The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Integrated Safety Management (ISM) System Description (LLNL 2002) and the Task Plan for the Preparation of Authorization Basis Documentation for the proposed Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DOE 2002a) require a PABD be prepared for the proposed BSL-3 Facility. NNSA-OAK approval is required prior to its construction. This Preliminary Authorization Basis Documentation (PABD) formalizes and documents the hazard evaluation and its results for the Biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) facility. The PABD for the proposed BSL-3 facility provides the following information: (1) BSL-3 facility's site description; (2) general description of the BSL-3 facility and its operations; (3) identification of facility hazards; (4) generic hazard analysis; (5) identification of controls important to safety; and (6) safety management programs. The PABD characterizes the level of intrinsic potential hazard associated with a facility and provides the basis for its hazard classification. The hazard classification determines the level of safety documentation required and the level of review and approval for the safety analysis. The hazards of primary concern associated with the BSL-3 facility are biological. The hazard classification is determined by comparing facility inventories of biological materials and activities with the BSL-3 threshold established by the …

Use of gadolinium as a neutron poison has been proposed for disposing of several metric tons of excess plutonium at the Savannah River Site (SRS). The plutonium will first be dissolved in nitric acid in small batches. Gadolinium nitrate will then be added to the plutonium nitrate solution. The Gd-poisoned plutonium solution will be neutralized and transferred to large under-ground tanks. The pH of small batches of neutralized plutonium solution will be adjusted prior to addition of the glass frit for eventual production as glass logs. The use of gadolinium as the neutron poison would minimize the number of glass logs generated from this disposition. The primary criticality safety concerns regarding the disposal process are: (1) maintaining neutron moderation under all processing conditions since gadolinium has a very large absorption cross section for thermal neutrons, (2) characteristics of plutonium and gadolinium precipitation during the neutralization process, (3) mixing characteristics of the precipitate to ensure that plutonium would remain homogeneously mixed with gadolinium, and (4) potential separation of plutonium and gadolinium during nitric and formic acids addition. A number of experiments were conducted at the Savannah River National Laboratory to study the behavior of plutonium and gadolinium at various stages of …

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This cleanup verification package documents completion of remedial action for the 118-F-3, Minor Construction Burial Ground waste site. This site was an open field covered with cobbles, with no vegetation growing on the surface. The site received irradiated reactor parts that were removed during conversion of the 105-F Reactor from the Liquid 3X to the Ball 3X Project safety systems and received mostly vertical safety rod thimbles and step plugs.

Report which discusses issues related to the North Atlantic Trade Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) including the level of involvement of the entities in using political and military actions to defend against terrorism and proliferation, the types of military forces necessary, the role of the EU in crisis management, the appropriateness of decision-making procedures to respond to emerging threats, and the role of other international institutions.

This report discusses the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) FY2009 budget request of $2.676 billion that would provide a 17.9% increase ($406 million) over FY2008. It includes an overview and breakdowns for specific programs: Foods Program, Human Drugs Program, Biologics program, Animal Drugs and Feed Program, and the Devices and Radiological Health Program.

This report offers a brief summary of the assassination ban contained in Executive Order (E.O.) 12333, Section 2.11. E.O. 12333 is the latest in a series of three executive orders which included assassination bans. The first, Executive Order 11905, Sec. 5(g),1 41 Fed. Reg. 7703, 7733 (President Gerald Ford, 2/19/76), was part of an executive order issued by President Ford in response to concerns raised in the 1970's with respect to alleged abuses by the U.S. intelligence community.

This report considers the issue of new "fast track" or trade promotion authority (APA) legislation in the 107th Congress. Moreover, the report summarizes the agricultural debates on the issue.

New “fast track” (or, trade promotion) authority (TPA) is at issue in the 107th Congress. Such authority could enable the Administration to submit negotiated foreign trade agreements to Congress for consideration under expedited procedures. Efforts to renew this authority, which expired in 1994, have not succeeded since then. Many agricultural and food industry interests are among the export-oriented enterprises that support TPA, arguing that foreign trading partners will not seriously negotiate with an Administration that lacks it. However, some farm groups argue that fast track ultimately will lead to new agreements that could have adverse effects on U.S. producers, at least in some commodity sectors.

Spectroscopy performed with the three Livermore electron beam ion traps is reviewed, which is continuing and complementing the innumerable contributions to atomic physics provided over the years by heavy-ion accelerators. Numerous spectrometers were developed that cover the spectral bands from the visible to the hard x ray region. These enabled exhaustive line surveys useful for x-ray astrophysics and for systematic studies along iso-electronic sequences, such as the 4s-4p, 3s-3p, and 2s-2p transitions in ions of the Cu-I, Na-I, and Li-I sequences useful for studying QED and correlation effects as well as for precise determinations of atomic-nuclear interactions. They also enabled measurements of radiative transition probabilities of very long-lived (milli- and microseconds) and very short-live (femtosecond) levels. Because line excitation processes can be controlled by choice of the electron beam energy, the observed line intensities are used to infer cross sections for electron-impact excitation, dielectronic recombination, resonance excitation, and innershell ionization. These capabilities have recently been expanded to simulate x-ray emission from comets by charge exchange. Specific contributions to basic atomic physics, nuclear physics, and high-temperature diagnostics are illustrated.

