SAPHIRE 8 Software Project Plan

This project is being conducted at the request of the DOE and the NRC. The INL has been requested by the NRC to improve and maintain the Systems Analysis Programs for Hands-on Integrated Reliability Evaluation (SAPHIRE) tool set concurrent with the changing needs of the user community as well as staying current with new technologies. Successful completion will be upon NRC approved release of all software and accompanying documentation in a timely fashion. This project will enhance the SAPHIRE tool set for the user community (NRC, Nuclear Power Plant operations, Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) model developers) by providing improved Common Cause Failure (CCF), External Events, Level 2, and Significance Determination Process (SDP) analysis capabilities. The SAPHIRE development team at the Idaho National Laboratory is responsible for successful completion of this project. The project is under the supervision of Curtis L. Smith, PhD, Technical Lead for the SAPHIRE application. All current capabilities from SAPHIRE version 7 will be maintained in SAPHIRE 8. The following additional capabilities will be incorporated: • Incorporation of SPAR models for the SDP interface. • Improved quality assurance activities for PRA calculations of SAPHIRE Version 8. • Continue the current activities for code maintenance, documentation, and user support for the code

Evaluation of Dutch Support to Danish Demining Group in Afghanistan, Somaliland, and Sudan

On 31 August 2007 the Netherlands Government (NG) decided to fund the Danish Demining Group (DDG) mine action activities in Somaliland, Sudan, and Afghanistan. The funding agreement runs from January 2008 to December 2011 and NG and DDG had preliminary discussions on the continuation of the project. The NG Decision of 31 August 2007 foresees an external evaluation initiated by the grant recipient. The purpose of this evaluation is two-fold: (1) to evaluate progress towards objectives, thus contributing to improving the programme through documenting lessons learned and providing recommendations; and (2) to evaluate and inform NG and DDG on project relevance, and give recommendations regarding a continuation of the project. The specific objectives of the valuation are to ascertain results (outputs and outcomes) and assess the efficiency, effectiveness and relevance of the following projects: 1. Survey, Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Mine Risk Education, in Southern Sudan 2. Mechanical Support to Mine Action, in Afghanistan 3. Support to Ammunition Disposal and Community Liaison/Education Teams, in Somaliland The evaluation of the Sudan project was a desk review, based largely on an evaluation of DDG operations conducted earlier in 2010 by the GICHD on behalf of DDG and Sida. The evaluations in both Afghanistan and Somaliland entailed field missions

Drivers of Tuberculosis Transmission.

Measuring tuberculosis transmission is exceedingly difficult, given the remarkable variability in the timing of clinical disease after Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection; incident disease can result from either a recent (ie, weeks to months) or a remote (ie, several years to decades) infection event. Although we cannot identify with certainty the timing and location of tuberculosis transmission for individuals, approaches for estimating the individual probability of recent transmission and for estimating the fraction of tuberculosis cases due to recent transmission in populations have been developed. Data used to estimate the probable burden of recent transmission include tuberculosis case notifications in young children and trends in tuberculin skin test and interferon γ-release assays. More recently, M. tuberculosis whole-genome sequencing has been used to estimate population levels of recent transmission, identify the distribution of specific strains within communities, and decipher chains of transmission among culture-positive tuberculosis cases. The factors that drive the transmission of tuberculosis in communities depend on the burden of prevalent tuberculosis; the ways in which individuals live, work, and interact (eg, congregate settings); and the capacity of healthcare and public health systems to identify and effectively treat individuals with infectious forms of tuberculosis. Here we provide an overview of these factors, describe tools for measurement of ongoing transmission, and highlight knowledge gaps that must be addressed

Appalachian Music: Discussing the Top Ten

Convenor Sandy Ballard, Editor of Appalachian Journal, Appalachian State University Moderators Mark Freed, Cultural Resources Coordinator for the town of Boone, NC, and teacher of Appalachian Music, Appalachian State University. Guest editor of Appalachian Music edition of Appalachian Journal. Trevor McKenzie, archivist, W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University. Guest editor of Appalachian Music edition of Appalachian Journal

Delays in diagnosis and bladder cancer mortality

BACKGROUND: Mortality from invasive bladder cancer is common, even with high-quality care. Thus, the best opportunities to improve outcomes may precede the diagnosis. Although screening currently is not recommended, better medical care of patients who are at risk (ie, those with hematuria) has the potential to improve outcomes. METHODS: The authors used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare linked database for the years 1992 through 2002 to identify 29,740 patients who had hematuria in the year before a bladder cancer diagnosis and grouped them according to the interval between their first claim for hematuria and their bladder cancer diagnosis. Cox proportional hazards models were fitted to assess relations between these intervals and bladder cancer mortality, adjusting first for patient demographics and then for disease severity. Adjusted logistic models were used to estimate the patient's probability of receiving a major intervention. RESULTS: Patients (n = 2084) who had a delay of 9 months were more likely to die from bladder cancer compared with patients who were diagnosed within 3 months (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 1.34; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.20-1.50). This risk was not markedly attenuated after adjusting for disease stage and tumor grade (adjusted HR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.14-1.45). In fact, the effect was strongest among patients who had low-grade tumors (adjusted HR, 2.11; 95% CI, 1.69-2.64) and low-stage disease (ie, a tumor [T] classification of Ta or tumor in situ; adjusted HR, 2.02; 95% CI, 1.54-2.64). CONCLUSIONS: A delay in the diagnosis of bladder cancer increased the risk of death from disease independent of tumor grade and or disease stage. Understanding the mechanisms that underlie these delays may improve outcomes among patients with bladder cancer. Cancer 2010. © 2010 American Cancer Society.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78303/1/25310_ftp.pd

Results of a phase I-II study of fenretinide and rituximab for patients with indolent B-cell lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma.

Fenretinide, a synthetic retinoid, induces apoptotic cell death in B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (B-NHL) and acts synergistically with rituximab in preclinical models. We report results from a phase I-II study of fenretinide with rituximab for B-NHLs. Eligible diagnoses included indolent B-NHL or mantle cell lymphoma. The phase I design de-escalated from fenretinide at 900 mg/

Water budget record from variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model

No abstract available

The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: measuring the cosmic expansion history using the Alcock-Paczynski test and distant supernovae

Astronomical observations suggest that today's Universe is dominated by a dark energy of unknown physical origin. One of the most notable consequences in many models is that dark energy should cause the expansion of the Universe to accelerate: but the expansion rate as a function of time has proven very difficult to measure directly. We present a new determination of the cosmic expansion history by combining distant supernovae observations with a geometrical analysis of large-scale galaxy clustering within the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey, using the Alcock-Paczynski test to measure the distortion of standard spheres. Our result constitutes a robust and non-parametric measurement of the Hubble expansion rate as a function of time, which we measure with 10-15% precision in four bins within the redshift range 0.1 < z < 0.9. We demonstrate that the cosmic expansion is accelerating, in a manner independent of the parameterization of the cosmological model (although assuming cosmic homogeneity in our data analysis). Furthermore, we find that this expansion history is consistent with a cosmological-constant dark energy.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication by MNRA