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At least 307 records · Page 17

Ice processes in Antarctica: identification via multi-wavelength active and passive measurements and model evaluation (Final Report)

This project is based on new multi-frequency radar observations collected during the AWARE field campaign in 2016 at McMurdo Station by the ARM Mobile facility. Three scientific goals have been achieved. We have developed ice and mixed-phase cloud microphysics retrievals from multi-wavelength radar observations and ancillary observations, generally applicable at ARM sites. These technique generally better characterize the size of the ice crystals, their equivalent water content and the degree of riming better than using single wavelength techniques. We have characterized ice microphysical properties and ice processes via multi-frequency signatures. We have identified a unique mode in the McMurdo dataset appearing at quite cold temperature that we have attributed to riming processes. Triple frequency radar measurements unfortunately were available only for a short period but our work lays the foundation for building climatological and testing their replicability in models. Simultaneously case studies from the AWARE campaign have been exploited to evaluate and improve the NASA GISS ModelE3 climate model, including selection of case studies for combined goals of (i) running side-by-side using large-eddy simulation (LES) and ModelE3 in single-column model (SCM) mode and (ii) fingerprinting cloud processes in multi-wavelength radar observations. The different components of this work have contributed to 15 published papers with two currently under review.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

GnarlyX: Eulerian multi-material hydrodynamics coupled to equation of state and hyperelastic, plastic constitutive models

GnarlyX is a new hydrocode for direct numerical simulations of the microstructural behavior of high explosives at the mesoscale. We summarize the computational framework for multidimensional, Eulerian multi-material hydrodynamics coupled to EOS and hyperelastic, plastic constitutive models. We present 1D verification tests of multi-material only and combined multimaterial and strength capabilities with comparisons to exact solutions of shock states resulting from an incident shock impacting the material interface of PBX9502 and aluminum. We show that GnarlyX performs well in capturing the resulting shock waves in examining numerical convergence with exact solutions. In later work, we will summarize the thermomechanics and multi-dimensional, parallel computing capabilities in GnarlyX with multi-dimensional verification tests.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Multi-Fidelity Active Subspaces for Wind Farm Uncertainty Quantification

Wind plants operate in stochastic environments characterized by complex turbulent flow dynamics and high-dimensional random variables. A key step in uncertainty quantification studies is sensitivity analysis and dimension reduction that can facilitate the development of surrogate models to be used for forward and inverse propagation or optimization under uncertainty. Prior work has shown active subspaces are an effective tool for identifying important directions in the space of stochastic inputs; however, they have only been applied to single-fidelity wind plant models. In this study, we investigate the efficacy of a multi-fidelity active subspace method for analyzing the uncertainty in wind plant power output. The multi-fidelity active subspace estimator offers the promise of increased accuracy in identifying active subspaces as compared to a single-fidelity estimator for the same computational cost, or a reduction in cost for the same accuracy. This makes the study of uncertainty in larger wind plants and with higher fidelity physics tractable. The multi-fidelity active subspace method is applied to gridded and existing wind plant layouts with single and multiple inflow conditions and its performance for surrogate modeling and uncertainty propagation is compared against a single-fidelity active subspace method. This multi-fidelity approach yields substantial computational speedups of 2x - 3.4x across the test cases along with acceptable accuracy in surrogate modeling and computing statistical moments.

active subspace↗

Measurement Uncertainty of Highly Asymmetrically Curved Elliptical Mirrors Using Multi-Pitch Slope Stitching Technique

Soft X-ray off-axis elliptical mirrors bring new challenges for X-ray mirror metrology. These highly asymmetrically curved elliptical cylindrical mirrors with a total slope range >10 mrad are extremely challenging to measure. Their total slope range exceeds the measuring range of most angular sensors used for X-ray mirror inspection. To overcome this problem, it is possible to stitch partial slope data by measuring the mirror at different pitch angles (multi-pitch angles). By revisiting the theory of the multi-pitch Nano-accuracy Surface Profiler (NSP), we derive the sampling position error on the mirror surface as a function of the mirror height profile and the measurement error of the pitch rotation center. When measuring “extreme”, highly asymmetrically curved, elliptical mirrors, the calculation of the mirror height profile with iterative reconstruction outperforms the classical “flat assumption” (i.e., assuming that the mirror sag is negligible). As demonstrated by our simulations, a proper tolerance evaluation on the measurement of pitch rotation center is needed to assess the measurement accuracy (systematic error) for these strongly aspherical mirrors using the multi-pitch NSP technique. Taking a real design of an “extreme” elliptical mirror as a case study, we conduct a Monte Carlo simulation to mimic the measurement and characterization process to analyze the impact of several error sources. With the measurement uncertainty of the pitch rotation center, the multi-pitch NSP measurement can estimate the grazing angle θ and the chief ray location x o with their uncertainties, as well as the slope residuals.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Integrating multi-modal remote sensing, deep learning, and attention mechanisms for yield prediction in plant breeding experiments

In both plant breeding and crop management, interpretability plays a crucial role in instilling trust in AI-driven approaches and enabling the provision of actionable insights. The primary objective of this research is to explore and evaluate the potential contributions of deep learning network architectures that employ stacked LSTM for end-of-season maize grain yield prediction. A secondary aim is to expand the capabilities of these networks by adapting them to better accommodate and leverage the multi-modality properties of remote sensing data. In this study, a multi-modal deep learning architecture that assimilates inputs from heterogeneous data streams, including high-resolution hyperspectral imagery, LiDAR point clouds, and environmental data, is proposed to forecast maize crop yields. The architecture includes attention mechanisms that assign varying levels of importance to different modalities and temporal features that, reflect the dynamics of plant growth and environmental interactions. The interpretability of the attention weights is investigated in multi-modal networks that seek to both improve predictions and attribute crop yield outcomes to genetic and environmental variables. This approach also contributes to increased interpretability of the model's predictions. The temporal attention weight distributions highlighted relevant factors and critical growth stages that contribute to the predictions. The results of this study affirm that the attention weights are consistent with recognized biological growth stages, thereby substantiating the network's capability to learn biologically interpretable features. Accuracies of the model's predictions of yield ranged from 0.82-0.93 R 2 ref in this genetics-focused study, further highlighting the potential of attention-based models. Further, this research facilitates understanding of how multi-modality remote sensing aligns with the physiological stages of maize. The proposed architecture shows promise in improving predictions and offering interpretable insights into the factors affecting maize crop yields, while demonstrating the impact of data collection by different modalities through the growing season. By identifying relevant factors and critical growth stages, the model's attention weights provide valuable information that can be used in both plant breeding and crop management. The consistency of attention weights with biological growth stages reinforces the potential of deep learning networks in agricultural applications, particularly in leveraging remote sensing data for yield prediction. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the use of hyperspectral and LiDAR UAV time series data for explaining/interpreting plant growth stages within deep learning networks and forecasting plot-level maize grain yield using late fusion modalities with attention mechanisms.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Investigating the Linear Thermal Expansion of Additively Manufactured Multi-Material Joining between Invar and Steel

This work investigated the linear thermal expansion properties of a multi-material specimen fabricated with Invar M93 and A36 steel. A sequence of tests was performed to investigate the viability of additively manufactured Invar M93 for lowering the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) in multi-material part tooling. Invar beads were additively manufactured on a steel base plate using a fiber laser system, and samples were taken from the steel, Invar, and the interface between the two materials. The CTE of the samples was measured between 40 °C and 150 °C using a thermomechanical analyzer, and the elemental composition was studied with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The CTE of samples taken from the steel and the interface remained comparable to that of A36 steel; however, deviations between the thermal expansion values were prevalent due to element diffusion in and around the heat-affected zone. The CTEs measured from the Invar bead were lower than those from the other sections with the largest and smallest thermal expansion values being 10.40 μm/m-K and 2.09 μm/m-K. In each of the sections, the largest CTE was measured from samples taken from the end of the weld beads. An additional test was performed to measure the aggregate expansion of multi-material tools. Invar beads were welded on an A36 steel plate. The invar was machined, and the sample was heated in an oven from 40 °C and 160 °C. Strain gauges were placed on the surface of the part and were used to analyze how the combined thermal expansions of the invar and steel would affect the thermal expansion on the surface of a tool. There were small deviations between the expansion values measured by gauges placed in different orientations, and the elongation of the sample was greatest along the dimension containing a larger percentage of steel. On average, the expansion of the machined Invar surface was 42% less than the expansion of the steel surface. The results of this work demonstrate that additively manufactured Invar can be utilized to decrease the CTE for multi-material part tooling.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Development of A Multi-Spectral Pyrometry Sensor for High-Speed Transient Surface-Temperature Measurements in Combustion-Relevant Harsh Environments

