The most important requirement for high-level waste glass acceptance for disposal in a geological repository is the chemical durability, expressed as a glass dissolution rate. During the early stages of glass dissolution in near static conditions that represent a repository disposal environment, a gel layer resembling a membrane forms on the glass surface through which ions exchange between the glass and the leachant. The hydrated gel layer exhibits acid/base properties which are manifested as the pH dependence of the thickness and nature of the gel layer. The gel layer has been found to age into either clay mineral assemblages or zeolite mineral assemblages. The formation of one phase preferentially over the other has been experimentally related to changes in the pH of the leachant and related to the relative amounts of Al{sup +3} and Fe{sup +3} in a glass. The formation of clay mineral assemblages on the leached glass surface layers ,lower pH and Fe{sup +3} rich glasses, causes the dissolution rate to slow to a long-term steady state rate. The formation of zeolite mineral assemblages ,higher pH and Al{sup +3} rich glasses, on leached glass surface layers causes the dissolution rate to increase and return to the initial high …

We present results of a simulation of 2 flavour QCD on a 16{sup 3} x 4 lattice using p4-improved staggered fermions with bare quark mass m/T = 0.4. Derivatives of the thermodynamic grand canonical partition function Z(V,T,{mu}{sub u},{mu}{sub d}) with respect to chemical potentials {mu}{sub u,d} for different quark flavours are calculated up to sixth order, enabling estimates of the pressure and the quark number density as well as the chiral condensate and various susceptibilities as functions of {mu}{sub u,d} via Taylor series expansion. Results are compared to high temperature perturbation theory as well as a hadron resonance gas model. We also analyze baryon as well as isospin fluctuations and discuss the relation to the chiral critical point in the QCD phase diagram. We moreover discuss the dependence of the heavy quark free energy on the chemical potential.

NSLS booster diagnostics consisted of tune measurement system, system for turn-by-turn measurement on the electron beam, and beam intensity monitor, which is not absolutely calibrated. We present design and implementation of synchrotron light monitor for the booster, which expands diagnostics capabilities. The system allows to measure an orbit, beam sizes and coupling of the electron beam along the ramp.

One way to reduce the computational cost of electronic structure calculations is to employ auxiliary basis expansions to approximate 4 center integrals in terms of 2 and 3-center integrals, usually using the variationally optimum Coulomb metric to determine the expansion coefficients. However the long-range decay behavior of the auxiliary basis expansion coefficients has not been characterized. We find that this decay can be surprisingly slow. Numerical experiments on linear alkanes and a toy model both show that the decay can be as slow as 1/r in the distance between the auxiliary function and the fitted charge distribution. The Coulomb metric fitting equations also involve divergent matrix elements for extended systems treated with periodic boundary conditions. An attenuated Coulomb metric that is short-range can eliminate these oddities without substantially degrading calculated relative energies. The sparsity of the fit coefficients is assessed on simple hydrocarbon molecules, and shows quite early onset of linear growth in the number of significant coefficients with system size using the attenuated Coulomb metric. This means it is possible to design linear scaling auxiliary basis methods without additional approximations to treat large systems.

Over the past century and half, groundwater has played an important role in the economic prosperity of the United States. The groundwater profession which has contributed to this prosperity has grown through the contributions of the U.S. and State Geological Surveys,academia, and industry. A century ago, the energies of the profession were channeled towards discovering new sources of groundwater in a largely unexplored land, and exploiting the resources for maximum economic benefit. Experience has since revealed that groundwater systems are finite, and are intimately linked to surface water bodies and the biosphere. A consequence is that aggressive exploitation of groundwater can lead to unacceptable environmental degradation and social cost. At present, the groundwater profession is in a state of transition from one of discovery and exploitation, to one of balancing resource development with avoiding unacceptable damage to the environment. This paper outlines the history of the groundwater profession in the United States since the late nineteenth century, and speculates on what may lie ahead in the near future, as the profession makes the transition from discovering new sources of groundwater to one of better understanding and adapting to nature's constraints.

