Indoor radon: controlling factors, definition of the radon potential and its geographical distribution over Austria

Author(s):  
P. Bossew ◽  
H. Lettner
Author(s):  
Alicia Fernández ◽  
Carlos Sainz ◽  
Santiago Celaya ◽  
Luis Quindós ◽  
Daniel Rábago ◽  
...  

One of the requirements of EU-BSS (European Basic Safety Standards) is the design and implementation of a National Radon Action Plan in the member states. This should define, as accurately as possible, areas of risk for the presence of radon gas (222Rn) in homes and workplaces. The concept used by the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), the body responsible for nuclear safety and radiation protection in Spain, to identify “radon priority areas” is that of radon potential. This paper establishes a different methodology from that used by the CSN, using the same study variables (indoor radon measurements, gamma radiation exposure data, and geological information) to prepare a radon potential map that improves the definition of the areas potentially exposed to radon in Spain. The main advantage of this methodology is that by using simple data processing the definition of these areas is improved. In addition, the application of this methodology can improve the delimitation of radon priority areas and can be applied within the cartographic system used by the European Commission-Joint Research Center (EC-JRC) in the representation of different environmental parameters.


1984 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Breen

In this essay I propose to examine an hypothesis about dowry payments in the light of certain evidence from Ireland. The sources of this evidence are, first, my own data collected during fieldwork in the small community of Beaufort, County Kerry, Ireland, and, second, the work of writers who have studied the question of dowry payment in Ireland, notably Conrad M. Arensberg, Solon T. Kimball, and K. H. Connell. The intent here is to draw attention to some of the deficiencies in Jack Goody's definition and discussion of dowry payments, and to offer alternatives to them. In particular I shall argue that Goody's discussion of dowry is centrally flawed by a discrepancy between the generality of the variables he uses to explain the geographical distribution of the practice, and the specificity of his definition of it. It is the unwarranted detail involved in the latter that leads him to obscure certain crucial variations within dowry systems more broadly defined, and to confuse the issue of the relationship between dowry and bride wealth.


Eos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Sidder

Researchers in Kentucky have merged results from home test kits with the state’s geologic map to produce a map of indoor radon potential based on the geology underlying homes in the state.


This chapter extends the book’s insights about nature, technology, and nation to the larger history of the modern period. While the modern nation loses its grip as a locus of identity and analysis, attempts to understand the operation, disruption, and collapse of continental and global infrastructures continue to mix the natural and the machinic in ways that define them both. Those vulnerabilities emphasize large-scale catastrophe; historiographically, they mask the crucial role of small-scale failures in the experience and culture of late modernity, including its definition of nature. Historical actors turned the uneven geographical distribution of small-scale failures into a marker of distinctive local natures and an element of regional and national identity. Attending to those failures helps not only situate cold-war technologies in the larger modern history of natural and machinic orders; it helps provincialize the superpowers by casting problematic “other” natures as central and primary.


2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 456-473
Author(s):  
Loren Gulabyants ◽  
Mihail Livshits ◽  
Alexandr Kalaydo ◽  
Konstantin Kovler

Two-dimensional model of the steady-state diffusion radon transport from the soil to the ground floor of the building is developed. Radon concentration distributions in the soil and the living space are calculated at different foundation geometries. The model considers radon entry from enclosing structures, outside air, and diffusion from the soil. The radon field under the building is described. The quantitative criteria for the resistance of the building foundation to radon penetration from the soil are defined. It is found that the resistance of the ground slab to radon penetration and radon concentration in the plane of the soil structure contact have a decisive influence on indoor radon, and that the initial distribution of radon concentration in the soil changes significantly after the building erection. These changes depend on the radon potential in the soil, its radon permeability, resistance of the floor structure to radon penetration, and building geometry.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirsina Mousavi ◽  
Quentin Crowley

<p>A detailed investigation of geogenic radon potential (GRP) was carried out using geostatistical analysis on multiple radon-related variables to evaluate natural radiation in an area of Southeast Ireland. The geological setting of the study area includes basal Devonian sandstones and conglomerates overlying an offshoot of the Caledonian Leinster Granite, which intrudes Ordovician sediments. The Ordovician sediments contain traces of autunite (Ca(UO<sub>2</sub>)2(PO<sub>4</sub>)<sub>2</sub>·10–12H<sub>2</sub>O), which is a uranium-bearing mineral and a source of radon. To model radon release potential at different locations, a spatial regression model was developed in which soil gas radon concentration measured in-situ using a Radon RM-2 detector was considered as a response value. Proxy variables such as local geology, soil types, terrestrial gamma dose rates, radionuclide concentrations from airborne radiometric surveys, soil gas permeability, distance from major faults and a Digital Terrain Model were used as the main predictors. Furthermore, the distribution of indoor radon concentration was simulated using a soil-indoor transfer factor. Finally, the workability of the proposed GRP model was tested by evaluating the correlation between previously measured indoor radon concentrations and the estimated values by the GRP model at the same measurement locations. This model can also be used to estimate the GRPs of other areas where radon-related proxy values are available.        </p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Natural radiation, geogenic radon potential, geostatistical analysis, spatial regression model, indoor radon simulation</p>


Zootaxa ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 1917 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDUARDO MATEOS

Lepidocyrtus lusitanicus is one of the species with greater color pattern variability within the genus Lepidocyrtus. Four subspecies have been described in relation to its body color variation. The study of various populations of Lepidocyrtus from the Iberian Peninsula has allowed me to describe the new chromatic form L. lusitanicus form A, as well as the new species L. bilobatus, which is very closely related to L. lusitanicus, and also shows high color pattern variability. The high similarity among species L. lusitanicus, L. selvaticus and L. bilobatus sp. nov., the high color pattern variability of their populations, the overlapping geographical distribution of many studied populations, and the presence of three dorsal macrochaetae between trichobothria m2 and a5 of the second abdominal tergum, led me to define the group Lepidocyrtus lusitanicus species-complex. This group included the three abovementioned species with all of their color forms.


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