December report of the U.S. Congressional Oversight Panel describing their activities and findings regarding the U.S. Treasury's strategy in combating the ongoing financial crisis

In August 2008 the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) conducted a light emitting diode (LED) residential lighting demonstration project for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Building Technologies, as part of DOE’s Solid State Lighting (SSL) Technology Demonstration Gateway Program. Two lighting technologies, an LED replacement for downlight lamps (bulbs) and an LED undercabinet lighting fixture, were tested in the demonstration which was conducted in two homes built for the 2008 Tour of Homes in Eugene, Oregon. The homes were built by the Lane County Home Builders Association (HBA), and Future B Homes. The Energy Trust of Oregon (ETO) also participated in the demonstration project. The LED downlight product, the LR6, made by Cree LED Lighting Solutions acts as a screw-in replacement for incandescent and halogen bulbs in recessed can downlights. The second product tested is Phillips/Color Kinetics’ eW® Profile Powercore undercabinet fixture designed to mount under kitchen cabinets to illuminate the countertop and backsplash surfaces. Quantitative and qualitative measurements of light performance and electrical power usage were taken at each site before and after initially installed halogen and incandescent lamps were replaced with the LED products. Energy savings and simple paybacks were also calculated and builders who …

Radiation induced degradation of polymeric materials occurs via numerous, simultaneous, competing chemical reactions. Though degradation is typically found to be linear in adsorbed dose, some silicone materials exhibit non-linear dose dependence due to dose dependent dominant degradation pathways. We have characterized the effects of radiative and thermal degradation on a model filled-PDMS system, Sylgard 184 (commonly used as an electronic encapsulant and in biomedical applications), using traditional mechanical testing, NMR spectroscopy, and sample headspace analysis using Solid Phase Micro-Extraction (SPME) followed by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS). The mechanical data and {sup 1}H spin-echo NMR indicated that radiation exposure leads to predominantly crosslinking over the cumulative dose range studies (0 to 250 kGray) with a rate roughly linear with dose. {sup 1}H Multiple Quantum NMR detected a bimodal distribution in the network structure, as expected by the proposed structure of Sylgard 184. The MQ-NMR further indicated that the radiation induced structural changes were not linear in adsorbed dose and competing chain scission mechanisms contribute more largely to the overall degradation process in the range of 50 -100 kGray (though crosslinking still dominates). The SPME-GC/MS data were analyzed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which identified subtle changes in the distributions of degradation …

The Grande Ronde Basin (GRB) in Northeast Oregon is a moderately dry climate receiving between 10 and 20 inches of precipitation per year with surrounding mountains accumulating up to 100 inches. Irrigated agriculture is a major part of the economy with water being diverted or pumped from surface and ground sources from April through October. Several ESA listed species exist in the basin including Chinook, steelhead, and bulltrout. Agriculture and ESA (Endangered Species Act) listed aquatic species combined with a dry climate demonstrate the need for a network of stream gauges. The GRB covers over 5,000 square miles and includes several thousand miles of perennial flowing streams. This project is in place to operate 12 existing stream gauges in combination with USGS (4 gauges) and OWRD (one gauge) who, independent of this project, operate five additional gauges (Grande Ronde at Troy, Imnaha R. at Imnaha, Minam R. at Minam, Lookingglass Creek, and Upper Catherine Cr.) to characterizes flow in both the Grande Ronde and Imnaha subbasins. These gauges are intended to assist in irrigation water management, fisheries management, long term flow and trend analysis, TMDL and SB1010 water quality management plan effectiveness, subbasin plan implementation, and provide essential information regarding …

