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At least 685 records · Page 38

Particle track classification using quantum associative memory

Pattern recognition algorithms are commonly employed to simplify the challenging and necessary step of track reconstruction in sub-atomic physics experiments. Aiding in the discrimination of relevant interactions, pattern recognition seeks to accelerate track reconstruction by isolating signals of interest. In high collision rate experiments, such algorithms can be particularly crucial for determining whether to retain or discard information from a given interaction even before the data is transferred to tape. As data rates, detector resolution, noise, and inefficiencies increase, pattern recognition becomes more computationally challenging, motivating the development of higher efficiency algorithms and techniques. Quantum associative memory is an approach that seeks to exploits quantum mechanical phenomena to gain advantage in learning capacity, or the number of patterns that can be stored and accurately recalled. Here, we study quantum associative memory based on quantum annealing and apply it to the particle track classification. We focus on discrimination models based on Ising formulations of quantum associative memory model (QAMM) recall and quantum content-addressable memory (QCAM) recall. We characterize classification performance of these approaches as a function detector resolution, pattern library size, and detector inefficiencies, using the D-Wave 2000Q processor as a testbed. Discrimination criteria is set using both solution-state energy and classification labels embedded in solution states. We find that energy-based QAMM classification performs well in regimes of small pattern density and low detector inefficiency. In contrast, state-based QCAM achieves reasonably high accuracy recall for large pattern density and the greatest recall accuracy robustness to a variety of detector noise sources.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Learning to Correct Climate Projection Biases

The fidelity of climate projections is often undermined by biases in climate models due to their simplification or misrepresentation of unresolved climate processes. While various bias correction methods have been developed to post-process model outputs to match observations, existing approaches usually focus on limited, low-order statistics, or break either the spatiotemporal consistency of the target variable, or its dependency upon model resolved dynamics. We develop a Regularized Adversarial Domain Adaptation (RADA) methodology to overcome these deficiencies, and enhance efficient identification and correction of climate model biases. Instead of pre-assuming the spatiotemporal characteristics of model biases, we apply discriminative neural networks to distinguish historical climate simulation samples and observation samples. The evidences based on which the discriminative neural networks make distinctions are applied to train the domain adaptation neural networks to bias correct climate simulations. We regularize the domain adaptation neural networks using cycle-consistent statistical and dynamical constraints. An application to daily precipitation projection over the contiguous United States shows that our methodology can correct all the considered moments of daily precipitation at approximately $1^\circ$ resolution, ensures spatiotemporal consistency and inter-field correlations, and can discriminate between different dynamical conditions. Our methodology offers a powerful tool for disentangling model parameterization biases from their interactions with the chaotic evolution of climate dynamics, opening a novel avenue toward big-data enhanced climate predictions.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Identification of hadronic tau lepton decays using a deep neural network

A new algorithm is presented to discriminate reconstructed hadronic decays of tau leptons ($\tau_\mathrm{h}$) that originate from genuine tau leptons in the CMS detector against $\tau_\mathrm{h}$ candidates that originate from quark or gluon jets, electrons, or muons. The algorithm inputs information from all reconstructed particles in the vicinity of a $\tau_\mathrm{h}$ candidate and employs a deep neural network with convolutional layers to efficiently process the inputs. This algorithm leads to a significantly improved performance compared with the previously used one. For example, the efficiency for a genuine $\tau_\mathrm{h}$ to pass the discriminator against jets increases by 10-30% for a given efficiency for quark and gluon jets. Furthermore, a more efficient $\tau_\mathrm{h}$ reconstruction is introduced that incorporates additional hadronic decay modes. The superior performance of the new algorithm to discriminate against jets, electrons, and muons and the improved $\tau_\mathrm{h}$ reconstruction method are validated with LHC proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Fast decay of classification error in variational quantum circuits

