Results for “science data processing” — Page 26

DOE OSTI2016

Extracting Metrics for Three-dimensional Root Systems: Volume and Surface Analysis from In-soil X-ray Computed Tomography Data

Plant roots play a critical role in plant-soil-microbe interactions that occur in the rhizosphere, as well as processes with important implications to climate change and forest management. Quantitative size information on roots in their native environment is invaluable for studying root growth and environmental processes involving the plant. X ray computed tomography (XCT) has been demonstrated to be an effective tool for in situ root scanning and analysis. Our group at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) has developed an XCT-based tool to image and quantitatively analyze plant root structures in their native soil environment. XCT data collected on a Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) specimen was used to visualize its root structure. A combination of open-source software RooTrak and DDV were employed to segment the root from the soil, and calculate its isosurface, respectively. Our own computer script named 3DRoot-SV was developed and used to calculate root volume and surface area from a triangular mesh. The process utilizing a unique combination of tools, from imaging to quantitative root analysis, including the 3DRoot-SV computer script, is described.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

TH-C-204-01: Vision for Medical Physics and Status of Current Initiatives

In this presentation, the Editors will outline our vision for the future of Medical Physics and review recent work-in-progress initiatives to implement this vision. Finally, we will close with guidance to authors on how to write a good Medical Physics paper. A major focus will be the transition to a new publisher in 2017 following a more than 40-year association with American Institute of Physics Publishing (AIPP). Vision for Medical Physics and status of current initiatives: Jeff Williamson, Editor-in-Chief The broad vision of Medical Physics is “to continue the Journal’s tradition of publishing the very best science that propels our discipline forward and improves our contribution to patient care.” More concretely, the Journal should be the preeminent forum for exchange of cutting edge medical physics science. We seek to identify the best contributions in (a) high impact clinical physics innovations; (b) clinical translation and validation of basic science innovations; and (c) cutting edge basic science developments with potential for patient care improvements. Among the challenges and opportunities, we face are: electronic-only and open access publishing; competition from new radiological science journals; trends towards more interactive, social-media based scientific communities; and diversification of the medical physics research, authorship, and readership domains, including clinical applications quite foreign to core ABR clinical competencies. Recently implemented and ongoing initiatives include: Revised Table of Contents (TOC) and more contemporary topical submission categories Structured review template in HTML format Comprehensive hierarchical taxonomy for identifying reviewer expertise Formal process for soliciting high quality and impact Review and Vision 20/20 Articles We have recruited four Review Article Co-editors: John Rowlands and Ingrid Reiser (imaging physics) and Joao Seco and Tim Zhu (therapy physics). The Co-Editors will identify timely topics and solicit high profile authors to submit review manuscripts. To submit an article, authors will need to work with an assigned Co-Editor to develop a mutually acceptable outline and abstract. 