Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

This report examines the extent of the security problems in Central America, the current efforts being undertaken by Central American governments to address them, and U.S. support for Central American efforts through the Central America Regional Security Initiative. It also raises potential policy issues for congressional consideration such as funding levels, human rights concerns, and how CARSI relates to other U.S. government policies.

This report looks at the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA), Yucca Mountain, and the Obama Administration's de-funding of Yucca Mountain. Federal policy is based on the premise that nuclear waste can be disposed of safely, but proposed storage and disposal facilities have frequently been challenged on safety, health, and environmental grounds. Most of the current debate surrounding civilian radioactive waste focuses on highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants.

This report discusses how lame duck sessions occur, and the background of the lame duck sessions between 1940 and 2010. A “lame duck” session of Congress occurs whenever one Congress meets after its successor is elected, but before the term of the current Congress ends.

This report provides an overview of current issues in U.S.-Palestinian relations. It also contains an overview of Palestinian society and politics and descriptions of key Palestinian individuals and groups—chiefly the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Palestinian Authority (PA), Fatah, Hamas, and the Palestinian refugee population.

This report is categorized into four categories: (I) Background, (II) Stakeholder Concerns and Other Court Rulings, (III) Section 401 and Land Runoff and (IV) Legislative Response.

Nearly four decades ago H-like and He-like resonantly photo-pumped laser schemes were proposed for producing X-ray lasers. However, demonstrating these schemes in the laboratory has proved to be elusive because of the difficulty of finding a strong resonant pump line. With the advent of the X-ray free electron laser (X-FEL) at the SLAC Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) we now have a tunable X-ray laser source that can be used to replace the pump line in previously proposed laser schemes and allow researchers to study the physics and feasibility of resonantly photo-pumped laser schemes. In this paper we use the X-FEL at 1174 eV to photo-pump the singly excited 1s2p state of He-like Ne to the doubly excited 2p3p state and model gain on the 2p3p-2p2s transition at 175 eV and the 2p3p-1s3p transition at 1017 eV. One motivation for studying this scheme is to explore possible quenching of the gain due to strong non-linear coupling effects from the intense X-FEL beam We compare this scheme with photo-pumping the He-like Ne ground state to the 1s3p singly excited state followed by lasing on the 3p-2s and 3d-2p transitions at 158 and 151 eV. Experiments are being planned at LCLS to …

This Special Analysis (SA) was initiated to address a concern expressed by the Department of Energy's Low Level Waste Disposal Facility Federal Review Group (LFRG) Review Team during their review of the 2008 E-Area Performance Assessment (PA) (WSRC, 2008). Their concern was the potential for overlapping of atmospheric plumes, emanating from the soil surface above SRS LLW disposal facilities within the E-Area, to contribute to the dose received by a member of the public during the Institutional Control (IC) period. The implication of this concern was that the dose to the maximally-exposed individual (MEI) located at the SRS boundary might be underestimated during this time interval. To address this concern a re-analysis of the atmospheric pathway releases from E-Area was required. In the process of developing a new atmospheric release model (ARM) capable of addressing the LFRG plume overlap concern, it became obvious that new and better atmospheric pathway disposal limits should be developed for each of the E-Area disposal facilities using the new ARM. The scope of the SA was therefore expanded to include the generation of these new limits. The initial work conducted in this SA was to develop a new ARM using the GoldSim{reg_sign} program (GTG, 2009). …

Structures of nanoparticles and their role in dual-ion irradiated Fe-16Cr-4.5Al-0.3Ti-2W-0.37Y{sub 2}O{sub 3} (K3) ODS ferritic steel produced by mechanical alloying (MA) were studied using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) techniques. The observation of Y{sub 4}Al{sub 2}O{sub 9} complex-oxide nanoparticles in the ODS steel imply that decomposition of Y{sub 2}O{sub 3} in association with internal oxidation of Al occurred during mechanical alloying. HRTEM observations of crystalline and partially crystalline nanoparticles larger than {approx}2 nm and amorphous cluster-domains smaller than {approx}2 nm provide an insight into the formation mechanism of nanoparticles/clusters in MA/ODS steels, which we believe involves solid-state amorphization and re-crystallization. The role of nanoparticles/clusters in suppressing radiation-induced swelling is revealed through TEM examinations of cavity distributions in (Fe + He) dual-ion irradiated K3-ODS steel. HRTEM observations of helium-filled cavities (helium bubbles) preferably trapped at nanoparticle/clusters in dual-ion irradiated K3-ODS are presented.

Licensees of commercial nuclear power plants in the US are expected to submit license renewal applications for the period of operation of 60 to 80 years which has also been referred to as long term operation (LTO). The greatest challenges to LTO are associated with degradation of passive components as active components are routinely maintained and repaired or placed through maintenance programs. Some passive component degradation concerns include stress corrosion cracking (SCC) of metal components, radiation induced embrittlement of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV), degradation of buried piping, degradation of concrete containment structures, and degradation of cables. Proactive management of passive component aging employs three important elements including online monitoring of degradation, early detection of degradation at precursor stages, and application of prognostics for the prediction of remaining useful life (RUL). This document assesses several nondestructive examination (NDE) measurement technologies for integration into proactive aging management programs. The assessment is performed by discussing the three elements of proactive aging management identified above, considering the current state of the industry with respect to adopting these key elements, and analyzing measurement technologies for monitoring large cracks in metal components, monitoring early degradation at precursor stages, monitoring the degradation of concrete containment structures, …

