INTERNATIONAL ACCELERATOR RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION (IARPE) NEWSLETTER JULY 92 VOL. 1 #7 FROM THE EDITOR'S TERMINAL ======================================================================= Many thanks to the correspondents who contributed to this month's newsletter and to Manfred Hoeffert at CERN who contributed the feature article. Nisy is off on a well deserved break from work (and this newsletter) until September. As temporary editor, I'll also produce the August newsletter. So... if you have any comments please send them my way. Bob May IMPORTANT SECTION INFORMATION ======================================================================= Proposed Minutes of the Accelerator Section Executive Board Meeting held on Monday June 22, 1992 at Columbus, Ohio ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Present: Carter Ficklen, Jerry Miller, Wade Patterson (chair), Geoffrey Stapleton, Ralph Thomas and Steve Musolino (visitor). Apologies for absence were received from Paul Neeson. 1. Minutes of Previous Meeting: The minutes of the Executive Board Meeting held on January 13, 1992 at Dearborn were adopted. 2. Presidents Report: The retiring President spoke of the endeavours of many members of the section in organizing and promoting many initiatives and thanked them all for their hard work. The President informed the Executive Board, that the Accelerator Section: (a) could now admit members who were not members of the HPS but who were members of other bodies affiliated to IRPA. They would have to pay the appropiate section membership fee to the section through the HPS treasurer, (b) is now associated with NRRPT and there would be one place on the Executive Board for a representative of the NRRPT, (c) newsletter is now thriving and becoming internationally recognized; the Newsletter is only distributed by electronic mail, (d) has adopted E-mail as the main vehicle for written communication between members. The President Elect informed the Executive Board that he had conducted a Section Meeting, on behalf of the President, at the World Congress of IRPA in Montreal May 19, 1992. The meeting was attended by 25 people representing 12 countries. The agenda included a review of the Accelerator Section's formation, an appeal for members, information about the newsletter, the Moyer fellowship and the scientific sessions at the Columbus, Ohio meeting. 3. Secretary/ Treasurers Report: The Secretary thanked Carter Ficklen for deputising for the Secretary at the Dearborn meeting and for all his work with mailing and passing information to the members. The secretary stated that with the recent decision by the HPS Directors in changing the rule that previously had prohibited non-HPS members from joining individual Sections, the present Accelerator Section Charter wording was now in conformity with HPS bylaws and could now be approved. 4. Reports of other activities: Jerry Miller informed the Board that Paula Trinowsky (LLNL) would be the representative of the NRRPT on the Accelerator Section Board. 5. Nominations for Officers of the Section: The President informed the Board that he had been given the task of providing a slate of names for office in the next year and he was proposing a graded approach whereby the Secretary/Treasurer typically would progress to President-Elect and thereon. Thus the executive committee and the new nominations were as follows: Present board membership: President: Wade Patterson President Elect: Ralph Thomas Secretary/Treasurer: Geoffrey Stapleton One Year Directors: Carter Ficklen, Jerry Miller Two Year Directors: Frank Masse, Paul Neeson Three Year Directors Gerald Fallon, Nisy Ipe Nominations to office: Past President: Wade Patterson President: Ralph Thomas President Elect: Geoffrey Stapleton Secretary/Treasurer: Nisy Ipe Directors: Carter Ficklen Jerry Miller Paula Trinowsky (NRRPT) This proposal and the nominations to office were agreed without dissent. 6. Any other business: The President informed the Executive Board that he wanted a number of initiatives approved: (a) Maintain a list of E-mail addresses. Harry Howe had agreed to take charge of this task. (b) Establish a long-range planning committee. (c) Plan a special "event" for the 1994 HPS meeting which was due to take place in San Francisco. (d) Make some cosmetic changes to the Newsletter in the form of a Masthead. The Newsletter to be the official publication of the section. Also a letterhead for ordinary E-mail and correspondence. 7. There being no other business the meeting was adjourned. Proposed Minutes of the Accelerator Section Annual Section Meeting held on Monday June 22, 1992 at Columbus Ohio ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Present: Approximately 30 persons attended. 1. Minutes: The minutes of the previous meeting held at Dearborn, January 13, 1992 were approved. Motion to adopt proposed by Steve Musolino and seconded by Wes Dunn. 2. President's Report: The President presented his report for the year. This was accepted with appreciation by the meeting. The President's report is appended to these minutes. 3. Election: The list of present officers and the new nominations proposed by the Executive Board were presented to the meeting: Present Board Membership: President: Wade Patterson President-Elect: Ralph Thomas Secretary/Treasurer: Geoffrey Stapleton One Year Directors: Carter Ficklen, Jerry Miller Two Year Directors: Frank Masse, Paul Neeson Three Year Directors: Gerald Fallon, Nisy Ipe Nominations to office: Past President: Wade Patterson President: Ralph Thomas President Elect: Geoffrey Stapleton Secretary/Treasurer: Nisy Ipe Directors: Carter Ficklen, Jerry Miller, plus person named by NRRPT Note: The NRRPT representative would fill the remaining two years of Nisy Ipe's unexpired term. The President informed the meeting of a proposal to provide for the succession from Secretary/Treasurer through to President- Elect and so on to Past President in order to ensure continuity. The motion to adopt the proposed election procedure and also to elect the persons nominated for office for the next year was moved by Steve Musolino, seconded by Wes Dunn, and passed without dissent. 4. Report on Newsletter: Ralph Thomas proposed a vote of thanks to Nisy for her initiative in starting the very excellent newsletter. This motion was seconded by Carter Ficklen and gained hearty support from all present. 5. Relationship with NRRPT: Jerry Miller informed the meeting that Paula Trinowsky had been nominated by the NRRPT, at a meeting held in Montreal (IRPA 1992), to be their representative on the Accelerator Section Executive Board. This was agreed by the meeting. 6. Texas Accelerator Regulations: Wes Dunn informed the meeting that he has the position of advisor to the conference of (State) Radiation Control Program Directors (CRCPD). Due to the increase of interest in accelerator techniques in medicine and PET it was important for the states to adopt appropriate regulations and radiation control practices. The present program of CRCPD would be to review all existing accelerator guides, works, and regulations. Wes Dunn requested assistance from the Section in his task. The meeting expressed interest in the activity of CRCPD and also in PET techniques. 7. Personnel Dosimetry at Accelerator Laboratories: Paul Neeson was unable to attend the meeting, but provided a written summary of collective equivalence dose for a number of accelerator laboratories world wide. This was appreciated by the meeting. 8. DOE Accelerator Order: DeVaughn Nelson spoke to the meeting about the motivation for creating a DOE accelerator order and discussed the present status of the order in its journey through review and sign off into regulation. The meeting expressed their general approval of the accelerator order. 9. Any other Business: The Retiring President informed the meeting that he would like four initiatives approved. These were: (a) Maintain a list of E-mail addresses. Harry Howe had agreed to take charge of this task. (b) Establish a long-range planning committee. (c) Plan a special "event" for the 1994 HPS meeting which was due to take place in San Francisco. (d) Make some cosmetic changes to the newsletter in the form of a masthead with each number. The Newsletter to be the "official publication of the section". Each Section officer should have his name affiliation and E-mail address stated. There should be a marked out block for Section news both official and personal. Also a letterhead for ordinary E-mail and correspondence. These proposals met with the approval of the meeting and were agreed. The Retiring President requested volunteers to serve on the Long Range Planning Committee and the following persons agreed to serve: Bob May Bob Casey Henry Kahnhauser A motion proposed by Bob May, seconded by Carter Ficklen requesting a letter of regret be sent to the appropriate Senator, on the subject of the House of Representatives' decision to terminate funding for the SSCL. This motion was amended to request the HPS Directors signify their regret at the House decision. The amendment, proposed by Steve Musolino, seconded by Wes Dunn, was carried (15/5), and the original motion was carried (14/3). A further motion, proposed by Henry Kahnhauser, seconded by Steve Musolino, empowered the officers of the section to take action on this motion as they considered fit and proper. 10. There being no other business, the meeting was adjourned. NOTE: The preceeding minutes for the Executive Council Meeting and the General Business Meeting are "proposed" and require formal approval by the respective membership. Exceptions or changes can be addressed at the next scheduled Executive Board or General Business Meeting. PRESIDENT'S REPORT - ACCELERATOR SECTION - JUNE 1991-1992 ===================================================================== First, I want to thankfully acknowlege the hard work and effort from the following persons: 1. Ralph Thomas, your new President, did every thing without being asked. He arranged the program for our first-ever Accelerator Section Technical Session, held at Columbus, during the Annual Meeting of the Health Physics Society. His opinions and advice were invaluable. 2. Geoff Stapleton, your new President-Elect, made sure that no detail or item of protocol was omitted or overlooked. Further, he and Ralph organized our Section, and were our original leaders. 3. Nisy Ipe, your new Secretary, singlehandedly created our Section Newsletter. She recruited the world-wide roster of correspondents, does the editing, and seeks outstanding contributions from experts on important topics. 4. Carter Ficklen did the vital work of issueing our minutes and our reports, arranged for our meeting places, and worked with the Health Physics Society Secretariat to establish our Section according to their rules. SECTION ACCOMPLISHMENTS Thanks to those named above and to others, our Section has, in the last year: 1. Became an accredited Section of the Health Physics Society. 