Subtask 1.17 - Measurement of Hydrocarbon Evolution from Coal and Petroleum Reservoirs Under Carbon Dioxide Floods

The project developed, built, and tested three apparatuses for studying different interactions of carbon dioxide with geologic materials. In Year 1, an online instrument was constructed by coupling a high-pressure carbon dioxide extraction system with a flame ionization detector that can yield a real-time profile and quantitative measurements of hydrocarbons removed from materials such as coal and petroleum reservoir rock. In Years 2 and 3, one instrument was built to measure the excess sorption of carbon dioxide in geologic materials such as coal and showed that measurable uptake of carbon dioxide into the coal matrix is rapid. The final apparatus was built to expose geologic materials to carbon dioxide for long periods of time (weeks to months) under the range of pressures and temperatures relevant to carbon dioxide sequestration. The apparatus allows as many as twenty gram-sized samples of geologic materials to be exposed simultaneously and can also include exposures with geologic brines. The system was used to demonstrate complete conversion of magnesium silicate to magnesium carbonate in less than 4 weeks when exposed to clean water or brine, compared to no measurable conversion of dry magnesium carbonate

Subtask 1.17 - Subcritical Water Extraction of Mercury From Soils and Sediments

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "National Sediment Quality Survey" lists the top pollutants responsible for toxicity in watersheds as 1) PCBS (polychlorinated biphenyls), 2) mercury, and 3) other organics such as PAHs polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and pesticides. In addition, these same pollutants are major contributors to chemical pollution on U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and other contaminated sites (e.g., industrial sites and harbors). An ideal remediation method would allow cost-effective removal of both organic and mercury contamination using a single process. The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) has demonstrated that controlling the temperature (and to a lesser extent, the pressure) of water can dramatically change its ability to extract organics and inorganic from matrices ranging from soils and sediments to waste sludges and coal. The dielectric constant of water can be changed from ca. 80 (a very polar solvent) to 374oC, pressure >221 atm). In addition, the process has been demonstrated to be particularly effective for samples containing very high levels of contaminants (e.g., parts per thousand). The EERC has also demonstrated that mercury can be extracted using supercritical water at much harsher conditions (400"C, and >300 atm). However, the removal of mercury from contaminated solids at the lower temperature and pressure conditions (e. g., 250"C, 50 atm) has not been investigated. If successful, this project will provide the basis for using hot/liquid water to extract both organic contaminants and mercury from contaminated solids in a single-step process

JV Task 86 - Identifying the Source of Benzene in Indoor Air Using Different Compound Classes from TO-15 Data

Volatile organic compound (VOC) data that had already been collected using EPA method TO-15 at four different sites under regulatory scrutiny (a school, strip mall, apartment complex, and business/residential neighborhood) were evaluated to determine whether the source of indoor air benzene was outdoor air or vapor intrusion from contaminated soil. Both the use of tracer organics characteristic of different sources and principal component statistical analysis demonstrated that the source of indoor air at virtually all indoor sampling locations was a result of outdoor air, and not contaminated soil in and near the indoor air-sampling locations. These results show that proposed remediation activities to remove benzene-contaminated soil are highly unlikely to reduce indoor air benzene concentrations. A manuscript describing these results is presently being prepared for submission to a peer-reviewed journal

Is Pressure Stressful? The Impact of Pressure on the Stress Response and Category Learning

We examine the basic question of whether pressure is stressful. We propose that when examining the role of stress or pressure in cognitive performance it is important to consider the type of pressure, the stress response, and the aspect of cognition assessed. In Experiment 1, outcome pressure was not experienced as stressful but did lead to impaired performance on a rule-based (RB) category learning task and not a more procedural information-integration (II) task. In Experiment 2, the addition of monitoring pressure resulted in a modest stress response to combined pressure and impairment on both tasks. Across experiments, higher stress appraisals were associated with decreased performance on the RB, but not the II, task. In turn, higher stress-reactivity (heart rate) was associated with enhanced performance on the II, but not the RB, task. This work represents an initial step towards integrating the stress-cognition and pressure-cognition literatures and suggests that integrating these fields may require consideration of the type of pressure, the stress-response, and the cognitive system mediating performance

Is Pressure Stressful? The Impact of Pressure on the Stress Response and Category Learning

We examine the basic question of whether pressure is stressful. We propose that when examining the role of stress or pressure in cognitive performance it is important to consider the type of pressure, the stress response, and the aspect of cognition assessed. In Experiment 1, outcome pressure was not experienced as stressful but did lead to impaired performance on a rule-based (RB) category learning task and not a more procedural information-integration (II) task. In Experiment 2, the addition of monitoring pressure resulted in a modest stress response to combined pressure and impairment on both tasks. Across experiments, higher stress appraisals were associated with decreased performance on the RB, but not the II, task. In turn, higher stress-reactivity (heart rate) was associated with enhanced performance on the II, but not the RB, task. This work represents an initial step towards integrating the stress-cognition and pressure-cognition literatures and suggests that integrating these fields may require consideration of the type of pressure, the stress-response, and the cognitive system mediating performance

Resolved Spectroscopy of the Narrow-Line Region in NGC 1068. II. Physical Conditions Near the NGC 1068 ``Hot-Spot''

The physical conditions near the optical continuum peak (``hot spot'') in the inner narrow line region (NLR) of the Seyfert 2 galaxy, NGC 1068. Spectra were taken with HST/STIS through the 0.1X52 arcsec slit, covering the full STIS 1200 to 10000 Angstrom waveband, and are from a region that includes the hot spot, extending 0.2, or ~ 14 pc (for H= 75 km/sec/Mpc). Perhaps the most striking feature of these spectra is the presence of strong coronal emission lines, including [S XII] 7611 which has hitherto only been identified in spectra of the solar corona. There is an apparent correlation between ionization energy and velocity of the emission lines with respect to the systemic velocity of the host galaxy, with the coronal lines blueshifted, most other high excitation lines near systemic, and some of the low ionization lines redshifted. From the results of our modeling, we find that the emission-line gas consists of three principal components: 1) one in which most of the strong emission-lines, such as [O III] 5007, [Ne V] 3426, C IV 1550, arise, 2) a more tenuous, highly ionized component, which is the source of the coronal-line emission, and 3) a component, which is not co-planar with the other two, in which the low ionization and neutral lines, such as [N II] 6548 and [O I] 6300, are formed. The first two components are directly ionized by the EUV-Xray continuum emitted by the central source, while the low ionization gas is ionized by a combination of highly absorbed continuum radiation and a small fraction of unabsorbed continuum scattered by free electrons associated with the hot spot. The combination of covering factor and Thomson optical depth of the high ionization components is insufficient to scatter the observed fraction of continuum radiation into our line-of-sight.Comment: 42 pages, Latex, includes 5 figures (postscript), to appear in the Astrophysical Journa

Dynamic partnership: A new approach to EM technology commercialization and deployment

The task of restoring nuclear defense complex sites under the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Management (EM) Program presents an unprecedented challenge to the environmental restoration community. Effective and efficient cleanup requires the timely development or modification of novel cleanup technologies applicable to radioactive wastes. Fostering the commercialization of these innovative technologies is the mission of EM-50, the EM Program Office of Science and Technology. However, efforts are often arrested at the {open_quotes}valley of death,{close_quotes} the general term for barriers to demonstration, commercialization, and deployment. The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC), a not-for-profit, contract-supported organization focused on research, development, demonstration, and commercialization (RDD&C) of energy and environmental technologies, is in the second year of a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Morgantown Energy Technology Center (METC) designed to deliver EM technologies into the commercial marketplace through a unique combination of technical support, real-world demonstration, and brokering. This paper profiles this novel approach, termed {open_quotes}Dynamic Partnership,{close_quotes} and reviews the application of this concept to the ongoing commercialization and deployment of four innovative cleanup technologies. 2 tabs

A large-scale species level dated angiosperm phylogeny for evolutionary and ecological analyses.

Phylogenies are a central and indispensable tool for evolutionary and ecological research. Even though most angiosperm families are well investigated from a phylogenetic point of view, there are far less possibilities to carry out large-scale meta-analyses at order level or higher. Here, we reconstructed a large-scale dated phylogeny including nearly 1/8th of all angiosperm species, based on two plastid barcoding genes, matK (incl. trnK) and rbcL. Novel sequences were generated for several species, while the rest of the data were mined from GenBank. The resulting tree was dated using 56 angiosperm fossils as calibration points. The resulting megaphylogeny is one of the largest dated phylogenetic tree of angiosperms yet, consisting of 36,101 sampled species, representing 8,399 genera, 426 families and all orders. This novel framework will be useful for investigating different broad scale research questions in ecological and evolutionary biology

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection