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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.
Harshavardhan Kadvekar, Sana Khan, Sangeetha Prasanna Ram, Jayalekshmi Nair, S. Ganesan
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 183 | Number 3 | July 2016 | Pages 356-370
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE15-103
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In a majority of the cases, error propagation studies in nuclear science and engineering use the sandwich formula, which is strictly applicable when the probability density function of the random input quantities (e.g., the basic cross-section data) are determined completely by the mean and covariances. The use of the sandwich formula, which is also referred to in the literature as traditional first-order sensitivity analysis or adjoint-based sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, requires the assumption of linearity assumption and relatively small errors. For the first time, this paper examines the application of unscented transformation (UT) technique, which is used in control and reliability engineering, to error propagation in the nuclear field for nonlinear cases. Using different examples, this paper shows that this deterministic method of UT produces better results compared to the conventional sandwich formula for error propagation. An example on error propagation given in the literature is revisited, and a calculation of the efficiency of a gamma-ray detector is also presented for illustrative purposes using the UT method.