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• The radiation dose imparted during fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures can be high • Understanding of reference levels might help optimise interventional cardiological procedures • Optimisation by changing the systems' settings seems feasible in some cases • Procedure complexity and the patient's clinical problem should be taken into account.

MCNP code was used to simulate neutron and prompt gamma ray transport for a range of maze geometrical parameters, wall composition, and wall surface lining. Verification measurements were performed at two medical electron accelerator facilities. A very good agreement was observed between the results of the measurements and the MCNP simulation. MCNP code results were compared with the results of analytical equations used for the calculation of maze effectiveness, derived by Kersey and McCall. A good agreement exists between the simulation results and the results of the analytical methods for maze lengths longer than 8.5 m. However, the results of the present study showed that for shorter maze lengths, Kersey's method tended to overestimate neutron dose at the door entrance, whereas McCall's method with the neutron room scattered correction applied, showed an underestimation of neutron dose. Furthermore, according to MCNP simulation results, the use of barytes concrete instead of standard concrete as room shielding material, reduced neutron dose at the door entrance by about 20%. Finally, it was shown that lining with layers of wood and borated polyethylene significantly reduced the neutron dose at the door entrance by 45% and 65%, respectively.

Constant temperature hot gas readers are widely employed in thermoluminescence dosimetry. In such readers the sample is heated according to an exponential heating function. The single glow-peak shape derived under this heating condition is not described by the TL kinetics equation corresponding to a linear heating rate. In the present work TL kinetics expressions, for first and general order kinetics, describing single glow-peak shapes under an exponential heating function are derived. All expressions were modified from their original form of I (n 0 , E, s, b, T) into I (I m , E, T m , b, T) in order to become more efficient for glow-curve deconvolution analysis. The efficiency of all algorithms was extensively tested using synthetic glow-peaks.