We have recently completed a large-area, coded-aperture, gamma-ray imager for use in searching for radiation sources. The instrument was constructed to verify that weak point sources can be detected at considerable distances if one uses imaging to overcome fluctuations in the natural background. The instrument uses a rank-19, one-dimensional coded aperture to cast shadow patterns onto a 0.57 m{sup 2} NaI(Tl) detector composed of 57 individual cubes each 10 cm on a side. These are arranged in a 19 x 3 array. The mask is composed of four-centimeter thick, one-meter high, 10-cm wide lead blocks. The instrument is mounted in the back of a small truck from which images are obtained as one drives through a region. Results of first measurements obtained with the system are presented.

The authors have completed a set of gamma-ray pulse height benchmark experiments using a high purity germanium detector to measure absolute counting rate spectra from {sup 60}Co, {sup 137}Cs and {sup 57}Co isotopic sources. The detector was carefully shielded and collimated so that the geometry of the system was completely known. The measured absolute pulse height spectrum counting rates as a function of detector position relative to the source are compared to energy deposit spectra calculated using the Monte Carlo radiation transport code COG. They present here a small subset of our results. The agreement between the calculated and measured spectra and known sources of discrepancies will be discussed.

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Past microlensing experiments such as the MACHO project have discovered the presence of a larger than expected number of microlensing events toward the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). These events could represent a large fraction of the dark matter in the halo of our Galaxy, if they are indeed due to halo lenses. However the locations of most of the lenses are poorly defined. The SuperMacho project will detect and follow up {approx}60 microlensing events exhibiting special properties due to binarity, etc., will allow us to better determine the location and nature of the lenses causing the LMC microlensing events.

Important preconditions for wide acceptance of virtual reality (VR) systems include their comfort, ease and naturalness to use. Most existing trackers super from discomfort-related issues. For example, body-based trackers (hand controllers, joysticks, helmet attachments, etc.) restrict spontaneity and naturalness of motion, while ground-based devices (e.g., hand controllers) limit the workspace by literally binding an operator to the ground. There are similar problems with controls. This paper describes using real-time video with registered depth information (from a commercially available camera) for virtual reality navigation. Camera-based setup can replace cumbersome trackers. The method includes selective depth processing for increased speed, and a robust skin-color segmentation for accounting illumination variations.

The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach has been increasingly applied to many atmospheric applications, including flow over buildings and complex terrain, and dispersion of hazardous releases. However there has been much less activity on the coupling of CFD with atmospheric chemistry. Most of the atmospheric chemistry applications have been focused on the modeling of chemistry on larger spatial scales, such as global or urban airshed scale. However, the increased attentions to terrorism threats have stimulated the need of much more detailed simulations involving chemical releases within urban areas. This motivated us to develop a new CFD/coupled-chemistry capability as part of our modeling effort.

The goal of this document is to provide detailed instructions to create, modify, interface, and test Aspen User and In-House databanks with minimal frustration. The level of instructions are aimed at a novice Aspen Plus simulation user who is neither a programming nor computer-system expert. The instructions are tailored to Version 10.1 of Aspen Plus and the specific computing configuration summarized in the Title of this document and detailed in Section 2. Many details of setting up databanks depend on the computing environment specifics, such as the machines, operating systems, command languages, directory structures, inter-computer communications software, the version of the Aspen Engine and Graphical User Interface (GUI), and the directory structure of how these were installed.

We have previously described our methodology for quantification of risk and risk reduction, and the use of risk, quantified as a dollar value, in the Value Engineering and decision tradeoff process. In this work we extend our example theme of the safety of reactive materials during accidental impacts. We have begun to place the validation of our impact safety model into a systems engineering context. In that sense, we have made connections between the data and the trends in the data, our models of the impact safety process, and the implications regarding confidence levels and reliability based on given impact safety requirements. We have folded this information into a quantitative risk assessment, and shown the assessed risk reduction value of developing an even better model, with more model work or more experimental data or both. Since there is a cost incurred for either model improvement or testing, we have used a Benefit/Cost Ratio metric to quantify this, where Benefit is our quantification of assessed risk reduction, and cost is the cost of the new test data, code development, and model validation. This has left us with further questions posed for our evolving system engineering representation for impact safety and its …

The goal of this document is to provide detailed instructions to create, modify, interface, and test Aspen User and In-House databanks with minimal frustration. The level of instructions are aimed at a novice Aspen Plus simulation user who is neither a programming nor computer-system expert. The instructions are tailored to Version 10.1 of Aspen Plus and the specific computing configuration summarized in the Title of this document and detailed in Section 2. Many details of setting up databanks depend on the computing environment specifics, such as the machines, operating systems, command languages, directory structures, inter-computer communications software, the version of the Aspen Engine and Graphical User Interface (GUI), and the directory structure of how these were installed.

