Wet chemical etching of GaN, InN, AlN, InAlN and InGaN was investigated in various acid and base solutions at temperatures up to 75 C. Only KOH-based solutions were found to etch AlN and InAlN. No etchants were found for the other nitrides, emphasizing their extreme lack of chemical reactivity. The native oxide on most of the nitrides could be removed in potassium tetraborate at 75 C, or HCl/H{sub 2}O at 25 C.

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Most distributed applications today manage to utilize only a small percentage of the needed and available network bandwidth. Often application developers are not aware of the potential bandwidth of the network, and therefore do not know what to expect. Even when application developers are aware of the specifications of the machines and network links, they have few resources that can help determine why the expected performance was not achieved. What is needed is a ubiquitous and easy-to-use service that provides reliable, accurate, secure, and timely estimates of dynamic network properties. This service will help advise applications on how to make use of the network's increasing bandwidth and capabilities for traffic shaping and engineering. When fully implemented, this service will make building currently unrealizable levels of network awareness into distributed applications a relatively mundane task. For example, a remote data visualization application could choose between sending a wireframe, a pre-rendered image, or a 3-D representation, based on forecasts of CPU availability and power, compression options, and available bandwidth. The same service will provide on-demand performance information so that applications can compare predicted with actual results, and allow detailed queries about the end-to-end path for application and network tuning and debugging.

The high spin states of {sup 240}Pu and {sup 244}Pu have been investigated with GAMMASPHERE at ATLAS, using Coulomb excitation with a {sup 208}Pb beam at energies above the Coulomb barrier. Data on a transfer channel leading to {sup 242}Pu were obtained as well. In the case of {sup 244}Pu, the yrast band was extended to 34{h_bar} revealing the completed {pi}i{sub 13/2} alignment, a ''first'' for actinide nuclei. The yrast sequence of {sup 242}Pu was also extended to higher spin and a similar backbend was delineated. In contrast, while the ground state band of {sup 240}Pu was measured up to the highest rotational frequencies ever reported in the actinide region ({approximately}300 keV), no sign of particle alignment was observed. In this case, several observable such as the large B(E1)/B(E2) branching ratios in the negative parity band, and the vanishing energy staggering between the negative and positive parity bands suggest that the strength of octupole correlations increases with rotational frequency. These stronger correlations may well be responsible for delaying or suppressing the {pi}i{sub 13/2} particle alignment.

The authors summarize results of analyses of D meson mixing parameters performed by the BABAR collaboration.

We have used sub-picosecond laser pulses to launch ultra-high strain rate ({approx} 10{sup 9} s{sup -1}) nonlinear acoustic waves into a 4:1 methanol-ethanol pressure medium which has been precompressed in a standard diamond anvil cell. Using ultrafast interferometry, we have characterized acoustic wave propagation into the pressure medium at static compression up to 24 GPa. We find that the velocity is dependent on the incident laser fluence, demonstrating a nonlinear acoustic response which may result in shock wave behavior. We compare our results with low strain, low strain-rate acoustic data. This technique provides controlled access to regions of thermodynamic phase space that are otherwise difficult to obtain.

This quarterly report discusses the following topics: (1) the metabolic properties of plutonium and allied materials; (2) biological studies of radiation effects; (3) biological effects of radiation from external and internal zones; and (4) health chemistry.

The Waste Acceptance Product Specifications (WAPS) 1.2 require that ''The Producer shall report the inventory of radionuclides (in Curies) that have half-lives longer than 10 years and that are, or will be, present in concentrations greater than 0.05 percent of the total inventory for each waste type indexed to the years 2015 and 3115''. As part of the strategy to comply with WAPS 1.2, the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) will report for each waste type, all radionuclides (with half-lives greater than 10 years) that have concentrations greater than 0.01 percent of the total inventory from time of production through the 1100 year period from 2015 through 3115. The initial listing of radionuclides to be included is based on the design-basis glass as identified in the Waste Form Compliance Plan (WCP) and Waste Form Qualification Report (WQR). However, it is required that this list be expanded if other radionuclides with half-lives greater than 10 years are identified that may meet the greater than 0.01% criterion for Curie content. Specification 1.6 of the WAPS, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguards Reporting for High Level Waste (HLW), requires that the ratio by weights of the following uranium and plutonium isotopes be reported: …

We have built and successfully tested a novel particle identification detector concept, the Fast Focusing DIRC (fDIRC). The prototype's concept is based on the BaBar DIRC with several important improvements: (a) much faster pixelated photon detectors based on Burle MCP-PMTs and Hamamatsu MaPMTs, (b) a focusing mirror allowing a smaller photon detector, reducing the sensitivity to backgrounds in future applications, (c) electronics capable of measuring the single photon resolution to better than {sigma} {approx} 100-200ps. The fDIRC is the first RICH detector to successfully correct the chromatic error by timing.

