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At least 523 records · Page 29

General Line Ampacity State Solver

INL’s General Line Ampacity State Solver (GLASS) is a high performance software platform that enables advanced grid system operations and planning efforts to be computed in real time. It enables the combination of advanced sensors and sensor networks, communication and data transfer channels, secure and reliable data management, and real-time processing through a flexible system architecture, with the ability to support and integrate with any utility enterprise system. GLASS is designed to help resolve the problems associated with thermally limited transmission and distribution networks, namely bare overhead power transmission lines. GLASS enables the methodology of Concurrent Cooling (Dynamic Line Rating) by reducing the need of using a cost-prohibited number of weather stations (reduce the number of weather stations per mile of overhead power line) to achieve the resolution necessary for individual electric transmission line span capacity calculations. GLASS achieves this by coupling real-time grid operations data and infrastructure architecture information with real-time field deployed weather station measurements and pre-computed Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)-based wind modeling interpolation parameters (look-up tables). GLASS uses mathematical models based on the IEEE 738 standard and builds off of the provided iterative solution using modern software paradigms and programming styles to provide a more robust and modular software system. GLASS also interfaces in real-time with utility companies using known transmission line spans and structures. GLASS provides real-time ampacity calculations based on recent weather station data as well as transmission line specifications. GLASS also allows the user to interact graphically with internal databases, which include information such as transmission line conductor types and thermal rating limits, weather station names and locations, specific transmission line span and structure locations, as well as recent ampacity calculations.

Gentle, Jake↗

The 2015 Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC 2015)

The Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC) is organized by the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF), a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting the practice and philosophy of open source software development and open science within the biological research community. Since its inception in 2000, BOSC has provided bioinformatics developers with a forum for communicating the results of their latest efforts to the wider research community. BOSC offers a focused environment for developers and users to interact and share ideas about standards; software development practices; practical techniques for solving bioinformatics problems; and approaches that promote open science and sharing of data, results, and software. BOSC is run as a two-day special interest group (SIG) before the annual Intelligent Systems in Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference. BOSC 2015 took place in Dublin, Ireland, and was attended by over 125 people, about half of whom were first-time attendees. Session topics included “Data Science;” “Standards and Interoperability;” “Open Science and Reproducibility;” “Translational Bioinformatics;” “Visualization;” and “Bioinformatics Open Source Project Updates”. In addition to two keynote talks and dozens of shorter talks chosen from submitted abstracts, BOSC 2015 included a panel, titled “Open Source, Open Door: Increasing Diversity in the Bioinformatics Open Source Community,” that provided an opportunity for open discussion about ways to increase the diversity of participants in BOSC in particular, and in open source bioinformatics in general. The complete program of BOSC 2015 is available online at http://www.open-bio.org/wiki/BOSC_2015_Schedule.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Data Management Technology Survey and Recommendation

The Data Management Plan (DMP) document already released describes the architecture and plan for developing the data management framework needed by the Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI) toolset. The CCSI toolset includes: experimental data, physical property methods and parameters, empirical correlations, validation data set, models, simulation inputs and outputs, reduced-order models, cost models, risk models, uncertainty estimation, etc. Each tool in the toolset requires and generates data, and the data management system organizes and stores the data. The data management framework will be driven by end-users and interact with CCSI workflow components such as Turbine. This document reports on the technology survey completed as the first step in the Data Management Plan. It also provides recommendations for a path forward based on the survey results.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Using Machine Learning in Adversarial Environments

Cyber defense is an asymmetric battle today. We need to understand better what options are available for providing defenders with possible advantages. Our project combines machine learning, optimization, and game theory to obscure our defensive posture from the information the adversaries are able to observe. The main conceptual contribution of this research is to separate the problem of prediction, for which machine learning is used, and the problem of computing optimal operational decisions based on such predictions, coupled with a model of adversarial response. This research includes modeling of the attacker and defender, formulation of useful optimization models for studying adversarial interactions, and user studies to measure the impact of the modeling approaches in realistic settings.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Human-System Interface Design Review Guidelines

