The National Ignition Facility (NIF) Neutron Time of Flight (NTOF) diagnostic will measure neutron yield and ion temperature in all NIF campaigns in DD, DT, and THD* implosions. The NIF NTOF diagnostic is designed to measure neutron yield from 109 to 2 x 1019. The NTOF consists of several detectors of varying sensitivity located on the NIF at about 5 m and 20 m from the target. Production, testing, and calibration of the NIF NTOF detectors have begun at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE). Operational tests of the NTOF detectors were performed on several facilities including the OMEGA laser at LLE and the Titan laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Neutron calibrations were carried out on the OMEGA laser. Results of the NTOF detectors tests and calibration will be presented. *(D = deuterium, T = tritium, H = hydrogen)

An automatic data-smoothing algorithm for data from digital oscilloscopes is described. The algorithm adjusts the bandwidth of the filtering as a function of time to provide minimum mean squared error at each time. It produces an estimate of the root-mean-square error as a function of time and does so without any statistical assumptions about the unknown signal. The algorithm is based on least-squares fitting to the data of cubic spline functions.

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization(MALDI) mass spectrometry(MS) has been widely used for analysis of biological molecules, especially macromolecules such as proteins. However, MALDI MS has a problem in small molecule (less than 1 kDa) analysis because of the signal saturation by organic matrixes in the low mass region. In imaging MS (IMS), inhomogeneous surface formation due to the co-crystallization process by organic MALDI matrixes limits the spatial resolution of the mass spectral image. Therefore, to make laser desorption/ionization (LDI) MS more suitable for mass spectral profiling and imaging of small molecules directly from raw biological tissues, LDI MS protocols with various alternative assisting materials were developed and applied to many biological systems of interest. Colloidal graphite was used as a matrix for IMS of small molecules for the first time and methodologies for analyses of small metabolites in rat brain tissues, fruits, and plant tissues were developed. With rat brain tissues, the signal enhancement for cerebroside species by colloidal graphite was observed and images of cerebrosides were successfully generated by IMS. In addition, separation of isobaric lipid ions was performed by imaging tandem MS. Directly from Arabidopsis flowers, flavonoids were successfully profiled and heterogeneous distribution of flavonoids in petals was observed for …

Among the olivine-structured metal phosphate family, LiMnPO{sub 4} exhibits a high discharge potential (4V), which is still compatible with common electrolytes, making it interesting for use in the next generation of Li ion batteries. The extremely low electronic conductivity of this material severely limits its electrochemical performance, however. One strategy to overcome this limitation is to make LiMnPO{sub 4} nanoparticulate to decrease the diffusion distance. Another is to add a carbon or other conductive coating in intimate contact with the nanoparticles of the main phase, as is commonly done with LiFePO{sub 4}. The electrochemical performance of LiFePO{sub 4} is highly dependent on the quality of the carbon coatings on the particles [1-2], among other variables. Combustion synthesis allows the co-synthesis of nanoparticles coated with carbon in one step. Hydrothermal synthesis is used industrially to make LiFePO{sub 4} cathode materials [3] and affords a good deal of control over purity, crystallinity, and particle size. A wide range of olivine-structured materials has been successfully prepared by this technique [4], including LiMnPO{sub 4} in this study. In this paper, we report on the new synthesis of nano-LiMnPO{sub 4} by a combustion method. The purity is dependent upon the conditions used for synthesis, including …

We develop a Bayesian model to invert spectral induced polarization (SIP) data for Cole-Cole parameters using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling methods. We compare the performance of the MCMC based stochastic method with an iterative Gauss-Newton based deterministic method for Cole-Cole parameter estimation through inversion of synthetic and laboratory SIP data. The Gauss-Newton based method can provide an optimal solution for given objective functions under constraints, but the obtained optimal solution generally depends on the choice of initial values and the estimated uncertainty information is often inaccurate or insufficient. In contrast, the MCMC based inversion method provides extensive global information on unknown parameters, such as the marginal probability distribution functions, from which we can obtain better estimates and tighter uncertainty bounds of the parameters than with the deterministic method. Additionally, the results obtained with the MCMC method are independent of the choice of initial values. Because the MCMC based method does not explicitly offer single optimal solution for given objective functions, the deterministic and stochastic methods can complement each other. For example, the stochastic method can first be used to obtain the means of the unknown parameters by starting from an arbitrary set of initial values and the deterministic …

