ML21225A694
| ML21225A694 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/08/2021 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
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| References | |
| NRC-1420 | |
| Download: ML21225A694 (53) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
33rd Regulatory Information Conference Technical Session - M5 Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: teleconference Date: Monday, March 8, 2021 Work Order No.: NRC-1420 Pages 1-50 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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33RD REGULATORY INFORMATION CONFERENCE (RIC)
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TECHNICAL SESSION - M5 THE FUTURE FOCUSED RESEARCH AND INTEGRATED UNIVERSITY PROGRAMS
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MONDAY, MARCH 8, 2021
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The Commission met via Video Teleconference, at 1:30 p.m. EST, Raymond Furstenau, Office Director of Nuclear Regulatory Research, presiding.
PRESENT:
RAYMOND FURSTENAU, Office Director, RES/NRC RAJ IYENGAR, Chief, Component Integrity Branch, Division of Engineering, RES/NRC MICHELLE GONZALEZ, Reliability and Risk Engineer, Probability Risk Assessment Branch, Division of Risk Analysis, RES/NRC NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 NANCY HEBRON-ISREAL, Program Manager, Integrated University Program, Program Management, Policy Development & Analysis, RES/NRC CAMILLE PALMER, Associate Professor, Oregon State University JAMES STECKEL, FFR Project Manager, Regulatory Guidance and Generic Issues Branch, Division of Engineering, RES/NRC NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 P R O C E E D I N G S 1:31 p.m.
MR. FURSTENAU: Good afternoon, everybody and welcome to the afternoon technical sessions. This one is the future focused research and integrated university programs, and I'm very proud to chair this session. We have great analysts on this. I'm going to mention their names briefly and I'll introduce them further in turn as they speak. The future focused research program is an NRC program that started in FY20 and is continuing into FY21.
The integrated university program has been going on for over 10 years, but this past year in FY20 we started a part of the integrated university program.
We split out some funding to provide to university researchers to do mission-related R&D activities really forward-looking at activities. I think it was an overwhelming success for the first year. To me the programs are, I hope as we look into the future, they'll be very much related.
Our future focused research activities are meant to really step back and say okay, what might be going on out there in the nuclear industry with designers, developers, that we need to at least stay NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 tuned in or up to speed with the cutting-edge technologies? So we offered within the NRC for staff to propose topic areas that look into the future, that go beyond what we would normally ask for in what we call user need requests to help answer immediate license questions.
We have two people, they both happen to be from my office of nuclear regulatory research, Raj Iyengar and Michelle Gonzales. They're going to talk about the projects that they're working on, small projects under the Future Focused Research Activities that started this past year. And then bringing into that is the Integrated University Program.
We're fortunate to have Dr. Camille Palmer with us, and she's going to talk about a specific project she's working on that she was awarded through this mission-related R&D activity that we started just this past year. Then I just got things out of order, but Nancy Hebron-Isreal before Dr. Palmer speaks, she's going to discuss the Integrated University Program and lead into the discussion that Camille will have on the specific project that she's doing at Oregon State.
So with that, I'm going to start with Dr.
Raj Iyengar as the first speaker. He's going to talk NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 about reactor digital plans and regulatory viability.
Like I said, he was one of the first awardees of our internal Future Focused Research Program at the NRC, and Raj is currently the chief of our component integrity branch.
He oversees the regulatory research activities in the areas of reactor vessel and piping integrity, probabilistic fracture mechanics, non-destructible valuation and inspection, and advanced reactor materials. Since 2009, he has held several positions in the NRC, including acting deputy director, senior materials engineer, technical assistant in the office of research, as well as executive technical assistant to the EEO's office, and as a project manager in nuclear material safety and safeguards.
Before joining the NRC, Raj held corporate management positions in the automotive industry, where he led product development and application efforts, as well as research positions at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus and the University of Pennsylvania. Raj holds a PhD in solid mechanics and a Master of Science and Applied Math from Brown University and an MS in Mechanics and Material Science NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 from Rutgers, and an MS in metallurgy from the Indian Institute of Science. So with that, Raj, I'll turn it over to you to talk about your Future Focused Research project.
DR. IYENGAR: Thank you so much, Ray. I really am very pleased to be here as part of this panel to talk about the Future Focused Research activity that we have, a small activity. It's Ray's vision that we have the small seed money to look a little bit futuristic and be more proactive in where the Agency can be heading towards in the future. I'm really pleased to be part of that, and I do want to admit, I always kid Ray that this money is so small compared to the seed money you would get in other organizations such as Department of Energy. Nevertheless, I want to demonstrate to you that this small money is actually more important, if anything. So let me go through this.
Can I have my first slide, please? Thank you.
I do work, like Ray said, I work at the component integrity branch and I'm actually very pleased that we put this small Future Focused Research proposal last March, well before many of the awardees were selected by the Department of Energy ARPA Program.
Our senior level advisors thought this was a good idea, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 it's a small effort, so I'm really pleased to talk a little bit about that. Can I have the next slide, please?
There's been a lot of activity in digital twins lately. There's a currently great deal of interest. As you may have heard, in the tail end of last year, there's been so much activity. It's not that this idea of digital twins is new. It's been talked about since early 2002 by Dr. Greeves at University of Michigan. However, the level of technology that we have now through the internet of things and advanced sensors, I think it makes it possible that we can realize a lot of benefits from these kinds of technologies.
