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Volume 3, Number 2
September 2005

Chapter Reports

Central Chapter

Fall 2004 Central Chapter Nonproliferation Conference
The conference was held on Nov. 17-18, 2004, at the Doubletree Hotel in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The participants totaled 93 including vendors, presenters and INMM Central Region Chapter officers. Eighteen papers were presented. The keynote speaker, Laura Holgate, vice president for Russia/New Independent States for the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), addressed the audience with her presentation, “Securing Nuclear Weapons and Material,” on Wednesday, Nov. 17. Vendor representatives from Advanced Measurement Technology, Inc. (Ametek), Ortec, Canberra Industries, Inc., E2 Consulting Engineers, Inc., Haselwood Enterprises, Inc., Gregg Protection Services and North West Nuclear, LLC, were on hand throughout the conference to exhibit new technologies, make new acquaintances, and learn of new technologies and research conducted within the nuclear industry.

Resignation of Chapter Treasurer
Debbie McNeilly resigned the post of treasurer of the Central Region Chapter. McNeilly’s resignation was accepted with regret and her dedication and good work during her tenure as the treasurer of the chapter’s Executive Committee was gratefully acknowledged. Amy McCormack has agreed to serve as treasurer until elections for this position are conducted.

Central Region Chapter Elections
The INMM Central Region Chapter has held elections for the following posts:

Chair
Vice Chair
Secretary
Treasurer
Two Members-at-Large

Deadline for members to vote was May 31.

Larry Satkowiak, President

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Japan Chapter

Officers and Executive Committee Members

President Kaoru Samejima
Vice President Kaoru Naito
Secretary Takeshi Osabe
Treasurer Yoshinori Shinohara
Members-at-Large

Yoshifumi Abe
Kazunori Fujimaki
Noboru Ishizuka
Hiroshi Kai
Kurakami
Shigekazu Usuda

Annual Meeting
The 25th annual meeting of Japan Chapter was held Nov. 11-12, 2004, at Rokkasyo, Aomori. Approximately 130 people participated in the annual meeting and 31 technical papers were presented. In conjunction with the annual meeting, participants were invited to an observation tour at Rokkasyo Fuel Cycle Facilities on Nov. 12, 2004.

The 26th annual meeting of Japan chapter will be held in Tokyo on Nov. 11-12, 2005.

Workshop
INMMJ/JNC joint workshop for “Proliferation Resistance Assessment Methodology” was held March 18, 2005, in Tokyo. The workshop focused on what proliferation resistance and assessment methodology mean. Approximate 140 people participated including invited speakers/panelists from the United States, France, South Korea and Japan.

U.S. Nuclear Facility Visit
The chapter organized a tour of U.S. nuclear-related facilities in conjunction with the 46th INMM Annual Meeting. The goal of the tour was to observe facility level security response and safeguards activity. A total of 10 people participated.

Chapter’s 30-Year Anniversary

The Japan Chapter will reach its 30-year anniversary in 2006. A special event for this occasion is being organized by the planning committee.

Membership
Status of Japan chapter membership as of May 30, 2005, is as follows,

Regular membership – 136
Sustaining membership – 20 organizations
Student membership – 3

T.Osabe, Secretary

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Northeast Chapter

The Executive Committee of the Northeast Chapter is pleased to represent the INMM members who are located in Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont and West Virginia. Our geographic area encompasses numerous colleges and universities; two national laboratories and other government contractors; nuclear fuel manufacturing and utilization facilities; nuclear equipment and instrument manufacturers; countless commercial entities that support the nuclear materials management profession; and the U.S. capital, with its associated governmental offices and agencies.

Membership in the Northeast Chapter currently consists of approximately 160 individuals. However, because of the very large geographic area that our chapter includes, developing an approach to regional meetings is challenging. The Executive Committee has established a goal during the coming year to develop an opportunity for a significant number of our members to meet somewhere within the Northeast region for a professional conference. One important aspect of this goal is to develop a meeting that is professionally productive and beneficial. If any of our members would like to be involved in planning or organizing this event, we are very interested in hearing from them.

A second major goal that the Executive Committee has established is to develop mechanisms for our membership to meet with and encourage students to become involved in the profession of nuclear materials management. As one step in meeting this goal, the Executive Committee voted to provide up to five students from Mercyhurst College a stipend of $300 to attend the Annual Meeting and present the results of their research. We are pleased that four students were able to attend. Again, if any of our members can assist us in identifying additional ways that we can encourage students to become involved in our profession, we welcome their suggestions.

