An enormous increase in the application of wireless communication in recent decades has intensified research into consequent increase in human exposure to electromagnetic (EM) radiofrequency (RF) radiation fields and potential health effects, especially in school children and teenagers, and this paper gives a snap overview of current findings and recommendations of international expert bodies, with the emphasis on exposure from Wi-Fi technology indoor devices. Our analysis includes over 100 in vitro , animal, epidemiological, and exposure assessment studies (of which 37 in vivo and 30 covering Wi-Fi technologies). Only a small portion of published research papers refers to the “real” health impact of Wi-Fi technologies on children, because they are simply not available. Results from animal studies are rarely fully transferable to humans. As highly controlled laboratory exposure experiments do not reflect real physical interaction between RF radiation fields with biological tissue, dosimetry methods, protocols, and instrumentation need constant improvement. Several studies repeatedly confirmed thermal effect of RF field interaction with human tissue, but non-thermal effects remain dubious and unconfirmed.

A recently developed active electronic personal dosemeter (AEPD) was utilised in order to measure the levels and the structure of occupational exposure to scattered X-ray radiation of medical staff who performed percutaneous revascularisation therapy that involves interventional radiology (IR) on the pelvis and upper leg arteries. The AEPDs, placed on the operators' and assistants' chests, that is, above the protective apron, continuously measured and recorded the received doses and, as a novelty, dose rates as a function of time, thus yielding a unique record of occupational doses and dose rates pattern at the working place. This paper presents and discusses one typical daily pattern in which seven percutaneous interventions were performed.

Modern ionizing radiation generators used for medical imaging and radiotherapy operate in pulsed regime or have short exposure times. This classifies them as pulsed sources. Electronic dosimeters that measure dosimetric quantities, the ambient dose equivalent (H*(10)) and the personal dose equivalent (Hp(10)) that show satisfactory performance in pulsed fields are emerging, but the accuracy of H*(10) rate (dH*(10)/dt) measurements of short pulses is lagging behind. With the goal of solving this problem, we developed a novel system for measurements of H*(10) and H*(10) rate in pulsed fields. The measurement chain is composed of a thallium doped sodium iodide scintillation crystal optically coupled to a silicon photomultiplier, an amplifier and a high memory depth digital storage oscilloscope. To investigate the detector performance, a series of measurements in a pulsed radiation field were made for in-beam and scattered radiation. Both the H*(10) and H*(10) rate were successfully measured with 1 ms time resolution, while the best achieved resolution was 1 pSv and 10 nSv/h respectively. The analysis of the H*(10) rate response showed that the detector measurement range is from natural background radiation levels (~100 nSv/h) up to 250 mSv/h.

Coal fly ash and slag waste residuals from coal combustion are an issue of importance as one of the possible sources of environmental contamination and exposure to NORM. This study compares the results of different radiological risk assessment scenarios targeting terrestrial biota at a legacy site in Croatia that contains large quantities of coal ash with an enhanced content of radionuclides originating from previous industrial activities. The ERICA assessment tool was used for a risk assessment, which included data from borehole samples with a maximum depth of 6 m and trees as the primary reference organisms. The results of the risk assessments from various depth ranges found the radiological risk to the reference organisms to be negligible, regardless of the depth range, since the screening dose rate of 10 µGyh⁻¹ was not exceeded in any of the assessments. The risk assessment results from all depth ranges show higher total dose rate predictions when the tool’s default CR values are used, compared to the site-specific ones, which is in agreement with previous studies on the application of the ERICA tool. A comparison of results from different spatial radiological risk assessments showed that sample depth does not affect the estimated total dose rate to biota.

Because of progressive development and extended use of interventional radiology (IR) procedures it is highly recommended that all individuals involved in the process should be aware of the potential for both stochastic and deterministic effects due to occupational exposure. IR procedures are performed in such a manner that certain number of medical staff are always needed near the patient, near the X-ray unit. The new challenge to regular radiation protection is to ensure ‘safe’ working environment in such radiation X-ray field geometry. In this work the patient is physically regarded as a secondary radiation source emitting scattered X-rays. Passive dosemeters will give us clear data only about the monthly integrated occupational dose; there is concern over the frequency and duration, actual pattern of receiving this dose. We have developed active electronic dosemeter (AED) device, which provides additional dosimetry data about the frequency and duration of professional low level X-ray exposure burden.