RADIATION PROTECTION - ILEA

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Preface
radiation protection was guided by my experience of over fifty years in research,
teaching, and management. As Radiation Protection Officer at
Harvard University, I conducted training programs and seminars in radiation
protection for workers and students in the research laboratories at
Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals and was director of the radiation
safety office in the Department of Environmental Health and Safety.
I also taught or participated in courses for health physicists, industrial hygienists,
radiology residents, physicians, regulatory officials, and executives
in academic and continuing education programs as a member of the faculty
of the Harvard School of Public Health.
The field of radiation protection, as taught to specialists, draws heavily
on radiation physics and calculus. A large number of workers who require
training in radiation protection, however, have minimal experience
in these subjects, and their schedules are usually too full to allow for the
luxury of extended reviews of the material. Thus, this manual is designed
to obviate the need for reviews of atomic and radiation physics, and the
mathematics has been limited to elementary arithmetical and algebraic operations.
Following a historical prologue, Part One introduces the sources of radiation
in terms of the energy carried by the radiation, since energy imparted
by radiation plays the central role in evaluations of radiation exposure.
The coverage in this edition has been expanded to include the entire
energy range of radiation exposure, so-called nonionizing as well as ionizing
radiation. The introduction of the whole range of energies possessed by
radiation particles and electromagnetic waves at the beginning of the text
serves to promote a unified view of both ionizing and nonionizing radiation,
which are too often considered as two separate disciplines.
Part Two presents the principles of radiation protection against ionizing
particles and develops these in the context of the working materials of the
radiation user. The central role of the energy imparted by ionizing particles
in characterizing radiation exposure is explained and the properties of radiation
are illustrated through examples with gamma radiation and beta rays
(electrons and positrons) from common radioactive sources in research.
Reviews are presented of radiation units, standards, and the significance of
various radiation levels, followed by some basic calculations in radiation
protection. The heavy ionizing particles—alpha particles, protons, and
neutrons—are then introduced. This part concludes with material for users
of radiation machines in medical practice and research.
Part Three gives details on the calculation of doses from radiation particles,
including dose calculations for some specific radionuclides. Part Four
describes detection instruments and their use in making some of the more
common measurements on radiation particles. Part Five presents practical