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[en] Radon, being a noble gas with a half-life of 3.8 days, can diffuse for some distance through porous materials before decaying to its short lived daughters. When it is generated in or near to buildings, it can diffuse into living spaces. The concentration of radon and its daughters into living spaces depends on the balance between the rate at which they are removed from the air and the rate at which they are introduced. The factors that determine these rates vary greatly from one location and building to another, depending on the site and on details of the building construction. The main source of radon in buildings is the ground underneath the building. Other sources include building materials, domestic water, and gas supplies. These individual contributions are discussed in the following Section

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[en] This book contains 10 chapters. Some of the titles are: Overview of the indoor radon problem; Terminology for describing radon concentrations and exposures. Methods for detection of radon and radon daughters; and Observations of lung cancer: Evidence relating lung cancer to radon exposures

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[en] Five areas of potential accidents have been evaluated for the Argonaut-UTR reactors. They are: insertion of excess reactivity, catastrophic rearrangement of the core, explosive chemical reaction, graphite fire, and a fuel-handling accident

[en] In this Chapter, the radiation dose delivered to the lung by inhaled radon daughters will be considered. Only the effects of the short-lived daughters are included (i.e., lead-210, with a 22-year half-life will be ignored)

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[en] Starting with a collection of identical radioactive atoms, the time it takes for one-half of them to decay is called the half-life. The decay product, or daughter atoms, may also be radioactive, in which case it will decay into another radioactive daughter. This process will continue until finally a stable, i.e. non-radioactive, daughter is reached. Each radioactive daughter has its own characteristic half-life and radiations. The decay rate has traditionally been specified in curies (Ci). The original curie unit was based on the decay rate of one gram of radium-227, which is approximately 37 billion disintegrations per second (dps). The curie is now defined to be exactly this rate. It is often convenient, particularly in discussing radon, to introduce a smaller unit, the picocurei (p,Ci), where 1 pCi = 10/sup -12/ Ci. In international usage, a new unit, the Becquerel (Bq), has recently been adopted. This unit is part of the system International de Unites (S.I.) and is equal to one disintegration per second (dps) or about 27 pCi

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