The financial collapse of 2007 provides an opportunity for a cross-discipline comparison of risk assessments. Flaws in financial risk assessments bear part of the blame for the financial collapse. There may be a potential for similar flaws to be made in radiological risk assessments. Risk assessments in finance and health physics are discussed in the context of a broader view of the risk management environment. Flawed risk assessments can adversely influence public acceptance of radiological technologies, so the importance of quality is magnified.

The polarized beam for RHIC is produced in the optically-pumped polarized H{sup -} ion source and then accelerated in Linac to 200 MeV for strip-injection to Booster and further accelerated 24.3 GeV in AGS for injection in RHIC. In 2009 Run polarized protons was successfully accelerated to 250 GeV beam energy. The beam polarization of about 60% at 100 GeV beam energy and 36-42% at 250 GeV beam energy was measured with the H-jet and p-Carbon CNI polarimeters. The gluon contribution to the proton spin was studied in collisions of longitudinally polarized proton beams at 100 x 100 GeV. At 250 x 250 GeV an intermediate boson W production with the longitudinally polarized beams was studied for the first time.

Methylation of CpG islands within the DNA promoter regions is one mechanism that leads to aberrant gene expression in cancer. In particular, the abnormal methylation of CpG islands may silence associated genes. Therefore, using high-throughput microarrays to measure CpG island methylation will lead to better understanding of tumor pathobiology and progression, while revealing potentially new biomarkers. We have examined a recently developed high-throughput technology for measuring genome-wide methylation patterns called mTACL. Here, we propose a computational pipeline for integrating gene expression and CpG island methylation profles to identify epigenetically regulated genes for a panel of 45 breast cancer cell lines, which is widely used in the Integrative Cancer Biology Program (ICBP). The pipeline (i) reduces the dimensionality of the methylation data, (ii) associates the reduced methylation data with gene expression data, and (iii) ranks methylation-expression associations according to their epigenetic regulation. Dimensionality reduction is performed in two steps: (i) methylation sites are grouped across the genome to identify regions of interest, and (ii) methylation profles are clustered within each region. Associations between the clustered methylation and the gene expression data sets generate candidate matches within a fxed neighborhood around each gene. Finally, the methylation-expression associations are ranked through a logistic …

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This laboratory-scale investigation is focused on decreasing mobility of uranium in subsurface contaminated sediments in the vadose zone by in situ geochemical manipulation at low water content. This geochemical manipulation of the sediment surface phases included reduction, pH change (acidic and alkaline), and additions of chemicals (phosphate, ferric iron) to form specific precipitates. Reactants were advected into 1-D columns packed with Hanford 200 area U-contaminated sediment as a reactive gas (for CO2, NH3, H2S, SO2), with a 0.1% water content mist (for NaOH, Fe(III), HCl, PO4) and with a 1% water content foam (for PO4). Uranium is present in the sediment in multiple phases that include (in decreasing mobility): aqueous U(VI) complexes, adsorbed U, reduced U(IV) precipitates, rind-carbonates, total carbonates, oxides, silicates, phosphates, and in vanadate minerals. Geochemical changes were evaluated in the ability to change the mixture of surface U phases to less mobile forms, as defined by a series of liquid extractions that dissolve progressively less soluble phases. Although liquid extractions provide some useful information as to the generalized uranium surface phases (and are considered operational definitions of extracted phases), positive identification (by x-ray diffraction, electron microprobe, other techniques) was also used to positively identify U phases and …

This report details the chemical and radionuclide contaminant results for the characterization of the 2010 Second Quarter sampling of Tank 50 for the Saltstone Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC).1 Information from this characterization will be used by Liquid Waste Operations (LWO) to support the transfer of low-level aqueous waste from Tank 50 to the Salt Feed Tank in the Saltstone Facility in Z-Area, where the waste will be immobilized. This information is also used to update the Tank 50 Waste Characterization System. The following conclusions are drawn from the analytical results provided in this report: (1) The concentrations of the reported chemical and radioactive contaminants were less than their respective WAC targets or limits unless noted in this section. (2) The reported detection limits for {sup 94}Nb and {sup 144}Ce are above both the established and requested limits from References 4 and 6. (3) The reported detection limits for {sup 247}Cm and {sup 249}Cf are above the requested limits from Reference 4. However, they are below the limits established in Reference 6. (4) The reported detection limit for Isopar L is greater than the limit from Table 3 of the WAC. (5) A measurable concentration of Norpar 13 is present in …

The Salmon, Mississippi, Site, also called the Tatum Dome Test Site, is a 1,470-acre tract of land in Lamar County, Mississippi, 21 miles southwest of Hattiesburg. The nearest town is Purvis, about 10 miles east of the site. The site is in a forested region known as the long-leaf pine belt of the Gulf Coastal Plain. Elevations in the area range from about 240 to 350 feet above sea level. The site overlies a salt formation called the Tatum Salt Dome. Land around the Salmon site has residential, industrial, and commercial use, although no one lives within the boundary of the site itself. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor agency of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the U.S. Department of Defense conducted two underground nuclear tests at the site under the designation of Project Dribble, part of a larger program known as the Vela Uniform program. Two gas explosive tests, designated Project Miracle Play, were also conducted at the site.

