Kolkata institute inks accord with CERN

From Washington Bangalor Radio: Kolkata institute inks accord with CERN

Kolkata, Aug 26 (IBNS): Leading institute for basic research and training in physical and biophysical sciences, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP), signed a collaboration agreement with The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), here on Friday.

The agreement between the two institution would establish an operational framework for collaboration on scientific projects of common interests that will include the ALICE and CMS experiments at the much talked about Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the ISOLDE facility for experiments with radioactive nuclear beams and Grid computing.

Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General, CERN and Milan K. Sanyal, Director, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) signed the 'collaboration agreement' between the two institutes on Friday afternoon.

"The agreement between the two institution will establish an operational framework for collaboration on scientific projects of common interests, including but not limited to the ALICE and CMS experiments at the much talked about Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the ISOLDE facility for experiments with radioactive nuclear beams and Grid computing," Milan K. Sanyal, Director, Saha Institute of Nuclear Science (SINP) said.

"Saha Institute is the only institute from India to participate in so many experiments with CERN and we want to expand it," Sanyal said.

"I am extremely resourced to sign this agreement between Saha Institute and CERN. This will be one of the decisive steps to get India closer to CERN. I hope this will be a big step forward," Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General, CERN, said.

He also mentioned it clearly during his speech that LHC will not cause any harm to the environment.

Speaking on the need of LHC he said: " LHC will tell us where is the new physics and what might be new physics."

"The next step will be the another machine.Depending on the results of LHC it could go to higher energy photon collider or the electron-photon collider," he said.

Iran Sanctions: Built to Fail

From CampaignIran.com: Iran Sanctions: Built to Fail

Editor's note: Dr Yousaf Butt is a physicist in the High-Energy Astrophysics Division at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Previously, he was a fellow in the Committee on International Security and Arms Control at the National Academy of Sciences. He holds a PhD in nuclear physics.

More than 90 US senators recently sent a letter to President Obama urging him to slap further sanctions on Iran – unfortunately, like the many existing sanctions on Iran, the proposed one also has no clear realistic objectives. Congress needs to address what the goals of these sanctions are, if for nothing else than to simply know whether or not they are even working. e.g.: Is the goal to dissuade Iran from pursuing its nuclear enrichment program? Is it to punish the Iranian government or to pressure it into regime change?

Most importantly, what exactly does Iran need to do to have the sanctions lifted? Unfortunately, the answer to these questions are more opaque than the Iranian nuclear program itself.

The web of sanctions on Iran is now so thick and convoluted that Houdini himself couldn’t find a way out of the multiple straitjackets. Not only have UN sanctions been imposed, but the EU and individual countries – e.g. the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and India – have each slapped on additional layers of unilateral sanctions as well.

Conditions for lifting these sanctions go way beyond anything having to do with Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. The West has essentially painted itself into a corner with sanctions that were relatively simple to enact but will prove hard, if not impossible, to lift – no matter what Iran does with its nuclear program. The situation may – intentionally or not – become a prelude to war.

For instance, the US sanctions can only be lifted after the President certifies to Congress "that the government of Iran has: (1) released all political prisoners and detainees; (2) ceased its practices of violence and abuse of Iranian citizens engaging in peaceful political activity; (3) conducted a transparent investigation into the killings and abuse of peaceful political activists in Iran and prosecuted those responsible; and (4) made progress toward establishing an independent judiciary."

And – just in case those conditions were not unrealistically stringent and comprehensive – the President has to further certify that "the government of Iran has ceased supporting acts of international terrorism and no longer satisfies certain requirements for designation as a state sponsor of terrorism; and [that] Iran has ceased the pursuit, acquisition, and development of nuclear, biological, chemical, and ballistic weapons."

Many US allies, such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, could not satisfy all these conditions.

So even if Iran were to stop all uranium enrichment and dump all their centrifuges into the Persian Gulf, shutter their nuclear program entirely, and re-task all their nuclear physicists to work in Chocolate factories, Iran would still be sanctioned by the US Congress.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions are only a little better than the unilateral US ones in that they have only marginally less impossible goals.

While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would be happy to simply get slightly more transparency regarding Iran’s nuclear program, nothing short of stopping all uranium enrichment will satisfy the arbitrary conditions of the UNSC sanctions. The Security Council has "affirmed that it would suspend the sanctions if, and so long as, Iran suspended all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, as verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)…" This is clearly something that will not happen since virtually all the Iranian polity and people support their sovereign right to enrich uranium – just like Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US do.

So while the IAEA initially referred Iran to the UNSC over a lack of transparency, the UNSC took that opportunity to slap on additional ad hoc demands: this is like being stopped for a traffic violation and then having your car confiscated for no good reason, other than that you were speeding and can’t be trusted with cars – forever! While Iran is probably willing and able to satisfy IAEA demands for greater transparency, this concession will not satisfy UNSC sanctions that require Iran to suspend enrichment indefinitely.

This is possibly why Iran feels it has little to gain by cooperating with the IAEA at this stage: even if it makes the IAEA happy, the UNSC – and various unilateral – sanctions still be fully in effect. So these sanctions are, in fact, a disincentive for Iran to cooperate with the IAEA: if they are going to be sanctioned by the Security Council anyway, why should they cooperate with the IAEA?

Iranian uranium enrichment is not illegal, nor can it be equated with a bomb factory. The process is used to generate the fuel for nuclear power plants, and for making radioisotopes for medical and agricultural uses – and, yes, it can be used to make the raw material used in nuclear weapons as well. But six ex-ambassadors of Iran agree that there is nothing illegal about Iran’s nuclear program.

Mohamed El-Baradei, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient who spent more than a decade as the director of the IAEA, recently told investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that he had not "seen a shred of evidence that Iran has been weaponizing, in terms of building nuclear-weapons facilities and using enriched materials … I don’t believe Iran is a clear and present danger. All I see is the hype about the threat posed by Iran."

Far from marching towards making a nuclear bomb, Iran has repeatedly offered to place additional restrictions on its nuclear program well in excess of its legal obligations, including opening the program entirely to joint US participation and limiting the number of centrifuges they operate. More recently, they agreed to a Turkish-Brazilian brokered deal to export their enriched uranium for fabrication into reactor fuel abroad instead of enriching at home. In each case, the West (US and EU countries) torpedoed or ignored these good-faith offers.

The most objective reading of Iran’s intentions is that it may be stockpiling enough low enriched uranium (LEU) to give itself a "break-out" option to weaponize in the future – unfortunately for the US government and its allies, there is nothing illegal about that. (Note that even the 20% enriched uranium is considered LEU by the IAEA). To be clear: the fault lies with NPT that allows such behavior – not with Iran. Either signatory nations follow the NPT – warts and all – or they should meet to hammer out a new treaty.

Further poisoning the waters is the questionable legality of the UNSC sanctions themselves. Such sanctions are applicable under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter – but only after a determination of "the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" is found, something which has never been done in Iran’s case.

But what if Iran does cheat at the last moment, and race to the bomb? The US National Defense University (NDU) looked into this "nightmare scenario" and concluded that they "judge, and nearly all experts consulted agree, that Iran would not, as a matter of state policy, give up its control of such weapons to terrorist organizations and risk direct US or Israeli retribution." And the study stated that the "United States has options short of war that it could employ to deter a nuclear-armed Iran and dissuade further proliferation." It ventured that Iran may have desired nuclear weapons in the past because it feels strategically isolated and that "possession of such weapons would give the regime legitimacy, respectability, and protection." That is, for deterrence, not aggression. Indeed, there is no reason to believe that the Iranian regime is suicidal and would kick off a nuclear war with the US or Israel.

Since the time of the NDU study in 2005, new information has surfaced from the US Intelligence community that Iran wrapped up its fledgling nuclear weapons research in 2003.

In light of these facts, the US, EU, the UN, and other countries should re-evaluate what they hope to accomplish with their increasingly tough sanctions policies. Currently, their sanctions are not directed at Iran’s nuclear program and, in fact, would remain in place even if Iran’s nuclear program disappeared overnight.

As Barbara Slavin reports, the latest proposed US sanctions "would punish ordinary Iranians, something the Obama administration has said it wants to avoid, and could undermine what had been a growing international consensus against the Iranian nuclear program….it could also jack up oil prices."

Until the goals of the various sanctions are made more crisp it will be impossible to say if they are working, or whether they will ever work. But their dysfunctional nature and inherent opacity may be seen as an benefit by some Congressional hawks: as with Iraq a decade ago, by being able to say that sanctions have not "worked" they can justify moving on to the next, and last resort – war.

Profiles of Exceptional Women In Nuclear Energy

From the Energy Collective: Profiles of Exceptional Women In Nuclear Energy

Nuclear energy, like many other highly technical science and engineering fields, was led in the post World War II era by men. In the decades that followed, many women entered the field. An indication of how much that presence has grown is that the Women in Nuclear (WIN) organization now lists 4,500 members, according to a press release from the Nuclear Energy Institute, which is a sponsoring organization for WIN.

The latest crowd sourced blog post here at ANS Nuclear Cafe is a series of profiles of exceptional women in the nuclear energy field. ANS asked for brief profiles for publication and we are very pleased to present them here.

These are first person stories, e.g., “How I become a nuclear professional and the importance of what I have achieved” in terms of career satisfaction, work-life balance, career ladders, technical mastery, or meeting a management challenge.

We published these profiles because we think that they tell interesting stories, and we hope you agree.

________

Susan Hoxie-Key
Nuclear Fuel Services Manager
Southern Nuclear Operating Company

Susan Hoxie-Key

I grew up following the space program and knew by the time that I got to high school that I wanted to study engineering in college. I wanted to be one of the people who knew how complicated things worked and who made complicated things work. The colleges that I was applying to required a choice of major. I literally looked down the list of engineering majors and passed judgment on each option. When I got to “nuclear” on the list, it sounded interesting and hard. I picked nuclear engineering, and have never looked back.

In college, I joined the cooperative education (co-op) program, which meant that I alternated work and school semesters to earn money and gain work experience. Co-op was also a wonderful opportunity to live away from home and school and to test myself in the real world.

In 1989, after 12 years at Savannah River Site, I joined Southern Nuclear as a core designer for the Vogtle 2 nuclear power plant. I worked in core design and fuel-related licensing until 2006, when I moved into nuclear fuel procurement. More recently my responsibilities have expanded to include characterization of burned fuel for dry cask storage, burned fuel inspection activities, and new fuel fabrication oversight—all in addition to fuel procurement.

I love seeing my ideas put into action. I love the idea that I help make electricity, which has such a profoundly positive impact on peoples’ lives.

________

Kate Jackson
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Westinghouse

Kate Jackson

My mother was an English teacher and my father was an engineer. They seldom agreed on politics or religion, but they always agreed on the importance of education and personal values. Growing up, family time was an opportunity to learn and practice open debate, with the most valuable lesson being that I learned to ask really good questions.

I’ve had exceptional opportunities to study and manage large, complex technological and natural systems to understand energy, environmental, and political intersections. These inextricably integrated systems require our continued stewardship and trade-off solutions by our best scientists, engineers, and social scientists.

As a parent, consumer, engineer, and global citizen, it’s important to me that we evaluate all energy options. As science and technology innovations lead us to review new trade-offs, we must continue to question and weigh options. Our social and economic stability depends on a flexible and diverse energy portfolio. Most of my career I’ve advised policy, business, and industry decision makers. And, it’s clear to me that nuclear energy is an essential component of a sustainable, emissions-free energy system.

I’m proud to be part of the Westinghouse tradition of excellence and innovation in science and technology. The AP1000® is the safest and most efficient nuclear reactor ever designed and licensed. In addition, I’m confident that our small modular reactor will offer an equally safe and efficient choice that customers can rely on in an increasingly carbon-regulated world.

I’ve never been one to plot my career path. Instead, I’ve gravitated toward work that makes a lasting contribution to the world that our children will inherit. We’ll never have all the answers, but we have an ethical responsibility to be fearless about asking all the questions.

________

Amanda Maguire
Engineer, LOCA Analysis & Methods
Westinghouse

Amanda Maguire

I arrived at Westinghouse as a new college graduate two years ago. My first days provided an impressive perspective on the level of responsibility available for young engineers in the nuclear industry. With a growing number of engineers approaching retirement age and the rapid changes around new nuclear technology, there are numerous opportunities to learn and advance. My first months at Westinghouse were spent immersing myself in learning about loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) long-term cooling analysis for the entire Westinghouse C-E reactor (Combustion Engineering) fleet of plants. The expectation was that, over time, I would amass enough knowledge to serve as the new subject matter expert.

I was initially overwhelmed by the high expectations of the nuclear industry. Getting up to speed with the volumes of knowledge was no small feat. Most knowledge transfer on older technology occurred in one-on-one information sharing sessions. I spent weeks meeting with previous experts, documenting everything they told me.

Now I feel light-years away from where I started. LOCA long-term cooling analysis is a current Nuclear Regulatory Commission focus. As a result, I’ve faced several difficult questions from the staff. I’ve learned to rely on my peers and other resources because an accurate answer is more important than an immediate answer. The biggest lesson learned, however, is to never try to do everything on your own!

This experience has been highly rewarding. I’ve recently presented in front of the NRC, traveled to several plants, and spoken with customers about my work. Although I’ve only worked in the industry for two years, I can now consider myself a subject matter expert!

________

Kathryn A. McCarthy
Deputy Associate Laboratory Director
for Nuclear Science & Technology
Idaho National Laboratory

Kathryn McCarthy

I was going to major in music. I played clarinet in the Phoenix Youth Symphony and in my high school band. I loved it. But the music programs in high schools were being cut as state budgets were reduced. I’m practical, so I considered other options. I had grown up around engineers and scientists. My father was a chemical engineer and worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for many years. I was good at math and science, and I enjoyed it. So I decided to look into engineering, which was a good combination of math, science, and practicality.

My high school physics teacher would often talk about nuclear energy. It sounded interesting, so I decided to major in nuclear engineering. I received my B.S. in nuclear engineering from the University of Arizona (where I had a wonderful mentor in Norman Hillberry, one of the designers of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile), and my M.S. and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. My area of research was fusion energy. Research in fission was limited then, and fusion energy had lots of interesting research options.

After graduate school, I worked for six months at the Kernforschungszentrum, Karlsruhe, research institution in Germany and then for a year in the Soviet Union, before coming to the Idaho National Laboratory, where I’ve worked for 20 years, first in fusion and then in fission technology.

My husband of 25 years is one of the main reasons that I’m successful. He’s an engineer with a Ph.D., and he has always been supportive of my career. We’ve raised two wonderful boys (my most important job), and I’ve been able to balance work and family most of the time.

My current role at INL is Deputy Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear Science and Technology, where I’m responsible for the execution of about $250 million worth of research and development programs.

I miss playing clarinet, but began taking piano lessons several years ago, so I still have my foot in that door, too.

________

Gail H. Marcus
Former President, American Nuclear Society

Gail Marcus

Whenever I talk to students about careers, I always tell them that careers are like snowflakes—no two are alike. Even if someone goes to the same university or takes the same first job, the landscape changes over time, and a second person can never follow the identical path.

Therefore, I tell them not to put too much emphasis on a career model. Instead, I emphasize the value of broad skills, diverse experiences, flexibility, and networking. And of how volunteering in one’s professional society can help career progression.

When I first joined ANS, I really didn’t have any expectation of getting involved in Society governance. But ANS ticked me off by issuing a pink badge, used for spouses, to my husband (really!), and then one thing led to another.

At some point, I realized that being involved in Society activities was benefiting me in many ways. Early in my career, it gave me opportunities to learn and exercise skills I later applied in my workplace. Throughout my career, it also gave me a chance to get to know many people outside my own field and my own organization.

If this sounds like an ad for ANS, so be it. The opportunities within ANS are numerous and diverse, so there is something for almost every interest. I encourage every member of ANS, but particularly the younger members, to get involved. Volunteering in ANS will not lead everyone to the same path I followed, but it will almost certainly prove a valuable experience.

As for me, I always wonder how my career would have evolved if ANS had not handed my husband a pink badge. In retrospect, I guess I’m grateful they did.

________

Kelle Barfield
Vice President, Advocacy
Entergy Corporation

Kelle Barfield

Kelle Barfield says that she became a nuclear professional through first receiving an undergrad degree in journalism from the University of Texas, a graduate degree in communications management from Syracuse University, and by working in the publishing world in Manhattan and Birmingham, Ala. But all roads led her home, back to her roots in Vicksburg, Miss., where she married an engineer who worked in nuclear at Entergy’s nearby Grand Gulf Nuclear Station.

Beginning her Entergy career 25 years ago as a technical editor at Grand Gulf, Barfield has successfully navigated the organization chart from nuclear to utility positions back to nuclear, giving her a unique breadth and competency in the nuclear sector. Leading national efforts and considered a respected, knowledgeable thought-leader, Barfield’s passion for
the nuclear industry is noteworthy.

When Toni Beck was hired by Entergy as a new corporate communications group vice president at the New Orleans headquarters, she saw the opportunity to weave Entergy’s nuclear advocacy efforts into the broader public awareness that Entergy tries to instill about all aspects of energy policy.

Barfield is now shaping a new position created at Entergy: Vice President for Advocacy Communications. With bold thinking for the corporate giant, Beck is leveraging Barfield’s management and industry expertise, moving her from the
nuclear headquarters in Jackson, Miss., to the New Orleans office overlooking the Louisiana Superdome.

Barfield commented that the shape of the Superdome reminds her of a short, fat cooling tower. “Once a nuke, always a nuke,” she remarked as she packed boxes for her new office. This nuke isn’t going too far, only up.

