Year
2003
Abstract
Scientists at several U. S. Department of Energy sites, using nondestructive assay techniques, determine the entrained transuranic mass and associated parameters of defense-related waste prior to its disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad New Mexico. Technical review of waste nondestructive assay data, though warranted with respect to current assay system capabilities, is labor intensive. Hence, automated review of this data is desirable. To this end, scientists at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory have collaborated to produce The Data Review Expert System. This system consists of two primary components: 1) Review Expert manages the review of data batches, and 2) Rule Editor manages specification and maintenance of the review criterion. Rule Editor’s capabilities go beyond validation rule specification, however, and include interactive specification of data to be extracted from an organization’s existing text data files, and design of reports to be generated at the conclusion of the review (using flexible report design software, Crystal Reports?). The combined system also generates relevant portions of the quality assurance documentation associated with the system. Rule Editor can generate quality assurance documentation and allows specification of test case data used to generate test case data files. Review Expert can use the test case specifications and generated test files to automatically perform a validation review and generate report pages indicating success or failure of the validation review components. Together, the automated documentation and validation features can save from several days to several weeks of system preparation time. Rule Editor is a stand-alone system, while Review Expert can be used in either stand-alone mode or linked into other software systems through an application programming interface. Rule Editor and Review Expert have been designed for maximum flexibility such that in addition to current use for nondestructive assay data review, variants of these programs have also been used at the demonstration level for radiochemistry data review. Review Expert, in its initial applications, has shown an order of magnitude reduction in the overall data review effort. Rule Editor is being used to extend this improvement to new measurement systems.