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samples NAA is useful to a large extent, but some-
times other techniques like radiochemical NAA, have
to be preferred because of sensitivity or interfercens.

3.5.5 Aquatic Environment

NAA can be applied to a number of materials from the
equatic environment such as aquatic water plants, fish,
molluse and sediments. For water analysis-although
applications NAA have been reported, with or without
preconcentration techniques - other analytical techniques
may offer better characteristics,and, if accessible, have
to be preferred.

3.5.6 Application in Human Health

The excellent sensitivity of NAA for determining many
biochemically important elements has made it an im-
portant contributor to research into the roles of inor-
ganic elements in nutrition, physiology,pathology and
toxicology. As many as????? 30 elements can be de-
termined instrumentally in plants, animal tissue or diet
samples. In many cases the use of radiochemistry in-
creases the number of measurable elements and im-
proves the detecion limits of most by many order of
magnitude, but at a commensurate increase in the cost
of analysis.

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