5) A new and exciting class of articles: Medical Physics Dataset Articles (MPDAs) MPDAs describe scientifically or clinically valuable open-access datasets with high potential for contributing to the research of medical physicists working on related problems. In contrast to Research Articles, MPDAs should not include hypothesis testing; or data analyses supporting generalizable conclusions. The publically accessible dataset must be permanently archived before the MPDA can be published. This initiative is being led by Joe Deasy. Update on new publisher transition: The transition of AAPM scientific publishing operations to a major publishing house is a major opportunity to expand Medical Physics readership and its scholarly impact. The advantages include: (a) common manuscript management and web hosting platforms for Medical Physics and its sister journal, JACMP; (b) greater than 4-fold expansion of subscribing institutions; and (c) resources to mount data-driven, highly targeted marketing campaigns to enhance citation and download rates. A transition update of this epochal development, which has only begun as of this writing (3/31/16), will be given. Improving manuscript quality via structured reviews, enhanced scientific category taxonomy, and outreach: Shiva Das, Therapy Physics Editor Medical Physics is committed to continuous improvement with the ultimate goal of improving the potential impact of accepted manuscripts. In order to do so, Medical Physics must be able to tap into important/emerging areas and be able to select high quality contributions consistently via discerning reviews. Improving the quality of reviews is crucial to selecting high quality manuscripts and also to improving manuscript impact via feedback in the review process. With this in mind, Medical Physics is in the process of: (a) fostering outreach to important areas that are currently underrepresented in Medical Physics; (b) implementing a structured template review form; and (c) implementing a comprehensive scientific category taxonomy to identify reviewers who are best suited to an article. Outreach efforts have begun to various scientific areas. Strategies to increase submissions from these areas will be discussed. As a consequence of this effort, a special issue on particle therapy is under development. A review template was implemented in late 2014 on a limited test basis. Based on reviewer feedback, the template was restructured and shortened to capture essential review elements. The restructured template is due to be released shortly. The new scientific category taxonomy is in the process of being deployed to reviewers and associate editors. Salient aspects of the structured review template and scientific category taxonomy will be discussed in this talk. Writing good scientific papers and responding to critiques: Mitch Goodsitt, Imaging Physics Editor The essential components of the abstract, introduction, methods, discussion and conclusion sections of manuscripts, as well as the desired writing style and style of the figures and tables will be reviewed. Publishable Medical Physics manuscripts must include clear and concise statements of the novelty and clinical and/or scientific importance of the authors’ work. Examples of novelty include: new technical solution to an important clinical problem; new generalizable knowledge; and first demonstration that an existing engineering solution solves a clinical problem. Please note that we encourage authors of recently published conference proceedings (e.g., SPIE, IEEE) papers on novel medical physics related work to submit more substantial versions of that work to our journal. All submissions must include: sufficient background information and rationale; enough detail for others to reproduce the authors’ work; sufficient statistical analysis to refute or validate the authors’ hypotheses; a description of how the present work compares to, is distinct from, and improves upon others’ work; and sections devoted to the limitations of the study and future directions. Writing should be polished. Poor wording, grammar and composition frustrate the review process. Our journal does not have copyeditors for revising manuscripts. When authors receive critiques from the referees and associate editor, the authors should provide a detailed point-by-point response to each comment. The authors’ rebuttal should include the text of the original criticism, the authors’ response, and a pasted copy of the modified text along with the line numbers in the revised article. The new text should be highlighted in a different font color in the revised submission. Following these recommendations will improve submissions and facilitate the review process.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

TH-C-204-02: Improving Manuscript Quality Via Structured Reviews, Enhanced Scientific Category Taxonomy, and Outreach

In this presentation, the Editors will outline our vision for the future of Medical Physics and review recent work-in-progress initiatives to implement this vision. Finally, we will close with guidance to authors on how to write a good Medical Physics paper. A major focus will be the transition to a new publisher in 2017 following a more than 40-year association with American Institute of Physics Publishing (AIPP). Vision for Medical Physics and status of current initiatives: Jeff Williamson, Editor-in-Chief The broad vision of Medical Physics is “to continue the Journal’s tradition of publishing the very best science that propels our discipline forward and improves our contribution to patient care.” More concretely, the Journal should be the preeminent forum for exchange of cutting edge medical physics science. We seek to identify the best contributions in (a) high impact clinical physics innovations; (b) clinical translation and validation of basic science innovations; and (c) cutting edge basic science developments with potential for patient care improvements. Among the challenges and opportunities, we face are: electronic-only and open access publishing; competition from new radiological science journals; trends towards more interactive, social-media based scientific communities; and diversification of the medical physics research, authorship, and readership domains, including clinical applications quite foreign to core ABR clinical competencies. Recently implemented and ongoing initiatives include: Revised Table of Contents (TOC) and more contemporary topical submission categories Structured review template in HTML format Comprehensive hierarchical taxonomy for identifying reviewer expertise Formal process for soliciting high quality and impact Review and Vision 20/20 Articles We have recruited four Review Article Co-editors: John Rowlands and Ingrid Reiser (imaging physics) and Joao Seco and Tim Zhu (therapy physics). The Co-Editors will identify timely topics and solicit high profile authors to submit review manuscripts. To submit an article, authors will need to work with an assigned Co-Editor to develop a mutually acceptable outline and abstract. 5) A new and exciting class of articles: Medical Physics Dataset Articles (MPDAs) MPDAs describe scientifically or clinically valuable open-access datasets with high potential for contributing to the research of medical physicists working on related problems. In contrast to Research Articles, MPDAs should not include hypothesis testing; or data analyses supporting generalizable conclusions. The publically accessible dataset must be permanently archived before the MPDA can be published. This initiative is being led by Joe Deasy. Update on new publisher transition: The transition of AAPM scientific publishing operations to a major publishing house is a major opportunity to expand Medical Physics readership and its scholarly impact. The advantages include: (a) common manuscript management and web hosting platforms for Medical Physics and its sister journal, JACMP; (b) greater than 4-fold expansion of subscribing institutions; and (c) resources to mount data-driven, highly targeted marketing campaigns to enhance citation and download rates. A transition update of this epochal development, which has only begun as of this writing (3/31/16), will be given. Improving manuscript quality via structured reviews, enhanced scientific category taxonomy, and outreach: Shiva Das, Therapy Physics Editor Medical Physics is committed to continuous improvement with the ultimate goal of improving the potential impact of accepted manuscripts. In order to do so, Medical Physics must be able to tap into important/emerging areas and be able to select high quality contributions consistently via discerning reviews. Improving the quality of reviews is crucial to selecting high quality manuscripts and also to improving manuscript impact via feedback in the review process. With this in mind, Medical Physics is in the process of: (a) fostering outreach to important areas that are currently underrepresented in Medical Physics; (b) implementing a structured template review form; and (c) implementing a comprehensive scientific category taxonomy to identify reviewers who are best suited to an article. Outreach efforts have begun to various scientific areas. Strategies to increase submissions from these areas will be discussed. As a consequence of this effort, a special issue on particle therapy is under development. A review template was implemented in late 2014 on a limited test basis. Based on reviewer feedback, the template was restructured and shortened to capture essential review elements. The restructured template is due to be released shortly. The new scientific category taxonomy is in the process of being deployed to reviewers and associate editors. Salient aspects of the structured review template and scientific category taxonomy will be discussed in this talk. Writing good scientific papers and responding to critiques: Mitch Goodsitt, Imaging Physics Editor The essential components of the abstract, introduction, methods, discussion and conclusion sections of manuscripts, as well as the desired writing style and style of the figures and tables will be reviewed. Publishable Medical Physics manuscripts must include clear and concise statements of the novelty and clinical and/or scientific importance of the authors’ work. Examples of novelty include: new technical solution to an important clinical problem; new generalizable knowledge; and first demonstration that an existing engineering solution solves a clinical problem. Please note that we encourage authors of recently published conference proceedings (e.g., SPIE, IEEE) papers on novel medical physics related work to submit more substantial versions of that work to our journal. All submissions must include: sufficient background information and rationale; enough detail for others to reproduce the authors’ work; sufficient statistical analysis to refute or validate the authors’ hypotheses; a description of how the present work compares to, is distinct from, and improves upon others’ work; and sections devoted to the limitations of the study and future directions. Writing should be polished. Poor wording, grammar and composition frustrate the review process. Our journal does not have copyeditors for revising manuscripts. When authors receive critiques from the referees and associate editor, the authors should provide a detailed point-by-point response to each comment. The authors’ rebuttal should include the text of the original criticism, the authors’ response, and a pasted copy of the modified text along with the line numbers in the revised article. The new text should be highlighted in a different font color in the revised submission. Following these recommendations will improve submissions and facilitate the review process.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

