This paper describes a method for machine or process system diagnostics that uses one-step prediction maps. The method uses nonlinear time series analysis techniques to form a one-step prediction map that estimates the next time series data point when given a sequence of previously measured time series data point. The difference between the predicted and measured time series values is a measure of the map error. The average value of this error should remain within some bound as long as both the dynamic system and its operating condition remain unchanged. However, changes in the dynamic system or operating condition will cause an increase in average map error. Thus, for a constant operating condition, monitoring the average map error over time should indicate when a change has occurred in the dynamic system. Furthermore, the map error itself forms a time series that can be analyzed to detect changes in system dynamics. The paper provides technical background in the nonlinear analysis techniques used in the diagnostic method, describes the creation of one-step prediction maps and their application to machine or process system diagnostics, and then presents results obtained from applying the diagnostic method to simulated and measured data.

There are currently two proposed standards for agent communication languages, namely, KQML (Finin, Lobrou, and Mayfield 1994) and the FIPA ACL. Neither standard has yet achieved primacy, and neither has been evaluated extensively in an open environment such as the Internet. It seems prudent therefore to design a general-purpose agent communications facility for new agent architectures that is flexible yet provides an architecture that accepts many different specializations. In this paper we exhibit the salient features of an agent communications architecture based on distributed metaobjects. This architecture captures design commitments at a metaobject level, leaving the base-level design and implementation up to the agent developer. The scope of the metamodel is broad enough to accommodate many different communication protocols, interaction protocols, and knowledge sharing regimes through extensions to the metaobject framework. We conclude that with a powerful distributed object substrate that supports metaobject communications, a general framework can be developed that will effectively enable different approaches to agent communications in the same agent system. We have implemented a KQML-based communications protocol and have several special-purpose interaction protocols under development.

Having laser intensities of 10{sup 21} W/cm{sup 2} yield electrical field strengths of 10{sup 12} V/cm which is comparable to the field strength at the K-shell of neon. Instant field ionization becomes part of the laser-matter interaction allowing to transfer most of the photons momenta directly onto the ions by driving an electrostatic shock through the target equivalent to pressures of several 100 Gbar. Utilization of these high-pressure conditions in form of equation of state measurements, however, strongly depends on the contrast of the femtosecond laser pulse. Currently, the Livermore USP and JanUSP lasers reach contrast values up to 10{sup 8}. This is sufficient to explore near-isochorically heated materials at moderate intensities (10{sup 13}-10{sup 15} W/cm{sup 2}) attaining pressures around 100 Mbar.

None

There now exist close to 20 years of history in the application of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) for the analysis of fire risk at nuclear power plants. The current methods are based on various assumptions regarding fire phenomena, the impact of fire on equipment and operator response, and the overall progression of a fire event from initiation through final resolution. Over this same time period, a number of significant fire incidents have occurred at nuclear power plants around the world. Insights gained from US experience have been used in US studies as the statistical basis for establishing fire initiation frequencies both as a function of the plant area and the initiating fire source.To a lesser extent, the fire experience has also been used to assess the general severity and duration of fires. However, aside from these statistical analyses, the incidents have rarely been scrutinized in detail to verify the underlying assumptions of fire PRAs. This paper discusses an effort, under which a set of fire incidents are being reviewed in order to gain insights directly relevant to the methods, data, and assumptions that form the basis for current fire PRAs. The paper focuses on the objectives of the effort, the …

A new method is being developed to quickly screen for the human exposure potential to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and organochlorines (OCs). The development involves two key elements: identifying suitable signals that represent intracellular changes that are specific to PAH and OC exposure, and constructing a device to guide the biological cell growth so that signals from individual cells are consistent and reproducible. We are completing the identification of suitable signals by using synchrotron radiation-based (SR) Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectromicroscopy in the mid-infrared region (4000-400 cm-1). Distinct changes have been observed in the IR spectra after treatment of human cells in culture medium with PAHs and OCs. The potential use of this method for detecting exposure to PAHs and OCs has been tested and compared to a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay that quantifies increased expression of the CYP1A1 gene in response to exposu re to PAHs or OCs.

The sensitivity of surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors has been enhanced by increasing the active surface area of these devices. Electrodepositions of Ni, Pd, and Pt in a mass-transport-limited mode with trace foreign metals yield highly dendritic crystal structures of uniform macroscopic thickness. The concentration of metal ions, supporting electrolyte, agitation, and additives greatly impact the crystal morphology of the deposit. This methodology can be used simply and economically to provide high-area films in selective regions.

None

In the past few years charged kaon experiments have indicated possible scalar and tensor couplings in semileptonic kaon decays (K{yields}{pi}e{nu}). These couplings, if correct, are not predicted by the Standard Model and may indicate the onset of new physics. We present a summary of the existing data and a new, precision measurement of these couplings in the neutral kaon system based on a 3% subset of the data taken by the KTeV (E799) experiment at Fermilab.

