The National Bureau of Standards and the Radium Dial Painters.

The tragedy of the radium poisoning of young women dial painters in the 1920s has been the subject of best-selling books, plays, and motion pictures. With knowledge about radium and its accurate measurements in the hands of a very few scientists, what responsibilities did they have to sound the alarm and mitigate the hazards to workers and the general public? This two-part analysis looks at the role of the staff of the U.S.

History of Atmospheric Cosmic Ray Research at the National Bureau of Standards.

In the late 1930s, a team of physicists from the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) published eight papers on the investigation of cosmic rays in the atmosphere. Payloads launched with weather balloons, also known as radiosondes, were equipped with sensors to measure temperature, relative humidity, pressure, and radiation dose. A battery-operated telemetry system was used to continuously transmit at 60 MHz to a base station.

A Review of NIST Primary Activity Standards for (18)F: 1982 to 2013.

The new NIST activity standardization for (18)F, described in 2014 in Applied Radiation and Isotopes (v. 85, p. 77), differs from results obtained between 1998 and 2008 by 4 %.

Opportunities for scientists to influence policy: when does radiation metrology matter in development of national policy?

Accurate measurements of radiation and radioactivity rarely rise to the level of national policy. The things that matter most to ordinary citizens do not normally include questions of science and technology. Citizens are more often concerned with issues close to home relating to commerce, health, safety, security and the environment.

Procedures for establishing and maintaining consistent air-kerma strength standards for low-energy, photon-emitting brachytherapy sources: recommendations of the Calibration Laboratory Accreditation Subcommittee of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

Low dose rate brachytherapy is being used extensively for the treatment of prostate cancer. As of September 2003, there are a total of thirteen 125I and seven 103Pd sources that have calibrations from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Accredited Dosimetry Calibration Laboratories (ADCLs) of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM). The dosimetry standards for these sources are traceable to the NIST wide-angle free-air chamber.

Update of AAPM Task Group No. 43 Report: A revised AAPM protocol for brachytherapy dose calculations.

Since publication of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Task Group No. 43 Report in 1995 (TG-43), both the utilization of permanent source implantation and the number of low-energy interstitial brachytherapy source models commercially available have dramatically increased. In addition, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has introduced a new primary standard of air-kerma strength, and the brachytherapy dosimetry literature has grown substantially, documenting both improved dosimetry methodologies and dosimetric characterization of particular source models.

Erratum: New National Air-Kerma-Strength Standards for (125)I and (103)Pd Brachytherapy Seeds.

[This corrects the article on p. 337 in vol. 108.

New National Air-Kerma-Strength Standards for (125)I and (103)Pd Brachytherapy Seeds.

The new U.S. measurement standard for the air-kerma strength from low-energy photon-emitting brachytherapy seed sources is formally described in detail.