The 2010 Gordon Conference on Solid State Studies in Ceramics will present forefront research on ceramic materials in energy conversion, storage, and environmental sustainability. Oxide materials in advanced Li-ion batteries will be featured, including first principles computational methods, new experimental methods, novel synthesis, and the design of batteries that exploit nanoscale cathode materials. Several speakers address advances in oxides for solar applications, including photo-catalysts for solar hydrogen production and dye sensitized solar cells, along with thin film photovoltaics. Fast ionic conducting ceramics in electrochemical energy conversion and storage will be addressed for fuel cells and electrochemical storage. New concepts for electrochemical capacitor materials will be addressed, as will thermoelectric, geopolymers, and ceramics in nuclear energy. The Conference will bring together investigators at the forefront of their field as well as junior scientists in a collegial atmosphere, with programmed discussion sessions and informal gatherings in the afternoons and evenings. Poster presentations provide opportunities for junior scientists and graduate students to present their work and exchange ideas with leaders in the field. This Conference provides an avenue for scientists from different disciplines to explore new ideas and promotes cross-disciplinary collaborations in the various research areas represented.

The funds from this DOE grant were used to help cover the travel costs of five students and postdoctoral fellows who attended a symposium on 'Hydration: From Clusters to Aqueous Solutions' held at the Fall 2007 American Chemical Society Meeting in Boston, MA, August 19-23. The Symposium was sponsored by the Physical Chemistry Division, ACS. The technical program for the meeting is available at http://phys-acs.org/fall2007.html.

The objective of this project was to develop and apply enabling tools and methods towards advanced combustion diagnostics and control of fired-equipment in large-scale petrochemical manufacturing. There are a number of technology gaps and opportunities for combustion optimization, including technologies involving advanced in-situ measurements, modeling, and thermal imaging. These technologies intersect most of manufacturing and energy systems within the chemical industry. This project leveraged the success of a previous DOE funded project led by Dow, where we co-developed an in-situ tunable diode laser (TDL) analyzer platform (with Analytical Specialties Inc, now owned by Yokogawa Electric Corp.). The TDL platform has been tested and proven in a number of combustion processes within Dow and outside of Dow. The primary focus of this project was on combustion diagnostics and control applied towards furnaces, fired heaters and boilers. Special emphasis was placed on the development and application of in-situ measurements for O2, CO and methane since these combustion gases are key variables in optimizing and controlling combustion processes safely. Current best practice in the industry relies on measurements that suffer from serious performance gaps such as limited sampling volume (point measurements), poor precision and accuracy, and poor reliability. Phase I of the project …

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The Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PSNS&IMF) and Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton (Shipyard) located in Bremerton, WA are committed to a culture of continuous process improvement for all aspects of Shipyard operations, including reducing the releases of hazardous materials and waste in discharges from the Shipyard. Under the Project ENVVEST Final Project Agreement, a cooperative project among PSNS&IMF, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology), and local stakeholders (US Navy, EPA and Ecology 2002) has been helping to improve the environmental quality of the Sinclair and Dyes Inlet Watershed (ENVVEST 2006). An ambient monitoring program for sediment, water, and indigenous mussels began in 2009 to assess the status and trend of ecological resources, assess the effectiveness of cleanup and pollution control measures, and determine if discharges from all sources are protective of beneficial uses including aquatic life. This document presents the 2010 chemical residue data and stable isotopes of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) for the regional mussel watch stations located in Sinclair Inlet, Dyes Inlet, Port Orchard Passage, Rich Passage, Agate Passage, Liberty Bay, and Keyport Lagoon. Indigenous bivalves were collected from a small boat and/or from along the shoreline, measured, …

In this study we develop and apply new methods of data analysis for high resolution wind power and system load time series, to improve our understanding of how to characterize highly variable wind power output and the correlations between wind power and load. These methods are applied to wind and load data from the ERCOT region, and wind power output from the PJM and NYISO areas. We use a wavelet transform to apply mathematically well-defined operations of smoothing and differencing to the time series data. This approach produces a set of time series of the changes in wind power and load (or ?deltas?), over a range of times scales from a few seconds to approximately one hour. A number of statistical measures of these time series are calculated. We present sample distributions, and devise a method for fitting the empirical distribution shape in the tails. We also evaluate the degree of serial correlation, and linear correlation between wind and load. Our examination of the data shows clearly that the deltas do not follow a Gaussian shape; the distribution is exponential near the center and appears to follow a power law for larger fluctuations. Gaussian distributions are frequently used in modeling …

Data was taken with the NASA ER-2 aircraft with the Cloud Radar System and other instruments in conjunction with the DOE ARM CLASIC field campaign. The flights were near the SGP site in north Central Oklahoma and targeted small developing convection. The CRS is a 94 GHz nadir pointing Doppler radar. Also on board the ER-2 was the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL). Seven science flights were conducted but the weather conditions did not cooperate in that there was neither developing convection, or there was heavy rain.