We continue to utilize the oligonucleotide microarrays that were constructed through funding with this project to characterize growth responses of Desulfovibrio vulgaris relevant to metal-reducing conditions. To effectively immobilize heavy metals and radionuclides via sulfate-reduction, it is important to understand the cellular responses to adverse factors observed at contaminated subsurface environments (e.g., nutrients, pH, contaminants, growth requirements and products). One of the major goals of the project is to construct whole-genome microarrays for Desulfovibrio vulgaris. First, in order to experimentally establish the criteria for designing gene-specific oligonucleotide probes, an oligonucleotide array was constructed that contained perfect match (PM) and mismatch (MM) probes (50mers and 70mers) based upon 4 genes. The effects of probe-target identity, continuous stretch, mismatch position, and hybridization free energy on specificity were examined. Little hybridization was observed at a probe-target identity of <85% for both 50mer and 70mer probes. 33 to 48% of the PM signal intensities were detected at a probe-target identity of 94% for 50mer oligonucleotides, and 43 to 55% for 70mer probes at a probe-target identity of 96%. When the effects of sequence identity and continuous stretch were considered independently, a stretch probe (>15 bases) contributed an additional 9% of the PM signal intensity …

This paper describes a safety design basis documentation change control process. The process identifies elements that can be used to manage the project/facility configuration during design evolution through the Initiation, Definition, and Execution project phases. The project phases addressed by the process are defined in US Department of Energy (DOE) Order (O) 413.3A, Program and Project Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets, in support of DOE project Critical Decisions (CD). This approach has been developed for application to two Hanford Site projects in their early CD phases and is considered to be a key element of safety and design integration. As described in the work that has been performed, the purpose of change control is to maintain consistency among design requirements, the physical configuration, related facility documentation, and the nuclear safety basis during the evolution of the design. The process developed (1) ensures an appropriate level of rigor is applied at each project phase and (2) is considered to implement the requirements and guidance provided in DOE-STD-1189-2008, Integration of Safety into the Design Process. Presentation of this work is expected to benefit others in the DOE Complex that may be implementing DOE-STD-1189-2008 or managing nuclear safety documentation in support …

The measurement of flow obtained using continuous wave Doppler ultrasound is formulated as a directional projection of a flow vector field. When a continuous ultrasound wave bounces against a flowing particle, a signal is backscattered. This signal obtains a Doppler frequency shift proportional to the speed of the particle along the ultrasound beam. This occurs for each particle along the beam, giving rise to a Doppler velocity spectrum. The first moment of the spectrum provides the directional projection of the flow along theultrasound beam. Signals reflected from points further away from the detector will have lower amplitude than signals reflected from points closer to the detector. The effect is very much akin to that modeled by the attenuated Radon transform in emission computed tomography.A least-squares method was adopted to reconstruct a 2D vector field from directional projection measurements. Attenuated projections of only the longitudinal projections of the vector field were simulated. The components of the vector field were reconstructed using the gradient algorithm to minimize a least-squares criterion. This result was compared with the reconstruction of longitudinal projections of the vector field without attenuation. Ifattenuation is known, the algorithm was able to accurately reconstruct both components of the full vector …