TH-C-204-03: Writing Good Scientific Papers and Responding to Critiques

In this presentation, the Editors will outline our vision for the future of Medical Physics and review recent work-in-progress initiatives to implement this vision. Finally, we will close with guidance to authors on how to write a good Medical Physics paper. A major focus will be the transition to a new publisher in 2017 following a more than 40-year association with American Institute of Physics Publishing (AIPP). Vision for Medical Physics and status of current initiatives: Jeff Williamson, Editor-in-Chief The broad vision of Medical Physics is “to continue the Journal’s tradition of publishing the very best science that propels our discipline forward and improves our contribution to patient care.” More concretely, the Journal should be the preeminent forum for exchange of cutting edge medical physics science. We seek to identify the best contributions in (a) high impact clinical physics innovations; (b) clinical translation and validation of basic science innovations; and (c) cutting edge basic science developments with potential for patient care improvements. Among the challenges and opportunities, we face are: electronic-only and open access publishing; competition from new radiological science journals; trends towards more interactive, social-media based scientific communities; and diversification of the medical physics research, authorship, and readership domains, including clinical applications quite foreign to core ABR clinical competencies. Recently implemented and ongoing initiatives include: Revised Table of Contents (TOC) and more contemporary topical submission categories Structured review template in HTML format Comprehensive hierarchical taxonomy for identifying reviewer expertise Formal process for soliciting high quality and impact Review and Vision 20/20 Articles We have recruited four Review Article Co-editors: John Rowlands and Ingrid Reiser (imaging physics) and Joao Seco and Tim Zhu (therapy physics). The Co-Editors will identify timely topics and solicit high profile authors to submit review manuscripts. To submit an article, authors will need to work with an assigned Co-Editor to develop a mutually acceptable outline and abstract. 5) A new and exciting class of articles: Medical Physics Dataset Articles (MPDAs) MPDAs describe scientifically or clinically valuable open-access datasets with high potential for contributing to the research of medical physicists working on related problems. In contrast to Research Articles, MPDAs should not include hypothesis testing; or data analyses supporting generalizable conclusions. The publically accessible dataset must be permanently archived before the MPDA can be published. This initiative is being led by Joe Deasy. Update on new publisher transition: The transition of AAPM scientific publishing operations to a major publishing house is a major opportunity to expand Medical Physics readership and its scholarly impact. The advantages include: (a) common manuscript management and web hosting platforms for Medical Physics and its sister journal, JACMP; (b) greater than 4-fold expansion of subscribing institutions; and (c) resources to mount data-driven, highly targeted marketing campaigns to enhance citation and download rates. A transition update of this epochal development, which has only begun as of this writing (3/31/16), will be given. Improving manuscript quality via structured reviews, enhanced scientific category taxonomy, and outreach: Shiva Das, Therapy Physics Editor Medical Physics is committed to continuous improvement with the ultimate goal of improving the potential impact of accepted manuscripts. In order to do so, Medical Physics must be able to tap into important/emerging areas and be able to select high quality contributions consistently via discerning reviews. Improving the quality of reviews is crucial to selecting high quality manuscripts and also to improving manuscript impact via feedback in the review process. With this in mind, Medical Physics is in the process of: (a) fostering outreach to important areas that are currently underrepresented in Medical Physics; (b) implementing a structured template review form; and (c) implementing a comprehensive scientific category taxonomy to identify reviewers who are best suited to an article. Outreach efforts have begun to various scientific areas. Strategies to increase submissions from these areas will be discussed. As a consequence of this effort, a special issue on particle therapy is under development. A review template was implemented in late 2014 on a limited test basis. Based on reviewer feedback, the template was restructured and shortened to capture essential review elements. The restructured template is due to be released shortly. The new scientific category taxonomy is in the process of being deployed to reviewers and associate editors. Salient aspects of the structured review template and scientific category taxonomy will be discussed in this talk. Writing good scientific papers and responding to critiques: Mitch Goodsitt, Imaging Physics Editor The essential components of the abstract, introduction, methods, discussion and conclusion sections of manuscripts, as well as the desired writing style and style of the figures and tables will be reviewed. Publishable Medical Physics manuscripts must include clear and concise statements of the novelty and clinical and/or scientific importance of the authors’ work. Examples of novelty include: new technical solution to an important clinical problem; new generalizable knowledge; and first demonstration that an existing engineering solution solves a clinical problem. Please note that we encourage authors of recently published conference proceedings (e.g., SPIE, IEEE) papers on novel medical physics related work to submit more substantial versions of that work to our journal. All submissions must include: sufficient background information and rationale; enough detail for others to reproduce the authors’ work; sufficient statistical analysis to refute or validate the authors’ hypotheses; a description of how the present work compares to, is distinct from, and improves upon others’ work; and sections devoted to the limitations of the study and future directions. Writing should be polished. Poor wording, grammar and composition frustrate the review process. Our journal does not have copyeditors for revising manuscripts. When authors receive critiques from the referees and associate editor, the authors should provide a detailed point-by-point response to each comment. The authors’ rebuttal should include the text of the original criticism, the authors’ response, and a pasted copy of the modified text along with the line numbers in the revised article. The new text should be highlighted in a different font color in the revised submission. Following these recommendations will improve submissions and facilitate the review process.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2015

