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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.
Ethan Smith, Ilham Variansyah, Ryan McClarren
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 8 | August 2023 | Pages 1769-1778
Technical papers from: PHYSOR 2022 | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2142025
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We present a new approach to calculating time eigenvalues of the neutron transport operator (also known as eigenvalues) by extending the dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) to allow for nonuniform time steps. The new method, called variable dynamic mode decomposition (VDMD), is shown to be accurate when computing eigenvalues for systems that were infeasible with DMD due to a large separation in timescales (such as those that occur in delayed supercritical systems). The eigenvalues of an infinite medium neutron transport problem with delayed neutrons, and consequently having multiple, very different relevant timescales, are computed. Furthermore, VDMD is shown to be of similar accuracy to the original DMD approach when computing eigenvalues in other systems where the previously studied DMD approach can be used.