Integration, Information Thresholds, and Arrangement in\ud Mindamic: A Probabilistic Causation Analysis

The objective of the research was to scrutinize probabilistic\ud causalities between integration, information thresholds, and\ud arrangement in mind dynamic. Data obtained from videotaped\ud sessions with structured observation. The participants had to\ud accomplish four tasks. The participants were 39 females, and 83\ud males. Reliability and validity assessed as probabilities. The\ud frequencies converted into probability matrices, and sampling\ud without replacement was necessary. Thereafter, a causal state\ud space originated, and maintained through Householder matrices.\ud The Bayes formula with joint distributions in a matrix form\ud applied to result in the start matrix for the causal dynamic.\ud The reduced start array matrix powered from 1 to 6. There are\ud the probabilistic causalities between the integration, the\ud thresholds, and the arrangement. Theoretic results show. It is\ud the entire mind of the persons strives to form patterns for the\ud causal functioning, continuously. Furthermore, the whole mind\ud conveys mental contents under the same patterns. The patterns\ud remain but the contents of the processes differ during the\ud mindamic

Gas core reactors for actinide transmutation and breeder applications

This work consists of design power plant studies for four types of reactor systems: uranium plasma core breeder, uranium plasma core actinide transmuter, UF6 breeder and UF6 actinide transmuter. The plasma core systems can be coupled to MHD generators to obtain high efficiency electrical power generation. A 1074 MWt UF6 breeder reactor was designed with a breeding ratio of 1.002 to guard against diversion of fuel. Using molten salt technology and a superheated steam cycle, an efficiency of 39.2% was obtained for the plant and the U233 inventory in the core and heat exchangers was limited to 105 Kg. It was found that the UF6 reactor can produce high fluxes (10 to the 14th power n/sq cm-sec) necessary for efficient burnup of actinide. However, the buildup of fissile isotopes posed severe heat transfer problems. Therefore, the flux in the actinide region must be decreased with time. Consequently, only beginning-of-life conditions were considered for the power plant design. A 577 MWt UF6 actinide transmutation reactor power plant was designed to operate with 39.3% efficiency and 102 Kg of U233 in the core and heat exchanger for beginning-of-life conditions

On Causal Relations between Mental Organizer, Action under Mental Processes, and Social Environment

The purpose of the research was to study the relationships between mental organizers, action under mental process, and social environment through observation. A category system for each behavior was constructed and data were analyzed with matrices to find out kinds of root causes in causal dynamic. Reliability, subjectivity, and validity of observation were assessed. The coefficient of reliability was 0.937. The observation had about 11% subjectivity, and the frequencies were in the categories where they should be, mainly. Results indicate that there occurs causal variety. The causes are not stable. As an entity, the results show that it is possible to tackle mind processes through the causation. Furthermore, the processes are in series but they drop by in a parallel mode when the task becomes more difficult. However, the mindamic seems to have the greatest possible number of the degrees of freedom, simultaneously

Design Concepts and Process Analysis for Transmuter Fuel Manufacturing

The safe and effective manufacturing of actinide-bearing fuels for any transmutation strategy requires that the entire manufacturing process be contained within a shielded hot cell environment. To ensure that the fabrication process is feasible, the entire process must be designed for remote operation. The equipment must be reliable enough to perform over several decades, and also easy to maintain or repair remotely. The facility must also be designed to facilitate its own decontamination and decommissioning. In addition to these design factors, the potential viability of any fuel fabrication process will also be impacted by a number of variables, such as the current state of technology, potential problem areas, deployment scaling, facility safety, and cost. A fabrication process simulation model with several Waelischmiller robots in a hot cell was developed and coupled with MatLab control software. Matlab provides the interface with the robot and is used to control the system. The simulation renders a realistic simulation of the forces and torques present during robot motion. A 3-D manufacturing process simulation using CAD models and the Newtonian dynamics of the moving components has been developed

Corrosion of Steel by Lead Bismuth Eutectic: Year 1 Annual Report

The goal is to investigate the corrosion of stainless steel by lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE), which has been proposed for use as a blanket coolant and a spallation target in the transmuter

