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At least 271 records · Page 15

A Nuclear Security Enterprise Study of High-Reliability Systems, Collaboration, and Data

It may seem simple and trivial, but defining the difference between data and information is contested and has implications that may affect the security of United States interests and even cost lives. For security, data are raw facts or figures without context, while information is the compilation or articulation of data that forms context. Security depends on clarity in the differences between data and information and controlling them. Control is necessary to ensure that data and information are not inadvertently released to foreign governments, the public, or those without Need-to-Know. A primary concern in the practice of security is the control of data to avoid the inadvertent conversion to sensitive information. The complexity of this concern is further augmented when institutions are part of tightly coupled networks that informally share data and information. Additionally, those that share data as a function of legislative action—and/or formally integrate data and information system infrastructures—may be a higher security risk. This paper will present a case study that utilizes elements of literature from Knowledge Management and networks to tell a story of an issue in security—specifically, controlling the conversion of data to information.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

EMP, Attachment 3: Dose Assessment Guidance (Rev.4)

This Dose Assessment Guidance (DAG) describes methods used to comply with the reporting requirements for dose to an individual member of the public receptor, collective dose, and biota dose for radionuclide air emissions under the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Environmental Monitoring Plan (EMP). The National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (40 CFR 61), Subpart H, is the greatest driver for the requirements. This DAG applies to public dose from radioactive material releases to the air from PNNL-Richland campus and PNNL-Sequim campus. Dose determinations from Richland campus surveillance of ambient external dose and ambient air particulates is also discussed. This guidance is Attachment 3 to PNNL’s EMP (PNNL-20919) and addresses a discrete, vital subject area of the EMP that is subject to revision independent of the main text of the EMP document.

40 CFR 61 Subpart H↗

High-Reliability Systems and the Control of National Security Data and Information

High-reliability systems are characterized by catastrophic implications in the event of failure. These implications can include substantive damage to the environment, social order, and loss of life. Examples of high-reliability systems include nuclear submarines, nuclear reactors, the electric grid, and nuclear weapons. Due to the catastrophic implications of failure, there are heightened awareness and control mechanisms surrounding related data and information. However, defining the difference between data and information is often ambiguous across scholarly disciplines and in United States policy and legislation. For high-reliability systems, the implications of ambiguity between data and information may affect the security of United States interests and even cost lives. For security, data are raw facts or figures without context, while information is the compilation or articulation of data that forms context. Security depends on clarity in the differences between data and information and how to control them. Control is necessary to ensure that data and information are not unintentionally released to foreign governments, the public, or those without need-to-know. A primary concern in the practice of security is the control of data to avoid the unintended conversion to information. Intra-institutionally, this control is highly complex given the amalgam of legacy data systems and the numerous and constantly evolving nature of modern data systems that were not necessarily designed to be integrated. The complexity of this concern is augmented when institutions are part of interinstitutional collaborations or networks of public-private partnerships that share data and information. Additionally, institutions that share data as a function of policy and legislative action— particularly formally integrated data and information system infrastructures—may be at higher security risk. This paper will present an intra-institutional paradigm that utilizes and integrates concepts from numerous disciplines to frame a critical and underspecified practical issue in security—controlling for the unintended conversion of data to information.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

High-Reliability Systems and the Control of National Security Data and Information

High-reliability systems are characterized by catastrophic implications in the event of failure. These implications can include substantive damage to the environment, social order, and loss of life. Examples of high-reliability systems include nuclear submarines, nuclear reactors, the electric grid, and nuclear weapons. Due to the catastrophic implications of failure, there are heightened awareness and control mechanisms surrounding related data and information. However, defining the difference between data and information is often ambiguous across scholarly disciplines and in United States policy and legislation. For high-reliability systems, the implications of ambiguity between data and information may affect the security of United States interests and even cost lives. For security, data are raw facts or figures without context, while information is the compilation or articulation of data that forms context. Security depends on clarity in the differences between data and information and how to control them. Control is necessary to ensure that data and information are not unintentionally released to foreign governments, the public, or those without need-to-know. A primary concern in the practice of security is the control of data to avoid the unintended conversion to information. Intra-institutionally, this control is highly complex given the amalgam of legacy data systems and the numerous and constantly evolving nature of modern data systems that were not necessarily designed to be integrated. The complexity of this concern is augmented when institutions are part of inter-institutional collaborations or networks of public-private partnerships that share data and information. Additionally, institutions that share data as a function of policy and legislative action—particularly formally integrated data and information system infrastructures—may be at higher security risk. This paper will present an intra-institutional paradigm that utilizes and integrates concepts from numerous disciplines to frame a critical and underspecified practical issue in security—controlling for the unintended conversion of data to information.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

Hubble Frontier Field Clusters and Their Parallel Fields: Photometric and Photometric Redshift Catalogs

We present a multiband analysis of the six Hubble Frontier Field clusters and their parallel fields, producing catalogs with measurements of source photometry and photometric redshifts. We release these catalogs to the public along with maps of intracluster light and models for the brightest galaxies in each field. This rich data set covers a wavelength range from 0.2 to 8 μm, utilizing data from the Hubble Space Telescope, Keck Observatories, Very Large Telescope array, and Spitzer Space Telescope. We validate our products by injecting into our fields and recovering a population of synthetic objects with similar characteristics to those in real extragalactic surveys. The photometric catalogs contain a total of over 32,000 entries, with 50% completeness at a threshold of mag AB ~ 29.1 for unblended sources and magAB ~ 29 for blended ones, in the IR-weighted detection band. Photometric redshifts were obtained by means of template fitting and have an average outlier fraction of 10.3% and scatter σ = 0.067 when compared to spectroscopic estimates. The software we devised, after being tested in the present work, will be applied to new data sets from ongoing and future surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Data Release 1 of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument

In 2021 May the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration began a 5 yr spectroscopic redshift survey to produce a detailed map of the evolving three-dimensional structure of the Universe between z = 0 and z ≈ 4. DESI’s principal scientific objectives are to place precise constraints on the equation of state of dark energy, the gravitationally driven growth of large-scale structure, and the sum of the neutrino masses, and to explore the observational signatures of primordial inflation. We present DESI DR1, which consists of all data acquired during the first 13 months of the DESI main survey, as well as a uniform reprocessing of the DESI Survey Validation data, which were previously made public in the DESI Early Data Release. The DR1 main survey includes high-confidence redshifts for 18.7M objects, of which 13.1M are spectroscopically classified as galaxies, 1.6M as quasars, and 4M as stars, making DR1 the largest sample of extragalactic redshifts ever assembled. We summarize the DR1 observations, the spectroscopic data-reduction pipeline and data products, large-scale structure catalogs, value-added catalogs, and describe how to access and interact with the data. In addition to fulfilling its core cosmological objectives with unprecedented precision, we expect DR1 to enable a wide range of transformational astrophysical studies and discoveries.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Independent Verification Plan for Clearance of Real Property of the Operation Roller Coaster Sites

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is pursuing release of the Operation Roller Coaster sites under DOE O 458.1, “Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment.” The requirements for clearance and release of property under DOE O 458.1 are implemented when DOE intends to facilitate transfer of responsibility or control of real property from DOE. DOE O 458.1 prescribes that all radiological monitoring or surveys performed in support of clearance of property must use methods such as the Multi-Agency Radiation Survey and Site Investigation Manual (MARSSIM) method or other methods approved by DOE. DOE O 458.1 requires an Independent Verification for the clearance of real property. This Independent Verification Plan outlines the process for validating the method and implementation of the MARRSIM process for release of the Operation Roller Coaster sites.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

AbacusSummit: Cosmological N-body Halos, Light Cones, Particles, Merger Trees, Initial Conditions, and Power Spectra

This is the primary data release of the AbacusSummit, a suite of large, high-accuracy cosmological N-body simulations. Documentation describing the suite and code, including links to refereed publications and instructions for manipulating the data contained in this release, may be found at the following URL: https://abacussummit.readthedocs.io/ The primary data products presented in this release are halo catalogs, light cones, and particle data. Several supplemental products are also presented: power spectra, initial conditions, and merger trees. Cleaned halo catalogs are also provided for the subset of simulations that were used in refereed publications at the time of this DOI. This release also contains several large scale-free and high-redshift simulations run as part of the same allocation used to produce AbacusSummit.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Implementation of Chemistry in the Athena++ Code