Results of high-energy synchrotrons radiation experiments are presented demonstrating the advantages of the atomic Pair Distribution Function technique in determining the structure of materials with high resolution.

We present a new, robust, model-independent technique for measuring condition change in nonlinear data. We define indicators of condition change by comparing distribution functions (DF) defined on the attractor for time windowed data sets via L{sub 1}-distance and {chi}{sup 2} statistics. The new measures are applied to EEG data with the objective of detecting the transition between non-seizure and epileptic brain activity in an accurate and timely manner. We find a clear superiority of the new metrics in comparison to traditional nonlinear measures as discriminators of condition change.

Tracking studies of the Muon Collider 50 on 50 GeV col-lider ring [1] show that the on-momentum dynamic aper-ture is limited to around 10{sigma} even with the chromaticity sextupoles turned off. Numerical results from the normal form algorithm show that the tune-shift with amplitude is surprisingly large. Both analytical and numerical results are presented to show that nonlinear kinematic effect originated from the large angles of particles in the interaction region is responsible for the large tune-shift which in turn limits the dynamic aperture. Acomparative study of the LHC collider ring is also presented to demonstrate the difference between the two machines.

Positron emission tomography (PET) studies mapping monoamine oxidase in the human brain have been used to measure the turnover rate for MAO B; to determine the minimum effective dose of a new MAO inhibitor drug lazabemide and to document MAO inhibition by cigarette smoke. These studies illustrate the power of PET and radiotracer chemistry to measure normal biochemical processes and to provide information on the effect of drug exposure on specific molecular targets.

The primary goals of this report are to (1) understand experimental radiography better (radiograph known static targets); and (2) to better understand the sources and effects of short wavelength perturbations on the long wavelength RT growth. Some secondary goals are to initiate Richtmyer-Meshkov mix targets; test beryllium cylinder implosions (if available); and observe emission spectroscopy from chlorinated foam to study implosions. To achieve these goals the authors: (1) shot mix targets with late backlighter and confirmed set up of radiography, begin static targets; (2) did a sequence of unperturbed and perturbed targets of different smoothness and thickness, fill in static, beryllium, and chlorinated foam targets; and (3) repeated step number 2 at a different backlighter time.

A long-standing conjecture in combinatorial optimization says that the integrality gap of the famous Held-Karp relaxation of the symmetric TSP is precisely 4/3. In this paper, we show that a slight strengthening of this conjecture implies a tight 4/3 integrality gap for a linear programming relaxation of the asymmetric TSP. This is surprising since no constant-factor approximation is known for the latter problem. Our main tools are a new characterization of the integrality gap for linear objective functions over polyhedra, and the isolation of ''hard-to-round'' solutions of the relaxations.

Development of isentropic loading techniques is a long standing goal of the shock physics community. The authors have used the Sandia Z Accelerator to produce smoothly increasing pressure loading on planar iron specimens over time durations of 100 ns and for pressures to 300 Mbar. Free surface velocity measurements on the rear surface of the continuously loaded specimens were made on specimens 0.5-mm and 0.8-mm thick and clearly show the effects of wave evolution into the well known two-wave structure resulting from the {alpha}-{var_epsilon} phase transition beginning at 125 kbar. The resulting wave profiles are analyzed with a rate-dependent, phase transition model to extract information on phase transformation kinetics for isentropic compression of iron. Comparison of the experiments and calculations demonstrate the value of isentropic loading for studying phase transition kinetics.

While nuclear safety analyses must always be conservative, invoking excessive conservatisms does not provide additional margins of safety. Rather, beyond a fairly narrow point, conservatisms skew a facility's true safety envelope by exaggerating risks and creating unreasonable bounds on what is required for safety. The conservatism has itself become unreasonable. A thorough review of the assumptions and methodologies contained in a facility's safety analysis can provide substantial reward, reducing both construction and operational costs without compromising actual safety.

Argonne National Laboratory has completed the construction of a Website for the US Department of Energy (DOE) that provides detailed information on salt caverns and their use for disposing of nonhazardous oil field wastes (NOW) and naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM). Specific topics in the Website include the following: descriptions of salt deposits and salt caverns within the US, salt cavern construction methods, potential types of wastes, waste emplacement, regulatory issues, costs, carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic human health risks associated with postulated cavern release scenarios, new information on cavern disposal (e.g., upcoming meetings, regulatory issues, etc.), other studies supported by the National Petroleum Technology Office (NPTO) (e.g., considerations of site location, cavern stability, development issues, and bedded salt characterization in the Midland Basin), and links to other associated Web sites. In addition, the Website allows downloadable access to reports prepared on the topic that were funded by DOE. Because of the large quantities of NOW and NORM wastes generated annually by the oil industry, information presented on this Website is particularly interesting and valuable to project managers, regulators, and concerned citizens.

