• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.7
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• pp.2662-2669
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• 2023

For the precise measurements of special nuclear materials (SNM) including Pu and Am isotopes, we have used phoswich detector combination of two single crystal scintillators of Gd₃Ga₃Al₂O₁₂:Ce and CsI:Tl. High detection efficiency and sensitivity along with high figure of merit for the discrimination of these phoswich detectors ensures the detection and discrimination of thermal neutrons and gammas from spontaneous fission of Pu and other isotopes in presence of high gamma background. Using this detector, the low energy gammas, which is stopped completely in 1mm thick disc of GGAG, can be also discriminated from high energies gamma and shows linearity in wide range of sample quantities. By changing only the appropriate shielding, the similar setup was used for thermal neutron detection and shows a very good linearity over wide range. The quantity of a test sample was also calculated accurately by using the measured calibrated plot.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.7
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• pp.2578-2590
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• 2023

In this work, a 24-month two-batch fuel management strategy for the APR1400 using LEU + has been investigated, where enrichments of 5.9 and 5.2 w/o are utilized in lieu of the conventional 4-5 w/o UO₂ fuel. In addition, an Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) clad based on the swaging technology is applied to APR1400 fuel assemblies. In this special ATF clad design, both outer and inner SS316 layers protect the conventional zircaloy clad. Erbia (Er₂O₃) is introduced as a burnable absorber with two-fold goals to lower the critical boron concentration in the long-cycle LEU + loaded core as well as to handle the LEU + fuel in the existing front-end fuel facilities without renewing the license. Two types of fuel assemblies with different loading of gadolinia (Gd₂O₃) are considered to control both the reactivity and the core radial power distribution. The erbia burnable absorber is uniformly admixed with UO₂ in all fuel pins except for the gadolinia-bearing ones. In this study, two core designs were devised with different erbia loading, and core performance and safety parameters were evaluated for each case in comparison with a core design without any burnable absorbers. The core analysis was done using the two-step method. First, cross-sections are generated by the SERPENT 2 Monte Carlo code, and the 3-D neutronic analysis is performed with an in-house multi-physics nodal code KANT.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.214-225
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• 2022

Background: The conventional cerium-doped Gd₂Al₂Ga₃O₁₂ (GAGG(Ce)) scintillator-based gamma-ray imager has a bulky detector, which can lead to incorrect positioning of the gammaray source if the shielding against background radiation is not appropriately designed. In addition, portability is important in complex environments such as inside nuclear power plants, yet existing gamma-ray imager based on a tungsten mask tends to be weighty and therefore difficult to handle. Motivated by the need to develop a system that is not sensitive to background radiation and is portable, we changed the material of the scintillator and the coded aperture. Materials and Methods: The existing GAGG(Ce) was replaced with Bi₄Ge₃O₁₂ (BGO), a scintillator with high gamma-ray detection efficiency but low energy resolution, and replaced the tungsten (W) used in the existing coded aperture with lead (Pb). Each BGO scintillator is pixelated with 144 elements (12 × 12), and each pixel has an area of 4 mm × 4 mm and the scintillator thickness ranges from 5 to 20 mm (5, 10, and 20 mm). A coded aperture consisting of Pb with a thickness of 20 mm was applied to the BGO scintillators of all thicknesses. Results and Discussion: Spectroscopic characterization, imaging performance, and image quality evaluation revealed the 10 mm-thick BGO scintillators enabled the portable gamma-ray imager to deliver optimal performance. Although its performance is slightly inferior to that of existing GAGG(Ce)-based gamma-ray imager, the results confirmed that the manufacturing cost and the system's overall weight can be reduced. Conclusion: Despite the spectral characteristics, imaging system performance, and image quality is slightly lower than that of GAGG(Ce), the results show that BGO scintillators are preferable for gamma-ray imaging systems in terms of cost and ease of deployment, and the proposed design is well worth applying to systems intended for use in areas that do not require high precision.