________

Michaele (Mikey) Brady Raap, Ph.D.
Chief Engineer, Battelle Northwest Division
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
ANS Treasurer and Chairman of the Professional Divisions Committee

Michaele Brady Raap

How does a kid (especially a girl) who attended high school in the same small Texas town that her mother grew up in end up with a PhD in nuclear engineering and an officer of an 11,000 member organization like the American Nuclear Society?

I often wonder myself, how did I get here? Most of my family (still in rural Texas) think I’m stubborn enough to do anything, but they wonder what DO I do?

In high school, I wrote a research paper on nuclear power. It was totally awe inspiring to think of the amount of energy that is released from something you couldn’t even see. After all the work (grades, testing, essay writing, etc.) associated with applying for colleges and scholarships (my only option for college), I decided I should be pursuing something that really excited me…so I checked a box that said “nuclear engineering.” I spent my first four years of college trying to figure out exactly what an engineer was!

By the time I finished my B.S., we were just getting to the good stuff. I stayed for my M.S., which included spending time at the university’s TRIGA reactor, and then for my PhD, which culminated in a three-year graduate research opportunity at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Wow, was I a long way from home!

I found a lot of support in my early involvement in ANS—both as a student and as a professional. That experience gave me confidence and provided opportunities for me to grow as a professional. ANS was also where I learned that nuclear is so much more than an academic study, a lab experiment, or electricity generation. It’s a powerful science with applications in medicine, space exploration, agriculture, food processing, etc. There are endless opportunities to support and improve current applications and to identify new uses of nuclear science and technology. For many developing countries, nuclear is the option that most effectively enables them to increase the standard of living for the masses.

After more than 25 years, I’m still jazzed by the potential of nuclear and thankful that I have the opportunity everyday to learn something new.

U.S. Reactors Ride Out The Storm

From the Energy Collective: U.S. Reactors Ride Out The Storm

The nuclear reactors in eleven eastern states were mostly unaffected by the passage of Hurricane Irene over the weekend of August 26-28, 2011. Two reactors shut down safely and several others reduced power.

At Constellation’s Calvert Cliffs site in Maryland one reactor was taken off line when a piece of aluminum siding was ripped off a building by 90 mph gusts hitting a transformer in the switchyard. The transformer shut down tripping the turbine which caused the reactor to go offline. The other reactor remained online at 100% power throughout the storm.

In New Jersey Exelon’s Oyster Creek plant took preventative action shutting down at 5 PM Saturday August 27th. Plant staff walking down the plant on Sunday August 28th found no damage to the facility.

In North Carolina Progress reduced power at its Brunswick site, but kept the reactors running. In a similar move, Dominion reduced power at its Millstone site on the shore of Long Island Sound in Connecticut. There was no reported damage at either plant.

Entergy reported that there was no disruption of any of its reactors in four states. Indian Point in NY, Vermont Yankee in VT, Pilgrim in Massachusetts, and Seabrook in NH all operated at 100% power through the storm.

Similarly, PSEG’s Hope Creek and Salem reactors in southwestern New Jersey operated at 100% despite having the storm pass over them.

The NRC reported that none of the plants in areas hit by the storm on Saturday lost offsite power from the grid. However, several plants reported some of their emergency sirens were knocked offline by power outages. All plants have back-up options for such a situation.

How did they do it?

Nuclear energy facilities are prepared to safely withstand high winds and heavy rain as the eastern United States braces for Hurricane Irene to make landfall this weekend.

When hurricanes occur, electric utilities operating nuclear energy facilities take specific actions mandated by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission guidelines and the plants’ emergency preparedness plan. These include:

* Plant personnel monitor storm conditions, paying close attention to the path of a storm and wind speeds at the site.
* Personnel inspect the entire facility and secure or move any equipment that could possibly become airborne due to high winds.
* Each plant site has numerous emergency backup diesel generators that are tested and ready to provide electricity for critical operations in the event of a loss of off-site electricity supply.
* Diesel fuel tanks are checked and topped off to ensure there is a minimum of seven days of fuel to power backup generators.
* As a precaution, a reactor will be shut down at least two hours before the onset of hurricane-force winds at the site, typically between 70 and 75 miles per hour.
* Twelve hours before Hurricane Irene approaches nuclear energy facilities on the East Coast, plant operates at each site will provide status updates to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

If there is a loss of off-site power, reactors automatically shut down as a precaution and the emergency backup diesel generators begin operating to provide electrical power to plant safety systems. Plant operators also may manually shut down the reactor as a precaution even if off-site power is still available.

Nuclear power plants are the most robust facilities in the U.S. infrastructure, with reactor containment structures composed of steel-reinforced concrete that have proven their ability to withstand extreme natural events.

In addition, nuclear plant operators are trained and tested one out of every six weeks to safely manage extreme events such as hurricanes. Plant operators also have multi-day staffing plans, and resources, to ensure that personnel are on-site and prepared to respond to situations that may arise as a result of the storm.

The transmission and distribution infrastructure of the region didn’t fare so well under the impact of 90 mph winds. Up and down the east coast nearly three million people are without power and more outages are expected as the hurricane heads late Sunday north northeast at 25 mph into New England states. Late Sunday most of the east coast began a soggy process of cleaning up after the storm.

PR: New memoir traces path from small-town Southern boyhood into world of applied nuclear physics research

From Newswire.com (PR): New memoir traces path from small-town Southern boyhood into world of applied nuclear physics research
"From Midway Church to Nuclear Fusion" by Weston M. Stacey chronicles family history from early settlement of Georgia to international acclaim in nuclear research

ATLANTA (MMD Newswire) August 29, 2011 - - "From Midway Church to Nuclear Fusion" (ISBN 1463526210), a historical chronicle and scientific memoir by Weston M. Stacey, tells of the history of the Stacy family in America, the author's idyllic boyhood in the cultural backwater of small Southern towns and his serendipitous rise to prominence as an acclaimed researcher and professor in applied nuclear physics.

Beginning with an account of the Stacy family's early days as American settlers in the 17th century, this chronicle blends genealogical research, personal narrative, the history of physics and an insider's view of applied nuclear physics research laboratories as well as a major research university. The book traces the author's somewhat improbable journey from a boyhood spent fishing and bird hunting, through a stint in the Marine Corps and education at Georgia Tech and MIT, to the forefront of the fields of nuclear reactor and nuclear fusion research.

"My story provides insights into two worlds that most people will never experience," says Stacey. "It also demonstrates that the American system works for those who work at it."

A uniquely expansive memoir, "From Midway Church to Nuclear Fusion" also includes insight into the world of university researchers and a section on books, fiction and otherwise, that have been influential in Stacey's development. As the account of a well-read man of broad experience, the book is intended for anyone interested in Southern history, the history of physics, how applied nuclear physics research is done or just the story of an unusual life.

"From Midway Church to Nuclear Fusion" is available for sale online at Amazon.com and other channels.

About the Author
Weston M. Stacey earned his bachelor's degree in physics and master's degree in nuclear science from Georgia Tech, and his doctorate in nuclear engineering from MIT. He has worked as a researcher and teacher in nuclear reactor physics, fusion plasma physics and fusion reactor conceptual design for almost five decades. Stacey received the U.S. Department of Energy's Distinguished Associate Award for his leadership of the International Atomic Energy Agency INTOR Workshop (1979-88) that led to the ITER project to build and operate internationally the first experimental fusion power reactor. He is a fellow of both the American Nuclear Society and the American Physical Society and has received many prestigious awards, including the American Nuclear Society Seaborg Medal for Nuclear Research, the Wigner Reactor Physicist and Outstanding Achievement in Fusion Awards, the Georgia Tech Outstanding Faculty Research Author Award, the Sigma Xi Sustained Research Award and the Fusion Power Associates Distinguished Career Award. Stacey is the Callaway Regents' Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Georgia Tech.

Nuclear power plant sends seismic data for analysis

I can remember, way back when the Japanese earthquake hit and the nuclear powerplant went into full emergency mode, that this couldn't happen in the US because every US nuke plant was built to withstand the worst earthquake that could ever happen.

I didn't do any research before making that claim, I had just stated what to me seemed like common sense. If you're on an earthquake fault line that generates a 6.0 earthquake, you build any nuclear power plant to withstand a 9.0 earthquake! That's only common sense!

But it's been made clear to me over the last few months that I was wrong. Power plan designers/builders seem to have built these plants only to meet the bare minimum - so a plant built in a 6.0 area is only built to withstand a 6.5 earthquake. Extremely short-sighted and stupid...

From Mother Nature Network: Nuclear power plant sends seismic data for analysis

Workers are looking for possible damage and determining if the earthquake was stronger than the plant is built to withstand.

HOUSTON - Dominion Resources workers were inspecting the North Anna nuclear power plant in Mineral, Va., on Wednesday, a day after the largest earthquake to hit the U.S. East Coast in six decades knocked both reactors offline, the company said.

A series of plates that recorded Tuesday's 5.8-magnitude quake were sent to an outside company for analysis, a Dominion spokesman said.