A laser ablation/ionization mass spectrometer system is described for the direct analysis of solids, particles, and fibers. The system uses a quadrupole ion trap operated in an ion-storage (IS) mode, coupled with a reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF-MS). The sample is inserted radially into the ring electrode and an imaging system allows direct viewing and selected analysis of the sample. Measurements identified trace contaminants of Ag, Sn, and Sb in a Pb target with single laser-shot experiments. Resolution (m/{Delta}m) of 1500 and detection limits of approximately 10 pg have been achieved with a single laser pulse. The system configuration and related operating principles for accurately measuring low concentrations of isotopes are described.

Z-pinch dynamic hohlraum experiments on the Z-Machine at Sandia National Laboratories measured K-shell argon spectra using a focusing spectrometer with spatial resolution. The spectra are modeled using Hullac atomic data input, Cretin nonlocal thermodynamic equilibrium (nlte) atomic kinetics and radiative transfer calculations, and Dakota optimization capabilities. Hullac provides atomic structure and cross section data for Ar XIX, Ar XXVIII (n=1 (illegible) 5), Ar XXVII (n=1 (illegible) 10), and Ar XXVI (n=1 (illegible) 5), where n is the principal quantum number. Cretin calculates the area-integrated spectral intensity escaping an argon doped Dcapsule as a function of electron density, electron temperature, and capsule radius. Dakota optimizes the plasma properties for the best to the measured spectrum by minimizing an objective function comprise of argon spectral line ratios and full-width at half-maximums (fwhms). We highlight the framework of this general spectroscopic capability and discuss the extension to magnetized plasmas using Totalb spectral line shapes.

A methodology is utilized to analyze in a standardized fashion the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) in general circulation models. This is attained by projecting 20-100 day bandpass filtered outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) from the models onto the two leading empirical orthogonal functions (EOF's) of observed OLR that characterize the propagation of MJO convection from the Indian Ocean to the central Pacific Ocean. The resulting principal component time series are then screened to isolate boreal winters during which they exhibit a lead-lag relationship consistent with observations. This PC subset is used for linear regression to determine the ability of the models to simulate the observed spacetime variability of the MJO. The vast majority of models underestimate the amplitude of the MJO convective anomalies by a factor of two or more, and the eastward propagation of convection is less coherent than observed, typically. For a given family of models, coupling to an ocean leads to better organization of the large-scale convection. The low-level moisture convergence mechanism for eastward propagation is represented in limited cases, as is the vertical structure of the MJO.

The purpose of this report is to summarize research activities carried out under Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) research subcontract B501073. This contract supported the principal investigator (P1), Dr. Calvin Ribbens, during his sabbatical visit to LLNL from August 1999 through June 2000. Results and conclusions from the work are summarized below in two major sections. The first section covers contributions to the Scalable Linear Solvers and hypre projects in the Center for Applied Scientific Computing (CASC). The second section describes results from collaboration with Patrice Turchi of LLNL's Chemistry and Materials Science Directorate (CMS). A list of publications supported by this subcontract appears at the end of the report.

Single-stranded DNA genomes have been constructed that site-specifically contain the 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2'-deoxyguanine (8-oxoG) oxidation products guanidinohyndantoin (Gh), and the two stable stereoisomers of spiroiminodihydantoin (Sp1 and Sp2). The circular viral genomes were transfected into wild-type AB1157 Escherichia coli and the efficiency of lesion bypass by DNA polymerase(s) was assessed. Viral progeny were analyzed for mutation frequency and type using the recently developed restriction endonuclease and post-labeling (REAP) assay. Gh was bypassed nearly as efficiently as the parent 8-oxoG, but was highly mutagenic, causing almost exclusive G{yields}C transversions. The stereoisomers Sp1 and Sp2 were, in comparison, much stronger blocks to DNA polymerase extension, and caused a mixture of G{yields}T and G{yields}C transversions. The ratio of G{yields}T to G{yields}C mutations for each Sp lesion was dependent on the stereochemical configuration of the base. All observed mutation frequencies were at least an order of magnitude higher than those caused by 8-oxoG. Were these lesions to be formed in vivo, our data show that they are absolutely miscoding, and may be refractory to repair after translesion synthesis.

This report presents and discusses results of the fiscal year 2003 sampling event associated with aquifer tubes along the Columbia River in the northern Hanford Site. Aquifer tube data help define the extent of groundwater contamination near the river, determine vertical variations in contamination, monitor the performance of interim remedial actions near the river, and support impact studies.

I appreciate the opportunity to provide comments on the joint rulemaking to establish greenhouse gas emission and fuel economy standards for light-duty vehicles. My comments are directed at the choice of vehicle footprint as the attribute by which to vary fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards, in the interest of protecting vehicle occupants from death or serious injury. I have made several of these points before when commenting on previous NHTSA rulemakings regarding CAFE standards and safety. The comments today are mine alone, and do not necessarily represent the views of the US Department of Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, or the University of California. My comments can be summarized as follows: (1) My updated analysis of casualty risk finds that, after accounting for drivers and crash location, there is a wide range in casualty risk for vehicles with the same weight or footprint. This suggests that reducing vehicle weight or footprint will not necessarily result in increased fatalities or serious injuries. (2) Indeed, the recent safety record of crossover SUVs indicates that weight reduction in this class of vehicles resulted in a reduction in fatality risks. (3) Computer crash simulations can pinpoint the effect of specific design changes …

Concurrency levels in large-scale, distributed-memory supercomputers are rising exponentially. Modern machines may contain 100,000 or more microprocessor cores, and the largest of these, IBM's Blue Gene/L, contains over 200,000 cores. Future systems are expected to support millions of concurrent tasks. In this dissertation, we focus on efficient techniques for measuring and analyzing the performance of applications running on very large parallel machines. Tuning the performance of large-scale applications can be a subtle and time-consuming task because application developers must measure and interpret data from many independent processes. While the volume of the raw data scales linearly with the number of tasks in the running system, the number of tasks is growing exponentially, and data for even small systems quickly becomes unmanageable. Transporting performance data from so many processes over a network can perturb application performance and make measurements inaccurate, and storing such data would require a prohibitive amount of space. Moreover, even if it were stored, analyzing the data would be extremely time-consuming. In this dissertation, we present novel methods for reducing performance data volume. The first draws on multi-scale wavelet techniques from signal processing to compress systemwide, time-varying load-balance data. The second uses statistical sampling to select a small …

This report describes work performed during the initial period of the project “Probabilistic Risk Based Decision Support for Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Facilities in Sensitive Ecosystems.” The specific region that is within the scope of this study is the Fayetteville Shale Play. This is an unconventional, tight formation, natural gas play that currently has approximately 1.5 million acres under lease, primarily to Southwestern Energy Incorporated and Chesapeake Energy Incorporated. The currently active play encompasses a region from approximately Fort Smith, AR east to Little Rock, AR approximately 50 miles wide (from North to South). The initial estimates for this field put it almost on par with the Barnett Shale play in Texas. It is anticipated that thousands of wells will be drilled during the next several years; this will entail installation of massive support infrastructure of roads and pipelines, as well as drilling fluid disposal pits and infrastructure to handle millions of gallons of fracturing fluids. This project focuses on gas production in Arkansas as the test bed for application of proactive risk management decision support system for natural gas exploration and production. The activities covered in this report include meetings with representative stakeholders, development of initial content …

Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and inspection of cast austenitic stainless steel (CASS) components used in the nuclear power industry is neither as effective nor reliable as is needed due to detrimental effects upon the interrogating ultrasonic beam and interference from ultrasonic backscatter. The root cause is the coarse-grain microstructure inherent to this class of materials. Some ultrasonic techniques perform better for particular microstructural classifications and this has led to the hypothesis that an ultrasonic inspection can be optimized for a particular microstructural class, if a technique exists to reliably classify the microstructure for feedback to the inspection. This document summarizes scoping experiments of in-situ ultrasonic methods for classification and/or characterization of the material microstructures in CASS components from the outside surface of a pipe. The focus of this study was to evaluate ultrasonic methods and provide an interim report that documents results and technical progress. An initial set of experiments were performed to test the hypothesis that in-service characterization of cast austenitic stainless steel (CASS) is feasible, and that, if reliably performed, such data would provide real-time feedback to optimize in-service inspections in the field. With this objective in mind, measurements for the experiment were restricted to techniques that should …

