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At least 685 records · Page 38

Evaluating the location capabilities of a regional infrasonic network in Utah, US, using both ray tracing-derived and empirical-derived celerity-range and backazimuth models

SUMMARY More realistic models for infrasound signal propagation across a region can be used to improve the precision and accuracy of spatial and temporal source localization estimates. Motivated by incomplete infrasound event bulletins in the Western US, the location capabilities of a regional infrasonic network of stations located between 84–458 km from the Utah Test and Training Range, Utah, USA, is assessed using a series of near-surface explosive events with complementary ground truth (GT) information. Signal arrival times and backazimuth estimates are determined with an automatic F-statistic based signal detector and manually refined by an analyst. This study represents the first application of three distinct celerity-range and backazimuth models to an extensive suite of realistic signal detections for event location purposes. A singular celerity and backazimuth deviation model was previously constructed using ray tracing analysis based on an extensive archive of historical atmospheric specifications and is applied within this study to test location capabilities. Similarly, a set of multivariate, season and location specific models for celerity and backazimuth are compared to an empirical model that depends on the observations across the infrasound network and the GT events, which accounts for atmospheric propagation variations from source to receiver. Discrepancies between observed and predicted signal celerities result in locations with poor accuracy. Application of the empirical model improves both spatial localization precision and accuracy; all but one location estimates retain the true GT location within the 90 per cent confidence bounds. Average mislocation of the events is 15.49 km and average 90 per cent error ellipse areas are 4141 km2. The empirical model additionally reduces origin time residuals; origin time residuals from the other location models are in excess of 160 s while residuals produced with the empirical model are within 30 s of the true origin time. We demonstrate that event location accuracy is driven by a combination of signal propagation model and the azimuthal gap of detecting stations. A direct relationship between mislocation, error ellipse area and increased station azimuthal gaps indicate that for sparse networks, detection backazimuths may drive location biases over traveltime estimates.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Erratum for Franco et al., “A Novel Secreted Protein, MYR1, Is Central to Toxoplasma’s Manipulation of Host Cells”

Volume 7, no. 1, e02231-15, 2016, https://doi:10.1128/mBio.02231-15. Upon reexamining the original sequencing data for MFM2.1, we have determined that Table 1 has an error. While 2% of reads did show the indicated tCa-to-tTa mutation at nucleotide 3288737 in the ROP17 gene, 42% of reads indicated a nonsense mutation (tCa to tGa) at this position, making the change in the amino acid sequence S151*. This does not change any of the biological conclusions of the paper.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

The ITensor Software Library for Tensor Network Calculations

ITensor is a system for programming tensor network calculations with an interface modeled on tensor diagrams, allowing users to focus on the connectivity of a tensor network without manually bookkeeping tensor indices. The ITensor interface rules out common programming errors and enables rapid prototyping of algorithms. After discussing the philosophy behind the ITensor approach, we show examples of each part of the interface including Index objects, the ITensor product operator, tensor factorizations, tensor storage types, algorithms for matrix product state (MPS) and matrix product operator (MPO) tensor networks, quantum number conserving block sparse tensors, and the NDTensors library. We also review publications that have used ITensor for quantum many-body physics and for other areas where tensor networks are increasingly applied. To conclude we discuss promising features and optimizations to be added in the future.

Fishman, Matthew↗

Codebase release 0.3 for ITensor

ITensor is a system for programming tensor network calculations with an interface modeled on tensor diagrams, allowing users to focus on the connectivity of a tensor network without manually bookkeeping tensor indices. The ITensor interface rules out common programming errors and enables rapid prototyping of algorithms. After discussing the philosophy behind the ITensor approach, we show examples of each part of the interface including Index objects, the ITensor product operator, tensor factorizations, tensor storage types, algorithms for matrix product state (MPS) and matrix product operator (MPO) tensor networks, quantum number conserving block sparse tensors, and the NDTensors library. We also review publications that have used ITensor for quantum many-body physics and for other areas where tensor networks are increasingly applied. To conclude we discuss promising features and optimizations to be added in the future.

