The ICF Program has undergone a significant change in 1999 with the decommissioning of the Nova laser and the transfer of much of the experimental program to the OMEGA laser at the University of Rochester. The Nova laser ended operations with the final experiment conducted on May 27, 1999. This marked the end to one of DOE's most successful experimental facilities. Since its commissioning in 1985, Nova performed 13,424 experiments supporting ICF, Defense Sciences, high-power laser research, and basic science research. At the time of its commissioning, Nova was the world's most powerful laser. Its early experiments demonstrated that 3{omega} light could produce high-drive, low-preheat environment required for indirect-drive ICE. In the early 1990s, the technical program on Nova for indirect drive ignition was defined by the Nova technical contract established by National Academy Review of ICF in 1990. Successful completion of this research program contributed significantly to the recommendation by the ICF Advisory Committee in 1995 to proceed with the construction of the National Ignition Facility? Nova experiments also demonstrated the utility of high-powered lasers for studying the physics of interest to Defense Sciences. Now, high-powered lasers along with pulsed-power machines are the principal facilities for studying high energy …

It is well recognized that half the countries in the world will face significant fresh water shortages in the next 20 years, due largely to growing populations and increased agricultural and industrial demands (Gleick, 1997). These shortages will significantly limit economic growth, decrease the quality of life and human health for billions of people, and could potentially lead to violence and conflict over securing scarce supplies of water. In the Middle East, groundwater represents an important part of water supply in most locations, yet it is the least understood and one of the most fragile components of the entire water resource system. The occurrence of water underground contributes to the illusion of an infinite resource that is immune to anthropogenic activities. Nevertheless, as has been learned in the West, it can become highly impaired through the actions of man--through the disposal of human, animal, or industrial wastes, from excessive irrigation and fertilization practices in agriculture, or from simple overproduction and overexploitation--and can remain so for decades or even centuries. Finding solutions to groundwater resource and quality problems can be complex, time consuming, and costly. As is the case in many places in the world, but especially in the Middle East, …

Liquid fossil fuels, both petroleum and synthetically derived oils, are exceedingly complex mixtures of thousands of components. The effect of many of these energy-related components on the environment is largely unknown. Octanol/water distribution coefficients relate both to toxicity and to the bioaccumulation potential of chemical components. Use of these partition data in conjunction with component concentrations in the oils in environmental models provides important information on the fate of fossil fuel components when released to the environment. Octanol/water distribution data are not available for many energy-related organic compounds, and those data that are available have been determined for individual components in simple, one-component octanol/water equilibrium mixtures. In this study, methods for determining many octanol/water distribution coefficients from aqueous extracts of oil products were developed. Sample aqueous mixtures were made by equilibrating liquid fossil fuels with distilled water. This approach has the advantage of detecting interactions between components of interest and other sample components. Compound types studied included phenols, nitrogen bases, hydrocarbons, sulfur heterocyclic compounds, and carboxylic acids. Octanol/water distribution coefficients that were determined in this study ranged from 9.12 for aniline to 67,600 for 1,2-dimethylnaphthalene. Within a compound type, distribution coefficients increased logarithmically with increasing alkyl substitution and molecular weight. …

The new trigger processor, the Silicon Vertex Tracking (SVT), has dramatically improved the B physics capabilities of the upgraded CDF II Detector; for the first time in a hadron collider, the SVT has enabled the access to non-lepton-triggered B meson decays. Within the new available range of decay modes, the B{sub s}{sup 0} {yields} D{sub s}{sup -}{pi}{sup +} signature is of paramount importance in the measurement of the {Delta}m{sub s} mixing frequency. The analysis reported here is a step towards the measurement of this frequency; two where our goals: carrying out the absolute calibration of the opposite side flavor taggers, used in the {Delta}m{sub s} measurement; and measuring the B{sub d}{sup 0} mixing frequency in a B {yields} D{pi} sample, establishing the feasibility of the mixing measurement in this sample whose decay-length is strongly biased by the selective SVT trigger. We analyze a total integrated luminosity of 355 pb{sup -1} collected with the CDF II Detector. By triggering on muons, using the conventional di-muon trigger; or displaced tracks, using the SVT trigger, we gather a sample rich in bottom and charm mesons.