Glossary

An analog-to-digital converter (abbreviated ADC, A/D or A to D) is an electronic circuit that converts continuous signals to discrete digital numbers. The reverse operation is performed by a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Typically, an ADC is an electronic device that converts an input analog voltage (or current) to a digital number. (Source: Wikipedia)

The American National Standards Institute or ANSI is a private nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. ANSI accredits standards that are developed by representatives of standards developing organizations, government agencies, consumer groups, companies, and others. (Source: Wikipedia)

The becquerel (symbol Bq) is the SI derived unit of radioactivity, defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. It is therefore equivalent to s^-1. (Source: Wikipedia)

Caesium is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Cs and atomic number 55. It is a soft silvery-gold alkali metal with a melting point of 28 °C (83 °F) which makes it one of the metals that are liquid at or near room temperature along with rubidium (39°C), francium (27 °C), mercury (-39 °C), and gallium (30 °C). (Source: Wikipedia)

Digital signal processing (DSP) is the study of signals in a digital representation and the processing methods of these signals. DSP and analog signal processing are subfields of signal processing. Since the goal of DSP is usually to measure or filter continuous real-world analog signals, the first step is usually to convert the signal from an analog to a digital form, by using an analog to digital converter. Often, the required output signal is another analog output signal, which requires a digital to analog converter. (Source: Wikipedia)

A Geiger-Müller tube (or GM tube) is the sensing element of a Geiger counter instrument that can detect a single particle of ionizing radiation, and typically produce an audible click for each. It was named for Hans Geiger who invented the device in 1908, and Walther Müller who collaborated with Geiger in developing it further in 1928. It is a type of a gaseous ionization detector. (Source: Wikipedia)

Helium (He) is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, nearly inert monatomic chemical element that heads the noble gas series in the periodic table and whose atomic number is 2. Its boiling and melting points are the lowest among the elements and it exists only as a gas except in extreme conditions. Extreme conditions are also needed to create the small handful of helium compounds, which are all unstable at standard temperature and pressure. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is one of the core protocols of the Internet protocol suite. It is chiefly used by networked computers' operating systems to send error messages—indicating, for instance, that a requested service is not available or that a host or router could not be reached. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE is an international non-profit, professional organization for the advancement of technology related to electricity. (Source: Wikipedia)

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a network layer protocol for packet-switched internetworks. It is designated as the successor of IPv4, the current version of the Internet Protocol, for general use on the Internet. (Source: Wikipedia)

Lanthanum bromide (LaBr₃) is a bromide of lanthanum, an inorganic compound. It has the appearance of a white powder or hexagonal crystals with melting point 789 °C. It is highly hygroscopic and well-soluble. It is used as a source of lanthanum in chemical synthesis. (Source: Wikipedia)

A liquid crystal display (commonly abbreviated LCD) is a thin, flat display device made up of any number of color or monochrome pixels arrayed in front of a light source or reflector. It is prized by engineers because it uses very small amounts of electric power, and is therefore suitable for use in battery-powered electronic devices. (Source: Wikipedia)

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits incoherent narrow-spectrum light when electrically biased in the forward direction. This effect is a form of electroluminescence.
(Source: Wikipedia)

The LLD discriminates the lowest level of signal acquisition. Which means the lowest voltage required for a signal to be registered is defined here. Like ULD
the set ups 0 – 255 are not directly related to the channels.

An ampere-hour (abbreviated as Ah or A-h is a unit of electric charge. One ampere-hour is equal to 3600 coulombs (ampere-seconds), and is the amount of electric charge transferred by a steady current of one ampere for one hour. The commonly seen milliampere-hour (mAh) is equal to 3.6 coulombs. (Source: Wikipedia)

Pulse amplitude analyser sorting the pulses of energy-proportional detectors according to the amplitude and thus the radiation energy and recording them in the corresponding channel. Multi-channel analysers have more than 8,000 channels. (Source: European Nuclear Society)

The acquisition of time-correlated data in an MCA. Each channel is sequentially allocated a dwell time (a specified time period) for accumulating counts until all the memory has been addressed. MCS is useful for studying rapidly decaying radioactive sources. (Source: Canberra)

Sodium iodide is a white, crystalline salt with chemical formula NaI used in radiation dectection, treatment of iodine deficiency, and as a catalyst in the Finkelstein reaction.

