A document about a story in the NT Daily that covers a UNT Multicultural Center Event. It is titled "'Celebración' showcases Hispanic Heritage month with banquet". There is also a picture of two students at the event.

Localization of targets imbedded in a heterogeneous background medium is a common problem in seismic, ultrasonic, and electromagnetic imaging problems. The best imaging techniques make direct use of the eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of the array response matrix, as recent work on time-reversal acoustics has shown. Of the various imaging functionals studied, one that is representative of a preferred class is a time-domain generalization of MUSIC (MUltiple Signal Classification), which is a well-known linear subspace method normally applied only in the frequency domain. Since statistical stability is not characteristic of the frequency domain, a transform back to the time domain after first diagonalizing the array data in the frequency domain takes optimum advantage of both the time-domain stability and the frequency-domain orthogonality of the relevant eigenfunctions.

We have produced single bursts of helicity from the source in the SSPX spheromak in order to study the efficiency of the simplest example of helicity injection. We find that the helicity injection rate can be written in terms of the injected current and an inductance, and that a simple circuit analogue demonstrates unambiguously the relationship of helicity to energy: helicity injection is the addition of inductive loops. While helicity balance points to the conservation of helicity, the electrical efficiency is around 15%. However, in the expulsion of the loop, electrical energy is converted to directional motion, which may be recoverable usefully as heat by collisions, thus the efficiency of the injection process is arguably quite high. Integral to this notion of helicity injection is the idea that reconnection is necessary: without disconnection from the source by a reconnection event, the spheromak fields are just proportional to the injected current. Sometimes the multiple bursts occur spontaneously and cause a step-wise increase in the field (and helicity). However, in all instances when the current remains above the ejection threshold for t > 50 {micro}s, the n=l mode initiates and builds field, although with much reduced efficiency, and to a level which …

Targeted radionuclide therapy promises to expand the role of radiation beyond the treatment of localized tumors. This novel form of therapy targets metastatic cancers by combining radioactive isotopes with tumor-seeking molecules such as monoclonal antibodies and custom-designed synthetic agents. Ultimately, like conventional radiotherapy, the effectiveness of targeted radionuclide therapy is limited by the maximum dose that can be given to a critical, normal tissue, such as bone marrow, kidneys, and lungs. Because radionuclide therapy relies on biological delivery of radiation, its optimization and characterization are necessarily different than for conventional radiation therapy. We have initiated the development of a new, Monte Carlo transport-based treatment planning system for molecular targeted radiation therapy as part of the MINERVA treatment planning system. This system calculates patient-specific radiation dose estimates using a set of computed tomography scans to describe the 3D patient anatomy, combined with 2D (planar image) and 3D (SPECT, or single photon emission computed tomography) to describe the time-dependent radiation source. The accuracy of such a dose calculation is limited primarily by the accuracy of the initial radiation source distribution, overlaid on the patient's anatomy. This presentation provides an overview of MINERVA functionality for molecular targeted radiation therapy, and describes early validation …

We demonstrate the application code ''rap'' which is part of the ''Overture'' library. A CAD geometry imported from an IGES file is first cleaned up and simplified to suit the needs of mesh generation. Thereafter, the topology of the model is computed and a water-tight surface triangulation is created on the CAD surface. This triangulation is used to speed up the projection of points onto the CAD surface during the generation of overlapping surface grids. From each surface grid, volume grids are grown into the domain using a hyperbolic marching procedure. The final step is to fill any remaining parts of the interior with background meshes.

The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) has long been active in development of advanced Monte-Carlo based computational dosimetry and treatment planning methods and software for advanced radiotherapy, with a particular focus on Neutron Capture Therapy (NCT) and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Fast-Neutron Therapy. The most recent INEEL software product system of this type is known as SERA, Simulation Environment for Radiotherapy Applications. SERA is at a mature level in its life cycle, it has been licensed for research use worldwide, and it has become well established as a computational tool for research. However, along with its strengths, SERA also has some limitations in its structure and computational methodologies. More specifically, it is optimized only for neutron-based applications. Although photon transport can be computed with SERA, the simplified model that is used is designed primarily for photons produced in the neutron transport process. Thus SERA is not appropriate for applications to, for example, standard external-beam photon radiotherapy, which is by far more commonly used in the clinic than neutron based therapy.