Variational quantum circuits (VQCs) have shown great potential in near-term applications. However, the discriminative power of a VQC, in connection to its circuit architecture and depth, is not understood. To unleash the genuine discriminative power of a VQC, we propose a VQC system with the optimal classical post-processing—maximum-likelihood estimation on measuring all VQC output qubits. Via extensive numerical simulations, we find that the error of VQC quantum data classification typically decays exponentially with the circuit depth, when the VQC architecture is extensive—the number of gates does not shrink with the circuit depth. This fast error suppression ends at the saturation towards the ultimate Helstrom limit of quantum state discrimination. On the other hand, non-extensive VQCs such as quantum convolutional neural networks are sub-optimal and fail to achieve the Helstrom limit, demonstrating a trade-off between ansatz complexity and classification performance in general. To achieve the best performance for a given VQC, the optimal classical post-processing is crucial even for a binary classification problem. To simplify VQCs for near-term implementations, we find that utilizing the symmetry of the input properly can improve the performance, while oversimplification can lead to degradation.

Zhang, Bingzhi↗

Seismic moment tensor classification using elliptical distribution functions on the hypersphere

Discrimination of underground explosions from naturally occurring earthquakes and other anthropogenic sources is one of the fundamental challenges of nuclear explosion monitoring. In an operational setting, the number of events that can be thoroughly investigated by analysts is limited by available resources. The capability to rapidly screen out events that can be robustly identified as not being explosions is, therefore, of great potential benefit. Nevertheless, possible mis-classification of explosions as earthquakes currently limits the use of screening methods for verification of test-ban treaties. Moment tensors provide a physics-based classification tool for the characterization of different seismic sources and have enabled the advent of new techniques for discriminating between earthquakes and explosions. Following normalization and projection of their six-degree vectors onto the hypersphere, existing screening approaches use spherically symmetric metrics to determine whether any new moment tensor may have been an explosion. Here, we show that populations of moment tensors for both earthquakes and explosions are anisotropically distributed on the hypersphere. Distributions possessing elliptical symmetry, such as the scaled von Mises–Fisher distribution, therefore provide a better description of these populations than the existing spherically symmetric models. We describe a method that uses these elliptical distributions in combination with a Bayesian classifier to achieve successful classification rates of 99 per cent for explosions and 98 per cent for earthquakes using existing catalogues of events from the western United States. The 1983 May 5 Crowdie underground nuclear test and 2018 July 20 DAG-1 deep-borehole chemical explosion are the only two explosions out of 140 that are incorrectly classified. Application of the method to the 2006–2017 nuclear tests in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea yields 100 per cent identification rates and we provide a simple routine MTid for general usage. The approach provides a means to rapidly assess the likelihood of an event being an explosion and can be built into monitoring workflows that rely on simultaneously assessing multiple different discrimination metrics.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Anomaly detection in Hyper Suprime-Cam galaxy images with generative adversarial networks

ABSTRACT The problem of anomaly detection in astronomical surveys is becoming increasingly important as data sets grow in size. We present the results of an unsupervised anomaly detection method using a Wasserstein generative adversarial network (WGAN) on nearly one million optical galaxy images in the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey. The WGAN learns to generate realistic HSC-like galaxies that follow the distribution of the data set; anomalous images are defined based on a poor reconstruction by the generator and outlying features learned by the discriminator. We find that the discriminator is more attuned to potentially interesting anomalies compared to the generator, and compared to a simpler autoencoder-based anomaly detection approach, so we use the discriminator-selected images to construct a high-anomaly sample of ∼13 000 objects. We propose a new approach to further characterize these anomalous images: we use a convolutional autoencoder to reduce the dimensionality of the residual differences between the real and WGAN-reconstructed images and perform UMAP clustering on these. We report detected anomalies of interest including galaxy mergers, tidal features, and extreme star-forming galaxies. A follow-up spectroscopic analysis of one of these anomalies is detailed in the Appendix; we find that it is an unusual system most likely to be a metal-poor dwarf galaxy with an extremely blue, higher-metallicity H ii region. We have released a catalogue with the WGAN anomaly scores; the code and catalogue are available at https://github.com/kstoreyf/anomalies-GAN-HSC; and our interactive visualization tool for exploring the clustered data is at https://weirdgalaxi.es.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Improving generative model-based unfolding with Schrödinger bridges