Energy required for water heating accounts for approximately 40percent of national residential natural gas consumption in California. With water heating contributing such a substantial portion of natural gas consumption, it is important to pay attention to water heater efficiencies. This paper reports on an investigation of a patented, buoyancy-operated flue damper. It is an add-on design to a standard atmospherically vented natural-draft gas-fired storage water heater. The flue damper was expected to reduce off-cycle standby losses, which would lead to improvements in the efficiency of the water heater. The test results showed that the Energy Factor of the baseline water heater was 0.576. The recovery efficiency was 0.768. The standby heat loss coefficient was 10.619 (BTU/hr-oF). After the damper was installed, the test results show an Energy Factor for the baseline water heater of 0.605. The recovery efficiency was 0.786. The standby heat loss coefficient was 9.135 (BTU/hr-oF). The recovery efficiency increased 2.3percent and the standby heat loss coefficient decreased 14percent. When the burner was on, the baseline water heater caused 28.0 CFM of air to flow from the room. During standby, the flow was 12.4 CFM. The addition of the damper reduced the flow when the burner was on …

Supersymmetric models have traditionally been assumed to be perturbative up to high scales due to the requirement of calculable unification. In this note I review the recently proposed `Fat Higgs' model which relaxes the requirement of perturbativity. In this framework, an NMSSM-like trilinear coupling becomes strong at some intermediate scale. The NMSSM Higgses are meson composites of an asymptotically-free gauge theory. This allows us to raise the mass of the Higgs, thus alleviating the MSSM of its fine tuning problem. Despite the strong coupling at an intermediate scale, the UV completion allows us to maintain gauge coupling unification.

Hypothetical and conserved hypothetical genes account for>30percent of sequenced bacterial genomes. For the sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough, 347 of the 3634 genes were annotated as conserved hypothetical (9.5percent) along with 887 hypothetical genes (24.4percent). Given the large fraction of the genome, it is plausible that some of these genes serve critical cellular roles. The study goals were to determine which genes were expressed and provide a more functionally based annotation. To accomplish this, expression profiles of 1234 hypothetical and conserved genes were used from transcriptomic datasets of 11 environmental stresses, complemented with shotgun LC-MS/MS and AMT tag proteomic data. Genes were divided into putatively polycistronic operons and those predicted to be monocistronic, then classified by basal expression levels and grouped according to changes in expression for one or multiple stresses. 1212 of these genes were transcribed with 786 producing detectable proteins. There was no evidence for expression of 17 predicted genes. Except for the latter, monocistronic gene annotation was expanded using the above criteria along with matching Clusters of Orthologous Groups. Polycistronic genes were annotated in the same manner with inferences from their proximity to more confidently annotated genes. Two targeted deletion mutants were used as test cases to …

It is amazing to acknowledge that in roughly 70 years from when the existence of the neutrino was postulated, we are now contemplating investigating the mysteries of this particle (or particles) requiring and utilizing detectors of 300 ktons , distances of 1,000-2,000 kilometers, beam intensities of megawatts and underground depth of 5,000 feet. This evolution has evolved slowly, from the experimental discovery of the neutrino in 1956, to the demonstration that there were two neutrinos in 1962 and three and only three by 1991. The great excitement occurred in the 2000's coming from the study of solar and atmospheric neutrinos in which neutrinos were observed to oscillate and therefore have mass. Although the absolute mass of any of the neutrinos has yet to be determined (the upper limit is less than I electron volt) the difference in this square of these masses has been measured, yielding a value of (2.3 {+-} .2) 10{sup -3} ev{sup 2} for atmospheric neutrinos and (7.6 {+-} .2) 10{sup -5} ev{sup 2} for solar neutrinos. In addition their mixing angles were found to be 45{sup o} for atmospheric neutrinos and 34{sup o} for solar neutrinos. This present state of knowledge on neutrinos is pictorially displayed …

This report discusses the simulant preparation procedure for producing multi-component simulants for leaching and filtration studies, including development and comparison activities in accordance with the test plan( ) prepared and approved in response to the Test Specification 24590-WTP-TSP-RT-06-006, Rev 0 (Smith 2006). A fundamental premise is that this approach would allow blending of the different components to simulate a wide variety of feeds to be treated in the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). For example, a given feed from the planned feed vector could be selected, and the appropriate components would then be blended to achieve a representation of that particular feed. Using the blending of component simulants allows the representation of a much broader spectrum of potential feeds to the Pretreatment Engineering Platform (PEP).