The interactions between two plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 and Paenibacillus brasilensis PB177, two arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi (Glomus mosseae and G. intraradices) and one pathogenic fungus (Microdochium nivale) were investigated on winter wheat (Triticum aestivum cultivar Tarso) in a greenhouse trial. PB177, but not SBW25, had strong inhibitory effects on M. nivale in dual culture plate assays. The results from the greenhouse experiment show very specific interactions; e.g. the two AM fungi react differently when interacting with the same bacteria on plants. G. intraradices (single inoculation or together with SBW25) increased plant dry weight on M. nivale infested plants, suggesting that the pathogenic fungus is counteracted by G. intraradices, but PB177 inhibited this positive effect. This is an example of two completely different reactions between the same AM fungus and two species of bacteria, previously known to enhance plant growth and inhibit pathogens. When searching for plant growth promoting microorganisms it is therefore important to test for the most suitable combination of plant, bacteria and fungi in order to get satisfactory plant growth benefits.

Community structures of active bacterial populations were investigated along a vertical redox profile in coastal Baltic Sea sediments by terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) and clone library analysis. According to correspondence analysis of T-RFLP results and sequencing of cloned 16S rRNA genes, the microbial community structures at three redox depths (179 mV, -64 mV and -337 mV) differed significantly. The bacterial communities in the community DNA differed from those in bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU)-labeled DNA, indicating that the growing members of the community that incorporated BrdU were not necessarily the most dominant members. The structures of the actively growing bacterial communities were most strongly correlated to organic carbon followed by total nitrogen and redox potentials. Bacterial identification by sequencing of 16S rRNA genes from clones of BrdU-labeled DNA and DNA from reverse transcription PCR (rt-PCR) showed that bacterial taxa involved in nitrogen and sulfur cycling were metabolically active along the redox profiles. Several sequences had low similarities to previously detected sequences indicating that novel lineages of bacteria are present in Baltic Sea sediments. Also, a high number of different 16S rRNA gene sequences representing different phyla were detected at all sampling depths.

Well blowout rates in oil fields undergoing thermally enhanced recovery (via steam injection) in California Oil and Gas District 4 from 1991 to 2005 were on the order of 1 per 1,000 well construction operations, 1 per 10,000 active wells per year, and 1 per 100,000 shut-in/idle and plugged/abandoned wells per year. This allows some initial inferences about leakage of CO2 via wells, which is considered perhaps the greatest leakage risk for geological storage of CO2. During the study period, 9% of the oil produced in the United States was from District 4, and 59% of this production was via thermally enhanced recovery. There was only one possible blowout from an unknown or poorly located well, despite over a century of well drilling and production activities in the district. The blowout rate declined dramatically during the study period, most likely as a result of increasing experience, improved technology, and/or changes in safety culture. If so, this decline indicates the blowout rate in CO2-storage fields can be significantly minimized both initially and with increasing experience over time. Comparable studies should be conducted in other areas. These studies would be particularly valuable in regions with CO2-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and natural gas …

As one of the measures to achieve the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions agreed to in the"Kyoto Protocol," an institutional scheme for determining energy efficiency standards for energy-consuming appliances, called the"Top-Runner Approach," was developed by the Japanese government. Its goal is to strengthen the legal underpinnings of various energy conservation measures. Particularly in Japan's residential sector, where energy demand has grown vigorously so far, this efficiency standard is expected to play a key role in mitigating both energy demand growth and the associated CO2 emissions. This paper presents an outlook of Japan's residential energy demand, developed by a stochastic econometric model for the purpose of analyzing the impacts of the Japan's energy efficiency standards, as well as the future stochastic behavior of income growth, demography, energy prices, and climate on the future energy demand growth to 2030. In this analysis, we attempt to explicitly take into consideration more than 30 kinds of electricity uses, heating, cooling and hot water appliances in order to comprehensively capture the progress of energy efficiency in residential energy end-use equipment. Since electricity demand, is projected to exhibit astonishing growth in Japan's residential sector due to universal increasing ownership of electric and other appliances, it is …

