Sensor modules including accelerometers are placed on a physical structure and tri-axial accelerometer data is converted to mechanical power (P) data which then processed to provide a forewarning of a critical event concerning the physical structure. The forewarning is based on a number of occurrences of a composite measure of dissimilarity (Ci) exceeding a forewarning threshold over a defined sampling time; and a forewarning signal is provided to a human observer through a visual, audible or tangible s1gnal. A forewarning of a structural failure can also be provided based on a number of occurrences of (Ci) above a failure value threshold.

A pad is disclosed for use in a weighing system for weighing a load. The pad includes a weighing platform, load cells, and foot members. Improvements to the pad reduce or substantially eliminate rotation of one or more of the corner foot members. A flexible foot strap disposed between the corner foot members reduces rotation of the respective foot members about vertical axes through the corner foot members and couples the corner foot members such that rotation of one corner foot member results in substantially the same amount of rotation of the other comer foot member. In a strapless variant one or more fasteners prevents substantially all rotation of a foot member. In a diagonal variant, a foot strap extends between a corner foot member and the weighing platform to reduce rotation of the foot member about a vertical axis through the comer foot member.

A system for weighing a load is disclosed. The weighing system includes a pad having at least one transducer for weighing a load disposed on the pad. In some embodiments the pad has a plurality of foot members and the weighing system may include a plate that disposed underneath the pad for receiving the plurality of foot members and for aligning the foot members when the weighing system is installed. The weighing system may include a spacer disposed adjacent the pad and in some embodiments, a spacer anchor operatively secures the spacer to a support surface, such as a plate, a railway bed, or a roadway. In some embodiments the spacer anchor operatively secures both the spacer and the pad to a roadway.

Consumers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, West Virginia, and New Jersey are showing increased interest in solar electric systems for their homes and businesses. This booklet provides basic information about buying a PV system. Photovoltaic (PV) systems are reliable, pollution free, and use a renewable source of energy--the sun. A PV system can be a substantial investment and careful planning will help ensure that you make the right decisions.

The remarkable catalytic properties of electrode surfaces modified by monolayer amounts of metal adatoms obtained by underpotential deposition (UPD) have been the subject of a large number of studies during the last couple of decades. This interest stems from the possibility of implementing strictly surface modifications of electrocatalysts in an elegant, well-controlled way, and these bi-metallic surfaces can serve as models for the design of new catalysts. In addition, some of these systems may have potential for practical applications. The UPD of metals, which in general involves the deposition of up to a monolayer of metal on a foreign substrate at potentials positive to the reversible thermodynamic potential, facilitates this type of surface modification, which can be performed repeatedly by potential control. Recent studies of these surfaces and their catalytic properties by new in situ surface structure sensitive techniques have greatly improved the understanding of these systems.

The remarkable catalytic properties of electrode surfaces modified by monolayer amounts of metal adatoms obtained by underpotential deposition (UPD) have been the subject of a large number of studies during the last couple of decades. This interest stems from the possibility of implementing strictly surface modifications of electrocatalysts in an elegant, well-controlled way, and these bi-metallic surfaces can serve as models for the design of new catalysts. In addition, some of these systems may have potential for practical applications. The UPD of metals, which in general involves the deposition of up to a monolayer of metal on a foreign substrate at potentials positive to the reversible thermodynamic potential, facilitates this type of surface modification, which can be performed repeatedly by potential control. Recent studies of these surfaces and their catalytic properties by new in situ surface structure sensitive techniques have greatly improved the understanding of these systems.

World energy use is the main contributor to atmospheric CO2. In 2002, about 7.0 giga metric tons of carbon (GtC) were emitted internationally by combustion of gas, liquid, and solid fuels (CDIAC, 2006), 2 to 5 times the amount contributed by deforestation (Brown et al., 1988). The share of atmospheric carbon emissions for the United States from fossil fuel combustion was 1.6 GtC. Increasing use of fossil fuel and deforestation together have raised atmospheric CO{sub 2} concentration some 25% over the last 150 years. According to global climate models and preliminary measurements, these changes in the composition of the atmosphere have already begun raising the Earth's average temperature. If current energy trends continue, these changes could drastically alter the Earth's temperature, with unknown but potentially catastrophic physical and political consequences. During the last three decades, increased energy awareness has led to conservation efforts and leveling of energy consumption in the industrialized countries. An important byproduct of this reduced energy use is the lowering of CO{sub 2} emissions. Of all electricity generated in the United States, about one-sixth is used to air-condition buildings. The air-conditioning use is about 400 tera-watt-hours (TWh), equivalent to about 80 million metric tons of carbon (MtC) …

The development of automated systems supporting the production and application of PET radiopharmaceuticals has been an important focus of researchers since the first successes of using carbon-11 (Comar et al., 1979) and fluorine-18 (Reivich et al., 1979) labeled compounds to visualize functional activity of the human brain. These initial successes of imaging the human brain soon led to applications in the human heart (Schelbert et al., 1980), and quickly radiochemists began to see the importance of automation to support PET studies in humans (Lambrecht, 1982; Langstrom et al., 1983). Driven by the necessity of controlling processes emanating high fluxes of 511 KeV photons, and by the tedium of repetitive syntheses for carrying out these human PET investigations, academic and government scientists have designed, developed and tested many useful and novel automated systems in the past twenty years. These systems, originally designed primarily by radiochemists, not only carry out effectively the tasks they were designed for, but also demonstrate significant engineering innovation in the field of laboratory automation.

