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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 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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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.
Keisuke Kobayashi, Kenji Nishihara
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 136 | Number 2 | October 2000 | Pages 272-281
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE00-A2158
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Using an importance function describing the capability of a system for producing fission neutrons, a new definition of the subcriticality is proposed, which has the physical meaning of a multiplication factor in a real subcritical system with external sources. This multiplication factor ks, which expresses the number of fission neutrons produced by a fission neutron in a steady state, is different from the usual criticality factor or the effective multiplication factor keff, since the former is calculated from the inhomogeneous equation with external source, whereas the latter is calculated from the homogeneous criticality equation without external source.
