The {tau}{sup -} {yields} {pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{nu}{sub {tau}} and {tau}{sup -} {yields} {pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{eta}{nu}{sub {tau}} decays have been studied with the BABAR detector. Preliminary branching fractions on the two modes are presented. The {tau}{sup -} {yields} {pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{eta}{nu}{sub {tau}} mode is found to have a large contribution from the {tau}{sup -} {yields} {omega}{pi}{sup -}{nu}{sub {tau}} decay. The {tau}{sup -} {yields} {pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{eta}{nu}{sub {tau}} decay is studied using the {eta} {yields} {gamma}{gamma} mode and the {tau}{sup -} f{sub 1}(1285){pi}{sup -}{nu}{sub {tau}} decay is seen to be the primary source of these decays. A 90% confidence level upper limit is placed on the {tau}{sup -} {yields} {eta}{prime}(958){pi}{sup -}{nu}{sub {tau}} decay which proceeds through a second-class current and is expected to be forbidden in the limit of perfect isospin symmetry.

The results from H.E.S.S. observations towards Westerlund 2 are presented. The detection of very-high-energy gamma-ray emission towards the young stellar cluster Westerlund 2 in the HII complex RCW49 by H.E.S.S. provides ample evidence that particle acceleration to extreme energies is associated with this region. A variety of possible emission scenarios is mentioned, ranging from high-energy gamma-ray production in the colliding wind zone of the massive Wolf-Rayet binary WR 20a, collective wind scenarios, diffusive shock acceleration at the boundaries of wind-blown bubbles in the stellar cluster, and outbreak phenomena from hot stellar winds into the interstellar medium. These scenarios are briefly compared to the characteristics of the associated new VHE gamma-ray source HESS J1023-575, and conclusions on the validity of the respective emission scenarios for high-energy gamma-ray production in the Westerlund 2 system are drawn.

The degree to which an individual organism maintains healthspan and lifespan is a function of complex interactions between genetic inheritance ('nature'), environment, including cultural inheritance (nurture) and stochastic events ('luck' or 'chance'). This task group will focus upon the role of chance because it is so poorly understood and because it appears to be of major importance in the determination of individual variations in healthspan and lifespan within species. The major factor determining variations in healthspan and lifespan between species is genetic inheritance. Broader aspects of cellular and molecular mechanisms of biological aging will also be considered, given their importance for understanding the cellular and molecular basis of successful aging. The task force will consider the cellular and molecular basis for nature, nurture and chance in healthspan and life span determination. On the basis of comparisons between identical and non-identical twins, geneticists have estimated that genes control no more than about a quarter of the inter-individual differences in lifespan (Herskind 1996). Twin studies of very old individuals, however, show substantially greater genetic contributions to Healthspan (McClearn 2004; Reed 2003). The environment clearly plays an important role in the length and the quality of life. Tobacco smoke, for example has the …

This month's issue has the following articles: (1) The Edward Teller Centennial--Commentary by George H. Miller; (2) Edward Teller's Century: Celebrating the Man and His Vision--Colleagues at the Laboratory remember Edward Teller, cofounder of Lawrence Livermore, adviser to U.S. presidents, and physicist extraordinaire, on the 100th anniversary of his birth; (3) Quark Theory and Today's Supercomputers: It's a Match--Thanks to the power of BlueGene/L, Livermore has become an epicenter for theoretical advances in particle physics; and (4) The Role of Dentin in Tooth Fracture--Studies on tooth dentin show that its mechanical properties degrade with age.

The initiative will enable the COG Biopathology Center (Biospecimen Repository), the Molecular Genetics Laboratory and other participating reference laboratories to upload large data sets to the eRDES. The capability streamlines data currency and accuracy allowing the centers to export data from local systems and import the defined data to the eRDES. The process will aid in the best practices which have been defined by the Office of Biorepository and Biospecimen Research (OBBR) and the Group Banking Committee (GBC). The initiative allows for batch import and export, a data validation process and reporting mechanism, and a model for other labs to incorporate. All objectives are complete. The solutions provided and the defined process eliminates dual data entry resulting in data consistency. The audit trail capabilities allow for complete tracking of the data exchange between laboratories and the Statistical Data Center (SDC). The impact is directly on time and efforts. In return, the process will save money and improve the data utilized by the COG. Ongoing efforts include implementing new technologies to further enhance the current solutions and process currently in place. Web Services and Reporting Services are technologies that have become industry standards and will allow for further harmonization with caBIG …

In order to understand how high performance computing (HPC) programs are developed, a series of experiments, using students in graduate level HPC classes and various research centers, were conducted at various locations in the US. In this report, we discuss this research, give some of the early results of those experiments, and describe a web-based Experiment Manager we are developing that allows us to run studies more easily and consistently at universities and laboratories, allowing us to generate results that more accurately reflect the process of building HPC programs.

