[en] Recent years has seen the IAEA’s delivery of nuclear security services and development of guidelines grow and mature. The Nuclear Security Summits have also served well to focus attention on the importance of nuclear security in addressing the threat of nuclear terrorism and moreover has motivated national action to build nuclear security capacities and reduce security risks. Further to this there are calls to further build confidence in nuclear security practices, through the development of international assurances. While there are recognised limitations on transparency, there are a suite of existing and new mechanisms that can provide credible assurance without reducing the overall security outcome. This paper outlines the unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral measures and activities that together can provide achievable and viable international assurance. (author)

[en] Australia’s Design Basis Threat (DBT) was revised in 2012, ten years after the previous review. Using the IAEA’s Nuclear Security Series Guidance document on DBTs the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office used an interagency process to devise a series of threat profiles which were distilled into the final DBT. Challenges to the review process included setting the scope, treating insider, cyber and air-borne threats, and interpretation of the final product. (author)

[en] Contemporary nuclear physics research is focused more on studying the properties of nuclei away from the stability region. The detailed spectroscopic investigations done on these exotic nuclei have revealed a number of interesting features in them. The g factor, due to its sensitivity to the small admixtures in wave function has the potential to explain these structural features satisfactorily. So the g factor measurements in these short lived exotic nuclei, produced as radioactive beams are highly required

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[en] The g factors of collective nuclear states measure the fraction of the total angular momentum carried by the protons, and hence provide a unique probe of nuclear collective excitations. In the region of A = 100 a number of g factors have been measured for the first 2⁺ states in neutron-rich nuclei produced as fission fragments. Reduced g factors, implying a reduced role for protons compared with neutrons, are observed for many, but not all, of the neutron-rich isotopes. To draw the nuclear structure information, the experimental g-factors are also being compared with g-factor values obtained with the tidal wave model calculations.

[en] Three low-lying 8⁺ states have been identified in ¹⁹²Pb. A newly observed cascade of γ -rays built directly on the 8⁺₁ state is compared to the previously identified, weakly rotational band above the 11^-π i_13/2, h_9/2 isomer in the same nucleus, and to analogous structures in ¹⁹⁴Pb. The similarity of all four structures lends support to the suggestion that the 8⁺₁ configurations are of a similar oblate deformation to the 11^- isomers. The excitation energies of all three 8⁺ states in ¹⁹²Pb and ¹⁹⁰Pb are compared to systematics. The possibility that one of the 8⁺ states in ¹⁹²Pb is associated with a prolate shape is discounted. (orig.)

[en] The transient-field technique has been used to measure the g(2₁⁺) values in ^116,118,120Sn, simultaneously, relative to each other and to the well-known g(2₁⁺) values in the stable even Pd isotopes. The g factor in ¹¹⁸Sn, which has a small positive value, evidently differs from those in ¹¹⁶Sn and ^120-124Sn, which have small negative values. This behavior is investigated through shell model calculations. The experimental g factors are also compared with recent QRPA and RQRPA calculations