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At least 721 records · Page 40

Revisiting the Hail Radar Reflectivity–Kinetic Energy Flux Relation by Combining T-Matrix and Discrete Dipole Approximation Calculations to Size Distribution Observations

The retrieval of hail kinetic energy with weather radars or its simulation in numerical models is challenging because of the shape complexity and variable density of hailstones. We combine 3D scans of individual hailstones with measurements of the particle size distributions (PSD) and T-matrix calculations to understand how hail reflectivity Z changes when approximating hailstones as spheroids, as compared to the realistic shapes obtained by 3D scanning technology. Additionally, recent terminal velocity relations are used to compare Z to the hail kinetic energy flux E ˙ . We parameterize the hail backscattering cross sections at L, S, C, and X bands as a function of size between 0.5 and 5.0 cm, matching the range of the observed PSDs. The scattering calculations use the T-matrix method for size parameters below 1.0 and the discrete dipole approximation (DDA) method otherwise. The DDA calculations are done for 48 digital models of realistic hailstones of sizes between 1 and 5 cm. The DDA cross sections are calculated for multiple orientations and averaged assuming a fully random orientation distribution to provide a single value per hailstone. The T-matrix reflectivity assuming solid ice spheres presents negligible differences to DDA results for size parameters below 1.0. Therefore, T matrix was used to fill in the gaps left by the DDA calculations. The results are mapped to the same size bins of the observed PSDs, allowing the calculation of the radar reflectivity. This is then correlated to E ˙ , allowing a potential improvement of past retrieval methods of E ˙ from Z in multiple wavelengths.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Eulerian thermo-mechanical simulations of heterogeneous solid propellants using an approximate projection method

We present a mathematical model that describes thermo-mechanical deformations and thermal gradients on the unsteady burning of a heterogeneous solid propellant. A scaling study shows that the deformations in solid at combustion timescales can be treated as quasi-static. The resulting thermo-mechanical formulation is formulated on a Cartesian grid and makes use of a weak form of Chorin-type projection method to deal with large difference in shear modulus of constituent materials. Further, a one-dimensional verification study is carried out by comparing numerical simulations with those of an analytical model. In addition, convergence studies for a two-dimensional propellant sandwich configuration are presented for the stress, velocity, and reference map components. Finally, simulations are carried out for a two-dimensional random propellant pack and the time-averaged burn rate and strains are reported.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Comparison of multiobjective optimization methods for the $\mathrm{LCLS-II}$ photoinjector

Particle accelerators are among some of the largest science experiments in the world and can consist of thousands of components with a wide variety of input ranges. These systems can easily become unwieldy optimization problems during design and operations studies. Starting in the early 2000s, searching for better beam dynamics configurations became synonymous with heuristic optimization methods in the accelerator physics community. Genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization are currently the most widely used. These algorithms can take thousands of simulation evaluations to find optimal solutions for one machine prototype. For large facilities such as the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) and others, this equates to a limited exploration of many possible design configurations. In this paper, the LCLS-II photoinjector is optimized with three optimization algorithms. All optimizations were started from both a uniform random and Latin hypercube sample. In all cases, the optimizations started from Latin hypercube samples outperformed optimizations started from uniform samples. All three algorithms were able to optimize the photoinjector, with the model-based methods approximating the Pareto front in fewer simulation evaluations. This work, in combination with previous optimization observations, indicates objective penalties have a strong impact on the efficiency of such methods. In general, we recommend heuristic methods for initial optimizations and model-based methods when information about the objective space is available.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Persistent memory as an effective alternative to random access memory in metagenome assembly

