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The space radiation environment poses risks to astronaut health from a diverse set of sources, ranging from low-energy protons and electrons to highly-charged, high-energy atomic nuclei and their associated fragmentation products, including neutrons. The low-energy protons and electrons are the source of most of the radiation dose to Shuttle and ISS crews, while the more energetic particles that comprise the Galactic Cosmic Radiation (protons, He, and heavier nuclei up to Fe) will be the dominant source for crews on long-duration missions outside the earth's magnetic field. Because of this diversity of sources, a broad ground-based experimental effort is required to validate the transport and shielding calculations used to predict doses and dose-equivalents under various mission scenarios. The experimental program of the LBNL group, described here, focuses principally on measurements of charged particle and neutron production in high-energy heavy-ion fragmentation. Other aspects of the program include measurements of the shielding provided by candidate spacesuit materials against low-energy protons (particularly relevant to extra-vehicular activities in low-earth orbit), and the depth-dose relations in tissue for higher-energy protons. The heavy-ion experiments are performed at the Brookhaven National Laboratory's Alternating Gradient Synchrotron and the Heavy-Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba in Japan. Proton experiments are performed …

In this paper we discuss methods to obtain high dopant concentrations during processing of Si devices. The possibility of increasing the solubility of B in Si by misfit stress is investigated. The enthalpy of B atoms is calculated, with and without stress, using density functional theory. A second approach, the trapping of excess dopant atoms during deposition of Si, is also considered. For this purpose, the enthalpies of several dopant species in sites near the surface are calculated.

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Alvin, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Monthly newsletter discussing news and activities related to the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program, articles about weather and atmospheric phenomena, and other related topics.

The objectives that our development work addressed are: (1) Establish through lab tests a salt eutectic with a melting point of about 250 F and a working range of 250 to 1800 F. (2) Establish the most economical material of construction for the screened salt eutectics identified in the first objective. (3) Establish the material of construction for the salt heater liner. Objectives 2 and 3 were determined through corrosion tests using selected metallurgical samples. Successful completion of the above-stated goals will be incorporated in a heat recovery design that can be used in high temperature processes and furnaces, typical of which is the glass melting process. The process design incorporates the following unit operations: a vertical batch heater (whereby the batch flows down through tubes in a shell and tube exchanger; a molten salt eutectic is circulated on the shell side); a molten salt heater utilizing furnace flue gas in a radiation type heater (molten salt is circulated in the annular space between the inner and outer shells of the vertical heater, and flue gas passes from the furnace exhaust through the inner shell of the heater); a cantilever type molten salt circulating pump; and a jacketed mixer/conveyor to …

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

Inclined substrate deposition (ISD) has the potential for rapid production of high-quality biaxially textured buffer layers, which are important for YBCO-coated conductor applications. We have grown biaxially textured MgO films by ISD at deposition rates of 20-100 {angstrom}/sec. Columnar grains with a roof-tile surface structure were observed in the ISD-MgO films. X-ray pole figure analysis revealed that the (002) planes of the ISD-MgO films are tilted at an angle from the substrate normal. A small {phi}-scan full-width at half maximum (FWHM) of {approx}9{sup o} was observed on MgO films deposited at an inclination angle of 55{sup o}. In-plane texture in the ISD MgO films developed in the first 0.5 {micro}m from the interface, then stabilized with further increases in film thickness. YBCO films deposited by pulsed laser deposition on ISD-MgO buffered Hastelloy C276 substrates were biaxially aligned with the c-axis parallel to the substrate normal. T{sub c} of 91 K with a sharp transition and transport J{sub c} of 5.5 x 10{sup 5} A/cm{sup 2} at 77 K in self-field were measured on a YBCO film that was 0.46-{micro}m thick, 4-mm wide, 10-mm long.

Brochure about Service-Learning programs provided by the College of Public Affairs and Community Service at the University of North Texas.

Report by Helen Cannon in which she writes and then answers several questions written to her about the by-laws of the Women Airforce Service Pilots organization.

This paper shows how a computer can systematically remove non-essential chemical reactions from a large chemical kinetic mechanism. The computer removes the reactions based upon a single solution using a detailed mechanism. The resulting reduced chemical mechanism produces similar numerical predictions significantly faster than predictions that use the detailed mechanism. Specifically, a reduced chemical kinetics mechanism for iso-octane has been derived from a detailed mechanism by eliminating unimportant reaction steps and species. The reduced mechanism has been developed for the specific purpose of fast and accurate prediction of ignition timing in an HCCI engine. The reduced mechanism contains 199 species and 383 reactions, while the detailed mechanism contains 859 species and 3606 reactions. Both mechanisms have been used in numerical simulation of HCCI combustion. The simulations show that the reduced mechanism predicts pressure traces and heat release with good accuracy, similar to the accuracy obtained with the detailed mechanism. As may be expected, emissions of hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide are not as well predicted with the reduced mechanism as with the detailed mechanism, since the reduced mechanism was targeted for predicting HCCI ignition and not HC and CO emissions. Considering that the reduced mechanism requires about 25 times less computational …

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Daily newspaper from Perry, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Preparations are underway to demonstrate the electrolytic reduction of spent oxide nuclear fuel in the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF) and Argonne National Laboratory--West (ANL-W). The electrolytic reduction process, developed by the Laboratory's Chemical Technology Division, operates in an electrochemical cell that uses a molten solution of lithium chloride and dissolved lithium oxide as the electrolyte. The spent oxide fuel is loaded into a permeable steel basket as the cathode in the electrochemical cell and a platinum electrode functions as the anode. When an electrical potential is applied, the uranium oxide and other metal oxides are reduced to metal and remain in the cathode basket. Oxygen gas is formed at the platinum anode and dissipates into the system's argon atmosphere. Once reduced to metal, the spent fuel is capable of further electrometallurgical treatment in an electrorefiner to recover uranium and to ultimately effect the disposition of fission products into ceramic and metal waste forms. Thus, the electrolytic reduction process expands the electrometallurgical treatment capability to include spent oxide fuel. This report describes the bench-scale test preparations that are underway to demonstrate the electrolytic reduction of spent oxide fuel.

