The 6th International Conference on Hyperons, Charm, and Beauty Hadrons (BEACH04) treated us to a wonderful array of new results. Here the author attempts to summarize the talks and discuss the conference highlights.

This Corrective Action Decision Document has been prepared for Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 322, Areas 1 and 3 Release Sites and Injection Wells, Nevada Test Site, Nevada, in accordance with the ''Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order'' (1996). Corrective Action Unit 322 is comprised of the following corrective action sites (CASs): (1) 01-25-01 - AST Release Site; (2) 03-25-03 - Mud Plant and AST Diesel Release; and (3) 03-20-05 - Injection Wells and BOP Shop. The purpose of this Corrective Action Decision Document is to identify and provide the rationale for the recommendation of a corrective action alternative for each CAS within CAU 322. Corrective action investigation activities were performed from April 2004 through September 2004, as set forth in the Corrective Action Investigation Plan. The purposes of the activities as defined during the data quality objectives process were: (1) Determine if contaminants of concern (COCs) are present; (2) If COCs are present, determine their nature and extent; and (3) Provide sufficient information and data to recommend appropriate corrective actions for the CASs. Analytes detected during the corrective action investigation were evaluated against appropriate preliminary action levels to identify contaminants of concern for each corrective action site. Radiological field measurements …

This Corrective Action Decision Document has been prepared for Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 322, Areas 1 and 3 Release Sites and Injection Wells, Nevada Test Site, Nevada, in accordance with the ''Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order'' (1996). Corrective Action Unit 322 is comprised of the following corrective action sites (CASs): (1) 01-25-01 - AST Release Site; (2) 03-25-03 - Mud Plant and AST Diesel Release; and (3) 03-20-05 - Injection Wells and BOP Shop. The purpose of this Corrective Action Decision Document is to identify and provide the rationale for the recommendation of a corrective action alternative for each CAS within CAU 322. Corrective action investigation activities were performed from April 2004 through September 2004, as set forth in the Corrective Action Investigation Plan. The purposes of the activities as defined during the data quality objectives process were: (1) Determine if contaminants of concern (COCs) are present; (2) If COCs are present, determine their nature and extent; and (3) Provide sufficient information and data to recommend appropriate corrective actions for the CASs. Analytes detected during the corrective action investigation were evaluated against appropriate preliminary action levels to identify contaminants of concern for each corrective action site. Radiological field measurements …

This Corrective Action Investigation Plan (CAIP) was developed for Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 99, Rainier Mesa/Shoshone Mountain. The CAIP is a requirement of the ''Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order'' (FFACO) agreed to by the State of Nevada, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) (FFACO, 1996). The FFACO addresses environmental restoration activities at U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office (NNSA/NSO) facilities and sites including the underground testing area(s) of the Nevada Test Site (NTS). This CAIP describes the investigation activities currently planned for the Rainier Mesa/Shoshone Mountain CAU. These activities are consistent with the current Underground Test Area (UGTA) Project strategy described in Section 3.0 of Appendix VI, Revision No. 1 (December 7, 2000) of the FFACO (1996) and summarized in Section 2.1.2 of this plan. The Rainier Mesa/Shoshone Mountain CAU extends over several areas of the NTS (Figure 1-1) and includes former underground nuclear testing locations in Areas 12 and 16. The area referred to as ''Rainier Mesa'' includes the geographical area of Rainier Mesa proper and the contiguous Aqueduct Mesa. Figure 1-2 shows the locations of the tests (within tunnel complexes) conducted at Rainier Mesa. Shoshone …

