Steel companies in many areas of the country have found it increasingly difficult to attract talented recent graduates of college and university engineering and applied science programs to the Electric Arc Furnace iron & steel industry. College student involvement in co-operative programs at steel companies can attract needed talent to the industry. Additionally, certain R & D needs identified in the Steel Industry Technology Roadmap are addressed as co-operative program activities. The Steel Manufacturers Association (''SMA'') therefore established a co-operative education program for selected college students who have completed the first or second year of a four or five-year college program, to be recognized as SMA Co-Operative Fellows, in regard to their summer and fall semester projects with SMA's member companies.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

The processing rate of Savannah River Site high level waste decontamination processes are limited by the flow rate of the solid-liquid separation. The baseline process, using a 0.1 micron cross flow filter, produces 0.02 gpm/ft2 of filtrate under expected operating conditions. Savannah River National Laboratory personnel identified the rotary microfilter as a technology that could significantly increase filter flux, with throughput improvements of as much as 10X for that specific operation. With funding from the Department of Energy Office of Cleanup Technologies, SRNL personnel are evaluating and developing the rotary microfilter for radioactive service at SRS. This work includes pilot-scale and actual waste testing to evaluate system reliability, the impact of radiation on system components, the filter flux for a variety of waste streams, and relative performance for alternative filter media.

Limited research is available on potential adverse effects of school environments on academic performance, despite strong public concern. We examine the scientific evidence relevant to this relationship by reviewing available research relating schools and other indoor environments to human performance or attendance. As a primary focus, we critically review evidence for direct relationships between indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in buildings and performance or attendance. As a secondary focus, we summarize, without critique, evidence on potential connections indirectly linking IEQ to performance or attendance: relationships between IEQ and health, between health and performance or attendance, and between attendance and performance. The most persuasive direct evidence showed increases in indoor concentrations of nitrogen dioxide and outdoor concentrations of several specific pollutants to be related to reduced school attendance. The most persuasive indirect evidence showed indoor dampness and microbiologic pollutants to be related to asthma and respiratory infections, which have in turn been related to reduced performance and attendance. Furthermore, a substantial scientific literature links poor IEQ (e.g., low ventilation rate, excess moisture or formaldehyde) with respiratory and other health effects in children and adults. Overall, evidence suggests that poor IEQ in schools can influence the performance and attendance of students, primarily through …

This report discusses a variety of issues pertaining to energy policy. It includes information about most recent developments, background and analysis broken down into major categories, and relevant legislation.

The susceptibility or Alloy 22 (N06022) to crevice corrosion may depend on environmental or external factors and metallurgical or internal factors. Some of the most important environmental factors are chloride concentration, inhibitors, temperature and potential. The presence of a weld seam or second phase precipitation in the alloy are classified as internal factors. The localized corrosion resistance of Alloy 22 has been extensively investigated in the last five years, however not all affecting factors were considered in the studies. This paper discusses the current findings regarding the effect of many of these variables on the susceptibility (or resistance) of Alloy 22 to crevice corrosion. The effect of variables such as temperature, chloride concentration and nitrate are rather well understood. However there are only limited or no data regarding effect of other factors such as pH, other inhibitive or deleterious species and type of crevicing material and crevice geometry. There are contradictory results regarding the effect of metallurgical factors such as solution heat treatment.

The high temporal resolution and broad bandwidth of a femtosecond laser system are exploited in a pair of nonlinear optical studies of surfaces. The dephasing dynamics of resonances associated with the adatom dangling bonds of the Si(111)7 x 7 surface are explored by transient second-harmonic hole burning, a process that can be described as a fourth-order nonlinear optical process. Spectral holes produced by a 100 fs pump pulse at about 800 nm are probed by the second harmonic signal of a 100 fs pulse tunable around 800 nm. The measured spectral holes yield homogeneous dephasing times of a few tens of femtoseconds. Fits with a Lorentzian spectral hole centered at zero probe detuning show a linear dependence of the hole width on pump fluence, which suggests that charge carrier-carrier scattering dominates the dephasing dynamics at the measured excitation densities. Extrapolation of the deduced homogeneous dephasing times to zero excitation density yields an intrinsic dephasing time of {approx} 70 fs. The presence of a secondary spectral hole indicates that scattering of the surface electrons with surface optical phonons at 570 cm{sup -1} occurs within the first 200 fs after excitation. The broad bandwidth of femtosecond IR pulses is used to perform …

This report discusses about US international HIV/AIDS programs, HIV/AIDS in the foreign operations Appropriations, Labor/HHS Appropriations and other Appropriations.

