We have achieved what we believe to be the first atomic resolution STM images for a uranium compound USb2 taken at room temperature. The a, b, and c lattice parameters in the images confirm that the tetragonal USb2crystals cleave on the (00 I) basal plane as expected. Our calculations indicate a symmetric cut between Sb planes to be the most favorable cleavage plane and U atoms to be responsible for most ofthe density of states measured by STM. Since the spacing between Sb atoms and between U atoms is the same, STM topography only cannot unambiguously identify the surface atom species.

The Wind Powering America program produces a poster at the end of every calendar year that depicts new U.S. wind energy projects. The 2008 poster includes the following projects: Stetson Wind Farm in Maine; Dutch Hill Wind Farm in New York; Grand Ridge Wind Energy Center in Illinois; Hooper Bay, Alaska; Forestburg, South Dakota; Elbow Creek Wind Project in Texas; Glacier Wind Farm in Montana; Wray, Colorado; Smoky Hills Wind Farm in Kansas; Forbes Park Wind Project in Massachusetts; Spanish Fork, Utah; Goodland Wind Farm in Indiana; and the Tatanka Wind Energy Project on the border of North Dakota and South Dakota.

Fermilab began exploring the technologies for vertically integrated circuits (also commonly known as 3D circuits) in 2006. These technologies include through silicon vias (TSV), circuit thinning, and bonding techniques to replace conventional bump bonds. Since then, the interest within the High Energy Physics community has grown considerably. This paper will present an overview of the activities at Fermilab over the last 3 years which have helped spark this interest.

Density functional theory was applied to the initial steps of uranium hydriding: surface phenomena, absorption, bulk transport and trapping. H adsorbs exothermically to the (0 0 1) surface, yet H absorption into the bulk is endothermic, with off-center octahedral absorption having the lowest absorption energy of 0.39 eV, relative to molecular H{sub 2}. H absorption in interstitial sites causes a local softening of the bulk modulus. Diffusion of H in unstrained {alpha}-U has a barrier of 0.6 eV. The energy of H absorption adjacent to the chemical impurities C, S, Si was lowered by an amount proportional to the size of the impurity atom, and the resulting lattice strain Si > S > C. Thus, impurities may promote hydriding by providing surfaces or prestrained zones for H uptake.

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) was established during World War II with a single mission -- to design and build an atomic bomb. In the 65 years since, nuclear weapons physics, design and engineering have been the Laboratory's primary and sustaining mission. Experimental and process operations -- and associated cleanout and upgrade activities -- have generated a significant inventory of transuranic (TRU) waste that is stored at LANL's Technical Area 54, Material Disposal Area G (MDA G). When the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) opened its doors in 1999, LANL's TRU inventory totaled about 10,200 m{sup 3}, with a plutonium 239-equivalent curie (PE Ci) content of approximately 250,000 curies. By December 2008, a total of about 2,300 m3 (61,000 PE Ci) had been shipped to WIPP from LANL. This has resulted in a net reduction of about 1,000 m{sup 3} of TRU inventory over that time frame. This paper presents progress in dispositioning legacy and newly-generated transuranic waste (TRU) from ongoing missions at the LANL. The plans for, and lessons learned, in dispositioning several hundred high-activity TRU waste drums are reviewed. This waste population was one of the highest risks at LANL. Technical challenges in disposition of the high-activity drums …

Obtaining accurate solutions for convection–diffusion equations is challenging due to the presence of layers when convection dominates the diffusion. To solve this problem, we design an adaptive meshing algorithm which optimizes the alignment of anisotropic meshes with the numerical solution. Three main ingredients are used. First, the streamline upwind Petrov–Galerkin method is used to produce a stabilized solution. Second, an adapted metric tensor is computed from the approximate solution. Third, optimized anisotropic meshes are generated from the computed metric tensor by an anisotropic centroidal Voronoi tessellation algorithm. Our algorithm is tested on a variety of two-dimensional examples and the results shows that the algorithm is robust in detecting layers and efficient in avoiding non-physical oscillations in the numerical approximation.