Accurate and high-speed transient surface-temperature measurements of combustion devices including internal combustion (IC) engines, gas turbines, etc., provide validation targets and boundary conditions for computational fluid dynamics models, and are broadly relevant to technology advancements such as performance improvement and emissions reduction. Development and demonstration of a multi-infrared-channel pyrometry-based optical instrument for high-speed surface-temperature measurement is described. The measurement principle is based on multi-spectral radiation thermometry (MRT) and uses surface thermal radiation at four discrete spectral regions and a corresponding emissivity model to obtain surface temperature via non-linear least squares (NLLS) optimization. Rules of thumb for specifying the spectral regions and considerations to avoid interference with common combustion products are developed; the impact of these along with linear and non-linear MRT analysis are assessed as a function of temperature and signal-to-noise ratio. A multi-start method to determine the MRT-solution global optimum is described and demonstrated. The resulting multi-channel transient pyrometry instrument is described along with practical considerations including optical-alignment drift, matching intra-channel transient response, and solution-confidence indicators. The instrument demonstrated excellent >97% accuracy and >99% 2-sigma precision over the 400–800 °C range, with ~20 µs (50 kHz, equivalent to 0.2 cad at 2000 RPM IC-engine operation) transient response in the bench validation.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Robust multi‐loop control of a floating wind turbine

Abstract A principal challenge facing the control of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) is the problem of instability, or “negative damping,” when using blade pitch feedback to control generator speed. This closed‐loop instability can be attributed to non‐minimum phase zeros in the transfer function from blade pitch to generator speed. Standard approaches to improving stability and performance include robust tuning of control gains and introducing multiple feedback loops to respond to platform motion. Combining these approaches is nontrivial because multiple control loops complicate the impact of coupling in the system dynamics. The single‐loop approach to analyzing stability robustness neglects inter‐loop coupling, while a simplistic multi‐loop approach is highly sensitive to dimensional scaling and overestimates the robustness of the single‐loop controller. This work proposes a sensitivity representation that separates some of the natural FOWT dynamic coupling into a parallel feedback loop in the sensitivity function loop to address both of these concerns. The modified robustness measure is used with a simplified linear FOWT model to optimize scheduled multi‐loop control parameters in an automated tuning procedure. This controller is implemented for the 10‐MW Ultraflexible Smart FLoating Offshore Wind Turbine (USFLOWT) and compared against conventional single‐ and multi‐loop controllers tuned using frequency‐domain analysis and high‐fidelity OpenFAST simulations. The multi‐loop robust controller shows the highest overall performance in generator speed regulation and tower load reduction, though consideration of power quality, actuator usage, and other structural loading leads to additional trade‐offs.

Stockhouse, David↗

Multi-invariants and bulk replica symmetry

In this paper, we analyze the question of replica symmetry in the bulk for multi-partite entanglement measures in the vacuum state of two dimensional holographic CFTs. We first define a class of multi-partite local unitary invariants, multi-invariants , with a given replica symmetry that acts freely and transitively on the replicas. We look for a subclass of measures such that the dual bulk geometry also preserves replica symmetry. We obtain the most general solution to this problem if we require the bulk to preserve replica symmetry for general configurations of the regions. Orbifolding the bulk solution with the replica symmetry gives us a bulk geometry with a network of conical singularities. Our approach makes it clear that there are infinitely many infinitely large families of multi-invariants such that each family evaluates identically on the holographic state. Geometrically, these are equalities involving volumes of handlebodies, possibly of different genus, at particular points in the moduli space. In certain cases, we check our bulk computation with an explicit calculation in CFT. Finally we comment on the generalization to higher dimension.

