Results for “decision analysis” — Page 42

DOE OSTI2022

Framework for Quantitative Evaluation of Resilience Solutions: An Approach to Determine the Value of Resilience for a Particular Site

The paper provides the approach to providing a benefit cost analysis of energy and water alternatives to provide resilience to extreme events. The approach estimates the costs and returns of providing greater resilience of water and energy infrastructure. Extreme events are defined as high impact, low-frequency events such as, but not limited to, hurricanes, floods, storm surges and earthquakes. The provides justification for hardening water and energy infrastructure. Resilience is defined as “the ability to prepare for and to withstand an extreme event with little or no damage, or to recover more quickly from an extreme event.” The approach can be summarized as follows. The approach requires the development of a baseline with which to compare alternatives. The baseline is used to evaluate the baseline’s resilience to hazards through the probability of the hazard(s), the likelihood of damage from that the hazard through a vulnerability analysis, and the consequence to calculate a cost of the damage. The approach then evaluates proposed mitigation alternatives that would improve the resilience of the system. Each alternative is evaluated based on probability of the hazard, probability of vulnerability and consequence to determine the reduced damage that each alternative presents. The approach includes any monetary and non-monetary benefits that can quantified for each of the alternatives. Non-quantifiable benefits are evaluated based on the relative importance of each alternative to the criteria used to determine how well the alternative meets the goals and objectives of the site/facility. Then, a life cycle cost analysis should be conducted for the baseline and alternatives. Finally, the results of the life cycle analysis should be presented in a decision matrix with cost, net present value, benefit/cost ratios, and any non-monetary criteria ranked to show how well the alternatives met the criteria, weighted with the decision maker’s weights and the results presented.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2026

Agent-Based, Bottom-Up Medium- and Heavy-duty Electric Vehicle Economics, Operation, Charging and Adoption (Research Performance Final Report)

This is the research performance final report for the project entitled: Agent-Based, Bottom-Up Medium- and Heavy-duty Electric Vehicle Economics, Operation, Charging and Adoption This project was able to achieve the DOE’s goals of developing new modeling tools to understand MDHD vehicle operation and adoption. The first modeling tool is a fleet-level techno-economic analysis model capable of estimating energy use and associated environmental and cost impacts for electrified and conventional vehicles of any MDHD vocation, using real-world cost and operations data, including approaches to optimizing schedules for charging and/or vehicle dispatch. The second modeling tool is a system-level, bottom-up, agent-based adoption model capable of generating geographically-resolved estimates of market projections for MDHD vehicles and charging infrastructure. These tools will be developed and published to serve dual purposes as analysis tools for researchers, and decision-support tools for decision makers within the MDHD system.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2026

Mobility Hubs: Workforce Landscape Assessment, Development Opportunities, and Local Transportation Planning

Through the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy to Communities (E2C) program, NLR, other national laboratory experts, and select organizations provide Expert Match - free, short-term technical assistance to address near-term energy challenges and questions. Expert Match is for community stakeholders who have decision-making power or influence in their community but need access to additional energy expertise to inform key upcoming decisions. This Expert Match request supported Equticity in Chicago, IL with an analysis workforce development considerations and opportunities and is intended to support decision-making on micromobility initiatives.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

NASA NTRS1966

An optimal property of sequential decision procedures related to Bayes solutions

Optimal property of sequential decision procedures

DECISION MAKING↗

NASA NTRS1976

Planetary quarantine

The overall objective is to identify those areas of future missions which will be impacted by planetary quarantine (PQ) constraints. The objective of the phase being described was to develop an approach for using decision theory in performing a PQ analysis for a Mariner Jupiter Uranus Mission and to compare it with the traditional approach used for other missions.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1977

Analysis of flight equipment purchasing practices of representative air carriers

The process through which representative air carriers decide whether or not to purchase flight equipment was investigated as well as their practices and policies in retiring surplus aircraft. An analysis of the flight equipment investment decision process in ten airlines shows that for the airline industry as a whole, the flight equipment investment decision is in a state of transition from a wholly informal process in earliest years to a much more organized and structured process in the future. Individual air carriers are in different stages with respect to the formality and sophistication associated with the flight equipment investment decision.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1988

Blackboard architectures and their relationship to autonomous space systems

The blackboard architecture provides a powerful paradigm for the autonomy expected in future spaceborne systems, especially SDI and Space Station. Autonomous systems will require skill in both the classic task of information analysis and the newer tasks of decision making, planning and system control. Successful blackboard systems have been built to deal with each of these tasks separately. The blackboard paradigm achieves success in difficult domains through its ability to integrate several uncertain sources of knowledge. In addition to flexible behavior during autonomous operation, the system must also be capable of incrementally growing from semiautonomy to full autonomy. The blackboard structure allows this development. The blackboard's ability to handle error, its flexible execution, and variants of this paradigm are discussed as they apply to specific problems of the space environment.

Thornbrugh, Allison↗

NASA NTRS1988

Explanation production by expert planners

Although the explanation capability of expert systems is usually listed as one of the distinguishing characteristics of these systems, the explanation facilities of most existing systems are quite primitive. Computer generated explanations are typically produced from canned text or by direct translation of the knowledge structures. Explanations produced in this manner bear little resemblance to those produced by humans for similar tasks. The focus of our research in explanation is the production of justifications for decisions by expert planning systems. An analysis of justifications written by people for planning tasks has been taken as the starting point. The purpose of this analysis is two-fold. First, analysis of the information content of the justifications will provide a basis for deciding what knowledge must be represented if human-like justifications are to be produced. Second, an analysis of the textual organization of the justifications will be used in the development of a mechanism for selecting and organizing the knowledge to be included in a computer-produced explanation. This paper describes a preliminary analysis done of justifications written by people for a planning task. It is clear that these justifications differ significantly from those that would be produced by an expert system by tracing the firing of production rules. The results from the text analysis have been used to develop an augmented phrase structured grammar (APSG) describing the organization of the justifications. The grammar was designed to provide a computationally feasible method for determining textual organization that will allow the necessary information to be communicated in a cohesive manner.

Bridges, Susan↗

NASA NTRS2009

Lightning Behavior and its Dependence on Storm Kinematic and Precipitation Processes in Northern Alabama

Numerous case studies and recent modeling studies have found that various metrics of updraft intensity appear to be reasonably well correlated to lightning production in thunderstorms, particularly severe thunderstorms. Indeed, the relationship between updraft and lightning flash rate is hypothesized to be the physical connection between a lightning "jump" signature and manifestations of severe weather such as tornadic activity. This study further examines this connection using a combination of dual Doppler wind retrievals made with the UAH ARMOR dual polarimetric and KHTX WSR 88D Doppler radar pair, together with northern Alabama Lightning Mapping Array (LMA) data. The dual Doppler data were used to construct three dimensional wind fields and the retrieved vertical velocity fields were subsequently compared to collocated total lightning flash rates observed by the LMA. Particular attention was paid to the timing of updraft pulses relative to changes in the flash rate, with the goal of assessing impacts on warning decision lead time. Results from the analysis of severe and non severe thunderstorms in Northern Alabama will be presented including the EF 4 tornado producing supercell on 6 February 2008.

Johnson, Elsie V.↗

NASA NTRS2011

Applications of the International Space Station Probabilistic Risk Assessment Model

Recently the International Space Station (ISS) has incorporated more Probabilistic Risk Assessments (PRAs) in the decision making process for significant issues. Future PRAs will have major impact to ISS and future spacecraft development and operations. These PRAs will have their foundation in the current complete ISS PRA model and the current PRA trade studies that are being analyzed as requested by ISS Program stakeholders. ISS PRAs have recently helped in the decision making process for determining reliability requirements for future NASA spacecraft and commercial spacecraft, making crew rescue decisions, as well as making operational requirements for ISS orbital orientation, planning Extravehicular activities (EVAs) and robotic operations. This paper will describe some applications of the ISS PRA model and how they impacted the final decision. This paper will discuss future analysis topics such as life extension, requirements of new commercial vehicles visiting ISS.

Grant, Warren↗

NASA NTRS2011

Development of the Vibration Isolation System for the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device

This paper describes the development of the Vibration Isolation System for the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device from conceptual design to lessons learned. Maintaining a micro-g environment on the International Space Station requires that experiment racks and major vibration sources be isolated. The challenge in characterizing exercise loads and testing the system in the presence of gravity led to a decision to qualify the system by analysis. Available data suggests that the system is successful in attenuating loads, yet there has been a major component failure and several procedural issues during its 3 years of operational use.