So what is a digital twin? What are some of the benefits it can offer? While we feel it's too early to provide concrete definitions of a digital twin, generally a digital twin environment, as this picture on the right demonstrates, has a virtual space which is a replica of a physical system. The virtual is either digital or virtual, and it has a lot of relationships between the physical and virtual, such as data and information and actions.
As you can see, data flows from the physical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 system on the state of the physical system to the virtual system. The virtual system adjusts that accordingly and uses that information to offer any kind of prediction or foresight or even record-keeping for a number of things. This information and then the information is sent back to the physical system through actions. The figure illustrates that very nicely.
It's actually a virtual copy. You could have digital twins for an entire system, which is way too complicated or you could have digital twins for a small system like a motor for a valve. You can have a digital twin for a steam generator. You can have something for an entire nuclear reactor. The whole idea is how this information and data is transferred back and forth and why is that beneficial is what the question is.
It has been demonstrated that this kind of information back and forth using the virtual space can actually improve the efficiency, which is not so much of our concern as a regulator. However, it can also impact favorably the safety and performance.
Those two are actually of great interest to us. Just one second. What do we mean impact on safety? The impact on safety could be reduced risk and reduced NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 uncertainties.
What runs the virtual or digital engine?
Of course, you need something. You need models, right? You need some kind of models. You need data to be sent so the data quality, data uncertainty will become very important. The models can be of two kinds.
You can have multi-physics models which would be rather comprehensive and rather complex, sometimes to be useful.
However, you could also have an artificial intelligence machine learning models which actually learn through the information and data and actually prediction for the multi-physics model. You entirely have a nice hybrid system. Can I go to the next slide, please? So we started this project way back last May, which is not even a year before. We had a very small amount of seed money. At the time, there was not a lot of information out there on how this is being applied to real reactors.
In order to investigate the viability of this digital technology, we formed a project team.
Very quickly, within a month and a half, our project team developed a very nice project plan. The basic premise is how are we going to identify the technical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 issues and evaluate them that relate to digital twins.
From that, what can we benefit? Can we benefit use of some regulatory guidance or infrastructures so that we can support as a regulator the regulatory decisions associated with digital twins? Next slide, please.
The staff's plan includes activities in four prime areas. Technical preparedness. The technical preparedness task is used to assess various technical issues and gaps and challenges. We will be issuing several reports as outlined in the slide on the left. Then we have a parallel path on regulatory readiness, which addresses regulatory challenges and gaps and what methods could be used or techniques could be used to address those gaps appropriately and develop any kind of infrastructure.
The third one is rather vague at this time because not for the use of multi-physics model because multi-physics models have been used for a long time.
So we have a fairly good idea of the verification and validation of those models. We have some best practices and we even have some standards, not all.
In contrast, we do not have much of best practices or standards for artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms and models.
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12 There's certainly a lot of activity going on nationally, as well as internationally. NIST, for example, is leading standards development for artificial intelligence machine learning algorithms.
This is a rather broad task. It is of importance because when you use the information to make safety decisions, we need to be understanding the best practices and standards for artificial intelligence machine learning. I think in the next couple of years there will be lots of activity in this.
The fourth task would be communication and knowledge management. Certainly, that is what we do.
We always engage with external stakeholders, and we also have a lot of internal stakeholders involved in many of our decision-making processes. Our outreach spans to DoE as well as ARPA-E and Electric Power Research Institute. In terms of knowledge management, we have conducted one workshop in December. I'll go through that in the next slide.
We plan a couple more workshops and we also plan to have a training for the staff so that we can be cognizant of these new technologies. We have partnered with Idaho National Lab and Oak Ridge National Lab to execute various aspects of the project. Next NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 slide, please? I want to tell you something about this workshop we conducted in December. It was a hugely successful workshop, over 450 participants, at least 200-plus every day.
We had it over four days and the outcome was remarkable, I think. I do want to tell you that NRC and the Office of Research was the first to have this kind of workshop nationally in digital twin technology for nuclear reactors. There you go, in terms of proactiveness, can you get more proactive than that? The workshop provided a forum for the nuclear community and stakeholders to share information and the state of knowledge in various research activities.
We are planning to have follow-up workshops to focus on technical issues, technological advances, industry plans and regulatory topics. The NRC digital twin workshop had several takeaways. Some of the major benefits of using digital twins include: It improves design, it reduces uncertainties and reduces risks.
The last two are of great interest to us because that is where we come in as a regulator. Next slide, please?
The other major takeaways from the workshop are it was fairly unanimously agreed that we need to have increased collaboration among various NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 stakeholders to increase sharing of information and to develop common solutions to challenges. As you know, without collaboration nothing can happen. I have no doubt that the technical community is so small, once we collaborate, we find solutions to many, many things and resolve many issues.
Then we hope to develop a better understanding of possible solution models and algorithms. It will be helpful if there's a crowdsource activity as a tool where people who use these models and develop these models can share with one another. I think that way we can shift the paradigm even faster.
There's a third topic that is of great interest to me personally, and I think it's also of great interest to Department of Energy and other entities, is to have a community of practice. This community of practice needs to be targeted towards the nuclear safety applications of digital twins. With this, we can actually reap a lot of benefit quite fast.
I hope there's a lot of interest among the stakeholders to be part of this community of practice. Next slide, please?