"This is the first time a seismic event has shut down one of our power stations," said Dominion spokesman Jim Norvelle. "We are seeking a quick turnaround."

Dominion reported no "major" damage to the North Anna station which automatically shut when the earthquake disrupted the flow of outside power needed to operate the plant's many safety systems.

Diesel generators started up, as designed, to keep the reactors' radioactive cores cool until off-site power was restored about seven hours after the 2 p.m. EDT earthquake.

In addition to looking for possible quake damage at North Anna, federal nuclear regulators want to see seismic data from the site to determine if the quake was stronger than the plant was designed to withstand.

That will be critical in determining how long the 1,806-megawatt station will remain shut, officials said.

"In light of the quake's strength and proximity to the plant, the NRC will soon decide whether to conduct a follow-up inspection, aimed at determining how the quake compares to what the plant was designed to withstand," the NRC said in a statement.

The agency has not decided whether to send a special team of inspectors to the plant as it often does after emergencies or equipment failure, according to a release.

Norvelle said the North Anna reactors, which entered service in 1978 and 1980, were designed to withstand an earthquake of up to 6.2 in magnitude.

In the meantime, the NRC's resident inspectors are working with Dominion officials to inspect the station.

"There will be an extensive walk-down, including inside the containment (vessel) once both units are in cold-shutdown," said Joey Ledford, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's regional office in Atlanta.

"They will go over this with a fine-tooth comb, with our resident inspectors beside them, to make sure there is no damage of any kind," Ledford said.

The company said several aftershocks were felt but had no impact on the plant, 80 miles southwest of Washington. North Anna canceled its emergency alert on Wednesday afternoon.

North Anna is unlikely to be affected by the approach of Hurricane Irene as it moves up the East Coast, NRC officials said.

Other nuclear stations, however, including Dominion's Surry plant in Virginia and Progress Energy's Brunswick Station on the North Carolina coast, are preparing for the storm, NRC officials said.

Owners of 12 other nuclear power plants that also felt Tuesday's quake, including Exelon Corp, Public Service Enterprise Group, American Electric Power Co,

Constellation Energy, PPL Corp; Entergy Corp and Progress Energy have canceled emergency event warnings after inspections for quake-related damage.

These plants were: Peach Bottom, Three Mile Island, Susquehanna and Limerick in Pennsylvania; Salem, Hope Creek and Oyster Creek in New Jersey, Calvert Cliffs in Maryland, Surry in Virginia, Shearon Harris in North Carolina and D.C. Cook and Palisades in Michigan.

Studies in Medical Physics at home

This article is from a couple of weeks ago, but very interesting.
From the Daily Star: Studies in Medical Physics at home

Dr. Hasin Anupama AzhariIn the years between 1996 and 2000, the task group “Medical physics in developing countries” of the German Society for Medical Physics (DGMP) arranged five seminars/workshop in Dhaka on medical physics with the physics department of BUET. The seminars were largely attended by physicists working in nuclear physics, solid state physics, radiation protection, nuclear medicine and by physicians from radio-oncology and nuclear medicine. The first impetus to start a Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering in Bangladesh came from that time.

Dr. Golam Abu Zakaria, Professor of Medical Physics, University of Cologne, Germany and the initiator of the seminars, was trying to open a department in public a university like BUET. But at that time this subject was new in Bangladesh, it could not be possible to open such a department in a public university for different reasons. In 2000, a private University, Gono Bishwabidyalay (University) came forward to accept his proposal of starting a master program (4 semesters) both in medical physics and in biomedical engineering (MPBME). In 2005 our department has also opened BSc (8 semesters) in MPBME. Still now this is the one and only department in Bangladesh offering B.Sc and M.Sc course in MPBME. The University Grant Commission of Bangladesh officially recognizes these courses.

The syllabuses of these courses are based on DGMP, AAPM and IAEA documents, adapted to the need of Bangladesh. The course structure is designed to able the students to work in hospitals, health institutes and research in MPBME. The basic prerequisite for admission to the master course is a graduation degree in one of the following subjects: MPBME, physics, related field in physical science or in bioscience, medicine or engineering disciplines with minimum second class. For admission in B.Sc course the students should have S.S.C and H.S.C (science) with math and physics or Diploma in electrical/ electronics/ mechanical/ electromedical from a Polytechnic Institute with minimum 2nd class or equivalent..

In 2003, a collaboration program was installed between Heidelberg University, Germany and Gono University, Bangladesh. Under this collaboration teachers and students have been exchanged between these two universities with the financial support of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The department has also received equipment, educational materials, journals and research material under this project. Some students and teachers do their Ph.D thesis in medical physics where the practical parts are also held in foreign universities.

In 2009 a new organisation “Bangladesh Medical Physics Society (BMPS)” is formed. BMPS is engaged in professional, educational and research activities throughout Bangladesh in the field of medical physics including biomedical engineering, especially the application of physics in medical sciences. It represents the interests of Medical Physicists outward and creates education and training possibilities for the scientific rising generation.

Up to 2010, after the establishment of the MPBME department, a good number of students were awarded a M.Sc degree and eight students a B.Sc. degree in MPBME. At present these students are working in the radiotherapy departments of the National Institute of Cancer and Research Hospital (NICRH), of Dhaka Medical College, of different private hospitals (the United Hospital, Square Hospital, Khwaja Yunus Ali Medical College and Hospital) or are teaching Medical Physics in Gono University

The establishment of Medical Physics und Biomedical Engineering Education in Gono Bishwabidyalay (University) is a success story for Bangladesh. We would like to continuously develop strong and advanced Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering Programs for education and research by incorporating the latest developments of Imaging and Radiotherapy. For the future we would like to establish a further close collaboration with other foreign universities and research institutes. We would be glad to participate in international scientific conferences in order to enhance our potential for a nbetter treatment of the cancer patients in our country.

EMCOR Group, Inc. Subsidiary Awarded Contract for Installation of All Mechanical and Fire Protection Systems at University of Pittsburgh Project

From Market Watch: EMCOR Group, Inc. Subsidiary Awarded Contract for Installation of All Mechanical and Fire Protection Systems at University of Pittsburgh Project
NORWALK, Conn., Aug 25, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- EMCOR Group, Inc. /quotes/zigman/146153/quotes/nls/eme EME -0.38% , a Fortune 500(R) leader in mechanical and electrical construction, energy infrastructure and facilities services for a diverse range of businesses announced that its subsidiary EMCOR Services Scalise Industries has been awarded a contract for the installation of all mechanical and fire protection systems in the Nuclear Physics Laboratory Building at the University of Pittsburgh, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

EMCOR Services Scalise will be responsible for installing all the mechanical and fire protection systems within the 22,260 square foot Nuclear Physics Laboratory Building located within the "Mid Campus District Early Renovations" section of the University. Encompassing 3 levels and a Penthouse, which includes 13 new leading-edge physics laboratories for the department of Physics and Astronomy, scope of work will include demolition of existing lab space, and construction and installation of a number of different sophisticated systems. These systems range from high efficiency particulate air filters, unique humidity controls, special exhaust systems, and special lab gas piping, to all fire protection systems, including pre-action systems, and all connections necessary for a complete and functioning fire protection system. Scope of work will also include the installation of all heating and cooling, plumbing, specialty gases, chilled and heating water systems, and indoor air-handling units.

The project will be constructed with the goal of achieving LEED Certification through sustainable construction approaches recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council. The building design has addressed energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emission reduction, and improved indoor air quality, all which will be executed in full or in part by EMCOR Services Scalise.

The project is being funded both by the University of Pittsburgh and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Across the HVAC, plumbing, and fire protection work being performed, it is estimated that approximately 54 specialty trade workers will be employed over a period of one year as a result of this project.

"We are pleased to again be working with the University of Pittsburgh and are thrilled to have been selected to perform the mechanical work for this important project within its 'Mid Campus District Early Renovations' section," stated Mark Scalise, President and CEO of EMCOR Services Scalise. "The scope of this work requires a breadth and depth of expertise that optimally leverages our extensive skills and experience."

'Nuclear power is hazardous'

From Hindustan News.com: 'Nuclear power is hazardous'
Terming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement that India has to depend on nuclear power for national development as "misleading", Director of Center for Environemntal Studies, GITAM University said that nuclear power is not only hazardous but expensive for India. At the conclusion of the diamond jubilee celebrations of Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics at Kolkata on Sunday, Manmohan Singh had expressed his views on nuclear power.

Expressing a contrary view, Prof T Shivaji Rao said, "Nuclear power, which was considered a safe source of energy during the previous decades by several technologically advanced countries, has been recently proved to be a more uneconomical and hazardous option. Hence, countries like Japan and Germany recently decided to close down the existing nuclear power plants in their countries."

"Since Nuclear Power is inherently unsafe in both conventional and advanced passive safety reactors, the Indian Prime Minister must learn from the lessons of Chernobyl and Fukushima Nuclear plant accidents and gradually close down the existing plants in India," he said.