We use current theoretical estimates for the density of long cosmic strings to predict the number of strong gravitational lensing events in astronomical imaging surveys as a function of angular resolution and survey area. We show that angular resolution is the single most important factor, and that interesting limits on the dimensionless string tension G{mu}/c{sup 2} can be obtained by existing and planned surveys. At the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope (0'.14), it is sufficient to survey of order a square degree -- well within reach of the current HST archive -- to probe the regime G{mu}/c{sup 2} {approx} 10{sup -8}. If lensing by cosmic strings is not detected, such a survey would improve the limit on the string tension by an order of magnitude on that available from the cosmic microwave background. At the resolution (0'.028) attainable with the next generation of large ground based instruments, both in the radio and the infra-red with adaptive optics, surveying a sky area of order ten square degrees will allow us to probe the G{mu}/c{sup 2} {approx} 10{sup -9} regime. These limits will not be improved significantly by increasing the solid angle of the survey.

Immobilized organometallic catalysts, in principle, can give high rates and selectivities like homogeneous catalysts with the ease of separation enjoyed by heterogeneous catalysts. However, the science of immobilized organometallics has not been developed because the field lies at the interface between the homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis communities. By assembling an interdisciplinary research team that can probe all aspects of immobilized organometallic catalyst design, the entire reacting system can be considered, where the transition metal complex, the complex-support interface and the properties of the support can all be considered simultaneously from both experimental and theoretical points of view. Researchers at Georgia Tech and the University of Virginia are studying the fundamental principles that can be used to understand and design future classes of immobilized organometallic catalysts. In the framework of the overall collaborative project with Georgia Tech, our work focused on (a) the X-ray absorption spectroscopy of an immobilized Pd-SCS-O complex (b) the mode of metal leaching from supported Pd catalysts during Heck catalysis and (c) the mode of deactivation of Jacobsen’s Co-salen catalysts during the hydrolytic kinetic resolution of terminal epoxides. Catalysts containing supported Pd pincer complexes, functionalized supports containing mercapto and amine groups, and oligomeric Co-salen catalysts were synthesized …

We present an analysis of archival Chandra and VLA observations of the E0 galaxy NGC1399 and the E2 galaxy NGC4649 in which we investigate cavities in the surrounding X-ray emitting medium caused by the central AGN. We calculate the jet power required for the AGN to evacuate these cavities and find values of {approx} 8x10{sup 41} erg s-1 and {approx} 14x10{sup 41} erg s{sup -1} for the lobes of NGC1399 and {approx} 7x10{sup 41} erg s{sup -1} and {approx} 6x1041 erg s{sup -1} for those of NGC4649. We also calculate the k/f values for each cavity, where k is the ratio of the total particle energy to that of electrons radiating in the range of 10 MHz to 10 GHz, and f is the volume filling factor of the plasma in the cavity. We find that the values of k/f for the lobes of NGC1399 are {approx} 93 and {approx} 190, and those of the lobes of NGC4649 are {approx} 15000 and {approx} 12000. We conclude that the assumed spectrum describes the electron distribution in the lobes of NGC1399 reasonably well, and that there are few entrained particles. For NGC4649, either there are many entrained particles or the model spectrum …

The interstitial liquid in the double-shell tank 241-AY-101 settled solids layer is below the hydroxide chemistry control limit required by HNF-SD-WM-TSR-006, Tank Farms Technical Safety Requirements, Administrative Control 5.16, 'Corrosion Mitigation Controls'. Operating tanks outside of the specification may increase the propensity corrosion of the carbon steel wall. This report is concerned with generalized electrochemical corrosion mechanism that may occur at specific loci. All cyclic potentiodynamic polarization scans exhibited a negative hysteresis, scan reversing at lower current density, indicating that there was no pitting propensity. The general electrochemical corrosion rates ranged from 4.4E-02 to 1.5E-03 mpy with the first round of coupons, while the second round yielded corrosion rates of 2.5E-03 to 2.9E-02 mpy.