Abstract Background The assembly of metagenomes decomposes members of complex microbe communities and allows the characterization of these genomes without laborious cultivation or single-cell metagenomics. Metagenome assembly is a process that is memory intensive and time consuming. Multi-terabyte sequences can become too large to be assembled on a single computer node, and there is no reliable method to predict the memory requirement due to data-specific memory consumption pattern. Currently, out-of-memory (OOM) is one of the most prevalent factors that causes metagenome assembly failures. Results In this study, we explored the possibility of using Persistent Memory (PMem) as a less expensive substitute for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) to reduce OOM and increase the scalability of metagenome assemblers. We evaluated the execution time and memory usage of three popular metagenome assemblers (MetaSPAdes, MEGAHIT, and MetaHipMer2) in datasets up to one terabase. We found that PMem can enable metagenome assemblers on terabyte-sized datasets by partially or fully substituting DRAM. Depending on the configured DRAM/PMEM ratio, running metagenome assemblies with PMem can achieve a similar speed as DRAM, while in the worst case it showed a roughly two-fold slowdown. In addition, different assemblers displayed distinct memory/speed trade-offs in the same hardware/software environment. Conclusions We demonstrated that PMem is capable of expanding the capacity of DRAM to allow larger metagenome assembly with a potential tradeoff in speed. Because PMem can be used directly without any application-specific code modification, these findings are likely to be generalized to other memory-intensive bioinformatics applications.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Method and apparatus for constructing informative outcomes to guide multi-policy decision making

In Multi-Policy Decision-Making (MPDM), many computationally-expensive forward simulations are performed in order to predict the performance of a set of candidate policies. In risk-aware formulations of MPDM, only the worst outcomes affect the decision making process, and efficiently finding these influential outcomes becomes the core challenge. Recently, stochastic gradient optimization algorithms, using a heuristic function, were shown to be significantly superior to random sampling. In this disclosure, it was shown that accurate gradients can be computed-even through a complex forward simulation—using approaches similar to those in dep networks. The proposed approach finds influential outcomes more reliably, and is faster than earlier methods, allowing one to evaluate more policies while simultaneously eliminating the need to design an easily-differentiable heuristic function.

Olson, Edwin↗

A learning-augmented approach for AC optimal power flow

Because of the high nonlinearity of AC optimal power flow (OPF), numerous efforts have been made in recent decades to find efficient methods. Machine learning (ML) has proven to significantly reduce the computational costs in many real-world problems. Thus, this paper develops a learning-augmented method for solving AC OPF, which integrates both power network equations and ML to yield near-optimal solutions. More specifically, ML models are developed to first predict bus voltage magnitudes and angles. Then, physics-based network equations are employed to calculate the power injection at different buses. Three ML algorithms, i.e., random forest, multi-target decision tree, and extreme learning machine, are explored and compared. To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed learning-augmented AC OPF solver, the MATPOWER Interior Point Solver is adopted as a baseline. Case studies on both 500-bus and 4918-bus test networks show that the proposed learning-augmented method has reduced the computational time by 15–100 times depending on the network size with a minimal loss in optimality.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Conditional Karhunen-Loève expansion for uncertainty quantification and active learning in partial differential equation models

We use a conditional Karhunen-Lo` eve (KL) model to quantify and reduce uncertainty in a stochastic partial differential equation (SPDE) problem with partially-known space-dependent coefficient, Y (x). We assume that a small number of Y (x) measurements are available and model Y (x) with a KL expansion. We achieve reduction in uncertainty by conditioning the KL expansion coefficients on measurements. We consider two approaches for conditioning the KL expansion: In Approach 1, we condition the KL model first and then truncate it. In Approach 2, we first truncate the KL expansion and then condition it. We employ the conditional KL expansion together with Monte Carlo and sparse grid collocation methods to compute the moments of the solution of the SPDE problem. Uncertainty of the problem is further reduced by adaptively selecting additional observation locations using two active learning methods. Method 1 minimizes the variance of the PDE coefficient, while Method 2 minimizes the variance of the solution of the PDE. We demonstrate that conditioning leads to dimension reduction of the KL representation of Y (x). For a linear diffusion SPDE with uncertain log-normal coefficient, we show that Approach 1 provides a more accurate approximation of the conditional log-normal coefficient and solution of the SPDE than Approach 2 for the same number of random dimensions in a conditional KL expansion. Furthermore, Approach 2 provides a good estimate for the number of terms of the truncated KL expansion of the conditional field of Approach 1. Finally, we demonstrate that active learning based on Method 2 is more efficient for uncertainty reduction in the SPDE’s states (i.e., it leads to a larger reduction of the variance) than active learning using Method 2.