"The Environmental Impact Assessment and the risk analysis due to nuclear accident scenarios clearly show that the nuclear option is not only disastrous but also highly expensive under Indian conditions," he added.

Trial Of Suspect In Iranian Scientist's Murder Opens In Tehran

If I were Mossad, would I have let this guy live to testify that Mossad was responsible? I think not...so I'm wondering if Mossad were being framed?

Trial Of Suspect In Iranian Scientist's Murder Opens In Tehran
The trial of an Iranian man accused of killing an Iranian nuclear scientist last year in a bomb attack and having links to Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has opened in Tehran, Iranian media reported Tuesday.

According to media reports, Ali Jamali Fashi has already confessed to the killing of Masoud Mohammadi, a professor of nuclear physics at Tehran University, and admitted to receiving orders from Mossad to carry out the killing along with five others, which he did not carry out.

Fashi is accused of having received training and money from Mossad for killing the nuclear scientist. He has been charged with moharebeh, which means 'enmity against God' and faces death penalty if convicted.

"I (repeatedly) met with Mossad's agents at the Zionist regime's consulate in Istanbul, Turkey," Fashi was quoted as saying during Tuesday's hearing. He also said that he received up to $10,000 each time he met Israeli agents and admitted to providing Mossad with information either directly in Turkey or indirectly from Tehran.

Masoud Mohammadi was killed in a bomb explosion near his home in Teheran's Qeytariyeh district on 12 January 2010. He was killed by a remote-controlled bomb hidden in a motorcycle parked near his home.

Iran's foreign ministry had then said that "in the initial investigation, signs of the triangle of wickedness by the Zionist regime, America and their hired agents, are visible in the terrorist act." But the United States dismissed the allegation and the State Department in a statement described the Iranian claim as "absurd."

However, Iran announced in 2011 January that it had dismantled a network "comprising of Israeli spies and terrorists" and arrested "the main agents" responsible for the nuclear scientist's killing. It is not clear what happened to the other two suspects.

Iranian authorities claimed that the busting of the alleged spy-ring had inflicted "heavy damage on Israel's information and security structures," adding that the successful operation was carried out after "months of complicated measures and access to sources of the Israeli regime."

In addition to Mohammadi, several other Iranian scientists have been killed or injured in attacks in recent months. The latest among them was Daryoush Rezaei, a physicist at a Tehran University who was shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside his home in Tehran in July.

Prior to that incident, one Iranian nuclear scientist was killed and another injured in two separate but identical bomb attacks in Tehran in November 2010. The scientist killed in one of those attacks was Majid Shahriari, a member of the nuclear engineering department of the Shahid Beheshti University.

The scientist injured in the second attack on the same day was identified as Fereydoon Abbasi, a nuclear physicist who did research at the Defense Ministry. Soon after those attacks, Iran blamed Israeli and other foreign intelligence agents for the incidents, alleging that the attacks were part of efforts by the West to undermine the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program.

Though Iran insists that its controversial uranium enrichment is aimed at producing fuel for a medical reactor in Tehran, the West suspects such claims to be a cover-up for producing weapon-grade uranium.

Iran had already survived four sets of sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council following its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. The last one was imposed in June 2010 over Teheran's refusal to accept a UN-proposed deal to ease international concerns over its disputed nuclear program.

What was "Atoms For Peace"?

The Atoms for Peace symbol mounted over the door to the American swimming pool reactor building during the 1955 International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, often called the Atoms for Peace conference.
From Wikipedia:
"Atoms for Peace" was the title of a speech delivered by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the UN General Assembly in New York City on December 8, 1953.

I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new – one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use.

That new language is the language of atomic warfare.

The United States then launched an "Atoms for Peace" program that supplied equipment and information to schools, hospitals, and research institutions within the U.S. and throughout the world. The first nuclear reactors in Iran and Pakistan were built under the program by American Machine and Foundry.

Philosophy of Atoms for Peace
The speech was possibly a tipping point for international focus on peaceful uses of atomic energy, even during the early stages of the Cold War. It could be argued that Eisenhower, with some influence from Albert Einstein, was attempting to convey a spirit of comfort to a terrified world that the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not be experienced again.

It presents an ostensible antithesis to brinkmanship, the international intrigue that subsequently kept the world at the edge of war.

However recent historians have tended to see the speech as a cold war maneuver directed primarily at U.S. allies in Europe. Eisenhower wanted to make sure that the European allies would go along with the shift in NATO strategy from an emphasis on conventional weapons to the cheaper nuclear weapons. Western Europeans wanted reassurance that the U.S. did not intend to provoke a nuclear war in Europe, and the speech was designed primarily to create that sense of reassurance. Eisenhower later said that he knew the Soviets would reject the specific proposal he offered in the speech.

Eisenhower's invoking of "...those same great concepts of universal peace and human dignity which are so clearly etched in..." the UN Charter, placed new emphasis upon the US's grave responsibility for its nuclear actions— past, present and future. In a large way, this address laid down the rules of engagement for the new kind of warfare, the cold war.

Two quotations from the speech follow:

"It is with the book of history, and not with isolated pages, that the United States will ever wish to be identified. My country wants to be constructive, not destructive. It wants agreement, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom, and in the confidence that the people of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life."

"To the making of these fateful decisions, the United States pledges before you--and therefore before the world--its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma--to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life."

Queen Frederica of Greece

This biography from Wikipedia does not mention anything about her interest in nuclear power, but its interesting nevertheless.

Greece was building its first nuclear plant in 1958. Nine years later came a military coup and the "regime of the Colonels."

Today, Greece is famous for being bankrupt, and riots from the "entitlement class" who don't think they should have to do without their luxuries despite the fact that they are not gainfully employed.

Frederica of Hanover (Frederica Louise Thyra Victoria Margaret Sophie Olga Cecily Isabelle Christina; (18 April 1917 – 6 February 1981, age 64) was Queen consort of the Hellenes as the wife of King Paul of Greece.

Early life
Frederica was born on 18 April 1917 in Blankenburg am Harz, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire. She was the daughter of Ernest Augustus III, Duke of Brunswick and Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, the only daughter of German Emperor William II and Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein. As daughter of a Hanoverian Prince, she was Princess Frederica of Hanover, Great Britain and Ireland, and also Duchess Frederica of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

Through her maternal grandfather, Frederica was a great-granddaughter of German Emperor Frederick III and Victoria, Princess Royal, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Through this relationship, Frederica was a distant cousin of the United Kingdom's Elizabeth II and also of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. As a descendant of George III of the United Kingdom, she was, at birth, 34th in the line of succession to the British throne, although she had no British rank or title.

Marriage
In 1936 Prince Paul, Crown Prince of Greece, proposed to her in Berlin when he was there to see the 1936 Summer Olympics. Their engagement was announced officially on 28 September 1937. On 9 January 1938 they married in Athens. Prince Paul was the son of King Constantine I of Greece and Sophie of Prussia, sister of German Emperor William II (therefore he was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria and a first cousin once removed to Frederica).

In addition to her standard style, Princess Frederica, she used the style of Hereditary Princess as her husband was heir presumptive to his childless elder brother, King George II.

During the early part of their marriage they resided at Villa Psychiko in the suburbs of Athens. Ten months after their marriage their first child was born on 2 November 1938: Princess Sophia, the future Queen Sofia of Spain. On 2 June 1940 their son and heir, Crown Prince Constantine, future King Constantine was born.

War and exile
At the peak of World War II, in April, 1941 the Greek Royal Family evacuated to Crete in a Sunderland flying boat. In exile, King George II and the rest of the Greek Royal Family settled in South Africa. Here Frederica's last child, Princess Irene, was born on 11 May 1942. The South African leader, General Jan Smuts, served as her godfather.

Shortly afterwards the German forces attacked Crete. Frederica and her family were evacuated again, setting up a government-in-exile office in London. The family eventually settled in Egypt in February 1944.

On 1 September 1946 the Greek people decided by referendum to restore King George to the throne. The Hereditary Prince and Hereditary Princess returned to their villa in Psychiko.

Queen
On 1 April 1947 George II died and Frederica's husband ascended the throne as Paul I, which made Frederica queen consort. Communist political instability in Northern Greece led to the Greek Civil War. The King and Queen toured Northern Greece under severe security to try to appeal for loyalty in the summer of 1947.

During the civil war Queen Frederica set up the Queen's Camps or Child-cities, a network of 53 Camps around Greece where she would gather mostly orphans and children of poor families. These camps provided much needed shelter, food, and education to these children who were aged 3 years to adolescence.

The role of these Queen's Camps is disputed as a means of propaganda by the monarchy through the educational program. The Queen's Camps were a way to fend for the children - victims of the civil war. There were allegations, generally by opposition or communist sources, which held that children were illegally adopted by American families while they were in the Paidopoleis.

