Ionising Radiation And Mankind

This book provides a comprehensive account of the developments and current status in several fields of the application of radioactivity and ionising radiation. It covers such topics as radiation-based techniques, radiation’s applications in medicine, food and agriculture, its impact on industry, and its associated materials. The book will be of interest to a wide variety of readers including professionals in radiation medicine, industrial processes, food preservation, and agriculture.

This book reevaluates the health risks of ionizing radiation in light of data that have become available since the 1980 report on this subject was published. The data include new, much more reliable dose estimates for the A-bomb survivors, the results of an additional 14 years of follow-up of the survivors for cancer mortality, recent results of follow-up studies of persons irradiated for medical purposes, and results of relevant experiments with laboratory animals and cultured cells. It analyzes the data in terms of risk estimates for specific organs in relation to dose and time after exposure, and compares radiation effects between Japanese and Western populations.

"The new edition of this monograph features renowned experts who offer the most current information and reliable guidance on all aspects of the effects of radiation exposure on humans. They provide the answers you need to effectively treat your patients who have been exposed to accidental, occupational, or medical radiation."--BOOK JACKET.

This book is the seventh in a series of titles from the National Research Council that addresses the effects of exposure to low dose LET (Linear Energy Transfer) ionizing radiation and human health. Updating information previously presented in the 1990 publication, Health Effects of Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR V, this book draws upon new data in both epidemiologic and experimental research. Ionizing radiation arises from both natural and man-made sources and at very high doses can produce damaging effects in human tissue that can be evident within days after exposure. However, it is the low-dose exposures that are the focus of this book. So-called “late” effects, such as cancer, are produced many years after the initial exposure. This book is among the first of its kind to include detailed risk estimates for cancer incidence in addition to cancer mortality. BEIR VII offers a full review of the available biological, biophysical, and epidemiological literature since the last BEIR report on the subject and develops the most up-to-date and comprehensive risk estimates for cancer and other health effects from exposure to low-level ionizing radiation.

The author is ready to assert that practically none of the readers of this book will ever happen to deal with large doses of radiation. But the author, without a shadow of a doubt, claims that any readers of this book, regardless of gender, age, financial situation, type of professional activity, and habits, are actually exposed to low doses of radiation throughout their life. This book is devoted to the effect of small doses on the body. To understand the basic effects of radiation on humans, the book contains the necessary information from an atomic, molecular and nuclear physics, as well as from biochemistry and biology. Special attention is paid to the issues that are either not considered or discussed very briefly in existing literature. Examples include the ionization of inner atomic shells that play an essential role in radiological processes, and the questions of transformation of the energy of ionizing radiation in matter. The benefits of ionizing radiation to mankind is reflected in a wide range of radiation technologies used in science, industry, agriculture, culture, art, forensics, and, what is the most important application, medicine. Radiation: Fundamentals, Applications, Risks and Safety provides information on the use of radiation in modern life, its usefulness and indispensability. Experiments on the effects of small doses on bacteria, fungi, algae, insects, plants and animals are described. Human medical experiments are inhuman and ethically flawed. However, during the familiarity of mankind with ionizing radiation, a large number of population groups were subject to accumulation, exposed to radiation at doses of small but exceeding the natural background radiation. This book analyzes existing, real-life radiation results from survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Chernobyl and Fukushima, and examines studies of radiation effect on patients, radiologists, crews of long-distant flights and astronauts, on miners of uranium copies, on workers of nuclear industry and on militaries, exposed to ionizing radiation on a professional basis, and on the population of the various countries receiving environmental exposure. The author hopes that this book can mitigate the impact of radiation phobia, which prevails in the public consciousness over the last half century. Explores the science of radiation and the effects of radiation technologies and biological processes Analyzes the elementary processes of ionization and excitation Summarizes information about inner shells ionization and its impact on matter and biological structures Discusses quantum concepts in biology and clarifies the importance of epigenetics in radiological processes Includes case studies focusing on humans irradiated by low doses of radiation and its effects

Evaluates the evidence for carcinogenicity of ionizing radiation from internally deposited radionuclides. The radionuclides considered belong to two broad categories, those that emit a-particles (helium nuclei) and those that emit b-particles (electrons).

The handbook centers on detection techniques in the field of particle physics, medical imaging and related subjects. It is structured into three parts. The first one is dealing with basic ideas of particle detectors, followed by applications of these devices in high energy physics and other fields. In the last part the large field of medical imaging using similar detection techniques is described. The different chapters of the book are written by world experts in their field. Clear instructions on the detection techniques and principles in terms of relevant operation parameters for scientists and graduate students are given.Detailed tables and diagrams will make this a very useful handbook for the application of these techniques in many different fields like physics, medicine, biology and other areas of natural science.