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Residual radioactive waste was removed from Tank 18F in the F-Area Tank Farm at Savannah River Site (SRS), using the advanced design mixer pump (ADMP). Known as a slurry pump, the ADMP is a 55 foot long pump with an upper motor mounted to a steel super structure, which spans the top of the waste tank. The motor is connected by a long vertical drive shaft to a centrifugal pump, which is submerged in waste near the tank bottom. The pump mixes, or slurries, the waste within the tank so that it may be transferred out of the tank. Tank 18F is a 1.3 million gallon, 85 foot diameter underground waste storage tank, which has no internal components such as cooling coils or structural supports. The tank contained a residual 47,000 gallons of nuclear waste, consisting of a gelatinous radioactive waste known as sludge and particulate zeolite. The prediction of the ADMP success was based on nearly twenty five years of research and the application of that research to slurry pump technology. Many personnel at SRS and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL) have significantly contributed to these efforts. This report summarizes that research which is pertinent to the ADMP performance …

From a public policy perspective, the goals are to ensure that broadband deployment is timely, that industry competes fairly, and that service is provided to all sectors and geographical locations of American society. The federal government -- through Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) -- is seeking to ensure fair competition among the players so that broadband will be available and affordable in a timely manner to all Americans who want it. While the FCC's position is not to intervene at this time, some assert that legislation is necessary to ensure fair competition and timely broadband deployment. One proposal would ease certain legal restrictions and requirements, imposed by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, on incumbent telephone companies who provide high speed data (broadband) access. Another proposal would compel cable companies to provide "open access" to competing Internet service providers.

This report details the information related to budget allocation for FY 2005 The contents include Budget Action, Outlays, Receipts, deficits, and Surpluses, etc.

Traditionally building simulation models are used at the design phase of a building project. These models are used to optimize various design alternatives, reduce energy consumption and cost. Building performance assessment for the operational phase of a buildings life cycle is sporadic, typically working from historical metered data and focusing on bulk energy assessment. Building Management Systems (BMS) do not explicitly incorporate feedback to the design phase or account for any changes, which have been made to building layout or fabric during construction. This paper discusses a proposal to develop an Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) compliant data visualization tool Building Performance Indicator (BuildingPI) for performance metric and performance effectiveness ratio evaluation.

Geologic carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) sequestration is being considered as a way to offset fossil-fuel-related CO{sub 2} emissions to reduce the rate of increase of atmospheric CO{sub 2} concentrations. The accumulation of vast quantities of injected carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) in geologic sequestration sites may entail health and environmental risks from potential leakage and seepage of CO{sub 2} into the near-surface environment. We are developing and applying a coupled subsurface and atmospheric surface-layer modeling capability built within the framework of the integral finite difference reservoir simulator TOUGH2. The overall purpose of modeling studies is to predict CO{sub 2} concentration distributions under a variety of seepage scenarios and geologic, hydrologic, and atmospheric conditions. These concentration distributions will provide the basis for determining above-ground and near-surface instrumentation needs for carbon sequestration monitoring and verification, as well as for assessing health, safety, and environmental risks. A key feature of CO{sub 2} is its large density ({rho} = 1.8 kg m{sup -3}) relative to air ({rho} = 1.2 kg m{sup -3}), a property that may allow small leaks to cause concentrations in air above the occupational exposure limit of 4 percent in low-lying and enclosed areas such as valleys and basements where dilution rates …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Under the Department of Education's Federal Direct Loan Program (FDLP), students or their parents borrow money directly from the federal government through the vocational, undergraduate, or graduate schools that students attend. FDLP offers four loan types, including consolidation loans, which allow borrowers to combine multiple loans, possibly from different federal student loan programs, into a single loan with one monthly payment and a fixed borrower interest rate. The other three FDLP loan types provide variable borrower interest rates. The reported outstanding gross balance of FDLP loans to borrowers was $84.5 billion as of September 30, 2003, and the related allowance for subsidy--or the cost Education expected to incur on the outstanding loans--was $657 million. The key driver of the FDLP cost to the government is the difference between the borrower interest rate and Education's financing cost or borrowing rate from Treasury. Because of concerns about Education's reliance on estimates to project FDLP costs and a lack of historical information on which to base those estimates, the House Committee on the Budget previously asked us to review key aspects of Education's cost estimates for FDLP. Our January 2001 report …