Public facility restoration planning traditionally focused on response to natural disasters and hazardous materials accidental releases. These plans now need to integrate response to terrorist actions. Therefore, plans must address a wide range of potential vulnerabilities. Similar types of broad remediation planning are needed for restoration of waste and hazardous material handling areas and facilities. There are strong similarities in damage results and remediation activities between unintentional and terrorist actions; however, the uncertainties associated with terrorist actions result in a re-evaluation of approaches to planning. Restoration of public facilities following a release of a hazardous material is inherently far more complex than in confined industrial settings and has many unique technical, economic, social, and political challenges. Therefore, they arguably involve a superset of drivers, concerns and public agencies compared to other restoration efforts. This superset of conditions increases complexity of interactions, reduces our knowledge of the initial conditions, and even condenses the timeline for restoration response. Therefore, evaluations of alternative restoration management approaches developed for responding to terrorist actions provide useful knowledge for large, complex waste management projects. Whereas present planning documents have substantial linearity in their organization, the 'adaptive management' paradigm provides a constructive parallel operations paradigm for restoration …

Dust diagnostics and removal techniques are vital for the safe operation of next step fusion devices such as ITER. In the tokamak environment, large particles or fi bers can fall on the electrostatic detector potentially causing a permanent short. An electrostatic dust detector developed in the laboratory is being applied to the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). We report on the development of a gas puff system that uses helium to clear such particles from the detector. Experiments at atmospheric pressure with varying nozzle designs, backing pressures, puff durations and exit fl ow orientations have given an optimal confi guration that effectively removes particles from a 25 cm² area. Similar removal effi ciencies were observed under a vacuum base pressure of 1 mTorr. Dust removal from next step tokamaks will be required to meet regulatory dust limits. A tri-polar grid of fi ne interdigitated traces has been designed that generates an electrostatic traveling wave for conveying dust particles to a “drain.” First trials with only two working electrodes have shown particle motion in optical microscope images.

A new algorithm for constructing optimal dyadic decision trees was recently introduced, analyzed, and shown to be very effective for low dimensional data sets. This paper enhances and extends this algorithm by: introducing an adaptive grid search for the regularization parameter that guarantees optimal solutions for all relevant trees sizes, revising the core tree-building algorithm so that its run time is substantially smaller for most regularization parameter values on the grid, and incorporating new data structures and data pre-processing steps that provide significant run time enhancement in practice.

In the present work we derive and study a nonlinear elliptic PDE coming from the problem of estimation of sound speed inside the Earth. The physical setting of the PDE allows us to pose only a Cauchy problem, and hence is ill-posed. However we are still able to solve it numerically on a long enough time interval to be of practical use. We used two approaches. The first approach is a finite difference time-marching numerical scheme inspired by the Lax-Friedrichs method. The key features of this scheme is the Lax-Friedrichs averaging and the wide stencil in space. The second approach is a spectral Chebyshev method with truncated series. We show that our schemes work because of (1) the special input corresponding to a positive finite seismic velocity, (2) special initial conditions corresponding to the image rays, (3) the fact that our finite-difference scheme contains small error terms which damp the high harmonics; truncation of the Chebyshev series, and (4) the need to compute the solution only for a short interval of time. We test our numerical scheme on a collection of analytic examples and demonstrate a dramatic improvement in accuracy in the estimation of the sound speed inside the Earth …

We consider linear programming (LP) decoding of a fixed low-density parity-check (LDPC) code over the binary symmetric channel (BSC). The LP decoder fails when it outputs a pseudo-codeword which is not a codeword. We propose an efficient algorithm termed the instanton search algorithm (ISA) which, given a random input, generates a set of flips called the BSC-instanton and prove that: (a) the LP decoder fails for any set of flips with support vector including an instanton; (b) for any input, the algorithm outputs an instanton in the number of steps upper-bounded by twice the number of flips in the input. We obtain the number of unique instantons of different sizes by running the ISA sufficient number of times. We then use the instanton statistics to predict the performance of the LP decoding over the BSC in the error floor region. We also propose an efficient semi-analytical method to predict the performance of LP decoding over a large range of transition probabilities of the BSC.

