BlockSolve v1. 1: Scalable Library Software for the Parallel Solution of Sparse Linear Systems (open access)

BlockSolve v1. 1: Scalable Library Software for the Parallel Solution of Sparse Linear Systems

BlockSolve is a software library for solving large, sparse systems of linear equations on massively parallel computers. The matrices must be symmetric, but may have an arbitrary sparsity structure. BlockSolve is a portable package that is compatible with several different message-passing pardigms. This report gives detailed instructions on the use of BlockSolve in applications programs.
Date: March 1993
Creator: Jones, Mark T. & Plassmann, Paul E.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Lead Exposures and Biological Responses in Military Weapons Systems: Aerosol Characteristics and Acute Lead Effects among US Army Artillerymen: Final Report (open access)

Lead Exposures and Biological Responses in Military Weapons Systems: Aerosol Characteristics and Acute Lead Effects among US Army Artillerymen: Final Report

This study was to determine the concentration and chemical nature of lead (Pb) aerosols produced during the firing of artillery and to determine the exposures and biological responses of crew members exposed to lead aerosols during such firing. The concentrations of lead-containing aerosols at crew positions depended on wind conditions, with higher concentrations when firing into a head wind. Aerosol concentrations were highest in the muzzle blast zone. Concentrations of lead in the blood of crew members rose during the first 12 days of exposure to elevated airborne lead concentrations and then leveled off. There was no rapid decrease in blood lead concentrations after completion of firing. Small decreases in hematocrit and small increases in free erythrocyte porphyrin were correlated with increasing exposure to airborne lead. These changes were reversed by seven weeks after firing. Changes in nerve conduction velocity had borderline statistical significance to airborne lead exposure. In measuring nerve conduction velocity, differences in skin temperature must be taken into account.
Date: March 1993
Creator: Bhattacharyya, M. H.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Endangered Species Act and Private Property (open access)

The Endangered Species Act and Private Property

If the 103rd Congress embarks upon an effort to reauthorize the Endangered Species Act (ESA), it will run into an old acquaintance: the property rights issue. As now written, the ESA has at least the potential to curtail property rights (whatever its actual impact as implemented may be). This report explores the legal repercussions of those impacts, especially whether they constitute takings of property under the fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Date: March 7, 1993
Creator: Meltz, Robert
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Plant Closings, Mass Layoffs, and Worker Dislocations: Data Issues (open access)

Plant Closings, Mass Layoffs, and Worker Dislocations: Data Issues

For at least 15 years Members of Congress have continued to ask: How many U.S. manufacturing plants have closed? For at least 15 years they have continued to ask: How many U.S. manufacturing plants have relocated abroad, and where have they gone? For at least 15 years the answer has been: For the most part, those questions can't be answered, based on Government data. How many plants are moving to Mexico? What industries and what States are the plants from? How many U.S. workers are losing their jobs as a result? It appears that still, after two legislative attempts to mandate collection of these data, the Government publishes no counts of U.S. plant closings, and almost no information on plant relocations. Options for strengthening the data systems include addressing three main weaknesses: inadequate data program design, a plant closing definition that misses its mark, and publication of partial instead of complete survey results.
Date: March 29, 1993
Creator: Bolle, Mary Jane
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
President Bush's Judicial Nominations During the 101st and 102nd Congresses (open access)

President Bush's Judicial Nominations During the 101st and 102nd Congresses

There are ten categories of courts (including the local courts of the District of Columbia) to which the President nominates judges. The report provides background and statistics concerning President Bush's judicial nominations in each court category as well as actions taken on those nominations by the United States Senate. Each of the report's ten sections discusses the composition and jurisdiction of the court in question and notes the committee to which nominations to this court were referred when received by the Senate. Also, statistics on judicial nominations received by the Senate during the four years of the Bush Presidency are presented.
Date: March 29, 1993
Creator: Rutkus, Denis Steven
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Efficient Microwave Power Source: Free-electron Laser Afterburner (open access)

An Efficient Microwave Power Source: Free-electron Laser Afterburner

A kind of microwave power source, called a free-electron laser afterburner (FEL afterburner) which consists of a free-electron laser buncher and a slow-wave output structure sharing a magnetic wiggler field with the buncher, is proposed. The buncher and the slow-wave structure can operate in either a travelling-wave state or a standing-wave state. In the buncher, the wiggler field together with the radiation field makes an electron beam bunched, and in the slow-wave structure the wiggler field keeps the beam bunched while the bunched beam interacts strongly with the slow-wave structure and so produces rf power. The bunching process comes from the free-electron laser mechanism and the generating process of rf power is in a slow-wave structure. A three-dimensional, time-dependent code is used to simulate a particular standing-wave FEL afterburner and it is shown that rf power of up to 1.57 GW can be obtained, at 17.12 GHz, from a l-kA, 5-MeV electron beam.
Date: March 4, 1993
Creator: Wang, C. & Sessler, Andrew M.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Geomorphology of plutonium in the Northern Rio Grande (open access)

Geomorphology of plutonium in the Northern Rio Grande

Nearly all of the plutonium in the natural environment of the Northern Rio Grande is associated with soils and sediment, and river processes account for most of the mobility of these materials. A composite regional budget for plutonium based on multi-decadal averages for sediment and plutonium movement shows that 90 percent of the plutonium moving into the system is from atmospheric fallout. The remaining 10 percent is from releases at Los Alamos. Annual variation in plutonium flux and storage exceeds 100 percent. The contribution to the plutonium budget from Los Alamos is associated with relatively coarse sediment which often behaves as bedload in the Rio Grande. Infusion of these materials into the main stream were largest in 1951, 1952, 1957, and 1968. Because of the schedule of delivery of plutonium to Los Alamos for experimentation and weapons manufacturing, the latter two years are probably the most important. Although the Los Alamos contribution to the entire plutonium budget was relatively small, in these four critical years it constituted 71--86 percent of the plutonium in bedload immediately downstream from Otowi.
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Graf, William L.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
K-Area Acid/Caustic Basin groundwater monitoring report (open access)

K-Area Acid/Caustic Basin groundwater monitoring report

During fourth quarter 1992, samples from the KAC monitoring wells at the K-Area Acid/Caustic Basin were analyzed for indicator parameters, groundwater quality parameters, parameters indicating suitability as drinking water, and other constituents. New wells KAC 8 and 9 also were sampled for GC/MS VOA (gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer volatile organic analyses). Monitoring results that exceeded the final Primary Drinking Water Standards (PDWS) or the Savannah River Site (SRS) flagging criteria or turbidity standard during the quarter are discussed in this report. Iron exceeded the Flag 2 criterion in wells KAC 6 and 7, and specific conductance exceeded the Flag 2 criterion in new well KAC 9. No samples exceeded the SRS turbidity standard.
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: unknown
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Thermodynamics of computation and information distance (open access)

Thermodynamics of computation and information distance

Applying the tools of algorithmic information theory, we compare several candidates for an asymptotically machine-independent. absolute measure of the informational or cognitive'' distance between discrete objects x and y. The maximum of the conditional Kolmogorov complexities max[l brace]K(y[vert bar]z) K(m[vert bar]y)[r brace], is shown to be optimal, in the sense of being minimal within an additive constant among semicomputable, symmetric, positive semidefinite functions of z and y satisfying a reasonable normalization condition and obeying the triangle intequality. The optimal metric, in turn, differs by at most an additive logarithmic term from the size of the smallest program for a universal reversible computer to transform x into y. This program functions in a 'catalytic'' capacity, being retained in the computer before, during, and after the computation. Similarly, the sum of the conditional complexities. K(y[vert bar]x) + K(x[vert bar]y), is shown to be equal within a logarithmic term to the minimal amount Of information flowing out and in during a reversible computation in which the program is not retained. Finally. using the physical theory of reversible computation, it is shown that the simple difference K(x) - K(y) is an appropriate (ie universal, antisymmetric, and transitive) measure of the amount of thermodynamic work …
Date: March 12, 1993
Creator: Bennett, C.H.; Gacs, P.; Li, M.; Vitanyi, P.M.B. & Zurek, W.H.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Gas conversion opportunities in LILCO's commercial sector (open access)

Gas conversion opportunities in LILCO's commercial sector

This report presents the results of a preliminary investigation into opportunities for gas conservation in Long Island Lighting Company's commercial sector. It focusses on gas-fired heating equipment. Various sources of data are examined in order to characterize the commercial buildings and equipment in the service territory. Several key pieces of information necessary to predict savings potential are identified. These include the efficiencies and size distribution of existing equipment. Twenty-one specific conservation measures are identified and their applicability is discussed in terms of equipment size. Recommendations include improving the characterization of existing buildings and equipment, and developing a greater understanding of the savings and costs of conservation measures, and their interactions, especially in the middle size range of buildings and equipment.
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Pierce, B.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Neutron stars and nuclei in the modified relativistic Hartree approximation (open access)

Neutron stars and nuclei in the modified relativistic Hartree approximation

The properties of neutron-rich matter and finite nuclei are in the modified relativistic Hartree approximation for several values of the renormalization scale, [mu], around the standard choice of [mu] equal to the nucleon mass, M. Observed neutron star masses do not effectively constrain the valve of [mu]. However, for finite nuclei the value [mu]/M=0.79, suggested by nuclear matter data, provides a good account of the bulk properties with a sigma mass of about 600 MeV. This value of [mu]/M renders the effective three- and four-body scalar self-couplings to be zero at 60% of equilibrium nuclear matter density, rather than in the vacuum. The matter part of the exchange diagram has little impact on the bulk properties of neutron stars.
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Prakash, M. (Minnesota Univ., Minneapolis, MN (United States) State Univ. of New York, Stony Brook, NY (United States). Dept. of Physics); Ellis, P.J. (Minnesota Univ., Minneapolis, MN (United States) Washington Univ., Seattle, WA (United States). Inst. for Nuclear Theory); Heide, E.K. (Minnesota Univ., Minneapolis, MN (United States)) & Rudaz, S. (Minnesota Univ., Minneapolis, MN (United States))
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Development of a neural net paradigm that predicts simulator sickness (open access)

Development of a neural net paradigm that predicts simulator sickness

A disease exists that affects pilots and aircrew members who use Navy Operational Flight Training Systems. This malady, commonly referred to as simulator sickness and whose symptomatology closely aligns with that of motion sickness, can compromise the use of these systems because of a reduced utilization factor, negative transfer of training, and reduction in combat readiness. A report is submitted that develops an artificial neural network (ANN) and behavioral model that predicts the onset and level of simulator sickness in the pilots and aircrews who sue these systems. It is proposed that the paradigm could be implemented in real time as a biofeedback monitor to reduce the risk to users of these systems. The model captures the neurophysiological impact of use (human-machine interaction) by developing a structure that maps the associative and nonassociative behavioral patterns (learned expectations) and vestibular (otolith and semicircular canals of the inner ear) and tactile interaction, derived from system acceleration profiles, onto an abstract space that predicts simulator sickness for a given training flight.
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Allgood, G.O.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Production of jets in association with W vector bosons in the D0 detector (open access)

Production of jets in association with W vector bosons in the D0 detector

The D0 detector has accumulating data at the Fermilab Tevatron at [radical]s = 1.8 TeV for several months. In this paper we present the results of an analysis based on 1.1 pb[sup [minus]1] of data. We compare the observed W transverse momentum distributions of W+0jet and W+1jet events with a full D0 detector simulated leading order Monte Carlo. The jet multiplicity distributions associated with W are presented as well as new method of testing NLO QCD predictions and measuring the strong coupling constant [alpha][sub s].
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Yu, J. (State Univ. of New York, Stony Brook, NY (United States))
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Strange particle nuclear physics: Workshop summary (open access)

Strange particle nuclear physics: Workshop summary

Several sessions of the Working Group on Hadronic and Nuclear Spectroscopy dealt with different aspects of strange particle nuclear physics, including hypernuclear spectroscopy, strange dibaryons, and K[sup +] interactions with nuclei. Recent developments in this area are summarized here, and open questions are identified. Some prospects for optimum use of existing facilities, as well as the desired characteristics of future ones, are discussed.
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Dover, C. B.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Estimate of LOCA-FI plenum pressure uncertainty for a five-ring RELAP5 production reactor model (open access)

Estimate of LOCA-FI plenum pressure uncertainty for a five-ring RELAP5 production reactor model

The RELAP5/MOD2.5 code (RELAP5) is used to perform best-estimate analyses of certain postulated Design Basis Accidents (DBAs) in SRS production reactors. Currently, the most limiting DBA in terms of reactor power level is an instantaneous double-ended guillotine break (DEGB) loss of coolant accident (LOCA). A six-loop RELAP5 K Reactor model is used to analyze the reactor system behavior dozing the Flow Instability (FI) phase of the LOCA, which comprises only the first 5 seconds following the DEGB. The RELAP5 K Reactor model includes tank and plenum nodalizations having five radial rings and six azimuthal sectors. The reactor system analysis provides time-dependent plenum and tank bottom pressures for use as boundary conditions in the FLOWTRAN code, which models a single fuel assembly in detail. RELAP5 also performs the system analysis for the latter phase of the LOCA, denoted the Emergency Cooling System (ECS) phase. Results from the RELAP analysis are used to provide boundary conditions to the FLOWTRAN-TF code, which is an advanced two-phase version of FLOWTRAN. The RELAP5 K Reactor model has been tested for LOCA-FI and Loss-of-Pumping Accident analyses and the results compared with equivalent analyses performed with the TRAC-PF1/MOD1 code (TRAC). An equivalent RELAP5 six-loop, five-ring, six-sector L …
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Griggs, D. P.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Costs of creating carbon sinks in the US (open access)

Costs of creating carbon sinks in the US

New models of the dynamic patterns of carbon uptake by forest ecosystems allow improvements in the estimation of the costs of carbon sequestration in the US. The preliminary results of an effort to update an earlier study indicate that conversion of environmentally sensitive and economically marginal cropland and pastureland in the US could offset as much as 25% of current US emissions at costs of $US 8--60 per short ton.
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Richards, K.R. (Pacific Northwest Lab., Washington, DC (United States)); Moulton, R.J. & Birdsey, R.A. (Forest Service, Washington, DC (United States))
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Accelerated screening methods for predicting lubricant performance in refrigerant compressors (open access)

Accelerated screening methods for predicting lubricant performance in refrigerant compressors

As the result of a thorough literature search and consultation with manufacturers of compressors, a specimen testing program is proposed to simulate specific contacts in components of compressors. Specimen testing will be conducted using a high pressure tribometer. Specific components to be simulated, with their approximate operating and environmental conditions, are identified. A list of references, related to compressors lubrication, friction and wear, is given in the Appendix.
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Cusano, C.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Evaluation of S-101 course Supervisors' Orientation to Occupational Safety in DOE'' taught in Idaho Falls, Idaho, January 19--22, 1993 (open access)

Evaluation of S-101 course Supervisors' Orientation to Occupational Safety in DOE'' taught in Idaho Falls, Idaho, January 19--22, 1993

This report summarizes trainee evaluations for the Safety Training Section course, Supervisors' Orientation to Occupational Safety in DOE'', (S-101) which was conducted January 19--22, 1993 at Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Sections 1.1 and 1.2 of this report summarize the quantitative course evaluations that trainees provided upon completion of the course. Section 2.0 covers examination results, and Section 3.0 presents recommendations for course improvement. Appendix A provides a transcript of the trainees' written comments, and Appendix B provides the evaluation form.
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Wright, T. S.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Errors when shock waves interact due to numerical shock width (open access)

Errors when shock waves interact due to numerical shock width

A simple test problem proposed by Noh, a strong shock reflecting from a rigid wall, demonstrates a generic problem with numerical shock capturing algorithms at boundaries that Noh called excess wall heating.'' We show that the same type of numerical error occurs in general when shock waves interact. The underlying cause is the non-uniform convergence to the hyperbolic solution of the inviscid limit of the solution to the PDEs with viscosity. The error can be understood from an analysis of the asymptotic solution. For a propagating shock, there is a difference in the total energy of the parabolic wave relative to the hyperbolic shock. Moreover, the relative energy depends on the strength of the shock. The error when shock waves interact is due to the difference in the relative energies between the incoming and outgoing shock waves. It is analogous to a phase shift in a scattering matrix. A conservative differencing scheme correctly describes the Hugoniot jump conditions for a steady propagating shock. Therefore, the error from the asymptotics occurs in the transient when the waves interact. The entropy error that occurs in the interaction region remains localized but does not dissipate. A scaling argument shows that as the viscosity …
Date: March 4, 1993
Creator: Menikoff, R.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Identification of nitriding mechanisms in high purity reaction bonded silicon nitride (open access)

Identification of nitriding mechanisms in high purity reaction bonded silicon nitride

The rapid, low-temperature nitriding results from surface effects on the Si particles beginning with loss of chemisorbed H and sequential formation of thin amorphous Si nitride layers. Rapid complete conversion to Si[sub 3]N[sub 4] during the fast reaction can be inhibited when either too few or too many nuclei form on Si particels. Optimally, [approximately] 10 Si[sub 3]N[sub 4] nuclei form per Si particles under rapid, complete nitridation conditions. Nitridation during the slow reaction period appears to progress by both continued reaction of nonpreferred Si[sub 3]N[sub 4] growth interfaces and direct nitridation of the remaining Si/vapor interfaces.
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Haggerty, J.S.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Effective length measurements of prototype Main Injector Dipole endpacks (open access)