AdS-CFT Correspondence↗

Load balancing for multi-beam additive manufacturing systems

As powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing (AM) becomes a more mature field, system configurations are gradually moving away from the classic single heat source, layer-by-layer system configurations towards unconventional system configurations that offer higher throughput. Higher throughput systems allow PBF systems to be considered for a larger variety of industrial applications. However, the inclusion of multiple heat sources, or beams, also increases the complexity of the control schemes needed. For multi-beam systems with overlapping fields of view, the distribution of workload, or load balancing, across these beams directly affects the total print time for a build. Additionally, the probability of any beam failing in a multi-beam system increases with the number of beams. While manual methods of load balancing and dealing with beam failures are reasonable for current generation multi-beam systems, as system configurations become more complex, manual methods will become prohibitively inefficient. Here, this paper introduces two different ways to load balance multi-beam systems of various configuration types, regardless of their complexity, which are highly performant. A consequence of this performance is the enablement of on-the-fly load balancing in the event a beam fails, thus improving system robustness.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Beyond the effectiveness factor: Multi-step reactions with intraparticle diffusion limitations

Though common in many industrial chemical processes, multi-step reactions occurring within porous catalyst particles provide significant challenges to previously established modeling frameworks. In this work, a system of reaction-diffusion equations is solved analytically via eigenanalysis. The intraparticle concentration profiles are integrated over the particle volume to obtain effectiveness factors for each reacting species, referred to herein as a multi-step effectiveness vector (MEV). The MEV solution is tested for the case of uniform flow past a stationary catalyst particle with a state-of-the-art, multi-step reaction scheme for fluid catalytic cracking (FCC). Outputs from particle-resolved direct numerical simulation (DNS) are compared to outputs from ordinary differentials with effective reaction closures coming from the MEV solution, the classic single-step effectiveness factor (SEF) (R. Aris, 'The mathematical theory of diffusion and reaction in permeable catalysts: The theory of the steady state,' Oxford University Press, 1975), and utilizing the intrinsic rates as-is. When compared to DNS, the MEV solution shows excellent agreement for the formation of all species and quantitatively captures the intraparticle concentration profiles. By contrast, the intrinsic treatment shows an over-prediction for product formation and the SEF treatment shows mixed levels of accuracy that depend upon the reaction coupling. Specifically, the SEF treatment accurately characterizes product formation if the kinetic scheme is weakly coupled but shows significant departure if stronger coupling is present. The computational cost associated with the MEV solution is associated with eigendecomposition of the Thiele matrix, an N x N matrix where N is the number of reacting components. Overall, the method is shown to be relatively easy to implement and may significantly enhance the fidelity of chemical reactor simulations that employ multi-step reaction schemes.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Multi-fidelity classification using Gaussian processes: Accelerating the prediction of large-scale computational models

We report that machine learning techniques typically rely on large datasets to create accurate classifiers. However, there are situations when data is scarce and expensive to acquire. This is the case of studies that rely on state-of-the-art computational models which typically take days to run, thus hindering the potential of machine learning tools. In this work, we present a novel classifier that takes advantage of lower fidelity models and inexpensive approximations to predict the binary output of expensive computer simulations. We postulate an autoregressive model between the different levels of fidelity with Gaussian process priors. We adopt a fully Bayesian treatment for the hyper-parameters and use Markov Chain Monte Carlo samplers. We take advantage of the probabilistic nature of the classifier to implement active learning strategies. We also introduce a sparse approximation to enhance the ability of the multi-fidelity classifier to handle a large amount of low fidelity samples. We test these multi-fidelity classifiers against their single-fidelity counterpart with synthetic data, showing a median computational cost reduction of 23% for a target accuracy of 90%. In an application to cardiac electrophysiology, the multi-fidelity classifier achieves an F1 score, the harmonic mean of precision and recall, of 99.6% compared to 74.1% of a single-fidelity classifier when both are trained with 50 samples. In general, our results show that the multi-fidelity classifiers outperform their single-fidelity counterpart in terms of accuracy in all cases. Finally, we envision that this new tool will enable researchers to study classification problems that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive. Source code is available at https://github.com/fsahli/MFclass.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Data-driven optimization of mixed-integer bi-level multi-follower integrated planning and scheduling problems under demand uncertainty