What's next for the NRC? We have a number NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 of tasks and as you see on the left, we have several reports coming out this year and one next year on technical issues and regulatory gaps. We have a couple of workshops planned you will see on the right. We also are looking to engage the industry interest on this type of technology.
I do want to tell you that there was also great interest from OECD NEA, Nuclear Energy Authority, from Europe, where former commissioner, Bill Magwood, mentioned that digital engineering is the way to go for nuclear technology. We have to reap the benefit of the digital engineering, and we are all ready for that. I am so pleased to note that with this small project we're already reaping a lot of benefits.
As I end this talk, I want to make a personal observation. Our goal in this project is to identify what is necessary and to determine the level of sufficiency to meet safety requirements rather than to explore all the details to gain a fundamental understanding of related phenomena and methods. The latter goal is rather elusive. Some of the older people would attest to that. Next slide, please?
Please feel free to contact Ramon, you see his name there, or me if you want further information.
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16 I also thank you so much for your time. I'm open to answer any of your questions.
MR. FURSTENAU: Thank you, Raj. We're going to try to save the question and answers for the end. We should have time for that. With that, I think we'll move into Michelle Gonzales' presentation on dynamic PRA. We'll get to the questions at the end.
I know I have some questions for you, Raj. Michelle Gonzales is going to be talking about dynamic PRA.
Michelle is a reliability and risk engineer with the NRC's Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
She has a Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Puerto Rico and a Master's in Reliability Engineering from the University of Maryland. She's been involved in the development and upkeep of NRC's PRA models, and she is the NRC lead on efforts related to dynamic PRA. Michelle, tell us about dynamic PRA and what you're doing for your Future Focused Research Project.
MS. GONZALES: Thank you, Ray. Can we move to the first slide, please? Thank you. Good afternoon. As Ray said, Michelle Gonzales. I am the NRC lead on efforts related to dynamic PRA. Other than leading this project, I am the US representative at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 the NEA WG risk working group on dynamic PRA. Today I will be discussing the dynamic PRA study, which is one of the FY20 Future Focused Research projects.
Slide 2, please.
To provide a little bit of background, dynamic PRA is a form of risk analysis that simulates system behavior in accident scenarios over time. A simulation is something, in this case a model, that mimics the behavior of a system. So with the dynamic PRA, we want to mimic how a system would react over time to specific input. Simulations do not have to be highly complicated, even though that people might think that dynamic analyses are forty-fold complicated, that doesn't always have to be the case.
The example below represents a simple model, starting with a signal or a cue. You have the time that it takes for the operator to diagnose and the time that it would take to take an action. This can basically be modeled with a simple dynamic PRA.
There can be different ranges of complexity in dynamic PRA models. There is the possibility of developing a simple dynamic PRA model for a specific system. For example, a system for advance reactors, or you could build a more complex model or even a full NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 done PRA. For this study, we're trying to keep it as simple as possible. We're trying to develop just simple dynamic PRA models.
I will provide a little bit more details in the upcoming slides. One more thing that I just want to mention is a dynamic PRA does not have to be a standalone tool. Dynamic PRA methods can be used as effective tools to supplement conventional event tree full tree approach, with a potential of providing additional risk insights by explicitly treating time independencies.
For example, starting from a traditional PRA, if you would have a loss of off-site power you could model a recovery action, treating the dynamics of that thermohydraulic behavior or any other phenomenological model and accounting for variation of the time available for the operator actions. One of the main differences of traditional PRA and dynamic PRA is the treatment of timing.
Traditional PRA does take into account timing by using time-dependent basic event probabilities and failure rates. But with dynamic PRA, you can explicitly model those timing dependencies.
We anticipate that dynamic PRA can potentially benefit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 existing risk analysis processes for operating new and advanced reactors. Next slide, please?
There has been a lot of significant work performed by the universities in the area of dynamic PRA. Universities like UCLA, University of Maryland and Ohio State University have developed dynamic PRA modeling tools like the ADS-IDAC and are preparing or training their students in the new dynamic PRA technologies. The DoE through national laboratories, mainly Sandia Lab and Idaho National Laboratory, have also invested in the development of dynamic PRA tools and are leading efforts in dynamic PRA research.
The NRC has provided support to early development stages through university grants. As transformation goals with all the progress that has been achieved and all the research work that is undergoing, we understand that this is the direction where PRA might be moving towards. So we envision this project as a good opportunity to leverage the available resources and take advantage of these developing tools and new technologies.
The NRC staff recognizes that there is an increase in interest in dynamic PRA, so therefore it is important to develop the staff capabilities in this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 area. Preparing the staff for the future and the developing PRA environment. Next slide please? So the dynamic PRA study, as I mentioned in the introduction, the study is one of the chosen FY20 Future Focused Research projects.
We proposed this study based on the NRC need to gain more knowledge in the area of dynamic PRA.
The main objective of this work is to prepare NRC staff for the efficient use of dynamic PRA tools, preparing them also for future uses of PRA developed using dynamic PRA methods. Starting from the development, a review of dynamic PRA to be used for specific assessments.
The scope of the work includes mainly the staff development or training in the use of the tools.
Then this work will also allow the NRC staff to obtain hands-on experience on the use of these tools by applying the gained knowledge to develop simple dynamic PRA models. When the project is completed, we expect the staff to be better prepared to develop, review or use dynamic PRAs in support of future licensing activities.