2. Held official business meetings at the Midyear Symposium of the HPS and during the recent meeting of IRPA. 3. Received permission from the HPS to have Section members that are not HPS members. Our members need only be members of an IRPA affiliated organization. Frank Masse' took the lead in this. 4. Established a relationship with the National Registry of Radiological Protection Technologists. A provision of this relationship is that one of their members will sit on our Board. Paul Lovendale, President of the NRRPT together with Bob May and Jerry Miller share credit for this. 5. Created and launched our unique, word-wide, electronic Newsletter. 6. Decided that our Section's principal, and hopefully only, official communications will be through the Newsletter and other electronic media such as E-mail. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, H. WADE PATTERSON ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Thomas, our newly elected president, will provide the members of the Accelerator Section with a message in the August Newsletter. The message will outline plans for Section activities and direction this upcomming year. Dr. Thomas has included the following letter for publication. It is currently being used to respond to the many inquiries for membership in the Accelerator Section by those who are not members of the Health Physics Society. As of August 3, 1993... Dear Colleague, Membership of the Accelerator Section, Health Physics Society ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thank you for your letter inquiring about membership in the Accelerator Section of the Health Society. We are receiving many similar inquiries and I hope you will excuse the informality of this form letter which does, however, serve to acknowledge your letter as quickly as possible. The Accelerator Section is a section of the Health Physics Society. If you are a member of the Society you may join the section by an addition to the annual dues of US $5. The notice of annual dues provides for you to indicate your wishes to the secretariat of the HPS. Thus, the easiest way to join us is to join the HPS and on the application form indicate your wish to also join the Accelerator Section. If you wish to join this year (and are already an HPS member) you should write to : Mr. R. Burk Executive Secretary. Health Physics Society. 8000, Westpark Drive, Suite 130, McLean, Virginia 22102 We would welcome your support in our work and I urge you to do this! If you live outside the USA and choose not to become a member of the HPS different arrangements are possible. This year the Board of Directors of the HPS made it also possible for anyone who is a member of IRPA to become a member of the Accelerator Section upon payment of US $5. We still have to work out the precise details of how to do this and are discussing the matter with the HPS Secretariat. Meanwhile we have noted your interest and will keep you informed of progress. Please join us at our next meetings in Coeur d'Alene and Atlanta if you are able. Dr. Nisy E. Ipe of SLAC produces a Newsletter to which you can subscribe at no charge if you are on E-mail by Contacting her at IPE@slacvm. Thank you for your interest. Sincerely, Ralph H. Thomas President, Accelerator Section FEATURE ARTICLE ===================================================================== FROM X TO E, OR IF YOU PREFER, FROM EXPOSURE TO EFFECTIVE DOSE During three joint seminars sponsored by ICRP, ICRU, DOE, EC and PTB in 1980, 1985 and 1988 on new quantities and units in radiation protection the participants spent most of their time discussing the controversial issue of what I shall call personnel dosimetry. The words "individual" and "personal" are already highly suspect as you will see later. But isn't it all so simple: Personnel dose is the reading of a dosemeter (UK) or dosimeter (US) that has been calibrated in such a way that the detector carried by a person would give an (over) estimation of Effective dose equivalent to the wearer. Time passes and with the advent of ICRP 60 the risk quantity is not only called but also defined otherwise: Effective dose is different from Effective dose equivalent as proposed in ICRP 26. While here the concepts of the two risk quantities are altered the quantity for personnel dose has only changed its name: So we pass from Individual dose equivalent in ICRU 39 to Personal dose equivalent in ICRU News 2/91. Let us be clear we are not worried about units like Sieverts - still largely ignored by our American colleagues but generally accepted in Europe - but rather about physical quantities in radiation protection in general and personnel dosimetry in particular. The real problem is that none of the quantities mentioned above could be called physical as all of them are defined in an individual person hence cannot be realized as a standard by institutions like NIST, NPL or PTB against which you could calibrate instruments or personnel dosemeters. At that point ICRU comes in with their two universal physical quantities Ambient dose equivalent and Directional dose equivalent defined in the famous ICRU tissue equivalent sphere. These are the steps to be taken to make personnel dosimetry watertight: 1. Calculate (or measure inside the sphere e.g. at 10 mm depth) Ambient dose equivalent as a function of energy for radiation field quantities like Fluence in the case of neutrons or Air kerma free in air in the case of photons and make a table of conversion factors (done). 