The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) commitment to assuring the health and safety of its workers includes the conduct of illness and injury surveillance activities that provide an early warning system to detect health problems among workers. The Illness and Injury Surveillance Program monitors illnesses and health conditions that result in an absence, occupational injuries and illnesses, and disabilities and deaths among current workers.

Utilization of the outstanding abilities of a liquid lithium layer in pumping hydrogen isotopes leads to a new approach to magnetic fusion, called the LiWall Fusion. It relies on innovative plasma regimes with low edge density and high temperature. The approach combines fueling the plasma by neutral injection beams with the best possible elimination of outside neutral gas sources, which cools down the plasma edge. Prevention of cooling the plasma edge suppresses the dominant, temperature gradient related turbulence in the core. Such an approach is much more suitable for controlled fusion than the present practice, relying on high heating power for compensating essentially unlimited turbulent energy losses.

When electrons in a metal become correlated with each other, new cooperative behavior can arise. This correlation is magnified when the metal has magnetic ions embedded in it. These atomic magnets try to line up with each other, but in doing so actually create a correlation between the motions of conduction electrons. In turn, these correlated electron motions prevent the magnetic ions from aligning, even at zero Kelvin. When this competition is strongest (at the so-called quantum critical point-QCP) the response of the system can no longer be described using the text book theory for metals. In addition, a range of new phenomena has been seen to emerge in the vicinity of a QCP, such as heavy-fermion superconductivity, coexistence of magnetism and superconductivity and hyper-scaling. The main goal of our research is to try to unravel the details of the feedback mechanism between electron motion and magnetism that lies at the heart of this new physics. We have chosen lithium-based spinel structures as the most promising family of systems to achieve our goal. Known lithium-based spinels Li{sub x}M{sub 2}O{sub 4} [M=V, Ti and Mn] show a variety of ground states: heavy-fermion, superconducting, or geometrically frustrated local moment systems. Li{sub x}M{sub …

C-reactor disassembly basin is being prepared for deactivation and decommissioning (D and D). D and D activities will consist primarily of immobilizing contaminated scrap components and structures in a grout-like formulation. The disassembly basin will be the first area of the C-reactor building that will be immobilized. The scrap components contain aluminum alloy materials. Any aluminum will corrode very rapidly when it comes in contact with the very alkaline grout (pH > 13), and as a result would produce hydrogen gas. To address this potential deflagration/explosion hazard, Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) reviewed and evaluated existing experimental and analytical studies of this issue to determine if any process constraints are necessary. The risk of accumulation of a flammable mixture of hydrogen above the surface of the water during the injection of grout into the C-reactor disassembly area is low if the assessment of the aluminum surface area is reliable. Conservative calculations estimate that there is insufficient aluminum present in the basin areas to result in significant hydrogen accumulation in this local region. The minimum safety margin (or factor) on a 60% LFL criterion for a local region of the basin (i.e., Horizontal Tube Storage) was greater than 3. Calculations also …

This technical report explores the Enhanced Densification of SCD Barrier Layers A samaria-doped ceria (SDC) barrier layer separates the lanthanum strontium cobalt ferrite (LSCF) cathode from the yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte in a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) to prevent the formation of electrically resistive interfacial SrZrO{sub 3} layers that arise from the reaction of Sr from the LSCF with Zr from the YSZ. However, the sintering temperature of this SDC layer must be limited to {approx}1200 C to avoid extensive interdiffusion between SDC and YSZ to form a resistive CeO{sub 2}-ZrO{sub 2} solid solution. Therefore, the conventional SDC layer is often porous and therefore not as impervious to Sr-diffusion as would be desired. In the pursuit of improved SOFC performance, efforts have been directed toward increasing the density of the SDC barrier layer without increasing the sintering temperature. The density of the SDC barrier layer can be greatly increased through small amounts of Cu-doping of the SDC powder together with increased solids loading and use of an appropriate binder system in the screen print ink. However, the resulting performance of cells with these barrier layers did not exhibit the expected increase in accordance with that achieved with the prototypical …

