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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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818 records · Page 46

‘Flux+Mutability’: a conditional generative approach to one-class classification and anomaly detection

Abstract Anomaly Detection is becoming increasingly popular within the experimental physics community. At experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider, anomaly detection is growing in interest for finding new physics beyond the Standard Model. This paper details the implementation of a novel Machine Learning architecture, called Flux+Mutability, which combines cutting-edge conditional generative models with clustering algorithms. In the ‘flux’ stage we learn the distribution of a reference class. The ‘mutability’ stage at inference addresses if data significantly deviates from the reference class. We demonstrate the validity of our approach and its connection to multiple problems spanning from one-class classification to anomaly detection. In particular, we apply our method to the isolation of neutral showers in an electromagnetic calorimeter and show its performance in detecting anomalous dijets events from standard QCD background. This approach limits assumptions on the reference sample and remains agnostic to the complementary class of objects of a given problem. We describe the possibility of dynamically generating a reference population and defining selection criteria via quantile cuts. Remarkably this flexible architecture can be deployed for a wide range of problems, and applications like multi-class classification or data quality control are left for further exploration.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Quantitative Fit Evaluation of N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirators and Coronavirus Inactivation Following Heat Treatment

Abstract Reuse of filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs, commonly referred to as N95s) normally meant for single use has become common in healthcare facilities due to shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we report that murine hepatitis coronavirus initially seeded on FFR filter material is inactivated (6 order of magnitude reduction as measured by median tissue culture infective dose, TCID50) after dry heating at 75°C for 30 min. We also find that the quantitative fit of FFRs after heat treatment at this temperature, under dry conditions or at 90% relative humidity, is not affected by single or 10 heating cycles. Previous studies have reported that the filtration efficiency of FFRs is not negatively impacted by these heating conditions. These results suggest that thermal inactivation of coronaviruses is a potentially rapid and widely deployable method to reuse N95 FFRs in emergency situations where reusing FFRs is a necessity and broad-spectrum sterilization is unavailable. However, we also observe that a radiative heat source (e.g. an exposed heating element) results in rapid qualitative degradation of the FFR. Finally, we discuss differences in the results reported here and other recent studies investigating heat as a means to recycle FFRs. These differences suggest that while our repeated decontamination cycles do not affect FFR fit, overall wear time and the number of donning/doffing cycles are important factors that likely degrade FFR fit and must be investigated further.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

At-wavelength characterization of X-ray wavefronts in Bragg diffraction from crystals

The advent of next-generation synchrotron radiation sources and X-ray free-electron lasers calls for high-quality Bragg-diffraction crystal optics to preserve the X-ray beam coherence and wavefront. This requirement brings new challenges in characterizing crystals in Bragg diffraction in terms of Bragg-plane height errors and wavefront phase distortions. Here, a quantitative methodology to characterize crystal optics using a state-of-the-art at-wavelength wavefront sensing technique and statistical analysis is proposed. The method was tested at the 1-BM-B optics testing beamline at the Advanced Photon Source for measuring silicon and diamond crystals in a self-referencing single-crystal mode and an absolute double-crystal mode. The phase error sensitivity of the technique is demonstrated to be at the λ/100 level required by most applications, such as the characterization of diamond crystals for cavity-based X-ray free-electron lasers.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

