Understanding structure-function relationships and mechanisms of signal transduction in G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) is becoming increasingly important, both as a fundamental problem in membrane biology and as a consequence of their central role as pharmacological targets. Their integral membrane nature and rather low natural abundance present many challenging problems. Using a recently ...

OBJECTIVES This paper outlines the potential strategies to identify the poor, and assesses their feasibility, efficiency and equity. Analyses are illustrated for the case of premium exemptions under National Health Insurance (NHI) in Ghana. METHODS A literature search in Medline search was performed to identify strategies to identify the poor. Models were developed including information on de...

From the orientation studies performed so far, both ways to recycle Am in PWR/MOX cores, homogeneous in MOX or heterogeneous in target pins, appear feasible, provided that enriched UO2 is used as support of the MOX fuel. Multiple recycling can then proceed and stabilise Pu and Am quantities. With respect to the Pu multiple recycling strategy, recycling Am in addition needs 1/3 more U, and creat...

During the past several years, a comprehensive high fidelity reactor core modeling capability has been developed called the Numerical Nuclear Reactor (NNR) for detailed analysis of Light Water Reactors. The project was initially sponsored as part of a US-ROK collaborative DOE I-NERI project and the past two years has been sponsored by EPRI to address specific fuel performance issues as part of ...

NOTICE This report was prepared under an international cooperative agreement for the exchange of technical information. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, or any of their employees, makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for any third party's use, or the results of such use, of any information, apparatus product or pr...

This paper demonstrates the applicability of Monte Carlo analysis to perform nuclear reactor core simulations with thermofluid feedback from a computational fluid dynamics code. An interface program, McSTAR, was written to couple MCNP5 to the commercial computational fluid dynamics code STAR-CD. McStar is a Perl script which alternately executes MCNP5, STAR-CD and cross section update routines ...

ABSTRACT The pressurized water reactor type power plant has a sophisticated automatic control systems. On the primary side, The Control rod system and the Soluble boron control the core neutron flux. On the secondary side, output steam is controlled by the turbine control valve and steam dump system. During the automatic control mode, the two sides work in a synchronized way so that transition ...

The reliability is the probability that a device will perform its required function under stated conditions for a specified period of time. The Common Cause Failure (CCFs) is the multiple failures and has long been recognized (U.S. NRC, 1975) as an important issue in the Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) and uncertainty and sensitivity analysis has the important information for the evaluati...

BACKGROUND The relationship of the genotype for the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) with exercise capacity or training effects has been studied in athletes or healthy persons, but recently the ACE DD genotype was reported to be associated with decreased exercise capacity in patients with congestive heart failure. Therefore, in the present study the association between the ACE genotype and e...

In a Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR), most internal radiation exposure is attributed to tritium. Carbon-14 is not a dominant nuclide in the radiation exposure of workers, but it is one of the potential nuclide that needs to be monitored. Carbon-14 is a low energy beta emitter and passes relatively easily into the body of workers by inhalation because its dominant chemical form is radioac...