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At least 1,027 records · Page 57

Application of end-of-shift respirable crystalline silica monitoring to construction

A pilot project was conducted to determine the effect of common construction dusts as interferences in a new portable end-of-shift (EoS), direct-on-filter (DoF) sampling and analysis method for respirable crystalline silica (RCS), in this case, quartz. Construction dusts were prepared from plaster, drywall, cement and brick by grinding, aerosolizing, and collecting respirable dust with high flow rate cyclones. Filters were loaded with different levels of commercial α-quartz powder Min-u-Sil 5, and different levels of interfering dusts, singly and in combination. Samples were analyzed by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). Good correlations were found between nominal quartz loading (0 µg, 25 µg, 50 µg, and 100 µg) adjusted for quartz in the interfering dust and FTIR absorbance alone and in the presence of all interfering dusts. The slopes of the correlations were similar whether the loading was quartz without interference, or with plaster, drywall, and cement dusts, regardless of quantity. The results show that (a) plaster and drywall dusts do not interfere substantially; (b) cement does not interfere, but a change in the intercept suggests an effect on the background absorbance of the filter; and (c) in addition to having a substantial quartz content, brick dust contains an additional material, probably a silicate mineral, which interferes with the quartz peak. Thus, the presence of cement leads to lower quartz values and brick leads to higher values, but overall, 83% of the quartz contents predicted from the calibration data agreed within 50% of the adjusted nominal loadings within the range 20–110 µg. This result is encouraging given the high levels of interfering dusts. Nine samples loaded with smaller amounts of all four dusts together gave results within 25% of the adjusted nominal loadings. A single mixture addition of the dusts to the filter gave tighter variance in results than sequential additions. Unexpectedly, the two Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) 1878a and 1878b, gave different results when used to calibrate XRD analysis of Min-u-Sil 5.

42 ENGINEERING↗

CORRELATION ANALYSIS BETWEEN TIBET AS-γ TeV COSMIC RAY AND WMAP NINE-YEAR DATA

The WMAP team subtracted template-based foreground models to produce foreground-reduced maps, and masked point sources and uncertain sky regions directly; however, whether foreground residuals exist in the WMAP foreground-reduced maps is still an open question. Here, we use Pearson correlation coefficient analysis with AS-γ TeV cosmic ray (CR) data to probe possible foreground residuals in the WMAP nine-year data. The correlation results between the CR and foreground-contained maps (WMAP foreground-unreduced maps, WMAP template-based, and Maximum Entropy Method foreground models) suggest that: (1) CRs can trace foregrounds in the WMAP data; (2) at least some TeV CRs originate from the Milky Way; (3) foregrounds may be related to the existence of CR anisotropy (loss-cone and tail-in structures); (4) there exist differences among different types of foregrounds in the decl. range of <15°. Then, we generate 10,000 mock cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky maps to describe the cosmic variance, which is used to measure the effect of the fluctuations of all possible CMB maps to the correlations between CR and CMB maps. Finally, we do correlation analysis between the CR and WMAP foreground-reduced maps, and find that: (1) there are significant anticorrelations; and (2) the WMAP foreground-reduced maps are credible. However, the significant anticorrelations may be accidental, and the higher signal-to-noise ratio Planck SMICA map cannot reject the hypothesis of accidental correlations. We therefore can only conclude that the foreground residuals exist with ∼95% probability.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Analysis of Shutdown Dose Rate in Fusion Energy Systems Using Hybrid Monte Carlo/Deterministic Techniques - Paper 138

Accurate assessments of shutdown dose rate (SDDR) are critical to support operation, maintenance, and waste disposal planning and to guide possible design changes of critical components in fusion energy systems. An SDDR calculation involves three steps: 1. a neutron transport calculation to determine the space and energy neutron flux distributions, 2. an activation calculation for computing the photon source distribution, and 3. a photon transport calculation for the estimation of the final SDDR. A companion paper describes the challenges of SDDR computations in fusion energy systems and the status of the techniques that are currently being used in SDDR analysis. Of these techniques, the rigorous 2-step (R2S) computational system entails Monte Carlo (MC) neutron and photon transport calculations coupled with a comprehensive activation step using a dedicated inventory code and library. The use of global MC variance reduction techniques was suggested for accelerating the SDDR MC neutron transport calculation. These techniques, which attempt to calculate MC tallies with nearly uniform relative uncertainties in both the low-flux space-energy regions and the high-flux space-energy regions, do not preferentially focus the MC computational efforts toward space-energy regions of high importance to the final decay dose. The ability of these approaches to accurately predict SDDR is inhibited by their prohibitive computational costs, which will be on the order of thousands of processor-years for full-scale modeling of an entire fusion plant. The companion paper describes the theoretical background of the Multi-Step Consistent Adjoint Driven Importance Sampling (MS-CADIS) method, which has been proposed to speed up SDDR MC neutron calculations. The MS-CADIS method uses the CADIS method, which has been successfully used for more than a decade in shielding calculations, but focuses on multistep shielding calculations such as SDDR analyses. The companion paper also describes a new method for calculating the uncertainties in SDDR due to uncertainties in the MC neutron calculation. This new method of uncertainty propagation uses the MS-CADIS neutron adjoint source to propagate the uncertainties in the neutron fluxes to the SDDR. This paper describes the application of the MS-CADIS method for speeding up the SDDR MC calculations and for calculating the SDDR uncertainty due to the neutron flux uncertainties. A new metric for assessing the reliability of SDDR calculations was also suggested and used in this analysis. The ITER benchmark problem was used in this analysis. The problem resembles the configuration and geometrical arrangement of an upper port plug in ITER. The analysis compared the efficiency of the MS-CADIS method to the traditional approach of using global MC variance reduction techniques for speeding up SDDR MC neutron calculation. The application of the MS-CADIS method to SDDR calculations in fusion energy systems was tested using the ITER benchmark problem. Compared to the standard FW-CADIS method, the increase in the efficiency of the SDDR neutron MC calculation due to the use of the MS-CADIS method was between 18% and 69%. The MS-CADIS method also increases the fraction of non-zero-scoring mesh tally elements in the space-energy regions of high importance to the final SDDR. Implementation of the MS-CADIS method in the SCALE and the ADVANTG code systems is currently under way. (authors)