Fishman, Matthew↗

Holistic Measurement Driven Resilience: Combining Operational Fault and Failure Measurements and Fault Injection for Quantifying Fault Detection, Propagation and Impact. Final report

For HPC systems to date, application resilience to faults and failures has been accomplished by the brute- force method of checkpoint/restart, which allows an application to make forward progress in the face of system and application faults, errors, and failures independent of root cause or end result. It has remained the primary resilience mechanism because we lack a way to identify faults and anticipate consequences early enough to take meaningful mitigating action. However, checkpoint/restart implementations put a tremendous burden on system resources and on the applications themselves and is becoming less feasible at scale. Because we have not yet operated at scales at which checkpoint/restart fails to provide forward progress, despite increasing costs, vendors have had little motivation to provide the instrumentation necessary for early identification of faults and failures. However, as we move from petascale to exascale, component mean time to failure (MTTF) will render the existing techniques ineffectual and/or too expensive. Furthermore, fault recovery mechanisms such as failover and/or error correction introduce performance inconsistency. Instrumentation allowing early indication of problems and tools to enable use of such information by systems, operating systems, and applications offer an alternative, more scalable and less costly solution. In the HMDR project, we built on our experience and expertise developed and accumulated over years of research on design, monitoring, measurement, and assessment of resilient computing systems. Analysis of field data on the current and past generations of extreme-scale systems revealed several challenges that, if not addressed in increasingly larger and more complex systems, may hinder the effectiveness of future exascale computing systems. Specifically, i) file systems and interconnects in current-generation large-scale systems already operate at the margins of resiliency, including consistent performance, and may not scale to larger deployments; ii) automated, software-based failover mechanisms are frequently inadequate and can introduce wider failures, such that failures during recovery may lead to system/application failures, including system-wide outages; and iii) silent data corruption represents a critical fault mode and will require efficient detection mechanisms if next-generation applications are to take full advantage of exascale hardware. To address the above challenges, we assembled a team of world-renowned experts in resilient extreme- scale computing from the University of Illinois (Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and NCSA), SNL, LANL, NERSC, and Cray. Our team includes representatives from centers that house many of the largest HPC resources in the world, both today and over the coming years. The team has a unique track record of research in i) system and application failure characterization based on the analysis of field data, ii) data-driven design of fault/error detection mechanisms, and iii) experimental characterization of system/application resiliency. The team includes system owners/operators who provide continuous data collection and access and ensure installation of appropriate analysis tools.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

The effect of spurious angular accelerations on tracking in dynamic simulation

A laboratory study was conducted to investigate the effect of spurious simulator yaw motions on a pilot's control performance. A second objective was to compare the efficiency of static and dynamic simulator tracking in previously unexamined vehicle dynamics. Twelve airline pilots served as subjects in a moving-base flight simulator under congruent-motion, spurious-motion, and no-motion conditions. The results indicated a significant increase in the amount of error with increasing levels of spurious motion during the initially administered series of trials. The influence of spurious motion, however, was absent in a second series of trials. The data suggest that the pilots learned to compensate in their performance for the spurious inputs. It was also found that congruent visual and rotational cueing produced superior performance to that of tracking with visual information alone.

Beck, L. J.↗

Theoretical and experimental study of twisted and cambered delta wings designed for a Mach number of 3.5

Data are provided for the evaluation of the aerodynamic performance of a series of twisted and cambered delta wings designed for a Mach number of 3.5. Systematic force and pressure data are also presented for comparison with theory. Force tests were made at Mach numbers of 2.3, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, and 4.6. Design lift coefficients of 0.0 and 0.1 were employed on the 55 deg and 68 deg sweep wings, and design lift coefficients of 0.0, 0.05, and 0.1 were employed on the 76 deg sweep wings. Pressure tests were conducted on the 55 deg and 76 deg sweep flat wings and on the 0.1 design lift coefficient 76 deg sweep wing. The results indicate that for the sweep angles tested, an increase in the zero-lift pitching-moment coefficient is the primary benefit of twist and camber at a Mach number of 3.5. Comparison of the experimental results with results obtained from several lift theories indicates that the Carlson-Middleton linear theory method gave the best overall agreement. The pressure data indicate, however, that there is a cancellation of error at high angle of attack where the lower surface pressures are significantly underpredicted over the inboard region of the wing and where the upper and lower surface pressures are overpredicted over the outboard region of the wing.