Technology transfer in the environmental restoration, or cleanup, area has been challenging. While there is little doubt that innovative technologies are needed to reduce the times, risks, and costs associated with the cleanup of federal sites, particularly those of the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Defense, the use of such technologies in actual cleanups has been relatively limited. There are, of course, many reasons why technologies do not reach the implementation phase or do not get transferred from developing entities to the user community. For example, many past cleanup contracts provided few incentives for performance that would compel a contractor to seek improvement via technology applications. While performance-based contracts are becoming more common, they alone will not drive increased technology applications. This paper focuses on some applications of cleanup methodologies and technologies that have been successful and are illustrative of a more general principle. The principle is at once obvious and not widely practiced. It is that, with few exceptions, innovative cleanup technologies are rarely implemented successfully alone but rather are implemented in the context of enabling processes and methodologies. And, since cleanup is conducted in a regulatory environment, the stage is better set for technology transfer when the context …

Daily newspaper from Chickasha, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Inhibition studies of amino acids in Nicotiana silvestris suspension cells gave clues to the difficulties for obtaining mutants deficient in post prephenate pathway proteins of aromatic amino acid biosynthesis (prephenate aminotransferase, arogenate dehydrogenase and arogenate dehydratase). Such mutants, if successfully obtained, would allow gene-enzyme relationships of aromatic amino acid proteins to be studied. We found that amino acids were inhibitory toward plant cell growth, and thus were unable to rescue analog resistant mutants. Toxicity of all amino acids toward exponentially dividing Nicotiana silvestris suspension cultured cells was monitored by following growth rates. Except for L-glutamine, all 19 protein amino acids inhibited cell growth. Inhibition of growth progressed to cell deterioration. Electron microscopy showed that amino acids triggered a state of cell shrinkage that eventually degenerated to total cellular disorganization. L-glutamine was not only an effective agent for prevention of amino acid toxicity, but enhanced the final growth yield. L-glutamine also was able to completely reverse inhibition effects in cells that had been in the slowed exponential phase. Two types of inhibition occurred and we have proposed that any amino acid inhibition that can be completely antagonized by L-glutamine be called ''general amino acid inhibition''. ''Specific amino acid inhibition'' resulting from …

This report provides information about the Generalized System of Preferences which provides duty-free treatment for products that are imported from some designated countries. The main purpose is to promote economic growth.

This report provides information about the Generalized System of Preferences which provides duty free treatment for products that are imported from some designated countries. The main purpose is to promote economic growth.

On March 18-21, 2002, the Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, Science, and Technology (NE) and the Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES) sponsored a workshop to identify needs and opportunities for materials research aimed at performance improvements of structural materials in higher temperature reactors. The workshop focused discussion around the reactor concepts proposed as part of the Generation IV Nuclear Energy System Roadmap. The goal of the Generation IV initiative is to make revolutionary improvements in nuclear energy system design in the areas of sustainability, economics, safety and reliability. The Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems Roadmap working groups have identified operation at higher temperature as an important step in improving economic performance and providing a means for nuclear energy to support thermochemical production of hydrogen. However, the move to higher operating temperatures will require the development and qualification of advanced materials to perform in the more challenging environment. As part of the process of developing advanced materials for these reactor concepts, a fundamental understanding of materials behavior must be established and the data-base defining critical performance limitations of these materials under irradiation must be developed. This workshop reviewed potential reactor designs and operating regimes, potential materials for application …

An electrostatic probe used to measure spatial plasma parameters in a Hall thruster generates perturbations of the plasma. These perturbations are examined by varying the probe material, penetration distance, residence time, and the nominal thruster conditions. The study leads us to recommendations for probe design and thruster operating conditions to reduce discharge perturbations, including metal shielding of the probe insulator and operation of the thruster at lower densities.

High power carbon dioxide lasers have successfully been used in drilling or cutting engineering materials such as metals, polymers and ceramics over the years. Can a carbon dioxide laser be used to efficiently drill different rocks in a deep gas well? Research sponsored by US Department of Energy has been carried out to answer this question. This paper will report the study results of using a super-pulsed CO{sub 2} laser beam to drill rocks. A 6 kW CO{sub 2} laser operated at superpulse mode was used to carry out the tests. Both linear tracks and deep holes were produced on the rocks. The energy required to remove a unit volume of rock, specific energy, was determined. Test results show that superpulsed CO{sub 2} laser beam can be efficiently used to drill deep, large diameter holes in petroleum rocks with the assistance of purging gas.

Letter from Tanya Palmer and Amy Wegener, staff members of the Actors Theatre of Louisville, to Sterling Houston, prominent San Antonio playwright. They write to inform him that he has been selected as a finalist for a Heideman Award, and that they will consider all finalists for production in an upcoming festival.