Second Injury Funds Nationally and in Missouri – Liability, Functionality, and Viability in Modern Times

A Second Injury Fund (“SIF”) is a statutory form of workers’ compensation relief operating under state law. SIFs allow employers to reduce their own liability for a worker’s injury if part of the harm from that injury was caused by a previously existing disability. The need for SIFs arises from the possibility that workers with prior injuries who are then reinjured are likely to experience greater harm than other workers. As a result, employers could be exposed to greater liability, which might incentivize employers to discriminate against potential employees with previous injuries

Folded traveling wave maser structure Patent

Design of folded traveling wave maser structur

A Comparison of Indirect Lingual Bracket Placement by Practitioners and a Commercial Laboratory as it Relates to Crown Torque

Four sets of patient models were selected from the eighty cases Ormco Corporation used in the development of their lingual bonded appliance. These four sets of models were duplicated and identical sets of four models were sent to each practitioner and the laboratory. The practitioners and the laboratory were to position the lingual brackets on the models from second bicuspid to second bicuspid upper and lower and return them to Loma Linda University Department of Orthodontics for evaluation. The laboratory chosen for placement of the brackets was the Ormco laboratory in Glendora, California. The laboratory ran these four cases through in their normal fashion to simulate clinical conditions. The practitioners were divided into two groups for evaluation, experienced and inexperienced. Three experienced lingual practitioners were chosen from the Ormco Corporation Lingual Task Force and four inexperienced lingual practitioners were chosen from the faculty and alumni of Loma Linda University. The four sets of models from the laboratory and the seven practitioners were sectioned per tooth and photographed with the use of a custom jig and a 35mm camera with a macro lense. The film was processed in slide format and measurements were made using method modified from that described by Dr. Andrews of A Company. The data was submitted to the Department of Biostatistics of Loma Linda University for computer analysis. The measured crown torque was compared to the torque prescription of the Ormco lingual bonded appliance. It was found that there were no significant statistical differences in any of the placements. Although, the calculation of the mean absolute torque difference did allow us to rank the laboratory and the practitioners. The ranking showed an experienced practitioner first, an inexperienced practitioner second, and the laboratory third

Laboratory-Scale Melter for Determination of Melting Rate of Waste Glass Feeds

The purpose of this study was to develop the laboratory-scale melter (LSM) as a quick and inexpensive method to determine the processing rate of various waste glass slurry feeds. The LSM uses a 3 or 4 in. diameter-fused quartz crucible with feed and off-gas ports on top. This LSM setup allows cold-cap formation above the molten glass to be directly monitored to obtain a steady-state melting rate of the waste glass feeds. The melting rate data from extensive scaled-melter tests with Hanford Site high-level wastes performed for the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant have been compiled. Preliminary empirical model that expresses the melting rate as a function of bubbling rate and glass yield were developed from the compiled database. The two waste glass feeds with most melter run data were selected for detailed evaluation and model development and for the LSM tests so the melting rates obtained from LSM tests can be compared with those from scaled-melter tests. The present LSM results suggest the LSM setup can be used to determine the glass production rates for the development of new glass compositions or feed makeups that are designed to increase the processing rate of the slurry feeds

Initial Laboratory-Scale Melter Test Results for Combined Fission Product Waste

This report describes the methods and results used to vitrify a baseline glass, CSLNTM-C-2.5 in support of the AFCI (Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative) using a Quartz Crucible Scale Melter at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Document number AFCI-WAST-PMO-MI-DV-2009-000184

Testing Report: Littleford-Day Dryer Operation: Dryer Operation Impacts of Proposed MIS Mitigation Changes

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory performed a series of tests using the Littleford Day 22-liter dryer during investigations that evaluated changes in the melter-feed composition for the Demonstration Bulk Vitrification System. During testing, a new melter-feed formulation was developed that improved dryer performance while improving the retention of waste salts in the melter feed during vitrification

Rayleigh-Taylor Instability within Sediment Layers Due to Gas Retention: Preliminary Theory and Experiments

In Hanford underground waste storage tanks, a typical waste configuration is settled beds of waste particles beneath liquid layers. The settled beds are typically composed of layers, and these layers can have different physical and chemical properties. One postulated configuration within the settled bed is a less-dense layer beneath a more-dense layer. The different densities can be a result of different gas retention in the layers or different degrees of settling and compaction in the layers. This configuration can experience a Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability where the less dense lower layer rises into the upper layer. Previous studies of gas retention and release have not considered potential buoyant motion within a settle bed of solids. The purpose of this report is to provide a review of RT instabilities, discuss predictions of RT behavior for sediment layers, and summarize preliminary experimental observations of RT instabilities in simulant experiments

Inflation from Susy quantum cosmology

We propose a realization of inverted hybrid inflation scenario in the context of n=2 supersymmetric quantum cosmology. The spectrum of density fluctuations is calculated in the de Sitter regimen as a function of the gravitino and the Planck mass, and explicit forms for the wave function of the universe are found in the WKB regimen for a FRW closed and flat universes.Comment: 9 pages, one figure, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Preliminary Study of Strong-Sludge Gas Retention and Release Mechanisms in Clay Simulants

The Hanford Site has 28 double-shell tanks (DSTs) and 149 single-shell tanks (SSTs) containing radioactive wastes that are complex mixes of radioactive and chemical products. The mission of the Department of Energy’s River Protection Project is to retrieve and treat the Hanford tank waste for disposal and close the tank farms. A key aspect of the mission is to retrieve and transfer waste from the SSTs, which are at greater risk for leaking, into DSTs for interim storage until the waste is transferred to and treated in the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. There is, however, limited space in the existing DSTs to accept waste transfers from the SSTs, and approaches to overcoming the limited DST space will benefit the overall mission. The purpose of this study is to summarize and analyze the key previous experiment that forms the basis for the relaxed controls and to summarize initial progress and results on new experiments focused on understanding the conditions that result in low gas retention. The work is ongoing; this report provides a summary of the initial findings. The previous large-scale test used about 50 m3 of sediment, which would be unwieldy for doing multiple parametric experiments. Accordingly, experiments will begin with smaller-scale tests to determine whether the desired mechanisms can be studied without the difficulty of conducting very large experiments