RODOS-Real-Time-Data-Base/EURDEP

Analysis and suggestions

R ODO
REPORT S
DECISION SUPPORT FOR NUCLEAR EMERGENCIES

RODOS (WG8)-TN (98)-01

 Fehler!

draft - 2 - 04.08.00
draft - 0 - 04.08.00
 RODOS-RTDB/EURDEP
RODOS (WG8)-TN (98)-01

Marc De Cort, Damiano Zilio

Radioactivity Environmental Monitoring
Environment Institute
Joint Research Centre
21020 Ispra (VA), Italy
E-mail: marc.de-cort@jrc.it, damiano.zilio@jrc.it
February 1999

Management Summary
During the development of the conversion software from EURDEP
(European Union Radioactivity Exchange Platform) to RODOS the
structures of the databases of these systems have been thoroughly analysed.
This report describes the work undertaken to convert the EURDEP
formatted data to the RODOS real time database (RTDB). First the existing
RTDB is analysed in view of its use for containing EURDEP data. Then
“compatibility” problems are highlighted and suggestions are made for an
extended RTDB that matches better the objectives of radiological data
exchange

draft - 1 - 04.08.00
Contents

RODOS-RTDB/EURDEP..........................................................................................1

1 The RODOS RTDB structure ...............................................................................................................3

2 The EURDEP Data base structure.........................................................................................................4

3 Conversion software development work ...............................................................................................7

4 RODOS-EUREP Real Time Data Base problems ...............................................................................8

5 A suggestion for a new RODOS Real Time Data Base.....................................................................9

6 Conclusion and outlook ........................................................................................................................ 11

draft - 2 - 04.08.00
1 The RODOS RTDB structure
With the program rtdca (developed at FZK [1]) the RODOS-PRTY
3.011 system (the last RODOS release) can automatically uploads into
specific tables the data coming from measurement stations.
With a configuration files the user can define the subdirectories where
the related data files will be found and using the RODOS Real Time
Data Format Converter (RTDFC) language it is possible to convert
(and read) almost every file format.
The system checks periodically if there are new files in the reserved
subdirectories and then process (following the instructions given with the
RTDFC) all the incoming data.
The incoming information is then stored into some tables of the system
real time database.
The physical diagram of these tables of the RODOS RTDB is presented
in Figure 1.
CATSOURCE
SOURCE SMALLINT
NAME VARCHAR(20) ONMEASUREMENT
SOURCE SMALLINT
TIMEPOINT DATETIME
INTERVAL SMALLINT
SOURCE = SOURCE
ENTRANCETIME DATETIME

CATLOCATION SOURCE = SOURCE

TIMEPOINT = TIMEPOINT
LOCATION = LOCATION
LOCATION INTEGER
INTERVAL = INTERVAL
NAME VARCHAR(20)

CATTYPE
TYPE = TYPE
TYPE INTEGER
NAME VARCHAR(20)

CATMEASUREMENT ONVALUE
CATATTRIBUTE1
MEASUREMENT INTEGER SOURCE SMALLINT
ATTRIBUTE1 INTEGER
HEIGHT
ATTRIBUTE1 = ATTRIBUTE1 INTEGER TIMEPOINT DATETIME
NAME VARCHAR(20)
TYPE INTEGER INTERVAL SMALLINT
ATTRIBUTE1 INTEGER
MEASUREMENT = MEASUREMENT
LOCATION INTEGER
CATUNIT UNIT INTEGER MEASUREMENT INTEGER
UNIT INTEGER UNIT = UNIT METHOD INTEGER VALUE FLOAT
NAME VARCHAR(20)

CATMETHOD
METHOD INTEGER METHOD = METHOD
NAME VARCHAR(20)

Figure 1 RTDB physical structure

The rtdca software dynamically updated the two grey tables in Figure 1
(onmeasurement and onvalue). The other tables are “descriptive”; the
user must store there (with ISQL) the relations between unique integer
numbers (the foreigner keys in the online tables) and the name of the
related parameter.

draft - 3 - 04.08.00
2 The EURDEP Data base structure
After the Chernobyl accident most European countries initiated or
enhanced their national radioactivity monitoring system. Because of the
large transboundary effects of the radioactive release many countries felt
in addition the need to establish bilateral and international agreements on
the exchange of radiological information.
In order to bring this exchange to a European level and to co-ordinate
the efforts, the EC organised a workshop (1-3 June 1994, Arona, Italy)
which resulted in a feasibility study of regular exchange of monitoring
data between some European countries and to define a common data
format. The name assigned to this project was EURDEP.
Based on the specification of the EURDEP format each country of this
“network” developed the conversion software from the native (and
national) format specifications to the European EURDEP format and
back. In this way for example, German data could be converted to the
neutral format, sent to Denmark via e-mail, where it then could be
converted to the Danish data format and processed with the “normal”
Danish analysis systems.
Twenty European countries are up to now exchanging radiological data
using the EURDEP format: Germany, Spain, Finland, Netherlands,
Sweden, Denmark, Romania, United Kingdom, Norway, Italy, Czech
Republic, Portugal, Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland,
Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Poland.
All these countries send periodically their EURDEP messages to the
JRC in Ispra. The JRC, after a preliminary check on the received data,
stores all the EURDEP information into a specific database and
redistributes an EURDEP message within the data of all the European
stations.
The EURDEP message is an asci file with keywords that control logical
sections and identifiers that specify the name and the position of the
fields transmitted.
The information that can be transmitted in the EURDEP format with the
related identifiers and formats are summarised in Table 1, where:
• The column IDENTIFIER shows the unique identifier that is used in
the EURDEP format to specify the attribute;
• The column Mand. is marked if the field is mandatory. The column
Def. is marked if the field can be specified in the “default section” at
begin of each EURDEP transmission, and the column Table is marked if
the Identifier can only be assigned a value that is contained into a
catalogue table.

draft - 4 - 04.08.00
DATA ITEM IDENTIFIER FORMAT Unit Mand. Def. Table
Radiological data
Apparatus type APPARATUS C2 X X D1
Begin of sampling date & time (UTC) BEGIN YYYY/MM/DD hh:mm X X
Activity value ACTIVITY <N.NN E SNN X
Background value BG <N.NN E SNN
Background value evaluation method BG_METHOD C30 X
End of sampling date & time (UTC) END YYYY/MM/DD hh:mm X X
Error value ERROR <N.NN E SNN X X
Error type ERR_TYPE C1 X X D2
Error Unit ERR_UNIT C6 X X D3
Latitude LATITUDE Ndd.dddd (“N”+Decimal degrees) X
Locality Code LOCALITYCODE CCnnnn X
Longitude LONGITUDE E/W[s]ddd.dddd (“E” or “W” + X
optional sign + decimal degrees)
Measuring unit MEAS_UNIT C6 X X D3
Nuclide category NUCLIDE C11 X X D4
Reference date time (UTC) REF_DATE YYYY/MM/DD hh:mm
Remarks REMARKS C60 - free text
Sample Treatment SAMP_TREAT C1 X X D5
Sample type code SAMP_TYPE C5 X X D6
Value Type VALUE_TYPE C1 X X D7
Side information
Air volume during relevant measuring method AIR_VOL NNNN M3
Measuring height MEAS_HEIGHT NNNN m X
Time basis (e.g. 5 minutes) TIMEBASE C10 X
Meteorological information at measuring location
Precipitation PRECIPITATION NNN mm
Atmospheric pressure PRESSURE NNNN hPa
Presence of snow (Y or N) SNOW B
Temperature at ground level TEMP SNN.N °C
Wind direction, from North, clockwise WIND_DIR DDD degrees
Wind speed WIND_SPEED NN m/s

Table 1 EURDEP Fields

draft - 5 - 04.08.00
Fehler! Verweisquelle konnte nicht gefunden werden. Fehler! Verweisquelle konnte nicht gefunden werden.