The staff will be able to maintain awareness of the still-developing PRA technology.
Next slide, please. So the approach of the work or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 how will we be achieving the objectives of this work.
This work is mainly divided into three parts or tasks.
The first part of the work is the leveraging of resources in dynamic PRA. The work here consists in the reviewing of available papers on dynamic PRA and conference proceedings and documenting the findings in an initial report.
As part of the leveraging efforts, leveraging the resources, I will continue the participation in the WG risk working group in dynamic PRA. This group is mainly looking at what has been done in the different participating countries, highlighting some of the advances, identifying some of the challenges of dynamic PRA application, and evaluating how to overcome some of these challenges.
The second task of the work is for staff to complete some training exercises on the use of dynamic PRA tools. We have a contract in place with Idaho National Laboratories for them to develop and provide training to the NRC staff on the use of the different tools. So far, the NRC has participated of an introductory course on dynamic PRA. This course was open to all of the NRC, and then we had some participants also from NASA that were interested in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 this topic.
This training basically covered the basics on dynamic PRA and then we had a follow-up training session on the use of one of the Idaho developed tools, which is called Emerald. This was basically more a closed session, more specific to this project. In the near future, we plan on having another training session on Raven, which is another one of the Idaho dynamic PRA developed tools.
These trainings on the tools have covered the basics, how to use the tools and how to apply it to specific exercises, providing samples that would be applicable to the project. The third part of this work is to develop simple dynamic PRA models. The intent is for the NRC staff with some assistance from INL to develop a flex model, a model for a passive system and if time allows, a physical security model, using both Raven and Emerald modeling tools.
This will provide much-needed hands-on experience for the staff, which will help with the understanding of the interfaces between all of these tools and will help prepare the NRC staff for future use of dynamic PRA tools. The overall deliverables of the work include first an interim report documenting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 the findings from the literature reviews and the staff participation in other dynamic PRA activities.
The second deliverable is the completion of the dynamic PRA trainings on the specific tools.
As I mentioned earlier, we've had two training sections and will complete the Raven training in the near future.
Finally, we will be documenting everything in a final report that will document the model development process and model results.
In conclusion, we believe, and we understand that this work will better prepare the NRC staff for future uses of dynamic PRA tools. Next slide, please? That concludes my presentation. Thank you so much. I believe we'll be taking further questions at the end of the presentations.
MR. FURSTENAU: Yes, thanks, Michelle. I appreciate your comments and your presentation. I'll give you a forewarning, Michelle. There are several questions about dynamic PRA, so get a few minutes= rest and then we'll be back with you at the end here. Next I wanted to introduce Nancy Hebron-Isreal, and she's our program manager and agreeance administrative specialist in the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
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24 She manages the Integrated University Program for us, and I think does a fantastic job. She has more than 25 years experience with grant management and implementation. She manages a diverse portfolio of grants, ranging from scholarships and fellowships and faculty development grants. Like we talked about in the beginning, most recently mission-related research and development grants were added to the list of things she does.
The NRC R&D grant program provides research and development for nuclear science, engineering, technology and related disciplines to develop a workforce capable of supporting the design, construction, operation and regulation in nuclear facilities, and for the safe handling of nuclear material. The grant program encourages researchers at US institutions to bring innovative ideas to the NRC that support intra-focused research aimed at helping us prepare here at the NRC for our upcoming research needs and challenges.
Among other federal agencies, she has worked at the Department of Energy and the Office of Nuclear Energy administering its nuclear science and engineering education programs. Nancy, that's where NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 we first met, I think. I won't say how many years ago, but let's just leave it at several years ago.
MS. HEBRON-ISREAL: Thank you.
MR. FURSTENAU: And I think this will be an important discussion. I know we'll have some questions coming in about the grants program and how it complements this Future Focused Research that we're doing with NRC personnel. Nancy, I'll turn it over to you.
MS. HEBRON-ISREAL: Thank you, Ray. This afternoon I'll be giving you an overview of the Integrated University Program. I'll get started with the first slide, please. As mentioned, the Integrated University Program began in Fiscal Year 2009. As Ray discussed, the program focuses on the supporting education and nuclear science and related disciplines to develop a workforce capable of the NRC's mission.
The program is designed to not only benefit the NRC, but also to assist with the nuclear industry broadly.
In FY20 Congress authorized the IUP at $16 million to support scholarships, fellowships, faculty development and trade school scholarships. In addition, we began our first-time awarding of research and development grants. The research and development NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 grants will be further discussed. Typically for the educational grants, for scholarships, fellowships and faculty development, we receive an average of a hundred proposals.
Each proposal is highly competitive as we've seen through our rigorous review process. We historically award at the end of the review cycle approximately 50 percent of those proposals that are selected for further award, and those proposals are awarded to US institutions, as well as minority-serving institutions. No funding is provided to individuals.
All fundings are directly supported to institutions, and the institutions manage the programs that they are awarded under. For FY20, we have received authorization to proceed with the program, so we will be moving towards developing our funding opportunity announcement for the educational grants and those that will be issued in the mid to late summer timeframe.
Could we please move to the next slide?
The next slide talks about the research and development program that began in FY20, and again the focus as mentioned for the educational grants to assist with the workforce capable of the NRC's mission.
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27 Again, the program does benefit the NRC, as well as the nuclear industry broadly. The IUP R&D areas are identified within the Office of Research in areas that may be necessary or deemed of interest to their agency, as well as encouraging institutions to submit proposals in research areas that include future focused research, as Ray mentioned in his earlier opening remarks.