Chemistry plays a key role in many aspects of astrophysical fluids. Atoms and molecules are agents for heating and cooling, determine the ionization fraction, serve as observational tracers, and build the molecular foundation of life. We present the implementation of a chemistry module in the publicly available magnetohydrodynamic code Athena++ . We implement several chemical networks and heating and cooling processes suitable for simulating the interstellar medium (ISM). A general chemical network framework in the KIDA format is also included, allowing users to easily implement their own chemistry. Radiation transfer and cosmic-ray ionization are coupled with chemistry and solved with the simple six-ray approximation. The chemical and thermal processes are evolved as a system of coupled ordinary differential equations with an implicit solver from the CVODE library. We perform and present a series of tests to ensure the numerical accuracy and convergence of the code. Many tests combine chemistry with gas dynamics, including comparisons with analytic solutions, 1D problems of the photodissociation regions and shocks, and realistic 3D simulations of the turbulent ISM. We release the code with the new public version of Athena++ , aiming to provide a robust and flexible code for the astrochemical simulation community.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A generic scenario analysis of end-of-life plastic management: Chemical additives

Plastic growing demand and the increment in global plastics production have raised the number of spent plastics, out of which over 90% are either landfilled or incinerated. Both methods for handling spent plastics are susceptible to releasing toxic substances, damaging air, water, soil, organisms, and public health. Improvements to the existing infrastructure for plastics management are needed to limit chemical additive release and exposure resulting from the end-of-life (EoL) stage. This article analyzes the current plastic waste management infrastructure and identifies chemical additive releases through a material flow analysis. Additionally, we performed a facility-level generic scenario analysis of the current U.S. EoL stage of plastic additives to track and estimate their potential migration, releases, and occupational exposure. Potential scenarios were analyzed through sensitivity analysis to examine the merit of increasing recycling rates, using chemical recycling, and implementing additive extraction post-recycling. Our analyses identified that the current state of plastic EoL management possesses high mass flow intensity toward incineration and landfilling. Although maximizing the plastic recycling rate is a reasonably straightforward goal for enhancing material circularity, the conventional mechanical recycling method requires improvement because major chemical additive release and contamination routes act as obstacles to achieving high-quality plastics for future reuse and should be mitigated through chemical recycling and additive extraction. In conclusion, the potential hazards and risks identified in this research create an opportunity to design a safer closed-loop plastic recycling infrastructure to handle additives strategically and support sustainable materials management efforts to transform the US plastic economy from linear to circular.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies in Sloan Digital Sky Survey: a new optical spectroscopic catalogue

ABSTRACT Narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLSy1) galaxies are an enigmatic class of active galactic nuclei (AGN) that exhibit peculiar multiwavelength properties across the electromagnetic spectrum. For example, these sources have allowed us to explore the innermost regions of the central engine of AGN using X-ray observations and have also provided clues about the origin of relativistic jets considering radio and gamma-ray bands. Keeping in mind the ongoing and upcoming wide-field, multifrequency sky surveys, we present a new catalogue of NLSy1 galaxies. This was done by carrying out a detailed decomposition of >2 million optical spectra of quasars and galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 17 (SDSS-DR17) using the publicly available software ‘Bayesian AGN Decomposition Analysis for SDSS Spectra’. The catalogue contains 22656 NLSy1 galaxies which is more than twice the size of the previously identified NLSy1s based on SDSS-DR12. As a corollary, we also release a new catalogue of 52273 broad-line Seyfert 1 (BLSy1) galaxies. The estimated optical spectral parameters and derived quantities confirm the previously known finding of NLSy1 galaxies being AGN powered by highly accreting, low-mass black holes. We conclude that this enlarged sample of NLSy1 and BLSy1 galaxies will enable us to explore the low-luminosity end of the AGN population by effectively utilizing the sensitive, high-quality observations delivered by ongoing/upcoming wide-field sky surveys. The catalogue has been made public at https://www.ucm.es/blazars/seyfert.

