Human health and ecological risk assessments are required as part of the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act (RCRA) permit renewal process for waste treatment units. This risk assessment is prepared in support of the RCRA permit renewal for the Explosives Waste Treatment Facility at Site 300 of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The human health risk assessment is based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved emissions factors and on California Environmental Protection Agency, Air Resources Board and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency risk assessment and air dispersion models. The risk assessment identifies receptors of concern and evaluates carcinogenic risk, and acute and chronic noncarcinogenic hazard. The carcinogenic risk to a 30-year resident at the maximum offsite receptor location is 0.0000006 or 0.6 in one million. The carcinogenic risk to a 25-year worker at the maximum bystander on-site receptor location is also 0.0000006 or 0.6 in one million. Any risk of less than 1 in a million is below the level of regulatory concern. The acute noncarcinogenic hazard for the 30-year resident is 0.02 and the chronic noncarcinogenic hazard is 0.01. The acute noncarcinogenic hazard for the 25-year worker is 0.3 and the chronic noncarcinogenic hazard is 0.2. The point of comparison …

The remanence fields of fatigued ferritic steel specimens were measured using a scanning microscope based on a high transition temperature Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID). The results show an overall increase of remanence until dislocation density saturates and an additional local remanence increase after saturation during cyclic loading. Because of the combined magnetic and spatial resolution of the SQUID microscope, these local changes of dislocation structures can be detected before a crack actually initiates, and identify the sites where crack nucleation will occur.

Angular differential imaging is a high-contrast imaging technique that reduces speckle noise from quasi-static optical aberrations and facilitates the detection of faint nearby companions. A sequence of images is acquired with an altitude/azimuth telescope, the instrument rotator being turned off. This keeps the instrument and telescope optics aligned, stabilizes the instrumental PSF and allows the field of view to rotate with respect to the instrument. For each image, a reference PSF obtained from other images of the sequence is subtracted. All residual images are then rotated to align the field and are median combined. Observed performances are reported for Gemini Altair/NIRI data. Inside the speckle dominated region of the PSF, it is shown that quasi-static PSF noise can be reduced by a factor {approx}5 for each image subtraction. The combination of all residuals then provides an additional gain of the order of the square root of the total number of images acquired. To our knowledge, this is the first time an acquisition strategy and reduction pipeline designed for speckle attenuation and high contrast imaging is demonstrated to significantly get better detection limits with longer integration times at all angular separations. A PSF noise attenuation of 100 was achieved from 2-hour …

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Stanford University's Knowledge Systems Laboratory (KSL) is working in partnership with Battelle Memorial Institute and IBM Watson Research Center to develop a suite of technologies for information extraction, knowledge representation & reasoning, and human-information interaction, in unison entitled 'Knowledge Associates for Novel Intelligence' (KANI). We have developed an integrated analytic environment composed of a collection of analyst associates, software components that aid the user at different stages of the information analysis process. An important part of our participatory design process has been to ensure our technologies and designs are tightly integrate with the needs and requirements of our end users, To this end, we perform a sequence of evaluations towards the end of the development process that ensure the technologies are both functional and usable. This paper reports on that process.

The SSM Consortium (now ACRC) at WPI has been carrying out fundamental, pre-competitive research in SSM for several years. Current and past research (at WPI) has generated many results of fundamental and applied nature, which are available to the SSM community. These include materials characterization, yield stress effects, alloy development, rheological properties, process modeling/simulation, semi-solid slurry formation, etc. Alternative method to produce SSM slurries at lower processing costs and with reduced energy consumption is a critical need. The production of low cost SSM feedstock will certainly lead to a dramatic increase in the tonnage of castings produced by SSM, and will provide end users such as the transportation industry, with lighter, cheaper and high performance materials. In this program, the research team has addressed three critical issues in semi-solid processing. They are: (1) Development of low cost, reliable slurry-on-demand approaches for semi-solid processing; (2) Application of the novel permanent grain refining technology-SiBloy for the manufacture of high-quality SSM feedstock, and (3) Development of computational and modeling tools for semi-solid processing to enhance SSM process control. Salient results from these studies are summarized and detailed in our final technical report.