During 2004, researchers from U.S. Geological Survey's Columbia River Research Laboratory (USGS-CRRL) collected temperature, flow, and habitat data to characterize physical habitat condition and variation within and among tributaries and mainstem sections in the Wind River subbasin. Juvenile salmonid population surveys were conducted within select study areas throughout the subbasin. We expanded our survey coverage of the mainstem Wind River to a reach in the vicinity of Carson National Fish Hatchery to assess effects of non-indigenous Chinook on native steelhead. These efforts add to a database of habitat and fish data collected in the Wind River since 1996. This research contributes to the Wind River Restoration Project, which includes active stream habitat restoration and monitoring of adult and juvenile steelhead populations. We maintained a network of 32 thermographs in the Wind River subbasin during 2004. Additionally, Underwood Conservation District provided us with data from seven thermographs that they maintained during 2004. Thermograph data are identifying areas with chronic high water temperatures and stream sections where high rates of warming are occurring. During 2004, water temperatures at 26 thermograph sites exceeded the 16 C limit for surface waters set by the Washington Department of Ecology. Water temperatures exceeded 20 C at …

Sulfite dehydrogenases (SDHs) catalyze the oxidation and detoxification of sulfite to sulfate, a reaction critical to all forms of life. Sulfite-oxidizing enzymes contain three conserved active site amino acids (Arg-55, His-57, and Tyr-236) that are crucial for catalytic competency. Here we have studied the kinetic and structural effects of two novel and one previously reported substitution (R55M, H57A, Y236F) in these residues on SDH catalysis. Both Arg-55 and His-57 were found to have key roles in substrate binding. An R55M substitution increased Km(sulfite)(app) by 2-3 orders of magnitude, whereas His-57 was required for maintaining a high substrate affinity at low pH when the imidazole ring is fully protonated. This effect may be mediated by interactions of His-57 with Arg-55 that stabilize the position of the Arg-55 side chain or, alternatively, may reflect changes in the protonation state of sulfite. Unlike what is seen for SDHWT and SDHY236F, the catalytic turnover rates of SDHR55M and SDHH57A are relatively insensitive to pH (~;;60 and 200 s-1, respectively). On the structural level, striking kinetic effects appeared to correlate with disorder (in SDHH57A and SDHY236F) or absence of Arg-55 (SDHR55M), suggesting that Arg-55 and the hydrogen bonding interactions it engages in are crucial for …

Ion beam with a fast fall time is useful in building neutron generators for the application of detecting hidden, gamma-shielded SNM using differential die-away (DDA) technique. Typically a fall time of less than 1 {micro}s can't be achieved by just turning off the power to the ion source due to the slow decay of plasma density (partly determined by the fall time of the RF power in the circuit). In this paper, we discuss the method of using an array of mini-apertures (instead of one large aperture beam) such that gating the beamlets can be done with low voltage and a small gap. This geometry minimizes the problem of voltage breakdown as well as reducing the time of flight to produce fast gating. We have designed and fabricated an array of 16 apertures (4 x 4) for a beam extraction experiment. Using a gating voltage of 1400 V and a gap distance of 1 mm, the fall time of extracted ion beam pulses is less than 1 {micro}s at various beam energies ranging between 400 eV to 800 eV. Usually merging an array of beamlets suffers the loss of beam brightness, i.e., emittance growth, but that is not an important …

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Aqueous extract test is a laboratory technique commonly used to measure the amount of soluble salts of a soil sample after adding a known mass of distilled water. Measured aqueous extract data have to be re-interpreted in order to infer porewater chemical composition of the sample because porewater chemistry changes significantly due to dilution and chemical reactions which take place during extraction. Here we present an inverse hydrochemical model to estimate porewater chemical composition from measured water content, aqueous extract, and mineralogical data. The model accounts for acid-base, redox, aqueous complexation, mineral dissolution/precipitation, gas dissolution/ex-solution, cation exchange and surface complexation reactions, of which are assumed to take place at local equilibrium. It has been solved with INVERSE-CORE{sup 2D} and been tested with bentonite samples taken from FEBEX (Full-scale Engineered Barrier EXperiment) in situ test. The inverse model reproduces most of the measured aqueous data except bicarbonate and provides an effective, flexible and comprehensive method to estimate porewater chemical composition of clays. Main uncertainties are related to kinetic calcite dissolution and variations in CO2(g) pressure.

