Using an orbital vibrator source (2-components), and a 40 level 3-component geophone string, a 6-component crosswell survey was acquired before and after a CO2 injection in a saline aquifer. Decomposition of the two source components and component rotation of both source and sensors created good separation of P- and S-wave energy allowing independent analysis of travel time and reflectivity. A time-lapse VSP was also acquired.

At HB-Line of the Savannah River Site, 4.3 kg of U-235 have been repackaged from FB-Line Desicooler material into a cement matrix in individual one-gallon paint cans for disposition as solid waste. The 4.3 kg of U-235 material were packaged into 172 paint cans with U-235 contents ranging from 8.9 g up to 32 g. Prior to transfer to the Solid Waste Facilities, verification measurements of selected cans were performed to assure valid control of the solid waste. The HB-Line-DOE Sampling Plan designated confirmatory assays, and a total of 67 paint cans were assayed to verify the contents. The Analytical Development Section of the Savannah River National Laboratory selected an active well coincidence neutron counter as the best instrument available to accomplish the assays. The instrument was set up at-line in the thermal excitation mode, and three standard samples that contained 8.9-, 28.5-, and 32.4-g of U-235 were counted for twenty hours of acquisition time each. A linear calibration based on the observed doubles rates was installed in the instrument. Subsequent verification measurements were performed on the selected samples using fifteen one-minute active acquisitions. Of the 67 samples assayed, 53 verification measurements were within the limits greater than or less …

The ''Workshop on Advanced Computational Materials Science: Application to Fusion and Generation IV Fission Reactors'' was convened to determine the degree to which an increased effort in modeling and simulation could help bridge the gap between the data that is needed to support the implementation of these advanced nuclear technologies and the data that can be obtained in available experimental facilities. The need to develop materials capable of performing in the severe operating environments expected in fusion and fission (Generation IV) reactors represents a significant challenge in materials science. There is a range of potential Gen-IV fission reactor design concepts and each concept has its own unique demands. Improved economic performance is a major goal of the Gen-IV designs. As a result, most designs call for significantly higher operating temperatures than the current generation of LWRs to obtain higher thermal efficiency. In many cases, the desired operating temperatures rule out the use of the structural alloys employed today. The very high operating temperature (up to 1000 C) associated with the NGNP is a prime example of an attractive new system that will require the development of new structural materials. Fusion power plants represent an even greater challenge to structural materials …

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This Report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Agriculture.

The report is categorized into eight categories: (I) Background, (II) FY2001 Grants, (III) FY 2002 Grants,(IV) FY 2003 Grants, (V) FY 2004 Grants, (VI) Program Evaluation, (VII) Distribution of Fire Grants and (VIII) Activities in the 108th Congress.

The 'Kinetic Stabilizer' has been proposed as a means of MHD stabilizing an axisymmetric tandem mirror system. The K-S concept is based on theoretical studies by Ryutov, confirmed experimentally in the Gas Dynamic Trap experiment in Novosibirsk. In the K-S beams of ions are directed into the end of an 'expander' region outside the outer mirror of a tandem mirror. These ions, slowed, stagnated, and reflected as they move up the magnetic gradient, produce a low-density stabilizing plasma. At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory we have been conducting theoretical and computational studies of the K-S Tandem Mirror. These studies have employed a low-beta code written especially to analyze the beam injection/stabilization process, and a new code SYMTRAN (by Hua and Fowler) that solves the coupled radial and axial particle and energy transport in a K-S TM. Also, a 'legacy' MHD stability code, FLORA, has been upgraded and employed to benchmark the injection/stabilization code and to extend its results to high beta values. The FLORA code studies so far have confirmed the effectiveness of the K-S in stabilizing high-beta (40%) plasmas with stabilizer plasmas the peak pressures of which are several orders of magnitude smaller than those of the confined plasma. …