On May 19, 2010, the Saltstone Production Facility inadvertently transferred 1800 gallons of untreated waste from the salt feed tank to Vault 4. During shut down, approximately 70 gallons of the material was left in the Saltstone hopper. A sample of the slurry in the hopper was sent to Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) to analyze the density, pH and the eight Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) metals. The sample was hazardous for chromium, mercury and pH. The sample received from the Saltstone hopper was analyzed visually while obtaining sample aliquots and while the sample was allowed to settle. It was observed that the sample contains solids that settle in approximately 20 minutes (Figure 3-1). There is a floating layer on top of the supernate during settling and disperses when the sample is agitated (Figure 3-2). The untreated waste inadvertently transferred from the SFT to Vault 4 was toxic for chromium and mercury. In addition, the pH of the sample is at the regulatory limit. Visually inspecting the sample indicates solids present in the sample.

A new calculation of the production of 37Ar from nuclear explosion neutron interactions on 40Ca in a suite of common sub-surface materials (rock, etc) is presented. Even in mineral structures that are relatively low in Ca, the resulting 37Ar signature is large enough for detection in cases of venting or gaseous diffusion driven by barometric pumping. Field and laboratory detection strategies and projected sensitivities are presented.

This document represents the final project report for the Self-Correcting Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) Controls Project jointly funded by Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building Technologies Program (BTP). The project, initiated in October 2008, focused on exploratory initial development of self-correcting controls for selected HVAC components in air handlers. This report, along with the companion report documenting the algorithms developed, Self-Correcting HVAC Controls: Algorithms for Sensors and Dampers in Air-Handling Units (Fernandez et al. 2009), document the work performed and results of this project.

Carbon monoxide oxidation over ruthenium catalysts has shown an unusual catalytic behavior. Here we report a particle size effect on CO oxidation over Ru nanoparticle (NP) catalysts. Uniform Ru NPs with a tunable particle size from 2 to 6 nm were synthesized by a polyol reduction of Ru(acac){sub 3} precursor in the presence of poly(vinylpyrrolidone) stabilizer. The measurement of catalytic activity of CO oxidation over two-dimensional Ru NPs arrays under oxidizing reaction conditions (40 Torr CO and 100 Torr O{sub 2}) showed an activity dependence on the Ru NP size. The CO oxidation activity increases with NP size, and the 6 nm Ru NP catalyst shows 8-fold higher activity than the 2 nm catalysts. The results gained from this study will provide the scientific basis for future design of Ru-based oxidation catalysts.

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Study of the stay rate in the United States of foreign nationals receiving their S/E doctorates from U.S. universities. This study has estimated stay rates in 2007 for persons receiving a doctorate one, two, five, and ten years previously. The two-year stay rate (for 2005 graduates) recovered from the decline experienced earlier in the decade. The five-year stay rate (for 2002 graduates) is lower; the ten-year stay rate (for 1997 graduates) reached a new high.

We create a transient Bragg grating in a high harmonic generation medium using two counterpropagating pulses. The Bragg grating disperses the harmonics in angle and can diffract a large bandwidth with temporal resolution limited only by the source size.

The centromere is the most characteristic landmark of eukaryotic chromosomes. Centromeres function as the site for kinetochore assembly and spindle attachment, allowing for the faithful pairing and segregation of sister chromatids during cell division. Characterization of centromeric DNA is not only essential to understand the structure and organization of plant genomes, but it is also a critical step in the development of plant artificial chromosomes. The centromeres of most model eukaryotic species, consist predominantly of long arrays of satellite DNA. Determining the precise DNA boundary of a centromere has proven to be a difficult task in multicellular eukaryotes. We have successfully cloned and sequenced the centromere of rice chromosome 8 (Cen8), representing the first fully sequenced centromere from any multicellular eukaryotes. The functional core of Cen8 spans ~800 kb of DNA, which was determined by chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) using an antibody against the rice centromere-specific H3 histone. We discovered 16 actively transcribed genes distributed throughout the Cen8 region. In addition to Cen8, we have characterized eight additional rice centromeres using the next generation sequencing technology. We discovered four subfamilies of the CRR retrotransposon that is highly enriched in rice centromeres. CRR elements are constitutively transcribed and different CRR subfamilies are …

Collimators and transitions in accelerator vacuum chambers often include small-angle tapering to lower the wakefields generated by the beam. While the low-frequency impedance is well described by Yokoya's formula (for axisymmetric geometry), much less is known about the behavior of the impedance in the high frequency limit. In this paper we develop an analytical approach to the highfrequency regime for round collimators and tapers. Our analytical results are compared with computer simulations using the code ECHO.