Conditioned Karhunen-Lo` eve expanion, machine lea↗

Model-Form Epistemic Uncertainty Quantification for Modeling with Differential Equations: Application to Epidemiology

Modeling real-world phenomena to any degree of accuracy is a challenge that the scientific research community has navigated since its foundation. Lack of information and limited computational and observational resources necessitate modeling assumptions which, when invalid, lead to model-form error (MFE). The work reported herein explored a novel method to represent model-form uncertainty (MFU) that combines Bayesian statistics with the emerging field of universal differential equations (UDEs). The fundamental principle behind UDEs is simple: use known equational forms that govern a dynamical system when you have them; then incorporate data-driven approaches – in this case neural networks (NNs) – embedded within the governing equations to learn the interacting terms that were underrepresented. Utilizing epidemiology as our motivating exemplar, this report will highlight the challenges of modeling novel infectious diseases while introducing ways to incorporate NN approximations to MFE. Prior to embarking on a Bayesian calibration, we first explored methods to augment the standard (non-Bayesian) UDE training procedure to account for uncertainty and increase robustness of training. In addition, it is often the case that uncertainty in observations is significant; this may be due to randomness or lack of precision in the measurement process. This uncertainty typically manifests as “noisy” observations which deviate from a true underlying signal. To account for such variability, the NN approximation to MFE is endowed with a probabilistic representation and is updated using available observational data in a Bayesian framework. By representing the MFU explicitly and deploying an embedded, data-driven model, this approach enables an agile, expressive, and interpretable method for representing MFU. In this report we will provide evidence that Bayesian UDEs show promise as a novel framework for any science-based, data-driven MFU representation; while emphasizing that significant advances must be made in the calibration of Bayesian NNs to ensure a robust calibration procedure.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Effectiveness of fat grafting in scar reduction: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Abstract Background Scar brings great physical and mental pain to patients. Fat grafting may be a new and simple way to treat scar. This review aimed to systematically evaluate the correlation between fat grafting and scar reduction. Methods The author searched Chinese and English literature databases such as CNKI, Wanfang Data, Cqvip, Pubmed, Web of Science, Embase, CBM, etc. for articles published in the period from 2011 to 2021 about the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to assess the effect of fat grating on scar reduction, and then performed meta‐analysis with Review Manager 5.4. Results A total of nine articles were included in the assessment of the effect of fat grafting on scar reduction, with meta‐analysis suggesting statistical significance (OR = 5.63, 95% CI: 3.01–10.53, p < 0.01). There was statistical significance in the difference observed between the simple fat grating group ( p = 0.004) and the group of existing therapies combined with fat grafting ( p < 0.0001). Conclusion Fat grafting may be a good method for scar treatment, especially when it's combined with other therapies. Still, due to the limitations of included RCTs, more large‐scale high‐quality RCTs must be carried out before solid conclusions can be drawn.

Zhang, Xiaoyuan↗

A dictionary learning algorithm for compression and reconstruction of streaming data in preset order