The discovery that ultra-intense laser pulses (I > 10{sup 18} W/cm{sup 2}) can produce short pulse, high energy proton beams has renewed interest in the fundamental mechanisms that govern particle acceleration from laser-solid interactions. Experiments have shown that protons present as hydrocarbon contaminants on laser targets can be accelerated up to energies > 50 MeV. Different theoretical models that explain the observed results have been proposed. One model describes a front-surface acceleration mechanism based on the ponderomotive potential of the laser pulse. At high intensities (I > 10{sup 18} W/cm{sup 2}), the quiver energy of an electron oscillating in the electric field of the laser pulse exceeds the electron rest mass, requiring the consideration of relativistic effects. The relativistically correct ponderomotive potential is given by U{sub p} = ([1 + I{lambda}{sup 2}/1.3 x 10{sup 18}]{sup 1/2} - 1) m{sub o}c{sup 2}, where I{lambda}{sup 2} is the irradiance in W {micro}m{sup 2}/cm{sup 2} and m{sub o}c{sup 2} is the electron rest mass. At laser irradiance of I{lambda}{sup 2} {approx} 10{sup 20} W {micro}m{sup 2}/cm{sup 2}, the ponderomotive potential can be of order several MeV. A few recent experiments--discussed in Chapter 3 of this thesis--consider this ponderomotive potential sufficiently strong to accelerate …

A Wolter X-ray optic was the central component of the microscope envisioned to fulfill the imaging requirements of the Characterization SI. After encountering many difficulties and delays, an optic was finally produced that, unfortunately, only partially met its specifications. With the SI halted, and efforts underway to reformulate a LDRD program to support fabrication of X-ray optics, it is useful to examine the previous effort and compile a list of lessons learned during the research.

To predict the behavior of hydrate-bearing sediments and the economic extractability of natural gas from reservoirs containing gas hydrates, we need reservoir simulators that properly represent the processes that occur, as well as accurate parameters. Several codes are available that represent some or all of the expected processes, and values for some parameters are available. Where values are unavailable, modelers have used estimation techniques to help with their predictions. Although some of these techniques are well respected, measurements are needed in many cases to verify the parameters. We have performed a series of experiments in a partially water saturated silica sand sample. The series included methane hydrate formation, and dissociation by both thermal stimulation and depressurization. The sample was 7.6 cm in diameter and 25 cm in length. In addition to measuring the system pressure and temperatures at four locations in the sample, we measured local density within the sample using x-ray computed tomography. Our goals in performing the experiment were to gather information for estimating thermal properties of the medium and to examine nonequilibrium processes.

The underlying hypothesis of this project was that optimal alpha emitter-based radioimmunotherapy (RAIT) could be achieved by pairing the physical half-life of the radioisotope to the biological half-life of the targeting vehicle. The project had two specific aims. The first aim was to create and optimize the therapeutic efficacy of 211At-SAPS-C6.5 diabody conjugates. The second aim was to develop bispecific-targeting strategies that increase the specificity and efficacy of alpha-emitter-based RAIT. In the performance of the first aim, we created 211At-SAPS-C6.5 diabody conjugates that specifically targeted the HER2 tumor associated antigen. In evaluating these immunoconjugates we determined that they were capable of efficient tumor targeting and therapeutic efficacy of established human tumor xenografts growing in immunodeficient mice. We also determined that therapeutic doses were associated with late renal toxicity, likely due to the role of the kidneys in the systemic elimination o f these agents. We are currently performing more studies focused on better understanding the observed toxicity. In the second aim, we successfully generated bispecific single-chain Fv (bs-scFv) molecules that co-targeted HER2 and HER3 or HER2 and HER4. The in vitro kinetics and in vivo tumor-targeting properties of these molecules were evaluated. These studies revealed that the bs-scFv molecules selectively …

We focus on improving the angular discretization of the angular flux for the one-dimensional (1D) spherical geometry neutron transport equation. Unlike the conventional SN method, we model the angular dependence of the flux with a Petrov-Galerkin finite element approximation for the differencing of the angular variable in developing the 1D spherical geometry S{sub N} equations. That is, we use both a piecewise bi-linear and a quadratic function in each angular bin to approximate the angular dependence of the flux. This new algorithm that we have developed shows faster convergence with angular resolution than conventional SN algorithms. (U)

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This report provides an overview of current local, state, and federal policies and programs that support school choice and identifies and summarizes recent federal school choice legislation.