• Plant Breeding and Biotechnology
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.186-199
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• 2019

We selected 68 Chinese maize inbred lines to understand the genetic diversity, population structure, and marker-trait associations for eight agronomic traits and 50 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) markers. In this study, effective traits, such as days of anthesis (DA), days of silking (DS), ear height (EH), plant to ear height ratio (ER), plant height (PH), and leaf width (LW) were divided into PC1 and PC2 by PCA analysis for maize inbred lines. Genetic diversity analysis revealed a total of 506 alleles at 50 SSR loci. The mean number of alleles per locus was 10.12. The averages of genetic diversity (GD) and polymorphic information content (PIC) values were 0.771 and 0.743, respectively. Based on a membership probability threshold of 0.80, the population structure revealed that the total inbred lines were divided into three major groups with one admixed group. A marker-trait association using Q + K MLM showed that nine SSR markers (bnlg1017, umc2041, umc2400, bnlg105, umc1229, umc1250, umc1066, umc2092, and umc1426) were related with seven agronomic traits. Among these SSR markers, eight SSR markers were associated with only one agronomic trait (DA, DS, ER, LL, LW, PH, and ST), whereas one SSR marker (umc1229) was associated with two agronomic traits (DA and ST). These results will help in optimizing the choice of inbred lines for cross combinations, as well as in selecting markers for further maize breeding programs.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.402-408
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• 2023

This study focused on improving the phase stability and mechanical properties of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), commonly utilized in gas turbine engine thermal barrier coatings, by incorporating Gd₂O₃, Er₂O₃, and TiO₂. The addition of 3-valent rare earth elements to YSZ can reduce thermal conductivity and enhance phase stability while adding the 4-valent element TiO₂ can improve phase stability and mechanical properties. Sintered specimens were prepared with hot-press equipment. Phase analysis was conducted with X-ray diffraction (XRD), and mechanical properties were assessed with Vickers hardness equipment. The research results revealed that, except for Z10YGE10T, most compositions predominantly exhibited the t-phase. Increasing the content of 3-valent rare earth oxides resulted in a decrease in the monoclinic phase and an increase in the tetragonal phase. In addition, the t(400) angle decreased while the t(004) angle increased. The addition of 10 mol% of 3-valent rare-earth oxides discarded the t-phase and led to the complete development of the c-phase. Adding 10 mol% TiO₂ increased hardness than YSZ.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.230-238
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• 2024

The refractive index is a key material-design parameter, especially for high-refractive-index glasses, which are used for precision optics and devices. Increased demand for high-precision optical lenses produced by the glass-mold-press (GMP) process has spurred extensive studies of proper glass materials. B₂O₃, SiO₂, and multiple heavy-metal oxides such as Ta₂O₅, Nb₂O₅, La₂O₃, and Gd₂O₃ mostly compose the high-refractive-index glasses for GMP. However, due to many oxides including up to 10 components, it is hard to predict the refractivity solely from the composition of the glass. In this study, the refractive index of optical glasses based on the B₂O₃-La₂O₃-Ta₂O₅-SiO₂ system is predicted using machine learning (ML) and compared to experimental data. A dataset comprising up to 271 glasses with 10 components is collected and used for training. Various ML algorithms (linear-regression, Bayesian-ridge-regression, nearest-neighbor, and random-forest models) are employed to train the data. Along with composition, the polarizability and density of the glasses are also considered independent parameters to predict the refractive index. After obtaining the best-fitting model by R² value, the trained model is examined alongside the experimentally obtained refractive indices of B₂O₃-La₂O₃-Ta₂O₅-SiO₂ quaternary glasses.

• Journal of Dental Anesthesia and Pain Medicine
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.67-73
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• 2024

Background: Nitrous oxide has been an integral part of surgical anesthesia for many years in the developed world and is still used in developing countries such as India. The other main concerns in low-resource countries are the lack of an advanced anesthesia gas-scavenging system and modular surgical theatres. As a greenhouse gas that has been present in the atmosphere for more than 100 years and damages the ozone layer, nitrous oxide is three times worse than sevoflurane. Here, we conducted an observational study to quantify the annual nitrous oxide consumption and its environmental impact in terms of carbon dioxide equivalence in one of busiest tertiary health care and research centers in Northern India. Methods: Data related to nitrous oxide expenditure' from the operation theatre and manifold complex of our tertiary care hospital and research center from 2018 to 2021 were collected monthly and analyzed. The outcomes were extracted from our observational study, which was approved by our institutional ethics board (INT/IEC/2017/1372 Dated 25.11.2017) and registered prospectively under the Central Registry (CTRI/2018/07/014745 Dated 05.07.2018). Results: The annual nitrous oxide consumption in our tertiary care hospital was 22,081.00, 22,904.00, 17,456.00, and 18,392.00 m³ (cubic meters) in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively. This indicates that the environmental impact of nitrous oxide (in terms of CO₂ equivalents) from our hospital in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 was 13,016.64, 13,287.82, 10,289.94, and 10,841.24 tons, respectively. Conclusion: This huge amount of nitrous oxide splurge is no longer a matter of laughter, and serious efforts should be made at every central and peripheral health center level to reduce it.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.82 no.1
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• pp.26-33
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• 1993

In vitro shoot proliferation and rooting were tested for 2-0 seedlings of half-sib families of 4 plus oaks trees. Nodal segments having axillary buds from 37 families(16 of Quercus acutissima, 10 of Q. variabilis, 7 of Q. serrata, and 4 of Q. mongolica) were cultured on WPM(Woody Plant Medium) supplemented with 0.5 mg/l BA (6-benzyladenine) and 0.01 mg/l NAA(${\alpha}$-naphthalene acetic acid) and subcultured at 2-3 weeks of intervals fur 6 months. In vitro rooting was carried out on GD(Gresshoff and Doy) medium supplemented with 0.5mg/l IBA(indole butyric acid). The capacity for shoot proliferation and rooting was highly varied with families. Generally, white oaks(Q. serrata and Q. mongolica) showed poor response than black oaks(Q. acutissima and Q, variabilis) in shoot proliferation and rooting. Among the total of 37 families, 7 of Q. acutissima, each 2 of Q. variabilis, Q. serrata, and Q. mongolica revealed abilities for continuous shoot proliferation, and the others failed to proliferate. Rooting of the selected oak trees also greatly varied among the families. In Q. acutissima, rooting ratio ranged from 10.0%(CB 25. KG 4) to 89.8%(CB 18). Although 26.7% of KG 16 in Q. variabilis, 3.3% of JN 15 in Q. serrata were rooted, Q. mongolica was not rooted at all in this experimental conditions. No relationship between shoot growth and the rooting ability was observed. Present results suggest the possibility of large-scale micropropagation, but further studies on family differences, shoot-tip necrosis, and callusing of rooting junction are still required to develop reliable micropropagation systems.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2004

Patient dose verification is one of the most Important responsibilities of the physician in the treatment delivery of radiation therapy. For the task, it is necessary to use an accurate dosimeter that can verify the patient dose profile, and it is also necessary to determine the physical characteristics of beams used in intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) The Beam Intensity Scanner (BInS) System is presented for the dosimetric verification of the two dimensional photon beam. The BInS has a scintillator, made of phosphor Terbium-doped Gadolinium Oxysulphide (Gd$_2$O$_2$S:Tb), to produce fluorescence from the irradiation of photon and electron beams. These fluoroscopic signals are collected and digitized by a digital video camera (DVC) and then processed by custom made software to express the relative dose profile in a 3 dimensional (3D) plot. As an application of the BInS, measurements related to IWRT are made and presented in this work. Using a static multileaf collimator (SMLC) technique, the intensity modulated beam (IMB) is delivered via a sequence of static portals made by controlled leaves. Thus, when static subfields are generated by a sequence of abutting portals, the penumbras and scattered photons of the delivered beams overlap in abutting field regions and this results in the creation of “hot spots”. Using the BInS, inter-step “hot spots” inherent in SMLC are measured and an empirical method to remove them is proposed. Another major MLC technique in IMRT, the dynamic multileaf collimator (DMLC) technique, has different characteristics from SMLC due to a different leaf operation mechanism during the irradiation of photon and electron beams. By using the BInS, the actual delivered doses by SMLC and DMLC techniques are measured and compared. Even if the planned dose to a target volume is equal in our experimental setting, the actual delivered dose by DMLC technique is measured to be larger by 14.8% than that by SMLC, and this is due to scattered photons and contaminant electrons at d$_{max}$.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.197-204
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• 1987

In order to know the growth of suspended cells by explant sources, the change of nitrogen contents of cultured cells following the growth periods, capability of micro-callus formation according to cell plating methods, growth of suspended cells on various media, and efficiency of micro-callus formation by using growth regulators and different N strengths were investigated. 1. When suspension culture was tried by using the callus induced from internode and petiole, cell fresh weight and packed cell volume increased with similar way and the growth reached at stationary phase after 12 culture days. 2. N-contents of cultured cells increased upto 3 days and decreased around 6days. But the values increased again upto 9 days, after that they showed gradual decreases. 3. Of cell plating methods, embedding method was the best for micro-callus formation. 4. Growth of suspened cells showed the rest performanoes, when they were cultured on LM medium with 1/2N strengths and BAP 0.01.2.4-D 0.1, and NAA $1.0mg/{\ell}$, after 15 cultured days(upto 76.9 folds). LM medium was better than MS or GD. The combination of auxin and cytokinin was better for cell growing than auxin-treatment only. 5. Micro-callus from single cell and small cell aggregates was formed only on MS and LM media with 2,4-D $1.0mg/{\ell}$.