Effective length measurements of prototype Main Injector Dipole endpacks

An endpack design has been developed for the Fermilab Main Injector Dipole. A major part of the design process was the testing of a series of prototype removable endpacks. The magnetic parameters that were tested included the effective length and the field shape variation. This report presents a description of the measurement techniques and the results for the effective length. The final endpack has an effective length at 1500 A (0.29T) of 2.6 [plus minus] 0.3 mm greater than the steel length, and the change in effective length from 1500 A to maximum current of 9500 A (1.74T) is [minus]1.88 [plus minus] 0.05 mm.
Date: March 3, 1993
Creator: Glass, H. D.; Brown, B. C. & Harding, D. J.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
The influence of naturally-occurring organic acids on model estimates of lakewater acidification using the model of acidification of groundwater in catchments (MAGIC) (open access)

The influence of naturally-occurring organic acids on model estimates of lakewater acidification using the model of acidification of groundwater in catchments (MAGIC)

A project for the US Department of Energy, entitled Incorporation of an organic acid representation into MAGIC (Model of Acidification of Groundwater in Catchments) and Testing of the Revised Model UsingIndependent Data Sources'' was initiated by E S Environmental Chemistry, Inc. in March, 1992. Major components of the project include: improving the MAGIC model by incorporating a rigorous organic acid representation, based on empirical data and geochemical considerations, and testing the revised model using data from paleolimnological hindcasts of preindustrial chemistry for 33 Adirondack Mountain lakes, and the results of whole-catchment artificial acidification projects in Maine and Norway. The ongoing research in this project involves development of an organic acid representation to be incorporated into the MAGIC modeland testing of the improved model using three independent data sources. The research during Year 1 has included conducting two workshops to agree on an approach for the organic acid modeling, developing the organic subroutine and incorporating it into MAGIC (Task 1), conducing MAGIC hindcasts for Adirondack lakes and comparing the results with paleolimnological reconstructions (Task 2), and conducting site visits to the manipulation project sites in Maine and Norway. The purpose of this report is to provide a summary of the work …
Date: March 5, 1993
Creator: Sullivan, T.J.; Eilers, J.M. (E and S Environmental Chemistry, Inc., Corvallis, OR (United States)); Cosby, B.J. (Virginia Univ., Charlottesville, VA (United States). Dept. of Environmental Sciences); Driscoll, C.T. (Syracuse Univ., NY (United States). Dept. of Civil Engineering); Hemond, H.F. (Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Civil Engineering) & Charles, D.F.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ethanol synthesis and water gas shift over bifunctional sulfide catalysts (open access)

Ethanol synthesis and water gas shift over bifunctional sulfide catalysts

During this quarter, high pressure (8.1 MPa) and high temperature (up to 350[degrees]C) catalytic testing was carried out with a 10 wt% cesium doped molybdenum disulfide for 188.5 hr. The doping of the catalyst was carried out under vacuum, instead of evaporating a methanolic solution of cesium formate. This procedure proved to initially provide an active catalyst, although the catalyst was not as active as previously reported [1] for a similarly prepared catalyst. Upon prolonged testing, deactivation of the catalyst was observed. Surprisingly, the selectivity pattern was reversed from that of the fresh catalyst, i.e. the alcohol synthesis selectivity increased with increasing reaction temperature rather than decreased. The causes of this deactivation and selectivity reversal have not yet been determined, but characterization studies are underway with this catalyst.
Date: March 1, 1993
Creator: Klier, Kamil; Herman, Richard G. & Deemer, Michael
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Weld overlay coatings for erosion control (open access)

Weld overlay coatings for erosion control

A literature review was made. In spite of similarities between abrasive wear and solid particle erosion, weld overlay hardfacing alloys that exhibit high abrasion resistance may not necessarily have good erosion resistance. The performance of weld overlay hardfacing alloys in erosive environments has not been studied in detail. It is believed that primary-solidified hard phases such as carbides and intermetallic compounds have a strong influence on erosion resistance of weld overlay hardfacing alloys. However, relationships between size, shape, and volume fraction of hard phases in a hardfacing alloys and erosion resistance were not established. Almost all hardfacing alloys can be separated into two major groups based upon chemical compositions of the primary solidified hard phases: (a) carbide hardening alloys (Co-base/carbide, WC-Co and some Fe base superalloys); and (b) intermetallic hardening alloys (Ni-base alloys, austenitic steels, iron-aluminides).
Date: March 3, 1993
Creator: Levin, B.; DuPont, J.N. & Marder, A.R.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library