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Division Spotlight
Mathematics & Computation
Division members promote the advancement of mathematical and computational methods for solving problems arising in all disciplines encompassed by the Society. They place particular emphasis on numerical techniques for efficient computer applications to aid in the dissemination, integration, and proper use of computer codes, including preparation of computational benchmark and development of standards for computing practices, and to encourage the development on new computer codes and broaden their use.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
Dragonfly, a Pu-fueled drone heading to Titan, gets key NASA approval
Curiosity landed on Mars sporting a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) in 2012, and a second NASA rover, Perseverance, landed in 2021. Both are still rolling across the red planet in the name of science. Another exploratory craft with a similar plutonium-238–fueled RTG but a very different mission—to fly between multiple test sites on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon—recently got one step closer to deployment.
On April 25, NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) announced that the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s icy moon passed its critical design review. “Passing this mission milestone means that Dragonfly’s mission design, fabrication, integration, and test plans are all approved, and the mission can now turn its attention to the construction of the spacecraft itself,” according to NASA.
K. Wong, B. Erdelyi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 175 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 40-47
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 16th Biennial Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division / Radiation Transport and Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A12267
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Proton computed tomography (pCT) has become a lively research field in medical imaging. Its importance lies in its ability to accurately locate the Bragg peak where the tumor is positioned for proton therapy treatment planning. The quality of the pCT image is primarily affected by the spatial resolution and relative electron density resolution. A measure of the spatial resolution is the amount of expected deviation of the actual proton paths from the theoretically derived paths based on the experimentally available data, the so-called most likely paths (MLPs). The MLPs are derived using the assumption that the object to be imaged is homogeneous water. Geant4 Monte Carlo simulations were used to simulate the actual proton paths through some inhomogeneous phantoms and were compared with MLP calculations. Statistical analyses were conducted to determine the spatial resolution of the protons in different phantoms as a function of inhomogeneity location, amount, and density.
