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Nuclear & Plasma Sciences Society

Publications

The IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science is a publication of the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society. It is published monthly, and covers the theory and application of nuclear science and engineering. The Transactions on Nuclear Science (TNS) is viewed as the primary source of technical information in many of the areas it covers. As judged by JCR impact factor, TNS has consistently been one of the top journals in the category of Nuclear Science & Technology. It has one of the higher immediacy indices, indicating that the information it publishes is viewed as timely, and has a relatively long citation half-life, indicating that the published information also is viewed as valuable for a number of years.

Manuscripts submitted to TNS for consideration for publication should meet the criteria as described elsewhere in this web site. Submissions should be made to the web site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tns-ieee.

Highlight Papers Made Freely Available

The Editor-in-Chief has selected papers that are likely to be of great interest to the community to be made freely available.

See the most recent E-Mail Blast for links to these papers (freely available for 90 days after the E-Mail Blast release).

IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science Best Paper Award

Description: The IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science Best Paper Award will be given annually to the paper deemed the best among those published in the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science journal. The best paper will be selected in the spring.

Prize: The award will be a plaque, a certificate for each of the paper authors and a money prize. The money prize is $500 for each author, up to a maximum award of $1500; if the paper has more than 3 authors, the maximum award will be divided equally among all authors.

Funding: Funded by the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society.

Eligibility: The authors of all papers published in the Transactions on Nuclear Science in the year 3 prior to the year of the award are eligible for consideration.  For example, to be considered for the award presented in 2021, a paper must have been published in 2018.

Basis for Judging: The primary consideration in determining the best paper will be its quantifiable usefulness to the community. The primary factor in this assessment will be the number of downloads of the paper from Xplore. Supplemental factors, which will be examined, are literature citations to the paper, quality, clarity of presentation, originality, significance, and contributions to the field. To minimize any risk that unethical manipulation could influence the winning paper selection, all of the factors mentioned (number of citations, quality, clarity of presentation, originality, significance, and contributions to the field) will be considered during final evaluation of the top-ranked paper to insure that is deserves to be selected as the award winner.

Presentation:  The award will be presented annually at the NPS Society conference most relevant to the topical area of the selected paper.

Frequency: One award presented annually.

Award Recipients The award was presented for the first time in 2019.

2024 –Matthew J. Marinella, Radiation Effects in Advanced and Emerging Nonvolatile Memories, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NUCLEAR SCIENCE, VOL. 68, NO. 5, MAY 2021, pp. 546 – 571, DOI 10.1109/TNS.2021.3074139.

2023 – Lei Pan, Yuanxiang Feng, Praneeth Kandlakunta, Jinsong Huang, and Lei R. Cao for their paper “Performance of Perovskite CsPbBr3 Single Crystal Detector for Gamma-Ray Detection,” IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 67, NO. 2, pp. 443 – 449, Feb. 2020, DOI 0.1109/TNS.2020.2964306

2022 – F. Libano, B. Wilson, J. Anderson, M. J. Wirthlin, C. Cazzaniga, C. Frost, and P. Rech, Selective Hardening for Neural Networks in FPGAs by, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., vol. 66 No. 1, pp 216 – 222, Jan. 2019, DOI 10.1109/TNS.2018.2884460

2021 – C. Dujardin, E. Auffray, E. Bourret-Courchesne, P. Dorenbos, P. Lecoq, M. Nikl, A. N. Vasil’ev, A. Yoshikawa, R.-Y. Zhu, Needs, Trends, and Advances in Inorganic Scintillators, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., vol. 65 No. 8, pp.  1977 – 1997, Aug. 2018, DOI 10.1109/TNS.2018.2840160

2020 – P. Luciano, C.-L. Sotiropoulou, S. Gkaitatzis, M. Viti, S. Citraro, A. Retico, P. Giannetti, and M. Dell’Orso for their paper “A Hardware Implementation of a Brain Inspired Filter for Image Processing,” published in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 64, no. 6, part 1, 2017, pp. 1374 – 1381, DOI 10.1109/TNS.2017.2706061.

2019 – Patrick Nsengiyumva, Dennis R. Ball, Jeffrey S. Kauppila, Nelson Tam, Mike McCurdy, W. Timothy Holman, Michael L. Alles, Bharat L. Bhuva, and Lloyd W. Massengill for their paper “A Comparison of the SEU Response of Planar and FinFET D Flip-Flops at Advanced Technology Nodes,” IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., vol. 63 no. 1, pp. 266 – 272, Feb. 2016, DOI 10.1109/TNS.2015.2508981.