This guide provides readers with a broad understanding of the potential benefits that current renewable energy technologies can offer rural microenterprises. It also introduces the institutional approaches that have been developed to make RE technologies accessible to microentrepreneurs and the challenges that these entrepreneurs have encountered.

New houses designed by Mercedes Homes in Melbourne, Florida, with technical support from the U.S. Department of Energy's Building America Program, save their homeowners money by using energy efficient features such as a high performance heat pump and solar control glazing to reduce cooling costs.

Microarrays have proven to be a useful and high-throughput method to provide targeted DNA sequence information for up to many thousands of specific genetic regions in a single test. A microarray consists of multiple DNA oligonucleotide probes that, under high stringency conditions, hybridize only to specific complementary nucleic acid sequences (targets). A fluorescent signal indicates the presence and, in many cases, the abundance of genetic regions of interest. In this chapter we will look at how microarrays are used in microbial ecology, especially with the recent increase in microbial community DNA sequence data. Of particular interest to microbial ecologists, phylogenetic microarrays are used for the analysis of phylotypes in a community and functional gene arrays are used for the analysis of functional genes, and, by inference, phylotypes in environmental samples. A phylogenetic microarray that has been developed by the Andersen laboratory, the PhyloChip, will be discussed as an example of a microarray that targets the known diversity within the 16S rRNA gene to determine microbial community composition. Using multiple, confirmatory probes to increase the confidence of detection and a mismatch probe for every perfect match probe to minimize the effect of cross-hybridization by non-target regions, the PhyloChip is able to …

The p53 tumor suppressor is a tetrameric transcription factor that is post-translational modified at {approx}18 different sites by phosphorylation, acetylation, or sumoylation in response to various cellular stress conditions. Specific posttranslational modifications, or groups of modifications, that result from the activation of different stress-induced signaling pathways are thought to modulate p53 activity to regulate cell fate by inducing cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, or cellular senescence. Here we review the posttranslational modifications to p53 and the pathways that produce them in response to both genotoxic and non-genotoxic stresses.

This document is one in a series of information bulletins about the Building America program, member teams, and current projects. This bulletin highlights the construction completed in Atlanta, Georgia, and will focus on the projects related to the International Builders' Show.

New houses in the Sun Lakes at Banning subdivision are designed by Pulte Homes with technical support from the Building Science Consortium as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Building America Program. These homes save their homeowners money by applying the principles of ''whole-building'' design, which considers the house as a complete system instead of separate components.

This guidance document is a product of the Avian Subcommittee of the National Wind Coordinating Committee (NWCC). The NWCC was formed to better understand and promote responsible, credible, and comparable avian/wind energy interaction studies. Bird mortality is a concern and wind power is a potential clean and green source of electricity, making study of wind energy/bird interactions essential. This document provides an overview for regulators and stakeholders concerned with wind energy/bird interactions, as well as a more technical discussion of the basic concepts and tools for studying such interactions.

There is a critical need for new environmentally friendly processes in the United States chemical industry as legislative and economic pressures push the industry to zero-waste and cradle-to-grave responsibility for the products they produce. Carbohydrates represent a plentiful, renewable resource, which for some processes might economically replace fossil feedstocks. While the conversion of biomass to fuels, is still not generally economical, the selective synthesis of a commodity or fine chemical, however, could compete effectively if appropriate catalytic conversion systems can be found. Oxygenated organics, found in a variety of products such as nylon and polyester, are particularly attractive targets. We believe that with concerted research efforts, homogeneous transition metal catalyzed reactions could play a significant role in bringing about this future green chemistry technology.

We have measured the Ag and Pd M{sub 5}VV Auger spectrum in coincidence with Ag and Pd 4d{sub 5/2} photoelectrons for the Ag/Cu(100) and Pd/Cu(100) systems, respectively, as a function of admetal coverage. These systems form surface alloys (i.e. random substitutional alloys in the first atomic layer) for impurity concentrations in the 0.1 monolayer range. For these systems, the centroid of the impurity 4d levels is expected to shift away from the Fermi level by {approx}1 eV [Ruban et al., Journal of Molecular Catalysis. A 115 (1997) 421], an effect that should be easily seen in coincidence core-valence-valence Auger spectra. We find that the impurity Auger spectra of both systems shift in a manner that is consistent with d-band moving away from EF. However, the shift for Pd is considerably smaller than expected, and a shift almost absent for Ag. The disagreement between theory and experiment is most likely caused by the neglect of lattice relaxations in the calculations.