Sorrells, R. B., III↗

Computer measurement of particle sizes in electron microscope images

Computer image processing techniques have been applied to particle counting and sizing in electron microscope images. Distributions of particle sizes were computed for several images and compared to manually computed distributions. The results of these experiments indicate that automatic particle counting within a reasonable error and computer processing time is feasible. The significance of the results is that the tedious task of manually counting a large number of particles can be eliminated while still providing the scientist with accurate results.

Hall, E. L.↗

Real-gas effects associated with one-dimensional transonic flow of cryogenic nitrogen

Real gas solutions for one-dimensional isentropic and normal-shock flows of nitrogen were obtained for a wide range of temperatures and pressures. These calculations are compared to ideal gas solutions and are presented in tables. For temperatures (300 K and below) and pressures (1 to 10 atm) that cover those anticipated for transonic cryogenic tunnels, the solutions are analyzed to obtain indications of the magnitude of inviscid flow simulation errors. For these ranges, the maximum deviation of the various isentropic and normal shock parameters from the ideal values is about 1 percent or less, and for most wind tunnel investigations this deviation would be insignificant.

Adcock, J. B.↗

Fundamental Analysis of the Linear Multiple Regression Technique for Quantification of Water Quality Parameters from Remote Sensing Data

Constituents with linear radiance gradients with concentration may be quantified from signals which contain nonlinear atmospheric and surface reflection effects for both homogeneous and non-homogeneous water bodies provided accurate data can be obtained and nonlinearities are constant with wavelength. Statistical parameters must be used which give an indication of bias as well as total squared error to insure that an equation with an optimum combination of bands is selected. It is concluded that the effect of error in upwelled radiance measurements is to reduce the accuracy of the least square fitting process and to increase the number of points required to obtain a satisfactory fit. The problem of obtaining a multiple regression equation that is extremely sensitive to error is discussed.

Whitlock, C. H., III↗

Effects of horizontal refractivity gradients on the accuracy of laser ranging to satellites

Numerous formulas have been developed to partially correct laser ranging data for the effects of atmospheric refraction. All the formulas assume the atmospheric refractivity profile is spherically symmetric. The effects of horizontal refractivity gradients are investigated by ray tracing through spherically symmetric and three-dimensional refractivity profiles. The profiles are constructed from radiosonde data. The results indicate that the horizontal gradients introduce an rms error of approximately 3 cm when the satellite is near 10 deg elevation. The error decreases to a few millimeters near zenith.

Gardner, C. S.↗

Oscillator strengths of neutral titanium from hook method measurements in a furnace. I - Lines from the a 3F2, 3 and 4 levels at 0, 0.021, and 0.048 eV

Oscillator strengths for 134 lines from the ground term of neutral titanium have been measured by the hook method. The data, which are normalized to those of Bell, Kalman and Tubbs, agree well with most previously measured data but indicate that there is a line strength dependent error in the National Bureau of Standards compilation of TiIf-values by Wiese and Fuhr.

Smith, P. L.↗

Surface accuracy measurement system deployable reflector antennas

Conceptual optical sensor configurations for measuring the surface deformations of large, deployable space antennas are described. These antennas include precision deployable reflectors up to 30 meters diameter and 1000 GHz frequency and mesh deployable reflectors up to 100 meters diameter and 30 GHz frequency. For each representative antenna configuration, the surface deformation sensor provides continuous, real-time measurements at a sufficient number of sample points to be compatible with active surface control. Moreover, the sensor system does not interfere with the mechanical or microwave characteristics of either the antenna surface or the feed. For the applications considered, the sensor system consists of a central receiver ring containing six to ten long focal length, angle measuring instruments, each viewing a dedicated set of bright point targets at the antenna. The targets, either light emitting diodes or illuminated retroreflectors, are modulated to eliminate errors from spurious backgrounds. Very preliminary performance estimates indicate that the sensor system, using commerical grade components, can produce a 20th to a 30th wavelength accuracy (3 sigma).

