YWCA Square Dance Club

Recording of a dance at the YWCA Square Dance Club in East Liberty, PA. Recording and accompanying film are unavailable.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/sackett/1114/thumbnail.jp

Catholic Doctrine in Contemporary American Catholic Poetry

The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate how effectively Catholic poets have utilized Catholic doctrine in their poetry. I became interested in the topic through a study of Catholic poets in two courses; one in Modern Catholic Literature and the other in Modern Poetry. With the aid of bibliographies from these courses, and direct correspondence with many of the poets themselves, I procured and read all available poetry containing Catholic doctrine, to ascertain the phases of doctrine most commonly used. I found that the Eucharist, Mary, Prayer, Suffering, and Death were subjects chosen by the majority of poets. Having limited the study of doctrine, I limited the poets to be included to those who (a) had published books of poetry and not merely isolated poems in various magazines, and (b) had written on several of the doctrines utilized. Having obtained the poems and poets to be included, I explained enough of the doctrine to make it understood by a non-Catholic and to make it pertinent to the poem in question. This proved to be the most difficult to accomplish since what seemed so obvious to me as a Catholic was inadequate explanation to a non-Catholic reader. Professor Sackett, (a non-Catholic), proved his unusual counseling ability in his invaluable suggestions, questions, and discussions which helped to make this paper readable for both Catholic and non-Catholic alike. Careful guidance of a paper on theology is extremely necessary for the misuse of a word can jeopardize the validity of the doctrine and destroy the integrity of the thesis

Assessment of Hard-to-Detect Radionuclide Levels in Decommissioning Waste From the Bohunice NPP-A1, Slovakia, for Clearance and Disposal Purposes

For assessments of hard-to-detect radionuclides (HD-RN) contents in various type of radwastes at the NPP-A1, available empirical data referenced to 137Cs (actinides, 90Sr, 99Tc, 63Ni, 14C) and the theoretical assessment for the remaining HD-RN using calculated RN inventory and a simple model with effective relative (137Cs) spent fuel release fractions was applied. The analytical data of extended radiochemical analysis for the existing available operational radwaste forms have been reviewed for this purpose. 137Cs, 90Sr and 241Am were set up as release markers for partial spent fuel release groups of HD-RNs within which the total fractions of HD-RN released to the operational radwastes were assumed to be constant. It was shown by the assessment carried out that 137Cs and HD-RNs 129I, 99Tc, and partly 79Se and 14C are the main contributors to the disposal dose limit for the radioactive concentrate at NPP A-1. In the case of the radioactive sludge from the operational radwaste system the role of predominant dose contributors belongs to actinides 239,240Pu and 241Am. In the case of clearance of radioactive material from the NPP-A1 site, only the reference radionuclide, 137Cs was predicted to be the most dominant dose contributor. In all of these cases the estimated contributions of other hard-to-detect radionuclides to respective disposal or release dose limit are lower by 2 and more orders of magnitude. As a lesson learned, the most attention is proposed to focus on the control and measurement of the critical HD-RNs indicated by the assessment. For the control of less important HD-RNs, the developed release coefficient method is sufficient to be applied

Robustness and Fragility in Immunosenescence

We construct a model to study tradeoffs associated with aging in the adaptive immune system, focusing on cumulative effects of replacing naive cells with memory cells. Binding affinities are characterized by a stochastic shape space model. System loss arising from an individual infection is associated with disease severity, as measured by the total antigen population over the course of an infection. We monitor evolution of cell populations on the shape space over a string of infections, and find that the distribution of losses becomes increasingly heavy-tailed with time. Initially this lowers the average loss: the memory cell population becomes tuned to the history of past exposures, reducing the loss of the system when subjected to a second, similar infection. This is accompanied by a corresponding increase in vulnerability to novel infections, which ultimately causes the expected loss to increase due to overspecialization, leading to increasing fragility with age (i.e., immunosenescence). In our model, immunosenescence is not the result of a performance degradation of some specific lymphocyte, but rather a natural consequence of the built-in mechanisms for system adaptation. This “robust, yet fragile” behavior is a key signature of Highly Optimized Tolerance

Complex patterns of spontaneous initiations and terminations of reentrant circulation in a loop of cardiac tissue

A two-component model is developed that consists of a discrete loop of cardiac cells that circulates action potentials together with a cardiac pacing mechanism. Physiological properties of cells such as restitutions of refractoriness and of conduction velocity are given via experimentally measured functions. The dynamics of circulating pulses and their interactions with the pacer are regulated by two threshold relations. Patterns of spontaneous initiations and terminations of reentry (SITR) generated by this system are studied through numerical simulations and analytical observations. These patterns can be regular or irregular; causes of irregularities are identified as the threshold bistability of reentrant circulation (T-bistability) and in some cases, also phase-resetting interactions with the pacer.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures, 61 references; A version of this paper (same results) is to appear in the Journal of Theoretical Biology; arXiv V2 adds helpful commments to facilitate reading and corrects minor errors in presentatio

UPGRADING OF THE MOCHOVCE NATIONAL RADWASTE REPOSITORY DURING ITS COMPLETION

ABSTRACT The National Radwaste Repository Mochovce is a disposal facility of surface type. It has been designed to dispose ultimately treated and conditioned low-and medium-level radwaste, generated during the operation of nuclear installations on Slovak territory, as well as radwaste produced in the course of various activities in research institutions, laboratories, hospitals, and other institutions -the so-called institutional waste. The operator of the repository is the Bohunice-based affiliation of the SE utility -Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Installations, Management of Radwaste and Spent Fuel (SE-VYZ). During completion of the repository, a number of enhancements were implemented as recommended by an IAEA WATRP mission (Waste Management and Technical Review Program) and requested by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority of the Slovak Republic (UJD SR) with the objective to upgrade safety of the repository

Decommissioning Project of Bohunice A1 NPP

The first (pilot) nuclear power plant A1 in the Slovak Republic, situated on Jaslovske Bohunice site (60 km from Bratislava) with the capacity of 143 MWel, was commissioned in 1972 and was running with interruptions till 1977. A KS 150 reactor (HWGCR) with natural uranium as fuel, D2O as moderator and gaseous CO2 as coolant was installed in the A1 plant. Outlet steam from primary reactor coolant system with the temperature of 410 C was led to 6 modules of steam generators and from there to turbine generators. Refueling was carried out on-line at plant full power. The first serious incident associated with refueling occurred in 1976 when a locking mechanism at a fuel assembly failed. The core was not damaged during that incident and following a reconstruction of the damaged technology channel, the plant continued in operation. However, serious problems were occurring with the integrity of steam generators (CO2 gas on primary side, water and steam on secondary side) when the plant had to be shut down frequently due to failures and subsequent repairs. The second serious accident occurred in 1977 when a fuel assembly was overheated with a subsequent release of D2O into gas cooling circuit due to a human failure in the course of replacement of a fuel assembly. Subsequent rapid increase in humidity of the primary system resulted in damages of fuel elements in the core and the primary system was contaminated by fission products. In-reactor structures had been damaged, too. Activity had penetrated also into certain parts of the secondary system via leaking steam generators. Radiation situation in the course of both events on the plant site and around it had been below the level of limits specified. Based on a technical and economical justification of the demanding character of equipment repairs for the restoration of plant operation, and also due to a decision made not to continue with further construction of gas cooled reactors in Czechoslovakia, a decision was made in 1977 to terminate plant operation. The decision on the A1 plant decommissioning was issued in 1979