Using UV light to separate rare earth metals

Using UV light to separate rare earth metals

Published 12 May 2015

Europium and yttrium are two rare earth metals that are commonly used in sustainable technology and high-tech applications. As these rare earth metals are difficult to mine, there is a great interest in recycling them. Researchers have discovered a method to separate europium and yttrium with UV light instead of with traditional solvents. Their findings offer new opportunities for the recycling of fluorescent lamps and low-energy light bulbs.

Researchers from the KU Leuven Department of Chemical Engineering have discovered a method to separate two rare earth elements — europium and yttrium — with UV light instead of with traditional solvents. Their findings, which were published in Green Chemistry, offer new opportunities for the recycling of fluorescent lamps and low-energy light bulbs.
Europium and yttrium are two rare earth metals that are commonly used in sustainable technology and high-tech applications. As these rare earth metals are difficult to mine, there is a great interest in recycling them. Europium and yttrium can be recovered from red lamp phosphor, a powder that is used in fluorescent lamps such as neon tubes.

Seismic safety of nuclear power plants in Scandinavia to improve

Seismic safety of nuclear power plants in Scandinavia to improve

Published 12 May 2015

 

Since the Fukushima accident, Nordic nuclear power plant areas have given greater priority to understanding the safety implications of seismic events. The Technical Research Center of Finland (VTT) and various Nordic players are co-developing new methods of making seismic hazard estimates of anticipated earthquakes in Fennoscandia — the region comprising the Scandinavian Peninsula, Finland, Karelia, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia.

Since the Fukushima accident, Nordic nuclear power plant areas have given greater priority to understanding the safety implications of seismic events. The Technical Research Center of Finland (VTT) and various Nordic players are co-developing new methods of making seismic hazard estimates of anticipated earthquakes in Fennoscandia — the region comprising the Scandinavian Peninsula, Finland, Karelia, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia.
Little source modelling-based measurement data is available on earthquakes in stable continental areas. A VTT release reports that on 8 May 2015, VTT organized a workshop aimed at identifying and sharing the relevant Nordic data.
An upcoming four-year project will also involve updating existing earthquake source modelling techniques and developing new ground motion simulation models for stable continental regions, particularly the Fennoscandian Shield.
A thorough empirical analysis has been conducted, but a lack of empirical observations of ground motion close to actual, high-magnitude earthquakes in Fennoscandia has impeded our understanding of the seismic load caused by a potential earthquake close to a nuclear power plant. Recent developments in calculation methods are enabling the formation of calculation models that generate realistic estimates of earthquake loads.
VTT notes that the project’s network of experts will focus on areas at low risk of seismic activity in the Nordic countries and further strengthen cooperation between VTT and Uppsala University in seismic source modelling.
In this project, the partners of VTT will be Aalto University, the University of Helsinki, Uppsala University, GEUS Geological Survey of Denmark and the Nordic leader in technical consulting, ÅF. The project will be funded by NKS Nordic Nuclear Safety Research.
The project’s long-term goal will be to expand cooperation of this kind to cover the Baltic countries.
The project results will not only provide the background information required for the safety assessment of nuclear power plants, but will also be important with regard to final disposal repositories for nuclear waste. In addition, the results will be useful for the National Nuclear Power Plant Safety Research (SAFIR2018) program’s NEST project.

Tests with Sandia’s Davis gun aid B61-12 life extension effort

Tests with Sandia’s Davis gun aid B61-12 life extension effort

Published 12 May 2015

Three years of design, planning and preparation came down to a split second, a loud boom and an enormous splash in a successful impact test of hardware in the nose assembly of an unarmed, mock B61-12 nuclear bomb. The Sandia National Laboratories test also captured data that will allow analysts to validate computer models of the bomb, part of Sandia’s decade-long effort in the B61-12 Life Extension Program (LEP). An LEP is a way to extend the life of an aging weapon without adding new military capability. The B61-12 LEP is an $8.1 billion National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) program coordinated across the nation’s nuclear security enterprise.

Three years of design, planning and preparation came down to a split second, a loud boom and an enormous splash in a successful impact test of hardware in the nose assembly of an unarmed, mock B61-12 nuclear bomb.

The Sandia National Laboratories test also captured data that will allow analysts to validate computer models of the bomb, part of Sandia’s decade-long effort in the B61-12 Life Extension Program (LEP). An LEP is a way to extend the life of an aging weapon without adding new military capability. The B61-12 LEP is an $8.1 billion National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) program coordinated across the nation’s nuclear security enterprise.
A Sandia Lab release reports that Sandia is working with the NNSA, the program lead, and five NNSA partner sites, industry partners and the U.S. Air Force, the B61-12 customer.
The test, the first of three with Sandia’s cannon-like Davis gun, shot the assembly and its diagnostics into an 8-foot-deep steel-reinforced concrete water tank with a soil-filled bunker underneath to capture the hardware. The packed-dirt bunker makes it easier for engineers to recover data recorders and reusable parts and ensures that a test piece isn’t damaged.
The tests were designed to validate a systems requirement for the B61-12 and represented a worst-case scenario: a slow velocity into a soft target, in this case, 10,500 gallons of water. Shots were set for a prescribed velocity and angle to validate the impact sensor response for ground fuzing and to help understand the design margin, said Tyler Keil, lead engineer for the B61-12 Davis gun test series.
Keil and more than a dozen colleagues who worked on the test watched the 28 January shot from a hill a half-mile from the mobile Davis gun, stationed at New Mexico Tech’s Energetic Materials Research & Testing Center (EMRTC) in the hills west of the Socorro campus.
“Awesome” test highlighted years of work
“It was awesome,” Keil said after the shot. Keil, who worked toward the test for more than three years, brought team members to EMRTC so they could watch a highlight of their work: shooting a mock bomb out of the gun. Waning sunlight meant waiting until the next day to recover test data, and Keil joked he had “determine how happy I really am” after seeing that data.
The Davis gun series marked the end of testing for the nose design, and by the end of the week, Keil knew the test had captured what the team needed. “Our team will assess these data, make note of any findings we see where improvements are needed to meet requirements, brainstorm ideas to address the findings and incorporate them into the next design,” Keil said. “We’ll then repeat the tests on the new design to verify that the changes were successful.”
Manager Doug Dederman, whose department conducted the test, explained how the gun works: Imagine the barrel as a straw, open at both ends, with an explosive charge sandwiched between the test nose assembly and a 2,000-pound steel slug, called the reaction mass. The test component and reaction mass are simultaneously blown out opposite ends of the barrel, the test piece slamming into the water of the adjacent pool and underlying bunker, and the reaction mass arcing to land behind a small hill. Using a reaction mass eliminates the recoil load in the gun chassis during firing.
Crews from Sandia and EMRTC spent most of two days in final test preparations. On test day, the nose assembly, mounted on an aluminum tube to replicate the B61-12 body, sat in a stand about 200 yards from the pool. There it waited until time to load it into the 40-foot long, 16-inch diameter barrel of the white Davis gun, stark against the backdrop of blue sky and a red jagged volcanic hill.
It took more than twenty minutes to move the projectile with the attached nose assembly from the stand to the gun. The crew removed the assembly stand brackets, then suspended the projectile from the tines of a forklift equipped with a long hydraulic boom. They steadied the projectile with tag lines as the forklift driver maneuvered up a dirt ramp to the Davis gun. There, it was bracketed into another stand to hold and roll it under the barrel where it was attached to a threaded rod and drawn up into the vertical barrel. The gun’s dual-sheave hoisting system minimized rotation as the projectile was lifted into position in the barrel.
Capturing footage from the test
High-speed cameras positioned at three levels in window ports in a hut on one side of the pool and flash bulbs in a hut on the other side were synchronized with the gun’s explosive charge to catch the action underwater.
The release notes that as the arming and firing crew finished final preparations, everyone else evacuated to the viewing area for safety. The gun — which can be set at any angle — was tilted to firing position, the end with the nose piece pointed toward the pool. The crew at the gun finished local arming preparations and drove to the remote gun firing trailer below the hill at the viewing area. A roll call assured that everyone was accounted for and away from the test site. The gunner announced “Charged,” counted down “five, four, three, two, one” and fired the gun just before 4 p.m.
Water splashed into the air as the nose assembly hit the pool and a cloud of smoke drifted from the raised end as the reaction mass flew behind a hill well away from the action and the observers. “The reaction mass landed just where we expected it to, a first indication that we are close to the velocity we wanted,” Keil said.
Once the firing crew gave the all-clear, onlookers returned to the site and climbed onto the steel platform around the pool. Water had splashed a large radius of the dirt clearing around the pool, and the rest drained into a ramp leading down to the bunker. A large plastic tube dropped into the ramp with an attached fireman’s hose siphoned the remaining water toward a nearby arroyo while a member of the crew shoveled mud out of the bunker to locate the test piece for the next day’s excavation.
About an hour after the firing, a small convoy of vans and pickups drove back across a winding dirt road through the hills to EMRTC headquarters. Some of the crew would be back the next day to recover the data recorders so engineering analysts could begin their work. Analysts will spend the next year using the data to calibrate their models, then explore impact scenarios that weren’t tested to evaluate the impact sensor’s performance.
“The B61-12 LEP has performed several impact tests of various target types and velocities over the last year to verify its ground fuzing performance,” Keil said. “The Davis gun test series specifically tests the B61-12 ground fuzing performance during a water impact. All of the impact testing contributes to how reliably the B61-12 will fuze upon a ground impact.”