Paliya, Vaidehi S. (ORCID:0000000177745308)↗

System Model Calculations for the Active Trenches of the Low-Level Burial Grounds, Hanford Site, Washington

Two lined trenches (Trench 31 and 34) located within the 200 West Low-Level Burial Ground (LLBG) area of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Hanford Site are designated for permanent disposal of low-level radioactive waste (LLW) and mixed low-level radioactive waste (MLLW). In accordance with DOE O 435.1, Radioactive Waste Management, radioactive waste shall be managed and disposed in a manner that is protective of worker, public health and safety, and the environment. DOE O 435.1 requires a site-specific radiological performance assessment (PA) that includes calculations of potential releases and subsequent doses to members of the public for a period of 1,000 years after closure of a low-level waste (LLW) disposal facility. The purpose of this environmental calculation file (ECF) is to document the various dose calculations performed to support DOE’s LLBG PA. The dose assessments are performed to evaluate the potential exposure of an all-pathway representative person to radionuclide contaminants of potential concern (COPCs) that may be released from the LLBG Trenches 31 and 34 to the point of calculation (POC) located at the outer edge of a 100 m buffer zone surrounding the trench boundary. This ECF uses inputs from other ECFs and their associated model package reports (MPRs) supporting the LLBG PA. The five major objectives of this ECF are to present the results of the following: (1) Deterministic dose assessments for both groundwater and atmospheric exposure scenarios; (2) Radon-222 (Rn-222) flux emanating at the surface from the disposed wastes; (3) Uncertainty analyses of the groundwater pathway annual dose due to uncertainty in input parameters; (4) Sensitivity analyses of the input parameters that could potentially impact the fate and transport of the contaminants and doses; (5) Doses arising from inadvertent intruder exposure scenarios.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Code for Experiment in Publication “Determining the dominant factors for carbon-1 mineralization in three-dimensional fracture networks”

We plan to release the code used to perform the experiment described in our recent publication, entitled “Determining the dominant factors for carbon-1 mineralization in three-dimensional fracture networks.” This code fits a joint emulator to data from several Discrete Fracture Network (DFN) simulations, performed using the open-source software DFNworks (https://dfnworks.lanl.gov/). All code to be released implements existing methods; there are no novel algorithms nor any major innovations to existing software.

Murph, Alexander↗

Transverse momentum resummation at N$^{3}$LL+NNLO for diboson processes

Diboson processes are one of the most accessible and stringent probes of the electroweak gauge structure of the Standard Model at the LHC. They will be probed at the percent level at the high-luminosity LHC, challenging current theory predictions. We present transverse momentum resummed calculations at N$^{3}$LL+NNLO for the processes ZZ, WZ, WH and ZH, compare our predictions with most recent LHC data and present predictions at 13.6 TeV including theory uncertainty estimates. For W$^{+}$W$^{−}$ production we further present jet-veto resummed results at N$^{3}$LL$_{p}$+NNLO. Our calculations will be made publicly available in the upcoming MCFM release and allow future analyses to take advantage of improved predictions.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

A geospatial environmental and techno-economic framework for sustainable phosphorus management at livestock facilities

Nutrient pollution of waterbodies is a major worldwide water quality problem. Excessive use and discharge of nutrients can lead to eutrophication and algal blooms in fresh and marine waters, resulting in environmental problems associated with hypoxia, public health issues related to the release of toxins and freshwater scarcity. A promising option to address this problem is the recovery of nutrient releases prior to being discharged into the environment. Driven by the sustainable materials management concept, the COW2NUTRIENT (Cattle Organic Waste to NUTRIent and ENergy Technologies) framework is developed for the techno-economic evaluation and selection of nutrient recovery systems at livestock facilities. Furthermore, environmental vulnerability to nutrient pollution determined through a geographic information system (GIS)-based model and techno-economic information of different state-of-the-art nutrient management technologies are combined in a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) model, resulting in the selection and economic analysis of the most suitable process for each studied livestock facility. This framework has been employed for studying the implementation of sustainable phosphorus management systems at 2,217 livestock facilities in the Great Lakes area, resulting in capital expenses of 2.5 billion USD if only phosphorus recovery technologies are installed, and up to 5.2 billion USD if nutrient management is combined with biogas and power production. However, considering potential economic incentives for the recovery of phosphorus, net revenues up to 230 million USD per year can be achieved. Therefore, the framework presented reveals the potential of implementing nutrient management systems at regional scale for the abatement of phosphorus releases from livestock facilities.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Simulating a pulsed-power-driven plasma with ideal MHD

