Building a Chatbot in a Pandemic

Easy access to evidence-based information on COVID-19 within an infodemic has been a challenging task. Chatbots have been introduced in times of emergency, when human resources are stretched thin and individuals need a user-centered resource. The World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) Europe and Central Asia came together to build a chatbot, HealthBuddy+, to assist country populations in the region to access accurate COVID-19 information in the local languages, adapted to the country context. Working in close collaboration with thematic technical experts, colleagues and counterparts at the country level allowed the project to be tailored to a diverse range of subtopics. To ensure that HealthBuddy+ was relevant and useful in countries across the region, the 2 regional offices worked closely with their counterparts in country offices, which were essential in partnering with national authorities, engaging communities, promoting the tool, and identifying the most relevant communication channels in which to embed HealthBuddy+. Over the past 2 years, the project has expanded from a web-based chatbot in 7 languages to a multistream, multifunction chatbot available in 16 regional languages, and HealthBuddy+ continues to expand and adjust to meet emerging health emergency needs.

Simulation of a hypothetical MSLB core transient in VVER-1000 with several stuck rods

A hypothetical main steam line break transient in a VVER-1000 core with multiple equipment faults was simulated with the coupled COBAYA4/CTF and COBAYA3/FLICA4 nodal core models. The objective was to test recent versions of the models developed in the EU NURISP and NURESAFE projects and to analyze the thermal-hydraulic conditions in the hot assembly at the pin-cell level. The accident scenario was specified as an aggravated variant of the OECD/NEA VVER-1000 MSLB benchmark with eight peripheral control rod clusters stuck out of the core after scram, all of them in the overcooled sector. Coarse-mesh models and a realistic cross-section library were used to compute the full-core behavior with pre-calculated MSLB boundary conditions and to identify the hot assembly. Then a sub-channel thermal-hydraulic analysis of the hot assembly was performed with the CTF code, using time-dependent assembly boundary conditions from the coarse-mesh vessel and core simulation. The results show that the predicted values of the safety parameters do not exceed the safety limits.