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At least 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Enhancing integrated analysis of national and global goal pursuit by endogenizing economic productivity

Analysis with integrated assessment models (IAMs) and multisector dynamics models (MSDs) of global and national challenges and opportunities, including pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), requires projections of economic growth. In turn, the pursuit of multiple interacting goals affects economic productivity and growth, generating complex feedback loops among actions and objectives. Yet, most analysis uses either exogenous projections of productivity and growth or specifications endogenously enriched with a very small set of drivers. Extending endogenous treatment of productivity to represent two-way interactions with a significant set of goal-related variables can considerably enhance analysis. Among such variables incorporated in this project are aspects of human development (e.g., education, health, poverty reduction), socio-political change (e.g., governance capacity and quality), and infrastructure (e.g. water and sanitation and modern energy access), all in conditional interaction with underlying technological advance and economic convergence among countries. Using extensive datasets across countries and time, this project broadly endogenizes total factor productivity (TFP) within a large-scale, multi-issue IAM, the International Futures (IFs) model system. We demonstrate the utility of the resultant open system via comparison of new TFP projections with those produced for Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) scenarios, via integrated analysis of economic growth potential, and via multi-scenario analysis of progress toward the SDGs. We find that the integrated system can reproduce existing SSP projections, help anticipate differential economic progress across countries, and facilitate extended, integrated analysis of trade-offs and synergies in pursuit of the SDGs.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Compilation of a Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog and Relocations in the Caucasus Region

Instrumental seismic monitoring has a long history in the Caucasus and started in 1899 when the first seismograph was installed in Tbilisi, Georgia. Much of the analog paper records from this time period are preserved in the Tbilisi archives because Georgia served as the regional data center. In the 1990s, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the political turmoil in the region, the analog networks and the communication between the newly formed national networks deteriorated. In Georgia, for the next 13 yr, the seismic network coverage was poor until the 2002 Tbilisi earthquake. Following this earthquake, the first permanent digital seismic station in Georgia was established in Tbilisi in 2003. The digital era progressively improved the ability to collect and archive data and today more than a hundred broadband seismic stations (including temporary arrays) are operating in the southern Caucasus. Until recently, the region lacked a coordinated effort to catalog all analog and digital era data collected by different countries into a single repository. As a result of collaboration between Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Ilia State University, and the Republican Seismic Survey Center of Azerbaijan, a comprehensive earthquake catalog was compiled for the Caucasus and neighboring areas as part of a broader probabilistic seismic hazard assessment project. Here this project digitized Soviet-era paper bulletins, compiled a unified earthquake catalog from regional bulletins, developed 1D reference velocity model, and used it to relocate the events. The final catalog contains 16,963 events with magnitudes 3.7 and above, bringing together all the available data sets in the Caucasus region from 1900 to 2015, significantly improving locations, and generating the most complete earthquake catalog in the region, temporally and geographically.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

From Text to Maps: LLM-Driven Extraction and Geotagging of Epidemiological Data

Epidemiological datasets are essential for public health analysis and decision-making, yet they remain scarce and often difficult to compile due to inconsistent data formats, language barriers, and evolving political boundaries. Traditional methods of creating such datasets involve extensive manual effort and are prone to errors in accurate location extraction. To address these challenges, we propose utilizing large language models (LLMs) to automate the extraction and geotagging of epidemiological data from textual documents. Our approach significantly reduces the manual effort required, limiting human intervention to validating a subset of records against text snippets and verifying the geotagging reasoning, as opposed to reviewing multiple entire documents manually to extract, clean, and geotag. Additionally, the LLMs identify information often overlooked by human annotators, further enhancing the dataset’s completeness. Our findings demonstrate that LLMs can be effectively used to semi-automate the extraction and geotagging of epidemiological data, offering several key advantages: (1) comprehensive information extraction with minimal risk of missing critical details; (2) minimal human intervention; (3) higher-resolution data with more precise geotagging; and (4) significantly reduced resource demands compared to traditional methods.