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

Temporal Variability of Observed and Simulated Hyperspectral Earth Reflectance

The Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) is a climate observation system designed to study Earth's climate variability with unprecedented absolute radiometric accuracy and SI traceability. Observation System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) were developed using GCM output and MODTRAN to simulate CLARREO reflectance measurements during the 21st century as a design tool for the CLARREO hyperspectral shortwave imager. With OSSE simulations of hyperspectral reflectance, Feldman et al. [2011a,b] found that shortwave reflectance is able to detect changes in climate variables during the 21st century and improve time-to-detection compared to broadband measurements. The OSSE has been a powerful tool in the design of the CLARREO imager and for understanding the effect of climate change on the spectral variability of reflectance, but it is important to evaluate how well the OSSE simulates the Earth's present-day spectral variability. For this evaluation we have used hyperspectral reflectance measurements from the Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography (SCIAMACHY), a shortwave spectrometer that was operational between March 2002 and April 2012. To study the spectral variability of SCIAMACHY-measured and OSSE-simulated reflectance, we used principal component analysis (PCA), a spectral decomposition technique that identifies dominant modes of variability in a multivariate data set. Using quantitative comparisons of the OSSE and SCIAMACHY PCs, we have quantified how well the OSSE captures the spectral variability of Earth?s climate system at the beginning of the 21st century relative to SCIAMACHY measurements. These results showed that the OSSE and SCIAMACHY data sets share over 99% of their total variance in 2004. Using the PCs and the temporally distributed reflectance spectra projected onto the PCs (PC scores), we can study the temporal variability of the observed and simulated reflectance spectra. Multivariate time series analysis of the PC scores using techniques such as Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) and Multichannel SSA will provide information about the temporal variability of the dominant variables. Quantitative comparison techniques can evaluate how well the OSSE reproduces the temporal variability observed by SCIAMACHY spectral reflectance measurements during the first decade of the 21st century. PCA of OSSE-simulated reflectance can also be used to study how the dominant spectral variables change on centennial scales for forced and unforced climate change scenarios. To have confidence in OSSE predictions of the spectral variability of hyperspectral reflectance, it is first necessary for us to evaluate the degree to which the OSSE simulations are able to reproduce the Earth?s present-day spectral variability.

Roberts, Yolanda↗

Influences of drizzle on stratocumulus cloudiness and organization [Influences of drizzle on cloudiness and stratocumulus organization]

Large-eddy simulations are used to study the influence of drizzle on stratocumulus organization, based on measurements made as part of the Second Dynamics and Chemistry of the Marine Stratocumulus field study-II. Cloud droplet number concentration ( N c ) is prescribed and considered as the proxy for different aerosol loadings. Our study shows that the amount of cloudiness does not decrease linearly with precipitation rate. An N c threshold is observed below which the removal of cloud water via precipitation efficiently reduces cloud depth, allowing evaporation to become efficient and quickly remove the remaining thin clouds, facilitating a fast transition from closed cells to open cells. Using Fourier analysis, stratocumulus length scales are found to increase with drizzle rates. Raindrop evaporation below 300 m lowers the cloud bases and amplifies moisture variances in the subcloud layer, while it does not alter the horizontal scales in the cloud layer, suggesting that moist cold pool dynamic forcings are not essential for mesoscale organization of stratocumulus. Furthermore, the cloud scales are greatly increased when the boundary layer is too deep to maintain well mixed.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

On a Homogenization Problem

We study the average Green’s function of stochastic, uniformly elliptic operators of divergence form on Zdℤ{sup d}. When the randomness is independent and has small variance, we prove regularity of the Fourier transform of the self-energy. The proof relies on the Schur complement formula and the analysis of singular integral operators combined with a Steinhaus system.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Predicting non-linear stress–strain response of mesostructured cellular materials using supervised autoencoder

