Dynamic analysis environment for nuclear forensic analyses

Abstract

A Dynamic Analysis Environment (DAE) software package is introduced to facilitate group inclusion/exclusion method testing, evaluation and comparison for pre-detonation nuclear forensics applications. Employing DAE, the multivariate signatures of a questioned material can be compared to the signatures for different, known groups, enabling the linking of the questioned material to its potential process, location, or fabrication facility. Advantages of using DAE for group inclusion/exclusion include built-in query tools for retrieving data of interest from a database, the recording and documentation of all analysis steps, a clear visualization of the analysis steps intelligible to a non-expert, and the ability to integrate analysis tools developed in different programming languages. Two group inclusion/exclusion methods are implemented in DAE: principal component analysis, a parametric feature extraction method, and k nearest neighbors, a nonparametric pattern recognition method. Spent Fuel Isotopic Composition (SFCOMPO), an open source international database of isotopic compositions for spent nuclear fuels (SNF) from 14 reactors, is used to construct PCA and KNN models for known reactor groups, and 20 simulated SNF samples are utilized in evaluating the performance of these group inclusion/exclusion models. For all 20 simulated samples, PCA in conjunction with the Q statistic correctly excludes a large percentage of reactor groups and correctly includes the true reactor of origination. Employing KNN, 14 of the 20 simulated samples are classified to their true reactor of origination.

Using lead isotope ratios to distinguish between samples of diffrent uranium mines

“…Signatures are measurable attributes of nuclear fuel cycles [7]. Therefore nuclear forensic analysis is a key technical capability that utilizes signatures inherent to nuclear or other radioactive material to provide information on its source, production and history [8,9]. This study investigates the application of lead isotopic ratios and lanthanides pattern in nuclear forensics.…”

Forensic Discrimination Potential of Blue, Black, Green, and Red Colored Fountain Pen Inks Commercially Used in Pakistan, by UV/Visible Spectroscopy, Thin Layer Chromatography, and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

“…More recently, for statistical representation, multivariate analysis has become popular among the researchers for forensic discrimination of samples of paper [16], inks [17–20], toner [21], counterfeit currency [22], determination of age [23], examination of soil [24], analysis of fibers [25], and nuclear forensic [26]. In this study, the sample size (n=5 replica) is too small to run multivariate analysis.…”