The coordination of interconnected elements across the different layers of the supply chain is essential for all industrial processes and the key to optimal decision-making. Yet, the modeling and optimization of such interdependent systems are still burdensome. Here we address the simultaneous modeling and optimization of medium-term planning and short-term scheduling problems under demand uncertainty using mixed-integer bi-level multi-follower programming and data-driven optimization. Bi-level multi-follower programs model the natural hierarchy between different layers of supply chain management holistically, while scenario analysis and data-driven optimization allow us to retrieve the guaranteed feasible solutions of the integrated formulation under various demand considerations. We address the data-driven optimization of this challenging class of problems using the DOMINO framework, which was initially developed to solve single-leader single-follower bi-level optimization problems to guaranteed feasibility. This framework is extended to solve single-leader multi-follower stochastic formulations and its performance is characterized by well-known single and multi-product process scheduling case studies. Through our data-driven algorithmic approach, we present guaranteed feasible solutions to linear and nonlinear mixed-integer bi-level formulations of simultaneous planning and scheduling problems and further characterize the effects of the scheduling level complexity on the solution performance, which spans over several hundred continuous and binary variables, and thousands of constraints.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Online task-space motion control for positioner-coordinated multi-robot manufacturing systems

Incorporating multiple robotic manipulators into large-scale manufacturing systems enhances production efficiency and expands manufacturing capabilities beyond those of single-robot systems. Workpiece positioners in robotic manufacturing have demonstrated significant benefits for process optimization, but coordination strategies for multi-robot systems with shared positioners have received limited attention. This work presents a task-space coordinated trajectory-tracking control framework for multi-robot manufacturing systems, in which robots coordinate their motions within a shared, dynamic workpiece positioning frame. A workpiece positioner actively adjusts the pose of the manufactured component to enable greater operational concurrency and improve overall production efficiency. The proposed motion-coordination scheme employs a distributed and scalable architecture, supporting coordination across heterogeneous multi-robot systems. Two optimization methodologies are introduced to manage kinematic redundancies and maintain continuous, near-optimal operation throughout the manufacturing process. The first strategy exploits a task-space dimensionality reduction to achieve locally optimal configurations by leveraging symmetry-axis rotations of the tool. The second strategy utilizes the workpiece positioner to drive the coordinated robots toward stable and kinematically favorable configurations. For both optimization strategies, multiple objectives are defined to improve key performance metrics, including manipulability, configuration consistency, proximity to mechanical limits, and motion efficiency. Addressing a key limitation of existing coordination approaches, the framework is designed around online setpoint modification, allowing coordinated robots to respond effectively to in-situ process feedback. The proposed control framework is validated using the Robot Operating System (ROS) middleware on a combination of physical and simulated multi-robot system hardware.

