Development of IAEA High Level Guidelines for Designers and Operators - Safeguards-By-Design

At the end of 2008, the IAEA launched a new task on ¿Guidance for Designers and Operators and Measures to facilitate the implementation of Safeguards at Future Nuclear Cycle Facilities¿, contributed by EURATOM and other MS Support Programmes, whose goal is to formulate ¿safeguards by design¿, or SBD, Guidelines to designers and operators. SBD is a process that facilitates the implementation of international safeguards by taking into account requirements and guidelines very early in the design phase. To this scope, the legal framework and the interaction among the stake-holders need to be improved. The overall process can thus be made more effective and efficient without costly back-fitting and iterations. In this context, at the end of 2008, the IAEA launched a new task on ¿Guidance for Designers and Operators and Measures to facilitate the implementation of Safeguards at Future Nuclear Cycle Facilities¿, with contributions by EURATOM and other Member State Support Programmes (MSSP). A first set of high level guidelines of the IAEA Safeguards by Design series was drafted by EURATOM experts, and will be the basis for further improvements. This paper will develop on the contents of the document, as well as on methodological developments. Facility specific guidelines will have to be prepared to serve as reference for the design of new evolutionary and innovative facilities. All this will be achieved within useful deadlines with the contributions of other support programmes.JRC.DG.E.9-Nuclear security (Ispra

The Euratom Safeguards On-site Laboratories at the Reprocessing Plants of La Hague and Sellafield

In the European Union, nuclear material is reprocessed from irradiated power reactor fuel at two sites ¿ La Hague in France and Sellafield in the United Kingdom. These are the largest nuclear sites within the EU, processing many hundreds of tons of nuclear material in a year. Under the Euratom Treaty, the European Commission has the duty to assure that the nuclear material is only used for declared purposes. The Directorate General for Energy (DG ENER), acting for the Commission, assures itself that the terms of Article 77 of Chapter VII of the Treaty have been complied with. In contrast to the Non Proliferation Treaty, the Euratom Treaty requires to safeguard all civil nuclear material in all EU member states ¿ including the nuclear weapons states. The considerable amount of fissile material separated per year (several tonnes) calls for a stringent system of safeguards measures. The aim of safeguards is to deter diversion of nuclear material from peaceful use by maximizing the chance of early detection. At a broader level, it provides assurance to the public that the European nuclear industry, the EU member states and the European Union honour their legal duties under the Euratom Treaty and their commitments to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Efficient and effective safeguards measures are essential for the public acceptance of nuclear activities.JRC.E.7-Nuclear Safeguards and Forensic

Data-driven classification of patients with primary progressive aphasia

Current diagnostic criteria classify primary progressive aphasia into three variants–semantic (sv), nonfluent (nfv) and logopenic (lv) PPA–though the adequacy of this scheme is debated. This study took a data-driven approach, applying k-means clustering to data from 43 PPA patients. The algorithm grouped patients based on similarities in language, semantic and non-linguistic cognitive scores. The optimum solution consisted of three groups. One group, almost exclusively those diagnosed as svPPA, displayed a selective semantic impairment. A second cluster, with impairments to speech production, repetition and syntactic processing, contained a majority of patients with nfvPPA but also some lvPPA patients. The final group exhibited more severe deficits to speech, repetition and syntax as well as semantic and other cognitive deficits. These results suggest that, amongst cases of non-semantic PPA, differentiation mainly reflects overall degree of language/cognitive impairment. The observed patterns were scarcely affected by inclusion/exclusion of non-linguistic cognitive scores

The Trial Audit Exercises Carried Out within the Context of the New Framework for Euratom Safeguards

Following the Communication of Vice-President de Palacio to the Commission, dated 30 April 2004 on the implementation of nuclear inspection and safeguards tasks within the European Union, there have been a number of discussions with the Member States on this subject. These discussions have been related to and concentrated on, among other aspects, the improvement of future nuclear safeguards effectiveness and efficiency within the Community. This debate resulted in a 'non-paper' issued by the Council¿s Working Party on Atomic Questions (WPAQ) entitled ¿A New Framework for Euratom Safeguards¿. The WPAQ non-paper describes audits as a tool that can play a role in problem resolution and to check that the relevant standards are in place and being implemented effectively. Since the publication of the WPAQ non-paper, the Commission has undertaken the necessary steps to organise trial audits in a number of nuclear facilities in order to evaluate this new tool for the verification of the performance of the operator's nuclear material accounting and control (NMAC) systems. This paper is a report on the initial planning, preparation, and organisation of the first audit trials to be carried out as part of the proposed new framework related to the nuclear safeguards approach of the Commission for nuclear installations in the European Union. It details the overall methodology used and the work associated with the audit of the specific safeguards related site procedures for Physical Inventory Taking and of the control of monitoring and measurement devices in place for the control of the nuclear material within the plants. The selection of these particular topics are explained in relation to the implementation of the Regulation 302/2005 and the overall emphasis to Physical Inventory Taking in the new framework for Euratom Safeguards.JRC.G.8-Nuclear safeguard

The Safeguards-by-Design Process for a More Effective and Efficient Safeguards Implementation

