The quantum anomaly that breaks the U(1) axial symmetry of massless multi-flavored QCD leaves behind a discrete flavor-singlet chiral invariance. With massive quarks, this residual symmetry has a close connection with the strong CP-violating parameter theta. One result is that if the lightest quarks are degenerate, then a first order transition will occur when theta passes through pi. The resulting framework helps clarify when the rooting prescription for extrapolating in the number of flavors is valid.

The scope of this project is to study nanostructures of semiconductors and superconductors, which have been regarded as promising building blocks for nanoelectronic and nanoelectric devices. The emphasis of this project is on developing novel synthesis approaches for fabrication of nanostructures with desired physical properties. The ultimate goal is to achieve a full control of the nanostructure growth at microscopic scales. The major experimental achievements obtained are summarized

With demonstrated resist resolution of 20 nm half pitch, the SEMATECH Berkeley BUV microfield exposure tool continues to push crucial advances in the areas of BUY resists and masks. The ever progressing shrink in computer chip feature sizes has been fueled over the years by a continual reduction in the wavelength of light used to pattern the chips. Recently, this trend has been threatened by unavailability of lens materials suitable for wavelengths shorter than 193 nm. To circumvent this roadblock, a reflective technology utilizing a significantly shorter extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelength (13.5 nm) has been under development for the past decade. The dramatic wavelength shrink was required to compensate for optical design limitations intrinsic in mirror-based systems compared to refractive lens systems. With this significant reduction in wavelength comes a variety of new challenges including developing sources of adequate power, photoresists with suitable resolution, sensitivity, and line-edge roughness characteristics, as well as the fabrication of reflection masks with zero defects. While source development can proceed in the absence of available exposure tools, in order for progress to be made in the areas of resists and masks it is crucial to have access to advanced exposure tools with resolutions equal to …

The RHIC polarized proton collider employs polarimeters in each of the Blue and Yellow rings that utilize the analyzing power in p-Carbon elastic scattering in the Coulomb Nuclear Interference region to measure the absolute beam polarization. These are calibrated by the polarized Hydrogen Jet Target that measures the absolute beam polarization in pp elastic scattering in the CNI region. This paper describes the status and performance of these polarimeters in the FY09 run which included both a 250 GeV/c and 100 GeV/c physics data taking periods. We will describe some of the difficulties encountered and the efforts underway to improve the performance in better energy resolution, rate handling capability, and reduced systematic uncertainties.

The variability of radiation responses in ovarian tumors and tumor-derived cell lines is poorly understood. Since both DNA repair capacity and p53 status can significantly alter radiation sensitivity, we evaluated these factors along with radiation sensitivity in a panel of sporadic human ovarian carcinoma cell lines. We observed a gradation of radiation sensitivity among these sixteen lines, with a five-fold difference in the LD50 between the most radiosensitive and the most radioresistant cells. The DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK) is essential for the repair of radiation induced DNA double-strand breaks in human somatic cells. Therefore, we measured gene copy number, expression levels, protein abundance, genomic copy and kinase activity for DNA-PK in all of our cell lines. While there were detectable differences in DNA-PK between the cell lines, there was no clear correlation with any of these differences and radiation sensitivity. In contrast, p53 function as determined by two independent methods, correlated well with radiation sensitivity, indicating p53 mutant ovarian cancer cells are typically radioresistant relative to p53 wild-type lines. These data suggest that the activity of regulatory molecules such as p53 may be better indicators of radiation sensitivity than DNA repair enzymes such as DNAPK in ovarian cancer.

Although designs of digital systems can be very different from each other, they typically use many of the same types of generic digital components. Determining the impacts of the failure modes of these generic components on a digital system can be used to support development of a reliability model of the system. A novel approach was proposed for such a purpose by decomposing the system into a level of the generic digital components and propagating failure modes to the system level, which generally is time-consuming and difficult to implement. To overcome the associated issues of implementing the proposed FMEA approach, an automated tool for a digital feedwater control system (DFWCS) has been developed in this study. The automated FMEA tool is in nature a simulation platform developed by using or recreating the original source code of the different module software interfaced by input and output variables that represent physical signals exchanged between modules, the system, and the controlled process. For any given failure mode, its impacts on associated signals are determined first and the variables that correspond to these signals are modified accordingly by the simulation. Criteria are also developed, as part of the simulation platform, to determine whether the …

Culture-independent molecular surveys using the 16S rRNA gene have become a mainstay for characterizing microbial community structure over the last quarter century. More recently this approach has been overshadowed by metagenomics, which provides a global overview of a community's functional potential rather than just an inventory of its inhabitants. However, the pioneering 16S rRNA gene is making a comeback in its own right thanks to a number of methodological advancements including higher resolution (more sequences), analysis of multiple related samples (e.g. spatial and temporal series) and improved metadata and use of metadata. The standard conclusion that microbial ecosystems are remarkably complex and diverse is now being replaced by detailed insights into microbial ecology and evolution based only on this one historically important marker gene.

