The Image Content Engine (ICE) is being developed to provide cueing assistance to human image analysts faced with increasingly large and intractable amounts of image data. The ICE architecture includes user configurable feature extraction pipelines which produce intermediate feature vector and match surface files which can then be accessed by interactive relational queries. Application of the feature extraction algorithms to large collections of images may be extremely time consuming and is launched as a batch job on a Linux cluster. The query interface accesses only the intermediate files and returns candidate hits nearly instantaneously. Queries may be posed for individual objects or collections. The query interface prompts the user for feedback, and applies relevance feedback algorithms to revise the feature vector weighting and focus on relevant search results. Examples of feature extraction and both model-based and search-by-example queries are presented.

At the Berkeley Structural Genomics Center (BSGC), our goalis to obtain a near-complete structural complement of proteins in theminimal organisms Mycoplasma genitalium and M. pneumoniae, two closelyrelated pathogens. Current targets for structure determination have beenselected in six major stages, starting with those predicted to be mosttractable to high throughput study and likely to yield new structuralinformation. We report on the process used to select these proteins, aswell as our target deselection procedure. Target deselection reducesexperimental effort by eliminating targets similar to those recentlysolved by the structural biology community or other centers. We measurethe impact of the 69 structures solved at the BSGC as of July 2004 onstructure prediction coverage of the M. pneumoniae and M. genitaliumproteomes. The number of Mycoplasma proteins for which thefold couldfirst be reliably assigned based on structures solved at the BSGC (24 M.pneumoniae and 21 M. genitalium) is approximately 25 percent of the totalresulting from work at all structural genomics centers and the worldwidestructural biology community (94 M. pneumoniae and 86M. genitalium)during the same period. As the number of structures contributed by theBSGC during that period is less than 1 percent of the total worldwideoutput, the benefits of a focused target selection strategy are apparent.If the …

An extensive study of helium isotopes in fluids collectedfrom surface springs, fumaroles and wells across the northern Basin andRange Province reveals a systematic trend of decreasing 3He/4He ratiosfrom west to east. The western margin of the Basin and Range ischaracterized by mantle-like ratios (6-8 Ra) associated with active orrecently active crustal magma systems (e.g. Coso, Long Valley, Steamboat,and the Cascade volcanic complex). Moving towards the east, the ratiosdecline systematically to a background value of ~;0.1 Ra. The regionaltrend is consistent with extensive mantle melting concentrated along thewestern margin and is coincident with an east-to-west increase in themagnitude of northwest strain. The increase in shear strain enhancescrustal permeability resulting in high vertical fluid flow rates thatpreserve the high helium isotope ratios at the surface. Superimposed onthe regional trend are "helium spikes", local anomalies in the heliumisotope composition. These "spikes" reflect either local zones of mantlemelting or locally enhanced crustal permeability. In the case of theDixie Valley hydrothermal system, it appears to be a combination ofboth.

Plutonium, because of its radioactive nature, ages from the ''inside out'' by means of self-irradiation damage and thus produces Frankel-type defects and defect clusters. The defects resulting from the residual lattice damage and helium in-growth could result in microstructural, electronic, and physical property changes. This paper presents volume, density, and electronic property change observed from both naturally and accelerated aged plutonium alloys. Accelerated alloys are plutonium alloys with a fraction of Pu-238 to accelerate the aging process by approximately 18 times the rate of unaged weapons-grade plutonium. After thirty-five equivalent years of aging on accelerated alloys, the samples have swelled in volume by approximately 0.1% and now exhibit a near linear volume increase due to helium in-growth. We will correlate the physical property changes to the electronic structure of plutonium observed by the resonant photoelectron spectroscopy (RESPES).

Leakage of CO2 from a hypothetical geologic storage reservoir along an idealized fault zone has been simulated, including transitions between supercritical, liquid, and gaseous CO2. We find strong non-isothermal effects due to boiling and Joule-Thomson cooling of expanding CO2. Leakage fluxes are limited by limitations in conductive heat transfer to the fault zone. The interplay between multiphase flow and heat transfer effects produces non-monotonic leakage behavior.

Shock-induced twinning and martensitic transformation in BCC-based polycrystalline metals (Ta and U-6wt%Nb) have been observed and studied using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The length-scale of domain thickness for both twin lamella and martensite phase is found to be smaller than 100 nm. While deformation twinning of {l_brace}112{r_brace}<111>-type is found in Ta when shock-deformed at 15 GPa, both twinning and martensitic transformation are found in Ta when shock-deformed at 45 GPa. Similar phenomena of nanoscale twinning and martensitic transformation are also found in U6Nb shock-deformed at 30 GPa. Since both deformation twinning and martensitic transformation occurred along the {l_brace}211{r_brace}{sub b} planes associated with high resolved shear stresses, it is suggested that both can be regarded as alternative paths for shear transformations to occur in shock-deformed BCC metals. Heterogeneous nucleation mechanisms for shock-induced twinning and martensitic transformation are proposed and discussed.

Strained semiconductor thin films grown epitaxially on semiconductor substrates of different composition, such as Si{sub 1-x}Ge{sub x}/Si, are becoming increasingly important in modern microelectronic technologies. In this paper, we report a hierarchical computational approach for analysis of dislocation formation, glide motion, multiplication, and annihilation in Si{sub 1-x}Ge{sub x} epitaxial thin films on Si substrates. Specifically, a condition is developed for determining the critical film thickness with respect to misfit dislocation generation as a function of overall film composition, film compositional grading, and (compliant) substrate thickness. In addition, the kinetics of strain relaxation in the epitaxial film during growth or thermal annealing (including post-implantation annealing) is analyzed using a properly parameterized dislocation mean-field theoretical model, which describes plastic deformation dynamics due to threading dislocation propagation. The theoretical results for Si{sub 1-x}Ge{sub x} epitaxial thin films grown on Si (100) substrates are compared with experimental measurements and are used to discuss film growth and thermal processing protocols toward optimizing the mechanical response of the epitaxial film.

In HGHG FEL the optimum strength of dispersive section is determined by the maximum bunching that beam obtains after interaction with seed laser. In this paper we present a simple semi-analytic expression of the required dispersive section strength for a wide range of laser power, intrinsic energy spread and harmonic number.

Domain decomposed Monte Carlo codes, like other domain-decomposed codes, are difficult to debug. Domain decomposition is prone to error, and interactions between the domain decomposition code and the rest of the algorithm often produces subtle bugs. These bugs are particularly difficult to find in a Monte Carlo algorithm, in which the results have statistical noise. Variations in the results due to statistical noise can mask errors when comparing the results to other simulations or analytic results. If a code can get the same result on one domain as on many, debugging the whole code is easier. This reproducibility property is also desirable when comparing results done on different numbers of processors and domains. We describe how reproducibility, to machine precision, is obtained on different numbers of domains in an Implicit Monte Carlo photonics code.

Characterizing laser-induced damage in optical materials is important for laser design and operation. Previous methods of evaluating optical materials damage resistance to high-power laser irradiation have typically suffered from shot to shot uncertainties in laser energy output and/or have insufficient sensitivity. More importantly such methods do not address the aspects of laser-induced damage important to laser beam propagation, namely the amount of light scattered by the damage. We present a method for the quantitative correlation of material modification on the surface or in the bulk of optical materials to laser parameters, which deconvolutes the effects of laser output instability. Image analysis, whereby two images, one a fluence spatial profile and the other a visible light scatter image of the damage, are directly compared to extract scatter as a function of fluence. An automated microscope is used to record the location and number of bulk damage sites and determine a calibration factor between the scatter signal observed and damage density pinpoints (ppt)/mm{sup 3}. We illustrate the method with a determination of both bulk damage density as a function of laser fluence and of a representative size distributions in a DKDP crystal. Our method is capable of determining damage densities with an …