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The purpose of this book is to present and discuss the theory, measurement and analysis of phototransferred thermoluminescence, a method for studying point defects in insulators.

An improved mixed order model is presented to describe the thermolumunescence (TL) glow peaks. In this model a fraction of charge carriers, which undergo nonradiative recombination following thermal excitation is taken into account. Therefore, it is expected that the proposed model will produce more realistic kinetic parameters than that of mixed order model. The TL glow curves generated by the proposed model are fitted to the glow curves of general order and mixed order models using a curve fitting program. The results are presented and discussed.

Thermoluminescence (TL) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) are two of the most important techniques used in radiation dosimetry. They have extensive practical applications in the monitoring of personnel radiation exposure, in medical dosimetry, environmental dosimetry, spacecraft, nuclear reactors, food irradiation etc., and in geological /archaeological dating. Thermally and Optically Stimulated Luminescence: A Simulation Approach describes these phenomena, the relevant theoretical models and their prediction, using both approximations and numerical simulation. The authors concentrate on an alternative approach in which they simulate various experimental situations by numerically solving the relevant coupled differential equations for chosen sets of parameters. Opening with a historical overview and background theory, other chapters cover experimental measurements, dose dependence, dating procedures, trapping parameters, applications, radiophotoluminescence, and effects of ionization density. Designed for practitioners, researchers and graduate students in the field of radiation dosimetry, Thermally and Optically Stimulated Luminescence provides an essential synthesis of the major developments in modeling and numerical simulations of thermally and optically stimulated processes.

Reconstructing past sea‐level changes is critical in Quaternary science. On remote oceanic reefs, aragonite‐to‐calcite alteration occurs during subaerial exposure, directly recording the timing of sea‐level fall. U–Th dating of coral calcite is challenging due to open‐system issues. However, following calcite formation, the accumulated thermoluminescence (TL) signal can date the initial subaerial exposure event. This study pioneers the application of isothermal thermoluminescence (ITL) dating of reef calcite from the Xisha Islands, South China Sea. ITL single‐aliquot regenerative‐dose protocol improved the precision of equivalent dose measurement. By integrating dose rate simulation within a Bayesian framework constrained by U–Th ages, we obtained ITL ages of 127.0 ± 8.0 and 138.5 ± 1.5 ka for two reef core samples, dating sea‐level lowstands to late Marine Isotope Stage 6. Our results demonstrate that ITL dating of reef calcite enables the high‐resolution chronostratigraphic reconstruction of sea‐level sequences back to at least 1.5 million years ago.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188091.].

New human fossils from Jebel Irhoud (Morocco) document the earliest evolutionary stage of Homo sapiens and display modern conditions of the face and mandible combined with more primative features of the neurocranium. Early dawn for Homo sapiens The exact place and time that our species emerged remains obscure because the fossil record is limited and the chronological age of many key specimens remains uncertain. Previous fossil evidence has placed the emergence of modern human biology in eastern Africa around 200,000 years ago. In this issue of Nature , Jean-Jaques Hublin and colleagues report new human fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco; their work is accompanied by a separate report on the dating of the fossils by Shannon McPherron and colleagues. Together they report remains dating back 300,000–350,000 years. They identify numerous features, including a facial, mandibular and dental morphology, that align the material with early or recent modern humans. They also identified more primitive neurocranial and endocranial morphology. Collectively, the researchers believe that this mosaic of features displayed by the Jebel Irhoud hominins assigns them to the earliest evolutionary phase of Homo sapiens . Both papers suggest that the evolutionary processes behind the emergence of modern humans were not confined to sub-Saharan Africa. Fossil evidence points to an African origin of Homo sapiens from a group called either H. heidelbergensis or H. rhodesiensis . However, the exact place and time of emergence of H. sapiens remain obscure because the fossil record is scarce and the chronological age of many key specimens remains uncertain. In particular, it is unclear whether the present day ‘modern’ morphology rapidly emerged approximately 200 thousand years ago (ka) among earlier representatives of H. sapiens 1 or evolved gradually over the last 400 thousand years 2 . Here we report newly discovered human fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, and interpret the affinities of the hominins from this site with other archaic and recent human groups. We identified a mosaic of features including facial, mandibular and dental morphology that aligns the Jebel Irhoud material with early or recent anatomically modern humans and more primitive neurocranial and endocranial morphology. In combination with an age of 315 ± 34 thousand years (as determined by thermoluminescence dating) 3 , this evidence makes Jebel Irhoud the oldest and richest African Middle Stone Age hominin site that documents early stages of the H. sapiens clade in which key features of modern morphology were established. Furthermore, it shows that the evolutionary processes behind the emergence of H. sapiens involved the whole African continent.