This lecture concerns the properties of strongly interacting matter (which is described by Quantum Chromodynamics) at very high energy density. I review the properties of matter at high temperature, discussing the deconfinement phase transition. At high baryon density and low temperature, large N{sub c} arguments are developed which suggest that high baryonic density matter is a third form of matter, Quarkyonic Matter, that is distinct from confined hadronic matter and deconfined matter. I finally discuss the Color Glass Condensate which controls the high energy limit of QCD, and forms the low x part of a hadron wavefunction. The Glasma is introduced as matter formed by the Color Glass Condensate which eventually thermalizes into a Quark Gluon Plasma.

The Lansing Community College Alternative Energy Center was created with several purposes in mind. The first purpose was the development of educational curricula designed to meet the growing needs of advanced energy companies that would allow students to articulate to other educational institutions or enter this growing workforce. A second purpose was the professional development of faculty and teachers to prepare them to train tomorrow's workforce and scholars. Still another purpose was to design, construct, and equip an alternative energy laboratory that could be used for education, demonstration, and public outreach. Last, the Center was to engage in community outreach and education to enhance industry partnerships, inform decision makers, and increase awareness and general knowledge of hydrogen and other alternative energy technologies and their beneficial impacts on society. This project has enabled us to accomplish all of our goals, including greater faculty understanding of advanced energy concepts, who are now able to convey this knowledge to students through a comprehensive alternative energy curriculum, in a facility well-equipped with advanced technologies, which is also being used to better educate the public on the advantages to society of exploring alternative energy technologies.

This report provides background on both the U.S. and Canadian corn sectors as well as the historical development of their corn trade dispute.In addition, it discusses the potential implications of the case for U.S. farm policy.

This report provides an overview on death penalty, the capital punishment legislation in the 110th Congress.

This report presents summary estimates of the distribution of household income for 2006.

The EBIT Calorimeter Spectrometer (ECS) is currently being completed and will be installed at the EBIT facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in October 2007. The ECS will replace the smaller XRS/EBIT microcalorimeter spectrometer that has been in almost continuous operation since 2000. The XRS/EBIT was based on a spare laboratory cryostat and an engineering model detector system from the Suzaku/XRS observatory program. The new ECS spectrometer was built to be a low maintenance, high performance implanted silicon microcalorimeter spectrometer with 4 eV resolution at 6 keV, 32 detector channels, 10 {micro}s event timing, and capable of uninterrupted acquisition sessions of over 60 hours at 50 mK. The XRS/EBIT program has been very successful, producing many results on topics such as laboratory astrophysics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, and calibration of the spectrometers for the National Ignition Facility. The ECS spectrometer will continue this work into the future with improved spectral resolution, integration times, and ease-of-use. We designed the ECS instrument with TES detectors in mind by using the same highly successful magnetic shielding as our laboratory TES cryostats. This design will lead to a future TES instrument at the LLNL EBIT. Here we discuss the legacy of the XRS/EBIT …

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Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""Unless we fix our health care system--in both the public and private sectors--rising health care costs will have severe, adverse consequences for the federal budget as well as the U.S. economy in the future." This is one of the key messages that Comptroller General David M. Walker has been delivering across the country in town-hall style meetings, in speeches, and on radio and television programs. Using another format to explore issues with health care experts, Mr. Walker convened a forum at GAO on May 17, 2007. Attendees included health policy experts, business leaders, and public officials selected for their subject matter knowledge and representation of various perspectives. Participants examined health care cost, access, and quality challenges in discussion sessions led by distinguished economists Robert Reischauer and Mark Pauly and other leading health care authorities Carolyn Clancy and Suzanne Delbanco. Nationally known health insurance expert Leonard Schaeffer served as the keynote lunchtime speaker. At the conclusion of the forum, participants were polled for their views on points raised during the discussions. The poll was conducted using electronic voting technology that produced real-time, but confidential, results."