The Greek Civil War ended in August, 1949. The Sovereigns took this opportunity to strengthen the monarchy, they paid official visits to Marshal Josip Broz Tito in Belgrade, the Presidents Luigi Einaudi of Italy in Rome, Theodor Heuss of West Germany, Bechara El Khoury of Lebanon, Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari of India, King George VI of the United Kingdom, and the United States as guest of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

However, at home in Greece and abroad in the United Kingdom, Queen Frederica was targeted by the opposition, because as a girl she had belonged to the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls), a branch of the Hitler Youth group for young women; her supporters argued that evading membership in the group would be difficult under the existing political climate in Nazi Germany at the time.

Her 16 November 1953 appearance in Life as America's guest was taken on one of the many state visits she paid around the world. Also that year she appeared on the cover of Time. On 14 May 1962 her eldest daughter Sofia married Prince Juan Carlos of Spain, (later King Juan Carlos I of Spain) in Athens.

Frederika has been described as "inherently undemocratic". She was notorious for her numerous arbitrary and unconstitutional interventions in Greek politics and clashes with democratically elected governments. She actively politicked against the election of Alexander Papagos. Her interference in politics was harshly criticized and possibly the most significant factor in the strengthening of republican sentiments.

Queen Dowager
On 6 March 1964 King Paul died of cancer, and her son ascended the throne as Constantine II. Frederica assumed the title of queen dowager but continued to serve in the role of Queen. When her son Constantine II married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark later that year on 18 September, Queen Frederica stepped back from the majority of her public Royal duties in favor of the new Queen. She remained a figure of controversy and was accused in the press of being the eminence grise behind the throne. In response she renounced her apanage and retired to the countryside where she lived an almost reclusive life. However, she continued to attend Royal events which were family-oriented, such as the baptisms of her grandchildren in both Spain and Greece.

Exile
King Constantine's clashes with the democratically elected Prime Minister George Papandreou Sr. were blamed by critics for causing the destabilisation that led to a military coup on 21 April 1967 and the rise of the regime of the colonels. Faced with a difficult situation, King Constantine initially collaborated with the military dictatorship, swearing in their government under a royalist prime minister. Later that year he attempted a counter-coup in an attempt to restore democracy, whose failure forced him into exile. Following this, the junta appointed a Regent to carry out the tasks of the exiled Monarch.

On 1 June 1973 the junta abolished the Greek Monarchy without the consent of the Greek people and then attempted to legitimize its actions through a 1973 plebiscite that was widely suspected of being rigged. The new head-of-state became President of Greece George Papadopoulos.

The dictatorship ended on 24 July 1974 but the pre-junta constitutional monarchy was never restored. A plebiscite was held in which King Constantine (who was able to campaign only from outside the country) freely admitted his past errors, promised to support democracy, and in particular, promised to keep his mother Queen Frederica away from Greece and out of Greek politics. 70% of Greeks voted to make Greece a democratic republic.

Death
Queen Frederica died on 6 February 1981 in exile in Madrid during ophthalmic surgery. In its obituary of the Queen, The New York Times reported that she died during "eyelid surgery," which led to frequent but unsubstantiated rumors that she died while undergoing cosmetic surgery. Other sources state that her cause of death was a heart attack while undergoing the removal of cataracts.

She was interred at Tatoi (the Royal family's palace and burial ground in Greece). Her son and his family were allowed to attend the service but had to leave immediately afterwards.

Greece from 2009 onwardBy the end of 2009, as a result of a combination of international and local factors (respectively, the world financial crisis and uncontrolled government spending), the Greek economy faced its most-severe crisis since the restoration of democracy in 1974 as the Greek government revised its deficit from an estimated 6% to 12.7% of gross domestic product (GDP).

In early 2010, it was revealed that successive Greek governments had been found to have consistently and deliberately misreported the country's official economic statistics to keep within the monetary union guidelines.

This had enabled Greek governments to spend beyond their means, while hiding the actual deficit from the EU overseers. In May 2010, the Greek government deficit was again revised and estimated to be 13.6% which was one of the highest in the world relative to GDP and public debt was forecast, according to some estimates, to hit 120% of GDP during 2010, one of the highest rates in the world.

As a consequence, there was a crisis in international confidence in Greece's ability to repay its sovereign debt. In order to avert such a default, in May 2010 the other Eurozone countries, and the IMF agreed to a rescue package which involved giving Greece an immediate €45 billion in bail-out loans, with more funds to follow, totaling €110 billion.

In order to secure the funding, Greece was required to adopt harsh austerity measures to bring its deficit under control. Their implementation will be monitored and evaluated by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF.

On 15 November 2010, the EU's statistics body Eurostat revised the public finance and debt figure for Greece following an excessive deficit procedure methodological mission in Athens and put Greece's 2009 government deficit at 15.4% of GDP and public debt at 126.8% of GDP making it the biggest deficit (as a percentage of GDP) amongst the EU member nations (although some have speculated that Ireland's in 2010 may prove to be worse).

The financial crisis—particularly the austerity package put forth by the EU and the IMF—has been met with anger by the Greek public, leading to riots and social unrest, while peaceful demonstrations have been taking place every evening in front of the Greek parliament since 25 May 2011. On 27 June 2011, trade union organizations commenced a forty-eight hour labor strike in advance of a parliamentary vote on the austerity package, the first such strike since 1974. Massive demonstrations were organized throughout Greece, intended to pressure parliament members into voting against the package. In Athens alone, 38 arrests were made in addition to 75 people being detained, while 46 civilians and 38 policemen were injured.

The second set of austerity measures was approved on 29 June 2011, with 155 out of 300 members of parliament voting in favor. The vote had been seen as crucial for the country's future, as the EU and IMF had made future funding conditional on a positive outcome.

Retro News: Nuclear Physics Bothers "Pretty Head" of Queen

From the Herald-Journal on October 27, 1958: Nuclear Physics Bothers "Pretty Head" of Queen

WASHINGTON (AP) - Queen Frederika of Greece is bothering her pretty head about nuclear physics.

Before leaving for New York she amzed officials here with her knowledge of a tough subject.

The Queen advises men and women the world over to start learning about nuclear physics because "our future lives depend on atomic energy."

The idea of a queen getting interested in such a difficult subject piqued interest when Frederika arrived in the United States this month bent on visiting our atomic energy installations.

Greece is about to build its first atomic reactor with the aid of $350,000 from President Eisenhower's Atoms-for-Peace program.

The winsome, brown-haired, blue-eyed Queen, 41, has shown clearly that her interest was not politically or publicity-inspired.

Frederika, a monarch with a social conscience, had not been here long before she proved not only sincere but informed. She got a grade "A" report card from scientists who expressed amazement at her understanding of nuclear physics.

Among them was an Atomic Energy Commissioner, Dr. William F. Libby, former professor of chemistry at the Institute of Nuclear Studies of the University of Chicago.

The Queen, he said, after a luncheon talk about aspects of atomic structure, "is very knowledgeable about the latest aspects of nuclear physics."

AEC Commissioner John Floberg said Frederika had displayed a "vibrant interst" in atomic energy.

What's CERN's Large Hadron Collider?

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature.

The LHC lies in a tunnel 27 kilometres (17 mi) in circumference, as deep as 175 metres (574 ft) beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. This synchrotron is designed to collide opposing particle beams of either protons at an energy of 7 teraelectronvolts (7 TeV or 1.12 microjoules) per particle, or lead nuclei at an energy of 574 TeV (92.0 µJ) per nucleus. The term hadron refers to particles composed of quarks.

The Large Hadron Collider was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) with the intention of testing various predictions of high-energy physics, including testing for the existence of the hypothesized Higgs boson and of the large family of new particles predicted by supersymmetry. It was built in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries, as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.

On 10 September 2008, the proton beams were successfully circulated in the main ring of the LHC for the first time, but 9 days later operations were halted due to a serious fault. On 20 November 2009 they were successfully circulated again, with the first recorded proton–proton collisions occurring 3 days later at the injection energy of 450 GeV per beam. After the 2009 winter shutdown, the LHC was restarted and the beam was ramped up to 3.5 TeV per beam (half its designed energy).

On 30 March 2010, the first planned collisions took place between two 3.5 TeV beams, a new world record for the highest-energy man-made particle collisions. The LHC will continue to operate at half energy until the end of 2012; it will not run at full energy (7 TeV per beam) until 2014.

Purpose
Physicists hope that the LHC will help answer some of the fundamental open questions in physics, concerning the basic laws governing the interactions and forces among the elementary objects, the deep structure of space and time, and in particular the intersection of quantum mechanics and general relativity, where current theories and knowledge are unclear or break down altogether. Data is also needed from high energy particle experiments to indicate which versions of scientific models are more likely to be correct - in particular to choose between the Standard Model and Higgsless models and to validate their predictions and allow further theoretical development. Many theorists expect new physics beyond the Standard Model to emerge at the TeV-scale, based on unsatisfactory properties of the Standard Model. Issues possibly to be explored by LHC collisions include

Is the theoretical Higgs mechanism for generating elementary particle masses via electroweak symmetry breaking actually realised in nature? It is expected that the collider will either demonstrate or rule out the existence of the elusive Higgs boson, thereby allowing physicists to determine whether the Standard Model or its Higgsless model alternatives are more likely to be correct.

