• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.2339-2358
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• 2022

The review discusses various alternative approaches for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) reprocessing in aqueous carbonate media. The main stages, schemes, and methods of the most well-known and well-described processes for reprocessing SNF and some high-level radioactive waste using carbonate systems developed by research groups in Japan, the United States of America, the Republic of Korea, and the Russian Federation described and compared. The main advantages of such methods are outlined compared to the SNF reprocessing in nitric acid media. The levels of development and proximity of the designed processes to the industrial implementation are shown. The main principle achievements, prospects, and routes for the refinement of such methods for the technology of SNF reprocessing and handling of high-level radioactive waste formulated.

• Clinical Endoscopy
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.534-541
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• 2024

Background/Aims: In March 2022, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) released the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)/AAMI ST91:2021, their latest update on comprehensive, flexible, and semirigid endoscope reprocessing. These updated standards recommend the sterilization of high-risk endoscopes when possible and provide new recommendations for the precleaning, leak testing, manual cleaning, visual inspection, automated reprocessing, drying, storage, and transport of endoscopes. Methods: ANSI/AAMI ST91:2021 was compared with ANSI/AAMI ST91:2015 for major reprocessing differences that result in either time and/or cost increases. Time estimates were captured by explicit recommendation inclusion or taken from the literature. All the costs were estimated using publicly available resources. Results: The updated standards represent a potential 24.3-minute and 52.35 to 67.57 United States dollars increase per procedure in terms of reprocessing time and spending, respectively, not including capital investments. Capital costs per procedure were highly dependent on the procedure volume of the facility. Conclusions: The new AAMI standards recommend several major changes, such as sterilization, for facilities to reprocess and manage endoscopes between uses. As more facilities increase their reprocessing methods to reflect the updated standards, they do so at a cost and introduce several delays. As the reprocessing landscape evolves, facilities should consider their true costs and alternative solutions, such as single-use endoscopes.

• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.229-236
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• 2020

The trend of water vapor contents in atmosphere is one of key elements for studying climate change. The tropospheric products, i.e., ZTD values achieved through GPS data processing can retrieve the amount of water vapor with higher temporal and spatial resolution than any other instruments. In this study, the tropospheric products of KASINET for a time period from 2001 to 2014 are reprocessed using PPP strategy and the products from the CODE's 2nd reprocessing campaign. For consistency with reprocessing activities of other networks like EPN, the VMF1 mapping function and non-tidal loading effect due to atmospheric pressure are applied in the process. The reprocessing results are investigated through comparing with the CODE's 2nd reprocessing products by including some IGS stations in the process and also calculating weekly coordinate repeatability to see the quality of the processing. After removing outliers based on the variation of averaged formal error, all processed stations have similar variations of formal error about 2 mm which is lower than that of the IGS final product. Comparison results with the CODE's 2nd reprocessing products show that the overall mean difference is found to be -0.28±5.54 mm which is similar level of the previous studies. Finally, the ZTD trends of all KASINET stations are calculated and the averaged trend is achieved as 0.19 mm/yr. However, the trend of each month shows different amounts and directions from -1.26 mm/yr in May to 1.18 mm/yr in August. In conclusion, the reprocessed tropospheric product and applied strategy of this study has enough quality as one of reliable solution for a reference product for Korean Peninsula which is needed to use GPSbased tropospheric product for climate change research.

• Journal of KIISE:Databases
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.184-196
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• 2003

Mobile transactions updating spatial objects are long transactions that can update independently local objects of mobile clients during disconnection. Validation based protocols that are well known to be appropriate for mobile transactions are required to abort a conflicted transaction in order to keep data consistent. Since abortion leads to cancel of all of tile updates, it is not desirable to use the abortion for resolving conflicts of mobile transactions. In this paper, we propose a reprocessing transaction model to resolve the update conflicts between mobile transactions without aborting them. We also design a mobile transaction server to support the reprocessing transaction and build a prototype of a mobile field system. The reprocessing transaction is a subtransaction of a newly committed mobile transaction and re-executes only conflicted objects with foreign conflicted objects. We also introduce a progressive reprocessing scheme to expose non-conflicted objects of the mobile transaction to other transactions in order to reduce starvation of reprocessing transactions.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.383-395
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• 2023

Since 1997, the Republic of Korea (ROK) has been developing pyro-processing (Pyro) technology to reduce the disposal burden of high-level radioactive waste by recycling spent nuclear fuel (SNF). Compared to plutonium and uranium extraction process, Korean Pyro technology has relatively excellent proliferation resistance that cannot separate pure plutonium owing to its intrinsic characteristics. Regarding Pyro technology development of ROK, the Bush administration considered that Pyro is not reprocessing under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, whereas the Obama administration considered that Pyro is subject to reprocessing. However, the Bush and Obama administrations did not allow ROK to conduct full Pyro activities using SNF, even though ROK had faithfully complied with international nonproliferation obligations. This is because the US nuclear nonproliferation policy to prevent the spread of sensitive technologies, such as enrichment and reprocessing, has a strong effect on ROK, unlike Japan, on a bilateral level beyond the NPT regime for non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

