In vivo public monitoring in emergency exposure scenarios

Dear colleagues,

It is a pleasure to announce that a new scientific paper has been published on the Focus Point  : "New Technologies for Detection, Protection, Decontamination and Developments of the Decision Support Systems in Case of CBRNe Events" that one of the 3 the special issue of SICC Series - CBRNe Conference 2020 published on the European Physics Journal Plus.

Luca Ciciani, Ignazio Vilardi, Alessandro Rizzo, Giuseppe Antonacci, Paolo Battisti, Carlo-Maria Castellani and Luciano Sperandio (2021). "In vivo public monitoring in emergency exposure scenarios". The European Physical Journal Plus volume 136, Article number: 490 (2021) . Focus Point "New Technologies for Detection, Protection, Decontamination and Developments of the Decision Support Systems in Case of CBRNe Events".  Guest Editors: Andrea Malizia, Parag Chatterjee and Marco D'Arienzo.

link: https://epjplus.epj.org/articles/epjplus/abs/2021/05/13360_2021_Article_1442/13360_2021_Article_1442.html

Abstract:

In a nuclear or radiological accident scenario, where members of the public can potentially take up anthropogenic radionuclides released in atmosphere, verified methods to fast screen for internal contamination a large number of individuals directly on the field can play a major role to adopt appropriate countermeasures. At the ENEA Casaccia Research Centre (Rome, Italy), a spectrometric monitoring method, based on a portable HpGe detector Trans-Spec-DX-100, has been developed. In this work, the results of the 2019 measurement campaign, where the method sensitivity was tested, in terms of detection limits (DL) for common fission and (some) activation products by acquiring gamma spectra on 102 uncontaminated volunteers (57 adults, 45 children between 7 and 12 years of age) are presented. The spectra, collected with acquisition time of 180 s, have been analysed according to the Standard ISO 28218 for the activity detection limit (Bq) calculations and according to ICRP Publications 134, 137, and 141 for the related minimum measurable committed effective dose. The measurements were taken in open field on a paved surface, in the presence of an environmental radiation background, given in term of ambient dose equivalent rate, *(10), equal to 0.230 ± 0.020 μSv/h, in order to study both the potentiality and the limitation of the technique with a significant statistic. The results are presented and discussed particularly focusing on the specific characteristics of the technique, in respect to features reported by the European Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) document STI/PUB/1708 (2015), and to techniques described in the current literature.