This presentation summarizes ARRA fuel cell deployment and operation.

Enterprise and high-performance computing systems are growing extremely large and complex, employing hundreds to hundreds of thousands of processors and software/hardware stacks built by many people across many organizations. As the growing scale of these machines increases the frequency of faults, system complexity makes these faults difficult to detect and to diagnose. Current system management techniques, which focus primarily on efficient data access and query mechanisms, require system administrators to examine the behavior of various system services manually. Growing system complexity is making this manual process unmanageable: administrators require more effective management tools that can detect faults and help to identify their root causes. System administrators need timely notification when a fault is manifested that includes the type of fault, the time period in which it occurred and the processor on which it originated. Statistical modeling approaches can accurately characterize system behavior. However, the complex effects of system faults make these tools difficult to apply effectively. This paper investigates the application of classification and clustering algorithms to fault detection and characterization. We show experimentally that naively applying these methods achieves poor accuracy. Further, we design novel techniques that combine classification algorithms with information on the abnormality of application behavior to …

The goal of this proposal was to advance theoretical studies into questions of collider physics at the weak scale, models and signals of dark matter, and connections between neutrino mass and dark energy. The project was a significant success, with a number of developments well beyond what could have been anticipated at the outset. A total of 35 published papers and preprints were produced, with new ideas and signals for LHC physics and dark matter experiments, in particular. A number of new ideas have been found on the possible indirect signals of models of dark matter which relate to the INTEGRAL signal of astrophysical positron production, high energy positrons seen at PAMELA and Fermi, studies into anomalous gamma rays at Fermi, collider signatures of sneutrino dark matter, scenarios of Higgs physics arising in SUSY models, the implications of galaxy cluster surveys for photon-axion conversion models, previously unconsidered collider phenomenology in the form of 'lepton jets' and a very significant result for flavor physics in supersymmetric theories. Progress continues on all fronts, including development of models with dramatic implications for direct dark matter searches, dynamics of dark matter with various excited states, flavor physics, and consequences of modified missing energy signals …

Presentation of Blade Testing at NREL's National Wind Technology Center for the 2010 Sandia National Laboratories Blade Testing Workshop.

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The chemical stability, sulfur dioxide transport, ionic conductivity, and electrolyzer performance have been measured for several commercially available and experimental proton exchange membranes (PEMs) for use in a sulfur dioxide depolarized electrolyzer (SDE). The SDE's function is to produce hydrogen by using the Hybrid Sulfur (HyS) Process, a sulfur based electrochemical/thermochemical hybrid cycle. Membrane stability was evaluated using a screening process where each candidate PEM was heated at 80 C in 63.5 wt. % H{sub 2}SO{sub 4} for 24 hours. Following acid exposure, chemical stability for each membrane was evaluated by FTIR using the ATR sampling technique. Membrane SO{sub 2} transport was evaluated using a two-chamber permeation cell. SO{sub 2} was introduced into one chamber whereupon SO{sub 2} transported across the membrane into the other chamber and oxidized to H{sub 2}SO{sub 4} at an anode positioned immediately adjacent to the membrane. The resulting current was used to determine the SO{sub 2} flux and SO{sub 2} transport. Additionally, membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) were prepared from candidate membranes to evaluate ionic conductivity and selectivity (ionic conductivity vs. SO{sub 2} transport) which can serve as a tool for selecting membranes. MEAs were also performance tested in a HyS electrolyzer measuring current density versus …

The paper by H.R. Strauss presents numerical simulations, which pretend to describe the disruption instability in ITER device. The simulations were performed with numerical code M3D, described in Ref.[7] of the paper.

The paper by H.R. Strauss presents numerical simulations, which pretend to describe the disruption instability in ITER device. The simulations were performed with numerical code M3D, described in Ref.[7] of the paper.

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Ultrafast nanocrystallography has the potential to revolutionize biology by enabling structural elucidation of proteins for which it is possible to grow crystals with 10 or fewer unit cells. The success of nanocrystallography depends on robust orientation-determination procedures that allow us to average diffraction data from multiple nanocrystals to produce a 3D diffraction data volume with a high signal-to-noise ratio. Such a 3D diffraction volume can then be phased using standard crystallographic techniques."Indexing" algorithms used in crystallography enable orientation determination of a diffraction data from a single crystal when a relatively large number of reflections are recorded. Here we show that it is possible to obtain the exact lattice geometry from a smaller number of measurements than standard approaches using a basis pursuit solver.