This commercial demonstration project demonstrated the technical feasibility of converting low-value, underutilized and waste stream solid wood fiber material into higher valued products. With a growing need to increase product/production yield and reduce waste in most sawmills, few recovery operations and practically no data existed to support the viability of recovery operations. Prior to our efforts, most all in the forest products industry believed that recovery was difficult, extremely labor intensive, not cost effective, and that recovered products had low value and were difficult to sell. This project provided an opportunity for many within the industry to see through demonstration that converting waste stream material into higher valued products does in fact offer a solution. Our work, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, throughout the project aimed to demonstrate a reasonable approach to reducing the millions of recoverable solid wood fiber tons that are annually treated as and converted into low value chips, mulch and fuel. Consequently sawmills continue to suffer from reduced availability of forest resources, higher raw material costs, growing waste disposal problems, increased global competition, and more pressure to operate in an Environmentally Friendly manner. It is our belief (based upon the experience of this project) …

A worldwide trend for explosives testing has been to replace open-air detonations with containment vessels, especially when any hazardous materials are involved. As part of the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) effort to ensure the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear stockpile, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have been developing a high performance filament wound composite firing vessel that is nearly radiographically transparent. It was intended to contain a limited number of detonations of metal cased explosive assemblies in radiographic facilities such as the Advanced Hydrodynamic Facility (AHF) being studied by Los Alamos National Laboratory. A 2-meter diameter pressure vessel was designed to contain up to 35 kg (80 lb) of TNT equivalent explosive without leakage. Over the past 5 years a total of three half-scale (1 meter diameter) vessels have been constructed, and two of them were tested to 150% load with 8.2 kg (18-pound) spheres of C4 explosive. The low density and high specific strength advantages used in this composite vessel design may have other additional applications such as transporting sensitive explosives that could otherwise be moved only in very small quantities. Also, it could be used for highly portable, explosive containment systems for law enforcement.

The nation’s health, wealth, and security rely on the production and distribution of certain goods and services. The array of physical assets, processes and organizations across which these goods and services move are called critical infrastructures (e.g. electricity, the power plants that generate it, and the electric grid upon which it is distributed). Computers and communications, themselves critical infrastructures, are increasingly tying these infrastructures together. This report aims to address the concern that this reliance on computers and computer networks raises the vulnerability of the nation’s critical infrastructures to “cyber” attacks.

A new stress-accommodating crystallographic mechanism of the {delta} {yields} {alpha} martensitic transformation in plutonium alloys is proposed. According to this mechanism, an orientation variant of the {alpha} phase is produced by a combination of a homogeneous strain and shuffling of the alternating close-packed (111){sub {delta}} planes. It is shown that the formation of stable transformation-induced twins whose twin plane orientations and twin shear directions do not depend on the small variations of the crystal lattice parameters is the preferred stress-accommodating mode. Only these stable twins have dislocation-free twin boundaries while the twin boundaries of all others are decorated by ultra-dense distribution of partial dislocations. The theory predicts a crystal lattice rearrangement mechanism involving the (205){sub {alpha}} ((01{bar 1}){sub {delta}}) stable twins. The corresponding Invariant Plane Strain solutions, with special emphasis on two simplest shuffling modes, the single and double elementary modes, are presented and compared with the existing experimental observations. It is shown that the habit plane orientation is highly sensitive to the input values of the crystal lattice parameters and especially to the accuracy of the measured volume change in the {delta}{yields}{alpha} transformation. An analysis of these effects on the habit plane orientation and orientation relations is also presented.

The EPB41 (protein 4.1) genes epitomize the resourcefulness of the mammalian genome to encode a complex proteome from a small number of genes. By utilizing alternative transcriptional promoters and tissue-specific alternative pre-mRNA splicing, EPB41, EPB41L2, EPB41L3, and EPB41L1 encode a diverse array of structural adapter proteins. Comparative genomic and transcript analysis of these 140kb-240kb genes indicates several unusual features: differential evolution of highly conserved exons encoding known functional domains, interspersed with unique exons whose size and sequence variations contribute substantially to intergenic diversity: alternative first exons, most of which map far upstream of the coding regions; and complex tissue-specific alternative pre-mRNA splicing that facilitates synthesis of functionally different complements of 4.1 proteins in various cells. Understanding the splicing regulatory networks that control protein 4.1 expression will be critical to a full appreciation of the many roles of 4.1 proteins in normal cell biology and their proposed roles in human cancer.