Safeguarding the nuclear fuel cycle is a key aspect of proliferation resistance. The application of extrinsic measures to achieve the detection and timeliness goals has a strong relationship with the intrinsic design features of facilities. By taking into account design features that facilitate the implementation of international safeguards very early in the design phase, a concept known as ¿safeguards by design¿ (SBD), the overall process can be made more effective and efficient with benefits to all the involved stake-holders. At the end of 2008, the IAEA launched a new task on ¿Guidance for Designers and Operators and Measures to facilitate the implementation of Safeguards at Future Nuclear Cycle Facilities¿, with contributions by EURATOM and Member States Support Programmes, with the aim to formulate SBD Guidelines to designers and operators. The main driving force for this new activity is the foreseen growth in the number of nuclear power generating facilities, and the corresponding increase in other fuel cycle activities such as fuel fabrication and enrichment, all of which which require the application of safeguards. This will pose an additional workload to the IAEA, whose resources however, won¿t increase at a comparable rate, thus demanding for more efficiency. This paper will develop on the achievements of the IAEA task in 2009, and the contents of the first document of the IAEA Safeguards by Design series, as well as on methodological developments.JRC.DG.E.9-Nuclear security (Ispra

EURATOM's contribution to the IAEA Safeguards by Design process

Besides the implementation of Integrated Safeguards which allows a more efficient use of inspection resources, other actions can be taken to ease safeguards implementation, such as the ¿Safeguards by Design¿ (SBD) process, which consists in taking into account very early in the design phase the features that facilitate the implementation of international safeguards. The overall safeguarding process can thus be made more effective and efficient, with benefits to all the involved stake-holders. The SBD process requires an understanding of proliferation resistance by designers and operators as well as its underlying principles, with an aim of improving the procedures of interaction between SSAC (or RSAC) and IAEA. The resulting design of a facility is indeed an optimal combination of Safety, Security and Safeguards requirements; expected benefits; reduction of costs and reduction of associated risks. As theoretical support, relevant studies and methodologies are produced by the Proliferation Resistance & Physical Protection Working Group of GEN-IV, including the safeguardability concept, and IAEA INPRO. In this context, at the end of 2008, the IAEA launched a new task on ¿Guidance for Designers and Operators and Measures to facilitate the implementation of Safeguards at Future Nuclear Cycle Facilities¿, with contributions by EURATOM and other MS Support Programmes. Besides an always present aim of improving safeguards implementation, the main driving force for this activity is the foreseen growth in the number of nuclear power generating facilities, and the corresponding increase in other fuel cycle activities, such as fuel fabrication and enrichment. However, at the same time, the IAEA is not expected to see its resources increase at the same rate, and will have to face the retirement of experienced inspectors. This paper will develop on the contents of the first high level guidelines document of the IAEA Safeguards by Design series provided by the EURATOM¿s Support Programme and on a view on the next steps.JRC.E.8-Nuclear securit

Euratom and the US Department of Energy- 15 Years of Successful Cooperation for better Nuclear Safeguards Technology

The European Union and the United States of America have a common interest that nuclear material is managed worldwide in the most secure way. Nuclear material safeguards should apply worldwide and meet the highest possible standards, and necessary steps need to be taken to prevent dissemination of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. The EU and the US have a long standing tradition to cooperate towards this aim. In 1995 the European Atomic Energy Community and the United States Department of Energy concluded an ‘Agreement in the field of nuclear material safeguards research and development’. During the IAEA Safeguards Symposium, on 2.11.2010 a new ‘Agreement in the field of nuclear material safeguards and security research and development’ with enhanced scope was signed by Euratom and the DOE, replacing the first one. The Agreement of 1995 has been decisive in shaping the technical cooperation between the two organisations. It provided a platform for a number of US laboratories to work closely with the relevant services of the European Commission: the laboratories of the Joint Research Centre and the Euratom Safeguards Directorate, which applies many of the results in its own inspections and has helped to make some new techniques also available to the IAEA. The paper will report on some of the significant achievements seen throughout the years. A number of projects selected from the areas of non-destructive assay, destructive assay, modelling and calculations, surveillance and training will be discussed. An outlook on potential future activities under the new Agreement will be given. In addition to nuclear safeguards activities, which remain in the focus of the cooperation, the scope of the new Agreement includes areas such as nuclear forensics, proliferation resistance and technical aspects of export control. Increasing emphasis will also be on training activities in both nuclear safeguards and security.JRC.E.8-Nuclear security (Ispra

Figuring the Grey Zone: The Auschwitz Sonderkommando in Contemporary Culture

This essay reads the ways in which the Auschwitz Sonderkommando figure in the film The Grey Zone (2001) and the comic book Magneto: Testament (2009). The almost archetypally traumatic experiences of the Sonderkommando have made them a difficult subject for many media. But in forms and genres which place great emphasis on character and plot it has actually made them a way to figure some of the key difficulties of trauma. This essay shows how the generic conventions of gangster films and superhero origin stories allow The Grey Zone and Magneto to address both the moral questions of the Sonderkommando’s position and the ways in which they are able to bear witness

The first need: hunger in Jan Němec's Diamonds of the Night

This article analyses the semiotic grammar of food in Jan Němec's surreal film Démanty noci/Diamonds of the Night (1964). After first locating Diamonds within the Czechoslovak New Wave and a tradition of Holocaust literature and cinema, I explore the film's representation of hunger and thirst. My analysis synthesises the film with Primo Levi's evocative meditation on the victims of the Holocaust, arguing that Němec's protagonists become a form of ‘living hunger’, and enter into a ‘condition of pure survival’. The film thus comments on the totalising Nazi mission and its attempt to desubjectify its victims by laying claim to their bodies