The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) annual Environmental Report, prepared for the Department of Energy (DOE) and made available to the public, presents summary environmental data that characterizes site environmental management performance, summarizes environmental occurrences and responses reported during the calendar year, confirms compliance with environmental standards and requirements, and highlights significant programs and efforts. By explaining the results of effluent and environmental monitoring, mentioning environmental performance indicators and performance measure programs, and assessing the impact of Laboratory operations on the environment and the public, the report also demonstrates LLNL's continuing commitment to minimize any potentially adverse impact of its operations. The combination of environmental and effluent monitoring, source characterization, and dose assessment showed that radiological doses to the public caused by LLNL operations in 2004 were less than 0.26% of regulatory standards and more than 11,000 times smaller than dose from natural background. Analytical results and evaluations generally showed continuing low levels of most contaminants; remediation efforts further reduced the concentrations of contaminants of concern in groundwater and soil vapor. In addition, LLNL's extensive environmental compliance activities related to water, air, endangered species, waste, wastewater, and waste reduction controlled or reduced LLNL's effects on the environment. LLNL's environmental program …

We present preliminary measurements of branching fractions for the charmless two-body decays B{sup 0} {yields} {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -} and K{sup +}{pi}{sup -}, and a search for B{sup 0} {yields} K{sup +}K{sup -} using a data sample of approximately 227 million B{bar B} decays. Signal yields are extracted with a multi-dimensional maximum likelihood fit, and the efficiency is corrected for the effects of final-state radiation. We find the charge-averaged branching fractions (in units of 10{sup -6}): {Beta}(B{sup 0} {yields} {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}) = 5.5 {+-} 0.4 {+-} 0.3; {Beta}(B{sup 0} {yields} K{sup +}{pi}{sup -}) = 19.2 {+-} 0.6 {+-} 0.6; and {Beta}(B{sup 0} {yields} K{sup +}K{sup -}) = < 0.40. The errors are statistical followed by systematic, and the upper limit on K{sup +}K{sup -} represents a confidence level of 90%.

Production and decay of {Omega}{sub c}{sup 0} baryons is studied with {approx} 230 fb{sup -1} of data recorded with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II e{sup +}e{sup -} asymmetric-energy storage ring at SLAC. The {Omega}{sub c}{sup 0} is reconstructed through its decays into {Omega}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}, {Omega}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}, {Xi}{sup -}K{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup +} final states. The invariant mass spectra are presented and the signal yields are extracted. Ratios of branching fractions are measured relative to the {Omega}{sub c}{sup 0} {yields} {Omega}{sup -}{pi}{sup +} mode {Beta}({Omega}{sub c}{sup 0} {yields} {Xi}{sup -} K{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup +})/{Beta}({Omega}{sub c}{sup 0} {yields} {Omega}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}) = 0.31 {+-} 0.15(stat.) {+-} 0.04(syst.), {Beta}({Omega}{sub c}{sup 0} {yields} {Omega}{sup -} {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup +})/{Beta}({Omega}{sub c}{sup 0} {yields} {Omega}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}) < 0.30 (90%CL). The momentum spectrum (not corrected for efficiency) of {Omega}{sub c}{sup 0} baryons is extracted from decays into {Omega}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}, establishing the first observation of {Omega}{sub c}{sup 0} production from B decays.

Research under support of this grant has been focused on the understanding of highly delocalized ''conduction-band-like'' excited states of solvated electrons in bulk water, in water trapped in the core of reverse micelles, and in alkane solvents. We have strived in this work to probe conduction-band-like states by a variety of ultrafast spectroscopy techniques. (Most of which were developed under DOE support in a previous funding cycle.) We have recorded the optical spectrum of the hydrated electron for the first time. This was accomplished by applying a photo-detrapping technique that we had developed in a previous funding cycle, but had not yet been applied to characterize the actual spectrum. In the cases of reverse micelles, we have been investigating the potential role of conduction bands in the electron attachment process and the photoinduced detrapping, and have published two papers on this topic. Finally, we have been exploring solvated electrons in isooctane from various perspectives. All of these results strongly support the conclusion that optically accessible, highly delocalized electronic states exist in these various media.

This paper estimates the benefits and costs of six water reduction scenarios. Benefits and costs of showerhead scenarios are ranked in this paper by an estimated water reduction percentage. To prioritize potential water and energy saving scenarios regarding showerheads, six scenarios were analyzed for their potential water and energy savings and the associated dollar savings to the consumer.

Weekly newspaper from Goldthwaite, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with extensive advertising.

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

Even though quantum chromodynamics is a broken conformal theory, the AdS/CFT correspondence has led to important insights into the properties of QCD. For example, as shown by Polchinski and Strassler, dimensional counting rules for the power-law falloff of hadron scattering amplitudes follow from dual holographic models with conformal behavior at short distances and confinement at large distances. We find that one also obtains a remarkable representation of the entire light-quark meson and baryon spectrum, including all orbital excitations, based on only one mass parameter. We also show how hadron light-front wavefunctions and hadron form factors in both the space-like and time-like regions can be predicted.

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

The primary objective of this project is to perform general research into queuing network models of performance of high end computing systems. A related objective is to investigate and predict how an increase in the number of nodes of a supercomputer will decrease the running time of a user's software package, which is often referred to as the strong scaling problem. We investigate the large, MPI-based Linux cluster MCR at LLNL, running the well-known NAS Parallel Benchmark (NPB) applications. Data is collected directly from NPB and also from the low-overhead LLNL profiling tool mpiP. For a run, we break the wall clock execution time of the benchmark into four components: switch delay, MPI contention time, MPI service time, and non-MPI computation time. Switch delay is estimated from message statistics. MPI service time and non-MPI computation time are calculated directly from measurement data. MPI contention is estimated by means of a queuing network model (QNM), based in part on MPI service time. This model of execution time validates reasonably well against the measured execution time, usually within 10%. Since the number of nodes used to run the application is a major input to the model, we can use the model to …

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

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

This cleanup verification package documents completion of remedial action for the 100-K-55:1 and 100-K-56:1 reactor cooling effluent underground pipelines and for the 116-KW-4 and 116-KE-5 heat recovery stations. The 100-K-55 and 100-K-56 sites consisted of those process effluent pipelines that serviced the 105-KW and 105-KE Reactors.

