The Thermoluminescence Personal Dosimetry Laboratory of the University of Costa Rica provides dose measurements for around 90% of occupational radiation workers in the country. The assessment of doses to workers routinely exposed to external sources of radiation constitutes an integral part of any radiation protection programme and helps national authorities to ensure acceptably safe and satisf...

In preparing of thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLD) it is common to use as agglutinator the polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), called Teflon. In this paper the physical, morphological and dosimetric characteristics of Teflon were evaluated aiming its application in thermoluminescent dosimetry. The differential thermal analysis (DTA) and thermogravimetry (TG) results showed that the Teflon glass tra...

PURPOSE To design, construct, and evaluate an anthropomorphic phantom for evaluation of intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) dose planning and delivery, for protocols developed by the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) and other cooperative groups. METHODS AND MATERIALS The phantom was constructed from a plastic head-shaped shell and water-equivalent plastics. Internal structures...

We have reported the thermoluminescence (TL) response of five different diameters ~120, 241, 362, 483, and 604 μm of 6 mol percent Ge-doped optical fibres. The perfomance of the Ge-doped optical fibre are compared with commercially available TLD-100 chips (LiF:Mg,Ti) in terms of their sensitivity and minimum detectable dose (MDD). The irradiation was performed using X-ray machine (Model ISO ‘Na...

Neurologic impairment is a common complication of adult cardiac surgery. Cerebral gaseous microemboli (GME) detected during cardiopulmonary bypass has been associated with cognitive impairment after adult cardiac surgery. Several previous studies have shown that components comprising the extracorporeal circuit (ECC) can affect the ability of the ECC to eliminate air. The differences in the air ...

Thymineless death (TLD) is the rapid loss of viability in bacterial, yeast, and human cells starved of thymine. TLD is the mode of action of common anticancer drugs and some antibiotics. TLD in Escherichia coli is accompanied by blocked replication and chromosomal DNA loss and recent work identified activities of recombination protein RecA and the SOS DNA-damage response as causes of TLD. Here,...