For the first year of the R&D grants, the R&D program, they are awarded for a three-year period of performance with a 500K maximum budget request level that the institutions can request. We did receive an overwhelming response to the FOA, the Funding Opportunity Announcement. We received over 160 proposals. Each of these proposals went through a review cycle with review panelists from the NRC, as well as academia.
Following the review cycle, the agency moved forward with recommending 15 grant awards under this first IUP R&D grant announcement. The next slide gives you an overview of those 15 grant awards that were selected. Then the next slide can be presented, please. This gives you a snapshot of the grants that were selected under the IUP R&D FOA during FY20.
We will be issuing an FY21 funding NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 opportunity announcement for R&D grant awards. We expect this announcement to be issued at grants.gov next week, so we will definitely make sure the information is provided on our website. To all institutions that are interested in applying, please refer to our grant website within the next week where you can find the funding opportunity announcement, as well as all the requirements for eligibility where you can submit your application and then information there.
The next slide provides you with the contacts for our grant program. Myself, I am the program manager, and Sarah Shaffer is the grant program administrative personnel that also helps with the program. With that, I will turn it back over to Ray and look forward to any questions about the grants.
MR. FURSTENAU: Thanks, Nancy. I'd encourage folks to jot down the names and contacts there for Nancy and Sarah, as the FOAs go out here in the near future. I know Nancy and Sarah are more than happy to answer questions the best they can. We really encourage participation from all the universities out there in these programs. Both our traditional fellowships, scholarships and faculty development grants, as well as the new mission-related R&D.
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29 With that, it's a good segue into our next discussion from Dr. Camille Palmer. She's going to talk about dynamic risk assessment for nuclear cyber security. She's from Oregon State University, and her proposal was selected out of over 140 proposals. She was one of those selected to participate in one of the mission-related R&D grants.
Dr. Palmer is an associate professor in the school of nuclear science and engineering at Oregon State. Her professional interests emphasize international nuclear security and non-proliferation, where she enjoys interdisciplinary collaborations with robotics, cyber security and public policy. Prior to academics, she was a staff member at Los Alamos National Lab in the thermonuclear applications group, as well as the foreign and improvised nuclear design group.
She has also supported the nuclear survivability of the Minute Man Three as a systems engineer with Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. Dr.
Palmer holds a PhD in nuclear and radiological engineering from the University of Cincinnati. Dr.
Palmer, we're so glad you joined us to contribute to our session today. I'll turn it over to you, thanks.
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30 appreciate it. Good morning from the West Coast.
Thanks for having me. Ray mentioned I'm a faculty member in the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering at Oregon State. I'll just jump into the opening slide.
Thanks.
I've actually been quite involved with the NRC's IUP scholarship and fellowship programs at Oregon State over the past several years, so I'm excited to share with you the more recent research efforts looking into using dynamic probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear cyber security. I'm working closely with my colleagues at OSU in electrical engineering and computer science, Rakesh Bobba and Yeongjin Jang, so they're providing the expertise on cyber physical modeling and attack factors.
Next slide, thanks. While the university benefits from all types and levels of student and faculty support, which has been mentioned, but from my perspective the research program most effectively integrates resources at both the faculty and student levels. Ideally, the plan is to also provide a research product or methodology that aligns with the NRC's ongoing efforts.
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31 offer this opportunity for universities to participate in research that's of interest and value to their agency. So to introduce the research team that has directly supported on this recent effort, the project and leverage of cyber security expertise of Dr. Rakesh Bobba and Dr. Yeongjin Jang to oversee and advise a cyber security graduate student. Thats Leni showed on the right.
Similarly, on the nuclear side, I'm advising a graduate student in nuclear engineering to work closely with the cyber security team. I've identified an incoming Master's student, Nathan, who actually had an internship at Pacific Northwest National Lab in cyber security, and he's very eager to work on the project.
I highlight only two students since that's what the program formally supports. I want to emphasize that having a new nuclear cyber security project as OSU has further-reaching impacts. As faculty, we learn from one another and it really creates an energy that grows and permeates to other graduate students, as well as to the undergraduate community.
Dr. Bobba has years of experience modeling cyber physical and critical infrastructure, and Dr.
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32 Jang is a notable ethical hacker focusing on vulnerability, discovery and analysis. He's also led student teams to victory at the DoE Hackathon and was a finalist in the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge back when he was a graduate student.
To me one of the most exciting aspects of the project is the true interdisciplinary nature in which the cyber security faculty are learning about nuclear systems and nuclear engineers are gaining exposure to cyber security concepts. It also brings to the table prominent researchers in their respective areas to address these challenging problems.
I'm very excited to have pulled this team together, and we're already learning quite a bit from one another. Next slide, thank you. Over this three-year project, we identified three high-level and somewhat ambitious objectives. The first, I'm glad Michelle introduced dynamic PRA because our first task is learning more about dynamic PRA and then using this to analyze the dependencies between the cyber and physical system of an existing light water reactor.
We focused the effort more specifically on using Sandia's ADAPT software to link to RELAP5 3D for the consequence analysis on the nuclear side. At NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 the same time, the cyber security students are looking into the interconnections to better understand the cyber risks for the attack graph modeling with the ultimate goal of integrating this analysis within ADAPT.