Journal Scope

The IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science is published monthly. The scope of the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science includes theory, technology, and application areas related to nuclear science and engineering.  It focuses on instrumentation for the detection and measurement of ionizing radiation; materials (including their preparation and characterization) for the detection of ionizing radiation; radiation imaging not related to medicine; particle accelerators and their controls; effects of radiation on materials, components, and systems; reactor instrumentation and controls; measurement of radiation in space and terrestrial environments; and computing applications related to nuclear science.  Tutorial and review papers that cover the above subjects are also considered, however, we ask that authors contact the editor in chief prior to submitting such a work.

Considerations for the Suitability of Manuscripts for TNS

Manuscripts considered for publication should report original contributions to the theories, experimental results, or applications of the fields listed under the Journal Scope above; although papers of a tutorial or historical nature will be considered. IEEE’s policy on duplicate publication states “authors should only submit original work that has neither appeared elsewhere for publication, nor which is under review for another refereed publication. If authors have used their own previously published work(s) as a basis for a new submission, they are required to cite the previous work(s) and very briefly indicate how the new submission offers substantively novel contributions beyond those of the previously published work(s).”

Required Manuscript Content

The work should report new results, new applications, or new developments of interest. The manuscript must provide introductory material and context for the work. It must be clear what is new in the work and how it relates to other work in the field, and related work must be referenced appropriately. Models should be verified by data or some other means. There must be an analysis of data that provides conclusions that are general beyond the specific devices or system studied. The information provided must be sufficient for others to make use of the approach, results, etc. so that the impact is not limited to the particular system or application used in the manuscript.

The paper should be sufficiently complete that others with comparable equipment could repeat the work. Overall the work needs to be of an archival nature (e.g., not only test results on a part that will be obsolete in a couple of years, or analysis of a particular design without illustration of generally applicable principles, or a description of the characteristics of a particular test facility, or an account of the existence and characteristics of a specific commercial product etc.).

Items for Authors to Address Before Submission

Reviewers of TNS manuscripts are requested to evaluate, at a minimum, the items listed below. Authors should be sure that their manuscript suitably addresses all these items before submitting their work to TNS.

1. Background and Context

  • Is the introductory and background material sufficient for someone not an expert in this area to understand the context and significance of this work?
  • Has related work been appropriately and adequately referenced?
  • Is it clear what is new in this work?
  • Is the relationship between this work and other work in the field adequately described?
  • Is it described how this work advances the state-of-the art?

2. Technical Quality

  • Is the work relevant and accurate, free from errors, misconceptions, ambiguities?
  • Are interpretations/models supported by data?
  • Is the data analysis complete?
  • Does the work contain new results, new applications, or new developments of interest?
  • Is the work of general applicability, i.e. not limited to the particular system or application used in the manuscript?
  • Are the conclusions significant and well-supported?

3. Clarity and Completeness

  • Is the work logically developed?
  • Is the presentation of data and/or modeling clear and easy to follow?
  • Is the discussion clear and unambiguous?
  • Is sufficient information provided for an expert reader to understand fully what was done, to repeat the experiment, or to duplicate the results presented?
  • Is enough detail presented to support the conclusions drawn?
  • Is the manuscript “complete”, i.e., not requiring extensive reference to other work to permit understanding?

4. Presentation

  • Are the English grammar and usage satisfactory?
  • Is the manuscript loosely written or repetitious?
  • Does the manuscript restate established scientific or engineering principles instead of merely providing the appropriate reference to such principles?

5. Figures and Tables

  • Are the figures and tables clearly labeled, legible, and with appropriate captions?
  • Are the figures and tables relevant, and referred to in the text?
  • Do the tables and figures show reduced rather than raw data?
  • Is the number of figures and tables appropriate?

6. Symbols, Acronyms, and Abbreviations

  • Are all nonstandard abbreviations and acronyms identified at first use?
  • Does the manuscript use proper and consistent symbols and abbreviations?

7. Length

Is the length of the manuscript appropriate for the amount and type of material presented? (Eight to 12 pages is the suggested length of a “standard” manuscript. If the manuscript is longer than this, is that additional length necessary to develop and explain the material? If it is not, please suggest areas where material could be eliminated.)

8. Appropriateness

  • Is the work of an archival nature (e.g., not just test results on a part that will be obsolete in a couple of years, or analysis of a particular design without illustration of generally applicable principles, or description of the characteristics of a particular test facility, or an account of the existence and characteristics of a specific commercial product, etc.)?
  • Is the work a good “fit” for the Transactions on Nuclear Science, and of interest to its readership?
  • Is this work overall appropriate for publication in the Transactions on Nuclear Science?

9. AI Generated Text

  • If you use AI-generated text in your manuscript (i.e., you ask an AI engine to write your introduction), you must disclose this in an acknowledgment and include citations to the AI system at all such sections.

Manuscript Preparation

Manuscripts submitted to TNS for review must be in 2-column TNS format. Detailed information for the preparation of manuscripts is provided via the links you will find at the author center. Detailed instructions, including examples of figures, tables, references, section headings, and text format are described in the TNS article template you can download using the link for IEEE article template.  Templates are available for Microsoft Word and LaTex.