2. Make a model e.g. the MIRD-5 phantom for a human body and calculate Effective dose equivalent (done) or Effective dose (still to be done) for various irradiation geometries and determine conversion factors again based on Fluence and Air kerma. 3. Compare the result of calculations 1 and 2 and assure that Ambient dose equivalent will overestimate under most possible irradiation conditions and with the exception of some pathological situations the risk quantity. Have confidence and assume that the geometry of a real person is well reflected by the chosen phantom. 4. Take your individual detector for a calibration in Ambient dose equivalent, try to place it on the sphere and find out that this is difficult but finally not even necessary. In fact, the quantity Ambient dose equivalent is defined in the ICRU sphere but other more convenient phantoms can be used in calibration as long appropriate correction factors are applied. To find those wait for the publication of ICRU 47. 5. Ask yourself about the importance of the phantom shape, its density and atomic composition but accept that the dosemeter calibrated on a given phantom to indicate the dose in 10 mm depth is eventually worn on a person to indicate Personal dose equivalent. 6. If you are satisfied with the energy response of your dosemeter, start to worry about its angular response. Purists would like that it follows in its response closely the dependence for Directional dose equivalent defined in the ICRU sphere but there I do not agree. Who would like to conceive a special shielding around the good old pen dosemeter in order to shape its angular response to follow Directional dose equivalent? 7. Issue your calibrated dosemeter to a person to be carried in the field. Hope that it is worn on the body at a place that is representative for the irradiation of the person (see also under 3). This condition will avoid that e.g. a person is exposed from the back while he/she carries his/her dosemeter on the front. Keep your fingers crossed, for... 8. If the dose recorded on the dosemeter stays below a certain limit your authorities may have defined call the result of your dosemeter reading individual or personal dose and enter it into the person's record. If, however, there is more dose than your authorities allowed you are in trouble as you must determine the Effective dose or even Organ doses for the individual involved in the "overexposure". Finally personnel dosimetry isn't really easy but in practice we are still well off as more than 90% of our customers only need personnel monitoring with doses being either zero or nearly zero. Nevertheless a word of caveat is suited that has to do with the lowering of the dose levels by ICRP. Admittedly the dose limit of 20 mSv annually is not the problem since at CERN we have lived within a reference dose of 15 mSv for years. But what shall we do in the future with those persons who may likely receive more than 1 mSv per year. The new Swiss Radiation Protection Ordinance considers these individuals as being professionally exposed. To monitor this category of people individually as prescribed by the law is not an easy task considering the lower level of detection in particular of present day hadron dosemeters. Here in Europe we had an avant-gout of coming troubles when the issue of whether jet pilots should be individually monitored was played high. Are we going to blow bubbles in the future? But this is a different story. Manfred Hoeffert Correspondent Reports ====================================================================== News from LBL (Tony Greenhouse ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The PHOTON program, from the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory, has been converted from VAX/VMS FORTRAN to Sun FORTRAN running on a Sun UNIX workstation. This program can be used to calculate dose equivalents due to scattered synchrotron radiation through a variety of filters/absorbers from bend magnet and insertion device synchrotron beamlines. The UNIX version of this progran is available via anonymous ftp from academic.lbl.gov in the pub/photon directory as a compressed tar file. The UNIX version of the EGS4 electron/photon Monte Carlo code is also available via anonymous ftp from academic.lbl.gov in the pub/egs4 directory as a compressed tar file. Since this is a large file, please restrict downloads till after normal work hours, Pacific Standard Time. Questions/comments/suggestions can be directed to RJDonahue@LBL.GOV NEWS FROM BROOKHAVEN (Carl Schopfer ) --------------------------------------------------------------------- There will be no Health Physics Summer Student Program this year. The Health Physics Summer Student Program is a ten-week training program prepares graduate-level students for careers in Health Physics. The program has been run at Brookhaven National Laboratory for many years. It is not known if there will be a program next year. BNL's child care center may expand to include a kindergarden class in fall 1992. Last year the the Child Development Center opened for children of Laboratory employees in four age groups from 8 weeks to 5 years. POSITIONS OPEN Contact: Personnel Division 516-282-2113 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LF 8445 PROCEDURES COORDINATOR - Requires BS in health-related sciences or equivalent, health physics training, and good writing skills. Responsibilities