Main 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.

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 Moessbauer 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