The Asotin County Conservation District (ACCD) is the primary entity coordinating habitat projects on private lands within Asotin County watersheds. The Tenmile Creek watershed is a 42 square mile tributary to the Snake River, located between Asotin Creek and the Grande Ronde River. Couse Creek watershed is a 24 square mile tributary to the Snake River, located between Tenmile Creek and the Grande Ronde River. Both watersheds are almost exclusively under private ownership. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has documented wild steelhead and rainbow/redband trout spawning and rearing in Tenmile Creek and Couse Creek. The project also provides Best Management Practice (BMP) implementation throughout Asotin County, but the primary focus is for the Couse and Tenmile Creek watersheds. The ACCD has been working with landowners, Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Washington State Conservation Commission (WCC), Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), Farm Service Agency (FSA), Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), U.S. Forest Service, Pomeroy Ranger District (USFS), Nez Perce Tribe (NPT), Washington Department of Ecology (DOE), National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries), and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to address habitat projects in Asotin County. The Asotin Subbasin Plan identified priority areas …

We have developed a borehole methodology to estimate formation thermal conductivity in situ with a spatial resolution of one meter. In parallel with a fiber-optic distributed temperature sensor (DTS), a resistance heater is deployed to create a controlled thermal perturbation. The transient thermal data is inverted to estimate the formation's thermal conductivity. We refer to this instrumentation as a Distributed Thermal Perturbation Sensor (DTPS), given the distributed nature of the DTS measurement technology. The DTPS was deployed in permafrost at the High Lake Project Site (67 degrees 22 minutes N, 110 degrees 50 minutes W), Nunavut, Canada. Based on DTPS data, a thermal conductivity profile was estimated along the length of a wellbore. Using the thermal conductivity profile, the baseline geothermal profile was then inverted to estimate a ground surface temperature history (GSTH) for the High Lake region. The GSTH exhibits a 100-year long warming trend, with a present-day ground surface temperature increase of 3.0 {+-} 0.8 C over the long-term average.

This report describes processing and analysis results of boehmite waste type (Group 5) and insoluble high Cr waste type (Group 6). The sample selection, compositing, subdivision, physical and chemical characterization are described. Extensive batch leach testing was conducted to define kinetics and leach factors of selected analytes as functions of NaOH concentration and temperature. Testing supports issue M-12 resolution for the Waste Treatment Plant.

The Pretreatment Engineering Platform (PEP) is designed to perform a demonstration on an engineering scale to confirm the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant Pretreatment Facility (PTF) leaching and filtration process equipment design and sludge treatment process. The system will use scaled prototypic equipment to demonstrate sludge water wash, caustic leaching, oxidative leaching, and filtration. Unit operations to be tested include pumping, solids washing, chemical reagent addition and blending, heating, cooling, leaching, filtration, and filter cleaning. In addition, the PEP will evaluate potential design changes to the ultrafiltration process system equipment to potentially enhance leaching and filtration performance as well as overall pretreatment throughput. The skid-mounted system will be installed and operated in the Processing Development Laboratory-West at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington.

The traditional first aerosol indirect effect or the Twomey effect involves several fundamental assumptions. Some of the assumptions (e.g., constant liquid water content) are explicitly stated in studies of the Twomey effect whereas others are only implicitly embedded in the quantitative formulation. This work focuses on examining the implicit assumptions. In particular, we will show that anthropogenic pollution not only increases aerosol loading and droplet concentrations but also alters the relative dispersions of both the aerosol and subsequent droplet size distributions. The indirect effects resulting from the two altered relative dispersions (aerosol dispersion effect and droplet dispersion effect) are likely opposite in sign and proportional in magnitude to the conventional Twomey effect. This result suggests that the outstanding problems of the Twomey effect (i.e., large uncertainty and overestimation reported in literature) may lie with violation of the constant spectral shapes of aerosol and droplet size distributions implicitly assumed in evaluation of the Twomey effect, and therefore, further progress in understanding and quantification of the first aerosol indirect effect demands moving beyond the traditional paradigm originally conceived by Twomey.

