A survey of radiopharmaceutical usage and releases to the environment by eleven western hospitals located in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Berkeley, California, was completed under U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) Contract No. AT(043)-907. A simplified hospital radioisotope cycle which starts with production and ends with return to man was developed. Procedures in which radioisotopes are used can generally be classified as diagnostic, therapeutic, or research, and may be in vivo or in vitro. These procedures relate to the dose, form of isotope used, and frequency of employment of these procedures and directly impacts on the type and quantitiy of waste produced. A survey of the medical uses of radiopharmaceuticals was conducted to obtain a general picture of the nature of current radioactivity uses and the routes and quantities that might be involved in release to the environment. Field studies were made of the quantity of 99mTc and 131I released to hospital sewage systems and arriving at a sewage treatment plant tributary to several of the hospitals.
The energy impact of air leakage has classically been treated independently of conduction gains and losses through building envelopes. However, an increasing body of evidence shows that heat exchange in envelope components resulting from interactions between air leakage and conduction and solar radiation systematically changes (generally reducing) the energy load of air infiltration. A systematic study performed by the authors shows that this heat exchange can substantially reduce the air infiltration energy requirements in frame structures or walls under laboratory conditions depending on airflow rate and leakage configurations. The interaction of airflow with solar radiation is an important consideration—perhaps as important as the interaction of airflow with conduction under outdoor conditions, and depressurizing a house during winter and pressurizing during summer using a fan may reduce energy consumption significantly. This paper reviews earlier theoretical and experimental work in this area and summarizes results of a series of experiments and theoretical work conducted by the authors.
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