A decision support system (DSS) has been designed and will be implemented over the next three years to assist in the control and management of episodes of low dissolved oxygen (DO) in a Deep Water Ship Channel (DWSC), located near Stockton, California. The DSS integrates three information technology functions. The first part is the collection and management of data on flow, pollution loads and water quality. The second part is the simulation model which can forecast the dissolved oxygen sag in the DWSC and determine management actions necessary to improve dissolved oxygen concentrations. The third part is the graphical user interface, which facilitates the computer simulations and posting of the forecasted dissolved oxygen and remedial measures to a stakeholder group for implementations.

In the 108th Congress, debate over energy efficiency programs has focused on budget, oil, natural gas, and electricity issues, and provisions in the omnibus energy policy bill, S. 2095, H.R. 6, and S. 14/S. 1149. The Bush Administration’s FY2005 budget request for the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Energy Efficiency Program sought $875.9 million, including $543.9 for R&D and $332.0 million for grants. In the first session, the omnibus energy bill (H.R. 6) had several significant tax and regulatory measures for energy efficiency. It did not pass the Senate due to concerns about cost and an MTBE “safe harbor” provision.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Gasoline is subject to dramatic price swings. A multitude of factors affect U.S. gasoline markets, including world crude oil costs and limited refining capacity. Since the 1990s, another factor affecting U.S. gasoline markets has been a wave of mergers in the petroleum industry, several between large oil companies that had previously competed with each other. For example, in 1999, Exxon, the largest U.S. oil company, merged with Mobil, the second largest. This testimony is based primarily on Energy Markets: Effects of Mergers and Market Concentration in the U.S. Petroleum Industry (GAO-04-96, May 17, 2004). This report examined mergers in the industry from the 1990s through 2000, the changes in market concentration (the distribution of market shares among competing firms) and other factors affecting competition in the industry, how U.S. gasoline marketing has changed since the 1990s, and how mergers and market concentration in the industry have affected U.S. gasoline prices at the wholesale level. To address these issues, GAO purchased and analyzed a large body of data and developed state-of-the art econometric models for isolating the effects of eight specific mergers and increased market concentration on wholesale gasoline …

This report highlights significant achievements in the Enhanced Practical Photosynthetic CO{sub 2} Mitigation Project for the period ending 06/30/2004. The major accomplishment was the modification of the header and harvesting work, with a system designed to distribute algae at startup, sustain operations and harvest in one unit.

The authors use previously determined direct-wave attenuation functions as well as stable, coda-derived source excitation spectra to isolate the absolute S-wave site effect for the horizontal and vertical components of weak ground motion. They used selected stations in the seismic network of the eastern Alps, and find the following: (1) all ''hard rock'' sites exhibited deamplification phenomena due to absorption at frequencies ranging between 0.5 and 12 Hz (the available bandwidth), on both the horizontal and vertical components; (2) ''hard rock'' site transfer functions showed large variability at high-frequency; (3) vertical-motion site transfer functions show strong frequency-dependence, and (4) H/V spectral ratios do not reproduce the characteristics of the true horizontal site transfer functions; (5) traditional, relative site terms obtained by using reference ''rock sites'' can be misleading in inferring the behaviors of true site transfer functions, since most rock sites have non-flat responses due to shallow heterogeneities resulting from varying degrees of weathering. They also use their stable source spectra to estimate total radiated seismic energy and compare against previous results. they find that the earthquakes in this region exhibit non-constant dynamic stress drop scaling which gives further support for a fundamental difference in rupture dynamics between small and …