Harrod, Karly↗
DOE OSTI2024

helios: An R package to process heating and cooling degrees for GCAM

helios is an open-source R package that estimates population-weighted heating and cooling degree-hours (HDH and CDH) and degree-days (HDD and CDD) at various temporal (e.g., energy dispatch segments, monthly, yearly) and spatial scales (e.g., U.S. states, global political regions, countries). The degree hour and degree day outputs from helios are used to inform electricity demand load in the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM) as well as in GCAM-USA (which is the version of GCAM with U.S. state-level details). helios uses a workflow with four steps: processing raw data; calculating heating and cooling degrees; visualizing performance diagnostics; and outputing results in various formats. There are two sources of widely-used climate data compatible with helios: (1) hourly climate data with 12-km resolution that are dynamically downscaled with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and projected using a thermal global warming (TGW) approach; and (2) daily climate data with 0.5-degree resolution from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) that is bias-adjusted and statistical downscaled by the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP). In summary, helios is a model that standardizes methodology of heating and cooling degrees-hours and degree-days using publicly available data and advance the understanding of the impact of spatial and temporal temperature variability on building energy services.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Karuk Climate Resiliency Plan

Statewide, California is the hottest and driest since modern record keeping has taken place. Among the most urgent of the local dimensions of climate change in Karuk Ancestral Territory is the increased frequency of high-severity fire. The 2016 Karuk Climate Vulnerability Assessment (CVA) outlines how these influences have created landscape conditions that hold the potential to be devastating in the face of future high-severity fire events. The project followed the format of our CVA and furthers information garnered to accomplish two primary objectives. The Karuk Tribe developed a Climate Adaptation Plan to address established vulnerabilities to Tribal traditional foods and cultural use species, Tribal program infrastructure, and Tribal management authority and political status resulting from changing conditions with a focus on increased frequency of high-intensity wildfire events within the Karuk Ancestral Territory.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Distributed Resources for the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) Advanced Management (DREAM). Final Report

Distributed Resources for the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) Advanced Management (DREAM) is a proposed system that will enable data from an infinite number of diverse sources to be organized and accessed from anywhere using any handheld or other computer device. The approach offers a powerful roadmap for the creation and integration of a unified knowledge base of an entire ecosystem, including its many geophysical, geographical, social, political, agricultural, energy, transportation, and cyber aspects. The resulting aggregation of data has the potential to generate an informational universe of unprecedented size that has never before been possible due to the prohibitive costs, managerial complexity, and technical barriers associated with ever-changing exponential-growth data flows. We envision that DREAM will accelerate discovery by enabling climate researchers, among other types of researchers, to manage, analyze, and visualize data from earth-scale measurements and simulations. DREAM’s success will be built on proven components that leverage existing services and resources. A key building block for DREAM will be the ESGF, chaired by Dean N. Williams. Expanding on the existing ESGF, the project will ensure that the access, storage, movement, and analysis of the large quantities of data that are processed and produced by diverse science projects can be dynamically distributed with proper resource management. Much of the Office of Science data is currently generated by multiple stand-alone facilities. DREAM can collect data accumulated from these facilities and incorporate it into a fully integrated network accessible from anywhere in the world. The result is a completely new paradigm shift for data management, analysis, and visualization enabling researchers to: Manage their calculations, data, tools, and research results; Ensure that all data are sharable, reproducible and (re)usable—accompanied by appropriate metadata describing its provenance, syntax, and semantics at creation; Advance application performance by selectively adapting APIs and services in response to scientific requirements and architectural complexities; and Provide scalable interactive resource management—navigate data and metadata at multiple levels, provide architecture-aware data integration, analysis and visualization tools. We will engage closely with DOE, NASA, and NOAA science groups working at the leading edge of computing. These engagements—in domains such as biology, climate, and hydrology—will allow us to advance disciplinary science goals and inform our development of technologies that can accelerate discovery across DOE more broadly. We will advertise and promote our technologies via dedicated workshops, tutorials, and sessions at conferences, stand-alone events with broad inter-disciplinary invitation, and engagements with leadership facilities.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Technical Cooperation on Verification and its Role in Trust Building

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it will demonstrate how technical cooperation on verification contributed to the softening of tensions and the improvement of trust between the United States and the Soviet Union. Because the scope of this endeavor is too broad to be adequately considered in the length of this work, the primary focus will be on the private and public partnerships on seismic and hydroacoustic test ban treaty verification that were forged between Soviet and American scientists from 1986-1988. In order to orient the analysis within the political-scientific landscape of the time, the discussion begins with a brief description of the arms control landscape in the early 1980s, including both the stances of the Reagan and Gorbachev administrations vis a vis nuclear test ban verification. The section concludes with an analysis of the two primary US-USSR collaborative projects in this key sphere – the test ban verification project conducted by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Soviet Academy of Sciences (SAS) and the Joint Verification Experiment (JVE) between the US and Soviet National Laboratories.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2020