Niebuhr, Jason H.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Estimating the Risk of Renal Stone Events During Long-Duration Spaceflight

Introduction: Given the bone loss and increased urinary calcium excretion in the microgravity environment, persons participating in long-duration spaceflight may have an increased risk for renal stone formation. Renal stones are often an incidental finding of abdominal imaging studies done for other reasons. Thus, some crewmembers may have undiscovered, asymptomatic stones prior to their mission. Methods: An extensive literature search was conducted concerning the natural history of asymptomatic renal stones. For comparison, simulations were done using the Integrated Medical Model (IMM). The IMM is an evidence-based decision support tool that provides risk analysis and has the capability to optimize medical systems for missions by minimizing the occurrence of adverse mission outcomes such as evacuation and loss of crew life within specified mass and volume constraints. Results: The literature of the natural history of asymptomatic renal stones in the general medical population shows that the probability of symptomatic event is 8% to 34% at 1 to 3 years for stones < 7 mm. Extrapolated to a 6-month mission, for stones < 5 to 7 mm, the risk for any stone event is about 4 to 6%, with a 0.7% to 4% risk for intervention, respectively. IMM simulations compare favorably with risk estimates garnered from the terrestrial literature. The IMM forecasts that symptomatic renal stones may be one of the top drivers for medical evacuation of an International Space Station (ISS) mission. Discussion: Although the likelihood of a stone event is low, the consequences could be severe due to limitations of current ISS medical capabilities. Therefore, these risks need to be quantified to aid planning, limit crew morbidity and mitigate mission impacts. This will be especially critical for missions beyond earth orbit, where evacuation may not be an option.

Reyes, David↗

NASA NTRS2014

Estimating the Risk of Renal Stone Events during Long-Duration Spaceflight

Introduction: Given the bone loss and increased urinary calcium excretion in the microgravity environment, persons participating in long-duration spaceflight may have an increased risk for renal stone formation. Renal stones are often an incidental finding of abdominal imaging studies done for other reasons. Thus, some crewmembers may have undiscovered, asymptomatic stones prior to their mission. Methods: An extensive literature search was conducted concerning the natural history of asymptomatic renal stones. For comparison, simulations were done using the Integrated Medical Model (IMM). The IMM is an evidence-based decision support tool that provides risk analysis and has the capability to optimize medical systems for missions by minimizing the occurrence of adverse mission outcomes such as evacuation and loss of crew life within specified mass and volume constraints. Results: The literature of the natural history of asymptomatic renal stones in the general medical population shows that the probability of symptomatic event is 8% to 34% at 1 to 3 years for stones < 7 mm. Extrapolated to a 6-month mission, for stones < 5 to 7 mm, the risk for any stone event is about 4 to 6%, with a 0.7% to 4% risk for intervention, respectively. IMM simulations compare favorably with risk estimates garnered from the terrestrial literature. The IMM forecasts that symptomatic renal stones may be one of the top drivers for medical evacuation of an International Space Station (ISS) mission. Discussion: Although the likelihood of a stone event is low, the consequences could be severe due to limitations of current ISS medical capabilities. Therefore, these risks need to be quantified to aid planning, limit crew morbidity and mitigate mission impacts. This will be especially critical for missions beyond earth orbit, where evacuation may not be an option.

Reyes, David↗

NASA NTRS2019

The Large UV/Optical/Infrared Surveyor Decadal Mission Concept Thermal System Architecture

The Large Ultraviolet/Optical/Infrared (LUVOIR) Surveyor is one of four large strategic mission concept studies commissioned by NASA for the 2020 Decadal Survey in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Slated for launch to the second Lagrange point (L2) in the mid-to-late 2030s, LUVOIR seeks to directly image habitable exoplanets around sun-like stars, characterize their atmospheric and surface composition, and search for biosignatures, as well as study a large array of astrophysics goals including galaxy formation and evolution. Two observatory architectures are currently being considered which bound the trade-off between cost, risk, and scientific return: a 15-meter diameter segmented aperture primary mirror in a three-mirror anastigmat configuration, and an 8-meter diameter unobscured segmented aperture design. To achieve its science objectives, both architectures require milli-Kelvin level thermal stability over the optics, structural components, and interfaces to attain picometer wavefront RMS stability. A 270 Kelvin operational temperature was chosen to balance the ability to perform science in the near-infrared band and the desire to maintain the structure at a temperature with favorable material properties and lower contamination accumulation. This paper will focus on the system-level thermal designs of both LUVOIR observatory architectures. It will detail the various thermal control methods used in each of the major components - the optical telescope assembly, the spacecraft bus, the sunshade, and the suite of accompanying instruments - as well as provide a comprehensive overview of the analysis and justification for each design decision. It will additionally discuss any critical thermal challenges faced by the engineering team should either architecture be prioritized by the Astro2020 Decadal Survey process to proceed as the next large strategic mission for development.

