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At least 829 records · Page 46

Near real time ETEM streaming video analysis

The Environmental Transmission Electron Microscopy (ETEM) provides a powerful tool to observe the formation and evolution of nano-particles over time. However, ETEM generates extremely large amounts of data at level of 3GB/s, which impossible to be analyzed by manually processing or even by using a single PC. Moreover, the image stream obtained from the ETEM is very noisy. In this project, our goal is automatically analyze the physical characteristics of the nanoparticles. We proposed an approach that detect the nano-particles in each frame, and then track all the nano-particles over time, finally we can analyze the dynamical physical characteristics of the nano-particles, such as merging, absorbing, size and distance change over time. Specifically, our proposed approach detects the nano-particles in each frame independently, which could be highly parallelized. The experimental results show the proposed model could detect and track nano-particles robustly.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Integrated exhaust gas analysis system for aircraft turbine engine component testing

An integrated exhaust gas analysis system was designed and installed in the hot-section facility at the Lewis Research Center. The system is designed to operate either manually or automatically and also to be operated from a remote station. The system measures oxygen, water vapor, total hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen. Two microprocessors control the system and the analyzers, collect data and process them into engineering units, and present the data to the facility computers and the system operator. Within the design of this system there are innovative concepts and procedures that are of general interest and application to other gas analysis tasks.

Summers, R. L.↗

Pre- and post-processing for Cosmic/NASTRAN on personal computers and mainframes

An interface between Cosmic/NASTRAN and GIFTS has recently been released, combining the powerful pre- and post-processing capabilities of GIFTS with Cosmic/NASTRAN's analysis capabilities. The interface operates on a wide range of computers, even linking Cosmic/NASTRAN and GIFTS when the two are on different computers. GIFTS offers a wide range of elements for use in model construction, each translated by the interface into the nearest Cosmic/NASTRAN equivalent; and the options of automatic or interactive modelling and loading in GIFTS make pre-processing easy and effective. The interface itself includes the programs GFTCOS, which creates the Cosmic/NASTRAN input deck (and, if desired, control deck) from the GIFTS Unified Data Base, COSGFT, which translates the displacements from the Cosmic/NASTRAN analysis back into GIFTS; and HOSTR, which handles stress computations for a few higher-order elements available in the interface, but not supported by the GIFTS processor STRESS. Finally, the versatile display options in GIFTS post-processing allow the user to examine the analysis results through an especially wide range of capabilities, including such possibilities as creating composite loading cases, plotting in color and animating the analysis.

Kamel, H. A.↗

Work Coordination Engine

The Work Coordination Engine (WCE) is a Java application integrated into the Service Management Database (SMDB), which coordinates the dispatching and monitoring of a work order system. WCE de-queues work orders from SMDB and orchestrates the dispatching of work to a registered set of software worker applications distributed over a set of local, or remote, heterogeneous computing systems. WCE monitors the execution of work orders once dispatched, and accepts the results of the work order by storing to the SMDB persistent store. The software leverages the use of a relational database, Java Messaging System (JMS), and Web Services using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) technologies to implement an efficient work-order dispatching mechanism capable of coordinating the work of multiple computer servers on various platforms working concurrently on different, or similar, types of data or algorithmic processing. Existing (legacy) applications can be wrapped with a proxy object so that no changes to the application are needed to make them available for integration into the work order system as "workers." WCE automatically reschedules work orders that fail to be executed by one server to a different server if available. From initiation to completion, the system manages the execution state of work orders and workers via a well-defined set of events, states, and actions. It allows for configurable work-order execution timeouts by work-order type. This innovation eliminates a current processing bottleneck by providing a highly scalable, distributed work-order system used to quickly generate products needed by the Deep Space Network (DSN) to support space flight operations. WCE is driven by asynchronous messages delivered via JMS indicating the availability of new work or workers. It runs completely unattended in support of the lights-out operations concept in the DSN.

Zendejas, Silvino↗

Closed-Loop Control System for Friction Stir Welding Retractable Pin Tool

NASA invention disclosure, NASA Case No. MFS-31413, entitled "System for Controlling the Stirring Pin of a Friction Stir Welding Apparatus", (Patent Pending) authored by Jeff Ding, Dr Peter Romine and Pete Oelgoetz, addresses the precision control of the friction stir welding process. The closed-loop control system automatically adjusts the spinning welding pin, real-time, to maintain a precise penetration ligament (i.e., distance between pin-tip and weld panel backside surface). A specific pin length can be maintained while welding constant thickness or tapered material thickness weld panels. The closed-loop control system provides operator data and information relative to the exact position of the welding pin inside the weld joint. This paper presents the closed-loop RPT control system that operates using the auto-feedback of force signals sensed by the tip and shoulder of the welding pin. Significance: The FSW process can be successfully used in a production environment only if there is a method or technique that informs the FSW operator the precise location of the welding pin inside the weld joint. This is essential for applications in aerospace, automotive, pressure vessel, commercial aircraft and other industries.