Machine learning-based unfolding has enabled unbinned and high-dimensional differential cross section measurements. Two main approaches have emerged in this research area; one based on discriminative models and one based on generative models. The main advantage of discriminative models is that they learn a small correction to a starting simulation while generative models scale better to regions of phase space with little data. We propose to use Schrödinger bridges and diffusion models to create , an unfolding approach that combines the strengths of both discriminative and generative models. The key feature of is that its generative model maps one set of events into another without having to go through a known probability density as is the case for normalizing flows and standard diffusion models. We show that achieves excellent performance compared to state of the art methods on a synthetic Z + jets dataset. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

An Artificial Neural Network System for Photon-Based Active Interrogation Applications

Active interrogation (AI) is a promising technique to detect shielded special nuclear materials (SNMs). At the University of Michigan, we are developing a photon-based AI system that uses bremsstrahlung radiation from an electron linear accelerator (linac) as an ionizing source and stilbene organic scintillating detectors for neutron detection. Stilbene scintillators are sensitive to fast neutrons and photons and have excellent pulse shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities. The traditional charge integration (CI) method commonly used for PSD analysis eliminates piled-up pulses and relies on a particle discrimination line to separate neutrons and photons. The presence of the intense photon flux during AI creates a significant number of piled-up events in the stilbene scintillator, thereby posing a great challenge to the traditional CI method. Identifying true single neutron pulses becomes challenging due to the presence of a pile-up cloud and overlapping neutron, photon and pile-up clouds in the PSD analysis. To mitigate the effect of pulse pile up and identify true single neutron pulses from stilbene scintillators, an artificial neural network (ANN) system is developed. The developed ANN system identifies single neutron pulses and neutron-photon combinations from piled-up events. The results obtained from a 252Cf measurement in the presence of the intense photon flux show that the developed ANN system outperforms the traditional CI method. Since many piled-up events lie above the particle discrimination line, they get misclassified as neutrons by the traditional CI method resulting in 25% overestimation of the net neutron count rate during the linac pulse. The overall net neutron count rate (single and restored neutrons) during the linac pulse, estimated by the ANN system is 60% of the ground truth. Energy spectroscopy of the ANN attributed single neutron pulses further provides evidence on the detection of prompt fission neutrons from the 252Cf fission source.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Different CT slice thickness and contrast‐enhancement phase in radiomics models on the differential performance of lung adenocarcinoma

Abstract Background To investigate the effects of computed tomography (CT) reconstruction slice thickness and contrast‐enhancement phase on the differential diagnosis performance of radiomic signature in lung adenocarcinoma. Methods A total of 187 patients who had been pathologically confirmed with lung adenocarcinoma and nonadenocarcinoma were divided into a training cohort ( n = 149) and validation cohort ( n = 38). All the patients underwent contrast‐enhanced CT and the images were reconstructed with different slice thickness. The radiomic features were extracted from different slice thickness and scan phase. The logistic regression (LR) algorithm was used to build a machine learning model for each group. The area under the curve (AUC) obtained from the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and DeLong test was used to evaluate its discriminating performance. Results Finally, 34 image features and five semantic features were selected to establish a radiomics model. Based on the three contrast‐enhanced CT phases and four reconstruction slice thickness, 12 groups of radiomics models showed good discrimination ability with the AUCs range from 0.9287 to 0.9631, sensitivity range from 0.8349 to 0.9083, specificity range from 0.825 to 0.925 in the training group. Similar results were observed in the validation group. However, there was no statistical significance between the different CT scan phase groups and different slice thickness ( p > 0.05). Conclusions The radiomic analysis of contrast‐enhanced CT can be used for the differential diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma. Moreover, different slice thickness and contrast‐enhanced scan phase did not affect the discriminating ability in the radiomics models.

