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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 397 records · Page 22

The Pixel Anomaly Detection Tool : a user-friendly GUI for classifying detector frames using machine-learning approaches

Data collection at X-ray free electron lasers has particular experimental challenges, such as continuous sample delivery or the use of novel ultrafast high-dynamic-range gain-switching X-ray detectors. This can result in a multitude of data artefacts, which can be detrimental to accurately determining structure-factor amplitudes for serial crystallography or single-particle imaging experiments. Here, a new data-classification tool is reported that offers a variety of machine-learning algorithms to sort data trained either on manual data sorting by the user or by profile fitting the intensity distribution on the detector based on the experiment. This is integrated into an easy-to-use graphical user interface, specifically designed to support the detectors, file formats and software available at most X-ray free electron laser facilities. The highly modular design makes the tool easily expandable to comply with other X-ray sources and detectors, and the supervised learning approach enables even the novice user to sort data containing unwanted artefacts or perform routine data-analysis tasks such as hit finding during an experiment, without needing to write code.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

User-Centric Communication With Aerial Network for 6G: A Reinforcement Learning Approach

Meeting the diverse needs of user verticals requires innovative cellular architectures that can offer additional degrees of freedom to provide on-demand services. The terrestrial user-centric radio access network (UC-RAN) stands out as an excellent choice for this purpose. However, a drawback of UC-RAN is its tendency to prioritize high-priority verticals, often resulting in a subpar quality of experience for low-priority verticals. This issue is particularly exacerbated in hotspot areas. Here, to address this problem, we introduce an aerial network integrated with terrestrial UC-RAN to provide coverage to users which are not served by the terrestrial network. Furthermore, we analyze the impact of key configuration and optimization parameters (COPs), such as location, transmit power, altitude, and beamwidth of aerial base stations (ABSs) on system key performance indicators (KPIs), such as coverage, latency satisfaction, average spectral efficiency, and energy efficiency. We formulate a robust multiobjective function to maximize these KPIs without biasing toward any specific KPI(s). Finally, we propose a deep reinforcement learning optimization framework based on the state-of-the-art soft actor-critic algorithm to control ABS COPs and optimize system KPIs. Experimental evaluations demonstrate that the proposed optimization framework can converge to near-optimal solutions derived from the pseudo brute force in a few thousand epochs.

6G↗

Analyzing the Performance Trade-Off in Implementing User-Level Threads

User-level threads have been widely adopted as a means of achieving lightweight concurrent execution without the costs of OS-level threads. Nevertheless, the costs of managing user-level threads represent a performance barrier that dictates how fine grained the concurrency exposed by an application can be without incurring significant overheads; this in turn may translate into insufficient parallelism to exploit highly parallel systems. This article is a deep dive into the fundamental costs in implementing user-level threads. We first identify that one of the highest sources of fork-join overheads stems from deviations, events that incur context switching during the execution of a thread and disrupt a run-to-completion execution. We then conduct an in-depth investigation of a wide spectrum of methods with respect to how they handle deviations while covering both parent- and child-first scheduling policies. Our methodology involves a comprehensive instruction- and cache-level analysis of all methods on several modern CPU architectures. Finally, the primary finding of our evaluation is that dynamic promotion methods that assume the absence of deviation and dynamically provide context-switching support offer the best trade-off between performance and capability when the likelihood of deviation is low.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Secondary Crash Identification using Crowdsourced Waze User Reports

Secondary crashes are crashes that occur as a result of the nonrecurrent congestion originating from primary crashes, and always have a greater impact on safety and traffic than a single crash. A better understanding of secondary crashes would benefit traffic incident management, and this requires accurate identification of secondary crashes. This study explores using crowdsourced Waze user reports to identify secondary crashes. Here, a network-based clustering algorithm is proposed to extract the primary crash cluster, including all user reports originating from the primary crash, and any crash that occurred within the cluster would be a secondary crash. This method works as a filter to select accurate primary–secondary relationships, thus precisely identifying secondary crashes. A case study is performed with crashes occurring from June to December 2019 on a 30-mi stretch of I-40 in Knoxville, TN. A static threshold method (crash duration and 10 mi) was used to preselect the potential primary–secondary crash pairs, and 75 out of 708 crashes were identified as potential secondary crashes. Based on the preselected primary–secondary crash pairs, 17 secondary crashes were obtained with the proposed method and the results were compared with one of the commonly used methods, the speed contour plot method. Though the proposed method captured fewer secondary crashes, it did identify several secondary crashes that could not be observed with the speed contour plot method. The results showed the applicability of the method and the potential of crowdsourced Waze user reports in secondary crash identification.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Pseudonymized User-Perspective Summit Login Node Data for 2020 and 2021

This dataset contains hourly snapshot data from each of the 5 login nodes of the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) over a period of 2 years, starting January 2020 and ending after December 2021. The snapshots include lists of currently logged-in users, CPU and memory usage, status of users' batch jobs, and disk usage statistics. Usernames, project identifiers, and file paths have been pseudonymized in order to allow studies of user behavior without divulging Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Nuclear Science User Facility: Overview of Neutron Irradiation Activities

The Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF), established in 2007 as the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) National Scientific User Facility is chartered to provide cost-free access to unique and important research and development capabilities and infrastructure to nuclear energy-focused researchers. Users can apply for access to any of the NSUF INL or partner facilities using the same process, either through the annual Office of Nuclear Energy Consolidated Innovative Nuclear Research funding announcement or the NSUF Rapid Turnaround Experiment (RTE) opportunities, offered three times each year. The NSUF has several research and test reactors available as well as ion beamlines and x-ray light sources for experimental use in support of the R&D objectives of the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy. This presentation reviews the current capabilities, needs, awarded irradiation experiments and potential use in FY 2018.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Investigating User Experiences with Data Abstractions on High Performance Computing Systems

Scientific exploration generates expanding volumes of data that commonly require High Performance Computing (HPC) systems to facilitate research. HPC systems are complex ecosystems of hardware and software that frequently are not user friendly. The Usable Data Abstractions (UDA) project set out to build usable software for scientific workflows in HPC environments by undertaking multiple rounds of qualitative user research. Qualitative research investigates how individuals accomplish their work and our interview-based study surfaced a variety of insights about the experiences of working in and with HPC ecosystems. This report examines multiple facets to the experiences of scientists and developers using and supporting HPC systems. We discuss how stakeholders grasp the design and configuration of these systems, the impacts of abstraction layers on their ability to successfully do work, and the varied perceptions of time that shape this work. Examining the adoption of the Cori HPC at NERSC we explore the anticipations and lived experiences of users interacting with this system’s novel storage feature, the Burst Buffer. We present lessons learned from across these insights to illustrate just some of the challenges HPC facilities and their stakeholders need to account for when procuring and supporting these essential scientific resources to ensure their usability and utility to a variety of scientific practices.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Reduction of User Interaction by Autonomy

This paper describes experiments that quantify the improvement that autonomous behaviors enable in the amount of user interaction required to navigate a robot in urban environments. Many papers have discussed various ways to measure the absolute level of autonomy of a system; we measured the relative improvement of autonomous behaviors over teleoperation across multiple traverses of the same course. We performed four runs each on an 'easy' course and a 'hard' course, where half the runs were teleoperated and half used more autonomous behaviors. Statistics show 40-70% reductions in the amount of time the user interacts with the control station; however, with the behaviors tested, user attention remained on the control station even when he was not interacting. Reducing the need for attention will require better obstacle detection and avoidance and better absolute position estimation.

attention↗

Air Traffic Management TestBed Simulation Architect: User's Guide

The Air Traffic Management (ATM) TestBed is a Platform as a Service that is being developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to help design, configure, integrate, run, and monitor air traffic simulations. The platform provides cloud services including back-end big-data analytics tools, on-demand computing resource management, data storage, and communication middleware. The ATM TestBed reduces the time to test concepts and technologies, supports interactions among various concepts such as human-in-the-loop and automation-in-the-loop simulations, and enables collaborative simulations by sharing technologies and tools in the ATM community. The Simulation Architect application provides a graphical user interface tool for designing traffic scenarios and simulations using blocks representing components and links representing message channels linking them. This guide describes a high-level user interface design of Simulation Architect and provides information for a new user to compose traffic scenarios and simulations.

