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At least 451 records · Page 25
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Antimicrobial resistance and genomic characterization of Salmonella Dublin isolates in cattle from the United States

Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica serotype Dublin is a host-adapted serotype in cattle, associated with enteritis and systemic disease. The primary clinical manifestation of Salmonella Dublin infection in cattle, especially calves, is respiratory disease. While rare in humans, it can cause severe illness, including bacteremia, with hospitalization and death. In the United States, S . Dublin has become one of the most multidrug-resistant serotypes. The objective of this study was to characterize S . Dublin isolates from sick cattle by analyzing phenotypic and genotypic antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profiles, the presence of plasmids, and phylogenetic relationships. S . Dublin isolates (n = 140) were selected from submissions to the NVSL for Salmonella serotyping (2014–2017) from 21 states. Isolates were tested for susceptibility against 14 class-representative antimicrobial drugs. Resistance profiles were determined using the ABRicate with Resfinder and NCBI databases, AMRFinder and PointFinder. Plasmids were detected using ABRicate with PlasmidFinder. Phylogeny was determined using vSNP. We found 98% of the isolates were resistant to more than 4 antimicrobials. Only 1 isolate was pan-susceptible and had no predicted AMR genes. All S . Dublin isolates were susceptible to azithromycin and meropenem. They showed 96% resistance to sulfonamides, 97% to tetracyclines, 95% to aminoglycosides and 85% to beta-lactams. The most common AMR genes were: sulf2 and tetA (98.6%), aph(6)-Id (97.9%), aph(3’’)-Ib, (97.1%), floR (94.3%), and blaCMY-2 (85.7%). All quinolone resistant isolates presented mutations in gyr A. Ten plasmid types were identified among all isolates with IncA/C2, IncX1, and IncFII(S) being the most frequent. The S . Dublin isolates show low genomic genetic diversity. This study provided antimicrobial susceptibility and genomic insight into S . Dublin clinical isolates from cattle in the U.S. Further sequence analysis integrating food and human origin S . Dublin isolates may provide valuable insight on increased virulence observed in humans.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

CMIP6 skill at predicting interannual to multi-decadal summer monsoon precipitation variability

Monsoons affect the economy, agriculture, and human health of two thirds of the world’s population. Therefore, predicting variations in monsoon precipitation is societally important. We explore the ability of climate models from the sixth phase of the Climate Model Intercomparison Project to predict summer monsoon precipitation variability by using hindcasts from the Decadal Climate Prediction Project (Component A). The multi-model ensemble-mean shows significant skill at predicting summer monsoon precipitation from one year to 6–9 years ahead. However, this skill is dependent on the model, monsoon domain, and lead-time. In general, the skill of the multi-model ensemble-mean prediction is low in year 1 but increases for longer-lead times and is largely consistent with externally forced changes. The best captured region is northern Africa for the 2–5 and 6–9 year forecast lead times. In contrast, there is no significant skill using the ensemble-mean over East and South Asia and, furthermore, there is significant spread in skill among models for these domains. By sub-sampling the ensemble we show that the difference in skill between models is tied to the simulation of the externally forced response over East and South Asia, with models with a more skilful forced response capable of better predictions. A further contribution is from skilful prediction of Pacific Ocean temperatures for the South Asian summer monsoon at longer lead-times. Therefore, these results indicate that predictions of the East and South Asian monsoons could be significantly improved.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Measurements of the Elliptic and Triangular Azimuthal Anisotropies in Central He 3 + Au , d + Au and p + Au Collisions at s N N = 200 GeV

The elliptic (v 2 ) and triangular (v 3 ) azimuthal anisotropy coefficients in central 3He + Au, d + Au, and p + Au collisions at $\sqrt{S_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV are measured as a function of transverse momentum (P T ) at midrapidity (|n| < 0.9) via the azimuthal angular correlation between two particles both at |n| < 0.9 while the v 2 (P T ) values depend on the colliding systems, the v 3 (P T ) values are system independent within the uncertainties, suggesting an influence on eccentricity from subnucleonic fluctuations in these small-sized systems. Furthermore, these results also provide stringent constraints for the hydrodynamic modeling of these systems.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Controlling Structural, Electronic, and Energy Flow Dynamics of Catalytic Processes through Tailored Nanostructures

MoS 2 (molybdenum disulfide) is a highly-versatile catalyst material for support of numerous reactions from hydrodesulfurization and denitrogenation to the focus of this renewal proposal: hydrogenation of CO/CO 2 towards (higher) alcohols. At the same time, MoS 2 is a non-toxic, environmentally-benign and rather inert material- which under ambient conditions for some time has served as a lubricant and, more recently, as next-generation electronic material. The apparent contrast between inertness and stability in ambient, and catalytic activity under reactive conditions is puzzling and calls for a synergistic theoretical and experimental investigation with the long-term objective of enabling the rational design of MoS 2 -based catalysts for alcohol-formation reactions by providing a microscopic understanding of the environmental factors that determines site activity and selectivity. Our research project seeks answers to the questions (a) what conformation does MoS 2 adopt under reaction conditions (as opposed to that under ultrahigh vacuum and low temperatures)?; (b) what reaction pathways exist on such a material?; (c) how can the local environment of the active sites be manipulated so as to make MoS 2 an efficient catalyst for production of higher alcohol from syngas? In particular, research strategies will explore how the basal plane composed of sulfur atoms can be activated so as to exhibit a reactivity of its own, by addressing three research targets and building on extensive preliminary and enabling work: (1) vacancies and vacancy aggregates on the basal plane; (2) non-local catalyst transformation through alkali doping, hydrogenation and phase transition; (3) fabrication of a metal-nanoparticle-activated MoS 2 system, in which particle anchoring, reactive sites and pathways as well as selectivity are controlled by design, as an example of predictive development of a catalyst material,. All strategies are directed to improve the efficacy of the key reactive sites and selectivity of chemical pathways by design, to replace the inefficient methodology of trial and error in catalyst development. This research project represents a synergistic combination of computational guidance, foundational surface-science-based experiments and validation under reactive conditions that aims at transformative new insights into the working of MoS 2 -based hydrogenation-catalysts, a topic squarely at the center of the interest of DOE BES. Guided and led by Talat Rahman, a computational physicist, this project will apply density functional theory to understand structure, reaction pathways and chemical potentials associated with MoS 2 -based CO/CO 2 hydrogenation, augmented by kinetic Monte Carlo methods for reaction rates and prefactors as well as ab-initio molecular dynamics for evaluation of thermal stability. Complementary experimental input and validation will originate from co-PI Ludwig Bartels, a physical chemist and materials scientist, whose group focuses on local imaging and preparation of MoS 2 materials, from co-PI Peter Dowben, an experimental physicist, whose group is expert in the spectroscopy of occupied and unoccupied electronic states, and from senior collaborator Michael White of Brookhaven National Laboratory, whose group generates high-resolution electronic and activity information on size-selected well-defined metal chalcogenide clusters. This collaborative effort will enable a comprehensive understanding of the correlation of structural integrity and catalytic activity of MoS 2 in forms ranging from extended films to individual particles with known geometries and binding sites. Alcohol formation from syngas is a rapidly emerging application that has great potential through facile, economic, and decentralized biomass gasification. CO 2 activation is one of the most pressing concerns of our time: increasing CO 2 levels in the atmosphere change the climate and expose the globe to environmental transformations with the potential for enormous economic and societal impact. We will investigate CO/CO 2 hydrogenation via an interdisciplinary research collaboration with established synergy – one that, in accordance with the mission of the DOE, involves accredited Hispanic-Serving Institutions and that, through student exchange with international collaborators and National Labs, will directly benefit a broad spectrum of communities and generate human resources in sciences essential to their future.

2D materials↗
DOE OSTI2024

Improved Creep Testing Approach for Bentonite EBS

In the United States, the nuclear reactor contributes 18.7 percent of the nation’s total electricity generation and produces a significant amount of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level waste. Because SNF is being stored for longer periods than initially envisioned, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy, Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Science and Technology is assessing the technical performance of the SNF storage systems after extended durations. The concept of a sustainable geologic repository for SNF disposal relies heavily on the safety provided by multiple barriers, such as repository host rock, overlying rock formation, and human-made engineered barrier systems (EBS). One of the major components of EBS is bentonite-based buffer materials that isolate the nuclear-waste canisters from the host rock and fill the void left in the horizontally drilled boreholes. The resaturated bentonite has a swelling characteristic, which is useful for self-sealing the microcracks in the host rock and supporting the canister’s heavy weight. However, factors such as nonuniformity in the saturation, swelling pressure of bentonite, and the high temperature at the canister-bentonite interface may lead to instability of the waste canister inside the borehole. Therefore, evaluating the long-term deformation of bentonite-based material is necessary. RESPEC Company, LLC recently completed a preliminary study for the U.S. Department of Energy (DE SC0022804) that is attempting to understand the time-dependent deformation in the consolidated sand/bentonite (SB) specimens through triaxial creep experiments and improve the understanding of EBS performance under anticipated repository conditions. The project included developing a standard testing procedure for preparing the consolidated core specimen from a mixture of sand and bentonite in a 50:50 ratio by weight, fabricating a new pressure vessel in-house, modifying existing creep equipment to perform triaxial creep experiments on consolidated SB specimens, and performing six long-term triaxial creep experiments under low-deviatoric stress at two different temperature conditions, which is representative of hypothetical conditions that might be encountered in a geologic repository within a reasonable rate of success in completing creep experiments. The consolidated SB specimen was prepared using the novel specimen preparation procedure and had physical characteristics (e.g., moisture content and bulk density) reasonably comparable with the properties of bentonite-based buffer, which is proposed to be used in the EBS in the Swedish KBS-3H design and the Swiss design of SNF disposal in the horizontal drifts. The newly fabricated pressure vessel could withstand the confining pressure of up to 15 megapascals (MPa) while maintaining the test temperature of up to 90 degrees Celsius (°C) for long-term creep experiments. The preliminary results from the triaxial creep experiments suggested that the consolidated SB specimen may experience time-dependent deformation at a low-deviatoric stress state and room temperature condition. Based on the deformation recorded in the SB specimen from axial and radial linear variable differential transformers (LVDTs) and physical characteristic changes, it is apparent that the time-dependent deformation is a combination of consolidation and creep, which is influenced by the level of deviatoric stresses and temperature. The systematic creep testing of bentonite-based specimens helped develop a standard testing procedure applicable for analyzing the similar characteristics of shale or clay-like materials in different geologic conditions outside repository science, including in civil engineering and infrastructure projects, underground and open pit mining, and deep drilling.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Grid Interconnection and Renewables Deployment Related Air Quality and Human Health Benefits in Southeast Asia

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has increasingly focused on multilateral electricity trade, improved grid resiliency and modernization. These opportunities in the power sector have been studied through the ASEAN Interconnection Masterplan Studies, the most recent of which is the ASEAN Interconnection Masterplan Study III (AIMS III). AIMS III assessed four different scenarios of power system in the ASEAN countries that include a base scenario and three additional scenarios (called optimum RE, ASEAN RE, and High RE) considering different levels of deployment of renewable energy (RE) and cross-border generation and trade of electricity for three years (2025, 2030, 2040). In this work, we quantify the potential air quality and public health co-benefits of AIMS III scenarios. For a rapidly expanding, energy hungry region like SE Asia generation is power generation is expected to increase significantly. The AIMS III scenarios' capacity expansion modeling suggest that: 1) Generation nearly doubles from 2025 to 2040 in all four AIMS III scenarios; 2) Most of the increased generation is met by coal in all four AIMS III scenarios; 3) While renewables generation increases in all four AIMS III scenarios, the fraction of total generation (its share) generally decreases because of the much greater increase in non-renewable sources, mostly coal. Only in the High RE Target scenario do renewables represent a higher share in 2040 than in 2025, though even here it is at the expense of natural gas rather than coal; 4) As a result, emissions of gaseous and aerosol pollutants increase significantly in all scenarios. Because emissions increase in 2040 compared to 2025 for all four AIMS III scenarios, so do PM2.5 concentrations. Even for the High RE Target scenario (the scenario with highest share of renewable energy), compared to the Base scenario in 2025, in 2040 PM2.5 concentrations are higher. Compared to the Base scenario in the same years, the Optimum RE and ASEAN RE Target scenarios do not differ very much from the Base in terms of PM2.5 concentration. The High RE Target scenario, on the other hand, yields noticeably lower PM2.5 concentration. For example, in 2040 the population-weighted decrease in annual average PM2.5 concentration in the High RE Target scenario relative to the Base scenario is 0.5 ug m-3. Compared to the Base scenario in 2040, each of the alternative AIMS III scenarios is estimated to result in net reductions in power-sector air quality-related excess mortality in the ASEAN region. Yet there are a few countries for which the Optimum RE and ASEAN RE Target result in increases in PM2.5-related excess mortality (Thailand and Vietnam for the ASEAN RE Target scenario and Thailand for the Optimum RE scenario). However, for the High RE Target scenario, all countries benefit and find reductions in excess mortality resulting from the power sector scenarios modeled in AIMS III with regionwide mortality decreasing by 16,000 compared to the Base scenario in 2040. In summary, our analysis finds that changing power generation emissions is a crucial lever for improving public health in ASEAN member countries and provides a pathway for policymakers to make decision backed by a realistic power sector expansion and air quality analyses.

air quality↗
DOE OSTI2025

Modernizing the Nuclear Industry and New Ways of Working

Nuclear energy is recognized as the most feasible energy source towards achieving nation-wide net-zero goals (COP 208, MIT). Additionally, the demand for reliable, consistent energy supply is soaring with the construction of energy hungry data centers and AI tools. This means the construction of new nuclear and the continuation of current nuclear are a high national priority. However, this leaves the nuclear industry with a workforce challenge. The rising demand for nuclear power is threatened by an underpopulated workforce. There exist a few contributors to the decreased workforce such as skewed workforce demographics resulting in large-scale workforce retirement. Also, some plants have observed difficulty hiring and retaining skill sets that typically comprise the nuclear power workforce – specifically skilled craftsman. Those who are graduating with desirable skills are seeking employment in sectors that are more modern and culturally more aligned with younger generational values. Lastly, within the nuclear sector, skilled employees will be a competitive commodity as advanced plants come online offering work environments that incorporate modern technologies, skill sets, and opportunities for career advancement. These factors emphasize the need for legacy plants to modernize with a focus on the workplace environment and culture that meets younger generations’ skills, cultural expectations, and desire for advancement opportunities. Nuclear plants are actively engaged in deploying advancements that improve the management of systems, structures, and components as well as process improvements and technologies that can reduce the costs of operation and maintenance. However, the advancements must also be analyzed, reviewed and deployed in a manner that considers the impact on how people within the organization collaborate, communicate, make decisions, and solve problems. Neglecting to consider the cultural impact of modernization risks poor adoption, unrealized opportunities, or insignificant change toward helping attract new employees. The traditional way of working is not necessarily the way new generations want to engage with their employer. For instance, in a survey performed by North American Young Generation in Nuclear the top three reasons for younger nuclear employees to seek other job opportunities was seeking better work-life balance, a lack of advancement opportunities, and work culture and leadership style differences (Smyth et al. 2022). Integrated Operations for Nuclear (ION) is an approach for the nuclear industry to create long-term strategic modernization plans and analyze each advancement for the impact on people and processes and measure how those impacts flow up to support high-level, long-term plant goals and requirements. One principle of ION is to replace the current labor-centric operation style in legacy nuclear plants with data-centric collaborative operation styles. This paper will explain how transitioning operations to leverage centralized skills and responsibility, multi-skilled teams, and collaborative decision making can flatten the hierarchical structure in plants, enable greater individual efficacy while also offering more experiences and advancement opportunities to staff. Adopting the ION way of working shifts the industry mind-set towards more networked, collaborative, and modern way of working that will attract skilled, next-generation workers to operate the legacy nuclear fleet.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Understanding the Effects of Vehicle Platoons on Crash Type and Severity

Crash type is an informative indicator to infer driving behaviors and conditions that cause a crash. For example, rear-end and side-swipe crashes are typically caused by improper vehicle interaction such as sudden lane-changing or speed control while hit-object crashes are likely the result of a single driver’s mistake. This study investigated the impact of vehicles travelling as a group (platoon) and its configuration (i.e., types of vehicles consisting of the platoon) on crash type and severity since the vehicles could affect each other when travelling in close proximity. This study applied Generalized Structure Equation Modeling (GSEM) to capture the complex relationships among the various crash factors such as traffic condition, driver characteristics, environmental conditions, and vehicle interaction to the crash attributes including type and severity. This study collected over 3 million individual vehicle data from 39 traffic count sites in California to estimate the vehicle interactions and driving behaviors. The microscopic traffic data are matched to 1417 crash reports. Results showed that vehicles traveling in platoons are associated with more rear-end and side-swipe crashes. Speed difference in the platoon had a positive effect on hit-object crashes if the platoon comprises vehicles of homogeneous type – either trucks or non-trucks. In addition, human factors such as age and gender were identified as significant influential factors in all type of crashes, however truck involvement particularly played an important role amongst side-swipe crashes. Crash severity was negatively affected by total flow, and rear-end crashes were more likely to be severe compared with hit-object crashes. Based on findings, this study suggests practical operational strategies to reduce traffic instability associated with platooned vehicle patterns. Understanding the high-risk factors for different crash types and severities would provide valuable insights for decision-makers and transportation engineers to develop targeted intervention strategies in consideration of road users and traffic conditions such as fleet mix and speed.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2022