There are different methodologies to think about dynamic PRA. ADAPT generates dynamic event trees to assess the impact of uncertainties and time dependence of events on the outcome of simulations.
The visual on the right is taken from the Sandia ADAPT website, visualizing how the ADAPT approach can be leveraged. ADAPT serves as a dynamic event tree driver, so it launches the stop simulations, tracks the dynamic event tree database and presents results.
You can think of it as a wrapper that supports the linking of multiple simulator codes and has an option of either being run locally or on high-performance computers. The second objective is based on previous work at OSU that used the notion of attack graphs and Markov decision processes to analyze cyber physical models at the electric grid infrastructure.
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34 for an attacker. These Markov decision processes have been shown to be unscaleable, so since then they've moved towards simpler graph analysis techniques that provide a reasonable accuracy at a much lower cost.
Here we propose to integrate attack graph analysis with planned impact analysis by leveraging dynamic PRA using this ADAPT framework.
Specifically, the plan is to incorporate our attack graph analysis with ADAPT, which in turn can interact with RELAP5 3D to simulate the physical impact of the plant. The third objective is focused on generating cyber physical or risk-based security metrics. Cyber security metrics are pretty hard to come by and an open problem in the general security community.
Cyber physical modeling provides a basis for these metrics, as it enables one to predict impacts of cyber-attacks in a quantifiable manner. So in Rakesh's previous work, he developed metrics for use in the electric grid networks, where he used line overloads and loads to quantify the physical impact.
Here we plan on extending this concept for the use in nuclear cyber security analysis.
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35 trees generated by ADAPT to develop security metrics, or they're sometimes called dynamic importance measures related to the cyber physical system. Next slide, thanks. So the motivation and real inspiration for the project is two-fold. One, I care very much about the security of nuclear systems and I was familiar with Rakesh and Yeongjin's work in threat analysis in cyber physical systems.
Then in the summer of 2019, just pre-COVID, I attended an emerging issue in nuclear security workshop hosted jointly between the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management and Harvard's project on managing the atom, at which Sandia's Doug Osborne presented on modeling for existing nuclear power plant security regime.
Here Doug presented the results of this 2019 report that showed Sandia's evaluation of the linked dynamic risk assessment for physical security using force on force modeling and reactor system response using MELCOR. So they leveraged the existing hypothetical Lone Pine Nuclear Power Plant facility that is open source and is used for international physical security training as a model to interface with MELCOR in ADAPT.
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36 Similarly, we're looking into existing open source models such as Mitre's Critical Infrastructure Cyberspace Analysis Tool for attack modeling, and the IAEA's recently developed Asherah Nuclear Power Plant Simulator, which reproduces the dynamic behavior of a neutral open source 2,700 megawatt thermal pressurized water reactor developed for performing cyber security assessment in the international community.
The motivation for Sandia's 2019 effort is just listed directly from the report here, so the borrow and slightly adapt from the cyber security realm, I would say it's to create tools and methods that apply aspects of risk-informed techniques for cyber physical security decisions and activities to account for this dynamic adversary, to apply advanced modeling and simulation tools to better inform cyber physical security posture, to assess the benefits from proposed enhancements, novel mitigation strategies and potential changes to regulations, and then finally to enhance the technical basis necessary for operating utilities to reevaluate their cyber physical security posture while meeting regulatory requirements.
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37 staff at Sandia that are working on ADAPT and its applications have been really gracious with their time and have helped direct our initial efforts. We're really appreciative of them and encouraged that at least we're headed in the right direction. Next slide.
I guess in summary, to highlight key project takeaways, OSU has initiated a new interdisciplinary collaboration between faculty and students in cyber security and nuclear engineering to address the need for a risk-informed approach for cyber security at nuclear facilities. The project is supporting two full-time graduate students and engaging other students whose collective expertise incorporate identifying cyber vulnerabilities, creating cyber physical models, and the analysis of these transients in a pressurized water reactor.
We plan on using the established ADAPT dynamic probabilistic risk assessment tool to integrate these models to generate dynamic event trees for analysis. Ultimately the goal is to demonstrate a methodology which could be used to help rank assets in a quantifiable and verifiable fashion. Since this approach can account for uncertainty in processed physics, it has the potential for being valuable for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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38 the advanced reactors that rely on passive safety, and to better account for a more sophisticated time dependent cyber-attack.
Again, the graduate students are super enthusiastic to learn in this interdisciplinary space and appreciative, of course, to have the support for their education. As faculty, I think we're equally as excited to learn. Next slide. With that, I'd like to just thank you for the opportunity to share.
Certainly, feel free to reach out if you have any questions or suggestions. Here's my contact information. I think we'll be happy to address any questions in the panel. Thank you.
MR. FURSTENAU: Thanks, Camille. Maybe I'll ask you in advance as you get more into the details of your project, I know it's a multi-year project, we may ask you to come with your students and other faculty to give us a short seminar on the progress of your work with the NRC staff. We'll probably be asking you to do that.
DR. PALMER: Absolutely.
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39 and no one is going to go unscathed with questions here.
It looks like we're going to be hitting on everybody here. The first one I'd like to start with, with Raj, you talked about the workshop that was held in December and the success of it.
I know the workshops are a big part of the project you initiated. I guess I'm not sure which word to use, what either impressed or surprised you the most about the current state of digital twin application in the nuclear industry?