Wang, Yang↗

Data Analytics Applied to Coal Fired Boilers for Detecting Leaks

Data analytics were used to detect boiler leaks from five different coal-fired boilers including both subcritical and supercritical systems. Discriminant functions were developed that detected leaks up to two weeks prior to forced plant shutdowns for repairs. The leaks were identified to occur at different sections of the boiler for each plant, including waterwalls, economizer and superheater using conventional process measurement data. Leaking conditions were detected with a high degree of confidence (≪ 1% misclassified observations) and were able to distinguish normal operations from those time periods with steam leaks even while operating the power plants in power cycling mode.Multivariable statistical analyses, including Principal Component (PCA), cluster, and Fischer Discriminant Analysis (FDA) were used to characterize the leak occurrence. Normal and operational states with steam leaks were provided in the original process datasets. These datasets were split into two different groups for training and validation purposes. The data were sorted chronologically, and every third observation was assigned to training the Discriminant Function Model (DFM) while the rest were reserved for validation. PCA was used to reduce dimensionality of the original datasets. Canonical and FDA analyses were used to investigate the relationship between process variables. The outcome of the analyses revealed that nearly 35,000 observations were classified correctly; less than 0.05% of total observations were misclassified to be leaking, i.e. both false positives and false negatives.

Indrawan, Natarianto↗

Multi-parameter distributed fiber optic sensing using double-Brillouin peak fiber in Brillouin optical time domain analysis

In this paper, we demonstrate a multi-parameter fiber sensing system based on stimulated Brillouin scattering in a double-Brillouin peak specialty fiber with enhanced Brillouin gain response. The amplitude level of the second Brillouin gain peak, which originated from the higher-order acoustic modes, has been improved with an approximately similar amplitude level to the first Brillouin gain peak from the fundamental acoustic mode. Compared to other multi-Brillouin peak fibers presented in the literature, the proposed fiber significantly reduces the measured Brillouin frequency shift error, thus improving strain and temperature accuracies. By utilizing the sensitivity values of the strain and temperature associated with each Brillouin gain spectrum (BGS) peak, a successful discriminative measurement of strain and temperature is performed with an accuracy of ±13 μɛ, and ±0.5 °C, respectively. The proposed double-Brillouin peak fiber appears to be a possible alternative to other multi-BGS peak fibers, for instance, large effective area fiber and dispersion compensating fibers, which are inherently accompanied by large measurement errors due to the weak Brillouin gain values originating from the higher-order acoustic modes. The demonstrated results show different strain and temperature coefficients of 47 kHz/µɛ, 1.15 MHz/°C for peak 1 and 51 kHz/µɛ, 1.37 MHz/°C for peak 2. Moreover, the enhanced BGS peak gains having nearly the same amplitude levels enable the discriminative measurement of strain and temperature. Such fibers in Brillouin interrogation eliminate the need for complex monitoring setups and reduce measurement errors. We recommend that for long-distance natural gas pipeline monitoring, where discriminative strain and temperature measurement is crucial, the proposed double-Brillouin peak fiber can be highly beneficial.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Development and validation of a 30-day mortality index based on pre-existing medical administrative data from 13,323 COVID-19 patients: The Veterans Health Administration COVID-19 (VACO) Index

Background Available COVID-19 mortality indices are limited to acute inpatient data. Using nationwide medical administrative data available prior to SARS-CoV-2 infection from the US Veterans Health Administration (VA), we developed the VA COVID-19 (VACO) 30-day mortality index and validated the index in two independent, prospective samples. Methods and findings We reviewed SARS-CoV-2 testing results within the VA between February 8 and August 18, 2020. The sample was split into a development cohort (test positive between March 2 and April 15, 2020), an early validation cohort (test positive between April 16 and May 18, 2020), and a late validation cohort (test positive between May 19 and July 19, 2020). Our logistic regression model in the development cohort considered demographics (age, sex, race/ethnicity), and pre-existing medical conditions and the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) derived from ICD-10 diagnosis codes. Weights were fixed to create the VACO Index that was then validated by comparing area under receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) in the early and late validation cohorts and among important validation cohort subgroups defined by sex, race/ethnicity, and geographic region. We also evaluated calibration curves and the range of predictions generated within age categories. 13,323 individuals tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (median age: 63 years; 91% male; 42% non-Hispanic Black). We observed 480/3,681 (13%) deaths in development, 253/2,151 (12%) deaths in the early validation cohort, and 403/7,491 (5%) deaths in the late validation cohort. Age, multimorbidity described with CCI, and a history of myocardial infarction or peripheral vascular disease were independently associated with mortality–no other individual comorbid diagnosis provided additional information. The VACO Index discriminated mortality in development (AUC = 0.79, 95% CI: 0.77–0.81), and in early (AUC = 0.81 95% CI: 0.78–0.83) and late (AUC = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.78–0.86) validation. The VACO Index allows personalized estimates of 30-day mortality after COVID-19 infection. For example, among those aged 60–64 years, overall mortality was estimated at 9% (95% CI: 6–11%). The Index further discriminated risk in this age stratum from 4% (95% CI: 3–7%) to 21% (95% CI: 12–31%), depending on sex and comorbid disease. Conclusion Prior to infection, demographics and comorbid conditions can discriminate COVID-19 mortality risk overall and within age strata. The VACO Index reproducibly identified individuals at substantial risk of COVID-19 mortality who might consider continuing social distancing, despite relaxed state and local guidelines.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Inferring the Focal Depths of Small Earthquakes in Southern California Using Physics-Based Waveform Features

Determining the depths of small crustal earthquakes is challenging in many regions of the world, because most seismic networks are too sparse to resolve trade-offs between depth and origin time with conventional arrival-time methods. Precise and accurate depth estimation is important, because it can help seismologists discriminate between earthquakes and explosions, which is relevant to monitoring nuclear test ban treaties and producing earthquake catalogs that are uncontaminated by mining blasts. Here, we examine the depth sensitivity of several physics-based waveform features for ~8000 earthquakes in southern California that have well-resolved depths from arrival-time inversion. We focus on small earthquakes (2 < M L < 4) recorded at local distances (<150 km), for which depth estimation is especially challenging. We find that differential magnitudes (M w /M L –M c ) are positively correlated with focal depth, implying that coda wave excitation decreases with focal depth. We analyze a simple proxy for relative frequency content, Φ≡log 10 (M 0 )+3log 10 (f c ), and find that source spectra are preferentially enriched in high frequencies, or “blue-shifted,” as focal depth increases. Here, we also find that two spectral amplitude ratios Rg 0.5–2 Hz/Sg 0.5–8 Hz and Pg/Sg at 3–8 Hz decrease as focal depth increases. Using multilinear regression with these features as predictor variables, we develop models that can explain 11%–59% of the variance in depths within 10 subregions and 25% of the depth variance across southern California as a whole. We suggest that incorporating these features into a machine learning workflow could help resolve focal depths in regions that are poorly instrumented and lack large databases of well-located events. Some of the waveform features we evaluate in this study have previously been used as source discriminants, and our results imply that their effectiveness in discrimination is partially because explosions generally occur at shallower depths than earthquakes.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Generalization of Deep-Learning Models for Classification of Local Distance Earthquakes and Explosions across Various Geologic Settings

Although accurately classifying signals from earthquakes and explosions at local distance (<250 km) remains an important task for seismic network operations, the growing volume of available seismic data presents a challenge for analysts using traditional source discrimination techniques. In recent years, deep-learning models have proven effective at discriminating between low-magnitude earthquakes and explosions measured at local distances, but it is not clear how well these models are capable of generalizing across different geological settings. To address the issue of generalization between regions, we train deep-learning models (convolutional neural networks [CNNs]) on time–frequency representations (scalograms) of three-component earthquake and explosion signals from eight different regions in the continental United States. We explore scenarios where models are trained on data from all regions, individual regions, or all but one region. We find that although CNN models trained on individual regions do not necessarily generalize well across different settings, models trained on multiple regions that include diverse path coverage generalize to new regions, with station-level accuracy of up to 90% or more for data sets from unseen regions. In general, CNN-based discrimination models significantly outperform models based on uncorrected P/S ratio (measured in the 10–18 Hz frequency band), even when CNN models are tested on data from entirely unseen regions.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Application of Gaussian Bayes classifier to differentiate chlorine-based chemical agents