This Corrective Action Investigation Plan (CAIP) for Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 309, Area 12 Muckpiles, Nevada Test Site (NTS), Nevada, has been developed in accordance with the ''Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order'' (FFACO) that was agreed to by the State of Nevada, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of Defense. The general purpose of the investigation is to ensure that adequate data are collected to provide sufficient and reliable information to identify, evaluate, and select technically viable corrective actions. Corrective Action Unit 309 is comprised of the following three corrective action sites (CASs) in Area 12 of the NTS: (1) CAS 12-06-09, Muckpile; (2) CAS 12-08-02, Contaminated Waste Dump (CWD); and (3) CAS 12-28-01, I-, J-, and K-Tunnel Debris. Corrective Action Site 12-06-09 consists of a muckpile and debris located on the hillside in front of the I-, J-, and K-Tunnels on the eastern slopes of Rainier Mesa in Area 12. The muckpile includes mining debris (muck) and debris generated during the excavation and construction of the I-, J-, and K-Tunnels. Corrective Action Site 12-08-02, CWD, consists of a muckpile and debris and is located on the hillside in front of the re-entry tunnel for K-Tunnel. …

This Corrective Action Investigation Plan (CAIP) contains project-specific information including facility descriptions, environmental sample collection objectives, and criteria for conducting site investigation activities at Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 309, Area 12 Muckpiles, Nevada Test Site (NTS), Nevada. This CAIP has been developed in accordance with the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order (FFACO) (1996) that was agreed to by the State of Nevada, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Corrective Action Unit 309 is located in Area 12 of the NTS, which is approximately 65 miles (mi) northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada (Figure 1-1). Area 12 is approximately 40 mi beyond the main gate to the NTS. Corrective Action Unit 309 is comprised of the three Corrective Action Sites (CASs) shown on Figure 1-1 and listed below: CAS 12-06-09, Muckpile; CAS 12-08-02, Contaminated Waste Dump (CWD); and CAS 12-28-01, I, J, and K-Tunnel Debris. Corrective Action Sites 12-06-09 and 12-08-02 will be collectively referred to as muckpiles in this document. Corrective Action Site 12-28-01 will be referred to as the fallout plume because of the extensive lateral area of debris and fallout contamination resulting from the containment failures of the J-and K-Tunnels. The …

This document, which is prepared as directed by the Compliance Order on Consent (COOC) issued by the New Mexico Environment Department, identifies and outlines a process to evaluate remedial alternatives to identify a corrective measure for the Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico Technical Area (TA)-V Groundwater. The COOC provides guidance for implementation of a Corrective Measures Evaluation (CME) for the TA-V Groundwater. This Work Plan documents an initial screening of remedial technologies and presents a list of possible remedial alternatives for those technologies that passed the screening. This Work Plan outlines the methods for evaluating these remedial alternatives and describes possible site-specific evaluation activities necessary to estimate remedy effectiveness and cost. These methods will be reported in the CME Report. This Work Plan outlines the CME Report, including key components and a description of the corrective measures process.

This document, which is prepared as directed by the Compliance Order on Consent (COOC) issued by the New Mexico Environment Department, outlines a process to evaluate remedial alternatives to identify a corrective measure for the Sandia National Laboratories Tijeras Arroyo Groundwater (TAG). The COOC provides guidance for implementation of a Corrective Measures Evaluation (CME) for TAG. This Work Plan documents an initial screening of remedial technologies and presents a list of possible remedial alternatives for those technologies that passed the screening. This Work Plan outlines the methods for evaluating these remedial alternatives and describes possible site-specific evaluation activities necessary to estimate remedy effectiveness and cost. These methods will be reported in the CME Report. This Work Plan outlines the CME Report, including key components and a description of the corrective measures process.