DR. IYENGAR: Yes, so what surprised me was the level of activity that was happening with some advance reactor vendor developers. I had not anticipated that level of interest from Oklo and Kairos for example. It seemed like six months ago when I was trying to get some information after we started the project, we didn't see anything happening. We were actually doubting, are we way ahead of the game? Are we like 20 years down the road? Which is fine for future focused research.
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40 for the past 20 years. So what we're seeing now, either it's a peak or it's the highest, it'll go further.
I think this is something, it looks real.
MR. FURSTENAU: Thank you, Raj. I've got several questions on dynamic PRA, so it will probably be a mix of Camille and Michelle answering these. The first question I was going to ask -- the person asking, in the Boeing 737 accidents were a result of the failure to appreciate the time it would take to diagnose and react to a particular failure. Why are dynamic PRAs not susceptible to this type of error? Michelle?
MS. GONZALES: I'm sorry, Ray --
MR. FURSTENAU: Or are they susceptible?
MS. GONZALES: Can you repeat the question?
MR. FURSTENAU: Sure. There's a statement about the Boeing 737 accidents and that they were a result of a failure to appreciate the time it would take to diagnose and react to a particular failure.
Why are dynamic PRAs not susceptible to these types of errors? Or are they susceptible to the time dependent errors?
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41 and the time dependencies on such an event on the time for action.
MR. FURSTENAU: Thanks, Michelle. Another one on dynamic PRA for you, Camille, I think it was on your motivation slide, Slide 9, you discussed security for existing nuclear power plants. Can you use dynamic PRA techniques to build better cyber and physical security into the designs of the advanced reactors?
DR. PALMER: I heard existing reactors and I also heard advanced reactors in that question. But I do think --
MR. FURSTENAU: Yes, it's kind of a two-part question. You talk about existing reactors, so you're looking at dynamic PRA techniques in cyber and physical security in existing plants. But putting those into the design of advanced or new plants?
DR. PALMER: Yeah, I think that's where it really holds a lot of promise, actually, is for advanced reactors. The current cyber rule might be a dated term, but it doesn't account for this dynamic adversary.
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42 failures is where dynamic PRA has a strength.
But I'd also reiterate it's only as strong as any model in that it relies heavily on the data that goes into that. So you have to have some idea of what those timings would be. But again, the advantage is you can simulate a distribution and can sample from distribution, so it can also account for uncertainty in different data that you put in. I think there's a lot of advantages to gain, integrating along with some of the static existing techniques.
MR. FURSTENAU: Thanks, Camille. Nancy, I have one for you. This is an easy one and then I'll give you a harder one, how about that? Where on the NRC public website are the various grant programs described and how does one apply for a grant?
MS. HEBRON-ISREAL: There is access from the NRC home page under the public information. There is a grants tab where you can go to find out information on the available funding opportunity announcements.
It further goes into giving abstracts of grants that have been funded over the previous years of the Integrated University Program. A wealth of information can be found on that grants website.
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43 more question for you. I turned off my video. I was starting to have problems with my internet connection.
I hope folks can still hear me. There was a comment, it's kind of a comment and a question. As a newer Principal Investigator (PI), it's harder to understand the specific needs that the NRC has for these grants.
Will the NRC provide future guidance outside of that FOA documents for newer PIS that are not already heavily involved in NRC activities?
MS. HEBRON-ISREAL: I would say that there are opportunities for new PIs to gain information about the grants program, and specifically if anyone is interested in helping us to review grant (audio interference) great way and process that the proposal goes through and specifics on how they rate different criteria, and also how we conduct our teleconference that we hold to review each of the proposals.
If there is anyone that is interested in helping us to review our grant proposals, please contact me. My contact information was provided in the slides package. I'm always available to assist in any way.
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44 that I believe can help first time grant PIs.
MR. FURSTENAU: Thanks, Nancy. There's a general question that I'm going to try to answer, and then maybe Nancy you can bail me out if I mess it up here. The question is once awarded, why is it not possible to use the university grant as the funding vehicle to implement a project?
I wanted to answer that. First of all, the Future Focused Research Program, as I mentioned, is an internal NRC activity for NRC employees. It's a pretty modest program. In FY20 it was about $710,000, and in FY21 it's $500,000, compared to the total university program that Nancy mentioned about is $16 million a year. Projects like Dr. Palmer were awarded were part of $7.5 million in grants for university mission-related R&D.
The university program is much larger than our future focused research. But the question as why can't the grant be used to implement a project, the way the rules work for grants is we prepare, like Nancy mentioned, a funding opportunity announcement that the universities apply to. They propose what they would like to do based on the criteria that we set out in the FOA.
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45 Once the selection process happens and the selection process is based on the criteria in the FOA, and once those projects are selected and awarded, we really can't give further direction to the universities. We need them to have that freedom to develop the project as they proposed within the bounds of their grant. So we really can't use the university grant program to implement a mission-related project and giving further direction within the NRC.
The grant process just doesn't work that way. But what we are trying to do by having these two complimentary programs is to give them maybe better coordinated might be a way to look at it. I think we'll do that as we go on, that they complement each other.
Some projects might be related in future focused research with the universities. Some may be different. But we want to stay tuned into what each other are doing because we really see the universities as a gold mine for doing some of this further out-looking research that will help us in our safety and security mission in the NRC.