The U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) is building a new long-range (to 2050) forecasting model for use in budgetary and management applications called the Stochastic Energy Deployment System (SEDS), which explicitly incorporates uncertainty through its development within the Analytica(R) platform of Lumina Decision Systems. SEDS is designed to be a fast running (a few minutes), user-friendly model that analysts can readily run and modify in its entirety through a visual programming interface. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is responsible for implementing the SEDS Buildings Module. The initial Lite version of the module is complete and integrated with a shared code library for modeling demand-side technology choice developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Lumina. The module covers both commercial and residential buildings at the U.S. national level using an econometric forecast of floorspace requirement and a model of building stock turnover as the basis for forecasting overall demand for building services. Although the module is fundamentally an engineering-economic model with technology adoption decisions based on cost and energy performance characteristics of competing technologies, it differs from standard energy forecasting models by including considerations of passive building systems, interactions between technologies (such as internal heat gains), and on-site power generation.

The addition of storage technologies such as flow batteries, conventional batteries, and heat storage can improve the economic as well as environmental attractiveness of on-site generation (e.g., PV, fuel cells, reciprocating engines or microturbines operating with or without CHP) and contribute to enhanced demand response. In order to examine the impact of storage technologies on demand response and carbon emissions, a microgrid's distributed energy resources (DER) adoption problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear program that has the minimization of annual energy costs as its objective function. By implementing this approach in the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS), the problem is solved for a given test year at representative customer sites, such as schools and nursing homes, to obtain not only the level of technology investment, but also the optimal hourly operating schedules. This paper focuses on analysis of storage technologies in DER optimization on a building level, with example applications for commercial buildings. Preliminary analysis indicates that storage technologies respond effectively to time-varying electricity prices, i.e., by charging batteries during periods of low electricity prices and discharging them during peak hours. The results also indicate that storage technologies significantly alter the residual load profile, which can contribute to lower …

CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc., has expanded the scope and increased the formality of process hazards analyses performed on new or modified Tank Farm facilities, designs, and processes. The CH2M HILL process hazard analysis emphasis has been altered to reflect its use as a fundamental part of the engineering and change control process instead of simply being a nuclear safety analysis tool. The scope has been expanded to include identification of accidents/events that impact the environment, or require emergency response, in addition to those with significant impact to the facility worker, the offsite, and the 100-meter receptor. Also, there is now an expectation that controls will be identified to address all types of consequences. To ensure that the process has an appropriate level of rigor and formality, a new engineering standard for process hazards analysis was created. This paper discusses the role of process hazards analysis as an information source for not only nuclear safety, but also for the worker-safety management programs, emergency management, environmental programs. This paper also discusses the role of process hazards analysis in the change control process, including identifying when and how it should be applied to changes in design or process.

Developed linked parametric modeling tools to mathematically evaluate battery designs to satisfy challenging operational requirements for a PHEV.

Quarkyonic matter is a new phase of QCD at finite temperature and density which is distinct from the confined and de-confined phases. Its existence is unambiguously argued in the large numbers of colors limit, N{sub c} {yields} {infinity}, of QCD. Hints of its existence for QCD, N{sub c} = 3, are shown in lattice Monte-Carlo data and in heavy ion experiments.

To better understand the role of groundwater-level changes on rock-slope deformation and damage, a carbonate rock slope (30 m x 30 m x 15 m) was extensively instrumented for mesoscale hydraulic and mechanical measurements during water-level changes. The slope is naturally drained by a spring that can be artificially closed or opened by a water gate. In this study, a 2-hour slope-dewatering experiment was analyzed. Changes in fluid pressure and deformation were simultaneously monitored, both at discontinuities and in the intact rock, using short-base extensometers and pressure gauges as well as tiltmeters fixed at the slope surface. Field data were analyzed with different coupled hydromechanical (HM) codes (ROCMAS, FLAC{sup 3D}, and UDEC). Field data indicate that in the faults, a 40 kPa pressure fall occurs in 2 minutes and induces a 0.5 to 31 x 10{sup -6} m normal closure. Pressure fall is slower in the bedding-planes, lasting 120 minutes with no normal deformation. No pressure change or deformation is observed in the intact rock. The slope surface displays a complex tilt towards the interior of the slope, with magnitudes ranging from 0.6 to 15 x 10{sup -6} rad. Close agreement with model for both slope surface and internal measurements …