For the past decade Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), have been developing and testing a stable, regional coda magnitude methodology for the determination of magnitude and yield. The motivation behind this research was to take advantage of the averaging nature of coda waves in support of monitoring small seismic events from a sparse regional seismic network (e.g., International Monitoring System (IMS) network). The methodology as described in Mayeda et al., (2003) has been successfully applied in a variety of tectonic settings where the assumption of a 1-D, radially symmetric path correction was sufficient. In general, this resulted in inter-station amplitude scatter that was 3-to-4 times smaller than the traditional approach using direct S, Lg and surface waves (0.02< f <8.0-Hz). However, in more laterally complex regions there is a need to extend this approach to account for smaller scale 2-D variations in structure, especially at frequencies above {approx}1-Hz. Recently, Phillips et al., (2003) have applied a 2-D approach to data in central Asia by assuming that the coda envelope amplitude could be idealized as if it were a direct wave. They performed a tomography to invert for Q along the path and through the …

'Extreme' adaptive optics systems are optimized for ultra-high-contrast applications, such as ground-based extrasolar planet detection. The Extreme Adaptive Optics Testbed at UC Santa Cruz is being used to investigate and develop technologies for high-contrast imaging, especially wavefront control. A simple optical design allows us to minimize wavefront error and maximize the experimentally achievable contrast before progressing to a more complex set-up. A phase shifting diffraction interferometer is used to measure wavefront errors with sub-nm precision and accuracy. We have demonstrated RMS wavefront errors of <1.3 nm and a contrast of >10{sup -7} over a substantial region using a shaped pupil. Current work includes the installation and characterization of a 1024-actuator Micro-Electro-Mechanical- Systems (MEMS) deformable mirror, manufactured by Boston Micro-Machines, which will be used for wavefront control. In our initial experiments we can flatten the deformable mirror to 1.8-nm RMS wavefront error within a control radius of 5-13 cycles per aperture. Ultimately this testbed will be used to test all aspects of the system architecture for an extrasolar planet-finding AO system.

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Prior to the transfer of the functions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the newly established Department of Homeland Security (DHS) within the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate (EP&R), FEMA was one of 24 Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act agencies required to obtain annual financial statement audits. While DHS obtained a financial statement audit covering the period from March 1 through September 30, 2003, no financial statement audit was performed for FEMA activities for the 5 months prior to March 1, 2003. For fiscal year 2001, FEMA received a qualified audit opinion, which was due mostly to the auditor's inability to determine the accuracy of the amount reported for FEMA's equipment as well as other property issues. Although FEMA received an unqualified opinion from its auditor in fiscal year 2002, the auditor reported six material weaknesses (one relating to its real and personal property system processes) and one reportable condition as well as significant year-end adjustments made to property accounts. Furthermore, the audit report noted that FEMA did not have policies and procedures in place to ensure the accuracy of data recorded in its personal property …

Work performed under the Independent Research and Development project ''Bioelectrochemical Process Development'' using Shewanella Oneidensis MR-1 henceforth MR-1, a model dissimilitory metal reducing (DMRB) bacteria successfully demonstrates the following: MR-1 transfers electrons by hydrogen oxidation to solid phase electrodes; MR-1 can act as an electron transfer agent when attached to a solid metal electrode surface - a modified electrode has been developed and tested; MR-1 transfers electrons from solution to a solid electrode. DMRB grow by transferring electrons to insoluble metals. When bacteria oxidize organic compounds or hydrogen this results in electron flow from the bacterial cell for the purpose of cellular energy production. Extracellular electron transfer to solid terminal electron acceptors permits coupling this oxidation process to electrodes. As a result, detection of organic compounds and hydrogen can be accomplished by bacterial contact to an electrode. The authors have designed a process that incorporates bacterial cells onto electrodes for the purpose of hydrogen detection. In addition, this type of bio-sensor also responds to the presence of FE III thereby providing potential utility as a Fe III sensor. Immediate uses of this technology include in-situ detection and quantification of organic compounds and hydrogen in the subsurface that provide energy for …

