A prototype Hanford barrier was deployed over the 216-B-57 Crib at the Hanford Site in 1994 to prevent percolation through the underlying waste and to minimize spreading of buried contaminants. This barrier is being monitored to evaluate physical and hydrologic performance at the field scale. This report summarizes data collected during the period FY 2005 through FY 2007. In FY 2007, monitoring of the prototype Hanford barrier focused on barrier stability, vegetative cover, evidence of plant and animal intrusion, and the main components of the water balance, including precipitation, runoff, storage, drainage, and deep percolation. Owing to a hiatus in funding in FY 2005 through 2006, data collected were limited to automated measurements of the water-balance components. For the reporting period (October 2004 through September 2007) precipitation amount and distribution were close to normal. The cumulative amount of water received from October 1994 through September 2007 was 3043.45 mm on the northern half of the barrier, which is the formerly irrigated treatment, and 2370.58 mm on the southern, non-irrigated treatments. Water storage continued to show a cyclic pattern, increasing in the winter and declining in the spring and summer to a lower limit of around 100 mm in response to …

Biennial report to the Texas Legislature describing the activities of the State Office of Risk Management (SORM) during fiscal years 2005 and 2006, including information on state agency financing, claims, losses, and expenditures.

We describe progress in the development of new materials for portable, room-temperature, gamma-radiation detection at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington State. High Z, high resistivity, amorphous semiconductors are being designed for use as solid-state detectors at near ambient temperatures; principles of operation are analogous to single-crystal semiconducting detectors. Amorphous semiconductors have both advantages and disadvantages compared to single crystals, and this project is developing methods to mitigate technical problems and design optimized material for gamma detection. Several issues involved in the fabrication of amorphous semiconductors are described, including reaction thermodynamics and kinetics, the development of pyrolytic coating, and the synthesis of ingots. The characterization of amorphous semiconductors is described, including sectioning and polishing protocols, optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, optical spectroscopy, particle-induced X-ram emission, Rutherford backscattering, and electrical testing. Then collaboration with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is discussed in the areas of Hall-effect measurements and current voltage data. Finally, we discuss the strategy for continuing the program.

The original goal of our research was to open up a new class of scientific experiments by increasing the power of newly available x-ray sources by orders of magnitude. This was accomplished by developing a new generation of x-ray optics, based on hard x-ray (10-200 keV) reflective and diffractive focusing elements. The optical systems we envision begin with a core reflective optic, which has the ability to capture and concentrate x-rays across a wide range of energies and angles band, combined with diffractive optics, based on large-scale multilayer structures, that will further enhance the spatial, spectral and temporal resolving power of the system. Enabling technologies developed at LLNL such as precise mounting of thermally formed substrates, smoothing techniques and multilayer films of ultra-high reflectance and precision were crucial in the development and demonstration of our research objectives. Highlights of this phase of the project include: the design and fabrication of a concentrator optic for the Pleiades Thomson X-ray source located at LLNL, smoothing of glass substrates through application of polyimide films, and the design, fabrication and testing of novel volume multilayers structures. Part of our research into substrate smooth led to the development of a new technique (patent pending) to …

We have taken the initiative to examine whether experiments on HED facilities, present and future, could achieve the extreme scaled conditions relevant to accreting neutron star atmospheres and accretion disks around black holes. The preliminary conclusion from this detailed scaling assessment is that if an exact scaled version of the photon bubble instability physics is desired, this will require experiments with (simultaneously) spatial scales of order {approx}1 mm, temperatures of order {approx}5 keV, magnetic fields of order a hundred megaGauss, and time scales of order several hundred psec. Aspects (subsets) of this physics can be studied under less demanding conditions. To achieve the temperatures required in targets of order several optical depths, we come to the preliminary conclusion that we would require an energy source that delivers of order of a megajoule of energy into a high Z target. A conceptual design for such an experiment could be to use the energy from a high gain ignition NIF capsule as our principle source of heating and acceleration whereby the target is in close proximity to the ignition capsule and then use external petawatt lasers to develop the magnetic fields required.

This document represents the evaluation criteria established to track the impact and effectiveness of diversion funds.

Report on the activities of the Health Professions Council for fiscal year 2006, highlighting the organization's accomplishments and budget.

Proposed budget for the Texas State Office of Risk Management outlining projected income and expenditures, with supporting documentation.

Annual report detailing expenditures by the Texas Department of Transportation during 2006, including the unified transportation program (UTP), turnpike and toll road projects, and some rail facilities, as well as the amount of bonds, public securities, and other funds used for transportation projects.