• Title/Summary/Keyword: Gamma-spectrometry

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Full spectrum estimation of helicopter background and cosmic gamma-ray contribution for airborne measurements

  • Lukas Kotik;Marcel Ohera
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.55 no.3
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    • pp.1052-1060
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    • 2023
  • The airborne radiation monitoring has been used in geophysics for more than forty years and now it also has its important role in emergency monitoring. The aircraft background and the cosmic gamma-rays contribute to the measured gamma spectrum on the aircraft board. This adverse effect should be eliminated before the data processing. The paper describes two semiparametric methods to estimate the full spectrum aircraft background and cosmic gamma-ray contribution from spectra measured at altitudes where terrestrial contribution is negligible. The methods only assume to know possible peak positions in spectra and their full width at half maximum, that can be easily obtained e.g. from terrestrial measurement. The methods were applied to real experimental data acquired on Mi-17 and Bell 412 helicopter boards. The IRIS airborne gamma-ray spectrometer, with 4×4 L NaI(Tl) crystals, produced by Pico Envirotec Inc., Canada, was used on helicopters' boards. To obtain valid estimate of the aircraft background and the cosmic contribution, the measurements over sea and large water areas were carried out. However, the satisfactory results over inland were also achieved comparing with those acquired over large water areas.

Portable multi-channel analyzer for embedded gamma radiation in an ARM Cortex-M7 MCU

  • Angel Garcia-Durana;Antonio Baltazar-Raigosa;Carina Oliva Torres-Cortes;Claudia Angelica Marquez-Mata
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.56 no.5
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    • pp.1836-1844
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    • 2024
  • The use of digital systems in radiation science has been increased last years in the different knowledge areas, as a detectors, spectrometry, spectroscopy, simulation, etc. This manuscript presents the design and implementation of a low-cost, fully portable multi-channel analyzer for nuclear spectrometry (in situ). The development is based on a 32-bit microcontroller with ARM Cortex-M7, this design is able to digitize and analyze pulses from a radiation detector without the need to transform the input signal with some filter, obtains the maximum height of each of the digitized pulses, segmenting the information into channels to form a histogram and visualizing the LCD screen incorporated in the system. A continuous digitization methodology was used, which is in charge of the DMA and an ADC with a resolution of 12 bits at a speed of 3.6 MSPS. The system has a compact design and can open and save spectra in an SD memory built into the system. The MCA in MCU was tested with a NaI(Tl) Scintillation radiation detector, which allowed us to determine that the spectra obtained are similar compared to commercial MCA's. The results obtained show that the MCA in MCU is efficient for nuclear spectrometry, in addition to being very economical and low power consumption.

Heat Shock Protein $90{\beta}$ Inhibits Phospholipase $C{\gamma}-1$ Activity in vitro

  • Cho, Sang-Min;Kim, Sung-Kuk;Chang, Jong-Soo
    • Biomedical Science Letters
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    • v.12 no.4
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    • pp.419-425
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    • 2006
  • Phospholipase $C-{\gamma}1\;(PLC-{\gamma}1)$ is an important signaling molecule for cell proliferation and differentiation. $PLC-{\gamma}1$ contains two pleckstrin homology (PH) domains, which are responsible for protein-protein interaction and protein-lipid interaction. $PLC-{\gamma}1$ also has two Src homology (SH)2 domains and a SH3 domain, which are responsible for protein- protein interaction. To identity proteins that specifically binds to PH domain of $PLC-{\gamma}1$, we prepared and incubated the glutathione S-transferase(GST)-fused PH domains of $PLC-{\gamma}1$ with COS7 cell lysate. We found that 90 kDa protein specifically binds to PH domain of $PLC-{\gamma}1$. By matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight-mass spectrometry, the 90 kDa protein revealed to be heat shock protein (Hsp) $90{\beta}$. Hsp $90{\beta}$ is a molecular chaperone that stabilizes and facilitates the folding of proteins that are involved in cell signaling, including receptors for steroids hormones and a variety of protein kinases. To know whether Hsp $90{\beta}$ affects on $PLC-{\gamma}1$ activity, we performed $PIP_2$ hydrolyzing activity of $PLC-{\gamma}1$ in the presence of purified Hsp $90{\beta}$ in vitro. Our results show that the Hsp $90{\beta}$ dose-dependently inhibits the enzymatic activity of $PLC-{\gamma}1$ and further suggest that Hsp $90{\beta}$ regulates cell growth and differentiation via regulation of $PLC-{\gamma}1$ activity.

