SPHERE: Irradiation of sphere-pac fuel of UPuO2−x containing 3% Americium

AbstractAmericium is a strong contributor to the long term radiotoxicity of high activity nuclear waste. Transmutation by irradiation in nuclear reactors of long-lived nuclides like 241Am is therefore an option for the reduction of radiotoxicity of waste packages to be stored in a repository. The SPHERE irradiation experiment is the latest of a series of European experiments on americium transmutation (e.g. EFTTRA-T4, EFTTRA-T4bis, HELIOS, MARIOS) performed in the HFR (High Flux Reactor). The SPHERE experiment is carried out in the framework of the 4-year project FAIRFUELS of the EURATOM 7th Framework Programme (FP7). During the past years of experimental works in the field of transmutation and tests of innovative nuclear fuels, the release or trapping of helium as well as helium induced fuel swelling have been shown to be the key issues for the design of Am-bearing targets. The main objective of the SPHERE experiment is to study the in-pile behaviour of fuel containing 3% of americium and to compare the behaviour of sphere-pac fuel to pellet fuel, in particular the role of microstructure and temperature on fission gas release (mainly He) and on fuel swelling.The SPHERE experiment is being irradiated since September 2013 in the HFR in Petten (The Netherlands) and is expected to be terminated in spring 2015. The experiment has been designed to last up to 18 reactor cycles (corresponding to 18 months) but may reach its target earlier.This paper discusses the rationale and objective of the SPHERE experiment and provides a general description of its design

Annual Report 2011 Operation and Utilisation of the High Flux Reactor

The High Flux Reactor (HFR) at Petten is managed by the Institute for Energy and Transport (IET) of the EC - DG JRC and operated by NRG who are also licence holder and responsible for commercial activities. The HFR operates at 45 MW and is of the tank-in-pool type, light water cooled and moderated. It is one of the most powerful multi-purpose materials testing reactors in the world and one of the world leaders in target irradiation for the production of medical radioisotopes.JRC.F-Institute for Energy and Transport (Petten

Human C-reactive protein aggravates osteoarthritis development in mice on a high-fat diet

Objective: C-reactive protein (CRP) levels can be elevated in osteoarthritis (OA) patients. In addition to indicating systemic inflammation, it is suggested that CRP itself can play a role in OA development. Obesity and metabolic syndrome are important risk factors for OA and also induce elevated CRP levels. Here we evaluated in a human CRP (hCRP)-transgenic mouse model whether CRP itself contributes to the development of ‘metabolic’ OA.Design: Metabolic OA was induced by feeding 12-week-old hCRP-transgenic males (hCRP-tg, n = 30) and wild-type littermates (n = 15) a 45 kcal% high-fat diet (HFD) for 38 weeks. Cartilage degradation, osteophytes and synovitis were graded on Safranin O-stained histological knee joint sections. Inflammatory status was assessed by plasma lipid profiling, flow cytometric analyses of blood immune cell populations and immunohistochemical staining of synovial macrophage subsets.Results: Male hCRP-tg mice showed aggravated OA severity and increased osteophytosis compared with their wild-type littermates. Both classical and non-classical monocytes showed increased expression of CCR2 and CD86 in hCRP-tg males. HFD-induced effects were evident for nearly all lipids measured and indicated a similar low-grade systemic inflammation for both genotypes. Synovitis scores and synovial macrophage subsets were similar in the two groups.Conclusions: Human CRP expression in a background of HFD-induced metabolic dysfunction resulted in the aggravation of OA through increased cartilage degeneration and osteophytosis. Increased recruitment of classical and non-classical monocytes might be a mechanism of action through which CRP is involved in aggravating this process. These findings suggest interventions selectively directed against CRP activity could ameliorate metabolic OA development

Operation and Utilisation of the High Flux Reactor: Annual Report 2013

The High Flux Reactor (HFR) at Petten is managed by the Institute for Energy and Transport (IET) of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) and operated by the Nuclear Research and consultancy Group (NRG) which is also the licence holder and responsible for its commercial activities. The High Flux Reactor (HFR) operates at 45 MW and is of the tank-in-pool type, light water cooled and moderated. It is one of the most powerful multi-purpose materials testing reactors in the world and one of the world's leaders in target irradiation for the production of medical radioisotopes.JRC.F.4-Innovative Technologies for Nuclear Reactor Safet

Relativistic analysis of the 208Pb(e,e'p)207Tl reaction at high momentum

The recent 208Pb(e,e'p)207Tl data from NIKHEF-K at high missing momentum (p_m>300 MeV/c) are compared to theoretical results obtained with a fully relativistic formalism previously applied to analyze data on the low missing momentum (p_m < 300 MeV/c) region. The same relativistic optical potential and mean field wave functions are used in the two p_m-regions. The spectroscopic factors of the various shells are extracted from the analysis of the low-p_m data and then used in the high-p_m region. In contrast to previous analyses using a nonrelativistic mean field formalism, we do not find a substantial deviation from the mean field predictions other than that of the spectroscopic factors, which appear to be consistent with both low- and high-p_m data. We find that the difference between results of relativistic and nonrelativistic formalisms is enhanced in the p_m<0 region that will be interesting to explore experimentally.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX+Revtex, included 3 postscript figures. To appear in the Physical Review C (Rapid Communications

Short-range correlations in low-lying nuclear excited states

The electromagnetic transitions to various low-lying excited states of 16O, 48Ca and 208Pb are calculated within a model which considers the short-range correlations. In general the effects of the correlations are small and do not explain the required quenching to describe the data.Comment: 6 pages, 2 postscript figures, 1 tabl

Operation and Utilisation of the High Flux Reactor - Annual Report 2012

The High Flux Reactor (HFR) at Petten is managed by the Institute for Energy and Transport (IET) of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) and operated by the Nuclear Research and consultancy Group (NRG) which is also the licence holder and responsible for its commercial activities. The High Flux Reactor (HFR) operates at 45 MW and is of the tank-in-pool type, light water cooled and moderated. It is one of the most powerful multi-purpose materials testing reactors in the world and one of the world's leaders in target irradiation for the production of medical radioisotopes.JRC.F.4-Nuclear Reactor Integrity Assessment and Knowledge Managemen

Similarities and differences in lipidomics profiles among healthy monozygotic twin pairs.

Differences in genetic background and/or environmental exposure among individuals are expected to give rise to differences in measurable characteristics, or phenotypes. Consequently, genetic resemblance and similarities in environment should manifest as similarities in phenotypes. The metabolome reflects many of the system properties, and is therefore an important part of the phenotype. Nevertheless, it has not yet been examined to what extent individuals sharing part of their genome and/or environment indeed have similar metabolomes. Here we present the results of hierarchical clustering of blood plasma lipid profile data obtained by liquid chromatographymass spectrometry from 23 healthy, 18-year-old twin pairs, of which 21 pairs were monozygotic, and 8 of their siblings. For 13 monozygotic twin pairs, within-pair similarities in relative concentrations of the detected lipids were indeed larger than the similarities with any other study participant. We demonstrate such high coclustering to be unexpected on basis of chance. The similarities between dizygotic twins and between nontwin siblings, as well as between nonfamilial participants, were less pronounced. In a number of twin pairs, within-pair dissimilarity of lipid profiles positively correlated with increased blood plasma concentrations of C-reactive protein in one twin. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that in healthy individuals, the individual genetic background contributes to the blood plasma lipid profile. Furthermore, lipid profiling may prove useful in monitoring health status, for example, in the context of personalized medicine. © 2008 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Chemicals / CAS: C-Reactive Protein, 9007-41-4; Lipid