An approach to sulfate geoengineering with surface emissions of carbonyl sulfide

Sulfate geoengineering (SG) methods based on lower stratospheric tropical injection of sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) have been widely discussed in recent years, focusing on the direct and indirect effects they would have on the climate system. Here a potential alternative method is discussed, where sulfur emissions are located at the surface or in the troposphere in the form of carbonyl sulfide (COS) gas. There are two time-dependent chemistry–climate model experiments designed from the years 2021 to 2055, assuming a 40 Tg-Syr -1 artificial global flux of COS, which is geographically distributed following the present-day anthropogenic COS surface emissions (SG-COS-SRF) or a 6 Tg-Syr -1 injection of COS in the tropical upper troposphere (SG-COS-TTL). The budget of COS and sulfur species is discussed, as are the effects of both SG-COS strategies on the stratospheric sulfate aerosol optical depth (~Δτ=0.080 in the years 2046–2055), aerosol effective radius (0.46 µm), surface SO x deposition (+8.9 % for SG-COS-SRF; +3.3 % for SG-COS-TTL), and tropopause radiative forcing (RF; ~-1.5 W m –2 in all-sky conditions in both SG-COS experiments). Indirect effects on ozone, methane and stratospheric water vapour are also considered, along with the COS direct contribution. According to our model results, the resulting net RF is –1.3 W m –2 , for SG-COS-SRF, and –1.5 W m –2 , for SG-COS-TTL, and it is comparable to the corresponding RF of –1.7 W m –2 obtained with a sustained injection of 4 Tg-Syr -1 in the tropical lower stratosphere in the form of SO 2 (SG-SO2, which is able to produce a comparable increase of the sulfate aerosol optical depth). Significant changes in the stratospheric ozone response are found in both SG-COS experiments with respect to SG-SO2 (~5 DU versus +1.4 DU globally). According to the model results, the resulting ultraviolet B (UVB) perturbation at the surface accounts for –4.3 % as a global and annual average (versus –2.4 % in the SG-SO2 case), with a springtime Antarctic decrease of –2.7 % (versus a +5.8 % increase in the SG-SO2 experiment). Overall, we find that an increase in COS emissions may be feasible and produce a more latitudinally uniform forcing without the need for the deployment of stratospheric aircraft. However, our assumption that the rate of COS uptake by soils and plants does not vary with increasing COS concentrations will need to be investigated in future work, and more studies are needed on the prolonged exposure effects to higher COS values in humans and ecosystems.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Evaluating bloom potential of the green-tide forming alga Ulva ohnoi under ocean acidification and warming

Herein we discuss the occurrence of green-tides, whose bloom potential may be increased by various human activities and biogeochemical process, results in enormous economic losses and ecosystem collapse. In this study, we investigated the ecophysiology of the subtropical green-tide forming alga, Ulva ohnoi complex (hereafter: U. ohnoi), under simulated future ocean conditions in order to predict its bloom potential using photosynthesis and growth measurements, and stable isotope analyses. Our mesocosm system included four experimental conditions that simulated the individual and combined effects of elevated CO 2 and temperature, namely control (450 μatm CO 2 & 20 °C), acidification (900 μatm CO 2 & 20 °C), warming (450 μatm CO 2 & 25 °C), and greenhouse (900 μatm CO 2 & 25 °C). Photosynthetic electron transport rates (rETR) increased significantly under acidification conditions, but net photosynthesis and growth were not affected. In contrast, rETR, net photosynthesis, and growth all decreased significantly under elevated temperature conditions (i.e. both warming and greenhouse). These results represent the imbalance of energy metabolism between electron transport and O 2 production that may be expected under ocean acidification conditions. This imbalance appears to be related to carbon and nitrogen assimilation by U. ohnoi. In particular, 13 C and 15 N discrimination data suggest U. ohnoi prefers CO 2 and NH 4 + over HCO 3 - and NO 3 - as sources of carbon and nitrogen, respectively, and this results in increased N content in the thallus under ocean acidification conditions. Together, our results suggest a trade-off in which the bloom potential of U. ohnoi could increase under ocean acidification due to greater N accumulation and through the saving of energy during carbon and nitrogen metabolism, but that elevated temperatures could decrease U. ohnoi's bloom potential through a decrease in photosynthesis and growth.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Automated Classification of Vehicle Movements at Signalized Intersections Using Vehicle Trajectories

Accurate vehicle movement classification through signalized intersections is of paramount importance to the analysis of intersection performance and the optimization of traffic control strategies. Conventional techniques for tracking vehicle turning movements depend on infrastructure-based strategies like human counts, loop detectors, and video analytics, all of which are costly, prone to errors, and spatially constrained. High-frequency trajectory data can be utilized to determine vehicle movement patterns in a scalable and infrastructure-independent method due to the adoption of connected vehicles (CVs). In recent years, several studies have utilized connected vehicle data to generate performance measures. Most of the trajectory-based performance measures approaches, however, require map matching-i.e., extracting geospatial references from maps to identify the movements that individual vehicles make at a signalized intersection. These approaches are often time-consuming and hinder scalability since geographic features need to be provided for an analysis to be conducted. Map matching methods are prone to errors as different map versions change these geographic features. This research presents a novel automatic classification pipeline that uses CV trajectory data to classify vehicle movements at signalized crossings, specifically pass-through left-turn and right-turn maneuvers. The process starts by filtering trips that cross a spatial bounding box that has been defined at the target intersection. Approach and departure headings for each trajectory crossing the boundary are computed and are clustered together to identify dominant movements. The proposed algorithm is used to classify the movement of vehicles at 10 intersections in the state of California, and the results indicate that the algorithm can classify movements at these intersections with varying traffic volumes and road network configurations, all in a map-less framework with no need for conflation of vehicle trajectories to a digital base map.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Search for the chiral magnetic wave using anisotropic flow of identified particles at energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

The chiral magnetic wave (CMW) has been theorized to propagate in the deconfined nuclear medium formed in high-energy heavy-ion collisions, and to cause a difference in elliptic flow (v 2 ) between negatively and positively charged hadrons. Experimental data consistent with the CMW have been reported by the STAR Collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), based on the charge asymmetry dependence of the pion v 2 from Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 27 to 200 GeV. In this comprehensive study, we present the STAR measurements of elliptic flow and triangular flow of charged pions, along with the v 2 of charged kaons and protons, as a function of charge asymmetry in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 27, 39, 62.4 and 200 GeV. The slope parameters extracted from the linear dependence of the v2 difference on charge asymmetry for different particle species are reported and compared in different centrality intervals. In addition, the slopes of v 2 for charged pions in small systems, i.e., p+Au and d+Au at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV, are also presented and compared with those in large systems, i.e., Au+Au at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV and U+U at 193 GeV. Our results provide new insights for the possible existence of the CMW, and further constrain the background contributions in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC energies.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Nitrogen Deposition Weakens Soil Carbon Control of Nitrogen Dynamics Across the Contiguous United States

ABSTRACT Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition is unequally distributed across space and time, with inputs to terrestrial ecosystems impacted by industry regulations and variations in human activity. Soil carbon (C) content normally controls the fraction of mineralized N that is nitrified ( ƒ nitrified ), affecting N bioavailability for plants and microbes. However, it is unknown whether N deposition has modified the relationships among soil C, net N mineralization, and net nitrification. To test whether N deposition alters the relationship between soil C and net N transformations, we collected soils from coniferous and deciduous forests, grasslands, and residential yards in 14 regions across the contiguous United States that vary in N deposition rates. We quantified rates of net nitrification and N mineralization, soil chemistry (soil C, N, and pH), and microbial biomass and function (as beta‐glucosidase (BG) and N ‐acetylglucosaminidase (NAG) activity) across these regions. Following expectations, soil C was a driver of ƒ nitrified across regions, whereby increasing soil C resulted in a decline in net nitrification and ƒ nitrified . The ƒ nitrified value increased with lower microbial enzymatic investment in N acquisition (increasing BG:NAG ratio) and lower active microbial biomass, providing some evidence that heterotrophic microbial N demand controls the ammonium pool for nitrifiers. However, higher total N deposition increased ƒ nitrified , including for high soil C sites predicted to have low ƒ nitrified , which decreased the role of soil C as a predictor of ƒ nitrified . Notably, the drop in contemporary atmospheric N deposition rates during the 2020 COVID‐19 pandemic did not weaken the effect of N deposition on relationships between soil C and ƒ nitrified . Our results suggest that N deposition can disrupt the relationship between soil C and net N transformations, with this change potentially explained by weaker microbial competition for N. Therefore, past N inputs and soil C should be used together to predict N dynamics across terrestrial ecosystems.

Nieland, Matthew A. [Stockbridge School of Agricul↗
DOE OSTI2020

Cybersecurity for Distance Relay Protection

This project is a DOE follow-up effort on the CREDC workshop held on September 13, 2018 in Cambridge, MA to discuss cybersecurity of distance relays, which considered the benefits, vulnerabilities and risk mitigations for the use of communication systems in power system protection. The objectives of this project are to define the taxonomy of relay protection and associated communications; define use cases describing approaches to reduce the cyber-attack surface on those protective relays; and evaluate the loss of operational functional capability from changes to communication coverage. Mitigating controls will also be evaluated to understand if there are other approaches to reduce attack surfaces while maintaining communications or partial communications. Distance relays are used to protect transmission lines of approximately 10 to 300 miles in length, by detecting short circuits (i.e., faults) on the lines and then tripping circuit breakers in the substation. Such protection systems are a subset of the power system and they incorporate sensing, logic and communication functions. Protection system exposure to cyberattack could be drastically limited by disconnecting relays from all vulnerable communication systems, but this may adversely impact overall power system performance in the absence of cyberattack. This project began with a use case analysis of protection systems with communications, as summarized in this report. It continued with modeling, testing and evaluation in a miniature power system (MPS), located in the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) Electric Power Training Center (EPTC). The project also incorporated feedback from two industry meetings held in February and September 2019. The suggested next steps account for and complement the work already underway with DOE/CESER funding: 1. Study the performance of LCD and PC vs. PUTT, which is less reliant on communication system performance and GPS timing references. The PUTT scheme could prove to be more resilient to cyberattack or communications-related disruption. It could also be more tolerant of message re-routing with SDN/SDR communication systems. On the other hand, it will be more vulnerable to false tripping during dynamic events or to loss of the voltage signal. The optimum choice of scheme may depend on the specific power system and risk assessment. This study could provide a new template for evaluation based on business functions. 2. Research and develop new methods to detect and monitor distributed physical attacks, possibly using drones, video sensors, thermal sensors, machine learning and other advanced techniques. This will help mitigate the impact of cyberattack on the protection system, and will also help mitigate the impact of wild fires. 3. Implement a scalable PKI for use in electric utility protection systems. This will encourage widespread adoption of secure authentication methods that are already available, but not widely used at present. This will help secure engineering access to the relays. 4. Investigate the use of SDN in combination with SDR to achieve better cybersecurity and electromagnetic security of the network, incorporating path variability. This would help secure both engineering access and peer-to-peer GOOSE messaging. 5. Perform additional testing, with operator evaluation of “red button” scenarios, PUTT vs. LCD, relay mis-operations, and other cyberattacks in the EPTC. This is an important advantage of testing in the EPTC rather than by computer simulation or even hardware-in-the-loop simulation; the EPTC is already dedicated to managing the situational awareness, operator response times and other human impacts. One of the project objectives was to settle on a common nomenclature for this problem space. We have concluded that the OSI layer model, supplemented by ANSI device numbers and other IEEE standards, is already well-accepted by the industry. The IEEE PSRC knowledge base provides a great deal of public information

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Editorial: Nanotechnology for natural products

Humans around the globe have lived through an unprecedented time. The emergence and rapid spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have resulted in the loss of millions of lives, and this number is still climbing every day and hour. As a consequence, there have been drastic changes over the past two years in how we live, communicate, and work, some of which may have changed forever: remote conferencing has become a new norm for businesses, schools, and academia; work-from-home and hybrid working is now more than just acceptable in many industries; most importantly, COVID-19 has raised global awareness of infectious diseases and pandemic responses to an exceptional level. Certainly, COVID-19 is not the only disease that is causing human suffering at this moment. Other highly contagious and lethal viruses, such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Ebola, and the recent addition to the list, Monkeypox, pose extraordinary challenges to modern civilizations. On the other hand, non-communicable diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer, are still claiming the majority of deaths on a global level (World Health Organization, 2020). Before the availability of synthetic drugs, civilizations worldwide relied on natural products extracted from the environment and various organisms for healthcare. Natural products and their derivatives continue to be critical components in the drug library available today. Indeed, almost a quarter of the new drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since 1981 are natural products, botanical mixtures, or their derivatives (Newman and Cragg, 2020). Recent developments in analytical characterization, genome mining, and engineering have further increased interest in drug discovery from the pool of natural products (Atanasov et al., 2021). This Research Topic celebrates a collection of studies at the intersection of natural product research and nanotechnological advances. As a successor and extension of the Research Topic in “Nanotechnology in Traditional Medicines and Natural Products” published last year (Zhang et al., 2021), the present collection focused more on recent developments in employing the synthesis and characterization of nanostructures for the delivery of functional natural products. Specifically, the use of carrier nanostructures to conjugate or encapsulate therapeutically active natural products with carrier nanostructures could enable their robust, targeted delivery tailored to either tackle a specific disease or unlock a drug administration pathway. Over the last decade, nanostructures such as liposomes (Pattni et al., 2015) and lipid nanoparticles (Hou et al., 2021) have been developed as versatile platforms for the inclusion and delivery of a wide range of therapeutical compounds; a significant advance in this aspect is the stabilization of mRNA strands for COVID-19 vaccination recently produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna (Tenchov et al., 2021). Such engineered nanomaterials are now widely used in the development of new drugs, while regulatory forces, such as the US FDA, remain cautious with the evaluation of each product on a case-by-case basis (Wang and Grainger, 2022). In this collection, Zeng et al. provided a timely review of natural products conjugated to and contained within nanomaterials for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Natural products that are potentially useful in the mitigation of this disease, such as chloroquine and curcumin, supported in nanocarrier systems, have been discussed in detail. More broadly, Cheng et al. comprehensively reviewed the use of liposomes as a nanocarrier for natural products. This article provides a summary of natural product compounds and extracts used to form liposomal structures. Readers can further enjoy the practical aspects of these engineered drugs for the treatment of specific diseases as well as insights into future directions in this field.

