This article discusses low-coordinate iron dinitrogen complexes. Understanding the interaction of N₂ with iron is relevant to the iron catalyst used in the Haber process and to possible roles of the FeMoco active site of nitrogenase.

This article discusses many-body effects in the 4f x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of the U5+ and U4+ free ions.

The Westinghouse Savannah River Company, a contractor to the Department of Energy, has compared Revisions 1 and 2 of NUREG-0700-Human System Interface Design Review Guideline, from the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Nuclear Regulatory Guide. The comparison has been made with respect to which guidelines remained the same, the guidelines that were reformatted or reworded, additional guidelines, and deleted guidelines. This comparison was made in preparation of revising the previously developed Human Factors Engineering Analysis Tool for automating the review, analysis, and evaluation of human system interface designs. This tool has been described at previous conferences on human factors and the merits and benefits of the tool described. The tool has been successfully applied to over eight facilities at WSRC. This paper describes the methodology and results of the comparison and the plans to enhance the already successful automation tool. The number of criteria in NUREG-0700 increased from approximately 1650 in Revision 1 to almost 2200 in Revision 2. Approximately 1600 criteria remained the same, though they were significantly reorganized; while about 100 were reworded or reformatted to clarify or expand the guidance provided. Around 600 guidelines were added and approximately 70 deleted. The majority of the changes and additions …

The surface structures of cubo-octahedral Pt-Mo nanoparticles have been investigated using the Monte Carlo method and modified embedded atom method potentials that we developed for Pt-Mo alloys. The cubo-octahedral Pt-Mo nanoparticles are constructed with disordered fcc configurations, with sizes from 2.5 to 5.0 nm, and with Pt concentrations from 60 to 90 at. percent. The equilibrium Pt-Mo nanoparticle configurations were generated through Monte Carlo simulations allowing both atomic displacements and element exchanges at 600 K. We predict that the Pt atoms weakly segregate to the surfaces of such nanoparticles. The Pt concentrations in the surface are calculated to be 5 to 14 at. percent higher than the Pt concentrations of the nanoparticles. Moreover, the Pt atoms preferentially segregate to the facet sites of the surface, while the Pt and Mo atoms tend to alternate along the edges and vertices of these nanoparticles. We found that decreasing the size or increasing the Pt concentration leads to higher Pt concentrations but fewer Pt-Mo pairs in the Pt-Mo nanoparticle surfaces.

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A room temperature technique was developed to produce continuous metal nanowires embedded in random nanoporous ceramic skeletons. The synthesis involves preparation of uniform, nanoporous ceramic preforms, and subsequent electrochemical metal infiltration at room temperature, so to avoid materials incompatibilities frequently encountered in traditional high temperature liquid metal infiltration. Structure and preliminary evaluations of mechanical and electronic properties of copper/alumina nanocomposites are reported.

We propose to develop a high-energy heavy-ion experimental database and make it accessible to the scientific community through an on-line interface. This database will be searchable and cross-indexed with relevant publications, including published detector descriptions. Since this database will be a community resource, it requires the high-energy nuclear physics community's financial and manpower support. This database should eventually contain all published data from Bevalac and AGS to RHIC to CERN-LHC energies, proton-proton to nucleus-nucleus collisions as well as other relevant systems, and all measured observables. Such a database would have tremendous scientific payoff as it makes systematic studies easier and allows simpler benchmarking of theoretical models to a broad range of old and new experiments. Furthermore, there is a growing need for compilations of high-energy nuclear data for applications including stockpile stewardship, technology development for inertial confinement fusion and target and source development for upcoming facilities such as the Next Linear Collider. To enhance the utility of this database, we propose periodically performing evaluations of the data and summarizing the results in topical reviews.

Water transport through soft contact lenses (SCL) is important for acceptable performance on the human eye. Chemical-potential gradient-driven diffusion rates of water through soft-contact-lens materials are measured with an evaporation-cell technique. Water is evaporated from the bottom surface of a lens membrane by impinging air at controlled flow rate and humidity. The resulting weight loss of a water reservoir covering the top surface of the contact-lens material is recorded as a function of time. New results are reported for a conventional hydrogel material (SofLens{trademark} One Day, hilafilcon A, water content at saturation W{sub 10} = 70 weight %) and a silicone hydrogel material (PureVision{trademark}, balafilcon A, W{sub 10} = 36 %), with and without surface oxygen plasma treatment. Also, previously reported data for a conventional HEMA-SCL (W{sub 10} = 38 %) hydrogel are reexamined and compared with those for SofLens{trademark} One Day and PureVision{trademark} hydrogels. Measured steady-state water fluxes are largest for SofLens{trademark} One Day, followed by PureVision{trademark} and HEMA. In some cases, the measured steady-state water fluxes increase with rising relative air humidity. This increase, due to an apparent mass-transfer resistance at the surface (trapping skinning), is associated with formation of a glassy skin at the air/membrane interface when …

Recent years have seen the flowering of ''experimental'' mathematics, namely the utilization of modern computer technology as an active tool in mathematical research. This development is not limited to a handful of researchers, nor to a handful of universities, nor is it limited to one particular field of mathematics. Instead, it involves hundreds of individuals, at many different institutions, who have turned to the remarkable new computational tools now available to assist in their research, whether it be in number theory, algebra, analysis, geometry or even topology. These tools are being used to work out specific examples, generate plots, perform various algebraic and calculus manipulations, test conjectures, and explore routes to formal proof. Using computer tools to test conjectures is by itself a major time saver for mathematicians, as it permits them to quickly rule out false notions.

Monitored Natural Attenuation (MNA) is a necessary part of the remedial action at most chlorinated solvent sites. As a result, site owners, stakeholders, and regulators are identifying and responding to MNAs technical challenges. For example, many contaminated plumes are not in anaerobic settings, making it unlikely the predominant mechanism embodied in existing protocols and guidance documents, reductive dechlorination, will be viable. This is the case for many of the chlorinated solvent sites at Department of Energy (DOE) facilities. The DOE is conducting a project to explore the possibility of other mechanisms contributing to the attenuation of chlorination solvents in the environment. The project is exploring three key areas: mass balance as a way to evaluate the significance of the different processes occurring at a site, sustainable enhancements as a way to increase the attenuation capacity of a site so that it is sustained allowing remediation goals to be met, and characterization and performance monitoring methods that will support the first two areas in a manner that will support transition to legacy management.

The mechanical stability of platinum nitride has been studied using first-principles calculations. By calculating the single-crystal elastic constants, we show that platinum nitride can be stabilized in the fluorite structure, in which the nitrogen atoms occupy all the tetrahedral interstitial sites of the metal lattice. The stability is attributed to the pseudogap effect from analysis of the electronic structure.

A one-day workshop sponsored by UC Irvine's Center for Urban Infrastructure, bringing together 20 state departments of transportation and environmental quality to discuss national coordination on alternative fuels.

The effect of solution annealing temperature on the observed corrosion attack mode in Alloy 22 welds was assessed. Three types of specimens were examined, including the as-welded state, solution annealed for 20 minutes at 1121 C, and solution annealed for 20 minutes at 1200 C. The microstructures of the specimens were first mapped using electron backscatter diffraction to determine the grain structure evolution due to solution annealing. The specimens were then subjected to electrochemical testing in a 6 molal NaCl + 0.9 molal KNO{sub 3} environment to initiate crevice corrosion. Examination of the specimen surfaces after corrosion testing showed that in the as-welded specimen, corrosion was present in both the weld dendrites as well as around the secondary phases. However, the specimen solution annealed at 1121 C showed corrosion only at secondary phases and the specimen annealed at 1200 C showed pitting corrosion only in a handful of grains.

Here we report the successful use of rolling circle amplification (RCA) for the amplification of complete metazoan mt genomes to make a product that is amenable to high-throughput genome sequencing techniques. The benefits of RCA over PCR are many and with further development and refinement of RCA, the sequencing of organellar genomics will require far less time and effort than current long PCR approaches.

