IPLR: An online resource for Greek word-level and sublexical information

We present a new online psycholinguistic resource for Greek based on analyses of written corpora combined with text processing technologies developed at the Institute for Language & Speech Processing (ILSP), Greece. The "ILSP PsychoLinguistic Resource" (IPLR) is a freely accessible service via a dedicated web page, at http://speech.ilsp.gr/iplr. IPLR provides analyses of user-submitted letter strings (words and nonwords) as well as frequency tables for important units and conditions such as syllables, bigrams, and neighbors, calculated over two word lists based on printed text corpora and their phonetic transcription. Online tools allow retrieval of words matching user-specified orthographic or phonetic patterns. All results and processing code (in the Python programming language) are freely available for noncommercial educational or research use. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

The use of Th in HTR: State of the art and implementation in Th/Pu fuel cycles

Nowadays nuclear is the only greenhouse-free source that can appreciably respond to the increasing worldwide energy demand. The use of Thorium in the nuclear energy production may offer some advantages to accomplish this task. Extensive R&D on the thorium fuel cycle has been conducted in many countries around the world. Starting from the current nuclear waste policy, the EU-PUMA project focuses on the potential benefits of using the HTR core as a Pu/MA transmuter. In this paper the following aspects have been analysed: (1) the state-of-the-art of the studies on the use of Th in different reactors, (2) the use of Th in HTRs, with a particular emphasis on Th-Pu fuel cycles, (3) an original assessment of Th-Pu fuel cycles in HTR. Some aspects related to Thorium exploitation were outlined, particularly its suitability for working in pebble-bed HTR in a Th-Pu fuel cycle. The influence of the Th/Pu weight fraction at BOC in a typical HTR pebble was analysed as far as the reactivity trend versus burn-up, the energy produced per Pu mass, and the Pu isotopic composition at EOC are concerned. Although deeper investigations need to be performed in order to draw final conclusions, it is possible to state that some optimized Th percentage in the initial Pu/Th fuel could be suggested on the basis of the aim we are trying to reach. Copyright © 2009 Guido Mazzini et al.