Identification of an unknown radionuclide by measuring the decrease in radioactivity.

See also Decay.

Decay chain or decay series is a series of decays that certain radioisotopes go through before reaching a stable form. For example, the production of technetium-99m (daughter nuclide with a half-life of 6 hours) from molybdenum-99 (parent nuclide with a half-life of 66 hours) in a generator is part of a decay chain.

See also Decay and Generator.

The decay constant is inversely proportional to the radioactive half-life time. It is the fraction of a number of atoms of a radionuclide that disintegrates in a unit of time.

See also Half-Life, Decay.

See Daughter Nuclide.

(dB) A customary logarithmic measure most commonly used (in various ways) for measuring sound. Decibel is a way to express the ratio of two sound intensities: dB=10log10I1/I2 being I1 the reference. If one sound is 1 bel (10 decibel) 'louder' than another, this means the louder sound is 10 times louder than the fainter one. A difference of 20 decibel corresponds to an increase of 10 x 10 or 100 times in intensity.
The intensity of ultrasound is measured in db/cm and decreases during the propagation.
For sound pressure (the pressure exerted by the sound waves) 0 decibel equals 20 micropascal (µPa), and for ultrasonic power 0 decibel sometimes equals 1 picowatt.
See also Phon, Pascal, Logarithms, Proportionality Constant, Watt, Diagnostic Imaging.