Software User Guide↗

Learning from GES DISC's MLS and OMI Data Users: Metrics Matter

It has been over 15 years since Aura research satellite launched in 2004 to observe the Earth's ozone layer, air quality, and climate from four different instruments - the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS), the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), and the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES). Observations from the Aura mission have established a concrete understanding of the changing chemistry of our atmosphere.The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) is the official archive and distribution center for the HIRDLS, MLS, and OMI instruments. This presentation will report metrics of data usage and services on these instruments. Key to GES DISC's mission to provide better data support is gaining a better understanding of our users' needs and behaviors as they discover, access and utilize these data. We will summarize the users' needs from these instruments based on user inquiry information collected over the Aura mission lifetime and present findings from this ensemble metrics.

Metrics↗

Users' Guide to Vinci: Personal Computer Software for Planning Image-based Measurements in Wind Tunnels

Vinci is software that can be used to plan image-based measurements in wind tunnels. It allows the user to plan the placement of cameras and the choice of lenses well in advance of a test, thereby reducing the set-up time and cost when tunnel occupancy begins. It can also be used post-test to display data (pressure-sensitive paint, particle image velocimetry, model deformation) in context with the test article. Vinci is self-contained and runs on personal computers under Windows operating systems. No other software is required. Test articles are represented by CFD-like surface grids that may be read from an external file or created within the program as a combination of simple geometric shapes. The user controls the position and orientation of the test article through a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and may add many additional objects, including tunnel walls and windows, a wide variety of simple geometric shapes, mirrors, lamps, and laser sheets. The application computes simulated images from up to 40 cameras. Images are based on pinhole projection. Each camera is defined by the sensor size and the focal length of the lens. All camera parameters, including position and point angles, are controlled through the GUI. Simulated images are displayed in a window of the GUI and may be saved as bitmaps.

Users’ Guide, Image Planning, Wind Tunnels, Softwa↗

Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility: Addressing advanced nuclear materials research

The Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility (ATR NSUF), based at the Idaho National Laboratory in the United States, is supporting Department of Energy and industry research efforts to ensure the properties of materials in light water reactors are well understood. The ATR NSUF is providing this support through three main efforts: establishing unique infrastructure necessary to conduct research on highly radioactive materials, conducting research in conjunction with industry partners on life extension relevant topics, and providing training courses to encourage more U.S. researchers to understand and address LWR materials issues. In 2010 and 2011, several advanced instruments with capability focused on resolving nuclear material performance issues through analysis on the micro (10-6 m) to atomic (10-10 m) scales were installed primarily at the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES) in Idaho Falls, Idaho. These instruments included a local electrode atom probe (LEAP), a field-emission gun scanning transmission electron microscope (FEG-STEM), a focused ion beam (FIB) system, a Raman spectrometer, and an nanoindentor/atomic force microscope. Ongoing capability enhancements intended to support industry efforts include completion of two shielded, irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) test loops, the first of which will come online in early calendar year 2013, a pressurized and controlled chemistry water loop for the ATR center flux trap, and a dedicated facility intended to house post irradiation examination equipment. In addition to capability enhancements at the main site in Idaho, the ATR NSUF also welcomed two new partner facilities in 2011 and two new partner facilities in 2012; the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) and associated hot cells and the University California Berkeley capabilities in irradiated materials analysis were added in 2011. In 2012, Purdue University’s Interaction of Materials with Particles and Components Testing (IMPACT) facility and the Pacific Northwest Nuclear Laboratory (PNNL) Radiochemistry Processing Laboratory (RPL) and PIE facilities were added. The ATR NSUF annually hosts a weeklong event called User’s Week in which students and faculty from universities as well as other interested parties from regulatory agencies or industry convene in Idaho Falls, Idaho to see presentations from ATR NSUF staff as well as select researchers from the materials research field. User’s week provides an overview of current materials research topics of interest and an opportunity for young researchers to understand the process of performing work through ATR NSUF. Additionally, to increase the number of researchers engaged in LWR materials issues, a series of workshops are in progress to introduce research staff to stress corrosion cracking, zirconium alloy degradation, and uranium dioxide degradation during in-reactor use.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

ESIF User Guide: Energy Systems Integration Facility

The ESIF User Guide provides information NREL's campus, safety, and ESIF user responsibilities while performing research at NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF). The ESIF is a U.S. Department of Energy user facility, available to the research community and open to qualified individuals from institutions around the world.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Nuclear Science User Facility: Neutron Irradiation Challenges and Opportunities

The Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF), established in 2007 as the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) National Scientific User Facility is chartered to provide cost-free access to unique and important research and development capabilities and infrastructure to nuclear energy-focused researchers. Users can apply for access to any of the NSUF INL or partner facilities using the same process, either through the annual Office of Nuclear Energy Consolidated Innovative Nuclear Research funding announcement or the NSUF Rapid Turnaround Experiment (RTE) opportunities, offered three times each year. The NSUF has several research and test reactors available as well as ion beamlines and x-ray light sources for experimental use in support of the R&D objectives of the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy. This presentation reviews the current capabilities, needs, awarded irradiation experiments for FY2018.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOME Reactor Testing User Guide

DOME User Guide History DOME User Guide Introduction User Engagement Lifecycle for DOME Phase 1 – Front End Engineering and Experiment Design (FEEED) Phase 2 – Detailed Design & Long Lead Procurement Phase 3 – Fabrication, Training, & Delivery Phase 4 – Installation & Testing Phase 5 – Removal & Disposal Next steps

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

A User-Centered Design Exploration of Factors That Influence the Rideshare Experience

The rise of real-time information communication through smartphones and wireless networks enabled the growth of ridesharing services. While personal rideshare services (individuals riding alone or with acquaintances) initially dominated the market, the popularity of pooled ridesharing (individuals sharing rides with people they do not know) has grown globally. However, pooled ridesharing remains less common in the U.S., where personal vehicle usage is still the norm. Vehicle design and rideshare services may need to be tailored to user preferences to increase pooled rideshare adoption. Based on a large, national U.S. survey (N = 5385), the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested that four key factors influence riders’ willingness to consider pooled ridesharing: comfort/ease of use, convenience, vehicle technology/accessibility, and passenger safety. A binomial logistic regression was conducted to determine how the four factors influence one’s willingness to consider pooled ridesharing. The two factors that positively influence riders’ willingness to consider pooled ridesharing are vehicle technology/accessibility (B = 1.10) and convenience (B = 0.94), while lack of passenger safety (B = –0.63) and comfort/ease of use (B = –0.17) are pooled ridesharing deterrents. Understanding user-centered design and service factors are critical to increase the use of pooled ridesharing services in the future.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Trusted Simulation: Considering Model Quality in the Context of User Trust

A high‐quality simulation model should help its users to easily and appropriately calibrate their trust in the model. Traditional evaluation metrics such as validation and robustness are necessary but insufficient for this task. Trust calibration depends on factors like the model's transparency, applicability to intended use, usability, reputation, and consideration of potential bias. This article proposes a framework for designing and evaluating system dynamics models by considering factors that contribute to the proper calibration of user trust. This framework takes inspiration from trusted artificial intelligence, broadening our traditional concept of model quality and explicitly focusing on what users need to consider a model trustworthy and to understand the model's relevance to its intended purpose. The trusted simulation framework can improve our integration of model quality activities throughout the modeling process, leading to more impactful and better‐targeted model design, development, and evaluation.

Naugle, Asmeret Bier [Sandia National Laboratories↗