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff reviews the human factors engineering (HFE) aspects of nuclear power plants in accordance with the Standard Review Plan (NUREG-0800, Standard Review Plan for the Review of Safety Analysis Reports for Nuclear Power Plants: LWR Edition). The Human Factors Engineering Program Review Model (NUREG-0711, Revision 3, issued November 2012) contains detailed design review procedures. As part of the review process, the interfaces between plant personnel and the plant's systems and components are evaluated for conformance with HFE guidelines. This document, Human-System Interface Design Review Guidelines (NUREG-0700, Revision 3), provides the guidelines necessary to perform this evaluation. The review guidelines address the physical and functional characteristics of human-system interfaces (HSIs). Because these guidelines only address the HFE aspects of design and not other related considerations, such as instrumentation and control and structural design, they are referred to as HFE guidelines. In addition to the review of actual HSIs, the NRC staff can use the NUREG-0700 guidelines to evaluate a design-specific HFE guidelines document or style guide. The HFE guidelines are organized into four basic parts, which are divided into sections. Part I contains guidelines for the basic HSI elements: information displays, user-interface interaction and management, and analog displays and controls. These elements are used as building blocks to develop HSI systems to serve specific functions. Part II contains the guidelines for reviewing the following HSI systems: alarm system, safety parameter display system, group-view display system, soft control system, computer-based procedure system, automation system, and communication system. Part III provides guidelines for the review of workstations and workplaces. Part IV provides guidelines for the review of HSI support (i.e., maintainability of digital systems and degraded HSI and instrumentation and control conditions).

42 ENGINEERING↗

RAG for FLAG: AI Assistance for a Physics Code

Artificial intelligence (AI) has quickly become an important tool in scientific research, where significant efforts are underway to develop tools that will expedite the research process. One area of particular impact is scientific software, which can be particularly complex, and therefore time consuming to learn and use effectively. AI assistants are increasingly helping to streamline the process by performing tasks such as interactively answering user questions or suggesting solutions. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) develops several advanced scientific codes, such as FLAG, which can be used to run multiphysics simulations. With this study, our goal was to develop an AI assistant for FLAG that could help make the process of understanding the software and running physics simulations more efficient. To develop an AI assistant for FLAG, we used a method called retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which is a technique that uses information from relevant data sources to enhance the accuracy of large language models (LLMs). We used the FLAG user manual and other FLAG documentation as the knowledge base for the RAG system. When a user provides a query, RAG retrieves relevant sections from the knowledge base in response, then uses those excerpts to generate grounded and contextually rich answers. We found that our AI assistant was able to provide context aware answers and source references to user queries. To evaluate performance, we developed a set of 40 benchmark questions and compared the accuracy of the responses to those of two standard LLMs without retrieval. Our AI assistant significantly outperformed the standard LLMs at answering FLAG-related questions, with an 82.5% accuracy rate, compared to 47.5% for both of the standard LLMs. This has the potential to make the process of learning and using FLAG much easier, especially for new users. Ultimately, it supports LANL’s broader mission by empowering scientists and engineers to focus more on discovery and analysis rather than on navigating complex software systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

VRN3P: Variational Recurrent Neural Network Based Net-Load Prediction under High Solar Penetration

This is the final technical report for the SETO-funded VRN3P project (PNNL# 76914). The goal of this project, led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), in collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Portland General Electric (PGE), was to develop and validate a deep variational recurrent neural network-based net-load prediction (VRN3P) framework for probabilistic time-series forecasting of day-ahead net-load under high solar penetration scenarios. The project team reports successful design of a novel probabilistic net-load forecasting architecture, comprising of a variational autoencoder and a recurrent neural network, which demonstrates 30% improvement in forecast performance, 60% improvement in training time, and consumes 44% less memory, when compared with conventional baseline models. The team tested the VRN3P model performance on GridLAB-D test-cases representing varying BTM solar penetration levels of 20%, 30%, and 50%, with integrated time-series net-load profiles provided by the utility partner (PGE). The VRN3P model demonstrate <2% hourly MAPE (averaged over the year) for day- ahead net-load forecast on the test scenario with 20% BTM solar. Transfer learning extension of the VRN3P model has demonstrated 8.33× speed-up in training, while still achieving acceptable forecast performance of 2.24% hourly MAPE on the 30% BTM solar penetration test-scenario. A preliminary version of the VRN3P GridAPPS-D™has been developed, along with a web-based interactive user-interface (named ‘Forte’) which has made available on GitHub for public use.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Analytics for Investigation of Disease Outbreaks (AIDO)

