gas in Hunton formation in other parts of Oklahoma. These fields exhibit many unique production characteristics, including: (1) decreasing water-oil or water-gas ratio over time; (2) decreasing gas-oil ratio followed by an increase; (3) poor prediction capability of the reserves based on the log data; and (4) low geological connectivity but high hydrodynamic connectivity. The purpose of this investigation is to understand the principal mechanisms affecting the production, and propose methods by which we can optimize the production from fields with similar characteristics.

We provide a comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of possible New Physics contributions to the mass difference {Delta}M{sub D} in D{sup 0}-{bar D}{sup 0} mixing. We consider the most general low energy effective Hamiltonian and include leading order QCD running of effective operators. We then explore an extensive list of possible New Physics models that can generate these operators, which we organize as including Extra Fermions, Extra Gauge Bosons, Extra Scalars, Extra Space Dimensions and Extra Symmetries. For each model we place restrictions on the allowed parameter space using the recent evidence for observation of D meson mixing. In many scenarios, we find strong constraints that surpass those from other search techniques and provide an important test of flavor changing neutral currents in the up-quark sector. We also review the recent BaBar and Belle findings, and describe the current status of the Standard Model predictions of D{sup 0}-{bar D}{sup 0} mixing.

Motivated by the needs of large multi-physics simulation codes, we are interested in algebraic solvers for the linear systems arising in time-domain electromagnetic simulations. Our focus is on finite element discretization, and we are developing scalable parallel preconditioners which employ only fine-grid information, similar to algebraic multigrid (AMG) for diffusion problems. In the last few years, the search for efficient algebraic preconditioners for H(curl) bilinear forms has intensified. The attempts to directly construct AMG methods had some success, see [12, 1, 7]. Exploiting available multilevel methods on auxiliary mesh for the same bilinear form led to efficient auxiliary mesh preconditioners to unstructured problems as shown in [4, 8]. A computationally more attractive approach was recently proposed by Hiptmair and Xu [5]. In contrast to the auxiliary mesh idea, the method in [5] uses a nodal H{sup 1}-conforming auxiliary space on the same mesh. This significantly simplifies the computation of the corresponding interpolation operator. In the present talk, we consider several options for constructing unstructured mesh AMG preconditioners for H(curl) problems and report a summary of computational results from [10, 9]. Our approach is slightly different than the one from [5], since we apply AMG directly to variationally constructed coarse-grid operators, …

The authors calculate the complete next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the charm contribution of the rare decay K{sup +} {yields} {pi}{sup +}{nu}{bar {nu}}. They encounter several new features, which were absent in lower orders. They discuss them in detail and present the results for the two-loop matching conditions of the Wilson coefficients, the three-loop anomalous dimensions, and the two-loop matrix elements of the relevant operators that enter the next-to-next-to-leading order renormalization group analysis of the Z-penguin and the electroweak box contribution. The inclusion of the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections leads to a significant reduction of the theoretical uncertainty from {+-} 9.8% down to {+-} 2.4% in the relevant parameter P{sub c}(X), implying the leftover scale uncertainties in {Beta}(K{sup +} {yields} {pi}{sup +}{nu}{bar {nu}}) and in the determination of |V{sub td}|, sin 2{beta}, and {gamma} from the K {yields} {pi}{nu}{bar {nu}} system to be {+-} 1.3%, {+-} 1.0%, {+-} 0.006, and {+-} 1.2{sup o}, respectively. For the charm quark {ovr MS} mass m{sub c}(m{sub c}) = (1.30 {+-} 0.05) GeV and |V{sub us}| = 0.2248 the next-to-leading order value P{sub c}(X) = 0.37 {+-} 0.06 is modified to P{sub c}(X) = 0.38 {+-} 0.04 at the next-to-next-to-leading order level with the …

A sensitive search for the rare decays {Omega}{sup -} {yields} {Lambda}{pi}{sup -} and {Xi}{sup 0} {yields} p{pi}{sup -} has been performed using data from the 1997 run of the HyperCP (Fermilab E871) experiment. Limits on other such processes do not exclude the possibility of observable rates for |{Delta}S| = 2 nonleptonic hyperon decays, provided the decays occur through parity-odd operators. They obtain the branching-fraction limits {Beta}({Omega}{sup -} {yields} {Lambda}{pi}{sup -}) < 2.9 x 10{sup -6} and {Beta}({Xi}{sup 0} {yields} p{pi}{sup -}) < 8.2 x 10{sup -6}, both at 90% confidence level.

