| Minutes of the
meeting of members of IUPAC Commission V.7 during the 13-th Radiochemical Conference in
Marianske Lazni, Czech Republic (April 19-24, 1998) Attendance (11 persons): V. Kolotov (Chairman), P.Benes (Secretary), H.W.Gaggeler, J.V. Kratz, H.Nakahara, Carol H. Collins, F.DeCorte, P. Vitorge, A.R. Ware, F. Macasek, C. Testa Excuses: Z.Chai, S.Yates, N.Holden, B.F.Myasoedov, A.V.R.Reddy, A.Vertes Absent: E.Steinnes, H.Das, A.Plonka, In Soon Chang, E.Roth, C.Madic The meeting was opened on 18 April at 10 a.m. by the Chairman of the Commission, V. Kolotov, who welcomed the members present and introduced two new members: Professor F.De Corte, elected AM, Professor F. Macasek, elected NR. Professor S.N. Yates, newly elected AM, was not present. The first two new members briefly characterized their expertise and fields of interest; Kolotov informed on the work of Professor Yates. The Commission accepted the following agenda of the meeting, the draft having been distributed by E-mail prior to the meeting and in the hard copy at the meeting: A g e n d a : 1. Opening of the meeting 2. Welcome and introduction of new members 3. Discussion and acceptance of the agenda 4. Approval of the Minutes of the last meeting 5. Information on the recent events in the ACD (January 98 meeting, other things)
7. Evaluation of the current status of running projects of our Commission
10. Miscellaneous 11. Closing of the meeting M i n u t e s :
Minutes of the meeting of the Commission held during the IUPAC General Assembly in Geneva, which were previously distributed by E-mail, were discussed and approved. In this connection, several questions from the members were answered. Benes indicated that he contacted Professor D. Waite and asked him to serve as NR for Australia on the Commission, but received a negative answer. Kolotov sent E-mail messages to Das and Steinnes informing them that the Commission had approved their membership as NR, provided that the corresponding NAO supported them in this function (approval for Steinnes has been received from Secretariat). Kolotov also discussed the format of documents he had distributed by E-mail to the members (some members said they had problems with opening the documents). RTF and PDF files would also be distributed in the future and the members are advised to learn their use. 5. Information on the recent events in ACD Kolotov first reported on the Meeting of IUPAC Division Presidents (November 22, 1997 - the corresponding document was distributed to the members by E-mail in January, 1998) and on the meeting of the IUPAC ACD officers and commission chairs in Idstain (17-18 January, 1998, the Report of this meeting was sent to the members by E-mail and distributed as hard copy at the begining of the present meeting). Lively discussion evolved on several conclusions or recommendations from these meetings. One of the topics were the clients (individuals and organizations) who might benefit from IUPAC work. Opinions were expressed that the radiopharmaceutical industry (Collins, Ware) and nuclear medicine (Macášek) could be good clients for our Commissions projects. In this connection, production of radionuclides was discussed and Kolotov proposed that this topic is suitable for being addressed by a special project to be proposed in our Commission. It has been agreed that suitable authors for this project should be sought and that Kolotov and Beneš should discuss this problem with Professor de Goeij, who would be present in the forthcoming Radiochemical Conference and who has been working successfully in the respective field for many years (Prof. de Goeij was contacted several days later and agreed to prepare a proposal for such a project). Then, quality assurance (QA) in radiochemical analysis and other radiochemical methods was discussed. Here, governments and regulatory bodies should be interested. Ware commented that little interest has been shown in the development of “standardized” methods for the analysis of radionuclides in the environment. Macášek noted problems of accreditation of radiochemical laboratories. Ware, Collins and Testa discussed the possible role of IUPAC in the development of accreditation systems which are presently mainly national but should be better unified internationally and recommended also for countries outside IUPAC. Kolotov concluded that accreditation is dependent on governmental regulations but QA has general application. Our Commission tried to initiate a project on QA (D.Vance - see Minutes from Geneva) but without success. Reinitiation of the project should be considered and the members are encouraged to make proposals in this respect. Another topic discussed was where the papers resulting from IUPAC projects should be published. Gäggeler, Beneš and Collins thought that PAC does not always attract the attention of radiochemists and other journals may be better for this purpose. Publication outside PAC is often more rapid. Nakahara proposed that the papers be