USING SPREAD-SHEET SOFTWARE FOR RADIOMETRIC SPECTRAL-ANALYSIS

Recent versions of commerical spread-sheet software, e.g. Quattro Pro( TM) are well suited to the analysis of radiometric pulse-height spectr a. Data may be imported from ASCII files into columns with 1024 or mor e rows. Procedures for subtracting background such as Gunnick's method , are easily implemented by entering formulae into adjacent cells. Fit ting using appropriate criteria, e.g. chi-squared can be carried out q uickly by using built-in 'optimizer' features. A wide choice of availa ble mathematical functions can be used to construct suitable fitting f unctions. Graphs showing the fit and residuals are easily generated an d can be incorporated into documents. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd.