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Counts per minute (abbreviated to cpm) is a measure of the detection rate of ionization events per minute. Counts are only manifested in the reading of the measuring instrument, and are not an absolute measure of the strength of the source of radiation. Whilst an instrument will display a rate of cpm, it does not have to detect counts for one ...
The increase in background radiation due to these tests peaked in 1963 at about 0.15 mSv per year worldwide, or about 7% of average background dose from all sources. The Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 prohibited above-ground tests, thus by the year 2000 the worldwide dose from these tests has decreased to only 0.005 mSv per year.
Any radiation detector is a relative instrument, that is to say the measurement value can only be converted to an amount of material present by comparing the response signal (usually counts per minute, or per second) to the signal obtained from a standard whose quantity (activity) is well known.
Background radiation is from naturally radioactive materials and cosmic radiation from space. [5] People are exposed to this radiation from the environment continuously, with an annual dose of about 3 mSv. [5] Radon gas is a radioactive chemical element that is the largest source of background radiation, about 2mSv per year. [17]
The concentration instantly steps up to its constant value when the time reaches 30 minutes, and there is a 100 count per minute (cpm) constant background. Note: A microcurie (Ci) is a measure of the disintegration rate, or activity, of a radioactive source; it is 2.22E06 disintegrations per minute.
Stochastic effects are those that occur randomly, such as radiation-induced cancer. The consensus of the nuclear industry, nuclear regulators, and governments, is that the incidence of cancers caused by ionizing radiation can be modeled as increasing linearly with effective dose at a rate of 0.055% per rem (5.5%/Sv). [10]
The following table shows radiation quantities in SI and non-SI units. W R (formerly 'Q' factor) is a factor that scales the biological effect for different types of radiation, relative to x-rays (e.g. 1 for beta radiation, 20 for alpha radiation, and a complicated function of energy for neutrons). In general, conversion between rates of ...
There are two types of detected radiation readout: counts and radiation dose. The counts display is the simplest, and shows the number of ionizing events detected, displayed either as a count rate, such as "counts per minute" or "counts per second", or as a total number of counts over a set time period (an integrated total). The counts readout ...