A low temperature cryostat suitable for many different experiments will be commissioned at the cryogenic test facility at SLAC. The scope of the project is to make commission a commercial Helium dewar. The building of the top flange will be followed from its design phase through to its finished assembly. In addition, diagnostic tools such as thermometry, level detector, pressure gauge, transfer lines for He and N2, vent lines with relief valves for He and N2 will be incorporated. Instrumentation to read and plot this data will also be included. Once the cryostat is assembled, we will cool down the cryostat to measure its performance. A typical consumption rate of Helium will be measured and from this, the overall heat leak to the dewar will be calculated. A processing instrumentation diagram (PID) of the dewar system was created with SolidEdge and was later approved and published as an official SLAC document. The plots comparing the liquid level changes of the 36 inch probe with the time and the heat loss as a function of time proved to be a valid indication that the data was interpreted and recorded correctly and that the dewar was put together successfully.

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Understanding the mechanical properties of biomedical devices is critical in predicting and preventing their failure in the body. Such knowledge is essential, for example, in the design of biomedical stents, which must undergo repeated strain over their ten year lifetimes without breaking. Computational models are used to predict mechanical response of a device, but these models are not complete; there are significant deviations from the predictions, especially when devices are subjected to repeated multi-axial loads. Improving these models requires comparisons with actual measurements of strained nitinol. Local measurements of the full strain tensor can be made using X-ray diffraction techniques, but they are currently limited to materials whose grain size is larger than the X-ray beam size or require several diffraction patterns produced by rotation of the sample. Nitinol stents are nanocrystalline, with grains smaller than any available X-ray beam. We present a method for measuring the local strain in a nanocrystalline material from a single X-ray diffraction pattern by extending current powder diffraction techniques. The components of the strain tensor are mapped onto a displacement ellipsoid, which is then reconstructed from diffraction data through Bragg's law and least-squares fitting. Using simulated diffraction data, we performed sensitivity tests to examine …

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This report describes the results of a project to improve the generic component failure database for the Savannah River Site (SRS). Additionally, guidelines were developed further for more advanced applications of database values. A representative list of components and failure modes for SRS risk models was generated by reviewing existing safety analyses and component failure data bases and from suggestions from SRS safety analysts. Then sources of data or failure rate estimates were identified and reviewed for applicability. A major source of information was the Nuclear Computerized Library for Assessing Reactor Reliability, or NUCLARR. This source includes an extensive collection of failure data and failure rate estimates for commercial nuclear power plants. A recent Idaho National Engineering Laboratory report on failure data from the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant was also reviewed. From these and other recent sources, failure data and failure rate estimates were collected for the components and failure modes of interest. For each component failure mode, this information was aggregated to obtain a recommended generic failure rate distribution (mean and error factor based on a lognormal distribution). Results are presented in a table in this report. A major difference between generic database and previous efforts is that this …

This report provides background on CEDAW developments, including U.S. policy and congressional actions, and considers arguments for and against ratification.

In this paper, we present an efficient solution approach for fully implicit, large-scale, nonlinear radiation diffusion problems. The fully implicit approach is compared to a semi-implicit solution method. Accuracy and efficiency are shown to be better for the fully implicit method on both one- and three-dimensional problems with tabular opacities taken from the LEOS opacity library.

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A new mode of operation for an ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) has been demonstrated that uses potential wells to trap and separate ions by their mobility. This mode of operation has been made feasible by the improvements in personal computers that now allow real-time control of the potentials on ring electrodes in the IMS drift tube. This mode of operation does not require a shutter grid and allows the accumulation of ions in the potential well to enhance the ion signal. Loss of ions from the potential well is controlled by the radial electric fields required by Gauss's law.

This paper investigates whether it is better to use a certain constant amount of computational resources in a single run with a large population, or in multiple runs with smaller populations. The paper presents the primary tradeoffs involved in this problem and identifies the conditions under which there is an advantage to use multiple small runs. The paper uses an existing model that relates the quality of the solutions reached by a GA with its population size. The results suggest that in most cases a single run with the largest population possible reaches a better solution than multiple isolated runs. The findings are validated with experiments on functions of varying difficulty.

The Big Sky Partnership, led by Montana State University, is comprised of research institutions, public entities and private sectors organizations, and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the Nez Perce Tribe. Efforts during the first performance period fall into four areas: evaluation of sources and carbon sequestration sinks; development of GIS-based reporting framework; designing an integrated suite of monitoring, measuring, and verification technologies; and initiating a comprehensive education and outreach program. At the first Partnership meeting the groundwork was put in place to provide an assessment of capture and storage capabilities for CO{sub 2} utilizing the resources found in the Partnership region (both geological and terrestrial sinks), that would complement the ongoing DOE research. The region has a diverse array of geological formations that could provide storage options for carbon in one or more of its three states. Likewise, initial estimates of terrestrial sinks indicate a vast potential for increasing and maintaining soil C on forested, agricultural, and reclaimed lands. Both options include the potential for offsetting economic benefits to industry and society. Complementary to the efforts on evaluation of sources and sinks is the development of the Big Sky Partnership Carbon Cyberinfrastructure (BSP-CC) and a GIS Road Map …

We examine correlations in a time series of electric power system blackout sizes using scaled window variance analysis and R/S statistics. The data shows some evidence of long time correlations and has Hurst exponent near 0.7. Large blackouts tend to correlate with further large blackouts after a long time interval. Similar effects are also observed in many other complex systems exhibiting self-organized criticality. We discuss this initial evidence and possible explanations for self-organized criticality in power systems blackouts. Self-organized criticality, if fully confirmed in power systems, would suggest new approaches to understanding and possibly controlling blackouts.

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