Objective: Analytics for the Investigation of Disease Outbreaks (AIDO) is a web-based tool designed to enhance a user’s understanding of unfolding infectious disease events. A representative library of over 650 outbreaks across a wide selection of diseases allows similar outbreaks to be matched to the conditions entered by the user. These historic outbreaks contain detailed information on how the disease progressed as well as what measures were implemented to control its spread, allowing for a better understanding within the context of other outbreaks.Introduction: Situational awareness, or the understanding of elemental components of an event with respect to both time and space, is critical for public health decision-makers during an infectious disease outbreak. AIDO is a web-based tool designed to contextualize incoming infectious disease information during an unfolding event for decision-making purposes.Methods: Public health analysts of the Biology Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory curated a diverse library of historic disease outbreaks from publicly available official reports and peer reviewed literature to serve as a representation of the range of potential outbreak scenarios for a given disease. Available outbreak metadata are used to identify properties that relate to the magnitude and/or duration of the outbreak. Properties vary by disease, as they are related to disease-specific characteristics like transmission, disease manifestation, risk factors related to disease severity, and environmental factors specific to the given location. These properties are then incorporated into a similarity algorithm (s in Figure 1) to identify outbreaks that are similar to user inputs.Results: AIDO currently includes libraries for 39 diseases that are diverse across pathogen type (viral, bacterial and parasitic) as well as transmission type (vectorborne (e.g., Dengue, Malaria), foodborne (e.g., Salmonella, Campylobacteriosis), waterborne (e.g., Cholera), and person-to-person transmitted (e.g., Measles)). In addition to providing a similarity score to the user’s outbreak, we provide aggregated comparisons to multiple historical outbreaks, descriptive statistics to show the distribution of property values for each disease, and extensive contextual information about each outbreak.Conclusions: The analytics provided by AIDO allow users to interact with a unique data set of historic outbreaks and the associated metadata to contextualize incoming information and generate hypotheses about appropriate decisions. The tool is continually updated with new functionalities and additional data.

Daughton, Ashlynn↗

Preliminary assessment of RFI impacts on TDRSS in the 2- to 2.3 GHz band

A study was conducted of the radio frequency bands and radio frequency interference (RFI) impacts on the TDR satellite. Quick look evaluations were performed on RFI conditions in the 136 to 138 MHz and 400.5 to 401.5 MHz bands. An approximate chronological account of the investigations and the intermediate findings are presented. The preliminary results of RFI evaluations in the nominally 2 to 2.3 GHz band. An analysis of the time interaction of user satellites with microwave radio-relay type communications beams as a source of RFI is included.

Lyttle, J. D.↗

Data Management Symposium, Huntsville, Ala., October 18, 19, 1977, Proceedings

The transfer, processing, and use of satellite data are discussed. Topics relating to simulation and processing techniques include computer design assessments through simulation, data system dynamic simulation, and future timing accuracy requirements and procedures for data processing. Subjects relevant to data base management systems and users and their needs include an image-based information system architecture for correlation satellite and topological data base, efficient searching and sorting applications using an associative array processor, analysis of user's needs for a large technical data base, and variable length data formats. The technology development outlook was considered with attention to data systems technology outlook for supporting NASA programs, a user-oriented interactive information extraction system, and flow control and sorting techniques for telemetry packets.