A speculative propulsion concept is presented, based on accelerating a spacecraft by impact of a stream of matter in relative motion with respect to the spacecraft. To accelerate the stream to the needed velocity the stream mass is contained in a transit vehicle, launched at low velocity and hence low energy cost, and then sent on a trajectory with near encounters of the planets for gravitational assist. The mass arrives at Earth or wherever the propellant is needed at much higher velocity and kinetic energy, where it is released into an extended stream suitable for propulsion. The stream, moving at a relative velocity in the range of 10 to 30km/s, should be capable of both high thrust and high specific impulse. Means of limiting the transverse expansion of the stream during release and for the {approx}1000 seconds duration of impact are a critical requirement for practicality of the concept. The scheme could potentially lead to a virtually unlimited energy source. One can imagine using a portion of one stream to launch another, larger payload on a similar trajectory. This creates, in effect, an energy amplifier extracting energy from the orbital motions of the planets. The gain of the energy amplifier …

We use on-shell recursion relations to determine the one-loop QCD scattering amplitudes with a massless external quark pair and an arbitrary number (n - 2) of positive-helicity gluons. These amplitudes are the last of the unknown infrared- and ultraviolet-finite loop amplitudes of QCD. The recursion relations are similar to ones applied at tree level, but contain new non-trivial features corresponding to poles present for complex momentum arguments but absent for real momenta. We present the relations and the compact solutions to them, valid for all n. We also present compact forms for the previously-computed one-loop n-gluon amplitudes with a single negative helicity and the rest positive helicity.

Tenascin-X is an extracellular matrix protein initially identified because of its overlap with the human CYP21B gene. Because studies of gene and protein function of other tenascins had been poorly predictive of essential functions in vivo, we used a genetic approach that critically relied on an understanding of the genomic locus to uncover an association between inactivating tenascin-X mutations and novel recessive and dominant forms of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Tenascin-X provides the first example of a gene outside of the fibrillar collagens and their processing enzymes that causes Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Tenascin-X null mice recapitulate the skin findings of the human disease, confirming a causative role for this gene in Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Further evaluation of these mice showed that tenascin-X is an important regulator of collagen deposition in vivo, suggesting a novel mechanism of disease in this form of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Further studies suggest that tenascin-X may do this through both direct and indirect interactions with the collagen fibril. Recent studies show that TNX effects on matrix extend beyond the collagen to the elastogenic pathway and matrix remodeling enzymes. Tenascin-X serves as a compelling example of how human experiments of nature can guide us to an understanding of genes whose function may …

A parameter study was performed to examine the (shock) damage obtained with long-rod and spherical mono-material penetrators impacting two varieties of limestone. In all cases, the impacts were assumed to be normal to the plane of the rock and at zero angle of attack (in the case of the rods). Impact velocities ranged to 15 km/s but most calculations were performed at 4 and 6 km/s and the penetrator mass was fixed at 1000 kg. For unlined underground structures, incipient damage was defined to occur when the peak stress, {sigma}{sub pk}, exceeds 1 kb (100 MPa) and the applied impulse per unit area, I{sub pk}, exceeds 1 ktap (1 kb-{micro}s). Severe damage was assumed to occur when {sigma}{sub pk} exceeds 1 kb and I{sub pk} exceeds 1000 ktaps. Using the latter definition it was found that severe damage in hard, non-porous limestone with spherical impactors extended to a depth of 9 m on-axis for an impact velocity of 4 km/s and 12 m at 6 km/s. Cylinders with length-to-diameter (L/D) ratio of 8.75 achieved depth to severe damage of 23 m and 40 m, respectively under the same conditions. For a limestone medium with 2% initial gas porosity, the latter …

A study of several 3- and 4-body hadronic final states ({pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup 0}, {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}, K{sup +}K{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -} and K{sup +}K{sup -}K{sup +}K{sup -}) accompanied by hard photon is presented. These states are produced from e{sup +}e{sup -} collisions at the c.m. energy near {Upsilon}(4S) resonance using 90 fb{sup -1} data sample collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II collider. The invariant mass of the hadronic final state determines the virtual photon energy, so that data can be compared with direct e{sup +}e{sup -} cross sections. The cross sections for the above final states have been obtained from the threshold to 4.5 GeV with about 5% systematic errors. The accuracy of the results are comparable with the best direct e{sup +}e{sup -} results overall and with much better precision in 1.4-2.5 GeV region where very few data are available. In addition to light meson spectroscopy these data can be used to improve the determination of R--the ratio of e{sup +}e{sup -} {yields} hadrons cross section to e{sup +}e{sup -} {yields} {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -}--and thereby to impact the understanding of recent (g - 2){sub {mu}} measurement. The ISR technique also gives access to J/{psi} …

We present a computational study on the penetration of steel projectiles into porous geologic materials. The purpose of the study is to extend the range of applicability of a recently developed constitutive model to simulations involving projectile penetration into geologic media. The constitutive model is non-linear, thermodynamically consistent, and properly invariant under superposed rigid body motions. The equations are valid for large deformations and they are hyperelastic in the sense that the stress tensor is related to a derivative of the Helmholtz free energy. The model uses the mathematical structure of plasticity theory to capture the basic features of the mechanical response of geological materials including the effects of bulking, yielding, damage, porous compaction and loading rate on the material response. The new constitutive model has been successfully used to simulate static laboratory tests under a wide range of triaxial loading conditions, and dynamic spherical wave propagation tests in both dry and saturated geologic media.

For experimental campaigns on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to be successful, they must obtain useful data without causing unacceptable impact on the facility. Of particular concern is excessive damage to optics and diagnostic components. There are 192 fused silica main debris shields (MDS) exposed to the potentially hostile target chamber environment on each shot. Damage in these optics results either from the interaction of laser light with contamination and pre-existing imperfections on the optic surface or from the impact of shrapnel fragments. Mitigation of this second damage source is possible by identifying shrapnel sources and shielding optics from them. It was recently demonstrated that the addition of 1.1-mm thick borosilicate disposable debris shields (DDS) block the majority of debris and shrapnel fragments from reaching the relatively expensive MDS's. However, DDS's cannot stop large, faster moving fragments. We have experimentally demonstrated one shrapnel mitigation technique showing that it is possible to direct fast moving fragments by changing the source orientation, in this case a Ta pinhole array. Another mitigation method is to change the source material to one that produces smaller fragments. Simulations and validating experiments are necessary to determine which fragments can penetrate or break 1-3 mm thick DDS's. …

To successfully tune the DARHT II transport beamline requires the close coupling of a model of the beam transport and the measurement of the beam observables as the beam conditions and magnet settings are varied. For the ETA II experiment using the DARHT II beamline components this was achieved using the SUICIDE (Simple User Interface Connecting to an Integrated Data Environment) data analysis environment and the FITS (Fully Integrated Transport Simulation) model. The SUICIDE environment has direct access to the experimental beam transport data at acquisition and the FITS predictions of the transport for immediate comparison. The FITS model is coupled into the control system where it can read magnet current settings for real time modeling. We find this integrated coupling is essential for model verification and the successful development of a tuning aid for the efficient convergence on a useable tune. We show the real time comparisons of simulation and experiment and explore the successes and limitations of this close coupled approach.

DER-CAM Developed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), is an optimization tool for DER technology selection. However it can not be simply applied to the Japanese case because of the different climate and the utility tariff. This research aims to develop an optimization tool for distributed energy for Japanese buildings using GAMS, a high-level modeling system for mathematical programming and optimization. This paper describes how we apply and demonstrate the tool to the energy center at Kitakyushu Research city, where has installed a fuel cell and a gas engine. An analysis has also been conducted to see how the utility tarriff and the equipment efficiency can affect the operation of the DER system.

A method is presented for using the statistical design of experiment (2{sup k} Factorial Design) technique in the sensitivity analysis of the thermal response (temperature) of the 9975 radioactive material packaging where multiple thermal properties of the impact absorbing and fire insulating material Celotex and certain boundary conditions are subject to uncertainty. 2{sup k} Factorial Design method is very efficient in the use of available data and is capable of analyzing the impact of main variables (Factors) and their interactions on the component design. The 9975 design is based on detailed finite element (FE) analyses and extensive proof testing to meet the design requirements given in 10CFR71 [1]. However, the FE analyses use Celotex thermal properties that are based on published data and limited experiments. Celotex is an orthotropic material that is used in the home building industry. Its thermal properties are prone to variation due to manufacturing and fabrication processes, and due to long environmental exposure. This paper will evaluate the sensitivity of variations in thermal conductivity of the Celotex, convection coefficient at the drum surface, and drum emissivity (herein called Factors) on the thermal response of 9975 packaging under Normal Conditions of Transport (NCT). Application of this methodology …