The Solid-State, Heat-Capacity Laser (SSHCL), under development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a large aperture (100 cm{sup 2}), confocal, unstable resonator requiring near-diffraction-limited beam quality. There are two primary sources of the aberrations in the system: residual, static aberrations from the fabrication of the optical components and predictable, time-dependent, thermally-induced index gradients within the gain medium. A deformable mirror placed within the cavity is used to correct the aberrations that are sensed externally with a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor. Although the complexity of intracavity adaptive correction is greater than that of external correction, it enables control of the mode growth within the resonator, resulting in the ability to correct a more aberrated system longer. The overall system design, measurement techniques and correction algorithms are discussed. Experimental results from initial correction of the static aberrations and dynamic correction of the time-dependent aberrations are presented.

All properties of molecules, from binding and excitation energies to their geometry, are determined by the highly correlated initial state wavefunction of the electrons and nuclei. Perhaps surprisingly, details of these correlations can be revealed by studying the break-up of these systems into their constituents. The fragmentation might be initiated by the absorption of a single photon [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], collision with a charged particle [7, 8] or exposure to a strong laser pulse [9, 10]. If the exciting interaction is sufficiently understood, one can use the fragmentation process as a tool to learn about the bound initial state [11, 12]. However, often the interaction and the fragment motions pose formidable challenges to quantum theory [13, 14, 15]. Here we report the coincident measurement of the momenta of both nuclei and both electrons from the single photon induced fragmentation of the deuterium molecule. The results reveal that the correlated motion of the electrons is strongly dependent on the inter-nuclear separation in the molecular ground state at the instant of photon absorption.

The authors have studied the narrow (valley-ridge) structure in the {gamma}-ray spectrum following a heavy-ion fusion reaction that produces several ytterbium nuclei. The intensity of this structure can be quantitatively related to the average chaotic behavior in these nuclei and they have traced this behavior from nearly fully ordered to nearly fully chaotic.

The study of Alloy 22 has been undertaken in several selected nitrate/chloride (NO{sub 3}Cl{sup -}) electrolytes. These electrolytes include chloride concentrations [Cl{sup -}] of 1.0, 3.5 and 6.0 metal with NO{sub 3}/Cl{sup -} ratios of 0.05, 0.15 and 0.5 at various temperatures. Alloy 22 maintains is passivity in most industrial environments. As a result, it is highly desirable for numerous industrial applications including underground waste disposal systems. Alloy 22 possesses remarkably low general corrosion rates. It has exceptional resistance so localized corrosion including environmentally assisted cracking [1-7]. Alloy 22 (N06022) is a nickel(Ni)-alloy and contains 22% chromium (Cr), 13% molybdenum (Mo), 3% tungsten (W) and about 3% iron (Fe). The goal of this study was to determine the levels of NO{sub 3} required for effective inhibition of crevice corrosion at Alloy 22. To achieve this, carefully designed statistical cost matrices covering the selected range of CT compositions and temperatures were employed in carrying out the experiments. Specimens for three experiments were in the form of multiple crevice assemblies (MCA), optimized with 24 artificial crevice sites. Tests used in this investigation involved open circuit potential monitoring, polarization resistance, and cyclic polarization experiments. Potentiostatic polarization test were also employed.

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This paper presents a multigrid method for solving variable coefficient Maxwell's equations. The novelty in this method is the use of interpolation operators that do not produce multilevel commutativity complexes that lead to multilevel exactness. Rather, the effects of multilevel exactness are built into the level equations themselves--on the finest level using a discrete T-V formulation, and on the coarser grids through the Galerkin coarsening procedure of a T-V formulation. These built-in structures permit the levelwise use of an effective hybrid smoother on the curl-free near-nullspace components, and these structures permit the development of interpolation operators for handling the curl-free and divergence-free error components separately, with the resulting block diagonal interpolation operator not satisfying multilevel commutativity but having good approximation properties for both of these error components. Applying operator-dependent interpolation for each of these error components leads to an effective multigrid scheme for variable coefficient Maxwell's equations, where multilevel commutativity-based methods can degrade. Numerical results are presented to verify the effectiveness of this new scheme.

For. Ecol. and Mgt. 199:259-272. Malaise traps were used to sample beetles in artificial canopy gaps of different size (0.13 ha, 0.26 ha, and0.50 ha) and age in a South Carolina bottomland hardwood forest. Traps were placed at the center, edge, and in the surrounding forest of each gap. Young gaps (ý 1 year) had large amounts of coarse woody debris compared to the surrounding forest, while older gaps (ý 6 years) had virtually none. The total abundance and diversity of wood-dwelling beetles (Buprestidae, Cerambycidae, Brentidae, Bostrichidae, and Curculionidae (Scolytinae and Platypodinae)) was higher in the center of young gaps than in the center of old gaps. The abundance was higher in the center of young gaps than in the surrounding forest, while the forest surrounding old gaps and the edge of old gaps had a higher abundance and diversity of wood-dwelling beetles than did the center of old gaps. There was no difference in wood-dwelling beetle abundance between gaps of different size, but diversity was lower in 0.13 ha old gaps than in 0.26 ha or 0.50 ha old gaps. We suspect that gap size has more of an effect on woodborer abundance than indicated here because malaise traps …

Human DNA can be damaged by natural metabolism through free radical production. It has been suggested that the equilibrium between innate damage and cellular DNA repair results in an oxidative DNA damage background that potentially contributes to disease and aging. Efforts to quantitatively characterize the human oxidative DNA damage background level based on measuring 8-oxoguanine lesions as a biomarker have led to estimates varying over 3-4 orders of magnitude, depending on the method of measurement. We applied a previously developed and validated quantitative pathway model of human DNA base excision repair, integrating experimentally determined endogenous damage rates and model parameters from multiple sources. Our estimates of at most 100 8-oxoguanine lesions per cell are consistent with the low end of data from biochemical and cell biology experiments, a result robust to model limitations and parameter variation. Our results show the power of quantitative system modeling to interpret composite experimental data and make biologically and physiologically relevant predictions for complex human DNA repair pathway mechanisms and capacity.

During the last year, the VENUS ECR ion source was commissioned at 18 GHz and preparations for 28 GHz operation, which is set to begin early in 2004, are now underway. The goal of the VENUS ECR ion source project as the RIA R&D injector is the production of 240emA of U30+, a high current medium charge state beam. On the other hand, as an injector ion source for the 88-Inch Cyclotron the design objective is the production of 5emA of U48+, a low current, very high charge state beam. During the commissioning phase with 18 GHz, tests with various gases and recently metals have been performed with up to 2000 W RF power and the performance is very promising. For example, 1100 e mu A of O6+,180 e mu A of Ar12+, 150 emA of Xe20+ and 100 emA of Bi24+ were produced in the early commissioning phase, ranking VENUS among the currently highest performance 18 GHz ECR ion sources. The emittance of the beams produced at 18 GHz was measured with a two axis emittance scanner. In FY04 a 10 kW, 28 GHz gyrotron system will be added, which will enable VENUS to reach full performance. The performance …