Farmers’ acceptance of further strengthening of private certification systems

In their continuous quest for ecologic improvements, private voluntary certification initiatives might undermine the willingness to continue of the participating farmers. In this research, the ecologic contribution and the farmers’ acceptance of changing the pesticide policy of a private certification initiative is presented. To measure the perceived farmers’ disutility, the choice preference technique is used. We can conclude that there is room for ecologic improvements but that farmers are in general change averse, primarily because of the fear that price compensation will remain largely absent.choice preference, pesticides, certification, Crop Production/Industries, Demand and Price Analysis,

Physical and chemical characterisation of some silicas and silica derivatives

An extensive study of four types of porous silica supports has been performed, with particular emphasis on their physical and morphological characteristics. These silicas were modified by reacting the surface silanol groups present with either 3-(trimethoxysilyl)propylmethacrylate or 3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane or 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane, to produce derivatives with suitable functional groups for further utilisation in the immobilisation of biological compounds. The silicas and their derivatives used were fully characterised with regard to particle size distribution (laser light scattering), specific surface area (BET method), pore size distribution (gas adsorption and mercury porosimetry), density (helium pycnometry), yield of grafting (TGA) and chemical composition (FTIR/DRIFT).http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TH9-3TXCN74-C/1/0c8b28b8c7165139b2661a2e21e0355

Fostering European Collaborations: EUFRAT and work done at the accelerator facilities of JRC-IRMM

The European Commission via the General Directorate RTD in its different Framework Programs supported collaborations of member state institutions dealing with nuclear data. The projects EFNUDAT, ERINDA, CHANDA and EUFRAT all have in common Transnational Access Activities (TAA) to partner institutions. Within the past 10 years the collaborations have grown and in CHANDA now 35 partners are involved of which 16 offer TAA to their facilities. Since June 2014 JRC-IRMM, one of the driving forces behind the TAA, launched its own TAA project EUFRAT to foster collaborations with member states institutions. The calls for proposals are open ended with a deadline twice a year. A Project Advisory Committee discusses the proposals and decides on about approval. Financial support is given to approved proposals for two scientists. So far two calls have been evaluated with a request for access totalling more than 5000 h. Examples of proposals at the accelerator facilities at the JRC-IRMM are presented showing the multitude of possibilities using the nuclear facilities at the JRC-IRMM

Encoded physics knowledge in checking codes for nuclear cross section libraries at Los Alamos

Checking procedures for processed nuclear data at Los Alamos are described. Both continuous energy and multi-group nuclear data are verified by locally developed checking codes which use basic physics knowledge and common-sense rules. A list of nuclear data problems which have been identified with help of these checking codes is also given

Experimental validation of depletion calculations with VESTA 2.1.5 using JEFF-3.2

The removal of decay heat is a significant safety concern in nuclear engineering for the operation of a nuclear reactor both in normal and accidental conditions and for intermediate and long term waste storage facilities. The correct evaluation of the decay heat produced by an irradiated material requires first of all the calculation of the composition of the irradiated material by depletion codes such as VESTA 2.1, currently under development at IRSN in France. A set of PWR assembly decay heat measurements performed by the Swedish Central Interim Storage Facility (CLAB) located in Oskarshamm (Sweden) have been calculated using different nuclear data libraries: ENDF/B-VII.0, JEFF-3.1, JEFF-3.2 and JEFF-3.3T1. Using these nuclear data libraries, VESTA 2.1 calculates the assembly decay heat for almost all cases within 4% of the measured decay heat. On average, the ENDF/B-VII.0 calculated decay heat values appear to give a systematic underestimation of only 0.5%. When using the JEFF-3.1 library, this results a systematic underestimation of about 2%. By switching to the JEFF-3.2 library, this systematic underestimation is improved slighty (up to 1.5%). The changes made in the JEFF-3.3T1 beta library appear to be overcorrecting, as the systematic underestimation is transformed into a systematic overestimation of about 1.5%

High accuracy 234U(n,f) cross section in the resonance energy region

New results are presented of the 234U neutron-induced fission cross section, obtained with high accuracy in the resonance region by means of two methods using the 235U(n,f) as reference. The recent evaluation of the 235U(n,f) obtained with SAMMY by L. C. Leal et al. (these Proceedings), based on previous n-TOF data [1], has been used to calculate the 234U(n,f) cross section through the 234U/235U ratio, being here compared with the results obtained by using the n-TOF neutron flux

SFCOMPO 2.0 – A relational database of spent fuel isotopic measurements, reactor operational histories, and design data

SFCOMPO-2.0 is a database of experimental isotopic concentrations measured in destructive radiochemical analysis of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) samples. The database includes corresponding design description of the fuel rods and assemblies, relevant operating conditions and characteristics of the host reactors necessary for modelling and simulation. Aimed at establishing a thorough, reliable, and publicly available resource for code and data validation of safety-related applications, SFCOMPO-2.0 is developed and maintained by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). The SFCOMPO-2.0 database is a Java application which is downloadable from the NEA website

Towards the high-accuracy determination of the 238U fission cross section at the threshold region at CERN - N-TOF

The 238U fission cross section is an international standard beyond 2 MeV where the fission plateau starts. However, due to its importance in fission reactors, this cross-section should be very accurately known also in the threshold region below 2 MeV. The 238U fission cross section has been measured relative to the 235U fission cross section at CERN - n-TOF with different detection systems. These datasets have been collected and suitably combined to increase the counting statistics in the threshold region from about 300 keV up to 3 MeV. The results are compared with other experimental data, evaluated libraries, and the IAEA standards

Characterization of nuclear material by Neutron Resonance Transmission Analysis

The use of Neutron Resonance Transmission Analysis for the characterization of nuclear materials is discussed. The method, which relies on resonance structures in neutron-induced reaction cross sections, can be applied as a non-destructive method to characterise complex nuclear materials such as melted fuel resulting from a severe nuclear accident. Results of a demonstration experiment at the GELINA facility reveal that accurate data can be obtained at a compact facility even in the case of strong overlapping resonances

Nuclear data processing capabilities in OpenMC

This work describes newly developed features of the OpenMC code for nuclear data processing. OpenMC, in addition to being a transport code, includes a rich, extensible Python API that enables programmatic pre- and post-processing. A new openmc.dat