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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.
Alessandro Dodaro, Franco Vittorio Frazzoli, Romolo Remetti
Nuclear Technology | Volume 144 | Number 1 | October 2003 | Pages 130-140
Technical Paper | Radiation Measurements and Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT03-A3433
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The "angular scanning" method allows both localization of hot spot(s) and the evaluation of the corresponding activity. Taking into account the experimental setup parameters (e.g., drum geometry, drum-detector distance, collimator geometry, etc.), the peak count rate versus the angular displacement is modeled as a theoretical analytical function of three independent variables (unknowns) for each hot spot: the two coordinates of the hot-spot center of mass and the corresponding activity value. Solutions for unknowns are obtained from equating, for each angular displacement, the experimental count rate to the corresponding theoretical one. Such a procedure has been applied to the SRWGA gamma scanner of the Casaccia Research Center utilizing a set of Waste Packages Reference Standards (with different matrices) where the gamma sources in different radial-azimuthal positions can be located.