The Portable Isotopic Neutron Spectroscopy (PINS) is a commercialized system developed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to examine chemical warfare agents (CWA) non-destructively, utilizing Prompt Gamma Neutron Activation Analysis (PGNAA) techniques. The PINS system takes advantage of a high-resolution gamma-ray spectrum from a mechanically-cooled high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector. One of the difficult technical challenges is to discriminate the chlorine-based chemical agents. Especially, CN, CNB, CNS and CG have similar chemical compositions to make it hard to discriminate them with a higher confidence. Current identification algorithms for PINS systems with 252-Cf sources have been improved and updated continuously as more field data became available, and new algorithms was studied to complement the current algorithms by adopting the Gaussian Bayes classifier. These new algorithms were intended to be applied to a subset of chlorine-based chemical agents, and their main goal is discriminate CN, CNB, CNS and CG with their ratios of the chlorine neutron inelastic 1763keV peak to the chlorine thermal neutron capture 1959keV peak, which is referred to as the “Cl i/c” or “clic” ratio in this study. The Cl i/c ratios were assumed to follow Gaussian distributions with the means and the standard deviations unique to their corresponding chemical agents. The prior probabilities of these four chemical agents were optimized with a collection of field data to achieve the best performance in terms of precision or positive predictive value (PPV). Finally, their posterior probabilities as functions of the Cl i/c ratio were implemented in the current version of PINS analysis software in order to be tested with more field data.

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗

Mixed Material Scintillator Systems for Neutron Detection

Scintillators are a fundamental technology that enables radiation detection. Their use has historically enabled the detection of incoming gamma radiation, with recent advances in plastic scintillator development enabling detection and discrimination of neutron and gamma radiation through pulse shape discrimination. However, scintillators have so far consisted of a single material, typically one primary dye and one secondary dye embedded in a plastic matrix. Based on the simulation studies described previously, mixed material scintillator systems with multiple secondary dyes arranged in alternating, periodic micro-sized regions opens the door for scintillators with a wide variety of different capability, such as directional sensing, positional reconstruction, particle identification, and pulse shape discrimination. However, fabrication of a mixed material scintillator system by conventional manufacturing methods is difficult to manufacture and scale, creating a barrier to their wide spread implementation. On the other hand, additive manufacturing additive manufacturing presents itself as the optimal method for fabricating mixed material scintillator systems based on its flexibility, ability to fabricate fine features, and potential for multimaterial fabrication.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Seismic Spatial Gradients and Machine Learning-Based Classifiers for Explosion Monitoring (LDRD 218327)

This final report summarizes the work completed under the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project “Seismic Spatial Gradients as a Machine Learning-Based Classifier for Explosion Monitoring.” The overarching goal of the project was to explore the efficacy of using machine learning-based classification algorithms where the input data are the spatial gradient of the seismic wavefield collected at a single point on the Earth’s surface. The methods that I describe here are in direct contrast to conventional methods of seismic discrimination which typically rely on a spatially extended network of instruments and physics-based wavefield attributes such as, for example, the ratio between $\textit{P}$ and $\textit{S}$ waves. Rather, we use the spatial gradient of the seismic wavefield observed at a single point on the Earth’s surface and data processing approaches inspired by the machine learning community. We tested two algorithms, a neural network and a modified version of principal component analysis termed Spectrally Filtered Principal Component Analysis (SFPCA). To test these algorithms, we first conducted a series of numerical tests using synthetic data and then conducted a small-scale controlled field experiment. The tests using synthetic data showed that both algorithms had high success rates on gradiometric data, even when simulated noise was added to the signal. Furthermore, we found that using seismic spatial gradients increased the performance of our discrimination algorithms when compared to using just the traditional translational motion seismic data. The tests with field data also showed a high degree of discriminative success.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