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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.
J. A. Baran, R. S. Reynolds, R. E. Faw, W. R. Kimel
Nuclear Technology | Volume 9 | Number 4 | October 1970 | Pages 591-604
Analysis | doi.org/10.13182/NT70-A28769
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A method of calibrating a lead-collimated, sodium iodide scintillation spectrometer is reported. Nine radioisotopes with gamma-ray energies in the range from 0.046 to 1.114 MeV were used. Details of the methods of data acquisition and reduction are presented. Methods are described for using response functions from the nine radioisotopes to generate response matrices for the energy range from 20 to 1200 keV. Techniques for unfolding experimental data using response matrices are compared, and a detailed error analysis is presented. For the routine analysis of experimental data using direct matrix inversion, a 25 × 25 response matrix with unequally spaced energy intervals over the range 20 to 1200 keV was found to be near optimum.