Domestic Supply Chain of Medical Consumables Needed During COVID-19 Pandemic

This report is an assessment of the availability, demand, and production capability of medical consumables needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus here on the ability of the supply chain to increase production to meet demand during peak pandemic conditions. In addition, we report on domestic production efforts and supply chain issues, as well as the propensity of other countries to limit export of needed medical supplies to the United States. In brief, the domestic supply chain and production capability vary greatly depending on the consumable. Some consumables, such as N95 masks or face shields, can likely be nearly fully supplied by domestic production, while other consumables, such as gloves or surgical masks, have little domestic production and thus will depend on imports to meet demand. The assessment pulls primarily from published news sources and company press releases. As such, the demand and production numbers are not precisely known, and some degree of uncertainty exists in them. The total production capability is also often difficult to ascertain from these reports especially as other industries have begun to supplement existing supply chains. In addition, local conditions (including company financial decisions, local public health issues, and political aspects) can vary throughout the pandemic which will affect future production. The report also pulls from estimates of demand and domestic production of some consumables compiled by the White House COVID-19 Supply Chain Taskforce (SCTF) presented by Rear Admiral John Polowczyk before a June 9, 2020 hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. These numbers, where applicable, are likely to be more accurate than those found in public news sources since they are more directly tied to private companies’ actual orders and actual production estimates, as opposed to publicly released estimates. Finally, we note that other issues with the supply chain, including the production of raw materials, increase demand due to industries that have not previously used PPE now using it, and increased domestic production from non-traditional suppliers, make complete picture of a rapidly changing supply chain difficult to obtain. This report attempts to produce an accurate image of the supply and estimated demand, as understood by the authors who are not experts in the medical supply chain.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

SEDONA: SpEctroscopic Detection of Nerve Agents

Los Alamos National Laboratory developed the only portable screener to accurately detect the chemical nerve agents, providing results in seconds. Current airport detection system cannot scan for the threat of organophosphorus nerve agents and insecticides. Small quantities of these toxic chemicals can very quickly cause widespread exposure and severe symptoms. SEDONA screens through an unopened bottle using the principles of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The system could be deployed and operated with minimal training. SEDONA dramatically reduces the likelihood of a successful nerve agent attack at airports, government buildings, embassies, sporting events, concerts, and political rallies.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Thinking the Other Unthinkable: Disarmament in North Korea and Beyond

The P5 have defined nuclear disarmament as both a process and an end state. Differences of view about the latter are sharp, bitter, and abiding. This has stripped the discussion about the former of much of its potential content and value. Where might we get, practically and conceptually, if we were to set aside for now questions about the ultimate feasibility and desirability of the long-term goal and focus instead on the process? Further, what if we were also to posit that there will be no “fundamental transformation” of the international political system of a kind that would make the nuclear-armed states, and their unarmed neighbors, unconcerned about the effectiveness of mechanisms for peace and security in a disarmed and disarming world? In this context, might it be possible to give states the confidence they would require to take more ambitious incremental steps on the disarmament pathway? How could such steps contribute to the relaxation of international tensions that the NPT itself describes as a critical enabler of disarmament? These questions motivate this timely and innovative new work by Toby Dalton and George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Their core objective is to “infuse needed realism into disarmament discussions.” Using North Korean disarmament as a test case, they explore a series of practical challenges and associated conceptual issues to frame a discussion of the possible disarming nucleararmed states. They begin by rightly noting that neither the advocates of the Ban treaty nor the advocates of North Korean disarmament have set our practical agendas for achieving their aims. They conclude that without an infusion of realism the “two polarized blocks” will continue to “stonewall and repel each other” and thus that “the risks of global nuclear disorder will grow.” This is the latest in the series of Livermore Papers begun in 2017 to stimulate the development of new strategic thought on emerging nuclear challenges. Conceptually, it is a follow-on to the inaugural Livermore Paper by Lewis Dunn on disarmament pathways. The views expressed in these papers are those of the authors and should not be attributed to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or any of its sponsors.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Securing Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