The Northeast Chapter again co-sponsored with the Nonproliferation and Arms Control Division a workshop titled “A New Role for the United Nations Security Council: Criminalizing WMD Proliferation; the Impact of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540.” The Northeast Chapter contributed by soliciting a total of $8,500 in contributions of support for this meeting from Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Kellogg, Brown & Root, Inc.

Keeping with a tradition that has been established for several years, the Northeast Chapter hosted a reception at the Annual Meeting in conjunction with the Southwest Chapter.

The Officers of the Northeast Chapter appreciate the support of our membership and encourage all of the members in our region to be involved in the activities of our Chapter.

Scott Vance, President

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Pacific Northwest Chapter

The Pacific Northwest Chapter has concluded its elections and announced new officers for 2005. We also prepared a revision to our bylaws which is currently before the Executive Committee for approval. The new officers are:

President Carrie Mathews
Past President Glenda Ackerman
Vice President Mark Killinger
Secretary/Treasurer Melody Maynard
Members-at-Large

Ken Byers
Cary Crawford
Karyn Durbin

This year, as in the past, the chapter participated in the U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored Regional Science Bowl and the Mid-Columbia Science Fair, sponsoring a contest among local high schools and providing a $100 science grant to the winning school. The chapter provided $100 to the Mid-Columbia Science Fair as well. Chapter members volunteered to support both of these events.

The chapter held fall and spring dinner meetings with speakers presenting information about security upgrades in Greece to support the Olympics, and implementation of the Additional Protocol in the United States and internationally.

The Pacific Northwest Chapter continues to explore mechanisms to reach out to local and regional universities. Seminars on nonproliferation and nuclear material management will be scheduled with University of Oregon and Washington State University. We hope to schedule these for the fall and complete them this calendar year.

The Pacific Northwest Chapter is grateful to the members of its Executive Committee for their leadership and commitment, and to the INMM for its continued support.

Carrie Mathews, President

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Southeast Chapter

The Southeast Chapter of INMM has continued to grow since the last report of Feb. 14, 2005. The chapter has added several new members and several members have joined the INMM, also. Two members have volunteered to serve as INMM committee members. Marvin Moore serves on the Special Recognition Awards Subcommittee and Susan Collins is a new member of the ANSI N-15 Committee. Our chapter is very proud to see the increase of interest by our members in becoming more involved with INMM activities on the national level.

The chapter hosted the Safeguards and Security Effectiveness Workshop April 25-28 in Augusta, Ga. The workshop was co-sponsored by the INMM Materials Control and Accounting and Physical Protection technical divisions. Denny Mangan represented the INMM Executive Committee at the workshop. Also, the INMM Central Chapter was instrumental in supporting this workshop. A separate report on the workshop will be made by the MC&A Technical Division. Our chapter members and officers worked tirelessly to ensure the success of this workshop. The efforts of Chris Hodge, in particular, are appreciated in taking care of many logistical issues before, during, and after the workshop that allowed all attendees to have a pleasurable experience.

Jerry T. Hickman, Chair

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Texas A & M University

Executive committee for the 2005-2006 academic year:

President Karen Miller
Vice President Amy Maslowski
Treasurer Avery Bingham
Secretary

Kristin Chesson

Public Relations Jeffrey Hausaman
Webmaster

Don Giannangeli

Activities:

  1. The Texas A&M University Chapter of INMM was formed this year under the guidance of William Charlton. The founding members were students in the nuclear engineering department at Texas A & M. Students completed requirements for recognition from both the INMM and the university. Mark Scott did an excellent job serving as the chapter’s first president. Currently, the Texas A&M Chapter has approximately 25 members.

  2. Mike Miller gave a presentation at Texas A & M in November 2004 on the topic of safeguards detectors. In January, several students and Charlton attended the Southwest Chapter’s Annual Winter Dinner in Santa Fe.

  3. During the spring semester, the chapter had four general meetings. Hiroshi Hoida, John Matter and Mark Leek were guest speakers for the first meeting. They gave students information about the INMM and talked about some of their projects. Carol Kessler visited Texas A&M in April. Kessler spoke about the Center for Global Security and controversial foreign policy issues related to nuclear nonproliferation. The other two meetings were open forums for students to discuss relevant topics. The first of these forums was led by a nuclear engineering student. This discussion about Iran’s nuclear weapons program drew in about 50 students from several different departments. The topic for the second open forum was North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and it was led by two students: one a nuclear engineering student and the other a student in Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service. These students facilitated a lively discussion about the technical and policy issues associated with North Korea.

  4. The chapter sold T-shirts to raise money and awareness about the INMM. Elections for the current officers were held in April.

