U{sup 6+}-minerals commonly form during the alteration of uraninite and spent nuclear fuel under oxidizing conditions. By the incorporation of actinides and fissiogenic elements into their structures, U{sup 6+}-minerals may be important in retarding the migration of radionuclides released during corrosion of spent nuclear fuel. Thus, the stability and the structural transformation of the U{sup 6+}-minerals in radiation fields are of great interest.

Arc Flash Protection boundary calculations have become easier to perform with the availability of personal computer software. These programs incorporate arc flash protection boundary formulas for different voltage and current levels, calculate the bolted fault current at each bus, and use built in time-current coordination curves to determine the clearing time of protective devices in the system. Results of the arc flash protection boundary calculations can be presented in several different forms--as an annotation to the one-line diagram, as a table of arc flash protection boundary distances, and as printed placards to be attached to the appropriate equipment. Basic arc flash protection boundary principles are presented in this paper along with several helpful suggestions for performing arc flash protection boundary calculations.

This report describes basic science studies of conversion of starch to sucrose in plant leaves. The importance of maltose is described. The studies proved that hydrolysis of the starch is more important than phosphorolysis.

None

The role which resistivity plays in breaking magnetic field lines, heating the plasma, and plasma field slippage during magnetic reconnection is discussed. Magnetic fluctuations are observed in the MRX (Magnetic Reconnection Experiment) that are believed to provide resistive friction or wave resistivity. A localized linear theory has been proposed for their origin as an obliquely propagating Lower Hybrid Drift Instability. In this paper, the linear theory of the instability is summarized, and the resulting heating and slippage are calculated from quasi-linear theory. Making use of measured amplitudes of the magnetic fluctuations in the MRX the amount of these effects is estimated. Within the experimental uncertainties they are shown to be quite important for the magnetic reconnection process.

The objective of this project is to design, fabricate and field demonstrate a cost effective, multi-spectral scanner for natural gas leak detection in transmission and distribution pipelines. During the first year of the project, a laboratory version of the multi-spectral scanner was designed, fabricated, and tested at EnUrga Inc. The multi-spectral scanner was also evaluated using a blind DoE study at RMOTC. The performance of the scanner was inconsistent during the blind DoE study. However, most of the leaks were outside the view of the multi-spectral scanner. Therefore, a definite evaluation of the capability of the scanner was not obtained. Despite the results, sufficient number of plumes was detected fully confirming the feasibility of the multi-spectral scanner. During the second year, the optical design of the scanner was changed to improve the sensitivity of the system. Laboratory tests show that the system can reliably detect small leaks (20 SCFH) at 30 to 50 feet. Electronic and mechanical design of the scanner to make it a self standing sensor was completed during the last six months of the project. The prototype scanner was tested with methane leaks at 15 feet and 30 feet, at a flow rate of 25 SCFH. The …

This report presents findings of analyses of recorded current and voltage data associated with 72 electrical joints operating at high current and high mechanical stress. The analysis goal was to characterize the mechanical behavior of each joint and thus evaluate its mechanical supports. The joints are part of the toroidal field (TF) magnet system of the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) pulsed plasma device operating at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Since there is not sufficient space near the joints for much traditional mechanical instrumentation, small voltage probes were installed on each joint and their voltage monitoring waveforms have been recorded on sampling digitizers during each NSTX ''shot''.

Data-centric scientific workflows are often modeled as dataflow process networks. The simplicity of the dataflow framework facilitates workflow design, analysis, and optimization. However, some workflow tasks are particularly ''control-flow intensive'', e.g., procedures to make workflows more fault-tolerant and adaptive in an unreliable, distributed computing environment. Modeling complex control-flow directly within a dataflow framework often leads to overly complicated workflows that are hard to comprehend, reuse, schedule, and maintain. In this paper, we develop a framework that allows a structured embedding of control-flow intensive subtasks within dataflow process networks. In this way, we can seamlessly handle complex control-flows without sacrificing the benefits of dataflow. We build upon a flexible actor-oriented modeling and design approach and extend it with (actor) frames and (workflow) templates. A frame is a placeholder for an (existing or planned) collection of components with similar function and signature. A template partially specifies the behavior of a subworkflow by leaving ''holes'' (i.e., frames) in the subworkflow definition. Taken together, these abstraction mechanisms facilitate the separation and structured re-combination of control-flow and dataflow in scientific workflow applications. We illustrate our approach with a real-world scientific workflow from the astrophysics domain. This data-intensive workflow requires remote execution and file transfer in …

The favoured theoretical explanation for planetary systems formation is the core-accretion model in which solid planetesimals accumulate to build up planetary cores, which then accrete nebular gas if they are sufficiently massive. Around M-dwarf stars, the most common stars of our Galaxy, this model favours the formation of Earth- to Neptune-mass planets in a few million years with orbital sizes of 1 to 10 AU, which is consistent with the small number of detections of giant planets with M-dwarf host stars. More than 170 extrasolar planets have been discovered so far with a wide range of masses and orbital periods, but planets of Neptune's mass or less have not previously been detected at separations of more than 0.15 AU from normal stars. Here we report the discovery of a 5.5{sub -2.7}{sup +5.5} Earthmass planetary companion at a separation of 2.6{sub -0.6}{sup +1.5}AU from a 0.22{sub -0.11}{sup +0.21} M{sub e} M-dwarf star, which is the lens star for gravitational microlensing event OGLE 2005-BLG-390. This is the lowest mass ever reported for an extrasolar planet orbiting a main sequence star, although the error bars overlap those for the mass of GJ876d. Our detection suggests that such cool, sub-Neptune mass planets may be …