Super-prompt-critical burst experiments were conducted on the Godiva-IV assembly at Los Alamos National Laboratory from the 1960s through 2005. Detailed and simplified benchmark models have been constructed for four delayed-critical experiments and for the static phase of a super-prompt-critical burst experiment. In addition, a two-dimensional cylindrical model has been developed for the super-prompt-critical condition. Criticality calculations have been performed for all of those models with four modern nuclear data libraries: ENDFIB-VI, ENDF/8-VII.0, JEFF-3.1 , and JENDL-3.3. Overall, JENDL-3.3 produces the best agreement with the reference values for k{sub eff}.

Paper explores the effectiveness of the methods used to prepare mathematics majors for courses that require proofs.

Article on the annual variation of abundance and composition in forest bird assemblages on Navarino Island, Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve, Chile.

Inspired by problems in biochemical kinetics, we study statistical properties of an overdamped Langevin processes with the friction coefficient depending on the state of a similar, unobserved, process. Integrating out the latter, we derive the Pocker-Planck the friction coefficient of the first depends on the state of the second. Integrating out the latter, we derive the Focker-Planck equation for the probability distribution of the former. This has the fonn of diffusion equation with time-dependent diffusion coefficient, resulting in an anomalous diffusion. The diffusion exponent can not be predicted using a simple scaling argument, and anomalous scaling appears as well. The diffusion exponent of the Weiss-Havlin comb model is derived as a special case, and the same exponent holds even for weakly coupled processes. We compare our theoretical predictions with numerical simulations and find an excellent agreement. The findings caution against treating biochemical systems with unobserved dynamical degrees of freedom by means of standandard, diffusive Langevin descritpion.

Mixed potential sensors for the detection of hydrocarbons, NO{sub x}, and NH{sub 3} have been previously developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The LANL sensors have a unique design incorporating dense ceramic-pelletlmetal-wire electrodes and porous electrolytes. The performance of current-biased sensors using an yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte and platinum and La{sub 0.8}Sr{sub 0.2}CrO{sub 3} electrodes is reported. X-ray tomography has been applied to non-destructively examine internal structures of these sensors. NO{sub x} and hydrocarbon response of the sensors under various bias conditions is reported, and very little NO{sub x} response hysteresis was observed. The application of a 0.6 {mu}A bias to these sensors shifts the response from a hydrocarbon response to a NO{sub x} response equal for both NO and NO{sub 2} species at approximately 500 {sup o}C in air.

For many years, there have been questions about the effectiveness of applying different green solutions. If you're building a home and wish to use green technologies, where do you start? While all technologies sound promising, which will perform the best over time? All this has to be considered within the cost and schedule of the project. The amount of information available on the topic can be overwhelming. We seek to examine if Systems Engineering methods can be used to help people choose and prioritize technologies that fit within their project and budget. Several methods are used to gain perspective into how to select the green technologies, such as the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Kepner-Tregoe. In our study, subjects applied these methods to analyze cost, schedule, and trade-offs. Results will document whether the experimental approach is applicable to defining system priorities for green technologies.

We introduce novel results for approximate inference on planar graphical models using the loop calculus framework. The loop calculus (Chertkov and Chernyak, 2006b) allows to express the exact partition function Z of a graphical model as a finite sum of terms that can be evaluated once the belief propagation (BP) solution is known. In general, full summation over all correction terms is intractable. We develop an algorithm for the approach presented in Chertkov et al. (2008) which represents an efficient truncation scheme on planar graphs and a new representation of the series in terms of Pfaffians of matrices. We analyze in detail both the loop series and the Pfaffian series for models with binary variables and pairwise interactions, and show that the first term of the Pfaffian series can provide very accurate approximations. The algorithm outperforms previous truncation schemes of the loop series and is competitive with other state-of-the-art methods for approximate inference.