Thomson Scattering Diagnostic Data Acquisition Systems for Modern Fusion Systems

Uniquely designed complex data acquisition system for Thomson scattering diagnostic was developed. It allows recording short duration (3-5 ns) scattered pulses with 2 GHz sampling rate and 10-bit total resolution in oscilloscope mode. The system consists up to 48 photo detector modules with 0- 200 MHz bandwidth, 1-48 simultaneously sampling ADC modules and synchronization subsystem. The photo detector modules are based on avalanche photodiodes (APD) and ultra-low noise trans-impedance amplifiers. ADC modules include fast analog to digital converters and digital units based on the FPGA (Field- Programmable Gate Array) for data processing and storage. The synchronization subsystem is used to form triggering pulses and to organize the simultaneously mode of ADC modules operation. (authors)

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2020

Advances in Kriging-Based Autonomous X-Ray Scattering Experiments

Autonomous experimentation is an emerging paradigm for scientific discovery, wherein measurement instruments are augmented with decision-making algorithms, allowing them to autonomously explore parameter spaces of interest. We have recently demonstrated a generalized approach to autonomous experimental control, based on generating a surrogate model to interpolate experimental data, and a corresponding uncertainty model, which are computed using a Gaussian process regression known as ordinary Kriging (OK). We demonstrated the successful application of this method to exploring materials science problems using x-ray scattering measurements at a synchrotron beamline. Here, we report several improvements to this methodology that overcome limitations of traditional Kriging methods. The variogram underlying OK is global and thus insensitive to local data variation. We augment the Kriging variance with model-based measures, for instance providing local sensitivity by including the gradient of the surrogate model. As with most statistical regression methods, OK minimizes the number of measurements required to achieve a particular model quality. However, in practice this may not be the most stringent experimental constraint; e.g. the goal may instead be to minimize experiment duration or material usage. We define an adaptive cost function, allowing the autonomous method to balance information gain against measured experimental cost. We provide synthetic and experimental demonstrations, validating that this improved algorithm yields more efficient autonomous data collection.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2014

Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of scintillation processes in NaI(Tl)

Developing a comprehensive understanding of the processes that govern the scintillation behavior of inorganic scintillators provides a pathway to optimize current scintillators and allows for the science-driven search for new scintillator materials. Recent experimental data on the excitation density dependence of the light yield of inorganic scintillators presents an opportunity to incorporate parameterized interactions between excitations in scintillation models and thus enable more realistic simulations of the nonproportionality of inorganic scintillators. Therefore, a kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) model of elementary scintillation processes in NaI(Tl) is developed in this work to simulate the kinetics of scintillation for a range of temperatures and Tl concentrations as well as the scintillation efficiency as a function of excitation density. The ability of the KMC model to reproduce available experimental data allows for elucidating the elementary processes that give rise to the kinetics and efficiency of scintillation observed experimentally for a range of conditions.

Kerisit, Sebastien N.↗

DOE OSTI2019

Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) Compute Challenge

This Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Engineering Report (ER) describes the advancement of an Execution Management System (EMS) to support Web Processing Service (WPS) climate processes deployed on the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). The report introduces climate data, processes and applications into Common Workflow Language (CWL) workflows with the intent of advancing: application packaging, deployment and execution in clouds; interoperability of services in federated cyberinfrastructures; and geospatial workflows towards standardization. Work presented in this report is a direct continuation of the Earth Observation & Clouds (EOC) thread of Testbed-14. This report is expected to be of relevance to Testbed-15, both to the Earth Observation Process and Application Discovery (EOPAD) task and the Machine Learning task. This engineering report will describe: relevant work conducted in OGC Testbed-14; ESGF and its compute challenge; adaptations of existing climate processes into workflows; interoperability experiments with ESGF endpoints conforming to a common API.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2014

Sampling-based Uncertainty Quantification in Deconvolution of X-ray Radiographs

In imaging applications that focus on quantitative analysis{such as X-ray radiography in the security sciences--it is necessary to be able to reliably estimate the uncertainties in the processing algorithms applied to the image data, and deconvolving the system blur out of the image is usually an essential step. In this work we solve the deconvolution problem within a Bayesian framework for edge-enhancing reconstruction with uncertainty quantification. The likelihood is a normal approximation to the Poisson likelihood, and the prior is generated from a classical total variation regularized Poisson deconvolution. Samples from the corresponding posterior distribution are computed using a Markov chain Monte Carlo approach, giving a pointwise measure of uncertainty in the final, deconvolved signal. We demonstrate the results on real data used to calibrate a high-energy X-ray source and show that this approach gives reconstructions as good as classical regularization methods, while mitigating many of their drawbacks.

