Long-lived nuclear excited states (isomers) have proven important to understanding nuclear structure. With some isomers having half-lives of decades or longer, and intrinsic energy densities reaching 10 12 J/kg, they have also been suggested for a wide range of applications. The ability to effectively transfer a population of nuclei from an isomer to shorter-lived levels will determine the feasibility of any applications. Here is described a first demonstration of the induced depletion of a population of the 438 year isomer of 108 Ag to its 2.38 min ground state, using 6 MeV bremsstrahlung from a modified medical electron linac. The experiment suggests refinements to be implemented in the future and how a similar approach might be applied to study induced depletion of the 1200 year isomer of 166 Ho.

The employment of smartphone sensors for navigation applications and situational awareness on naval ships and in battlefield applications has been demonstrated. The PASSION application uses Wi-Fi, accelerometers, gyroscopes, QR codes, and manual entry on Android and iPhone tracking applications for ships. This paper primarily discusses supplementing the existing implementation with a new augmentation using Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE version 4.0). The characteristics of BTLE segregated ranging using Received Signal Strength measurements are explored. The sensitivity of BTLE RSS measurements to environmental factors such as placement, cases, orientation of the device, orientation of the Smartphone and intervening materials is quantified. Algorithms that employ BTLE measurements within the framework of the overall navigation positioning and tracking problem are discussed. Their possible utilization for situational awareness and collaborative navigation is discussed.