Castelli, A.↗

Modifications to the steady-state 41-node thermoregulatory model including validation of the respiratory and diffusional water loss equations

After the simplified version of the 41-Node Stolwijk Metabolic Man Model was implemented on the Sigma 3 and UNIVAC 1110 computers in batch mode, it became desirable to make certain revisions. First, the availability of time-sharing terminals makes it possible to provide the capability and flexibility of conversational interaction between user and model. Secondly, recent physiological studies show the need to revise certain parameter values contained in the model. Thirdly, it was desired to make quantitative and accurate predictions of evaporative water loss for humans in an orbiting space station. The result of the first phase of this effort are reported.

Source record↗

Development of alternative data analysis techniques for improving the accuracy and specificity of natural resource inventories made with digital remote sensing data

An investigation was conducted into ways to improve the involvement of state and local user personnel in the digital image analysis process by isolating those elements of the analysis process which require extensive involvement by field personnel and providing means for performing those activities apart from a computer facility. In this way, the analysis procedure can be converted from a centralized activity focused on a computer facility to a distributed activity in which users can interact with the data at the field office level or in the field itself. A general image processing software was developed on the University of Minnesota computer system (Control Data Cyber models 172 and 74). The use of color hardcopy image data as a primary medium in supervised training procedures was investigated and digital display equipment and a coordinate digitizer were procured.

Lillesand, T. M.↗

Thermal capabilities and graphical output of PAFEC

The program for automatic finite element calculations (PAFEC) developed for the computation of heat transfer in structures is discussed. The passive and interactive graphics capabilities of the PAFEC system are presented and future developments are outlined. This finite element system is shown to have significant thermal capabilities in support of its general structures. The program offers the following types of analysis: interactive graphics; user defined program control steps; steady state, transient heat transfer; boundary element methods; linear static, stress and displacements; modes and frequencies calculations; direct dynamic time intergration; frequency response analysis; elastohydrodynamic lubrication; large deflection analysis, buckling; creep and plasticity analysis; and substructures analysis.

Akin, J. E.↗

A novel boundary element method program for heat transfer analysis of composite materials

A boundary element method computer program developed for heat transfer analysis of two dimensional composite structures is described. The program runs on a time share mode and interacts with the user for multirun analysis. During a run, the geometry can be modified interactively by the user as many times as desired by using various options available and the new results printed or plotted. A concept of plotting the results for boundary element method is introduced. The advantage of such a program over the finite element method for simple design problems is demonstrated.

Singh, K. J.↗

Software Document Inventory Program

Program offers ways to file and locate sources of reference. DOCLIB system consists of two parts to serve needs of two type of users: general user and librarian. DOCLIB systems provides user with interactive, menudriven document inventory capability.

Merwarth, P. D.↗

Toward the fully capable AI space mission planner

The necessity of expending numerous ground-side manhours to write extremely concise command codes for deep-space probes in-flight, which carry limited on-board processing capabilities, is encouraging the development of AI modules to perform the same task. An experimental automated sequence planner, Deviser, has proven successful enough, when used on a mainframe computer, to continue with the next generation of the concept, PLAN-IT, an expert scheduler for spacecraft observation targets. The new system will provide the ground-based user with interactive graphic displays for choosing targets and generates an expected time-line. An updated Deviser, using the new modules, will be tested after the Voyager Uranus encounter, and PLAN-IT will be employed to formulate Spacelab activity schedules.

Grenander, S.↗

Preliminary design methods for fiber reinforced composite structures employing a personal computer

The objective of this project was to develop a user-friendly interactive computer program to be used as an analytical tool by structural designers. Its intent was to do preliminary, approximate stress analysis to help select or verify sizing choices for composite structural members. The approach to the project was to provide a subroutine which uses classical lamination theory to predict an effective elastic modulus for a laminate of arbitrary material and ply orientation. This effective elastic modulus can then be used in a family of other subroutines which employ the familiar basic structural analysis methods for isotropic materials. This method is simple and convenient to use but only approximate, as is appropriate for a preliminary design tool which will be subsequently verified by more sophisticated analysis. Additional subroutines have been provided to calculate laminate coefficient of thermal expansion and to calculate ply-by-ply strains within a laminate.

Eastlake, C. N.↗