Maintaining fuel sheath integrity during dry storage is important. Intact sheath acts as the primary containment barrier for both fuel pellets and fission products over the dry storage periods and during subsequent fuel handling operations. In KNF, in-house fuel performance code was developed to predict the overall behavior of a fuel rod under normal operating conditions. It includes the analysis modules to predict temperature, pellet cracking and deformation, sheath stress and strain at the mid-plane of the pellet and pellet-pellet interfaces, fission gas release and internal gas pressure. The main focus of the code is to provide information on initial conditions prior to dry storage, such as fission gas inventory and its distribution within the fuel pellet, initial volumes of storage spaces and their locations, radial profile of heat generation within the pellet, etc. To upgrade the developed code that address all the damage mechanisms, the first step was a review of the available technical information on phenomena relevant to fuel integrity. Potential degradation mechanisms that may affect sheath integrity of CANDU spent fuel during dry storage are: creep rupture under internal gas pressure, sheath oxidation in air environment, stress corrosion cracking (SCC), delayed hydride cracking (DHC), and sheath splitting due to UO2 oxidation for a defective fuel. The failure by creep rupture, SCC or DHC is in the form of small cracks or punctures. The failure by sheath oxidation or sheath splitting due to UO2 oxidation results in a gross sheath rupture. The second step was to examine the technical bases of all modules of the in-house code, identify and extend the ranges of all modules to required operating ranges. This step assessed the degradation mechanisms for the fuel integrity. The objective of this assessment is to predict the probability of sheath through-wall failure by a degradation mechanisms as a function of the sheath temperature during dry storage. Further improvements being considered include upgrades of the analysis module to achieve sufficient accuracy in key output parameters. The emphasis in the near future will be on validation of the inhouse code according to a rigorous and formal methodology. The developed models provide a platform for research and industrial applications, including the design of fuel behavior experiments and prediction of safe operating margins for CANDU spent fuel.

Currently, as the saturation capacity of wet storage pool for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) of PWR in Korea has reached approximately 75%, Dry Storage Facilities (DSF) are necessary for sustainable operation of nuclear power plants. It is necessary to develop acceptance requirements for the delivery of SNF from reactor storage site to Centralized DSF. To do this end, the mechanical integrity of SNF is directly related to its repacking, retrieving, and transporting/handling performances. And also, this integrity is a key factor associated with the criticality safety that is connected to the damaged status of SNF. According to the NUREG/CR-6835, the NRC expects that the potential for nuclear fuel failures will increase because of the increase of the fuel discharge burnup and the degradation of fuel and clad material properties. Due to such damages and/or degradation, the fuel rods in the fuel assembly may be extracted and empty for following treatments (transportation, storage, handling etc). This condition can have a detrimental effect on the criticality safety of SNF. Thus, this study investigated whether extracted and empty of damaged SNF rod affects criticality safety. In this analysis, it is assumed that up to four fuel rods are missed. As a result of the analysis, As the number of fuel rods miss up to a certain number, the value of multiplication factor value of the fuel assembly increases. In addition, since the fuel rods located at the outermost layer contained relatively less fissile material than the fuel rods located center of the lattice, and neutrons were lost by the absorption material, the effective multiplication factor value gradually decreased. Nevertheless, the criticality safety was assessed to be maintained.

Flexible transparent conducting films (TCFs) were fabricated by dip-coating single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) onto a flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film. The amount of coated SWCNTs was controlled simply by dipping number. Because the performance of SWCNT-based TCFs is influenced by both electrical conductance and optical transmittance, we evaluated the film performance by introducing a film property factor using both the number of interconnected SWCNT bundles at intersection points, and the coverage of SWCNTs on the PET substrate, in field emission scanning electron microscopic images. The microscopic film property factor was in an excellent agreement with the macroscopic one determined from electrical conductance and optical transmittance measurements, especially for a small number of dippings. Therefore, the most crucial factor governing the performance of the SWCNT-based TCFs is a SWCNT-network structure with a large number of intersection points for a minimum amount of deposited SWCNTs.

Selenium was initially considered toxic to humans, but it was then discovered that selenium is essential for normal life processes. Selenium plays important roles in antioxidants. It is expected that chitosan microcapsules containing nano-selenium will be able to be used as a key material in bio-medical and cosmetic applications. The high concentration of chitosan derivatives guaranteesincreased antioxidative activity. Both inorganic and organic forms of selenium can be nutritional sources. The antioxidant properties of selenoproteins help prevent cellular damage from free radicals. The objective of this experiment was to study the antioxidative activity of chitosan nano-selenium. Our experiments were divided into five groups, in the presence of various concentrations(0.1%, 0.3%, 0.5%, 0.7%, and 0.9%) of chitosan. We performed an assessment of the antioxidant properties and cytotoxicity of respective concentrations of chitosan nano-selenium. The antioxidant activity was examined by the free radical scavenging activity on 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl(DPPH) assay. The cytotoxicity effect was measured by means of 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazole-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide(MTT) assay. As a result, the electron donating abilities of 0.1%, 0.3%, 0.5%, 0.7%, and 0.9% of chitosan nano-selenium exhibited effective andioxidant scavenging activity at 12.5 ㎍/㎖ against DPPH radicals. 0.3% chitosan nano-selenium did not show cytotoxicity on human keratinocytes. In general, the cytotoxicity of 0.1% and 0.9% chitosan nano-selenium showed the lowest effects. Though low cytotoxicity of 0.5% and 0.7% chitosan nano-selenium exhibited 29.67% and 38.4% against human keratinocytes on adding 100 ㎍/㎖ and 50 ㎍/㎖, respectively, cell vitality was recovered with 200 ㎍/㎖. These findings support the notion that chitosan nano-selenium may be useful as a new active ingredient source for bioactive compounds.

A comparison of the growth, hematological values, fatty acids, and gonadal and growth hormonal changes of river puffer, Takifugu obscurus, tiger puffer, T. rubripes, their hybrids (river puffer × tiger puffer) and hybrid triploids was performed during 3 months of their early growth period. Several features were observed during these 3 months: hybrids showed the highest levels of specific growth rate, 1.48%; hybrid triploids showed the smallest change in viscera fat (P<0.05), but GSI was not significantly different among groups (P>0.05). Considering hematological parameters, hybrid triploids had increased mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular hemoglobin (P<0.05), but other parameters were not significantly different between groups (P>0.05). With respect to fatty acids, puffer fish, hybrids and hybrid triploids contained fatty acids such as SFAs, MUFAs, n-3 PUFAs and n-6 PUFAs. There were significantly different amounts of total fatty acids between groups (P<0.05), however, rates of changes in fatty acids did not differ significantly between groups (P>0.05). Gonadal hormone (estradiol and testosterone) changes in the river puffer and tiger puffer were significantly higher than that observed in hybrids and hybrid triploids. The hybrids and tiger puffers had higher amounts of growth hormone (thyroid stimulating hormone and thyroxine) than the hybrid triploids and river puffers (P<0.05).

We assessed the effects of various dietary conditions on the growth, phenotypic traits, and morphometric dimensions of rock bream, Oplegnathus fasciatus and on the morphometric dimensions of sectioned olive flounder, Paralichthys olivaceus. Rock bream in the fed group increased in body weight, standard length, and condition factor, but these parameters decreased significantly for fish in the starved group (P < 0.05). The head connection dimensions of fish in the fed group decreased, while for starved fish there was increase in external morphometric dimensions (P < 0.05). In both species, sectioned morphometric analysis revealed that fish in the fed group had a larger body circumference and cross-cut sectional area, and greater cross-cut section height, relative to the starved group (P < 0.05).

Waste gasification can generate hydrocarbon gases that may be utilized for the synthesis of chemicals or liquid fuels, or for fuel cell power generation, if extensive, deep syngas cleaning is initially conducted. Conventional gas cleaning technology for such applications is expensive and may limit the feasibility of wet technology. Conventional cold gas cleanup (scrubbing by solvents) technique needs the temperature of raw waste gasification gas ranging from 900 to 1600℃ reduced to room temperature. Then, the cleaned - up syngas needs to be reheated. Obviously, the process is energetically inefficient. It is the objective of this study to economically meet the most stringent cleanup requirements without reheating syngas for these applications. We investigated the temperature and pressure effect in breakthrough performance of various sorbents for desulfurization and de-chlorination. Based on the results obtained during the desulfurization (Fe₂O₃, Fe₃O₄, ZnO) and the dechlorination (Na₂CO₃, NaHCO₃, Na₂O) screening tests, ZnO and Na₂O were selected as preferred optimum sorbents. H₂S breakthrough time corresponds to an effective capacity of approximately 11 g Cl/100 g of material. Also, HCl, breakthrough time corresponds to an effective capacity of approximately 5 g Cl/100 g of material. ZnO and Na₂O at high temperature of around 550℃ display high sorption performance and removal efficiency for waste syngas along with H₂S and HCl. Although there is an issue of CO₂ recovery in warm gas clean-up technology for desulfurization, we have obtained an interesting new alternative warm gas clean-up system with heat budget merit.

Laparoscopic appendectomy using three trocars has been widely performed. Recently, a single incision laparoscopic surgical procedure has become popular because it is less invasive. We report on our early experience in performance of single incision laparoscopic appendectomy (SIL-A). Data on the operating time, the duration to make the pneumoperitoneum, body mass index (BMI), rate of conversion to another operation, complication, hospital stay, dosage of analgesics, and pain score were collected prospectively at two centers. Twenty seven patients underwent SIL-A. The mean BMI was 23.3±3.1 kg/m2 (17.6-30.5). The mean time required to make a pneumoperitoneum was 9.9±5.0 minutes (5.0-28.0). The mean operating time was 37.6±26.7 minutes (10.0-100.0). The rate of intra-operative complication was 3.7% (1/27), and the rate of post-operative complication was 22.2% (6/27). The mean hospital stay was 4.1±1.2 days (2-6). The immediately postoperative pain score was 5.4±1.5 (3-8), however, the pain score at discharge was 0.4±0.7 (0-2). The mean dosage of analgesics was 1.5±1.3(0-4), however, none of the patients took analgesics after postoperative three days. SIL-A is feasible but requires improved instrumentation and experience.