The IDEAS project
The IDEAS project (General guidelines for the estimation of committed effective dose
from incorporation monitoring data), carried out under the EU 5th Framework Programme
(partly funded by the European Commission), commenced in October 2001 and was completed in June 2005.
The aim of the project, was to develop general guidelines for assessments of intakes and
internal doses from individual monitoring data.
The following partner institutions were involved in the project:
| 1. |
Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK), Germany, Co-ordinator. |
| 2. |
Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK•CEN), Belgium.
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| 3. |
Electricité de France (EDF), France.
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| 4. |
Italian National Agency for New Technology, Energy and the Environment (ENEA), Italy.
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| 5. |
Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN), France.
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| 6. |
KFKI Atomic Energy Research Institute (AEKI), Hungary.
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| 7. |
Radiation Protection Institute (RPI), Ukraine.
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| 8. |
Health Protection Agency, Radiation Protection Division, (HPA-RPD), formerly NRPB, United Kingdom.
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The consortium consisting of representatives of the above eight institutions came
together through common interest in the problems to be addressed,
complementary expertise, and contacts established through previous co-operation.
Structure of the project
The IDEAS project was divided into Work Packages (WP), one for each of the five major tasks.
Work Package 1 was devoted to the collection of data by means of bibliographic research:
two databases were prepared. The first database is the so-called IDEAS Bibliography Database,
which collects information present in the open literature or in other reports dealing with
internal contamination cases. The second database, the IDEAS Internal Contamination Database,
was set up to collate the descriptions of the selected well documented cases
(contamination scenarios and follow up measurements) in a specific format.
Currently this database contains more than 200 cases.
Both of them have been put in a web page presently available for download on the
SCK•CEN web site.
In Work Package 2 (Preparation of evaluation software) an existing
computer code (IMIE, Individual Monitoring of the Internal Exposure)
was used as a platform for testing existing methods for bioassay data interpretation.
Within WP2 the IMIE code was improved and fitted to the special requirements of the IDEAS project.
In Work Package 3, Evaluation of incorporation cases, selected
reference cases from WP1 were evaluated using the IMIE software provided by WP2.
Another computer code, IMBA Expert™,
was also made available to the participants to consortium
to support the evaluation procedures. The evaluation and analysis of several selected cases
covering different circumstances and 17 radionuclides was carried out.
The results of each participant to consortium were collected in the
IDEAS Evaluation of
Cases Database established for this purpose.
A report dealing with all the evaluations was prepared and can be downloaded
here.
In Work Package 4, Development of the general guidelines,
the partners derived a common strategy for the evaluation of monitoring data, drafted
the general guidelines and discussed it with internal dosimetry experts by means
of a "virtual" workshop based on the internet.
In Work Package 5 (Practical testing of general guidelines)
the validity of the draft guidelines was to be tested by means of a dose assessment
intercomparison exercise open to participants from all over the world (4th European
Intercomparison Exercise on Internal Dose Assessment). In parallel, the IAEA had planned
to organise a new intercomparison exercise on internal dose assessment among the member
states of the Agency. In view of the common goals, many advantages were identified in
organising a joint IDEAS/IAEA exercise.
The joint IDEAS/IAEA intercomparison exercise was organised in a similar way to the
IDEAS Virtual Workshop on the internet.
Some 72 participants provided answers to all or some of the 6 cases proposed for evaluation.
The file of the description of the 6 cases can be downloaded
here.
The results of the joint IDEAS/IAEA intercomparison exercise were discussed
with the participants in a workshop organised by the IAEA in Vienna in April 2005.
These results have been evaluated and discussed in a
report of SCK•CEN
(Warning : Big file 12.2 MB) and in the
IAEA TECDOC-1568.
Based on these discussions the IDEAS general guidelines were finalized.
The file of the guidelines can be downloaded
here.
Future actions
- Some of the IDEAS contractors were members of the ICRP Working Party on Bioassay
Interpretation, which was involved in the development of an ICRP Supporting Guidance
Document on The Interpretation of Bioassay Data. The aim is for this to complement the
planned Occupational Intakes of Radionuclides (OIR) document that will replace ICRP
Publications 30, 54, 68 and 78. Work on the ICRP Guidance Document is now carried out
within the ICRP Committee 2 Task Group on Internal Dosimetry (INDOS), of which several
members of the IDEAS consortium are also members. A
consultation draft of the ICRP GD
was posted on the ICRP web-site in January 2006.
Informal comments are encouraged by e-mail to scient.secretary@icrp.org (subject line: 'Guidance doc').
Comments from those involved in occupational health physics would be particularly welcomed.
- The work of refinement of IDEAS Guidelines will be continued in the framework
of the "Coordination Action"
CONRAD (A Coordinated Network for Radiation Dosimetry),
partially funded by the European Commission under
the auspices of the EU 6th Framework Programme for research and training in nuclear energy.
Papers presented at the Workshop Internal Dosimetry of Radionuclides
Occupational, Public and Medical Exposure, Montpellier, France, 2-5 October 2006
In the following session the preprints of the papers related to the IDEAS Guidelines
as presented in the later months of 2007 in the Oxford Journals Radiation Protection
Dosimetry Advanced Access
are available.
They will appear in a Special Issue of Radiation Protection Dosimetry.
To broaden and encourage the use of IDEAS Guidelines, the EURADOS Working Group 7
"Internal Dosimetry", in collaboration with IAEA and Czech Technical University (CTU)
in Prague, have decided to promote the
Contact: carlomaria.castellani@bologna.enea.it.
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