Radiation Transport Modeling of Beam-Target Experiments for the AAA Project

The AAA program will rely on the use of an accelerator-based transmuter to expose spent nuclear fuel to high-energy neutrons. The neutron flux will be sufficient to activate or fission the long-lived isotopes of Tc, I, Pu, Am, Cm, and Np that present a significant safety hazard in commercial spent fuel. Transmuter fuel will be subcritical and a high-energy proton accelerator is needed to maintain the necessary neutron flux through the use of a neutron spallation target. The maximum neutron energy produced by spallation (~ 600 MeV) is significantly higher than that produced by a commercial light water reactor (~ 2 MeV). To design the nation’s first transmuter, the neutronics code MCNPX will be used to model the distribution of neutron flux within the fuel blanket and to determine the neutron multiplication, keff. However, the cross section libraries and computational methods used by MCNPX at these neutron energies still have some uncertainty and will require validation. To lessen the uncertainties in the MCNPX libraries, the Department of Energy, through its national laboratories, is in the process of conducting several experiments utilizing protons produced by the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) accelerator at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. MCNPX simulations provide valuable information for the design of experiments in addition to their use in analysis of experimental to validate and improve the codes and databases. We propose a research project wherein UNLV students and faculty will contribute to these critical experiments by performing computational work using the latest versions of MCNPX and its associated data libraries. This research project will be conducted in close coordination with AAA leads and researchers in both experimental projects and code and database development

Project Continuation Proposal: Radiation Transport Modeling of Beam-Target Experiments for the AAA Project

The AAA program will rely on the use of an accelerator-based transmuter1 to expose spent nuclear fuel to high-energy neutrons. The neutron flux will be sufficient to activate or fission the long-lived isotopes of Tc, I, Pu, Am, Cm, and Np that present a significant radiological hazard in commercial spent fuel. Transmuter fuel will be subcritical and a high-energy proton accelerator is needed to maintain the necessary neutron flux through the use of a neutron spallation target. The maximum neutron energy produced by spallation (~ 800 MeV) is significantly higher than that produced by a commercial light water reactor (~ 2 MeV). To design the nation’s first transmuter, the neutronics code MCNPX will be used to model the distribution of neutron flux within the fuel blanket and to determine the neutron multiplication, keff. However, the cross section libraries and computational methods used by MCNPX at these neutron energies still have some uncertainty and will require validation. During the second year of the project, the goals include: • Continue analyses of the neutron leakage tests completed in July 2002 and to be conducted on LANSCE in December, 2002. • Prepare simulations of the December 2002 tests to provide input on the test design. • Complete work started in the first year on a benchmark program for the validation of MCNPX for transmutation studies. This program will be designed along the lines of the international nuclear criticality benchmark series

Design and Evaluation of Processes for Fuel Fabrication

One of the primary concerns in selecting a fuel matrix for actinide-bearing fuels, such as those for transmutation systems, is fuel fabrication. Fuel fabrication technologies for the fabrication and re-fabrication processes must meet several technical considerations, such as minimizing secondary radioactive waste streams, economic viability, reasonable capital outlay, and must be easy to maintain over the transmuter core life cycle. Additionally, the fuel type chosen must be easily manufactured in a remote environment. The volatile behavior of americium during thermal processing further complicates these goals. Currently, the national program is investigating a number of candidate fuel matrices: metallic, ceramic, dispersion, nitride, and carbide/ TRISO, just to name the leading candidates. This project examines the manufacturing processes currently under consideration for these fuel types, as currently envisioned by the Argonne National Laboratory-West manufacturing group. Each fuel type requires developing a distinct remote fabrication process. Conceptual fuel fabrication processes for the fuel types will be developed in conjunction with ANL. This knowledge allows scientists to make an informed selection regarding which candidate fuels require further development and irradiation testing for a transmutation system. The UNLV research team achieved the following tasks during the first year of research: • Survey of candidate transmutation fuels, coupled with a detailed evaluation of the identified fuel manufacturing processes following criteria established by the national fuel development program; • Conceptual computer modeling of one manufacturing process allowing the identification of areas where automated processes are crucial to maintain the required throughput rates; • Mr. Richard Silva, M.S. student, developed an initial work cell simulation with two robots. He will continue to develop detailed 3-D process simulation models for his thesis project; and, • Mr. Jae-Kyu Lee, a Ph.D. student, developed a conceptual methodology for vision-based hot cell supervision and control

Trust Related to Certain Mind Processes

The research is sequel to the former researches the purpose of which is to inquire the mind processes from a different angle with newer concepts than used to do. The focus of the research was an attempt to answer the question: How does trust relate to the mind processes under scrutiny? Data and the dyads were obtained from an information competition through a video recorder. N was 56 or 14 contests were recorded. Reliability of observation proved to be 0.91 as assessed, sequentially. The overall reliability was 0.93. The analysis of the process based on the usual and dynamic probabilities of the responses. The proper device of the analysis was conditional probabilities between the bursts of the processes. The results indicate that trust is the shifter, especially the social shifter that keeps the transmuters of the dyads in going. Furthermore, trust is the intervening relational process between gender, and former experience and the transmuter that produces and works up the mind processes. Thus the shifter much regulates what kinds of mindamics grow and develop when persons are in the minimum social group, at least, under these research circumstances. 1I gratefully acknowledge the help of John G. Holmes and Jeremy Dugash in preparation of this manuscript