Is supersymmetry, an extension of the Standard Model and Poincaré symmetry, realised in nature, implying that all known particles have supersymmetric partners?

Are there extra dimensions, as predicted by various models based on string theory, and can we detect them?

What is the nature of the dark matter that appears to account for 23% of the mass of the universe?

Other open questions which may be explored using high energy particle collisions:

It is already known that electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force are just different manifestations of a single force called the electroweak force. The LHC may clarify whether the electroweak force and the strong nuclear force are similarly just different manifestations of one universal unified force, as predicted by various Grand Unification Theories.

Why is the fourth fundamental force (gravity) so many orders of magnitude weaker than the other three fundamental forces?

Are there additional sources of quark flavour mixing, beyond those already predicted within the Standard Model?

Why are there apparent violations of the symmetry between matter and antimatter? See also CP violation.

What are the nature and properties of quark-gluon plasma, believed to have existed in the early universe and in certain compact and strange astronomical objects today? This will be investigated by heavy ion collisions in ALICE.

Construction accidents and delaysOn 25 October 2005, José Pereira Lages, a technician, was killed in the LHC when a switchgear that was being transported fell on him.

On 27 March 2007 a cryogenic magnet support broke during a pressure test involving one of the LHC's inner triplet (focusing quadrupole) magnet assemblies, provided by Fermilab and KEK. No one was injured. Fermilab director Pier Oddone stated "In this case we are dumbfounded that we missed some very simple balance of forces". This fault had been present in the original design, and remained during four engineering reviews over the following years.

Analysis revealed that its design, made as thin as possible for better insulation, was not strong enough to withstand the forces generated during pressure testing. Details are available in a statement from Fermilab, with which CERN is in agreement. Repairing the broken magnet and reinforcing the eight identical assemblies used by LHC delayed the startup date, then planned for November 2007.

Problems occurred on 19 September 2008 during powering tests of the main dipole circuit, when an electrical fault in the bus between magnets caused a rupture and a leak of six tonnes of liquid helium. The operation was delayed for several months.

It is currently believed that a faulty electrical connection between two magnets caused an arc, which compromised the liquid-helium containment. Once the cooling layer was broken, the helium flooded the surrounding vacuum layer with sufficient force to break 10-ton magnets from their mountings. The explosion also contaminated the proton tubes with soot. This accident was more recently thoroughly discussed in a 22 February 2010 Superconductor Science and Technology article by CERN physicist Lucio Rossi.

Two vacuum leaks were identified in July 2009, and the start of operations was further postponed to mid-November 2009.

SINP wants foreign scientists in teaching and research

News in MSN.com - Pakistan: SINP wants foreign scientists in teaching and research
Kolkata, Aug 20 (PTI) The Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, (SINP) an autonomous body under Department of Atomic Energy, wants Centre's permission to appoint foreign nationals as faculty and research scholars.

Addressing a press conference on the eve of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh''s visit to SINP to mark the closing of its Diamond Jubilee year, its director Milan Sanyal said the institute had issued advertisements to attract talents from abroad as faculty and research scholars.

Stating that the response had been very positive, he said, "We have appointed a number of Indians residing abroad.

Many foreigners also applied, but right now, Government rules do not allow us to recruit non-Indians. We are talking to the Government so that this rule can be relaxed and we can get the best talents."

The SINP has brought in experts from universities abroad for a scientific review of the institute and ascertain its standard globally and their report has been positive, Sanyal said.

"But we also need state-of-the-art infrastructure. For this we need funds. There has been a substantial increase in funding for SINP during the tenure of Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister," he said.

Founded in 1950 by eminent physicist Meghnad Saha, SINP is involved in teaching research and developmental activities.

It has built the country''s first cyclotron, the first electron microscope and the first nuclear magnetic spectrometer.

More recently, it has built a detector for CERN's Large Hadron Collider at Geneva and has been collaborating closely with LHC project.

Manchester marks Rutherford centenary

From BBC News (from Aug 9, 2011): Manchester marks Rutherford centenary

Manchester is hosting a series of events to mark the centenary of a paper by Ernest Rutherford that changed the way we looked at the world and Universe around us.

In 1911, Rutherford, described as the father of nuclear physics, presented his research to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, which - for the first time - described a "planetary structure" of atoms, one that we still recognise today.

"Before Rutherford, people had thought about atoms as an amorphous lump, the "plum pudding model" we sometimes hear about," explained Catherine Rushmore, science curator at Mosi (Museum of Science and Industry).

"Rutherford pulled together all of the research that had been happening and realised that atomic structure had a really dense nucleus, which was positively charged, with negatively charged electrons circulating a long way away.

"It is almost like the Solar System, where we have the Sun in the middle and planets circulating around it," she told BBC News.

"This visualisation moved things forward so much, and took physics and chemistry in directions that had not really been open to us before."

Until the end of October, Mosi is hosting an exhibition that celebrates the pioneering work of Rutherford, much of which was carried out while he was the Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester.

Visitors will be able to see a range of exhibits, some of which have not been on public display before. Among the highlights are Rutherford's writing desk; a draft manuscript of his famous 1911 paper, including notes and amendments he had made; personal correspondence with fellow scientists and lab notebooks.

'Curiosity-driven science'

Sean Freeman, the organiser of the University of Manchester's Rutherford Centennial Conference on Nuclear Physics, explained why Ernest Rutherford is deemed to have been such a pivotal figure in modern physics.

"He found out that the mass of an atom is mainly concentrated in a tiny, tiny little speck right in the middle - which was later called the atomic nucleus," he told BBC News.

"He discovered the atomic nucleus, which helped sort out people's models of atoms, but - if you like - it started off the whole field of nuclear physics."

In a profile of Ernest Rutherford, Chemistry World magazine's Mike Sutton explained that his model for the structure of an atom was largely shaped when he supervised one experiment.

The test involved firing the "alpha particles" - which were not yet known to be the nuclei of helium atoms - at a sheet of gold foil. The scientists found to their surprise that a few of the particles changed direction quite radically.
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Ernest Lord Rutherford's desk and chair (Image: Chris Foster)

The exhibition includes artefacts that have not been on public display before, such as Rutherford's desk

* In pictures: Rutherford centenary

"Rutherford realised that any alpha particle deflected through such a wide angle must have bounced off another positively charged body," he explained.

"But, since most alpha particles passed straight through the foil, such collisions were clearly rare. He concluded that most of an atom's mass was concentrated in a small positively charged nucleus, surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons which occupied much more space."

Professor Freeman said there was a lot of fundamental curiosity-driven science that had been done in nuclear physics, and it was still continuing.

"The main part of this centennial conference is to celebrate the fundamental curiosity-driven science that Rutherford started off," he said.

He highlighted some of the high-level sessions that will be presenting findings at the gathering: "There are people who will be talking about the latest results from heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider - that is really hot off the press.

"There are going to be people talking about the nuclear reactions that power energy production in stars, supernovas and explosions in the Universe. There is also going to be a lot of discussion about the structure and novel decay processes of atomic nuclei."

Professor Freeman added that as well as the fundamental side of nuclear physics, the legacy of Rutherford's work could be found in day-to-day life.

"If you want the simplest example possible, everybody has smoke alarms in their homes today - that includes a very, very weak radioactive source which a detector looks at.

"Normally, when everything is OK, the detector measures alpha particles from that source.

"However, when there is a fire, smoke gets in the way and the alpha particles cannot get to the detector and that is what causes the alarm to go off.

"There are 101 applications of radioactivity and nuclear physics that have grown out of the work Rutherford initiated in Manchester 100 years ago."

On Monday, a Royal Society of Chemistry Chemical Landmark Award plaque was unveilled in honour of Ernest Rutherford's work in chemistry, as well as nuclear physics.

The Mosi exhibition was opened by Mary Fowler, Lord Rutherford's great-granddaugher and professor of geophysics, who decribed the scientific pioneer as a "superb leader".

"He was one of the founders of the modern scientific PhD degree, and during his career in Montreal, Manchester and Cambridge had many research students and colleagues, who came from as far away as India, Japan, Russia and Africa," she told BBC News.

"They won numbers of Nobel prizes and revolutionised physics around the world. Some of his research students, including his first, were women something that was very unusual in those days."

She added that her great-grandfather was the "greatest experimental physicist since Archimedes".

"He had the good fortune to work with theoretical friends such as Bohr and Einstein, themselves equals to Newton and Aristotle.

"Together, they and their students remade the world. But, perhaps most important, throughout he retained his humanity and the simple goodness of a plain New Zealand farmer."