published in suitable journals with acknowledgment of the IUPAC role in their preparation. Kolotov reported that PAC will soon be published electronically, but it is not necessary to publish there. However it is crucial that the paper can easily be found by the scientific community. This may be facilitated by the home page of our Commission on the Internet, where all the projects and their outcome will be published. The page is in preparation and should contain suitable links to locate important information. Kolotov will ask the members for help for the preparation of this page in June-September 98. The Commission also commented on IUPAC addressing the lay public. It was felt that each IUPAC project should have three parts: the proper scientific part, attached data in electronic form, and a brief summary for the lay public. The summary should be placed on the home pages of the IUPAC Commissions. Collins and Ware proposed that the IUPAC Executive Director regularly inform the public about the activity and projects of IUPAC. This task is closely related to the role of IUPAC in chemical education. Several members (Vitorge, Beneš, Collins) stated that as public awareness of radiochemistry decreases, radiochemistry and other nuclear topics are being deleted from curricula at universities and high schools, partially due to the prevailing aversion towards everything nuclear. Nakahara thought that it is necessary to convince the public that radiochemistry is a useful discipline contributing to other fields of human knowledge (dating etc.) and also to human culture. Several ways to this goal were discussed: using the authority of IUPAC to emphasize the role of radiochemistry in life sciences and protection of the environment (Benes), updating of the review paper by Adloff on the worldwide teaching of radiochemistry (Ware), repeated publication of existing textbooks on radiochemistry (Vitorge), advertisement of radiochemistry on the web using suitable phrases, connections, key words, etc. (Gaggeler). It was concluded that Gaggeler will prepare suitable web linkages and Collins will help with the home page format. Later during the Radiochemical Conference Benes asked Professor Adloff whether he would be willing to update his excellent review on the radiochemical education published earlier. The answer was negative. Lunch break (12.30 - 13.50) 5. (continuation) The Chairman of our Commission was asked by the ACD President to prepare a Justification of the Commission V.7 activity inside the ACD for the coming period (1998-2001). This should serve to justify further existence of the Commission. Kolotov prepared the draft and after exchange with Benes the short document was presented to the Commission meeting. Several corrections were proposed by the members to amend the text. The corrected version will be sent to ACD President. A copy of the corrected version is annexed to these Minutes. 6. Discussion of the document from the January ACD meeting The discussion was started by Benes, who expressed his opinion that the document is too optimistic and gives no solutions to several existing problems (motivation of IUPAC members, recruitment of new members, etc.). He questioned our collaboration with clients or other interested parties like IAEA, who are engaged in similar activities as we are but have much larger resources and capabilities. Their interest in collaboration would probably be rather limited, although mutual information is of course highly desirable. A broad discussion evolved (Vitorge, Macasek etc.) about the possible role of IUPAC in reviewing, assessing and endorsing projects, analyses, documents, etc., where the main advantage of IUPAC is its independence. It has been stated that this role is still seldom fulfilled and much has to be done to address clients in this respect. Benes also commented that very little horizontal coordination among the commissions exists. When working on the project dealing with the speciation of radionuclides in the environment he unsuccessfully tried to participate in the activities of the Working Group on Speciation (Commission V.2). Kolotov replied that it has been planned to regularly distribute information on the plans, projects and other activities of different Commissions and other IUPAC bodies. The first document of this type dealing with new projects of Commissions V.1-7 was distributed among our members by E-mail prior to the present meeting. He proposed that the members of our Commission interested in any IUPAC project in progress contact the respective authors and inform the Secretary of our Commission about this. Since speciation is of great interest for members of our Commission, a joint meeting of our Commission with other commissions working in this field should be planned for the next IUPAC General Assembly in Berlin. 