As the US electrifies the transportation sector, cyber attacks targeting vehicle charging could bring consequences to electrical system infrastructure. This is a growing area of concern as charging stations increase power delivery and must communicate to a range of entities to authorize charging, sequence the charging process, and manage load (grid operators, vehicles, OEM vendors, charging network operators, etc.). The research challenges are numerous and are complicated because there are many end users, stakeholders, and software and equipment vendors interests involved. Poorly implemented electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE), electric vehicle (EV), or grid communication system cybersecurity could be a significant risk to EV adoption because the political, social, and financial impact of cyberattacks - or public perception of such - ripples across the industry and has lasting and devastating effects. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive EVSE cybersecurity approach and limited best practices have been adopted by the EV/EVSE industry. There is an incomplete industry understanding of the attack surface, interconnected assets, and unsecured interfaces. Thus, comprehensive cybersecurity recommendations founded on sound research are necessary to secure EV charging infrastructure. This project is providing the power, security, and automotive industry with a strong technical basis for securing this infrastructure by developing threat models, determining technology gaps, and identifying or developing effective countermeasures. Specifically, the team is creating a cybersecurity threat model and performing a technical risk assessment of EVSE assets, so that automotive, charging, and utility stakeholders can better protect customers, vehicles, and power systems in the face of new cyber threats.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Thirty Minutes Before the Dawn

The Trinity test of July 16, 1945, marked the scientific apex of the Manhattan Project. Often recognized as the symbolic birth of the nuclear age, Trinity’s multifaceted legacy remains just as captivating and complex today as it did 75 years ago. This paper examines why the test was necessary from a technical standpoint, shows how Los Alamos scientists planned the event, and explores the physical and emotional aftermaths of Trinity. The author also uses rarely accessed original records to reconstruct the story of Trinity’s health hazards, as seen through the eyes of radiation technicians and medical doctors as events unfolded. Trinity was conducted as the Potsdam Conference began, weeks after the collapse of Nazi Germany. It was considered necessary to let President Harry S. Truman know whether the United States possessed a nuclear capability ahead of his negotiations with Joseph Stalin, the Soviet premier. The author examines the competing priorities that drove the timetable for the test: international politics, security, and safety. Three weeks after Trinity, a gun-assembled enriched-uranium bomb called Little Boy was used against the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, Fat Man, a weaponized version of the imploding Trinity device, was dropped on Nagasaki. The author briefly examines these strikes and what impact they may have had on the Japanese surrender. The paper concludes by examining the legacy of the Trinity test 75 years into the age it helped usher in.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2021

China Civilian Nuclear Power Reactor Study

China is endeavoring to build nuclear power plants (NPPs) in numerous countries around the globe - an initiative that has the potential to strengthen Chinas political and economic influences on those countries. This study provides an overview of the situation and considers the issues involved in such partnerships with China. In order to assess Chinas ability to follow through with its agreements, this study also presents a technical review of its NPP production capability.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) (Field Campaign Report)

The Arctic is rapidly changing, and these changes have substantial societal relevance. First, arctic change is a leading sign of global change, as the warming observed in the Arctic is 2-3 times faster than observed across the rest of the globe. This so-called arctic amplification is due to numerous feedbacks, including those linked to the declining sea ice. Broad arctic changes are also hypothesized to be related to shifts in large-scale circulation patterns that may have implications for mid-latitude weather and ocean circulation. Arctic change is further affecting the oceans through acidification that threatens food supplies. Declining sea ice also opens the Arctic for new resource development, shipping routes, tourism, and other commercial activities. Lastly, the changing Arctic is a hotbed for geopolitical challenges as nations vie for influence and control of this resource-rich and newly accessible region. Clearly the Arctic and its changes are playing a huge role in our Earth both from a geophysical and socio-political standpoint. To navigate, manage, and respond to the challenges associated with arctic change requires a vastly improved understanding of the coupled arctic system, and the drivers and implications of these changes. It is essential to better understand the physical basis for why the arctic sea ice is declining, the associated feedbacks that work to amplify or modulate this decline, and the myriad ways that the Earth system is responding. As a result of these changes and uncertainties, there are increasing societal needs for improved model predictive skill in the Arctic, to address pressing gaps in global climate prediction, to advance forecast skills for regional and hemispheric weather and sea ice, and to ensure robust ecosystem models that realistically link physical and biological systems. To fulfill these core needs requires new, sophisticated, and cross-cutting observations within the rapidly changing arctic ice pack.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

