In October 1978, a group of 41 scientists from 14 countries met in
Erice, Sicily to attend the Second Course of the Interna- tional School
of Radiation Damage and Protection "Ettore Majorana", the proceedings of
which are contained in this book. The countries represented at the
School were: Brazil, Canada, Federal Republic of Germany, Finland,
German Democratic Republic, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, United States of America, and Yugoslavia. The School was
officially sponsored by the Italian Health Physics Association, the
Italian Ministry of Public Education, the Italian Ministry of Scientific
and Technological Research, and the Sicilian Regional Government. In
addition, administrative and tech- nical support was received from the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and from CERN. The past 15 or so
years have witnessed a significant develop- ment of computer methods in
the science of radiation protection. The radiation transport codes
associated with hadronic and electro- magnetic cascades, reactor
shielding, unfolding techniques, and gamma ray spectrum analysis have
reached the state-of-the-art level, and the Erice Course aimed at
presenting as comprehensive an over- view of these programs as was
possible within the allotted time span.