ELECTRONICS UPGRADE OF HIGH RESOLUTION MASS SPECTROMETERS

High resolution mass spectrometers are specialized systems that allow researchers to determine the exact mass of samples to four significant digits by using magnetic and electronic sector mass analyzers. Many of the systems in use today at research laboratories and universities were designed and built more than two decades ago. The manufacturers of these systems have abandoned the support for some of the mass spectrometers and parts to power and control them have become scarce or obsolete. The Savannah River National Laboratory has been involved in the upgrade of the electronics and software for these legacy machines. The Electronics Upgrade of High Resolution Mass Spectrometers consists of assembling high-end commercial instrumentation from reputable manufacturers with a minimal amount of customization to replace the electronics for the older systems. By taking advantage of advances in instrumentation, precise magnet control can be achieved using high resolution current sources and continuous feedback from a high resolution hall-effect probe. The custom equipment include a precision voltage divider/summing amplifier chassis, high voltage power supply chassis and a chassis for controlling the voltage emission for the mass spectrometer source tube. The upgrade package is versatile enough to interface with valve control, vacuum and other instrumentation. Instrument communication is via a combination of Ethernet and traditional IEEE-488 GPIB protocols. The system software upgrades include precision control, feedback and spectral waveform analysis tools

MASS MEASUREMENT UNCERTAINTY FOR PLUTONIUM ALIQUOTS ASSAYED BY CONTROLLED-POTENTIAL COULOMETRY

Minimizing plutonium measurement uncertainty is essential to nuclear material control and international safeguards. In 2005, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published ISO 12183 'Controlled-potential coulometric assay of plutonium', 2nd edition. ISO 12183:2005 recommends a target of {+-}0.01% for the mass of original sample in the aliquot because it is a critical assay variable. Mass measurements in radiological containment were evaluated and uncertainties estimated. The uncertainty estimate for the mass measurement also includes uncertainty in correcting for buoyancy effects from air acting as a fluid and from decreased pressure of heated air from the specific heat of the plutonium isotopes

WIRELESS FOR A NUCLEAR FACILITY

The introduction of wireless technology into a government site where nuclear material is processed and stored brings new meaning to the term ''harsh environment''. At SRNL, we are attempting to address not only the harsh RF and harsh physical environment common to industrial facilities, but also the ''harsh'' regulatory environment necessitated by the nature of the business at our site. We will discuss our concepts, processes, and expected outcomes in our attempts to surmount the roadblocks and reap the benefits of wireless in our ''factory''

Ética y Agencia. Una revisión crítica de la neutralidad moral de la Teoría de la Agencia

El presente artículo tiene por objetivo describir la Teoría de la Agencia (TA) a la luz de sus principios antropológicos, de modo que sea posible entender si esa teoría es una argumentación de corte utilitarista y, de ser así, cómo podría considerarse críticamente desde la ética empresarial. Como se mostrará en este trabajo, la TA se basa principalmente en dos marcos conceptuales: el institucionalismo de Ronald Coase para una explicación de la naturaleza de la empresa, por un lado, y la teoría del comportamiento económico (economic behavior) de Gary Becker, por otro. Con estos antecedentes, y en especial con la consideración de las ideas de Becker, se pueden rastrear los argumentos antropológicos de la TA, ubicándolos en el ámbito de las argumentaciones de tipo utilitarista. Esto es posible no por una referencia explícita de Gary Becker a la tradición filosófica del utilitarismo en Bentham y Mill, sino por una comprensión de la naturaleza de la actuación individual que, tanto en Becker como en la TA, se caracterizan por una comprensión de la conducta humana como de naturaleza individualista y basada en un cálculo de conveniencia al modo del cálculo económico. Esta idea es importante para la ética empresarial cuando la TA considera que el cálculo de conveniencia es amoral, y que ello implica, entre otros problemas, una promoción del comportamiento oportunista.The aim of this work is to show the philosophical principles of Agency Theory in order to understand if this theory presents an argumentation on human behavior that we can described as utilitarian, and if so, how it could be critically considered from Business Ethics. As we will see, Agency Theory is based on two main conceptual frameworks: the first one is Coase’s Institutionalism as for understanding the nature of the firm and, the second one, Gary Becker’s theory of economic behavior. In this paper we will show how Agency Theory incorporates Gary Becker’s theory and, consequently, a description of human behavior that we can understand as utilitarian, not only when Becker ideas’ have an explicit reference to the philosophical utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, but also because of an understanding of human behavior described as individualistic and based on an evaluative maximization calculus of convenience. From Business Ethics theory, such calculus must be considered amoral and, as such, implies a culture of opportunism, among other problems within the origination