A Review of Nuclear Forensics: 2016-2020

The study of nuclear forensics harkens back to the Manhattan Project-era, when scientists first started to analyze the debris from the 1945 Trinity test. Political turmoil stemming from the Cold War and the rehabilitation of Germany following WWII has led to new challenges in international security involving nuclear proliferation. Nuclear materials have, on occasion, been lost, misplaced, or stolen from former Soviet countries, and illicit materials have been interdicted all over the world. The National Technical Nuclear Forensics Center (NTNFC) was established in 2006, and has been at the forefront of drive to advance nuclear forensic capabilities in the United States. The ultimate goal of nuclear forensics is to examine nuclear and other radioactive materials using analytical techniques to determine origin and history of the material, particularly in the context of law enforcement investigations. Nuclear forensics can be divided into two parts: predetonation and post-detonation. Pre-detonation forensics, as the name implies, is the investigation of a nuclear material or weapon that has not been detonated or involved in an explosion, whereas postdetonation forensics is the study of activation or fission products in debris or the environment following the use of a nuclear or radiological dispersal device (RDD). Both parts require a number of analytical chemical and radiochemical techniques to determine identification of the material. Many advancements in analytical techniques, including rapidity, sample size, and forensic signatures have been made in recent years. The analytical methods that can be used in a nuclear forensic investigation, such as mass spectrometry and gamma spectroscopy, have been described in detail in previous reviews, including Straub et.al, and will not be explained here. This review will discuss recent publications (from 2016 to present) describing advancements of techniques such as radiochronometry, morphology, development of novel reference materials, and inter-laboratory collaborations for both pre- and post-detonation nuclear forensics.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

The Global Nonproliferation Regime: The NPT and Beyond

In the aftermath of WWII, the fear of nuclear war prompted the international community to confront the issue of nuclear proliferation. The global nonproliferation regime that exists today is comprised of a matrix of multilateral treaties, political commitments, and unilateral measures designed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. It has evolved considerably since the dawn of the nuclear age. This presentation covers the origins of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an introduction to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, a discussion of contemporary challenges and opportunities in the field, and an overview of the broader nonproliferation regime beyond the NPT.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2021

Europe’s energy policy based on large-scale use of renewables most likely will require supplemental power supplies to balance their electrical power systems

Political decisions toward an increased role for renewable energy sources (wind & solar) in Europe will have an impact on the functioning of the electrical power systems that will have to be offset due to the inherent intermittent nature of renewable sources. The offset can be accomplished either through increasing non-renewable energy supply and production from other means, including purchasing Russian piped natural gas and LNG, or decreasing demand by curtailing power consumption. Europe likely will also need increased energy supplies to cover reduced gas production in the North Sea and Netherlands. Also, expected disconnection of Baltic states from the BRELL (Belarus-Russia-EstoniaLatvia-Lithuania) grid will force these countries to acquire electricity from Europe, resulting in increased demands on the European power grid that will require additional capacity to offset.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Machine Learning Modeling Pipeline for Extracting Nuclear Proliferation Events of Interest from Open Data Sources (U)

In FY2020, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University entered a collaboration funded by Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development. The project’s mission was to take the first steps toward developing a demonstration prototype system that uses multiple machine learning and data analytics methods on largescale open data sources to identify new, developing, and/or undeclared nuclear programs. Given the SRNL team’s on-site perspective of events culminating in the DOE’s decision to pursue the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), the team targeted the identification of events and indicators in retrospective datasets that pointed to the activity of “fissile core fabrication at the Savannah River Site” prior to the official announcement in May of 2018. A preliminary modeling pipeline was developed in FY20 that showed the datasets contained adequate signal for continuation of efforts. In FY21, a modular demonstration prototype modeling pipeline has continued in development for two text-based data sources: a broad internet archive (Webhose Ltd.) and a decahose Twitter database (i.e., a global sampling of one in every ten Tweets). The techniques that have been developed rely on graph theory and anomaly detection to identify contextual shifts in key words and phrases at various points in time such that indicators of events of interest could be identified and subsequently, events could be extracted from the corpuses. The foundational concept behind the approaches is that contextual shifts in key words and phrases can act as indicators of events of interest. Both datasets have proven successful in extracting events of interest related to pit production at the Savannah River Site prior to the official announcement. In addition, the pipelines have generated a wide range of events broadly summarized as: the awarding of DOE contracts at major sites, DOE investments in various programs, accidents at DOE national laboratories, speculations about the fate of pit production in the DOE complex, domestic and international shipments and receipts of nuclear materials at DOE sites, termination of non-proliferation agreements with Russia, termination of MOX, new weapons development approvals/testing, nuclear posture reviews, major DOE cleanup/production milestones, political opinions, and nuclear watch groups’ opinions, among many others.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