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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
Clifton R. Drumm, Wesley C. Fan, Leonard Lorence, Jennifer Liscum-Powell
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 155 | Number 3 | March 2007 | Pages 355-366
Technical Paper | Mathematics and Computation, Supercomputing, Reactor Physics and Nuclear and Biological Applications | doi.org/10.13182/NSE07-A2668
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Charged-particle transport is characterized by scattering cross sections that are extremely large and forward-peaked, requiring specialized treatment as compared with neutral-particle transport. The extended-transport correction (ETC) is known to be an effective method to treat elastic scattering of electrons. We apply the ETC to inelastic downscattering of electrons, and evaluate the effectiveness of the method by comparing the scattering moments for the screened Rutherford scattering kernel and for scattering with a deterministic cosine. The ETC approximation results in a -function in angle downscatter source term, for energy loss without direction change, which has been incorporated into the CEPTRE discrete ordinates code in a manner that is compatible with general quadrature sets, not requiring a specialized Galerkin quadrature. The ETC approximation also makes it possible to develop a first-collision source technique that is effective for charged-particle transport, by including particles that have downscattered in energy without direction change in the uncollided-flux solution. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques for problems involving electron beam sources incident on infinite and finite water cylinders and compare the energy- and charge-deposition distributions with ITS Monte Carlo results with good agreement.