The Hanford Site in southeast Washington State has 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemically hazardous wastes stored in 177 underground tanks (ORP 2010). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of River Protection (ORP), through its contractors, is constructing the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) to convert the radioactive and hazardous wastes into stable glass waste forms for disposal. Within the WTP, the pretreatment facility will receive the retrieved waste from the tank farms and separate it into two treated process streams. These waste streams will be vitrified, and the resulting waste canisters will be sent to offsite (high-level waste [HLW]) and onsite (immobilized low-activity waste [ILAW]) repositories. As part of the pretreatment and ILAW processing, liquid secondary wastes will be generated that will be transferred to the Effluent Treatment Facility (ETF) on the Hanford Site for further treatment. These liquid secondary wastes will be converted to stable solid waste forms that will be disposed of in the Integrated Disposal Facility (IDF). To support the selection of a waste form for the liquid secondary wastes from WTP, Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) has initiated secondary waste form testing work at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). In …

The global economy has grown rapidly over the past decade with a commensurate growth in the demand for electricity services that has increased a country's vulnerability to energy supply disruptions. Increasing need of reliable and affordable electricity supply is a challenge which is before every Asia Pacific Partnership (APP) country. Collaboration between APP members has been extremely fruitful in identifying potential efficiency upgrades and implementing clean technology in the supply side of the power sector as well established the beginnings of collaboration. However, significantly more effort needs to be focused on demand side potential in each country. Demand side management or DSM in this case is a policy measure that promotes energy efficiency as an alternative to increasing electricity supply. It uses financial or other incentives to slow demand growth on condition that the incremental cost needed is less than the cost of increasing supply. Such DSM measures provide an alternative to building power supply capacity The type of financial incentives comprise of rebates (subsidies), tax exemptions, reduced interest loans, etc. Other approaches include the utilization of a cap and trade scheme to foster energy efficiency projects by creating a market where savings are valued. Under this scheme, greenhouse gas …

We have constructed in-frame deletions of 7 of the 10 PAS-GGDEF-EAL proteins in Shewanella oneidensis MR-1. We are currently in the process of characterizing the deletion mutants under a wide range of growth conditions. In addition to characterizing growth, we will also examine the biofilm formation of the deletion mutants. In addition to the genetic analyses of the mutants, we are also interested in comparing the activities of the various PAS-GGDEF-EAL proteins. Proteins containing PAS, GGDEF and EAL amino acid sequence motifs may play an important role in regulating c-di-GMP signaling in response to environmental conditions. A genetic and biochemical analysis into the roles of these proteins is underway. PDE activity was observed for several PAS-GGDEF-EAL proteins. One of these proteins, SO0427, also demonstrates possible DGC activity in vitro. Currently, we are studying the growth, motility and biofilm formation characteristics of deletion mutants, as well as the activity of the purified proteins.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) 'Draft Programmatic Agreement among the Department of Energy and the California State Historic Preservation Officer Regarding Operation of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory' requires a review and re-evaluation of the eligibility of laboratory properties for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) every five years. The original evaluation was published in 2005; this report serves as the first five-year re-evaluation. This re-evaluation includes consideration of changes within LLNL to management, to mission, and to the built environment. it also determines the status of those buildings, objects, and districts that were recommended as NRHP-eligible in the 2005 report. Buildings that were omitted from the earlier building list, those that have reached 50 years of age since the original assessment, and new buildings are also addressed in the re-evaluation.

A flow chart depicting energy flow in the residential sector of the United States economy in 2005 has been constructed from publicly available data and estimates of national energy use patterns. Approximately 11,000 trillion British Thermal Units (trBTUs) of electricity and fuels were used throughout the United States residential sector in lighting, electronics, air conditioning, space heating, water heating, washing appliances, cooking appliances, refrigerators, and other appliances. The residential sector is powered mainly by electricity and natural gas. Other fuels used include petroleum products (fuel oil, liquefied petroleum gas and kerosene), biomass (wood), and on-premises solar, wind, and geothermal energy. The flow patterns represent a comprehensive systems view of energy used within the residential sector.

