The map-seeking circuit algorithm (MSC) was developed by Arathorn to efficiently solve the combinatorial problem of correspondence maximization, which arises in applications like computer vision, motion estimation, image matching, and automatic speech recognition [D. W. Arathorn, Map-Seeking Circuits in Visual Cognition: A Computational Mechanism for Biological and Machine Vision, Stanford University Press, 2002]. Given an input image, a template image, and a discrete set of transformations, the goal is to find a composition of transformations which gives the best fit between the transformed input and the template. We imbed the associated combinatorial search problem within a continuous framework by using superposition, and we analyze a resulting constrained optimization problem. We present several numerical schemes to compute local solutions, and we compare their performance on a pair of test problems: an image matching problem and the challenging problem of automatically solving a Rubik's cube.

Pressure rises with high intense beams are among the main luminosity limitations at RHIC. Observations during the latest runs show beam induced electron multipacting as one of the causes for these pressure rises. Experimental studies are carried out at RHIC using devoted instrumentation to understand the mechanism leading to electron clouds. In the following, we report the experimental electron cloud data and the analyzed results using computer simulation codes.

The Drift Scale Test (DST) now underway at Yucca Mountain has been simulated using a Drift Scale Distinct Element (DSDE) model. Simulated deformations show good agreement with field deformation measurements. Results indicate most fracture deformation is located above the crown of the Heated Drift. This work is part of the model validation effort for the DSDE model, which is used to assess thermal-mechanical effects on the hydrology of the rock mass surrounding a potential repository.

The Drift Scale Test (DST) now underway at Yucca Mountain has been simulated using a Drift Scale Distinct Element (DSDE) model. Simulated deformations show good agreement with field deformation measurements. Results indicate most fracture deformation is located above the crown of the Heated Drift. This work is part of the model validation effort for the DSDE model, which is used to assess thermal-mechanical effects on the hydrology of the rock mass surrounding a potential repository.

Almost 4,000 water-level measurements in 216 wells in the Yucca Flat area from 1951 to 2003 were quality assured and analyzed. An interpretative database was developed that describes water-level conditions for each water level measured in Yucca Flat. Multiple attributes were assigned to each water-level measurement in the database to describe the hydrologic conditions at the time of measurement. General quality, temporal variability, regional significance, and hydrologic conditions are attributed for each water-level measurement. The database also includes narratives that discuss the water-level history of each well. Water levels in 34 wells were analyzed for variability and for statistically significant trends. An attempt was made to identify the cause of many of the water-level fluctuations or trends. Potential causes include equilibration following well construction or development, pumping in the monitoring well, withdrawals from a nearby supply well, recharge from precipitation, earthquakes, underground nuclear tests, land subsidence, barometric pressure, and Earth tides. Some of the naturally occurring fluctuations in water levels may result from variations in recharge. The magnitude of the overall water-level change for these fluctuations generally is less than 2 feet. Long-term steady-state hydrographs for most of the wells open to carbonate rock have a very similar pattern. Carbonate-rock …

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The purpose of this study was to examine alternative biomass-to-ethanol conversion process assumptions and configuration options to determine their relative effects on overall process economics. A process-flow-sheet computer model was used to determine the heat and material balance for each configuration that was studied. The heat and material balance was then fed to a costing spreadsheet to determine the impact on the ethanol selling price. By examining a number of operational and configuration alternatives and comparing the results to the base flow sheet, alternatives having the greatest impact the performance and cost of the overall system were identified and used to make decisions on research priorities.

The recent development of downhole tiltmeter arrays for monitoring hydraulic fractures has provided new information on fracture growth and geometry. These downhole arrays offer the significant advantages of being close to the fracture (large signal) and being unaffected by the free surface. As with surface tiltmeter data, analysis of these measurements requires the inversion of a crack or dislocation model. To supplement the dislocation models of Davis [1983], Okada [1992] and others, this work has extended several elastic crack solutions to provide tilt calculations. The solutions include constant-pressure 2D, penny-shaped, and 3D-elliptic cracks and a 2D-variable-pressure crack. Equations are developed for an arbitrary inclined fracture in an infinite elastic space. Effects of fracture height, fracture length, fracture dip, fracture azimuth, fracture width and monitoring distance on the tilt distribution are given, as well as comparisons with the dislocation model. The results show that the tilt measurements are very sensitive to the fracture dimensions, but also that it is difficult to separate the competing effects of the various parameters.

The French and British nuclear programs have prepared a series of natural uranium oxide fuel samples spiked with small amounts of the individual fission products which makeup a large fraction of the total neutron absorption by fission products in spent nuclear fuel. Both programs have utilized these samples in experimental reactors and have inferred the worth of the individual fission products. These results have been used to validate the cross sections used in criticality safety calculations. These measurements constitute a major element in support of spent fuel burnup credit in these countries.

