Even without grand unification, proton decay can be a powerful probe of physics at the highest energy scales. Supersymmetric theories with conserved R-parity contain Planck-suppressed dimension 5 operators that give important contributions tonucleon decay. These operators are likely controlled by flavor physics, which means current and near future proton decay experiments might yield clues about the fermion mass spectrum. I present a thorough analysis of nucleon partial lifetimes in supersymmetric one-flavon Froggatt-Nielsen models with a single U(1)_X family symmetry which is responsible for the fermionic mass spectrum as well as forbidding R-parity violating interactions. Many of the models naturally lead to nucleon decay near present limits without any reference to grand unification.

Ohio University, in collaboration with CONSOL Energy, Advanced Technology Systems, Inc (ATS) and Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. (AER) as subcontractors, is evaluating the impact of emissions from coal-fired power plants in the Ohio River Valley region as they relate to the transport and deposition of mercury, arsenic, and associated fine particulate matter. This evaluation will involve two interrelated areas of effort: ambient air monitoring and regional-scale modeling analysis. The scope of work for the ambient air monitoring will include the deployment of a surface air monitoring (SAM) station in southeastern Ohio. The SAM station will contain sampling equipment to collect and measure mercury (including speciated forms of mercury and wet and dry deposited mercury), arsenic, particulate matter (PM) mass, PM composition, and gaseous criteria pollutants (CO, NOx, SO{sub 2}, O{sub 3}, etc.). Laboratory analysis of time-integrated samples will be used to obtain chemical speciation of ambient PM composition and mercury in precipitation. Near-real-time measurements will be used to measure the ambient concentrations of PM mass and all gaseous species including Hg{sup 0} and RGM. Approximately of 18 months of field data will be collected at the SAM site to validate the proposed regional model simulations for episodic and seasonal …

This is a research project involving the development of a computational methodology to predict the global neutron scalar flux and thermal power profiles throughout a nuclear reactor. This methodology is based on the utilization of high order polynomials within a Monte Carlo algorithm to accelerate Monte Carlo fission source iterations for loosely coupled reactor systems. Preliminary work has demonstrated the feasibility of using high order polynomials to estimate spatially and angularly varying quantities such as the scalar flux distribution within a lattice or the interface current distribution on a boundary. This work has also led to a second approach based on imbedding this methodology into a response matrix formalism, allowing one in principle to estimate high order response matrices that could be used to estimate global flux and power distributions with improved accuracy and efficiency compared with conventional Monte Carlo methods. These methods should improve the convergence of Monte Carlo fission source iterations for loosely coupled systems.

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