An approach to assessing subsea pipeline-associated mercury release into the North Sea and its potential environmental and human health impact

Open Access via the Royal Society agreement R.v.H. and A.H. are funded by the Net Zero Technology Centre and the University of Aberdeen, through their partnership with the UK National Decommissioning Centre. R.v.H. received funding from the University of Aberdeen under the interdisciplinary project funding in 2022.The research by A.H. was also undertaken as part of the UK Energy Research Centre research programme (UKERC-4, EP/S029575/1).Peer reviewe

Specificity of time- and dose-dependent morphological endpoints in the fish embryo acute toxicity (FET) test for substances with diverse modes of action: : the search for a “fingerprint”

Acknowledgements This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 681002 (GA, art. 38.1.2). The raw data for valproic acid, acrylamide, and colchicine were provided by Katharina Brotzmann, Annika Batel, and Ann-Kathrin Lörracher, respectively. Range-finding experiments were previously also conducted by Susanna Mieck, Dr. Lisa Hanslik, and Dr. Florian Zindler. Thanks are due to Jonathan Griffiths and Christoph Gade for carefully editing parts of the manuscript. Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the grand agreement No 681002.Publisher PD

Feasibility of Remote Nuclear Reactor Antineutrino Directionality via Elastic Electron Scattering in the WATer CHerenkov Monitor of ANtineutrinos (WATCHMAN)

Cubic meter sized liquid scintillator detectors have demonstrated that the operational status, power level, and changes in fuel composition of a critical nuclear reactor system can be remotely measured with the antineutrino signal. With the success of these detectors, research has been pursued in the scaling of the detector size to increase sensitivity and standoff distance. One such detector is the WATer CHerenkov Monitor of ANtineutrinos (WATCHMAN). WATCHMAN is a kiloton-scale gadolinium-doped water Cherenkov detector, surrounded by approximately 4300 30.48 cm (12 inch) photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). The detector will utilize the inverse beta decay (IBD) interaction to measure the antineutrino rate and energy spectrum approximately 13 km away from a 3.758 GW(th) nuclear reactor. WATCHMAN will be the first to demonstrate the potential of gadolinium-doped water Cherenkov detectors for future nuclear reactor monitoring and safeguards applications. While IBD will enable WATCHMAN to measure the antineutrino rate and energy spectrum, the detector will not be sensitive enough to extract the direction of the incident antineutrinos from this process. Antineutrino directionality would be useful if multiple reactors are located near the detector, or if it is used to search for and locate clandestine reactors. This research investigated the potential of an alternative interaction, elastic antineutrino-electron scattering, to determine the direction of the incident antineutrino flux in WATCHMAN. Calculations were done to determine the expected scattering rate and Monte Carlo simulations were performed with GEANT4 to model detector response. Event reconstruction software was then used to reconstruct the directions of the scattered electrons based on the triggered PMT times, locations, and charge intensities. Estimated background rates were incorporated into the scattering signal by scaling reported measurements from similar detectors. Many potential sources of background were considered, including solar neutrinos and misidentified IBD interactions, gamma rays from the PMTs, detector walls, and surrounding rock, as well as the decays of cosmogenic radionuclides and water-borne radon. Preliminary results indicate that while most of the sources of background can be adequately controlled with strict detector component cleanliness and low radioactivity PMTs, radon levels consistent with other existing detectors are likely to exceed the acceptable limit for directional sensitivity in WATCHMAN

Hybride Simulation mobiler Geschäftsprozesse

Die Methode zur teilautomatisierten Identifikation mobiler Teilprozesse ermöglicht eine computergestützte, kriterien-spezifische Analyse der Inschriften von Geschäftsprozess-Schemata und gibt Empfehlungen für potenziell mobile Teilprozesse. Die Methode zur hybriden Simulation erlaubt die Abbildung spezifischer Aufgabenausführungen mobiler Aufgabenträger auf Interaktionen mit mobilen Geräten. Diese werden realitätsnah in der simulativen Analyse des modellierten Geschäftsprozesses ausgeführt