The H.E.S.S. collaboration recently reported the discovery of VHE {gamma}-ray emission coincident with the young stellar cluster Westerlund 2. This system is known to host a population of hot, massive stars, and, most particularly, the WR binary WR 20a. Particle acceleration to TeV energies in Westerlund 2 can be accomplished in several alternative scenarios, therefore we only discuss energetic constraints based on the total available kinetic energy in the system, the actual mass loss rates of respective cluster members, and implied gamma-ray production from processes such as inverse Compton scattering or neutral pion decay. From the inferred gamma-ray luminosity of the order of 10{sup 35} erg/s, implications for the efficiency of converting available kinetic energy into non-thermal radiation associated with stellar winds in the Westerlund 2 cluster are discussed under consideration of either the presence or absence of wind clumping.

The Hanford Site requested, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 10 approved, a Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA) risk-based disposal approval (RBDA) for solidifying approximately four cubic meters of waste from a specific area of one of the K East Basin: the North Loadout Pit (NLOP). The NLOP waste is a highly radioactive sludge that contained polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) regulated under TSCA. The prescribed disposal method for liquid PCB waste under TSCA regulations is either thermal treatment or decontamination. Due to the radioactive nature of the waste, however, neither thermal treatment nor decontamination was a viable option. As a result, the proposed treatment consisted of solidifying the material to comply with waste acceptance criteria at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico, or possibly the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility at the Hanford Site, depending on the resulting transuranic (TRU) content of the stabilized waste. The RBDA evaluated environmental risks associated with potential airborne PCBs. In addition, the RBDA made use of waste management controls already in place at the treatment unit. The treatment unit, the T Plant Complex, is a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA)-permitted facility used for storing and …

Recent measurements from the HERMES and SMC collaborations show a remarkably large azimuthal single-spin asymmetries A{sub UL} and A{sub UT} of the proton in semi-inclusive pion leptoproduction {gamma}*(q)p {yields} {pi}X. We show that final-state interactions from gluon exchange between the outgoing quark and the target spectator system leads to single-spin asymmetries in deep inelastic lepton-proton scattering at leading twist in perturbative QCD; i.e., the rescattering corrections are not power-law suppressed at large photon virtuality q{sup 2} at fixed x{sub bj}. The existence of such single-spin asymmetries requires a phase difference between two amplitudes coupling the proton target with J{sup z}{sub p} = {+-}1/2 to the same final-state, the same amplitudes which are necessary to produce a nonzero proton anomalous magnetic moment. We show that the exchange of gauge particles between the outgoing quark and the proton spectators produces a Coulomb-like complex phase which depends on the angular momentum L{sup z} of the proton's constituents and thus is distinct for different proton spin amplitudes. The single-spin asymmetry which arises from such final-state interactions does not factorize into a product of structure function and fragmentation function, and it is not related to the transversity distribution {delta}q(x;Q) which correlates transversely polarized quarks with …

Assessing potential for air cooling in power electronics is a critical factor in power electronics equipment. NREL aims to assess effective air cooling techniques for power electronics technologies.

A prototype of an analog, transverse (vertical) feedback system for active damping of the two-stream (e-p) instability has been developed and successfully tested at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Proton Storage Ring (PSR). This system was able to improve the instability threshold by approximately 30% (as measured by the change in RF buncher voltage at instability threshold). Evidence obtained from these tests suggests that further improvement in performance is limited by beam leakage into the gap at lower RF buncher voltage and the onset of instability in the horizontal plane, which had no feedback. Here we describe the present system configuration, system optimization, results of several recent experimental tests, and results from studies of factors limiting its performance.

We have conducted multiwavelength observations of several northern TeV blazars employing the ground-based {gamma}-ray observatories MAGIC and HESS, the optical KVA telescope, and the Suzaku X-ray satellite. The data taken in 2006 establish measurements of the contemporaneous spectral energy distributions of the rapidly variable blazar emission over a wide range of frequencies. Results allow us to test leptonic and hadronic emission and particle acceleration models which predict different correlations between the optical, X-ray, and very high energy {gamma}-ray emissions. In this presentation, we report on the highlights of the results of these observations.