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46 mentioned, I think Camille you mentioned it, maybe Raj did, about these projects, whether it's future focused research or the university mission-related R&D projects, has created energy among faculty and students. I hope that's doing the same within staff at the NRC in the Future Focused Research Program.
Could you maybe talk a little bit more about that? Camille, I'll ask you to discuss that first, and then I'll ask for input from Raj and Michelle.
Camille?
DR. PALMER: Sure. I think for us it's as simple as I'm not a cyber security expert and I don't have the opportunity or funding to dedicate the time to go learn about that. So by having a specific funded effort, we get to integrate our expertise and then bring that. Because it's familiar it just flows naturally into the classroom. Graduate students talk to each other and they're just really intrigued and interested. I think a lot of students I find are really driven by a mission space. I think the mission space for this is very clear. There's a good application for it. For us, it's just very natural. It's not something that we have to go fabricate. The students are genuinely interested and now I have the opportunity, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 I guess, to bring that to them.
MR. FURSTENAU: I guess maybe it goes without saying, Camille, that the mission-related R&D FOA we put out this past year in FY20 and we plan to do, like Nancy mentioned, next week, I think that's a good thing for universities to get involved in and is a good motivator then.
DR. PALMER: Absolutely, yeah.
MR. FURSTENAU: Thanks. Michelle, how about you with regard to our Future Focused Research Program? What got you excited about participating in that?
MS. GONZALES: I think this was a great opportunity for us to fill a gap that we identified as having. It's something that we've been looking at for quite some time. The NRC has somehow been involved in some of the efforts on dynamic PRA. I guess we wanted to get our hands a little bit more dirty, do a little bit more work, understand better how to use dynamic PRA and how it would I guess benefit us if we were to use it. It has been a good opportunity to have the means of looking forward to what is being done out there.
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48 participating?
DR. IYENGAR: I was excited because all of us have these ideas, and in a user need driven world, we have to really work with our regulatory partners to see what's needed for them in the immediate future.
That trumps everything. As a result, preparedness for future activities or future developments becomes quite difficult to get. This was a great opportunity for us.
In fact, I did get one more Future Focused Research which I'm planning to tie in with the Integrated University Program activity. You can see that it has generated a lot of interest and excitement among staff, with various offices, as well. Not just research. I think this is like a crowdsourcing, a different kind of crowdsourcing.
We have all these ideas and many of them we certainly maybe cannot fund because the funding is limited. But those ideas that we get which are not funded are also pretty good. There must be some way we can try to incorporate them in some activity. That will be beneficial, I think.
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49 thank you for your presentation, Nancy. That's how it starts. I'm consistently impressed with the NRC's communications about the university programs. Are you planning on having any meetings among the university teams that were selected for research projects this past year to get them engaged with each other? For example, like a RIC session next year? Have you thought about that?
MS. HEBRON-ISREAL: Well, there has been some brief discussion of having some sort of a platform where the grantees can get together and discuss their projects, and also to share with each other where they are with the project as it relates to the NRC's areas of interests and also future focused areas, as well.
There is discussion on it. We don't have any firm details or dates when, but we are working on it.
MR. FURSTENAU: Thanks, Nancy. Another question on dynamic PRA. Michelle, I'll ask you this one. What's your vision of using dynamic PRA in the reactor oversight program or the risk-informed decision-making program in the future?
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50 pretty much only looking at the options. We want to get more knowledgeable on the item of using dynamic PRA. I cannot predict what's going to happen five to 10 years down the road, but at this point we are not making any changes on the reactor oversight. It might bring a benefit to it, but I cannot say anything down the road if that's something that's going to happen or not.
MR. FURSTENAU: Thanks, Michelle. Let's see here. I think we have time for one more question.
I'll put Camille on the spot here to get a university perspective. Nancy talked about the university program, the $16 million that we received from Congress last year and we have it in FY21, as well. How do you think that the NRC can better apply the funds we get for Integrated University Program, or do you like it the way it is? Don't hold back any punches.
DR. PALMER: Yeah, and I certainly did specify, I think every student and faculty is very appreciative of any type and level of support. I know the students who have gotten scholarships it's been pretty life-changing for some of them, as well as the fellowships. I don't think that there's a right or wrong, necessarily.
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51 I will say that universities have shifted in the past decade or so to put more emphasis on faculty bringing in funded research grants. I kind of passed it by, but there was a statement that said that this research program might more effectively provide that support at the faculty and the student level.
That to me is the appeal of the research program, is that one, you have something to work on which aligns with the NRC, which is really great. But it also demonstrates that the faculty has been successful in bringing in a competitive research grant and still provide support for the student. So again, I don't think anything you're doing is necessarily wrong. I think it's great, and it's great to see that it's going in this direction now. I hope that answers the question.
MR. FURSTENAU: Yeah, it does. Thank you, Camille. We're about running out of time. I guess I'd offer up if there's any last-minute comments that any of our panel members would like to make, feel free to do that. I would like to thank Jim Steckel. He's been behind the scenes. I know he's kept all of us to task to make sure we submitted our forms and our presentations and knew where we were supposed to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 and when. So thanks, Jim, for coordinating that.
Unless there's any last-minute comments, I'll just hold it silent for a few seconds? If not, thank you for your participation in this session and for the people listening in and asking questions. I think it was a successful session. With that, I'll close the session for today. Thank you so much.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 2:44 p.m.)
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