Use of gadolinium as a neutron poison has been proposed for disposing of several metric tons of excess plutonium at the Savannah River Site (SRS). The plutonium will first be dissolved in nitric acid in small batches. Gadolinium nitrate will then be added to the plutonium nitrate solution. The Gd-poisoned plutonium solution will be neutralized and transferred to large under-ground tanks. The pH of small batches of neutralized plutonium solution will be adjusted prior to addition of the glass frit for eventual production as glass logs. The use of gadolinium as the neutron poison would minimize the number of glass logs generated from this disposition. The primary criticality safety concerns regarding the disposal process are: (1) maintaining neutron moderation under all processing conditions since gadolinium has a very large absorption cross section for thermal neutrons, (2) characteristics of plutonium and gadolinium precipitation during the neutralization process, (3) mixing characteristics of the precipitate to ensure that plutonium would remain homogeneously mixed with gadolinium, and (4) potential separation of plutonium and gadolinium during nitric and formic acids addition. A number of experiments were conducted at the Savannah River National Laboratory to study the behavior of plutonium and gadolinium at various stages of …

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We examine the violation of the k{sub {perpendicular}}factorization approximation for quark production in high energy proton-nucleus collisions. We comment on its implications for the open charm and quarkonium production in collider experiments.

Bibliographic databases useful to nuclear structure and decay data (NSDD) evaluators are briefly described, along with examples of their usage. Authors' reference listings are also discussed. Nuclear Science References is recognized as the major bibliographic resource, and therefore most of the presentation is devoted to this database.

The ENSDF analysis and checking codes are briefly described, along with their uses with various types of ENSDF datasets. For more information on the programs see ''Read Me'' entries and other documentation associated with each code.

Abstracts and proceedings of the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Radiation Research Society held in Denver, Colorado on October 16-19, 2005.

We discuss aspects of open and hidden charm production in deuterium-nucleus collisions at RHIC and LHC energies. We describe calculations of the total c{bar c} cross section and the charm quark transverse momentum distributions. We next explain how shadowing and moderate nuclear absorption can explain the PHENIX J/{psi} dAu/pp ratios and predict the combined effect of shadowing and absorption in 6.2 TeV d+Pb collisions.

A brief description is given of the nuclear data centers around the world able to provide access to those databases and programs of highest relevance to nuclear structure and decay data specialists. A number of Web-page addresses are also provided for the reader to inspect and investigate these data and codes for study, evaluation and calculation. These instructions are not meant to be comprehensive, but should provide the reader with a reasonable means of electronic access to the most important data sets and programs.

Over the past century and half, groundwater has played an important role in the economic prosperity of the United States. The groundwater profession which has contributed to this prosperity has grown through the contributions of the U.S. and State Geological Surveys,academia, and industry. A century ago, the energies of the profession were channeled towards discovering new sources of groundwater in a largely unexplored land, and exploiting the resources for maximum economic benefit. Experience has since revealed that groundwater systems are finite, and are intimately linked to surface water bodies and the biosphere. A consequence is that aggressive exploitation of groundwater can lead to unacceptable environmental degradation and social cost. At present, the groundwater profession is in a state of transition from one of discovery and exploitation, to one of balancing resource development with avoiding unacceptable damage to the environment. This paper outlines the history of the groundwater profession in the United States since the late nineteenth century, and speculates on what may lie ahead in the near future, as the profession makes the transition from discovering new sources of groundwater to one of better understanding and adapting to nature's constraints.

This article presents results from the XMM-Newton observations of the highly optically polarized broad absorption line quasar CSO 755.

The branching fraction of the {tau}{sup -} {yields} 3h{sup -} 2h{sup +} {nu}{sub {tau}} decay (h = {pi}, K) is measured with the BABAR detector to be (8.56 {+-} 0.05 {+-} 0.42) x 10{sup -4}, where the first error is statistical and the second systematic. The observed structure of this decay is significantly different from the phase space prediction, with the {rho} resonance playing a strong role. The decay {tau}{sup -} {yields} f{sub 1}(1285){pi}{sup -}{nu}{sub {tau}}, with the f{sub 1}(1285) meson decaying to four charged pions, is observed and the branching fraction is measured to be (3.9 {+-} 0.7 {+-} 0.5) x 10{sup -4}.

Alloy 22 (N06022) is a nickel based alloy containing alloying elements such as chromium, molybdenum and tungsten. It is highly corrosion resistant both under reducing and under oxidizing conditions. Electrochemical studies such as electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were performed to determine the corrosion behavior of Alloy 22 in 1M NaCl solutions at various pH values from acidic to neutral at 90 C. Tests were also carried out in NaCl solutions containing oxalic acid or acetic acid. It is shown that the corrosion rate of Alloy 22 was higher in a solution containing oxalic acid than in a solution of the same pH acidified with HCl. Acetic acid was not corrosive to Alloy 22. The corrosivity of oxalic acid was attributed to its capacity to form stable complex species with metallic cations from Alloy 22.

