Dry Processing of Used Nuclear Fuel

Dry (non-aqueous) separations technologies have been used for treatment of used nuclear fuel since the 1960s, and they are still being developed and demonstrated in many countries. Dry technologies offer potential advantages compared to traditional aqueous separations including: compactness, resistance to radiation effects, criticality control benefits, compatibility with advanced fuel types, and ability to produce low purity products. Within the Department of Energy’s Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, an electrochemical process employing molten salts is being developed for recycle of fast reactor fuel and treatment of light water reactor oxide fuel to produce a feed for fast reactors. Much of the development of this technology is based on treatment of used Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) fuel, which is metallic. Electrochemical treatment of the EBR-II fuel has been ongoing in the Fuel Conditioning Facility, located at the Materials and Fuel Complex of Idaho National Laboratory since 1996. More than 3.8 metric tons of heavy metal of metallic fast reactor fuel have been treated using this technology. This paper will summarize the status of electrochemical development and demonstration activities with used nuclear fuel, including high-level waste work. A historic perspective on the background of dry processing will also be provided

Off-diagonal Interactions, Hund's Rules and Pair-binding in Hubbard Molecules

We have studied the effect of including nearest-neighbor, electron-electron interactions, in particular the off-diagonal (non density-density) terms, on the spectra of truncated tetrahedral and icosahedral ``Hubbard molecules,'' focusing on the relevance of these systems to the physics of doped C$_{60}$. Our perturbation theoretic and exact diagonalization results agree with previous work in that the density-density term suppresses pair-binding. However, we find that for the parameter values of interest for $C_{60}$ the off-diagonal terms {\em enhance} pair-binding, though not enough to offset the suppression due to the density-density term. We also find that the critical interaction strengths for the Hund's rules violating level crossings in C$_{60}^{-2}$, C$_{60}^{-3}$ and C$_{60}^{-4}$ are quite insensitive to the inclusion of these additional interactions.Comment: 20p + 5figs, Revtex 3.0, UIUC preprint P-94-10-08

Determining the date of diagnosis – is it a simple matter? The impact of different approaches to dating diagnosis on estimates of delayed care for ovarian cancer in UK primary care

Background Studies of cancer incidence and early management will increasingly draw on routine electronic patient records. However, data may be incomplete or inaccurate. We developed a generalisable strategy for investigating presenting symptoms and delays in diagnosis using ovarian cancer as an example. Methods The General Practice Research Database was used to investigate the time between first report of symptom and diagnosis of 344 women diagnosed with ovarian cancer between 01/06/2002 and 31/05/2008. Effects of possible inaccuracies in dating of diagnosis on the frequencies and timing of the most commonly reported symptoms were investigated using four increasingly inclusive definitions of first diagnosis/suspicion: 1. "Definite diagnosis" 2. "Ambiguous diagnosis" 3. "First treatment or complication suggesting pre-existing diagnosis", 4 "First relevant test or referral". Results The most commonly coded symptoms before a definite diagnosis of ovarian cancer, were abdominal pain (41%), urogenital problems(25%), abdominal distension (24%), constipation/change in bowel habits (23%) with 70% of cases reporting at least one of these. The median time between first reporting each of these symptoms and diagnosis was 13, 21, 9.5 and 8.5 weeks respectively. 19% had a code for definitions 2 or 3 prior to definite diagnosis and 73% a code for 4. However, the proportion with symptoms and the delays were similar for all four definitions except 4, where the median delay was 8, 8, 3, 10 and 0 weeks respectively. Conclusion Symptoms recorded in the General Practice Research Database are similar to those reported in the literature, although their frequency is lower than in studies based on self-report. Generalisable strategies for exploring the impact of recording practice on date of diagnosis in electronic patient records are recommended, and studies which date diagnoses in GP records need to present sensitivity analyses based on investigation, referral and diagnosis data. Free text information may be essential in obtaining accurate estimates of incidence, and for accurate dating of diagnoses

OPTN/SRTR 2018 Annual Data Report: Heart

The new adult heart allocation policy was approved in 2016 and implemented in October 2018, so its effect was not yet evident in 2018 data. However, the more granular data being collected are anticipated to allow for improved analyses. In 2018, new listings continued to increase; 3883 new adult and 685 new pediatric candidates were added. In 2018, 3440 heart transplants were performed, an increase of 167 over 2017; 473 transplants occurred in pediatric recipients and 2967 in adult recipients. Short‐term and long‐term posttransplant mortality improved. Overall 1‐year survival for adults who underwent heart transplant in 2011‐2013 was 90.3%, 3‐year survival was 84.7%, and 5‐year survival was 79.6%. Mortality rates for pediatric recipients were 4.5% at 6 months and in 5.9% at 1 year posttransplant, 12.5% at 3 years for transplants in 2014‐2015, 14.8% at 5 years for transplants in 2012‐2013, and 29.8% at 10 years for transplants performed in 2008‐2009.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153233/1/ajt15676.pd

Mars oxygen production system design

The design and construction phase is summarized of the Mars oxygen demonstration project. The basic hardware required to produce oxygen from simulated Mars atmosphere was assembled and tested. Some design problems still remain with the sample collection and storage system. In addition, design and development of computer compatible data acquisition and control instrumentation is ongoing

Pyrochemical Treatment of Spent Nuclear Fuel

Over the last 10 years, pyrochemical treatment of spent nuclear fuel has progressed from demonstration activities to engineering-scale production operations. As part of the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology, pyrochemical treatment operations are being performed as part of the treatment of fuel from the Experimental Breeder Reactor II at the Idaho National Laboratory. Integral to these treatment operations are research and development activities that are focused on scaling further the technology, developing and implementing process improvements, qualifying the resulting high-level waste forms, and demonstrating the overall pyrochemical fuel cycle

Evaluation of children's centres in England: strand 2 - baseline survey of families using children's centres in the most disadvantaged areas

This is the final version of the report. Available from the Department for Education via the link in this recorThe evaluation of children’s centres in England is a large scale, six year study that looks at Sure Start children’s centres (SSCCs) in the most disadvantaged areas of England. These are centres that were set up in the first two phases of the programme. The evaluation, from a survey of families who were using children’s centres when their child was 9- to 18-months-old, will provide a very detailed picture of children’s centre services. This includes how effective they are when they use different approaches in their management and when delivering services and activities for parents and children. It also looks at the cost of delivering different types of services