When astronauts travel in space, they are exposed to high energy cosmic radiations. The cosmic ray spectrum contains very high energy particles, generally up to several GeV per nucleon. Currently NASA is funding research on the effects, such as acute radiation sickness, of cosmic radiation. Animal models are used to conduct the studies of radiation effects of particles in the range of several MeV/nucleon to about 1000 MeV/nucleon. In order to compare different radiations, the biological effectiveness relative to a specific radiation is usually used. For low energy heavy ions and neutrons 250 keV photons are usually used for the reference radiation but their depth dose distribution is very different from that for cosmic rays. In this research, the advantages of using high energy electrons as the reference radiation for research on cosmic radiation were demonstrated. The conclusion is based on the evaluation of the dose distributions and microdosimetric spectra of the electrons and high energy protons as a function of depth in a tissue equivalent absorber as determined by Geant4 simulation.

<p>Reference radiation fields for x-ray qualities are described by the International Organization of Standards (ISO). This study describes the procedure to establish nine different low energy X-ray qualities at the national metrology laboratory, Swedish Radiation Protection Authority, following the document ISO 4037. Measurements of tube voltage, half-value layer, mean energy and spectral resolution have been performed for qualities N-15, N-20, N-25, N-30, N-40, L-20, L-30, L-35 and L-55. Furthermore, dose equivalent conversion coefficients for operational quantities ambient dose equivalent, personal dose equivalent and directional dose equivalent have been calculated by folding the mono-energetic conversion factors with measured spectral distributions of the x-ray qualities. The spectral distributions were unfolded from pulse-height distributions to photon distributions using simulated data of the semi-conductor detector used for measurements, generated with the Monte Carlo code PENELOPE.</p>

Reference radiation fields for x-ray qualities are described by the International Organization of Standards (ISO). This study describes the procedure to establish nine different low energy X-ray qualities at the national metrology laboratory, Swedish Radiation Protection Authority, following the document ISO 4037. Measurements of tube voltage, half-value layer, mean energy and spectral resolution have been performed for qualities N-15, N-20, N-25, N-30, N-40, L-20, L-30, L-35 and L-55. Furthermore, dose equivalent conversion coefficients for operational quantities ambient dose equivalent, personal dose equivalent and directional dose equivalent have been calculated by folding the mono-energetic conversion factors with measured spectral distributions of the x-ray qualities. The spectral distributions were unfolded from pulse-height distributions to photon distributions using simulated data of the semi-conductor detector used for measurements, generated with the Monte Carlo code PENELOPE.