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

Congress has recently focused legislative attention on narrow bills to extend or modify selected Clean Water Act (CWA) programs, rather than taking up comprehensive proposals. In the 109th Congress, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has approved S. 1400, a bill authorizing $20 billion in federal grants to capitalize state clean water infrastructure loan programs. Also, a House committee has approved bills to reauthorize several Clean Water Act programs: H.R. 624 would provide $1.5 billion in grants over six years for sewer overflow projects; H.R. 1359 would extend a pilot program for alternative water source projects; H.R. 1721 would reauthorize coastal water quality programs; and H.R. 3963 would extend the Long Island Sound Program.

Weekly newspaper from The Colony, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The gas phase is generally ignored in remediation of metals and radionuclides because it is assumed that there is no efficient way to exploit it. In the literal sense, all remediations involve the gas phase because this phase is linked to the liquid and solid phases by vapor pressure and thermodynamic relationships. Remediation methods that specifically use the gas phase as a central feature have primarily targeted volatile organic contaminants, not metals and radionuclides. Unlike many organic contaminants, the vapor pressure and Henry's Law constants of metals and radionuclides are not generally conducive to direct air stripping of dissolved contaminants. Nevertheless, the gas phase can play an important role in remediation of inorganic contaminants and provide opportunities for efficient, cost effective remediation. The objective here is to explore ways in which manipulation of the gas phase can be used to facilitate remediation of metals and radionuclides.

A coupled thermomechanical, thermal transport and segregation analysis of aluminum alloys solidifying on uneven surfaces is presented here. Uneven surfaces are modelled as sinusoids with different wavelengths and amplitudes. Effects of various coupling mechanisms between the solid-shell deformation, air-gap formation, heat transfer, fluid flow and segregation, near the mold-metal interface, are observed for different mold topographies during the early stages of solidification of an aluminum alloy. The role of inverse segregation, arising from shrinkage driven flow in the melt, melt superheat and varying mold surface topography on nucleation of air-gaps and evolution of stresses in the solidifying shell is examined. The numerical model consists of a volume-averaged solidification model coupled with a small-deformation model combining elasto-viscoplastic deformation in the solidifying shell with air-gap nucleation and imperfect contact at the metal/mold interface. Heat transfer at the mold-metal interface is either contact pressure or air-gap dependent and is modelled using the actual contact pressure or air-gap size obtained from the contact sub-problem at the metal-mold interface. Variation in heat transfer leads to variations in fluid flow, segregation and stresses developing in the solid and mushy-zone, which in turn affect the morphology of the growing solid-shell. A wavelength range that leads to a …

In today's world, the need for computing power is becoming more pressing daily. Our need to process, analyze, and store data is quickly exceeding the capabilities of small self-contained serial machines, such as the modern desktop PC. Initially, this gap was filled by the creation of supercomputers: large-scale self-contained parallel machines. However, current markets, as well as the costs to develop and maintain such machines, are quickly making such machines a rarity, used only in highly specialized environments. A third type of machine exists, however. This relatively new type of machine, known as a cluster, is built from common, and often inexpensive, commodity self-contained desktop machines. But how well do these clustered machines work? There have been many attempts to quantify the performance of clustered computers. One approach, Queueing Network Modeling (QNM), appears to be a potentially useful and rarely tried method of modeling such systems. QNM, which has its beginnings in the modeling of traffic patterns, has expanded, and is now used to model everything from CPU and disk services, to computer systems, to service rates in store checkout lines. This history of successful usage, as well as the correspondence of QNM components to commodity clusters, suggests that QNM …

None

Weekly student newspaper from Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas that includes campus and local news along with advertising.

The Fast Ignition Program in the United States has enjoyed increased funding in various forms from the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences of the Department of Energy. The program encompasses experiments on large laser facilities at various world-wide locations, and benefits enormously from collaborations with many international scientists. The program includes exploratory work in cone-target design and implosion dynamics, high electron current transport measurements in normal density materials, development of diagnostics for heating measurements, generation of protons from shaped targets, theoretical work on high gain target designs, and extensive modeling development using PIC and hybrid codes.

Gas Technology Institute (GTI) has been the leading investigator in the field of high power laser applications research for well construction and completion applications. Since 1997, GTI (then as Gas Research Institute) has investigated several military and industrial laser systems and their ability to cut and drill into reservoir type rocks. In this report, GTI continues its investigation with a recently acquired 5.34 kW ytterbium-doped multi-clad high power fiber laser (HPFL). The HPFL represents a potentially disruptive technology that, when compared to its competitors, is more cost effective to operate, capable of remote operations, and requires considerably less maintenance and repair. To determine how this promising laser would perform under high pressure in-situ conditions, GTI performed a number of experiments with results directly comparable to previous data. Experiments were designed to investigate the effect of laser input parameters on representative reservoir rock types of sandstone and limestone. The focus of the experiments was on completion and perforation applications, although the results and techniques apply to well construction and other rock cutting applications. All previous laser/rock interaction tests were performed on samples in the lab at atmospheric pressure. To determine the effect of downhole pressure conditions, a sophisticated tri-axial cell was …

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