This is the second Gordon Research Conference on 'Plant Lipids: Structure, Metabolism & Function'. It covers current topics in lipid structure, metabolism and function in eukaryotic photosynthetic organisms including seed plants, algae, mosses and ferns. Work in photosynthetic bacteria is considered as well as it serves the understanding of specific aspects of lipid metabolism in plants. Breakthroughs are discussed in research on plant lipids as diverse as glycerolipids, sphingolipids, lipids of the cell surface, isoprenoids, fatty acids and their derivatives. The program covers nine concepts at the forefront of research under which afore mentioned plant lipid classes are discussed. The goal is to integrate areas such as lipid signaling, basic lipid metabolism, membrane function, lipid analysis, and lipid engineering to achieve a high level of stimulating interaction among diverse researchers with interests in plant lipids. One Emphasis is on the dynamics and regulation of lipid metabolism during plant cell development and in response to environmental factors.

The hadroproduction of lepton pairs with mass Q and finite transverse momentum Q{sub T} is described in perturbative QCD by the same partonic subprocesses as prompt photon production. The authors demonstrate that, like prompt photon production, lepton pair production is dominated by quark-gluon scattering in the region Q{sub T} > Q/2. This feature leads to sensitivity to the gluon density in kinematical regimes accessible in collider and fixed target experiments, and it provides a new independent method for constraining the gluon density.

In this summary of the considerations of the QCD working group at Snowmass 2001, the roles of quantum chromodynamics in the Standard Model and in the search for new physics are reviewed, with emphasis on frontier areas in the field. The authors discuss the importance of, and prospects for, precision QCD in perturbative and lattice calculations. They describe new ideas in the analysis of parton distribution functions and jet structure, and review progress in small-x and in polarization experiments.

This report describes recent measurements that have been performed with the new target stack (Fig. 1). Highlights of these measurements are: (1) Pbar yields of nickel and powdered rhenium are comparable to that of copper. (2) Enhancement of pbar yield at the interface between copper and aluminum disks in the target stack has been observed. This effect occurs only when the lens is focused near the upstream edge of the target. (3) The target density depletion study in powdered rhenium showed an apparent yield reduction on the time scale of a single proton pulse, accompanied by release of airborne radioactive material.

The objective of this project is to demonstrate the use of alkaline reagents injected into the furnace of coal-fired boilers as a means of controlling sulfuric acid emissions. Sulfuric acid controls are becoming of increasing interest to utilities with coal-fired units for a number of reasons. Sulfuric acid is a Toxic Release Inventory species, a precursor to acid aerosol/condensable emissions, and can cause a variety of plant operation problems such as air heater plugging and fouling, back-end corrosion, and plume opacity. These issues will likely be exacerbated with the retrofit of SCR for NO{sub x} control on some coal-fired plants, as SCR catalysts are known to further oxidize a portion of the flue gas SO{sub 2} to SO{sub 3}. The project is testing the effectiveness of furnace injection of four different calcium- and/or magnesium-based alkaline sorbents on full-scale utility boilers. These reagents have been tested during four one- to two-week tests conducted on two First Energy Bruce Mansfield Plant units. One of the sorbents tested was a magnesium hydroxide slurry produced from a wet flue gas desulfurization system waste stream, from a system that employs a Thiosorbic{reg_sign} Lime scrubbing process. The other three sorbents are available commercially and include dolomite, …

In the treatment of carnotite concentrates, sodium diuranate was prepared by acidifying tricarbonate liquors to eliminate carbon dioxide, and then precipitating the sodium salt by the addition of caustic. Direct precipitation of uranium by the addition of caustic to tricarbonate liquors was used when pitchblende ores were processed, because this procedure was more effective in giving a product with a low molybdenum content. Tests of this method in the laboratory and Pilot Plant indicated that low uranium losses (0.2 to 0.3%) would be encountered with typical liquors if 1.7 to 2.0 lbs of caustic were added for every pound of uranosic oxide in solution. Since losses as high as 3% were incurred in plant operations, further work was undertaken, in an effort to reduce the uranium concentration in the waste liquors.

In the ether extraction process, as originally developed, purified uranium dioxide was obtained by evaporation and calcination of the uranyl nitrate solution, followed by calcination of the resultant UO{sub 3}. It was suggested that an alternate procedure might be developed, involving the precipitation of uranium from the nitrate solution as ammonium diuranate. This material could then be calcined to uranosic acid, or reduced directly to the dioxide. It had already been established that ammonium diuranate could be precipitated completely from uranyl nitrate solutions. Experiments were carried out to determine whether a basic nitrate, analogous to a known sulfate salt, would be formed in the process. Both direct reduction of the diuranate to UO{sub 2} and calcination to uranosic acid were investigated to determine the physical characteristics and residual nitrogen of the resultant brown oxide.