ULTRA SECURE HIGH RELIABILITY WIRELESS RADIATION MONITOR

Radiation monitoring in nuclear facilities is essential to safe operation of the equipment as well as protecting personnel. In specific, typical air monitoring of radioactive gases or particulate involves complex systems of valves, pumps, piping and electronics. The challenge is to measure a representative sample in areas that are radioactively contaminated. Running cables and piping to these locations is very expensive due to the containment requirements. Penetration into and out of an airborne or containment area is complex and costly. The process rooms are built with thick rebar-enforced concrete walls with glove box containment chambers inside. Figure 1 shows high temperature radiation resistance cabling entering the top of a typical glove box. In some case, the entire processing area must be contained in a 'hot cell' where the only access into the chamber is via manipulators. An example is shown in Figure 2. A short range wireless network provides an ideal communication link for transmitting the data from the radiation sensor to a 'clean area', or area absent of any radiation fields or radioactive contamination. Radiation monitoring systems that protect personnel and equipment must meet stringent codes and standards due to the consequences of failure. At first glance a wired system would seem more desirable. Concerns with wireless communication include latency, jamming, spoofing, man in the middle attacks, and hacking. The Department of Energy's Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has developed a prototype wireless radiation air monitoring system that address many of the concerns with wireless and allows quick deployment in radiation and contamination areas. It is stand alone and only requires a standard 120 VAC, 60 Hz power source. It is designed to be mounted or portable. The wireless link uses a National Security Agency (NSA) Suite B compliant wireless network from Fortress Technologies that is considered robust enough to be used for classified data transmission in place of NSA Type 1 devices

The Tensor Hierarchies of Pure N=2,d=4,5,6 Supergravities

We study the supersymmetric tensor hierarchy of pure (gauged) N=2,d=4,5,6 supergravity and compare them with those of the pure, ungauged, theories (worked out by Gomis and Roest for d=5) and the predictions of the Kac-Moody approach made by Kleinschmidt and Roest. We find complete agreement in the ungauged case but we also find that, after gauging, new Stueckelberg symmetries reduce the number of independent "physical" top-forms. The analysis has to be performed to all orders in fermion fields. We discuss the construction of the worldvolume effective actions for the p-branes which are charged with respect to the (p+1)-form potentials and the relations between the tensor hierarchies and p-branes upon dimensional reduction.Comment: LaTeX2e file, 20 pages, 1 figure Results refined by extension of the analysis to all orders in fermion

The general gaugings of maximal d=9 supergravity

We use the embedding tensor method to construct the most general maximal gauged/massive supergravity in d=9 dimensions and to determine its extended field content. Only the 8 independent deformation parameters (embedding tensor components, mass parameters etc.) identified by Bergshoeff \textit{et al.} (an SL(2,R) triplet, two doublets and a singlet can be consistently introduced in the theory, but their simultaneous use is subject to a number of quadratic constraints. These constraints have to be kept and enforced because they cannot be used to solve some deformation parameters in terms of the rest. The deformation parameters are associated to the possible 8-forms of the theory, and the constraints are associated to the 9-forms, all of them transforming in the conjugate representations. We also give the field strengths and the gauge and supersymmetry transformations for the electric fields in the most general case. We compare these results with the predictions of the E11 approach, finding that the latter predicts one additional doublet of 9-forms, analogously to what happens in N=2, d=4,5,6 theories.Comment: Latex file, 43 pages, reference adde

Domain walls and instantons in N=1, d=4 supergravity

We study the supersymmetric sources of (multi-) domain-wall and (multi-) instanton solutions of generic N=1, d=4 supergravities, that is: the worldvolume effective actions for said supersymmetric topological defects. The domain-wall solutions naturally couple to the two 3-forms recently found as part of the N=1, d=4 tensor hierarchy (i.e. they have two charges in general) and their tension is the absolute value of the superpotential section L. The introduction of sources (we study sources with finite and vanishing thickness) is equivalent to the introduction of local coupling constants and results in dramatic changes of the solutions. Our results call for a democratic reformulation of N=1,d=4 supergravity in which coupling constants are, off-shell, scalar fields. The effective actions for the instantons are always proportional to the coordinate orthogonal to the twist-free embedding of the null-geodesic (in the Wick-rotated scalar manifold) describing the instanton. We show their supersymmetry and find the associated supersymmetric (multi-) instanton solutions.Comment: 34 pages, 4 figures, references adde

Supergravity Black Holes and Billiards and Liouville integrable structure of dual Borel algebras

In this paper we show that the supergravity equations describing both cosmic billiards and a large class of black-holes are, generically, both Liouville integrable as a consequence of the same universal mechanism. This latter is provided by the Liouville integrable Poissonian structure existing on the dual Borel algebra B_N of the simple Lie algebra A_{N-1}. As a by product we derive the explicit integration algorithm associated with all symmetric spaces U/H^{*} relevant to the description of time-like and space-like p-branes. The most important consequence of our approach is the explicit construction of a complete set of conserved involutive hamiltonians h_{\alpha} that are responsible for integrability and provide a new tool to classify flows and orbits. We believe that these will prove a very important new tool in the analysis of supergravity black holes and billiards.Comment: 48 pages, 7 figures, LaTex; V1: misprints corrected, two references adde