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In September 2003, the D0 experiment at TEvatron has launched a reprocessing effort. In total 519,212,822 of the experiment's events have been reprocessed to use the new perceptions of the detector's behavior. Out of these events 97,619,114 have been reprocessed at remote sites. For the first time, the European DataGRID has been used to re-process a part of these events as an evaluation of the EDG application testbed. They used EDG's own R-GMA database for monitoring and bookkeeping and constructed four tables: (1) submission table--records the submission of jobs to the Resource Broker; (2) job start table--holds the time the job started on a Worker Node together with process ID and many more; (3) job end table--information is published immediately before the job stops; and (4) command table--a command list table for debugging purposes. As D0 has its own data management system called ''SAM'', some sort of channel between SAM and the EDG data management system is required. The approach used is shown to the left, were a certain storage area, physically present on a back-end server machine, is visible both from a SAM-enabled machine (''SAM station'') and from EDG machines at the same site. This has bene achieved at …

The D0 experiment faces many challenges in terms of enabling access to large datasets for physicists on four continents. The strategy for solving these problems on worldwide distributed computing clusters is presented. Since the beginning of Run II of the Tevatron (March 2001) all Monte-Carlo simulations for the experiment have been produced at remote systems. For data analysis, a system of regional analysis centers (RACs) was established which supply the associated institutes with the data. This structure, which is similar to the tiered structure foreseen for the LHC was used in Fall 2003 to reprocess all D0 data with a much improved version of the reconstruction software. This makes D0 the first running experiment that has implemented and operated all important computing tasks of a high energy physics experiment on systems distributed worldwide.

The D0 experiment faces many challenges enabling access to large datasets for physicists on 4 continents. The strategy followed is to make use of worldwide distributed computing clusters. Since the begin of Tevatron Run-II (March 2001) all Monte-Carlo simulations are produced outside of Fermilab on remote systems. For analyses a system of regional analysis centres (RACs) was established which supply the associated institutes with the data. This structure which is similar to the Tier structure foreseen for LHC was used in autumn 2003 to reprocess all D0-data with the up-to-date and much improved reconstruction software. With these achievements D0 is the first high energy physics experiment to have implemented and operated all essential computing tasks on non-dedicated, worldwide distributed systems. The experiences gained in D0 can be applied to evaluate the LHC computing model.

The Run II experiments at Fermilab, CDF and D0, have extensive database needs covering many areas of their online and offline operations. Delivering data to users and processing farms worldwide has represented major challenges to both experiments. The range of applications employing databases includes, calibration (conditions), trigger information, run configuration, run quality, luminosity, data management, and others. Oracle is the primary database product being used for these applications at Fermilab and some of its advanced features have been employed, such as table partitioning and replication. There is also experience with open source database products such as MySQL for secondary databases used, for example, in monitoring. Tools employed for monitoring the operation and diagnosing problems are also described.

The key objective of this subcontract was to take the first steps to extend the radio-frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RF-PECVD) manufacturing technology of Energy Photovoltaics, Inc. (EPV), to the promising field of a-Si/nc-Si solar cell fabrication by demonstrating ''proof-of-concept'' devices of good efficiencies that previously were believed to be unobtainable in single-chamber reactors owing to contamination problems. A complementary goal was to find a new high-rate deposition method that can conceivably be deployed in large PECVD-type reactors. We emphasize that our goal was not to produce 'champion' devices of near-record efficiencies, but rather, to achieve modestly high efficiencies using a far simpler (cheaper) system, via practical processing methods and materials. To directly attack issues in solar-cell fabrication at EPV, the nc-Si thin films were studied almost exclusively in the p-i-n device configuration (as absorbers or i-layers), not as stand-alone films. Highly efficient, p-i-n type, nc-Si-based solar cells are generally grown on expensive, laboratory superstrates, such as custom ZnO/glass of high texture (granular surface) and low absorption. Also standard was the use of a highly effective back-reflector ZnO/Ag, where the ZnO can be surface-textured for efficient diffuse reflection. The high-efficiency ''champion'' devices made by the PECVD methods were invariably prepared …