This paper summarizes a modeling framework that characterizes the key underlying technologies and processes that contribute to the supply chain energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of a variety of goods and services purchased by U.S. consumers. The framework couples an input-output supply chain modeling approach with"bottom-up" fuel end use models for individual IO sectors. This fuel end use modeling detail allows energy and policy analysts to better understand the underlying technologies and processes contributing to the supply chain energy and GHG"footprints" of goods and services. To illustrate the policy-relevance of thisapproach, a case study was conducted to estimate achievable household GHG footprint reductions associated with the adoption of best practice energy-efficient supply chain technologies.

We perform an asymptotic analysis of spatial discretizations in Implicit Monte Carlo (IMC). We consider two asymptotic scalings: one that represents a time step that resolves the mean-free time, and one that corresponds to a fixed, optically large time step. We show that only the latter scaling results in a valid spatial discretization of the proper diffusion equation, and thus we conclude that IMC only yields accurate solutions when using optically large spatial cells if time steps are also optically large. We demonstrate the validity of our analysis with a set of numerical examples.

Article discussing research on the attitudes of college music students towards noise in youth culture.

In this paper we review the most recent results concerning B Baryons at CDF, including the study of the {Omega}{sub b}{sup -}, {Xi}{sub b}{sup -} and {Sigma}{sub b}{sup {+-}(*)} observation and properties, and a new measurement of the {Lambda}{sub b}{sup 0} lifetime and the observation of new {Lambda}{sub b}{sup 0} decay modes. The {Omega}{sub b}{sup -} bayron is observed through the decay chain {Omega}{sub b}{sup -} {yields} J/{Psi}{Omega}{sup -}, where J/{Psi} {yields} {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -}, {Omega}{sup -} {yields} {Lambda}K{sup -}, and {Lambda} {yields} pK{sup -}, using 4.2 fb{sup -1} of data. The {Omega}{sub b}{sup -} mass is measured to be 6054.4 {+-} 6.8(stat.) {+-} 0.9(syst.) MeV/c{sup 2}, and the lifetime 1.13{sub -0.40}{sup _0.53}(stat.) {+-} 0.02(syst.) ps. For the {Xi}{sub b}{sup -} the mass is measured 5790.9 {+-} 2.6(stat.) {+-} 0.8(syst.) MeV/c{sup 2} and the lifetime 1.56{sub -0.25}{sup +0.27}(stat.) {+-} 0.02(syst.) ps. The four new states {Sigma}{sub b}{sup +}, {Sigma}{sub b}{sup -}, {Sigma}*{sub b}{sup +}, and {Sigma}*{sub b}{sup -} have been observed in 1.1 fb{sup -1} of data, and the masses have been determined, m({Sigma}{sub b}{sup +}) = 5807.8{sub -2.2}{sup +2.0}(stat.) {+-} 1.7(syst.), m({Sigma}{sub b}{sup -}) = 5815.2 {+-} 1.0(stat.) {+-} 1.7(syst.), m({Sigma}*{sub b}{sup +}) = 5829.0{sub -1.8-1.8}{sup +1.6+1.7}, and m{Sigma}*{sub …

An overview of the most recent experimental results on Branching Fractions of rare fully leptonic B decays is given; constraints on the parameters of some New Physics models are presented. Perspectives with new accelerator programs are discussed.

With data samples of up to 2 fb{sup -1} of p{bar p} interactions at {radical}s = 1960 GeV, the CDF and D0 experiments are beginning to make precision measurements of the lifetime of bottom hadrons not produced in e{sup +}e{sup -} colliders operating at the {Upsilon}(4S) and set limits on the branching ratios of many decay modes that are predicted to be rare or forbidden under the standard model. Both sets of measurements are providing limits on physics beyond the standard model.