include assisting in determining what procedures are needed, writing and reviewing procedures and organizing the building safety service procedures manual. Safety and Environmental Protection Division. DD 8142 ENGINEERING POSITION - Requires BS in health physics (MS preferred) or equivalent and significant health physics experience. Will lead and supervise Division support to a scientific department. Responsibilities include audit and oversight, radiation exposure- control practice, radiation monitoring, safety and supervision of professional and technical staff. ABHP certification desirable. Safety and Environmental Protection Division. DD 6133 TECHNICAL POSITION - Requires AAS in electronic technology or equivalent and experience with electronic test instruments, high voltage and/or high current power supplies and schematics. Knowledge of electronic test instruments and hand tools desirable. Shift work my be required. Alternating Gradient Synchrotron Department NS 1033 ENGINEERING POSITION - Requires BSME and minimum of ten years' experience. Must be knowledgeable in theoretical and general vacuum technologies, vacuum pumping sealography and leak checking; plus properties, joining and fabrication of materials. Background managing technical programs and accelerator experience a plus. Work will involve construction, installation and test of RHIC system. RHIC Project, Accelerator Development Department. LF 5093 TECHNICAL POSITION - Requires BS in electrical technology, computer science or equivalent, or an associate's degree or equivalent in these fields plus at least one year of relevant experience. Primary responsibility will be NSLS experimental safety operations. Duties include safety-system checkouts and monitoring user safety and conduct of experiments at the beam lines. Shift work is required, and some cross training will be done with storage-ring operators. National Synchrotron Light Source Department. LF 8141 ENGINEERING POSITION - Requires BSEE or equivalent, excellent communication skills and a strong background in electrical safety. Knowledge of NEC and OSHA also required; CSP desirable. Responsibilities include design review for electrical compliance, development of electrical-safety policy and procedures, and assisting with electrical training. Will also provide other staff support, includes audit/assessment functions, review of safety analysis documentation, engineering drawings and hazard assessments. Safety and Environmental Protection Division. For information on the above positions please contact the appropriate department or the Personnel Division, Bldg. 185, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton NY 11973. 516-282-2113 NEWS FROM LAMPF (Sarah Hoover ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LAMPF is currently in full production to all experimental areas. It will begin a scheduled week long intercycle break on 17 June with several major maintenance and installation operations set to be conducted during this short break. In addition, Health Physics is being kept very busy with the planning for the implementation of the Department of Energy's RADCON Manual. Implementation is expected to begin on 1 December 1992. NEWS FROM CEBAF (Bob May ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Summer Workshop Held at CEBAF Some 215 nuclear physicists attended CEBAF's annual Summer Workshop, held June 15--19. Along with a daily program of invited speakers, activities included collaboration meetings for all three experimental halls, working group meetings, a User Group business meeting, and a User Group Board of Directors Meeting. The new User Group Chairman is Robert Lourie of the University of Virginia; the Chairman Elect is Paul Stoler of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. New members of the Board of Directors are George Chang from the University of Maryland and Volker Burkert from CEBAF. Questions/comments/suggestions can be directed to Steve Corneliussen at . NEWS FROM SSC (Jeff Bull ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Senate Restores SSC Funding On August 3, the Senate voted 62-32 to reject the attempt to cut funding for the SSC. In a memo to all SSC employees, Roy Schwitters, director of the SSC Laboratory personaly thanked all who wrote or visited Senators and Representatives. In his memo, Dr. Schwitters wrote, "The personal efforts of our staff and the scientific community ... in contacting Senators before the vote clearly had a significant effect." I wish to add my thanks to those who supported the SSC during this crucial period. Jeff Bull ABOUT THE CORRESPONDENTS... ====================================================================== Tony Greenhouse is the IARPE Newsletter Correspondent for LBL N. Anthony (Tony) Greenhouse is a Certified Health Physicist at LBL. His professional interests are personnel dosimetry and radiation measurements with a growing side interest in radiation epidemiology. Tony recently gave up his group leader role as Personal Dosimetry Office Head to pursue his doctoral research in the application of SSTDs to accelerator neutron dosimetry. On the personal side, Tony's five children have grown up and he and his wife are now enjoying their "childless" home. He is an avid cyclist and photographer. CLOSING THOUGHTS ======================================================================= Sign found above door to environmental radiation lab: "The whole world is decaying and we're counting on it."