Ernest Rutherford, described as the father of nuclear physics, won the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

* 1871 - born in New Zealand
* 1894 - wins a scholarship to Cambridge University
* 1898 - becomes professor of physics at McGill University, Montreal
* 1907 - returns to the UK to become professor of physics at Manchester University
* 1908 - awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry
* 1911 - publishes paper that described the structure of atoms
* 1914 - receives knighthood
* 1919 - becomes director of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge
* 1925-1930 - president of the Royal Society
* 1931 - awarded life peerage, becoming Lord Rutherford of Nelson
* 1937 - died; buried in Westminster Abbey alongside Newton and Kelvin
* 1997 - the 'rutherford', a unit of radioactivity, was named in his honour

Nuclear physics conference draws hundreds of scientists to MSU

From MLive.com: Nuclear physics conference draws hundreds of scientists to MSU
EAST LANSING -- More than 220 of the world’s top nuclear scientists converge on Michigan State University this week for the first-ever joint user meeting of researchers from four of the country’s most prominent nuclear science user facilities.

The four user groups involved come from MSU’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and the soon-to-be-constructed Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, as well as ATLAS at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, and HRIBF at Oak Ridge National laboratory in Tennessee.

The gathering is held through Saturday, with most of the sessions taking place in MSU’s Biomedical and Physical Sciences building.

The meeting is a result of the scientists’ common interest in the FRIB project that will be built for the U.S. Department of Energy at MSU. FRIB will make use of developments at each of the current laboratories, and researchers can develop equipment and explore ideas now at places like NSCL, ATLAS and HRIBF.

Scientists are coming to the event from 23 states, nine countries and 48 separate institutions. For three days, the researchers will exchange views and perspectives, present and discuss recent results of their research, articulate emerging research opportunities and instrumentation needs, and strengthen existing collaborations or form new ones.

“User meetings represent a bottom-up process, where important new ideas are vetted and brought to management’s attention,” said Konrad Gelbke, NSCL and FRIB laboratory director. “Past user meetings played a significant role in developing important new initiatives. Our users are our customers, and management listens carefully.”

In the past, users of the various facilities held separate meetings to address issues pertaining only to a particular facility. For example, NSCL users have met every year since the early 1980s and provided significant input to management that helped set new directions or spawn new initiatives.

This year’s joint event marks a major milestone as scientists will not only address facility-specific issues, but also take a look at the field with a much broader perspective.

For more information, visit the meeting’s website (http://meetings.nscl.msu.edu/superuser2011/).

Fermilab scientist receives $2.5 million award for innovative accelerator work

From Symmetry Breaking: Fermilab scientist receives $2.5 million award for innovative accelerator work
Alex Romanenko, a materials scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, will receive $2.5 million from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science to expand his innovative research to develop superconducting accelerator components. These components could be applied in fields such as medicine, energy and discovery science.

Romanenko was named a recipient of a DOE Early Career Research Program award for his research on the properties of superconducting radio frequency cavities made of niobium metal. The prestigious award, which is given annually to the most promising researchers in the early stages of their careers, includes a $2.5 million award over five years to continue work in the specified area.

“Dr. Romanenko and his proposed research show great promise,” said Tim Hallman, associate director of the DOE’s Office of Science for Nuclear Physics. “We are pleased that he has been selected to receive an Early Career Research Program award to continue this work.”

Romanenko’s work could explain why some superconducting radio frequency cavities are highly efficient at accelerating charged particles to high speeds while others are not, as well as prescribe new ways to make cavities even more powerful. His research links the performance of SRF cavities to the quality of the niobium metal used to make them. In particular, he investigates specific defects and impurities in niobium. Although scientists take painstaking measures to ensure that the niobium is completely pure and that the final SRF cavities are free from any contaminants, dust or debris, the cavities do not always perform the way that they should. Romanenko’s research is dedicated to finding out why that happens.

Romanenko began his research on SRF cavities as a graduate student at Cornell University, an institution known for its SRF research. He continued his award-winning work at Fermilab when he joined the laboratory in 2009 as a Peoples Fellow, a prestigious position given to scientists who have the potential to be leaders in their field.

Through his research, Romanenko found that a new, previously unexplored, type of defect near the cavity surface may result in surface differences that are responsible for a cavity’s inferior performance. What he found was surprising: the defect sites often contained niobium-hydrogen compounds, which might form when the cavities are prepared for operation. Specifically, he was able to pinpoint the problematic area to the first 40 nanometers of a cavity’s surface, a thickness equivalent to 120 layers of niobium atoms.

“The technology of these cavities has developed so fast recently that it is ahead of the corresponding science,” Romanenko explained. “We know how to make them work to a certain level of performance, but do not necessarily understand the full physics behind why they do so. I hope to understand why cavities behave in certain ways first, improve on this and then apply what I learn to other materials.”

If Romanenko can isolate the specific nanostructural effects that cause problems in cavities, then Lance Cooley, Romanenko’s supervisor and head of the new Superconducting Materials Department in Fermilab’s Technical Division, is prepared to direct other scientists to develop ways to prevent or control them and transfer that knowledge to industry. This could someday make it possible to mass-produce nearly perfect niobium cavities as well as lay the groundwork for cavities made from other superconducting materials that can perform at higher temperatures and accelerating fields. Such high-performance cavities—strung together to create powerful, intense particle beams—would lead to accelerators that can be used in industry, in hospitals and at research institutions. These accelerators are needed, for example, to produce a range of radioisotopes for medical diagnostics and have the potential to treat nuclear waste, among other applications.

“This award recognizes the high caliber of research that takes place at Fermilab,” Cooley said. “It is because of the laboratory’s existing world-class research program that Alex’s research is likely to succeed.”

The monetary award will cover part of Romanenko’s research efforts, fund a postdoctoral associate and a part-time technician, and pay for advanced analysis techniques used to examine surfaces in the next five years.

Fermilab is a national laboratory supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, operated under contract by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit the DOE Office of Science website.

Studies in Medical Physics at home

From The Daily Star, India: Studies in Medical Physics at home

In the years between 1996 and 2000, the task group “Medical physics in developing countries” of the German Society for Medical Physics (DGMP) arranged five seminars/workshop in Dhaka on medical physics with the physics department of BUET. The seminars were largely attended by physicists working in nuclear physics, solid state physics, radiation protection, nuclear medicine and by physicians from radio-oncology and nuclear medicine. The first impetus to start a Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering in Bangladesh came from that time.

Dr. Golam Abu Zakaria, Professor of Medical Physics, University of Cologne, Germany and the initiator of the seminars, was trying to open a department in public a university like BUET. But at that time this subject was new in Bangladesh, it could not be possible to open such a department in a public university for different reasons. In 2000, a private University, Gono Bishwabidyalay (University) came forward to accept his proposal of starting a master program (4 semesters) both in medical physics and in biomedical engineering (MPBME). In 2005 our department has also opened BSc (8 semesters) in MPBME. Still now this is the one and only department in Bangladesh offering B.Sc and M.Sc course in MPBME. The University Grant Commission of Bangladesh officially recognizes these courses.

The syllabuses of these courses are based on DGMP, AAPM and IAEA documents, adapted to the need of Bangladesh. The course structure is designed to able the students to work in hospitals, health institutes and research in MPBME. The basic prerequisite for admission to the master course is a graduation degree in one of the following subjects: MPBME, physics, related field in physical science or in bioscience, medicine or engineering disciplines with minimum second class. For admission in B.Sc course the students should have S.S.C and H.S.C (science) with math and physics or Diploma in electrical/ electronics/ mechanical/ electromedical from a Polytechnic Institute with minimum 2nd class or equivalent..

In 2003, a collaboration program was installed between Heidelberg University, Germany and Gono University, Bangladesh. Under this collaboration teachers and students have been exchanged between these two universities with the financial support of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The department has also received equipment, educational materials, journals and research material under this project. Some students and teachers do their Ph.D thesis in medical physics where the practical parts are also held in foreign universities.

In 2009 a new organisation “Bangladesh Medical Physics Society (BMPS)” is formed. BMPS is engaged in professional, educational and research activities throughout Bangladesh in the field of medical physics including biomedical engineering, especially the application of physics in medical sciences. It represents the interests of Medical Physicists outward and creates education and training possibilities for the scientific rising generation.

Up to 2010, after the establishment of the MPBME department, a good number of students were awarded a M.Sc degree and eight students a B.Sc. degree in MPBME. At present these students are working in the radiotherapy departments of the National Institute of Cancer and Research Hospital (NICRH), of Dhaka Medical College, of different private hospitals (the United Hospital, Square Hospital, Khwaja Yunus Ali Medical College and Hospital) or are teaching Medical Physics in Gono University

The establishment of Medical Physics und Biomedical Engineering Education in Gono Bishwabidyalay (University) is a success story for Bangladesh. We would like to continuously develop strong and advanced Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering Programs for education and research by incorporating the latest developments of Imaging and Radiotherapy. For the future we would like to establish a further close collaboration with other foreign universities and research institutes. We would be glad to participate in international scientific conferences in order to enhance our potential for a nbetter treatment of the cancer patients in our country.

The writer is Head. Dept of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Gono University, Savar, Dhaka.