Recently discovered scintillators for gamma ray spectroscopy, single crystal SrI{sub 2}(Eu), GYGAG(Ce) transparent ceramic and Bismuth-loaded plastics, offer resolution and fabrication advantages compared to commercial scintillators, such as NaI(Tl) and standard PVT plastic. Energy resolution at 662 keV of 2.7% is obtained with SrI{sub 2}(Eu), while 4.5% is obtained with GYGAG(Ce). A new transparent ceramic scintillator for radiographic imaging systems, GLO(Eu) offers high light yield of 70,000 Photons/MeV, high stopping, and low radiation damage. Implementation of single crystal SrI{sub 2}(Eu), Gd-based transparent ceramics, and Bi-loaded plastic scintillators can advance the state-of-the art in ionizing radiation detection systems.

This report is an update to the analysis, Assessment of SRS Radiological Liquid and Airborne Contaminants and Pathways, that was performed in 1997. An electronic version of this large original report is included in the attached CD to this report. During the operational history (1954 to the present) of the Savannah River Site (SRS), many different radionuclides have been released to the environment from the various production facilities. However, as will be shown by this updated radiological critical contaminant/critical pathway analysis, only a small number of the released radionuclides have been significant contributors to potential doses and risks to offsite people. The analysis covers radiological releases to the atmosphere and to surface waters, the principal media that carry contaminants offsite. These releases potentially result in exposure to offsite people. The groundwater monitoring performed at the site shows that an estimated 5 to 10% of SRS has been contaminated by radionuclides, no evidence exists from the extensive monitoring performed that groundwater contaminated with these constituents has migrated off the site (SRS 2011). Therefore, with the notable exception of radiological source terms originating from shallow surface water migration into site streams, onsite groundwater was not considered as a potential exposure pathway to …

The Saltstone facility has a grout hopper tank to provide agitator stirring of the Saltstone feed materials. The tank has about 300 gallon capacity to provide a larger working volume for the grout slurry to be held in case of a process upset, and it is equipped with a mechanical agitator, which is intended to keep the grout in motion and agitated so that it won't start to set up. The dry feeds and the salt solution are already mixed in the mixer prior to being transferred to the hopper tank. The hopper modeling study through this work will focus on fluid stirring and agitation, instead of traditional mixing in the literature, in order to keep the tank contents in motion during their residence time so that they will not be upset or solidified prior to transferring the grout to the Saltstone disposal facility. The primary objective of the work is to evaluate the flow performance for mechanical agitators to prevent vortex pull-through for an adequate stirring of the feed materials and to estimate an agitator speed which provides acceptable flow performance with a 45{sup o} pitched four-blade agitator. In addition, the power consumption required for the agitator operation was …

Weekly newspaper from Emory, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Sweetwater, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state, and campus news along with advertising.

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This report discusses Golan v. Holder case. It also discusses a group of orchestra conductors, educators, performers, film archivists, and motion picture distributors, who had relied on the free and unrestricted availability of these artistic works in the public domain for their livelihood.

Refractory materials can be limited in their application by many factors including chemical reactions between the service environment and the refractory material, mechanical degradation of the refractory material by the service environment, temperature limitations on the use of a particular refractory material, and the inability to install or repair the refractory material in a cost effective manner or while the vessel was in service. The objective of this project was to address the need for new innovative refractory compositions by developing a family of novel MgO-Al2O3 spinel or other similar magnesia/alumina containing unshaped refractory composition (castables, gunnables, shotcretes, etc) utilizing new aggregate materials, bond systems, protective coatings, and phase formation techniques (in-situ phase formation, altered conversion temperatures, accelerated reactions, etc). This family of refractory compositions would then be tailored for use in high-temperature, highalkaline industrial environments like those found in the aluminum, chemical, forest products, glass, and steel industries. A research team was formed to carry out the proposed work led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and was comprised of the academic institution Missouri University of Science and Technology (MS&T), and the industrial company MINTEQ International, Inc. (MINTEQ), along with representatives from the aluminum, chemical, glass, and forest products …

We identified and investigated some of the scientific and technically most challenging issues in thin film magnetism focusing on epitaxially grown layers of specific L1{sub 0} ordered, intermetallic, heterostructures with well-controlled crystallography and interface structures. Specifically, we addressed antiferromagnetic/ferromagnetic heterostructures, exhibiting exchange bias (EB) in both in-plane (MnPd/Fe) and perpendicular (IrMn/(Co/Pt){sub n}) geometries, and ferromagnetic/ferrimagnetic (Co/Y{sub 3}Fe{sub 5}O{sub 12}) bilayers with strong interlayer exchange coupling and exhibiting spin reorientation transitions. In the former case, the work included experimental and theoretical studies to gain more fundamental insight into the origin and magnitude of EB, as well as to address important aspects of EB such as the asymmetry in the magnetic reversal mechanism, the role of interfacial structure, including compensated or uncompensated spins, AF domains, competing anisotropies and the angular dependence of the magnetization reversal process. Exchange bias is central to many magnetic technologies and driven by the fast development of nanotechnology, there is much interest in understanding the phenomenon of exchange bias on the nanoscale. By patterning, as the FM domain size reaches a lateral scale comparable to the AF domain size (~100nm), each nano-element can be treated as a separate and isolated exchange bias system that behaves independently. Therefore, the …

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Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.