exposure, and behavior.

Identification of these groups was based upon

research of historical records, technical reports, or correspondence.

For

this purpose, a military or naval unit may, therefore, have consisted of
several groups, or several units may have comprised a single group.

This

method was useful for personnel whose activities were confined to a ship and
in situations where such activities could be assigned to the entire group
under consideration.

Using proven statistical methods, the badge data for each group were
examined to determine if they adequately reflected the entire group and were
therefore valid for use in statistical calculations, or if the badge data
indicated, by such characteristics as a bimodal distribution, that the group
should have been subdivided into smaller groups where the distribution of
readings was more normal.

Only when the group data met the above tests were

the mean dose, variance, and confidence limits used for assigning doses to
unbadged personnel.

When using this method, an estimated dose equal to

95 percent probability that the actual exposure did not exceed the estimaté
was then assigned to unbadged personnel.

This high-sided, but statistically

sound, procedure ensured that the assigned doses were much higher than the
average or mean for the badged group.
7.5

RECONSTRUCTION OF RADIATION DOSES.
The general methodology for dose reconstruction consisted of character-

izing the radiation environments to which participants, through all relevant
activities, were exposed.

The environments, both initial and residual

radiation, were correlated with the activities of participants to determine
accrued doses due to initial radiation, residual radiation, and/or inhaled/
ingested radioactive material (3; 4). «Because of the variety of activities,
times, geometries, shielding, and weapon characteristics, as well as the
normal spread in the available data pertaining to the radiation environment,
an uncertainty analysis was performed.

This analysis quantified the

uncertainties due to time and space variations, group size and available data.
An automated (computer-assisted) procedure was often used to facilitate
handling the large amounts of data and the dose integration, and to investigate the sensitivity to variations in the values of parameters used. The
results of the calculations were then compared with film badge data as they

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