Radon concentration in self-bottled mineral spring waters as a possible public health issue

Since 2013, the Council Directive 2013/51/Euratom has been regulating the content of radioactive substances in water intended for human consumption. However, mineral waters are exempted from this regulation, including self-bottled springs waters, where higher radon concentration are expected. Therefore, a systematic survey has been conducted on all the 33 mineral spring waters of Lazio (a region of Central Italy) in order to assess if such waters, when self-bottled, may be of concern for public health. Waters have been sampled in two different ways to evaluate the impact of bottling on radon concentration. Water sampling was possible for 20 different spring waters, with 6 samples for each one. The results show that 2 (10%) of measured mineral spring waters returned radon concentrations higher than 100 Bq L−1, i.e., the parametric value established by the Council Directive. These results, if confirmed by other surveys involving a higher number of mineral spring waters, would suggest regulating also these waters, especially in countries like Italy for which: (i) mineral water consumption is significant; (ii) mineral concession owners generally allow the consumers to fill bottles and containers, intended for transport and subsequent consumption, directly from public fountains or from fountains within the plant; (iii) the consumers’ habit of drinking self-bottled mineral water is widespread

First survey on radon concentration in mineral spring waters in Lazio region, Italy

In the last years, the requirements included in the Council Directive 2013/51/Euratom have led to an increase of radon concentration measurements in drinking waters. Even if the Council Directive, and so the Italian legislation, does not apply to natural mineral waters, two main reasons suggested the idea of monitoring mineral concessions. Italy is the first country in Europe for mineral water consumption, and besides, many mineral concession owners allow also consumers to fill bottles and containers, intended for transport and subsequent consumption, directly from the fountains within the plant. The aim of the paper is to present methods and results of the first survey addressing the measurement of radon concentration in the mineral spring waters in Lazio region, Italy. The measurements have interested 20 different mineral waters and have been carried out by using three distinct measurements chains, each composed by an ionization chamber detector, and a proper degassing circuit. The sampling was performed within the plants of the suppliers, directly from the fountains accessible to consumers. Two different sampling methods have been considered for each spring in order to evaluate if the containers filling methods could influence the dissolved gas degassing and consequently the measured radon concentration. The results show that 10% of mineral spring water sources returned radon concentrations higher than the parametric value, 100 Bq L-1. The sampling procedure slightly affects radon content, suggesting the relevance of containers filling methods in radon degassing. Previous studies referring to non-mineral waters of Lazio region have been finally considered and compared to results of the survey

From magnetic resonance imaging to water content evaluation of a human tissue

The scope of this article is to compare two methods to extrapolate the water content of human tissues from magnetic resonance imaging. Two different approaches to gain the same goal will be outlined and discussed in order todraw a roadmap for subsequent studies and refinements which will lead todielectric properties finding. A quantitative benchmarking approach will beshown

On the stability of the Motzkin representation of closed convex sets

A set is called Motzkin decomposable when it can be expressed as the Minkowski sum of a compact convex set with a closed convex cone. This paper analyzes the continuity properties of the set-valued mapping associating to each couple (C,D) formed by a compact convex set C and a closed convex cone D its Minkowski sum C + D. The continuity properties of other related mappings are also analyzed.This work has been supported by MINECO of Spain, Grant MTM2011-29064-C03-02