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Radiation

Fundamentals, Applications, Risks, and Safety

  • 1st Edition - March 9, 2019
  • Latest edition
  • Author: Ilya Obodovskiy
  • Language: English

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 do… Read more

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Description

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.

Key features

  • 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

Readership

Graduate students, postgraduates and researchers in chemistry, physics, biology, and ecology; chemical engineers and materials scientists who are investigating or using radiation in various fields; medical doctors, environmentalists, and instrument engineers.

Table of contents

Part I. Fundamentals

1. Peculiarities of the processes in microcosm

2. Nucleui and nuclear radiation

3. Probability and energy laws of particle collisions

4. Ionization and excitation of atoms and molecules

5. Passing of charged particles through matter

6. Interaction of gamma quanta with matter

7. Interaction of neutrons with matter

8. Elementary processes of the transformation of radiation energy in matter

9. Electron attachment

10. Diffusion and drift of charges

11. Recombination of charges

12. Luminescence

13. Molecule relaxation

14. Radiation detection

15. Formation and migration of the defects in crystals

16. Chemical processes under the influence of radiation

Part II. Applications

17.. Radionuclide sources of ionizing radiation

18. Accelerators

19. Neutron sources

20. Radiation methods of matter composition analysis

21. The Mössbauer Effect

22. Crystal diffraction methods for investigation of the structure of matter

23. Industrial radiation technologies

24. Radiation in the synthesis and modification of substance

25. Radiation doping of semiconductors

26. Radiation for control and testing

27. Radiation-chemical nanotechnologies

28. Atomic energy sources

29. Fundamentals of radiation material science

30. Radiation sterilization

31. Medical radiation diagnostics

32. Radiation therapy

Part III. Risks and Safety

33. Basics of biochemistry

34. Basics of biology

35. Effect of radiation on biological structures. Radiation Mutagenesis

36. Radiation Carcinogenesis and Mutagenesis

37. Experiments on bacteria, plants, fungi, tissues, and animal cultures

38. Epidemiological method of the evaluation of the radiation action on humans

39. The early history of radiation damage

40. Radium stage

41. Radiation experiments on people in the United States

42. Radiation events after discovery of fission

43. People survived after atomic bombarding of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

44. Military applications of nuclear energy

45. Population and personnel irradiated due to nuclear weapon tests

46. The nuclear employees

47. Radon. Miners of uranium copies and world population

48. Crews and passengers of long-distant flights. Astronauts

49. Radiologists and patients under diagnostic and therapeutic procedures

50. Population and liquidators after the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

51. Radiation accident at Fukushima NPP

52. Population living in the area of nuclear plants

53. Residents of areas with high natural background radiation

54. Radiation hormesis. The necessity of radiation

55. Internal dosimeter

56. Comparison of radiation hazard with the hazards of other types

54. Comparison of radiation hazard with the hazards of other types

Product details

  • Edition: 1
  • Latest edition
  • Published: March 9, 2019
  • Language: English

About the author

IO

Ilya Obodovskiy

Ilya Obodovskiy graduated from Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (MEPhI) and then for more than 40 years followed his lecturing and research work in this Institute. His research interests are focused on radiation detection and measurement, on the effects of radiation on matter. His Ph.D was devoted to scintillations in alcali-halide crystals. During long periods the main object of research for him and his laboratory was radiation processes in liquid and solid noble gases. The results of these investigations can be found in more than 70 published papers, and together with his collaborators he received several patents. He was also invited as an expert to survey some radiation environment in the areas of underground nuclear explosions. In the 1990s Dr. Obodovskiy became interested in the physico-chemical methods of detection of mutagen and carcinogen hazard. As a result he has managed a number of national and international collaborative projects, in particularly, the Project of the International Science and Technology Center. Currently Dr. Obodovskiy is an independent researcher and has authored a number of recently published books.
Affiliations and expertise
Frankfurt, Germany

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