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Study of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material Present in Deep Soil of the Malwa Region of Punjab State of India Using Low Level Background Gamma-Ray Spectrometry

  • Srivastava, Alok;Chahar, Vikash;Chauhan, Neeraj;Krupp, Dominik;Scherer, Ulrich W.
    • Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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    • v.47 no.1
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    • pp.16-21
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    • 2022
  • Background: Epidemiological observations such as mental retardation, physical deformities, etc., in children besides different types of cancer in the adult population of the Malwa region have been reported. The present study is designed to get insight into the role of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) in causing detrimental health effects observed in the general population of this region. Materials and Methods: Deep soil samples were collected from different locations in the Malwa region. Their activity concentrations were determined using low-level background gammaray spectrometry. High efficiency and high purity germanium detector capped in a lead-shielded chamber having a resolution of 1.8 keV at 1,173 keV and 2.0 keV at the 1,332 keV line of 60Co was used in the present work. Data were evaluated with Genie-2000 software. Results and Discussion: Mean activity concentrations of 238U, 232Th, and 40K in deep soil were found to be 101.3 Bq/kg, 65.8 Bq/kg, and 688.6 Bq/kg, respectively. The mean activity concentration of 238U was found to be three and half times higher than the global average prescribed by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). It was further observed that the activity concentration of 232Th and 40K has a magnitude that is nearly one and half times higher than the global average prescribed by UNSCEAR. In addition, the radioisotope 137Cs which is likely to have its origin in radiation fallout was also observed. It is postulated that the NORM present in high quantity in deep soil somehow get mobilized into the water aquifers used by the general population and thereby causing harmful health problems. Conclusion: It can be stated that the present work has been able to demonstrate the use of low background gamma-ray spectrometry to understand the role of NORM in causing health-related effects in a general population of the Malwa region of Punjab, India.

ANALYSIS OF ADHESIVE TAPE ACTIVATION DURING REACTOR FLUX MEASUREMENTS

  • Bignell, Lindsey Jordan;Smith, Michael Leslie;Alexiev, Dimitri;Hashemi-Nezhad, Seyed Reza
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.40 no.1
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    • pp.93-98
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    • 2008
  • Several adhesive tapes have been studied in terms of their suitability for securing gold wires into positions for neutron flux measurements in the reactor core and irradiation facilities surrounding the core of the Open Pool Australian Light water (OPAL) reactor. Gamma ray spectrometry has been performed on each irradiated tape in order to identify and quantify activated components. Numerous metallic impurities have been identified in all tapes. Calculations relating to both the effective neutron shielding properties of the tapes and the error in measurement of the $^{198}Au$ activity caused by superfluous activity due to residual tape have been made. The most important identified effects were the prolonged cooling times required before safe enough levels of radioactivity to allow handling were reached, and extra activity caused by residual tape when measured with an ionisation chamber. Knowledge of the most suitable tape can allow a minimal contribution due to these effects, and the use of gamma spectrometry in preference to ionisation chamber measurements of the flux wires is shown to make all systematic errors due to the tape completely negligible.

Design, construction, and characterization of a Prompt Gamma Neutron Activation Analysis (PGNAA) system at Isfahan MNSR

  • M.H. Choopan Dastjerdi;J. Mokhtari;M. Toghyani
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.55 no.12
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    • pp.4329-4334
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    • 2023
  • In this research, a prompt gamma neutron activation analysis (PGNAA) system is designed and constructed based on the use of a low power research reactor. For this purpose, despite the fact that this reactor did not include beam tubes, a thermal neutron beam line is installed inside the reactor tank. The extraction of the beam line from inside the tank made it possible to provide the neutron flux from the order of 106 n.cm-2.s-1. Also, because the beam line is installed in a tangential position to the reactor core, its gamma level has been minimized. Also, a suitable radiation shield is considered for the detector to minimize the background radiation and prevent radiation damage to the detector. Calculations and measurements are done in order to characterize this system, as well as spectrometry of several samples. The results of evaluations and experiments show that this system is suitable for performing PGNAA.

NEW DEVELOPMENT OF HYPERGAM AND ITS TEST OF PERFORMANCE FOR γ-RAY SPECTRUM ANALYSIS

  • Park, B.G.;Choi, H.D.;Park, C.S.
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.44 no.7
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    • pp.781-790
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    • 2012
  • The HyperGam program was developed for the analysis of complex HPGe ${\gamma}$-ray spectra. The previous version of HyperGam was mainly limited to the analysis of ${\gamma}$-ray peaks and the manual logging of the result. In this study, it is specifically developed into a tool for the isotopic analysis of spectra. The newly developed features include nuclide identification and activity determination. An algorithm for nuclide identification was developed to identify the peaks in the spectrum by considering the yield, efficiency, energy and peak area for the ${\gamma}$-ray lines emitted from the radionuclide. The detailed performance of nuclide identification and activity determination was accessed using the IAEA 2002 set of test spectra. By analyzing the test spectra, the numbers of radionuclides identified truly (true hit), falsely (false hit) or missed (misses) were counted and compared with the results from the IAEA 2002 tests. The determined activities of the radionuclides were also compared for four test spectra of several samples. The result of the performance test is promising in comparison with those of the well-known software packages for ${\gamma}$-ray spectrum analysis.