This paper presents a summary of the performance of our 2 kHz rotary fast tool servo and an overview of its control systems. We also discuss the loop shaping techniques used to design the power amplifier current control loop and the implementation of that controller in an op-amp circuit. The design and development of the control system involved a long list of items including: current compensation; tool position compensation; notch filter design and phase stabilizing with an additional pole for a plant with an undamped resonance; adding viscous damping to the fast tool servo; voltage budget for driving real and reactive loads; dealing with unwanted oscillators; ground loops; digital-to-analog converter glitches; electrical noise from the spindle motor switching power supply; and filtering the spindle encoder signal to generate smooth tool tip trajectories. Eventually, all of these topics will be discussed in detail in a Ph.D. thesis that will include this work. For the purposes of this paper, rather than present a diluted discussion that attempts to touch on all of these topics, we will focus on the first item with sufficient detail for providing insight into the design process.

Au foils were irradiated with a 100-TW, 100-fs laser at intensities greater than 10{sup 20} W/cm{sup 2} producing proton beams with a total yield of {approx} 10{sup 11} and maximum proton energy of > 9 MeV. Removing contamination from the back surface of Au foils with an Ar-ion sputter gun reduced the total yield of accelerated protons to less than 1% of the yield observed without removing contamination. Removing contamination the front surface (laser-interaction side) of the target had no observable effect on the proton beam. We present a one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation that models the experiment. Both experimental and simulation results are consistent with the back-surface acceleration mechanism described in the text.

An In Tank Processing (ITP) technology was developed at the Savannah River Site to remove Cs-137 from high-level waste supernates. During the ITP process monosodium titanate and sodium tetraphenylborate (NaTPB) were added to the salt supernate to adsorb Sr-90/Pu-238 and precipitate Cs-137 as CsTPB, respectively. This process was demonstrated at the SRS in 1983. The demonstration produced 53,000 gallons of 2.5 weight per cent Cs rich precipitate containing TPB, which was later washed and diluted to 250,000 gallons. This material is currently stored in SRS tanks. The washed precipitate was to ultimately be disposed in borosilicate glass in the Defense Waste Processing Facility. Due to safety concerns the ITP process was abandoned in 1998, and new technologies are being researched for Cs-137 removal. In order to make space in the SRS Tank farm, the tank waste must be removed. Therefore, the tank waste must be processed to reduce or eliminate levels of nitrates, nitrites, and sodium tetra phenylborate (NaTPB) in order to reduce impacts of these species before it is vitrified at the DWPF. Fluidized Bed Steam Reforming (FBSR) is being considered as a candidate technology for destroying the nitrates and the NaTPB prior to melting. The purposes of the …

This paper describes a face recognition method that is designed based on the consideration of anatomical and biomechanical characteristics of facial tissues. Elastic strain pattern inferred from face expression can reveal an individual's biometric signature associated with the underlying anatomical structure, and thus has the potential for face recognition. A method based on the continuum mechanics in finite element formulation is employed to compute the strain pattern. Experiments show very promising results. The proposed method is quite different from other face recognition methods and both its advantages and limitations, as well as future research for improvement are discussed.

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Stray electrons can be introduced in positive-charge accelerators for heavy ion fusion (or other applications) as a result of ionization of ambient gas or gas released from walls due to halo-ion impact, or as a result of secondary-electron emission. We are developing a capability for self-consistent simulation of ion beams with the electron clouds they produce. We report on an ingredient in this capability, the effect of specified electron cloud distributions on the dynamics of a coasting ion beam. We consider here electron distributions with axially varying density, centroid location, or radial shape, and examine both random and sinusoidally varying perturbations. We find that amplitude variations are most effective in spoiling ion beam quality, though for sinusoidal variations which match the natural ion beam centroid oscillation or breathing mode frequencies, the centroid and shape perturbations can also be effective. We identify a possible instability associated with resonance with the beam-envelope ''breathing'' mode. One conclusion from this study is that heavy-ion beams are surprisingly robust to electron clouds, compared to a priori expectations.