This paper discusses the features of an annotation language that we believe to be essential for optimizing user-defined abstractions. These features should capture semantics of function, data, and object-oriented abstractions, express abstraction equivalence (e.g., a class represents an array abstraction), and permit extension of traditional compiler optimizations to user-defined abstractions. Our future work will include developing a comprehensive annotation language for describing the semantics of general object-oriented abstractions, as well as automatically verifying and inferring the annotated semantics.

Aqueous radioactive wastes from Savannah River Site (SRS) separations and vitrification processes are contained in large underground carbon steel tanks. The 2007 inspection program revealed that the structural integrity and waste confinement capability of the Savannah River Site waste tanks were maintained. A very small amount of material had seeped from Tank 12 from a previously identified leaksite. The material observed had dried on the tank wall and did not reach the annulus floor. A total of 5945 photographs were made and 1221 visual and video inspections were performed during 2007. Additionally, ultrasonic testing was performed on four Waste Tanks (15, 36, 37 and 38) in accordance with approved inspection plans that met the requirements of WSRC-TR-2002- 00061, Revision 2 'In-Service Inspection Program for High Level Waste Tanks'. The Ultrasonic Testing (UT) In-Service Inspections (ISI) are documented in a separate report that is prepared by the ISI programmatic Level III UT Analyst. Tanks 15, 36, 37 and 38 are documented in 'Tank Inspection NDE Results for Fiscal Year 2007'; WSRC-TR-2007-00064.

We report the ongoing work of our group in hydrodynamics and radiation hydrodynamics with astrophysical applications. During the period of the existing grant, we have carried out two types of experiments at the Omega laser. One set of experiments has studied radiatively collapsing shocks, obtaining data using a backlit pinhole with a 100 ps backlighter and beginning to develop the ability to look into the shock tube with optical or x-ray diagnostics. Other experiments have studied the deeply nonlinear development of the Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability from complex initial conditions, using dual-axis radiographic data with backlit pinholes and ungated detectors to complete the data set for a Ph.D. student. We lead a team that is developing a proposal for experiments at the National Ignition Facility and are involved in experiments at NIKE and LIL. All these experiments have applications to astrophysics, discussed in the corresponding papers. We assemble the targets for the experiments at Michigan, where we also prepare many of the simple components. We also have several projects underway in our laboratory involving our x-ray source. The above activities, in addition to a variety of data analysis and design projects, provide good experience for graduate and undergraduates students. In the …

Alloy 22 (N06022) has been extensively tested for general and localized corrosion behavior both in the wrought and annealed condition and in the as-welded condition. The specimens for testing were mostly prepared from flat plates of material. It was important to determine if the process of fabricating a full diameter Alloy 22 container will affect the corrosion performance of the alloy. Specimens were prepared directly from a fabricated container and tested for corrosion resistance. Results show that both the anodic corrosion behavior and the localized corrosion resistance of specimens prepared from a welded fabricated container was the same as from flat welded plates.

Paper number 1 addresses the fact that the procedure used in the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment for identifying the presence of clouds over snow/ice surfaces is known to have shortcomings, and this is corroborated through use of surface insolation measurements at the South Pole as an independent means of identifying clouds. These surface insolation measurements are then used to validate the more detailed cloud identification scheme used in the follow-up Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES), and this validation is extended to the polar night through use of CERES measurements of the outgoing longwave radiation. General circulation models (GCMs) are highly sophisticated computer tools for modeling climate change, and they incorporate a large number of physical processes and variables. One of the most important challenges is to properly account for water vapor (clouds and humidity) in climate warming. In this Perspective, Cess discusses results reported in the same issue by Soden et al. in which water vapor feedback effects are tested by studying moistening trends in the upper troposphere. Satellite observations of atmospheric water vapor are found to agree well with moisture predictions generated by one of the key GCMs, showing that these feedback effects are being properly …

We demonstrate an exchange bias in (Ga,Mn)As induced by antiferromagnetic coupling to a thin overlayer of Fe. Bias fields of up to 240 Oe are observed. Using element-specific x-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements, we distinguish an interface layer that is strongly pinned antiferromagnetically to the Fe. The interface layer remains polarized at room temperature.

The AP2 beamline transports anti-protons from the production target to the Debuncher ring. For many years the observed aperture has been smaller than that estimated from linear, on-energy optics. We have investigated possible reasons for the aperture restriction and have identified several possible sources, including residual vertical dispersion from alignment errors and chromatic effects due to very large chromatic lattice functions. We discuss the possible sources, suggest some remedies, and propose specific studies, where needed, to evaluate suspected problems.

This paper documents the application of a new image processing algorithm, two-dimensional non-linear additive decomposition (NLAD), which is used to identify regions in a digital image whose gray-scale (or color) intensity is different than the surrounding background. Standard image segmentation algorithms exist that allow users to segment images based on gray-scale intensity and/or shape. However, these processing techniques do not adequately account for the image noise and lighting variation that typically occurs across an image. NLAD is designed to separate image noise and background from artifacts thereby providing the ability to consistently evaluate images. The decomposition techniques used in this algorithm are based on the concepts of mathematical morphology. NLAD emulates the human capability of visually separating an image into different levels of resolution components, denoted as ''coarse'', ''fine'', and ''intermediate''. Very little resolution information overlaps any two of the component images. This method can easily determine and/or remove trends and noise from an image. NLAD has several additional advantages over conventional image processing algorithms, including no need for a transformation from one space to another, such as is done with Fourier transforms, and since only finite summations are required, the calculational effort is neither extensive nor complicated.

Frequency domain substructure synthesis is a modeling technique that enables the prediction of a combined response of individual structures using experimentally measured or numerically predicted frequency response functions (FRFs). The traditional synthesis algorithm [1,2] operates on component impedances and thus generally requires several matrix inversions. An improved algorithm, developed by Jetmundsen et al. [3], requires a single matrix inversion with a completely arbitrary interface definition that can easily incorporate connection impedances. The main limitations of the method are the large data requirements and sensitivity to data truncation. The utility of this technique is demonstrated through a comparison of synthesized and measured admittances of an edge-stiffened plate with attached equipment. The plate mobilities are obtained from a numerical analysis because of the ability to accurately model this structure using a finite element representation. The attachments are characterized experimentally because of their complexity. The sections describe the synthesis technique and show numerical and experimental results for the plate and equipment.

We explore the feasibility of using Feynman moments as attributes of fissile material in warhead authentication measurements. We present results of computer simulations of neutron correlation measurements to validate and inform the application of the method to measurements in an arms control scenario. We establish the robustness of the method for use in automated measuring equipment that protects classified or sensitive data using an information barrier. Drawing from our results, we define high-level requirements to govern the design process, and guide the construction of a prototype.

The OXY-operated Class 2 Project at West Welch is designed to demonstrate how the use of advanced technology can improve the economics of miscible CO{sub 2} injection projects in lower quality Shallow Shelf Carbonate reservoirs. The research and design phase (Budget Period 1) primarily involved advanced reservoir characterization. The current demonstration phase (Budget Period 2) is the implementation of the reservoir management plan for an optimum miscible CO{sub 2} flood design based on the reservoir characterization. Although Budget Period 1 for the Project officially ended 12/31/96, reservoir characterization and simulation work continued during the Budget Period 2. During the seventh annual reporting period (8/3/00-8/2/01) covered by this report, work continued on interpretation of the interwell seismic data to create porosity and permeability profiles which were distributed into the reservoir geostatistically. The initial interwell seismic CO{sub 2} monitor survey was conducted and the acquired data processed and interpretation started. Only limited well work and facility construction were conducted in the project area. The CO{sub 2} injection initiated in October 1997 was continued, although the operator had to modify the operating plan in response to low injection rates, well performance and changes in CO{sub 2} supply. CO{sub 2} injection was focused in …

Stir bar sorptive extraction was applied to aqueous and solid samples for the extraction and analysis of organic compounds from the Hanford chemicals of potential concern list, as identified in the vapor data quality objectives. The 222-S Laboratory analyzed these compounds from vapor samples on thermal desorption tubes as part of the Hanford Site industrial hygiene vapor sampling effort.

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Optimizing compilers have a long history of applying loop transformations to C and Fortran scientific applications. However, such optimizations are rare in compilers for object-oriented languages such as C++ or Java, where loops operating on user-defined types are left unoptimized due to their unknown semantics. Our goal is to reduce the performance penalty of using high-level object-oriented abstractions. We propose an approach that allows the explicit communication between programmers and compilers. We have extended the traditional Fortran loop optimizations with an open interface. Through this interface, we have developed techniques to automatically recognize and optimize user-defined array abstractions. In addition, we have developed an adapted constant-propagation algorithm to automatically propagate properties of abstractions. We have implemented these techniques in a C++ source-to-source translator and have applied them to optimize several kernels written using an array-class library. Our experimental results show that using our approach, applications using high-level abstractions can achieve comparable, and in cases superior, performance to that achieved by efficient low-level hand-written codes.

Detailed reactor physics and safety analyses are being performed for the 20 MW D{sub 2}O-moderated research reactor at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The analyses employ state-of-the-art calculational methods and will contribute to an update to the Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR). Three-dimensional MCNP Monte Carlo neutron and photon transport calculations are performed to determine power and reactivity parameters, including feedback coefficients and control element worths. The core depletion and determination of the fuel compositions are performed with MONTEBURNS to model the reactor at the beginning, middle, and end-of-cycle. The time-dependent analysis of the primary loop is determined with a RELAP5 transient analysis model that includes the pump, heat exchanger, fuel element geometry, and flow channels. A statistical analysis used to assure protection from critical heat flux (CHF) is performed using a Monte Carlo simulation of the uncertainties contributing to the CHF calculation. The power distributions used to determine the local fuel conditions and margin to CHF are determined with MCNP. Evaluations have been performed for the following accidents: (1) the control rod withdrawal startup accident, (2) the maximum reactivity insertion accident, (3) loss-of-flow resulting from loss of electrical power, (4) loss-of-flow resulting from a primary pump …