The 48-acre David Witherspoon, Inc. (DWI) 1630 Site operated as an unregulated industrial landfill and scrap yard. The Tennessee Division of Superfund (TDSF) closed the landfill in 1974. During the period of operation, the site received solid and liquid wastes from salvage and industrial operations. The site consists of five separate tracts of land including a small portion located across the Norfolk Southern Railroad track. The landfill occupies approximately 5 acres of the site, and roughly 20 acres of the 48 acres contains surface and buried debris associated with the DWI dismantling business operation. Beginning in 1968, the state of Tennessee licensed DWI to receive scrap metal at the DWI 1630 Site, contaminated with natural uranium and enriched uranium (235U) not exceeding 0.1 percent by weight (TDSF 1990). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has agreed to undertake remedial actions at the DWI 1630 Site as specified under a Consent Order with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) (Consent Order No. 90-3443, April 4, 1991), and as further delineated by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between DOE and the State of Tennessee (MOU Regarding Implementation of Consent Orders, October 6, 1994). The soil and debris removal at the …

Complexation of neodymium(III) with nitrate was studied at variable temperatures (25, 40, 55 and 70 C) by spectrophotometry and microcalorimetry. The NdNO{sub 3}{sup 2+} complex is weak and becomes slightly stronger as the temperature is increased. The enthalpy of complexation at 25 C was determined by microcalorimetry to be small and positive, (1.5 {+-} 0.2) kJ {center_dot} mol{sup -1}, in good agreement with the trend of the stability constant at variable temperatures. Luminescence emission spectra and lifetime of Eu(III) in nitrate solutions suggest that inner-sphere and bidentate complexes form between trivalent lanthanides (Nd{sup 3+} and Eu{sup 3+}) and nitrate in aqueous solutions. Specific Ion Interaction approach (SIT) was used to obtain the stability constants of NdNO{sub 3}{sup 2+} at infinite dilution and variable temperatures.

This Advanced Design and Production Technologies (ADAPT) project funded production process and tooling improvements to meet and sustain rate production for the program mechanism assemblies. Techniques were developed to allow evaluation and rework of sealed mechanisms that will result in prevention of the scrapping of future mechanisms. Future system mechanisms will likely be smaller with tighter tolerance parts that will require improved inspection equipment and techniques. During the latter phase of this project, the ISL (Intent Stronglink) PRT (Product Realization Team) developed designs and manufacturing processes at Sandia and at multiple KCP (Kansas City Plant) vendors, to produce glass ceramic headers to replace the brazed ceramic headers in the ISL. This achievement will result in significant production costs savings (unit cost and product scrap due to leaking headers).

The results of this study show that a high YY1 gene signature (characterized by coordinate elevated expression of transcription factor YY1 and putative YY1 target genes) within serous epithelial ovarian cancers is associated with enhanced response to taxane-based chemotherapy and improved survival. If confirmed in a prospective study, these results have important implications for the potential future use of individualized therapy in treating patients with ovarian cancer. Identification of the YY1 gene signature profile within a tumor prior to initiation of chemotherapy may provide valuable information about the anticipated response of these tumors to taxane-based drugs, leading to better informed decisions regarding chemotherapeutic choice. Survival of ovarian cancer patients is largely dictated by their response to chemotherapy, which depends on underlying molecular features of the malignancy. We previously identified YIN YANG 1 (YY1) as a gene whose expression is positively correlated with ovarian cancer survival. Herein we investigated the mechanistic basis of this association. Epigenetic and genetic characteristics of YY1 in serous epithelial ovarian cancer (SEOC) were analyzed along with YY1 mRNA and protein. Patterns of gene expression in primary SEOC and in the NCI60 database were investigated using computational methods. YY1 function and modulation of chemotherapeutic response in vitro …