The overall program objective is to develop and evaluate environmentally benign agents or products that are effective in the prevention, inhibition, and mitigation of microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) in the internal surfaces of metallic natural gas pipelines. The goal is to develop one or more environmentally benign (a.k.a. ''green'') products that can be applied to maintain the structure and dependability of the natural gas infrastructure. Various chemicals that inhibit the growth and/or the metabolism of corrosion-associated microbes such as sulfate reducing bacteria, denitrifying bacteria, and methanogenic bacteria were evaluated to determine their ability to inhibit corrosion in experiments utilizing pure and mixed bacterial cultures, and planktonic cultures as well as mature biofilms. Planktonic cultures are easier to inhibit than mature biofilms but several compounds were shown to be effective in decreasing the amount of metal corrosion. Of the compounds tested hexane extracts of Capsicum pepper plants and molybdate were the most effective inhibitors of sulfate reducing bacteria, bismuth nitrate was the most effective inhibitor of nitrate reducing bacteria, and 4-((pyridine-2-yl)methylamino)benzoic acid (PMBA) was the most effective inhibitor of methanogenic bacteria. All of these compounds were demonstrated to minimize corrosion due to MIC, at least in some circumstances. The results obtained …

The objective of this subcontract over its two-phase, two-year duration was to design and develop improvements to the existing Sinton Consulting R&D minority-carrier lifetime testers. The improvements enable the possibilities for performing various in-line diagnostics on crystalline silicon wafers and cells for solar cell manufacturing lines. This facilitates manufacturing optimization and improved process control. The scope of work for Phase I was to prototype industrial applications for the improved instruments. A small-sample-head version of the instrument was designed and developed in this effort. This new instrument was complemented by detailed application notes detailing the productive use of minority-carrier lifetime measurements for process optimization and routine process control. In Phase II, the results from the first year were applied to design new instruments for industrial applications. These instruments were then characterized and documented. We report here on four new instruments, each optimized for a specific application as demanded by industrial customers. The documentation for these instruments was very technical and involved considerable R&D. Applications were developed that applied the latest in R&D on industrial silicon materials. By investigating the compromises that would be necessary to measure industrial material directly without the sample preparation that is commonly done for good research, we …

Significant progress in the development of burning plasma scenarios, steady-state scenarios at high fusion performance, and basic tokamak physics has been made by the DIII-D Team. Discharges similar to the ITER baseline scenario have demonstrated normalized fusion performance nearly 50% higher than required for Q = 10 in ITER, under stationary conditions. Discharges that extrapolate to Q {approx} 10 for longer than one hour in ITER at reduced current have also been demonstrated in DIII-D under stationary conditions. Proof of high fusion performance with full noninductive operation has been obtained. Underlying this work are studies validating approaches to confinement extrapolation, disruption avoidance and mitigation, tritium retention, ELM avoidance, and operation above the no-wall pressure limit. In addition, the unique capabilities of the DIII-D facility have advanced studies of the sawtooth instability with unprecedented time and space resolution, threshold behavior in the electron heat transport, and rotation in plasmas in the absence of external torque.

The objective of this INERI project was to develop improved fuel behavior models for gas reactor coated-particle fuels and to explore improved coated-particle fuel designs that could be used reliably at very high burnups and potentially in gas-cooled fast reactors. Project participants included the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEEL), Centre Étude Atomique (CEA), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). To accomplish the project objectives, work was organized into five tasks.

North Slope of Alaska has huge oil deposits in heavy oil reservoirs such as Ugnu, West Sak and Shrader Bluff etc. The viscosity of the last two reservoir oils vary from {approx}30 cp to {approx}3000 cp and the amount in the range of 10-20 billion barrels. High oil viscosity and low formation strength impose problems to high recovery and well productivity. Water-alternate-gas injection processes can be effective for the lower viscosity end of these deposits in West Sak and Shrader Bluff. Several gas streams are available in the North Slope containing NGL and CO{sub 2} (a greenhouse gas). The goal of this research is to develop tools to find optimum solvent, injection schedule and well-architecture for a WAG process in North Slope shallow sand viscous oil reservoirs. Coreflood, quarter 5-spot study, compositional simulation, wettability, relative permeability study and streamline-based simulation were conducted in this project. 1D compositional simulation results agree reasonably well with those of the slim tube experiments. Injection of CO{sub 2}-NGL is preferable over that of PBG-NGL. MME is sensitive to pressure (in the range of 1300-1800 psi) for the injection of PBG-NGL, but not for CO{sub 2}-NGL. Three hydrocarbon phases form in this pressure range. As the …