There has been an emerging interest in developing and applying dictionary learning (DL) to process massive datasets in the last decade. Many of these efforts, however, focus on employing DL to compress and extract a set of important features from data, while considering restoring the original data from this set a secondary goal. On the other hand, although several methods are able to process streaming data by updating the dictionary incrementally as new snapshots pass by, most of those algorithms are designed for the setting where the snapshots are randomly drawn from a probability distribution. In this paper, we present a new DL approach to compress and denoise massive dataset in real time, in which the data are streamed through in a preset order (instances are videos and temporal experimental data), so at any time, we can only observe a biased sample set of the whole data. Here, our approach incrementally builds up the dictionary in a relatively simple manner: if the new snapshot is adequately explained by the current dictionary, we perform a sparse coding to find its sparse representation; otherwise, we add the new snapshot to the dictionary, with a Gram-Schmidt process to maintain the orthogonality. To compress and denoise noisy datasets, we apply the denoising to the snapshot directly before sparse coding, which deviates from traditional dictionary learning approach that achieves denoising via sparse coding. Compared to full-batch matrix decomposition methods, where the whole data is kept in memory, and other mini-batch approaches, where unbiased sampling is often assumed, our approach has minimal requirement in data sampling and storage: i) each snapshot is only seen once then discarded, and ii) the snapshots are drawn in a preset order, so can be highly biased. Through experiments on climate simulations and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) data, we demonstrate that the proposed approach performs competitively to those methods in data reconstruction and denoising.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A Prospective Randomized Trial of the Influence of Music on Anxiety in Patients Starting Radiation Therapy for Cancer

One of the most downloaded articles in 2017 from the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, and Physics was a study suggesting that music therapy during radiation therapy (RT) simulation substantially reduces anxiety. To further evaluate the potential of music's clinical efficacy in the context of radiation therapy, we conducted a randomized trial evaluating the influence of genre-based music chosen by the study participant on anxiety during the first RT treatment session with a method that is applicable to routine clinical practice.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Effects of head modeling errors on the spatial frequency representation of MEG

Abstract Objectives. We aim to investigate the effects of head model inaccuracies on signal and source reconstruction accuracies for various sensor array distances to the head. This allows for the assessment of the importance of head modeling for next-generation magnetoencephalography (MEG) sensors, optically-pumped magnetometers (OPM). Approach. A 1-shell boundary element method (BEM) spherical head model with 642 vertices of radius 9 cm and conductivity of 0.33 S m −1 was defined. The vertices were then randomly perturbed radially up to 2%, 4%, 6%, 8% and 10% of the radius. For each head perturbation case, the forward signal was calculated for dipolar sources located at 2 cm, 4 cm, 6 cm and 8 cm from the origin (center of the sphere), and for a 324 sensor array located at 10 cm to 15 cm from the origin. Equivalent current dipole (ECD) source localization was performed for each of these forward signals. The signal for each perturbed spherical head case was then analyzed in the spatial frequency domain, and the signal and ECD errors were quantified relative to the unperturbed case. Main results. In the noiseless and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) case of approximately ≥6 dB, inaccuracies in our spherical BEM head conductor models lead to increased signal and ECD inaccuracies when sensor arrays are placed closer to the head. This is true especially in the case of deep and superficial sources. In the noisy case however, the higher SNR for closer sensor arrays allows for an improved ECD fit and outweighs the effects of head geometry inaccuracies. Significance. OPMs may be placed directly on the head, as opposed to the more commonly used superconducting quantum interference device sensors which must be placed a few centimeters away from the head. OPMs thus allow for signals of higher spatial resolution to be captured, resulting in potentially more accurate source localizations. Our results suggest that an increased emphasis on accurate head modeling for OPMs may be necessary to fully realize its improved source localization potential.

Yeo, Wan-Jin (ORCID:0000000241417123)↗

Co-locality to co-functionality: Eukaryotic gene neighborhoods as a resource for function

Diverging from the classic paradigm of random gene order in eukaryotes, gene proximity can be leveraged to systematically identify functionally related gene neighborhoods in eukaryotes, utilizing techniques pioneered in bacteria. Current methods of identifying gene neighborhoods typically rely on sequence similarity to characterized gene products. However, this approach is not robust for non model organisms like algae, which are evolutionarily distant from well-characterized model organisms. Here, we utilize a comparative genomic approach to identify evolutionarily conserved Proximal Orthologous Gene (POG) pairs conserved across at least two taxonomic classes of green algae. A total of 317 gene neighborhoods were identified. In some cases, gene proximity appears to have been conserved since before the streptophyte-chlorophyte split, 1,000 million years ago. Using functional inferences derived from reconstructed evolutionary relationships, we identified several novel functional clusters. A putative mycosporine-like amino acid (MAA), "sunscreen", neighborhood contains genes similar to either vertebrate or cyanobacterial pathways, suggesting a novel mosaic biosynthetic pathway in green algae. One of two putative arsenic-detoxification neighborhoods includes an organoarsenical transporter (ArsJ), a glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase-like gene, homologs of which are involved in arsenic detoxification in bacteria, and a novel algal-specific phosphoglycerate kinase-like gene (PGK). Mutants of the ArsJ-like transporter and PGK-like genes in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii were found to be sensitive to arsenate, providing experimental support for the role of these identified neighbors in resistance to arsenate. Potential evolutionary origins of neighborhoods are discussed, and updated annotations for formerly poorly annotated genes are presented, highlighting the potential of this strategy for functional annotation.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Exploring Sensitivity of ICF Outputs to Design Parameters in Experiments Using Machine Learning

We report building a sustainable burn platform in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) requires an understanding of the complex coupling of physical processes and the effects that key experimental design changes have on implosion performance. While simulation codes are used to model ICF implosions, incomplete physics and the need for approximations deteriorate their predictive capability. Identification of relationships between controllable design inputs and measurable outcomes can help guide the future design of experiments and development of simulation codes, which can potentially improve the accuracy of the computational models used to simulate ICF implosions. In this article, we leverage developments in machine learning (ML) and methods for ML feature importance/sensitivity analysis to identify complex relationships in ways that are difficult to process using expert judgment alone. We present work using random forest (RF) regression for prediction of yield, velocity, and other experimental outcomes given a suite of design parameters, along with an assessment of important relationships and uncertainties in the prediction model. We show that RF models are capable of learning and predicting on ICF experimental data with high accuracy, and we extract feature importance metrics that provide insight into the physical significance of different controllable design inputs for various ICF design configurations. These results can be used to augment expert intuition and simulation results for optimal design of future ICF experiments.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Characterization and thermometry of dissipatively stabilized steady states

In this work we study the properties of dissipatively stabilized steady states of noisy quantum algorithms, exploring the extent to which they can be well approximated as thermal distributions, and proposing methods to extract the effective temperature T. We study an algorithm called the relaxational quantum eigensolver (RQE), which is one of a family of algorithms that attempt to find ground states and balance error in noisy quantum devices. In RQE, we weakly couple a second register of auxiliary ‘shadow’ qubits to the primary system in Trotterized evolution, thus engineering an approximate zero-temperature bath by periodically resetting the auxiliary qubits during the algorithm’s runtime. Balancing the infinite temperature bath of random gate error, RQE returns states with an average energy equal to a constant fraction of the ground state. We probe the steady states of this algorithm for a range of base error rates, using several methods for estimating both T and deviations from thermal behavior. In particular, we both confirm that the steady states of these systems are often well-approximated by thermal distributions, and show that the same resources used for cooling can be adopted for thermometry, yielding a fairly reliable measure of the temperature. These methods could be readily implemented in near-term quantum hardware, and for stabilizing and probing Hamiltonians where simulating approximate thermal states is hard for classical computers.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DEM Modeling and Validation of Pebble Bed Packing Using Chrono::GPU

