Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo comparar os resultados obtidos com a aplicação dos métodos de Custeio Baseado em Atividades e do método de Custeio Variável em uma unidade administrativa do Governo Federal, a saber: a Instalação de Radiofarmácia do IPEN (Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares), sendo esta uma unidade de produção de radiofármacos e de pesquisas. Diante da necessidade de se adotar uma visão mais econômica e gerencial da administração pública, a investigação proporcionou informações que permitem avaliar qual dos dois métodos de custeio se mostra mais adequado para a gestão de custos naquela unidade. A pesquisa realizada é de natureza exploratória, bibliográfica e estudo de caso único. Foram rastreados cerca de 80% dos custos relevantes por observação in loco de todo o processo de fabricação do gerador de tecnécio, o qual representa o principal produto em termos de quantidade produzida e faturamento. Os resultados obtidos revelam que a Margem de Contribuição do Custeio Variável de 29,12% é bastante próxima do resultado operacional de 28,86%, antes das atividades de apoio, obtido pelo ABC. Observa-se, também, que o resultado operacional do produto não se altera frente à utilização de um ou outro método de custeio. Nos dois métodos de custeio o resultado final é de 24,20%. Isto ocorre pelo fato de que a produção é sob demanda. Não há estoque de produto acabado por este ser radioativo. A pesquisa revelou, contudo, que ambos os métodos propiciam informações úteis para a gestão e otimização dos custos e dos resultados dos processos/atividades, bem como que os dois métodos no caso em questão, podem ser utilizados de forma integrada e complementar, permitindo que se utilize o melhor conteúdo informativo de ambos. / This research aims to compare the results with the application of Activity Based Costing and Variable Costing methods in an administrative unit of the Brazilian Federal Government: the Radiopharmacy Facility of IPEN (Institute for Energy and Nuclear Research), which produces radiopharmaceuticals products and develops R&D activities. Faced with the need to adopt a more economical and managerial public administration, this research has provided information to assess which of the two costing methods proves more suitable for cost management in that unit. The research is exploratory and a single-case study. We traced about 80% of material costs by observation \"in loco\" of the entire manufacturing process of technetium generator, which represents the main product in terms of production volume and revenues. The results show that the Contribution Margin Variable Costing of 29.12% is very close to the operating income of 28.86%, ahead of support activities, obtained by ABC. It is also noted that the operational result of the product does not change by using either one or another costing method. In the two costing methods the end result is 24.20%. This occurs because the production is on demand. There is no inventory of finished product because it is radioactive. The research has revealed that both methods provide useful information for the management and optimization of costs and results of processes/activities, and that the two methods, in this case, may be used in an integrated and complementary approach, enabling to use the best information content of both.

Hydrogen embrittlement in ferrous and non-ferrous alloys is, and has been for over a century, a prominent issue within many sectors of industry. Despite this, the mechanisms by which hydrogen embrittlement occurs and the suitable means for its prevention are yet to be fully established. As hydrogen fuel becomes a prominent feature in modern concepts of a sustainable global energy infrastructure and nuclear power enters its renaissance, with commercially viable fusion plants on the horizon, hydrogen embrittlement is becoming an ever more pertinent issue. This has led to a considerable demand for novel alloys resistant to hydrogen embrittlement, notably within the bearings industry, where the commonly conflicting properties of high strength and hydrogen embrittlement resistance are required. This work investigates the mechanisms through which hydrogen embrittlement and irradiation damage occur in steels and nickel-based alloys respectively, with novel alloys designed for improved resistance. Through the engineering of secondary phases, optimised for helium and/or hydrogen trapping capacity, the novel alloys present the benefits of such trapping species with respect to embrittlement resistance. Such species have been studied in depth with respect to their interactions with hydrogen, establishing a novel mechanism of hydrogen embrittlement - the hydrogen enhanced dissolution and shearability of precipitates, leading to enhanced localised plasticity.