The physical properties of YbNi{sub 3}Al{sub 9.23}, including the crystal structure, magnetization, specific heat, valence, and electrical resistivity, are reported. Single crystal X-ray diffraction reveals that the compound crystallizes with the rhombohedral space group R32 and has unit cell parameters a=7.2443(3) Å and c=27.251(3) Å with some crystallographic disorder on an Al site. The compound orders antiferromagnetically at T{sub N}=3 K despite the presence of strong ferromagnetic correlations, accompanied by a spin flop-like transition to a moment-aligned rate above 0.1 T. X-ray absorption spectroscopy and magnetic susceptibility measurements indicate a localized Yb{sup 3+} electronic configuration, while the Sommerfeld coefficient in the magnetically ordered state was determined to be approximately 135 mJ/mol-K{sup 2}, suggesting moderately heavy fermion behavior. Therefore, these data indicate a balance between competing Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) and Kondo interactions in YbNi{sub 3}Al{sub 9.23} with a somewhat dominant RKKY interaction that leads to a relatively high ordering temperature.

We report on long exposure results obtained with a Teledyne HyViSI H2RG detector operating in guide mode. The sensor simultaneously obtained nearly seeing-limited data while also guiding the Kitt Peak 2.1 m telescope. Results from unguided and guided operation are presented and used to place lower limits on flux/fluence values for accurate centroid measurements. We also report on significant noise reduction obtained in recent laboratory measurements that should further improve guiding capability with higher magnitude stars.

Impure radioactive material processed in nitric acid solutions resulted in the presence of chlorides in a dissolver fabricated from 304L stainless steel. An experimental program was conducted to study the effects of chloride in nitric acid/fluoride solutions on the corrosion of 304L stainless steel. The test variables included temperature (80, 95, and 110 C) and the concentrations of nitric acid (6, 12, and 14 M), fluoride (0.01, 0.1, and 0.2 M) and chloride (100, 350, 1000, and 2000 ppm). The impact of welding was also investigated. Results showed that the chloride concentration alone was not a dominant variable affecting the corrosion, but rather the interaction of chloride with fluoride significantly affected corrosion.

Drum type packages are routinely used to transport radioactive material (RAM) in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complex. These packages are designed to meet the federal regulations described in 10 CFR Part 71. The packages are transported in specially designed vehicles like Safe Secure Transport (SST) for safety and security. In the transport vehicles, the packages are placed close to each other to maximize the number of units in the vehicle. Since the RAM contents in the packagings produce decay heat, it is important that they are spaced sufficiently apart to prevent overheating of the containment vessel (CV) seals and the impact limiter to ensure the structural integrity of the package. This paper presents a simple methodology to assess thermal performance of a typical 9975 packaging in a transport configuration.

This report investigates the history of thermostats to better understand the context and legacy regarding the development of this important tool, as well as thermostats' relationships to heating, cooling, and other environmental controls. We analyze the architecture, interfaces, and modes of interaction used by different types of thermostats. For over sixty years, home thermostats have translated occupants' temperature preferences into heating and cooling system operations. In this position of an intermediary, the millions of residential thermostats control almost half of household energy use, which corresponds to about 10percent of the nation's total energy use. Thermostats are currently undergoing rapid development in response to emerging technologies, new consumer and utility demands, and declining manufacturing costs. Energy-efficient homes require more careful balancing of comfort, energy consumption, and health. At the same time, new capabilities will be added to thermostats, including scheduling, control of humidity and ventilation, responsiveness to dynamic electricity prices, and the ability to join communication networks inside homes. Recent studies have found that as many as 50percent of residential programmable thermostats are in permanent"hold" status. Other evaluations found that homes with programmable thermostats consumed more energy than those relying on manual thermostats. Occupants find thermostats cryptic and baffling to operate …

Optical components within high energy laser systems are susceptible to laser-induced material modification when the breakdown threshold is exceeded or damage is initiated by pre-existing impurities or defects. These modifications are the result of exposure to extreme conditions involving the generation of high temperatures and pressures and occur on a volumetric scale of the order of a few cubic microns. The response of the material following localized energy deposition, including the timeline of events and the individual processes involved during this timeline, is still largely unknown. In this work, we investigate the events taking place during the entire timeline in both bulk and surface damage in fused silica using a set of time-resolved microscopy systems. These microscope systems offer up to 1 micron spatial resolution when imaging static or dynamic effects, allowing for imaging of the entire process with adequate temporal and spatial resolution. These systems incorporate various pump-probe geometries designed to optimize the sensitivity for detecting individual aspects of the process such as the propagation of shock waves, near-surface material motion, the speed of ejecta, and material transformations. The experimental results indicate that the material response can be separated into distinct phases, some terminating within a few tens of …

This report describes the status (closed, closed in place, or closure in progress) of the Corrective Action Sites and Corrective Action Units at the Tonopah Test Range

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