• Journal of Korean Biological Nursing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.288-295
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• 2016

Background: This study was conducted in order to survey the current state of cleaning, disinfection, rinsing, drying, and storage of gastrointestinal endoscopes. Methods: Eighty hospitals were selected through convenient sampling. Self-reported questionnaire was distributed from September 14 to October 10 in 2015. Results: The response rate was 67.5% (54/80). In 88.9% of the hospitals, reprocessing was performed in a cleaning space separated from the laboratory and 88.9% used an enzymatic cleaner. Disinfectants used were ortho-phthalaldehyde in 63.0%, and paracetic acid in 33.3%. Eighty seven percent of the hospitals used test strips in order to test the effective concentration of disinfectant and in 61.1%, drying was done through passing air and over 70% alcohol. Microbial culture for the quality control of gastrointestinal endoscopes was performed in 77.8%. In the comparison of the adequacy of gastrointestinal endoscope reprocessing, it was observed that gastrointestinal endoscopes were reprocessed more adequately in larger and tertiary care hospitals. Conclusion: Gastrointestinal endoscopes were reprocessed in similar manners, but there were differences in the detailed process. It is still necessary to segment reprocessing into stages, to prepare standardized guidelines, and to monitor compliance with the guidelines.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.7
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• pp.1799-1804
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• 2019

The concept of a new method, the CARBEX (CARBonate EXtraction) process, was proposed for reprocessing of spent uranium oxide fuel. The proposed process is based on use of water solutions of $Na_2CO_3$ or $(NH_4)_2CO_3$ and solvent extraction (SE) by the quaternary ammonium compounds for selective recovery and purification of U from the fission products (FPs). Applying of SE allows to reach high degree of purification of U from FPs. Carrying out the processes in poorly aggressive alkaline carbonate media leads to increasing safety of SNF's reprocessing and better selectivity of separation of lanthanides and actinides. Moreover carbonate reprocessing media allows to carry out a recycling and regeneration of reagents. We have been done laboratory scale experiments on the extraction components of simulated voloxidated spent fuel in the solutions of NaOH or $Na_2CO_3-H_2O_2$ and recovery of U from carbonate solutions by SE method using carbonate of methyltrioctylammonium in toluene. It was shown that the purification factors of U from impurities of simulated FPs reached values $10^3-10^5$. The received results support our opinion that CARBEX after the further development can become more safe, simple and profitable method of spent fuel reprocessing.

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.42-47
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• 2009

Recently, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) was given the status of an approved form of psychotherapy for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. However, its effectiveness in the treatment of other anxiety disorders such as phobia is yet to be determined given that controlled studies have provided mixed results. This report summarizes the case of a child with a specific phobia (i.e. nighttime fear) which was successfully treated with two sessions of EMDR. This result suggests the further and thorough evaluation of this technique for use in childhood phobic disorders.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.55-61
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• 2022

In this work, we report a highly deformable covalent adaptable-liquid crystal elastomer (CA-LCE) comprising dynamic thiourea bonds that enable macromolecular network rearrangement at elevated temperatures. The exchange of chain network is verified through stress-relaxation analyses and follows Arrhenius-type behavior. The unique capability of rearranging the chain network in the CA-LCE provides useful properties, such as welding, melt reprocessing, and shape reprogramming, that cannot be achieved by the conventional LCE comprising permanent crosslinks. Reversible actuation is further demonstrated by reprogramming the polydomain CA-LCE into a monodomain via mechanical stretching at elevated temperatures.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.117-121
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• 2016

Background: Definition and grouping of initiating events (IEs) are important basics for probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). An IE in a spent fuel reprocessing plant (SFRP) is an event that probably leads to the release of dangerous material to jeopardize workers, public and environment. The main difference between SFRPs and nuclear power plants (NPPs) is that hazard materials spread diffusely in a SFRP and radioactive material is just one kind of hazard material. Materials and Methods: Since the research on IEs for NPPs is in-depth around the world, there are several general methods to identify IEs: reference of lists in existence, review of experience feedback, qualitative analysis method, and deductive analysis method. While failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) is an important qualitative analysis method, master logic diagram (MLD) method is the deductive analysis method. IE identification in SFRPs should be consulted with the experience of NPPs, however the differences between SFRPs and NPPs should be considered seriously. Results and Discussion: The plutonium uranium reduction extraction (Purex) process is adopted by the technics in a model reprocessing plant. The first extraction cycle (FEC) is the pivotal process in the Purex process. Whether the FEC can function safely and steadily would directly influence the production process of the whole plant-production quality. Important facilities of the FEC are installed in the equipment cells (ECs). In this work, IEs in the FEC process were identified and categorized by FMEA and MLD two methods, based on the fact that ECs are containments in the plant. Conclusion: The results show that only two ECs in the FEC do not need to be concerned particularly with safety problems, and criticality, fire and red oil explosion are IEs which should be emphatically analyzed. The results are accordant with the references.