Nuclear Materials Management Department, a BWXT-corporate partner with Westinghouse Savannah River Company, has established a vision for positioning the organization as a Global Center of Excellence for Strategic Materials Management. NMM's Road to Excellence results from a changing business environment where flexibility and adaptability have become key demands from the Department of Energy customer. Flexibility and adaptability are integral components of the department's MC&A Center of Excellence philosophy in the pursuit of improvement technologies that meet domestic and international safeguards requirements. The customer challenge has put the organization in the forefront of change where benchmarking with other MC&A programs, applying human performance technologies and leveraging INMM leadership and participation opportunities are key ingredients to influencing improvements and changes in existing MC&A standards, policies and practices. The paper challenges MC&A professionals, MC&A program owners and organizational leaders to engage in the debate of new ideas, partnering arrangements and timely deployment of technologies (human performance and technical-based applications) to exponentially improve safeguards programs. Research and development efforts in support of safeguards improvements need to seriously consider deployment to field practitioners within a 2-3 year time frame from inception. INMM plays a crucial role in accelerating such opportunities and establishing improved performance standards …

Synopsis of project activity: 1998--Awarded cost share grant from DOE. 1st Qtr 1999--Developed fail safe lubricating system. 2nd Qtr 1999--Performed first large scale test with nitrile based bearings. It failed due to material swelling. Failure was blamed on improper tolerance. 3rd Qtr 1999--Material tests were performed with autoclaves and exposure tests to Casa Diablo fluids. Testing of Viton materials began. Alternate bearing designs were developed to limit risk of improper tolerances. 4th Qtr 1999--Site testing indicated a chemical attack on the bearing material caused the test failure and not improper bearing tolerance. 1st Qtr 2000--The assistance of Brookhaven National Laboratory was obtained in evaluating the chemical attack. The National Laboratory also began more elaborate laboratory testing on bearing materials. 2nd Qtr 2000--Testing indicated Viton was an inappropriate material due to degradation in Casa Diablo fluid. Testing of EPDM began. 3rd Qtr 2001--EPDM bearings were installed for another large scale test. Bearings failed again due to swelling. Further testing indicated that larger then expected oil concentrations existed in lubricating water geothermal fluid causing bearing failure. 2002-2003--Searched for and tested several materials that would survive in hot salt and oil solutions. Kalrez{reg_sign}, Viton{reg_sign}ETP 500 and Viton{reg_sign}GF were identified as possible candidates. 2003-2005--Kalrez{reg_sign}has …

We demonstrate that electrons emitted from a laser plasma can be used to generate diffraction patterns in reflection and transmission. The electrons are emitted in the direction of laser polarization with energies up to 100 keV. The broad electron energy spectrum makes possible the generation of a ''streaked'' diffraction pattern which allows recording fast processes in a single run.

This report gives a summary of the 2005Tour de Sol: The Sustainable Energy and Transportation Festival and Competition. It lists our objectives, what we did, and an analysis of how we met our objectives. An 80-page report with a list of verified print, radio and TV media coverage, and copies of selected news clips and web media coverage is available at the NESEA office for review.

We are currently constructing a prototype, large-area, gamma-ray detector for conducting vehicle-mounted, mobile-search operations. The system is unique in that it relies on imaging to discriminate point sources of interest from the natural background variations. In a non-imaging instrument the background fluctuations mimic the signature seen from real sources at a distance and one is limited in sensitivity to detecting only those sources that overwhelm the local background variations --not just the counting statistics associated with a given measurement. The net result is that a larger detector is generally not more sensitive to detecting sources in the world at large. [1, 2] In a previous publication [3] we reported on the detection of a 1-mCi source at more than 80 meters from the detector using a proof-of-principle instrument (see Fig. 1) constructed to demonstrate how imaging removes the size limit on search instruments. In this report we document a systematic effort using the same detector to demonstrate that imaging detectors can reliably detect weak radiation sources at many 10's of meters. Specifically, we collected data on a 1-mCi {sup 137}Cs source 65 m from the path of the search instrument.

The analysis of actinides in environmental soil and sediment samples is very important for environmental monitoring as well as for emergency preparedness. A new, rapid actinide separation method has been developed and implemented that provides total dissolution of large soil samples, high chemical recoveries and effective removal of matrix interferences. This method uses stacked TEVA Resin{reg_sign}, TRU Resin{reg_sign} and DGA-Resin{reg_sign} cartridges from Eichrom Technologies (Darien, IL, USA) that allows the rapid separation of plutonium (Pu) neptunium (Np), uranium (U), americium (Am), and curium (Cm) using a single multi-stage column combined with alpha spectrometry. The method combines a rapid fusion step for total dissolution to dissolve refractory analytes and matrix removal using cerium fluoride precipitation to remove the difficult soil matrix. By using vacuum box cartridge technology with rapid flow rates, sample preparation time is minimized.