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Objective: There is extensive evidence for the effectiveness of supported employment among people with severe mental illness. However, less research has been conducted to evaluate the effects of sustained competitive employment on nonvocational outcomes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of sustained competitive work on quality of life and psychiatric hospitalizations.Methods: As part of a randomized controlled trial, a mediation analysis was used to compare the direct and indirect effects of supported employment versus a traditional vocational program on sustained competitive employment, days of psychiatric hospitalization, and quality of life among 85 participants over five years.Results: The five-year follow-up indicated that the effects of supported employment on reduced days of hospitalization and increased quality of life were fully mediated by the program's effects on increasing sustained competitive employment.Conclusions: The rehabilitative and therapeutic dimensions of functional health conditions are interrelated in the long term. The achievement of sustained competitive employment may be a key factor in improving social and psychiatric outcomes for people with severe and persistent mental disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hoffmann H, Jäckel D, Glauser S, Kupper Z. A randomised controlled trial of the efficacy of supported employment. Objective: Although numerous randomised controlled trials indicated the superiority of supported employment (SE), we still have too little evidence that SE is more effective than traditional vocational rehabilitation programmes (TVR) in Western European countries with highly developed social security and welfare systems, sophisticated rehabilitation programmes and high thresholds to the open labour market. The aim of this study is to prove the efficacy of SE in Switzerland. Method: Following a 2-week intake assessment, 100 unemployed persons with stabilised severe mental illness (SMI) were randomly assigned to either the SE programme ( n = 46) or to the most viable locally available TVR ( n = 54). Follow-up lasted 24 months. Results: After the first year, the rate of competitive employment reached a mean level of 48.2% in the SE group and of 18.5% in the TVR group. 58.7% of the SE group were ever competitively employed as opposed to 25.9% of the TVR group. In the second year, SE group participants were competitively employed for 24.5 weeks as compared with 10.2 in the TVR group. The groups showed no significant differences in the non-vocational outcome criteria. Conclusion: The SE programme in Switzerland also proved more effective than TVR and seems to be applicable to the socio-economic context of Western European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Severe accident calculation for first wet storage pool in Switzerland. • Definition of event table for accident management measures. • Influence of storage policy on accident progression. • Possible molten core concrete interaction in late phase of a severe accident in a wet storage pool. The wet storage building of the nuclear power plant Gösgen/Däniken, a 3002 MW th pressurized water reactor, is the first building for the long term wet storage of spent nuclear fuel in Switzerland. Due to the Swiss moratorium against the export of spent nuclear fuel in 2006 and the non-availability of a nuclear repository it was necessary to store the spent fuel locally at the nuclear power plant site. The prolongation of this moratorium in 2016 does not allow reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel in the next years. As a direct conclusion from this moratorium it was decided to build a wet storage pool at Gösgen/Däniken which entered operation in 2008 with a capacity of 504 fuel assemblies. In a second stage of completion another 504 fuel assemblies can be stored in the pool. Two cooling towers will be available for the passive cooling of the wet storage pool with a maximum cooling capacity of 1.5 MW after the second stage of completion. In this wet storage pool only spent nuclear fuel elements will be stored, which have been stored before more than four years in an at reactor spent fuel pool. This means that the nuclear heat of a single 15x15 rod nuclear fuel assembly (FA) used in the NPP Gösgen is at 1.6 kW maximum, when it is stored in the wet storage pool. The present work describes postulated severe accidents with total loss of cooling in the wet storage pool (WSP) of the Gösgen/Däniken nuclear power plant. The accident progression in a spent fuel pool and even more in a wet storage pool is very slow due to the low nuclear decay heat. Therefore the investigation of such kind of accident was not assumed to be of high importance for a long time. The overall accepted assumption of an energy recovery after at least 24 h would not lead to boiling of a spent fuel pool due to the low decay heat. The severe accident in Fukushima Daiichi (2011.03.11) following the great Eastern earthquake and the related tsunami has shown that the power recovery can be delayed much longer, e.g. for more than a week. This long time of loss of cooling could endanger a spent fuel pool especially if the whole core is unloaded into the pool like in Fukushima Daiichi unit 4. Main goal of the work is to achieve information about the timing of postulated severe accidents in the wet storage pool and to define time frames for accident management measures to prevent fuel damage and fission product release. In every of the calculations more than three weeks passes before fuel uncovery would lead to fission product release. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Experimental study programmes were carried out at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Switzerland on iodine behaviour under conditions relevant to postulated severe-accidents in NPP containments. To interpret the results obtained from bench-scale, gas-sparged and irradiated iodide solutions, a mechanistic computer code (PSIodine) was developed using the FACSIMILE Software to provide data for comparison. The code models reactions for the iodine oxidation states −1 to +5 in solution under strong (N2O-saturated) and weak oxidising (argon- and air-saturated) conditions. An empirical model was developed to transport I2 and other species from solution to the gas space by gas bubbles (sparging). By using measured I2 mass transfer rates for specific reaction vessels, the need to apply assumptions, e.g., uniform and estimated bubble sizes and concentration, diffusion coefficients, was circumvented. By using the same I2 transfer rate for irradiation of CsI solutions with and without additional ions, data for % I2 yields for initial chemical conditions can be compared. Reaction rate changes due to solution evaporation are also modelled. The predicted and experimental data (I2 fractional releases, pH changes and H2O2 formation) correlate well for initial CsI concentrations from 4.0×10−5 to 1.0×10−3 moldm−3 and for pH 4.6–7.1 in weak oxidising systems (argon- and air-sparged solutions). Data correlations for strong oxidising conditions (N2O-saturated CsI solutions) are also satisfactory. Irradiated containment atmospheres can generate oxides of nitrogen, which form nitrate and nitrite ions in the sump. Nitrate concentrations up to 5.0×10−3 moldm−3 in irradiated and argon or air-sparged CsI solutions can lower fractional I2 release (). The model confirms the observed trend of fractional I2 releases for the pH range 4.6–7.1. Silver aerosols from control rods are postulated in PWR severe accidents to form AgI. The decomposition of aqueous colloidal suspensions of AgI was investigated using 188Re as an in situ beta-radiation source (). Under strong oxidising conditions, large I2 fractions were released. The described model predicts data which support the interpretation of the direct oxidation of AgI particle surfaces. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]