Ding, R. Jeffrey↗

SequenceL: Automated Parallel Algorithms Derived from CSP-NT Computational Laws

With the introduction of new parallel architectures like the cell and multicore chips from IBM, Intel, AMD, and ARM, as well as the petascale processing available for highend computing, a larger number of programmers will need to write parallel codes. Adding the parallel control structure to the sequence, selection, and iterative control constructs increases the complexity of code development, which often results in increased development costs and decreased reliability. SequenceL is a high-level programming language that is, a programming language that is closer to a human s way of thinking than to a machine s. Historically, high-level languages have resulted in decreased development costs and increased reliability, at the expense of performance. In recent applications at JSC and in industry, SequenceL has demonstrated the usual advantages of high-level programming in terms of low cost and high reliability. SequenceL programs, however, have run at speeds typically comparable with, and in many cases faster than, their counterparts written in C and C++ when run on single-core processors. Moreover, SequenceL is able to generate parallel executables automatically for multicore hardware, gaining parallel speedups without any extra effort from the programmer beyond what is required to write the sequen tial/singlecore code. A SequenceL-to-C++ translator has been developed that automatically renders readable multithreaded C++ from a combination of a SequenceL program and sample data input. The SequenceL language is based on two fundamental computational laws, Consume-Simplify- Produce (CSP) and Normalize-Trans - pose (NT), which enable it to automate the creation of parallel algorithms from high-level code that has no annotations of parallelism whatsoever. In our anecdotal experience, SequenceL development has been in every case less costly than development of the same algorithm in sequential (that is, single-core, single process) C or C++, and an order of magnitude less costly than development of comparable parallel code. Moreover, SequenceL not only automatically parallelizes the code, but since it is based on CSP-NT, it is provably race free, thus eliminating the largest quality challenge the parallelized software developer faces.

Cooke, Daniel↗

Work stealing for GPU-accelerated parallel programs in a global address space framework

Task parallelism is an attractive approach to automatically load balance the computation in a parallel system and adapt to dynamism exhibited by parallel systems. Exploiting task parallelism through work stealing has been extensively studied in shared and distributed-memory contexts. In this paper, we study the design of a system that uses work stealing for dynamic load balancing of task-parallel programs executed on hybrid distributed-memory CPU-graphics processing unit (GPU) systems in a global-address space framework. We take into account the unique nature of the accelerator model employed by GPUs, the significant performance difference between GPU and CPU execution as a function of problem size, and the distinct CPU and GPU memory domains. We consider various alternatives in designing a distributed work stealing algorithm for CPU-GPU systems, while taking into account the impact of task distribution and data movement overheads. These strategies are evaluated using microbenchmarks that capture various execution configurations as well as the state-of-the-art CCSD(T) application module from the computational chemistry domain

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Data and scripts associated with a manuscript modeling microbial regulation of priming effects

This data package is associated with the publication “Modeling Microbial Regulatory Feedback in Organic Matter Decomposition Identifies Copiotrophic Traits as Key Drivers of Positive Priming” published as a preprint on BioRXiv by Ahamed et al. (2026); https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.11.607483. The package contains MATLAB scripts and saved simulation outputs used to implement a cybernetic model of microbial regulation during complex organic matter (OM) decomposition governing priming effects. It includes models of (i) single microbial functional groups (copiotrophic or oligotrophic degraders) and (ii) binary consortia composed of degraders and non-degraders with contrasting or common growth traits. Simulation results were generated using Monte Carlo analyses, with randomized key model parameters across a range of environmental mixing fractions of complex and labile OM. The dataset was created to provide a transparent and reusable computational framework for systematically exploring how microbial growth traits, metabolic regulation, and community composition influence OM decomposition dynamics and priming effects. For details on how to navigate data packages generated by this project, see https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/portals/PNNLRiverCorridorSFA/About. In addition to a readme, this data package also includes a file-level metadata (FLMD) file that describes each file and a data dictionary (DD) that describes the variable definitions. This package includes: (1) annotated MATLAB code implementing the system of ordinary differential equations and cybernetic control laws; (2) saved output files containing data (e.g., biomass, substrates, enzyme levels, priming metrics); and (3) scripts for processing saved outputs and regenerating figures. Specifically, the data package contains three main MATLAB scripts: runPrimingModel.m, runPlotData.m, and runPlotSuppFigS1.m, along with this readme and supporting documentation. Users should begin with runPrimingModel.m, which contains the annotated code implementing the system of ordinary differential equations and cybernetic control laws. This script runs the Monte Carlo simulations of microbial OM decomposition and allows users to modify microbial trait definitions, adjust parameter distributions, or define new community configurations. Simulation outputs are automatically saved as .mat files in the folder named SavedData, which stores all pre-generated results included in this package. The second script, runPlotData.m, reads files from the SavedData folder and processes them to regenerate the figures presented in the manuscript. The third script, runPlotSuppFigS1.m, specifically generates Figure S1 in the Supplementary Material of the manuscript. The package also includes the aforementioned files in non-proprietary .txt format. If users intend to use them, they should first save the files in their respective .m or .mat formats prior to execution in MATLAB.

Biomass concentration↗

Qualitative and quantitative enhancement of parameter estimation for model-based diagnostics using automatic differentiation with an application to inertial fusion

Parameter estimation using observables is a fundamental concept in the experimental sciences. Mathematical models that represent the physical processes can enable reconstructions of the experimental observables and greatly assist in parameter estimation by turning it into an optimization problem which can be solved by gradient-free or gradient-based methods. In this work, the recent rise in flexible frameworks for developing differentiable scientific computing programs is leveraged in order to dramatically accelerate data analysis of a common experimental diagnostic relevant to laser–plasma and inertial fusion experiments, Thomson scattering. A differentiable Thomson-scattering data analysis tool is developed that uses reverse-mode automatic differentiation (AD) to calculate gradients. By switching from finite differencing to reverse-mode AD, three distinct outcomes are achieved. First, gradient descent is accelerated dramatically to the extent that it enables near real-time usage in laser–plasma experiments. Second, qualitatively novel quantities which require $\mathcal{O}(10^3)$ parameters can now be included in the analysis of data which enables unprecedented measurements of small-scale laser–plasma phenomena. Third, uncertainty estimation approaches that leverage the value of the Hessian become accurate and efficient because reverse-mode AD can be used for calculating the Hessian.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

EXSCLAIM!: Harnessing materials science literature for self-labeled microscopy datasets

This work introduces the EXSCLAIM! toolkit for the automatic extraction, separation, and caption-based natural language annotation of images from scientific literature. EXSCLAIM! is used to show how rule-based natural language processing and image recognition can be leveraged to construct an electron microscopy data set containing thousands of keyword-annotated nanostructure images. Moreover, it is demonstrated how a combination of statistical topic modeling and semantic word similarity comparisons can be used to increase the number and variety of keyword annotations on top of the standard annotations from EXSCLAIM! With large-scale imaging datasets constructed from scientific literature, users are well positioned to train neural networks for classification and recognition tasks specific to microscopy-tasks often otherwise inhibited by a lack of sufficient annotated training data.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Multi-component background learning automates signal detection for spectroscopic data

Abstract Automated experimentation has yielded data acquisition rates that supersede human processing capabilities. Artificial Intelligence offers new possibilities for automating data interpretation to generate large, high-quality datasets. Background subtraction is a long-standing challenge, particularly in settings where multiple sources of the background signal coexist, and automatic extraction of signals of interest from measured signals accelerates data interpretation. Herein, we present an unsupervised probabilistic learning approach that analyzes large data collections to identify multiple background sources and establish the probability that any given data point contains a signal of interest. The approach is demonstrated on X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy data and is suitable to any type of data where the signal of interest is a positive addition to the background signals. While the model can incorporate prior knowledge, it does not require knowledge of the signals since the shapes of the background signals, the noise levels, and the signal of interest are simultaneously learned via a probabilistic matrix factorization framework. Automated identification of interpretable signals by unsupervised probabilistic learning avoids the injection of human bias and expedites signal extraction in large datasets, a transformative capability with many applications in the physical sciences and beyond.

Ament, Sebastian E.↗

Irreversibility of Image Transform using Feature Descriptors

Our work in radiographic image matching has centered on the use of SURF (Speeded Up Robust Features) for feature detection, and FLANN (Fast Learning Artificial Neural Network) for feature matching. We discovered that while the SURF process does return information on location, scale, and rotation for each detected feature, they are not essential for image matching. The nature of the remaining feature detection data does not appear to contain any useful information in terms of reconstructing a useful portion of an image, and therefore is not amenable to reconstructing the original image. This led us to wonder if, in fact, we had discovered an irreversible process; the original image could not be constructed from the remaining feature data. Additional detail on the derivation of the image processing and matching algorithms and the irreversibility hypothesis are available in the final SAND Report documenting our previous LDRD work (SAND2015-9665 “Processing Radiation Images Behind an Information Barrier for Automatic Warhead Authentication” Little, Wilson, Weber and Novick, 2015).