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Beam-gas collision created experimental background, i.e., singles, has affected heavy ion and polarized proton operations in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The gas molecules in interaction region are mainly caused by the electron induced gas desorption. and the electrons are produced from the beam induced electron multipacting, or called electron cloud. The background has a dependence on the usual electron cloud related parameters, such as the bunch intensity, bunch spacing, and the solenoid field. With the RHIC upgrade plan, the experimental background may become a luminosity limiting factor. Mitigations are discussed.

In this final report, we summarize the contributions made through support from the DOE ECPI award to research and training in advanced computing systems.

This paper documents nearly a half century of U.S. federal government support for energy research and development (R&D). Data on energy R&D expenditures disaggregated by major program area are presented here for the first time for the period 1961-2008. This paper also documents U.S. federal government spending on key large scale energy R&D programs that were initiated in response to the oil crisis of the 1970s. Since 1961, the U.S. government has invested nearly $172 billion (in inflation adjusted 2005 US dollars) for the development of advanced energy technologies and for the necessary underlying basic science. Over this period, nearly 24% of the total federal investment in energy R&D occurred during the short seven-year span of 1974-1980. From 1977-1981, energy R&D investments briefly rose above 10% of all federal R&D; however, since the mid-1990s energy R&D has accounted for only about 1% of all federal R&D investments.

Factors including intratumoral heterogeneity and variability in tissue handling potentially hamper the application of reverse phase protein arrays (RPPA) to study of the solid tumor functional proteome. To address this, RPPA was applied to quantify protein expression and activation in 233 human breast tumors and 52 breast cancer cell lines. Eighty-two antibodies that recognize kinase and steroid signaling events and their effectors were validated for RPPA because of the importance of these proteins to breast carcinogenesis. Reproducibility in replicate lysates was excellent. Intratumoral protein expression was less variable than intertumoral expression, and prognostic biomarkers retained the ability to accurately predict patient outcomes when analyzed in different tumor sites. Although 21/82 total and phosphoproteins demonstrated time-dependent instability in breast tumors that were placed at room temperature after surgical excision for 24 hours prior to freezing, the functional proteomic 'fingerprint' was robust in most tumors until at least 24 hours before tissue freezing. Correlations between RPPA and immunohistochemistry were statistically significant for assessed proteins but RPPA demonstrated a superior dynamic range and detected, for example, an 866-fold difference in estrogen receptor alpha level across breast tumors. Protein and mRNA levels were concordant (at p {le} 0.05) for 41.3% and 61.1% of assayed …

Remediation of uranium (U) contaminated sediments through in-situ stimulation of bioreduction to insoluble UO{sub 2} is a potential treatment strategy under active investigation. Previously, we found that newly reduced U(IV) can be reoxidized under reducing conditions sustained by a continuous supply of organic carbon (OC) because of residual reactive Fe(III) and enhanced U(VI) solubility through complexation with carbonate generated through OC oxidation. That finding motivated this investigation directed at identifying a range of OC supply rates that is optimal for establishing U bioreduction and immobilization in initially oxidizing sediments. The effects of OC supply rate, from 0 to 580 mmol OC (kg sediment){sup -1} year{sup -1}, and OC form (lactate and acetate) on U bioreduction were tested in flow-through columns containing U-contaminated sediments. An intermediate supply rate on the order of 150 mmol OC (kg sediment){sup -1} year{sup -1} was determined to be most effective at immobilizing U. At lower OC supply rates, U bioreduction was not achieved, and U(VI) solubility was enhanced by complexation with carbonate (from OC oxidation). At the highest OC supply rate, resulting highly carbonate-enriched solutions also supported elevated levels of U(VI), even though strongly reducing conditions were established. Lactate and acetate were found to have …