Seed storage reserves represent one of the most important sources of renewable fixed carbon and nitrogen found in nature. Seeds are well-adapted for diverting metabolic resources to synthesize storage proteins as well as enzymes and structural proteins needed for their transport and packaging into membrane bound storage protein bodies. Our underlying hypothesis is that the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response provides the critical cellular control of metabolic flux required for optimal accumulation of storage reserves in seeds. This highly conserved response is a cellular mechanism to monitor the protein folding environment of the ER and restore homeostasis in the presence of unfolded or misfolded proteins. In seeds, deposition of storage proteins in protein bodies is a highly specialized process that takes place even in the presence of mutant proteins that no longer fold and package properly. The capacity of the ER to deposit these aberrant proteins in protein bodies during a period that extends several weeks provides an excellent model for deconvoluting the ER stress response of plants. We have focused in this project on the means by which the ER senses and responds to functional perturbations and the underlying intracellular communication that occurs among biosynthetic, trafficking and degradative pathways …

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The purpose of the Daemen Alternative Energy/Geothermal Technologies Demonstration Project is to demonstrate the use of geothermal technology as model for energy and environmental efficiency in heating and cooling older, highly inefficient buildings. The former Marian Library building at Daemen College is a 19,000 square foot building located in the center of campus. Through this project, the building was equipped with geothermal technology and results were disseminated. Gold LEED certification for the building was awarded. 1) How the research adds to the understanding of the area investigated. This project is primarily a demonstration project. Information about the installation is available to other companies, organizations, and higher education institutions that may be interested in using geothermal energy for heating and cooling older buildings. 2) The technical effectiveness and economic feasibility of the methods or techniques investigated or demonstrated. According to the modeling and estimates through Stantec, the energy-efficiency cost savings is estimated at 20%, or $24,000 per year. Over 20 years this represents $480,000 in unrestricted revenue available for College operations. See attached technical assistance report. 3) How the project is otherwise of benefit to the public. The Daemen College Geothermal Technologies Ground Source Heat Pumps project sets a standard for …

A study has confirmed the feasibility of designing, fabricating and installing resonant magnetic field perturbation (RMP) coils in JET1 with the objective of controlling edge localized modes (ELM). A system of two rows of in-vessel coils, above the machine midplane, has been chosen as it not only can investigate the physics of and achieve the empirical criteria for ELM suppression, but also permits variation of the spectra allowing for comparison with other experiments. These coils present several engineering challenges. Conditions in JET necessitate the installation of these coils via remote handling, which will impose weight, dimensional and logistical limitations. And while the encased coils are designed to be conventionally wound and bonded, they will not have the usual benefit of active cooling. Accordingly, coil temperatures are expected to reach 350 C during bakeout as well as during plasma operations. These elevated temperatures are beyond the safe operating limits of conventional OFHC copper and the epoxies that bond and insulate the turns of typical coils. This has necessitated the use of an alternative copper alloy conductor C18150 (CuCrZr). More importantly, an alternative to epoxy had to be found. An R&D program was initiated to find the best available insulating and bonding …

This final report details the components, functionality, costs, schedule and benefits of developing an Integrated Distribution Management System (IDMS) for power distribution system operation. The Distribution Automation (DA) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems used by electric power companies to manage the distribution of electric power to retail energy consumers are vital components of the Nation’s critical infrastructure. Providing electricity is an essential public service and a disruption in that service, if not quickly restored, could threaten the public safety and the Nation’s economic security. Our Nation’s economic prosperity and quality of life have long depended on the essential services that utilities provide; therefore, it is necessary to ensure that electric utilities are able to conduct their operations safely and efficiently. A fully integrated technology of applications is needed to link various remote sensing, communications and control devices with other information tools that help guide Power Distribution Operations personnel. A fully implemented IDMS will provide this, a seamlessly integrated set of applications to raise electric system operating intelligence. IDMS will enhance DA and SCADA through integration of applications such as Geographic Information Systems, Outage Management Systems, Switching Management and Analysis, Operator Training Simulator, and other Advanced Applications, including …

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A low-budget surface slope measuring instrument, the Developmental Long Trace Profiler (DLTP), was recently brought into operation at the Advanced Light Source Optical Metrology Laboratory. The instrument is based on a precisely calibrated autocollimator and a movable pentaprism. The capability of the DLTP to achieve sub-microradian surface slope metrology has been verified via cross-comparison measurements with other high-performance slope measuring instruments when measuring the same high-quality test optics. In the present work, a further improvement of the DLTP is achieved by replacing the existing bulk pentaprism with a specially designed mirror based pentaprism. A mirror based pentaprism offers the possibility to eliminate systematic errors introduced by inhomogeneity of the optical material and fabrication imperfections of a bulk pentaprism. We provide the details of the mirror based pentaprism design and describe an original experimental procedure for precision mutual alignment of the mirrors. The algorithm of the alignment procedure and its efficiency are verified with rigorous ray tracing simulations. Results of measurements of a spherically curved test mirror and a flat test mirror using the original bulk pentaprism are compared with measurements using the new mirror based pentaprism, demonstrating the improved performance.