peptides↗
DOE OSTI2023

Gridtrust: Electricity Grid Root-of-Trust Decentralized Supply Chain Cyber-Security (Final Scientific/Technical Report)

GridTrust represents a departure from reliance on a single organization or a single person to multiple organizations and therefore multiple people across organizational structures. The motivating idea behind involving multiple organizations is the increase in security due to human factors. More specifically, the requirement that distinct people in different organizations sign off on a change or an update makes a cyberattack much less likely due to the inherent requirement that both organizations be penetrated and fooled. GridTrust focuses on the software update process as the primary exemplar for the research and development work. A novel hardware-based technology referred to as a Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) provides a microchip Root-of-Trust (RoT), i.e., a starting point for verifying that the hardware being communicated with is the hardware the control center believes the hardware to be. As a result, staff at power grid control centers can ensure the accurate and reliable identification of hardware devices from the outset. The GridTrust protocol introduces two key innovations, as detailed in this report. Firstly, the utilization of a PUF as a root-of-trust in the initial phase of a software or firmware update. Secondly, the application of multiple cryptographic signatures from two or more organizations to the update binary. These signatures are verified before implementing the update on a power grid device in the field. In terms of GridTrust hardware design, this report outlines two main components. The first is the GridTrust Native Device, integrating PUF technology intrinsically into the hardware device itself. The second is the GridTrust Interfacing Device, which incorporates PUF technology and multiple cryptographic signatures. These signatures are cross-checked within a separate hardware positioned between the power grid control center and the legacy power grid device, functioning as an intermediary. While the GridTrust Interfacing Device offers the advantage of being applicable to existing power grid equipment, it may have reduced security if the intermediary component is targeted. On the other hand, the GridTrust Native Device boasts increased security due to protocol integration within a unified form factor. The effectiveness of GridTrust technology has been extensively demonstrated, with multiple external red-team attackers unable to breach GridTrust's security measures. This was observed both in controlled laboratory settings during Phase 1 of the project and in real-world conditions within a City of Marietta substation during Phase 2 of the project.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Observation of the Electromagnetic Field Effect via Charge-Dependent Directed Flow in Heavy-Ion Collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

The deconfined quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions enables the exploration of the fundamental properties of matter under extreme conditions. Noncentral collisions can produce strong magnetic fields on the order of 10 18 G , which offers a probe into the electrical conductivity of the QGP. In particular, quarks and antiquarks carry opposite charges and receive contrary electromagnetic forces that alter their momenta. This phenomenon can be manifested in the collective motion of final-state particles, specifically in the rapidity-odd directed flow, denoted as v 1 ( y ) . Here, we present the charge-dependent measurements of d v 1 / d y near midrapidities for π ± , K ± , and p ( p ¯ ) in Au + Au and isobar ( Ru 44 96 + Ru 44 96 and Zr 40 96 + Zr 40 96 ) collisions at s NN = 200 GeV , and in Au + Au collisions at 27 GeV, recorded by the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The combined dependence of the v 1 signal on collision system, particle species, and collision centrality can be qualitatively and semiquantitatively understood as several effects on constituent quarks. While the results in central events can be explained by the u and d quarks transported from initial-state nuclei, those in peripheral events reveal the impacts of the electromagnetic field on the QGP. Our data put valuable constraints on the electrical conductivity of the QGP in theoretical calculations. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Simulating nationwide coupled disease and fear spread in an agent-based model

Human cognitive responses, behavioral responses, and disease dynamics co-evolve over the course of any disease outbreak, and can result in complex feedbacks. We present a dynamic agent-based model that explicitly couples the spread of disease with the spread of fear surrounding the disease, implemented within the EpiCast simulation framework. EpiCast models transmission within a realistic synthetic population, capturing individual-level interactions. In our model, fear propagates through both in-person contact and broadcast media, prompting individuals to adopt protective behaviors that reduce disease spread. In order to better understand these coupled dynamics, we create and compare a range of compartmental models to ensure that introducing additional disease states does not prevent the emergence of multiple waves in these simpler models. Additionally, we compare a range of behavioral scenarios within EpiCast, varying the level and intensity of fear and behavior change. Our results show that the addition of asymptomatic, exposed, and pre-symptomatic disease states can impact both the rate at which an outbreak progresses and its overall trajectory in compartmental models. In EpiCast, the combination of non-local fear spread via broadcasters and strong behavioral responses by fearful individuals generally leads to multiple epidemic waves, an outcome that occurs only within a narrow parameter range when fear spreads purely through local contact. Accounting for the coupled spread of fear and disease is critical for understanding disease dynamics and designing timely, targeted responses to emerging infectious threats.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