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Discrimination of uranium ore concentrates by chemometric data analysis to support provenance assessment for nuclear forensics applications

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Abstract

This work describes a method for the discrimination of uranium ore concentrates (UOCs) to support provenance assessment for nuclear forensics applications using samples representing twenty producers from around the world. The concentrations were measured using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. UOCs were classified using the support vector machine method relying on 61 down to only 18 element concentrations without affecting the accuracy. New features are calculated from combination of elements from the selected 18 elements, and added to the selected elements improve the classification results. Reducing the number leads to the optimization of laboratory measurements of element signatures in support of nuclear safeguards and forensics applications.

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Acknowledgements

This work was undertaken under Canada’s National Nuclear Forensics Library (NNFL) Development Program, which is led by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). The CNSC NNFL Development Program is support in part by the Canadian Safety and Security Program (CSSP), which is managed by Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) Centre for Security Science (CSS). The authors gratefully acknowledge the CNSC and Dr. C. Drummond and Mr. A. Sheidl from NRC for their support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Council Canada, 75 Mortagne, Boucherville, QC, J4B 6Y4, Canada

    Josette El Haddad, Aissa Harhira, Alain Blouin & Mohamad Sabsabi

  2. Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, P.O. Box 1046-Station B, 280 Slater Street, Ottawa, ON, K1P 5S9, Canada

    Slobodan Jovanovic, Tara Kell & Ali El-Jaby

Authors
  1. Josette El Haddad
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  2. Aissa Harhira
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  3. Alain Blouin
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  4. Mohamad Sabsabi
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  5. Slobodan Jovanovic
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  6. Tara Kell
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  7. Ali El-Jaby
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Correspondence to Josette El Haddad.

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El Haddad, J., Harhira, A., Blouin, A. et al. Discrimination of uranium ore concentrates by chemometric data analysis to support provenance assessment for nuclear forensics applications. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 317, 625–632 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-018-5912-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-018-5912-3

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