A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) plays a vital role in advancing transportation safety by investigating accidents, determining their causes, and issuing safety recommendations. To support its mission, NTSB's training center, which opened in 2003, provides training to NTSB investigators and others. It is important that NTSB use its resources efficiently to carry out its mission. GAO was asked to examine the extent to which NTSB follows leading management practices, how NTSB carries out its transportation safety function, and the extent to which NTSB's training center is cost-effective, including potential options for improving the center's cost-effectiveness. GAO reviewed NTSB documents and data concerning management practices and accident investigations, interviewed relevant NTSB and other federal officials, and evaluated NTSB's management practices based on leading practices identified in prior work."

Bromide and resting-cell bacteria tracer tests carried out in a sand and gravel aquifer at the USGS Cape Cod site in 1987 were reinterpreted using a three-dimensional stochastic approach and Lagrangian particle tracking numerical methods. Bacteria transport was strongly coupled to colloid filtration through functional dependence of local-scale colloid transport parameters on hydraulic conductivity and seepage velocity in a stochastic advection-dispersion/attachment-detachment model. Information on geostatistical characterization of the hydraulic conductivity (K) field from a nearby plot was utilized as input that was unavailable when the original analysis was carried out. A finite difference model for groundwater flow and a particle-tracking model of conservative solute transport was calibrated to the bromide-tracer breakthrough data using the aforementioned geostatistical parameters. An optimization routine was utilized to adjust the mean and variance of the lnK field over 100 realizations such that a best fit of a simulated, average bromide breakthrough curve is achieved. Once the optimal bromide fit was accomplished (based on adjusting the lnK statistical parameters in unconditional simulations), a stochastic particle-tracking model for the bacteria was run without adjustments to the local-scale colloid transport parameters. Good predictions of the mean bacteria breakthrough data were achieved using several approaches for modeling components of …

The 'Computational Crystallography Toolbox' (cctbx, http://cctbx.sourceforge.net/) is the open-source component of the Phenix project (http://www.phenix-online.org/). Most recent cctbx developments are geared towards supporting new features of the phenix.refine application. Thus, the open-source mmtbx (macromolecular toolbox) module is currently being most rapidly developed. In this article we give an overview of some of the recent developments. However, the main theme of this article is the presentation of a light-weight example command-line application that was specifically developed for this newsletter: sequence alignment and superposition of two molecules read from files in PDB format. This involves parameter input based on the Phil module presented in Newsletter No. 5, fast reading of the PDB files with the new iotbx.pdb.input class, simple sequence alignment using the new mmtbx.alignment module, and use of the Kearsley (1989) superposition algorithm to find the least-squares solution for superposing C-alpha positions. The major steps are introduced individually, followed by a presentation of the complete application. The example application is deliberately limited in functionality to make it concise enough for this article. The main goal is to show how the open-source components are typically combined into an application. Even though the example is quite specific to macromolecular crystallography, we believe it …

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This report provides information about the Current Economic Conditions and Selected Forecasts. U.S GDP growth has been positive for 18th consecutive quarters and the economy is in "expansion Phase".

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We performed a computational and experimental analysis of fast cookoff of LX-10 (94.7% HMX, 5.3% Viton A) confined in a 2 kbar steel tube with reinforced end caps. A Scaled-Thermal-Explosion-eXperiment (STEX) was completed in which three radiant heaters were used to heat the vessel until ignition, resulting in a moderately violent explosion after 20.4 minutes. Thermocouple measurements showed tube temperatures as high as 340 C at ignition and LX-10 surface temperatures as high as 279 C, which is near the melting point of HMX. Three micro-power radar systems were used to measure mean fragment velocities of 840 m/s. Photonics Doppler Velocimeters (PDVs) showed a rapid acceleration of fragments over 80 {micro}s. A one-dimensional ALE3D cookoff model at the vessel midplane was used to simulate the heating, thermal expansion, LX-10 decomposition composition, and closing of the gap between the HE (High Explosive) and vessel wall. Although the ALE3D simulation terminated before ignition, the model provided a good representation of heat transfer through the case and across the dynamic gap to the explosive.

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MicrobeWorld is a 90-second feature broadcast daily on more than 90 public radio stations and available from several sources as a podcast, including www.microbeworld.org. The feature has a strong focus on the use and adapatbility of microbes as alternative sources of energy, in bioremediation, their role in climate, and especially the many benefits and scientific advances that have resulting from decoding microbial genomes. These audio features are permanantly archived on an educational outreach site, microbeworld.org, where they are linked to the National Science Education Standards. They are also being used by instructors at all levels to introduce students to the multiple roles and potential of microbes, including a pilot curriculum program for middle-school students in New York.

Hydrothermally self-advancing hybrid coatings were prepared by blending two starting materials, water-borne styrene acrylic latex (SAL) as the matrix and calcium aluminate cement (CAC) as the hydraulic filler, and then their usefulness was evaluated as the room temperature curable anti-corrosion coatings for carbon steel in CO{sub 2}-laden geothermal environments at 250 C. The following two major factors supported the self-improving mechanisms of the coating during its exposure in an autoclave: First was the formation of a high temperature stable polymer structure of Ca-complexed carboxylate groups containing SAL (Ca-CCG-SAL) due to hydrothermal reactions between SAL and CAC; second was the growth with continuing exposure time of crystalline calcite and boehmite phases coexisting with Ca-CCG-SAL. These two factors promoted the conversion of the porous microstructure in the non-autoclaved coating into a densified one after 7 days exposure. The densified microstructure not only considerably reduced the conductivity of corrosive ionic electrolytes through the coatings' layers, but also contributed to the excellent adherence of the coating to underlying steel' s surface that, in turn, retarded the cathodic oxygen reduction reaction at the corrosion site of steel. Such characteristics including the minimum uptake of corrosive electrolytes by the coating and the retardation of the cathodic …

This document provides specifications for selected system components of the Transportation, Aging and Disposal (TAD) canister-based system. A list of system specified components and ancillary components are included in Section 1.2. The TAD canister, in conjunction with specialized overpacks will accomplish a number of functions in the management and disposal of spent nuclear fuel. Some of these functions will be accomplished at purchaser sites where commercial spent nuclear fuel (CSNF) is stored, and some will be performed within the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) transportation and disposal system. This document contains only those requirements unique to applications within Department of Energy's (DOE's) system. DOE recognizes that TAD canisters may have to perform similar functions at purchaser sites. Requirements to meet reactor functions, such as on-site dry storage, handling, and loading for transportation, are expected to be similar to commercially available canister-based systems. This document is intended to be referenced in the license application for the Monitored Geologic Repository (MGR). As such, the requirements cited herein are needed for TAD system use in OCRWM's disposal system. This document contains specifications for the TAD canister, transportation overpack and aging overpack. The remaining components and equipment that are unique to the …

The goal of this proposal was to test the hypothesis that mice heterozygous for the Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome (NBS1) gene are genetically susceptible to low doses of ionizing radiation. The rationale for this is that patients with NBS are radiation sensitive, because of defects in cellular responses to radiation induced genetic damage and haploinsufficiency at this genetic locus provides the potential for genetic susceptibility to low doses of ionizing radiation. Wild type and heterozygous NBS1 mice were irradiated and followed over their lifetime for radiation induced genomic instability, carcinogenesis and non-specific life shortening. No differences in cytogenetic damage, cancer induction or life span were observed between the hypomorphic mice indicating that genetic imbalance at the NBS1 loci does not modulate low dose radiation sensitivity.

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