• Title/Summary/Keyword: university laboratory safety

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Moderating effect of regulatory focus on public acceptance of nuclear energy

  • He, Yanling;Li, Yazhou;Xia, Dongqin;Zhang, Tingting;Wang, Yongliang;Hu, Li;Gu, Jibao;Wu, Yican
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.51 no.8
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    • pp.2034-2041
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    • 2019
  • Public acceptance has become the most critical question for sustainable development of nuclear energy in recent decades. Many researches concentrated on risk and benefit perception, which were deemed as the most influential factors of Public Acceptance of Nuclear Energy (PANE). But few researches focused on psychological factors including regulatory focus. Therefore, this paper aimed to explore the moderating effect of regulatory focus on PANE based on Regulatory Focus Theory in order to find ways to increase/decrease PANE. An Internet-based survey had been carried out in China nationwide. The results indicated that trust in government was positively related to PANE and this relationship was mediated by risk and benefit perception. In addition, the strength of the associations between risk and benefit perception and PANE were moderated by regulatory focus, consisting of prevention focus and promotion focus. Prevention focus strengthened the negative relationship between risk perception and PANE, while promotion focus weakened. Moreover, promotion focus weakened the positive relationship between benefit perception and PANE, but no significant moderating effect of prevention focus was founded on the relationship between benefit perception and PANE. Some policy implications were also proposed on the basis of above-mentioned findings.

Assessment of Chemical Risks in Moroccan Medical Biology Laboratories in Accordance with the CLP Regulation

  • Mourry, Ghita E.;Alami, Rachid;Elyadini, Adil;Hajjaji, Souad El;kabba, Saad El;Zouhdi, Mimoun
    • Safety and Health at Work
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    • v.11 no.2
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    • pp.193-198
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    • 2020
  • Background: Medical laboratory workers are frequently exposed to a wide range of chemicals. This exposure can have adverse effects on their health. Furthermore, a knowledge lack of the chemical risk increases the likelihood of exposure. The chemical risk assessment reduces the risk of exposure to hazardous chemicals and therefore, guarantees health and safety of the workers. Method: The chemical risk assessment was conducted using a modified INRS method, according to the new CLP Regulation, of 11 unit laboratories in a Moroccan medical laboratory. Observation of each workstation and analysis of safety data sheets are key tools in this study. Results: A total of 144 substances and reagents that could affect the health of the analytical technicians were identified. Among these products, 17% are concerned by the low priority risk score, with 55% concerned by the average priority risk score and 28% concerned by the high priority risk score. This study also enabled to better identify the chemical agents that have restrictive occupational exposure limit value and controls were conducted to this effect. On the basis of the results obtained, several corrective and preventive measures have been proposed and implemented. Conclusion: Risk assessment is essential to ensure the health and safety of workers and to meet regulatory requirements. It enables to identify all the risky manipulations and to adopt appropriate preventive measures. However, it is not a one-time activity but it must be continuous in order to master the changes and thus ensure the best safety of all.

Applications of Capillary Electrophoresis and Microchip Capillary Electrophoresis for Detection of Genetically Modified Organisms

  • Guo, Longhua;Qiu, Bin;Xiao, Xueyang;Chen, Guonan
    • Food Science and Biotechnology
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.823-832
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    • 2009
  • In recent years, special concerns have been raised about the safety assessment of foods and food ingredients derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). A growing number of countries establish regulations and laws for GMOs in order to allow consumers an informed choice. In this case, a lot of methods have been developed for the detection of GMOs. However, the reproducibility among methods and laboratories is still a problem. Consequently, it is still in great demand for more effective methods. In comparison with the gel electrophoresis, the capillary electrophoresis (CE) technology has some unique advantages, such as high resolution efficiency and less time consumption. Therefore, some CE-based methods have been developed for the detection of GMOs in recent years. All kinds of CE detection methods, such as ultraviolet (UV), laser induced fluorescence (LIF), and chemiluminescence (CL) detection, have been used for GMOs detection. Microchip capillary electrophoresis (MCE) methods have also been used for GMOs detection and they have shown some unique advantages.

Dietary corn resistant starch regulates intestinal morphology and barrier functions by activating the Notch signaling pathway of broilers

  • Zhang, Yingying;Liu, Yingsen;Li, Jiaolong;Xing, Tong;Jiang, Yun;Zhang, Lin;Gao, Feng
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.33 no.12
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    • pp.2008-2020
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    • 2020
  • Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary corn resistant starch (RS) on the intestinal morphology and barrier functions of broilers. Methods: A total of 320 one-day-old broilers were randomly allocated to 5 dietary treatments: one normal corn-soybean (NC) diet, one corn-soybean-based diet supplementation with 20% corn starch (CS), and 3 corn-soybean-based diets supplementation with 4%, 8%, and 12% corn resistant starch (RS) (identified as 4% RS, 8% RS, and 12% RS, respectively). Each group had eight replicates with eight broilers per replicate. After 21 days feeding, one bird with a body weight (BW) close to the average BW of their replicate was selected and slaughtered. The samples of duodenum, jejunum, ileum, caecum digesta, and blood were collected. Results: Birds fed 4% RS, 8% RS and 12% RS diets showed lower feed intake, BW gain, jejunal villus height (VH), duodenal crypt depth (CD), jejunal VH/CD ratio, duodenal goblet cell density as well as mucin1 mRNA expressions compared to the NC group, but showed higher concentrations of cecal acetic acid and butyric acid, percentage of jejunal proliferating cell nuclear antigen-positive cells and delta like canonical Notch ligand 4 (Dll4), and hes family bHLH transcription factor 1 mRNA expressions. However, there were no differences on the plasma diamine oxidase activity and D-lactic acid concentration among all groups. Conclusion: These findings suggested that RS could suppress intestinal morphology and barrier functions by activating Notch pathway and inhibiting the development of goblet cells, resulting in decreased mucins and tight junction mRNA expression.

VIBRATION SIGNAL ANALYSIS OF MAIN COOLANT PUMP FLYWHEEL BASED ON HILBERT-HUANG TRANSFORM

  • LIU, MEIRU;XIA, HONG;SUN, LIN;LI, BIN;YANG, YANG
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.47 no.2
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    • pp.219-225
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    • 2015
  • In this paper, a three-dimensional model for the dynamic analysis of a flywheel based on the finite element method is presented. The static structure analysis for the model provides stress and strain distribution cloud charts. The modal analysis provides the basis of dynamic analysis due to its ability to obtain the natural frequencies and the vibration-made vectors of the first 10 orders. The results show the main faults are attrition and cracks, while also indicating the locations and patterns of faults. The harmonic response simulation was performed to gain the vibration response of the flywheel under operation. In this paper, we present a Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) algorithm for flywheel vibration analysis. The simulation indicated that the proposed flywheel vibration signal analysis method performs well, which means that the method can lay the foundation for the detection and diagnosis in a reactor main coolant pump.

Numerical Study on Coolant Flow Distribution at the Core Inlet for an Integral Pressurized Water Reactor

  • Sun, Lin;Peng, Minjun;Xia, Genglei;Lv, Xing;Li, Ren
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.49 no.1
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    • pp.71-81
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    • 2017
  • When an integral pressurized water reactor is operated under low power conditions, once-through steam generator group operation strategy is applied. However, group operation strategy will cause nonuniform coolant flow distribution at the core inlet and lower plenum. To help coolant flow mix more uniformly, a flow mixing chamber (FMC) has been designed. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics methods have been used to investigate the coolant distribution by the effect of FMC. Velocity and temperature characteristics under different low power conditions and optimized FMC configuration have been analyzed. The results illustrate that the FMC can help improve the nonuniform coolant temperature distribution at the core inlet effectively; at the same time, the FMC will induce more resistance in the downcomer and lower plenum.

Analysis of the performances of the CFD schemes used for coupling computation

  • Chen, Guangliang;Jiang, Hongwei;Kang, Huilun;Ma, Rui;Li, Lei;Yu, Yang;Li, Xiaochang
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.53 no.7
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    • pp.2162-2173
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    • 2021
  • In this paper, the coupling of fine-mesh computational fluid dynamics (CFD) thermal-hydraulics (TH) code and neutronics code is achieved using the Ansys Fluent User Defined Function (UDF) for code development, including parallel meshing mapping, data computation, and data transfer. Also, some CFD schemes are designed for mesh mapping and data transfer to guarantee physical conservation in the coupling computation. Because there is no rigorous research that gives robust guidance on the various CFD schemes that must be obtained before the fine-mesh coupling computation, this work presents a quantitative analysis of the CFD meshing and mapping schemes to improve the accuracy of the value and location of key physical prediction. Furthermore, the effect of the sub-pin scale coupling computation is also studied. It is observed that even the pin-resolved coupling computation can also create a large deviation in the maximum value and spatial locations, which also proves the significance of the research on mesh mapping and data transfer for CFD code in a coupling computation.

Scaling analysis of the pressure suppression containment test facility for the small pressurized water reactor

  • Liu, Xinxing;Qi, Xiangjie;Zhang, Nan;Meng, Zhaoming;Sun, Zhongning
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.53 no.3
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    • pp.793-803
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    • 2021
  • The small PWR has been paid more and more attention due to its diversity of application and flexibility in the site selection. However, the large core power density, the small containment space and the rapid accident progress characteristics make it difficult to control the containment pressure like the traditional PWR during the LOCA. The pressure suppression system has been used by the BWR since the early design, which is a suitable technique that can be applied to the small PWR. Since the configuration and operating conditions are different from the BWR, the pressure suppression system should be redesigned for the small PWR. Conducting the experiments on the scale down test facility is a good choice to reproduce the prototypical phenomena in the test facility, which is both economical and reasonable. A systematic scaling method referring to the H2TS method was proposed to determine the geometrical and thermohydraulic parameters of the pressure suppression containment response test facility for the small PWR conceptual design. The containment and the pressure suppression system related thermohydraulic phenomena were analyzed with top-down and bottom-up scaling methods. A set of the scaling criteria were obtained, through which the main parameters of the test facility can be determined.

Model of the onset of liquid entrainment in large branch T-junction with the consideration of surface tension

  • Liu, Ping;Shen, Geyu;Li, Xiaoyu;Gao, Jinchen;Meng, Zhaoming
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.53 no.3
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    • pp.804-811
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    • 2021
  • The T-junction exists widely in industrial engineering, especially in nuclear power plants, which plays an important part in nuclear power reactor thermal-hydraulics. However, the existing prediction models of the liquid entrainment are mainly based on the small branches or small breaks while there are a few researches for large branches (d/D > 0.2). Referring to the classical models about the onset of liquid entrainment of the T-junction, most of previous models regard liquid as ideal working fluid and ignore surface tension. This paper aims to study the effect of surface tension on the liquid entrainment, and develops an improved model based on the reasonable assumption. The establishment of new model employs the methods of force analysis, dimensional analysis. Besides, the dimensionless Weber number is adopted innovatively into the model to show the effect of surface tension. What is more, in order to validate the new model, three kinds of working fluids with different surface tensions are creatively adopted in the experiments: water, silicone oil and ethyl alcohol. The final results show that surface tension has a nonnegligible effect on the onset of liquid entrainment in large branch T-junction. The new model is well matched with the experimental data.