Modeling Cell Reactions to Ionizing Radiation: From a Lesion to a Cancer

This article focuses on the analytic modeling of responses of cells in the body to ionizing radiation. The related mechanisms are consecutively taken into account and discussed. A model of the dose- and time-dependent adaptive response is considered for 2 exposure categories: acute and protracted. In case of the latter exposure, we demonstrate that the response plateaus are expected under the modelling assumptions made. The expected total number of cancer cells as a function of time turns out to be perfectly described by the Gompertz function. The transition from a collection of cancer cells into a tumor is discussed at length. Special emphasis is put on the fact that characterizing the growth of a tumor (ie, the increasing mass and volume), the use of differential equations cannot properly capture the key dynamics-formation of the tumor must exhibit properties of the phase transition, including self-organization and even self-organized criticality. As an example, a manageable percolation-type phase transition approach is used to address this problem. Nevertheless, general theory of tumor emergence is difficult to work out mathematically because experimental observations are limited to the relatively large tumors. Hence, determination of the conditions around the critical point is uncertain.

Measurement and comparison of individual external doses of high-school students living in Japan, France, Poland and Belarus-the 'D-shuttle' project

Twelve high schools in Japan (of which six are in Fukushima Prefecture), four in France, eight in Poland and two in Belarus cooperated in the measurement and comparison of individual external doses in 2014. In total 216 high-school students and teachers participated in the study. Each participant wore an electronic personal dosimeter 'D-shuttle' for two weeks, and kept a journal of his/her whereabouts and activities. The distributions of annual external doses estimated for each region overlap with each other, demonstrating that the personal external individual doses in locations where residence is currently allowed in Fukushima Prefecture and in Belarus are well within the range of estimated annual doses due to the terrestrial background radiation level of other regions/countries.

Determination of the Mössbauer absorption cross section and reconstruction of hyperfine field distribution by the maximum entropy method

Determination of the Mössbauer absorption cross section, σ(E), and accurate reconstruction of the hyperfine field distributions of the invar alloy, Fe(64)Ni(36), by the maximum entropy method (MEM) is presented. The procedure consists of three steps: deconvolution of the Mössbauer spectra with the instrumental resolution function using MEM, nonlinear transformation of the deconvoluted spectrum into σ(E), and reconstruction of the hyperfine field distribution. In order to test the procedure of the deconvolution and correction for thickness effect, several simulated spectra with thickness parameter 1 < t < 50 and different values of Lorentzian FWHM of the source and absorber were analyzed. It is shown that the procedure of the deconvolution and extraction of σ(E) works well for spectra whose lines contain at least five experimental points per FWHM. Reconstructed distributions of hyperfine field parameters, based on the extracted Mössbauer cross section of the Fe-Ni invar alloy, measured with and without application of an external magnetic field, are discussed. The reconstruction has been made to test the earlier postulated non-collinear ferromagnetic state of invar without referring to any specific model in the analysis of the Mössbauer results. It is shown that marginal probability distribution of hyperfine magnetic field consists of the main maximum at about 28 T and a broad tail extending down to 5 T. Observed isomer shift of the main maximum is small and positive. The isomer shift decreases with magnetic field and attains negative values at the lowest fields. It is shown that the magnetic texture parameter does not depend on the hyperfine magnetic field. One thus concludes that in the invar Ni-Fe alloys, in contrast to some theoretical predictions, there is no evidence for different arrangements of the iron magnetic moments as a function of the magnetic hyperfine field.