Radiochemical analyses of surface water samples, in the framework of Environmental Monitoring, have associated uncertainties for the radioisotopic results reported. These uncertainty analyses pertain to the tritium results from surface water samples collected at five locations on the Savannah River near the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS). Uncertainties can result from the field-sampling routine, can be incurred during transport due to the physical properties of the sample, from equipment limitations, and from the measurement instrumentation used. The uncertainty reported by the SRS in their Annual Site Environmental Report currently considers only the counting uncertainty in the measurements, which is the standard reporting protocol for radioanalytical chemistry results. The focus of this work is to provide an overview of all uncertainty components associated with SRS tritium measurements, estimate the total uncertainty according to ISO 17025, and to propose additional experiments to verify some of the estimated uncertainties. The main uncertainty components discovered and investigated in this paper are tritium absorption or desorption in the sample container, HTO/H{sub 2}O isotopic effect during distillation, pipette volume, and tritium standard uncertainty. The goal is to quantify these uncertainties and to establish a combined uncertainty in order to increase the scientific depth …

This FEMP technical assistance case study shows that energy efficiency, cost effectiveness, and aesthetics can be incorporated into the design of a Federal facility--in this case the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, WV, which encompasses many buildings with a variety of purposes.

This issue of OIT [Office of Industrial Technologies] Times features steps being taken to streamline the R and D proposal solicitation process and includes an updated solicitation schedule. There is an article describing The Pittsburgh Regional Technology Showcase event launched by DOE Assistant Secretary Dan Reicher.

This chapter describes ex situ bioremediation of the petroleum portion of radiologically co-contaminated soils using microorganisms isolated from a waste site and innovative bioreactor technology. Microorganisms first isolated and screened in the laboratory for bioremediation of petroleum were eventually used to treat soils in a bioreactor. The bioreactor treated soils contaminated with over 20,000 mg/kg total petroleum hydrocarbon and reduced the levels to less than 100 mg/kg in 22 months. After treatment, the soils were permanently disposed as low-level radiological waste. The petroleum and radiologically contaminated soil (PRCS) bioreactor operated using bioventing to control the supply of oxygen (air) to the soil being treated. The system treated 3.67 tons of PCRS amended with weathered compost, ammonium nitrate, fertilizer, and water. In addition, a consortium of microbes (patent pending) isolated at the Savannah River National Laboratory from a petroleum-contaminated site was added to the PRCS system. During operation, degradation of petroleum waste was accounted for through monitoring of carbon dioxide levels in the system effluent. The project demonstrated that co-contaminated soils could be successfully treated through bioventing and bioaugmentation to remove petroleum contamination to levels below 100 mg/kg while protecting workers and the environment from radiological contamination.

This chapter is devoted to the scale, scope, and specific issues confronting the cleanup and long-term disposal of the U.S. nuclear legacy generated during WWII and the Cold War Era. The research reported is aimed at complex microbiological interactions with legacy waste materials generated by past nuclear production activities in the United States. The intended purpose of this research is to identify cost effective solutions to the specific problems (stability) and environmental challenges (fate, transport, exposure) in managing and detoxifying persistent contaminant species. Specifically addressed are high level waste microbiology and bacteria inhabiting plutonium laden soils in the unsaturated subsurface.

The field of statistics has long been noted for techniques to detect patterns and regularities in numerical data. In this article we explore connections between statistics and the emerging field of 'experimental mathematics'. These includes both applications of experimental mathematics in statistics, as well as statistical methods applied to computational mathematics.

This publication Nuclear Reactors and Technology (NRT) announces on a monthly basis the current worldwide information available from the open literature on nuclear reactors and technology, including all aspects of power reactors, components and accessories, fuel elements, control systems, and materials. This publication contains the abstracts of DOE reports, journal articles, conference papers, patents, theses, and monographs added to the Energy Science and Technology Database during the past month. Also included are US information obtained through acquisition programs or interagency agreements and international information obtained through acquisition programs or interagency agreements and international information obtained through the International Energy Agency`s Energy Technology Data Exchange or government-to-government agreements. The digests in NRT and other citations to information on nuclear reactors back to 1948 are available for online searching and retrieval on the Energy Science and Technology Database and Nuclear Science Abstracts (NSA) database. Current information, added daily to the Energy Science and Technology Database, is available to DOE and its contractors through the DOE Integrated Technical Information System. Customized profiles can be developed to provide current information to meet each user`s needs.