A comparative assessment of the economics of plutonium disposition

The US Department of Energy office of Fissile Materials Disposition (DOE/MD) has been evaluating three technologies for the disposition of approximately 50 metric tons of surplus plutonium from defense-related programs: reactors, immobilization, and deep boreholes. As part of the process supporting an early CY 1997 Record of Decision (ROD), a comprehensive assessment of technical viability, cost, and schedule has been conducted by DOE/MD and its national laboratory contractors. Oak Ridge National Laboratory has managed and coordinated the life-cycle cost (LCC) assessment effort for this program. This paper discusses the economic analysis methodology and the results prior to ROD. A secondary intent of the paper is to discuss major technical and economic issues that impact cost and schedule. To evaluate the economics of these technologies on an equitable basis, a set of cost-estimating guidelines and a common cost-estimating format were utilized by all three technology teams. This paper also includes the major economic analysis assumptions and the comparative constant-dollar and discounted-dollar LCCs

US nuclear power plant operating cost and experience summaries

NUREG/CR-6577, U.S. Nuclear Power Plant Operating Cost and Experience Summaries, has been prepared to provide historical operating cost and experience information on U.S. commercial nuclear power plants. Cost incurred after initial construction are characterized as annual production costs, representing fuel and plant operating and maintenance expenses, and capital expenditures related to facility additions/modifications which are included in the plant capital asset base. As discussed in the report, annual data for these two cost categories were obtained from publicly available reports and must be accepted as having different degrees of accuracy and completeness. Treatment of inconclusive and incomplete data is discussed. As an aid to understanding the fluctuations in the cost histories, operating summaries for each nuclear unit are provided. The intent of these summaries is to identify important operating events; refueling, major maintenance, and other significant outages; operating milestones; and significant licensing or enforcement actions. Information used in the summaries is condensed from annual operating reports submitted by the licensees, plant histories contained in Nuclear Power Experience, trade press articles, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) web site (www.nrc.gov)

A comparative assessment of the economics of plutonium disposition including comparison with other nuclear fuel cycles

DOE has been evaluating three technologies for the disposition of approximately 50 metric tons of surplus plutonium from defense-related programs: reactors, immobilization, and deep boreholes. As part of the process supporting an early CY 1997 Record of Decision (ROD), a comprehensive assessment of technical viability, cost, and schedule has been conducted. Oak Ridge National Laboratory has managed and coordinated the life-cycle cost (LCC) assessment effort for this program. This paper discusses the economic analysis methodology and the results prior to ROD. Other objectives of the paper are to discuss major technical and economic issues that impact plutonium disposition cost and schedule. Also to compare the economics of a once-through weapons-derived MOX nuclear fuel cycle to other fuel cycles, such as those utilizing spent fuel reprocessing. To evaluate the economics of these technologies on an equitable basis, a set of cost estimating guidelines and a common cost-estimating format were utilized by all three technology teams. This paper also includes the major economic analysis assumptions and the comparative constant-dollar and discounted-dollar LCCs

Locating poor livestock keepers at the global level for research and development targeting

P.K. Thornton, R.L. Kruska, P.M. Kristjanson, R.S. Reid and T.P. Robinson are ILRI authorsMany research and development agencies are committed to halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. Knowledge of where the poor are, and what characterises them, is patchy at best. Here we describe a global livestock and poverty mapping study designed to assist in targeting research and development activities concerning livestock. Estimates of the numbers of poor livestock keepers by production system and region are presented. While these estimates suffer from various problems, improvements in global databases are critical to improve the targeting of interventions that can meet the challenges posed by poverty and to chart progress against international development indicators

Cattle trypanosomiasis in Africa to 2030

Trypanosomiasis diseases are caused by single-cell organisms and affect both humans and cattle. This indicative study modelled the effect of climate change and population growth on the future range of tsetse flies, their main vector, in sub- Saharan Africa. Projected climate change to 2030 has a limited effect on their distribution. Population growth has more significant consequences, mainly caused by the land-use change that accompanies it. It could reduce the area in which tsetse flies are found by 15% by 2030. The main effect would be in drier areas of western, eastern and southern Africa, and in Ethiopia. Humid areas would be less altered. The authors say that other factors such as disease control efforts and changing agricultural practices may also affect the future range of the flies and of the diseases with which they are associated

Associations between blood sex steroid concentrations and risk of major adverse cardiovascular events in healthy older women in Australia: a prospective cohort substudy of the ASPREE trial