Thermoluminescence dating of fire-heated flint artefacts, and directly associated newly discovered remains of Homo sapiens , indicate that the Middle Stone Age site of Jebel Irhoud in Morocco is 383–247 thousand years old. Early dawn for Homo sapiens The exact place and time that our species emerged remains obscure because the fossil record is limited and the chronological age of many key specimens remains uncertain. Previous fossil evidence has placed the emergence of modern human biology in eastern Africa around 200,000 years ago. In this issue of Nature , Jean-Jaques Hublin and colleagues report new human fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco; their work is accompanied by a separate report on the dating of the fossils by Shannon McPherron and colleagues. Together they report remains dating back 300,000–350,000 years. They identify numerous features, including a facial, mandibular and dental morphology, that align the material with early or recent modern humans. They also identified more primitive neurocranial and endocranial morphology. Collectively, the researchers believe that this mosaic of features displayed by the Jebel Irhoud hominins assigns them to the earliest evolutionary phase of Homo sapiens . Both papers suggest that the evolutionary processes behind the emergence of modern humans were not confined to sub-Saharan Africa. The timing and location of the emergence of our species and of associated behavioural changes are crucial for our understanding of human evolution. The earliest fossil attributed to a modern form of Homo sapiens comes from eastern Africa and is approximately 195 thousand years old 1 , 2 , therefore the emergence of modern human biology is commonly placed at around 200 thousand years ago 3 , 4 . The earliest Middle Stone Age assemblages come from eastern and southern Africa but date much earlier 5 , 6 , 7 . Here we report the ages, determined by thermoluminescence dating, of fire-heated flint artefacts obtained from new excavations at the Middle Stone Age site of Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, which are directly associated with newly discovered remains of H. sapiens 8 . A weighted average age places these Middle Stone Age artefacts and fossils at 315 ± 34 thousand years ago. Support is obtained through the recalculated uranium series with electron spin resonance date of 286 ± 32 thousand years ago for a tooth from the Irhoud 3 hominin mandible. These ages are also consistent with the faunal and microfaunal 9 assemblages and almost double the previous age estimates for the lower part of the deposits 10 , 11 . The north African site of Jebel Irhoud contains one of the earliest directly dated Middle Stone Age assemblages, and its associated human remains are the oldest reported for H. sapiens . The emergence of our species and of the Middle Stone Age appear to be close in time, and these data suggest a larger scale, potentially pan-African, origin for both.

The exact equations of the thermoluminescence (TL) glow curve deconvolution that describe the intensity of a single TL glow peak of different order kinetics, which are obtained from the one trap-one recombination (OTOR) level model, are considered. The reformulation of the expressions of the intensities of TL glow peaks in terms of the peak intensity IM, peak position TM, and the activation energy ∈, for each order of kinetics are achieved. The authors developed a MATLAB computer code, which utilizes the obtained equations, to computationally deconvolute the TL glow curves. The code is used to investigate the reference glow curves of the GLOCANIN program. The obtained results agree with those previously reported by the GLOCANIN project with better values of the figure of merits FOM. The considerations of the obtained equations show promising trends to understand a peak formation for different order kinetics that belong to the OTOR level model.

This work addresses a contribution to specific objectives of a wide research project aimed at making operator-independent and at having an automatic system during the collection phase in authenticity test by Thermoluminescence. Here we dealt with critical aspects of the sampling regard the temperature monitoring during the drilling. A homemade system is built up to carry out the experiments and allow assessing correlation between the temperatures evaluated by elaboration of thermal images and the values of force measured from 5N to 30N in correspondence of hole generated in the brick and of the drill bit.

Current technologies for X-ray detection rely on scintillation from expensive inorganic crystals grown at high-temperature, which so far has hindered the development of large-area scintillator arrays. Thanks to the presence of heavy atoms, solution-grown hybrid lead halide perovskite single crystals exhibit short X-ray absorption length and excellent detection efficiency. Here we compare X-ray scintillator characteristics of three-dimensional (3D) MAPbI 3 and MAPbBr 3 and two-dimensional (2D) (EDBE)PbCl 4 hybrid perovskite crystals. X-ray excited thermoluminescence measurements indicate the absence of deep traps and a very small density of shallow trap states, which lessens after-glow effects. All perovskite single crystals exhibit high X-ray excited luminescence yields of >120,000 photons/MeV at low temperature. Although thermal quenching is significant at room temperature, the large exciton binding energy of 2D (EDBE)PbCl 4 significantly reduces thermal effects compared to 3D perovskites, and moderate light yield of 9,000 photons/MeV can be achieved even at room temperature. This highlights the potential of 2D metal halide perovskites for large-area and low-cost scintillator devices for medical, security and scientific applications.