  5. Charlton and seven students attended the Southwest Chapter’s Annual Taos Technical Meeting on May 19. Karen Miller gave a presentation at the Taos meeting about her research on an inverse transport model for identifying source position near portal monitors. Alexander Solodov gave a presentation on his study for the formation of INMAC. Alexander presented his research at the INMM Annual Meeting in Phoenix. David Burk gave a presentation at the Phoenix meeting titled “Forward Model Calculations for Determining Isotopic Compositions of Material Used in a Radiological Dispersal Device.”

Karen Miller, President

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Ukraine Chapter

The activities of the Ukraine Chapter in 2005 have been aimed at:

  • Participation in the projects conducted in the frames of:
    • Agreement between the United States and Ukraine Concerning Assistance to Ukraine in the Elimination of Strategic Nuclear Arms, and the Prevention of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction
    • Implementing Agreement Between the U.S. Department of Defense and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Nuclear Safety of Ukraine Concerning Control, Accounting, and Physical Protection of Nuclear Material to Promote the Prevention of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation
    • Agreement on Export Control
  • Participation in the development of a legislative framework in Ukraine in the field of MPC & A:
    • Provisions on PP State System
    • Rules for PP of NM and Nuclear Facilities
    • Provisions on NM Measurements
    • Recommendations on Physical Inventory Taking
  • Providing the state bodies and nuclear facilities with information on the INMM activity
  • Support of specialists’ training on MPC & A .
    • A national training system should be developed as soon as possible. Although GKTC acquired experience with training materials and is practically ready to conduct all the training courses originally presented by the U.S. teams of instructors itself, the need for new training courses is obvious.
    • At the same time, some of GKTC instructors have already obtained the MC&A training at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and in 2005 some of them continued to attend the training courses at Russian Methodological and Training Center in Obninsk. All this has become possible due to support from the U.S. Department of Energy and will greatly help to raise the professional level of GKTC instructors.
    • Another possibility and good opportunity to improve the professional skills of both GKTC instructors and MC&A specialists in Ukraine are annual Ukrainian MC&A conferences. The first Ukrainian MC&A Conference was organized and held in November 2003 at the GKTC, the second, in 2004 at Zaporozhskaya NPP, and in 2005 it is planned at a South Ukraine NPP. Such annual Ukrainian MC&A Conferences greatly increase the possibilities to discuss all the problems encountered and their solutions and to simultaneously get much better feedback by obtaining and collecting comments, suggestions and recommendations for future activities in order to promote and improve the nuclear material management culture in Ukraine.
    • A new NDA training laboratory was created in 2004 and the U.S. DOE and its Los Alamos National Laboratory greatly helped to do it fast and qualitatively. The first NDA training course was conducted in September 2004. The NDA training course for NIS and Baltic states professionals has been conducted in June 2005.
  • Development of Computerized Systems of Material Control and Accounting
    • An understanding has really been reached that AIMAS software can be used as a basic code for the development of Computerized MC&A system for all Ukrainian nuclear facilities despite their dissimilarities and differences. In 2003 the AIMAS code (Version 2.3.3.4) with all its documentation was transferred officially to GKTC as the Configuration Management Custodian. GKTC, together with all organizations interested in AIMAS use, is upgrading the code up to the baseline version in order to support some kind of field tests. A Joint Ukrainian-American Control Board has been created to coordinate AIMAS software development. This task is planned to be completed at the end of 2005.
  • Participation in the international meetings:
    • Two members of the Ukraine Chapter attended the International MC&A Workshop in May 2005 at Obninsk, Russia.
    • A student from Ukraine attended the 46th Annual INMM Meeting and presented a talk.

Vladimir Kirischuk, President

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Vienna Chapter

The members of the Vienna Chapter continue to live in interesting times. The majority of our members are with the International Atomic Energy Agency. During the most recent board meeting, Mohammed El Baradei was extended for another term as director general. Peirre Goldschmidt finished his term as deputy director, safeguards, and the board appointed Ollie Heinonen to take up the position. A number of other changes will likely follow soon.

The intern program at the IAEA continues to provide opportunities for young professionals to enter the safeguards and non-proliferation field. Several have become members of the INMM. The INMM and the U.S. Support Program to the IAEA again sponsored a symposium in February for the interns to present papers related to their work. Jessica Satterfield presented a paper on her work with the Illicit Trafficing Database that was selected for presentation at this year’s INMM Annual Meeting.

Elections for the Vienna Chapter Executive Committed were conducted. The committee that will lead the chapter for the next two years consists of:

President Jerry Barton
Vice President Maribeth Hunt
Treasurer Junichi Tanakka
Secretary

Svetlana Abakumova

Members-at-Large

Michael Farnitano
Arvydas Stadalnikas

Jerry Barton, President

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