The fractal operators discussed in this dissertation are introduced in the form originally proposed in an earlier book of the candidate, which proves to be very convenient for physicists, due to its heuristic and intuitive nature. This dissertation proves that these fractal operators are the most convenient tools to address a number of problems in condensed matter, in accordance with the point of view of many other authors, and with the earlier book of the candidate. The microscopic foundation of the fractal calculus on the basis of either classical or quantum mechanics is still unknown, and the second part of this dissertation aims at this important task. This dissertation proves that the adoption of a master equation approach, and so of probabilistic as well as dynamical argument yields a satisfactory solution of the problem, as shown in a work by the candidate already published. At the same time, this dissertation shows that the foundation of Levy statistics is compatible with ordinary statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. The problem of the connection with the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy is a delicate problem that, however, can be successfully solved. The derivation from a microscopic Liouville-like approach based on densities, however, is shown to be impossible. …

Anomalously pressured gas (APG) assets, typically called ''basin-center'' gas accumulations, represent either an underdeveloped or undeveloped energy resource in the Rocky Mountain Laramide Basins (RMLB). Historically, the exploitation of these gas resources has proven to be very difficult and costly. In this topical report, an improved exploration strategy is outlined in conjunction with a more detailed description of new diagnostic techniques that more efficiently detect anomalously pressured, gas-charged domains. The ability to delineate gas-charged domains occurring below a regional velocity inversion surface allows operators to significantly reduce risk in the search for APG resources. The Wind River Basin was chosen for this demonstration because of the convergence of public data availability (i.e., thousands of mud logs and DSTs and 2400 mi of 2-D seismic lines); the evolution of new diagnostic techniques; a 175 digital sonic log suite; a regional stratigraphic framework; and corporate interest. In the exploration scheme discussed in this topical report, the basinwide gas distribution is determined in the following steps: (1) A detailed velocity model is established from sonic logs, 2-D seismic lines, and, if available, 3-D seismic data. In constructing the seismic interval velocity field, automatic picking technology using continuous, statistically-derived interval velocity selection, as well …

Stripper gas wells are an important source of domestic energy supply and under constant threat of permanent loss (shut-in) due to marginal economics. In 1998, 192 thousand stripper gas wells produced over a Tcf of gas, at an average rate of less than 16 Mcfd. This represents about 57% of all producing gas wells in the onshore lower-48 states, yet only 8% of production. Reserves of stripper gas wells are estimated to be only 1.6 Tcf, or slightly over 1% of the onshore lower-48 total (end of year 1996 data). Obviously, stripper gas wells are at the very margin of economic sustenance. As the demand for natural gas in the U.S. grows to the forecasted estimate of over 30 Tcf annually by the year 2010, supply from current conventional sources is expected to decline. Therefore, an important need exists to fully exploit known domestic resources of natural gas, including those represented by stripper gas wells. The overall objectives of this project are to develop an efficient and low-cost methodology to broadly categorize the well performance characteristics for a stripper gas field, identify the high-potential candidate wells for remediation, and diagnose the specific causes for well underperformance. With this capability, stripper …

Stripper gas wells are an important source of domestic energy supply and under constant threat of permanent loss (shut-in) due to marginal economics. In 1998, 192 thousand stripper gas wells produced over a Tcf of gas, at an average rate of less than 16 Mcfd. This represents about 57% of all producing gas wells in the onshore lower-48 states, yet only 8% of production. Reserves of stripper gas wells are estimated to be only 1.6 Tcf, or slightly over 1% of the onshore lower-48 total (end of year 1996 data). Obviously, stripper gas wells are at the very margin of economic sustenance. As the demand for natural gas in the U.S. grows to the forecasted estimate of over 30 Tcf annually by the year 2010, supply from current conventional sources is expected to decline. Therefore, an important need exists to fully exploit known domestic resources of natural gas, including those represented by stripper gas wells. The overall objectives of this project are to develop an efficient and low-cost methodology to broadly categorize the well performance characteristics for a stripper gas field, identify the high-potential candidate wells for remediation, and diagnose the specific causes for well underperformance. With this capability, stripper …

Status of lattice calculations of hadron matrix elements along with CP violation in B and in K systems is reviewed. Lattice has provided useful input which, in conjunction with experimental data, leads to the conclusion that CP-odd phase in the CKM matrix plays the dominant role in the observed asymmetry in B {yields} {psi}K{sub s}. It is now quite likely that any beyond the SM, CP-odd, phase will cause only small deviations in B-physics. Search for the effects of the new phase(s) will consequently require very large data samples as well as very precise theoretical predictions. Clean determination of all the angles of the unitarity triangle therefore becomes essential. In this regard B {yields} KD{sup 0} processes play a unique role. Regarding K-decays, remarkable progress made by theory with regard to maintenance of chiral symmetry on the lattice is briefly discussed. First application already provide quantitative information on B{sub K} and the {Delta}I = 1/2 rule. The enhancement in ReA{sub 0} appears to arise solely from tree operators, esp. Q{sub 2}; penguin contribution to ReA{sub 0} appears to be very small. However, improved calculations are necessary for {epsilon}{prime}/{epsilon} as there the contributions of QCD penguins and electroweak penguins largely seem …

Effective operation of the multi-state Port ofNew York/New Jersey (Port), which contributes $20 billion to the regional economy and generates nearly 250,000 jobs, is dependent on yearly navigational dredging of several million m{sup 3} of sediment for channel maintenance and deepening. Further dredging is required for remediation of environmentally sensitive areas. However, more stringent ocean placement testing regulations in the Port region have necessitated a search for other means of handling the most contaminated dredged materials. Here, we describe a dredged material decontamination program for the Port aimed at the creation of sediment decontamination facilities that produce a beneficial use product to obviate the need for ocean placement. These facilities, to be a viable component of an overall dredged material management plan, must be environmentally balanced and economically feasible with the predictable ability to process large volumes of dredged materials with rapid turn-around. Our program recognizes that the responsible management of contaminated dredged materials is a complex problem that requires the effective application and coordination of a variety of cross-cutting skills to make decontamination facilities a reality. Participants do not come from a single agency, but are ad hoc teams of scientists, engineers, regulators, port authorities and operators, technology development …

The management of the Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) project at the Hanford K-Basin in the 100 N Area has successfully restructured the preventive maintenance, spare parts inventory requirements, and the operator rounds data requirements. In this investigation, they continue to examine the different facets of the operations and maintenance (O&M) of the K-Basin cleanup project in search of additional reliability and cost savings. This report focuses on the initial findings of a team of PNNL engineers engaged to identify potential opportunities for reducing the cost of O&M through the application of advanced diagnostics (fault determination) and prognostics (residual life/reliability determination). The objective is to introduce predictive technologies to eliminate or reduce high impact equipment failures. The PNNL team in conjunction with the SNF engineers found the following major opportunities for cost reduction and/or enhancing reliability: (1) Provide data routing and automated analysis from existing detection systems to a display center that will engage the operations and engineering team. This display will be operator intuitive with system alarms and integrated diagnostic capability. (2) Change operating methods to reduce major transients induced in critical equipment. This would reduce stress levels on critical equipment. (3) Install a limited sensor set on failure prone …

The use of sprayed flammable fluids as solvents in dissolution and cleaning processes demand detailed understanding of ignition and fire hazards associated with these applications. When it is not feasible to inert the atmosphere in which the spraying process takes place, then elimination of all possible ignition sources must be done. If operators are involved in the process, the potential for human static build-up and ultimate discharge is finite, and it is nearly impossible to eliminate. The specific application discussed in this paper involved the use of heated Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) to dissolve high explosives (HE). Search for properties of DMSO yielded data on flammability limits and flash point, but there was no published information pertaining to the minimum energy for electrical arc ignition. Due to the sensitivity of this procedure, The Hazards Control Department of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was tasked to determine the minimum ignition energy of DMSO aerosol and vapor an experimental investigation was thus initiated. Because there were no electrical sources in spray chamber, Human Electro-Static Discharge (HESD) was the only potential ignition source. Consequently, the electrostatic generators required for this investigation were designed to produce electrostatic arcs with the defined voltage and current pulse …

This article discusses improving the search on the internet by using WordNet and lexical operators.

The authors describe a new technique for obtaining the phase and electric field from FROG measurements using genetic algorithms. Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating (FROG) has gained prominence as a technique for characterizing ultrashort pulses. FROG consists of a spectrally resolved autocorrelation of the pulse to be measured. Typically a combination of iterative algorithms is used, applying constraints from experimental data, and alternating between the time and frequency domain, in order to retrieve an optical pulse. The authors have developed a new approach to retrieving the intensity and phase from FROG data using a genetic algorithm (GA). A GA is a general parallel search technique that operates on a population of potential solutions simultaneously. Operators in a genetic algorithm, such as crossover, selection, and mutation are based on ideas taken from evolution.

Genetic algorithms (GAs), global optimization methods that mimic Darwinian evolution are well suited to the nonlinear inverse problems of geophysics. A standard genetic algorithm selects the best or ''fittest'' models from a ''population'' and then applies operators such as crossover and mutation in order to combine the most successful characteristics of each model and produce fitter models. More sophisticated operators have been developed, but the standard GA usually provides a robust and efficient search. Although the choice of parameter settings such as crossover and mutation rate may depend largely on the type of problem being solved, numerous results show that certain parameter settings produce optimal performance for a wide range of problems and difficulties. In particular, a low (about half of the inverse of the population size) mutation rate is crucial for optimal results, but the choice of crossover method and rate do not seem to affect performance appreciably. Optimal efficiency is usually achieved with smaller (< 50) populations. Lastly, tournament selection appears to be the best choice of selection methods due to its simplicity and its autoscaling properties. However, if a proportional selection method is used such as roulette wheel selection, fitness scaling is a necessity, and a high …

ATHEANA, a second-generation Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) method integrates advances in psychology with engineering, human factors, and Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) disciplines to provide an HRA quantification process and PRA modeling interface that can accommodate and represent human performance in real nuclear power plant events. The method uses the characteristics of serious accidents identified through retrospective analysis of serious operational events to set priorities in a search process for significant human failure events, unsafe acts, and error-forcing context (unfavorable plant conditions combined with negative performance-shaping factors). ATHEANA has been tested in a demonstration project at an operating pressurized water reactor.