Arbogast, Alex [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000154740723)↗

A compendium of multi-omics data illuminating host responses to lethal human virus infections

Human infections caused by viral pathogens trigger a complex gamut of host responses that limit disease, resolve infection, generate immunity, and contribute to severe disease or death. Here, we present experimental methods and multi-omics data capture approaches representing the global host response to infection generated from 45 individual experiments involving human viruses from the Orthomyxoviridae, Filoviridae, Flaviviridae, and Coronaviridae families. Analogous experimental designs were implemented across human or mouse host model systems, longitudinal samples were collected over defined time courses, and global multi-omics data (transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and lipidomics) were acquired by microarray, RNA sequencing, or mass spectrometry analyses. For comparison, we have included transcriptomics datasets from cells treated with type I and type II human interferon. Raw multi-omics data and metadata were deposited in public repositories, and we provide a central location linking the raw data with experimental metadata and ready-to-use, quality-controlled, statistically processed multi-omics datasets not previously available in any public repository. This compendium of infection-induced host response data for reuse will be useful for those endeavouring to understand viral disease pathophysiology and network biology.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Multi-angle quantum approximate optimization algorithm

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) generates an approximate solution to combinatorial optimization problems using a variational ansatz circuit defined by parameterized layers of quantum evolution. In theory, the approximation improves with increasing ansatz depth but gate noise and circuit complexity undermine performance in practice. Here, we investigate a multi-angle ansatz for QAOA that reduces circuit depth and improves the approximation ratio by increasing the number of classical parameters. Even though the number of parameters increases, our results indicate that good parameters can be found in polynomial time for a test dataset we consider. This new ansatz gives a 33% increase in the approximation ratio for an infinite family of MaxCut instances over QAOA. The optimal performance is lower bounded by the conventional ansatz, and we present empirical results for graphs on eight vertices that one layer of the multi-angle anstaz is comparable to three layers of the traditional ansatz on MaxCut problems. Similarly, multi-angle QAOA yields a higher approximation ratio than QAOA at the same depth on a collection of MaxCut instances on fifty and one-hundred vertex graphs. Many of the optimized parameters are found to be zero, so their associated gates can be removed from the circuit, further decreasing the circuit depth. These results indicate that multi-angle QAOA requires shallower circuits to solve problems than QAOA, making it more viable for near-term intermediate-scale quantum devices.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Variance-aware weight quantization of multi-level resistive switching devices based on Pt/LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures

Abstract Resistive switching devices have been regarded as a promising candidate of multi-bit memristors for synaptic applications. The key functionality of the memristors is to realize multiple non-volatile conductance states with high precision. However, the variation of device conductance inevitably causes the state-overlap issue, limiting the number of available states. The insufficient number of states and the resultant inaccurate weight quantization are bottlenecks in developing practical memristors. Herein, we demonstrate a resistive switching device based on Pt/LaAlO 3 /SrTiO 3 (Pt/LAO/STO) heterostructures, which is suitable for multi-level memristive applications. By redistributing the surface oxygen vacancies, we precisely control the tunneling of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) through the ultrathin LAO barrier, achieving multiple and tunable conductance states (over 27) in a non-volatile way. To further improve the multi-level switching performance, we propose a variance-aware weight quantization (VAQ) method. Our simulation studies verify that the VAQ effectively reduces the state-overlap issue of the resistive switching device. We also find that the VAQ states can better represent the normal-like data distribution and, thus, significantly improve the computing accuracy of the device. Our results provide valuable insight into developing high-precision multi-bit memristors based on complex oxide heterostructures for neuromorphic applications.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Comparison of multi-stage air treatment process divided by the same temperature and enthalpy difference

The multi-stage air treatment system has been proposed recently, and lower grade chilled/hot water could be used and energy efficiency could be improved. However, it has not been studied which division method of air treatment processes has higher energy efficiency. In this study, the model to calculate the energy consumption of multi-stage air treatment process is introduced, and the effects of two division methods, i.e. multi-stage air treatment process divided by the same temperature difference (ST method) or same enthalpy difference (SE method) between inlet and outlet at each stage, under 9 different air inlet parameters in the 2-stage and 3-stage air treatment processes are analysed and compared. The results show that (1) the system energy consumption of the SE method is generally lower than that of the ST method; (2) there is generally a larger energy consumption reduction rate of SE method when the air relative humidity is 70% compared to relative humidity of 50% and 90%; (3) the difference between ST method and SE method is not great, so both methods can be used for the design of multi-stage treatment system although SE method is normally recommended.

Wang, Wentao↗