Accurate prediction of pebble packing structure is important for pebble bed reactors because the spatial distribution of void fraction directly affects coolant flow, pressure drop, heat transfer, and neutronic behavior. However, experimentally validated DEM studies that directly evaluate local void-fraction structure in reactor-relevant pebble beds remain limited. In this work, the pebble bed experiment conducted at Missouri University of Science and Technology is simulated using the graphics processing unit (GPU)-based discrete element method (DEM) code Chrono::GPU. The study focuses on evaluating the ability of Chrono::GPU to reproduce the packing arrangement and void-fraction distribution of a randomly packed spherical pebble bed. The DEM results are first verified against established radial void-fraction correlations, including the Mueller and Vortmeyer-Schuster models, to assess the predicted bulk porosity, near-wall behavior, and oscillatory packing structure. The simulation is then verified against reference DEM data and validated against gamma-ray computed tomography (CT) experimental data at three axial locations. The Chrono::GPU results reproduce the main features of the experimental packing, including the high void fraction near the wall, the first near-wall trough, and the damped oscillatory radial profile caused by wall-induced ordering. Quantitative comparison with DEM data and the CT-based radial profiles shows good agreement, with mean absolute errors on the order of 0.07 and root-mean-square errors below 0.09 for the averaged profiles. These results demonstrate that Chrono::GPU can accurately capture the void-fraction structure of spherical pebble beds and provides a reliable DEM framework for future pebble bed reactor packing, recycling, and thermal-hydraulic studies.

97 - MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Meta-uncertainty for particle image velocimetry

Uncertainty quantification for Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is critical for comparing experimentally measured flow fields with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) results, and model design and validation. However, PIV features a complex measurement chain with coupled, non-linear error sources, and quantifying the uncertainty is challenging. Multiple assessments show that none of the current methods can reliably measure the actual uncertainty across a wide range of experiments, and estimates can vary. Because the current methods differ in assumptions regarding the measurement process and calculation procedures, it is not clear which method is best to use for an experiment where the error distribution is unknown. To address this issue, we propose a method to estimate an uncertainty method's sensitivity and reliability, termed the Meta-Uncertainty. The novel approach is automated, local, and instantaneous, and based on perturbation of the recorded particle images. We developed an image perturbation scheme based on adding random unmatched particles to the interrogation window pair considering the signal-to-noise (SNR) of the correlation plane. Each uncertainty scheme's response to several trials of random particle addition is used to estimate a reliability metric, defined as the rate of change of the inter-quartile range (IQR) of the uncertainties with increasing levels of particle addition. We also propose applying the meta-uncertainty as a weighting metric to combine uncertainty estimates from individual schemes, based on ideas from the consensus forecasting literature. We use planar and stereo PIV measurements across a range of canonical flows to assess the performance of the uncertainty schemes. Further, a novel method is introduced to assess an uncertainty scheme's performance based on a quantile comparison of the error and uncertainty distributions, generalizing the current method of comparing the RMS of the two distributions. Here, the results show that the combined uncertainty method outperforms the individual methods, and this work establishes the meta-uncertainty as a useful reliability assessment tool for PIV uncertainty quantification.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Identifying Nuclear Data Correlated Through Predicting Bias in Integral Experiments via Applying Principal Component Analysis to Random Forest

ABSTRACT Nuclear data (ND) are the input data for neutron‐transport simulations to answer questions related to nuclear technologies. Subsets of ND, here > 20,000 data points, are validated with respect to thousands of criticality experiments that represent various applications on a small scale. The aim of validation with these experiments is to find errors in ND or methods. The key challenge here is that several hundreds of ND are used to simulate one integral value. Hence, one cannot clearly identify what ND are leading to bias in criticality measurements. In fact, a mistake in one nuclear‐data observable can be compensated with an error in another, and the predicted criticality value would still be predicted in agreement with experimental data. Random forest (RF) was previously employed to predict bias in criticality measurements using sensitivities of simulated criticality experiments to ND. The SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) metric was then applied to attribute the importance of each ND experiment and observable to bias prediction. This, however, did not highlight what ND were jointly related to predicting bias. This is important as it could inform us about where compensating errors in ND could hide. We tackle this shortcoming here by first decomposing the ND sensitivities to integral‐experiment simulations into principal components. Then we use principal component projections to predict bias via the RF and SHAP. The SHAP values and principal components are employed to reconstruct detailed SHAP values for each ND observable. We demonstrate that these extended SHAP bias predictions are more robust, less noisy, and more efficient. In addition, we show that this approach accounts for covariance in ND sensitivities and automates the identification of where compensating errors could hide in ND.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