Not all languages use the Latin alphabet.  IEEE supports the publication of author names in certain non-Latin character sets alongside the English version of the names in an article’s author list.  Should you wish to do this, see Non-Latin Fonts for instructions, and to see the list of supported languages.  TNS accepts graphical abstracts in addition to the standard text abstract. These must be included in the peer review process. For more information about graphical abstracts and their specifications, please visit the Supplementary Materials page. You will also find information about including video in your manuscript there.

Submission Procedure

All manuscripts must be submitted to the TNS online peer review system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tns-ieee. Instructions on the use of this web site are available at that URL. During the submission process, authors will be asked what type of manuscript they are submitting, i.e., what technical area the manuscript is associated with. These areas are:

  • Accelerator Technology
  • Computing, Simulation, and Software for HEP & Radiation Instrumentation
  • Nuclear Power Instrumentation and Control
  • Radiation Effects
  • Radiation Instrumentation
  • Unsure/Other

If the submitting author is unsure which manuscript type best describes the manuscript, he/she should choose the “Other/Unsure” manuscript type. The Editor-in-Chief will then assess the suitability of the manuscript for TNS and assign it to the most appropriate category. TNS also occasionally publishes special issues based upon manuscripts presented at a particular conference (e.g., the Real Time Conference, RADECS, SCINT, ANIMMA, SORMA, etc.). A temporary Manuscript Type category is created for a limited time for authors from those conferences to submit their work to the corresponding special issue.

Review Process

All submitted articles will go through a pre-screening before being sent out for review. Articles may be rejected without review for any of the following reasons:

  1. The author(s) have not followed the IEEE guidelines for style.
  2. The author(s) have obviously violated IEEE Policies.
  3. The article is not comprehensible (in other words, so poorly written that it is unreadable).
  4. The subject and contents of the article do not meet the scope of the journal or a specific issue.
  5. The article does not meet minimum criteria for technical substance.

A manuscript may be rejected for insufficient technical substance (item #5 above) for any of the following reasons. Such a decision can be made by the Senior Editor with the concurrence of two other members of the Editorial Board.:

  1. The manuscript obviously shows little or no advance over the state-of-the-art in the area.
  2. The manuscript does not clearly show how it relates to other work in the field.
  3. The manuscript does not provide enough information for others to make use of the approach reported in the manuscript.
  4. The manuscript is a project report, not of general applicability and with little interest to readers outside of that particular project.
  5. The manuscript is a progress report with little new since a previous publication.
  6. Models presented are not validated by experimental data or by other means.
  7. The paper does not draw conclusions from the data presented.

It should be emphasized that manuscripts based upon previous publications (such as Conference Proceedings) may be rejected at any time if the authors have not cited the previous work(s) and indicated how the new submission offers substantively novel contributions beyond those of the previously published work(s) (as required by IEEE Policies). There is not a strict threshold for how much substantial additional technical material is required beyond the previous publication; however, a general guideline is that more than half of the submitted manuscript should represent new material. Once a submitted manuscript has passed the screening described above, it is assigned to reviewers who are experts in the field to assess, using as a minimum set of criteria the “Items for Authors to Address Before Submission” listed above. Typically three reviewers are used to evaluate each manuscript; sometimes more may be used, but there will always be a minimum of two independent reviewers used for each manuscript. The reviewers’ comments will be transmitted to the authors, along with comments that may be made by the Associate Editor and/or Senior Editor regarding the manuscript, in the email transmittal of the decision made regarding the manuscript.

The Associate Editor makes a recommendation for the manuscript based upon the reviewers’ comments and his/her own assessment of the work. The Senior Editor makes a final decision based upon the Associate Editor’s recommendation, the reviewers’ comments, and his/her assessment of the manuscript. The decision can be to accept the manuscript; to request that the author(s) make minor revisions to the manuscript and submit the revision for further review; to reject the manuscript in its current form and encourage the author(s) to make major revisions to the manuscript, and ask the author(s) to resubmit the revision as a new manuscript; or to reject the manuscript from further consideration for publication. A revised or resubmitted manuscript submitted in response to the decision will go through additional review by at least the Associate Editor and Senior Editor, and also perhaps by the reviewers who did the review of the original manuscript. The revised or resubmitted manuscript can receive any of the same four decisions described above.
Manuscripts which after this second review cycle still require major revisions to reach publishable status will typically be rejected from further consideration. Thus it is advisable for authors to try to fully address all reviewers’ comments and concerns in their first revision of the manuscript. As part of that revision, authors must provide a detailed point-by-point response to each of the reviewers’ and Editors’ comments.
The articles in this journal are peer reviewed in accordance with the requirements set forth in the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual (https://pspb.ieee.org/images/files/files/opsmanual.pdf). Each published article is reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers using a single-anonymous peer review process, where the identities of the reviewers are not known to the authors, but the reviewers know the identities of the authors. Articles will be screened for plagiarism before acceptance.

Open Access

TNS has committed to become a Transformative Journal under Plan S.  This commitment means that authors will remain in full compliance with Coalition S funder requirements if they publish their research articles in TNS.  Authors are referred to https://open.ieee.org/transformative-journals-plans/ for links to more information.  In addition,  IEEE has direct open access agreements, which will simplify the payment of article processing charges, with hundreds of institutions; authors should check Open Access agreements to see if their institution has such an agreement.

This publication is a hybrid journal, allowing either Traditional manuscript submission or Open Access (author-pays OA) manuscript submission. Upon acceptance, if you choose to have your manuscript be an OA article, you commit to pay a $2495 OA fee in order to enable unrestricted public access. Any other applicable charges (such as the charge for the use of color in the print format) will be billed separately once the manuscript formatting is complete but prior to the publication. If you would like your manuscript to be a Traditional submission, your article will be available to qualified subscribers and purchasers via IEEE Xplore. No OA payment is required for Traditional submission.

Help/Questions

Help/Questions about Web Submission:

Questions about or help with problems using the submission web site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tns-ieee should be directed to tns-editor@ieee.org.

Help/Questions about TNS Policy:

Questions about TNS policies should be directed to the TNS Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Zane Bell, at bellzw@ieee.org.

Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief: Z. Bell

Accelerator Technology
Senior Editor: Z. Bell
Associate Editor: E. Simakov, J. Shi

Nuclear Power Instrumentation and Control:
Senior Editor: Z. Bell
Associate Editors: S. Cetiner Z. Dong, S. Shimjith, B. Upadhyaya

Radiation Effects:
Senior Editor: D. M. Fleetwood
Associate Editors: J. Black, L. Ding, F. Faccio, V. Goiffon, T. D. Loveless, C. Meng, S. Moss, P. Paillet, H. Quinn

Radiation Instrumentation:
Senior Editor: G-F. Dalla Betta
Associate Editors: M. Begalli, E. Brubaker, L. Cao, N. Cherepy, M. Fiederle, L. Fornaro,  G. De Geronimo,  R. Grill, J. Hayward, M. Joyce, J. Mir, M. G. Pia, L. Ratti, R. Runkle,  J. Wang, J. Wu, Y. Wu

Real Time Computing Special Issue:
Senior Editor: A. Luchetta
Associate Editors: R. Fontaine, M. Grossmann, W. Kühn, T. Jezynski, H. Nakanishi, N. Neufeld, M. Purschke, M-A. Tétrault

Suggestions for TNS

TNS is continually looking for ways to improve its value to its authors, subscribers, reviewers, and readers. Suggestions for improvement are always welcomed, and should be directed to the TNS Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Zane Bell, at bellzw@ieee.org.

TNS Email Blast

Month-by-month highlights from the Transactions on Nuclear Science.

2024

October 2024 TNS Blast Newsletter
September 2024 TNS Blast Newsletter
August 2024 TNS Blast Newsletter
July 2024 TNS Blast Newsletter
June 2024 TNS Blast Newsletter
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April 2024 TNS Blast Newsletter
February 2024 TNS Blast Newsletter
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2023

May 2023 TNS Blast Newsletter
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February/March 2023 TNS Blast Newsletter
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2022

December 2022 TNS Blast Newsletter
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2021

December 2021 TNS Blast Newsletter
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2020

December 2020 TNS Blast Newsletter
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2019

December 2019 TNS Blast Newsletter
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2018

December 2018 TNS Blast Newsletter
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April 2018 TNS Blast Newsletter
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February 2018 TNS Blast Newsletter
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2017

December 2017 TNS Blast Newsletter
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April 2017 TNS Blast Newsletter
March 2017 TNS Blast Newsletter
February 2017 TNS Blast Newsletter
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2016

December 2016 TNS Blast Newsletter
October 2016 TNS Blast Newsletter
August 2016 TNS Blast Newsletter
June 2016 TNS Blast Newsletter
April 2016 TNS Blast Newsletter
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2015

December 2015 TNS Blast Newsletter
October 2015 TNS Blast Newsletter
August 2015 TNS Blast Newsletter

Resources

On the TNS page on IEEE XPlore, authors will find TNS’ most recent bibliometrics, links to the all issues, early access articles, and popular articles, among other things.

IEEE Plagiarism Guidelines

It is the policy of the IEEE to own the copyright to the technical contributions it publishes on behalf of the interests of the IEEE, its authors and their employers, and to facilitate the appropriate reuse of this material by others. Full details are available at IEEE Copyright Policies.