Renewal of nuclear energy development has been proposed as one viable solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and impacts of climate change. This discussion became concrete as the first uranium mill proposed since the end of the Cold War, the Piñon Ridge Uranium Mill, received state permits in January 2011 to process uranium in southwest Colorado’s Paradox Valley. Though environmental contamination from previous uranium activity caused one local community to be bulldozed to the ground, local support for renewed uranium activity emerges among local residents in communities like Nucla, Naturita, and Bedrock, Colorado. Regionally, however, a coalition of organized, oppositionbased grassroots groups fights the decision to permit the mill. Combined, these events allow social scientists a natural laboratory through which to view social repercussions of nuclear energy development. In this dissertation, I use a Polanyian theoretical framework to analyze social, political-economic, and environmental contexts of social movements surrounding PR Mill. My overarching research problem is: How might Polanyian double movement theory be applied to and made empirically testable within the social and environmental context of uranium development? I intended this analysis to inform energy policy debates regarding renewable energy. In Chapter 1, I found various forms of social dislocation lead to two divergent social movement outcomes. Economic social dislocation led to strong mill support among most local residents, according to archival, in-depth interview, and survey data. On the other hand, residents in regional communities experienced two other types of social dislocation – another kind of economic dislocation, related to concern over boombust economies, and environmental health dislocations related to uranium exposure, creating conditions for a regional movement in opposition to PR Mill. In Chapter 2, I focus on regulations and find that two divergent social movements – a support movement locally and a countermovement against the mill regionally – emerge also as a result of strong faith in regulations, regulators, and Energy Fuels countered by marked distrust in regulations, regulators, and Energy Fuels, respectively. In Chapter 3, I advance Polanyi’s double movement theory by comparing different emergent social movements surrounding uranium, showing that historically different circumstances surrounding uranium can help create conditions for divergent social movements.

<p>This dissertation consists of three interrelated essays examining the role of crisis events in Swedish nuclear energy policymaking. The study takes stock of the idea of ‘crisis exceptionalism’ raised in the literature, which postulates that crisis events provide openings for major policy change. In an effort to explain crisis-induced outcomes in Swedish nuclear energy policy, each essay explores and develops theoretical assumptions derived from the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). The introduction discusses the ACF and other theoretical perspectives accentuating the role of crisis in policymaking and identifies three explanations for crisis-induced policy outcomes: minority coalition mobilization, learning, and strategic action. Essay I analyzes the nature and development of the Swedish nuclear energy subsystem. The results contradict the ACF assumption that corporatist systems nurture narrow subsystems and small advocacy coalitions, but corroborate the assumption that advocacy coalitions remain stable over time. While this analysis identifies temporary openings in policymaking venues and in the advocacy coalition structure, it is argued that these developments did not affect crisis policymaking. Essay II seeks to explain the decision to initiate a referendum on nuclear power following the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Internal government documents and other historical records indicate that strategic considerations superseded learning as the primary explanation in this case. Essay III conducts an in-depth examination of Swedish policymaking in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl accident in an effort to explain the government’s decision not to accelerate the nuclear power phaseout. Recently disclosed government documents show that minority coalition mobilization was insufficient to explain this decision. In this case, rational learning and strategic action provided a better explanation. The main theoretical contribution derived from the three essays is to posit the intensity and breadth of political conflict, strategic action, and analogical reasoning as key factors affecting the propensity for crisis-induced policy change.</p>

Global climate change (GCC) may be the most pressing social and environmental issue of our time. The use of fossil fuels tops the list of human behaviors that contribute to GCC. Several ‘alternative’ energy sources are now being considered in an effort to mitigate GCC, including—controversially—nuclear energy. Examined here were environmental worldview and faith in science as moderators of the relationship between beliefs about and attitudes toward nuclear energy (ATNE). Participants were 272 college students who completed an on-line survey. Predictor variables were beliefs about whether nuclear energy contributes to GCC (GCC-beliefs) and to energy independence (EI-beliefs). Results indicated that environmental worldview moderated the negative relationship between GCC-beliefs and ATNE. Results implied that the effectiveness of arguments salient to the current nuclear energy debate concerning GCC have a medium effect on ATNE except when people are more ecocentric in their environmental worldviews.

