N. Kumar

Fabrication Technologies for ThO2-based Fuel

Fuel fabrication technology, particularly once through utilization of uranium, has been mastered over the years. However, with the increasing demand of electricity at an affordable cost and depleting resources of uranium, introduction of thorium in the fuel cycle has become essential. The large-scale utilization of thorium requires adoption of closed fuel cycle scheme. Many of the fuel cycle technologies developed for uranium can be readily adopted for thorium, however, the man-rem problem associated with this fuel is a major concern. Therefore, fuel fabricators have, in recent past, initiated new R&D programs to solve this problem either through elimination of powder handling or making the unit operations of the production process amenable to remote handling and automation.

Application of TXRF for burn leach test of TRISO coated UO2 particles

AbstractnA Total Reflection X-Ray Fluorescence (TXRF) methodology, employing burn-leach test, was developed to assess the quality of SiC layer in tristructural isotropic (TRISO) coated UO2 particles prepared in BARC. The coated particles were heated at 1,123xa0K for about 96xa0h to constant weight. The calcined particles, thus obtained, were then heated in suprapure concentrated nitric acid. The supernatant was analysed for trace elements by TXRF. No uranium was detected in this supernatant solution. The study demonstrates the good quality of SiC layer and applicability of TXRF for burn leach test of TRISO coated UO2 particles prepared.

Genital lesions: An indication for changing ART regimen

Genital lesions are common in HIV positive patients and aetiology for these are mainly due to HSV, HPV or bacterial. They usually respond to HAART, antiviral or antimicrobials. We are presenting a young patient on HAART with non-healing genital ulcer lesions for sixteen months. He responded well to a change in ART regimen within a period of 15 days. This happened after a change to a more potent ART regimen.

Application of molecular markers to find out classificatory determinants of rice ( Oryza sativa L.)

The present communication is aimed to find out determinants of molecular marker based classification of rice (Oryza sativa L) germplasm using the available data from an experiment conducted for development of molecular fingerprints of diverse varieties of Basmati and non Basmati rice adapted to irrigated and aerobic agro-eco systems. The distance-matrix based dendrogram was developed following UPGMA method that grouped all the 44 varieties agro-eco systems wise. We examined the clustering of Basmati and non- Basmati varieties in detail. The results suggest that the easily distinguishable simple characters viz. plant height, photosensitivity, leaf color, awn’s color, awns’ number etc., governed by major genes did not contribute significantly towards classification of rice genotypes used. The complex characters such as adaptation to agro-eco systems and rice quality may play vital role in determination of molecular marker based classification of rice genotypes. Key word: Basmati rice, molecular markers, genetic diversity, agro-eco systems, rice quality