7. Evaluation of current status of running projects. No project was initiated since the last meeting in Geneva, so that the status of the same projects as those discussed in Geneva was reevaluated. Project 7/89 (part 1) - No new information was available so it was decided to ask Adloff, who was to participate in at the conference. Adloff was asked two days later and reported that the draft of his paper, revised after the first cycle of comments, was submitted to Das a few years ago. Adloff then never heard any more about the manuscript . Project 7/89 (parts 2-4) - Part 2 was published in Radiochimica Acta in 1955, the other parts were already canceled. Project 8/89 - Canceled after the Geneva meeting. Project 12/89 - Completed project was reviewed by Kratz and Zvara, and the reviews were sent to Holden. Approved status: running project, extended till 1999 (Step 10 of the Standard Flow Chart). Project 13/89 - Prepared for publication, which has been delayed by problems with the IUPAC web (hyperlinked text). Approved status: step 20 of the Standard Flow Chart. Project 15/91 - Submitted for printing to the Division. Approved status: step 9 of the Standard Flow Chart. Project 16/91 - Das presented two reports in Geneva which were accepted as Technical Reports. The reports were reviewed by Collins and Karol and the comments were sent to Das on 7 April. No response to the comments was received from Das, who later indicated that one of the reports is in print in Isotopes in Environmental and Health Studies. Action: Das will be contacted to respond to the comments and to prepare a summary for publication in PAC. Project 17/93 - Project is canceled due to the lack of any response from Madic. Project 18/93 - Due to a heavy work load, Kratz has not yet completed the project. After finalizing (possibly before next IUPAC General Assembly), the manuscript will be reviewed by Gaggeler and Zvara. Approved status: running project, step 7. Project 19/93 - No new information due to problems in communication with Holden. Approved status: running project, extended till 1999, step 7. Project 21/93 - The project will be completed at the end of 1998. It will be reviewed by De Corte and Zuchetti (Ispra). Approved status: running project, extended till 1999, step 7. Project 22/95 - Not yet completed, parts of the very extensive report have to be corrected after translation to English. Report will be reviewed by Collins and Myasoedov. It will be published in J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. or Radiochimica Acta. Approved status: running project, extended till 1999, step 7. Project 23/95 - It was decided in Geneva to cancel the project. Kolotov will try to find scientists who may restart the project with a new number. Project 24/95 - Reviews of the report, submitted in Geneva by Vertes, were received. Kolotov will send them to the author. Approved status: running project, extended till 1999, step 10. Project 25/95 - The project was declared as completed in Geneva; it was then reviewed by Collins. After the even year meeting, Das indicated that the manuscript submitted in Geneva is in print in J. Trace Analysis and Microprobes. 8. New projects A project initiation form (PIF) for a new project by Benes et al. (“Effect of humic substances on the environmental migration of radionuclides”) was presented. The project was already recommended in Geneva. A proposal by De Corte and Kolotov for new project entitled “Compilation of ko and related data for NAA in the form of an electronic data base” was accepted. A preliminary PIF was presented. Vitorge proposed a new project dealing with methodology of the prediction of radionuclide migration. After extensive discussion it was agreed that Vitorge will submit an extended written proposal and PIF which will be circulated for comments. Several topics for possible projects were discussed by Gaggeler. It was decided that he will prepare a proposal for a project dealing with nuclear dating. A further project will prepared by Prof. De Goeij (see 5 above). 9. Collaboration with other organizations No information was obtained after Geneva meeting on the possible participation of two members of our Commission in the SCOPE-RADSITE project, discussed in Geneva. Benes informed that Prof. Kirchmann, Chairman of SCOPE-RADSITE, will be present at the 13th Radiochemical Conference and the participation can be discussed with him. The discussion took place one day later. Prof. Kirchmann welcomed the participation and promised to inform the President of SCOPE, to discuss this matter with Dr. Miyamoto, IUPAC Representative to SCOPE, and to keep Benes informed about RADSITE development. Benes and Myasoedov could participate as observers at the next meeting of RADSITE scheduled for Brussels this Fall. 11. Closing of the meeting The meeting was closed at 17.20 to enable participants to register at the Conference. During the conference, several informal meetings of members were realized with the outcomes mentioned above. Chairman: V.P.Kolotov Secretary: P.Benes (The help of Carol Collins in text preparation is highly appreciated).
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