Neiswander, R. S.↗

Radio propagation through solar and other extraterrestrial ionized media

The present S- and X-band communications needs in deep space are addressed to illustrate the aspects which are affected by propagation through extraterrestrial plasmas. The magnitude, critical threshold, and frequency dependence of some eight propagation effects for an S-band propagation path passing within 4 solar radii of the Sun are described. The theory and observation of propagation in extraterrestrial plasmas are discussed and the various plasma states along a near solar propagation path are illustrated. Classical magnetoionic theory (cold anisotropic plasma) is examined for its applicability to the path in question. The characteristics of the plasma states found along the path are summarized and the errors in some of the standard approximations are indicated. Models of extraterrestrial plasmas are included. Modeling the electron density in the solar corona and solar wind, is emphasized but some cursory information on the terrestrial planets plus Jupiters is included.

Smith, E. K.↗

Comparison of forward fuselage to Space Shuttle Orbiter flight pressure data to wind tunnel and analytical results in the hypersonic Mach number range

The Space Transportation System (STS) test program is unique in that it combines flight testing with operational flights using the first operational orbital vehicle (OV-102). The Space Shuttle Orbiter was instrumented to obtain various types of flight data. The instrumentation, designated Development Flight Instrumentation (DFI) includes pressure transducers, thermocouples, calorimeters, and accelerometers. A comparison is conducted between orbiter DFI forward fuselage flight pressure data obtained from OV-102 during the STS-1 reentry, and ground facility data obtained utilizing a 0.04 scale Orbiter forebody model. The comparisons are used to validate the existing experimental data base, optimize the pressure modeling technique, and make possible the refinement of error analysis relative to both. The obtained results indicate, in general, good agreement between flight and ground-based data.

Bradley, P. F.↗

Mobile VLBI and GPS measurement of vertical crustal motion

Mobile Very Long Base Interferometry (VLBI) and Global Positioning System (GPS) geodetic measurements have many error sources in common. Calibration of the effects of water vapor on signal transmission through the atmosphere, however, remains the primary limitation to the accuracy of vertical crustal motion measurements made by either technique. The two primary methods of water vapor calibration currently in use for mobile VLBI baseline measurements were evaluated: radiometric measurements of the sky brightness near the 22 GHz emission line of free water molecules and surface meteorological measurements used as input to an atmospheric model. Based upon a limited set of 9 baselines, it is shown that calibrating VLBI data with water vapor radiometer measurements provides a significantly better fit to the theoretical decay model than calibrating the same data with surface meteorological measurements. The effect of estimating a systematic error in the surface meteorological calibration is shown to improve the consistency of the vertical baseline components obtained by the two calibration methods. A detailed error model for the vertical baseline components obtained indicates current mobile VLBI technology should allow accuracies of order 3 cm with WVR calibration and 10 cm when surface meteorological calibration is used.

Kroger, P. M.↗

Medium range forecasting: The experience of ECMWF

The results of five years of operational medium-range forecasts at ECMWF is discussed. It is shown that a considerable improvement in predictive skill has taken place, resulting in more accurate forecasts and an extension in time of useful predictive skill. For the Northern Hemisphere extratropics, the improvement in skill during the winter season is about three days for the 500-mb geopotential compared to the very first experiments in the early 1970s. Three are large geographical and temporal variations in the performance of the model, as well as large-scale errors of a systematic nature. Numerical experiments have indicated great sensitivity to the representation of orography and to tropical forcing.

Bengtsson, L.↗

Measuring Computer-Operator Workload

Subjective and objective measurements found to correlate and complement each other. Two ways of measuring workload of operator in large interactive computer system have shown meaningful and easy to use. One method based on operators' ratings of stress after subtasks in continuous task. Other method based on workload ratio, W, ratio of time required for operator to do subtask to time allowed for it. Both sensitive to workload level and individual subtasks in continuing interactive computer task. Pinpoints subtasks that press operator and use up too much available time, perhaps leading to operator errors and even failure of system. Gives clear indication when operator approaches allowed time and shows when risk of trouble becomes high.

Hird, E. E.↗