This thesis is a history of the beginnings of nuclear research and education in India, between 1938 and 1959, through the trajectories of particle accelerator building activities at three institutions: the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, the Palit Laboratory of Physics, University Science College, Calcutta, later (Saha) Institute of Nuclear Physics, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay. The two main arguments in this thesis are: First, the beginnings of nuclear research in India were rooted in the "modernist imperative" of the research field. However, post-war organisation of nuclear research came to be inextricably imbricated in processes of state-formation in independent India in a manner such that failure to actively engage with the bureaucratic state implied death of a laboratory project or constraints upon legitimately possible research. Second, state-formation, like the pursuit of nuclear research in India for the period of my study, became about India's participation and claim upon the universal. State-formation was equally a modernist imperative. Powerful sections of the nationalist bourgeoisie in India understood "Science" and the "State" as universals in World History, and India, they were convinced, had to confirm its place in history as an equal among equals. These two arguments combined explain how nuclear research came to be established, transformed, and extended through the gradual assembly of material infrastructure to realistically enable the new country take a capable decision on the nuclear question.

Thesis (M.E.S.)--Evergreen State College, 2009. / "June, 2009." Title from title screen (viewed 3/16/2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 150-171).

A family of top-down statistical models describing energy consumption in the mining, milling, and refining of uranium are formulated. The purpose of the models is to estimate the energy-to-grade dependence for uranium extraction, while defining a minimum grade that can be feasibly mined and produced. The results serve as a basis for understanding the factors governing energy consumption in the production of U3O8. The models are applied to a considerably larger data set of operating mines than in any previous effort. In addition, the validity of the modeling approach is established by modeling energy for two other commodities, gold and copper, thereby showing it can be applied to other metals. Statistical measures of explanatory power show that the models the energy-to-grade relationship is well-described for both uranium and gold. For copper, there was insufficient data over a broad range of ore grades to obtain a model that passed statistical confidence measures. The results show that mining of lower-grade deposits of uranium is likely to be less energy-intensive than previous investigators concluded. It is shown that the uncertainty in the results is dominated by the contribution of the grade-independent component of energy consumption. / text

Theories of nuclear weapons proliferation cannot fully account for the nuances of certain cases because proliferation is a complex process involving numerous variables, the importance of which can potentially shift across time. This seems especially true when applied to the case of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) where motivations have shifted in relevance numerous times in its proliferation history. In order to investigate this, this thesis reviews extant theories of nuclear proliferation and their ability to explain the case of the DPRK by critically examining its historical nuclear progress and nuclear weapons ambitions across time. The result is that indeed, proliferation theories are ill-equipped to completely account for the DPRK’s nuclear choices. The DPRK has ostensibly been motivated by numerous variables at different times, each having varying degrees of influence, inexplicable for mono-causal and often western and ethno-centric accounts of its proliferation motivations.

This dissertation consists of three interrelated essays examining the role of crisis events in Swedish nuclear energy policymaking. The study takes stock of the idea of ‘crisis exceptionalism’ raised in the literature, which postulates that crisis events provide openings for major policy change. In an effort to explain crisis-induced outcomes in Swedish nuclear energy policy, each essay explores and develops theoretical assumptions derived from the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). The introduction discusses the ACF and other theoretical perspectives accentuating the role of crisis in policymaking and identifies three explanations for crisis-induced policy outcomes: minority coalition mobilization, learning, and strategic action. Essay I analyzes the nature and development of the Swedish nuclear energy subsystem. The results contradict the ACF assumption that corporatist systems nurture narrow subsystems and small advocacy coalitions, but corroborate the assumption that advocacy coalitions remain stable over time. While this analysis identifies temporary openings in policymaking venues and in the advocacy coalition structure, it is argued that these developments did not affect crisis policymaking. Essay II seeks to explain the decision to initiate a referendum on nuclear power following the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Internal government documents and other historical records indicate that strategic considerations superseded learning as the primary explanation in this case. Essay III conducts an in-depth examination of Swedish policymaking in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl accident in an effort to explain the government’s decision not to accelerate the nuclear power phaseout. Recently disclosed government documents show that minority coalition mobilization was insufficient to explain this decision. In this case, rational learning and strategic action provided a better explanation. The main theoretical contribution derived from the three essays is to posit the intensity and breadth of political conflict, strategic action, and analogical reasoning as key factors affecting the propensity for crisis-induced policy change.