The nickel-cadmium battery is a popular type of rechargeable battery for portable electronics and toys using the metals nickel (Ni) and cadmium (Cd) as the active chemicals. (Source: Wikipedia)

A nickel metal hydride battery, abbreviated NiMH, is a type of rechargeable battery similar to a nickel-cadmium (NiCd) battery but has a hydrogen-absorbing alloy for the anode instead of cadmium. Like in NiCd batteries, nickel is the cathode. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Peripheral Component Interconnect, or PCI Standard (in practice almost always shortened to PCI) specifies a computer bus for attaching peripheral devices to a computer motherboard. (Source: Wikipedia)

In the case of proportional counters , scintillators  or solid state detectors we know that the pulses leaving the detector have amplitudes proportional to the energy which the particles or photons deposit in the detectors. If these pulses are sorted according to their height, this would be the equivalent to sorting the particles or photons according to their energy. Electronic systems which do this are available and are called pulse height analyzer , or PHA's. (Source: TRIUMF Radiation Protection Training Course)

Photomultiplier tubes (photomultipliers or PMTs for short) are extremely sensitive detectors of light in the ultraviolet, visible and near infrared. These detectors multiply the signal produced by incident light by as much as 10⁸, from which single photons can be resolved. The combination of high gain, low noise, high frequency response and large area of collection have meant that these devices still find applications in nuclear and particle physics, astronomy, medical imaging and motion picture film scanning (telecine). (Source: Wikipedia)

Power over Ethernet or PoE technology describes a system to transmit electrical power, along with data, to remote devices over standard twisted-pair cable in an Ethernet network. This technology is useful for powering IP telephones, wireless LAN access points, webcams, Ethernet hubs, embedded computers, and other appliances where it would be inconvenient or infeasible to supply power separately. (Source: Wikipedia)

The reduced instruction set computer, or RISC, is a CPU design philosophy that favors a reduced instruction set as well as a simpler set of instructions. The most common RISC microprocessors are Alpha, ARC, ARM, AVR, MIPS, PA-RISC, PIC, Power Architecture, and SPARC. (Source: Wikipedia)

A registered jack (RJ) is a standardized physical interface for connecting telecommunications equipment (commonly, a telephone jack) or computer networking equipment. The standard designs for these connectors and their wiring are named RJ11, RJ14, RJ45, etc. (Source: Wikipedia)

In telecommunications, RS-232 is a standard for serial binary data interconnection between a DTE (Data terminal equipment) and a DCE (Data Circuit-terminating Equipment). It is commonly used in computer serial ports. (Source: Wikipedia)

A less complex form of NTP that does not require storing information about previous communications is known as the Simple Network Time Protocol or SNTP. It is used in some embedded devices and in applications where high accuracy timing is not required. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the core protocols of the Internet protocol suite, often simply referred to as TCP/IP. Using TCP, applications on networked hosts can create connections to one another, over which they can exchange streams of data using Stream Sockets. The protocol guarantees reliable and in-order delivery of data from sender to receiver. (Source: Wikipedia)

Thallium is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Tl and atomic number 81.^[1] This soft gray malleable poor metal resembles tin but discolors when exposed to air. (Source: Wikipedia)

The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is one of the core protocols of the Internet protocol suite. Using UDP, programs on networked computers can send short messages sometimes known as datagrams (using Datagram Sockets) to one another. UDP is sometimes called the Universal Datagram Protocol or Unreliable Datagram Protocol. (Source: Wikipedia)

ULD discriminates the upper level of the signal acquisition. The voltage, which may not be exceeded by the signal in order to be registered, is defined here. Please note that the settings 0 to 255 don't belong to a channel directly, but 0 relates to the lowest channel and 255 to the top channel.

Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a serial bus standard to interface devices. It was originally designed for personal computers, but it has become commonplace on handheld devices such as portable memory devices, video game consoles, PDAs and portable media players. (Source: Wikipedia)

X-rays (or Röntgen rays) are a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.01 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 to 30 000 PHz (10¹⁵ hertz). X-rays are primarily used for diagnostic radiography and crystallography. X-rays are a form of ionizing radiation and as such can be dangerous. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language. The XML recommendation specifies both the structure of XML, and the requirements for XML processors. XML is considered "general-purpose" because it enables anyone to originate and use a markup language for many types of applications and problem domains. (Source: Wikipedia)