CHESS 2025: Orthorectified airborne RGB imagery from NEON AOP surveys

This dataset provides Level 1 (L1) and Level 3 (L3) orthorectified Red-Green-Blue (RGB) imagery collected for the 2025 Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study (CHESS). This high-resolution imagery is a photographic record of red, green, and blue visible light from sunlight reflected off of the Earth’s surface. The data comprise full-color images of the ground surface and are primarily intended to provide context to imaging spectroscopy and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data. The data were acquired over three study domains in the Upper Gunnison river basin: the upper East River watershed (CRBU); Almont Triangle and Taylor Canyon (ALMO); and Upper Taylor River watershed (UPTA) between 2025-06-13 and 2025-07-15. RGB images were acquired using the PhaseOne IXM-RS150F high-resolution digital camera onboard the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) Airborne Observation Platform (AOP). The package data include both an L1 product comprising one camera frame per file and an L3 mosaic aligned to the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Zone 13N grid and the World Geodetic System (WGS) 84 projection. Both products are provided in geotif (.tif) format at 0.1 m ground resolution. The bulk of the imagery was collected during the main CHESS field campaign from June 13 to July 15, 2025. Additional images of a portion of the Upper Taylor (UPTA) domain were collected on September 18, 2025, to fill gaps in imagery identified after the main campaign was complete. RGB camera imagery is not radiometrically calibrated, and therefore pixel values should not be exploited for scientific analysis. Pixel values have undergone a manual adjustment to enhance feature identification. The imagery is rigorously geolocated which does allow for reliable geometric information to be retrieved. To generate the orthorectified imagery, the NEON AOP camera captured visible spectrum in red, green, and blue bands. The raw images were then processed using NEON’s camera orthorectification workflow. A boresight calibration flight was made to build a complete camera, distortion, and alignment model. Color balance/white balance and exposure correction were applied to the raw RGB images. The corrected images were orthorectified by ray-tracing image pixels to a lidar-derived digital surface model (DSM) mesh using the refined camera model, outputting orthorectified raster pixels on a regular grid. Flightline-level data were mosaicked by selecting per-pixel contributions from overlapping orthorectified images using line-of-sight (LOS) zenith angle minimization to reduce edge distortions. CHESS Project Description: The Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study (CHESS) comprised a multi-week airborne remote sensing and field observation campaign in the Upper Gunnison Basin, Colorado, conducted in June and July of 2025. Airborne remote sensing was conducted by the National Ecological Observatory Network Airborne Observation Platform (NEON AOP), concurrent with a field campaign run by the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Watershed Function Science Focus Area (SFA), and NASA-JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) program. Between June 10 and July 18, 2025, the NEON AOP flight team collected high-resolution aerial imaging spectroscopy and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data over three domains: the Upper East River (CRBU), Almont Triangle (ALMO), and the Upper Taylor Basin (UPTA). In coordination with the flights, a field campaign acquired ground-truth observations, including observations of vegetation composition, foliar traits, forest demography, and subsurface properties in 18 core sampling areas within the domains. Additional surface water observations were taken at over 380 point locations. All CHESS campaign datasets can be found within the CHESS ESS-DIVE data portal: https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/portals/chess. Funding Acknowledgement: Field and remote-sensing data acquisition was performed under a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NSSC24K1005). This work was also supported by the Watershed Function Science Focus Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

2018 NEON and 2025 CHESS Campaigns↗

Improving Non-Destructive Detection Technology Through SAVY Feature Detection

Surveillance of special nuclear material (SNM) storage containers is required by the DOE to assess their integrity across the Complex. This work aims to improve the task of container inspections by leveraging automation through machine learning (ML) tools to reduce the human-intensive effort and expert-level knowledge needed to assess container status. A field-deployable, non-destructive technology was designed using off-the-shelf components to collect multiple images from different perspectives of containers in storage to detect both spatial features of interest and anomalies of concern. Nine ML models were generated using unique training datasets and parameters. Learned features include SAVY surface regions including the body side wall, collar, lid, filter, and printed/etched information. Average Precision (AP) is used to calculate detection performance when both viewing previously seen environments and previously unseen environments. The application of image transformations and resolution scaling while training greatly improved the detection performance in unseen environments, and significantly increasing the number of computation iterations improved detection performance on previously seen environments. Additional capabilities were developed including the novel detection of procedural non-compliance and the ability to localize anomalies relative to SAVY surface features.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NWB Sensors Infrared Cloud Imager Data Products from SGP

NWB Sensors is a company which has developed a commercially available Infrared Cloud Imager (ICI). For more information, consult the company's webpage, https://www.nwbsensors.com/infrared-cloud-imager. To validate the radiometric accuracy of the ICI, NWB Sensors deployed it to the ARM SGP User Facility in 2023. The primary motivation of this deployment was to perform an intercomparison between the ICI and the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI). The AERI spectral radiance data product can be integrated across the response function of the ICI and directly compared to the zenith radiance observed by the ICI. In addition, the ICI uses proprietary models of the downwelling clear-sky radiance in its cloud processing algorithms. They are based on surface meteorology and precipitable water vapor (PWV). These models were validated by comparing their predicted radiances to those derived from radiative transfer models of the ARM radiosondes. Finally, PWV observations derived from the ICI's onboard GNSS-based PWV retrieval system were compared against those from the microwave radiometer. This dataset contains the ICI radiance and cloud data products.

Atmosphere↗

Evaluation of WRF-Solar Cloud Forecast Using the NSRDB: Preprint

Cloud forecast is a crucial component in predicting solar irradiance from numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. Assessing cloud properties from the NWP models requires significant work due to the need for high-quality data, spatial analysis covering model extent, and detailed analysis of model performance for different types of clouds. This study presents an evaluation of the WRF-Solar cloud forecast using the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB). We propose an evaluation framework applied to a single model prediction as well as ensemble-based forecasts. Various cloud detection metrics are calculated when comparing with the satellite-derived dataset. The mismatched clouds from the WRF-Solar model are quantified using nine cloud types classified by cloud top height and cloud optical depth. The results based on the WRF-Solar forecasts covering the entire U.S. for the full year of 2018 shows mismatched cloud frequency in the range of 8% - 46% for thick and high-level (deep convective) to thin and low-level (cumulus) clouds.

cloud mask forecast↗