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This research effort examines the post-detonation environmental, safety, health and operational aspects of experimental explosive tests with mercury. Specific experimental information is necessary for the evaluation of post-detonation by-products in comparison with those potentially resulting from mercury-bearing material accumulation in biomass accumulation areas, such as landfills, from batteries, electrical switches, thermometers, and fluorescent lights (Lindberg et al 2001). This will assist in determining appropriate abatement techniques for cleaning the work environment and environmental mitigation to determine waste stream components and risk assessment protocol. Determination of the by-products for personal protection equipment and personal exposure monitoring parameters are also part of this experimental work.

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With the current level of actinide materials used in civilian power generation and the need for safe and efficient methods for the chemical separation of these species from their daughter products and for long-term storage requirements, a detailed understanding of actinide chemistry is of great importance. Due to the unique bonding properties of the f-elements, the lanthanides are commonly used as structural and chemical models for the actinides, but differences in the bonding between these 4f and 5f elements has become a question of immediate applicability to separations technology. This brief overview of actinide coordination chemistry in the Raymond group at UC Berkeley/LBNL examines the validity of using lanthanide analogs as structural models for the actinides, with particular attention paid to single crystal X-ray diffraction structures. Although lanthanides are commonly accepted as reasonable analogs for the actinides, these comparisons suggest the careful study of actinide materials independent of their lanthanide analogs to be of utmost importance to present and future efforts in nuclear industries.

Enclosed is the report summarizing the metals analysis results at the Contained Firing Facility (CFF), during SQTS 01 - 05. This metals analysis includes evaluation of a bulk dust and surface swipe sampling protocol during the testing series that obtained samples at 3 primary locations in the CFF chamber area. The sampling protocol for each of the bulk dust samples involves an assessment of the concentration for 20 different metals, the oxidation state of selected metals, a particle size selective analysis, and morphological information. In addition, surface swipes were taken during SQTS 05 on the equipment and personnel door frames to indicate the characteristics of airborne metals due to leakage past the gasket seals. The bulk dust metals analysis indicates a nearly complete conversion of the aluminum casing to an oxide form with an even split between spherical and non-spherical morphology. Size selective analysis shows 83% of the particulates are in the inhalable size range of less than 100 microns and 46% are in the respirable range of less than 10 microns. Combining metals analysis and leakage results indicate the potential for a problematic personal exposure to metals external to the chamber unless modifications are made. Please feel free to …

It has been recognized that there is a need for requirements and guidance for design and operation of nuclear power plants. This is becoming more important as more reactors are being proposed to be built. In parallel with activities in individual countries are norms established by international organizations. This paper discusses requirements/guidance for neutronic design and operation as promulgated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). As an example, details are given for one reactor physics parameter, namely, the moderator temperature reactivity coefficient. The requirements/guidance from the NRC are discussed in the context of those generated for the International Atomic Energy Agency. The requirements/guidance are not identical from the two sources although they are compatible.

Homologous recombination (HR) repairs chromosome damage and is indispensable for tumor suppression in humans. RAD51 mediates the DNA strand pairing step in HR. RAD51AP1 (RAD51 Associated Protein 1) is a RAD51-interacting protein whose function has remained elusive. Knockdown of RAD51AP1 in human cells by RNA interference engenders sensitivity to different types of genotoxic stress. Moreover, RAD51AP1-depleted cells are impaired for the recombinational repair of a DNA double-strand break and exhibit chromatid breaks both spontaneously and upon DNA damaging treatment. Purified RAD51AP1 binds dsDNA and RAD51, and it greatly stimulates the RAD51-mediated D-loop reaction. Biochemical and cytological results show that RAD51AP1 functions at a step subsequent to the assembly of the RAD51-ssDNA nucleoprotein filament. Our findings provide the first evidence that RAD51AP1 helps maintain genomic integrity via RAD51 recombinase enhancement.

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Accurate and efficient simulation of chemical transport processes in the unsaturated zone of Yucca Mountain is important to evaluate the performance of the potential repository. The scale of the unsaturated zone model domain for Yucca Mountain (50 km{sup 2} area with a 600 meter depth to the water table) requires a large gridblock approach to efficiently analyze complex flow & transport processes. The conventional schemes based on finite element or finite difference methods perform well for dispersion-dominated transport, but are subject to considerable numerical dilution/dispersion for advection-dominated transport, especially when a large gridblock size is used. Numerical dispersion is an artificial, grid-dependent chemical spreading, especially for otherwise steep concentration fronts. One effective scheme to deal with numerical dispersion is the random walk particle method (RWPM). While significant progress has been made in developing RWPM algorithms and codes for single continuum systems, a random walk particle tracker, which can handle chemical transport in dual-continua (fractured porous media) associated with irregular grid systems, is still absent (to our knowledge) in the public domain. This is largely due to the lacking of rigorous schemes to deal with particle transfer between the continua, and efficient schemes to track particles in irregular grid systems. The …

"A dashboard is a visual interface that provides at-a-glance views into key measures relevant to a particular objective or business process." Key Attributes: Graphical to focus attention on key trends, comparisons and exceptions, Display only relevant data, Inherently contain predefined conclusions. Note: Collecting user requirements is KEYfrom'Excel 2007 Dashboards& Reports for Dummies' by Michael Alexander

This paper examines several multi-model combination techniques: the Simple Multi-model Average (SMA), the Multi-Model Super Ensemble (MMSE), Modified Multi-Model Super Ensemble (M3SE) and the Weighted Average Method (WAM). These model combination techniques were evaluated using the results from the Distributed Model Intercomparison Project (DMIP), an international project sponsored by the National Weather Service (NWS) Office of Hydrologic Development (OHD). All of the multi-model combination results were obtained using uncalibrated DMIP model outputs and were compared against the best uncalibrated as well as the best calibrated individual model results. The purpose of this study is to understand how different combination techniques affect the skill levels of the multi-model predictions. This study revealed that the multi-model predictions obtained from uncalibrated single model predictions are generally better than any single member model predictions, even the best calibrated single model predictions. Furthermore, more sophisticated multi-model combination techniques that incorporated bias correction steps work better than simple multi-model average predictions or multi-model predictions without bias correction.

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We have developed a nucleic acid-based assay that is rapid, sensitive, specific, and can be used for the simultaneous detection of 5 common human respiratory pathogens including influenza A, influenza B, parainfluenza type 1 and 3, respiratory syncytial virus, and adenovirus group B, C, and E. Typically, diagnosis on an un-extracted clinical sample can be provided in less than 3 hours, including sample collection, preparation, and processing, as well as data analysis. Such a multiplexed panel would enable rapid broad-spectrum pathogen testing on nasal swabs, and therefore allow implementation of infection control measures, and timely administration of antiviral therapies. This article presents a summary of the assay performance in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Limits of detection are provided for each targeted respiratory pathogen, and result comparisons are performed on clinical samples, our goal being to compare the sensitivity and specificity of the multiplexed assay to the combination of immunofluorescence and shell vial culture currently implemented at the UCDMC hospital. Overall, the use of the multiplexed RT-PCR assay reduced the rate of false negatives by 4% and reduced the rate of false positives by up to 10%. The assay correctly identified 99.3% of the clinical negatives, 97% of adenovirus, 95% …

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We review the transition melting studies carried out at Mainz, and describe a recently developed model used to explain that the relatively low melting slopes are due to the partially filled d-bands, and the persistence of the pressure induced s-d transition. The basic tenets of the model have now been reconfirmed by new measurements for Cu and Ni. The measurements show that Cu which has a filled 3d-band, has a melt slope that is about 2.5 greater than its neighbor Ni. In the case of Mo, the apparent discrepancy of DAC melting measurements with shock melting can be explained by accounting for the change in melt slope due to the bcc-cp transition observed in the shock studies. The Fe melt curve is revisited. The possible relevance of the Jahn-Teller effect and recently observed transition metal melts with Icosahedral Short-Range Order (ISRO) is discussed.

The theory of the strong nuclear force, Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), can be numerically simulated from first principles on massively-parallel supercomputers using the method of Lattice Gauge Theory. We describe the special programming requirements of lattice QCD (LQCD) as well as the optimal supercomputer hardware architectures that it suggests. We demonstrate these methods on the BlueGene massively-parallel supercomputer and argue that LQCD and the BlueGene architecture are a natural match. This can be traced to the simple fact that LQCD is a regular lattice discretization of space into lattice sites while the BlueGene supercomputer is a discretization of space into compute nodes, and that both are constrained by requirements of locality. This simple relation is both technologically important and theoretically intriguing. The main result of this paper is the speedup of LQCD using up to 131,072 CPUs on the largest BlueGene/L supercomputer. The speedup is perfect with sustained performance of about 20% of peak. This corresponds to a maximum of 70.5 sustained TFlop/s. At these speeds LQCD and BlueGene are poised to produce the next generation of strong interaction physics theoretical results.

Discrete DNA-gold nanoparticle conjugates with DNA lengths as short as 15 bases for both 5 nm and 20 nm gold particles have been purified by anion-exchange HPLC. Conjugates comprising short DNA (<40 bases) and large gold particles (>_ 20 nm) are difficult to purify by other means, and are potential substrates for plasmon coupling experiments. Conjugate purity is demonstrated by hybridizing complementary conjugates to form discrete structures, which are visualized by TEM.

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Melting curves of Cu and Ni were measured to 97 GPa (3800 K) and 60 GPa (2970 K), respectively, in the laser-heated diamond cell. The measured melting temperatures of Cu are in good agreement with recent theoretical calculations. The melting slope (dT/dP) of Cu, which has a filled d-electron band, is about 2.5 times steeper than for Ni, which with one less electron, has a partially unfilled d-electron band. The relatively low melting slope obtained for Ni, measured using identical experimental methods as for Cu, is consistent with our previous measurements for other transition metals with partially filled d-bands, which are in serious disagreement with theoretical estimates. The present results confirm the key role d-shell electrons play in determining the high pressure melting curves.

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{l_brace}311{r_brace} defects and dislocation loops are formed after ion-implantation and annealing of a silicon wafer. Recent Transmission Electron Microscopy studies by Li and Jones have shown that sub-threshold dislocation loops nucleate from {l_brace}311{r_brace} defects. In our study, the conjugate gradient method with the Stillinger Weber potential is used to relax different configurations such as {l_brace}311{r_brace} defects with a maximum of five chains and perfect dislocation loops. From the formation energies thus obtained we find that there is an optimal width for each length of the {l_brace}311{r_brace} defects. Moreover the relative stability of {l_brace}311{r_brace}s and loops is studied as a function of defect size. We observe that at very small sizes the perfect loops are more stable than the {l_brace}311{r_brace}s. This may provide an explanation for the experimental observation by Robertson et al that, in an annealing study of end of range damage of amorphized samples, 45% of the loops had nucleated in the first 10 minutes of anneal. We propose that homogeneous nucleation, as against unfaulting of the {l_brace}311{r_brace}s, could be the source of these loops.