Our vision of the future of information systems is one that includes engineered collectives of software agents which are situated in an environment over years and which increasingly improve the performance of the overall system of which they are a part. At a minimum, the movement of agent and multi-agent technology into National Security applications, including their use in information assurance, is apparent today. The use of deliberative, autonomous agents in high-consequence/high-security applications will require a commensurate level of protection and confidence in the predictability of system-level behavior. At Sandia National Laboratories, we have defined and are addressing a research agenda that integrates the surety (safety, security, and reliability) into agent-based systems at a deep level. Surety is addressed at multiple levels: The integrity of individual agents must be protected by addressing potential failure modes and vulnerabilities to malevolent threats. Providing for the surety of the collective requires attention to communications surety issues and mechanisms for identifying and working with trusted collaborators. At the highest level, using agent-based collectives within a large-scale distributed system requires the development of principled design methods to deliver the desired emergent performance or surety characteristics. This position paper will outline the research directions underway at …

Some recent theoretical results on coherent electromagnetic processes in ultrarelativistic heavy ion reactions are surveyed. In ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions, Coulomb induced cross sections are huge, much larger than geometric. For the RHIC case of 100 GeV x 100 GeV colliding gold ions the predicted cross section for bound-electron positron pairs is about 110 barns. The corresponding cross section for continuum electron-positron pairs has recently been recalculated to be 34,000 barns, consistent with the result of the classic formula of Landau and Lifshitz. The cross section for Coulomb dissociation of the nucleus is about 95 barns, and the cross section for ionization of a single electron on one of the ions is about 100,000 barns.

This paper improves on some of the limitations of conventional safety assessment and decision analysis methods. It develops a top-down mathematical method for expressing imprecise individual metrics as possibilistic or fuzzy numbers and shows how they may be combined (aggregated) into an overall metric, also portraying the inherent uncertainty. Both positively contributing and negatively contributing factors are included. Metrics are weighted according to significance of the attribute and evaluated as to contribution toward the attribute. Aggregation is performed using exponential combination of the metrics, since the accumulating effect of such factors responds less and less to additional factors. This is termed soft mathematical aggregation. Dependence among the contributing factors is accounted for by incorporating subjective metrics on overlap of the factors and by correspondingly reducing the overall contribution of these combinations to the overall aggregation. Decisions corresponding to the meaningfulness of the results are facilitated in several ways. First, the results are compared to a soft threshold provided by a sigmoid function. Second, information is provided on input ''Importance'' and ''Sensitivity,'' in order to know where to place emphasis on controls that may be necessary. Third, trends in inputs and outputs are tracked in order to add important information to …

We present a brief summary of the current status of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory and of the facilities at two of the APS sectors operated by the Basic Energy Sciences Synchrotrons Radiation Center (BESSRC). This is followed by a report on recent measurements at BESSRC on the phenomenon of Nuclear Excitation by Electronic Transition (NEET).

The past few years have seen an evolution in the study of rare K decays from a concentration on explicitly Standard Model (SM) violating decays such as K{sub L}{sup 0} {r_arrow} {mu}e, to one on SM-allowed but suppressed decays such as K {r_arrow} {pi}{nu}{bar {nu}}, in which short-distance interactions are dominant. There are also a number of recent experimental and theoretical studies of long-distance-dominated decays, but they do not have space to cover these, with the exception of those that are needed in the discussion of the short-distance-dominated processes.

Ukraine operates thirteen (13) Soviet-designed pressurized water reactors, VVERS. All Ukrainian plants are currently operating with annually renewable permits until they update their safety analysis reports (SARs), in accordance with new SAR content requirements issued in September 1995, by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority and the Government Nuclear Power Coordinating Committee of Ukraine. The requirements are in three major areas: design basis accident (DBA) analysis, probabilistic risk assessment (PRA), and beyond design-basis accident (BDBA) analysis. The last two requirements, on PRA and BDBA, are new, and the DBA requirements are an expanded version of the older SAR requirements. The US Department of Energy (USDOE), as part of its Soviet-Designed Reactor Safety activities, is providing assistance and technology transfer to Ukraine to support their nuclear power plants (NPPs) in developing a Western-type technical basis for the new SARs. USDOE sponsored In-Depth Safety Assessments (ISAs) are in progress at three pilot nuclear reactor units in Ukraine, South Ukraine Unit 1, Zaporizhzhya Unit 5, and Rivne Unit 1, and a follow-on study has been initiated at Khmenytskyy Unit 1. The ISA projects encompass most areas of plant safety evaluation, but the initial emphasis is on performing a detailed, plant-specific Level 1 Internal Events PRA. …