Research funded by grant DE-FG02-04ER63801 focused on DNA hydration modeled by classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. The most important finding of our research was that oxidation of guanine, a ubiquitous DNA lesion caused by endogenous and environmental oxidative stress, changes DNA hydration in a way that increases the stability of the damage base pair.

Tubel Tech has been working with the DoE Rocky Mountain test center to create a CRADA which will allow Tubel Tech to test its wireless gauge in a well at the test center. The CRADA agreement should be completed by the next quarter and Tubel Tech expects to perform the final test on this project during the next quarter as well. The wireless gauge has not been modified or upgraded during this report period.

The report describes research in theoretical quantum chromodynamics, including effective field theories of hadronic interactions, properties of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy density, phenomenology of relativistic heavy ion collisions, and algorithms and numerical simulations of lattice gauge theory and other many-body systems.

This report discusses the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) requires signatory parties to take measures to end torture within their territorial jurisdiction and to criminalize all acts of torture.

This report contains information regarding the Safe Drinking Water Act. Amendments to the act, drinking water infrastructure funding, and drinking water security are among topics discussed in this report.

Since its inception over 26 years ago, NARAC (the National Atmospheric Release and Advisory Center) has used measurement data to update model predictions of radioactive releases from known origins. NARAC continues to routinely participate in emergency response drills with organizations that collect air concentration, ground deposition, and radiation exposure measurements. From a complementary perspective, NARAC is now developing an advanced capability to combine models and data from monitoring systems to characterize and forensically reconstruct atmospheric release events of unknown origin.

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The radiological Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) is used to analyze the radioactive samples collected from different radioactive material processing operations at Savannah River Site (SRS). The expeditious processing of these samples is important for safe and reliable operations at SRS. As the radiological (RAD) ICP-MS machine ages, the experience shows that replacement parts and repairs are difficult to obtain on time for reliable operations after 5 years of service. A discrete event model using commercial software EXTEND was prepared to assess the impact on sample turn around times as the ICP-MS gets older. The model was prepared using the sample statistics from the previous 4 years. Machine utilization rates were calculated for the new machine, 5 year old machine, 10 year old machine, and a 12 year old machine. Computer simulations were run for these periods and the sample delay times calculated. The model was validated against the sample statistics collected from the previous 4 quarters. 90% confidence intervals were calculated for the 10th, 25th, 50th, and 90th quantiles of the samples. The simulation results show that if 50% of the samples are needed on time for efficient site operations, a 10 year old machine could take nearly …

This article describes the use of a three-dimensional integration of the early zebrafish heart and vessels to greatly reduce measurement error of stroke volume and cardiac output and to determine the cross-sectional growth of major vessels in the developing zebrafish larvae.

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The favoured theoretical explanation for planetary systems formation is the core-accretion model in which solid planetesimals accumulate to build up planetary cores, which then accrete nebular gas if they are sufficiently massive. Around M-dwarf stars, the most common stars of our Galaxy, this model favours the formation of Earth- to Neptune-mass planets in a few million years with orbital sizes of 1 to 10 AU, which is consistent with the small number of detections of giant planets with M-dwarf host stars. More than 170 extrasolar planets have been discovered so far with a wide range of masses and orbital periods, but planets of Neptune's mass or less have not previously been detected at separations of more than 0.15 AU from normal stars. Here we report the discovery of a 5.5{sub -2.7}{sup +5.5} Earthmass planetary companion at a separation of 2.6{sub -0.6}{sup +1.5}AU from a 0.22{sub -0.11}{sup +0.21} M{sub e} M-dwarf star, which is the lens star for gravitational microlensing event OGLE 2005-BLG-390. This is the lowest mass ever reported for an extrasolar planet orbiting a main sequence star, although the error bars overlap those for the mass of GJ876d. Our detection suggests that such cool, sub-Neptune mass planets may be …

Daily newspaper from Sapulpa, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Student newspaper of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma that includes national, local, and campus news along with advertising.

News release about community meetings, to be hosted by DART, gathering input on the locations to DART Rail stations along the planned Northwest Corridor.

Digital graphic containing three thermometers with a torch placed at the top of each of them. The University of North Texas logo can be seen in the upper portion of the graphic three times.

Daily newspaper from Chickasha, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Newsletter of Congregation Beth Yeshurun in Houston, including news and events, upcoming services, member announcements, editorials, and other information of interest to congregants.