The QCD color transparency of higher-twist contributions to the inclusive hadroproduction cross section, where the trigger proton is produced directly in a short-distance subprocess, can explain several remarkable features of high-p{sub T} proton production in heavy ion collisions which have recently been observed at RHIC: (a) the anomalous increase of the p {yields} {pi} ratio with centrality (b): the more rapid power-law fall-off at fixed x{sub T} = 2p{sub T}/{radical}s of the charged particle production cross section in high centrality nuclear collisions, and (c): the anomalous decrease of the number of same-side hadrons produced in association with a proton trigger as the centrality increases. These phenomena illustrate how heavy ion collisions can provide sensitive tools for interpreting and testing fundamental properties of QCD.

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The AdS/CFT correspondence between string theory in AdS space and conformal field theories in physical space-time leads to an analytic, semi-classical model for strongly-coupled QCD which has scale invariance and dimensional counting at short distances and color confinement at large distances. The AdS/CFT correspondence also provides insights into the inherently nonperturbative aspects of QCD such as the orbital and radial spectra of hadrons and the form of hadronic wavefunctions. In particular, we show that there is an exact correspondence between the fifth-dimensional coordinate of AdS space z and a specific impact variable {zeta} which measures the separation of the quark and gluonic constituents within the hadron in ordinary space-time. This connection leads to AdS/CFT predictions for the analytic form of the frame-independent light-front wavefunctions (LFWFs) of mesons and baryons, the fundamental entities which encode hadron properties. The LFWFs in turn predict decay constants and spin correlations, as well as dynamical quantities such as form factors, structure functions, generalized parton distributions, and exclusive scattering amplitudes. Relativistic light-front equations in ordinary space-time are found which reproduce the results obtained using the fifth-dimensional theory and have remarkable algebraic structures and integrability properties. As specific examples we describe the behavior of the pion form …

Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is a known issue for short-pulse laser facilities, and will also be an issue for experiments using the advanced radiographic capability (ARC) at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The ARC diagnostic uses four NIF beams that are compressed to picosecond durations for backlighting ignition capsules and other applications. Consequently, we are working to understand the EMP due to high-energy (MeV) electrons escaping from targets heated by short-pulse lasers. Our approach is to measure EMP in the Titan short-pulse laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and to employ that data to establish analysis and simulation capabilities. We have installed a wide variety of probes inside and outside the Titan laser chamber. We have high-frequency B-dot and D-dot probes, a photodiode, and fast current-viewing and integrating current transformers. The probe outputs are digitized by 10 and 20 Gsample/s oscilloscopes. The cables and oscilloscopes are well shielded to reduce noise. Our initial measurement campaign has yielded data useful mainly from several hundreds of MHz to several GHz. We currently are supplementing our high-frequency probes with lower-frequency ones to obtain better low-frequency data. In order to establish analysis and simulation capabilities we are modeling the Titan facility using various commercial …

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) will be impacted by electromagnetic pulse (EMP) during normal long-pulse operation, but the largest impacts are expected during short-pulse operation utilizing the Advanced Radiographic Capability (ARC). Without mitigation these impacts could range from data corruption to hardware damage. We describe our EMP measurement systems on Titan and NIF and present some preliminary results and thoughts on mitigation.

Standard design certification has been used over the past 20 years to develop NRC approval of Advanced Light Water Reactor (ALWR) designs. The standard design approval approach is intended to remove much of the uncertainty in the regulatory schedule prior to commitment of major funds to construction. The value of the approach has not been tested in the US but it has supported construction of ABWRs in Japan and Taiwan. Application of the approach to other types of advanced reactors may be possible but is not clear how this might be accomplished in the case of reactors with little or no operating experience. This paper discusses an approach that was proposed by General Electric over 15 years ago and its possible application to GEN-IV reactors.

A statistical comparison of observations and forecasts using the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) for operations at the Savannah River Site (SRS) is discussed. Simulated and observed values of wind direction, wind speed, and temperature, collected twice daily for a two-year period from April 1998 through March 2000, are compared in a variety of ways for 5 different locations in the southeast United States. Turbulence quantities are also compared for a one-year period beginning in February 1999 for the SRS. Results are presented in the form of scatter plots and histograms, as well as time-based line plots for the different locations within the modeling domain. Both surface and upper-level model predictions are compared with observations taken from both the National Weather Service and local SRS tower locations (surface measures only). Variability based on the time of year, the forecast hour, the location of the observations, and the height above ground for each of these variables is discussed. Statistics of accuracy used for comparison include absolute mean bias, relative bias, root-mean-square error, standard deviation, and the index of agreement. The most severe degradation in results occurs during the transition periods of early evening (approximately 19 to 20 LST) and late morning …

This is the first quarterly Technical Report for the period October-December, 2003. A kick-off meeting was held with NETL administrators and scientists at Morgantown, WV, on December 2, 2002. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the biological and economic feasibility of restoring high-quality forests on mined land, and to measure carbon sequestration and wood production benefits that would be achieved from forest restoration procedures. During this first quarterly reporting period, five Graduate Research Assistants were recruited, an MOA was drafted between Virginia Tech and three industry cooperators, preliminary field locations for controlled studies were located, and a preliminary analysis of a carbon inventory of forest sites on mined land was made.