This is the second year of a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract geared towards the development of a new seismic sensor. Ground-based seismic monitoring systems have proven to be very capable in identifying nuclear tests, and can provide somewhat precise information on the location and yield of the explosive device. Making these measurements, however, currently requires very expensive and bulky seismometers that are difficult to deploy in places where they are most needed. A high performance, compact device can enable rapid deployment of large scale arrays, which can in turn be used to provide higher quality data during times of critical need. The use of a laser interferometer-based device has shown considerable promise, while also presenting significant challenges. The greatest strength of this optical readout technique is the ability to decouple the mechanical design from the transducer, thus enabling a miniaturized design that is not accessible with conventional sensing techniques. However, the nonlinearity in the optical response must be accounted for in the sensor output. Previously, we had proposed using a force-feedback approach to position the sensor at a point of maximum linearity. However, it can be shown that the combined nonlinearities of the optical response and …

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion can exploit natural temperature gradients in the oceans to generate usable forms of energy (for example, cost-competitive baseload electricity in tropical regions such as Hawaii) free from fossil fuel consumption and global warming emissions.The No.1 acknowledged challenge of constructing an OTEC plant is the Cold Water Pipe (CWP), which draws cold water from 1000m depths up to the surface, to serve as the coolant for the OTEC Rankine cycle. For a commercial-scale plant, the CWP is on the order of 10m in diameter.This report describes work done by LMSSC developing the CWP for LM MS2 New Ventures emerging OTEC business. The work started in early 2008 deciding on the minimum-cost CWP architecture, materials, and fabrication process. In order to eliminate what in previous OTEC work had been a very large assembly/deployment risk, we took the innovative approach of building an integral CWP directly from theOTEC platform and down into the water. During the latter half of 2008, we proceeded to a successful small-scale Proof-of-Principles validation of the new fabrication process, at the Engineering Development Lab in Sunnyvale. During 2009-10, under the Cooperative Agreement with the US Dept. of Energy, we have now successfully validated key elements …

This report documents completion of FY11 L2 milestone No.3953-TLCC2 contract award. This milestone was scheduled for completion on 3/31/11 and was completed on 4/14/11. There is a separate milestone (3856), due at the end of the fiscal year, concerned with installation of the first LLNL SU and early user access. Efforts related to this tri-lab L2 milestone started early in 2010 with the development of tri-lab requirements for the second ASC capacity system procurement. The SOW was then developed along with necessary RFP paperwork and sent to HQ/DOE for their review prior to being released. There was significant delay in getting this step completed which led to this milestone being put at risk for several months. However, once the RFP was approved and released we were able to get the procurement back on track with aggressive proposal response and review timelines.

A new jet observable, dipolarity, is introduced that can distinguish whether a pair of subjets arises from a color singlet source. This observable is incorporated into the HEPTopTagger and is shown to improve discrimination between top jets and QCD jets for moderate to high p{sub T}. The impressive resolution of the ATLAS and CMS detectors means that a typical QCD jet at the LHC deposits energy in {Omicron}(10-100) calorimeter cells. Such fine-grained calorimetry allows for jets to be studied in much greater detail than previously, with sophisticated versions of current techniques making it possible to measure more than just the bulk properties of jets (e.g. event jet multiplicities or jet masses). One goal of the LHC is to employ these techniques to extend the amount of information available from each jet, allowing for a broader probe of the properties of QCD. The past several years have seen significant progress in developing such jet substructure techniques. A number of general purpose tools have been developed, including: (i) top-tagging algorithms designed for use at both lower and higher p{sub T} as well as (ii) jet grooming techniques such as filtering, pruning, and trimming, which are designed to improve jet mass resolution. Jet …

The U.S. Department of Energy conducts radiological operations in south-central Washington State. Population dose estimates must be performed to provide a measure of the impact from site radiological releases. Results of the U.S. 2010 Census were used to determine counts and distributions for the residential population located within 50-miles of several operating areas of the Hanford Site. Year 2010 was the first census year that a 50-mile population of a Hanford Site operational area exceeded the half-million mark.

The derived concentration guideline level (DCGL) is the allowable residual radionuclide concentration that can remain in soil after remediation of the site without radiological restrictions on the use of the site. It is sometimes called the single radionuclide soil guideline or the soil cleanup criteria. This report documents the methodology, scenarios, and parameters used in the analysis to support establishing radionuclide DCGLs for Argonne National Laboratory's Building 310 area.

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The Indian Buffet Process (IBP) gives a probabilistic model of sparse binary matrices with an unbounded number of columns. This construct can be used, for example, to model a fixed numer of observed data points (rows) associated with an unknown number of latent features (columns). Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are often used for IBP inference, and in this technical note, we provide a detailed review of the derivations of collapsed and accelerated Gibbs samplers for the linear-Gaussian infinite latent feature model. We also discuss and explain update equations for hyperparameter resampling in a 'full Bayesian' treatment and present a novel slice sampler capable of extending the accelerated Gibbs sampler to the case of infinite sparse factor analysis by allowing the use of real-valued latent features.