Deconvolution, Inverse Problems, Markov Chain Mont↗

DOE OSTI2020

Processing Full-Scale Square Kilometre Array Data on the Summit Supercomputer

This work presents a workflow for simulating and processing the full-scale low-frequency telescope data of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Phase 1. The SKA project will enter the construction phase soon, and once completed, it will be the world’s largest radio telescope and one of the world’s largest data generators. The authors used Summit to mimic an endto-end SKA workflow, simulating a dataset of a typical 6 hour observation and then processing that dataset with an imaging pipeline. This workflow was deployed and run on 4,560 compute nodes, and used 27,360 GPUs to generate 2.6 PB of data. This was the first time that radio astronomical data were processed at this scale. Results show that the workflow has the capability to process one of the key SKA science cases, an Epoch of Reionization observation. This analysis also helps reveal critical design factors for the next-generation radio telescopes and the required dedicated processing facilities.

Wang, Ruonan↗

DOE OSTI2021

Toward Discovering the Structure and Dynamics of the Sun-Interstellar Medium System (Los Alamos LDRD Report)

We have taken major steps toward developing the tools necessary to explore with unprecedented resolution the plasma structure and dynamics of the Sun-interstellar medium (ISM) interaction region, known as the heliosheath. We have applied a rigorous imaging technique known as Generalized Ridge Regression (GRR) to construct statistically robust sky maps of hydrogen energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) emanating from this region and detected by the Los Alamos-led IBEX-Hi ENA imager [1] on NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission [2]. Our methods go far beyond the map reconstruction process currently applied by the IBEX Science Operations Center (ISOC), opening up the possibility of new discovery science with the IBEX data set and positioning LANL for a lead science role for the upcoming Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission [3] for which LANL is providing two key experiments. We have successfully demonstrated that the new maps are higher resolution and are capable of revealing structures that are not presently resolveable in standard ISOC maps

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

Spatial Interpolation of Air Pollutant and Meteorological Variables in Central Amazonia

The Amazon Rainforest is highlighted by the global community both for its extensive vegetation cover that constantly suffers the effects of anthropic action and for its substantial biodiversity. This dataset presents data of meteorological variables from the Amazon Rainforest region with a spatial resolution of 0.001° in latitude and longitude, resulting from an interpolation process. The original data were obtained from the GoAmazon 2014/5 project, in the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) repository, and then processed through mathematical and statistical methods. The dataset presented here can be used in experiments in the field of Data Science, such as training models for predicting climate variables or modeling the distribution of species.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2018

Disturbance and Vegetation Dynamics in Earth System Models: Workshop Report

This report summarizes discussion and outcomes from the March 2018 workshop, Disturbance and Vegetation Dynamics in Earth System Models, sponsored by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) within the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The goals of this workshop, held in Gaithersburg, Maryland, were to (1) identify key uncertainties in current dynamic vegetation models limiting the ability to adequately represent vegetation in Earth System Models (ESMs) and (2) identify and prioritize research directions that can improve models, including forest structural change and feedbacks and responses to disturbance. Failure to capture disturbance dynamics and feedbacks limits the utility of ESMs for predictive understanding and application to societally important problems. This workshop considered (a) dynamic processes that significantly affect terrestrial ecosystems and the coupled Earth system and (b) the data constraints and modeling challenges important for future progress. There were three dominant workshop conclusions: vegetation changes, including disturbance- driven changes, are affecting climate and natural resources; these impacts are expected to increase in the future; and, yet, current models have insufficient data and process representations to adequately predict these changes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