Carbonaceous aerosols from anthropogenic activities act to both scatter and absorb solar radiation. It has been postulated that absorption by aerosols might significantly alter both the vertical temperature structure of the atmosphere and cloud fraction [Hansen et al. 1997, Ackerman et al, 2000]. Since both effects may alter the assessment of climate change associated with human activities, it is very important to understand both the magnitude and the mechanism by which carbonaceous aerosols affect climate. In this paper, we used a coupled climate and chemistry transport model to estimate the effects of carbonaceous aerosols on the vertical temperature structure and their effects on cloud fraction. A series Of control simulations were also carried out to compare the results of the model in which carbonaceous aerosols interact with climate with those in which they do not. We will present the temperature difference between simulations that include the effect of black carbon on the radiation field and those that do not, both at the surface and in the free troposphere. We will also discuss the change of temperature lapse rate and changes of cloud fraction associated with black carbon.

Dimensional changes in PBX materials resulting from temperature change are of interest to engineers, designers and modelers. In this paper we present data from recent measurements made on LX17-1, as well as on the material's binder and its energetic constituent. LX17-1 is made from 7.5% KEL-F 800 binder combined with 92.5% wet aminated TATB energetic crystals. Due apparently to the anisotropic expansionary behavior of the TATB, the material exhibits irreversible growth, in addition to the usual reversible expansions and contractions associated with temperature change. In an effort understand reversible and irreversible growth behavior and to verify consistency between our measurements and those made historically, measurements were performed on billet pressed LX17-1, on die pressed TATB, and on KEL-F alone. It is important to realize that, for materials involving TATB, expansionary behavior results from the combined effects of reversible and irreversible (ratchet growth) phenomena.

This study presents a technique that can significantly improve the performance of a distributed application by allowing the application to locally adapt to architectural characteristics of distinct resources in a distributed system. Application performance is sensitive to application parameter--system architecture pairings. In a distributed or Grid enabled applciation, a single parameter configuration for the whole application will not always be optimal for every participating resource. In particular, some configurations can significantly degrade performance. Furthermore, the behavior of a system may change during the course of the run. The technique described here provides an automated mechanism for run-time adaptation of application parameters to the local system architecture. Using a simulation of a Monte Carlo physics code, the authors demonstrate that this technique can achieve speedups of 18%-37% on individual resources in a distributed environment.

Large aperture diffractive optics are needed in high power laser applications to protect against laser damage during operation and in space applications to increase the light gathering power and consequently the signal to noise. We describe the facilities we have built for fabricating meter scale diffractive optics and discuss several examples of these.

Prior studies of evaporation and sputter deposition show that the grain size of pure beryllium can be dramatically refined through the incorporation of metal impurities. Recently, the addition of boron at a concentration greater than 11% is shown to serve as a glassy phase former in sputter deposited beryllium. Presently, thermally induced crystallization of the beryllium-boron metallic glass is reported. The samples are characterized during an in-situ anneal treatment with bright field imaging and electron diffraction using transmission electron microscopy. A nanocrystalline structure evolves from the annealed amorphous phase and the crystallization temperature is affected by the boron concentration.

This paper examines the explicit communication characteristics of several sophisticated scientific applications; which, by themselves, constitute a representative suite of publicly available benchmarks for large cluster architectures. By focusing on the Message Passing Interface (MPI) and by using hardware counters on the microprocessor, we observe each application's inherent behavioral characteristics: point-to-point and collective communication, and floating-point operations. Furthermore, we explore the sensitivities of these characteristics to both problem size and number of processors. Our analysis reveals several striking similarities across, our diverse set of applications including the use of collective operations, especially those collectives with very small data payloads. We also highlight a trend of novel applications parting with regimented, static communication patterns in favor of dynamically evolving patterns, as evidenced by our experiments on applications that use implicit linear solvers and adaptive mesh refinement. Overall, our study contributes a better understanding of the requirements of current and emerging paradigms of scientific computing in terms of their computation and communication demands.

In radiation shielding applications we need photon and electron data, as well as computer codes that utilize these data, in order to predict results inexpensively and safely. In this paper we will first cover the current status of available photon and electron data that have only recently been adopted for inclusion in ENDF/B-VI, with emphasis on the improved detail that is included in these data bases. Next we will cover the availability of these data bases and computer codes that use them.