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{sup 137}Cs transfer factors were computed for small mammals collected from the dried sediment areas of a partially drained, contaminated reservoir. Soil {sup 137}Cs concentrations were heterogeneous on small and large spatial scales, with a geometric mean of 253.1 Bq/kg dry weight. About 50% of the variance in cotton rat Sigmodon hispidus tissue {sup 137}Cs levels was explained by variation in soil {sup 137}Cs levels. Soil to animal transfer factors (whole body dry weight) averaged 6.0 for cotton rats and 1.2 for cotton mice Peromyscus gossypinus. These values are similar to {sup 137}Cs transfer factors for herbivorous, homeothermic animals from other contaminated ecosystems. Site-specific transfer factors can significantly affect the estimation of dose. In the RESRAD-BIOTA dose model, the default transfer factor for {sup 137}Cs in terrestrial animals is 110 resulting in an estimate of radiation dose to terrestrial biota that is 16 times more than the dose calculated with the actual measured transfer factor.

This article reviews some design considerations for the scaling down in size of instruments and machines with a primary aim to identify technologies that may provide more optimal performance solutions than those, often established, technologies used at macroscopic, or conventional, scales. Dimensional metrology within emerging applications will be considered for meso- through micro-down to nanometer level systems with particular emphasis on systems for which precision is directly related to function. In this paper, attention is limited to some of the more fundamental issues associated with scaling. For example, actuator work or power densities or the effect of noise on the sensor signals can be readily evaluated and provide some guidance in the selection for any given size of device. However, with reductions in scale these parameters and/or phenomena that limit performance may change. Within this review, the authors have tried to assess these complex inter-relationships between performance and scale, again from a fundamental perspective. In practice, it is likely that the nuances of implementation and integration of sensor, actuator and/or mechanism designs will determine functionality and commercial viability of any particular system development.

The Soft Gamma-ray Detector (SGD) on board NeXT (Japanese future high energy astrophysics mission) is a Compton telescope with narrow field of view, which utilizes Compton kinematics to enhance its background rejection capabilities. It is realized as a hybrid semiconductor gamma-ray detector which consists of silicon and Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) detectors. It can detect photons in an energy band 0.05-1 MeV at a background level of 5 x 10{sup -7} counts/s/cm{sup 2}/keV; the silicon layers are required to improve the performance at a lower energy band (<0.3 MeV). Excellent energy resolution is the key feature of the SGD to achieve both high angular resolution and good background rejection capability. Its ability to measure gamma-ray polarization opens up a new window to study gamma-ray emission in the universe. We will present the development of key technologies to realize the SGD; high quality CdTe, low noise front-end VLSI and bump bonding technology. Energy resolutions of 1.7 keV (FWHM) for CdTe pixel detectors and 1.1 keV for silicon strip detectors have been measured. We also present the validation of Monte Carlo simulation used to evaluate the performance of the SGD.

The International Linear Collider based on superconducting RF cavities requires the damping rings to have extremely small equilibrium emittance, huge circumference, fast damping time, and large acceptance. To achieve all of these requirements is a very challenging task. In this paper, we will present a systematic approach to designing the damping rings using simple cells and non-interlaced sextupoles. The designs of the damping rings with various circumferences and shapes, including dogbone, are presented. To model realistic wigglers, we have developed a new hybrid symplectic integrator for faster and accurate evaluation of dynamic aperture of the lattices.

We present preliminary measurements of branching fractions and direct CP violating asymmetries in charmless two-body B decays, obtained with the BABAR detector using a sample of 227M {Upsilon}(4S) {yields} B{bar B} decays. We report the first observation of B{sup 0} {yields} K{sup 0}{bar K}{sup 0} and the first observation of direct CP violation in B{sup 0} {yields} K{sup +}{pi}{sup -} decays.

One of the outstanding unsolved riddles of nuclear astrophysics is the origin of the so called ''p-process'' nuclei from A = 92 to 126. Both the lighter and heavier p-process nuclei are adequately produced in the neon and oxygen shells of ordinary Type II supernovae, but the origin of these intermediate isotopes, especially {sup 92,94}Mo and {sup 96,98}Ru, has long been mysterious. Here we explore the production of these nuclei in the neutrino-driven wind from a young neutron star. We consider such early times that the wind still contains a proton excess because the rates for {nu}{sub e} and positron captures on neutrons are faster than those for the inverse captures on protons. Following a suggestion by Froehlich et al. (2005), they also include the possibility that, in addition to the protons, {alpha}-particles, and heavy seed, a small flux of neutrons is maintained by the reaction p({bar {nu}}{sub e}, e{sup +})n. This flux of neutrons is critical in bridging the long waiting points along the path of the rp-process by (n,p) and (n,{gamma}) reactions. Using the unmodified ejecta histories from a recent two-dimensional supernova model by Janka, Buras, and Rampp (2003), they find synthesis of p-rich nuclei up to {sup …