This report discusses soil and water conservation, which were prominent farm policy topics in the 108th Congress as the Administration implemented provisions in the 2002 farm bill (P.L. 107-171). This farm bill increased spending and expanded the scope of the conservation effort by reauthorizing and amending most existing conservation programs and enacting new ones through FY2007.

An energy-dependent bond-breaking model for material failure is described. The logic of the scheme has its roots in that of the Cochran- Banner spall model [Cochran and Banner, 1977], but significant differences have been introduced. Material zones undergoing tensile stress incur damage according to an exponential expression related to the familiar Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. A scheme for converting the damage calculated in specified contiguous zones of the mesh into a 'strength factor' for each subject zone is included as a means to account for statistical variability in the location and extent of the failure region. A dynamical healing algorithm is also described. To date the method has been tried only in 1-D slab symmetry, but it is intended for general use in mesh-zoned hydro codes of any dimensionality.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether section 1702.323(e) of the Occupations Code makes a paralegal or other person working under an attorney’s direct supervision subject to regulation by the Texas Private Security Board (RQ-0232-GA)

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wxWindows is an Open Source, platform independent, User Interface (UI) which has been in development for over eleven years (http://www.wxwindows.org). Currently wxWindows is actively supported for the Linux/Unix (X11, Motif and GTK+), Mac OS 9 and X, all Win32 OSes, MGL, and OS/2 operating systems. wxWindows is written in C++ using an object oriented programming framework; it is a reasonably lightweight API (called wxWidgets) sitting over the native graphics packages of the various platforms it supports. The original version of CALE was written for the basic target platform of Unix using X11 as the graphics package. There have been separate efforts to port the code to Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Win32, Windows Services for Unix (SFU) and CygWin. Each of these used a variety of different graphical interface approaches and build/make systems. For instance Windows SFU and CygWin could still only use X11 graphics. So could the Win32 version, if a X11 server library and client software were installed. A native Win32 version of CALE was contemplated, but never started. The Macintosh versions were completed but never widely distributed to the users. Given the growing code version support issues, and the slow deviation from the portable code model …

We discuss commissioning work funded through LCLS WBS element 1.5: X-ray Transport Optics and Diagnostics (XTOD.) A short description of the XTOD commissioning diagnostics hardware is followed by a brief discussion of FEL induced damage considerations. The remainder discusses simulation work on the response of the Direct Imager camera to a mix of spontaneous and FEL radiation and a Monte Carlo Calculation of the reflections of the spontaneous radiation in the undulator vacuum tube.

In support of CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc.’s (CHG) preparation of a Field Investigative Report (FIR) for the Hanford Site Single-Shell Tank Waste Management Area (WMA) T and TX-TY, a suite of numerical simulations of flow and solute transport was executed using the STOMP code to predict the performance of surface barriers for reducing long-term risks from potential groundwater contamination at the T and TX-TY WMA. The scope and parametric data for these simulations were defined by a modeling data package provided by CHG. This report documents the simulation involving 2-D cross sections through the T Tank and the TX-TY Tank Farm. Eight cases were carried out for the cross sections to simulate the effects of interim barrier, water line leak, inventory distribution, and surface recharge on water flow and the transport of long-lived radionuclides (i.e., technecium-99 and uranium) and chemicals (i.e., nitrate and chromium For simulations with barriers, it is assumed that an interim barrier is in place by the year 2010. It was also assumed that, for all simulations, as part of tank farm closure, a closure barrier was in place by the year 2040. The modeling considers the estimated inventories of contaminants within the vadose zone and …

This Strategic Initiative (SI) will advance nondestructive characterization of mesoscale (millimeter-sized) objects-allowing micrometer resolution over the objects' entire volume. X-ray imaging will be developed that allows object characterization with materials that vary widely in composition, density, and geometry.

This Strategic Initiative (SI) will advance nondestructive characterization of mesoscale (millimeter-sized) objects--allowing micrometer resolution over the objects' entire volume. X-ray imaging will be developed that allows object characterization with materials that vary widely in composition, density, and geometry.