To support the selection of a waste form for the liquid secondary wastes from WTP, Washington River Protection Solutions has initiated secondary-waste-form testing work at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). In anticipation of a down-selection process for a waste form for the Solidification Treatment Unit to be added to the ETF, PNNL is conducting tests on four candidate waste forms to evaluate their ability to meet potential waste acceptance criteria for immobilized secondary wastes that would be placed in the IDF. All three waste forms demonstrated compressive strengths above the minimum 3.45 MPa (500 psi) set as a target for cement-based waste forms. Further, none of the waste forms showed any significant degradation in compressive strength after undergoing thermal cycling (30 cycles in a 10 day period) between -40 C and 60 C or water immersion for 90 days. The three leach test methods are intended to measure the diffusion rates of contaminants from the waste forms. Results are reported in terms of diffusion coefficients and a leachability index (LI) calculated based on the diffusion coefficients. A smaller diffusion coefficient and a larger LI are desired. The NRC, in its Waste Form Technical Position (NRC 1991), provides recommendations and guidance …

This document describes a new Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) data set, the ARM Cloud Retrieval Ensemble Data Set (ACRED), which is created by assembling nine existing ground-based cloud retrievals of ARM measurements from different cloud retrieval algorithms. The current version of ACRED includes an hourly average of nine ground-based retrievals with vertical resolution of 45 m for 512 layers. The techniques used for the nine cloud retrievals are briefly described in this document. This document also outlines the ACRED data availability, variables, and the nine retrieval products. Technical details about the generation of ACRED, such as the methods used for time average and vertical re-grid, are also provided.

Accurate predictive models of compromised networks would contribute greatly to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the detection and control of network attacks. Compartmental epidemiological models have been applied to modeling attack vectors such as viruses and worms. We extend the application of these models to capture a wider class of dynamics applicable to cyber security. By making basic assumptions regarding network topology we use multi-group epidemiological models and reaction rate kinetics to model the stochastic evolution of a compromised network. The Gillespie Algorithm is used to run simulations under a worst case scenario in which the intruder follows the basic connection rates of network traffic as a method of obfuscation.

Project required design, fabrication, and evaluation of a custom pulse power supply, developed under a Phase I DOE SBIR, in an electroforming laboratory to attempt to produce ultra-high purity copper.

The Small Column Ion Exchange (SCIX) project is designed to accelerate closure of High Level Waste (HLW) tanks at the Savannah River Site (SRS). The SRS tanks store HLW in three forms: sludge, saltcake, and supernate. An in-tank ion exchange process is being designed to treat supernate and dissolved saltcake waste. Through this process, radioactive cesium from the salt solution is adsorbed into Crystalline Silicotitanate (CST) ion exchange media packed within a flow-through column. A packed column loaded with radioactive cesium generates significant heat from radiolytic decay. The waste supernate solution within the ion exchange bed will boil around 120 C. Solution superheating above the boiling point within the column could lead to violent hazardous energy releases. System heating from loaded CST is also of concern in other process modules, such as the waste tank. Due to tank structural integrity concerns, the wall temperature limit for the SRS waste tanks is 100 C. The transfer of cesium-loaded CST to the tank could result in localized hot spots on the tank floor and walls which may exceed this limit. As a result, thermal modeling calculations have been conducted to predict the maximum temperatures achievable both in the column and in the …

For this task LLNL will examine the vulnerability of drinking water supplies in foothills and higher elevation areas to climate change impacts on recharge. Recharge locations and vulnerability will be determined through examination of groundwater ages and noble gas recharge temperatures in high elevation basins. LLNL will determine whether short residence times are common in one or more subalpine basin. LLNL will measure groundwater ages, recharge temperatures, hydrogen and oxygen isotopes, major anions and carbon isotope compositions on up to 60 samples from monitoring wells and production wells in these basins. In addition, a small number of carbon isotope analyses will be performed on surface water samples. The deliverable for this task will be a technical report that provides the measured data and an interpretation of the data from one or more subalpine basins. Data interpretation will: (1) Consider climate change impacts to recharge and its impact on water quality; (2) Determine primary recharge locations and their vulnerability to climate change; and (3) Delineate the most vulnerable areas and describe the likely impacts to recharge.