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The groundwater at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) contains many long-lived radionuclides, including {sup 99}Tc (technetium) and {sup 129}I (iodine), as a result of 828 underground nuclear weapons tests conducted between 1951 and 1992. We synthesized a body of data collected on the distribution of {sup 99}Tc and {sup 129}I in groundwater to assess their migration at NTS, at field scales over distances of hundreds of meters and for durations up to forty years and under hydrogeologic conditions very similar to the proposed geological repository at Yucca Mountain. The results of our study show that Tc does not necessarily exist as a mobile and conservative species TcO{sub 4}{sup -}, as has been commonly assumed. This conclusion is corroborated by recent in situ redox potential measurements, which show that groundwaters at multiple locations of the NTS are not oxidizing, and mobility of reduced Tc species (TcO{sub 2} {center_dot} nH{sub 2}O) is greatly decreased. Speciation of iodine and its associated reactivity is also complex in the groundwater at the NTS, and its effect on the mobility of iodine should be the subject of future studies.

This report provides an overview of the financial outlook for social security and Medicare

This report provides an overview of the financial outlook for Social Security and Medicare programs.

Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) has developed a process to immobilize waste salt containing fission products, uranium, and transuranic elements as chlorides in a glass-bonded ceramic waste form. This salt was generated in the electrorefining operation used in the electrometallurgical treatment of spent Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) fuel. The ceramic waste process culminates with an elevated temperature operation. The processing conditions used by the furnace, for demonstration scale and production scale operations, are to be developed at Argonne National Laboratory-West (ANL-West). To assist in selecting the processing conditions of the furnace and to reduce the number of costly experiments, a finite difference model was developed to predict the consolidation of the ceramic waste. The model accurately predicted the heating as well as the bulk density of the ceramic waste form. The methodology used to develop the computer model and a comparison of the analysis to experimental data is presented.

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Uranium contamination of soils and sediments often originates from acidic or alkaline waste sources, with diffusion being a major transport mechanism. Measurements of U(VI) diffusion from initially pH 2 and pH 11 solutions into a slightly alkaline Altamont soil and a neutral Oak Ridge soil were obtained through monitoring uptake from boundary reservoirs and from U concentration profiles within soil columns. The soils provided pH buffering, resulting in diffusion at nearly constant pH. Micro x-ray absorption near edge structure spectra confirmed that U remained in U(VI) forms in all soils. Time trends of U(VI) depletion from reservoirs, and U(VI) concentration profiles within soil columns yielded K{sub d} values consistent with those determined in batch tests at similar concentrations ({approx} 1 mM), and much lower than values for sorption at much lower concentrations (nM to {mu}M). These results show that U(VI) transport at high concentrations can be relatively fast at non-neutral pH, with negligible surface diffusion, because of weak sorption.

Protein and DNA structures are represented at varying levels of details using ellipsoidal RGBA textured splats. The splat texture at each level is generated by rendering its children in a hierarchical model, from a distribution of viewing directions, and averaging the result. For rendering, the ellipsoids to be used are chosen adaptively, depending on the distance to the viewpoint. This technique is applied to visualize DNA coiling around nucleosomes in chromosomes.

OAK-B135 Quarterly Technical Report summarizing BBN's support of the DOE/NNSA GNEM program. This report details BBN's efforts to improve the modeling of explosions and other events underwater and their propagation to hydroacoustic sensor networks. OK to release, no restriction on copyright

Tedious manual input of data that define a building, its systems and its expected pattern of use and operating schedules for building energy performance simulation has in the past diverted time and resources from productive simulation runs. In addition to its previously released IFCtoIDF utility that semiautomates the import of building geometry, the new IFC HVAC interface to EnergyPlus (released at the end of 2003) makes it possible to import and export most of the data that define HVAC equipment and systems in a building directly from and to other IFC compatible software tools. This reduces the manual input of other data needed for successful simulation with EnergyPlus to a minimum. The main purpose of this new interface is to enable import of HVAC equipment and systems definitions, generated by other IFC compatible software tools (such as HVAC systems design tools) and data bases, into EnergyPlus, and to write such definitions contained in EnergyPlus input files to the original IFC files from which building geometry was extracted for the particular EnergyPlus input. In addition, this interface sets an example for developers of other software tools how to import and/or export data other than building geometry from and/or into EnergyPlus. This …

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear facilities are categorized by the level of hazard they pose to workers, the general public, and the environment. This paper applies the methodology outlined in DOE-STD-1027-92 and interpreted in recent DOE guidance to a nuclear material storage facility at the Savannah River Site to reduce the category of the facility to below HC-3.