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Archiving and retrieval of data from the International Ultraviolet Explorer /IUE/ mission

The data base of IUE spectra available for dissemination to the scientific community presently contains approximately 22,000 separate images. Due to storage space and computer processing time limitations, it was decided to store the data on high density (6250 bpi) specially formatted tapes and to retrieve and reconvert them to the originally supplied format upon request. The archival/retrieval system for the data and an automatic data entry system for creation and maintenance of an indexing data base are described. Suggestion are made for the use of standard formats for future image data storage, retrieval and dissemination.

Warren, W. H., Jr.↗

Machine learning in motion control

The existing methodologies for robot programming originate primarily from robotic applications to manufacturing, where uncertainties of the robots and their task environment may be minimized by repeated off-line modeling and identification. In space application of robots, however, a higher degree of automation is required for robot programming because of the desire of minimizing the human intervention. We discuss a new paradigm of robotic programming which is based on the concept of machine learning. The goal is to let robots practice tasks by themselves and the operational data are used to automatically improve their motion performance. The underlying mathematical problem is to solve the problem of dynamical inverse by iterative methods. One of the key questions is how to ensure the convergence of the iterative process. There have been a few small steps taken into this important approach to robot programming. We give a representative result on the convergence problem.

Su, Renjeng↗

Neural net diagnostics for VLSI test

This paper discusses the application of neural network pattern analysis algorithms to the IC fault diagnosis problem. A fault diagnostic is a decision rule combining what is known about an ideal circuit test response with information about how it is distorted by fabrication variations and measurement noise. The rule is used to detect fault existence in fabricated circuits using real test equipment. Traditional statistical techniques may be used to achieve this goal, but they can employ unrealistic a priori assumptions about measurement data. Our approach to this problem employs an adaptive pattern analysis technique based on feedforward neural networks. During training, a feedforward network automatically captures unknown sample distributions. This is important because distributions arising from the nonlinear effects of process variation can be more complex than is typically assumed. A feedforward network is also able to extract measurement features which contribute significantly to making a correct decision. Traditional feature extraction techniques employ matrix manipulations which can be particularly costly for large measurement vectors. In this paper we discuss a software system which we are developing that uses this approach. We also provide a simple example illustrating the use of the technique for fault detection in an operational amplifier.

Lin, T.↗

Data Understanding Applied to Optimization

The goal of this research is to explore and develop software for supporting visualization and data analysis of search and optimization. Optimization is an ever-present problem in science. The theory of NP-completeness implies that the problems can only be resolved by increasingly smarter problem specific knowledge, possibly for use in some general purpose algorithms. Visualization and data analysis offers an opportunity to accelerate our understanding of key computational bottlenecks in optimization and to automatically tune aspects of the computation for specific problems. We will prototype systems to demonstrate how data understanding can be successfully applied to problems characteristic of NASA's key science optimization tasks, such as central tasks for parallel processing, spacecraft scheduling, and data transmission from a remote satellite.

Buntine, Wray↗

Simple, Script-Based Science Processing Archive

The Simple, Scalable, Script-based Science Processing (S4P) Archive (S4PA) is a disk-based archival system for remote sensing data. It is based on the data-driven framework of S4P and is used for data transfer, data preprocessing, metadata generation, data archive, and data distribution. New data are automatically detected by the system. S4P provides services such as data access control, data subscription, metadata publication, data replication, and data recovery. It comprises scripts that control the data flow. The system detects the availability of data on an FTP (file transfer protocol) server, initiates data transfer, preprocesses data if necessary, and archives it on readily available disk drives with FTP and HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) access, allowing instantaneous data access. There are options for plug-ins for data preprocessing before storage. Publication of metadata to external applications such as the Earth Observing System Clearinghouse (ECHO) is also supported. S4PA includes a graphical user interface for monitoring the system operation and a tool for deploying the system. To ensure reliability, S4P continuously checks stored data for integrity, Further reliability is provided by tape backups of disks made once a disk partition is full and closed. The system is designed for low maintenance, requiring minimal operator oversight.

Lynnes, Christopher↗

Space-Based Sensorweb Monitoring of Wildfires in Thailand

We describe efforts to apply sensorweb technologies to the monitoring of forest fires in Thailand. In this approach, satellite data and ground reports are assimilated to assess the current state of the forest system in terms of forest fire risk, active fires, and likely progression of fires and smoke plumes. This current and projected assessment can then be used to actively direct sensors and assets to best acquire further information. This process operates continually with new data updating models of fire activity leading to further sensing and updating of models. As the fire activity is tracked, products such as active fire maps, burn scar severity maps, and alerts are automatically delivered to relevant parties.We describe the current state of the Thailand Fire Sensorweb which utilizes the MODIS-based FIRMS system to track active fires and trigger Earth Observing One / Advanced Land Imager to acquire imagery and produce active fire maps, burn scar severity maps, and alerts. We describe ongoing work to integrate additional sensor sources and generate additional products.

sensorweb↗