 

U.S. funding has supported Mexican government bodies accused of murders, crimes, abuses

U.S. funding has supported Mexican government bodies accused of murders, crimes, abuses

Published 12 May 2015

Over the past year, Mexican authorities have been implicated in cases involving the deaths of hundreds of civilians whose bodies were later found in mass graves. Most of these authorities work for local law enforcement and federal security agencies, which might have received funding from U.S. government programs created to combat Mexico’s illegal drug trade. In 2013, 98.3 percent of crimes in Mexico went unpunished, according to Mexican government statistics. Of the hundreds of mass graves discovered in Mexico in recent years, federal prosecutors have reported opening just fifteen investigations between 2011 and April 2015.

Over the past year, Mexican authorities have been implicated in cases involving the deaths of hundreds of civilians whose bodies were later found in mass graves. Most of these authorities work for local law enforcement and federal security agencies, which might have received funding from U.S. government programs created to combat Mexico’s illegal drug trade.
U.S. government documents obtained by the National Security Archive through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal that the Obama administration is aware that its funding could have supported Mexican authorities connected to abuses, yet, with few exceptions, the money continues to reach Mexico.
Last September, forty-three male students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College of Ayotzinapa in the Mexican city of Iguala were kidnapped. The Mexican government has sought to portray the kidnapping as the work of local government officials and their drug cartel accomplices, but evidence has led residents to believe that state officials had a part to play.
The search for the students has led to twenty-eight bodies found in nearby mass graves. None of the bodies matched the missing Ayotzinapa students, but an October 2014 internal report from the U.S. Army’s Northern Command noted that the graves raised “alarming questions about the widespread nature of cartel violence in the region and the level of government complicity.”
According to theIntercept, the Northern Command also responded to the case of a Mexican army officer and seven soldiers who had recently been arrested for killing twenty-two people last June in Tlatlaya, in the state of Mexico. The commander of the military zone overseeing the battalion responsible for the Tlatlaya killings was put under investigation by the Mexican military, and if he were to be implicated in “a gross human rights violation,” the Northern Command report noted, “the entire military zone and 10,000 personnel will be ineligible for U.S. security cooperation assistance.”
The Leahy Law, introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) prohibits U.S. assistance to foreign security forces credibly believed to have committed a gross human rights violation.
Since fiscal year 2008, the U.S. government has spent roughly $2.3 billion on security aid to Mexico, largely through the Mérida Initiative, a counter-drug strategy modeled on Plan Colombia, through which the United States spent billions of dollars to combat that country’s drug war. U.S. security aid to Mexico comes in addition to direct sales of arms and other equipment, which totaled over $1.15 billion in 2014 alone.
The Obama administration has shifted the emphasis of Mérida funds from military hardware to programs focused on institutional reform, including training local law enforcement, but even with all the financial assistance and training from the United States, the Mexican government has done a poor job of investigating and punishing the perpetrators of recent crimes. In 2013, 98.3 percent of crimes in Mexico went unpunished, according to Mexican government statistics. Of the hundreds of mass graves discovered in Mexico in recent years, federal prosecutors have reported opening just fifteen investigations between 2011 and April 2015, according to Article 19, a human rights organization.
The State Department has condemned the Iguala kidnappings, along with other crimes connected to Mexican law enforcement agencies, but the United States continue to support Mexico with security aid. TheIntercept asked the State Department for a list of all Mexican agencies that have been cut off from U.S. funding due to human rights violations since the start of the Mérida Initiative, but the department said such a list was not yet available.
“It’s incomprehensible that they don’t already have that list,” wrote Laura Carlsen, Mexico City-based director of the Americas Program, in an e-mail to theIntercept. “The bigger picture is that this aid does go to human rights violators. U.S. taxpayer dollars are supporting a drug war that emboldens abusive government forces that are executing and disappearing Mexican citizens. No amount of withholding or (human right) conditioning will change that,” Carlsen added.

Terrorists’ personality traits indistinguishable from traits of the general population: Experts

Terrorists’ personality traits indistinguishable from traits of the general population: Experts

Published 12 May 2015

Social scientists and psychologists have not found a personality trait that visibly marks a potential for violent extremism, making it difficult to identify members of a group who may take up arms in support of a common cause. “As of now, there is no specific terrorist profile,” said one expert, who studies violent radicalization. “They come in all shapes and sizes.”Another experts writes that“There are no psychological characteristics or psychopathology that separate terrorists from the general population.”

Social scientists and psychologists have not found a personality trait that visibly marks a potential for violent extremism, making it difficult to identify members of a group who may take up arms in support of a common cause.
“As of now, there is no specific terrorist profile,” said Jocelyn Bélanger, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Quebec at Montreal who studies violent radicalization. “They come in all shapes and sizes.” Research on violent extremism, including interviews with current and former radicals, provide broad lessons on why and how some individuals might become violent radicals.
The Dallas Morning News points out that violent extremism occurs throughout an different communities, and is not limited to religious or political movements. For many individuals who feel humiliated or oppressed, or who seek rewards through heroism or martyrdom, radical movements offer “the highway to significance,” Bélanger said. Mental illness plays almost no part in political or religious terrorism, and while extremists might convince themselves that their actions are justified, research shows that they are not psychotic.
“There is little evidence of major psychoses being implicated, except in a minority of instances,” said Dr. Kamaldeep Bhui, a psychiatrist at Queen Mary University of London who studies violent extremism and is also editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry. In a recent research paper, Bhui and two colleagues wrote that “terrorists are generally well-integrated, ‘normal’ individuals,” not angry, social outcasts like many school shooters.
Psychiatrist Jerrold M. Post, who founded and directed the CIA’s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior during twenty-one years with the agency, and now a professor at George Washington University, echoed that view in a report published last month. “There are no psychological characteristics or psychopathology that separate terrorists from the general population,” wrote Post. “Rather, it is group dynamics, with a particular emphasis on collective identity that helps explain terrorist psychology.” Post added that the Internet can let isolated individuals feel like an important member of “the virtual community of hatred.”
Pete Simi, a criminologist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is not surprised at the normality of violent extremists. Simi and colleagues studied forty-four members of radical American white-supremacist groups. All but four of the study subjects had personally committed acts of politically or racially motivated violence. The research uncovered that many of the study subjects had a high prevalence of childhood trauma, but Simi cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from his study. Childhood background might be a factor in embracing violent ideology, but it is not automatic.
Many people are abused as children, but not all grow up to become abusers. “What is clear is that most people in the general population who experience these conditions do not become violent, let alone violent extremists,” Simi said.

U.S. Navy successfully demonstrates autonomous, swarming UAVs

U.S. Navy successfully demonstrates autonomous, swarming UAVs

Published 11 May 2015

 

A new era in autonomy and unmanned systems for naval operations is on the horizon, as U.S. Navy officials last month announced recent technology demonstrations of swarming unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — part of the Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology (LOCUST) program. LOCUST can launch swarming UAVs to autonomously overwhelm an adversary.

A new era in autonomy and unmanned systems for naval operations is on the horizon, as officials at the Office of Naval Research (ONR) last month announced recent technology demonstrations of swarming unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — part of the Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology (LOCUST) program.
LOCUST can launch swarming UAVs to autonomously overwhelm an adversary. The deployment of UAV swarms will provide sailors and Marines a decisive tactical advantage (watch LOCUST video).
“The recent demonstrations are an important step on the way to the 2016 ship-based demonstration of thirty rapidly launched autonomous, swarming UAVs,” said ONR program manager Lee Mastroianni.
ONR says that the LOCUST program includes a tube-based launcher that can send UAVs into the air in rapid succession. The breakthrough technology then utilizes information-sharing between the UAVs, enabling autonomous collaborative behavior in either defensive or offensive missions. Since the launcher and the UAVs themselves have a small footprint, the technology enables swarms of compact UAVs to take off from ships, tactical vehicles, aircraft, or other unmanned platforms.
The ONR demonstrations, which took place during March in multiple locations, included the launch of Coyote UAVs capable of carrying varying payloads for different missions. Another technology demonstration of nine UAVs accomplished completely autonomous UAV synchronization and formation flight.
ONR officials note that while the LOCUST autonomy is cutting edge compared to remote-controlled UAVs, there will always be a human monitoring the mission, able to step in and take control as desired.
“This level of autonomous swarming flight has never been done before,” said Mastroianni. “UAVs that are expendable and reconfigurable will free manned aircraft and traditional weapon systems to do more, and essentially multiply combat power at decreased risk to the warfighter.”
UAVs reduce hazards and free personnel to perform more complex tasks, as well as requiring fewer people to do multiple missions.
Lowering costs is a major benefit of UAVs as well. Even hundreds of small autonomous UAVs cost less than a single tactical aircraft — and, officials note, having this capability will force adversaries to focus on UAV swarm response.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert’s Sailing Directions to the fleet note that over the next ten to fifteen years, the Navy will evolve and remain the preeminent maritime force. It directs: “Unmanned systems in the air and water will employ greater autonomy and be fully integrated with their manned counterparts.”

Final prototype of tool for spotting buried victims now commercially available

Final prototype of tool for spotting buried victims now commercially available

Published 11 May 2015

 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, last week announced the transition of the final prototype of the Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response (FINDER) technology to the commercial market. The technology proved successful during its first real-world operational use when it was deployed to Nepal following the 25 April earthquake to support international search and rescue efforts in the country.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, last week announced the transition of the final prototype of the Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response (FINDER) technology to the commercial market. FINDER is a radar technology designed to detect heartbeats of victims trapped in wreckage. Two commercial partners have been licensed to manufacture the device: R4 Inc. of Eatontown, New Jersey and SpecOps Group Inc. of Sarasota, Florida.
Last Thursday, S&T and NASA demonstrated its newest capabilities at the Virginia Task Force One (VA-TF1) Training Facility in Lorton, Virginia, finding “survivors” in a simulated disaster. This is thanks to the new locator feature, which can help pinpoint the location of the victim to within about five feet — depending on the type of rubble. This key change saves rescuers time, increasing chances for locating survivors.
S&T says that the technology proved successful during its first real-world operational use when it was deployed to Nepal following the 25 April earthquake to support international search and rescue efforts in the country. David Lewis, president of one of S&T’s commercial partners, R4 Inc., arrived in Nepal with two prototype FINDER devices on 29 April to assist in the rescue efforts. He joined a contingent of international rescuers from China, the Netherlands, Belgium, and members of the Nepali Army in Northern Nepal. Using FINDER, they were able to detect two heartbeats beneath each of two different collapsed structures, allowing the rescue workers to find and save the men. The four men had been trapped beneath the rubble for days in the hard-hit village of Chautara.
“I stopped at every decimated village and used FINDER there,” Lewis explained of his actions in Nepal, crediting the Nepali people with providing invaluable support. “On two separate occasions, FINDER found two heartbeats. Family members were desperate to find trapped people. I am just happy we could be there with FINDER; I am very privileged to be part of the team and effort.”
FINDER’s human-finding abilities were demonstrated through multiple test searches over the past two years with urban search and rescue (US&R) teams in Virginia, Oklahoma, Indiana, New Jersey, Georgia, California, and Illinois.
“The latest operational assessments demonstrated FINDER was successful in locating a VATF-1 member buried in thirty feet of mixed concrete, rebar, and gravel rubble from a distance of over 30 feet,” said John Price, S&T program manager for FINDER. “This capability will complement the current Urban Search and Rescue tools such as canines, listening devices, and video cameras to detect the presence of living victims in rubble.”
“There is no one magic tool that can find everyone. We use FINDER as one of our tools: canines, Delsar listening devices, cameras,” explained VATF-1Captain Randy Bittinger. “FINDER is the only tool that can identify an unconscious, unresponsive individual just by their heartbeat. We don’t have any other tool like it. I want any tool that will help us find any people anywhere in the world.”
In disaster scenarios, such as earthquakes and tornadoes, the wreckage is made up of twisted and shattered materials. Radar signals bounce back so signals are complex.
“Because the victim’s hearts are beating, that signal changes a very small amount,” said Jim Lux, JPL’s FINDER task manager. “So what FINDER can do, is look for those very small changes, determine if they’re from a human heartbeat and it they are, a message will display for the user indicating there is somebody in there.”
S&T notes that it and and R4 Inc. are also evaluating FINDER for additional search and rescue applications such as detecting people in burning buildings.