Waste management technology development and demonstration programs at Brookhaven National Laboratory

Two thermoplastic processes for improved treatment of radioactive, hazardous, and mixed wastes were developed from bench scale through technology demonstration: polyethylene encapsulation and modified sulfur cement encapsulation. The steps required to bring technologies from the research and development stage through full scale implementation are described. Both systems result in durable waste forms that meet current Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Environmental Protection Agency regulatory criteria and provide significant improvements over conventional solidification systems such as hydraulic cement. For example, the polyethylene process can encapsulate up to 70 wt pct. nitrate salt, compared with a maximum of about 20 wt pct. for the best hydraulic cement formulation. Modified sulfur cement waste forms containing as much as 43 wt pct. incinerator fly ash were formulated, whereas the maximum quantity of this waste in hydraulic cement is 16 wt pct

Green\u27s Function for the Schrodinger Equation with a Generalized Point Interaction and Stability of Superoscillations

In this paper we study the time dependent Schrödinger equation with all possible self-adjoint singular interactions located at the origin, which include the δ and δ\u27-potentials as well as boundary conditions of Dirichlet, Neumann, and Robin type as particular cases. We derive an explicit representation of the time dependent Green\u27s function and give a mathematical rigorous meaning to the corresponding integral for holomorphic initial conditions, using Fresnel integrals. Superoscillatory functions appear in the context of weak measurements in quantum mechanics and are naturally treated as holomorphic entire functions. As an application of the Green\u27s function we study the stability and oscillatory properties of the solution of the Schrödinger equation subject to a generalized point interaction when the initial datum is a superoscillatory function

A Unified Spproach to Schrödinger Evolution of Superoscillations and Supershifts

Superoscillating functions and supershifts appear naturally in weak measurements in physics. Their evolution as initial conditions in the time-dependent Schrödinger equation is an important and challenging problem in quantum mechanics and mathematical analysis. The concept that encodes the persistence of superoscillations during the evolution is the (more general) supershift property of the solution. In this paper, we give a unified approach to determine the supershift property for the solution of the time-dependent one-dimensional Schrödinger equation. The main advantage and novelty of our results is that they only require suitable estimates and regularity assumptions on the Green’s function, but not its explicit form. With this efficient general technique, we are able to treat various potentials

Integral Representation of Superoscillations via Complex Borel Measures and Their Convergence

In the last decade there has been a growing interest in superoscillations in various fields of mathematics, physics and engineering. However, while in applications as optics the local oscillatory behaviour is the important property, some convergence to a plane wave is the standard characterizing feature of a superoscillating function in mathematics and quantum mechanics. Also there exists a certain discrepancy between the representation of superoscillations either as generalized Fourier series, as certain integrals or via special functions. The aim of this work is to close these gaps and give a general definition of superoscillations, covering the well-known examples in the existing literature. Superoscillations will be defined as sequences of holomorphic functions, which admit integral representations with respect to complex Borel measures and converge to a plane wave in the space A1(C) of entire functions of exponential type

Doping incorporation paths in catalyst-free Be-doped GaAs nanowires

The incorporation paths of Be in GaAs nanowires grown by the Ga-assisted method in molecular beam epitaxy has been investigated by electrical measurements of nanowires with different doping profiles. We find that Be atoms incorporate preferentially via the nanowire side facets, while the incorporation path through the Ga droplet is negligible. We also demonstrate that Be can diffuse into the volume of the nanowire giving an alternative incorporation path. This work is an important step towards controlled doping of nanowires and will serve as a help for designing future devices based on nanowires.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Causal Inference Using Graphical Models with the R Package pcalg

The pcalg package for R can be used for the following two purposes: Causal structure learning and estimation of causal effects from observational data. In this document, we give a brief overview of the methodology, and demonstrate the package’s functionality in both toy examples and applications

The EDGE-CALIFA Survey: Evidence for Pervasive Extraplanar Diffuse Ionized Gas in Nearby Edge-On Galaxies

We investigate the prevalence, properties, and kinematics of extraplanar diffuse ionized gas (eDIG) in a sample of 25 edge-on galaxies selected from the CALIFA survey. We measure ionized gas scale heights from ${\rm H\alpha}$ and find that 90% have measurable scale heights with a median of $0.8^{+0.7}_{-0.4}$ kpc. From the ${\rm H\alpha}$ kinematics, we find that 60% of galaxies show a decrease in the rotation velocity as a function of height above the midplane. This lag is characteristic of eDIG, and we measure a median lag of 21 km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$ which is comparable to lags measured in the literature. We also investigate variations in the lag with radius. $\rm H{\small I}$ lags have been reported to systematically decrease with galactocentric radius. We find both increasing and decreasing ionized gas lags with radius, as well as a large number of galaxies consistent with no radial lag variation, and investigate these results in the context of internal and external origins for the lagging ionized gas. We confirm that the ${\rm [S{\small II}]}$/${\rm H\alpha}$ and ${\rm [N{\small II}]}$/${\rm H\alpha}$ line ratios increase with height above the midplane as is characteristic of eDIG. The ionization of the eDIG is dominated by star-forming complexes (leaky ${\rm H{\small II}}$ regions). We conclude that the lagging ionized gas is turbulent ejected gas likely resulting from star formation activity in the disk as opposed to gas in the stellar thick disk or bulge. This is further evidence for the eDIG being a product of stellar feedback and for the pervasiveness of this WIM-like phase in many local star-forming galaxies.Comment: 36 pages (including 13 appendix pages), 17 figures, resubmitted to ApJ after one round of refereein

Rituximab Monotherapy versus Rituximab and Bortezomib Combination Therapy for Treatment of Non-paraneoplastic Autoimmune Retinopathy

Purpose: To study whether rituximab and bortezomib combination therapy is more effective than rituximab monotherapy in the treatment of nonparaneoplastic autoimmune retinopathy (npAIR). Methods: Retrospective case series involving six patients with npAIR, taking either rituximab and bortezomib combination therapy (three cases) or rituximab monotherapy (one case and two historical patients). Results: Patients on both treatment regimens showed stability in most of the visual function parameters during the one year of follow-up. Combination therapy resulted in improvement of scotopic combined rod and cone a-wave and b-wave amplitudes in all eyes where they were available (four eyes); however, rituximab monotherapy resulted in only two eyes with stable scotopic combined rod and cone a-wave and b-wave amplitudes, while four eyes showed a decrease in both a- and b-wave amplitudes. The average improvement in b-wave amplitude (50.7% ± 29.4% [range 25–90%]) was higher than the average improvement in awave amplitude (35.7% ± 9.74 [range 25–63%]). No severe adverse effects were reported. Conclusion: Rituximab and bortezomib combination therapy may not be more effective than rituximab monotherapy in npAIR patients for most of the visual function parameters; however, this combination therapy may be more effective in improving scotopic combined rod and cone a- and b-wave amplitudes. This may indicate the higher efficacy of combination therapy when there is involvement of the inner retina