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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.
G. de Saussure, R. B. Perez
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 52 | Number 3 | November 1973 | Pages 382-395
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE73-A19484
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For the specification of the cross sections of the fissile isotopes in the neu-tron energy region of unresolved resonances, the single-level formalism is often used, while an analysis of the cross sections in the resolved region indicates that a multilevel formula may be more appropriate. In this paper, we compare the statistical properties of the cross sections generated using the single-level formalism with those obtained by a multilevel formulation. The multilevel parameters were chosen to give the same average cross sections as the single-level formalism. The comparison indicates that there are small, but significant, differences between the statistical properties of the cross sections obtained with the multilevel formalism and those obtained with the single-level formula. The differences are probably too small, particularly when Doppler broadening is considered, to affect reactor calculations.