This paper presents interim results of a feasibility study on carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) sequestration in deep saline formations. The focus of the investigation is to examine factors that may affect chemical sequestration of CO{sub 2} in deep saline formations. Findings of the first phase of this investigation were presented in a topical report (Sass et al., 1999a). Preliminary results of the second phase, now underway, have been reported elsewhere (Sass et al., 1999b; 2001). Evaluations of the suitability of Mt. Simon formation for sequestering CO{sub 2} and economic issues are reported by Gupta et al., 1999; 2001; Smith et al., 2001. This study is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) under a Novel Concepts project grant. The overall objectives of Phase II experiments were to determine: (1) the potential for long-term sequestration of CO{sub 2} in deep, regional host rock formations; and (2) the effectiveness of overlying caprock as a barrier against upward migration of the injected CO{sub 2}. To meet these goals, experiments were conducted using rock samples from different potential host reservoirs and overlying rocks. In addition, pure mineral samples were used in some experimental runs to investigate specific mineralogical …

The Detention Pond is a constructed and lined storm water treatment basin at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that serves multiple stakeholder objectives and programmatic goals. This paper examines the process and outcome involved in the development of a new management plan for the Detention Pond. The plan was created using a new ecosystem management tool, the Legacy Framework. This stakeholder-driven conceptual framework provides an interdisciplinary methodology for determining ecosystem health, appropriate management strategies, and sensitive indicators. The conceptual framework, the Detention Ponds project, and the use of the framework in the context of the project, are described and evaluated, and evaluative criteria for this and other ecosystem management frameworks are offered. The project benefited in several ways from use of the Legacy Framework, although refinements to the framework are suggested. The stakeholder process created a context and environment in which team members became receptive to using an ecosystem management approach to evaluate and support management alternatives previously not considered. This allowed for the unanimous agreement to pursue support from upper management and organizational funding to implement a progressive management strategy. The greatly improved stakeholder relations resulted in upper management support for the project.

Achieving public acceptance has become a central issue in discussions regarding the future of nuclear power and associated nuclear activities. Effective public communication and public participation are often put forward as the key building blocks in garnering public acceptance. A recent international workshop in Finland provided insights into other features that might also be important to building and sustaining public confidence in nuclear activities. The workshop was held in Finland in close cooperation with Finnish stakeholders. This was most appropriate because of the recent successes in achieving positive decisions at the municipal, governmental, and Parliamentary levels, allowing the Finnish high-level radioactive waste repository program to proceed, including the identification and approval of a proposed candidate repository site Much of the workshop discussion appropriately focused on the roles of public participation and public communications in building public confidence. It was clear that well constructed and implemented programs of public involvement and communication and a sense of fairness were essential in building the extent of public confidence needed to allow the repository program in Finland to proceed. It was also clear that there were a number of other elements beyond public involvement that contributed substantially to the success in Finland to date. …

Spatially Resolved X-Ray Diffraction (SRXRD) was used to investigate phase transformations that occur in the heat affected zone (HAZ) of gas tungsten arc (GTA) welds in AISI 1005 carbon-manganese steel. In situ SRXRD experiments performed at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) probed the phases present in the HAZ during welding, and these real-time observations of the HAZ phases were used to construct a map of the phase transformations occurring in the HAZ. This map identified 5 principal phase regions between the liquid weld pool and the unaffected base metal. Regions of annealing, recrystallization, partial transformation and complete transformation to {alpha}-Fe, {gamma}-Fe, and {delta}-Fe phases were identified using SRXRD, and the experimental results were combined with a heat flow model of the weld and thermodynamic calculations to compare these results with the important phase transformation isotherms. From the resulting phase transformation map, the kinetics of phase transformations that occur under the highly non-isothermal heating and cooling cycles produced during welding of steels can be better understood and modeled.

Soil and ground water remediation projects require collection and interpretation of large amounts of spatial data. Two-dimensional (2D) mapping techniques are often inadequate for characterizing complex subsurface conditions at contaminated sites. To interpret data from these sites, we developed a methodology that allows integration of multiple, three-dimensional (3D) data sets for spatial analysis. This methodology was applied to the Department of Energy (DOE) Building 834 Operable Unit at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Site 300, in central California. This site is contaminated with a non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) mixture consisting of trichloroethene (TCE) and tetrakis (2-ethylbutoxy) silane (TKEBS). In the 1960s and 1970s, releases of this heat-exchange fluid to the environment resulted in TCE concentrations up to 970 mg/kg in soil and dissolved-phase concentrations approaching the solubility limit in a shallow, perched water-bearing zone. A geospatial model was developed using site hydrogeological data, and monitoring data for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and biogeochemical parameters. The model was used to characterize the distribution of contamination in different geologic media, and to track changes in subsurface contaminant mass related to treatment facility operation and natural attenuation processes. Natural attenuation occurs mainly as microbial reductive dechlorination of TCE which is dependent on the presence …

A Fresnel zone plate lens made with solar sail material could be used as the primary optic for a very large aperture telescope on deep space probes propelled by solar sails. The large aperture telescope capability could enable significant science on fly-by missions to the asteroids, Pluto, Kuiper belt or the tort cloud and could also enable meaningful interstellar fly-by missions for laser propelled sails. This type of lens may also have some potential for laser communications and as a solar concentrator. The techniques for fabrication of meter size and larger Fresnel phase plate optics are under development at LLNL, and we are extending this technology to amplitude zone plates made from sail materials. Corrector optics to greatly extend the bandwidth of these Fresnel optics will be demonstrated in the future. This novel telescope concept will require new understanding of the fabrication, deployment and control of gossamer space structures. It will also require new materials technology for fabricating these optics and understanding their long term stability in a space environment.

Data produced by large scale scientific simulations, experiments, and observations can easily reach tera-bytes in size. The ability to examine data-sets of this magnitude, even in moderate detail, is problematic at best. Generally this scientific data consists of multivariate field quantities with complex inter-variable correlations and spatial-temporal structure. To provide scientists and engineers with the ability to explore and analyze such data sets we are using a twofold approach. First, we model the data with the objective of creating a compressed yet manageable representation. Second, with that compressed representation, we provide the user with the ability to query the resulting approximation to obtain approximate yet sufficient answers; a process called adhoc querying. This paper is concerned with a wavelet modeling technique that seeks to capture the important physical characteristics of the target scientific data. Our approach is driven by the compression, which is necessary for viable throughput, along with the end user requirements from the discovery process. Our work contrasts existing research which applies wavelets to range querying, change detection, and clustering problems by working directly with a decomposition of the data. The difference in this procedures is due primarily to the nature of the data and the requirements of …

With the advent of fast computer systems, Scientists are now able to generate terabytes of simulation data. Unfortunately, the shear size of these data sets has made efficient exploration of them impossible. To aid scientists in gathering knowledge from their simulation data, we have developed an ad-hoc query infrastructure. Our system, called AQSim (short for Ad-hoc Queries for Simulation) reduces the data storage requirements and access times in two stages. First, it creates and stores mathematical and statistical models of the data. Second, it evaluates queries on the models of the data instead of on the entire data set. In this paper, we present two simple but highly effective statistical modeling techniques for simulation data. Our first modeling technique computes the true mean of systematic partitions of the data. It makes no assumptions about the distribution of the data and uses a variant of the root mean square error to evaluate a model. In our second statistical modeling technique, we use the Andersen-Darling goodness-of-fit method on systematic partitions of the data. This second method evaluates a model by how well it passes the normality test on the data. Both of our statistical models summarize the data so as to answer …

Over the past decade a new genre of laboratory astrophysics has emerged, made possible by the new high energy density (HED) experimental facilities, such as large lasers, z-pinch generators, and high current particle accelerators. (Remington, 1999; 2000; Drake, 1998; Takabe, 2001) On these facilities, macroscopic collections of matter can be created in astrophysically relevant conditions, and its collective properties measured. Examples of processes and issues that can be experimentally addressed include compressible hydrodynamic mixing, strong shock phenomena, radiative shocks, radiation flow, high Mach-number jets, complex opacities, photoionized plasmas, equations of state of highly compressed matter, and relativistic plasmas. These processes are relevant to a wide range of astrophysical phenomena, such as supernovae and supernova remnants, astrophysical jets, radiatively driven molecular clouds, accreting black holes, planetary interiors, and gamma-ray bursts. These phenomena will be discussed in the context of laboratory astrophysics experiments possible on existing and future HED facilities.

The rapid development of laser technology and related progress in research using lasers is shifting the boundaries where laser based sources are preferred over other light sources particularly in the XUV and x-ray spectral region. Laser based sources have exceptional capability for short pulse and high brightness and with improvements in high repetition rate pulsed operation, such sources are also becoming more interesting for their average power capability. This study presents an evaluation of the current capabilities and near term future potential of laser based light sources and summarizes, for the purpose of comparison, the characteristics and near term prospects of sources based on synchrotron radiation and free electron lasers. Conclusions are drawn on areas where the development of laser based sources is most promising and competitive in terms of applications potential.

Recent high temporal resolution Ni-like x-ray laser experiments have yielded important insights into the output characteristics of picosecond pumped x-ray lasers. However, current experimental observations do not fully explain the plasma dynamics which are critical to the gain generation within the x-ray laser medium. A theoretical study of the Ni-like Silver x-ray laser has therefore been undertaken to compliment our experimental results, in an attempt to further our understanding of the processes at play in yielding the observed x-ray laser output. Preliminary findings are presented within this paper.