TU-FG-BRB-03: Basis Vector Model Based Method for Proton Stopping Power Estimation From Experimental Dual Energy CT Data

Purpose: This work aims at reducing the uncertainty in proton stopping power (SP) estimation by a novel combination of a linear, separable basis vector model (BVM) for stopping power calculation (Med Phys 43:600) and a statistical, model-based dual-energy CT (DECT) image reconstruction algorithm (TMI 35:685). The method was applied to experimental data. Methods: BVM assumes the photon attenuation coefficients, electron densities, and mean excitation energies (I-values) of unknown materials can be approximated by a combination of the corresponding quantities of two reference materials. The DECT projection data for a phantom with 5 different known materials was collected on a Philips Brilliance scanner using two scans at 90 kVp and 140 kVp. The line integral alternating minimization (LIAM) algorithm was used to recover the two BVM coefficient images using the measured source spectra. The proton stopping powers are then estimated from the Bethe-Bloch equation using electron densities and I-values derived from the BVM coefficients. The proton stopping powers and proton ranges for the phantom materials estimated via our BVM based DECT method are compared to ICRU reference values and a post-processing DECT analysis (Yang PMB 55:1343) applied to vendorreconstructed images using the Torikoshi parametric fit model (tPFM). Results: For the phantom materials, the average stopping power estimations for 175 MeV protons derived from our method are within 1% of the ICRU reference values (except for Teflon with a 1.48% error), with an average standard deviation of 0.46% over pixels. The resultant proton ranges agree with the reference values within 2 mm. Conclusion: Our principled DECT iterative reconstruction algorithm, incorporating optimal beam hardening and scatter corrections, in conjunction with a simple linear BVM model, achieves more accurate and robust proton stopping power maps than the post-processing, nonlinear tPFM based DECT analysis applied to conventional reconstructions of low and high energy scans. Funding Support: NIH R01CA 75371; NCI grant R01 CA 149305.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability

Innovative systems with increased sensitivity and resolution are in great demand to detect diversion and to prevent misuse in support of nuclear materials management for the U.S. fuel cycle. Nuclear fission is the most important multiplicative process involved in non-destructive active interrogation. This process produces the most easily recognizable signature for nuclear materials. In addition to thermal or high-energy neutrons, high-energy gamma rays can also excite a nucleus and cause fission through a process known as photofission. Electron linear accelerators (linacs) are widely used as the interrogating photon sources for inspection methods involving photofission technique. After photofission reactions, prompt signals are much stronger than the delayed signals, but it is difficult to quantify them in practical measurements. Delayed signals are easily distinguishable from the interrogating radiation. Linac-based, advanced inspection techniques utilizing the delayed signals after photofission have been extensively studied for homeland security applications. Previous research also showed that a unique delayed gamma ray energy spectrum exists for each fissionable isotope. In this work, high-energy delayed γ-rays were demonstrated to be signatures for detection, identification, and quantification of special nuclear materials. Such γ-rays were measured in between linac pulses using independent data acquisition systems. A list-mode system was developed to measure low-energy delayed γ-rays after irradiation. Photofission product yields of 238 U and 239 Pu were determined based on the measured delayed γ-ray spectra. The differential yields of delayed γ-rays were also proven to be able to discriminate nuclear from non-nuclear materials. The measurement outcomes were compared with Monte Carlo simulation results. It was demonstrated that the current available codes have capabilities and limitations in the simulation of photofission process. A two-fold approach was used to address the high-rate challenge in used nuclear fuel assay based on photofission technique. First, a standard HPGe preamplifier was modified to improve its capabilities in high-rate pulsed photofission environment. Second, advanced pulse processing algorithms were shown to greatly improve throughput rate without large sacrifice in energy resolution at ultra-high input count rate. Two customized gamma spectroscopy systems were also developed in real-time on FPGAs. They were shown to have promising performance matching available commercial units.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2020

Correlation approach for quality assurance of additive manufactured parts based on optical metrology