Background: Blood testosterone concentrations in women decline during the reproductive years and reach a nadir in the seventh decade, after which concentrations increase and are restored to those of reproductive-aged women early in the eighth decade. We aimed to establish the association between the concentration of testosterone in the blood and risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) and all-cause mortality in healthy older women. Methods: SHOW was a prospective cohort substudy of the longitudinal randomised ASPREE trial. Eligible participants were women aged at least 70 years from Australia with unimpaired cognition, no previous MACE, and a life expectancy of at least 5 years. Participants who were receiving hormonal or steroid therapy were ineligible for inclusion. We measured serum concentrations of sex steroids with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry and of SHBG with immunoassay. We compared lower concentrations of sex hormones with higher concentrations using four quartiles. Primary endpoints were risk of MACE and all-cause mortality, the associations of which with sex steroid concentrations were assessed using Cox proportional hazards regression that included age, body-mass index, smoking status, alcohol consumption, diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, impaired renal function, and treatment allocation in the ASPREE trial (aspirin vs placebo). ASPREE is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01038583. Findings: Of the 9180 women recruited to the ASPREE trial between March 10, 2010, and Dec 31 2014, 6358 participants provided sufficient biobank samples at baseline and 5535 were included in the final analysis. Median age at entry was 74·0 years (IQR 71·7–77·7). During a median 4·4 years of follow-up (24 553 person-years), 144 (2·6%) women had a first MACE (incidence 5·9 per 1000 person-years). During a median 4·6 years of follow-up (3·8–5·6), 200 women died (7·9 per 1000 person-years). In the fully adjusted models, higher concentrations of testosterone were associated with a lower incidence of MACE (quartile 4 vs quartile 1: hazard ratio 0·57 [95% CI 0·36–0·91]; p=0·02), as were higher concentrations of DHEA (quartile 4 vs quartile 1: 0·61 [0·38–0·97]; p=0·04). For oestrone, a lower risk of MACE was seen for concentrations in quartile 2 only, compared with quartile 1 (0·55 [0·33–0·92]; p=0·02). In fully adjusted models, no association was seen between SHBG and MACE, or between any hormone or SHBG and all-cause mortality. Interpretation: Blood concentrations of testosterone and DHEA above the lowest quartile in older women were associated with a reduced risk of a first-ever MACE. Given that the physiological effects of DHEA are mediated through its steroid metabolites, if the current findings were to be replicated, trials investigating testosterone therapy for the primary prevention of ischaemic cardiovascular disease events in older women would be warranted. Funding: The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, US National Institute on Aging, the Victorian Cancer Agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, and Monash University

Health-Related Quality of Life and All-Cause Mortality among Older Healthy Individuals in Australia and the United States:A Prospective Cohort Study

Published online: 3 January 2021PURPOSE: Previous research has demonstrated that lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is associated with higher morbidity and mortality, especially in-patient groups. The association of HRQoL with all-cause mortality in community samples requires further investigation. This study aimed to examine whether HRQoL predicts all-cause mortality in older healthy community-dwelling people from Australia and the United States (U.S.) enrolled in the Aspirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly (ASPREE) trial. We also explored whether this association varies by gender or country. METHOD: A prospective cohort of 19,106 individuals aged 65-98 years, who were without a dementia diagnosis or a known major life-limiting disease, and completed the 12-item short-form-HRQoL at recruitment (2010-2014). They were followed until June 2017. Cox proportional-hazard models were used to determine the association between the physical (PCS) and mental component scores (MCS) of HRQoL and all-cause mortality, adjusting for sociodemographic factors, health-related behaviours and clinical measures. Hazards ratios were estimated for every 10-unit increase in PCS or MCS. RESULTS: There were 1052 deaths over a median 4.7-years (interquartile range 3.6-5.7) of follow-up, with 11.9 events per 1000 person-years. Higher PCS was associated with lower all-cause mortality (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.77, 0.89) in the entire sample, while higher MCS was associated with lower mortality among U.S. participants only (HR 0.78, 95% CI 0.63, 0.95). Gender differences in the association of either PCS or MCS with mortality were not observed. CONCLUSION: Our large study provides evidence that HRQoL is inversely associated with all-cause mortality among initially healthy older people.Aung Zaw Zaw Phyo, Joanne Ryan, David A. Gonzalez-Chica, Robyn L. Woods, Christopher M. Reid, Mark R. Nelson ... et al

Overcoming challenges to data quality in the ASPREE clinical trial

© 2019 The Author(s). Background: Large-scale studies risk generating inaccurate and missing data due to the complexity of data collection. Technology has the potential to improve data quality by providing operational support to data collectors. However, this potential is under-explored in community-based trials. The Aspirin in reducing events in the elderly (ASPREE) trial developed a data suite that was specifically designed to support data collectors: the ASPREE Web Accessible Relational Database (AWARD). This paper describes AWARD and the impact of system design on data quality. Methods: AWARD's operational requirements, conceptual design, key challenges and design solutions for data quality are presented. Impact of design features is assessed through comparison of baseline data collected prior to implementation of key functionality (n = 1000) with data collected post implementation (n = 18,114). Overall data quality is assessed according to data category. Results: At baseline, implementation of user-driven functionality reduced staff error (from 0.3% to 0.01%), out-of-range data entry (from 0.14% to 0.04%) and protocol deviations (from 0.4% to 0.08%). In the longitudinal data set, which contained more than 39 million data values collected within AWARD, 96.6% of data values were entered within specified query range or found to be accurate upon querying. The remaining data were missing (3.4%). Participant non-attendance at scheduled study activity was the most common cause of missing data. Costs associated with cleaning data in ASPREE were lower than expected compared with reports from other trials. Conclusions: Clinical trials undertake complex operational activity in order to collect data, but technology rarely provides sufficient support. We find the AWARD suite provides proof of principle that designing technology to support data collectors can mitigate known causes of poor data quality and produce higher-quality data. Health information technology (IT) products that support the conduct of scheduled activity in addition to traditional data entry will enhance community-based clinical trials. A standardised framework for reporting data quality would aid comparisons across clinical trials