Free-moving Omnidirectional 3D Gamma-ray Imaging and Localization

The ability to localize and map the distribution of gamma-ray emitting radionuclides in 3D has applications in medical imaging, nuclear contamination remediation, and nuclear security and safeguards. The deployment of freely moving detection systems, such as hand-held instruments or ground/aerial-based vehicles, are critical in overcoming the inverse square law and complex shielding scenarios. Using auxiliary contextually-aware sensors, capable of perceiving spatiotemporal characteristics of the environment, these systems can simultaneously generate 3D maps of the surroundings and track the position and orientation of the gamma-ray sensitive detectors in the scene. The fusion of contextual scene data and gamma-ray detector data to facilitate real-time 3D gamma-ray image reconstruction has previously been demonstrated with mobile germanium and CdZnTe-based Compton cameras for gamma-ray energies ranging from a few hundred keV to several MeV. This concept is applied here for lower energy (50-400 keV) gamma-rays using an active coded mask imaging modality. The platform for demonstration is the Portable Radiation Imaging Spectroscopy and Mapping (PRISM) system, which is a hand-held spherical active coded array of many 1 cm3 coplanar-grid CdZnTe detectors designed for omnidirectional coded mask and Compton imaging and uniform directional sensitivity. This work presents the design, development, and coded mask optimization of PRISM, as well as the methodologies developed for real-time reconstruction using a scene data constrained, GPU-accelerated, list-mode maximum likelihood expectation maximization (ML-EM) algorithm. Experimental results from several measurements in the lab and in the field are shown.A novel approach to 3D gamma-ray image reconstruction for scenarios where sparsity in the source distribution may be assumed, for example radiological source search, is also presented. While the generality of ML-EM enables use in a wide variety of scenarios, it is susceptible to overfitting, limited by the discretization of spatial coordinates, and can be computationally expensive. A more well-conditioned Point-Source Localization (PSL) approach is formulated as an optimization problem where both position and source intensity are continuous variables. This formulation is then extended and generalized to an iterative algorithm for sparse parametric 3D image reconstruction called Additive Point-Source Localization (APSL), where the image is considered the sum of multiple point-sources whose position and intensity are continuous in nature. APSL mitigates overfitting in its iterative bottom-up nature and statistically-founded stopping criteria and, because of the inherent point-source assumption and continuous variables, results in images with improved accuracy and interpretability as compared with ML-EM. A set of simulated source search scenarios using a single non-directional detector is considered to demonstrate the concept and compare ML-EM and APSL. Experimental results using a nearly isotropic, contextually-aware, LaBr3 detector system are then presented, finding improved localization accuracy and computational efficiency with APSL

Mercury fingerprint : A comparative evaluation of lability in North Sea drill cuttings

We would like to thank the Scottish Marine Directorate and Daniel Stewart for the opportunity to join cruise 1422S. Sampling and general support was provided by chief scientist Robert Watret, and scientists Danny Copland, Paul Stainer, and Jack Lucas, as well as the captain and the entire crew of the MRV Scotia.Peer reviewe

Hybride Simulation mobiler Geschäftsprozesse

Die effiziente und effektive Unterstützung von Unternehmensmitarbeitern mittels mobiler IT in deren ortsunabhängiger Aufgabenausführung setzt die Anpassung der zugrundeliegenden Geschäftsprozesse voraus. Diese Problemstellung adressierend, werden in der Arbeit zwei Methoden vorgestellt, die eine teilautomatisierte Identifikation mobiler Teilprozesse in Geschäftsprozessen sowie die hybride Simulation mobiler Geschäftsprozesse zur Analyse der angepassten Geschäftsprozesse ermöglichen

Super food or Super toxic? : Turmeric and spirulina as culprits for the toxic effects of food dyes in Drosophila

Open Access via the Elsevier Agreement JM is funded by BBSRC grant (BB/V015249/1). RvH is funded through DEFRA project (ETPP-33/C10).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Considerations for future quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) modelling for heavy metals : A case study of mercury

Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the in-kind contribution of the National Decommissioning Centre of the use of the mercury analyser, and the support of the Net Zero Technology Centre. Funding This work was supported by the University of Aberdeen [grant no. RG13793-67], the UK Energy Research Centre [grant no. UKERC-4 EP/S029575/1], DEFRA [grant no. ETPP-33/C10], and the National Decommissioning Centre through the University of Aberdeen [grant no. RG15508-11].Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Reconstructing the direction of reactor antineutrinos via electron scattering in Gd-doped water Cherenkov detectors

The potential of elastic antineutrino-electron scattering in a Gd-doped water Cherenkov detector to determine the direction of a nuclear reactor antineutrino flux was investigated using the recently proposed WATCHMAN antineutrino experiment as a baseline model. The expected scattering rate was determined assuming a 13-km standoff from a 3.758-GWt light water nuclear reactor and the detector response was modeled using a Geant4-based simulation package. Background was estimated via independent simulations and by scaling published measurements from similar detectors. Background contributions were estimated for solar neutrinos, misidentified reactor-based inverse beta decay interactions, cosmogenic radionuclides, water-borne radon, and gamma rays from the photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), detector walls, and surrounding rock. We show that with the use of low background PMTs and sufficient fiducialization, water-borne radon and cosmogenic radionuclides pose the largest threats to sensitivity. Directional sensitivity was then analyzed as a function of radon contamination, detector depth, and detector size. The results provide a list of experimental conditions that, if satisfied in practice, would enable antineutrino directional reconstruction at 3$\sigma$ significance in large Gd-doped water Cherenkov detectors with greater than 10-km standoff from a nuclear reactor.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure