The Savannah River Site uses sophisticated glovebox facilities to process and analyze material that is radiologically contaminated or that must be protected from contamination by atmospheric gases. The analysis can be visual, non destructive measurement, or destructive measurement, and allows for the gathering of information that would otherwise not be obtainable. Macro and Micro systems that cover a range of 2X to 400X magnifications with a robust system compatible with the harsh glovebox environment were installed. Remote video inspection systems were developed and deployed in Savannah River Site glovebox facilities that provide high quality or mega-pixel quality remote views, for remote inspections. The specialized video systems that are the subject of this report exhibited specialized field application of remote video/viewing techniques by expanding remote viewing to high and very high quality viewing in gloveboxes. This technological enhancement will allow the gathering of precision information that is otherwise not available.

This paper discusses the successful remote visual inspection of a contaminated air exhaust tunnel running beneath the Savannah River Site's H-Canyon nuclear material separations facility. The air exhaust tunnel has been in operation since the 1950's, and the portion of the tunnel inspected has not been seen or accessed since startup. Numerous challenges were overcome in the deployment of the vehicle, including an initial 10-ft drop, travelling a long distance through harsh environmental conditions, surviving and recovering from a second vertical drop, turning 90 degrees, and subsequently travelling further. Video of the entire inspection was transmitted back to a control station, and the vehicle was abandoned in place for possible future use.

This document describes the 2003 SNL ASCI Software Quality Engineering (SQE) assessment of twenty ASCI application code teams and the results of that assessment. The purpose of this assessment was to determine code team compliance with the Sandia National Laboratories ASCI Applications Software Quality Engineering Practices, Version 2.0 as part of an overall program assessment.

The Internet and the World Wide Web have enabled a publishing explosion of useful online information, which has produced the unfortunate side effect of information overload: it is increasingly difficult for individuals to keep abreast of fresh information. In this paper we describe an approach for building a system for efficiently monitoring changes to Web documents. This paper has three main contributions. First, we present a coherent framework that captures different characteristics of Web documents. The system uses the Page Digest encoding to provide a comprehensive monitoring system for content, structure, and other interesting properties of Web documents. Second, the Page Digest encoding enables improved performance for individual page monitors through mechanisms such as short-circuit evaluation, linear time algorithms for document and structure similarity, and data size reduction. Finally, we develop a collection of sentinel grouping techniques based on the Page Digest encoding to reduce redundant processing in large-scale monitoring systems by grouping similar monitoring requests together. We examine how effective these techniques are over a wide range of parameters and have seen an order of magnitude speed up over existing Web-based information monitoring systems.

Significant effort is being devoted to the development of noninvasive imaging systems that allow in vivo assessment of biological and biomolecular interactions in mice and other small animals. Although single-photon emission tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) are well-matched to the study of physiological function in small animals, the spatial resolutions of 1-2 mm currently achievable with these techniques limits the types of research possible. For this reason, we are developing a small animal radionuclide imaging system using grazing incidence optics to focus the low-energy gamma-rays emitted by {sup 125}I, {sup 95m}Tc, {sup 96}Tc, and {sup 99m}Tc. We compare this approach to the more traditional use of absorptive collimation.

Seismic ground motions are amplified in low velocity sedimentary basins relative to adjacent sites on high velocity hard rock. We used historical recordings of NTS nuclear explosions and earthquake recordings in Las Vegas Valley to quantify frequency-dependent basin amplification using Standard Spectral Ratios. We show that amplifications, referred to as site response, can reach a factor of 10 in the frequency band 0.4-2.0 Hz. Band-averaged site response between 0.4-2.0 Hz is strongly correlated with basin depth. However, it is also well known that site response is related to shallow shear-wave velocity structure. We simulated low frequency (f<1Hz) ground motion and site response with two-dimensional elastic finite difference simulations. We demonstrate that physically plausible models of the shallow subsurface, including low velocity sedimentary structure, can predict relative amplification as well as some of the complexity in the observed waveforms. This study demonstrates that site response can be modeled without invoking complex and computationally expensive three-dimensional structural models.

This document is the collaborative effort of the members of an ad hoc subcommittee of the Underground Test Area Project Technical Working Group. This subcommittee was to answer questions and concerns raised by the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection to the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office, regarding Pahute Mesa Corrective Action Units (CAUs) 101 and 102. The document attempts to synthesize the combined comments made by each member of this subcommittee into insights made in the role of dispersion in radionuclide transport data and modeling. Dispersion is one of many processes that control the concentration of radionuclides in groundwater beneath the Nevada Test Site where CAUs 101 and 102 are located. In order to understand the role of dispersion in radionuclide transport, there is a critical need for CAU- or site-specific data related to transport parameters which is currently lacking, particularly in the case of Western a nd Central Pahute Mesa. The purpose of this technical basis document is to: (1) define dispersion and its role in contaminant transport, (2) present a synopsis of field-scale dispersion measurements, (3) provide a literature review of theories to explain field-scale dispersion, (4) suggest approaches to account for …

The University of Alabama, in cooperation with Texas A&M University, McGill University, Longleaf Energy Group, Strago Petroleum Corporation, and Paramount Petroleum Company, has undertaken an integrated, interdisciplinary geoscientific and engineering research project. The project is designed to characterize and model reservoir architecture, pore systems and rock-fluid interactions at the pore to field scale in Upper Jurassic Smackover reef and carbonate shoal reservoirs associated with varying degrees of relief on pre-Mesozoic basement paleohighs in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. The project effort includes the prediction of fluid flow in carbonate reservoirs through reservoir simulation modeling which utilizes geologic reservoir characterization and modeling and the prediction of carbonate reservoir architecture, heterogeneity and quality through seismic imaging. The primary goal of the project is to increase the profitability, producibility and efficiency of recovery of oil from existing and undiscovered Upper Jurassic fields characterized by reef and carbonate shoals associated with pre-Mesozoic basement paleohighs. Geoscientific reservoir property, geophysical seismic attribute, petrophysical property, and engineering property characterization has shown that reef (thrombolite) and shoal reservoir lithofacies developed on the flanks of high-relief crystalline basement paleohighs (Vocation Field example) and on the crest and flanks of low-relief crystalline basement paleohighs (Appleton Field example). The reef thrombolite …

The chemical investigation of the transactinide elements (TAN, Z {ge}104) is a topic of great interest in recent nuclear chemistry research. The highly charged nucleus accelerates the innermost electrons to relativistic velocities thus causing contraction of spherical (s, p{sub 1/2}) orbitals and expansion of the others (p{sub 3/2}, d, and f), which directly affects the chemical behavior of these elements. Deviations from trends established in the periodic table may therefore occur due to these so-called relativistic effects [1,2]. In gas phase experiments, mostly volatile inorganic compounds (e.g., halides or oxides) of TAN were investigated. We refer to [3] for a recent review. For reasons such as low production cross-sections or short half-lives, but also technical challenges, more sophisticated chemical studies have not yet been possible. One restriction in present TAN research is the plasma behind the target caused by the intense heavy ion beam. ''Weak'' molecules (e.g., organic ligands) are immediately destroyed, thus limiting the possibilities of synthesizing chemical compounds directly behind the target to ''simple'' and robust inorganic compounds. It is highly desirable to expand the knowledge on the chemical behavior of the TAN to other compound classes, e.g., volatile metal complexes. The use of the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator …