Automatic coordination of protection devices in distribution system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Comassetto, L.; Bernardon, D.P.; Canha, L.N.; Abaide, A.R.

2008-01-01

Among the several components of distribution systems, protection devices present a fundamental importance, since they aim at keeping the physical integrity not only of the system equipment, but also of the electricians' team and the population in general. The existing tools today in the market that carry out the making of protection studies basically draw curves, and need direct user's interference for the protection devices adjustment and coordination analyses of selectivity, being susceptible to the user's mistakes and not always considering the best technical and economical application. In Brazil, the correct application of the protection devices demand a high amount of time, being extremely laborious due to the great number of devices (around 200 devices), besides the very dynamic behaviour of distribution networks and the need for constant system expansion. This article presents a computational tool developed with the objective of automatically determining the adjustments of all protection devices in the distribution networks to obtain the best technical application, optimizing its performance and making easier protection studies. (author)

Comparison of Radiation Protection Training in European Countries

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kozelj, M.

2001-01-01

Full text: Practice and implementation of radiation protection in European countries and in majority of other countries all over the world relies on common principles and recommendations established by international organisations. These principles and recommendations were incorporated in national legislation ensuring similar and compatible standards of protection for occupationally exposed workers and members of the public. One of the basic requirements derived from international recommendations is also formal request for training of occupationally exposed workers. The final goals of the training are defined only indirectly through standards of safety and protection. Therefore national regulation regarding radiation protection training in particular country is a result of general approach to education and training, historical circumstances, influence and importance of nuclear technology and other factors influencing health protection and national well-being in general. The result is variety of national regulations ranging from very stringent and detailed to rather general and flexible. Nevertheless, results of implemented training do not differ sufficiently to significantly affect achieved standards of radiation protection. According to available information European countries implement radiation protection training in dissimilar ways. Institutions and organisations involved, as well as form and duration of training varies from country to country. Therefore, it is not possible to determine common rules just by reviewing radiation protection training in different countries. It is the intention of this contribution to analyse and discuss available information regarding radiation protection training and point out the necessity of international co-operation in this field, especially in the sense of the future trends. (author)

Operational radiation protection and radiation protection training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kraus, W.

1989-01-01

The radiation protection system in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) is reviewed. The competent authority (the SAAS) and its systems of licensing and supervision are described. Discussion covers the role of the Radiation Protection Officer, the types of radiation monitoring, medical surveillance programs and the classification of workers and work areas. Unusual occurrences in the GDR, 1963-1976, are presented and the occupational radiation protection problems at some specific types of workplaces are discussed. The GDR's system of training in radiation protection and nuclear safety is described. 5 figs., 18 tabs

New Radiation Protection training room

CERN Multimedia

HSE Unit

2013-01-01

From now on, the theory and practical components of the Radiation Protection training, developed by the RP Group and offered by the HSE Unit’s Safety Training team to people working in a Controlled Radiation Area, will take place in a dedicated teaching room, designed specifically for this kind of training.   The new room is in the Safety Training Centre on the Prévessin site and has been open since 16 October. It has an adjoining workshop that, like the room itself, can accommodate up to 12 people. It is also equipped with an interactive board as well as instruments and detectors to test for ionising radiation. This room is located near the recently inaugurated LHC tunnel mock-up where practical training exercises can be carried out in conditions almost identical to those in the real tunnel. To consult the safety training catalogue and/or sign up for Radiation Protection training, please go to: https://cta.cern.ch For further information, please contact the Safety Trainin...

Sense and purpose of radiation protection training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Malasek, A.

1992-04-01

Training in radiation protection is of great significance in connection with the activities of the executive, the federal army and emergency organizations in emergency operations for the protection of the population in the case of large-scale radioactive contamination due to diverse causes. The presently valid legal situation of radiation protection training is presented in connection with the expected modification in the amendment to the SSVO. The special situation of radiation protection training for the executive, the federal army and emergency organizations is described and discussed in connection with the new aspects outlined in the draft of the new radiation protection regulation. In conclusion, problems arising in the conveyance of basic knowledge in radiation protection are illustrated by means of a concrete example. (author)

Radiation protection training: twenty year experience in Hungary

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pellet, Sandor; Kanyar, Bela; Zagyvay, Peter; Solymosi, Jozsef; Bujtas, Tibor; Feher, Istvan; Giczi, Ferenc; Deme, Sandor; Uray, Istvan

2008-01-01

In Hungary, radiation protection training for radiation workers has been introduced in very early, just following the publication of the ICRP recommendation No. 26. Before that, in some of the institutions, radiation protection training was recommended for technicians and medical doctors working in nuclear medicine, X-ray diagnostic radiology and radiation therapy, as well as in some of industrial applications, but not on regular way. Since 1988, radiation protection training regulated by the Ministry of Health and required for all of the workers in radiation workplaces licensed by the authority the State Public Health and Medical Officers Service (SPHAMOS). Decree No. 16/2000. (VI. 8.) EuM of the Minister of Health on the enforcement of Clauses of the Nuclear Law 116/1996 regulates the radiation protection training of Radiation Workers (RW). Annex 4 of Decree sees radiation protection training and in-service training: Persons performing conducted work in the field of the use of the nuclear energy and any other work within legal relationship shall be educated in training and in-service training at an interval of 5 years. Three levels of the training introduced; basic, extended and comprehensive, based on radiation risk related to the given job. Several institutions are involved in performing radiation protection training, such universities, scientific institutions, Regional Radiological Health Centers (RRHC) of SPHAMOS, private enterprises etc. All training course material is subject to accreditation. Most of the faculties of the universities involved in training of natural sciences and engineering provide subjects on the fundamentals of dosimetry, radiobiology and radiation protection within the courses of physics, biophysics, chemistry, biology, ecology etc. These courses take 5-10 contact hours per week on average. The members of the Hungarian Committee of EUTERP Platform summarize their broad experience collected in the past 20 year. (author)

Model-Based Reasoning in Humans Becomes Automatic with Training.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcos Economides

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Model-based and model-free reinforcement learning (RL have been suggested as algorithmic realizations of goal-directed and habitual action strategies. Model-based RL is more flexible than model-free but requires sophisticated calculations using a learnt model of the world. This has led model-based RL to be identified with slow, deliberative processing, and model-free RL with fast, automatic processing. In support of this distinction, it has recently been shown that model-based reasoning is impaired by placing subjects under cognitive load--a hallmark of non-automaticity. Here, using the same task, we show that cognitive load does not impair model-based reasoning if subjects receive prior training on the task. This finding is replicated across two studies and a variety of analysis methods. Thus, task familiarity permits use of model-based reasoning in parallel with other cognitive demands. The ability to deploy model-based reasoning in an automatic, parallelizable fashion has widespread theoretical implications, particularly for the learning and execution of complex behaviors. It also suggests a range of important failure modes in psychiatric disorders.

Using computer-based training to facilitate radiation protection review

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abercrombie, J.S.; Copenhaver, E.D.

1989-01-01

In a national laboratory setting, it is necessary to provide radiation protection overview and training to diverse parts of the laboratory population. This includes employees at research reactors, accelerators, waste facilities, radiochemical isotope processing, and analytical laboratories, among others. In addition, our own radiation protection and monitoring staffs must be trained. To assist in the implementation of this full range of training, ORNL has purchased prepackaged computer-based training in health physics and technical mathematics with training modules that can be selected from many topics. By selection of specific modules, appropriate radiation protection review packages can be determined to meet many individual program needs. Because our radiation protection personnel must have some previous radiation protection experience or the equivalent of an associate's degree in radiation protection for entry level, the computer-based training will serve primarily as review of major principles. Others may need very specific prior training to make the computer-based training effective in their work situations. 4 refs

Annual training manual for security training: Protective force

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1990-10-01

Westinghouse is committed to high quality training relevant to the need of the Protective Forces at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The training programs at WIPP are designed to qualify Security personnel to perform WIPP security missions in a professional and responsible manner. The program consists of basic as well as sustainment training, as further described in this plan. This plan documents the WIPP Security training program for security personnel for calendar year 1990. The programs detailed in this plan are designed to adequately train persons to ensure the uninterrupted continuity of Department of Energy (DOE)/Westinghouse operations. The Security Training Program consists of four basic elements. These elements are (1) basic level training; (2) on-the-job training; (3) refresher training; and (4) in-service training.

Training of fire protection personnel in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Blaser, W.

1980-01-01

Training of fire protection personnel in nuclear power plants is divided up in three categories: training of fire protection commissioners which is mostly carried out externally; training of fire fighting personnel in the form of basic and repeated training usually by the fire protection commissioner; training of other employers with regard to behaviour in case of fire and during work involving a fire hazard. (orig.) [de

New general radiation protection training course

CERN Document Server

2008-01-01

Some members of CERN personnel, users included, may have to work in supervised or controlled radiation areas, or may be concerned with activities involving the use of radioactive sources. According to CERN Safety rules all persons whose work may encounter ionising radiation risk must be adequately trained. This training must ensure that workers are informed about the potential health risks which could result from radiation exposure, about the basic principles of radiation protection and of the relevant radiation protection regulations as well as about safe working methods and techniques in radiation zones. Therefore the Organization organises mandatory general and work-specific radiation protection (RP) courses addressed to its personnel. These courses are also open to contractors’ personnel, in addition to the RP training they must receive from their employers. Based on the results of a pilot project, an improved general radiation protection course has been prepared. This...

New general radiation protection training course

CERN Multimedia

2008-01-01

Some members of CERN personnel, including users, may have to work in supervised or controlled radiation areas, or may be involved in activities involving the use of radioactive sources. According to CERN Safety Rules all persons whose work may be associated with ionising radiation risk must be adequately trained. This training must ensure that workers are informed about the potential health risks which could result from radiation exposure, the basic principles of radiation protection and the relevant radiation protection regulations as well as safe working methods and techniques in radiation zones. Therefore the Organization organises mandatory general and work-specific radiation protection (RP) courses for its personnel. These courses are also open to contractors’ personnel, in addition to the RP training they must receive from their employers. Based on the results of a pilot project, an improved general radiation protection course has been prepared. This new ½ day cours...

Application of virtual reality technique to a radiation protection training program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hajek, Brian K.; Kang, Ki Doo; Shin, Yoo Jin; Lee, Yon Sik

2003-01-01

Using an Internet Virtual Reality (IVR) technique, a 3-dimensional (3-D) model for the radiation controlled area in a nuclear power plant was developed, and a feasibility study to develop a computational program to estimate radiation dose was performed. For this purpose, a pilot model with a dynamic function and bi-directional communication was developed. This model was enhanced from the existing 3-D single-directional communication. In this pilot model, a plant visitor needs to first pass a series of security checks. If the visitor enters the controlled area and approaches a radiation hazard area, alarms with a warning lamp will be initiated automatically. Throughout the test to connect this model from both domestic and international sites in various time zones, it has proven to perform well. Therefore, this model can be applied to broad fields as radiation protection procedures or radiation protection training with photographic data, and on-line dose assessment programs

A training approach to improve stepping automaticity while dual-tasking in Parkinson's disease

OpenAIRE

Chomiak, Taylor; Watts, Alexander; Meyer, Nicole; Pereira, Fernando V.; Hu, Bin

2017-01-01

Abstract Background: Deficits in motor movement automaticity in Parkinson's disease (PD), especially during multitasking, are early and consistent hallmarks of cognitive function decline, which increases fall risk and reduces quality of life. This study aimed to test the feasibility and potential efficacy of a wearable sensor-enabled technological platform designed for an in-home music-contingent stepping-in-place (SIP) training program to improve step automaticity during dual-tasking (DT). M...

Reactor protection system with automatic self-testing and diagnostic

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gaubatz, D.C.

1996-01-01

A reactor protection system is disclosed having four divisions, with quad redundant sensors for each scram parameter providing input to four independent microprocessor-based electronic chassis. Each electronic chassis acquires the scram parameter data from its own sensor, digitizes the information, and then transmits the sensor reading to the other three electronic chassis via optical fibers. To increase system availability and reduce false scrams, the reactor protection system employs two levels of voting on a need for reactor scram. The electronic chassis perform software divisional data processing, vote 2/3 with spare based upon information from all four sensors, and send the divisional scram signals to the hardware logic panel, which performs a 2/4 division vote on whether or not to initiate a reactor scram. Each chassis makes a divisional scram decision based on data from all sensors. Automatic detection and discrimination against failed sensors allows the reactor protection system to automatically enter a known state when sensor failures occur. Cross communication of sensor readings allows comparison of four theoretically ''identical'' values. This permits identification of sensor errors such as drift or malfunction. A diagnostic request for service is issued for errant sensor data. Automated self test and diagnostic monitoring, sensor input through output relay logic, virtually eliminate the need for manual surveillance testing. This provides an ability for each division to cross-check all divisions and to sense failures of the hardware logic. 16 figs

Reducing the risk of injury from table saw use: the potential benefits and costs of automatic protection.

Science.gov (United States)

Graham, John D; Chang, Joice

2015-02-01

The use of table saws in the United States is associated with approximately 28,000 emergency department (ED) visits and 2,000 cases of finger amputation per year. This article provides a quantitative estimate of the economic benefits of automatic protection systems that could be designed into new table saw products. Benefits are defined as reduced health-care costs, enhanced production at work, and diminished pain and suffering. The present value of the benefits of automatic protection over the life of the table saw are interpreted as the switch-point cost value, the maximum investment in automatic protection that can be justified by benefit-cost comparison. Using two alternative methods for monetizing pain and suffering, the study finds switch-point cost values of $753 and $561 per saw. These point estimates are sensitive to the values of inputs, especially the average cost of injury. The various switch-point cost values are substantially higher than rough estimates of the incremental cost of automatic protection systems. Uncertainties and future research needs are discussed. © 2014 Society for Risk Analysis.

Training aspects contributing to radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gupta, M.S.

2001-01-01

Radiation Protection assumes special significance with increasing use of radioactive materials and processes. Scientific and industrial organisations dealing with radioactive materials have prime responsibility of ensuring effective control of all activities which may lead to radiation exposure. Training of all the persons involved in the work associated with radioactivity is absolutely necessary to develop radiation protection skill, radiation measurement proficiency and special precautions to be taken in abnormal situations. NPCIL having responsibility for design, construction, operation and de-commissioning of nuclear power plants, employs about 10,000 workers on several project/station sites all over the country. NPCIL has developed a good training system to accurately control the exposure of workers to radiation. This paper covers the system and other relevant details of radiation protection training organised by NPCIL. (author)

Guide to good practice in radiation protection training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johnson, N.; Schenley, C.; Smith, A.; Weseman, M.

1988-10-01

This set of guidelines applies to radiation protection training programs for all Department of Energy (DOE) contractors, subcontractors, and visitors to DOE contractor facilities. It is to be used as a self-evaluation tool by DOE contractors as they develop and evaluate their training programs. This document is based on good practice guidelines used by a variety of different facilities both within and outside of the DOE contractor system. Good practices are not requirements; they are guidelines that contractors should use as they develop and conduct training programs. The applicability of the contents of the Guide to Good Practice in Radiation Protection Training depends upon each DOE facility's scope and need for radiation safety training. Although the focus of this document is radiation protection training, it is important that the process by which training is developed and implemented be discussed. Therefore, the first section presents guidelines for performance-based training and ideas to be considered regarding the structure and documentation of the training function

Survey of Radiation Protection Education and Training in Finland in 2003

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Havukainen, R.; Korpela, H.; Vaisala, S.; Piri, A.; Kettunen, E.

2004-01-01

The current state and need for radiation protection training in Finland have been surveyed by the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority STUK. The survey sought to determine whether the current requirements for radiation protection training had been met, and to promote radiation protection training. Details of the scope and quality of present radiation protection training were requested from all educational institutes and organizations providing radiation protection training. The survey covered both basic and further training, special training of radiation safety officers, and supplementary training. The questionnaire was sent to 77 educational organization units, 66 per cent of which responded. Radiation workers and radiation safety officers were asked about radiation protection knowledge and needs for additional training. The questionnaire was sent to 880 radiation users and 170 radiation safety officers, 70 per cent of whom responded. The survey covered all professional groups and fields of the use of ionizing radiation except nuclear energy. The amount of radiation protection training in basic and further (specialization) training in the same vocational or academic degree varied remarkably by educational organization. The average amounts of radiation protection included in most professional degrees met the requirements. 32 per cent of workers considered their radiation protection training inadequate for their duties, and 48 per cent had completed no supplementary training in radiation protection over the last five years. Nurses working in public sector hospitals and physicians working in health centres had the greatest need for radiation protection training. 78 per cent of radiation workers in industry felt that they had sufficient radiation protection training. Co-operation between educational organizations is necessary to harmonize radiation protection training. Guidance of the Ministry of Education (the competent authority for education) is needed in this

Training in radiological protection for nuclear programmes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1975-01-01

Many Member States are developing or already have developed their own national training programmes. The IAEA is actively involved in promoting training in radiological protection for nuclear programmes. The various types of training are fully discussed, with suggested curricula. An earlier report was published as Technical Reports Series No.31 in 1964. In 1973, new and additional information was received from Member States which is reflected in the present report. Training programmes are classified, according to those requiring training: specialists; persons whose work is closely related to radiological protection (administrators, public health officers and industrial health personnel, safety inspectors and engineers in nuclear installations, public service personnel); persons working with radiation; and the general public. Forms, scope and duration of training are discussed. Different types of training programmes are currently required for training of medical doctors (those providing medical surveillance for radiation workers and others dealing with public health aspects of radiation hazards), for technical supervisors, radiologists, and qualified workers in nuclear medicine, technological staff, administrators, persons working with radiation, and public service personnel. Standard curricula and desirable experiments and exercises are discussed. The organization of training together with the facilities, equipment and teaching staff required are considered, as is follow-up training. Annexes 1 to 4 give examples of training curricula and training courses available in various countries, a suggested syllabus for training of technical supervisors, and a bibliography consisting of 210 references dealing with general topics, nuclear radiation physics, radiochemistry and radiation chemistry, radiation biology and biophysics, dosimetry and health physics and radiation protection, medical aspects and toxicology, and environmental aspects

An automatic, stagnation point based algorithm for the delineation of Wellhead Protection Areas

Science.gov (United States)

Tosco, Tiziana; Sethi, Rajandrea; di Molfetta, Antonio

2008-07-01

Time-related capture areas are usually delineated using the backward particle tracking method, releasing circles of equally spaced particles around each well. In this way, an accurate delineation often requires both a very high number of particles and a manual capture zone encirclement. The aim of this work was to propose an Automatic Protection Area (APA) delineation algorithm, which can be coupled with any model of flow and particle tracking. The computational time is here reduced, thanks to the use of a limited number of nonequally spaced particles. The particle starting positions are determined coupling forward particle tracking from the stagnation point, and backward particle tracking from the pumping well. The pathlines are postprocessed for a completely automatic delineation of closed perimeters of time-related capture zones. The APA algorithm was tested for a two-dimensional geometry, in homogeneous and nonhomogeneous aquifers, steady state flow conditions, single and multiple wells. Results show that the APA algorithm is robust and able to automatically and accurately reconstruct protection areas with a very small number of particles, also in complex scenarios.

A training approach to improve stepping automaticity while dual-tasking in Parkinson's disease: A prospective pilot study.

Science.gov (United States)

Chomiak, Taylor; Watts, Alexander; Meyer, Nicole; Pereira, Fernando V; Hu, Bin

2017-02-01

Deficits in motor movement automaticity in Parkinson's disease (PD), especially during multitasking, are early and consistent hallmarks of cognitive function decline, which increases fall risk and reduces quality of life. This study aimed to test the feasibility and potential efficacy of a wearable sensor-enabled technological platform designed for an in-home music-contingent stepping-in-place (SIP) training program to improve step automaticity during dual-tasking (DT). This was a 4-week prospective intervention pilot study. The intervention uses a sensor system and algorithm that runs off the iPod Touch which calculates step height (SH) in real-time. These measurements were then used to trigger auditory (treatment group, music; control group, radio podcast) playback in real-time through wireless headphones upon maintenance of repeated large amplitude stepping. With small steps or shuffling, auditory playback stops, thus allowing participants to use anticipatory motor control to regain positive feedback. Eleven participants were recruited from an ongoing trial (Trial Number: ISRCTN06023392). Fear of falling (FES-I), general cognitive functioning (MoCA), self-reported freezing of gait (FOG-Q), and DT step automaticity were evaluated. While we found no significant effect of training on FES-I, MoCA, or FOG-Q, we did observe a significant group (music vs podcast) by training interaction in DT step automaticity (Ptraining to increase motor automaticity for people living with PD. The training approach described here can be implemented at home to meet the growing demand for self-management of symptoms by patients.

ALARA in the radiation protection training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nolibe, D.; Lefaure, Ch.

1998-01-01

This part treats especially the question of the training in radiation protection. The electro nuclear sector has given an ALARA principle culture and succeeded to sensitize each level of hierarchy, but for small industry, the research and the medical world the same method appears more difficult to use. It seems better to reinforce the importance of the competent person and to include a training in radiation protection on the initial formation in numerous professional categories. (N.C.)

New infrastructures for training in radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marco, M.; Rodriguez, M.; Van der Steen, J.

2007-01-01

In this work, an analysis of the new infrastructure used in the radiation protection training and professional education, which is developed nowadays, is carried out. CIEMAT has been making many efforts in the education and training of professionals at all levels, for years. At present CIEMAT is developing educational activities in radiation protection general courses and professionals updating courses. The newest strategies for the radiation protection learning are developing in collaboration with professional societies. These try to encourage the technology transference, the collaboration between the actors involved with the radiation protection and the new information technology implementation. (Author) 11 refs

Accredited training on radiation protection for the Austrian police

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Timal, G.

2009-01-01

In Austria, radiological emergencies are handled following the Intervention Regulation, in force since 2007. This regulation also defines duration and content for the training of radiation protection personnel, taking advantage of the standard OeNORM S 5207 published in 2005. Radiation protection personnel of the Austrian police are trained at the Federal Security Academy in Traiskirchen near Vienna. The Federal Security Academy is a training centre certified by the Austrian Standards Institute. The poster describes the modular organisation of the training and its duration and content as well as the further trainings available to the radiation protection personnel of the Police. (orig.)

The development of Radiation Protection Training courses in the UK

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Paynter, R. A.

2003-01-01

This paper considers use of modern training materials and aids in radiation protection training activities. The development in the UK of training courses to satisfy the training requirements for Radiation Protection Advisers is also discussed. (Author)

Radiation protection education and training infrastructure. Open and distance learning tools for training in radiation protection

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Marco, M.; Rodriguez, M.; Gonzalez Giralda, C.G.; Bailador Ferreras, A.B. [CIEMAT, Madrid (Spain); Coeck, M.C. [Studiecentrum voor Kernenergie - Centre d' Etude de l' Energie Nucleaire, Mol (Belgium); Etard, C.E. [CEA Saclay, 91 - Gif sur Yvette (France). INSTN, Institut National des Sciences et Techniques Nucleaires; Moebius, S.M. [FZK -FTU, Munich (Germany); Schmitt-Hanning, A.S. [BfS, Karlsruhe (Germany); Luciani, A.I. [ENEA, Bologna (Italy); Van Der Steen, J.V. [NRG, Petten (Netherlands)

2006-07-01

Full text: A sustainable Education and Training (E.T.) infrastructure for Radiation Protection is an essential component to combat the decline in expertise and to ensure the continuation of the high level of radiation protection knowledge in the future. Such infrastructure has to be built in such a way that both the initial training (Education) and the unceasing maintenance of the level of competencies (referred to as 'Training') are available. The E.N.E.T.R.A.P. project intends to develop the E.T. infrastructure mentioned. To achieve the aims of the different tasks and activities, the work programme for the E.N.E.T.R.A.P. Network is divided in eight work packages developed by 11 partners: Each partner will assume responsibility for the W.P.s. C.I.E.M.A.T. is involved in the W.P.-5 'New concepts and new tools for an E.R.P.C.'. The tasks of the W.P.-5 are focussed in the investigation of the electronic tools used in R.P. training and education. This paper presents the first results of this working group. The first task is an approach to the development and usage of learning resources. A review on the e-learning methodologies, the present state of art and its evolution, are being carried out. Results will be used to select the best way to host learning activities in the framework of the E.N.E.T.R.A.P. project. Another important task is to identify, analyse and evaluate the Open and Distance learning tools and material existing for train ing in Radiation Protection. A review on the evolutions, approaches and methodologies aiming to provide education and training in radiation protection, will be carried out. The results of this task will be a summary of links referred to the most interesting R.P. e-learning. Finally, taking in account the previous results a pilot R.P. module of E.R.P.C. should be prepared. (authors)

Radiation protection education and training infrastructure. Open and distance learning tools for training in radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marco, M.; Rodriguez, M.; Gonzalez Giralda, C.G.; Bailador Ferreras, A.B.; Coeck, M.C.; Etard, C.E.; Schmitt-Hanning, A.S.; Luciani, A.I.; Van Der Steen, J.V.

2006-01-01

Full text: A sustainable Education and Training (E.T.) infrastructure for Radiation Protection is an essential component to combat the decline in expertise and to ensure the continuation of the high level of radiation protection knowledge in the future. Such infrastructure has to be built in such a way that both the initial training (Education) and the unceasing maintenance of the level of competencies (referred to as 'Training') are available. The E.N.E.T.R.A.P. project intends to develop the E.T. infrastructure mentioned. To achieve the aims of the different tasks and activities, the work programme for the E.N.E.T.R.A.P. Network is divided in eight work packages developed by 11 partners: Each partner will assume responsibility for the W.P.s. C.I.E.M.A.T. is involved in the W.P.-5 'New concepts and new tools for an E.R.P.C.'. The tasks of the W.P.-5 are focussed in the investigation of the electronic tools used in R.P. training and education. This paper presents the first results of this working group. The first task is an approach to the development and usage of learning resources. A review on the e-learning methodologies, the present state of art and its evolution, are being carried out. Results will be used to select the best way to host learning activities in the framework of the E.N.E.T.R.A.P. project. Another important task is to identify, analyse and evaluate the Open and Distance learning tools and material existing for train ing in Radiation Protection. A review on the evolutions, approaches and methodologies aiming to provide education and training in radiation protection, will be carried out. The results of this task will be a summary of links referred to the most interesting R.P. e-learning. Finally, taking in account the previous results a pilot R.P. module of E.R.P.C. should be prepared. (authors)

e-Learning applications for radiological protection training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gonzalez, F.; Gomez-Arguello, B.; Callejo, J. L.

2003-01-01

The unattended training, through e-learning platforms, offers advantages in comparison with the traditional attended training, such as, freedom to study when, where and how the trance desires, the student is learning customization, a continuous self evaluation of the learning process and the rhythm of study, etc. To explore the possibilities of the radiological protection training in a WEB site, a first application for External Workers has been developed. The high number of students, their geographical dispersion and their different level of knowledge and experience arise attended training limitations in this area. In this article, the WEB course Basic Radiological Protection is presented and the results, preliminarily conclusions and lesson learnt are analysed. (Author) 7 refs

Training cows to approach the milking unit in response to acoustic signals in an automatic milking system during the grazing season

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wredle, E.; Munksgaard, Lene; Sporndly, E.

2006-01-01

connected to the automatic milking system. The cows were trained indoors using an operant conditioning technique. All cows had 12 training sessions with 7–12 signals given at variable intervals. An evaluation period followed the training period. During evaluation, the trained cows received an individual...... cows housed in a barn with an automatic milking system. A small box emitting an acoustic signal was attached to the collar of the 10 cows. During the training period, the signal was induced manually from a distance and during the evaluation period, signals were activated automatically from a computer...... (with no signal) in early season was 9.7 ± 0.18 h (P 7 ± 0.56 h and 9.0 ± 0.20 h for the five cows trained in late season and a reference group (with no signal), respectively. During the evaluation in a full herd situation, the response ranged between 15 and 75...

Implementation of automatic protection switching in an optical cross connect

OpenAIRE

Uy, Jason

2005-01-01

Having a reliable network is a hard requirement for Telecommunication companies when deploying new networks. Service providers and enterprise customers lose a lot of money any time an interruption of internet service occurs. The SONETISDH specification specifies several different types of topology that support redundancy. An Automatic Protection Switching (APS) mechanism is specified for each topology to dictate how a network behaves in a failure event. For this project, a software implementa...

A new career path in radiation protection training. Certified power plant shift supervisor. Radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Terbeek, Christoph

2011-01-01

Apart from theoretical knowledge, effective day-to-day radiation protection operations also require a certain measure of practical experience. Therefore, the professional degree of 'Certified Radiation Worker', issued by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (CIC) Aachen, Germany, established at an early stage. In order to provide experienced radiation protection specialists with an attractive career path, POWERTECH TRAINING CENTER e.V., in co-operation with VGB PowerTech. e.V., the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) and the Swiss Atomic Energy Agency (ENSI), has devised a new power plant shift supervisor training course specialising in radiation protection. The vocational training degree called 'Certified Power Plant Shift Supervisor - Radiation Protection' is awarded after successful completion of the advanced training examination conducted by the CIC in Essen, Germany. (orig.)

Radiation protection training and information for workers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1989-01-01

The meeting reported in these proceedings was organized to discuss the specific problems of providing information and training on radiation protection to workers exposed to radiation, intervention staff and workers likely to be affected by an activity involving ionizing radiation. Particular emphasis was placed on the need to harmonize basic training on radiation protection in the context of 1992. It seemed advisable for technical training on radiation protection to be introduced into secondary education. To this end, the Commission was asked to draw up a guide for apprentices and students. In view of the growing diversification of activities involving the use of radioactive substances, the Commission was called upon to intensify its efforts in order to ensure that relevant information and training was provided in all firms to workers exposed to ionizing radiation, and to produce guides for specific categories of workers, such as those responsible for the transport of radioactive materials or those likely to be involved in organizing measures in the event of a radiological emergency

Radiation Protection Training in Spanish schools of medicine

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ruiz-Cruces, R.; Perez Martinez, M.; Vano, E.; Hernandez Armas, J.; Diez de los Rios Delgado, A.

2003-01-01

Radiation Protection should be included in the programme of studies necessary to confer a bachelor's degree in Medicine, according to the Directive 97/43 Euratom on medical exposures and the Report RP116 published by the European commission on Education and Training in radiation protection for medical exposures. To analyse the present training programmes in radiation protection at the Medical School in different Spanish Universities. The syllabus and the contents of the subjects including radiation protection issues in 27 Spanish Schools of Medicine have been revised. Radiation protection subjects are obligatory at present, only at the Schools of Medicine from Cantabria and Malaga. There is a group of Schools of Medicine where radiation protection is an optional matter with an extension of 4,5 credits (45 hours). It also exists some topics in radiation protection in subjects dealing with Medical Physics and General Radiology (with a range value from 1 to 10 hours), in 10 Schools of Medicine. A wide dispersion among the contents of different subjects and the hours of training allocated by the different School are found. It should be useful the harmonization of the programmes. (Author)

An Automatic Identification Procedure to Promote the use of FES-Cycling Training for Hemiparetic Patients

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emilia Ambrosini

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Cycling induced by Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES training currently requires a manual setting of different parameters, which is a time-consuming and scarcely repeatable procedure. We proposed an automatic procedure for setting session-specific parameters optimized for hemiparetic patients. This procedure consisted of the identification of the stimulation strategy as the angular ranges during which FES drove the motion, the comparison between the identified strategy and the physiological muscular activation strategy, and the setting of the pulse amplitude and duration of each stimulated muscle. Preliminary trials on 10 healthy volunteers helped define the procedure. Feasibility tests on 8 hemiparetic patients (5 stroke, 3 traumatic brain injury were performed. The procedure maximized the motor output within the tolerance constraint, identified a biomimetic strategy in 6 patients, and always lasted less than 5 minutes. Its reasonable duration and automatic nature make the procedure usable at the beginning of every training session, potentially enhancing the performance of FES-cycling training.

The role of NCRRP in education and training on radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chobanova, N.

2017-01-01

Radiological protection is in constant motion, raised by new developments and research in the medical and industrial sectors. Radiation protection and safety associated with the application of ionizing radiation depends strongly on the skills and expertise of the professionals. The International Basic Safety Standard places great emphasis on education and training for all persons engaged in activities relevant to the protection and safety. For the professionals involved the most critical aspect it is the radiation protection. NCRRP is an established research center for education and training in radiation protection. Training is conducted by expert trainers with years of experience in the field of radiation protection. NCRRP organized courses and individual training on topics related to radiation protection: enhancing the qualifications of professionals from the medical and non medical fields; specialized training in radiation protection of different groups of professionals working with ionizing radiation sources; postgraduate education in radiation protection education of PhD within existing academic programs and give guidance to Master Students. In parallel the NCRRP aims to play a role in national and international policy through participation in European programs. Such is “CONCERT European Joint Programme for the integration of Radiation Protection Research”. The NCRRP develops, publish and distribute programs, newsletters, manuals and information materials for the benefit of the society. The implementation of a coherent approach to education and training becomes crucial in a world of dynamic markets and increasing workers’ mobility. Keywords: education, training, radiation protection, NCRRP

Monitoring the Performance of the Pedestrian Transfer Function of Train Stations Using Automatic Fare Collection Data

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van den Heuvel, J.P.A.; Hoogenraad, J.H.

2014-01-01

Over the last years all train stations in The Netherlands have been equipped with automatic fare collection gates and/or validators. All public transport passengers use a smart card to pay their fare. In this paper we present a monitor for the performance of the pedestrian function of train stations

Radiation protection training for users of ionizing radiation in Hungary

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pellet, S.; Giczi, F.; Elek, R.; Temesi, A.; Csizmadia, H.; Sera, E.

2012-01-01

According to the current and previous regulation related to the safety use of ionizing radiation, the personnel involved must obtain special qualification in radiation protection. In Hungary the radiation protection training are performed by appropriately certified training centers on basic, advanced and comprehensive levels. Certification of the training centers is given by the competent radiological health/radiation protection authority. The office of the Chief Medical Officer is the certifying authority for advanced and comprehensive levels training, as well as competent Regional Radiological Health Authority is responsible for basic level courses. The content and length of courses are specified in the regulation for all three levels of industrial, laboratory and medical users, in general. Some of the universities, technical and medical oriented are certified for advanced training for students as gradual course. Recently in Hungary there are 47 certified training centers for advanced and comprehensive courses, where the trainers should have a five years job experience in radiation protection and successful completion of comprehensive level course in radiation protection. (authors)

Training in radiation protection and the safe use of radiation sources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2001-01-01

The need for education and training in the various disciplines of radiation protection has long been recognized by the IAEA, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). This need has been partially met through the many training courses undertaken by these organizations, either individually or in collaboration. The IAEA has assisted developing Member States in the training of specialists in radiation protection and safety through its organized educational and specialized training courses, workshops, seminars, fellowships and scientific visits. Training is an important means of promoting safety culture and enhancing the level of competence of personnel involved in radiation protection activities, and has acquired a place in the IAEA's programme accordingly. For example, the IAEA Post-graduate Educational Course in Radiation Protection and the Safe Use of Radiation Sources is regularly offered in countries around the world, and has been provided in Arabic, English, French, Spanish and Russian. The training provided by the IAEA is primarily aimed at regulators, professionals working in radiation protection and those responsible for the development of training programmes in their own countries. The importance of adequate and appropriate training for all those working with ionizing radiation has been highlighted by the results of the IAEA's investigations of radiological accidents. A significant contributory factor in a number of the accidents has been a lack of adequate training, which gave rise to errors with serious consequences. This report provides assistance in organizing training and complying with the requirements on training of the International Basic Safety Standards for Protection against Ionizing Radiation and for the Safety of Radiation Sources (BSS). The previous version of this report. Technical Reports

Training in radiological protection at the Institute of Naval Medicine

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Powell, P.E.; Robb, D.J.

1991-01-01

The Training Division at the Institute of Naval Medicine, Alverstoke, UK, provides courses in radiological protection for government and military personnel who are radiation protection supervisors, radiation safety officers, members of naval emergency monitoring teams and senior medical officers. The course programmes provide formal lectures, practical exercises and tabletop exercises. The compliance of the Ministry of Defence with the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1985 and the implementation of Ministry of Defence instructions for radiological protection rely to a large extent on its radiation protection supervisors understanding of the training he receives. Quality assurance techniques are therefore applied to the training. (author)

Consequences of the new Slovenian legislation on radiation protection and nuclear safety for radiation protection training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kozelj, M.

2004-01-01

The paper presents brief description of the old Slovenian regulations and an overview of the new, harmonised regulations in the field of radiation protection training. The most important novelties were pointed out with possible consequences for the implementation of radiation protection training. Some suggestions on how to overcome transitional problems and how to improve training were also given. (author)

Radiation Protection Training frame in Virgen del Rocio University Hospital

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Herrador, M.; Baeza, M.; Luis-Simon, J.; Carbajo, J.; Gomez-Puerto, A.; Gonzalez, V.; Mateos; Haro, G.; Gomez, M.

2003-01-01

The International Community has established a dose limitation system to control the risks due to the ionizing radiation pacific use. The education and training of the occupational exposed workers is necessary to achieve the objectives of this dose limitation system.The second largest contribution to exposures of the individuals worldwide after natural background radiation, comes from medical radiation procedures. For this reason, the radiation protection training of medical workers is essential. In the particular autonomous region of Andalusia, most medical radiation procedures comes from the Public Health Service. Therefore, Andalusia Healthy Service maintains a radiation protection training plan for their occupational exposed workers. This training plan includes: training of the radioactive facilities supervisors and operators in both nuclear medicine and radiotherapy areas; training for medical radiodiagnosis facility management; quality assurance in medical diagnosis and therapy; and update on radiation protection. The training plan is performed with theoretical and practical course homologated by the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council. These courses cover four basic fields related to radiation: Physics, Radiobiology, Radiation Protection and Legislation. These courses have been organised by the Andalusia Healthy System since 1993. A total of 722 medical workers have been trained for radiation protection. Therefore, optimum conditions for the safe and correct use of ionizing radiation have been provided to these workers. The supervisor or operator's license of the radioactive facility can be also obtained by these courses. (Author) 17 refs

Training in Radiation Protection for Interventional Radiology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vano, E.; Guibelalde, E.

2002-07-01

Several potential problems have been detected in the safety aspects for the practice of interventional radiology procedures: a) An important increase in the number cases and their complexity and the corresponding increase of installations and specialists involved; b) New X ray systems more sophisticated, with advanced operational possibilities, requiring special skills in the operators to obtain the expected benefits;c) New medical specialists arriving to the interventional arena to profit the benefits of the interventional techniques without previous experience in radiation protection. For that reason, education and training is one of the basic areas in any optimisation programme in radiation protection (RP). the medical field and especially interventional radiology requires actions to promote and to profit the benefit of the new emerging technologies for training (Internet, electronic books, etc). The EC has recently sponsored the MARTIR programme (Multimedia and Audio-visual Radiation Protection Training in Interventional Radiology) with the production of two videos on basic aspects of RP and quality control and one interactive CD-ROM to allow tailored individual training programmes. those educational tools are being distributed cost free in the main European languages. To go ahead with these actions, the EC has decided to promote during 2002, a forum with the main Medical European Societies involved in these interventional procedures. (Author)

Training in Radiation Protection for Interventional Radiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vano, E.; Guibelalde, E.

2002-01-01

Several potential problems have been detected in the safety aspects for the practice of interventional radiology procedures: a) An important increase in the number cases and their complexity and the corresponding increase of installations and specialists involved; b) New X ray systems more sophisticated, with advanced operational possibilities, requiring special skills in the operators to obtain the expected benefits;c) New medical specialists arriving to the interventional arena to profit the benefits of the interventional techniques without previous experience in radiation protection. For that reason, education and training is one of the basic areas in any optimisation programme in radiation protection (RP). the medical field and especially interventional radiology requires actions to promote and to profit the benefit of the new emerging technologies for training (Internet, electronic books, etc). The EC has recently sponsored the MARTIR programme (Multimedia and Audio-visual Radiation Protection Training in Interventional Radiology) with the production of two videos on basic aspects of RP and quality control and one interactive CD-ROM to allow tailored individual training programmes. those educational tools are being distributed cost free in the main European languages. To go ahead with these actions, the EC has decided to promote during 2002, a forum with the main Medical European Societies involved in these interventional procedures. (Author)

Design And Development Of An Automatic Single Phase Protective Device Using Ssr

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael E.

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Since the discovery of energy safety has been a paramount subject matter. This we can see in todays electrical systems where protective devices such as fuse and circuit breakers are used to prevent fire hazards resulting from overload overvoltage and short circuits. However with all the revolution in technology these options may be considered less smart since the fuse made with wire strands calculated for specific current capacity faults permanently when the specified current rating is exceeded. While the circuit breaker which is made up of mechanical switch fails as a result of carbon forming and the wearing away of the contacts because of arcing. As a means of improvement this paper presents the design and development of an automatic single phase protective device using solid state relay SSR. This study is to ensure automatic cut off from power supply in cases of overvoltage above 240 V AC or when overload and short circuit current above 8amps is detected without permanent damage of a fuse placed along current path. Also the design will ensure that there is an automatic close circuit whenever the trigger switch is momentary switch is closed. The system is achieved via the use of PIC micro-controller current sensor and other discrete components. The system is tested and works well inhibiting the frequent faulting of fuses. It also helps to prevent hazard as a result of overvoltage overload and short circuit and ensures a close circuit when the trigger switch is closed.

Training on Radiological Protection in Peru

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Medina Gironzini, E.

2004-01-01

Since they were created in 1973 and 1988 respectively, the Superior Center of Nuclear Studies (CSEN) of the Peruvian Institute of Nuclear Energy (IPEN), together with the Peruvian Radioprotection Society (SPR) have carried out different training courses on radiological protection so that people can work safely with ionizing radiations in medicine, industry and investigation. Additionally, radiological protection is taught to pre graduate students of Medical Technology in four Universities. These courses are a must since national regulations demand that people working with ionizing radiations have an authorization, which is granted by the Technical Office of the National Authority - the technical organ of IPEN - after the candidate demonstrates that he or she knows the specific use of the technique using radiations, as well as all aspects related to safety and radiological protection. The analysis of the radiological protection programs is presented in this document. These programs were carried out by CSEN, during the last 30 years, and by the SRP, and they allowed the training of more than 2200 and 1500 people in the country, respectively. The content of both courses is aimed at specific work with radiations (diagnostic radiology, dental radiology, nuclear medicine, radiotherapy, industrial radiography, nuclear gauges, gamma irradiator, etc..) and fulfill the regulatory requirements. The Universities have different programs on radiological protection for the students of Medical Technology. (Author)

Argentina, regional training center on radiation protection for Latin America

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Terrado, Carlos A.; Menossi, Carlos A.

2008-01-01

Argentina has an extensive background in education and training on Radiation Protection. Since the beginning of the nuclear activity in the country, prominence was given to the aspects related to radiation protection and training of the personnel involved in the use of ionizing radiation. These educative activities have been delivered for more than 50 years, having accumulated an important experience in the field. The Nuclear Regulatory Authority has the statutory obligation to address, among other matters, the control of the aspects of nuclear safety and radiation protection on the whole country, to protect the people of the harmful effects of ionizing radiation resulting from the nuclear activities. This includes the responsibility to develop and enforce the regulations, standards and other requirements, particularly, establishing the requests and promoting activities regarding education and training on radiation protection. Argentina, currently through the Nuclear Regulatory Authority, has performed postgraduate courses on radiation protection and nuclear safety at inter regional and regional level for 28 years without interruption. This important experience has been valued and exploited to form a Regional Center on Education and Training for Latin America and the Caribbean, sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Regional Center that in fact has been running in Argentina, trained 404 foreign participants and 327 local participants since 1980, totalizing 731 graduates from our annual post graduate courses. Our commitment is that all the effort made in education and training on radiation protection and nuclear safety contributes to a better use of the benefits of nuclear development. Since 2001 the International Atomic Energy Agency raised the need to develop plans and establish agreements to ensure a long-term sustainability of the education and training programs, allowing a better use of the resources in this area. In order to achieve this goal

The recognition of radiation protection training as a professional specialty

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Touzet, R. E.

2003-01-01

After Chernobyl accident, the radiation protection training was recognized as a professional specialty. To improve this training we focussed the project in 3 points: - The recognition of radiation protective in the legislation. - Stablishment of minimum programs - Different categories: nuclear facilities, radioisotopes and radiopharmaceuticals

Continuing training program in radiation protection in biological research centers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Escudero, R.; Hidalgo, R.M.; Usera, F.; Macias, M.T.; Mirpuri, E.; Perez, J.; Sanchez, A.

2008-01-01

The use of ionizing radiation in biological research has many specific characteristics. A great variety of radioisotopic techniques involve unsealed radioactive sources, and their use not only carries a risk of irradiation, but also a significant risk of contamination. Moreover, a high proportion of researchers are in training and the labor mobility rate is therefore high. Furthermore, most newly incorporated personnel have little or no previous training in radiological protection, since most academic qualifications do not include training in this discipline. In a biological research center, in addition to personnel whose work is directly associated with the radioactive facility (scientific-technical personnel, operators, supervisors), there are also groups of support personnel The use of ionizing radiation in biological research has many specific characteristics. A great variety of radioisotopic techniques involve unsealed radioactive sources, and their use not only carries a risk of irradiation, but also a significant risk of contamination. Moreover, a high proportion of researchers are in training and the labor mobility rate is therefore high. Furthermore, most newly incorporated personnel have little or no previous training in radiological protection, since most academic qualifications do not include training in this discipline. In a biological research center, in addition to personnel whose work is directly associated with the radioactive facility (scientific-technical personnel, operators, supervisors), there are also groups of support personnel maintenance and instrumentation workers, cleaners, administrative personnel, etc. who are associated with the radioactive facility indirectly. These workers are affected by the work in the radioactive facility to varying degrees, and they therefore also require information and training in radiological protection tailored to their level of interaction with the installation. The aim of this study was to design a

Training in radiological protection of residents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vicent, M. D.; Fernandez, M. J.; Olmos, C.; Isidoro, B.; Espana, M. L.; Arranz, L.

2013-01-01

In compliance with the current laws, radiation protection (RP) training is required during the formative programs of certain Health Sciences specialties. Laws entrust to official bodies in specialized training the adoption of necessary measures to coordinate and ensure a correct implementation. The aim of this study is to describe Community of Madrid experience in RP training to specialists during their formative programs, and to determine the number of residents trained and analyze their satisfaction level with the training. A descriptive cross-sectional study was performed, including all training specialists from the Community of Madrid during the 2007-2011 period. We determined the number of residents trained per year and we evaluated their satisfaction level with the training through a survey. A total of 55 training courses were carried out and 5820 residents have been trained during the 2007-2011 period. the student satisfaction level with the training has increased gradually from 6.1 points in 2007 to 7.0 points in 2011. The development of the RP formative program for residents in the Community of Madrid has meant the start up o the necessary official mechanisms to ensure the quality and adequacy of training in this area, covering the formative needs of the collective. (Author)

IAEA regional basic professional training on radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1998-01-01

This book contains the manuscripts of lectures of the Basic Professional Training Course on Radiation Protection which was organized and prepared on the basis of the standard syllabus put together in accordance with the recommendations of the International Basic safety standards for radiation protection against ionizing radiation and for safety of radiation sources (BSS). The course was intended to meet the educational and initial training requirements of personnel working in this field. The course is aimed at workers of a graduate level who are called on to take up position in the radiation protection field and who might someday become trainers in their home countries and institutions. Papers relevant to INIS are indexed separately

Participation of workers in radiation protection training and information

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zerbib, J.C.

1989-01-01

The information and training of workers in radiation protection should be given priority as a means of preventing the hazards of ionizing radiation. In view of the importance of the human factor in accident prevention, it would be inconsistent not to place more emphasis on the training of workers exposed at work. Training staff should not only have technical knowledge in the field of radiation protection, but should also be properly trained in how to teach adults. Teaching tools should be developed at Community level to make the job of trainers, occupational physicians and radiation protection experts easier. Regularly updated documents should supply the basic information for radiation protection, and not neglect areas of uncertainty, or problems which the experts are still debating. These documents must include the special information referred to in the Directive of 15 July 1980, in particular: . the reasons for limiting the dose for women of child-bearing age and the nature and level of the risks for the embryo and foetus, according to the dose received; . the potential hazards of exceptional exposure. . The information and training of workers should help to improve understanding of occupational risks and not serve as a vehicle for propaganda on the harmlessness of nuclear power. In addition, they should openly recognize the nuclear risks including the difficult problem of low doses, but should not confuse the issue with ambiguous statistics

Developing a training program for radiation protection officers in industrial radiography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kinda, R.

2013-04-01

Non-Destructive Testing employs a variety of techniques which are used to test objects e.g. pipes, vessels, welded joints, castings and other devices for imperfections without interfering with their physical structure. The common methods of testing include magnetic particle, ultrasound, dye penetrant and industrial radiography using gamma emitting radiation sources and electronic x-ray emitting devices. Other methods used are acoustic emission testing, acoustic resonance testing, electromagnetic testing, infrared testing and leak testing. This project work focuses on training of RPOs in the areas where radiation is used, as improper use may lead to high radiation exposure. In order to ensure adequate protection and safety of staff and the public, the Radiation Protection Officers need to be thoroughly trained. With proper training the Radiation Protection Officer will have the ability to interpret legislative instruments and understand the requirements. The RPO will also be able to develop a Radiation Protection Plan and train fellow staff on radiation safety issues. A number of companies currently specialize in Industrial Radiography and this number is growing on a yearly basis. Since the increased use of radiation sources cannot be curbed, training Radiation Protection Officers will improve the radiation safety standards within these companies and promote the safe use of the radiation sources. Therefore this project covers the fundamental elements required to train Radiation Protection Officers in Industrial Radiography. (author)

Training in radiological protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Medina G, E.

2014-08-01

In the Peru, according to the current regulations, people that work with ionizing radiations should have an authorization (individual license), which is granted by the Technical Office of the National Authority that is the technical body of the Instituto Peruano de Energia Nuclear (IPEN) manager of the control of ionizing radiations in the country. The individual license is obtained after the applicant fulfills the requested requirements, as having safety knowledge and radiological protection. Since its founding in 1972, the Centro Superior de Estudios Nucleares (CSEN) of the IPEN has carried out diverse training courses in order to that people can work in a safe way with ionizing radiations in medicine, industry and research, until the year 2013 have been organized 2231 courses that have allowed the training of 26213 people. The courses are organized according to the specific work that is carried out with radiations (medical radio-diagnostic, dental radiology, nuclear medicine, radiotherapy, industrial radiography, nuclear meters, logging while drilling, etc.). In their majority the courses are directed to people that will make use of radiations for first time, but refresher courses are also granted in the topic. The CSEN also carries out the Master degree programs highlighting the Second Professional Specialization in Radiological Protection carried out from the year 2004 with the support of the National University of Engineering. To the present has been carried out 2 programs and there is other being developed. In this work is shown the historical evolution of the radiological protection courses as well as the important thing that they are to work in a safe way in the country. (Author)

CEC radiation protection research and training program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gerber, G.B.

1991-01-01

The Radiation Protection Program (RPP), initiated as a consequence of the Euratom Treaty aims to promote: scientific knowledge to evaluate possible risks from low doses of natural, medical and man-made radiation; development of methods to assess radiological risks; incentive and support for cooperation between scientists of Member States; expertise in radiation protection by training scientists and the scientific basis for continual updating of the 'Basic Safety Standards', and the evolution of radiation protection concepts and practices. 3 refs

Needs For Education And Training In Radiation Protection: Kenya Experience

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mustapha, A.O.; Kalambuka, H.A.; Maina, D.M.; Onyatta, J.; Kioko, J.; Masinza, S.; Kamande, J.

2008-01-01

Many nations, Kenya inclusive, have insufficient number of trained personnel to deal with regulatory and technical radiation safety issues. The IAEA Basic safety standards and the 96/29 EURATOM Directive put emphasis on education and training. Both organizations as well as IRPA have been proactive on training and educational issues. The Eastern Africa Association for Radiation Protection (EAARP) in collaboration with some national institutions has also been involved in awareness creation and provision of training and education opportunities for users of radioactive sources as well as the general public on issues related to radiation protection. Experience so far indicates that public demand is high for information and education in this area. In this paper we have identified the educational needs in radiation protection in the region using the Kenyan experience. The paper has also enumerated the available educational and training infrastructures, the human resources, as well as the important stake holders and their roles if a sustainable education and training program were to be developed in the region

AUTOMATIC RECOGNITION OF FALLS IN GAIT-SLIP: A HARNESS LOAD CELL BASED CRITERION

OpenAIRE

Yang, Feng; Pai, Yi-Chung

2011-01-01

Over-head-harness systems, equipped with load cell sensors, are essential to the participants’ safety and to the outcome assessment in perturbation training. The purpose of this study was to first develop an automatic outcome recognition criterion among young adults for gait-slip training and then verify such criterion among older adults. Each of 39 young and 71 older subjects, all protected by safety harness, experienced 8 unannounced, repeated slips, while walking on a 7-m walkway. Each tri...

Lightning Protection Performance Assessment of Transmission Line Based on ATP model Automatic Generation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luo Hanwu

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a novel method to solve the initial lightning breakdown current by combing ATP and MATLAB simulation software effectively, with the aims to evaluate the lightning protection performance of transmission line. Firstly, the executable ATP simulation model is generated automatically according to the required information such as power source parameters, tower parameters, overhead line parameters, grounding resistance and lightning current parameters, etc. through an interface program coded by MATLAB. Then, the data are extracted from the generated LIS files which can be obtained by executing the ATP simulation model, the occurrence of transmission lie breakdown can be determined by the relative data in LIS file. The lightning current amplitude should be reduced when the breakdown occurs, and vice the verse. Thus the initial lightning breakdown current of a transmission line with given parameters can be determined accurately by continuously changing the lightning current amplitude, which is realized by a loop computing algorithm that is coded by MATLAB software. The method proposed in this paper can generate the ATP simulation program automatically, and facilitates the lightning protection performance assessment of transmission line.

Radiation protection education and training of radiographers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Elsakkers, P.

1995-01-01

The International Society of Radiographers and Radiological Technicians (ISRRT) is an international non-governmental organisation in official relationship with the World Health Organization. Over 50 countries are members of the ISRRT. The ISRRT encourages and facilitates communication between radiographers throughout the world. The ISRRT has produced several documents, e.g. ''The Role of the Radiographer in Europe''. The ISRRT has also done research and developed initiatives to analyse the quality of training of radiographers in the different member states of the EC. Research was done in the member states to analyse the efforts in the field of quality control. An extended study was performed on the current level of education in radiation protection in the European member states. The ICRP recommends in its publications the need of good training and continuing education for all radiographers. An important part of the basic training of radiographers should focus on the performance of radiation protection and quality control tests. Good daily practice can decrease patient dose in many ways. (Author)

REALIZATION OF TRAINING PROGRAMME ON THE BASIS OF LINGUISTIC DATABASE FOR AUTOMATIC TEXTS PROCESSING SYSTEM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. A. Makarych

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Due to the constant increasing of electronic textual information, modern society needs for the automatic processing of natural language (NL. The main purpose of NL automatic text processing systems is to analyze and create texts and represent their content. The purpose of the paper is the development of linguistic and software bases of an automatic system for processing English publicistic texts. This article discusses the examples of different approaches to the creation of linguistic databases for processing systems. The author gives a detailed description of basic building blocks for a new linguistic processor: lexical-semantic, syntactical and semantic-syntactical. The main advantage of the processor is using special semantic codes in the alphabetical dictionary. The semantic codes have been developed in accordance with a lexical-semantic classification. It helps to precisely define semantic functions of the keywords that are situated in parsing groups and allows the automatic system to avoid typical mistakes. The author also represents the realization of a developed linguistic database in the form of a training computer program.

Education and training in radiation protection in Morocco: experiences and perspectives

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

El Messaoudi, M.; Essadki, H.; Lferde, M.; Moutia, Z. [Faculte des Sciences, Dept. de Physique, Rabat (Morocco)

2006-07-01

Education and training are of primary importance for achieving competence in radiation protection. Unfortunately, one records the absence of a national legislation specifying the training of the qualified expert. On the basis of the observation which there exists in the Faculties of Sciences of Morocco the courses in radiation protection within the framework of preparation of the D.E.S.A;/M.A.S.T.E.R., we will propose to create a master in radiation protection within the framework of the reform of the higher education in progress. This reform proposes three levels: licence, Master, Ph.D. According to the B.S.S., any person who is occupationally exposed to ionising radiation or who may be exposed in the course of the work should receive adequate training in radiation protection. The Nuclear Physics Laboratory of Rabat (N.P.L.R.) has participated in the organisation of IAEA postgraduate educational and training courses in radiation protection and the safety of radiation sources since 1998. It is also pioneer in the preparation of the doctorate thesis in radiation protection. The objective of this work is to present the important points of national strategy for building competence in radiation protection and the role of Radiation Protection Group(R.P.D.), created recently at our Physics department, to ensure the organisation of a radiation protection master. (authors)

Education and training in radiation protection in Morocco: experiences and perspectives

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

El Messaoudi, M.; Essadki, H.; Lferde, M.; Moutia, Z.

2006-01-01

Education and training are of primary importance for achieving competence in radiation protection. Unfortunately, one records the absence of a national legislation specifying the training of the qualified expert. On the basis of the observation which there exists in the Faculties of Sciences of Morocco the courses in radiation protection within the framework of preparation of the D.E.S.A;/M.A.S.T.E.R., we will propose to create a master in radiation protection within the framework of the reform of the higher education in progress. This reform proposes three levels: licence, Master, Ph.D. According to the B.S.S., any person who is occupationally exposed to ionising radiation or who may be exposed in the course of the work should receive adequate training in radiation protection. The Nuclear Physics Laboratory of Rabat (N.P.L.R.) has participated in the organisation of IAEA postgraduate educational and training courses in radiation protection and the safety of radiation sources since 1998. It is also pioneer in the preparation of the doctorate thesis in radiation protection. The objective of this work is to present the important points of national strategy for building competence in radiation protection and the role of Radiation Protection Group(R.P.D.), created recently at our Physics department, to ensure the organisation of a radiation protection master. (authors)

ENETRAP: training and education in radiological protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Coeck, M.

2006-01-01

The development of a common European radiation protection and safety culture and, based on that, the mutual recognition of radiation protection courses and the acquired competencies of radiation protection experts (RPE) and officers (RPO) is becoming a real need. The ENETRAP project ('European Network for Education and Training in RAdiological Protection') aims at bringing together different ideas and approaches of education and training (E and T) in radiological protection (RP) in order to better integrate and harmonise national E and T activities on a European level. The project started in April 2005. 10 partners are involved in ENETRAP: SCK-CEN (coordinator), CEA-INSTN, FZK-FTU, BfS, ENEA, NRG, CIEMAT, HPA-RPD, UJF and UHI-NHC. These partners have years of experience with established E and T programmes and play an important role in the development of specific techniques such as e-learning or On-the-Job Training (OJT) related to RP. As a result of their fundamental scientific research, collaboration with industry and practical experience, the partners have a solid scientific knowledge of all aspects of RP and are ideally placed to transfer the know-how and estimate the needs in this field. The ENETRAP project aims at establishing a sustainable E and T infrastructure for RP as an essential component to combat the perceived decline in expertise and to ensure the continuation of the high level of RP knowledge. The main objectives of the ENETRAP project are (1) to better integrate existing E and T activities in the RP infrastructure of the European countries in order to combat the decline in both student numbers and teaching institutions, (2) to develop more harmonised approaches for E and T in RP in Europe, (3) to better integrate the national resources and capacities for E and T and (4) to provide the necessary competence and expertise for the continued safe use of radiation in industry, medicine and research. Any such infrastructure must ensure that provision is

Guidelines for training and qualification of radiological protection technicians

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1987-08-01

These guidelines, used in combination with plant-specific job analysis, provide the framework for a training and qualification program for radiological protection technicians at nuclear power plants. Radiological protection technicians are defined as those individuals, both plant and contractor, who will be engaged in the evaluation of radiological conditions in the nuclear plant and the implementation of the necessary radiological safety measures as they apply to nuclear plant workers and members of the general public. An important aspect of this work is recognizing and handling unusual situations involving radioactivity, including incidents related to degraded core conditions. These guidelines incorporate the results of an industry-wide job analysis and task analysis (JTA) combined with industry operating experience review. However, the industry-wide analyses did not identify all important academic and fundamental knowledge and skills. Further in-depth analysis by subject matter experts produced additional knowledge and skills that were added to these guidelines. All utilities should use these guidelines in conjunction with plant-specific and industry-wide JTA results to develop or validate their radiological protection technician training program. Plant-specific information should be used to establish appropriate training program content. This plant-specific information should reflect unique job duties, equipment, operating experience, and trainee entry-level qualifications. Revisions to these guidelines should be reviewed for applicability and incorporated into the training program using each utility's training system development (TSD) procedures. Plant-specific job analysis and task analysis data is essential to the development of performance-based training programs. These analyses are particularly useful in selecting tasks for training and in developing on-the-job training (OJT), laboratory training, and mock-up training. Qualification programs based on these

Evolution of radiation protection training programmes in Spain

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Monica, Rodriguez Suarez; Elvira, Hernando Velasco; Javier, Menarguez; Javier, Fernandez; Susana, Falcon; Mirian, Bravo

2006-01-01

Education and training are an important tool to promote safety culture and to upgrade competence. In this sense, Radiation Protection (R.P.) training programmes are a major challenge in order to achieve occupational, public and environmental radiation protection in all applied fields of ionising radiation.The Spanish R.P. Education and Training system provides a solid and integrated educational model. The needs for a specialized training on R.P. for exposed workers appears into the Spanish regulation in 1964. Since then, a wide variety of R.P. initial, continuous and on the job training courses has been carried out, taking into account the diverse applied fields, the different levels of responsibilities, the technological and methodological advances, as well as the international trends. C.I.E.M.A.T., through the R.P. training Unit, has been organizing and developing most of the R.P. training in Spain since 1964, becoming a reference centre. The educational programmes are being continuously updating and improving in order to complete and adapt all R.P. training levels. Initial training, long-life training, updating or upgrading training, as well as other innovative courses related with R.P. are being offered by C.I.E.M.A.T. each year. Another important aspect of R.P. is the information and training to stake holders. C.I.E.M.A. T. is also working in this sense. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolution of R.P. training processes since 1964 in Spain, in order to conclude which are the future trends and the changes required to adapt the Spanish R.P. Education and Training system to the current needs and upcoming scene. (authors)

Evolution of radiation protection training programmes in Spain

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Monica, Rodriguez Suarez; Elvira, Hernando Velasco; Javier, Menarguez; Javier, Fernandez; Susana, Falcon; Mirian, Bravo [CIEMAT - Radiation Protection Training Unit ( IEE), Madrid (Spain)

2006-07-01

Education and training are an important tool to promote safety culture and to upgrade competence. In this sense, Radiation Protection (R.P.) training programmes are a major challenge in order to achieve occupational, public and environmental radiation protection in all applied fields of ionising radiation.The Spanish R.P. Education and Training system provides a solid and integrated educational model. The needs for a specialized training on R.P. for exposed workers appears into the Spanish regulation in 1964. Since then, a wide variety of R.P. initial, continuous and on the job training courses has been carried out, taking into account the diverse applied fields, the different levels of responsibilities, the technological and methodological advances, as well as the international trends. C.I.E.M.A.T., through the R.P. training Unit, has been organizing and developing most of the R.P. training in Spain since 1964, becoming a reference centre. The educational programmes are being continuously updating and improving in order to complete and adapt all R.P. training levels. Initial training, long-life training, updating or upgrading training, as well as other innovative courses related with R.P. are being offered by C.I.E.M.A.T. each year. Another important aspect of R.P. is the information and training to stake holders. C.I.E.M.A. T. is also working in this sense. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolution of R.P. training processes since 1964 in Spain, in order to conclude which are the future trends and the changes required to adapt the Spanish R.P. Education and Training system to the current needs and upcoming scene. (authors)

Radiation protection training award - an innovative approach of testing radiation protection skills in catastrophe management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Geringer, T.

2003-01-01

Full text: ARC Seibersdorf research is Austria's largest independent research institution. Apart from research and technical development, ARCS also offers special training an radiation protection. Having undergone intensive radiation protection training, security forces are also entitled to test their knowledge in a special 'radiation protection training award'. The prize is awarded in three different grades. ARCS Bronze award guarantees that the holder is competent in, both theoretical and practical aspects of a radiological accident. The follow-up Silver award requires additional competence in emergency management. Candidates having at least five years of professional experience and presenting a written thesis are considered for the Golden award. The holder is not only experienced in radiological catastrophe management including a competent theoretical background, but is also experienced enough to work out and improve his own emergency planning. ARC Seibersdorf research started with their radiation protection award as early as 1968. More then 10 000 candidates have been awarded since then. Most candidates are members of the Austrian Army or other security forces, although everyone above the age of 18 and undergone a basic course in radiation protection is entitled to participate. Even company internal awards have been given to ensure the quality of training applies to ARC Seibersdorf members as well. The prize is awarded in three different grades. ARCS Bronze award guarantees that the holder is competent in both theoretical and practical aspects of a radiological accident. The followup Silver award requires additional competence in emergency management. Candidates having at least five years of professional experience and presenting a written thesis, are considered for the Golden award. The holder is not only experienced in radiological catastrophe management including a competent theoretical background, but is also experienced enough to work out and improve his

River Protection Project (RPP) Dangerous Waste Training Plan

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

POHTO, R.E.

2000-03-09

This supporting document contains the training plan for dangerous waste management at River Protection Project TSD Units. This document outlines the dangerous waste training program developed and implemented for all Treatment, Storage, and Disposal (TSD) Units operated by River Protection Project (RPP) in the Hanford 200 East, 200 West and 600 Areas and the <90 Day Accumulation Area at 209E. Operating TSD Units managed by RPP are: the Double-Shell Tank (DST) System, 204-AR Waste Unloading Facility, Grout, and the Single-Shell Tank (SST) System. The program is designed in compliance with the requirements of Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 173-303-330 and Title 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 265.16 for the development of a written dangerous waste training program and the Hanford Facility Permit. Training requirements were determined by an assessment of employee duties and responsibilities. The RPP training program is designed to prepare employees to operate and maintain the Tank Farms in a safe, effective, efficient, and environmentally sound manner. In addition to preparing employees to operate and maintain the Tank Farms under normal conditions, the training program ensures that employees are prepared to respond in a prompt and effective manner should abnormal or emergency conditions occur. Emergency response training is consistent with emergency responses outlined in the following Building Emergency Plans: HNF-IP-0263-TF and HNF-=IP-0263-209E.

River Protection Project (RPP) Dangerous Waste Training Plan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

POHTO, R.E.

2000-01-01

This supporting document contains the training plan for dangerous waste management at River Protection Project TSD Units. This document outlines the dangerous waste training program developed and implemented for all Treatment, Storage, and Disposal (TSD) Units operated by River Protection Project (RPP) in the Hanford 200 East, 200 West and 600 Areas and the <90 Day Accumulation Area at 209E. Operating TSD Units managed by RPP are: the Double-Shell Tank (DST) System, 204-AR Waste Unloading Facility, Grout, and the Single-Shell Tank (SST) System. The program is designed in compliance with the requirements of Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 173-303-330 and Title 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 265.16 for the development of a written dangerous waste training program and the Hanford Facility Permit. Training requirements were determined by an assessment of employee duties and responsibilities. The RPP training program is designed to prepare employees to operate and maintain the Tank Farms in a safe, effective, efficient, and environmentally sound manner. In addition to preparing employees to operate and maintain the Tank Farms under normal conditions, the training program ensures that employees are prepared to respond in a prompt and effective manner should abnormal or emergency conditions occur. Emergency response training is consistent with emergency responses outlined in the following Building Emergency Plans: HNF-IP-0263-TF and HNF-=IP-0263-209E

Course in fire protection training for nuclear power plant personnel

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Walker, K.L.; Bates, E.F.; Randall, J.D.

1979-01-01

Proposed Regulatory Guide 1.120, entitled ''Fire Protection Guidelines for Nuclear Power Plants,'' provides detailed requirements for the overall fire protection programs at nuclear power plant sites in the United States. An essential element in such a program in the training of plant fire brigade personnel is the use of proper firefighting techniques and equipment. The Texas A and M University Nuclear Science Center (NSC) in conjunction with the Fire Protection Training Division of the Texas Engineering Extension Service has developed a one-week course to meet this training need. The program emphasizes hands-on exercises. The course is designed for up to 18 students with all protective clothing provided. Fire instructors are certified by the State of Texas, and registered nuclear engineers and certified health physicists supervise the radiological safety exercises. The first course was conducted during the week of January 8--12, 1979

Physical protection design and analysis training for the former Soviet Union

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Soo Hoo, M.S.; Chapek, J.F.; Ebel, P.E.

1996-01-01

Since 1978, Sandia National Laboratories has provided training courses in the systematic design of Physical Protection Systems (PPS). One such course, the International Training Course (TC) on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Facilities and Materials, is sponsored by the Department of Energy's International Safeguards Division , the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Department of State. Since 1978, twelve 3- and 4-week classes have been conducted by Sandia for these sponsors. One- and two-week adaptations of this course have been developed for other customers, and, since 1994, nine of these abbreviated courses have been presented in the Russian language to participants from the Former Soviet Union (SU). These courses have been performed in support of the Department of Energy's program on Material Protection, Control and Accounting (MPC ampersand A) for the Russian Federation and the Newly Independent States. MPC ampersand A physical protection training assumes participants have more narrowly defined backgrounds. In using affective approaches, the overall goal of training in the context of the MPC ampersand A Program is to develop modern and effective, indigenous capabilities for physical protection system design and analysis within the SU. This paper contrasts the cognitive and affective approaches to training and indicates why different approaches are required for the ITC and the MPC ampersand A Programs

New technologies, virtual reality and multimedia, in Radiation Protection training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Felipe, A.; Sanchez-Mayoral, M. L.; Lamela, B.; Merino, A.; Sarti, F.

2003-01-01

Iberdrola Ingenieria y Consultoria (Iberinco) has developed some computer applications based in New Technologies, Virtual Reality and Multimedia, with the aim to optimise the formation and training of professionally exposed workers as well as to inform the public. The use of the new technologies could be an important help for the workers training. Virtual Reality Projects developed by Iberinco are: a) CIPRES: Interactive Calculations of Radiological Protection in a Simulation Environmental and, b) ACEWO: Workers Control Access to Nuclear Power Plants, virtual Reality could be directly applicable to several aspects related with Radiological Protection Training, for example. An application that workers could used to learn the main aspects of Radiological Protection related with: a) Physical concepts, b) Regulations, c) Use of protective clothing, d) Access into and exit out controlled areas, e) ALARA criterion. An examples is the project ACEWO. A training program based on Virtual Reality systems with simulations of procedures in which the operators could receive high doses. In this way, the operation time and dose could be minimised according to the ALARA criterion owing to the ability of repeating the exercise, or the work, as many times as be necessary, like project CIPRES. Iberinco has been developed an educational CD multimedia on nuclear energy and the protection measures foreseen in the emergency plans for the Spanish Civil Protection Agency, with the aim of being distributed to all the schools placed near a nuclear power plant. (Author) 4 refs

Radiation protection training of radiation safety officers in Finland in 2008

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Havukainen, R.; Bly, R.; Markkanen, M.

2009-11-01

The Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) carried out a survey on the radiation protection training of radiation safety officers (RSO) in Finland in 2008. The aim of the survey was to obtain information on the conformity and uniformity of the training provided in different training organisations. A previous survey concerning radiation protection training was carried out in 2003. That survey determined the training needs of radiation users and radiation safety officers as well the radiation protection training included in vocational training and supplementary training. This report presents the execution and results of the survey in 2008. According to the responses, the total amount of RSO training fulfilled the requirements presented in Guide ST 1.8 in the most fields of competence. The emphasis of the RSO training differed between organisations, even for training in the same field of competence. Certain issues in Guide ST 1.8 were dealt quite superficially or even not at all in some training programmes. In some fields of competence, certain matters were entirely left to individual study. No practical training with radiation equipment or sources was included in the RSO training programme of some organisations. Practical training also varied considerably between organisations, even within the same field of competence. The duties in the use of radiation were often considered as practical training with radiation equipment and sources. Practical training from the point of view of a radiation safety officer was brought up in the responses of only one organisation. The number of questions and criteria for passing RSO exams also varied between organisations. Trainers who provided RSO training for the use of radiation in health care sectors had reached a higher vocational training level and received more supplementary training in radiation protection in the previous 5 years than trainers who provided RSO training for the use of radiation in industry, research, and

Radiation protection training for diverse general employee populations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Copenhaver, E.D.; Houser, B.S.

1986-01-01

Radiation protection training for the general employee at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory has undergone a great deal of restructuring in the last two years. The number of personnel totally dedicated to nuclear facilities is less than a fifth of our employees and the percentage of contracted employees who are dedicated radiation workers is much smaller. However, the aging of our facilities and increasing emphasis on environmental control means that everyone needs to understand the basics of radiation protection. In accordance with changing DOE guidelines and internal ORNL policies, greater emphasis has been placed on keeping training focused on current issues, training the total workforce, and requiring some type of testing or feedback mechanism. This report describes efforts to instill respect, but not fear, of radiation in the work environment. Flexible tools are being developed to meet this objective for several diverse general employee populations. Continuing efforts include consideration of computer-based training for retraining, developing additional modules for specialized groups and jobs, and testing/documentation appropriate to each population segment. 6 refs

Radiation protection education and training in Switzerland: What can be improved?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jahn, Swen-Gunnar

2013-01-01

In the frame of the amendment of the Swiss radiation protection regulations (StSV) the radiation protection education and training system is checked whether there is a need for improvement measures or the regulations have to be revised. Experiences, the comparison with other education and training systems and international developments were compiled and evaluated The responsible expert group with participants from authorities and instructors decided that no fundamental changes are necessary. In the contribution two items are discussed: The mandatory external consulting of licensees by acknowledged radiation protection experts - as required by the EU BSS (basic safety standards) with the definition of a radiation protection expert (RPE) - bears more disadvantages than advantages. On the other hand the improvement potential with respect to clearness and courtesy of requirements for radiation protection education and training in Switzerland were considered in the frame of WU-BSS revision.

Training in radiation protection given to personnel of nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brosson, M.; Lambinon, Y.

1977-01-01

Any action undertaken in technical training must aim at mastering the know-how appropriate to the work to be done. To develop a training program in radiation protection intended for persons who work in radioactive areas it is necessary to analyze the tasks corresponding to the work to be done then to install the means required to implement them. Evaluating the hazards (second stage training) is the sole responsibility of those in charge of work safety assisted where necessary by a specialist on specific hazard (specialized training). But all the staff, knowing the risks involved, must know how to protect themselves (first-stage training). Stage I and 2 trainings are given in site and call for specific teaching methods. It was necessary to create a further training course for them known as stage 3 training to prepare the instructors [fr

A radiation protection training program with a focus on communicating risk

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clement, C.H.; Zelmer, R.L.; Tourneur, F.

2000-01-01

Radiation protection training is generally provided to promote a radiologically safe work environment, and to help ensure that doses are kept as low as reasonably achievable. In many cases, this reason makes good sense. Radiological risk can often be a significant concern when working with radioactive materials or radiation-emitting devices. However, in conducting the work of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office, it is often the case that the perception of radiological risk is of greater concern that the radiological risk itself. In this case, radiation protection training can serve another equally important purpose. It can be used to convey, in a balanced manner, the actual radiological risks associated with the work, and to put those risks in perspective. For individuals who are not familiar with radiation safety, effective radiation protection training that focuses on risk communication can reduce the level of concern surrounding work to be performed. This, in turn, can have an overall positive impact on the efficiency of the work, on goodwill within the community where the work is taking place, and even on the overall safety of those conducting the work. The radiation protection training program developed and implemented by the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office is described in the context of other, more traditional radiation protection training programs. (author)

Training program in radiation protection: implantation in a radiation oncology department

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chretien, Mario; Morrier, Janelle; Cote, Carl; Lavallee, Marie C.

2008-01-01

Full text: Purpose: To introduce the radiation protection training program implemented in the radiation oncology department of the Hotel-Dieu de Quebec. This program seeks to provide an adequate training for all the clinic workers and to fulfill Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's (CNSC) legislations. Materials and Methods: The radiation protection training program implemented is based on the use of five different education modalities: 1) Oral presentations, when the objective of the formation is to inform a large number of persons about general topics; 2) Periodic journals are published bimonthly and distributed to members of the department. They aim to answer frequently asked questions on the radiation safety domain. Each journal contains one main subject which is vulgarized and short notices, these later added to inform the readers about the departmental news and developments in radiation safety; 3) Electronic self-training presentations are divided into several units. Topics, durations, complexity and evaluations are adapted for different worker groups; 4) Posters are strategically displayed in the department in order to be read by all the radiation oncology employees, even those who are not specialized in the radiation protection area; 5) Simulations are organized for specialised workers to practice and to develop their skills in radiation protection situations as emergencies. A registration method was developed to record all training performed by each member of the department. Results: The training program implemented follows the CNSC recommendations. It allows about 150 members of the department to receive proper radiation safety training. The oral presentations allow an interaction between the trainer and the workers. The periodic journals are simple to write while ensuring continuous training. They are also easy to read and to understand. The e-learning units and their associated evaluations can be done at any time and everywhere in the department. The

Radiation Protection Training in Intracoronary Brachytherapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Prieto, C.; Vano, E.; Fernandez, J. M.; Sabate, M.; Galvan, C.; Meiggs, L.; Corral, J. M.

2003-01-01

To report the educational objectives and contents on Radiation Protection (RP) for the practice of Intracoronary Brachytherapy (ICB) procedures. The wide international experience on training programs for ICB as well as our own experience organizing several courses aimed at Cardiologists, Radio therapists and Medical Physicists has been used to elaborate specific RP objectives and contents. The objectives, differentiated for Cardiologists, Radio therapists, Medical Physicists, Nurses and Technicians, pretend to guarantee the safety and RP of both patient and staff in the procedures of ICB. The objectives are necessarily different because their RP formation and their role in the procedure are different. The general topics included in RP training programmes for ICB could be: general topics on RP (Interaction of radiation and matter, RP principles, radiobiology, etc), principles of operation of ICB and interventional X-ray equipment, quantification of radiation dose and risks, optimisation of protection of staff and patients, accidents and emergencies, regulations, responsibilities, quality assurance program, handling of ICB sources, installation and commissioning. Training programs based on the objectives presented in this paper would encourage positive safety culture in ICB and can also be used as a starting point by the Regulatory Authority for the authorization of new Installations and credentialing of professionals involved in this technique as well as for the continuous education of the staff involved. (Author) 10 refs

Education and training in radiation protection in Korea: Current status and improvements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Son, Mi Yeon; Kim; Hyun Kee; Nam, Young Mi; Nam, Jong Soo; Lee, Ki Bog

2012-01-01

Radiation and its various industrial applications have been growing at approximately 10 percent per year for the past decade in Korea. As a result, the importance of the Education and Training (E and T) in radiation protection is of upmost importance. This paper is intended to investigate the present status of the E and T on radiation protection and safety in Korea and to draw up the improvements of the E and T courses required for building the national radiation safety infrastructure. For these purposes, the E and T data from the six major domestic organizations providing radiation protection training courses were investigated and analyzed. Each of the organizations is offering several kinds of E and T courses based on their own specific functions. These organizations have administrative facilities equipped with the latest technology for E and T in radiation protection. The E and T courses mainly cover the training courses for radiation workers, radiological emergency staff, license applicants, license holders, and regulatory staff. In 2010, a total of 58 E and T courses were carried out across six organizations. The conclusions make a number of observations highlighting challenges such as: establishing a formal feedback mechanism, introducing more practical training sessions, developing training courses tailored to the job categories and target audiences, and designing education and training courses in radiation protection that comply with current obligations as well as future requirements.

Education and training in radiation protection in Korea: Current status and improvements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Son, Mi Yeon; Kim; Hyun Kee; Nam, Young Mi; Nam, Jong Soo; Lee, Ki Bog [Nuclear Training and Education Center, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon(Korea, Republic of)

2012-10-15

Radiation and its various industrial applications have been growing at approximately 10 percent per year for the past decade in Korea. As a result, the importance of the Education and Training (E and T) in radiation protection is of upmost importance. This paper is intended to investigate the present status of the E and T on radiation protection and safety in Korea and to draw up the improvements of the E and T courses required for building the national radiation safety infrastructure. For these purposes, the E and T data from the six major domestic organizations providing radiation protection training courses were investigated and analyzed. Each of the organizations is offering several kinds of E and T courses based on their own specific functions. These organizations have administrative facilities equipped with the latest technology for E and T in radiation protection. The E and T courses mainly cover the training courses for radiation workers, radiological emergency staff, license applicants, license holders, and regulatory staff. In 2010, a total of 58 E and T courses were carried out across six organizations. The conclusions make a number of observations highlighting challenges such as: establishing a formal feedback mechanism, introducing more practical training sessions, developing training courses tailored to the job categories and target audiences, and designing education and training courses in radiation protection that comply with current obligations as well as future requirements.

Automatically controlled training systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Milashenko, A.; Afanasiev, A.

1990-01-01

This paper reports that the computer system for NPP personnel training was developed for training centers in the Soviet Union. The system should be considered as the first step in training, taking into account that further steps are to be devoted to part-task and full scope simulator training. The training room consists of 8-12 IBM PC/AT personal computers combined into a network. A trainee accesses the system in a dialor manner. Software enables the instructor to determine the trainee's progress in different subjects of the program. The quality of any trainee preparedness may be evaluated by Knowledge Control operation. Simplified dynamic models are adopted for separate areas of the program. For example, the system of neutron flux monitoring has a dedicated model. Currently, training, requalification and support of professional qualifications of nuclear power plant operators is being emphasized. A significant number of emergency situations during work are occurring due to operator errors. Based on data from September-October 1989, more than half of all unplanned drops in power and stoppages of power plants were due to operator error. As a comparison, problems due to equipment malfunction accounted for no more than a third of the total. The role of personnel, especially of the operators, is significant during normal operations, since energy production costs as well as losses are influenced by the capability of the staff. These facts all point to the importance of quality training of personnel

In-service training and expertise requirements in radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klener, V.; Heribanova, A.

2003-01-01

Proper selection of staff and their special education and training in radiation protection are important factors when assuring faultless man-machine interaction and thereby a reduced likelihood of human factor failure in hazardous practices. University-level institutions can only provide education in the individual partial segments of the multidisciplinary area of radiation protection, whereas the proper practices are learned by graduate personnel on the job, by performing operational tasks at their particular workplace. The scope o expertise of subjects providing radiation protection surveillance and the requirements for their special education and training are outlined. Supervising persons appointed by the radiation source handling licensee to perform a number of operational tasks at the workplace assume a prominent position. Alternatively, systematic supervision at the workplace can be contracted by the licensee from an external body, provided that the latter has acquired appropriate licence from the State Office for Nuclear Safety. The provisions of the Atomic Act and the related implementing regulations with respect to special training and to the examination of professional competence before an expert commission are briefly outlined. (author)

ENETRAP II: European network of education and training in radiation protection, data base training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marco Arboli, M.; Llorente, C.; Coeck, M.

2012-01-01

Development and implementation of a European standard for high quality initial training and professional development continued in the R adiation Protection Expert-RPE and Radiation Protection Officer-RPO, also of a methodology for the mutual recognition of these professionals by making use of the available instruments of the European Union (GE).

Automatic training of lemmatization rules that handle morphological changes in pre-, in- and suffixes alike

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jongejan, Bart; Dalianis, Hercules

2009-01-01

We propose a method to automatically train lemmatization rules that handle prefix, infix and suffix changes to generate the lemma from the full form of a word. We explain how the lemmatization rules are created and how the lemmatizer works. We trained this lemmatizer on Danish, Dutch, English......, German, Greek, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Slovene and Swedish full form-lemma pairs respectively. We obtained significant improvements of 24 percent for Polish, 2.3 percent for Dutch, 1.5 percent for English, 1.2 percent for German and 1.0 percent for Swedish compared to plain suffix lemmatization...... using a suffix-only lemmatizer. Icelandic deteriorated with 1.9 percent. We also made an observation regarding the number of produced lemmatization rules as a function of the number of training pairs....

Training in radiation protection for personnels in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Constancis, J.; Gauthier, A.

1980-01-01

For more than 10 years, in order to meet the wishes of their members, the A.P.A.V.E. associations have organised training courses in personnel radiation protection, as a consequence of their activities in the inspection of ionizing radiation sources in industrial or medical environments. Because of their experience, the A.P.A.V.E. associations were asked to provide for the training of the film personnel likely to work in nuclear power stations, in the field of occupational radiation protection. For the last 3 years, nearly 5,000 people have attended these training sessions. The present report describes the approach, draws the first conclusions and state some considerations on this subject [fr

Monthly radiation protection training of workers: An evaluation of two years operational practice

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berus, D.; Covens, P.

2011-01-01

Radiation protection training and education is important in stimulating safety culture of occupationally exposed workers. Taking into account the mandatory requirements in relation to education and training a digital training tool was introduced for communication of personal dose results and regular information on radiation protection. This tool enables that personal dose reports are monthly sent to the individual mailbox of workers together with short comprehensive slideshows on radiation protection topics. After two years of operational practice a survey was organised to evaluate the training tool. The results show that the majority (92%) of the occupationally exposed workers are aware of the communication of personal dose results through e-mail. Furthermore, 81% of these workers are also aware of their monthly and cumulated dose level. The monthly information on radiation protection topics is however less consulted. Around 40% of the workers that noticed the link are indifferent to the monthly information. The interest in radiation protection issues increases however with the education level.

Radiation protection training for personnel at light-water-cooled nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1981-01-01

Section 19.12 Instructions to Workers, of 10 CFR Part 19, Notices, Instructions, and Reports to Workers; Inspections, requires that individuals be given instruction in radiation protection that is commensurate with the potential radiation protection problems they may encounter in restricted areas as defined in para. 19.3(e) of 10 CFR Part 19. Para. 20.1(c) of 10 CFR Part 20, Standards for Protection Against Radiation, states that occupational radiation exposure should be kept as low as is reasonably achievable (ALARA). Appropriate training is an essential aspect of an ALARA program. This guide describes a radiation protection training program consistent with the ALARA objective and acceptable to the NRC staff for meeting the training requirements of 10 CFR Part 19 with respect to individuals that enter restricted areas at nuclear power plants

AUTOMATIC TRAINING SITE SELECTION FOR AGRICULTURAL CROP CLASSIFICATION: A CASE STUDY ON KARACABEY PLAIN, TURKEY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Ozdarici Ok

2012-09-01

Full Text Available This study implements a traditional supervised classification method to an optical image composed of agricultural crops by means of a unique way, selecting the training samples automatically. Panchromatic (1m and multispectral (4m Kompsat-2 images (July 2008 of Karacabey Plain (~100km2, located in Marmara region, are used to evaluate the proposed approach. Due to the characteristic of rich, loamy soils combined with reasonable weather conditions, the Karacabey Plain is one of the most valuable agricultural regions of Turkey. Analyses start with applying an image fusion algorithm on the panchromatic and multispectral image. As a result of this process, 1m spatial resolution colour image is produced. In the next step, the four-band fused (1m image and multispectral (4m image are orthorectified. Next, the fused image (1m is segmented using a popular segmentation method, Mean- Shift. The Mean-Shift is originally a method based on kernel density estimation and it shifts each pixel to the mode of clusters. In the segmentation procedure, three parameters must be defined: (i spatial domain (hs, (ii range domain (hr, and (iii minimum region (MR. In this study, in total, 176 parameter combinations (hs, hr, and MR are tested on a small part of the area (~10km2 to find an optimum segmentation result, and a final parameter combination (hs=18, hr=20, and MR=1000 is determined after evaluating multiple goodness measures. The final segmentation output is then utilized to the classification framework. The classification operation is applied on the four-band multispectral image (4m to minimize the mixed pixel effect. Before the image classification, each segment is overlaid with the bands of the image fused, and several descriptive statistics of each segment are computed for each band. To select the potential homogeneous regions that are eligible for the selection of training samples, a user-defined threshold is applied. After finding those potential regions, the

Second-order sliding mode controller with model reference adaptation for automatic train operation

Science.gov (United States)

Ganesan, M.; Ezhilarasi, D.; Benni, Jijo

2017-11-01

In this paper, a new approach to model reference based adaptive second-order sliding mode control together with adaptive state feedback is presented to control the longitudinal dynamic motion of a high speed train for automatic train operation with the objective of minimal jerk travel by the passengers. The nonlinear dynamic model for the longitudinal motion of the train comprises of a locomotive and coach subsystems is constructed using multiple point-mass model by considering the forces acting on the vehicle. An adaptation scheme using Lyapunov criterion is derived to tune the controller gains by considering a linear, stable reference model that ensures the stability of the system in closed loop. The effectiveness of the controller tracking performance is tested under uncertain passenger load, coupler-draft gear parameters, propulsion resistance coefficients variations and environmental disturbances due to side wind and wet rail conditions. The results demonstrate improved tracking performance of the proposed control scheme with a least jerk under maximum parameter uncertainties when compared to constant gain second-order sliding mode control.

Improving child protection: a systematic review of training and procedural interventions.

Science.gov (United States)

Carter, Y H; Bannon, M J; Limbert, C; Docherty, A; Barlow, J

2006-09-01

To synthesise published evidence regarding the effectiveness of training and procedural interventions aimed at improving the identification and management of child abuse and neglect by health professionals. Systematic review for the period 1994 to 2005 of studies that evaluated child protection training and procedural interventions. Main outcome measures were learning achievement, attitudinal change, and clinical behaviour. Seven papers that examined the effectiveness of procedural interventions and 15 papers that evaluated training programmes met the inclusion criteria. Critical appraisal showed that evaluation of interventions was on the whole poor. It was found that certain procedural interventions (such as the use of checklists and structured forms) can result in improved recording of important clinical information and may also alert clinical staff to the possibility of abuse. While a variety of innovative training programmes were identified, there was an absence of rigorous evaluation of their impact. However a small number of one-group pre- and post-studies suggest improvements in a range of attitudes necessary for successful engagement in the child protection process. Current evidence supports the use of procedural changes that improve the documentation of suspected child maltreatment and that enhance professional awareness. The lack of an evidence based approach to the implementation of child protection training may restrict the ability of all health professionals to fulfil their role in the child protection process. Formal evaluation of a variety of models for the delivery of this training is urgently needed with subsequent dissemination of results that highlight those found to be most effective.

Radiation protection courses in the Milan Copic Nuclear Training Centre

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kozelj, M.; Stritar, A.

1998-01-01

We have briefly described the legal framework for the radiation protection training in Slovenia. The history of that activity at the Milan Copic Nuclear Training Center in Ljubljana is than described with the detailed description and summary of all performed courses.(author)

Development of an education and training programme for radiation protection officers in facilities and activities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mutwamezi, Tekla

2015-02-01

Education and training is a crucial matter in radiation protection and it is considered a regulatory requirement. For this reason, this project work focused on developing an education and training programme for Radiation Protection Officers whose overall function is to oversee radiation protection and safety at the work place. The developed education and training programme has adopted both the class room based and on the job training methods. Additionally, the programme is organized into 6 modules and focuses on fundamentals of radioactivity; biological effects; legislation; principles of radiation protection; assessment and protection against occupational exposure; medical exposure (only applicable to Radiation Protection Officers in the medical sector) and emergency preparedness and response. The purpose of the programme is to provide Radiation Protection Officers with the basic knowledge and skills to function effectively to meet radiation safety and regulatory requirements. (au)

Radiation Protection in Interventional Radiology. Training objectives for the medical specialists

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ruiz-Cruces, R.; Vano, E.; Hernandez Armas, J.; Carrera, F.

2003-01-01

The Directive 97/43 Euratom on medical exposures and the report RP 116 published by the European Commission on Education and Training in radiation protection for medical exposures, established that interventional radiologists should have a more skilled training for handling X-Ray equipment and a better knowledge about the ways of protecting patients and staff against ionising radiation. To analyse the objectives for training in radiation protection recommended in the European Guideline and to show the most important points and modifications for a better practical application of this guide. An inquiry has been performed into the specific objectives recommended by the European Guideline RP 116 about training on Radiation Protection. Twenty interventional radiologists were requested to fill in the test, pointing out the importance of each objective (0-no necessary, 1-medium importance, 2-very important), and they were encouraged to suggest other more interesting for them not included in the European Guideline. The average scores for each of the objectives included in the European Guideline are shown, and an additional relation of suggested topics has been added to the current list. The scoring system show the priority and importance of the objectives that could be taken into account during the next training courses to be held in Spain and it could be used as a base of discussion in some European meeting in order to improve the European Guideline in the future. (Author) 13 refs

Web Technologies in Radiation Protection Training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marco Arboli, M.; Hernando Velasco, E.; Rodriguez Suarez, M; Gomez Ros, J. M.; Rodriguez, M.; Villaroel, R.

2004-01-01

This paper presents the major advances already done in the educational web site maintained on the CIEMAT server and accessible through the CSN web. This training project attempts to propose the use of a web site as the standardisation of radiation protection training programmes. The main objective of this project is to provide training material for course organisers, trainers and professionals, and to promote the exchange of expertise between workers involved in all activities using radiation sources. The web site is being developed to provide educational material based on a modular design and in Spanish. We present the initial results of this useful tool for practitioners. The user can choose to obtain the information included in the web site by downloading the complete course or by obtaining the individual modules stepwise. Task in each of the training modules has been designed to develop specific competence taking into account different target groups. Complete materials for trainers and trainees will be available in the web site, to ease courses performance. The project also aims to obtain necessary standardisation of the Rp knowledge provided to workers. (Author) 12 refs

Education and Training in the Field of Radiological Protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Meskens, G.

2002-01-01

The International School for Radiological Protection (isRP) was founded within SCK-CEN in 1996 and organises training programmes on radiological protection for nuclear workers and staff. In 2001, isRP organised twelve courses for Belgian and foreign organisations active in the nuclear and non-nuclear field. The report gives an overview of the main activities in 2001

Automatic control system at the ''Loviisa'' NPP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kukhtevich, I.V.; Mal'tsev, B.K.; Sergievskaya, E.N.

1980-01-01

Automatic control system of the Loviisa-1 NPP (Finland) is described. According to operation conditions of Finland power system the Loviisa-1 NPP must operate in the mode of week and day control of loading schedule and participate in current control of power system frequency and capacity. With provision for these requirements NPP is equipped with the all-regime system for automatic control functioning during reactor start-up, shut-down, in normal and transient regimes and in emergency situations. The automatic control system includes: a data subsystem, an automatic control subsystem, a discrete control subsystem including remote, a subsystem for reactor control and protection and overall station system of protections: control and dosimetry inside the reactor. Structures of a data-computer complex, discrete control subsystems, reactor control and protection systems, neutron flux control system, inside-reactor control system, station protection system and system for control of fuel element tightness are presented in short. Two-year experience of the NPP operation confirmed advisability of the chosen volume of automatization. The Loviisa-1 NPP operates successfully in the mode of the week and day control of supervisor schedule and current control of frequency (short-term control)

The technical workforce: education, training, and manpower needs in radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ziemer, P.L.

1984-01-01

In considering our technical workforce with respect to radiation protection, three main questions face us today and will continue to face us in the future: 1. What are the present and future personnel needs in health physics and related disciplines. 2. What kinds of education and training programs are required to meet these needs. 3. What is being done and what needs to be done to provide the required education and training programs. To address these three questions, this paper summarizes recent projections on the manpower needs for professional health physicists over the next two decades. The current status of education and training programs, both for health physicists and for other personnel requiring radiation protection training, is reviewed. Attention is directed toward present enrollment and degree trends which indicate inadequate supplies of personnel to fill present and projected positions, particularly at the BS and the graduate degree levels. Information on the job market, including numbers and types of positions and salary levels, is also summarized. The question of what needs to be done in the future to provide adequate education and training programs is discussed with respect to federal policies, regulations, and industrial responsibilities. Although the federal government will continue to have responsbilities to support education and training in radiation protection, an increasingly important and critical role is seen for the private sector

Radiation protection personnel training in Research Reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fernandez, Carlos Dario; Lorenzo, Nestor Pedro de

1996-01-01

The RA-6 research reactor is considering the main laboratory in the training of different groups related with radiological protection. The methodology applied to several courses over 15 years of experience is shown in this work. The reactor is also involved in the construction, design, start-up and sell of different installation outside Argentina for this reason several theoretical and practical courses had been developed. The acquired experience obtained is shown in this paper and the main purpose is to show the requirements to be taken into account for every group (subjects, goals, on-job training, etc) (author)

Radiation protection for surgeons and anesthetists: practices and knowledge before and after training.

Science.gov (United States)

Brun, A; Mor, R Alcaraz; Bourrelly, M; Dalivoust, G; Gazazian, G; Boufercha, R; Lehucher-Michel, M P; Sari-Minodier, I

2018-03-01

The use of radiological activity in the operating room (OR) and a regulatory decrease of the eye lens dose warrant an assessment of how medical staff are protected from radiation. This study aims to evaluate practices and knowledge in radiation protection (RP) for OR doctors before and after training. A descriptive study of surgeons and anesthetists in a French public hospital center was conducted in 2016. An ad hoc questionnaire concerning occupational practices and knowledge about RP was distributed before and one month after RP training. Among 103 doctors attending the training, 90 answered the questionnaire before the training. Results showed a lack of knowledge and good practice in RP. Most of the participants (86.7%) had never been trained in RP and recognized insufficient knowledge. Most of them (92.2%) wore a lead apron, 50.0% a thyroid-shield, 5.6% lead glasses, 53.3% a passive dosimeter and 17.8% an electronic dosimeter. None of them benefitted from collective protective equipment such as a ceiling suspended screen. The questionnaire following the training was completed by only 35 doctors. A comparison before and after training results showed an improvement in knowledge (scores of correct responses: 5.5/16 before and 9.5/16 after training) but not in RP good practices (scores of correct responses: 3.2/7 before and 3.3/7 after training). One training session appears to be insufficient to improve the application of the safety rules when x-rays are used. Communication needs to be improved regarding RP among anesthetists and surgeons, such as training renewal, workstation analysis in OR related to x-ray use and occupational medical follow-up. Otherwise, radiological risks in OR need to be given better consideration, such as radio-induced cataract risk. It is necessary to encourage the use of dosimeters and protective equipment and to strengthen access to lead glasses and collective protective equipment, such as ceiling suspended screens. All these

Education and training in radiological protection: the activities of the isRP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Coeck, M.

2005-01-01

The International School for Radiological Protection, a task force within SCK-CEN, co-ordinates and organises training programs on all aspects of radiological protection. IsRP courses are directed as well to the private sector as to the political and academic world and the general public. International meetings, publications and recommendations with regard to safety culture increasingly stress the importance of education and training in the field of radiological protection. In addition, the need to standardise and harmonise the recognition of skills and practices on a national and European level is emerging. In this sense, the objectives of isRP are threefold : (1) to continue the organisation of open courses and training-on-demand of which the programmes are made up according to the background level and training requirements of the participants, and this for the Belgian medical and industrial sector; (2) to come to a closer cooperation with national universities and high schools and relevant international institutions; (3) to contribute to a better harmonisation of training practice and of skills recognition on a national and European level

A training syllabus for radiation protection in dental radiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gallagher, A.; Dowling, A.; Renehan, J.; Clarke, D.; Malone, J. F.

2008-01-01

The EU Council Directive 97/43/EURATOM (MED) states that Member States shall ensure that adequate theoretical and practical training is provided for dental practitioners working with ionising radiation; this also includes the provision of continuing education and training programmes, post-qualification. The area of dental radiology is specifically mentioned in this legally binding document. The Dept. of Medical Physics and Bioengineering, St James's Hospital, Dublin, is particularly interested in the area of radiation protection training and routinely provides educational courses both at national and international levels. A recent review of their dental radiation protection course was undertaken in conjunction with a number of Principal Dental Surgeons within the Health Service Executive in Ireland. The revised course was delivered to over 200 dental staff members at two separate meetings during 2006. The response from attendees was very positive. It is proposed to extend this course to other dental professionals, working both in the Irish private and public health sectors in the future. (authors)

Qualified expert training: the ERPC (European Radiation Protection Course)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Deboodt, P.; Bourguignon, M.; Juhel, T.; Lirsac, N.; Luciani, A.; Marco, M.; Schmitt-Hanning, A. M.; Van der Steen, J.

2003-01-01

Since 2000, a training for the qualified experts is organised by several European partners in France at Saclay near Pais. The objective of this training is to deliver the theoretical knowledge needed to be recognised as a qualified expert in radiation protection according to the European requirements. The training delivered in English, includes four independent modules; basics, occupational exposure in nuclear and industrial applications, medical exposures (patients and workers), radiation protection of the members of the public and the environment (4 or 5 weeks each). A written examination is organised at the end of each module. Lectures, practical works, exercises and visits are given by European lecturers. Students have the possibility to register in one or several module during one or several years. Participants could be students or professionals from all European countries satisfying the pre requite defined by the European board. A certificate validating the successfully passed modules will be delivered by the INSTN (National Institute of Nuclear Sciences and Technologies)

A training syllabus for radiation protection in dental radiology.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Gallagher, A

2008-01-01

The EU Council Directive 97\\/43\\/EURATOM (MED) states that Member States shall ensure that adequate theoretical and practical training is provided for dental practitioners working with ionising radiation; this also includes the provision of continuing education and training programmes, post-qualification. The area of dental radiology is specifically mentioned in this legally binding document. The Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering, St James\\'s Hospital, Dublin, is particularly interested in the area of radiation protection training and routinely provides educational courses both at national and international levels. A recent review of their dental radiation protection course was undertaken in conjunction with a number of Principal Dental Surgeons within the Health Service Executive in Ireland. The revised course was delivered to over 200 dental staff members at two separate meetings during 2006. The response from attendees was very positive. It is proposed to extend this course to other dental professionals, working both in the Irish private and public health sectors in the future.

Qualified expert training: the ERPC (European Radiation Protection Course)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Deboodt, P.; Bourguignon, M.; Juhel, T.; Lirsac, N.; Luciani, A.; Marco, M.; Schmitt-Hanning, A. M.; Van der Steen, J.

2003-07-01

Since 2000, a training for the qualified experts is organised by several European partners in France at Saclay near Pais. The objective of this training is to deliver the theoretical knowledge needed to be recognised as a qualified expert in radiation protection according to the European requirements. The training delivered in English, includes four independent modules; basics, occupational exposure in nuclear and industrial applications, medical exposures (patients and workers), radiation protection of the members of the public and the environment (4 or 5 weeks each). A written examination is organised at the end of each module. Lectures, practical works, exercises and visits are given by European lecturers. Students have the possibility to register in one or several module during one or several years. Participants could be students or professionals from all European countries satisfying the pre requite defined by the European board. A certificate validating the successfully passed modules will be delivered by the INSTN (National Institute of Nuclear Sciences and Technologies).

Feasibility study for a realistic training dedicated to radiological protection improvement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Courageot, E.; Kutschera, R.; Gaillard-Lecanu, E.; Jahan, S.; Riedel, A.; Therache, B.

2013-01-01

An evident purpose of the radiological protection training is to use suitable protective equipment and to behave correctly if unexpected working conditions happen. A major difficulty of this training consist in having the most realistic reading from the monitoring devices for a given exposure situation, but without using real radioactive sources. A new approach is developed at EDF R/D for radiological protection training. This approach combines different technologies, in an environment representative of the workplace but geographically separated from the nuclear power plant: a training area representative of a workplace, a Man Machine Interface used by the trainer to define the source configuration and the training scenario, a geo-localization system, fictive radiation monitoring devices and a particle transport code able to calculate in real time the dose map due to the virtual sources. In a first approach, our real-time particles transport code, called Moderato, used only an attenuation low in straight line. To improve the realism further, we would like to switch a code based on the Monte Carlo transport of particles like Geant 4 or MCNPX instead of Moderato. The aim of our study is the evaluation of the code in our application, in particular, the possibility to keep a real time response of our architecture. (authors)

Automatic lung segmentation in functional SPECT images using active shape models trained on reference lung shapes from CT.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheimariotis, Grigorios-Aris; Al-Mashat, Mariam; Haris, Kostas; Aletras, Anthony H; Jögi, Jonas; Bajc, Marika; Maglaveras, Nicolaos; Heiberg, Einar

2018-02-01

Image segmentation is an essential step in quantifying the extent of reduced or absent lung function. The aim of this study is to develop and validate a new tool for automatic segmentation of lungs in ventilation and perfusion SPECT images and compare automatic and manual SPECT lung segmentations with reference computed tomography (CT) volumes. A total of 77 subjects (69 patients with obstructive lung disease, and 8 subjects without apparent perfusion of ventilation loss) performed low-dose CT followed by ventilation/perfusion (V/P) SPECT examination in a hybrid gamma camera system. In the training phase, lung shapes from the 57 anatomical low-dose CT images were used to construct two active shape models (right lung and left lung) which were then used for image segmentation. The algorithm was validated in 20 patients, comparing its results to reference delineation of corresponding CT images, and by comparing automatic segmentation to manual delineations in SPECT images. The Dice coefficient between automatic SPECT delineations and manual SPECT delineations were 0.83 ± 0.04% for the right and 0.82 ± 0.05% for the left lung. There was statistically significant difference between reference volumes from CT and automatic delineations for the right (R = 0.53, p = 0.02) and left lung (R = 0.69, p automatic quantification of wide range of measurements.

Expert training on physical protection of nuclear materials at universities of Russia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pogozhin, N.S.; Bondarev, P.V.; Geraskin, N.I.; Kryuchkov, E.F.; Tolstoy, A.I.

2002-01-01

Full text: The expert training on physical protection of nuclear materials in Russia is carry out by the universities on the following directions: 'Physical Protection, Control and Accountability of Nuclear Materials (MPCA)' master educational program. 'Physical and technical problems of atomic engineering' master educational standard. 'Technical Physics' direction. Qualification - master of physics. Duration of training - two years. 'Physical protection of nuclear objects' specialization. 'Nuclear physics and technology' educational standard of a direction for professionally qualified expert training. 'Safety and nonproliferation of nuclear materials' specialty. Qualification - engineer-physician. Duration of training - five years. The Master educational program is intended for the expert training with fundamental knowledge. The masters are assigned to work at the establishments of the Ministry of Atomic Energy of Russia and at the state committee on nuclear supervision (Gosatomnaozor). Many graduates continue their education as post-graduate students. The program is designed for the experts having education of an engineer or a bachelor. The program concept consists in integration in a uniform educational process: profound scientific and technical knowledge; system approach to designing MPCA systems; knowledge of scientific and technical principles, means, devices; MPCA facilities and tools; legal, political and economic aspects of nuclear material management; modern computer and information technologies for MPCA systems; research work and practice of the students. The educational program for 'physical protection of nuclear objects' specialization is intended for the expert training of a practical orientation. Engineer-physicians are assigned as a rule to work at the nuclear objects and are intended for operation and servicing of the certain physical protection systems (PPS). The program concept consists in training not only fundamental aspects of an engineering

Harmonization of education and training in radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

John, S.G.; Soelter, B.; Vogt, H.G.

2005-01-01

Based on a consideration of the international activities in harmonization of education and training in radiation protection and the mutual acknowledgement of expertise the Arbeitskreis Ausbildung starts an opinion poll, to find out the real need of harmonization and acknowledgement. (orig.)

Chemical name extraction based on automatic training data generation and rich feature set.

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Su; Spangler, W Scott; Chen, Ying

2013-01-01

The automation of extracting chemical names from text has significant value to biomedical and life science research. A major barrier in this task is the difficulty of getting a sizable and good quality data to train a reliable entity extraction model. Another difficulty is the selection of informative features of chemical names, since comprehensive domain knowledge on chemistry nomenclature is required. Leveraging random text generation techniques, we explore the idea of automatically creating training sets for the task of chemical name extraction. Assuming the availability of an incomplete list of chemical names, called a dictionary, we are able to generate well-controlled, random, yet realistic chemical-like training documents. We statistically analyze the construction of chemical names based on the incomplete dictionary, and propose a series of new features, without relying on any domain knowledge. Compared to state-of-the-art models learned from manually labeled data and domain knowledge, our solution shows better or comparable results in annotating real-world data with less human effort. Moreover, we report an interesting observation about the language for chemical names. That is, both the structural and semantic components of chemical names follow a Zipfian distribution, which resembles many natural languages.

Assuring the quality of practical radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Neuburger, E.; Schroeder, H.J.

1993-01-01

There is no possibility in Germany to serve an apprenticeship in practical radiation protection in nuclear facilities. However, the scope of knowledge required for such activities is defined in a binding 'Directive about Ensuring the Knowledge Required in Persons otherwise Engaged in the Operation of Nuclear Power Plants'. That Directive by far exceeds the scope, in terms of safety, normally applied to a vocation or activity. The Directive implicitly contains three important provisions: Plant operators must ensure that radiation protection workers have all the knowledge they need to do their job safely; that radiation protection workers are autonomous, within certain limits, as a consequence of the depth of knowledge they have; that radiation protection workers are given formal advanced training possibilities. An examination to be taken by radiation protection workers before a Chamber of Industry and Commerce was introduced in 1982 in order to make available personnel trained in the whole range of possible activities as defined in the Directive referred to above. However, persons who have passed the exam before a Chamber of Commerce and Industry no longer automatically fulfill the criteria under the Directive after three years, but must undergo advanced training in a formal program. (orig.) [de

Radiation protection training and education in Europe.An overview

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vahlbruch, Jan-Willem

2013-01-01

In order to realize radiation protection reliably mandatory protection goals have to be defined. These goals were formulated using the fundamentals of radiation protection and are described by the terms ''justification'', ''dose limitation'' and ''dose reduction and dose minimization''. While there is consensus within Europe with respect to the protection goals the implementation of one of the main components, the radiation protection education and training is regulated in very different ways in European countries. At the same time the necessity of comparable certificates is growing, which will be enhanced by the amendment of the EU BSS (basic safety standards). The authors recommend to study the different approaches to learn from each other.

Development of a training programme for radiation protection officers in industrial irradiators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mumuni, I. I.

2014-01-01

The International Basic Safety Standards (BSS) for Protection against Ionizing Radiation and for the Safety of Radiation Sources establish the basic requirements for protection against the risks associated with exposure to ionizing radiation and for the safety of radiation sources that may deliver such exposure. One important aspect of the Safety Standard is education and training of all personnel involved in the activities of radiation and radioactive sources. According to the BSS a Radiation Protection Officer is an individual technically competent in radiation protection matters relevant for a given type of practice who is designated by the registrant or licensee to oversee the application of the requirements of the standards. By this assigned role, radiation protection officers for industrial irradiators should be adequately trained since these facilities involve very high dose rates during irradiation, such that a person accidentally exposed can receive a lethal dose within minutes or seconds and fatalities can occur. This training among others things will enable the radiation protection officers to understand practical application of the IAEA Safety Standard to industrial irradiator facilities, understand the requirements for safety assessments and emergency plans, be able to develop a radiation protection programme for irradiators, be familiar with the different types of industrial irradiators and their applications and understand the safety philosophy and design requirements for industrial irradiators. (author)

Training shortest-path tractography: Automatic learning of spatial priors

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kasenburg, Niklas; Liptrot, Matthew George; Reislev, Nina Linde

2016-01-01

Tractography is the standard tool for automatic delineation of white matter tracts from diffusion weighted images. However, the output of tractography often requires post-processing to remove false positives and ensure a robust delineation of the studied tract, and this demands expert prior...... knowledge. Here we demonstrate how such prior knowledge, or indeed any prior spatial information, can be automatically incorporated into a shortest-path tractography approach to produce more robust results. We describe how such a prior can be automatically generated (learned) from a population, and we...

Training for effective environmental protection in the nuclear industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parkinson, D.; Brake, J.; Hickman, C.; Tamm, J.

2007-01-01

This paper examines the role of environmental training in the delivery of effective environmental protection programs for construction projects in the nuclear industry. The paper uses a case study approach, based on Point Lepreau Generating Station's Refurbishment Project, to demonstrate how the underpinning principles of 'training, awareness and competence' can be delivered within a structured environmental management framework, to achieve sustained excellence in environmental management and performance. Key issues addressed by the paper include the early identification of different target audiences, making effective use of communication themes, and the importance of reinforcement and follow-up in support of training goals. (author)

Education and Training in the Field of Radiological Protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Meskens, G.

2001-01-01

The International School for Radiological Protection (isRP) was founded within SCK-CEN in 1996 and organises training programmes on radiological protection for nuclear workers and staff. In 2000, isRP organised eleven courses for Belgian and foreign organisations active in the nuclear and non-nuclear field. The report summarises major achievements in 2000 and outlines a number of recent initiates, in particular the development of a distance learning programme

Implantation and Evaluation of a Training Program in Radiation Protection of the Exposed Workers in our Hospital

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gil Agudo, A.; Ruiz Rodriguez, J. C.; Zapata Jimenez, J. C.; Munoz Cuevas, R.; Gil Tomas, S.

2004-01-01

The object of this work is to introduce the training program in Radiation Protection implemented in our Hospital, and its evaluation and follow-up. Material AND Methods: The training program in Radiation Protection implanted by the Department of Radiation Protection in the Hospital de la Ribera consists of three types of training modalities: Annual Seminars: applicable to all the exposed workers and divided in a general part and a specific one for each area; Informative lectures: applicable to a specific department, deal with specific issues of interest without predetermined frequency; Individualised training: applicable to pregnant, new workers, job moves and duties change. The follow-up of the program is carried out by mean of inquiries about general and site-specific knowledge on radiation protection. Results The results of the inquiries are analysed and related with the continuous training program. Conclusion: It is remarkable that departments with workers without academic training in radiation protection (Intensive Care Unit, Surgery, Endoscopy,) need a more dedicated training. The results confirm the validity of the three training modalities: The annual seminar provides a continuous training to all exposed workers; the informative lecture is useful to handle immediately issues of current interest in a specific department and the individual training are useful to acquire specific knowledge about radiation risks and radiation protection rules in new working situations. (Author)

Master Training in Radiological Protection Facilities Radioactive and Nuclear

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Verdu, G.; Mayo, P.; Campayo, J. M.

2011-01-01

The master includes general aspects of radiation protection in nuclear facilities. also an advanced module to acquire a high level training highlights as nuclear decommissioning, shielding calculation using advanced codes, particle accelerators, international law, etc.

Training of human resources on radiation protection and safe use of radiation sources. Argentine experience

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Biaggio, Alfredo L.; Nasazzi, Nora B.; Arias, Cesar

2004-01-01

Argentina has a long experience in Radiation Protection training since 25 years ago. In the present work we analyse those variable and non variable training aspects according to scientific development, increasing radiation source diversity (including new concepts like orphan sources and security), mayor concern about patient in Radiation Protection, previous exposures, etc. We comment what we consider the main steps in the training of Radiation Protection specialists, like university degree, post graduate education distinguishing between formative and informative contents and on the job training. Moreover, we point out the trainees aptitudes and attitudes to be developed in order to work properly in this interdisciplinary field. (author)

Maritime Training Serbian Autonomous Vessel Protection Detachment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Šoškić Svetislav D.

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The crisis in Somalia has caused appearance of piracy at sea in the Gulf of Aden and the Western Indian Ocean. Somali pirates have become a threat to economic security of the world because almost 30 percent of world oil and 20 percent of global trade passes through the Gulf of Aden. Solving the problem of piracy in this part of the world have included international organizations, institutions, military alliances and the states, acting in accordance with international law and UN Security Council resolutions. The European Union will demonstrate the application of a comprehensive approach to solving the problem of piracy at sea and the crisis in Somalia conducting naval operation — EU NAVFOR Atalanta and operation EUTM under the Common Security and Defense Policy. The paper discusses approaches to solving the problem of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the crisis in Somalia. Also, the paper points to the complexity of the crisis in Somalia and dilemmas correctness principles that are applied to solve the problem piracy at sea. One of goals is protections of vessels of the World Food Programme (WFP delivering food aid to displaced persons in Somalia. Republic of Serbia joined in this mission and trained and sent one a autonomous team in this military operation for protection WFP. This paper consist the problem of modern piracy, particularly in the area of the Horn of Africa became a real threat for the safety of maritime ships and educational process of Serbian Autonomous vessel protection detachment. Serbian Military Academy adopted and developed educational a training program against piracy applying all the provisions and recommendations of the IMO conventions and IMO model courses for Serbian Autonomous vessel protection detachment.

Training project on Radiological Protection in medicine. Use of new technologies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ruis-Cruces, R.; Perez-Martinez, M.; Pastor Vega, J. M.; Diez de los Rios Delgado, A.

2003-01-01

Radiological protection training addressed to physicians should start during the teaching graduate and postgraduate studies, and a third phase only for those physicians using X rays and radioactive sources in diagnosis and treatment of diseases. To show a training project addressed to the teaching graduate students based on the new technologies, such as web online and interactive CD-ROM. Development of a web-online including information in.pdf (adobe acrobat) format and additional tools (as data bases, videos, news and class meetings, FAQ, tutorials). Moreover, we propose to development an interactive CD-ROM which will be used as a practical tool to complete the obligatory subject on radiological protection in the University of Malaga (Spain). We show the preliminary phase of the project. The web-online is being developed with the Microsoft FrontPage software. The first version of the CR-ROM is being developed in html format. These tools based on new technologies will be a very important support for radiological protection training, which is recommended by International Organizations (EC Report R116 and IAE Action Plan 2002-2006). (Author) 4 refs

Automatic Thermal Infrared Panoramic Imaging Sensor

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Gutin, Mikhail; Tsui, Eddy K; Gutin, Olga; Wang, Xu-Ming; Gutin, Alexey

2006-01-01

.... Automatic detection, location, and tracking of targets outside protected area ensures maximum protection and at the same time reduces the workload on personnel, increases reliability and confidence...

National strategy on education and training in radiation protection in Cuba

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Prendes Alonso, Miguel; Valdes Ramos, Maryzury; Fernandez Rondon, Manuel; Guillen Campos, Alba

2008-01-01

The development of the nuclear applications in Cuba has been accompanied by a strong infrastructure of radiological protection, which includes the regulatory system and diverse scientific techniques services needed by the program. It is recognized the fact, that the preparation of the human resources has played an important role in safety levels reached in the practices accomplished. Presently, the processes of selection, training and authorization of the personnel working with ionizing radiations have been regulated. This paper aims at the development of a strategy to create a national system of sustainable education and training in the field of the radiological protection able to accomplish the demands of the regulatory organizations. Present necessities and the perspective of training were analyzed; in addition involved academic and non-academic institutions were identified. The design of the realistic-based national training program is described as well as the responsibility of each of the involved institutions. (author)

The regulatory evaluation of radiation protection training programmes at Canadian nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Legare, M.; Tennant, D.

1996-01-01

The responsibility for providing the necessary assurance that the use of nuclear energy in Canada does not pose undue risk to health, safety, security and the environment is vested with the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB). This responsibility has led the Operator Certification Division of the AECB to develop methods to obtain assurance that nuclear power plant operations personnel are well trained and adequately competent to perform their duties. The features of the AECB approach to evaluation of training programmes based on a systematic approach to training is described. An overview of the Canadian nuclear power plants' radiation protection qualification levels is given. The developing evaluation process is contributing to the improvement of licensee radiation protection training programmes. This is making possible the transfer of part of the responsibility for licensed personnel radiation protection qualification assessment to the licensees, thus enabling a reduction in the operator certification division formal qualification activities. (author)

Spike Pattern Recognition for Automatic Collimation Alignment

CERN Document Server

Azzopardi, Gabriella; Salvachua Ferrando, Belen Maria; Mereghetti, Alessio; Redaelli, Stefano; CERN. Geneva. ATS Department

2017-01-01

The LHC makes use of a collimation system to protect its sensitive equipment by intercepting potentially dangerous beam halo particles. The appropriate collimator settings to protect the machine against beam losses relies on a very precise alignment of all the collimators with respect to the beam. The beam center at each collimator is then found by touching the beam halo using an alignment procedure. Until now, in order to determine whether a collimator is aligned with the beam or not, a user is required to follow the collimator’s BLM loss data and detect spikes. A machine learning (ML) model was trained in order to automatically recognize spikes when a collimator is aligned. The model was loosely integrated with the alignment implementation to determine the classification performance and reliability, without effecting the alignment process itself. The model was tested on a number of collimators during this MD and the machine learning was able to output the classifications in real-time.

A multimedia - virtual reality based- tool for training in radiological protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Salve, R.; Castro, A.; Javier, Castelo; Francisco, Diaz; Francisco, Massana; Antonio, A. de; Herrero, P.

2001-01-01

This paper presents the work that has been carried out under the frame of the project PRVIR, promoted by DTN in co-operation with the UPM and Vandellos II NPP, as the pilot plant. The aim of the project is to make use of computer-based training in nuclear plants, taking advantage of multimedia resources and advanced computer graphics. The area that has been selected for this first training program is radiological protection fundamentals, and the end users of the program will be professionally exposed workers. The software can also be used for radiological protection concepts dissemination purposes. (author)

A multimedia - virtual reality based- tool for training in radiological protection

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Salve, R.; Castro, A. [DTN, Madrid (Spain); Antonio, A. de; Herrero, P. [UPM Facultad de Informatica, Madrid (Spain); Diaz, F.; Massana, F [Central Nuclear Vandellos 2, Tarragona (Spain)

2001-07-01

This paper presents the work that has been carried out under the frame of the project PRVIR, promoted by DTN in co-operation with the UPM and Vandellos II NPP, as the pilot plant. The aim of the project is to make use of computer-based training in nuclear plants, taking advantage of multimedia resources and advanced computer graphics. The area that has been selected for this first training program is radiological protection fundamentals, and the end users of the program will be professionally exposed workers. The software can also be used for radiological protection concepts dissemination purposes. (author)

Education, training and continuous professional development in the radiological protection of patients

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wagner, L.K.

2001-01-01

Education and training in the radiological protection of patients has to face many challenges. These stem from the interdisciplinary nature of the personnel involved, their varied backgrounds, the difficult to quantify risk and benefit considerations, concern for quality of the end product, changing attitudes as knowledge develops in fast growing areas of technology and the wide complexity of the equipment used. On the one hand there is a need for giving orientation about the medical exigencies and situations in clinical practice to the radiation protection regulators and, on the other, more and more clinicians without any training in radiation protection are getting involved in the use of high levels of radiation through angiographic procedures. It is hence no wonder that the deterministic effects of radiation have been observed in patients undergoing angiographic procedures. A review of the state of the art in education and training and identifying educational challenges is therefore needed. The medical training of physicians and support personnel in the health care use of ionizing or other radiation in patients is particularly challenging for many reasons, most of which are unique to health care. These include those described in the paper. (author)

Postgraduate training in radiological protection by e-learning the technological platforms

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Verdu, G., E-mail: gverdu@iqn.upv.es [Departamento de Ingeniera Quimica y Nuclear, Universidad Politcnica de Valencia (Spain); Mayo, P.; Alcaraz, D., E-mail: p.mayo@titaniast.com, E-mail: d.alcaraz@titaniast.com [TITANIA Servicios Teconologicos, Grupo Dominguis, Valencia (Spain); Campayo, J.M., E-mail: j.campayo@lainsa.com [LAINSA, Grupo Dominguis, Valencia, (Spain)

2011-07-01

The companies that are working in decontamination, dismantling and assessment in nuclear power plants, usually have their employees in different facilities far from its central offices. When there is a training in radiological protection applied to the nuclear field, it is difficult for these people the attendance to the course because of different reasons as the location of the formation centres which sometimes are not near from the nuclear facilities, so they usually cannot attend their daily work with the same effectiveness. In this work we present a postgraduate training in radiological protection supervised by Polytechnical University of Valencia (Spain) applied to nuclear and radioactive facilities by a technological platform developed in collaboration with the university. This platform is adapted and designed to different high level contents and applications in different areas and sections, related to a general part, radioactive facilities, nuclear facilities and advanced concepts. When the student finishes an area, an evaluation has to be done to prove the understanding of the lessons. We have included films of different activities as decontamination devices, radiation detectors..etc with the contents to make the explanations more understandable to the student. The course is complemented with a final review and exam that are not online to guarantee that the training is well finished. In addition the student has some practice related with different items explained during the training as the use of equipment in radiological protection tasks. This type of training is more flexitime and can be adapted to the necessities of each user, avoiding high costs and unnecessary displacements. (author)

Postgraduate training in radiological protection by e-learning the technological platforms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Verdu, G.; Mayo, P.; Alcaraz, D.; Campayo, J.M.

2011-01-01

The companies that are working in decontamination, dismantling and assessment in nuclear power plants, usually have their employees in different facilities far from its central offices. When there is a training in radiological protection applied to the nuclear field, it is difficult for these people the attendance to the course because of different reasons as the location of the formation centres which sometimes are not near from the nuclear facilities, so they usually cannot attend their daily work with the same effectiveness. In this work we present a postgraduate training in radiological protection supervised by Polytechnical University of Valencia (Spain) applied to nuclear and radioactive facilities by a technological platform developed in collaboration with the university. This platform is adapted and designed to different high level contents and applications in different areas and sections, related to a general part, radioactive facilities, nuclear facilities and advanced concepts. When the student finishes an area, an evaluation has to be done to prove the understanding of the lessons. We have included films of different activities as decontamination devices, radiation detectors..etc with the contents to make the explanations more understandable to the student. The course is complemented with a final review and exam that are not online to guarantee that the training is well finished. In addition the student has some practice related with different items explained during the training as the use of equipment in radiological protection tasks. This type of training is more flexitime and can be adapted to the necessities of each user, avoiding high costs and unnecessary displacements. (author)

Personnel selection and training for radiation protection and safe use of radiation sources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gomaa, M.A.

2000-01-01

For proper implementation of the radiation protection programs in the work place, several persons with different qualifications and training are involved. Among these persons are regulatory personnel managers, operators, workers, health professional, health physics technicians, health physicists, qualified experts, and emergency personnel. The current status of education and training of these persons is discussed in order to build competence in radiation protection and the safe use of radiation sources

Ecological education and environmental protection training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Motiejuniene, E.

1998-01-01

One of important directions of teaching processes in Lithuania now is ecological education and environment protection training. The real possibility to involve scientists into students, teachers ecological education appeared since 1993 when scientific programme 'Ignalina NPP and the Environment' was launched. Scientists working at Drukshiai Ecological Station together with specialists from Pedagogical University and Institute of Pedagogy prepared teaching programmes, methodical aids. During 1993 - 1997 31 measures - ecological camps for schoolchildren and students as well as seminars and workshops for teachers were organized; 551 participants took part. (author)

Diagnostic monitoring of the condition of the amplification-transformer channel of automatic gas protection apparatus

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Karpov, Ye F; Basovskiy, B I; Popov, V V

1978-01-01

A method is suggested for verifying the performance capacity of an amplifier-transformer channel of apparatus for automatic gas protection under operating conditions. Processes are examined which occur in the bridge measurement plan of the sensor during shunting of one of the thermal-transformer elements by a resistor. An expression is obtained for determining the coefficient of transfer of the amplification-transformer channel on the outlet signals of the apparatus in a working regime and after shunting of one of the thermal-transformer elements.

Human subjects protection training for community workers: an example from "Faith Moves Mountains".

Science.gov (United States)

Hatcher, Jennifer; Schoenberg, Nancy E

2007-01-01

Despite widespread agreement on the necessity of protecting human subjects, questions regarding ethical treatment and protection of human subjects remain and are particularly vexing for community-based participatory research (CBPR). There has been a notable lack of attention paid to what type of training should be provided and how to balance "real-life" concerns with official requirements. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how, in consultation with the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) at our institution and our community partners, we developed training that overcame concerns related to instruction of community workers on protection of human subjects. We developed a training module written in lay terms and containing only information pertinent to non-key personnel and their role in the CBPR project. We designed and piloted this material in collaboration with our community partners who work with us to recruit and train lay health advisors (LHAs) and oversee the day-to-day operations of the CBPR project. The educational module was presented to the community workers as a part of a day-long training session. The written materials were a part of a notebook of information accompanied by an oral Power Point presentation. Each of the workers was given a written test to evaluate knowledge of the content presented. The test was administered by the project director, a community member herself, and then sent to our institution for grading by personnel not involved in this project. To date, all community workers have passed the written test. The community members, research partners, and the ORI are satisfied with the scope and simplicity of the training program developed. Our team's collaborative approach to community-based human subjects training contributes to advancing a grounded, feasible, and rigorous process of protecting human subjects while implementing CBPR ideals.

INCREASING RELIABILITY OF STEPPED AUTOMATIC STARTING AND RHEOSTAT BREAKING SYSTEM OF ELECTRIC TRAINS ER9T AND EPL9T

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. H. Visin

2010-06-01

Full Text Available The article examines transitional processes in the power circuit of tractive motors and their influence on the work of stepped automatic starting of electric trains ER9T and EPL9T. The recommendations for increasing the reliability of operation of multiple-unit rolling stock are proposed.

Culturally Relevant Human Subjects Protection Training: A Case Study in Community-Engaged Research in the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Kue, Jennifer; Szalacha, Laura A; Happ, Mary Beth; Crisp, Abigail L; Menon, Usha

2018-02-01

Non-academic members of research teams, such as community members, can perceive traditional human subjects protection training as lacking in cultural relevance. We present a case exemplar of the development of a human subjects protection training for research staff with limited English proficiency and/or no or limited research experience. Seven modules were adapted for language, cultural examples, etc., from the standard Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) human subjects protection training. Non-academic research staff completed a day-long training in human subjects protection (six modules) and our research protocol (one module). We assessed comprehension of content with PowerPoint slides and module quizzes. All participants successfully passed each module quiz with ≥ 80% correct. Questions answered incorrectly were discussed before proceeding to the next module. To meet the increasing demand for collaborative community-engaged research with underserved minority populations, human subjects protection training protocols can be adapted successfully to reflect real-world situations and provide culturally relevant materials to help non-academic research staff better understand the importance and necessity of research ethics.

Integrated training support system for PWR operator training simulator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sakaguchi, Junichi; Komatsu, Yasuki

1999-01-01

The importance of operator training using operator training simulator has been recognized intensively. Since 1986, we have been developing and providing many PWR simulators in Japan. We also have developed some training support systems connected with the simulator and the integrated training support system to improve training effect and to reduce instructor's workload. This paper describes the concept and the effect of the integrated training support system and of the following sub-systems. We have PES (Performance Enhancement System) that evaluates training performance automatically by analyzing many plant parameters and operation data. It can reduce the deviation of training performance evaluation between instructors. PEL (Parameter and Event data Logging system), that is the subset of PES, has some data-logging functions. And we also have TPES (Team Performance Enhancement System) that is used aiming to improve trainees' ability for communication between operators. Trainee can have conversation with virtual trainees that TPES plays automatically. After that, TPES automatically display some advice to be improved. RVD (Reactor coolant system Visual Display) displays the distributed hydraulic-thermal condition of the reactor coolant system in real-time graphically. It can make trainees understand the inside plant condition in more detail. These sub-systems have been used in a training center and have contributed the improvement of operator training and have gained in popularity. (author)

Basic radiation protection training for nurses and paramedical personnel: Belgian experience and future perspectives

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clarijs, T.; Coeck, M.; Van Bladel, Lodewijk; Fremout, An

2015-01-01

When using ionising radiation for medical diagnosis or treatment of patients, understanding of relevant radiation protection principles and issues is indispensable. In Belgium, nurses and paramedical staff are required to acquire knowledge for protecting the patient against the detrimental effects of ionising radiation by means of a vocational training course. The experience with and challenges for this training course are presented here from a lecturer's point of view, together with a proposal for a future approach that harmonises the training content, its level and quality, according to European recommended standards. (authors)

Automatic face morphing for transferring facial animation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bui Huu Trung, B.H.T.; Bui, T.D.; Poel, Mannes; Heylen, Dirk K.J.; Nijholt, Antinus; Hamza, H.M.

2003-01-01

In this paper, we introduce a novel method of automatically finding the training set of RBF networks for morphing a prototype face to represent a new face. This is done by automatically specifying and adjusting corresponding feature points on a target face. The RBF networks are then used to transfer

Research Operator Protection Optimization by the Education and Training on Radiation Protection

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mateos, J. C.; Avalos, J.; Garcia-Leon, M.; Garcia-Tenorio, R.; Gomez-Puerto, A.; Gomez, M.; Herrador, M.; Lejeune, J.; Luis-Simon, J.; Marquez, A.; Maranon, J.; Respaldiza, M. A.; Sanchez-Angulo, C.; Sanchez-Doblado, F.; Sarmiento, J. M.

2004-07-01

One of the best ways of protection to operators in any radiation practice is to provide him/her with an adequate level of education and training in radiation protection. There are many international references where this fact is pointed out and particularly it is recognized the importance of the introduction of radiation protection courses previously to their work with ionising radiation. The University of Sevilla (Spain) through its Radioisotope Service has been organizing biannually since 1995 Training Courses for Supervisors and Operators of Radioactive Installations for university investigators that use radioactive sources or radiation equipment. The courses are imparted by teachers from the university radioactive installations, hospital physicist specialists from medical physics services and medical doctors from prevention labour health service; all of them are the authors of this communication. The students are postgraduate students or teachers that need operate with ionising radiation in their research laboratories. Up to date, it has been organized 4 courses series with an average of 30 students per course. These courses are homologated by the Nuclear Security Council and let the student obtain the licence for Supervisors or Operators of Radioactive Installations in each of the following applications fields: a) Laboratories with Non-Encapsulated Sources. This application includes research activities in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Medicine and Pharmacy. b) Radiation Generator Equipment. This last one includes equipment such as X-Rays apparatus for diffraction studies in physics, chemistry and art sciences, or Particle Accelerator for atomic physics research in the National Accelerator Centre. The practical sessions of the courses are imparted in the radioactive installations of the Seville university. In this study it is described the details of the organization of the courses. (Author)

Research Operator Protection Optimization by the Education and Training on Radiation Protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mateos, J. C.; Avalos, J.; Garcia-Leon, M.; Garcia-Tenorio, R.; Gomez-Puerto, A.; Gomez, M.; Herrador, M.; Lejeune, J.; Luis-Simon, J.; Marquez, A.; Maranon, J.; Respaldiza, M. A.; Sanchez-Angulo, C.; Sanchez-Doblado, F.; Sarmiento, J. M.

2004-01-01

One of the best ways of protection to operators in any radiation practice is to provide him/her with an adequate level of education and training in radiation protection. There are many international references where this fact is pointed out and particularly it is recognized the importance of the introduction of radiation protection courses previously to their work with ionising radiation. The University of Sevilla (Spain) through its Radioisotope Service has been organizing biannually since 1995 Training Courses for Supervisors and Operators of Radioactive Installations for university investigators that use radioactive sources or radiation equipment. The courses are imparted by teachers from the university radioactive installations, hospital physicist specialists from medical physics services and medical doctors from prevention labour health service; all of them are the authors of this communication. The students are postgraduate students or teachers that need operate with ionising radiation in their research laboratories. Up to date, it has been organized 4 courses series with an average of 30 students per course. These courses are homologated by the Nuclear Security Council and let the student obtain the licence for Supervisors or Operators of Radioactive Installations in each of the following applications fields: a) Laboratories with Non-Encapsulated Sources. This application includes research activities in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Medicine and Pharmacy. b) Radiation Generator Equipment. This last one includes equipment such as X-Rays apparatus for diffraction studies in physics, chemistry and art sciences, or Particle Accelerator for atomic physics research in the National Accelerator Centre. The practical sessions of the courses are imparted in the radioactive installations of the Seville university. In this study it is described the details of the organization of the courses. (Author)

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation and automatic external defibrillator training in schools: "is anyone learning how to save a life?".

Science.gov (United States)

Hart, Devin; Flores-Medrano, Oscar; Brooks, Steve; Buick, Jason E; Morrison, Laurie J

2013-09-01

Bystander resuscitation efforts, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and use of an automatic external defibrillator (AED), save lives in cardiac arrest cases. School training in CPR and AED use may increase the currently low community rates of bystander resuscitation. The study objective was to determine the rates of CPR and AED training in Toronto secondary schools and to identify barriers to training and training techniques. This prospective study consisted of telephone interviews conducted with key school staff knowledgeable about CPR and AED teaching. An encrypted Web-based tool with prespecified variables and built-in logic was employed to standardize data collection. Of 268 schools contacted, 93% were available for interview and 83% consented to participate. Students and staff were trained in CPR in 51% and 80% of schools, respectively. Private schools had the lowest training rate (39%). Six percent of schools provided AED training to students and 47% provided AED training to staff. Forty-eight percent of schools had at least one AED installed, but 25% were unaware if their AED was registered with emergency services dispatch. Cost (17%), perceived need (11%), and school population size (10%) were common barriers to student training. Frequently employed training techniques were interactive (32%), didactic instruction (30%) and printed material (16%). CPR training rates for staff and students were moderate overall and lowest in private schools, whereas training rates in AED use were poor in all schools. Identified barriers to training include cost and student population size (perceived to be too small to be cost-effective or too large to be implemented). Future studies should assess the application of convenient and cost-effective teaching alternatives not presently in use.

Training lay-people to use automatic external defibrillators: are all of their needs being met?

Science.gov (United States)

Harrison-Paul, Russell; Timmons, Stephen; van Schalkwyk, Wilna Dirkse

2006-10-01

We explored the experiences of lay people who have been trained to use automatic external defibrillators. The research questions were: (1) How can training courses help prepare people for dealing with real life situations? (2) Who is ultimately responsible for providing critical incident debriefing and how should this be organised? (3) What is the best process for providing feedback to those who have used an AED? Fifty-three semi-structured, qualitative interviews were conducted, some with those who had been trained and others with trainers. Locations included airports, railway stations, private companies and first responder schemes. Geographically, we covered Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Essex and the West Midlands in the UK. Our analysis of the data indicates that most people believe scenarios based within their place of work were most useful in preparing for 'real life'. Many people had not received critical incident debriefing after using an AED. There were a variety of systems in place to provide support after an incident, many of which were informal. Training scenarios should be conducted outside the classroom. There should be more focus on critical incident debriefing during training and a clear identification of who should provide support after an incident. Other issues which were of interest included: (1) people's views on do not attempt resuscitation (DNAR); (2) perceived boundaries of responsibility when using an AED; (3) when is someone no longer 'qualified' to use an AED?

Order of the 6 December 2013 related to modalities of training of the Competent Radiological Protection Person, and of certification of training organization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Combrexelle, J.D.; Gandil, P.; Ligeard, C.

2013-01-01

This order issued by the French Ministry of labour, employment, professional training and social dialogue aims at defining the modalities and contents of training of competent radiological protection persons, as well as the modalities of certification of certificating organizations and of certification of training organizations. As far as the training of the competent radiological protection person, the order defines the scope, training levels, activity sectors, the basic training, the knowledge control and validation process, the certification of the person, the extension of the level or scope of this certification, the certification renewal. As far as the certificating body and the certification of the training organization are concerned, the order addresses the certification instruction modalities, additional requirements for certificating bodies, requirements related to training organizations. Other arrangements and issues are indicated related to equivalencies, implementation, abrogation and transitory arrangements. Additional information regarding the content of training courses and certification processes is provided in appendix

II International Conference: Radiation Protection Training. Future Strategies. Ciemat, 17-19 September, 2003. Book of Papers and Proceedings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2003-01-01

Safety in the use of ionising radiation and protection against potential risks due to exposure to radiation sources are not static concepts, rather their evolution runs parallel with an increased knowledge of the technologies and basic concepts employed. Education and training, which are inherently tied to with research, are the means to disseminate the advances made to the scientists and professionals working with ionising radiation. At present, Radiation Protection (RP) training is considered to be the best means to promote a safety culture and to improve the competence of exposed workers. Indeed, progress in both RP teaching and training, which form part of this transfer of technology and specialized knowledge, are fields that are in continuous motion. The first conference on Radiation Protection training was celebrated in Saclay (France) under the slogan Radiation Protection: What are the Future Training needs?. It can be considered as the first such meeting dedicated to the community of professionals, from a wide range of scientific and technological backgrounds, related in some way to Radiation Protection training. (Author)

Implementation of EPA's Worker Protection Standard training for agricultural laborers: an evaluation using North Carolina data.

Science.gov (United States)

Arcury, T A; Quandt, S A; Austin, C K; Preisser, J; Cabrera, L F

1999-01-01

The US Environmental Protection Agency has promulgated a Worker Protection Standard which requires that farmworkers receive pesticide safety training. The implementation of these regulations has not been evaluated. Using data collected through personal interviews with 270 Hispanic farmworkers recruited from 35 labor sites in an eight-county area, the authors analyzed the extent to which farmworkers received pesticide safety training, characteristics of the training, and variations in knowledge and safety behavior. Approximately a third of the farmworkers reported having ever received information or training on pesticide safety, and 25.6% reported having received training in the year in which they were interviewed. Workers with H2A visas were significantly more likely to have received training than workers without these visas. The training received varied in location, duration, and language. Most included the use of a video, as well as verbal presentation, and most included printed materials. However, few workers knew the ways in which they could be exposed to pesticides or reported using any method to protect themselves from pesticide exposure. PMID:10590768

Evaluation of a model training program for respiratory-protection preparedness at local health departments.

Science.gov (United States)

Alfano-Sobsey, Edie; Kennedy, Bobby; Beck, Frank; Combs, Brian; Kady, Wendy; Ramsey, Steven; Stockweather, Allison; Service, Will

2006-04-01

Respiratory-protection programs have had limited application in local health departments and have mostly focused on protecting employees against exposure to tuberculosis (TB). The need to provide the public health workforce with effective respiratory protection has, however, been underscored by recent concerns about emerging infectious diseases, bioterrorism attacks, drug-resistant microbes, and environmental exposures to microbial allergens (as in recent hurricane flood waters). Furthermore, OSHA has revoked the TB standard traditionally followed by local health departments, replacing it with a more stringent regulation. The additional OSHA requirements may place increased burdens on health departments with limited resources and time. For these reasons, the North Carolina Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response and industrial hygienists of the Public Health Regional Surveillance Teams have developed a training program to facilitate implementation of respiratory protection programs at local health departments. To date, more than 1,400 North Carolina health department employees have been properly fit-tested for respirator use and have received training in all aspects of respiratory protection. This article gives an overview of the development and evaluation of the program. The training approach presented here can serve as a model that other health departments and organizations can use in implementing similar respiratory-protection programs.

Use of Multimedia tools for Training in Radiation Protection for Interventional Radiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guibelalde, E.; Vano, E.

2003-01-01

The European Commission has published and distributed cost free in the main European languages and interactive CD-ROM for Radiation Protection Training in Interventional Radiology (MARTIR project-Radiation Protection Series N. 119-EC 2002). The CD-ROM allows: a) To select different levels of training; b) To follow a training programme as a regular course (step by step) or looking only for the topics of interest; c) To do some auto evaluation multiple choice questions at the end of the different sections or topics; d) To perform a final examination at the end of the course and to have a certification with the total time dedicated to the training programme and the obtained score in final examination. During 2001 and 2002 the MARTIR material has been distributed for evaluation purpose to different experts and it has been used in different pilot courses. In this paper the experience of using this interactive CD-ROM is discussed. The University Complutense of Madrid offers an optional specific training on Radiation Protection for the students of Medicine during their clinical period (4th to 6th year). About 100 hundred students are enrolled per year, 10% of these students follow the MARTIR CD at home as a pilot course. All of them used the CD at Least during 40 hours, completed the low level step-by-step course and pass the exam (score over 75% for 60 multiple choice questions. 87% of the students after finishing the course stated that this education methodology was very suitable for them. (Author)

Romanian Radiation Protection Training Experience in Medical Field

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Steliana Popescu, F.; Milu, C.; Naghi, E.; Calugareanu, L.; Stroe, F. M.

2003-01-01

Studies conducted by the Institute of Public Health Bucharest during the last years emphasised the need of appropriate radioprotection training in the medical field. With the assistance of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, the Pilot Centre on Clinical Radio pathology in the Institute of Public Health-Bucharest, provided, from 2000 a 7 modular courses (40 hours each), covering the basic topics of ionizing radiation, biological and physical dosimetry, effects of exposure to ionising radiation, radioprotection concepts, planning and medical response in case of a nuclear accident or radiological emergency. The courses are opened for all health specialists, especially for occupational health physicians, focusing on health surveillance of radiation workers and medical management of overexposed workers. Each module is followed up by an examination and credits. The multidisciplinary team of instructors was trained within several train-the-trainers courses, organised by IAEA. The paper discusses the evaluation of these 3 years experience in training and its feedback impact, the aim of the program being to develop a knowledge in the spirit of the new patterns of radiological protection, both for safety and communication with the public. (Author)

AUTOMATIC RECOGNITION OF FALLS IN GAIT-SLIP: A HARNESS LOAD CELL BASED CRITERION

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Feng; Pai, Yi-Chung

2012-01-01

Over-head-harness systems, equipped with load cell sensors, are essential to the participants’ safety and to the outcome assessment in perturbation training. The purpose of this study was to first develop an automatic outcome recognition criterion among young adults for gait-slip training and then verify such criterion among older adults. Each of 39 young and 71 older subjects, all protected by safety harness, experienced 8 unannounced, repeated slips, while walking on a 7-m walkway. Each trial was monitored with a motion capture system, bilateral ground reaction force (GRF), harness force and video recording. The fall trials were first unambiguously indentified with careful visual inspection of all video records. The recoveries without balance loss (in which subjects’ trailing foot landed anteriorly to the slipping foot) were also first fully recognized from motion and GRF analyses. These analyses then set the gold standard for the outcome recognition with load cell measurements. Logistic regression analyses based on young subjects’ data revealed that peak load cell force was the best predictor of falls (with 100% accuracy) at the threshold of 30% body weight. On the other hand, the peak moving average force of load cell across 1-s period, was the best predictor (with 100% accuracy) separating recoveries with backward balance loss (in which the recovery step landed posterior to slipping foot) from harness assistance at the threshold of 4.5% body weight. These threshold values were fully verified using the data from older adults (100% accuracy in recognizing falls). Because of the increasing popularity in the perturbation training coupling with the protective over-head-harness system, this new criterion could have far reaching implications in automatic outcome recognition during the movement therapy. PMID:21696744

Awareness training and hearing protection devices: Current practices in the South African mining industry

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Edwards, A

2012-09-01

Full Text Available This presentation outlines the importance of awareness training of managers at all levels and miners regarding the importance of hearing protection devices and adequate knowledge, motivation and training to prevent hearing loss....

e-Learning applications for radiological protection training; Aplicaciones de la teleformacion en la proteccion radiologica

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gonzalez, F.; Gomez-Arguello, B.; Callejo, J. L.

2003-07-01

The unattended training, through e-learning platforms, offers advantages in comparison with the traditional attended training, such as, freedom to study when, where and how the trance desires, the student is learning customization, a continuous self evaluation of the learning process and the rhythm of study, etc. To explore the possibilities of the radiological protection training in a WEB site, a first application for External Workers has been developed. The high number of students, their geographical dispersion and their different level of knowledge and experience arise attended training limitations in this area. In this article, the WEB course Basic Radiological Protection is presented and the results, preliminarily conclusions and lesson learnt are analysed. (Author) 7 refs.

Training for instructor in radiation protection courses in the medical diagnosis with X-Rays in Mexico

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Garcia Aguilar, J.; Rodriguez Aranda, F.; Dominguez Anaya, E.

2003-01-01

The General Regulation of Radiological Security establishes in its article 159 that the occupationally exposed professionals will have to count on the authorization of the National Commission of Nuclear Security and Safety (CNSNS) with respect to their training. The Mexican official norm NOM-157-SSA1-1996: Protection and radiological safety in the medical diagnosis with X-rays, indicates that the personnel must receive and accept the information, instructions and training related to the protection and radiological safety, in order to accomplish their work according to the requirements and obligations established in the outstanding procedures. Therefore it was designed an initial training course of instructors in the field of the radiological protection to train occupationally exposed professionals who work in the medical diagnosis establishments with X-rays. The didactic material was elaborated considering a period of training of 10 working days, 8.0 daily hours considering theoretical topics, as well as 11 practical. It is used a conventional radiology equipment, a ionization chamber of brand INOVISIOB model 451 P-DE-SI for increasing the radiation levels, and equipment Radical model 9015 with two ionization chambers of 150 cc and 150 cc respectively, as well as a calibrated plates game of aluminium type 110 and a phantom of acrylic as disperser. To date 73 persons have been trained, from which only 37% approved the initial training course. It has been seen that it is necessary to count on a previous training in the filed of the radiological protection to better profit from this training, since if students do not have good bases it is not possible for them to learn all the content in only 80 hours. To date it has been trained to 73 persons, of alone those which 37.0% approved the initial. (Author)

Training in radiological protection; Capacitacion en proteccion radiologica

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Medina G, E., E-mail: medina@ipen.gob.pe [Instituto Peruano de Energia Nuclear, Av. Canada 1470, San Borja, Lima 41 (Peru)

2014-08-15

In the Peru, according to the current regulations, people that work with ionizing radiations should have an authorization (individual license), which is granted by the Technical Office of the National Authority that is the technical body of the Instituto Peruano de Energia Nuclear (IPEN) manager of the control of ionizing radiations in the country. The individual license is obtained after the applicant fulfills the requested requirements, as having safety knowledge and radiological protection. Since its founding in 1972, the Centro Superior de Estudios Nucleares (CSEN) of the IPEN has carried out diverse training courses in order to that people can work in a safe way with ionizing radiations in medicine, industry and research, until the year 2013 have been organized 2231 courses that have allowed the training of 26213 people. The courses are organized according to the specific work that is carried out with radiations (medical radio-diagnostic, dental radiology, nuclear medicine, radiotherapy, industrial radiography, nuclear meters, logging while drilling, etc.). In their majority the courses are directed to people that will make use of radiations for first time, but refresher courses are also granted in the topic. The CSEN also carries out the Master degree programs highlighting the Second Professional Specialization in Radiological Protection carried out from the year 2004 with the support of the National University of Engineering. To the present has been carried out 2 programs and there is other being developed. In this work is shown the historical evolution of the radiological protection courses as well as the important thing that they are to work in a safe way in the country. (Author)

Proceedings of the 4. International Conference on Education and Training in Radiological Protection - ETRAP 2009 Transactions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2009-01-01

Education and training are the two basic pillars of any policy regarding safety in the workplace. Practitioners who work with radiation sources will have a wide range of responsibilities and objectives depending on the radiation practice, but all will have a triple common need: a basic education as well as specific training providing the required level of understanding of artificial and natural radiation and its management; standards for the recognition of skills and experience; an opportunity to refresh, update and test acquired knowledge and competence on a regular basis. International meetings, publications and recommendations covering safety culture in the field of radiological protection increasingly stress the need for education and training. In addition, compliance with the requirements of specific European directives and the international basic safety standards is crucial in a world of dynamic markets and increasing workers mobility, and common approaches to training facilitate the understanding of these requirements. The conference intends to address the largest potential audience, covering policy makers, the medical sector, industrial radiographers, NORM experts, the engineering sector, the non-nuclear industry, social sciences researchers, safety experts, radiation protection experts, radiation protection officers, medical physics experts, regulators and authorities. Furthermore, it aims to reinforce the contacts between various organisations, individuals and networks dealing with education and training policies in radiological protection. Special attention will also be paid to attracting and inviting young professionals to ensure knowledge transfer and to help build the future of radiological protection. (authors)

Education and training in radiological protection in the Argentine region- IAEA, toward a long term commitment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Terrado, C.; Arbor G, A.; Bozzo, R.; Larcher, A.; Menossi, C.; Sajaroff, P.

2006-01-01

The Argentine Republic has extensive antecedents in education and training in radiological protection. From the beginning of the nuclear activity in the country was given preponderance to the aspects related with the radiological protection and the personnel's training involved in the employment of ionizing radiations. At the present time these educational activities already overcome the 50 years, there being accumulated a rich and important experience in the matter. In the country the organisms that have assigned by law the responsibility of the regulation and the control of practice them with ionizing radiations are the Nuclear Regulatory Authority and the Ministry of Health and Atmosphere of the Nation. The first one has the mission of protecting people of the noxious effects of the ionizing radiations derived of nuclear activities, the second is in charge of the control of the equipment dedicated specifically to generate X-rays. This includes the responsibility of elaborating, to emit and to make complete the regulations, standards and other corresponding requirements, in particular - in the mark of the present work - regarding to establish demands and to promote education activities and training in radiological protection. The sure use of the benefits that offers the nuclear development in its diverse applications implies to overturn resources, experience and dedication for the personnel's training. In that sense the Argentina has committed recently to undertake the necessary actions to constitute a Regional Center of Education and Training for Latin America and the Caribbean, taking advantage of the important experience obtained in more of 25 years of imparting graduate degree courses in radiological protection and nuclear safety with inter regional and regional character. With that purpose a process of self evaluation has begun (self appraisal), following the limits settled down by the International Atomic Energy Agency in the document 'Education and

Radiation protection training for personnel employed in medical facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McElroy, N.L.; Brodsky, A.

1985-05-01

This report provides information useful for planning and conducting radiation safety training in medical facilities to keep exposures as low as reasonably achievable, and to meet other regulatory, safety and loss prevention requirements in today's hospitals. A brief discussion of the elements and basic considerations of radation safety training programs is followed by a short bibliography of selected references and sample lecture (or session) outlines for various job categories. This information is intended for use by a professional who is thoroughly acquainted with the science and practice of radiation protection as well as the specific procedures and circumstances of the particular hospital's operations. Topics can be added or substracted, amplified or condensed as appropriate. 8 refs

Utilization of information communication technology (ICT) - Based training / learning for capacity building in radiation protection framework

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oluyemi, I.O.D.

2008-01-01

Full text: Radiation protection is the science of protecting people and the environment from the harmful effects of ionizing radiation, which includes both particle radiation and high energy electromagnetic radiation. It includes occupational radiation protection, which is the protection of workers; medical radiation protection, which is the protection of patients; and public radiation protection, which is about protection of individual members of the public, and of the population as a whole. ICT has made possible the development of e-learning and several Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) which can support a wide range of capacity building requirements, ranging from under-graduate and post-graduate programmes, continuing professional development courses, right through to short subject specific and research courses, thereby eliminating the problems of conventional forms of training / learning, some of which are: limited access, cost effectiveness and language / cultural barriers. This paper focuses on the utilization of these ICT-based training / learning for capacity building in radiation protection framework and concludes with suggestions on implementation strategies. (author)

The research of automatic speed control algorithm based on Green CBTC

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Ying; Xiong, Hui; Wang, Xiaoliang; Wu, Youyou; Zhang, Chuanqi

2017-06-01

Automatic speed control algorithm is one of the core technologies of train operation control system. It’s a typical multi-objective optimization control algorithm, which achieve the train speed control for timing, comfort, energy-saving and precise parking. At present, the train speed automatic control technology is widely used in metro and inter-city railways. It has been found that the automatic speed control technology can effectively reduce the driver’s intensity, and improve the operation quality. However, the current used algorithm is poor at energy-saving, even not as good as manual driving. In order to solve the problem of energy-saving, this paper proposes an automatic speed control algorithm based on Green CBTC system. Based on the Green CBTC system, the algorithm can adjust the operation status of the train to improve the efficient using rate of regenerative braking feedback energy while ensuring the timing, comfort and precise parking targets. Due to the reason, the energy-using of Green CBTC system is lower than traditional CBTC system. The simulation results show that the algorithm based on Green CBTC system can effectively reduce the energy-using due to the improvement of the using rate of regenerative braking feedback energy.

Future needs in radiation protection training for NPP workers of Slovenia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kozelj, M.; Bogovic, T.

1999-01-01

Short review of history of radiation protection training for NPP workers in Slovenia and legal requirements regarding this field are presented. Courses developed in co-operation between Milan Copic Nuclear Training Centre and Krsko Nuclear Power Plant are briefly described and their implementation presented. Using available data we have predicted probable number of courses and participants in forthcoming years. Some results from inquiry on courses for regularly exposed workers are presented, enabling us to modify courses according to participants' needs.(author)

New control method of on-board ATP system of Shinkansen trains

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fukuda, N.; Watanabe, T. [Railway Technical Research Inst. (Japan)

2000-07-01

We studied a new control method of the on-board automatic train protection (ATP) system for Shinkansen trains to shorten the operation time and not to degrade ride comfort at changes in deceleration of the train, while maintaining the safety and reliability of the present ATP signal system. We propose a new on-board pattern brake control system based on the present ATP data without changing the wayside equipment. By simulating the ATP braking of the proposed control method, we succeeded in shortening the operation time by 48 seconds per one station in comparison with the present ATP brake control system. This paper reports the concept of the system and simulation results of the on-board pattern. (orig.)

Automatic Segmentation of Dermoscopic Images by Iterative Classification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maciel Zortea

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Accurate detection of the borders of skin lesions is a vital first step for computer aided diagnostic systems. This paper presents a novel automatic approach to segmentation of skin lesions that is particularly suitable for analysis of dermoscopic images. Assumptions about the image acquisition, in particular, the approximate location and color, are used to derive an automatic rule to select small seed regions, likely to correspond to samples of skin and the lesion of interest. The seed regions are used as initial training samples, and the lesion segmentation problem is treated as binary classification problem. An iterative hybrid classification strategy, based on a weighted combination of estimated posteriors of a linear and quadratic classifier, is used to update both the automatically selected training samples and the segmentation, increasing reliability and final accuracy, especially for those challenging images, where the contrast between the background skin and lesion is low.

Radiation protection education and training for physicians. Technical qualification for radiation protection and radiation protection instruction for physicians. More important than ever

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Loecker, Hubert

2017-01-01

The medical application of ionizing radiation - especially X-ray diagnostics - is contributing most of the civilizing radiation exposure of the population. More than 80 percent of occupationally exposed persons work in nuclear medicine. Therefore radiation protection in medicine and instruction and training of physicians is more important than ever.

Harmonization of the Spanish radiation protection education and training system: educational specialized portal

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marco Arboli, Marisa; Rodriguez Suarez, M.; Villarroel Gonzalez Elipe, R.; Rodriguez Marti, M.

2008-01-01

Full text: This paper shows the educational project developed by the Spanish Regulatory Body (CSN) and CIEMAT. The Radiation Protection Training and Education Portal is included in the framework of the regulated training system in Spain. The project is available on the CSN web site 'www.csn.es'. The main objective of this specialized portal is to provide the necessary mechanisms for standardization of the radiation protection knowledge and to provide training tools. One of the priorities of this project is to spread in Latino America the efforts of a big group of professionals made in the past years on education and training. The initiative also aims to collaborate and share resources. The web site is used for delivery of education content. The RP E and T Portal provides training material for course organizers, trainers and professionals involved. The project includes training tools for sixteen courses based in the standard syllabus content in the Spanish regulations. The courses have been prepared in a modular approach with specific modules focused in medical and industrial applications and prepared taking into account the different target groups and common levels. Each one of the modules includes learning objectives, syllabus, training schedule, theoretical lessons and practical sessions guidance, visual aids for trainers and test and questions to be used as self-evaluation. The training packages cover the initial training programmes needed by supervisors and operators of radioactive facilities in different areas of expertise including diagnostic radiology. The tasks in each of the modules have been designed to develop specific competence. More than 40 recognized experts have participated in this useful open project and their contribution to the training material offer important results and based on their experience having special attention on the quality of the material. (author)

ENETRAP: European network on education and training in radiological protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Michele Coeck; Cecile Etard; Siegurd Moebius; Annemarie Schmitt-Hannig; Andrea Luciani; Jan van der Steen; Marisa Marco; Joanne Stewart; Jacques Balosso; Rosemary Thompson

2006-01-01

Recent studies have shown that there is a wide variety of approaches to education and training of the Qualified Expert across the EU. As they stand, such differences are a barrier to the mutual recognition of the Qualified Expert status and, in part, are contributing to a perceived shortage in expertise in radiation protection and safety. The overall aim of ENETRAP is to determine mechanisms that in the longer term will facilitate better integration of education and training activities (with a view to mutual recognition across the EU) and to ensure the ongoing provision of the necessary competence and expertise at the level of the Qualified Expert. (authors)

Radiation Protection training WEB site to hold pedagogical material for developing courses a distance way

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marco, M.; Rodriguez, M.; Hernando, E.; Falcon, S.; Rodriguez, M.; Villarroel, R.

2003-01-01

Radiation Protection Training (RPT) System in Spain are is well defined in the local local regulations related to radioactive facilities licensing and radiation protection. A system of personnel licenses is established considering two levels of required radiation protection training-supervisor and operator according to responsibilities assigned during the operation of the radioactive facilities. This paper present the major advances already done in the educational web site maintained on the CIEMAT server and accessible through the CSN web. The project includes training material for sixteen applied courses and the design of a educational web site to hold pedagogical material for developing distant learning courses. The main objective of this project is to provide training materials for course organisers, trainers and for professional participants and to promote the exchange of expertise between workers involved in all activities using radiation sources. The project also aims to provide necessary mechanism for standardisation of the radiation protection knowledge made available to the exposed workers, including theoretical and practical training. The developed training material included in the project will cover all uses of radioactive sources including medical diagnosis. The web site is being developed of provide educational material on a modular design and in Spanish. The paper presents the initial results of this useful tool for practitioners. Courses are based on core modules with basic and specific modules involving different targets groups, and the contents can be easily adapted for other target groups. For each one of the modules should be included in the web site: objectives, syllabus, lessons and practical sessions, demo and lab exercises, etc. The project includes training tools for sixteen courses based in the standard syllabus content in the Spanish legal framework. In the next future complete materials for trainers will be available to case courses

International Training Course on Physical Protection (ITC-25) Report.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Overholt, Michelle Jungst [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

2015-06-01

The goal of this evaluation repor t is to provide the informa tion necessary to improve the effectiveness of the ITC provided to the In ternational Atomic Energy Agency Member States. This report examines ITC-25 training content, delivery me thods, scheduling, and logistics. Ultimately, this report evaluates whether the course pr ovides the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the students' needs in the protection of nuclear materials and facilities.

Fall protection training for rig workers : are your rig workers up to standard in fall risks and how to avoid them?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chausse, C.

2010-07-15

This article offered advice on how to train rig workers in fall protection procedures. Any employee who works at height must complete fall protection training, which should be both in-classroom and hands-on, and site conditions must be closely simulated. There are three basic levels of training. A supervisor can identify hazards and has the authorization to take prompt corrective measures to ensure that all employees working at height are trained and using fall protection procedures. Any team leader should be trained as a competent person, who can conduct fall hazard surveys, identify new and existing fall hazards, and determine how to protect employees from each hazard. A qualified person is one who by certification or experience has successfully demonstrated an ability to resolve problems. The basic level of training ensures that a worker can recognize and control hazards, understand government fall regulations, follow post-fall rescue procedures, and select suitable rescue equipment. Supervisors may be trained as competent or qualified persons and should have knowledge of fall protection regulations, standards, and the equipment and systems being used in the workplace. Constant reminders at safety talks and refresher training are integral to maintaining a high degree of safety consciousness. 3 figs.

A neurocomputational model of automatic sequence production.

Science.gov (United States)

Helie, Sebastien; Roeder, Jessica L; Vucovich, Lauren; Rünger, Dennis; Ashby, F Gregory

2015-07-01

Most behaviors unfold in time and include a sequence of submovements or cognitive activities. In addition, most behaviors are automatic and repeated daily throughout life. Yet, relatively little is known about the neurobiology of automatic sequence production. Past research suggests a gradual transfer from the associative striatum to the sensorimotor striatum, but a number of more recent studies challenge this role of the BG in automatic sequence production. In this article, we propose a new neurocomputational model of automatic sequence production in which the main role of the BG is to train cortical-cortical connections within the premotor areas that are responsible for automatic sequence production. The new model is used to simulate four different data sets from human and nonhuman animals, including (1) behavioral data (e.g., RTs), (2) electrophysiology data (e.g., single-neuron recordings), (3) macrostructure data (e.g., TMS), and (4) neurological circuit data (e.g., inactivation studies). We conclude with a comparison of the new model with existing models of automatic sequence production and discuss a possible new role for the BG in automaticity and its implication for Parkinson's disease.

Use of the analytical tree technique to develop a radiological protection program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Domenech N, H.; Jova S, L.

1996-01-01

The results obtained by the Cuban Center for Radiological Protection and Hygiene by using an analytical tree technique to develop its general operational radiation protection program are presented. By the application of this method, some factors such as the organization of the radiation protection services, the provision of administrative requirements, the existing general laboratories requirements, the viability of resources and the current documentation was evaluated. Main components were considered such as: complete normative and regulatory documentation; automatic radiological protection data management; scope of 'on the-job'and radiological protection training for the personnel; previous radiological appraisal for the safety performance of the works and application of dose constrains for the personnel and the public. The detailed development of the program allowed to identify the basic aims to be achieved in its maintenance and improvement. (authors). 3 refs

New measuring and protection system at VR-1 training reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kropik, M.; Jurickova, M.

2006-01-01

The contribution describes the new measuring and protection system of the VR-1 training reactor. The measuring and protection system upgrade is an integral part of the reactor I and C upgrade. The new measuring and protection system of the VR-1 reactor consists of the operational power measuring and the independent power protection systems. Both systems measure the reactor power and power rate, initiate safety action if safety limits are exceeded and send data (power, power rate, status, etc.) to the reactor control system. The operational power measuring system is a full power range system that receives signal from a fission chamber. The signal is evaluated according to the reactor power either in the pulse or current mode. The current mode utilizes the DC current and Campbell techniques. The new independent power protection system operates in the two highest reactor power decades. It receives signals from a boron chamber and evaluates it in the pulse mode. Both systems are computer based. The operational power measuring and independent power protection systems are diverse - different types and location of chambers, completely different hardware, software algorithms for the power and power rate calculations, software development tools and teems for the software manufacturing. (author)

Development of a radiation protection training system and professional skills model in a multinational oil and gas industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Molteni, A.; Cerri, P.; Fresca Fantoni, R.

2010-01-01

The oil and gas industry makes extensive use of radioactive sources potentially dangerous to human health and to the environment if not properly controlled, including: industrial radiography, radioactive gauges, well logging activities, use of radiotracers. In addition, the accumulation of natural radionuclides (T.E.N.O.R.M.) may occur in the Oil and Gas extraction and treatment plants. Eni S.p.A. operates in more than 70 countries, with a staff of 79000 employees, in all climates and environments, including the most arduous conditions, and is continuously challenged to achieve high efficiency of operation while maintaining a high standard of safety, including the radiation protection aspects. Thus, in order to maintain the control over occupational exposures to radiation, to protect the public and the environment, and in order to deal with local rules and authorities, it has been developed a Radiation Protection Professional Model including three different roles (Radiation Protection Management, Radiation Protection Coordination and Operational Radiation Protection) that could be associated with the corresponding functions: Radiation Protection Expert, Radiation Protection Advisor, Radiation Protection Specialist. The Professional Model is a global Eni tool devoted to the know-how and the development of the human resources, including health, safety and environmental aspects, through the identification of detailed skills and knowledge. In order to provide the required knowledge to Eni workers all over the world, it has been developed a programme for education and training in radiation safety in collaboration with Eni Corporate University, the Eni company that manages orientation, recruitment, selection, training and Knowledge Management. Different training courses are organized to provide the training both for the Radiation Protection Coordination role (Radiation Protection Advisor course) and for the Operational Radiation Protection role (Radiation Protection

Development of a radiation protection training system and professional skills model in a multinational oil and gas industry

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Molteni, A.; Cerri, P.; Fresca Fantoni, R. [ENI S.P.A. exploration and production division, Radiation Protection Department, Via Emilia 1, 20097 San Donato Milanese (Italy)

2010-07-01

The oil and gas industry makes extensive use of radioactive sources potentially dangerous to human health and to the environment if not properly controlled, including: industrial radiography, radioactive gauges, well logging activities, use of radiotracers. In addition, the accumulation of natural radionuclides (T.E.N.O.R.M.) may occur in the Oil and Gas extraction and treatment plants. Eni S.p.A. operates in more than 70 countries, with a staff of 79000 employees, in all climates and environments, including the most arduous conditions, and is continuously challenged to achieve high efficiency of operation while maintaining a high standard of safety, including the radiation protection aspects. Thus, in order to maintain the control over occupational exposures to radiation, to protect the public and the environment, and in order to deal with local rules and authorities, it has been developed a Radiation Protection Professional Model including three different roles (Radiation Protection Management, Radiation Protection Coordination and Operational Radiation Protection) that could be associated with the corresponding functions: Radiation Protection Expert, Radiation Protection Advisor, Radiation Protection Specialist. The Professional Model is a global Eni tool devoted to the know-how and the development of the human resources, including health, safety and environmental aspects, through the identification of detailed skills and knowledge. In order to provide the required knowledge to Eni workers all over the world, it has been developed a programme for education and training in radiation safety in collaboration with Eni Corporate University, the Eni company that manages orientation, recruitment, selection, training and Knowledge Management. Different training courses are organized to provide the training both for the Radiation Protection Coordination role (Radiation Protection Advisor course) and for the Operational Radiation Protection role (Radiation Protection

Qualifications of persons working in radiation user's organization and radiation protection training required for competence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2004-04-01

The Guide sets out the requirements governing the qualifications of persons working in userAes organizations and the radiation protection training required for such competence. It also sets out the requirements for training organizations arranging radiation safety officer training and exams. The Guide applies only to uses of radiation requiring a afety licence. The requirements for userAes organizations are set out in Guide ST 1.4

30 CFR 75.1103-2 - Automatic fire sensors; approved components; installation requirements.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Automatic fire sensors; approved components... Protection § 75.1103-2 Automatic fire sensors; approved components; installation requirements. (a) The components of each automatic fire sensor required to be installed in accordance with the provisions of § 75...

The pedagogical effectiveness of ASR-based computer assisted pronunciation training

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Neri, A.

2007-01-01

Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) systems with Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology have become increasingly popular to train pronunciation in the second language (L2). The advantage of these systems is the provision of a self-paced, stress-free type of training with automatic

Education and Training Needs in the Field of Consumer Protection in the Lower Danube Region

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vasile Dinu

2010-11-01

Full Text Available The issues of consumer rights and consumer welfare are increasingly important, especially in the current economic climate in which the ability to make informed choices represents a real advantage in consumers’ daily life. In order to make their purchases with confidence, both in their country and abroad, consumers need easy access to precise information and to professional advice. Taking into account the fact that education and training are a strategic factor for a sustainable development through contribution to human capital development, within the Romania–Bulgaria Cross-Border Cooperation Program 2007–2013, the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Romania and the D. Tsenov Academy of Economics in Svisthov, Bulgaria decided to collaborate in the field “Cooperation on human resources development – joint development of skills and knowledge”, through the development of cross-border liaisons and exchanges between the two universities. Our objective is to bring up new methods of training in the field of consumer protection in order to train and to supply the labour market with specialized experts in this field in charge with various issues regarding consumers in enterprises, in organizations in charge with elaborating consumer protection policies and in organizations in charge with market supervision and control and also in consumers’ associations. We consider that in this way we meet both consumers’ and employers’ needs because economic agents need professionals in the field as well, in order to advise them in their quest to protect the rights and interests of consumers. Also, Meglena Kuneva, the European Commissioner for Consumer Protection, noted that studies conducted at European level revealed that there is a high level of interest for recruiting qualified experts in the field of consumer protection shown by large companies, national governments, small and medium enterprises and consumers’ associations. In order to

Training in radiation protection of workers at Electricite de France nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aye, Louis

1980-01-01

The safety of workers and the population is a major concern of the nuclear industry. In order to carry out its programme of PWR power plants, Electricite de France has largely developed the training in radiation protection of its personnel. Operation workers now represent some 5000 persons; they first receive a formation organized at the national level consisting in training courses, which are completed and continued on the spot. The training makes a wide use of audiovisuals; it is checked by tests and leads to better qualification. Close coordination is sought with outside competent organizations [fr

IAEA education and training in radiation protection,transport and waste - new developments and challenges towards sustainability

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sadagopan, G. [International Atomic Energy Agency (PPSS/NSRW/IAEA), Vienna (Austria); Mrabit, K. [International Atomic Energy Agency (PPSS/NSRW/IAEA), Vienna (Austria)

2006-07-01

IAEA education and training activities follow the resolutions of its General Conferences and reflects the latest IAEA standards and guidance. IAEA prepared a 'Strategic Approach to Education and Training in Radiation and Waste Safety' (Strategy on Education and Training) aiming at establishing, by 2010, sustainable education and training programmes in Member States, which was endorsed by the GC(45)/R.E.S./10 C in 2001. In implementing the strategy, IAEA is organizing training events in the regional level and assisting the Member States at the national level by providing them with exemplary quality of training material developed at the Agency. This work will continue ensuring its completeness in all areas of radiation protection. An Inter Centre Network between the Agency and regional, collaborating national training centres is established to facilitate information exchange, improve communication and dissemination of training material. There is a challenge to enhance the technical capability of the Member States to reach sustainability. This is intended through organizing number of Train the Trainers workshops to develop a pool of qualified trainers. The syllabus for training of Radiation Protection Officers is developed and a protocol document for educational and training appraisal (E.d.u.T.A.) is developed. The new developments include web enabling the approved training packages and establish E.learning and carrying out E.d.u.T.A. missions, aimed at identifying training needs in Member States and support them to build their own training strategy. These activities are aimed at assisting Member States attain self sustainability. (authors)

IAEA education and training in radiation protection,transport and waste - new developments and challenges towards sustainability

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sadagopan, G.; Mrabit, K.

2006-01-01

IAEA education and training activities follow the resolutions of its General Conferences and reflects the latest IAEA standards and guidance. IAEA prepared a 'Strategic Approach to Education and Training in Radiation and Waste Safety' (Strategy on Education and Training) aiming at establishing, by 2010, sustainable education and training programmes in Member States, which was endorsed by the GC(45)/R.E.S./10 C in 2001. In implementing the strategy, IAEA is organizing training events in the regional level and assisting the Member States at the national level by providing them with exemplary quality of training material developed at the Agency. This work will continue ensuring its completeness in all areas of radiation protection. An Inter Centre Network between the Agency and regional, collaborating national training centres is established to facilitate information exchange, improve communication and dissemination of training material. There is a challenge to enhance the technical capability of the Member States to reach sustainability. This is intended through organizing number of Train the Trainers workshops to develop a pool of qualified trainers. The syllabus for training of Radiation Protection Officers is developed and a protocol document for educational and training appraisal (E.d.u.T.A.) is developed. The new developments include web enabling the approved training packages and establish E.learning and carrying out E.d.u.T.A. missions, aimed at identifying training needs in Member States and support them to build their own training strategy. These activities are aimed at assisting Member States attain self sustainability. (authors)

Radiation protection research and training programme 1990-91 Catalogue of contracts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1991-01-01

This catalogue contains summaries of contacts included in the 1990-91 radiation protection research and training programme, which is divided into three sectors: (a) human exposure to radiation and radioactivity: (i) measurement of radiation dose and its interpretation, (ii) transfer and behaviour of radionuclides in the environment; (b) consequences of radiation exposure to man; their assessment, prevention and treatment: (i) stochastic effects of radiation, (ii) non-stochastic effects of radiation, (iii) radiation effects on the developing organism; (c) risks and management of radiation exposure: (i) assessment of human exposure and risks, (ii) optimization and management of radiation protection

ON HEALTH PROTECTION AND HEALTH RELATED PHYSICAL CULTURE TRAININGS OF FIRST YEAR STUDENTS

OpenAIRE

V.G. Fotynyuk

2017-01-01

Purpose: to assess health protection and health related physical culture trainings of first year students. Material: in the research first year students (n=121; 86 boys and 35girls of age 16 - 19 years, participated. Results: components of students’ individual health were found. Situation with health related physical culture trainings, ensuring students’ sound health and optimal functional potentials of their organisms were determined. It was found that leading role shall be played by formati...

Interactive Computerized Based Training, In Radiation Protection at NRC-Negev

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sberlo, E.; Krumbein, H.; Ankri, D.; Ben-Shachar, B.; Laichter, Y.; Weizer, G.; Adorarn, D.

1999-01-01

According to the rules of safety at the working places in Israel, all radiation employees in Israel should receive once a year a refreshing course in several areas of safety. At the NRC-Negev there are two kinds of radiation employees: the ''hot area'' employees, who work in an environment of radioactive materials or radiation machines and the ''old area'' employees (all the other employees in the NRC-Negev). One of the main goals of the Department of Human Resources Development and Training at the NRC-Negev was to organize safety refresher courses. All ''hot area'' employees received a training program of two days in safety subjects, each year. The ''cold area'' employees received the same course, each second year. The former training program included several lectures in radiation protection, health physics, biological effects of ionizing radiation, etc., as well as same lectures in industrial safety, fast aid, fee fighting, emergency procedures, etc. The safety refresher courses were given by Rental lectures. There were a lot of disadvantages in these frontal lectures: The lecturers are employees of the NRCN who had to stop their routine work in order to lecture; the lecturers had to carry out identical training for each course for a large group of workers; there was a lack of testing methods or any other certification for the employees. Recently, seven safety courseware were developed by the NRC-Negev and the CET (Centre for Educational Technology), in order to perform these safety refresher courses. The courseware are based on an interactive computerized training including tutorials and quiz. The tutorial is an interactive course in each subject. The employee gets a simple and clear explanation (including pictures). After each Morial there is a quiz which includes 7 American style questions. The first two courseware are for all the employees, the next 4 courseware for the ''hot area'' employees, and the seventh for the ''cold area'' employees (the seventh is a

Virtual-reality education and training system for radiation protection

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yamamoto, T.; Miyatake, H.; Kawakami, T. [Radioisotope Research Center, Osaka (Japan)] [and others

2002-07-01

In order to break the mannerism in the education and training method for radiation protection introduction of virtual reality system to the chalkface has been discussed in addition to the usual lecture and video system in the subcommittee established in JRIAS (Japan Radioisotope Association), and the leading model has been installed in Osaka University. It consists of a main server and 3 clients with a software for virtual reality. With this system the trainee could go into the virtual laboratory and handle the radioisotope. In that case he could also experience various accidents such as trivial failure in the experiments, serious hazard, fire, earthquake, etc., which are difficult to suffer in the real laboratory. Hence those who have experienced such a training could come to act rapidly up against any sudden accidents and also the virtual reality system would result decrease in unnecessary radioactive wastes.

Virtual-reality education and training system for radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yamamoto, T.; Miyatake, H.; Kawakami, T.

2002-01-01

In order to break the mannerism in the education and training method for radiation protection introduction of virtual reality system to the chalkface has been discussed in addition to the usual lecture and video system in the subcommittee established in JRIAS (Japan Radioisotope Association), and the leading model has been installed in Osaka University. It consists of a main server and 3 clients with a software for virtual reality. With this system the trainee could go into the virtual laboratory and handle the radioisotope. In that case he could also experience various accidents such as trivial failure in the experiments, serious hazard, fire, earthquake, etc., which are difficult to suffer in the real laboratory. Hence those who have experienced such a training could come to act rapidly up against any sudden accidents and also the virtual reality system would result decrease in unnecessary radioactive wastes

Radiological Protection and Quality Assurance in Health Sciences: Tele-Education for continued Postgraduate Training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alcaraz, M.; Chico, P.; Armero, D.; Saura Iniesta, A. M.; Vicente, V.

2003-01-01

The establishment of an inter departmental project, financed by the Spanish Ministry of Education, has made possible the development to specific didactic materials on Radiological Protection and Quality Assurance in Medical Radiodiagnostic Practices. These have been published as a manual and practical notebook. This material constitutes the grounding work for the first continuous tele-education training course via Internet that Spanish professionals exposed to ionising radiation are following. Interactive multimedia training and tele-education may become one of the alternatives that allow health science professionals to receive continuous training, provided that adequate content and aims had been established during undergraduate training. (Author) 18 refs

Initiation of a European Radiation Protection Training and Education Plataforma (EUTERP Platform)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Steen, J. van der; Fraaisma, F. S.; Marco Arboli, M.

2004-01-01

The European Commission, D.-G. Transport and Energy, has launched an initiative to establish a European Radiation Protection Training and Education Platform. To this end, a feasibility study is being carried out at the moment. The objective of this feasibility study is to initiate the necessary steps towards the creation of the Platform. It will make recommendations, based on the summary and conclusions obtained as a result of the exchange of information and experience between all involved radiation protection training and education bodies. The project will identify how the future Platform should be initiated and developed in order to achieve the expected results. This paper describes the objectives of the study and the objectives, composition and possible structure of the EUTERP Platform. A workshop will be held from 20-21 May at CIEMAT, Madrid, to identify the work programme and possibilities for the structure of the Platform. The preliminary results of the workshop will be presented in this presentation. (Author)

Changes in default mode network as automaticity develops in a categorization task.

Science.gov (United States)

Shamloo, Farzin; Helie, Sebastien

2016-10-15

The default mode network (DMN) is a set of brain regions in which blood oxygen level dependent signal is suppressed during attentional focus on the external environment. Because automatic task processing requires less attention, development of automaticity in a rule-based categorization task may result in less deactivation and altered functional connectivity of the DMN when compared to the initial learning stage. We tested this hypothesis by re-analyzing functional magnetic resonance imaging data of participants trained in rule-based categorization for over 10,000 trials (Helie et al., 2010) [12,13]. The results show that some DMN regions are deactivated in initial training but not after automaticity has developed. There is also a significant decrease in DMN deactivation after extensive practice. Seed-based functional connectivity analyses with the precuneus, medial prefrontal cortex (two important DMN regions) and Brodmann area 6 (an important region in automatic categorization) were also performed. The results show increased functional connectivity with both DMN and non-DMN regions after the development of automaticity, and a decrease in functional connectivity between the medial prefrontal cortex and ventromedial orbitofrontal cortex. Together, these results further support the hypothesis of a strategy shift in automatic categorization and bridge the cognitive and neuroscientific conceptions of automaticity in showing that the reduced need for cognitive resources in automatic processing is accompanied by a disinhibition of the DMN and stronger functional connectivity between DMN and task-related brain regions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Component protection based automatic control

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Otaduy, P.J.

1992-01-01

Control and safety systems as well as operation procedures are designed on the basis of critical process parameters limits. The expectation is that short and long term mechanical damage and process failures will be avoided by operating the plant within the specified constraints envelopes. In this paper, one of the Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor (ALMR) design duty cycles events is discussed to corroborate that the time has come to explicitly make component protection part of the control system. Component stress assessment and aging data should be an integral part of the control system. Then transient trajectory planning and operating limits could be aimed at minimizing component specific and overall plant component damage cost functions. The impact of transients on critical components could then be managed according to plant lifetime design goals. The need for developing methodologies for online transient trajectory planning and assessment of operating limits in order to facilitate the explicit incorporation of damage assessment capabilities to the plant control and protection systems is discussed. 12 refs

30 CFR 75.1103-6 - Automatic fire sensors; actuation of fire suppression systems.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Automatic fire sensors; actuation of fire... Protection § 75.1103-6 Automatic fire sensors; actuation of fire suppression systems. Point-type heat sensors or automatic fire sensor and warning device systems may be used to actuate deluge-type water systems...

Automatic methods for processing track-detector data at the PAVICOM facility

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aleksandrov, A.B.; Goncharova, L.A.; Polukhina, N.G.; Fejnberg, E.L.; Davydov, D.A.; Publichenko, P.A.; Roganova, T.M.

2007-01-01

New automatic methods essentially simplify and hasten the data treatment of tracking detectors. It allows handling big data files and appreciably improves their statistics; this fact predetermines an elaboration of new experiments, which suppose to use large volume targets, emulsive and solid-state large square tracking detectors. Thereupon the problem of training competent physicists able to work on modern automatic equipment is very relevant. About ten Moscow students working in LPI at PAVICOM facility master new methods every year. Most of the students working in high-energy physics take the print only about archaic hand methods of data handling from tracking detectors. In 2005 on the base of the PAVICOM facility and physics training of the MSU a new educational work for determination of the energy of neutrons passing through nuclear emulsion, which lets students acquire a base habit of data handling from tracking detectors using an automatic facility, was prepared; it can be included in the training process for students of any physical faculty. Specialists mastering methods of an automatic handling by the simple and obvious example of tracking detectors will be able to use their knowledge in various areas of science and techniques. The organization of upper division courses is a new additional aspect of using the PAVICOM facility described in an earlier paper [4

CITON involvement in CETRAD project on 'Education and training in radiation protection and radioactive waste'

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Comsa, Olivia; Meglea, Claudia; Banutoiu, Marina; Paraschiva, M. V.; Meglea, S.

2003-01-01

Within the European Community and world-wide there is extensive experience in the principles and practice of radiation protection and radioactive waste management. Nuclear skills and capabilities have grown and evolved since the inception of nuclear technology in the 1940s. However, with the current stagnation of the nuclear industry it is increasingly acknowledged that the skills and expertise held by the generation who grew up with nuclear technology are being passed on to new generations of experts. This poses a significant risk to the community who will need to manage nuclear liabilities for long times into the future in order to protect future society from radiological hazards. Notwithstanding that the state of the art in nuclear waste management is undoubtedly high in many organizations, it is very clear that there is continuous need for the provision of education and training in this area. The various training and education programmes throughout Europe are at different stages of development. There is undoubtedly a need for harmonization of the numerous programmes and there would be great benefit to countries at early stages of development due to the learning experiences from the more developed organizations. The objective of CETRAD is to develop proposals for structuring and delivering both education and training in the management of the geological disposal of long-lived radioactive waste and radiation protection across Europe. This proposal is seen as a forerunner of a more comprehensive pan-European Network in this area, which it is planned, will emerge from this work. The project activities will be carried out in two phases. Phase 1 will involve national evaluations of both the needs for education and training and the existing infrastructure and resources in the field of radiation protection and radioactive waste management. Phase 2 will involve development of specific proposals for education and training based on the needs identified in Phase 1. (authors)

Automatic classification of MR scans in Alzheimer's disease

OpenAIRE

García, Fernando Pérez; uk, fernando perezgarcia ucl ac

2018-01-01

Presentation of the paper "Automatic classification of MR scans in Alzheimer's disease" by Klöppel et al. for the journal club of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Medical Image Computing at University College London.

The Dutch system of education and training in radiation protection. Past, present and future

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boersma, Hielke Freerk

2013-01-01

The earliest courses in 'Radiation Protection (RP) Education and Training in the Netherlands' date back to the late fifties, a time which saw major developments especially in both nuclear medicine and nuclear power. The Dutch Society for Radiation Protection (NVS - Nederlandse Vereinigung voor Strahlingshygiene), established in 1960, is in fact the result of one of the first RP courses for medical doctors. The current system of recognition of RP courses was implemented in 1984 in Dutch legislation, based on an advice of the Dutch Health Council from 1972 (.). The recognition system has fundamentally remained unchanged since then. Radiation protection courses in the Netherlands based on this system already started in the seventies. After many discussions in the past decade the system will change in the next years in close relation to the start of a system of registration of RPes. In this paper I will start with a short introduction of the Dutch system of RP education and training. I will consecutively describe the background of the future changes in our system. Finally the major changes will be given. In the end I hope to have convinced you of the fact that although we face some major changes in the near future, the basis of the current system of education and training in RP will remain. (orig.)

The Dutch system of education and training in radiation protection. Past, present and future

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Boersma, Hielke Freerk [Groningen Univ. (Netherlands). Office of the Univ. Health, Safety and Environment

2013-09-01

The earliest courses in 'Radiation Protection (RP) Education and Training in the Netherlands' date back to the late fifties, a time which saw major developments especially in both nuclear medicine and nuclear power. The Dutch Society for Radiation Protection (NVS - Nederlandse Vereinigung voor Strahlingshygiene), established in 1960, is in fact the result of one of the first RP courses for medical doctors. The current system of recognition of RP courses was implemented in 1984 in Dutch legislation, based on an advice of the Dutch Health Council from 1972 (.). The recognition system has fundamentally remained unchanged since then. Radiation protection courses in the Netherlands based on this system already started in the seventies. After many discussions in the past decade the system will change in the next years in close relation to the start of a system of registration of RPes. In this paper I will start with a short introduction of the Dutch system of RP education and training. I will consecutively describe the background of the future changes in our system. Finally the major changes will be given. In the end I hope to have convinced you of the fact that although we face some major changes in the near future, the basis of the current system of education and training in RP will remain. (orig.)

Automatic Task Classification via Support Vector Machine and Crowdsourcing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hyungsik Shin

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Automatic task classification is a core part of personal assistant systems that are widely used in mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Even though many industry leaders are providing their own personal assistant services, their proprietary internals and implementations are not well known to the public. In this work, we show through real implementation and evaluation that automatic task classification can be implemented for mobile devices by using the support vector machine algorithm and crowdsourcing. To train our task classifier, we collected our training data set via crowdsourcing using the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform. Our classifier can classify a short English sentence into one of the thirty-two predefined tasks that are frequently requested while using personal mobile devices. Evaluation results show high prediction accuracy of our classifier ranging from 82% to 99%. By using large amount of crowdsourced data, we also illustrate the relationship between training data size and the prediction accuracy of our task classifier.

On the automaticity of response inhibition in individuals with alcoholism.

Science.gov (United States)

Noël, Xavier; Brevers, Damien; Hanak, Catherine; Kornreich, Charles; Verbanck, Paul; Verbruggen, Frederick

2016-06-01

Response inhibition is usually considered a hallmark of executive control. However, recent work indicates that stop performance can become associatively mediated ('automatic') over practice. This study investigated automatic response inhibition in sober and recently detoxified individuals with alcoholism.. We administered to forty recently detoxified alcoholics and forty healthy participants a modified stop-signal task that consisted of a training phase in which a subset of the stimuli was consistently associated with stopping or going, and a test phase in which this mapping was reversed. In the training phase, stop performance improved for the consistent stop stimuli, compared with control stimuli that were not associated with going or stopping. In the test phase, go performance tended to be impaired for old stop stimuli. Combined, these findings support the automatic inhibition hypothesis. Importantly, performance was similar in both groups, which indicates that automatic inhibitory control develops normally in individuals with alcoholism.. This finding is specific to individuals with alcoholism without other psychiatric disorders, which is rather atypical and prevents generalization. Personalized stimuli with a stronger affective content should be used in future studies. These results advance our understanding of behavioral inhibition in individuals with alcoholism. Furthermore, intact automatic inhibitory control may be an important element of successful cognitive remediation of addictive behaviors.. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A comparison of automatic histogram constructions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Davies, P.L.; Gather, U.; Nordman, D.J.; Weinert, H.

2009-01-01

Even for a well-trained statistician the construction of a histogram for a given real-valued data set is a difficult problem. It is even more difficult to construct a fully automatic procedure which specifies the number and widths of the bins in a satisfactory manner for a wide range of data sets.

Comparison Of Semi-Automatic And Automatic Slick Detection Algorithms For Jiyeh Power Station Oil Spill, Lebanon

Science.gov (United States)

Osmanoglu, B.; Ozkan, C.; Sunar, F.

2013-10-01

After air strikes on July 14 and 15, 2006 the Jiyeh Power Station started leaking oil into the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The power station is located about 30 km south of Beirut and the slick covered about 170 km of coastline threatening the neighboring countries Turkey and Cyprus. Due to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Lebanon, cleaning efforts could not start immediately resulting in 12 000 to 15 000 tons of fuel oil leaking into the sea. In this paper we compare results from automatic and semi-automatic slick detection algorithms. The automatic detection method combines the probabilities calculated for each pixel from each image to obtain a joint probability, minimizing the adverse effects of atmosphere on oil spill detection. The method can readily utilize X-, C- and L-band data where available. Furthermore wind and wave speed observations can be used for a more accurate analysis. For this study, we utilize Envisat ASAR ScanSAR data. A probability map is generated based on the radar backscatter, effect of wind and dampening value. The semi-automatic algorithm is based on supervised classification. As a classifier, Artificial Neural Network Multilayer Perceptron (ANN MLP) classifier is used since it is more flexible and efficient than conventional maximum likelihood classifier for multisource and multi-temporal data. The learning algorithm for ANN MLP is chosen as the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM). Training and test data for supervised classification are composed from the textural information created from SAR images. This approach is semiautomatic because tuning the parameters of classifier and composing training data need a human interaction. We point out the similarities and differences between the two methods and their results as well as underlining their advantages and disadvantages. Due to the lack of ground truth data, we compare obtained results to each other, as well as other published oil slick area assessments.

ON HEALTH PROTECTION AND HEALTH RELATED PHYSICAL CULTURE TRAININGS OF FIRST YEAR STUDENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V.G. Fotynyuk

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Purpose: to assess health protection and health related physical culture trainings of first year students. Material: in the research first year students (n=121; 86 boys and 35girls of age 16 - 19 years, participated. Results: components of students’ individual health were found. Situation with health related physical culture trainings, ensuring students’ sound health and optimal functional potentials of their organisms were determined. It was found that leading role shall be played by formation of health world vision values, knowledge about formation of practical skills in healthy life style. Motivation tendency for realization of intentions and practicing of health related physical culture trainings were found in students. Conclusions: the received results prove students’ tendency to pay insufficient attention to individual health. It was found that health related physical culture trainings require modern renewal of education’s content, forms and methods of physical education. The basis of such trainings shall be health related orientation.

Report of the work-group derived from the permanent radioprotection expert Group on the desirable evolutions for the functions and training of persons with expertise in radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2010-01-01

This report first discusses the issues of training in radiation protection within the French national context by distinguishing training in relationship with workers' radiation protection (internal training in radiation protection as foreseen in the French Work Code, training in the industrial field, training in the field of radioactive material transportation, training of the person with expertise in radiation protection or PCR), and training in relationship with patient radiation protection (training of the person specialised in medical radio-physics, training in patient radiation protection). It describes the situation and evolution perspectives at the European level by addressing the situation in different countries (Great-Britain, Belgium, Switzerland), the content of the 96/29/Euratom directive, the current evolutions in Europe (European platform EUTERP, European programs ENETRAP, transposition of the 2006-123-CE directive, the 2005-36-CE directive and its revision), and some international aspects. The authors discuss strengths and weaknesses of the person with expertise in radiation protection (PCR), and state reflections and recommendations regarding the evolution of the present PCR arrangement

Automatic generation of gene finders for eukaryotic species

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Terkelsen, Kasper Munch; Krogh, A.

2006-01-01

and quality of reliable gene annotation grows. Results We present a procedure, Agene, that automatically generates a species-specific gene predictor from a set of reliable mRNA sequences and a genome. We apply a Hidden Markov model (HMM) that implements explicit length distribution modelling for all gene......Background The number of sequenced eukaryotic genomes is rapidly increasing. This means that over time it will be hard to keep supplying customised gene finders for each genome. This calls for procedures to automatically generate species-specific gene finders and to re-train them as the quantity...... structure blocks using acyclic discrete phase type distributions. The state structure of the each HMM is generated dynamically from an array of sub-models to include only gene features represented in the training set. Conclusion Acyclic discrete phase type distributions are well suited to model sequence...

The new system of education and training of medical staff in radiation protection in Albania

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grillo, B.; Preza, K.; Titka, V.; Shehi, G.

2001-01-01

The present situation as regarding the education and training of medical staff in radiological protection is discussed. In particular the protection of patients, children and pregnant women were the most sensible topics in some courses held in recent years. Emphasis is given on a number of courses and course units dealing with radiation safety problems in the medical field and their content. (author)

Preventing SQL Injection through Automatic Query Sanitization with ASSIST

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Raymond Mui

2010-09-01

Full Text Available Web applications are becoming an essential part of our everyday lives. Many of our activities are dependent on the functionality and security of these applications. As the scale of these applications grows, injection vulnerabilities such as SQL injection are major security challenges for developers today. This paper presents the technique of automatic query sanitization to automatically remove SQL injection vulnerabilities in code. In our technique, a combination of static analysis and program transformation are used to automatically instrument web applications with sanitization code. We have implemented this technique in a tool named ASSIST (Automatic and Static SQL Injection Sanitization Tool for protecting Java-based web applications. Our experimental evaluation showed that our technique is effective against SQL injection vulnerabilities and has a low overhead.

Fully automatic time-window selection using machine learning for global adjoint tomography

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Y.; Hill, J.; Lei, W.; Lefebvre, M. P.; Bozdag, E.; Komatitsch, D.; Tromp, J.

2017-12-01

Selecting time windows from seismograms such that the synthetic measurements (from simulations) and measured observations are sufficiently close is indispensable in a global adjoint tomography framework. The increasing amount of seismic data collected everyday around the world demands "intelligent" algorithms for seismic window selection. While the traditional FLEXWIN algorithm can be "automatic" to some extent, it still requires both human input and human knowledge or experience, and thus is not deemed to be fully automatic. The goal of intelligent window selection is to automatically select windows based on a learnt engine that is built upon a huge number of existing windows generated through the adjoint tomography project. We have formulated the automatic window selection problem as a classification problem. All possible misfit calculation windows are classified as either usable or unusable. Given a large number of windows with a known selection mode (select or not select), we train a neural network to predict the selection mode of an arbitrary input window. Currently, the five features we extract from the windows are its cross-correlation value, cross-correlation time lag, amplitude ratio between observed and synthetic data, window length, and minimum STA/LTA value. More features can be included in the future. We use these features to characterize each window for training a multilayer perceptron neural network (MPNN). Training the MPNN is equivalent to solve a non-linear optimization problem. We use backward propagation to derive the gradient of the loss function with respect to the weighting matrices and bias vectors and use the mini-batch stochastic gradient method to iteratively optimize the MPNN. Numerical tests show that with a careful selection of the training data and a sufficient amount of training data, we are able to train a robust neural network that is capable of detecting the waveforms in an arbitrary earthquake data with negligible detection error

A swarm-trained k-nearest prototypes adaptive classifier with automatic feature selection for interval data.

Science.gov (United States)

Silva Filho, Telmo M; Souza, Renata M C R; Prudêncio, Ricardo B C

2016-08-01

Some complex data types are capable of modeling data variability and imprecision. These data types are studied in the symbolic data analysis field. One such data type is interval data, which represents ranges of values and is more versatile than classic point data for many domains. This paper proposes a new prototype-based classifier for interval data, trained by a swarm optimization method. Our work has two main contributions: a swarm method which is capable of performing both automatic selection of features and pruning of unused prototypes and a generalized weighted squared Euclidean distance for interval data. By discarding unnecessary features and prototypes, the proposed algorithm deals with typical limitations of prototype-based methods, such as the problem of prototype initialization. The proposed distance is useful for learning classes in interval datasets with different shapes, sizes and structures. When compared to other prototype-based methods, the proposed method achieves lower error rates in both synthetic and real interval datasets. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Advanced nuclear control and protection system ANCAP-80

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Asai, Takashi; Okano, Michihiko; Ishibashi, Kengo; Hasegawa, Masakoto; Fukuda, Hiroyoshi; Hosomichi, Renichi.

1983-01-01

Advanced reactor protection systems were developed to improve operational reliability and availability and to ease the burden of operators of Mitsubishi PWR Nuclear Power Stations. (Called ANCAP-80; Advanced Nuclear Control And Protection System) For the PWR plants now being planned and in future plans, Mitsubishi will adopt these systems with the following functional features; (1) Four channel protection logic, (2) Automatic bypass logic, (3) Automatic test provision, (4) Optical isolators. (author)

Proposal for the award of a blanket purchase contract for the design, supply, installation and maintenance of automatic fire-detection, fire-protection and voice-alarm systems for the Super Proton Synchrotron

CERN Document Server

2017-01-01

Proposal for the award of a blanket purchase contract for the design, supply, installation and maintenance of automatic fire-detection, fire-protection and voice-alarm systems for the Super Proton Synchrotron

Continuing training in radiological protection as an effective means of avoiding radiological accidents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lima, C.M.A.; Pelegrineli, S.Q.; Martins, G.; Lima, A.R.; Silva, F.C.A. da

2017-01-01

it is notorious that one of the main causes of radiological accidents is the lack of knowledge of radiological protection of workers. In order to meet the needs of professionals in acquiring a solid base in radiological protection and safety, was created in 2013, by the Casa Branca School / SP and technically supported by the company MAXIM Cursos, the 'Post-Graduation Course Lato Sensu de Radiological Protection in Medical, Industrial and Nuclear Applications', which offers a broad improvement in radiation protection. The course of 380 hours and duration of 18 months is divided into 13 modules, including theoretical classes, in person and online using the virtual classroom and practical training in radiation protection in general. In the end students should present a monograph, guided by a course teacher and reviewed by an Examining Bank. Five classes have been formed in these four years, totaling 92 students. In all, 51 monographs have been defended on topics of technical and scientific interest. For this, the Faculty consists of 25 professors, being 9 Doctors, 13 Masters and 3 Specialists in Radiological Protection

Program of training and technical expertise in radiation protection for personnel of medical radiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oliveira, Sergio R. de

2013-01-01

This work aims to verify the actual conditions for the training of technicians in Radiology, in relation to the knowledge of radiation protection in the field of Medical Diagnostic Radiology. To evaluate the knowledge of professionals was prepared a questionnaire on the topic, having been answered by workers with varied experience. The questionnaire was divided into three parts, being the initial self-evaluation, followed by closed and open issues, all specific knowledge. With a total of 55 questionnaires answered, it was found that 85% of respondents consider themselves able to work in the area performing the function, but when questioned about the technical details regarding the exposure to ionizing radiation, it was found that only 15% of respondents had some knowledge about the subject. In relation to Radiological Protection, was found that little more than 10% of the respondents know about the subject. The results found in this survey outlined the creation of a technical specialization course in radiation protection, which is part of the permanent staff of course of the Polytechnical School of Health of FIOCRUZ, solving, partially, one of the problems pointed out today by health bodies, that is the lack of trained personnel

Acquisition of automatic imitation is sensitive to sensorimotor contingency.

Science.gov (United States)

Cook, Richard; Press, Clare; Dickinson, Anthony; Heyes, Cecilia

2010-08-01

The associative sequence learning model proposes that the development of the mirror system depends on the same mechanisms of associative learning that mediate Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning. To test this model, two experiments used the reduction of automatic imitation through incompatible sensorimotor training to assess whether mirror system plasticity is sensitive to contingency (i.e., the extent to which activation of one representation predicts activation of another). In Experiment 1, residual automatic imitation was measured following incompatible training in which the action stimulus was a perfect predictor of the response (contingent) or not at all predictive of the response (noncontingent). A contingency effect was observed: There was less automatic imitation indicative of more learning in the contingent group. Experiment 2 replicated this contingency effect and showed that, as predicted by associative learning theory, it can be abolished by signaling trials in which the response occurs in the absence of an action stimulus. These findings support the view that mirror system development depends on associative learning and indicate that this learning is not purely Hebbian. If this is correct, associative learning theory could be used to explain, predict, and intervene in mirror system development.

78 FR 59725 - Construction Fall Protection Systems Criteria and Practices, and Training Requirements; Extension...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-09-27

...- 1648. Mail, hand delivery, express mail, messenger, or courier service: When using this method, you... DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Occupational Safety and Health Administration [Docket No. OSHA-2010-0008] Construction Fall Protection Systems Criteria and Practices, and Training Requirements; Extension of the Office...

Electric system training with programmable controllers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Benson, M.B.

1989-01-01

A power system simulator (PSS) for training system operators has been opened at the Pacific Gas and Electric Training Center at San Ramon, California. The simulator was designed as an instructional aid and is part of a larger, more comprehensive operating training facility. It has the capability of duplicating both routine and emergency situations for transmission and distribution lines, power plants, and substations. Modeled after nuclear plant simulators, the PSS utilizes state-of-the-art technology and is believed to be on the leading edge of power system simulators. The new operator training facility covers 10,000 ft/sup 2/ and is divided into four classrooms, two labs, three simulated dispatch centers, and various administrative offices. Ten full- and part-time instructors are on staff to train the over 900 system, power plant, agency, and trainee personnel. The simulator is considered the heart of the complex and covers over half of the available floor space. It is divided into two large rooms and further separated by the dispatch centers. The indoor room represents the high-voltage transmission and generating stations, the outdoor room is for both the lower-voltage distribution system and simulated physical equipment. In each room, full-size control boards (equipped with actual relay protection and automatic schemes) are arranged into various stations and lines

Radiation protection training then and now

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mulleavy, T.

1988-01-01

Prior to the accident at Three Mile Island, the radiological control training was provided by the health physics and the chemistry departments. The programs that required the input from the health physics department were the Operations Training and the General Employee Training Programs, which were formally organized and presented radiological controls practices as part of the course objectives. The operations training section periodically requested the health physics department management to provide a radiological portion to their operator qualification or operations requalification class. After the accident in 1979, the General Employee Training Program administration was taken over by the operation training department where it underwent changes with a dedicated effort. The Operations Training Program also underwent a change as well as the Radiological Control Technician Training Program. Each group now has a specialty program designed for their specific needs. These programs have been designed using the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations and regulator guidelines

An Overview of Automaticity and Implications For Training the Thinking Process

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Holt, Brian

2002-01-01

...., visual search to battlefield thinking). The results of this examination suggest that automaticity can be developed using consistent rules and extensive practice that vary depending on the type of task...

Information and training on radiation protection for trade union representatives from the nine Member States of the European Communities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1979-01-01

As part of its training and information programme on radiation protection, the Directorate-General for Employment and Social Affairs (Health and Safety Directorate) organized for the third and fourth time (in October 1977 and 1978) seminars on radiation protection on behalf of trade union representatives from the nine Member States; the seminars served in particular as a forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences. The present volume reproduces the papers read on those occasions, covering the following topics: the independence of radiaton protection units; training and information in radiation protection; analysis of the main innovations in radiological protection concepts emerging from ICRP Publication No 26; the protection of occasionally exposed workers; the work of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation; the concept of optimization; future developments in dosimetry. Although the publication is destined mainly for the participants in the two meetings, the information it contains may also be of use to anyone interested in the problems of radiation protection and the spreading of knowledge in this field

10 CFR 40.7 - Employee protection.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... protected activities. An employee's engagement in protected activities does not automatically render him or... 10 Energy 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Employee protection. 40.7 Section 40.7 Energy NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION DOMESTIC LICENSING OF SOURCE MATERIAL General Provisions § 40.7 Employee protection. (a...

On-line course as tools for radiation protection training in patients. A practical case in computerized tomography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Medina Campos, J.; Fernandez Tallon, J.; Busca Suau, J.; Baro Casanovas, J.

2006-01-01

The rise in ionizing radiation applications within the field of diagnostics, with the corresponding increase in both number and doses received by patients, requires adequate resources for education and training in radiological protection. In is quite difficult to assemble professionals at a specific place to carry out training. However, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (IT) makes it possible to carry out training. However, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (IT) makes it possible to carry out training through Internet in an effective, easy and amusing way (e-learning). An on-line course of patient radiological protection and quality control in computer tomography has been developed aimed at professionals that use these diagnostic techniques. The course has been run twice in the period 2005-2006. The course is found on an Internet-accessible Virtual Campus, which allows access to multimedia contents, communication between students and instructors and follow-up of students performance. Final evaluation is done on-line and successfully passing the course counts for 8.9 credits in the Continuous Education Programme of Spanish Health Systems. (Author)

Development and Comparative Study of Effects of Training Algorithms on Performance of Artificial Neural Network Based Analog and Digital Automatic Modulation Recognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jide Julius Popoola

2015-11-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes two new classifiers that automatically recognise twelve combined analog and digital modulated signals without any a priori knowledge of the modulation schemes and the modulation parameters. The classifiers are developed using pattern recognition approach. Feature keys extracted from the instantaneous amplitude, instantaneous phase and the spectrum symmetry of the simulated signals are used as inputs to the artificial neural network employed in developing the classifiers. The two developed classifiers are trained using scaled conjugate gradient (SCG and conjugate gradient (CONJGRAD training algorithms. Sample results of the two classifiers show good success recognition performance with an average overall recognition rate above 99.50% at signal-to-noise ratio (SNR value from 0 dB and above with the two training algorithms employed and an average overall recognition rate slightly above 99.00% and 96.40% respectively at - 5 dB SNR value for SCG and CONJGRAD training algorithms. The comparative performance evaluation of the two developed classifiers using the two training algorithms shows that the two training algorithms have different effects on both the response rate and efficiency of the two developed artificial neural networks classifiers. In addition, the result of the performance evaluation carried out on the overall success recognition rates between the two developed classifiers in this study using pattern recognition approach with the two training algorithms and one reported classifier in surveyed literature using decision-theoretic approach shows that the classifiers developed in this study perform favourably with regard to accuracy and performance probability as compared to classifier presented in previous study.

Design of first reactor protection system prototype for C A R E M reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Azcona, A; Lorenzo, G.; Maciel, F.; Fittipaldi, A

2006-01-01

In this paper we present the design of a prototype of the C A R E M Reactor Protection System, which is implemented on a basis of the digital platform T E L E P E R M X S.The proposed architecture for the Reactor Protection System (R P S) has 4 redundant trains composed by a complete set of sensors, a data acquisition computer and a processing computer.The information from the 4 processing computers goes into to a two voting units with a two out of four (2004) logic and its outputs are combined by a final actuation logic with a voting scheme of one out of two (1002).The prototype is implemented with a unique train.The train inputs are simulated by an Automatic Testing Unit.The pre-established test case or procedure results are fed back into the A T U.The choice of the digital platform T E L E P E R M X S for the R P S implementation allows versatility in the design stage and permits the prototype expansion due to its modular characteristic and the software tools flexibility [es

Improvement of the Nuclear Radiation Protection Training for the Simulator and on sharing method of the Safety Parameter with the Emergency Organization

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ahn, Sungjin; Park, Daeseung [KHNP Central Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-10-15

Radiation Emergency alert will be announced when the radiological impact is limited within the NPP or radiological impact to go out of the NPP. Radiation Protection Training is scheduled and proceeded to prevent for the radiation accidents, possibility of the radiation accidents, or radiation accident expansion, the training is to reduce the damage to property and health for the nuclear power plant worker and the people near the nuclear power plant. This paper shows the improvement of the nuclear radiation protection training for the simulator and on sharing method of the safety parameter with the emergency organization. Accident shall be correctly and quickly prevented when the NPP accident is inevitable. Therefore the radiation protection training for the operator and the emergency organization will be effective when the accident happens if the simulator has the same environment as the NPP.

A hybrid approach to automatic de-identification of psychiatric notes.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Hee-Jin; Wu, Yonghui; Zhang, Yaoyun; Xu, Jun; Xu, Hua; Roberts, Kirk

2017-11-01

De-identification, or identifying and removing protected health information (PHI) from clinical data, is a critical step in making clinical data available for clinical applications and research. This paper presents a natural language processing system for automatic de-identification of psychiatric notes, which was designed to participate in the 2016 CEGS N-GRID shared task Track 1. The system has a hybrid structure that combines machine leaning techniques and rule-based approaches. The rule-based components exploit the structure of the psychiatric notes as well as characteristic surface patterns of PHI mentions. The machine learning components utilize supervised learning with rich features. In addition, the system performance was boosted with integration of additional data to the training set through domain adaptation. The hybrid system showed overall micro-averaged F-score 90.74 on the test set, second-best among all the participants of the CEGS N-GRID task. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Systematic Approach to Training and Professional Development Specialists of Physical Protection, Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials in Ukraine

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klos, Nataliia

2014-01-01

Conclusion: 1. Ukraine has created the State system for professional training, retraining and professional development of specialists in physical protection, accounting and control of nuclear materials. 2. Ukraine has founded profession physical protection, accounting and control of nuclear materials

Smart machine protection system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clark, S.; Nelson, D.; Grillo, A.

1992-01-01

A Machine Protection System implemented on the SLC automatically controls the beam repetition rates in the accelerator so that radiation or temperature faults slow the repetition rate to bring the fault within tolerance without shutting down the machine. This process allows the accelerators to aid in the fault diagnostic process, and the protection system automatically restores the beams back to normal rates when the fault is diagnosed and corrected. The user interface includes facilities to monitor the performance of the system, and track rate limits, faults, and recoveries. There is an edit facility to define the devices to be included in the protection system, along with their set points, limits, and trip points. This set point and limit data is downloaded into the CAMAC modules, and the configuration data is complied into a logical decision tree for the 68030 processor. (author)

Smart Machine Protection System

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clark, S.; Nelson, D.; Grillo, A.; Spencer, N.; Hutchinson, D.; Olsen, J.; Millsom, D.; White, G.; Gromme, T.; Allison, S.; Underwood, K.; Zelazny, M.; Kang, H.

1991-11-01

A Machine Protection System implemented on the SLC automatically controls the beam repetition rates in the accelerator so that radiation or temperature faults slow the repetition rate to bring the fault within tolerance without shutting down the machine. This process allows the accelerator to aid in the fault diagnostic process, and the protection system automatically restores the beams back to normal rates when the fault is diagnosed and corrected. The user interface includes facilities to monitor the performance of the system, and track rate limits, faults, and recoveries. There is an edit facility to define the devices to be included in the protection system, along with their set points, limits, and trip points. This set point and limit data is downloaded into the CAMAC modules, and the configuration data is compiled into a logical decision tree for the 68030 processor. 3 figs

The irace package: Iterated racing for automatic algorithm configuration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manuel López-Ibáñez

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Modern optimization algorithms typically require the setting of a large number of parameters to optimize their performance. The immediate goal of automatic algorithm configuration is to find, automatically, the best parameter settings of an optimizer. Ultimately, automatic algorithm configuration has the potential to lead to new design paradigms for optimization software. The irace package is a software package that implements a number of automatic configuration procedures. In particular, it offers iterated racing procedures, which have been used successfully to automatically configure various state-of-the-art algorithms. The iterated racing procedures implemented in irace include the iterated F-race algorithm and several extensions and improvements over it. In this paper, we describe the rationale underlying the iterated racing procedures and introduce a number of recent extensions. Among these, we introduce a restart mechanism to avoid premature convergence, the use of truncated sampling distributions to handle correctly parameter bounds, and an elitist racing procedure for ensuring that the best configurations returned are also those evaluated in the highest number of training instances. We experimentally evaluate the most recent version of irace and demonstrate with a number of example applications the use and potential of irace, in particular, and automatic algorithm configuration, in general.

Observed use of automatic seat belts in 1987 cars.

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, A F; Wells, J K; Lund, A K; Teed, N

1989-10-01

Usage of the automatic belt systems supplied by six large-volume automobile manufacturers to meet the federal requirements for automatic restraints were observed in suburban Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. The different belt systems studied were: Ford and Toyota (motorized, nondetachable automatic shoulder belt), Nissan (motorized, detachable shoulder belt), VW and Chrysler (nonmotorized, detachable shoulder belt), and GM (nonmotorized detachable lap and shoulder belt). Use of automatic belts was significantly greater than manual belt use in otherwise comparable late-model cars for all manufacturers except Chrysler; in Chrysler cars, automatic belt use was significantly lower than manual belt use. The automatic shoulder belts provided by Ford, Nissan, Toyota, and VW increased use rates to about 90%. Because use rates were lower in Ford cars with manual belts, their increase was greater. GM cars had the smallest increase in use rates; however, lap belt use was highest in GM cars. The other manufacturers supply knee bolsters to supplement shoulder belt protection; all--except VW--also provide manual lap belts, which were used by about half of those who used the automatic shoulder belt. The results indicate that some manufacturers have been more successful than others in providing automatic belt systems that result in high use that, in turn, will mean fewer deaths and injuries in those cars.

Education and training in radiological protection for diagnostic and interventional procedures ICRP 113 in brief

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Salama, S.; Gomaa, M. A.; Alshoufi, J.H.

2013-01-01

The international commission on radiological protection (ICRP) is the primary body in protection against ionizing radiation. Among its latest publication is ICRP publication 113 e ducation and training in radiological protection for diagnostic and interventional procedures . This document introduces diagnostic and interventional medical procedures using ionizing radiations in deep details. The document is approved by the commission in October 2010 and translated into Arabic at December 2011. This work is a continuation of the efforts series to translate some of the most important of the radiological protection references into the Arabic; aiming to maximize the benefit. The previous translation include WHO handbook on indoor radon: a public health perspective, issued by world health organization 2009 and Radiation Protection in Medicine, ICRP Publication 105 2007 that translated into Arabic with support of Arab atomic energy authority at 2011.

Training And Education Needs In Radiological Protection - First Results Of The ENETRAP Survey

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Michele Coeck; Cecile Etard; Siegurd Moebius; Annemarie Schmitt- Hannig; Andrea Luciani; Jan van der Steen; Marisa Marco; Joanne Stewart

2006-01-01

Recent studies have shown that there is a wide variety of approaches to education and training of the Qualified Expert across the European Union. National education and training programmes show often large differences in content, duration, level, the introduction of practical work, etc. As they stand, such differences are a barrier to the mutual recognition of the Qualified Expert status and, in part, are contributing to a perceived shortage in expertise in radiation protection and safety. The overall aim of ENETRAP is to determine mechanisms that in the longer term will facilitate better integration of education and training activities (with a view to mutual recognition across the European Union) and to ensure the ongoing provision of the necessary competence and expertise at the level of the Qualified Expert. The ENETRAP project is a 6FP coordination action. It started in April 2005 and runs over a period of 24 months. (authors)

Training And Education Needs In Radiological Protection - First Results Of The ENETRAP Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Michele Coeck [SCK.CEN, The Belgian Nuclear Research Institute, Mol, (Belgium); Cecile Etard [INSTN, The Institute for Nuclear Sciences and Technology, Saclay, (France); Siegurd Moebius [FZK-FTU, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe - Center for Advanced Technological and Environmental Training, Karlsruhe (Germany); Annemarie Schmitt- Hannig [BfS, The Federal Office for Radiation Protection, Oberschleissheim, (Germany); Andrea Luciani [ENEA, The Italian National Agency for New Technology, Energy and Environment, Bologna (Italy); Jan van der Steen [NRG, The Nuclear Research and consultancy Group, Arnhem/Petten (Netherlands); Marisa Marco [CIEMAT, The Research Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology, Madrid (Spain); Joanne Stewart [HPA-RPD, Radiation Protection Division of the Health Protection Agency, Leeds (United Kingdom)

2006-07-01

Recent studies have shown that there is a wide variety of approaches to education and training of the Qualified Expert across the European Union. National education and training programmes show often large differences in content, duration, level, the introduction of practical work, etc. As they stand, such differences are a barrier to the mutual recognition of the Qualified Expert status and, in part, are contributing to a perceived shortage in expertise in radiation protection and safety. The overall aim of ENETRAP is to determine mechanisms that in the longer term will facilitate better integration of education and training activities (with a view to mutual recognition across the European Union) and to ensure the ongoing provision of the necessary competence and expertise at the level of the Qualified Expert. The ENETRAP project is a 6FP coordination action. It started in April 2005 and runs over a period of 24 months. (authors)

49 CFR 236.401 - Automatic block signal system and interlocking standards applicable to traffic control systems.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Traffic Control Systems Standards § 236.401 Automatic... 49 Transportation 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Automatic block signal system and interlocking standards applicable to traffic control systems. 236.401 Section 236.401 Transportation Other Regulations...

10 CFR 71.9 - Employee protection.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

.... An employee's engagement in protected activities does not automatically render him or her immune from... 10 Energy 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Employee protection. 71.9 Section 71.9 Energy NUCLEAR... § 71.9 Employee protection. (a) Discrimination by a Commission licensee, certificate holder, an...

10 CFR 76.7 - Employee protection.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

.... An employee's engagement in protected activities does not automatically render him or her immune from... 10 Energy 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Employee protection. 76.7 Section 76.7 Energy NUCLEAR... Employee protection. (a) Discrimination by the Corporation, a contractor, or a subcontractor of the...

Acquisition of Automatic Imitation Is Sensitive to Sensorimotor Contingency

Science.gov (United States)

Cook, Richard; Press, Clare; Dickinson, Anthony; Heyes, Cecilia

2010-01-01

The associative sequence learning model proposes that the development of the mirror system depends on the same mechanisms of associative learning that mediate Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning. To test this model, two experiments used the reduction of automatic imitation through incompatible sensorimotor training to assess whether mirror…

CLG for Automatic Image Segmentation

OpenAIRE

Christo Ananth; S.Santhana Priya; S.Manisha; T.Ezhil Jothi; M.S.Ramasubhaeswari

2017-01-01

This paper proposes an automatic segmentation method which effectively combines Active Contour Model, Live Wire method and Graph Cut approach (CLG). The aim of Live wire method is to provide control to the user on segmentation process during execution. Active Contour Model provides a statistical model of object shape and appearance to a new image which are built during a training phase. In the graph cut technique, each pixel is represented as a node and the distance between those nodes is rep...

Automatic Texture and Orthophoto Generation from Registered Panoramic Views

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Krispel, Ulrich; Evers, Henrik Leander; Tamke, Martin

2015-01-01

are automatically identified from the geometry and an image per view is created via projection. We combine methods of computer vision to train a classifier to detect the objects of interest from these orthographic views. Furthermore, these views can be used for automatic texturing of the proxy geometry....... from range data only. In order to detect these elements, we developed a method that utilizes range data and color information from high-resolution panoramic images of indoor scenes, taken at the scanners position. A proxy geometry is derived from the point clouds; orthographic views of the scene...

Operating experience of the automatic technological control system at the Kolsk NPP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Volkov, A.P.; Ignatenko, E.I.; Kolomtsev, Yu.V.; Mel'nikov, E.F.; Trofimov, B.A.

1981-01-01

Briefly reviewed is operating experience of the automatic control systems of the kolsk NPP (KNPP) power units, where measuring technique of the neutron flux ''Iney'', ARM-4 power regulator, automatic turbine start-up system ATS are used. The main shortcomings of the technological process automatic control system (ACS) and ways of their removal are considered. It is noted that the KNPP ACS performs only limited start-up functions of the basic equipment and reactor power control as well as partially protection functions at instant loading drops and switch-off of the main circulating pump [ru

Academic training of radiation protection human resources in the X-ray medical diagnostic

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gaona, E.

2008-12-01

The current regulation, established by NOM-229-SSA1-2002 standard, T echnical requirements for facilities, health responsibilities, technical specifications for equipment and facilities for radiation protection in medical diagnosis with X-rays, t hat should be credited refresher courses, and training in radiation safety in accordance with current regulations, however, has been observed that the assistance and accreditation of courses is basically to cover administrative and regulatory requirements and therefore does not necessarily cover needs of the patient to radiation protection in the use of old and new technologies. David Brenner and Eric Hall claim that between 1.5 and 2% of all cancers in the USA may be attributable to exposure to X-ray computerized tomography techniques, given the intensive use of these techniques and the patient dose ranges in which incurred. While this is not debatable, if it is, the alternative does not seem to be abandoning the use of computerized tomography, because it gives them undoubted benefits with respect to invasive procedures. Deserves mention concerns the use of computerized tomography in children using scanning protocols designed for adults, in which case it incurs in 5 times higher dose. An additional warning about unwarranted use of computerized tomography is a procedure of this technique in abdomen resulting in an equivalent dose to 298 times that of a mammogram. Additional aspects such as biological effects (including deterministic) of both medical staff and patients of interventional procedures further reinforces the idea that there are education programs in radiation protection. Attention must put in the new generations, including in the curricula of medical residencies in radiology, endoscopy, cardiology and orthopedic, the education (no emerging courses) in radiation protection, radiobiology, radiology physics, and other topics, but previously must have medical physicists in radiology available to train new

Initiatives taken by the Commission of the European Communities in the field of training and information in radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eriskat, H.

1990-01-01

This paper describes the work of the Commission of the European Communties in training and information in radiation protection. Nowadays nuclear science and technology have many applications ranging far beyond nuclear power and medical X-rays to include inter alia conventional industry, agriculture and research. This means that the need for radiation protection of workers has become correspondingly more widespread, as has concern for the general public and the environment - not only in the case of a nuclear accident - but also, at a more mundane level, ongoing health protection of the public, for example by monitoring radioactive emissions from nuclear installations in routine operation. While this has led in turn to a major expansion of work in the many facets of radiation protection the review will be restricted to the Radiation Protection Division's activities in training and information. However, it should be remembered that all workers are firstly members of the public and more general aspects are also considered not just those concerning workers in radiation-related occupation. (author)

Improving the safety and protective automatic actions of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter detector control system

CERN Document Server

Jimenez Estupinan, Raul; Cirkovic, Predrag; Di Calafiori, Diogo Raphael; Dissertori, Guenther; Djambazov, Lubomir; Jovanovic, Dragoslav; Lustermann, Werner; Milenovic, Predrag; Zelepoukine, Serguei

2017-01-01

The CMS ECAL Detector Control System (DCS) features several monitoring mechanisms able to react and perform automatic actions based on pre-defined action matrices. The DCS is capable of early detection of anomalies inside the ECAL and on its off-detector support systems, triggering automatic actions to mitigate the impact of these events and preventing them from escalating to the safety system. The treatment of such events by the DCS allows for a faster recovery process, better understanding of the development of issues, and in most cases, actions with higher granularity than the safety system. This paper presents the details of the DCS automatic action mechanisms, as well as their evolution based on several years of CMS ECAL operations.

Training approach-avoidance of smiling faces affects emotional vulnerability in socially anxious individuals

Science.gov (United States)

Rinck, Mike; Telli, Sibel; Kampmann, Isabel L.; Woud, Marcella L.; Kerstholt, Merel; te Velthuis, Sarai; Wittkowski, Matthias; Becker, Eni S.

2013-01-01

Previous research revealed an automatic behavioral bias in high socially anxious individuals (HSAs): although their explicit evaluations of smiling faces are positive, they show automatic avoidance of these faces. This is reflected by faster pushing than pulling of smiling faces in an Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT; Heuer et al., 2007). The current study addressed the causal role of this avoidance bias for social anxiety. To this end, we used the AAT to train HSAs, either to approach smiling faces or to avoid them. We examined whether such an AAT training could change HSAs' automatic avoidance tendencies, and if yes, whether AAT effects would generalize to a new approach task with new facial stimuli, and to mood and anxiety in a social threat situation (a video-recorded self-presentation). We found that HSAs trained to approach smiling faces did indeed approach female faces faster after the training than HSAs trained to avoid smiling faces. Moreover, approach-faces training reduced emotional vulnerability: it led to more positive mood and lower anxiety after the self-presentation than avoid-faces training. These results suggest that automatic approach-avoidance tendencies have a causal role in social anxiety, and that they can be modified by a simple computerized training. This may open new avenues in the therapy of social phobia. PMID:23970862

Training Approach-Avoidance of Smiling Faces Affects Emotional Vulnerability in Socially Anxious Individuals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mike eRinck

2013-08-01

Full Text Available Previous research revealed an automatic behavioral bias in high socially anxious individuals (HSAs: Although their explicit evaluations of smiling faces are positive, they show automatic avoidance of these faces. This is reflected by faster pushing than pulling of smiling faces in an Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT; Heuer, Rinck, & Becker, 2007. The current study addressed the causal role of this avoidance bias for social anxiety. To this end, we used the AAT to train HSAs, either to approach smiling faces or to avoid them. We examined whether such an AAT training could change HSAs’ automatic avoidance tendencies, and if yes, whether AAT effects would generalize to a new approach task with new facial stimuli, and to mood and anxiety in a social threat situation (a video-recorded self-presentation. We found that HSAs trained to approach smiling faces did indeed approach female faces faster after the training than HSAs trained to avoid smiling faces. Moreover, approach-faces training reduced emotional vulnerability: It led to more positive mood and lower anxiety after the self-presentation than avoid-faces training. These results suggest that automatic approach-avoidance tendencies have a causal role in social anxiety, and that they can be modified by a simple computerized training. This may open new avenues in the therapy of social phobia.

Nonlinear Synchronization for Automatic Learning of 3D Pose Variability in Human Motion Sequences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mozerov M

2010-01-01

Full Text Available A dense matching algorithm that solves the problem of synchronizing prerecorded human motion sequences, which show different speeds and accelerations, is proposed. The approach is based on minimization of MRF energy and solves the problem by using Dynamic Programming. Additionally, an optimal sequence is automatically selected from the input dataset to be a time-scale pattern for all other sequences. The paper utilizes an action specific model which automatically learns the variability of 3D human postures observed in a set of training sequences. The model is trained using the public CMU motion capture dataset for the walking action, and a mean walking performance is automatically learnt. Additionally, statistics about the observed variability of the postures and motion direction are also computed at each time step. The synchronized motion sequences are used to learn a model of human motion for action recognition and full-body tracking purposes.

Report About a New Standard for Radiation Protection Training of Intervention Persons. In the Case of Radiological emergency Situations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Geringer, T.; Steurer, A.; Schmitzer, C.

2004-01-01

In autumn 2003 the Austrian standard OENORM S 5207 with the title R adiation protection training of intervention persons in the case of radiological emergency situations w ill be published. The standard is directed to persons who have to invent in case of a radiological emergency, security forces and as well training centres. The standard has to fulfil three objectives: 1. Regulation of the minimum requirements for the radiation protection training and education of intervention persons. 2. Harmonization of the radiation protection and training of different security forces, for instance Austrian army, Red Cross Austria, Fire Department, Police Department. 3. Mutual recognition of parts of the education between the different security forces. To fulfil these aims the standard is structured in different education modules. If , for instance, a person attended a special training module at the Austrian military, this part of the education is also valid for a career at the Fire Department. Further the modular structure of the education gives the possibility for persons of a special security force to attend one or more modules at another security force. This will lead to an improved cooperation between the different security forces in case of a radiological emergency situation. The education is structured in four levels. The topics of the standard are: 1. Requirements for training centres 2. Guidelines for the examinations of the candidates 3. Topics and goals of the basic education 4. Topics and goals of the advanced education level one 5. Topics and goals of the advanced education level two 6. Topics and examples of specialised education 7. Obligatory further education once every year. (Author)

Towards Autonomous Agriculture: Automatic Ground Detection Using Trinocular Stereovision

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Annalisa Milella

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Autonomous driving is a challenging problem, particularly when the domain is unstructured, as in an outdoor agricultural setting. Thus, advanced perception systems are primarily required to sense and understand the surrounding environment recognizing artificial and natural structures, topology, vegetation and paths. In this paper, a self-learning framework is proposed to automatically train a ground classifier for scene interpretation and autonomous navigation based on multi-baseline stereovision. The use of rich 3D data is emphasized where the sensor output includes range and color information of the surrounding environment. Two distinct classifiers are presented, one based on geometric data that can detect the broad class of ground and one based on color data that can further segment ground into subclasses. The geometry-based classifier features two main stages: an adaptive training stage and a classification stage. During the training stage, the system automatically learns to associate geometric appearance of 3D stereo-generated data with class labels. Then, it makes predictions based on past observations. It serves as well to provide training labels to the color-based classifier. Once trained, the color-based classifier is able to recognize similar terrain classes in stereo imagery. The system is continuously updated online using the latest stereo readings, thus making it feasible for long range and long duration navigation, over changing environments. Experimental results, obtained with a tractor test platform operating in a rural environment, are presented to validate this approach, showing an average classification precision and recall of 91.0% and 77.3%, respectively.

Study on a Footwork Training and Testing System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qi Hu

2018-02-01

Full Text Available In the sport science fields, for a long time there are various attempts to explore more advanced technology in order to collect kinds of information concerned during athletes training and matches. In the paper, a footwork training and testing system has been developed by adopting the advanced technology of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN. The system is comprised of some wireless senor nodes and gateways, system control software and so on. By means of the system, the daily footwork training methods and modes will be simulated to automatically guide the training of the athletes, at the same time the training data concerned will be automatically recorded, including moving velocity, moving frequency and success average, moving exercise duration and so on, and it is facilitate to evaluate digitally the training and testing effects for coaches and athletes. The system will bring about an auxiliary means in sport science training and research, make coaches and researchers have more options for the technical and information forms, and provide the technology foundation for synchronizing and intermingling the training and testing smoothly.

The role of staff training in the safety of nuclear facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koechlin, J.C.; Tanguy, P.

1980-01-01

Although nuclear energy largely involves automatic protection systems enabling the effects of human error to be mitigated, the human factor still remains of extreme importance in nuclear risk analysis. Hence, the attainment of the high safety standards sought after for nuclear energy must of necessity entail staff training programmes which take into account the concern for nuclear safety. It is incumbent upon constructors and operators to evolve a training programme suited to each job, and the safety authorities are responsible for assessing whether the programme is satisfactory from the standpoint of safety and, where necessary, for issuing the relevant certificates or permits. The paper makes some comments on the cost of human error and the profitability of investment in training, on the importance of practical training and of the role of simulators, and on the need for operators to note and analyse all operational abnormalities, which are so often an advance warning of accidents. The training of special safety teams is examined, with consideration of three aspects: safety assessment, inspection, and action to be taken in the event of accident. Finally, some information is given on the human reliability studies under way and their implications for nuclear safety and training, with emphasis on the valuable assistance rendered in this matter by international organizations. (author)

Developing a training programme for radiation protection officers at industrial irradiators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Davor, P.

2013-04-01

A training programme for staff of irradiation facilities especially radiation safety officers at industrial irradiation facilities has been developed. The programme focused on technical and administrative basis for ensuring radiation safety at the practices. It consists of thirteen modules ranging from fundamentals of radiation, biological effects of ionizing radiation as well as the technical and administrative issues pertinent to radiation safety of the sources. The overall objective of this programme was to build competence in the area of radiation protection and raise the confidence level of staff of industrial irradiation facilities. The modules are structured in a manner that attempts to give a good understanding to participants on safety features of irradiators and use of radiation monitoring equipment. Each module has specific objectives and expected outcome and the course content is also stated under each module. The duration of the whole programme is sixteen weeks and the participants are expected to have some working knowledge in radiation protection and safe use of radiation sources. (au)

Automatic classification of time-variable X-ray sources

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lo, Kitty K.; Farrell, Sean; Murphy, Tara; Gaensler, B. M. [Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006 (Australia)

2014-05-01

To maximize the discovery potential of future synoptic surveys, especially in the field of transient science, it will be necessary to use automatic classification to identify some of the astronomical sources. The data mining technique of supervised classification is suitable for this problem. Here, we present a supervised learning method to automatically classify variable X-ray sources in the Second XMM-Newton Serendipitous Source Catalog (2XMMi-DR2). Random Forest is our classifier of choice since it is one of the most accurate learning algorithms available. Our training set consists of 873 variable sources and their features are derived from time series, spectra, and other multi-wavelength contextual information. The 10 fold cross validation accuracy of the training data is ∼97% on a 7 class data set. We applied the trained classification model to 411 unknown variable 2XMM sources to produce a probabilistically classified catalog. Using the classification margin and the Random Forest derived outlier measure, we identified 12 anomalous sources, of which 2XMM J180658.7–500250 appears to be the most unusual source in the sample. Its X-ray spectra is suggestive of a ultraluminous X-ray source but its variability makes it highly unusual. Machine-learned classification and anomaly detection will facilitate scientific discoveries in the era of all-sky surveys.

Automatic classification of time-variable X-ray sources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lo, Kitty K.; Farrell, Sean; Murphy, Tara; Gaensler, B. M.

2014-01-01

To maximize the discovery potential of future synoptic surveys, especially in the field of transient science, it will be necessary to use automatic classification to identify some of the astronomical sources. The data mining technique of supervised classification is suitable for this problem. Here, we present a supervised learning method to automatically classify variable X-ray sources in the Second XMM-Newton Serendipitous Source Catalog (2XMMi-DR2). Random Forest is our classifier of choice since it is one of the most accurate learning algorithms available. Our training set consists of 873 variable sources and their features are derived from time series, spectra, and other multi-wavelength contextual information. The 10 fold cross validation accuracy of the training data is ∼97% on a 7 class data set. We applied the trained classification model to 411 unknown variable 2XMM sources to produce a probabilistically classified catalog. Using the classification margin and the Random Forest derived outlier measure, we identified 12 anomalous sources, of which 2XMM J180658.7–500250 appears to be the most unusual source in the sample. Its X-ray spectra is suggestive of a ultraluminous X-ray source but its variability makes it highly unusual. Machine-learned classification and anomaly detection will facilitate scientific discoveries in the era of all-sky surveys.

46 CFR 194.20-7 - Fire protection.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 46 Shipping 7 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Fire protection. 194.20-7 Section 194.20-7 Shipping COAST GUARD, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (CONTINUED) OCEANOGRAPHIC RESEARCH VESSELS HANDLING, USE... Fire protection. (a) Each chemical storeroom shall be protected by a fixed automatic carbon dioxide...

New technologies, virtual reality and multimedia, in Radiation Protection training; Nuevas tecnologias, realidad virtual y multimedia, aplicadaas a la formacion en proteccion radiologica

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Felipe, A.; Sanchez-Mayoral, M. L.; Lamela, B.; Merino, A.; Sarti, F.

2003-07-01

Iberdrola Ingenieria y Consultoria (Iberinco) has developed some computer applications based in New Technologies, Virtual Reality and Multimedia, with the aim to optimise the formation and training of professionally exposed workers as well as to inform the public. The use of the new technologies could be an important help for the workers training. Virtual Reality Projects developed by Iberinco are: a) CIPRES: Interactive Calculations of Radiological Protection in a Simulation Environmental and, b) ACEWO: Workers Control Access to Nuclear Power Plants, virtual Reality could be directly applicable to several aspects related with Radiological Protection Training, for example. An application that workers could used to learn the main aspects of Radiological Protection related with: a) Physical concepts, b) Regulations, c) Use of protective clothing, d) Access into and exit out controlled areas, e) ALARA criterion. An examples is the project ACEWO. A training program based on Virtual Reality systems with simulations of procedures in which the operators could receive high doses. In this way, the operation time and dose could be minimised according to the ALARA criterion owing to the ability of repeating the exercise, or the work, as many times as be necessary, like project CIPRES. Iberinco has been developed an educational CD multimedia on nuclear energy and the protection measures foreseen in the emergency plans for the Spanish Civil Protection Agency, with the aim of being distributed to all the schools placed near a nuclear power plant. (Author) 4 refs.

Radiation Protection Training in Spanish schools of medicine; Analisis de la docencia pregrado de la proteccion radiologica en la licenciatura de medicina en Espana

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ruiz-Cruces, R.; Perez Martinez, M.; Vano, E.; Hernandez Armas, J.; Diez de los Rios Delgado, A.

2003-07-01

Radiation Protection should be included in the programme of studies necessary to confer a bachelor's degree in Medicine, according to the Directive 97/43 Euratom on medical exposures and the Report RP116 published by the European commission on Education and Training in radiation protection for medical exposures. To analyse the present training programmes in radiation protection at the Medical School in different Spanish Universities. The syllabus and the contents of the subjects including radiation protection issues in 27 Spanish Schools of Medicine have been revised. Radiation protection subjects are obligatory at present, only at the Schools of Medicine from Cantabria and Malaga. There is a group of Schools of Medicine where radiation protection is an optional matter with an extension of 4,5 credits (45 hours). It also exists some topics in radiation protection in subjects dealing with Medical Physics and General Radiology (with a range value from 1 to 10 hours), in 10 Schools of Medicine. A wide dispersion among the contents of different subjects and the hours of training allocated by the different School are found. It should be useful the harmonization of the programmes. (Author)

System for the quality assurance of personnel training programs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rjona, Orison; Venegas, Maria del C.; Rodriguez, Lazaro; Lopez, Miguel A.; Armenteros, Ana L.

1999-01-01

In this work are described the fundamental possibilities and characteristics of a software that allows to carry out the management and automatic evaluation of all data gotten during jobs analysis and design, development, implementation and evaluation of personnel training programs of nuclear and radioactive installations and risk industries. The system that is introduced, GESAT, proportion a tool of centralized managerial control of training data and the obtaining of the quality objectives of each installation in the training of their personnel. GESAT includes all phases of SAT method (Systematic Approach to Training). It constitutes the necessary practical support for the elaboration, implementation and evaluation of training programs, allowing the establishment of restrictions and controls and avoiding inconsistencies in the process. It offers the possibility of automatic evaluation that identify fundamental deficiencies in the planning and implementation of training programs. This evaluation facilitates the systematic feed back and the continuous improvement of the training programs.(author)

Retraining automatic action-tendencies to approach alcohol in hazardous drinkers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wiers, R.W.H.J.; Rinck, M.; Kordts, R.; Houben, K.; Strack, F.

2010-01-01

The main aim of this study was to test whether automatic action-tendencies to approach alcohol can be modified, and whether this affects drinking behaviour. Design and participants - Forty-two hazardous drinkers were assigned randomly to a condition in which they were implicitly trained to avoid or

Retraining automatic action-tendencies to approach alcohol in hazardous drinkers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wiers, R.W.; Rinck, M.; Kordts, R.; Houben, K.; Strack, F.

2010-01-01

Aims: The main aim of this study was to test whether automatic action-tendencies to approach alcohol can be modified, and whether this affects drinking behaviour. Design and participants: Forty-two hazardous drinkers were assigned randomly to a condition in which they were implicitly trained to

Automatic failure identification of the nuclear power plant pellet fuel

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oliveira, Adriano Fortunato de

2010-01-01

This paper proposed the development of an automatic technique for evaluating defects to help in the stage of fabrication of fuel elements. Was produced an intelligent image analysis for automatic recognition of defects in uranium pellets. Therefore, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was trained using segments of histograms of pellets, containing examples of both normal (no fault) and of defectives pellets (with major defects normally found). The images of the pellets were segmented into 11 shares. Histograms were made of these segments and trained the ANN. Besides automating the process, the system was able to obtain this classification accuracy of 98.33%. Although this percentage represents a significant advance ever in the quality control process, the use of more advanced techniques of photography and lighting will reduce it to insignificant levels with low cost. Technologically, the method developed, should it ever be implemented, will add substantial value in terms of process quality control and production outages in relation to domestic manufacturing of nuclear fuel. (author)

Chocolate equals stop. Chocolate-specific inhibition training reduces chocolate intake and go associations with chocolate.

Science.gov (United States)

Houben, Katrijn; Jansen, Anita

2015-04-01

Earlier research has demonstrated that food-specific inhibition training wherein food cues are repeatedly and consistently mapped onto stop signals decreases food intake and bodyweight. The mechanisms underlying these training effects, however, remain unclear. It has been suggested that consistently pairing stimuli with stop signals induces automatic stop associations with those stimuli, thereby facilitating automatic, bottom-up inhibition. This study examined this hypothesis with respect to food-inhibition training. Participants performed a training that consistently paired chocolate with no go cues (chocolate/no-go) or with go cues (chocolate/go). Following training, we measured automatic associations between chocolate and stop versus go, as well as food intake and desire to eat. As expected, food that was consistently mapped onto stopping was indeed more associated with stopping versus going afterwards. In replication of previous results, participants in the no-go condition also showed less desire to eat and reduced food intake relative to the go condition. Together these findings support the idea that food-specific inhibition training prompts the development of automatic inhibition associations, which subsequently facilitate inhibitory control over unwanted food-related urges. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evaluating automatic laughter segmentation in meetings using acoustic and acoustic-phonetic features

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Truong, K.P.; Leeuwen, D.A. van

2007-01-01

In this study, we investigated automatic laughter segmentation in meetings. We first performed laughterspeech discrimination experiments with traditional spectral features and subsequently used acousticphonetic features. In segmentation, we used Gaussian Mixture Models that were trained with

Country-overlapping radiation protection education and training by the CHERNE network; Laenderuebergreifende Strahlenschutzausbildung im Rahmen des CHERNE-Netzwerks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hoyler, Frieder [Fachhochschule Aachen, Juelich (Germany). Strahlenschutzkursstaette

2013-09-01

The CHERNE network is promoting the cooperation between colleges and research facilities at the training of students. The article describes particular study courses in the field of radiation protection. (orig.)

Evaluation of the knowledge of the French armed forces health service after a regulatory training in patients' radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nombo, M.; Gagna, G.; Lahutte, M.; Bourguignon, M.; Amabile, J.-C.

2017-01-01

According to the Public Health Code, all the professionals who perform therapeutic or diagnostic acts with ionizing radiation (IR) and the professionals involved in the implementation of these acts and the maintenance of the equipment should be given theoretical and practical training. Such training must focus on the protection of the people exposed to IR for medical purposes. Knowledge should be updated at least every 10 years, under the Nuclear Safety Authority. For the Ministry of Defense, the Military School of the Val-de-Grace offers a training day dedicated to the health-care professionals of the Military Hospitals and the forces using or prescribing examinations requiring ionizing radiation. The objective of the study was to assess the efficiency of this training day on patients' radiation protection organized for the French Armed Forces Health Service; the study was carried out with questionnaires assessing the knowledge and the quality of the interventions. A multicentric prospective study was conducted from September 2013 to November 2014 in four Military Hospitals (Val-de- Grace, St. Anne, Percy and Legouest) on French Armed Forces Health Service professionals who agreed to answer a questionnaire containing 50 multiple choice questions, both at the beginning and at the end of the training day. The analysis was focused on the comparison of the scores obtained before and after the training (overall ratings, by profession and according to the monitoring of previous training or not). The results of the primary care physicians' questionnaires were of particular interest (physicians serving in military units). The results were obtained from a total of 126 respondents over five training sessions in the four Military Hospitals. A significant 18% increase of the overall score after training according to the Student's test with p < 0.001 was observed. However, there was no significant difference between the results obtained by the professionals who

Automatic Conflict Detection on Contracts

Science.gov (United States)

Fenech, Stephen; Pace, Gordon J.; Schneider, Gerardo

Many software applications are based on collaborating, yet competing, agents or virtual organisations exchanging services. Contracts, expressing obligations, permissions and prohibitions of the different actors, can be used to protect the interests of the organisations engaged in such service exchange. However, the potentially dynamic composition of services with different contracts, and the combination of service contracts with local contracts can give rise to unexpected conflicts, exposing the need for automatic techniques for contract analysis. In this paper we look at automatic analysis techniques for contracts written in the contract language mathcal{CL}. We present a trace semantics of mathcal{CL} suitable for conflict analysis, and a decision procedure for detecting conflicts (together with its proof of soundness, completeness and termination). We also discuss its implementation and look into the applications of the contract analysis approach we present. These techniques are applied to a small case study of an airline check-in desk.

Robust Machine Learning-Based Correction on Automatic Segmentation of the Cerebellum and Brainstem.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jun Yi; Ngo, Michael M; Hessl, David; Hagerman, Randi J; Rivera, Susan M

2016-01-01

Automated segmentation is a useful method for studying large brain structures such as the cerebellum and brainstem. However, automated segmentation may lead to inaccuracy and/or undesirable boundary. The goal of the present study was to investigate whether SegAdapter, a machine learning-based method, is useful for automatically correcting large segmentation errors and disagreement in anatomical definition. We further assessed the robustness of the method in handling size of training set, differences in head coil usage, and amount of brain atrophy. High resolution T1-weighted images were acquired from 30 healthy controls scanned with either an 8-channel or 32-channel head coil. Ten patients, who suffered from brain atrophy because of fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome, were scanned using the 32-channel head coil. The initial segmentations of the cerebellum and brainstem were generated automatically using Freesurfer. Subsequently, Freesurfer's segmentations were both manually corrected to serve as the gold standard and automatically corrected by SegAdapter. Using only 5 scans in the training set, spatial overlap with manual segmentation in Dice coefficient improved significantly from 0.956 (for Freesurfer segmentation) to 0.978 (for SegAdapter-corrected segmentation) for the cerebellum and from 0.821 to 0.954 for the brainstem. Reducing the training set size to 2 scans only decreased the Dice coefficient ≤0.002 for the cerebellum and ≤ 0.005 for the brainstem compared to the use of training set size of 5 scans in corrective learning. The method was also robust in handling differences between the training set and the test set in head coil usage and the amount of brain atrophy, which reduced spatial overlap only by segmentation and corrective learning provides a valuable method for accurate and efficient segmentation of the cerebellum and brainstem, particularly in large-scale neuroimaging studies, and potentially for segmenting other neural regions as

ENETRAP II: European network of education and training in radiation protection, data base training; ENETRAP II: Red Europea de Educacion y Formacion en Proteccion Radiologica, base de datos de formacion

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Marco Arboli, M.; Llorente, C.; Coeck, M.

2012-07-01

Development and implementation of a European standard for high quality initial training and professional development continued in the {sup R}adiation Protection Expert-RPE and Radiation Protection Officer-RPO, also of a methodology for the mutual recognition of these professionals by making use of the available instruments of the European Union (GE).

Automatic categorization of diverse experimental information in the bioscience literature.

Science.gov (United States)

Fang, Ruihua; Schindelman, Gary; Van Auken, Kimberly; Fernandes, Jolene; Chen, Wen; Wang, Xiaodong; Davis, Paul; Tuli, Mary Ann; Marygold, Steven J; Millburn, Gillian; Matthews, Beverley; Zhang, Haiyan; Brown, Nick; Gelbart, William M; Sternberg, Paul W

2012-01-26

Curation of information from bioscience literature into biological knowledge databases is a crucial way of capturing experimental information in a computable form. During the biocuration process, a critical first step is to identify from all published literature the papers that contain results for a specific data type the curator is interested in annotating. This step normally requires curators to manually examine many papers to ascertain which few contain information of interest and thus, is usually time consuming. We developed an automatic method for identifying papers containing these curation data types among a large pool of published scientific papers based on the machine learning method Support Vector Machine (SVM). This classification system is completely automatic and can be readily applied to diverse experimental data types. It has been in use in production for automatic categorization of 10 different experimental datatypes in the biocuration process at WormBase for the past two years and it is in the process of being adopted in the biocuration process at FlyBase and the Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD). We anticipate that this method can be readily adopted by various databases in the biocuration community and thereby greatly reducing time spent on an otherwise laborious and demanding task. We also developed a simple, readily automated procedure to utilize training papers of similar data types from different bodies of literature such as C. elegans and D. melanogaster to identify papers with any of these data types for a single database. This approach has great significance because for some data types, especially those of low occurrence, a single corpus often does not have enough training papers to achieve satisfactory performance. We successfully tested the method on ten data types from WormBase, fifteen data types from FlyBase and three data types from Mouse Genomics Informatics (MGI). It is being used in the curation work flow at WormBase for

Automatic Detection of Acromegaly From Facial Photographs Using Machine Learning Methods.

Science.gov (United States)

Kong, Xiangyi; Gong, Shun; Su, Lijuan; Howard, Newton; Kong, Yanguo

2018-01-01

Automatic early detection of acromegaly is theoretically possible from facial photographs, which can lessen the prevalence and increase the cure probability. In this study, several popular machine learning algorithms were used to train a retrospective development dataset consisting of 527 acromegaly patients and 596 normal subjects. We firstly used OpenCV to detect the face bounding rectangle box, and then cropped and resized it to the same pixel dimensions. From the detected faces, locations of facial landmarks which were the potential clinical indicators were extracted. Frontalization was then adopted to synthesize frontal facing views to improve the performance. Several popular machine learning methods including LM, KNN, SVM, RT, CNN, and EM were used to automatically identify acromegaly from the detected facial photographs, extracted facial landmarks, and synthesized frontal faces. The trained models were evaluated using a separate dataset, of which half were diagnosed as acromegaly by growth hormone suppression test. The best result of our proposed methods showed a PPV of 96%, a NPV of 95%, a sensitivity of 96% and a specificity of 96%. Artificial intelligence can automatically early detect acromegaly with a high sensitivity and specificity. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Declarative Terrain Modeling for Military Training Games

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ruben M. Smelik

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Military training instructors increasingly often employ computer games to train soldiers in all sorts of skills and tactics. One of the difficulties instructors face when using games as a training tool is the creation of suitable content, including scenarios, entities, and corresponding terrain models. Terrain plays a key role in many military training games, as for example, in our case game Tactical Air Defense. However, current manual terrain editors are both too complex and too time-consuming to be useful for instructors; automatic terrain generation methods show a lot of potential, but still lack user control and intuitive editing capabilities. We present a novel way for instructors to model terrain for their training games: instead of constructing a terrain model using complex modeling tools, instructors can declare the required properties of their terrain using an advanced sketching interface. Our framework integrates terrain generation methods and manages dependencies between terrain features in order to automatically create a complete 3D terrain model that matches the sketch. With our framework, instructors can easily design a large variety of terrain models that meet their training requirements.

PART I: Bioventing Pilot Test Work Plan for Fire Protection Training Area Site FY-03, Charleston AFB, South Carolina. PART II: Draft Interim Pilot Test Results Report for Fire Protection Training Area Site FT-03, Charleston AFB, South Carolina

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

1993-01-01

This site-specific work plan presents the scope of a bioventing pilot test for in situ treatment of fuel contaminated soils at the Fire Protection Training Area designated as Site FT-O3, Charleston Air Force Base (AFB), South Carolina...

Reducing Uncontrolled Radioactive Sources through Tracking and Training: US Environmental Protection Agency Initiatives

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kopsick, D.A., E-mail: kopsick.deborah@epa.gov [US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC (United States)

2011-07-15

The international metal processing industries are very concerned about the importation of scrap metal contaminated with radioactive materials. When radioactive sources fall out of regulatory control, improper handling can cause serious injury and death. There is no one way to address this problem and various US governmental and industry entities have developed radiation source control programmes that function within their authorities. The US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) mission is to protect public health and the environment. To ensure this protection, EPA's approach to orphan sources in scrap metal has focused on regaining control of lost sources and preventing future losses. EPA has accomplished this through a number of avenues including training development, product stewardship, identification of non-radiation source alternatives, physical tagging of sources, field testing of innovative radiation detection instrumentation and development of international best practices. In order to achieve its goal of enhanced control on contaminated scrap metal and orphaned radioactive sources, EPA has forged alliances with the metals industry, other Federal agencies, state governments and the IAEA. (author)

IAEA education and training in radiation protection, transport and waste safety-status and new developments for sustainability

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sadagopan, G.; Mrabit, K.; Wheatley, J.

2008-01-01

IAEA 's education and training activities in radiation, transport and waste safety follow the IAEA vision, strategy and resolutions of its annual General Conferences and reflect the latest IAEA standards and guidance. IAEA prepared a Strategic Approach to Education and Training in Radiation and Waste Safety (Strategy on Education and Training) aiming at establishing, by 2010, sustainable education and training programmes in Member States, which was endorsed by the GC(45)/RES/10C in 2001. In implementing the strategy, IAEA is organising training events at the regional level and assisting the Member States at the national level by providing them the exemplary quality of training material developed at the IAEA. This work will continue ensuring its completeness in all areas of radiation safety. An Inter Centre Network between the Agency and regional, collaborating national training centres is established to facilitate information exchange, improve communication and dissemination of training material. There is a challenge to enhance the technical capability of the Member States to reach sustainability. This is intended through organising number of Train the Trainers events to develop a pool of qualified trainers. The new developments include establishing E-learning, developing a syllabus for training of Radiation Protection Officers and training materials, information materials for radiation workers. These are aimed at assisting Member States attain self sustainability. (author)

Techniques for Automatic Creation of Terrain Databases for Training and Mission Preparation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kuijper, F.; Son, R. van; Meurs, F. van; Smelik, R.M.; Kraker, J.K. de

2010-01-01

In the support of defense agencies and civil authorities TNO runs a research program that strives after automatic generation of terrain databases for a variety of simulation applications. Earlier papers by TNO at the IMAGE conference have reported in-depth on specific projects within this program.

European Radiation Protection Course - Basics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Massiot, Philippe; Ammerich, Marc; Viguier, Herve; Jimonet, Christine; Bruchet, Hugues; Vivier, Alain; Bodineau, Jean-Christophe; Etard, Cecile; Metivier, Henri; Moreau, Jean-Claude; Nourredine, Abdel-Mijd

2014-01-01

Radiation protection is a major challenge in the industrial applications of ionising radiation, both nuclear and non-nuclear, as well as in other areas such as the medical and research domains. The overall objective of this textbook is to participate to the development of European high-quality scheme and good practices for education and training in radiation protection (RP), coming from the new Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom laying down basic safety standards for protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionising radiation. These ERPTS (European Radiation Protection Training Scheme) reflects the needs of the Radiation Protection Expert (RPE) and the Radiation Protection Officer (RPO), specifically with respect to the Directive 2013/59/Euratom in all sectors where ionising radiation are applied. To reflect the RPE training scheme, six chapters have been developed in this textbook: Radioactivity and nuclear physics; Interaction of ionising radiation with matter; Dosimetry; Biological effects of ionising radiation; Detection and measurement of ionising radiation; Uses of sources of ionising radiation. The result is a homogeneous textbook, dealing with the ERPTS learning outcomes suggested by ENETRAPII project (European Network on Education and Training in Radiological Protection II) from the 7. Framework Programme. A cyber-book is also part of the whole training material to develop the concept of 'learning more' (http://www.rpe-training.eu). The production of this first module 'basics' training material, in the combined form of a textbook plus a cyber-book as learning tools, will contribute to facilitate mutual recognition and enhanced mobility of these professionals across the European Union. (authors)

THE ROLE AND PLACE OF INFORMATION PROTECTION IN THE PROGRAM OF TRAINING OF IT-SPECIALISTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrey I. Volkov

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This article discusses the importance of issues related to the protection of information in the preparation of modern information technology specialists. Notes the importance of studying IT-specialists of this perspective and the need for an integrated approach to the selection and/or development of information security systems. Define the content of training programs on information security, as well as the amount of knowledge in the field of mathematics and information technologies needed for the development of this program. Formulated requirements to the results of development of the program and noted the need to include the protection of information in coursework and final qualifying work.

Ordinance of 30 August 1978 on personnel training in radiation protection and furtherance of knowledge

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1978-01-01

This Ordinance sets up a system of federal subsidies which are granted for training expenses and for furthering knowledge in the radiation protection field. The courses are organised either by private institutes or by the Confederation. They are intended for technical assistants in medical radiology (ATRM) and for personnel in undertakings governed by the Federal Act on Sickness and Accident Insurance. (NEA) [fr

Signal Compression in Automatic Ultrasonic testing of Rails

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomasz Ciszewski

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Full recording of the most important information carried by the ultrasonic signals allows realizing statistical analysis of measurement data. Statistical analysis of the results gathered during automatic ultrasonic tests gives data which lead, together with use of features of measuring method, differential lossy coding and traditional method of lossless data compression (Huffman’s coding, dictionary coding, to a comprehensive, efficient data compression algorithm. The subject of the article is to present the algorithm and the benefits got by using it in comparison to alternative compression methods. Storage of large amount  of data allows to create an electronic catalogue of ultrasonic defects. If it is created, the future qualification system training in the new solutions of the automat for test in rails will be possible.

Argentine Radiation Protection Society Experience in RP education and training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bomben, A. M.; Ciallella, N. R.; Thomasz, E.; Rudelli, M.; Gisone, P.; Ventura, M.; Gomez Parada, I.; Signoretta, C.

2003-01-01

Since its creation in 1967, the Argentine Radiation Protection Society (SAR) promotes all the radiation protection and nuclear safety aspects not only within the scientific, technical and academic areas, but also to general public. To fulfill this objective, SAR organised training and refresher courses, seminars and workshops on RP subjects. During 2002, SAR organised 7 basic and specialized courses regarding the uses of radioactive materials in industrial applications and the course on medical response in radiological accidents, that was attended by Argentine and other Latin American participants. The programmes of the courses are developed in compliance with the legal requirements and also considering specifics needs. In this paper, the characteristics of the courses are enunciated and basic statistics regarding courses and participants are presented. For the 2003 and 2004, SAR foresees the organisation of 18 courses per year and has the capacity to deliver other courses by request. all the courses are delivered in Spanish language. Based on this educational experience SAR consider a priority the inclusion, of a RP module in all the scientific graduate programmes to generate awareness on the importance of RP. Taking into account the migration of professionals to Europe and North America and the Globalization, SAR advocates the harmonization of RP syllabus to attain an international recognition. (Author)

Automatic Imitation

Science.gov (United States)

Heyes, Cecilia

2011-01-01

"Automatic imitation" is a type of stimulus-response compatibility effect in which the topographical features of task-irrelevant action stimuli facilitate similar, and interfere with dissimilar, responses. This article reviews behavioral, neurophysiological, and neuroimaging research on automatic imitation, asking in what sense it is "automatic"…

Sample Selection for Training Cascade Detectors

OpenAIRE

V?llez, Noelia; Deniz, Oscar; Bueno, Gloria

2015-01-01

Automatic detection systems usually require large and representative training datasets in order to obtain good detection and false positive rates. Training datasets are such that the positive set has few samples and/or the negative set should represent anything except the object of interest. In this respect, the negative set typically contains orders of magnitude more images than the positive set. However, imbalanced training databases lead to biased classifiers. In this paper, we focus our a...

Strategies of training as a part of radiation protection and nuclear safety in the 21st century

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tafuni, O.

2009-01-01

Elaboration of national strategies and national training system is one of the main direction in the field of radio protection and nuclear safety in the Republic of Moldova. Necessary seminars and advanced training courses are held in the country and abroad, as well as the educational and informational materials are published to obtain these objectives. Scientific personnel of high educational institutions and specialists in the field of nuclear safety take part in accomplishment of the strategy. The demands of International and European organizations in this field are taken into consideration

Course on Radiological Protection and Quality Assurance in Radiology. Tele-education course: A Possible Solution to continued Postgraduate training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alcaraz, M.; Chico, P.; Saura Iniesta, A.; Armero, D.; Vicente, V.

2004-01-01

The creation of an interdepartmental project subsidised by the Spanish Ministry of Education has made it possible to create a series of specific didactic materials on Radiological Protection and Quality Assurance in Medical Radiodiagnostic Practices, leading to the publication of a specific manual and practical notebook. As a result, this material now constitutes the working basis for those professionals exposed to ionising radiation who are following the first continuous tele-education training course in Spanish via the Internet on this subject. Interactive multimedia training and tele-education may become one of the alternatives that allow health science professionals to receive continuous training, if adequate content and aims have been established during undergraduate training. (Author) 18 refs

Automatic Attraction of Visual Attention by Supraletter Features of Former Target Strings

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Søren eKyllingsbæk

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Observers were trained to search for a particular horizontal string of 3 capital letters presented among similar strings consisting of exactly the same letters in different orders. The training was followed by a test in which the observers searched for a new target that was identical to one of the former distractors. The new distractor set consisted of the remaining former distractors plus the former target. On each trial, three letter-strings were displayed, which included the target string with a probability of .5. In Experiment 1, the strings were centered at different locations on the circumference of an imaginary circle around the fixation point. The training phase of Experiment 2 was similar, but in the test phase of the experiment, the strings were located in a vertical array centered on fixation, and in target-present arrays, the target always appeared at fixation. In both experiments, performance (d’ degraded on trials in which former targets were present, suggesting that the former targets automatically drew processing resources away from the current targets. Apparently, the two experiments showed automatic attraction of visual attention by supraletter features of former target strings.

Child vocalization composition as discriminant information for automatic autism detection.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Dongxin; Gilkerson, Jill; Richards, Jeffrey; Yapanel, Umit; Gray, Sharmi

2009-01-01

Early identification is crucial for young children with autism to access early intervention. The existing screens require either a parent-report questionnaire and/or direct observation by a trained practitioner. Although an automatic tool would benefit parents, clinicians and children, there is no automatic screening tool in clinical use. This study reports a fully automatic mechanism for autism detection/screening for young children. This is a direct extension of the LENA (Language ENvironment Analysis) system, which utilizes speech signal processing technology to analyze and monitor a child's natural language environment and the vocalizations/speech of the child. It is discovered that child vocalization composition contains rich discriminant information for autism detection. By applying pattern recognition and machine learning approaches to child vocalization composition data, accuracy rates of 85% to 90% in cross-validation tests for autism detection have been achieved at the equal-error-rate (EER) point on a data set with 34 children with autism, 30 language delayed children and 76 typically developing children. Due to its easy and automatic procedure, it is believed that this new tool can serve a significant role in childhood autism screening, especially in regards to population-based or universal screening.

Automatic location of short circuit faults

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lehtonen, M. [VTT Energy, Espoo (Finland); Hakola, T.; Antila, E. [ABB Power Oy, Helsinki (Finland); Seppaenen, M. [North-Carelian Power Company (Finland)

1996-12-31

In this presentation, the automatic location of short circuit faults on medium voltage distribution lines, based on the integration of computer systems of medium voltage distribution network automation is discussed. First the distribution data management systems and their interface with the substation telecontrol, or SCADA systems, is studied. Then the integration of substation telecontrol system and computerised relay protection is discussed. Finally, the implementation of the fault location system is presented and the practical experience with the system is discussed

Automatic location of short circuit faults

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lehtonen, M [VTT Energy, Espoo (Finland); Hakola, T; Antila, E [ABB Power Oy (Finland); Seppaenen, M [North-Carelian Power Company (Finland)

1998-08-01

In this chapter, the automatic location of short circuit faults on medium voltage distribution lines, based on the integration of computer systems of medium voltage distribution network automation is discussed. First the distribution data management systems and their interface with the substation telecontrol, or SCADA systems, is studied. Then the integration of substation telecontrol system and computerized relay protection is discussed. Finally, the implementation of the fault location system is presented and the practical experience with the system is discussed

Automatic location of short circuit faults

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lehtonen, M [VTT Energy, Espoo (Finland); Hakola, T; Antila, E [ABB Power Oy, Helsinki (Finland); Seppaenen, M [North-Carelian Power Company (Finland)

1997-12-31

In this presentation, the automatic location of short circuit faults on medium voltage distribution lines, based on the integration of computer systems of medium voltage distribution network automation is discussed. First the distribution data management systems and their interface with the substation telecontrol, or SCADA systems, is studied. Then the integration of substation telecontrol system and computerised relay protection is discussed. Finally, the implementation of the fault location system is presented and the practical experience with the system is discussed

[Job-sharing in postgraduate medical training: not automatically a nice duet].

Science.gov (United States)

Levi, M

2004-02-14

Part-time work is an increasingly common phenomenon amongst medical professionals. Therefore many postgraduate training programmes for resident physicians also offer the opportunity of part-time work, which is usually in the form of an 80% full-time equivalent post. A new initiative has created the possibility of job-sharing, in which each of the participants fulfills 50% of one training position. Although the experience of the participants is mainly positive, it is unclear how this development will impact the quality of patient care and how it will affect the fulfillment of the training objectives. A more systematic evaluation of job-sharing in postgraduate medical training programmes is required to clarify these points.

Automatic/Control Processing Concepts and Their Implications for the Training of Skills.

Science.gov (United States)

1982-04-01

driving a car are examples of automatic processes. Controll p s is comparatively slow, serial, limited by short-term memory, and requires subject effort...development has convinced us that moivation a oftn more Jmportn nti mAn =other iJli velLJoa jjthpgy gI. njj Lautomatic U_2,LLjjk. Motivation Is much more

Improving labeling efficiency in automatic quality control of MRSI data.

Science.gov (United States)

Pedrosa de Barros, Nuno; McKinley, Richard; Wiest, Roland; Slotboom, Johannes

2017-12-01

To improve the efficiency of the labeling task in automatic quality control of MR spectroscopy imaging data. 28'432 short and long echo time (TE) spectra (1.5 tesla; point resolved spectroscopy (PRESS); repetition time (TR)= 1,500 ms) from 18 different brain tumor patients were labeled by two experts as either accept or reject, depending on their quality. For each spectrum, 47 signal features were extracted. The data was then used to run several simulations and test an active learning approach using uncertainty sampling. The performance of the classifiers was evaluated as a function of the number of patients in the training set, number of spectra in the training set, and a parameter α used to control the level of classification uncertainty required for a new spectrum to be selected for labeling. The results showed that the proposed strategy allows reductions of up to 72.97% for short TE and 62.09% for long TE in the amount of data that needs to be labeled, without significant impact in classification accuracy. Further reductions are possible with significant but minimal impact in performance. Active learning using uncertainty sampling is an effective way to increase the labeling efficiency for training automatic quality control classifiers. Magn Reson Med 78:2399-2405, 2017. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Automatic categorization of diverse experimental information in the bioscience literature

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fang Ruihua

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Curation of information from bioscience literature into biological knowledge databases is a crucial way of capturing experimental information in a computable form. During the biocuration process, a critical first step is to identify from all published literature the papers that contain results for a specific data type the curator is interested in annotating. This step normally requires curators to manually examine many papers to ascertain which few contain information of interest and thus, is usually time consuming. We developed an automatic method for identifying papers containing these curation data types among a large pool of published scientific papers based on the machine learning method Support Vector Machine (SVM. This classification system is completely automatic and can be readily applied to diverse experimental data types. It has been in use in production for automatic categorization of 10 different experimental datatypes in the biocuration process at WormBase for the past two years and it is in the process of being adopted in the biocuration process at FlyBase and the Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD. We anticipate that this method can be readily adopted by various databases in the biocuration community and thereby greatly reducing time spent on an otherwise laborious and demanding task. We also developed a simple, readily automated procedure to utilize training papers of similar data types from different bodies of literature such as C. elegans and D. melanogaster to identify papers with any of these data types for a single database. This approach has great significance because for some data types, especially those of low occurrence, a single corpus often does not have enough training papers to achieve satisfactory performance. Results We successfully tested the method on ten data types from WormBase, fifteen data types from FlyBase and three data types from Mouse Genomics Informatics (MGI. It is being used in

Automatic categorization of diverse experimental information in the bioscience literature

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-01

Background Curation of information from bioscience literature into biological knowledge databases is a crucial way of capturing experimental information in a computable form. During the biocuration process, a critical first step is to identify from all published literature the papers that contain results for a specific data type the curator is interested in annotating. This step normally requires curators to manually examine many papers to ascertain which few contain information of interest and thus, is usually time consuming. We developed an automatic method for identifying papers containing these curation data types among a large pool of published scientific papers based on the machine learning method Support Vector Machine (SVM). This classification system is completely automatic and can be readily applied to diverse experimental data types. It has been in use in production for automatic categorization of 10 different experimental datatypes in the biocuration process at WormBase for the past two years and it is in the process of being adopted in the biocuration process at FlyBase and the Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD). We anticipate that this method can be readily adopted by various databases in the biocuration community and thereby greatly reducing time spent on an otherwise laborious and demanding task. We also developed a simple, readily automated procedure to utilize training papers of similar data types from different bodies of literature such as C. elegans and D. melanogaster to identify papers with any of these data types for a single database. This approach has great significance because for some data types, especially those of low occurrence, a single corpus often does not have enough training papers to achieve satisfactory performance. Results We successfully tested the method on ten data types from WormBase, fifteen data types from FlyBase and three data types from Mouse Genomics Informatics (MGI). It is being used in the curation work flow at

Personal protective equipment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2004-01-01

This Practical Radiation Technical Manual is one of a series that has been designed to provide guidance on radiological protection for employers, radiation protection officers, managers and other technically competent persons who have responsibility for ensuring the safety of employees working with ionizing radiation. The Manual may be used with the appropriate IAEA Practical Radiation Safety Manuals to provide training, instruction and information for all employees engaged in work with ionizing radiation. Personal protective equipment (PPE) includes clothing or other special equipment that is issued to individual workers to provide protection against actual or potential exposure to ionizing radiations. It is used to protect each worker against the prevailing risk of external or internal exposure in circumstances in which it is not reasonably practicable to provide complete protection by means of engineering controls or administrative methods. Adequate personal protection depends on PPE being correctly selected, fitted and maintained. Appropriate training for the users and arrangements to monitor usage are also necessary to ensure that PPE provides the intended degree of protection effectively. This Manual explains the principal types of PPE, including protective clothing and respiratory protective equipment (RPE). Examples of working procedures are also described to indicate how PPE should be used within a safe system of work. The Manual will be of most benefit if it forms part of a more comprehensive training programme or is supplemented by the advice of a qualified expert in radiation protection. Some of the RPE described in this Manual should be used under the guidance of a qualified expert

Automatic construction of a recurrent neural network based classifier for vehicle passage detection

Science.gov (United States)

Burnaev, Evgeny; Koptelov, Ivan; Novikov, German; Khanipov, Timur

2017-03-01

Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) are extensively used for time-series modeling and prediction. We propose an approach for automatic construction of a binary classifier based on Long Short-Term Memory RNNs (LSTM-RNNs) for detection of a vehicle passage through a checkpoint. As an input to the classifier we use multidimensional signals of various sensors that are installed on the checkpoint. Obtained results demonstrate that the previous approach to handcrafting a classifier, consisting of a set of deterministic rules, can be successfully replaced by an automatic RNN training on an appropriately labelled data.

Automatic alignment of radionuclide images

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barber, D.C.

1982-01-01

The variability of the position, dimensions and orientation of a radionuclide image within the field of view of a gamma camera hampers attempts to analyse the image numerically. This paper describes a method of using a set of training images of a particular type, in this case right lateral brain images, to define the likely variations in the position, dimensions and orientation for that type of image and to provide alignment data for a program that automatically aligns new images of the specified type to a standard position, size and orientation. Examples are given of the use of this method on three types of radionuclide image. (author)

Robust Machine Learning-Based Correction on Automatic Segmentation of the Cerebellum and Brainstem.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jun Yi Wang

Full Text Available Automated segmentation is a useful method for studying large brain structures such as the cerebellum and brainstem. However, automated segmentation may lead to inaccuracy and/or undesirable boundary. The goal of the present study was to investigate whether SegAdapter, a machine learning-based method, is useful for automatically correcting large segmentation errors and disagreement in anatomical definition. We further assessed the robustness of the method in handling size of training set, differences in head coil usage, and amount of brain atrophy. High resolution T1-weighted images were acquired from 30 healthy controls scanned with either an 8-channel or 32-channel head coil. Ten patients, who suffered from brain atrophy because of fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome, were scanned using the 32-channel head coil. The initial segmentations of the cerebellum and brainstem were generated automatically using Freesurfer. Subsequently, Freesurfer's segmentations were both manually corrected to serve as the gold standard and automatically corrected by SegAdapter. Using only 5 scans in the training set, spatial overlap with manual segmentation in Dice coefficient improved significantly from 0.956 (for Freesurfer segmentation to 0.978 (for SegAdapter-corrected segmentation for the cerebellum and from 0.821 to 0.954 for the brainstem. Reducing the training set size to 2 scans only decreased the Dice coefficient ≤0.002 for the cerebellum and ≤ 0.005 for the brainstem compared to the use of training set size of 5 scans in corrective learning. The method was also robust in handling differences between the training set and the test set in head coil usage and the amount of brain atrophy, which reduced spatial overlap only by <0.01. These results suggest that the combination of automated segmentation and corrective learning provides a valuable method for accurate and efficient segmentation of the cerebellum and brainstem, particularly in large

Image simulation for automatic license plate recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Bala, Raja; Zhao, Yonghui; Burry, Aaron; Kozitsky, Vladimir; Fillion, Claude; Saunders, Craig; Rodríguez-Serrano, José

2012-01-01

Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) is an important capability for traffic surveillance applications, including toll monitoring and detection of different types of traffic violations. ALPR is a multi-stage process comprising plate localization, character segmentation, optical character recognition (OCR), and identification of originating jurisdiction (i.e. state or province). Training of an ALPR system for a new jurisdiction typically involves gathering vast amounts of license plate images and associated ground truth data, followed by iterative tuning and optimization of the ALPR algorithms. The substantial time and effort required to train and optimize the ALPR system can result in excessive operational cost and overhead. In this paper we propose a framework to create an artificial set of license plate images for accelerated training and optimization of ALPR algorithms. The framework comprises two steps: the synthesis of license plate images according to the design and layout for a jurisdiction of interest; and the modeling of imaging transformations and distortions typically encountered in the image capture process. Distortion parameters are estimated by measurements of real plate images. The simulation methodology is successfully demonstrated for training of OCR.

Forging Alliances with Protection and Advocacy Systems: A Training Manual for Parents of Children with Emotional Disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Petr, Christopher G.

This manual is intended to be used in conjunction with a 1-day training workshop to help parents of children with emotional disorders establish working alliances with protection and advocacy agencies for people with mental illness (PAMIs). The workshop prepares parents for developing specific plans for forging alliances with the state PAMI. The…

Segmenting articular cartilage automatically using a voxel classification approach

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Folkesson, Jenny; Dam, Erik B; Olsen, Ole F

2007-01-01

We present a fully automatic method for articular cartilage segmentation from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which we use as the foundation of a quantitative cartilage assessment. We evaluate our method by comparisons to manual segmentations by a radiologist and by examining the interscan...... reproducibility of the volume and area estimates. Training and evaluation of the method is performed on a data set consisting of 139 scans of knees with a status ranging from healthy to severely osteoarthritic. This is, to our knowledge, the only fully automatic cartilage segmentation method that has good...... agreement with manual segmentations, an interscan reproducibility as good as that of a human expert, and enables the separation between healthy and osteoarthritic populations. While high-field scanners offer high-quality imaging from which the articular cartilage have been evaluated extensively using manual...

Attacks on Mobile Phones that Use the Automatic Configuration Mechanism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. G. Beltov

2012-09-01

Full Text Available The authors analyze the attacks on mobile devices that use the mechanism of an automatic configuration OMA/OTA, whose aim is listening to the Internet traffic of subscribers and the intrusion of malicious software on the user’s device, and suggest ways to protect mobile phones against such attacks.

MODELING OF POWER SYSTEMS AND TESTING OF RELAY PROTECTION DEVICES IN REAL AND MODEL TIME

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I. V. Novash

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The methods of modelling of power system modes and of testing of relay protection devices with the aid the simulation complexes in real time and with the help of computer software systems that enables the simulation of virtual time scale are considered. Information input protection signals in the simulation of the virtual model time are being obtained in the computational experiment, whereas the tests of protective devices are carried out with the help of hardware and software test systems with the use of estimated input signals. Study of power system stability when modes of generating and consuming electrical equipment and conditions of devices of relay protection are being changed requires testing with the use of digital simulators in a mode of a closed loop. Herewith feedbacks between a model of the power system operating in a real time and external devices or their models must be determined (modelled. Modelling in real time and the analysis of international experience in the use of digital simulation power systems for real-time simulation (RTDS simulator have been fulfilled. Examples are given of the use of RTDS systems by foreign energy companies to test relay protection systems and control, to test the equipment and devices of automatic control, analysis of cyber security and evaluation of the operation of energy systems under different scenarios of occurrence of emergency situations. Some quantitative data on the distribution of RTDS in different countries and Russia are presented. It is noted that the leading energy universities of Russia use the real-time simulation not only to solve scientific and technical problems, but also to conduct training and laboratory classes on modelling of electric networks and anti-emergency automatic equipment with the students. In order to check serviceability of devices of relay protection without taking into account the reaction of the power system tests can be performed in an open loop mode with the

Sleep-related automatism and the law.

Science.gov (United States)

Ebrahim, Irshaad Osman; Fenwick, Peter

2008-04-01

Crimes carried out during or arising from sleep highlight many difficulties with our current law and forensic sleep medicine clinical practice. There is a need for clarity in the law and agreement between experts on a standardised form of assessment and diagnosis in these challenging cases. We suggest that the time has come for a standardised, internationally recognised diagnostic protocol to be set as a minimum standard in all cases of suspected sleep-related forensic cases. The protocol of a full medical history, sleep history, psychiatric history, neuropsychiatric and psychometric examination and electroencephalography (EEG), should be routine. It should now be mandatory to carry out routine polysomnography (PSG) to establish the presence of precipitating and modulating factors. Sleepwalking is classified as insane automatism in England and Wales and sudden arousal from sleep in a non-sleepwalker as sane automatism. The recent case in England of R v. Lowe (2005) highlights these anomalies. Moreover, the word insanity stigmatises sleepwalkers and should be dropped. The simplest solution to these problems would be for the law to be changed so that there is only one category of defence for all sleep-related offences--not guilty by reason of sleep disorder. This was rejected by the House of Lords for cases of automatism due to epilepsy, and is likely to be rejected for sleepwalkers. Removing the categories of automatism (sane or insane) would be the best solution. Risk assessment is already standard practice in the UK and follow up, subsequent to disposal, by approved specialists should become part of the sentencing process. This will provide support for the defendant and protection of the public.

Automated testing and reverification for training simulators using SATAR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Charles, R.D.; Gaddy, C.D.; Nargarkar, A.; Colley, R.

1990-01-01

This paper reports that simulators used to train nuclear power plant operators must be recertified periodically to ensure fidelity for training (10 CFR 55.45). The objective of the Simulator Automated Testing and Reverification (SATAR) project was to develop software to reverify dynamic simulator performance automatically. The software resides in a standard configuration personal computer and in the simulator computer; the two computers are linked via serial ports. SATAR will automatically run performance tests, collect and analyze data, and compare data with baseline performance data. With SATAR, support from operations and simulator support personnel can be reduced greatly, and the repeatability of performance tests can be improved

Mitosis Counting in Breast Cancer: Object-Level Interobserver Agreement and Comparison to an Automatic Method.

Science.gov (United States)

Veta, Mitko; van Diest, Paul J; Jiwa, Mehdi; Al-Janabi, Shaimaa; Pluim, Josien P W

2016-01-01

Tumor proliferation speed, most commonly assessed by counting of mitotic figures in histological slide preparations, is an important biomarker for breast cancer. Although mitosis counting is routinely performed by pathologists, it is a tedious and subjective task with poor reproducibility, particularly among non-experts. Inter- and intraobserver reproducibility of mitosis counting can be improved when a strict protocol is defined and followed. Previous studies have examined only the agreement in terms of the mitotic count or the mitotic activity score. Studies of the observer agreement at the level of individual objects, which can provide more insight into the procedure, have not been performed thus far. The development of automatic mitosis detection methods has received large interest in recent years. Automatic image analysis is viewed as a solution for the problem of subjectivity of mitosis counting by pathologists. In this paper we describe the results from an interobserver agreement study between three human observers and an automatic method, and make two unique contributions. For the first time, we present an analysis of the object-level interobserver agreement on mitosis counting. Furthermore, we train an automatic mitosis detection method that is robust with respect to staining appearance variability and compare it with the performance of expert observers on an "external" dataset, i.e. on histopathology images that originate from pathology labs other than the pathology lab that provided the training data for the automatic method. The object-level interobserver study revealed that pathologists often do not agree on individual objects, even if this is not reflected in the mitotic count. The disagreement is larger for objects from smaller size, which suggests that adding a size constraint in the mitosis counting protocol can improve reproducibility. The automatic mitosis detection method can perform mitosis counting in an unbiased way, with substantial

Automatic methods of the processing of data from track detectors on the basis of the PAVICOM facility

Science.gov (United States)

Aleksandrov, A. B.; Goncharova, L. A.; Davydov, D. A.; Publichenko, P. A.; Roganova, T. M.; Polukhina, N. G.; Feinberg, E. L.

2007-02-01

New automatic methods essentially simplify and increase the rate of the processing of data from track detectors. This provides a possibility of processing large data arrays and considerably improves their statistical significance. This fact predetermines the development of new experiments which plan to use large-volume targets, large-area emulsion, and solid-state track detectors [1]. In this regard, the problem of training qualified physicists who are capable of operating modern automatic equipment is very important. Annually, about ten Moscow students master the new methods, working at the Lebedev Physical Institute at the PAVICOM facility [2 4]. Most students specializing in high-energy physics are only given an idea of archaic manual methods of the processing of data from track detectors. In 2005, on the basis of the PAVICOM facility and the physicstraining course of Moscow State University, a new training work was prepared. This work is devoted to the determination of the energy of neutrons passing through a nuclear emulsion. It provides the possibility of acquiring basic practical skills of the processing of data from track detectors using automatic equipment and can be included in the educational process of students of any physical faculty. Those who have mastered the methods of automatic data processing in a simple and pictorial example of track detectors will be able to apply their knowledge in various fields of science and technique. Formulation of training works for pregraduate and graduate students is a new additional aspect of application of the PAVICOM facility described earlier in [4].

Automatic Tortuosity-Based Retinopathy of Prematurity Screening System

Science.gov (United States)

Sukkaew, Lassada; Uyyanonvara, Bunyarit; Makhanov, Stanislav S.; Barman, Sarah; Pangputhipong, Pannet

Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) is an infant disease characterized by increased dilation and tortuosity of the retinal blood vessels. Automatic tortuosity evaluation from retinal digital images is very useful to facilitate an ophthalmologist in the ROP screening and to prevent childhood blindness. This paper proposes a method to automatically classify the image into tortuous and non-tortuous. The process imitates expert ophthalmologists' screening by searching for clearly tortuous vessel segments. First, a skeleton of the retinal blood vessels is extracted from the original infant retinal image using a series of morphological operators. Next, we propose to partition the blood vessels recursively using an adaptive linear interpolation scheme. Finally, the tortuosity is calculated based on the curvature of the resulting vessel segments. The retinal images are then classified into two classes using segments characterized by the highest tortuosity. For an optimal set of training parameters the prediction is as high as 100%.

Automatic Angular alignment of LHC Collimators

CERN Document Server

Azzopardi, Gabriella; Salvachua Ferrando, Belen Maria; Mereghetti, Alessio; Bruce, Roderik; Redaelli, Stefano; CERN. Geneva. ATS Department

2017-01-01

The LHC is equipped with a complex collimation system to protect sensitive equipment from unavoidable beam losses. Collimators are positioned close to the beam using an alignment procedure. Until now they have always been aligned assuming no tilt between the collimator and the beam, however, tank misalignments or beam envelope angles at large-divergence locations could introduce a tilt limiting the collimation performance. Three different algorithms were implemented to automatically align a chosen collimator at various angles. The implementation was tested on a number of collimators during this MD and no human intervention was required.

40 CFR 273.36 - Employee training.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 26 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Employee training. 273.36 Section 273.36 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) SOLID WASTES (CONTINUED... Employee training. A large quantity handler of universal waste must ensure that all employees are...

Automatic Locker Key With Barcode Based Microcontroller Atmega 8535

Science.gov (United States)

Fahmi, M. Irfan; Efendi Hutagalung, Jhonson

2017-12-01

MCB (miniature circuit breaker) is an electromagnetic device that embodies complete enclosure in a molded insulating material. The main function of an MCB is to switch the circuit, i.e., to open the circuit (which has been connected to it) automatically when the current passing through it (MCB) exceeds the value for which it is set. Unlike fuse, an MCB can be easily reset and thus offers improved operational safety and greater convenience without incurring large operating cost.The principal of operation is simple. In simple terms MCB is a switch which automatically turns off when the current flowing through it passes the maximum allowable limit. Generally MCB are designed to protect against over current and over temperature faults (over heating). Sometimes the overload the current through the bimetal causes to raise the temperature of it. The heat generated within the bimetal itself enough to cause deflection due to thermal expansion of metals. This solution is used by LDR, and LM 35 as the sencor to control center. Therefore it is very important because it is related about local control switches, isolating switches against faults and overload protection devices for installations or specific equipments or appliances

40 CFR 273.16 - Employee training.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 26 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Employee training. 273.16 Section 273.16 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) SOLID WASTES (CONTINUED... Employee training. A small quantity handler of universal waste must inform all employees who handle or have...

Automatic Differentiation and Deep Learning

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2018-01-01

Statistical learning has been getting more and more interest from the particle-physics community in recent times, with neural networks and gradient-based optimization being a focus. In this talk we shall discuss three things: automatic differention tools: tools to quickly build DAGs of computation that are fully differentiable. We shall focus on one such tool "PyTorch".  Easy deployment of trained neural networks into large systems with many constraints: for example, deploying a model at the reconstruction phase where the neural network has to be integrated into CERN's bulk data-processing C++-only environment Some recent models in deep learning for segmentation and generation that might be useful for particle physics problems.

Training activities on radiation protection in nuclear medicine in the frame of the EURATOM FP7 collaborative project MADEIRA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Giussani, Augusto; Mattsson, Sören; Mikuž, Marko; Cantone, Marie Claire; Hoeschen, Christoph

2011-01-01

MADEIRA was a Collaborative Project cofunded by the European Commission through the EURATOM Seventh Research Framework Programme. It was structured into four scientific work packages, and its aim was to optimize the efficacy and safety of 3D functional imaging in nuclear medicine and thereby to reduce the radiation exposures of the patients while keeping or even improving the quality of the diagnostic information. Additionally, a fifth work package was dedicated to training and dissemination activities, including the organization of specific training courses, as well as research exchange programs for young scientists. This manuscript summarizes the experience gained during the Training Courses, in particular the one devoted to aspects of radiation protection in nuclear medicine.

New digital control and power protection system of VR 1 training reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kropik, M.; Matejka, K.; Juoeickova, M.

2005-01-01

The contribution describes the new VR-1 training reactor control and power protection system at the Czech Technical University in Prague. The control system provides safety and control functions, calculates average values of the important variables and sends data and system status to the human-machine interface. The upgraded control system is based on a high quality industrial PC. The operating system of the PC is the Microsoft Windows XP with the real time support RTX of the VentureCom Company. The software was developed according to requirements in MS Visual C. The independent power protection system is a component of the reactor safety (protection) system with high quality and reliability requirements. The digital system is redundant; each channel evaluates the reactor power and the velocity of power changes and provides safety functions. The digital part of the channel is multiprocessor-based. The software was developed with respect to nuclear standards. The software design was coded in the C language regarding the NRC restrictions. Configuration management, verification and validation accompanied the software development. Both systems were thoroughly tested. Firstly, the non active tests were carried out. During these tests, the active core of the reactor was subcritical; the input signals were generated from HPIB and VXI controlled instruments to simulate different operational and safety events. The software for instruments control and tests evaluation utilized Agilent VEE development system. After the successful non active checking, the active tests followed. (author)

Training nuclear power plant personnel on SR-O reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cerny, K.; Boucek, F.; Kveton, M.; Prokopec, Z.; Fleischhans, J.

1983-01-01

The SR-O reactor is an experimental pool-type reactor with a maximum output of 1 MW and maximum thermal neutron flux density of 5.3x10 13 m -2 s -1 . The reactor is described in detail and its specifications are given. The protection and control systems of the reactor permit both manual and automatic operation. The reactor is used for training courses for nuclear power plant operators and for post-graduate study courses for other specialists. Intensive courses for 4 to 6 persons take 15 to 20 days. The course is adjusted to the results of introductory theoretical tests. An optimal teaching method has been developed based on the flowchart algorithmic method, dividing activities into operations (manipulations with controls, issuing commands, making records, etc.) and decision making (information reception and processing). (M.D.)

30 CFR 77.600 - Trailing cables; short-circuit protection; disconnecting devices.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Trailing cables; short-circuit protection... AREAS OF UNDERGROUND COAL MINES Trailing Cables § 77.600 Trailing cables; short-circuit protection; disconnecting devices. Short-circuit protection for trailing cables shall be provided by an automatic circuit...

Privacy Training Program

Science.gov (United States)

Recognizing that training and awareness are critical to protecting agency Personally Identifiable Information (PII), the EPA is developing online training for privacy contacts in its programs and regions.

Pre-training administration of tianeptine, but not propranolol, protects hippocampus-dependent memory from being impaired by predator stress.

Science.gov (United States)

Campbell, Adam M; Park, Collin R; Zoladz, Phillip R; Muñoz, Carmen; Fleshner, Monika; Diamond, David M

2008-02-01

Extensive research has shown that the antidepressant tianeptine blocks the adverse effects of chronic stress on hippocampal functioning. The current series of experiments extended this area of investigation by examining the influence of tianeptine on acute stress-induced impairments of spatial (hippocampus-dependent) memory. Tianeptine (10 mg/kg, ip) administered to adult male rats before, but not after, water maze training blocked the amnestic effects of predator stress (occurring between training and retrieval) on memory. The protective effects of tianeptine on memory occurred in rats which had extensive pre-stress training, as well as in rats which had only a single day of training. Tianeptine blocked stress effects on memory without altering the stress-induced increase in corticosterone levels. Propranolol, a beta-adrenergic receptor antagonist (5 and 10 mg/kg, ip), in contrast, did not block stress-induced amnesia. These findings indicate that treatment with tianeptine, unlike propanolol, provides an effective means with which to block the adverse effects of stress on cognitive functions of the hippocampus.

Automatic differentiation bibliography

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Corliss, G.F. [comp.

1992-07-01

This is a bibliography of work related to automatic differentiation. Automatic differentiation is a technique for the fast, accurate propagation of derivative values using the chain rule. It is neither symbolic nor numeric. Automatic differentiation is a fundamental tool for scientific computation, with applications in optimization, nonlinear equations, nonlinear least squares approximation, stiff ordinary differential equation, partial differential equations, continuation methods, and sensitivity analysis. This report is an updated version of the bibliography which originally appeared in Automatic Differentiation of Algorithms: Theory, Implementation, and Application.

About the influence of wheel slide protection devices action on longitudinal dynamic of trains

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cruceanu Cătălin

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Wheel slide protection devices (WSPD are destined to avoid important sliding of wheels during braking actions in case of temporarily impaired wheel-rail adhesion by correspondent reductions of air pressure in brake cylinders. Accordingly, longer braking distances and higher longitudinal in-train forces occur, potentially affecting the traffic safety and the passengers comfort. A general analyse and evaluation of these effects are the main targets of the present study. The theoretical considerations are sustained by simulations of braking process, considering situations of normal, respectively diminished wheel-rail adhesion determining random actuations of WSPD. The air pressure evolution in brake cylinders of was experimentally determined on a computerized brake system test stand and adequately used as input in simulations. The results indicate an increase of in-train forces and a more complex evolution of the longitudinal dynamic actions between the vehicles in the case of degraded wheel-rail adhesion, when the random actuation of WSPD have major influence in the whole braking process.

Tennessee Valley Authority becomes first to install digital process protection system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miller, W.; Doyle, J.

1991-01-01

Westinghouse Pressurized Water Reactors were originally furnished with analog process protection equipment of various vintages. The older equipment is quickly reaching the point of obsolescence, becoming costly to maintain and operate, its qualification increasingly difficult to achieve. Newer digital-based systems offer improved performance, automatic calibration, and streamlined surveillance test features, as discussed here. For these reasons, the Tennessee Valley Authority installed the world's first digital process protection system, complete with automatic test and calibration features, in its Sequoyah units 1 and 2 last year. The US utility replaced its ageing analog system with Westinghouse Electric's Eagle 21 Process Protection System during a routine maintenance shutdown in a record 23 days. (author)

Child protection training, experience, and personal views of dentists in the prefecture of Attica, Greece.

Science.gov (United States)

Laud, Alexandra; Gizani, Sotiria; Maragkou, Sygklitiki; Welbury, Richard; Papagiannoulis, Lisa

2013-01-01

The abuse and neglect of children constitutes a social phenomenon that unfortunately is widespread irrespective of geographic, ethnic, or social background. Dentists may be the first health professionals to recognize signs of child maltreatment (CM) and have an important role in dealing with such incidents. To describe the training, experience, and personal views of dentists practicing in the Prefecture of Attica regarding the recognition and referral of abused and neglected children. A random sample was drawn from a target population of dentists registered with two of the largest dental associations in Greece. The dental practitioners were interviewed by two paediatric dentists using a specially designed questionnaire. Information was collected regarding their awareness on child maltreatment, the frequency of suspected incidents as well as the reasons for not reporting them. With a response rate of 83%, findings are reported from 368 interviews (54% male, mean age 43 years). Only 21% of respondents had received training on child protection at undergraduate level. Suspected abuse was 13% and suspected neglect was 35%. Only six of the 368 respondents made an official report of a suspected case of child maltreatment. The most common reason that might prevent a dentist from reporting a case was doubt over the diagnosis (44%). Ninety-seven per cent of dentists believed that recognition and referral of incidents should be part of undergraduate training. Dental practitioners did not feel adequately informed on recognizing and referring child abuse and neglect cases. The low percentage of reported incidents and the lack of legislation indicate a great need for continuously educating dentists on child maltreatment as well as for setting up an organized system in Greece for reporting such incidents to protect the dentist referring the case as well as the child being victimized. © 2012 The Authors. International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry © 2012 BSPD, IAPD and

Man-system interface based on automatic speech recognition: integration to a virtual control desk

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jorge, Carlos Alexandre F.; Mol, Antonio Carlos A.; Pereira, Claudio M.N.A.; Aghina, Mauricio Alves C., E-mail: calexandre@ien.gov.b, E-mail: mol@ien.gov.b, E-mail: cmnap@ien.gov.b, E-mail: mag@ien.gov.b [Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear (IEN/CNEN-RJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil); Nomiya, Diogo V., E-mail: diogonomiya@gmail.co [Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), RJ (Brazil)

2009-07-01

This work reports the implementation of a man-system interface based on automatic speech recognition, and its integration to a virtual nuclear power plant control desk. The later is aimed to reproduce a real control desk using virtual reality technology, for operator training and ergonomic evaluation purpose. An automatic speech recognition system was developed to serve as a new interface with users, substituting computer keyboard and mouse. They can operate this virtual control desk in front of a computer monitor or a projection screen through spoken commands. The automatic speech recognition interface developed is based on a well-known signal processing technique named cepstral analysis, and on artificial neural networks. The speech recognition interface is described, along with its integration with the virtual control desk, and results are presented. (author)

Man-system interface based on automatic speech recognition: integration to a virtual control desk

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jorge, Carlos Alexandre F.; Mol, Antonio Carlos A.; Pereira, Claudio M.N.A.; Aghina, Mauricio Alves C.; Nomiya, Diogo V.

2009-01-01

This work reports the implementation of a man-system interface based on automatic speech recognition, and its integration to a virtual nuclear power plant control desk. The later is aimed to reproduce a real control desk using virtual reality technology, for operator training and ergonomic evaluation purpose. An automatic speech recognition system was developed to serve as a new interface with users, substituting computer keyboard and mouse. They can operate this virtual control desk in front of a computer monitor or a projection screen through spoken commands. The automatic speech recognition interface developed is based on a well-known signal processing technique named cepstral analysis, and on artificial neural networks. The speech recognition interface is described, along with its integration with the virtual control desk, and results are presented. (author)

An Automated Motion Detection and Reward System for Animal Training.

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Brad; Lim, Audrey N; Heidbreder, Arnold F; Black, Kevin J

2015-12-04

A variety of approaches has been used to minimize head movement during functional brain imaging studies in awake laboratory animals. Many laboratories expend substantial effort and time training animals to remain essentially motionless during such studies. We could not locate an "off-the-shelf" automated training system that suited our needs.  We developed a time- and labor-saving automated system to train animals to hold still for extended periods of time. The system uses a personal computer and modest external hardware to provide stimulus cues, monitor movement using commercial video surveillance components, and dispense rewards. A custom computer program automatically increases the motionless duration required for rewards based on performance during the training session but allows changes during sessions. This system was used to train cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) for awake neuroimaging studies using positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The automated system saved the trainer substantial time, presented stimuli and rewards in a highly consistent manner, and automatically documented training sessions. We have limited data to prove the training system's success, drawn from the automated records during training sessions, but we believe others may find it useful. The system can be adapted to a range of behavioral training/recording activities for research or commercial applications, and the software is freely available for non-commercial use.

Instructional materials for SARA/OSHA training. Volume 1, General site working training

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Copenhaver, E.D.; White, D.A.; Wells, S.M. [Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)

1988-04-01

This proposed 24 hour ORNL SARA/OSHA training curriculum emphasizes health and safety concerns in hazardous waste operations as well as methods of worker protection. Consistent with guidelines for hazardous waste site activities developed jointly by National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, US Coast Guard, and the Envirorunental Protection Agency, the program material will address Basic Training for General Site Workers to include: ORNL Site Safety Documentation, Safe Work Practices, Nature of Anticipated Hazards, Handling Emergencies and Self-Rescue, Employee Rights and Responsibilities, Demonstration of Use, Care, and Limitations of Personal Protective, Clothing and Equipment, and Demonstration of Monitoring Equipment and Sampling Techniques. The basic training courses includes major fundamentals of industrial hygiene presented to the workers in a format that encourages them to assume responsibility for their own safety and health protection. Basic course development has focused on the special needs of ORNL facilities. Because ORNL generates chemical wastes, radioactive wastes, and mixed wastes, we have added significant modules on radiation protection in general, as well as modules on radiation toxicology and on radiation protective clothing and equipment.

Automatic welding detection by an intelligent tool pipe inspection

Science.gov (United States)

Arizmendi, C. J.; Garcia, W. L.; Quintero, M. A.

2015-07-01

This work provide a model based on machine learning techniques in welds recognition, based on signals obtained through in-line inspection tool called “smart pig” in Oil and Gas pipelines. The model uses a signal noise reduction phase by means of pre-processing algorithms and attribute-selection techniques. The noise reduction techniques were selected after a literature review and testing with survey data. Subsequently, the model was trained using recognition and classification algorithms, specifically artificial neural networks and support vector machines. Finally, the trained model was validated with different data sets and the performance was measured with cross validation and ROC analysis. The results show that is possible to identify welding automatically with an efficiency between 90 and 98 percent.

Trend analysis of nuclear reactor automatic trip events subjected to operator's human error at United States nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Takagawa, Kenichi

2009-01-01

Trends in nuclear reactor automatic trip events due to human errors during plant operating mode have been analyzed by extracting 20 events which took place in the United States during the period of seven years from 2002 to 2008, cited in the LERs (Licensee Event Reports) submitted to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). It was shown that the yearly number of events was relatively large before 2005, and thereafter the number decreased. A period of stable operation, in which the yearly number was kept very small, continued for about three years, and then the yearly number turned to increase again. Before 2005, automatic trip events occurred more frequently during periodic inspections or start-up/shut-down operations. The recent trends, however, indicate that trip events became more frequent due to human errors during daily operations. Human errors were mostly caused by the self-conceit and carelessness of operators through the whole period. The before mentioned trends in the yearly number of events might be explained as follows. The decrease in the automatic trip events is attributed to sharing trouble information, leading as a consequence to improvement of the manual and training for the operations which have a higher potential risk of automatic trip. Then, while the period of stable operation continued, some operators came to pay less attention to preventing human errors and not interest in the training, leading to automatic trip events in reality due to miss-operation. From these analyses on trouble experiences in the US, we learnt the followings to prevent the occurrence similar troubles in Japan: Operators should be thoroughly skilled in basic actions to prevent human errors as persons concerned. And it should be further emphasized that they should elaborate by imaging actual plant operations even though the simulator training gives them successful experiences. (author)

MRI-alone radiation therapy planning for prostate cancer: Automatic fiducial marker detection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ghose, Soumya; Mitra, Jhimli; Rivest-Hénault, David; Fazlollahi, Amir; Fripp, Jurgen; Dowling, Jason A.; Stanwell, Peter; Pichler, Peter; Sun, Jidi; Greer, Peter B.

2016-01-01

Purpose: The feasibility of radiation therapy treatment planning using substitute computed tomography (sCT) generated from magnetic resonance images (MRIs) has been demonstrated by a number of research groups. One challenge with an MRI-alone workflow is the accurate identification of intraprostatic gold fiducial markers, which are frequently used for prostate localization prior to each dose delivery fraction. This paper investigates a template-matching approach for the detection of these seeds in MRI. Methods: Two different gradient echo T1 and T2* weighted MRI sequences were acquired from fifteen prostate cancer patients and evaluated for seed detection. For training, seed templates from manual contours were selected in a spectral clustering manifold learning framework. This aids in clustering “similar” gold fiducial markers together. The marker with the minimum distance to a cluster centroid was selected as the representative template of that cluster during training. During testing, Gaussian mixture modeling followed by a Markovian model was used in automatic detection of the probable candidates. The probable candidates were rigidly registered to the templates identified from spectral clustering, and a similarity metric is computed for ranking and detection. Results: A fiducial detection accuracy of 95% was obtained compared to manual observations. Expert radiation therapist observers were able to correctly identify all three implanted seeds on 11 of the 15 scans (the proposed method correctly identified all seeds on 10 of the 15). Conclusions: An novel automatic framework for gold fiducial marker detection in MRI is proposed and evaluated with detection accuracies comparable to manual detection. When radiation therapists are unable to determine the seed location in MRI, they refer back to the planning CT (only available in the existing clinical framework); similarly, an automatic quality control is built into the automatic software to ensure that all gold

MRI-alone radiation therapy planning for prostate cancer: Automatic fiducial marker detection

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ghose, Soumya, E-mail: soumya.ghose@case.edu; Mitra, Jhimli [Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 and CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, The Australian e-Health & Research Centre, Herston, QLD 4029 (Australia); Rivest-Hénault, David; Fazlollahi, Amir; Fripp, Jurgen; Dowling, Jason A. [CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, The Australian e-Health & Research Centre, Herston, QLD 4029 (Australia); Stanwell, Peter [School of health sciences, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW 2308 (Australia); Pichler, Peter [Department of Radiation Oncology, Cavalry Mater Newcastle Hospital, Newcastle, NSW 2298 (Australia); Sun, Jidi; Greer, Peter B. [School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW 2308, Australia and Department of Radiation Oncology, Cavalry Mater Newcastle Hospital, Newcastle, NSW 2298 (Australia)

2016-05-15

Purpose: The feasibility of radiation therapy treatment planning using substitute computed tomography (sCT) generated from magnetic resonance images (MRIs) has been demonstrated by a number of research groups. One challenge with an MRI-alone workflow is the accurate identification of intraprostatic gold fiducial markers, which are frequently used for prostate localization prior to each dose delivery fraction. This paper investigates a template-matching approach for the detection of these seeds in MRI. Methods: Two different gradient echo T1 and T2* weighted MRI sequences were acquired from fifteen prostate cancer patients and evaluated for seed detection. For training, seed templates from manual contours were selected in a spectral clustering manifold learning framework. This aids in clustering “similar” gold fiducial markers together. The marker with the minimum distance to a cluster centroid was selected as the representative template of that cluster during training. During testing, Gaussian mixture modeling followed by a Markovian model was used in automatic detection of the probable candidates. The probable candidates were rigidly registered to the templates identified from spectral clustering, and a similarity metric is computed for ranking and detection. Results: A fiducial detection accuracy of 95% was obtained compared to manual observations. Expert radiation therapist observers were able to correctly identify all three implanted seeds on 11 of the 15 scans (the proposed method correctly identified all seeds on 10 of the 15). Conclusions: An novel automatic framework for gold fiducial marker detection in MRI is proposed and evaluated with detection accuracies comparable to manual detection. When radiation therapists are unable to determine the seed location in MRI, they refer back to the planning CT (only available in the existing clinical framework); similarly, an automatic quality control is built into the automatic software to ensure that all gold

ATLAAS: an automatic decision tree-based learning algorithm for advanced image segmentation in positron emission tomography.

Science.gov (United States)

Berthon, Beatrice; Marshall, Christopher; Evans, Mererid; Spezi, Emiliano

2016-07-07

Accurate and reliable tumour delineation on positron emission tomography (PET) is crucial for radiotherapy treatment planning. PET automatic segmentation (PET-AS) eliminates intra- and interobserver variability, but there is currently no consensus on the optimal method to use, as different algorithms appear to perform better for different types of tumours. This work aimed to develop a predictive segmentation model, trained to automatically select and apply the best PET-AS method, according to the tumour characteristics. ATLAAS, the automatic decision tree-based learning algorithm for advanced segmentation is based on supervised machine learning using decision trees. The model includes nine PET-AS methods and was trained on a 100 PET scans with known true contour. A decision tree was built for each PET-AS algorithm to predict its accuracy, quantified using the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), according to the tumour volume, tumour peak to background SUV ratio and a regional texture metric. The performance of ATLAAS was evaluated for 85 PET scans obtained from fillable and printed subresolution sandwich phantoms. ATLAAS showed excellent accuracy across a wide range of phantom data and predicted the best or near-best segmentation algorithm in 93% of cases. ATLAAS outperformed all single PET-AS methods on fillable phantom data with a DSC of 0.881, while the DSC for H&N phantom data was 0.819. DSCs higher than 0.650 were achieved in all cases. ATLAAS is an advanced automatic image segmentation algorithm based on decision tree predictive modelling, which can be trained on images with known true contour, to predict the best PET-AS method when the true contour is unknown. ATLAAS provides robust and accurate image segmentation with potential applications to radiation oncology.

Pervasive Sound Sensing: A Weakly Supervised Training Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Kelly, Daniel; Caulfield, Brian

2016-01-01

Modern smartphones present an ideal device for pervasive sensing of human behavior. Microphones have the potential to reveal key information about a person's behavior. However, they have been utilized to a significantly lesser extent than other smartphone sensors in the context of human behavior sensing. We postulate that, in order for microphones to be useful in behavior sensing applications, the analysis techniques must be flexible and allow easy modification of the types of sounds to be sensed. A simplification of the training data collection process could allow a more flexible sound classification framework. We hypothesize that detailed training, a prerequisite for the majority of sound sensing techniques, is not necessary and that a significantly less detailed and time consuming data collection process can be carried out, allowing even a nonexpert to conduct the collection, labeling, and training process. To test this hypothesis, we implement a diverse density-based multiple instance learning framework, to identify a target sound, and a bag trimming algorithm, which, using the target sound, automatically segments weakly labeled sound clips to construct an accurate training set. Experiments reveal that our hypothesis is a valid one and results show that classifiers, trained using the automatically segmented training sets, were able to accurately classify unseen sound samples with accuracies comparable to supervised classifiers, achieving an average F -measure of 0.969 and 0.87 for two weakly supervised datasets.

Training the next generation of radiation protection professionals in canada

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Waller, Edward; Waker, Anthony

2008-01-01

Full text: The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) is Canada's newest university, specializing in market-driven programs. The first class of students started in Fall of 2003. The University is located in close proximity to Pickering, Darlington and Bruce Nuclear Power Plants, the fuel manufacturer Cameco, and a number of regional health centres. As such, the initial program focus was to serve the needs of the power utilities and the health sectors. The first programs envisioned and adopted at UOIT were programs in Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science/Health Physics. These programs are unique in Canada. The four year Bachelor of Science honours degree programs in Radiation Science curriculum includes medical, industrial, agricultural and material science applications, and emphasizes a strong mathematics and science foundation to the discipline. The four year Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board accredited Bachelor of Nuclear Engineering honours program has a strong emphasis on radiation protection, environmental effects of radioactivity, and risk assessment. Both programs have internship options, and both have 'and Management' options, requiring an additional year of study. One key aspect to the pedagogy at UOIT is web-centric learning. Each student is issued a fully equipped internet-ready laptop for use in classes, tutorials and laboratories. The professors endeavor to integrate technology wherever possible to assist the student learning process, for example with on-line testing and course-work submission. Course materials are provided via learning management system software, and instruction is provided for industry standard computational and simulation tools. For courses in radiation protection and environmental effects, there is great emphasis on 'hands on' experience and realistic field exercises. The first graduating class was in spring 2007, and the indication from industry is that the specially trained radiation protection and

Development of diaphragm automatic homing equipment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kobayashi, Hidetoshi; Yamada, Koji; Moriya, Shinichi; Koike, Jiro; Okabe, Masao; Oyama, Akihiro.

1996-01-01

In steam-turbine overhaul inspection, one of the most important processes is to remove rust and deposited contaminants on the surface of turbine parts, while the turbine is in operation, to recover thermal efficiency and prepare good surface conditions for color penetrant inspection. These processes generally are done by dry honing, but this generates dust. To protect laborers against these conditions, Hitachi, Ltd. has developed automatic honing equipment for the diaphragms of the nuclear steam turbine. This equipment was first used in the first annual inspection and overhaul of Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant No.4 of Chubu Electric Power Inc. (author)

An integrated system for physical protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kumar, Ranajit

2001-01-01

An Integrated Physical Protection System (IPPS) was developed for the consolidation of all sub systems, sensors and elements related to physical protection for an efficient and effective security environment of a facility. An effective physical protection system discharges the functions of detection, delay, communication, response, access control etc. IPPS performs, controls and monitors all the above functionality and helps in taking quick action on occurrence of unusual incidents by instantly reporting the incident in easily understandable audio, video, graphical and textual format and also by initiating automatic interactions among sub-systems

X-train: teaching professionals remotely.

Science.gov (United States)

Santerre, Charles R

2005-05-01

Increased popularity of the Internet, along with the development of new software applications have dramatically improved our ability to create and deliver online continuing education trainings to professionals in the areas of nutrition and food safety. In addition, these technological advances permit effective and affordable measurement of training outcomes, i.e., changes in knowledge, attitude, and behavior, that result from these educational efforts. Impact assessment of engagement programs is becoming increasing important for demonstrating the value of training activities to stakeholders. A novel software program, called X-Train, takes advantage of technological advances (databases, computer graphics, Web-based interfaces, and network speed) for delivering high-quality trainings to teachers and health care professionals. X-Train automatically collects outcome data, and generates and sends certificates of completion and communicates with participants through electronic messages. X-Train can be used as a collaborative tool whereby experts from various academic institutions are brought together to develop Web-based trainings. Finally, X-Train uses a unique approach that encourages cooperative extension specialists and educators to promote these educational opportunities within their state or county.

DeepSleepNet: A Model for Automatic Sleep Stage Scoring Based on Raw Single-Channel EEG.

Science.gov (United States)

Supratak, Akara; Dong, Hao; Wu, Chao; Guo, Yike

2017-11-01

This paper proposes a deep learning model, named DeepSleepNet, for automatic sleep stage scoring based on raw single-channel EEG. Most of the existing methods rely on hand-engineered features, which require prior knowledge of sleep analysis. Only a few of them encode the temporal information, such as transition rules, which is important for identifying the next sleep stages, into the extracted features. In the proposed model, we utilize convolutional neural networks to extract time-invariant features, and bidirectional-long short-term memory to learn transition rules among sleep stages automatically from EEG epochs. We implement a two-step training algorithm to train our model efficiently. We evaluated our model using different single-channel EEGs (F4-EOG (left), Fpz-Cz, and Pz-Oz) from two public sleep data sets, that have different properties (e.g., sampling rate) and scoring standards (AASM and R&K). The results showed that our model achieved similar overall accuracy and macro F1-score (MASS: 86.2%-81.7, Sleep-EDF: 82.0%-76.9) compared with the state-of-the-art methods (MASS: 85.9%-80.5, Sleep-EDF: 78.9%-73.7) on both data sets. This demonstrated that, without changing the model architecture and the training algorithm, our model could automatically learn features for sleep stage scoring from different raw single-channel EEGs from different data sets without utilizing any hand-engineered features.

Automatic recognition of conceptualization zones in scientific articles and two life science applications.

Science.gov (United States)

Liakata, Maria; Saha, Shyamasree; Dobnik, Simon; Batchelor, Colin; Rebholz-Schuhmann, Dietrich

2012-04-01

Scholarly biomedical publications report on the findings of a research investigation. Scientists use a well-established discourse structure to relate their work to the state of the art, express their own motivation and hypotheses and report on their methods, results and conclusions. In previous work, we have proposed ways to explicitly annotate the structure of scientific investigations in scholarly publications. Here we present the means to facilitate automatic access to the scientific discourse of articles by automating the recognition of 11 categories at the sentence level, which we call Core Scientific Concepts (CoreSCs). These include: Hypothesis, Motivation, Goal, Object, Background, Method, Experiment, Model, Observation, Result and Conclusion. CoreSCs provide the structure and context to all statements and relations within an article and their automatic recognition can greatly facilitate biomedical information extraction by characterizing the different types of facts, hypotheses and evidence available in a scientific publication. We have trained and compared machine learning classifiers (support vector machines and conditional random fields) on a corpus of 265 full articles in biochemistry and chemistry to automatically recognize CoreSCs. We have evaluated our automatic classifications against a manually annotated gold standard, and have achieved promising accuracies with 'Experiment', 'Background' and 'Model' being the categories with the highest F1-scores (76%, 62% and 53%, respectively). We have analysed the task of CoreSC annotation both from a sentence classification as well as sequence labelling perspective and we present a detailed feature evaluation. The most discriminative features are local sentence features such as unigrams, bigrams and grammatical dependencies while features encoding the document structure, such as section headings, also play an important role for some of the categories. We discuss the usefulness of automatically generated Core

Design Of Photovoltaic Powered Cathodic Protection System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Golina Samir Adly

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The corrosion caused by chemical reaction between metallic structures and surrounding mediums such as soil or water .the CP cathodic protection system is used to protect metallic structure against corrosion. Cathodic protection CP used to minimize corrosion by utilizing an external source of electrical current which forces the entire structure to become a cathode. There are two Types of cathodic protection system Galvanic current Impressed current.the Galvanic current is called a sacrificial anode is connected to the protected structure cathode through a DC power supply. In Galvanic current system a current passes from the sacrificing anode to the protected structure .the sacrificial anode is corroded rather than causing the protected structure corrosion .protected structure requires a constant current to stop the corrosion which determined by area structure metal and the surrounding medium. The rains humidity are decrease soil resistivity and increase the DC current .The corrosion and over protection resulting from increase in the DC current is harmful for the metallic structure. This problem can be solved by conventional cathodic protection system by manual adjustment of DC voltage periodically to obtain a constant current .the manual adjustment of DC voltage depends on experience of the technician and using the accuracy of the measuring equipment. The errors of measuring current depend on error from the technician or error from the measuring equipment. the corrosion of structure may occur when the interval between two successive adjustment is long .An automatically regulated cathodic protection system is used to overcome problems from conventional cathodic protection system .the regulated cathodic protection system adjust the DC voltage of the system automatically when it senses the variations of surrounding medium resistivity so the DC current is constant at the required level.

A control system of radiation protection at HESYRL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Yuxiong; Li Juexin; Ning Xinquan

1990-01-01

A control system for radiation protection at Hefei National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (HESYRL) consists of three parts. They are a personal radiation safety interlock system, an automatic environmental radiation monitoring system and a data logging and management system for area radiation monitoring. Two-year operating experiments have shown that this system is reasonably designed, reliable, high-sensitive and automatic. The design principle, construction and operating status of each part of the system are introduced

Automatic creation of simulation configuration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oudot, G.; Poizat, F.

1993-01-01

SIPA, which stands for 'Simulator for Post Accident', includes: 1) a sophisticated software oriented workshop SWORD (which stands for 'Software Workshop Oriented towards Research and Development') designed in the ADA language including integrated CAD system and software tools for automatic generation of simulation software and man-machine interface in order to operate run-time simulation; 2) a 'simulator structure' based on hardware equipment and software for supervision and communications; 3) simulation configuration generated by SWORD, operated under the control of the 'simulator structure' and run on a target computer. SWORD has already been used to generate two simulation configurations (French 900 MW and 1300 MW nuclear power plants), which are now fully operational on the SIPA training simulator. (Z.S.) 1 ref

Specialists training on nuclear materials control, accounting and physical protection in the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khromov, V.V.; Pogozhin, N.S.; Kryuchkov, E.F.; Glebov, V.B.; Geraskin, N.I.

1998-01-01

Educational program to train specialists on non-proliferation problems and nuclear materials control, accounting and physical protection systems (NMCA and PP) at the Science Master's level was developed and is being realized in Moscow Sate Institute of Engineering and Physics at the support of the USA Ministry of Energy. The program is intended to train students who already got the Bachelor's degree on physical and technical subjects. The United methodological base of the program comprises lecture courses, practice in laboratories and computer programs. The educational program contains the following parts for training the students. 1) Deep scientific and technical knowledge. 2) System approach to designing and analysis of the NMCA and PP systems. 3) Knowledge of scientific and technical principles, means, devices and procedures used in the NMCA and PP systems. 4) Judicial, international and economical aspects of nuclear materials management. 5) Application of computer and information technologies for nuclear materials control and accounting. 6) Extensive practice in laboratories, using the most up-to-date equipment and devices used in the worldwide practice of NM control

Semi Automatic Ontology Instantiation in the domain of Risk Management

Science.gov (United States)

Makki, Jawad; Alquier, Anne-Marie; Prince, Violaine

One of the challenging tasks in the context of Ontological Engineering is to automatically or semi-automatically support the process of Ontology Learning and Ontology Population from semi-structured documents (texts). In this paper we describe a Semi-Automatic Ontology Instantiation method from natural language text, in the domain of Risk Management. This method is composed from three steps 1 ) Annotation with part-of-speech tags, 2) Semantic Relation Instances Extraction, 3) Ontology instantiation process. It's based on combined NLP techniques using human intervention between steps 2 and 3 for control and validation. Since it heavily relies on linguistic knowledge it is not domain dependent which is a good feature for portability between the different fields of risk management application. The proposed methodology uses the ontology of the PRIMA1 project (supported by the European community) as a Generic Domain Ontology and populates it via an available corpus. A first validation of the approach is done through an experiment with Chemical Fact Sheets from Environmental Protection Agency2.

E-Learning is a Well-Accepted Tool in Supplementary Training among Medical Doctors: An Experience of Obligatory Radiation Protection Training in Healthcare

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Autti, T.; Autti, H.; Vehmas, T.; Laitalainen, V.; Kivisaari, L.

2007-01-01

Purpose: To evaluate the possibilities of Internet-based radiation protection training among referring physicians. Material and Methods: 324 referring physicians underwent an Internet-based radiation protection training course (www.prewise.com/radiationsafetytraining). Two hundred ten of them (96 female, 114 male, aged 25-64 years) filled out the questionnaire, which included questions regarding their expectations for the course, its scope and schedule, and the benefit they derived from the course. In addition, we asked whether it was difficult to learn using the Internet, whether e-learning saved time, and whether they learned more or less effectively in comparison to conventional lectures. Results: 75% found e-learning to be an easy way to study. Nineteen percent had previous experience in e-learning. Sixty-one percent found that it saved time, and 57% stated that they learned more effectively using e-learning in comparison to conventional lectures (22% chose 'could not say'). Ninety-one percent found that the course fulfilled their expectations, and the scope and schedule were found convenient by 91% and 55% of subjects, respectively. Eighty-four percent stated that they benefited from the course, and 94% were willing to study using the Internet in the future. No sex or age differences were found. Subjects working in the open ward (P 0.028) and hospital (P 0.004) found the course to be more timesaving than subjects working elsewhere. Conclusion: Finnish medical doctors are very positive about Internet-based learning. E-learning seems to be a well-accepted and practical learning method in healthcare

E-Learning is a Well-Accepted Tool in Supplementary Training among Medical Doctors: An Experience of Obligatory Radiation Protection Training in Healthcare

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Autti, T.; Autti, H.; Vehmas, T.; Laitalainen, V.; Kivisaari, L. [Helsinki Medical Imaging Center, Univ Hospital of Helsinki (Finland)

2007-07-15

Purpose: To evaluate the possibilities of Internet-based radiation protection training among referring physicians. Material and Methods: 324 referring physicians underwent an Internet-based radiation protection training course (www.prewise.com/radiationsafetytraining). Two hundred ten of them (96 female, 114 male, aged 25-64 years) filled out the questionnaire, which included questions regarding their expectations for the course, its scope and schedule, and the benefit they derived from the course. In addition, we asked whether it was difficult to learn using the Internet, whether e-learning saved time, and whether they learned more or less effectively in comparison to conventional lectures. Results: 75% found e-learning to be an easy way to study. Nineteen percent had previous experience in e-learning. Sixty-one percent found that it saved time, and 57% stated that they learned more effectively using e-learning in comparison to conventional lectures (22% chose 'could not say'). Ninety-one percent found that the course fulfilled their expectations, and the scope and schedule were found convenient by 91% and 55% of subjects, respectively. Eighty-four percent stated that they benefited from the course, and 94% were willing to study using the Internet in the future. No sex or age differences were found. Subjects working in the open ward (P = 0.028) and hospital (P 0.004) found the course to be more timesaving than subjects working elsewhere. Conclusion: Finnish medical doctors are very positive about Internet-based learning. E-learning seems to be a well-accepted and practical learning method in healthcare.

Automatic delineation and 3D visualization of the human ventricular system using probabilistic neural networks

Science.gov (United States)

Hatfield, Fraser N.; Dehmeshki, Jamshid

1998-09-01

Neurosurgery is an extremely specialized area of medical practice, requiring many years of training. It has been suggested that virtual reality models of the complex structures within the brain may aid in the training of neurosurgeons as well as playing an important role in the preparation for surgery. This paper focuses on the application of a probabilistic neural network to the automatic segmentation of the ventricles from magnetic resonance images of the brain, and their three dimensional visualization.

Individual Differences in Automatic Emotion Regulation Interact with Primed Emotion Regulation during an Anger Provocation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ping Hu

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The current study investigated the interactive effects of individual differences in automatic emotion regulation (AER and primed emotion regulation strategy on skin conductance level (SCL and heart rate during provoked anger. The study was a 2 × 2 [AER tendency (expression vs. control × priming (expression vs. control] between subject design. Participants were assigned to two groups according to their performance on an emotion regulation-IAT (differentiating automatic emotion control tendency and automatic emotion expression tendency. Then participants of the two groups were randomly assigned to two emotion regulation priming conditions (emotion control priming or emotion expression priming. Anger was provoked by blaming participants for slow performance during a subsequent backward subtraction task. In anger provocation, SCL of individuals with automatic emotion control tendencies in the control priming condition was lower than of those with automatic emotion control tendencies in the expression priming condition. However, SCL of individuals with automatic emotion expression tendencies did no differ in the automatic emotion control priming or the automatic emotion expression priming condition. Heart rate during anger provocation was higher in individuals with automatic emotion expression tendencies than in individuals with automatic emotion control tendencies regardless of priming condition. This pattern indicates an interactive effect of individual differences in AER and emotion regulation priming on SCL, which is an index of emotional arousal. Heart rate was only sensitive to the individual differences in AER, and did not reflect this interaction. This finding has implications for clinical studies of the use of emotion regulation strategy training suggesting that different practices are optimal for individuals who differ in AER tendencies.

Automatic physical inference with information maximizing neural networks

Science.gov (United States)

Charnock, Tom; Lavaux, Guilhem; Wandelt, Benjamin D.

2018-04-01

Compressing large data sets to a manageable number of summaries that are informative about the underlying parameters vastly simplifies both frequentist and Bayesian inference. When only simulations are available, these summaries are typically chosen heuristically, so they may inadvertently miss important information. We introduce a simulation-based machine learning technique that trains artificial neural networks to find nonlinear functionals of data that maximize Fisher information: information maximizing neural networks (IMNNs). In test cases where the posterior can be derived exactly, likelihood-free inference based on automatically derived IMNN summaries produces nearly exact posteriors, showing that these summaries are good approximations to sufficient statistics. In a series of numerical examples of increasing complexity and astrophysical relevance we show that IMNNs are robustly capable of automatically finding optimal, nonlinear summaries of the data even in cases where linear compression fails: inferring the variance of Gaussian signal in the presence of noise, inferring cosmological parameters from mock simulations of the Lyman-α forest in quasar spectra, and inferring frequency-domain parameters from LISA-like detections of gravitational waveforms. In this final case, the IMNN summary outperforms linear data compression by avoiding the introduction of spurious likelihood maxima. We anticipate that the automatic physical inference method described in this paper will be essential to obtain both accurate and precise cosmological parameter estimates from complex and large astronomical data sets, including those from LSST and Euclid.

A radiation protection training program designed to reduce occupational radiation dose to individuals using pneumatic-transfer systems at the Oregon State TRIGA reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johnson, A.G.; Anderson, T.V.; Pratt, D.; Dodd, B.; Carpenter, W.T.

1984-01-01

In order to keeping personnel doses as low as reasonably achievable, and also to help satisfy requirements of NRC regulations contained in 10 CFR 19, a training program was established to qualify all individuals prior to their use of the OSTR PT systems. Program objectives are directed mainly towards minimizing the spread of radioactive contamination and reducing the potential for unnecessary and inappropriate personnel radiation exposure; however, other operational and emergency procedures are also covered. The PT systems training program described in this report was established approximately 8 to 10 years ago but recently there was an increased interest to use it. Whether or not a PT system training program should be implemented at a specific TRIGA operation (assuming the facility is equipped with a PT system) will undoubtedly be influenced heavily by the nature and frequency of the PT system's use, by who uses the system, and by whether the system is one of the automatic loading and unloading types, or one of the more' commonly encountered manually operated systems. However, from our experience we feel that training commensurate with the type of PT system operation being conducted is a wise investment, and should be a requirement for all system operators

Automatic Image-Based Plant Disease Severity Estimation Using Deep Learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Guan; Sun, Yu; Wang, Jianxin

2017-01-01

Automatic and accurate estimation of disease severity is essential for food security, disease management, and yield loss prediction. Deep learning, the latest breakthrough in computer vision, is promising for fine-grained disease severity classification, as the method avoids the labor-intensive feature engineering and threshold-based segmentation. Using the apple black rot images in the PlantVillage dataset, which are further annotated by botanists with four severity stages as ground truth, a series of deep convolutional neural networks are trained to diagnose the severity of the disease. The performances of shallow networks trained from scratch and deep models fine-tuned by transfer learning are evaluated systemically in this paper. The best model is the deep VGG16 model trained with transfer learning, which yields an overall accuracy of 90.4% on the hold-out test set. The proposed deep learning model may have great potential in disease control for modern agriculture.

Automatic construction of 3D-ASM intensity models by simulating image acquisition: application to myocardial gated SPECT studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Tobon-Gomez, Catalina; Butakoff, Constantine; Aguade, Santiago; Sukno, Federico; Moragas, Gloria; Frangi, Alejandro F

2008-11-01

Active shape models bear a great promise for model-based medical image analysis. Their practical use, though, is undermined due to the need to train such models on large image databases. Automatic building of point distribution models (PDMs) has been successfully addressed and a number of autolandmarking techniques are currently available. However, the need for strategies to automatically build intensity models around each landmark has been largely overlooked in the literature. This work demonstrates the potential of creating intensity models automatically by simulating image generation. We show that it is possible to reuse a 3D PDM built from computed tomography (CT) to segment gated single photon emission computed tomography (gSPECT) studies. Training is performed on a realistic virtual population where image acquisition and formation have been modeled using the SIMIND Monte Carlo simulator and ASPIRE image reconstruction software, respectively. The dataset comprised 208 digital phantoms (4D-NCAT) and 20 clinical studies. The evaluation is accomplished by comparing point-to-surface and volume errors against a proper gold standard. Results show that gSPECT studies can be successfully segmented by models trained under this scheme with subvoxel accuracy. The accuracy in estimated LV function parameters, such as end diastolic volume, end systolic volume, and ejection fraction, ranged from 90.0% to 94.5% for the virtual population and from 87.0% to 89.5% for the clinical population.

30 CFR 18.51 - Electrical protection of circuits and equipment.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Electrical protection of circuits and equipment... TESTING, EVALUATION, AND APPROVAL OF MINING PRODUCTS ELECTRIC MOTOR-DRIVEN MINE EQUIPMENT AND ACCESSORIES Construction and Design Requirements § 18.51 Electrical protection of circuits and equipment. (a) An automatic...

Radiation protection education and training for physicians. Technical qualification for radiation protection and radiation protection instruction for physicians. More important than ever; Aus- und Fortbildung im Strahlenschutz fuer Aerzte. Fachkunde im Strahlenschutz und Strahlenschutzausbildung fuer Aerzte. Wichtiger denn je.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Loecker, Hubert [Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen - Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Gesundheit und Umwelt (GmbH), Neuherberg (Germany). Inst. fuer Strahlenschutz

2017-07-01

The medical application of ionizing radiation - especially X-ray diagnostics - is contributing most of the civilizing radiation exposure of the population. More than 80 percent of occupationally exposed persons work in nuclear medicine. Therefore radiation protection in medicine and instruction and training of physicians is more important than ever.

Artificial intelligence in sports on the example of weight training.

Science.gov (United States)

Novatchkov, Hristo; Baca, Arnold

2013-01-01

The overall goal of the present study was to illustrate the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in sports on the example of weight training. The research focused in particular on the implementation of pattern recognition methods for the evaluation of performed exercises on training machines. The data acquisition was carried out using way and cable force sensors attached to various weight machines, thereby enabling the measurement of essential displacement and force determinants during training. On the basis of the gathered data, it was consequently possible to deduce other significant characteristics like time periods or movement velocities. These parameters were applied for the development of intelligent methods adapted from conventional machine learning concepts, allowing an automatic assessment of the exercise technique and providing individuals with appropriate feedback. In practice, the implementation of such techniques could be crucial for the investigation of the quality of the execution, the assistance of athletes but also coaches, the training optimization and for prevention purposes. For the current study, the data was based on measurements from 15 rather inexperienced participants, performing 3-5 sets of 10-12 repetitions on a leg press machine. The initially preprocessed data was used for the extraction of significant features, on which supervised modeling methods were applied. Professional trainers were involved in the assessment and classification processes by analyzing the video recorded executions. The so far obtained modeling results showed good performance and prediction outcomes, indicating the feasibility and potency of AI techniques in assessing performances on weight training equipment automatically and providing sportsmen with prompt advice. Key pointsArtificial intelligence is a promising field for sport-related analysis.Implementations integrating pattern recognition techniques enable the automatic evaluation of data

Modular training as technology of professional skills development of mechanical engineers

OpenAIRE

Shamshina Irina

2016-01-01

There are main provisions of modular training program by “Theory of Automatic Control” for students of technical universities is treating. Analyze of advantages and disadvantages of modular training system in comparison with the traditional system in the formation of future engineers’ professional skills. Detection of changes in the level of learning, basic skills and motivational sphere of students en-rolled in the modular training program.

Guideline related to training and re-training of research reactor personnel

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1983-01-01

The guideline, which entered into force on 1 July 1983, lays down training and re-training requirements to be met by research reactor personnel in the framework of the Radiation Protection Ordinance of 26 November 1969, the Regulation related to the Licensing of Nuclear Facilities of 21 June 1979, and the Regulation related to Further Education in the Field of Radiation Protection 27 January 1975. It contains the scope of application; the principles and objectives; the minimum requirements relating to technical qualification of plant managers, shift personnel, and responsible radiation protection officers; appointment and certification; the preservation of the technical qualification; and exceptional and transitional regulations

Fire protection for clean rooms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kirson, D.

1990-01-01

The fire protection engineer often must decide what size fire can be tolerated before automatic fire suppression systems actuate. Is it a wastepaper basket fire, a bushel basket fire...? In the case of state-of-the-art clean rooms, the answer clearly is not even an incipient fire. Minor fires in clean rooms can cause major losses. This paper discusses what a clean room is and gives a brief overview of the unique fire protection challenges encountered. The two major causes of fire related to clean rooms in the semiconductor industry are flammable/pyrophoric gas fires in plastic ducts and polypropylene wet bench fires. This paper concentrates on plastic ductwork in clean rooms, sprinkler protection in ductwork, and protection for wet benches

Class notes from the first international training course on the physical protection of nuclear facilities and materials

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Herrington, P.B. (ed.)

1979-05-01

The International Training Course on Physical Protection of Nuclear Facilities and Materials was intended for representatives from the developing countries who are responsible for preparing regulations and designing and assessing physical protection systems. The first part of the course consists of lectures on the objectives, organizational characteristics, and licensing and regulations requirements of a state system of physical protection. Since the participants may have little experience in nuclear energy, background information is provided on the topics of nuclear materials, radiation hazards, reactor systems, and reactor operations. Transportation of nuclear materials is addressed and emphasis is placed on regulations. Included in these discussions are presentations by guest speakers from countries outside the United States of America who present their countries' threat to nuclear facilities. Effectiveness evaluation methodology is introduced to the participants by means of instructions which teach them how to use logic trees and the EASI (Estimate of Adversary Sequence Interruption) program. The following elements of a physical protection system are discussed: barriers, protective force, intrusion detection systems, communications, and entry-control systems. Total systems concepts of physical protection system design are emphasized throughout the course. Costs, manpower/technology trade-offs, and other practical considerations are discussed. Approximately one-third of the course is devoted to practical exercises during which the attendees participatein problem solving. A hypothetical nuclear facility is introduced, and the attendees participate in the conceptual design of a physical protection system for the facility.

Class notes from the first international training course on the physical protection of nuclear facilities and materials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Herrington, P.B.

1979-05-01

The International Training Course on Physical Protection of Nuclear Facilities and Materials was intended for representatives from the developing countries who are responsible for preparing regulations and designing and assessing physical protection systems. The first part of the course consists of lectures on the objectives, organizational characteristics, and licensing and regulations requirements of a state system of physical protection. Since the participants may have little experience in nuclear energy, background information is provided on the topics of nuclear materials, radiation hazards, reactor systems, and reactor operations. Transportation of nuclear materials is addressed and emphasis is placed on regulations. Included in these discussions are presentations by guest speakers from countries outside the United States of America who present their countries' threat to nuclear facilities. Effectiveness evaluation methodology is introduced to the participants by means of instructions which teach them how to use logic trees and the EASI (Estimate of Adversary Sequence Interruption) program. The following elements of a physical protection system are discussed: barriers, protective force, intrusion detection systems, communications, and entry-control systems. Total systems concepts of physical protection system design are emphasized throughout the course. Costs, manpower/technology trade-offs, and other practical considerations are discussed. Approximately one-third of the course is devoted to practical exercises during which the attendees participatein problem solving. A hypothetical nuclear facility is introduced, and the attendees participate in the conceptual design of a physical protection system for the facility

Automatic Fiscal Stabilizers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Narcis Eduard Mitu

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Policies or institutions (built into an economic system that automatically tend to dampen economic cycle fluctuations in income, employment, etc., without direct government intervention. For example, in boom times, progressive income tax automatically reduces money supply as incomes and spendings rise. Similarly, in recessionary times, payment of unemployment benefits injects more money in the system and stimulates demand. Also called automatic stabilizers or built-in stabilizers.

77 FR 3404 - Energy Conservation Standards for Automatic Commercial Ice Makers: Public Meeting and...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-24

.... Email: [email protected] . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Statutory Authority II. History of... feedback from interested parties on its analytical framework, models, and preliminary results. II. History... automatic commercial ice makers installed in the field, such as in hospitals and restaurants. Details of the...

Automatic bladder segmentation on CBCT for multiple plan ART of bladder cancer using a patient-specific bladder model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Xiangfei, Chai; Hulshof, Maarten; Bel, Arjan [Department of Radiotherapy, Academic medical Center, University of Amsterdam, 1105 AZ, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Van Herk, Marcel; Betgen, Anja [Department of Radiotherapy, The Netherlands Cancer Institute/Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, 1066 CX, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

2012-06-21

In multiple plan adaptive radiotherapy (ART) strategies of bladder cancer, a library of plans corresponding to different bladder volumes is created based on images acquired in early treatment sessions. Subsequently, the plan for the smallest PTV safely covering the bladder on cone-beam CT (CBCT) is selected as the plan of the day. The aim of this study is to develop an automatic bladder segmentation approach suitable for CBCT scans and test its ability to select the appropriate plan from the library of plans for such an ART procedure. Twenty-three bladder cancer patients with a planning CT and on average 11.6 CBCT scans were included in our study. For each patient, all CBCT scans were matched to the planning CT on bony anatomy. Bladder contours were manually delineated for each planning CT (for model building) and CBCT (for model building and validation). The automatic segmentation method consisted of two steps. A patient-specific bladder deformation model was built from the training data set of each patient (the planning CT and the first five CBCT scans). Then, the model was applied to automatically segment bladders in the validation data of the same patient (the remaining CBCT scans). Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to the training data to model patient-specific bladder deformation patterns. The number of PCA modes for each patient was chosen such that the bladder shapes in the training set could be represented by such number of PCA modes with less than 0.1 cm mean residual error. The automatic segmentation started from the bladder shape of a reference CBCT, which was adjusted by changing the weight of each PCA mode. As a result, the segmentation contour was deformed consistently with the training set to fit the bladder in the validation image. A cost function was defined by the absolute difference between the directional gradient field of reference CBCT sampled on the corresponding bladder contour and the directional gradient field of validation

Automatic bladder segmentation on CBCT for multiple plan ART of bladder cancer using a patient-specific bladder model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chai Xiangfei; Hulshof, Maarten; Bel, Arjan; Van Herk, Marcel; Betgen, Anja

2012-01-01

In multiple plan adaptive radiotherapy (ART) strategies of bladder cancer, a library of plans corresponding to different bladder volumes is created based on images acquired in early treatment sessions. Subsequently, the plan for the smallest PTV safely covering the bladder on cone-beam CT (CBCT) is selected as the plan of the day. The aim of this study is to develop an automatic bladder segmentation approach suitable for CBCT scans and test its ability to select the appropriate plan from the library of plans for such an ART procedure. Twenty-three bladder cancer patients with a planning CT and on average 11.6 CBCT scans were included in our study. For each patient, all CBCT scans were matched to the planning CT on bony anatomy. Bladder contours were manually delineated for each planning CT (for model building) and CBCT (for model building and validation). The automatic segmentation method consisted of two steps. A patient-specific bladder deformation model was built from the training data set of each patient (the planning CT and the first five CBCT scans). Then, the model was applied to automatically segment bladders in the validation data of the same patient (the remaining CBCT scans). Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to the training data to model patient-specific bladder deformation patterns. The number of PCA modes for each patient was chosen such that the bladder shapes in the training set could be represented by such number of PCA modes with less than 0.1 cm mean residual error. The automatic segmentation started from the bladder shape of a reference CBCT, which was adjusted by changing the weight of each PCA mode. As a result, the segmentation contour was deformed consistently with the training set to fit the bladder in the validation image. A cost function was defined by the absolute difference between the directional gradient field of reference CBCT sampled on the corresponding bladder contour and the directional gradient field of validation

76 FR 68488 - Extension of the Designation of Honduras for Temporary Protected Status and Automatic Extension...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-11-04

... 2008 Economist Intelligence Unit report, transportation infrastructure was ``patchy but improving... your A-number printed on it); and c. Write the automatic extension date in the second space. (2) For...

Progressive sampling-based Bayesian optimization for efficient and automatic machine learning model selection.

Science.gov (United States)

Zeng, Xueqiang; Luo, Gang

2017-12-01

Machine learning is broadly used for clinical data analysis. Before training a model, a machine learning algorithm must be selected. Also, the values of one or more model parameters termed hyper-parameters must be set. Selecting algorithms and hyper-parameter values requires advanced machine learning knowledge and many labor-intensive manual iterations. To lower the bar to machine learning, miscellaneous automatic selection methods for algorithms and/or hyper-parameter values have been proposed. Existing automatic selection methods are inefficient on large data sets. This poses a challenge for using machine learning in the clinical big data era. To address the challenge, this paper presents progressive sampling-based Bayesian optimization, an efficient and automatic selection method for both algorithms and hyper-parameter values. We report an implementation of the method. We show that compared to a state of the art automatic selection method, our method can significantly reduce search time, classification error rate, and standard deviation of error rate due to randomization. This is major progress towards enabling fast turnaround in identifying high-quality solutions required by many machine learning-based clinical data analysis tasks.

Automatic determination of L/H transition times in DIII-D through a collaborative distributed environment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Farias, G.; Vega, J.; González, S.; Pereira, A.; Lee, X.; Schissel, D.; Gohil, P.

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► An automatic predictor of L/H transition times has been implemented for the DIII-D tokamak. ► The system predicts the transition combining two techniques: a morphological pattern recognition algorithm and a support vector machines multi-layer model. ► The predictor is employed within a collaborative distributed computing environment. The system is trained remotely in the Ciemat computer cluster and operated on the DIII-D site. - Abstract: An automatic predictor of L/H transition times has been implemented for the DIII-D tokamak. The system predicts the transition combining two techniques: A morphological pattern recognition algorithm, which estimates the transition based on the waveform of a Dα emission signal, and a support vector machines multi-layer model, which predicts the L/H transition using a non-parametric model. The predictor is employed within a collaborative distributed computing environment. The system is trained remotely in the Ciemat computer cluster and operated on the DIII-D site.

Using virtual reality in the training of security staff and evaluation of physical protection barriers in nuclear facilities

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Augusto, Silas C.; Mol, Antonio C.A.; Mol, Pedro C.; Sales, Douglas S. [Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear (IEN/CNEN-RJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil); Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), RJ (Brazil)], e-mail: silas@ien.gov.br, e-mail: mol@ien.gov.br, e-mail: pedro98@gmail.com, e-mail: dsales@ien.gov.br

2009-07-01

The physical security of facilities containing radioactive objects, an already important matter, now has a new aggravating factor: the existence of groups intending to obtain radioactive materials for the purpose of intentionally induce radioactive contamination incidents, as for example the explosion of dirty bombs in populated regions, damaging both people and environment. In this context, the physical security of such facilities must be reinforced so to reduce the possibilities of such incidents. This paper presents a adapted game engine used as a virtual reality system, enabling the modeling and simulation of scenarios of nuclear facilities containing radioactive objects. In these scenarios, the physical protection barriers, as fences and walls, are simulated along with vigilance screens. Using a computer network, several users can participate simultaneously in the simulation, being represented by avatars. Users can play the roles of both invaders and security staff. The invaders have as objective to surpass the facility's physical protection barriers to steal radioactive objects and flee. The security staff have as objective to prevent and stop the theft of radioactive objects from the facility. The system can be used to analysis simulated scenarios and train vigilance/security staff. A test scenario was already developed and used, and the preliminary tests had satisfactory results, as they enabled the evaluation of the physical protection barriers of the virtual facility, and the training of those who participated in the simulations in the functions of a security staff. (author)

Using virtual reality in the training of security staff and evaluation of physical protection barriers in nuclear facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Augusto, Silas C.; Mol, Antonio C.A.; Mol, Pedro C.; Sales, Douglas S.

2009-01-01

The physical security of facilities containing radioactive objects, an already important matter, now has a new aggravating factor: the existence of groups intending to obtain radioactive materials for the purpose of intentionally induce radioactive contamination incidents, as for example the explosion of dirty bombs in populated regions, damaging both people and environment. In this context, the physical security of such facilities must be reinforced so to reduce the possibilities of such incidents. This paper presents a adapted game engine used as a virtual reality system, enabling the modeling and simulation of scenarios of nuclear facilities containing radioactive objects. In these scenarios, the physical protection barriers, as fences and walls, are simulated along with vigilance screens. Using a computer network, several users can participate simultaneously in the simulation, being represented by avatars. Users can play the roles of both invaders and security staff. The invaders have as objective to surpass the facility's physical protection barriers to steal radioactive objects and flee. The security staff have as objective to prevent and stop the theft of radioactive objects from the facility. The system can be used to analysis simulated scenarios and train vigilance/security staff. A test scenario was already developed and used, and the preliminary tests had satisfactory results, as they enabled the evaluation of the physical protection barriers of the virtual facility, and the training of those who participated in the simulations in the functions of a security staff. (author)

Automatic and controlled components of judgment and decision making.

Science.gov (United States)

Ferreira, Mario B; Garcia-Marques, Leonel; Sherman, Steven J; Sherman, Jeffrey W

2006-11-01

The categorization of inductive reasoning into largely automatic processes (heuristic reasoning) and controlled analytical processes (rule-based reasoning) put forward by dual-process approaches of judgment under uncertainty (e.g., K. E. Stanovich & R. F. West, 2000) has been primarily a matter of assumption with a scarcity of direct empirical findings supporting it. The present authors use the process dissociation procedure (L. L. Jacoby, 1991) to provide convergent evidence validating a dual-process perspective to judgment under uncertainty based on the independent contributions of heuristic and rule-based reasoning. Process dissociations based on experimental manipulation of variables were derived from the most relevant theoretical properties typically used to contrast the two forms of reasoning. These include processing goals (Experiment 1), cognitive resources (Experiment 2), priming (Experiment 3), and formal training (Experiment 4); the results consistently support the author's perspective. They conclude that judgment under uncertainty is neither an automatic nor a controlled process but that it reflects both processes, with each making independent contributions.

30 CFR 77.506 - Electric equipment and circuits; overload and short-circuit protection.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... short-circuit protection. 77.506 Section 77.506 Mineral Resources MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION... circuits; overload and short-circuit protection. Automatic circuit-breaking devices or fuses of the correct type and capacity shall be installed so as to protect all electric equipment and circuits against short...

LEARNING VECTOR QUANTIZATION FOR ADAPTED GAUSSIAN MIXTURE MODELS IN AUTOMATIC SPEAKER IDENTIFICATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

IMEN TRABELSI

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Speaker Identification (SI aims at automatically identifying an individual by extracting and processing information from his/her voice. Speaker voice is a robust a biometric modality that has a strong impact in several application areas. In this study, a new combination learning scheme has been proposed based on Gaussian mixture model-universal background model (GMM-UBM and Learning vector quantization (LVQ for automatic text-independent speaker identification. Features vectors, constituted by the Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC extracted from the speech signal are used to train the New England subset of the TIMIT database. The best results obtained (90% for gender- independent speaker identification, 97 % for male speakers and 93% for female speakers for test data using 36 MFCC features.

Training on radiation protection in university area. Experience of Technical University of Catalonia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ortega, X.

2007-01-01

This paper presents an overview of the different agents that are involved in training on Radiation Protection in Spain. The main circumstances which can introduce new challenges in radiation protection practices are reviewed, namely the planned modifications in the regulation framework, the mobility of European workers, the consequences of deregulation of the electric system, the moratorium of the Spanish nuclear programme and the changes in Spanish studies resulting from implementation of the European Higher Education Area. In relation to the contributions that university groups can develop in this field, the author makes some suggestions according to his own experience in the Technical University of Catalonia. It is emphasized that this contribution must be characterized by its quality, credibility and independence. It should include activities such as development of R and D studies, the implementation of accredited laboratories, organization of post-graduate courses, preparation of teaching materials and technical publications, and collaboration with public institutions, scientific and professional societies and other organizations. Finally, the other new activity that is stressed is related to the efforts required to improve information and communication to the stake holders and a growing social interest. (Author)

Evaluation of knowledge and practice of professionals in radiology, in patient protection, in X-ray examinations in collective environments and in a improving quality of service through training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Costa, Rogerio Ferreira da

2014-01-01

When there is exposure to ionizing radiation, the probability of developing a stochastic effect increases, and one of the most feared stochastic effects is cancer. Calculations made from data obtained with the population of Hiroshima, showed that these effects have not dose threshold. So it is impossible predict that a specific dose value, will lead to damages and therefore, doses must always be limited. Medical exposures have contributed to the increase in dose received by the populations of countries like Brazil. This is because there was an increase in interventional procedures using ionizing radiation. What has concerned researchers since, many companies did not fit the standards of radiation protection. The proper use of personal protective equipment reduces the exposure of patients and professionals. Trained and knowledgeable of the rules are able to choose the shielding for each type of procedure. So we evaluated the knowledge and radiology professional practice, in protection of patients, who can not be removed from the environment in sinus X-rays and check if the training improves the quality of this service. It was concluded that there is deficiency in knowledge of the rules and failures in protection of patients, and that training with regard to radiological protection increases the level of theoretical knowledge of the professionals involved, and improve their practices with respect to protection, reducing the doses and minimizing the risks involved in medical exposures

Practical radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brouwer, G.; Van den Eijnde, J.H.G.M.

1997-01-01

This textbook aims at providing sufficient knowledge and insight to carry out correctly radiation protection activities and operations. The subjects are appropriate for the training of radiation protection experts for the levels 5A (encapsulated sources, X rays) and 5B (open sources, laboratory activities)

Direct spondylolisthesis identification and measurement in MR/CT using detectors trained by articulated parameterized spine model

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Yunliang; Leung, Stephanie; Warrington, James; Pandey, Sachin; Shmuilovich, Olga; Li, Shuo

2017-02-01

The identification of spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis is important in spinal diagnosis, rehabilitation, and surgery planning. Accurate and automatic detection of spinal portion with spondylolisthesis problem will significantly reduce the manual work of physician and provide a more robust evaluation for the spine condition. Most existing automatic identification methods adopted the indirect approach which used vertebrae locations to measure the spondylolisthesis. However, these methods relied heavily on automatic vertebra detection which often suffered from the pool spatial accuracy and the lack of validated pathological training samples. In this study, we present a novel spondylolisthesis detection method which can directly locate the irregular spine portion and output the corresponding grading. The detection is done by a set of learning-based detectors which are discriminatively trained by synthesized spondylolisthesis image samples. To provide sufficient pathological training samples, we used a parameterized spine model to synthesize different types of spondylolysis images from real MR/CT scans. The parameterized model can automatically locate the vertebrae in spine images and estimate their pose orientations, and can inversely alter the vertebrae locations and poses by changing the corresponding parameters. Various training samples can then be generated from only a few spine MR/CT images. The preliminary results suggest great potential for the fast and efficient spondylolisthesis identification and measurement in both MR and CT spine images.

Semi-supervised learning based probabilistic latent semantic analysis for automatic image annotation

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Tian Dongping

2017-01-01

In recent years, multimedia annotation problem has been attracting significant research attention in multimedia and computer vision areas, especially for automatic image annotation, whose purpose is to provide an efficient and effective searching environment for users to query their images more easily.In this paper, a semi-supervised learning based probabilistic latent semantic analysis ( PL-SA) model for automatic image annotation is presenred.Since it' s often hard to obtain or create la-beled images in large quantities while unlabeled ones are easier to collect, a transductive support vector machine ( TSVM) is exploited to enhance the quality of the training image data.Then, differ-ent image features with different magnitudes will result in different performance for automatic image annotation.To this end, a Gaussian normalization method is utilized to normalize different features extracted from effective image regions segmented by the normalized cuts algorithm so as to reserve the intrinsic content of images as complete as possible.Finally, a PLSA model with asymmetric mo-dalities is constructed based on the expectation maximization( EM) algorithm to predict a candidate set of annotations with confidence scores.Extensive experiments on the general-purpose Corel5k dataset demonstrate that the proposed model can significantly improve performance of traditional PL-SA for the task of automatic image annotation.

Safety and reliability of automatization software

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kapp, K; Daum, R [Karlsruhe Univ. (TH) (Germany, F.R.). Lehrstuhl fuer Angewandte Informatik, Transport- und Verkehrssysteme

1979-02-01

Automated technical systems have to meet very high requirements concerning safety, security and reliability. Today, modern computers, especially microcomputers, are used as integral parts of those systems. In consequence computer programs must work in a safe and reliable mannter. Methods are discussed which allow to construct safe and reliable software for automatic systems such as reactor protection systems and to prove that the safety requirements are met. As a result it is shown that only the method of total software diversification can satisfy all safety requirements at tolerable cost. In order to achieve a high degree of reliability, structured and modular programming in context with high level programming languages are recommended.

Protecting the axion with local baryon number

Science.gov (United States)

Duerr, Michael; Schmidt-Hoberg, Kai; Unwin, James

2018-05-01

The Peccei-Quinn (PQ) solution to the Strong CP Problem is expected to fail unless the global symmetry U(1)PQ is protected from Planck-scale operators up to high mass dimension. Suitable protection can be achieved if the PQ symmetry is an automatic consequence of some gauge symmetry. We highlight that if baryon number is promoted to a gauge symmetry, the exotic fermions needed for anomaly cancellation can elegantly provide an implementation of the Kim-Shifman-Vainshtein-Zakharov 'hidden axion' mechanism with a PQ symmetry protected from Planck-scale physics.

AUTOMATIC ARCHITECTURAL STYLE RECOGNITION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Mathias

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Procedural modeling has proven to be a very valuable tool in the field of architecture. In the last few years, research has soared to automatically create procedural models from images. However, current algorithms for this process of inverse procedural modeling rely on the assumption that the building style is known. So far, the determination of the building style has remained a manual task. In this paper, we propose an algorithm which automates this process through classification of architectural styles from facade images. Our classifier first identifies the images containing buildings, then separates individual facades within an image and determines the building style. This information could then be used to initialize the building reconstruction process. We have trained our classifier to distinguish between several distinct architectural styles, namely Flemish Renaissance, Haussmannian and Neoclassical. Finally, we demonstrate our approach on various street-side images.

An automatic device for charging a storage battery

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pasyukov, A A

1984-01-01

The purpose of the invention is to increase the service life of storage batteries (AB) through ensuring automatic protection of the device from overloads with short circuits (KZ) and from incorrect switching polarity of the storage batteries. The device contains a transformer, a rectifier, a smoothing capacitor, a trigger capacitor, a charge current control transistor, a controllable transistor, a shielding transistor, two resistors, a diode, a resistor and a voltage divider, another resistor, a reference voltage stabilitron, a resistor and another diode and the storage battery.

Automatic annotation of protein motif function with Gene Ontology terms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gopalakrishnan Vanathi

2004-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Conserved protein sequence motifs are short stretches of amino acid sequence patterns that potentially encode the function of proteins. Several sequence pattern searching algorithms and programs exist foridentifying candidate protein motifs at the whole genome level. However, amuch needed and importanttask is to determine the functions of the newly identified protein motifs. The Gene Ontology (GO project is an endeavor to annotate the function of genes or protein sequences with terms from a dynamic, controlled vocabulary and these annotations serve well as a knowledge base. Results This paperpresents methods to mine the GO knowledge base and use the association between the GO terms assigned to a sequence and the motifs matched by the same sequence as evidence for predicting the functions of novel protein motifs automatically. The task of assigning GO terms to protein motifsis viewed as both a binary classification and information retrieval problem, where PROSITE motifs are used as samples for mode training and functional prediction. The mutual information of a motif and aGO term association isfound to be a very useful feature. We take advantageof the known motifs to train a logistic regression classifier, which allows us to combine mutual information with other frequency-based features and obtain a probability of correctassociation. The trained logistic regression model has intuitively meaningful and logically plausible parameter values, and performs very well empirically according to our evaluation criteria. Conclusions In this research, different methods for automatic annotation of protein motifs have been investigated. Empirical result demonstrated that the methods have a great potential for detecting and augmenting information about thefunctions of newly discovered candidate protein motifs.

Automatic Image-Based Plant Disease Severity Estimation Using Deep Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guan Wang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Automatic and accurate estimation of disease severity is essential for food security, disease management, and yield loss prediction. Deep learning, the latest breakthrough in computer vision, is promising for fine-grained disease severity classification, as the method avoids the labor-intensive feature engineering and threshold-based segmentation. Using the apple black rot images in the PlantVillage dataset, which are further annotated by botanists with four severity stages as ground truth, a series of deep convolutional neural networks are trained to diagnose the severity of the disease. The performances of shallow networks trained from scratch and deep models fine-tuned by transfer learning are evaluated systemically in this paper. The best model is the deep VGG16 model trained with transfer learning, which yields an overall accuracy of 90.4% on the hold-out test set. The proposed deep learning model may have great potential in disease control for modern agriculture.

Training and information in Radiation Protection in the Field of X-ray medical applications for exposed workers, non-exposed workers patients and for the public

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tellez de Cepeda, M.; Corredoira, E.; Martin, G.; Plaza, R.; Huerga, C.

2003-01-01

Training and information in the radiation protection subject is a legal mandatory as well as an essential tool for the optimisation and quality of the procedures. Accounting for the relevance of the dose to the population due to medical exposures, it seems obvious the necessity of improving this subject in order to design a feasible and efficient strategy. The importance of learning to communicate and to manage on the one hand an excessive perception of the risk to low doses in comparison with other agents, that could be made extensible for judges, lawyers and media, and on the other hand, the relevant doses due to interventional procedures, to TC studies, etc, is one of the basic commitment of a Radiation Protection Service. This paper summarises: - The contents of international recommendations, the European Directives and Spanish legislation related to this topic. - The strategy of training and information to the levels indicated, from the point of view of a referential Radiation Protection Service for a Teaching Hospital and its area associated os specialized attention and primary attention. We can not forget on-going training for owner workers. - The contents of the informative leaflets. (Author) 13 refs

20th International Training Course (ITC-20) on the physical protection of nuclear facilities and materials evaluation report.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ramirez, Amanda Ann

2008-09-01

The goal of this evaluation report is to provide the information necessary to improve the effectiveness of the ITC provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency Member States. This report examines ITC-20 training content, delivery methods, scheduling, and logistics. Ultimately, this report evaluates whether the course provides the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the participants needs in the protection of nuclear materials and facilities.

Automatic meter reading and PowerPlus services: Concept to implementation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Perks, D.R. [Alberta Power Ltd., Edmonton, AB (Canada)

1995-12-31

The Distribution Control System Inc.`s Two Way Automatic Communication System (TWACS) was implemented with GE Canada`s 170S automatic meter reader (AMR) at Alberta Power Ltd. Core and extended features are being marketed as PowerPlus{sup TM.} The technology used in the systems, design philosophy, systems components, outbound communication, inbound communication, throughput, and AMR were described. Objectives for the pilot project were to test reliability, accuracy and cost of implementation. Scope of the pilot, and project results were presented. Business aspects of PowerPlus{sup TM }marketing were described. Implementation schedule, constraints, technical problems, training, communication plan, strategy and 1994 year end status of the project were reviewed. Plans for continued development were described. It was predicted that the versatility of the TWACS system, and hard work of every department of Alberta Power will ensure that the implementation program will complete success. 5 figs.

Automation of controller's management by train work on the byelorussian ferrous road

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A.A. Erofeev

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The description of the automated system of working out of the look-ahead train schedule is resulted. Appointment, structure and system structure are considered. Requirements to the entrance information are established. Procedures of automatic construction and dispatching updatings of the look-ahead train schedule are regulated

An automatic taxonomy of galaxy morphology using unsupervised machine learning

Science.gov (United States)

Hocking, Alex; Geach, James E.; Sun, Yi; Davey, Neil

2018-01-01

We present an unsupervised machine learning technique that automatically segments and labels galaxies in astronomical imaging surveys using only pixel data. Distinct from previous unsupervised machine learning approaches used in astronomy we use no pre-selection or pre-filtering of target galaxy type to identify galaxies that are similar. We demonstrate the technique on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Frontier Fields. By training the algorithm using galaxies from one field (Abell 2744) and applying the result to another (MACS 0416.1-2403), we show how the algorithm can cleanly separate early and late type galaxies without any form of pre-directed training for what an 'early' or 'late' type galaxy is. We then apply the technique to the HST Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) fields, creating a catalogue of approximately 60 000 classifications. We show how the automatic classification groups galaxies of similar morphological (and photometric) type and make the classifications public via a catalogue, a visual catalogue and galaxy similarity search. We compare the CANDELS machine-based classifications to human-classifications from the Galaxy Zoo: CANDELS project. Although there is not a direct mapping between Galaxy Zoo and our hierarchical labelling, we demonstrate a good level of concordance between human and machine classifications. Finally, we show how the technique can be used to identify rarer objects and present lensed galaxy candidates from the CANDELS imaging.

The Modernization ISS in APPS of Important Facility for Protection from Insider Actions

OpenAIRE

D.A. Poladiev; S. I. Zhurin

2012-01-01

This report is about functions of protection from insider actions in modern Automatically Physical Protection System (APPS) of important facility. These functions can be held on special software of APPS and on software of information protection. The usage of this approach can improve the security of important facility in fut

A German e-learning-training in the context of early preventive intervention and child protection: preliminary findings of a pre-post evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Bressem, Kristina; Ziegenhain, Ute; Doelitzsch, Claudia; Hofer, Alexandra; Besier, Tanja; Fegert, Joerg M; Kuenster, Anne K

2016-01-01

In recent years, a number of government-sponsored initiatives have been implemented in Germany that are focused on early preventive intervention in child protection. In response to the need for interdisciplinary training in this area, the internet-based e-learning program "Early Preventive Intervention and Child Protection" was developed for professionals in the child welfare and health care systems working with families with infants and toddlers. The program is currently undergoing evaluation for effectiveness and user satisfaction. In a pre-post design, users are requested to complete questionnaires that assess three measures of expertise: theoretical knowledge of relevant fields, the ability to correctly identify subtle signals of infant communication, and the ability to assess maternal sensitivity. This article presents the contents of the program and the pre-training results (N = 1.294 participants). Descriptive analyses as well as Pearson correlations and Bonferroni corrections of error were conducted using the statistical program SPSS v. 21.0. The findings show that a wide range of professionals are making use of the program, and that their existing theoretical knowledge about early preventive intervention, as well as their ability to identify subtle signals of infant communication, is relatively good. However, their ability to assess maternal sensitivity, which is considered a crucial indicator for the risk of child abuse, was low. The outcome of the pre-training results indicates that professionals working in the area of child protection need to develop more capability in recognizing maternal sensitivity, in order to ensure early detection of families who are at risk and thus in need of support. Finally, the number of years of professional experience did not correlate with the scores on any of the three measures, which emphasizes the importance of providing interdisciplinary training in this area for all those working in child and family services

Protection of semiconductor converters for controlled bypass reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dolgopolov, A. G.; Akhmetzhanov, N. G.; Karmanov, V. F.

2010-01-01

Possible ways of protecting thyristor converters in systems for magnetizing 110 - 500 kV controlled bypass reactors during switching and automatic reclosing are examined based on experience with the development of equipment, line tests, and mathematical modelling.

General Employee Training Live, Course 15503

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gabel, Daniel Glen [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Hughes, Heather [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2016-08-25

This training at Los Alamos National Laboratory contains the following sections: Introduction to the Laboratory, Institutional Quality Assurance, Facilities, Policies, Procedures, and Other Requirements, Safety Expectations, Worker Protection: Occupational Safety and Health, Industrial Hygiene and Safety, Lockout/Tagout, General Employee Radiological Training, Fire Protection, Security, Emergency Operations, Occupational Health, and Environment.

Peer-led training in basic life support and resuscitation using an automatic external defibrillator

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Løfgren, Bo; Petersen, Christina Børlum; Mikkelsen, Ronni

2009-01-01

Peer-led training has been identified as a useful tool for delivering undergraduate healthcare training. In this paper we describe the implementation of the European Resuscitation Council BLS/AED Course as a peer-led training program for medical students....

Device for the automatic evaluation of pencil dosimeters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schallopp, B.

1976-01-01

In connenction with the automation of radiation protection in nuclear power plants, an automatic reading device has been developed for the direct input of the readings of pencil dosimeters into a computer. Voltage measurements would be simple but are excluded, because the internal electrode of the dosimeter may not be touched, for operational reasons. This paper describes an optical/electronic conversion device in which the reading of the dosimeter is projected onto a Vidicon, scanned, and converted into a digital signal for output to the computer. (orig.) [de

Effectiveness and Discussion of Ventilation Design with Automatic Revolving Window

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chang Jing Yi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to improve and discuss the effectiveness of automatic revolving window ventilation on human comfort, where the temperature sensor mounted indoors gives the signal to start the stepping motor of the revolving window. There is a controller for automatic regulation according to the difference between the preset temperature and indoor temperature, where the air flow of ventilating fan imports outside air to take excess heat away from the room, in order to reduce the indoor temperature. The revolving window opening angle is simulated and analyzed, and the impact of different air rates on the indoor temperature is analyzed. This system can regulate the indoor temperature to effectively reach the optimal human comfort temperature, and can reduce the frequency of using air conditioning, in order to attain the goals of energy saving, carbon reduction, and environmental protection.

Finding weak points automatically

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Archinger, P.; Wassenberg, M.

1999-01-01

Operators of nuclear power stations have to carry out material tests at selected components by regular intervalls. Therefore a full automaticated test, which achieves a clearly higher reproducibility, compared to part automaticated variations, would provide a solution. In addition the full automaticated test reduces the dose of radiation for the test person. (orig.) [de

Climate protection in the context. The role of training and participation on the way in a climate friendly society; Klimaschutz im Kontext. Die Rolle von Bildung und Partizipation auf dem Weg in eine klimafreundliche Gesellschaft

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zschiesche, Michael (ed.) [Unabhaengiges Inst. fuer Umweltfragen - UfU e.V., Berlin (Germany)

2013-02-01

In Germany, climate protection measures have been intensively discussed in the public. Within this discussion, the climate protection is considered as a fiscal or technical measure but not as a cultural challenge. Under this aspect, fourteen German social scientists report on essential questions concerning to the training processes and participation processes in context to the climate protection. Successful training and participation processes in the climate protection as well as the newest results of the environmental psychology and lifestyle research are presented.

78 FR 6195 - Special Conditions: Embraer S.A., Model EMB-550 Airplanes; Flight Envelope Protection...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-30

... Envelope Protection: Performance Credit for Automatic Takeoff Thrust Control System (ATTCS) During Go... a result, if an engine failure occurs during a go-around, the remaining engine automatically applies... to limit the adverse performance effects of a combined engine and ATTCS failure, and ensures adequate...

77 FR 67309 - Special Conditions: Embraer S.A., Model EMB-550 Airplanes; Flight Envelope Protection...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-11-09

... Envelope Protection: Performance Credit for Automatic Takeoff Thrust Control System (ATTCS) During Go... a result, if an engine failure occurs during a go-around, the remaining engine automatically applies... serves to limit the adverse performance effects of a combined engine and ATTCS failure, and ensures...

The automatic component of habit in health behavior: habit as cue-contingent automaticity.

Science.gov (United States)

Orbell, Sheina; Verplanken, Bas

2010-07-01

Habit might be usefully characterized as a form of automaticity that involves the association of a cue and a response. Three studies examined habitual automaticity in regard to different aspects of the cue-response relationship characteristic of unhealthy and healthy habits. In each study, habitual automaticity was assessed by the Self-Report Habit Index (SRHI). In Study 1 SRHI scores correlated with attentional bias to smoking cues in a Stroop task. Study 2 examined the ability of a habit cue to elicit an unwanted habit response. In a prospective field study, habitual automaticity in relation to smoking when drinking alcohol in a licensed public house (pub) predicted the likelihood of cigarette-related action slips 2 months later after smoking in pubs had become illegal. In Study 3 experimental group participants formed an implementation intention to floss in response to a specified situational cue. Habitual automaticity of dental flossing was rapidly enhanced compared to controls. The studies provided three different demonstrations of the importance of cues in the automatic operation of habits. Habitual automaticity assessed by the SRHI captured aspects of a habit that go beyond mere frequency or consistency of the behavior. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Education, Training and the Euratom Framework Programme

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jouve, A.; Van Goethem, G.; )

2009-01-01

The maintaining of knowledge implies education and training programmes that ensure not only the instruction of students and trainees but also the transfer of knowledge across generations. This is especially important for research in the Euratom field in the present context of nuclear renaissance. DG-Research is responsible for the implementation of the Euratom Framework Programme on nuclear research and training. Through these activities, it is striving to promote the integration of national radiation protection research programmes in Europe, including education and training in radiation protection. These education and training activities supported in the Euratom Programme are helping to establish top-quality teaching modules assembled into masters programmes or higher-level training packages jointly qualified and mutually recognised across the EU. This Euratom approach is entirely in line with the Bologna process. This paper presents and discusses the various actions in education and training in radiation protection supported by DG- Research. (authors)

Experience of automation failures in training: effects on trust, automation bias, complacency and performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Sauer, Juergen; Chavaillaz, Alain; Wastell, David

2016-06-01

This work examined the effects of operators' exposure to various types of automation failures in training. Forty-five participants were trained for 3.5 h on a simulated process control environment. During training, participants either experienced a fully reliable, automatic fault repair facility (i.e. faults detected and correctly diagnosed), a misdiagnosis-prone one (i.e. faults detected but not correctly diagnosed) or a miss-prone one (i.e. faults not detected). One week after training, participants were tested for 3 h, experiencing two types of automation failures (misdiagnosis, miss). The results showed that automation bias was very high when operators trained on miss-prone automation encountered a failure of the diagnostic system. Operator errors resulting from automation bias were much higher when automation misdiagnosed a fault than when it missed one. Differences in trust levels that were instilled by the different training experiences disappeared during the testing session. Practitioner Summary: The experience of automation failures during training has some consequences. A greater potential for operator errors may be expected when an automatic system failed to diagnose a fault than when it failed to detect one.

A conservative bound for the probability of failure of a 1-out-of-2 protection system with one hardware-only and one software-based protection train

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bishop, Peter; Bloomfield, Robin; Littlewood, Bev; Popov, Peter; Povyakalo, Andrey; Strigini, Lorenzo

2014-01-01

Redundancy and diversity have long been used as means to obtain high reliability in critical systems. While it is easy to show that, say, a 1-out-of-2 diverse system will be more reliable than each of its two individual “trains”, assessing the actual reliability of such systems can be difficult because the trains cannot be assumed to fail independently. If we cannot claim independence of train failures, the computation of system reliability is difficult, because we would need to know the probability of failure on demand (pfd) for every possible demand. These are unlikely to be known in the case of software. Claims for software often concern its marginalpfd, i.e. average across all possible demands. In this paper we consider the case of a 1-out-of-2 safety protection system in which one train contains software (and hardware), and the other train contains only hardware equipment. We show that a useful upper (i.e. conservative) bound can be obtained for the system pfd using only the unconditional pfd for software together with information about the variation of hardware failure probability across demands, which is likely to be known or estimatable. The worst-case result is obtained by “allocating” software failure probability among demand “classes” so as to maximize system pfd

SCK CEN'S International School for Radiological Protection (ISRP): communicating the aspects of radiological protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Coeck, M.; Majakowski, I.; Verachtert, C.; Meskens, G.

2006-01-01

Full text: Thanks to its thorough experience in the field of peaceful applications of nuclear science and technology, radiological protection and radiobiology, the Belgian nuclear research centre S.C.K. E.N. has garnered a reputation as an outstanding centre of research, training and education. Functioning as a task force within S.C.K. E.N., the international school for Radiological Protection (i.s.R.P.) initiates and manages training and research projects and contributes to related activities on national and international level. I.s.R.P. activities are situated on three axes: Coordination and organisation of training and education programmes on radiological protection The i.s.R.P. training activities deal with all aspects of radiological protection and are directed to the private, medical and industrial nuclear sector, national and international policy organisations, the political and academic world and the general public. Courses are also organised in cooperation with technical high schools, universities and public and private health services. In addition, i.s.R.P. is involved in international research networks and training programmes, such as those of the European Commission and the IAEA. The i.s.R.P. team of lecturers includes technicians, physicists, biologists, medical doctors, engineers and social scientists, who all bring insights and ideas from their specific background into the course programmes. As S.C.K. E.N. staff members, they have a solid knowledge and experience in their field, and can thus directly transfer their theoretical knowledge and practical experience to the various courses. Course programmes are composed together with the customer, drawing from the set of basic and expertise course modules and completed with technical visits. The basic modules textbooks exist in Dutch, French and English. In addition, all course modules and visits can be lectured and guided in Dutch, French or English. Research on trans-disciplinary aspects of education