All the data arriving at the JRC in this neutral format are stored automatically
in the EURDEP database.
The physical model of this database is presented in Figure 2.
MEASURE
LOCALITYCODE CHAR(6)
SAMPLE_CODE NUMBER(8)
NUCLIDE CHAR(11)
APPARATUS CHAR(2)
ACTIVITY FLOAT
BG CHAR(10)
BG_METHOD CHAR(30)
ERR_TYPE CHAR(1)
ERR_UNIT CHAR(6)
ERROR FLOAT
MEAS_UNIT CHAR(6)
REMARKS CHAR(60)
VALUE_TYPE CHAR(1)

LOCALITYCODE = LOCALITYCODE
SAMPLE_CODE = SAMPLE_CODE

SAMPLE
COUNTRY LOCALITYCODE CHAR(6)
COUNTRY CHAR(50) SAMPLE_CODE NUMBER(8)
CODE CHAR(2) SAMP_TYPE CHAR(5)
ENDDT DATE
LOCATION BEGINDT DATE
SAMP_TREAT CHAR(1)
LOCALITYCODE CHAR(6)
TIMEBASE CHAR(10)
NAME CHAR(50)
LOCALITYCODE = LOCALITYCODE AIR_VOL NUMBER(4)
LONGITUDE FLOAT
MEAS_HEIGHT NUMBER(4)
LATITUDE FLOAT
ATMOSPHERIC_PRESSURE NUMBER(4)
ALTITUDE FLOAT
PRECIPITATION NUMBER(3)
NUTS CHAR(6)
PRESENCE_OF_SNOW NUMBER(1)
TEMPERATURE NUMBER(2,1)
TEMPERATURE_SIGN CHAR(1)
WIND_DIR_FROM_NORTH_CLOCKWISE FLOAT
WIND_SPEED NUMBER(2)

Figure 2 EURDEP physical model

For further information on the EURDEP format see [2]

draft - 6 - 04.08.00
3 Conversion software development work
First of all it was decided which fields of the EURDEP database were to be
stored in the RTDB.
The analysis was limited to the mandatory EURDEP fields (see Table 2),
and it was decided to fit the EURDEP fields into the RTDB structure as
shown in the table 2.

EURDEP RODOS-RTDB
IDENTIFIER.table IDENTIFIER.table
LOCALITYCODE.Location NAME.catsource
APPARATUS.Measure NAME.catlocation
NUCLIDE.Measure NAME.cattype
VALUE_TYPE.Measure NAME.catattribute1
MEAS_UNIT.Measure NAME.catunit
SAMP_TYPE.Sample NAME.catmethod
END.Sample TIMEPOINT.onmeasurement
TIMEPOINT.onvalue
ACTIVITY.Measure VALUE.onvalue

Table 2 EURDEP-RODOS keywords conversion

The entire cat* tables were updated with the EURDEP codes by means of
an ISQL (Interactive Structured Query Language) script file.
A pre-processor (developed with PERL: Practical Extraction and Report
Language) reduces any EURDEP message to a simple plain table. With this
pre-processing the input information are also filtered removing the EURDEP
fields not used in the RTDB (i.e. measurements done in locality not listed
into the RTDB source catalog.table see Figure 1).
With a description file the RTDFormatConverter converts this plain and
reduced table and store the EURDEP message into the RTDB.
Updating the cat* tables of each RTDB in each RODOS point and
configuring the rtdfca (the RODOS’s program that keeps updated the
RTDB) it will be possible (eventually using the RODOS Data Exchange
system) to transmit and to load the EURDEP information into the RTDB of
each RODOS point.

draft - 7 - 04.08.00
4 RODOS-EUREP Real Time Data Base problems
During the analysis phase of the development of the conversion software
between RODOS RTDB and EURDEP a lot of problems were met due to
the limitation of the actual structure of the RODOS RTDB and to a
substantial incompatibility between the two data structures.
The major problems, which steel need to be solved, are:
◊ There are no fields where to store the geographic position of the
measurement instrument (Latitude and longitude).
◊ The only two fields dealing with the position of the instrument (“locality
name” in catsource.table and height in catmeasurement.table) can’t be
dynamically updated during the data loading. For this reason RTDB can
store only the measurements coming from a fixed grid of points (the
ones listed in catsource.table Figure 1).
◊ The EURDEP format can describe to a much more detailed extent the
conditions under which measurements are performed (125 nuclide
category, 17 different value type, 67 different measuring unit, 778
sample type and 25 sample treatments). The possibility to store all these
measurements in the actual RODOS RTDB structure requires a
catmeasurement.table with ~30.000.000 of lines! At the moment we
have limited this number to the 211.140 most probable measurements
conditions, but this number is already too big to be administrated.
◊ Any activity value arrives with a Nuclide_category code, a Value_type
code, a Measuring_unit code, a Method code and not with a global
measurement code. In order to store the information in the RTDB, the
system needs a function (i.e. number concatenation) with which to find
the measurement code from the incoming measurement information
leading to redundant information storage (i. .e. each measure is stored
twice, once clear in the catmeasurement tables and once ‘crypt’ in the
measurement code itself, and thus occupies a lot of disk space).

draft - 8 - 04.08.00
5 A suggestion for a new RODOS Real Time Data Base
The actual RTDB doesn’t fit well the EURDEP structure as extensively
explained into the previous sections.
Due to this incompatibility, part of the information available in an EURDEP
message can’t be stored into RTDB (i.e. latitude and longitude), and the
catalogue tables of the RTDB (especially the catsource.table) require
continuos maintenance in order to follow the EURDEP flexibility.
If it would be possible to change something inside the complexity of the
RODOS system, this analysis has highlighted the need of some modifications
inside the RTDB structure.
The whole system would improve its performances simply adding fields for
latitude and longitude and altitude into the online tables (onvalue or
onmeasurement). It would avoid all the annoying problems that deal with
the maintenance of the catsource.table.
If a deeper reengineering of the whole RTDB structure would be possible, in
Figure 3 there is a suggested first draft (physical diagram) for a new and
simplified RTDB that well fits the EURDEP structure.
APPTYPE
APPARATUS_TYPE INTEGER
APP_TYPE_NAME VARCHAR(30)

UNIT
ONVALUE
MEAS_UNIT INTEGER
ENTRANCETIME DATETIME
MEAS_UNIT_NAME VARCHAR(30)
LATITUDE FLOAT
LONGITUDE FLOAT
ELEVATIO_A_SOIL INTEGER
START_MEAS_TIME DATETIME
END_MEAS_TIME DATETIME
APPARATUS_TYPE = APPARATUS_TYPE APPARATUS_TYPE INTEGER
MEAS_UNIT INTEGER
MEAS_CATEGORY = MEAS_CATEGORY MEAS_UNIT = MEAS_UNIT
MEAS_CATEGORY INTEGER
MEAS_METHOD = MEAS_METHOD
MEAS_METHOD INTEGER

CATEGORY
MEAS_CATEGORY INTEGER
MEAS_CAT_NAME VARCHAR(30)

METHOD
MEAS_METHOD INTEGER
MEAS_METH_NAME VARCHAR(30)

Figure 3 new RTDB physical diagram

This new suggested structure would simplify the data uploading process
(there is only one “online” table), would reduce the system administrator
work (no more catsource table should be periodically updated) and it would
also reduce the disk space requirements.
The size of this new structure can be estimated in:

draft - 9 - 04.08.00
 8296 bytes for the catalogue tables plus 64 bytes for each single record of
the onvalue table.
By the other hand the actual structure requires:
5101224 bytes for the catalogue tables plus 36 bytes for each onvalue
record and 32 bytes for each onmeasurement record.
With and evident reduction of the space required.

draft - 10 - 04.08.00
6 Conclusion and outlook
Even if the conversion software between RTDB and EURDEP has been
developed we must underline the substantial incompatibility between the two
structures, this mean either that the software is not well performing (due the
huge dimensions of the catalogue tables) either that only a part of the
EURDEP information can be stored (i. E. all the geographical information of
the measurement are lost).

draft - 11 - 04.08.00
References
[1] “RODOS system Manual” pg. 93 and following.
[2] “EURDEP Joint Research Centre of European Union
S.P.I.96.38”.

draft - 12 - 04.08.00
Document History
Document Title: RODOS Real-Time data base/EURDEP: analysis and
suggestions
RODOS number: RODOS (WG8)-TN (98)-01
Version and status: Version 1.0 (final)
Authors/Editors: Marc De Cort, Damiano Zilio
Address:
Issued by:
History:
Date of Issue: February 1999
Circulation:
File Name: RODOS (WG8)-TN (98)-01.doc
Date of print: August 4, 2000

draft - 13 - 04.08.00