We developed an Augmented Musculature Device (AMD) that assists the movements of its wearer. It has direct application to aiding military and law enforcement personnel, the neurologically impaired, or those requiring any type of cybernetic assistance. The AMD consists of a collection of artificial muscles, each individually actuated, strategically placed along the surface of the human body. The actuators employed by the AMD are known as 'air muscles' and operate pneumatically. They are commercially available from several vendors and are relatively inexpensive. They have a remarkably high force-to-weight ratio--as high as 400:1 (as compared with 16:1 typical of DC motors). They are flexible and elastic, even when powered, making them ideal for interaction with humans.

As composites gain wider acceptance in all sectors of the economy, new methodologies must be developed to increase their cost effectiveness in manufacturing. The neoteric Resin Infusion between Double Flexible Tooling (RIDFT) process is undergoing modifications to improve its cost-effectiveness by developing methodologies for in-mold coating and the incorporation of UV curing. In-mold coating is desired by the composites industry since it eliminates the current paint process, which is not only laborious and time consuming, but expensive, and presents safety issues. Two methodologies (paint films and coinfusion) for implementing in-mold coating were investigated. It was demonstrated that thermoformable paint films could be used to produce coated RIDFTed components. Coinfusion was also successfully implemented. This work also investigated the feasibility of designing and incorporating a Cure on Demand system into the RIDFT process, using ultraviolet (UV) light for the curing of composite laminates. The objective was to develop a process for the RIDFT that would eliminate or reduce the inflexibility in the current production process, resulting in shortened production cycle times. UV-cured laminates were produced at a fraction of the time required to produce catalyst-cured laminates. Mechanical and material characterization tests were performed on each of the UV-cured laminates produced. The …

Annihilation of extremely energetic cosmic neutrinos on the relic-neutrino background can give rise to absorption lines at energies corresponding to formation of the electroweak gauge boson Z{sup 0}. The positions of the absorption dips are set by the masses of the relic neutrinos. Suitably intense sources of extremely energetic (10{sup 21} - 10{sup 25}-eV) cosmic neutrinos might therefore enable the determination of the absolute neutrino masses and the flavor composition of the mass eigenstates. Several factors--other than neutrino mass and composition--distort the absorption lines, however. We analyze the influence of the time-evolution of the relic-neutrino density and the consequences of neutrino decay. We consider the sensitivity of the lineshape to the age and character of extremely energetic neutrino sources, and to the thermal history of the Universe, reflected in the expansion rate. We take into account Fermi motion arising from the thermal distribution of the relic-neutrino gas. We also note the implications of Dirac vs. Majorana relics, and briefly consider unconventional neutrino histories. We ask what kinds of external information would enhance the potential of cosmic-neutrino absorption spectroscopy, and estimate the sensitivity required to make the technique a reality.

The goal of this LDRD project was to evaluate the possibilities of utilizing Stochastic resonance in micromechanical sensor systems as a means for increasing signal to noise for physical sensors. A careful study of this field reveals that in the case of a single sensing element, stochastic resonance offers no real advantage. We have, however, identified a system that can utilize very similar concepts to stochastic resonance in order to achieve an arrayed sensor system that could be superior to existing technologies in the field of inertial sensors, and could offer a very low power technique for achieving navigation grade inertial measurement units.

A measurement of the rate of prompt diphoton production in p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV using the CDF detector is presented. The results are compared to a NLO calculation. they also measured the {gamma} + b and {gamma} + c cross sections comparing the results with PYTHIA LO predictions. The background from non-prompt sources is estimated using a statistical method based on differences in electromagnetic showers initiated by photons and by the background.