Radiation protection, also known as radiological protection, is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "The protection of people from harmful effects of exposure to ionizing radiation, and the means for achieving this". Exposure can be from a source of radiation external to the human body or due to internal irradiation caused by the ingestion of radioactive contamination.
Ionizing radiation is widely used in industry and medicine, and can present a significant health hazard by causing microscopic damage to living tissue. There are two main categories of ionizing radiation health effects. At high exposures, it can cause "tissue" effects, also called "deterministic" effects due to the certainty of them happening, conventionally indicated by the unit gray and resulting in acute radiation syndrome. For low level exposures there can be statistically elevated risks of radiation-induced cancer, called "stochastic effects" due to the uncertainty of them happening, conventionally indicated by the unit sievert.
Fundamental to radiation protection is the avoidance or reduction of dose using the simple protective measures of time, distance and shielding. The duration of exposure should be limited to that necessary, the distance from the source of radiation should be maximised, and the source or the target shielded wherever possible. To measure personal dose uptake in occupational or emergency exposure, for external radiation personal dosimeters are used, and for internal dose to due to ingestion of radioactive contamination, bioassay techniques are applied.
For radiation protection and dosimetry assessment the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) and International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) publish recommendations and data which is used to calculate the biological effects on the human body of certain levels of radiation, and thereby advise acceptable dose uptake limits.
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Learn how principles of basic science are integrated into major biomedical imaging modalities and the different techniques used, such as X-ray computed tomography (CT), ultrasounds and positron emissi
Learn how principles of basic science are integrated into major biomedical imaging modalities and the different techniques used, such as X-ray computed tomography (CT), ultrasounds and positron emissi
A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol γ or ), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically shorter than those of X-rays. With frequencies above 30 exahertz (3e19Hz), it imparts the highest photon energy. Paul Villard, a French chemist and physicist, discovered gamma radiation in 1900 while studying radiation emitted by radium.
The Therac-25 was a computer-controlled radiation therapy machine produced by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) in 1982 after the Therac-6 and Therac-20 units (the earlier units had been produced in partnership with Compagnie générale de radiologie (CGR) of France). It was involved in at least six accidents between 1985 and 1987, in which patients were given massive overdoses of radiation. Because of concurrent programming errors (also known as race conditions), it sometimes gave its patients radiation doses that were hundreds of times greater than normal, resulting in death or serious injury.
X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is the emission of characteristic "secondary" (or fluorescent) X-rays from a material that has been excited by being bombarded with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays. The phenomenon is widely used for elemental analysis and chemical analysis, particularly in the investigation of metals, glass, ceramics and building materials, and for research in geochemistry, forensic science, archaeology and art objects such as paintings.
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