The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) commitment to assuring the health and safety of its workers includes the conduct of illness and injury surveillance activities that provide an early warning system to detect health problems among workers. The Illness and Injury Surveillance Program monitors illnesses and health conditions that result in an absence, occupational injuries and illnesses, and disabilities and deaths among current workers.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) commitment to assuring the health and safety of its workers includes the conduct of illness and injury surveillance activities that provide an early warning system to detect health problems among workers. The Illness and Injury Surveillance Program monitors illnesses and health conditions that result in an absence, occupational injuries and illnesses, and disabilities and deaths among current workers.

The aim of commissioning new buildings is to ensure that they deliver, if not exceed, the performance and energy savings promised by their design. When applied to existing buildings, commissioning identifies the almost inevitable 'drift' from where things should be and puts the building back on course. In both contexts, commissioning is a systematic, forensic approach to quality assurance, rather than a technology per se. Although commissioning has earned increased recognition in recent years - even a toehold in Wikipedia - it remains an enigmatic practice whose visibility severely lags its potential. Over the past decade, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has built the world's largest compilation and meta-analysis of commissioning experience in commercial buildings. Since our last report (Mills et al. 2004) the database has grown from 224 to 643 buildings (all located in the United States, and spanning 26 states), from 30 to 100 million square feet of floorspace, and from $17 million to $43 million in commissioning expenditures. The recorded cases of new-construction commissioning took place in buildings representing $2.2 billion in total construction costs (up from 1.5 billion). The work of many more commissioning providers (18 versus 37) is represented in this study, as is more evidence …

The pressure-dependence of the quasi-static yield strength of vanadium in polycrystalline foils and powders has been measured up to 80 GPa at room temperature using an implementation of a non-hydrostatic diamond anvil cell technique [C. Meade and R. Jeanloz, J. Geophys. Res. 93, 3261 (1988)]. A new feature of this work is the use of an in-situ determination of the sample thickness. Following an initial increase in the strength with pressure, a decrease in the strength of vanadium was observed beginning at 40-50 GPa. We have measured the yield strength of vanadium up to 80 GPa under nonhydrostatic conditions. In this study, we used x-ray diffraction and absorption techniques to make in-situ measurements of the pressure gradient and the sample thickness. These measurements were used to evaluate the pressure-dependence of the material strength. We observed a decease in the yield strength of vanadium over the pressure range of 40-50 GPa. We propose that this change in the yieldstrength pressure-dependence is an indicator of the phase transition from bcc to rhombohedral.

The overall goal of this proposal was to develop an innovative experimental facility that would allow for the measurement of real-time response of a material surface to plasma bombardment by employing in-situ high-energy ion beam analysis. This facility was successfully developed and deployed at U. Wisconsin-Madison and was named DIONISOS (Dynamics of IONic Implantation & Sputtering on Surfaces). There were several major highlights to the DIONISOS research which we will briefly highlight below. The full technical details of the DIONISOS development, deployment and research results are contained in the Appendices which contain several peer-reviewed publications and a PhD thesis devoted to DIONISOS. The DIONISOS results on deuterium retention in molybdenum were chosen as an invited talk at the 2008 International Conference on Plasma-Surface Interactions in Toledo, Spain.

This project produced detailed data on the processes that affect methane and nitrous oxide emissions from rice agriculture and their inter-relationships. It defines the shifting roles and potential future of these gases in causing global warming and the benefits and tradeoffs of reducing emissions. The major results include: 1). Mechanisms and Processes Leading to Methane Emissions are Delineated. Our experiments have tested the standard model of methane emissions from rice fields and found new results on the processes that control the flux. A mathematical mass balance model was used to unravel the production, oxidation and transport of methane from rice. The results suggested that when large amounts of organic matter are applied, the additional flux that is observed is due to both greater production and reduced oxidation of methane. 2). Methane Emissions From China Have Been Decreasing Over the Last Two Decades. We have calculated that methane emissions from rice fields have been falling in recent decades. This decrease is particularly large in China. While some of this is due to reduced area of rice agriculture, the bigger effect is from the reduction in the emission factor which is the annual amount of methane emitted per hectare of rice. The …

The objective of this project is to develop a novel catalyst support technology based on unique engineered nanostructures for low temperature fuel cells which: (1) Achieves high catalyst activity and performance; (2) Improves catalyst durability over current technologies; and (3) Reduces catalyst cost. This project is directed at the development of durable catalysts supported by novel support that improves the catalyst utilization and hence reduce the catalyst loading. This project will develop a solid fundamental knowledge base necessary for the synthetic effort while at the same time demonstrating the catalyst advantages in Direct Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFCs).

This paper is focused on possible designs and predicted performances of two proposed high-energy, high-luminosity electron-hadron colliders: eRHIC at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL, Upton, NY, USA) and LHeC at Organisation Europeenne pour la Recherche Nucleaire (CERN, Geneve, Switzerland). The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC, BNL) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC, CERN) are designed as versatile colliders. RHIC is colliding various species of hadrons staring from polarized protons to un-polarized heavy ions (such as fully stripped Au (gold) ions) in various combinations: polarized p-p, d-Au, Cu-Cu, Au-Au. Maximum energy in RHIC is 250 GeV (per beam) for polarized protons and 100 GeV/n for heavy ions. There is planed expansion of the variety of species to include polarized He{sup 3} and unpolarized fully stripped U (uranium). LHeC is designed to collide both un-polarized protons with energy up to 7 TeV per beam and fully stripped Pb (lead) ions with energy up to 3 TeV/n. Both eRHIC and LHeC plan to add polarized electrons (or/and positrons) to the list of colliding species in these versatile hadron colliders. In eRHIC 10-20 GeV electrons would collide with hadrons circulating in RHIC. In LHeC 50-150 GeV polarized leptons will collided with LHC's hadron beams. Both …

In 1986, 21 m3 of transuranic (TRU) waste was inadvertently disposed in a shallow land burial trench at the Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Site on the Nevada Test Site. U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) TRU waste must be disposed in accordance with Title 40, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Part 191, Environmental Radiation Protection Standard for Management and Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel, High-Level, and Transuranic Radioactive Wastes. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is the only facility meeting these requirements. The National Research Council, however, has found that exhumation of buried TRU waste for disposal in a deep geologic repository may not be warranted when the effort, exposures, and expense of retrieval are not commensurate with the risk reduction achieved. The long-term risks of leaving the TRU waste in-place are evaluated in two probabilistic performance assessments. A composite analysis, assessing the dose from all disposed waste and interacting sources of residual contamination, estimates an annual total effective dose equivalent (TEDE) of 0.01 mSv, or 3 percent of the dose constraint. A 40 CFR 191 performance assessment also indicates there is reasonable assurance of meeting all requirements. The 40 CFR 191.15 annual mean TEDE for a member of the public …

Following a telephone interview with Materials and Systems Research, Inc. (MSRI) by members of the Hydrogen Safety Panel on December 4, 2008, a safety review team was dispatched to Salt Lake City, UT to perform a site-visit review. The major topic of concern was the presence of a hydrogen storage and dispensing shed on the MSRI premises close to both its own laboratory/office building and to the adjoining property. The metal shed contains 36 cylinders (two 18-cylinder "pods") of hydrogen all connected to a common manifold and used to supply hydrogen to a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) fuel cell project plus several other projects using an entire pod as a common supply. In busy times, MSRI uses and replaces one pod per week. As a result of the site visit, the safety review team has raised some concern with the shed’s location, design, use, and safety features as well as other components of the facility, including the laboratory area.

The nonlinear interaction of a plasma wave with resonant electrons results in a plateau in the electron distribution function close to the phase velocity of the plasma wave. As a result, Landau damping of the plasma wave vanishes and the resonant frequency of the plasma wave downshifts. However, this simple picture is invalid when the external driving force changes the plasma wave fast enough so that the plateau cannot be fully developed. A new model to describe amplification of the plasma wave including the saturation of Landau damping and the nonlinear frequency shift is proposed. The proposed model takes into account the change of the plasma wave amplitude and describes saturation of the Landau damping rate in terms of a single fluid equation, which simplifies the description of the inherently kinetic nature of Landau damping. A proposed fluid model, incorporating these simplifications, is verified numerically using a kinetic Vlasov code.

The purpose of this document is to release, into the Hanford Document Control System, FA1/0991, Sludge Particle Separation Efficiencies for the Rectangular SCS-CON-230 Container, by M. Epstein and M. G. Plys, Fauske & Associates, LLC, June 2009. The Sludge Treatment Project (STP) will retrieve sludge from the 105-K West Integrated Water Treatment System (IWTS) Settler Tanks and transfer it to container SCS-CON-230 using the Settler Tank Retrieval System (STRS). The sludge will enter the container through two distributors. The container will have a filtration system that is designed to minimize the overflow of sludge fines from the container to the basin. FAI/09-91 was performed to quantify the effect of the STRS on sludge distribution inside of and overflow out of SCS-CON-230. Selected results of the analysis and a system description are discussed. The principal result of the analysis is that the STRS filtration system reduces the overflow of sludge from SCS-CON-230 to the basin by roughly a factor of 10. Some turbidity can be expected in the center bay where the container is located. The exact amount of overflow and subsequent turbidity is dependent on the density of the sludge (which will vary with location in the Settler Tanks) and …

The identification of crystalline phases in solids requires knowledge of two microstructural properties: crystallographic structure and chemical composition. Traditionally, this has been accomplished using X-ray diffraction techniques where the measured crystallographic information, in combination with separate chemical composition measurements for specimens of unknown pedigrees, is used to deduce the unknown phases. With the latest microstructural analysis tools for scanning electron microscopes, both the crystallography and composition can be determined in a single analysis utilizing electron backscatter diffraction and energy dispersive spectroscopy, respectively. In this chapter, we discuss the approach required to perform these experiments, elucidate the benefits and limitations of this technique, and detail via case studies how composition, crystallography, and diffraction contrast can be used as phase discriminators.

We propose to provide theoretical support for the experimental program in fundamental neutron physics at the SNS. This includes the study of neutron properties, neutron beta-decay, parity violation effects and time reversal violation effects. The main purpose of the proposed research is to work on theoretical problems related to experiments which have a high priority at the SNS. Therefore, we will make a complete analysis of beta-decay process including calculations of radiative corrections and recoil corrections for angular correlations for polarized neutron decay, with an accuracy better that is supposed to be achieved in the planning experiments. Based on the results of the calculations, we will provide analysis of sensitivity of angular correlations to be able to search for the possible extensions of the Standard model. Also we will help to plan other experiments to address significant problems of modern physics and will work on their theoretical support.

The major objectives of the proposed study were to: 1.) determine the leaching characteristics of hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] from contaminated sediments collected from 100 Area spill sites; 2.) elucidate possible Cr(VI) mineral and/or chemical associations that may be responsible for Cr(VI) retention in the Hanford Site 100 Areas through the use of i.) macroscopic leaching studies and ii.) microscale characterization of contaminated sediments; and 3.) provide information to construct a conceptual model of Cr(VI) geochemistry in the Hanford 100 Area vadose zone. In addressing these objectives, additional benefits accrued were: (1) a fuller understanding of Cr(VI) entrained in the vadose zone that will that can be utilized in modeling potential Cr(VI) source terms, and (2) accelerating the Columbia River 100 Area corridor cleanup by providing valuable information to develop remedial action based on a fundamental understanding of Cr(VI) vadose zone geochemistry. A series of macroscopic column experiments were conducted with contaminated and uncontaminated sediments to study Cr(VI) desorption patterns in aged and freshly contaminated sediments, evaluate the transport characteristics of dichromate liquid retrieved from old pipelines of the 100 Area; and estimate the effect of strongly reducing liquid on the reduction and transport of Cr(VI). Column experiments used the < …

The chemical nature of copper and copper oxide (Cu{sub 2}O) surfaces in the presence of CO{sub 2} and H{sub 2}O at room temperature was investigated using ambient pressure x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The studies reveal that in the presence of 0.1 torr CO{sub 2} several species form on the initially clean Cu, including carbonate CO{sub 3}{sup 2}, CO{sub 2}{sup {delta}-} and C{sup 0}, while no modifications occur on an oxidized surface. The addition of 0.1 ML Zn to the Cu results in the complete conversion of CO{sub 2}{sup {delta}-} to carbonate. In a mixture of 0.1 torr H{sub 2}O and 0.1 torr CO{sub 2}, new species are formed, including hydroxyl, formate and methoxy, with H{sub 2}O providing the hydrogen needed for the formation of hydrogenated species.

The multi-point Thomson scattering (MPTS) diagnostic measures the profiles of the electron temperature Te(R) and density ne(R) on the horizontal midplane of NSTX. Normal operation makes use of Rayleigh scattering in nitrogen or argon to derive the density profile. While the Rayleigh scattering ne(R) calibration has been validated by comparison with other density measurements and through its correlation with plasma phenomena, it does require dedicated detectors at the laser wavelength in this filter polychromator based diagnostic. The presence of dust and/or stray laser light precludes routine use of these dedicated spectral channels for Thomson scattering measurement. Hence it is of interest to investigate the use of Raman scattering in nitrogen for the purpose of density calibration, since it could free up detection equipment, which could then be used for the instrumentation of additional radial channels. In this paper the viewing optics "geometrical factor" profiles obtained from Rayleigh and Raman scattering are compared. While both techniques agree nominally, residual effects on the order of 10% remain and will be discussed.

Comprehensive test ban monitoring in terms of location and discrimination has progressed significantly in recent years. However, the characterization of sources and the estimation of low yields remains a particular challenge. As the recent Korean shot demonstrated, we can probably expect to have a small set of teleseismic, far-regional and high-frequency regional data to analyze in estimating the yield of an event. Since stacking helps to bring signals out of the noise, it becomes useful to conduct comparable analyses on neighboring events, earthquakes in this case. If these auxiliary events have accurate moments and source descriptions, we have a means of directly comparing effective source strengths. Although we will rely on modeling codes, 1D, 2D, and 3D, we will also apply a broadband calibration procedure to use longer periods (P&gt;5s) waveform data to calibrate short-period (P between .5 to 2 Hz) and high-frequency (P between 2 to 10 Hz) as path specify station corrections from well-known regional sources. We have expanded our basic Cut-and-Paste (CAP) methodology to include not only timing shifts but also amplitude (f) corrections at recording sites. The name of this method was derived from source inversions that allow timing shifts between 'waveform segments' (or cutting the …

There is an ongoing disagreement regarding the aging of the shortfin mako due to a difference of interpretation in the periodic deposition of vertebral growth band pairs, especially for the larger size classes. Using analysis of length-month information, tagging data, and length-frequency analysis, concluded that two band pairs were formed in the vertebral centrum every year (biannual band-pair interpretation). Cailliet et al. (1983), however, presented growth parameters based on the common assumption that one band pair forms annually (annual band-pair interpretation). Therefore, growth rates obtained by Pratt & Casey (1983) were twice that of Cailliet et al. (1983) and could lead to age discrepancies of about 15 years for maximum estimated ages on the order of 30 from the annual band-pair interpretation. Serious consequences in the population dynamics could occur for this species if inputs are based on an invalid age interpretation. The latest Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Highly Migratory Species (HMS), for example, adopted the biannual band pair deposition hypothesis because it apparently fit the observed growth patterns best (Pacific Fishery Management Council 2003). However, the ongoing uncertainty about the aging of the shortfin mako was acknowledged and it was recommended that an endeavor to resolve this issue …

The explicit finite element (FE) software program DYNA3D has been developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to simulate the dynamic behavior of structures, systems, and components. This report focuses on verification of beam and truss element formulations in DYNA3D. An efficient protocol has been developed to verify the accuracy of these structural elements by generating a set of representative problems for which closed-form quasi-static steady-state analytical reference solutions exist. To provide as complete coverage as practically achievable, problem sets are developed for each beam and truss element formulation (and their variants) in all modes of loading and physical orientation. Analyses with loading in the elastic and elastic-plastic regimes are performed. For elastic loading, the FE results are within 1% of the reference solutions for all cases. For beam element bending and torsion loading in the plastic regime, the response is heavily dependent on the numerical integration rule chosen, with higher refinement yielding greater accuracy (agreement to within 1%). Axial loading in the plastic regime produces accurate results (agreement to within 0.01%) for all integration rules and element formulations. Truss elements are also verified to provide accurate results (within 0.01%) for elastic and elastic-plastic loading. A sample problem to verify …

Accelerators are the largest and most costly scientific instruments of the Department of Energy, with uses across a broad range of science, including colliders for particle physics and nuclear science and light sources and neutron sources for materials studies. COMPASS, the Community Petascale Project for Accelerator Science and Simulation, is a broad, four-office (HEP, NP, BES, ASCR) effort to develop computational tools for the prediction and performance enhancement of accelerators. The tools being developed can be used to predict the dynamics of beams in the presence of optical elements and space charge forces, the calculation of electromagnetic modes and wake fields of cavities, the cooling induced by comoving beams, and the acceleration of beams by intense fields in plasmas generated by beams or lasers. In SciDAC-1, the computational tools had multiple successes in predicting the dynamics of beams and beam generation. In SciDAC-2 these tools will be petascale enabled to allow the inclusion of an unprecedented level of physics for detailed prediction.

Obesity is increasing in an epidemic fashion in most countries and constitutes a public health problem by enhancing the risk for cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes. Owing to the increase in obesity, life expectancy may start to decrease in developed countries for the first time in recent history. The factors determining fat mass in adult humans are not fully understood, but increased lipid storage in already developed fat cells is thought to be most important. We show that adipocyte number is a major determinant for the fat mass in adults. However, the number of fat cells stays constant in adulthood in lean and obese and even under extreme conditions, indicating that the number of adipocytes is set during childhood and adolescence. To establish the dynamics within the stable population of adipocytes in adults, we have measured adipocyte turnover by analyzing the integration of {sup 14}C derived from nuclear bomb tests in genomic DNA. Approximately 10% of fat cells are renewed annually at all adult ages and levels of body mass index. Neither adipocyte death nor generation rate is altered in obesity, suggesting a tight regulation of fat cell number that is independent of metabolic profile …

The electronic structure of cobalt nanocrystals suspended in liquid as a function of size has been investigated using in-situ x-ray absorption and emission spectroscopy. A sharp absorption peak associated with the ligand molecules is found that increases in intensity upon reducing the nanocrystal size. X-ray Raman features due to d-d and to charge-transfer excitations of ligand molecules are identified. The study reveals the local symmetry of the surface of {var_epsilon}-Co phase nanocrystals, which originates from a dynamic interaction between Co nanocrystals and surfactant + solvent molecules.

Numerical tests are used to validate a practical estimatefor the optimal backward errors of linear least squares problems. Thissolves a thirty-year-old problem suggested by Stewart andWilkinson.