In this study we analyze relative contributions to the cause and mechanism of injection-induced micro-earthquakes (MEQs) at The Geysers geothermal field, California. We estimated the potential for inducing seismicity by coupled thermal-hydrological-mechanical analysis of the geothermal steam production and cold water injection to calculate changes in stress (in time and space) and investigated if those changes could induce a rock mechanical failure and associated MEQs. An important aspect of the analysis is the concept of a rock mass that is critically stressed for shear failure. This means that shear stress in the region is near the rock-mass frictional strength, and therefore very small perturbations of the stress field can trigger an MEQ. Our analysis shows that the most important cause for injection-induced MEQs at The Geysers is cooling and associated thermal-elastic shrinkage of the rock around the injected fluid that changes the stress state in such a way that mechanical failure and seismicity can be induced. Specifically, the cooling shrinkage results in unloading and associated loss of shear strength in critically shear-stressed fractures, which are then reactivated. Thus, our analysis shows that cooling-induced shear slip along fractures is the dominant mechanism of injection-induced MEQs at The Geysers.

Bioreduction-based strategies for remediating uranium (U)-contaminated sediments face the challenge of maintaining the reduced status of U for long times. Because groundwater influxes continuously bring in oxidizing terminal electron acceptors (O{sub 2}, NO{sub 3}{sup -}), it is necessary to continue supplying organic carbon (OC) to maintain the reducing environment after U bioreduction is achieved. We tested the influence of OC supply rates on mobility of previously microbial reduced uranium U(IV) in contaminated sediments. We found that high degrees of U mobilization occurred when OC supply rates were high, and when the sediment still contained abundant Fe(III). Although 900 days with low levels of OC supply minimized U mobilization, the sediment redox potential increased with time as did extractable U(VI) fractions. Molecular analyses of total microbial activity demonstrated a positive correlation with OC supply and analyses of Geobacteraceae activity (RT-qPCR of 16S rRNA) indicated continued activity even when the effluent Fe(II) became undetectable. These data support our earlier hypothesis on the mechanism responsible for re-oxidation of microbial reduced U(IV) under reducing conditions; that microbial respiration caused increased (bi)carbonate concentrations and formation of stable uranyl carbonate complexes, thereby shifted U(IV)/U(VI) equilibrium to more reducing potentials. The data also suggested that low OC …

Angle- and time-resolved two-photon photoemission (2PPE) was used to study systems of organic semiconductors on Ag(111). The 2PPE studies focused on electronic behavior specific to interfaces and ultrathin films. Electron time dynamics and band dispersions were characterized for ultrathin films of a prototypical n-type planar aromatic hydrocarbon, PTCDA, and representatives from a family of p-type oligothiophenes.In PTCDA, electronic behavior was correlated with film morphology and growth modes. Within a fewmonolayers of the interface, image potential states and a LUMO+1 state were detected. The degree to which the LUMO+1 state exhibited a band mass less than a free electron mass depended on the crystallinity of the layer. Similarly, image potential states were measured to have free electron-like effective masses on ordered surfaces, and the effective masses increased with disorder within the thin film. Electron lifetimes were correlated with film growth modes, such that the lifetimes of electrons excited into systems created by layer-by-layer, amorphous film growth increased by orders of magnitude by only a few monolayers from the surface. Conversely, the decay dynamics of electrons in Stranski-Krastanov systems were limited by interaction with the exposed wetting layer, which limited the barrier to decay back into the metal.Oligothiophenes including monothiophene, quaterthiophene, and …