PUREX transition project case study

In December 1992, the US Department of Energy (DOE) directed that the Plutonium-Uranium Extraction (PUREX) Plant be shut down and deactivated because it was no longer needed to support the nation`s production of weapons-grade plutonium. The PUREX/UO{sub 2} Deactivation Project will establish a safe and environmentally secure configuration for the facility and preserve that configuration for 10 years. The 10-year span is used to predict future maintenance requirements and represents the estimated time needed to define, authorize, and initiate the follow-on decontamination and decommissioning activities. Accomplishing the deactivation project involves many activities. Removing major hazards, such as excess chemicals, spent fuel, and residual plutonium are major goals of the project. The scope of the PUREX Transition Project is described within

Modelling Clock Synchronization in the Chess gMAC WSN Protocol

We present a detailled timed automata model of the clock synchronization algorithm that is currently being used in a wireless sensor network (WSN) that has been developed by the Dutch company Chess. Using the Uppaal model checker, we establish that in certain cases a static, fully synchronized network may eventually become unsynchronized if the current algorithm is used, even in a setting with infinitesimal clock drifts

If I Had My Way, I'd Have Been a Killer: Songwriting and its Motivations for Leisure and Work

This paper builds on our earlier work (Henderson and Spracklen, 2014) which looked at folk musicians exercising agency in careers that can develop from casual leisure through serious leisure to work. In looking specifically at songwriting, it synthesises theories on the underlying motivations refelecting the view of Born (2010, p.171) who suggests that the ‘theory of cultural production requires reinvention’ citing key themes of ’aesthetics and the cultural object; agency and subjectivity; the place of institutions; history, temporality and change; and problems of value and judgement.’ It examines in a phenomenological way, through songwriter interviews, the cultural production of songs and the motivational factors within the songwriting process. Highlighting that this form of cultural production challenges the hierarchical view of Maslow’s needs and suggests the career arc proposed by Stebbins (1992, p. 68) is not a case of work simply following sequentially from serious and casual leisure

A Process Algebra for Supervisory Coordination

A supervisory controller controls and coordinates the behavior of different components of a complex machine by observing their discrete behaviour. Supervisory control theory studies automated synthesis of controller models, known as supervisors, based on formal models of the machine components and a formalization of the requirements. Subsequently, code generation can be used to implement this supervisor in software, on a PLC, or embedded microprocessor. In this article, we take a closer look at the control loop that couples the supervisory controller and the machine. We model both event-based and state-based observations using process algebra and bisimulation-based semantics. The main application area of supervisory control that we consider is coordination, referred to as supervisory coordination, and we give an academic and an industrial example, discussing the process-theoretic concepts employed.Comment: In Proceedings PACO 2011, arXiv:1108.145

Voicing passion: The emotional economy of songwriting

This article examines articulations of the role of passion in accounts of the life and work of the songwriter. It draws upon a range of interviews with successful artists captured in the Sodajerker On Songwriting podcast. It is suggested that these interviews capture the ‘voicing’ of the conventions of creativity in popular music, exploring a context in which passionate motivation, expression and understanding of the (potentially) affective responses to songs are paramount to the labour of the songwriter. The article explores how the core of this labour deals in emotion, attempting to articulate feelings in recognisable, tradable form. This is a process that is both instrumentally rationalised but often felt to be a deeply authentic process, understood (and believed) to spring from the individual’s emotional experience, so conferring identity in a generic field. In light of current debates about the nature of creative work and emotional labour, the accounts drawn upon here can be seen to epitomise many of the qualities of what constitutes ‘good work’ through a mode of self-actualisation

Disposition of PUREX contaminated nitric acid the role of stakeholder involvement

What does the United States space shuttle and the Hanford PUREX facility`s contaminated nitric acid have in common. Both are reusable. The PUREX Transition Project has achieved success and, minimized project expenses and waste generation by looking at excess chemicals not as waste but as reusable substitutes for commercially available raw materials. This philosophy has helped PUREX personnel to reuse or recycle more than 2.5 million pounds of excess chemicals, a portion of which is the slightly contaminated nitric acid. After extensive public review, the first shipment of contaminated acid was made in May 1995. Removal of the acid was completed on November 6, 1995 when the fiftieth shipment left the Hanford site. This activity, which avoided dispositioning the contaminated acid as a waste, generated significantly more public input and concern than was expected. One of the lessons learned from this process is to not underestimate public perceptions regarding the reuse of contaminated materials