The dispersion properties of ion acoustic waves (IAW) are sensitive to the strength of ion-ion collisions in multi-species plasma in which the different species usually have differing charge-to-mass ratios. The modification of the frequency and damping of the fast and slow acoustic modes in a plasma composed of light (low Z) and heavy (high Z) ions is considered. In the fluid limit where the light ion scattering mean free path, {lambda}{sub th} is smaller than the acoustic wavelength, {lambda} = 2{pi}/k, the interspecies friction and heat flow carried by the light ions scattering from the heavy ions causes the damping. In the collisionless limit, k{lambda}{sub lh} >> 1, Landau damping by the light ions provides the dissipation. In the intermediate regime when k{lambda}{sub lh} {approx} 1, the damping is at least as large as the sum of the collisional and Landau damping.

Gas storage is a critical element in the natural gas industry. Producers, transmission and distribution companies, marketers, and end users all benefit directly from the load balancing function of storage. The unbundling process has fundamentally changed the way storage is used and valued. As an unbundled service, the value of storage is being recovered at rates that reflect its value. Moreover, the marketplace has differentiated between various types of storage services, and has increasingly rewarded flexibility, safety, and reliability. The size of the natural gas market has increased and is projected to continue to increase towards 30 trillion cubic feet (TCF) over the next 10 to 15 years. Much of this increase is projected to come from electric generation, particularly peaking units. Gas storage, particularly the flexible services that are most suited to electric loads, is critical in meeting the needs of these new markets. In order to address the gas storage needs of the natural gas industry, an industry-driven consortium was created--the Gas Storage Technology Consortium (GSTC). The objective of the GSTC is to provide a means to accomplish industry-driven research and development designed to enhance operational flexibility and deliverability of the Nation's gas storage system, and provide a …

Analysis of data from our deployments and ground truth collection in northern Fennoscandia and northwestern Russia shows systematic variations in the P/S ratios of different types of explosions. The fact that this fundamental discriminant varies with firing practice is not in itself surprising - such variations probably contribute to the spread in P/S ratios normally observed for ripple-fired explosions. However, the nature of the variations is sometimes counterintuitive. Last year [Harris, 2003] we found that the P/S ratios of small compact underground explosions in mines of the Khibiny Massif are systematically lower than the P/S ratios of large ripple-fired surface explosions. We had anticipated that smaller underground shots would be more like single well-coupled explosions, thus having higher P/S ratios than large ripple-fired explosions. We now are performing a more extensive analysis of the data including compact and large ripple-fired explosions at additional mines and different types of explosions: small surface shots and large ripple-fired underground explosions. Our data are more complete as a result of an additional year of collection and allow a more complete sampling of the signals in range from the source. As of this writing we have measured Pn/Lg ratios on a larger number of explosions …

The E Area PA (McDowell-Boyer et al. 2000) includes a steady-state simulation of groundwater flow in the General Separations Area as a prerequisite for saturated zone contaminant transport analyses. The groundwater flow simulations are based on the FACT code (Hamm and Aleman2000). The FACT-based GSA model was selected during preparation of the original PA to take advantage of an existing model developed for environmental restoration applications at the SRS (Flach and Harris 1997, 1999; Flach 1999). The existing GSA/FACT model was then slightly modified for PA use, as described in the PA document. FACT is a finite-element code utilizing deformed brick elements. Material properties are defined at element centers, and state variables such as hydraulic head are located at element vertices. The PORFLOW code (Analytic and Computational Research, Inc. 2000) was selected for performing saturated zone transport simulations of source zone radionuclides and their progeny. PORFLOW utilizes control volume discretization and the nodal point integration method, with all properties and state variables being defined at the center of an interior grid cell. The groundwater flow calculation includes translating the Darcy velocity field computed by FACT into a form compatible for input to PORFLOW. The FACT velocity field is defined at …