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Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) are being handled in various types of companies. Currently the European Commission is recasting the basic safety standards (BSS). The new BSS contains a broad list of NORM industries and requires the determinations of the activity concentration of the used NORM. The new BSS also contains an indicative list of types of building materials considered for control measures with regard to their emitted gamma radiation. In order to prepare the non-nuclear industry for the arrival of the new European legislation the XIOS Hogeschool Limburg has started up three NORM projects supported by EFRO (40 %) and the ministry of the Flemish community (45 %): (1) In the recently completed NuTeC NORM project (Dec 2008 – Dec 2010) a database of the NORM traffic that passes through the port of Antwerp was constructed. Though measurements in the port of Antwerp and case studies at NORM processing companies a new user-friendly method for the determination of the activity concentration was developed. By means of training on the job and practical workshops workers at several companies were assisted in working with NORM. (2) By means of the B-NORM project (Dec 2010 - Dec 2011), NuTeC is preparing the Flemish building sector for the arrival of the new European Regulations. (3) In close collaboration with the European ALARA Network for NORM (EAN-NORM), NuTeC is organizing the 4th EAN-NORM workshop that will take place at Hasselt (Nov 29th – Dec 1st 2011). The 4th EAN-NORM workshop will focus on transportation of NORM, NORM Measurements and strategies and building materials. More information regarding the workshop can be found at: http://www.ean-norm.net/. The organisation of this workshop is a part of the EUR-NORM project (dec 2010 – dec 2011) in which NuTeC will also perform several prospection’s at European companies and organisations. The projects and experiences acquired throughout the projects are implemented in the education and research of the XIOS and the UHasselt and open up new master and PhD topics. Next to topics directly related to the NORM projects also topics related to the treatment of NORM contaminated waste are being explored. EFRO, the ministry of the Flemish community (Hermes) and LRM

Background: Recently the European Commission is recasting the Euratom Basic Safety Standards (BSS) in order to further limit the exposure of the public and workers to radioactivity1. The new BSS is expected in 2015 and contains a broad list of industries, processing Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM), that will become subject to more strict regulation. The list contains, among others, zirconium, thorium, and titanium processing plants, phosphate-ore industries and oil and gas extraction facilities. In addition the new BSS provides additional regulation for the incorporation of residues of NORM (fly ash, phosphogypsum, phosphorus/tin/copper slag, red mud, …) in building materials and for building materials from natural origin. Materials & methods: A large scale radiological study of the container traffic in the port of Antwerp was conducted by means of portal monitors2,3. Geometry corrected in-situ measurements were performed on materials in industrial processes with LaBr3(Ce) and NaI(Tl) probes. These results were compared with lab analysis of samples by means of a HPGe detector. For a detailed comparison of the properties of LaBr3(Ce) and NaI(Tl) probes see Milbrath et al.4. Results: (1) A database of the NORM traffic through the port of Antwerp (2008 – 2010) was constructed. (2) Through measurements at the port of Antwerp and at companies a new user-friendly method for the determination of the activity concentration was developed. The activity concentrations of shipped goods and several building materials are determined with several detectors and the results are compared to the BSS limits. (3) In case-studies dose on workers was assessed. (4) Initial results of the measurements on building materials are shown. Outlook: Ongoing research focuses on the treatment strategies for NORM contaminated waste, soil and water. IAF and NuTeC organize the 4th EAN-NORM workshop in Hasselt, Belgium (Nov 29th – Dec 1st 2011). The workshop focuses on transportation of NORM, measurements strategies and building materials (http://www.ean-norm.net/). Funding for the research projects is provided by the ministry of the Flemish community, EFRO and LRM.

There is a growing demand for design support to create interactive systems that are deployed in ambient intelligent environments. Unlike traditional interactive systems, the wide diversity of situations these type of user interfaces need to work in require tool-support that is close to the environment of the end-user on the one hand and provide a smooth integration with the application logic on the other hand. This paper shows how the Model-Based User Interface Development methodology can be applied for ambient intelligent environments; we propose a task-centered approach towards the design of interactive systems by means of appropriate visualizations and simulations of different models. Besides the use of typical user interface models, such as the task- and presentation-model, we focus on user interfaces supporting situated task distributions and a visualization of context influences on deployed user interfaces. To enable this we introduce an environment model describing the device configuration at particular moment in time. To support the user interface designer while creating these complex interfaces for ambient intelligent environments, we discuss tool support using a visualization of the environment together with simulations of the user interface configurations. We also show how the concepts presented in the paper can be integrated within Model-Driven Engineering, hereby narrowing the gap between HCI design and software engineering.

Since a growing number of different mobile computing devices are used in pervasive and ubiquitous environments, the need to adopt new approaches for designing and implementing pervasive interactive software with minor effort is emerging. In this paper we present a process that facilitates the design of next-generation interactive software for pervasive environments. We created a distributed runtime infrastructure that enables the distribution of software components on heterogeneous, networked and embedded hardware systems. Some of these components or compositions of components will require interaction by human users from a large range of different devices. To make the deployment of consistent and functional User Interfaces in these pervasive environments easier, Interaction Components are introduced into the runtime infrastructure which enable the presentation of component and service behavior to human users.