Yang, Kan↗

NASA NTRS2019

The Large UV/Optical/Infrared Surveyor Decadal Mission Concept Thermal System Architecture

The Large Ultraviolet/Optical/Infrared (LUVOIR) Surveyor is one of four large strategic mission concept studies commissioned by NASA for the 2020 Decadal Survey in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Slated for launch to the second Lagrange point (L2) in the mid-to-late 2030s, LUVOIR seeks to directly image habitable exoplanets around sun-like stars, characterize their atmospheric and surface composition, and search for biosignatures, as well as study a large array of astrophysics goals including galaxy formation and evolution. Two observatory architectures are currently being considered which bound the trade-off between cost, risk, and scientific return: a 15-meter diameter segmented aperture primary mirror in a three-mirror anastigmat configuration, and an 8-meter diameter unobscured segmented aperture design. To achieve its science objectives, both architectures require milli-Kelvin level thermal stability over the optics, structural components, and interfaces to attain picometer wavefront RMS stability. A 270 Kelvin operational temperature was chosen to balance the ability to perform science in the near-infrared band and the desire to maintain the structure at a temperature with favorable material properties and lower contamination accumulation. This paper will focus on the system-level thermal designs of both LUVOIR observatory architectures. It will detail the various thermal control methods used in each of the major components - the optical telescope assembly, the spacecraft bus, the sunshade, and the suite of accompanying instruments - as well as provide a comprehensive overview of the analysis and justification for each design decision. It will additionally discuss any critical thermal challenges faced by the engineering team should either architecture be prioritized by the Astro2020 Decadal Survey process to proceed as the next large strategic mission for development.

Yang, Kan↗

DOE OSTI2017

The Renewable Energy Data Explorer: Mapping Our Renewable Energy Future

The Renewable Energy (RE) Data Explorer, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is an innovative web-based platform that allows users to visualize and analyze renewable energy potential. The RE Data Explorer informs prospecting, integrated planning, and policymaking to enable low emission development.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2020

Air Pollutant Emissions and Regulatory Implications of Co-Processing Raw Bio-Oil in U.S. Petroleum Refineries

Pyrolysis oil, often referred as bio-oil or biocrude, has attracted considerable attention because it has higher energy density and carbon content compared to the raw biomass. Using pyrolysis oil derived from low cost and underutilized biomass to produce renewable hydrocarbon fuels provides a viable link between the agriculture/forestry and (petro-) chemical industry. Co-processing bio-oil with vacuum gas oil (VGO) in petroleum refinery is appealing due to the relatively low capital requirement to retrofit refinery and the compatibility of fuel products with existing infrastructure. In order to implement co-processing, a petroleum refinery would need to consider several process modifications and therefore could be subject to varying levels of air permitting requirements based on bio-oil co-processing ratio, co-processing capacity in existing units, the amount of regulated pollutants expected to be emitted, among other factors. This analysis considers co-processing 5% (by weight) of raw bio-oil with VGO in the fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) unit(s) in a petroleum refinery. We estimate the potential increase in emissions of regulated air pollutants resulting from the modifications required to implement bio-oil co-processing and evaluate the regulatory and permitting implications for three FCC size categories in the U.S. refineries, which could co-processes raw bio-oil to produce partially renewable transportation fuels. We also assess technically feasible emission control options petroleum refineries could adopt to avoid being subject to major source permitting requirements if the estimated increase in regulated air pollutant emission exceeds the applicable threshold for major modifications. Insights from our analysis can help overcome challenges and risks associated with timely obtaining air permits required to implement bio-oil co-processing in existing refineries. Our analysis also provides needed information for decision makers (e.g., local air quality agencies) to understand the potential air quality implications for retrofitting refineries to co-process bio-oil, particularly in areas with high concentration of petroleum refineries.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2019

Operation and Process Control Development for a Pilot-Scale Leaching and Solvent Extraction Circuit Recovering Rare Earth Elements from Coal-Based Sources

The US Department of Energy in 2010 has identified several rare earth elements as critical materials to clean technologies. As part of ongoing research in REEs recovery from coal sources, the University of Kentucky has designed, developed and is demonstrating a ¼ ton/hour pilot-scale processing plant to produce high grade REEs from coal sources. To accomplish process control, PLC systems design/deployment, overall operational design and the utilization of Six Sigma design methodology by the team will be presented. Furthermore, application of the controls design, both procedural and electronic, team’s utilization of data analysis and integration for database decision-making will be discussed.

Leaching↗