This report provides an overview of the debate and legislation to modify or curtail some practices regarding animal care on the farm, during transport, or at slaughter.

Drying and pressing wood for the manufacture of lumber, particleboard, oriented strand board (OSB), veneer and medium density fiberboard (MDF) release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the atmosphere. These emissions require control equipment that are capital-intensive and consume significant quantities of natural gas and electricity. The objective of our work was to understand the mechanisms through which volatile organic compounds are generated and released and to develop simple control strategies. Of the several strategies developed, two have been implemented for OSB manufacture over the course of this study. First, it was found that increasing final wood moisture by about 2-4 percentage points reduced the dryer emissions of hazardous air pollutants by over 70%. As wood dries, the escaping water evaporatively cools the wood. This cooling tapers off wood when the wood is nearly dry and the wood temperature rises. Thermal breakdown of the wood tissue occurs and VOCs are released. Raising the final wood moisture by only a few percentage points minimizes the temperature rise and reduces emissions. Evaporative cooling also impacts has implications for VOC release from wood fines. Flaking wood for OSB manufacture inevitable generates fines. Fines dry out rapidly because of their high surface area and evaporative …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In May 2006, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that computer equipment containing personal information on approximately 26.5 million veterans and active duty military personnel had been stolen. Given the importance of information technology (IT) to VA's mission, effective information security controls are critical to maintaining public and veteran confidence in its ability to protect sensitive information. GAO was asked to evaluate (1) whether VA has effectively addressed GAO and VA Office of Inspector General (IG) information security recommendations and (2) actions VA has taken since May 2006 to strengthen its information security practices and secure personal information. To do this, GAO examined security policies and action plans, interviewed pertinent department officials, and conducted testing of encryption software at select VA facilities."

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A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "When oil spills occur in U.S. waters, federal law places primary liability on the vessel owner or operator--that is, the responsible party--up to a statutory limit. As a supplement to this "polluter pays" approach, a federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund administered by the Coast Guard pays for costs when a responsible party does not or cannot pay. The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2006 directed GAO to examine spills that cost the responsible party and the Fund at least $1 million. This report answers three questions: (1) How many major spills (i.e., $1 million or more) have occurred since 1990, and what is their total cost? (2) What factors affect the cost of spills? and (3) What are the implications of major oil spills for the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund? GAO's work to address these objectives included analyzing oil spill costs data, interviewing federal, state, and private-sector officials, and reviewing Coast Guard files from selected spills."

Thermodynamic length is a metric distance between equilibrium thermodynamic states. Among other interesting properties, this metric asymptotically bounds the dissipation induced by a finite time transformation of a thermodynamic system. It is also connected to the Jensen-Shannon divergence, Fisher information, and Rao's entropy differential metric. Therefore, thermodynamic length is of central interestin understanding matter out of equilibrium. In this Letter, we will consider how to denethermodynamic length for a small system described by equilibrium statistical mechanics and how to measure thermodynamic length within a computer simulation. Surprisingly, Bennett's classic acceptance ratio method for measuring free energy differences also measures thermodynamic length.

This work examined the behavior of vaporous hydrogen peroxide (VHP) in clean, room-scale galvanized steel (GS) and polyvinylchloride-coated steel air ducts, to understand how it might be used to decontaminate larger ventilation systems. VHP injected into the GS duct decreased in concentration along the length of the duct, whereas VHP concentrations in the polyvinylchloride coated duct remained essentially constant, suggesting that VHP decomposed at the GS surface. However, decomposition was reduced at lower temperatures ({approx} 22 C) and higher flow rates ({approx} 80 actual cubic meter per hour). A computational fluid dynamics model incorporating reactive transport was used to estimate surface VHP concentrations where contamination is likely to reside, and also showed how bends encourage VHP decomposition. Use of G. stearothermophilus indicators, in conjunction with model estimates, indicated that a concentration-contact time of {approx} 100 mg/L H{sub 2}O{sub 2}(g){center_dot}min was required to achieve a 6 log reduction of indicator spores in clean GS duct, at 30 C. When VHP is selected for building decontamination, this work suggests the most efficacious strategy may be to decontaminate GS ducting separately from the rest of the building, as opposed to a single decontamination event in which the ventilation system is used to distribute …