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The human factor in licensing and operating the next generation of nuclear plants
As human factors specialists working at the intersection of human performance and nuclear operations, we are witnessing one of the nuclear sector’s most significant transitions in decades. The emergence of small modular reactors, microreactors, and other advanced designs is reshaping the industry’s landscape. Digital instrumentation and controls, passive safety systems, and increased automation are creating opportunities for greater safety margins and more flexible operation. These same features also fundamentally redefine what it means to “operate” a nuclear plant. Interactions among human roles, automation, and passive systems shape how people maintain awareness, exercise judgment, and intervene when necessary. These developments affect both operational realities and the regulatory foundations on which nuclear safety is built.
Hadi Shahabinejad
Nuclear Technology | Volume 211 | Number 6 | June 2025 | Pages 1246-1255
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2024.2385796
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Determining the position of interaction is of great interest for gamma-ray imaging in various nuclear applications. Among all gamma-ray detectors, scintillation detectors are commonly exploited for imaging purposes because they can be prepared in large dimensions and are economically affordable. In this work, the general shape of the measured gamma-ray spectra of two long and large-area plastic scintillation detectors are analyzed by artificial neural networks to determine the position of interaction in one and two dimensions (1D and 2D), respectively. The position of interaction was treated as the position of a 137Cs gamma-ray point source on the long and large-area scintillation detectors. Utilizing this method, only one photomultiplier tube (PMT) was used for 1D positioning of interaction in a 4 × 4 × 35-cm3 long plastic detector, while just two PMTs were applied for 2D positioning of interaction in a 50 × 50 × 5-cm3 large-area plastic detector. The position of interaction in the long detector was determined with a resolution of 1 cm and a mean absolute error of less than 1%, while a resolution of 5 cm with a mean absolute error of 13% was achieved for the large-area detector.