Solubility data for ammonia in water and various dilute solutions are abundant in the literature. However, there is a noticeable lack of ammonia solubility data for high salt, basic solutions of various mixtures of salts including those found in many of the Hanford Washington underground waste tanks. As a result, models based on solubility data for dilute salt solutions have been used to extrapolate to high salt solutions. These significant extrapolations need to be checked against actual laboratory data. Some indirect vapor measurements have been made. A more direct approach is to determine the ratio of solubility of ammonia in water to its solubility in high salt solutions. In various experiments, pairs of solutions, one of which is water and the other a high salt solution, are allowed to come to equilibrium with a common ammonia vapor pressure. The ratio of concentrations of ammonia in the two solutions is equal to the ratio of the respective ammonia solubilities (Henry's Law constants) at a given temperature. This information can then be used to refine the models that predict vapor space compositions of ammonia. Ammonia at Hanford is of concern because of its toxicity in the environment and its contribution to the …

We consider the problem of partitioning the nodes of a complete edge weighted graph into {kappa} clusters so as to minimize the sum of the diameters of the clusters. Since the problem is NP-complete, our focus is on the development of good approximation algorithms. When edge weights satisfy the triangle inequality, we present the first approximation algorithm for the problem. The approximation algorithm yields a solution that has no more than 10k clusters such the total diameter of these clusters is within a factor O(log (n/{kappa})) of the optimal value fork clusters, where n is the number of nodes in the complete graph. For any fixed {kappa}, we present an approximation algorithm that produces {kappa} clusters whose total diameter is at most twice the optimal value. When the distances are not required to satisfy the triangle inequality, we show that, unless P = NP, for any {rho} {ge} 1, there is no polynomial time approximation algorithm that can provide a performance guarantee of {rho} even when the number of clusters is fixed at 3. Other results obtained include a polynomial time algorithm for the problem when the underlying graph is a tree with edge weights.

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There is a well-known story about the blind man examining the elephant: the part of the elephant examined determines his perception of the whole beast. Perhaps bioinformatics--the shotgun marriage between biology and mathematics, computer science, and engineering--is like an elephant that occupies a large chair in the scientific living room. Given the demand for and shortage of researchers with the computer skills to handle large volumes of biological data, where exactly does the bioinformatics elephant sit? There are probably many biologists who feel that a major product of this bioinformatics elephant is large piles of waste material. If you have tried to plow through Web sites and software packages in search of a specific tool for analyzing and collating large amounts of research data, you may well feel the same way. But there has been progress with major initiatives to develop more computing power, educate biologists about computers, increase funding, and set standards. For our purposes, bioinformatics is not simply a biologically inclined rehash of information theory (1) nor is it a hodgepodge of computer science techniques for building, updating, and accessing biological data. Rather bioinformatics incorporates both of these capabilities into a broad interdisciplinary science that involves both conceptual …

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An improved charge separation technique for metal-oxide-silicon (MOS) capacitors is presented which accounts for the deactivation of substrate dopants by hydrogen at elevated irradiation temperatures or small irradiation biases. Using high-frequency capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements, radiation-induced inversion voltage shifts are separated into components due to oxide trapped charge, interface traps and deactivated dopants, where the latter is computed from a reduction in Si capacitance. In the limit of no radiation-induced dopant deactivation, this approach reduces to the standard midgap charge separation technique used widely for the analysis of room-temperature irradiations. The technique is demonstrated on a p-type MOS capacitor irradiated with {sup 60}Co {gamma}-rays at 100 C and zero bias, where the dopant deactivation is significant.

The CHIPS model and its first implementation within the GEANT4 simulation software package are considered. Hadron production in the process of nucleon-antinucleon annihilation is used as the basic example showing the structure of the model and corresponding software modeling algorithms. Model calculations of multiplicities and spectra of secondary hadrons in the annihilation process are compared with experimental data.

It is shown that the proposed frictional cooling method is not directly applicable to intense ({approximately} 10{sup 12}) muon bunches, mostly due to space charge constraints. Other difficulties stem from the fact that the initial emittance must be quite small, compared to the nominal muon collider emittance. Excessive heat due to energy deposition in the foils, from the primary muon beam or from secondary electrons could also destroy the thin foils used as moderator. Other zero energy schemes are considered, separately for {mu}{sup {minus}} and {mu}{sup +}. All of them lead the authors to the study of exotic electrons-ions-muons plasma.

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Subsurface flow processes may take place at many different scales. The different scales refer to rock pore structure, micro-fractures, distinct fracture networks ranging from small to large fracture spacing, and even faults. Presently, there is no satisfactory methodology for describing quantitatively flow and reactive transport in multi-scale media. Approaches commonly applied to model fractured systems include single continuum models (SCM), equivalent continuum models (ECM), discrete fracture models (DFM), and various forms of dual continuum models (DCM). The SCM describes flow in the fracture network only and is valid in the absence of fracture-matrix interaction. The ECM, on the other hand, requires pervasive interaction between fracture and matrix and is based on averaging their properties. The ECM is characterized by equal fracture and matrix solute concentrations, but generally different mineral concentrations. The DFM is perhaps the most rigorous, but would require inordinate computational resources for a highly fractured rock mass. The DCM represents a fractured porous medium as two interacting continua with one continuum corresponding to the fracture network and the other the matrix. A coupling term provides mass transfer between the two continua. Vidues for mineral and solute concentrations and other properties such as liquid saturation state maybe assigned individually …

The authors calculate the cross section of the deeply virtual Compton scattering at large energies and intermediate momentum transfers. In recent years the study of the deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) became one of the most popular topics in QCD due to the fact that it is determined by skewed parton distributions which generalize usual parton densities introduced by Feynman. These new probes of the nucleon structure are accessible in exclusive processes such as DVCS and potentially they can give more information than the traditional parton densities. In this paper the authors consider the small-x DVCS where the energy of the incoming virtual photon E is very large in comparison to its virtuality Q{sup 2}. To be specific, they calculate the DVCS amplitude in the region s >> Q{sup 2} >> -t >> m{sup 2} where s = 2mE, m is the nucleon mass, and t is the momentum transfer. The DVCS in this region is a semihard process which can be described by the BFKL (Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov) pomeron. It turns out that at large momentum transfer the coupling of the BFKL pomeron to the nucleon is essentially equal to the Dirac form factor of the nucleon F{sub 1}(t), so the …

Photodynamic laser therapy (PDT) for esophageal cancer has recently been studied in animal and clinical trials. In several animal experiments a synergetic effect was found by simultaneously applying PDT and hyperthermia (HT). In this paper an optical fiber system is described which can be used in the esophagus for combined PDT with a 1 W dye laser and HT with a 15--40 W Nd-YAG laser. Phantoms were developed to simulate the geometry of the esophagus using cow muscle. The spatial-temporal temperature field during HT was measured. The results were compared with calculations using a coupled Monte Carlo laser transport/finite difference heat transport model using the LATIS computer program. Measurements and calculations yield a realistic description of the temperature distribution during HT under various experimental conditions. The LATIS program allows the prediction of the effects of blood perfusion for in-vivo situations. The results show that the perfusion has considerable influence on the temperature field, which must be considered for in-vivo applications.

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Development of the DOE Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP) web site is the result of the efforts of marry members of the Nuclear Criticality Safety (NCS) community and is maintained by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under the direction of the NCSP Management Team. This World Wide Web (WWW) resource was developed as part of the DOE response to the DNFSB Recommendation 97-2, which reflected the need to make criticality safety information available to a wide audience. The NCSP web site provides information of interest to NCS professionals and includes links to other sites actively involved in the collection and dissemination of criticality safety information. To the extent possible, the hyperlinks on this web site direct the user to the original source of the referenced material in order to ensure access to the latest, most accurate version.

A free-electron laser using a multi-segment optical klystron (MSOK) is studied using a 3-D simulation code for use as 4th generation light sources. The MSOK consists of multiple wiggler segments with dipole triplets in the gaps. The dipole triplets impose a dogleg trajectory that ballistically enhances the electron beam bunching and the gain in the following wiggler segment. There are three principal advantages of the MSOK over single-segment wiggler designs. First, the saturation length is drastically reduced. Second, the MSOK is significantly less sensitive to beam energy spread. Third, the linewidth is carryover and can be tuned by varying the dipole field strength. As a result, the MSOK is an ideal configuration for 4th generation light sources.

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Research funded by the US Department of Defense, US Department of Energy, and the US Environmental Protection Agency as part of Project CS-1131 of the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program evaluated novel techniques for collecting high-resolution images in the Mojave Desert using helicopters, helium-filled blimps, kites, and hand-held telescoping poles at heights from 1 to 150 meters. Several camera types, lens, films, and digital techniques were evaluated on the basis of their ability to correctly estimate canopy cover of shrubs. A high degree of accuracy was obtained with photo scales of 1:4,000 or larger and flatbed scanning rates from films or prints of 300 lines per inch or larger. Smaller scale images were of value in detecting retrospective changes in cover of large shrubs, but failed to detect smaller shrubs. Excellent results were obtained using inexpensive 35-millimeter cameras and new super-fine grain film such as Kodak's Royal Gold{trademark} (ASA 100) film or megapixel digital cameras. New image-processing software, such as SigmaScan Pro{trademark}, makes it possible to accurately measure areas up to 1 hectare in size for total cover and density in 10 minutes compared to several hours or days of field work. In photographs with scales of 1:1,000 and …

The Event Transfer system enables its users to produce events (data) and share them with other users by utilizing shared memory on either Solaris or Linux-based computers. Its design emphasizes speed, reliability, ease of use, and recoverability from crashes. In addition to fast local operation, the ET system allows network transfer of events. Using multi-threaded code based on POSIX threades and mutexes, a successful implementation was developed which allowed passing events over 500 kHz on a 4 cpu Sun workstation and 150 kHz on a dual cpu PC.

The generation of ultra-short x-rays by Thomson scattering intense laser pulses from electron beams is discussed, including recent experimental results and methods for enhancing the x-ray flux. A high flux of x-rays in a femtosecond pulse requires the generation of femtosecond electron bunches and a head-on Thomson scattering geometry. The generation of ultrashort electron bunches in a plasma-based accelerator with an injection technique that uses two colliding laser pulses is discussed. Simulations indicate the bunches as short as a few fs can be produced. Conversion of the fs electron pulse to a fs x-ray pulse can be accomplished by Bremsstrahlung or Thomson scattering.