Surface topography and surface finish are two significant factors for evaluating the quality of products in additive manufacturing (AM). AM parts are fabricated layer by layer, which is quite different from traditional formative or subtractive methods. Despite rapid progress in additive manufacturing and associated optical metrology for quality control and in-situ monitoring, limited research has been conducted to investigate the reliability of 3D surface measurement data. The surface topologies scanned by multiple optical systems demonstrated significant differences due to varying sampling mechanisms, resolutions, system noises, etc. The 3D datasets should be trustworthy in order to extract parameters for quality assurance or feedback control from 3D surface measurements. In this paper, we set up new standards to evaluate the reliability of 3D surface measurement data and analyze the variation in the topographical profile. In this study, two non-contact optical methods based on Focus Variation Microscopy (FVM) and Structured Light System (SLS) were adopted to measure the surface topography of the target components. The two optical metrology systems generated two entirely different point cloud datasets. Statistical methods were applied to test the difference between the data obtained from the two systems. By using a data analytics approach for comparison, it was found that the surface roughness estimated from the point cloud data sets of FVM and SLS has no significant difference, though the point cloud data sets were completely different. This paper provides standard validation approach to evaluate the plausibility of metrology data from in-situ real-time surface analysis for process planning of AM.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2020

Wireless Sensor Modalities at a Nuclear Plant Site to Collect Vibration Data

One of the major contributors to the total operating costs of domestic nuclear fleet of reactors today is the operation and maintenance (O&M) costs. These include labor-intense preventive maintenance programs involving manually-performed inspection, calibration, testing, and maintenance of plant assets at periodic frequency and time-based replacement of assets at periodic frequency, irrespective of their conditions. This has resulted in a labor-centric business model to achieve high capacity factors. To build an optimal maintenance program, it’s time to transition from this labor-centric business model to a technology-centric business model. Fortunately, there are technologies (advanced sensor, data analytics, and risk assessment methodologies) that will support this transition. The technology-centric business model will result in significant plant life extension and reduction of time-based maintenance activities. This will drive down O&M costs as labor is a rising cost and technology is a declining cost. This approach will lay the foundation for real-time condition assessment of plant assets, allowing condition-based maintenance to enhance plant safety, reliability, and economics of operation. The goal of this project is to address challenges in the area of digital monitoring, i.e., the application of advanced sensor technologies (particularly wireless sensor technologies) and science-based data analytic capabilities to advance online monitoring and predictive maintenance in nuclear plants to improve plant performance (efficiency gain and economic competitiveness). To achieve the project goal, in partnership with Exelon Generating Company (Exelon), researchers from Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are performing research and development (R&D) to demonstrate application of wireless sensors using the distributed antenna system and advanced data analytics to achieve predictive maintenance. In the report, wireless vibration sensors, vibration data and its indicator are described. The wireless vibration sensors presented in this report support three types of wireless communication, namely, Wi-Fi, cellular, and 900 MHz. These wireless vibration sensors are considered by partner plant site for installation on plant asset to enable online vibration monitoring to replace periodic measurements. These vibration data along with other plant process data will be utilized to develop diagnostic and prognostic models.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2022

The Astronomy Commons Platform: A Deployable Cloud-based Analysis Platform for Astronomy

Abstract We present a scalable, cloud-based science platform solution designed to enable next-to-the-data analyses of terabyte-scale astronomical tabular data sets. The presented platform is built on Amazon Web Services (over Kubernetes and S3 abstraction layers), utilizes Apache Spark and the Astronomy eXtensions for Spark for parallel data analysis and manipulation, and provides the familiar JupyterHub web-accessible front end for user access. We outline the architecture of the analysis platform, provide implementation details and rationale for (and against) technology choices, verify scalability through strong and weak scaling tests, and demonstrate usability through an example science analysis of data from the Zwicky Transient Facility’s 1Bn+ light-curve catalog. Furthermore, we show how this system enables an end user to iteratively build analyses (in Python) that transparently scale processing with no need for end-user interaction. The system is designed to be deployable by astronomers with moderate cloud engineering knowledge, or (ideally) IT groups. Over the past 3 yr, it has been utilized to build science platforms for the DiRAC Institute, the ZTF partnership, the LSST Solar System Science Collaboration, and the LSST Interdisciplinary Network for Collaboration and Computing, as well as for numerous short-term events (with over 100 simultaneous users). In a live demo instance, the deployment scripts, source code, and cost calculators are accessible. 4 4 http://hub.astronomycommons.org/

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