We describe a simple practical numerical method for simulating plasma driven within a vacuum chamber by a pulsed power generator. Typically, in this type of simulation, the vacuum region adjacent to the plasma is approximated as a highly resistive, light fluid; this involves computationally expensive solvers describing the diffusion of the magnetic field through this fluid. Instead, we provide a recipe for coupling pulsed power generators to the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) domain by approximating the perfectly insulating vacuum as a light, perfectly conducting, inviscid MHD fluid and discuss the applicability of this counter-intuitive technique. This much more affordable ideal MHD representation is particularly useful in situations where a plasma exhibits interesting three-dimensional phenomena, either due to the design of the experiment or due to developing instabilities. We verified that this coupling recipe works by modeling an exactly solvable flux compression generator as well as a self-similar Noh-like solution and demonstrated convergence to the theoretical solution. We also showed examples of simulating complex three-dimensional pulsed power devices with this technique. We release our code implementation to the public.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

The ENDF/B Nuclear Data Library and Its Impact on Reactor Simulations

The ENDF/B library, which is developed, maintained, and distributed by the Cross Section Evaluation Working Group, is the main source of nuclear data for analyses and computational simulations in nuclear applications, like different nuclear reactors concepts, radiation shielding, medical applications, astrophysics, etc. The library is constantly being improved and updated, with each release bringing an optimal representation of nuclear interactions as they are understood in their time. The most recent release, ENDF/B-VIII.1, represents a significant improvement in terms of the performance and consistency of the measured differential data relative to previous versions, as it combines the most recent experimental differential data and advanced theoretical nuclear models. As one of the many highlights, ENDF/B-VIII.1 restores a high-burnup depletion performance, comparable to ENDF/B-VII.1, that had been degraded in ENDF/B-VIII.0, while further improving the performance in criticality benchmarks, such as those in the Mosteller’s suite. Additionally noteworthy is the improved performance of ENDF/B-VIII.1 in radiation shielding and thick-target leakage spectrum integral experiments, which are also important for fusion and reactor applications. In this work we present in a very summarized way the main updates implemented in the ENDF/B-VIII.1 release and its main impacts, and also begin to delineate the path forward as to what to expect in the future for the next ENDF/B release, which, based on the timeline of the past few releases, is estimated to happen around 5 years from now. We emphasize that the ENDF/B-VIII.1 release was the product of an enormous collaborative effort among many authors and that for a complete detailed picture, the reader is strongly encouraged to refer to the article accompanying the release, which is currently in the publication process, but available as preprint [G. P. A. Nobre et al. arXiv Preprint arXiv: 2511.03564 (2025)].

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

White paper on light sterile neutrino searches and related phenomenology

This white paper provides a comprehensive review of our present understanding of experimental neutrino anomalies that remain unresolved, charting the progress achieved over the last decade at the experimental and phenomenological level, and sets the stage for future programmatic prospects in addressing those anomalies. It is purposed to serve as a guiding and motivational "encyclopedic" reference, with emphasis on needs and options for future exploration that may lead to the ultimate resolution of the anomalies. We see the main experimental, analysis, and theory-driven thrusts that will be essential to achieving this goal being: 1) Cover all anomaly sectors -- given the unresolved nature of all four canonical anomalies, it is imperative to support all pillars of a diverse experimental portfolio, source, reactor, decay-at-rest, decay-in-flight, and other methods/sources, to provide complementary probes of and increased precision for new physics explanations; 2) Pursue diverse signatures -- it is imperative that experiments make design and analysis choices that maximize sensitivity to as broad an array of these potential new physics signatures as possible; 3) Deepen theoretical engagement -- priority in the theory community should be placed on development of standard and beyond standard models relevant to all four short-baseline anomalies and the development of tools for efficient tests of these models with existing and future experimental datasets; 4) Openly share data -- Fluid communication between the experimental and theory communities will be required, which implies that both experimental data releases and theoretical calculations should be publicly available; and 5) Apply robust analysis techniques -- Appropriate statistical treatment is crucial to assess the compatibility of data sets within the context of any given model.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