A diagnostic to measure electron cloud formation and trapping in a quadrupole magnet has been developed, installed, and successfully tested at PSR. Beam studies with this diagnostic show that the electron flux striking the wall in the quadrupole is comparable to or larger than in an adjacent drift. In addition, the trapped electron signal, obtained using the sweeping feature of diagnostic, was larger than expected and decayed very slowly with an exponential time constant of 50 to 100 {micro}s. Experimental results were also obtained which suggest that a significant fraction of the electrons observed in the adjacent drift space were seeded by electrons ejected from the quadrupole.

The Geo-Heat Center (GHC) staff provided responses to 1442 technical support requests during the contract period (April 1, 2006 to September 30, 2007), which were six quarters under this contract. Our website, consisting of 1900 files, also contributes to our technical assistance activity. Downloaded files were 1,889,323 (3,448 per day) from our website, the total number of users was 1,365,258 (2,491 per day), and the total number of hits were 6,008,500 (10,064 per day). The GHC staff attended 60 workshops, short course and professional meeting and made 29 technical presentations. The staff also prepared and mailed out 2,000 copies of each of five issues of the GHC Quaterly Bulletin which contained 26 articles. We also mailed out approximately 5,000 papers and publications to interested individuals and organizations.

The Tile Calorimeter is one of the main hadronic calorimeters to be used in the ATLAS experiment at CERN [1,2]. It is a steel/scintillator sampling calorimeter which is built by stacking 64 segments in azimuth and 3 separate cylinders to provide a total structure whose length is approximately 12m and whose diameter is a little over 8.4m. It has a total weight of about 2630 metric tons. Important features of this calorimeter are: A minimum gap (1.5mm) between modules in azimuth; Pockets in the structure to hold the scintillator tiles; Recessed channels at the edges of the module into which the readout fibers will sit; and Holes in the structure through which a radioactive source will pass. The mechanical structure for one of the 3 calorimeter sections, the Extended Barrel (EBA) was constructed at Argonne. A schematic of the calorimeter sampling structure and the layout of one of the 64 segments, termed a module, are shown in figure 1. Each module comprises mechanically of a precision machined, structural girder to which 10 submodules are bolted. One of these submodules, the ITC, has a customized shape to accommodate services for other detector elements. Each submodule weighs 850Kg and the assembled mechanical …

Searches for extrasolar planets have uncovered an astonishing diversity of planetary systems, yet the frequency of solar system analogs remains unknown. The gravitational microlensing planet search method is potentially sensitive to multiple-planet systems containing analogs of all the solar system planets except Mercury. We report the first detection of a multiple-planet system with microlensing. We identify two planets with masses of {approx} 0.71 and {approx} 0.27 times the mass of Jupiter and orbital separations of {approx} 2.3 and {approx} 4.6 astronomical units orbiting a primary of mass {approx} 0.50 solar masses. This system resembles a scaled version of our solar system in that the mass ratio, separation ratio, and equilibrium temperatures of the planets are similar to those of Jupiter and Saturn. These planets could not have been detected with other techniques; their discovery from only 6 confirmed microlensing planet detections suggests that solar system analogs may be common.

The Central Waste Complex (CWC) is the interim storage facility for Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) mixed waste, transuranic waste, transuranic mixed waste, low-level and low-level mixed radioactive waste at the Department of Energy's (DOE'S) Hanford Site. The majority of the waste stored at the facility is retrieved from the low-level burial grounds in the 200 West Area at the Site, with minor quantities of newly generated waste from on-site and off-site waste generators. The CWC comprises 18 storage buildings that house 13,000 containers. Each waste container within the facility is scanned into its location by building, module, tier and position and the information is stored in a site-wide database. As waste is retrieved from the burial grounds, a preliminary non-destructive assay is performed to determine if the waste is transuranic (TRU) or low-level waste (LLW) and subsequently shipped to the CWC. In general, the TRU and LLW waste containers are stored in separate locations within the CWC, but the final disposition of each waste container is not known upon receipt. The final disposition of each waste container is determined by the appropriate program as process knowledge is applied and characterization data becomes available. Waste containers are stored within …