Recent breakthroughs in advanced manufacturing capabilities have made it possible to design and print sophisticated topologies of cellular structures using diverse engineering materials such as metals, polymers, and ceramics. In these architectured materials, it is often desirable to tailor the mechanical properties by altering the unit cell topology. This necessitates an in-depth understanding of how the topology of the unit cell structure affects the macroscopic behavior of the material in both the linear and the non-linear regimes encountered under large compression. Here, we have developed a machine learning (ML) approach capable of accelerating the prediction of the stress–strain response of a polymer-based cellular structure under uniaxial confined compression. As part of generating the training data for ML, 60,000 mesostructures were generated using a relatively novel approach based on cellular automata, and their corresponding stress–strain responses were obtained from the finite element simulations. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce the dimensionality of the stress–strain curves. With only 20 principal components, PCA captured 99.89% of the variance in the stress–strain curves while reducing the dimensionality by 5X. ML using supervised autoencoder was able to successfully speed up the prediction of the non-linear stress–strain response of a unit cell by up to 4600X. The proposed method can serve as an efficient data generation tool and a rapid means for predicting the structure–property relationship through accelerated forward modeling of cellular materials under compaction, in cases where the macroscopic stress–strain response is governed by the unit-cell topology.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Synergistic epistasis enhances the co-operativity of mutualistic interspecies interactions

Abstract Early evolution of mutualism is characterized by big and predictable adaptive changes, including the specialization of interacting partners, such as through deleterious mutations in genes not required for metabolic cross-feeding. We sought to investigate whether these early mutations improve cooperativity by manifesting in synergistic epistasis between genomes of the mutually interacting species. Specifically, we have characterized evolutionary trajectories of syntrophic interactions of Desulfovibrio vulgaris (Dv) with Methanococcus maripaludis (Mm) by longitudinally monitoring mutations accumulated over 1000 generations of nine independently evolved communities with analysis of the genotypic structure of one community down to the single-cell level. We discovered extensive parallelism across communities despite considerable variance in their evolutionary trajectories and the perseverance within many evolution lines of a rare lineage of Dv that retained sulfate-respiration (SR+) capability, which is not required for metabolic cross-feeding. An in-depth investigation revealed that synergistic epistasis across pairings of Dv and Mm genotypes had enhanced cooperativity within SR− and SR+ assemblages, enabling their coexistence within the same community. Thus, our findings demonstrate that cooperativity of a mutualism can improve through synergistic epistasis between genomes of the interacting species, enabling the coexistence of mutualistic assemblages of generalists and their specialized variants.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Development of taste sensor system for differentiation of Indonesian herbal medicines

In Indonesia, herbal medicines are usually produced by small and medium enterprises which are relatively low in quality control. The purpose of this paper is to report that we have developed a taste sensor system with global selectivity, i.e., electronic tongue (e-tongue) for differentiation of Indonesian herbal medicines. The e-tongue was composed of five kinds of ion selective electrodes as working electrodes, data acquisition system, and pattern recognition system. Each ion selective electrode (ISE) was built by attaching lipid/polymer membrane. For this purpose, the five kinds of membranes were built by mixing lipid, plasticizer (nitrophenyl octyl ether/NPOE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and tetrahydrofuran (THF). In this study, we employed five kinds of lipid, namely oleic acid (OA), dioctyl phosphate (DOP), decyl alcohol (DA), dodecylamine (DDC), and trioctyl methyl ammonium chloride (TOMA). In this case, the membranes transform information of taste substances into electric signal. The five kinds of Indonesian herbal medicine were purchased from local supermarket in Yogyakarta, i.e., kunyit asam (made from turmeric and tamarind), beras kencur (made from rice and kencur), jahe wangi (made from ginger and fragrance), sirih wangi (made from betel leaf), and temulawak (made from Javanese ginger). Prior to detecting the taste from the Indonesian herbal medicine samples, each ion selective electrode was tested with five basic taste samples, i.e., for saltiness, sweetness, umami, bitterness, and sourness. All ISEs showed global selectivity to all samples. Furthermore, the array of ISEs showed specific response pattern to each Indonesian herbal medicine. For pattern recognition system, we employed principle component analysis (PCA). As a result, the e-tongue was able to differentiate five kinds of Indonesian herbal medicines, proven by the total variance of first and second principle components is about 93%. For the future, the e-tongue may be developed for quality control application in herbal medicine industries.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

SU-F-J-199: Predictive Models for Cone Beam CT-Based Online Verification of Pencil Beam Scanning Proton Therapy

Purpose: To utilize online CBCT scans to develop models for predicting DVH metrics in proton therapy of head and neck tumors. Methods: Nine patients with locally advanced oropharyngeal cancer were retrospectively selected in this study. Deformable image registration was applied to the simulation CT, target volumes, and organs at risk (OARs) contours onto each weekly CBCT scan. Intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT) treatment plans were created on the simulation CT and forward calculated onto each corrected CBCT scan. Thirty six potentially predictive metrics were extracted from each corrected CBCT. These features include minimum/maximum/mean over and under-ranges at the proximal and distal surface of PTV volumes, and geometrical and water equivalent distance between PTV and each OARs. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce the dimension of the extracted features. Three principal components were found to account for over 90% of variances in those features. Datasets from eight patients were used to train a machine learning model to fit these principal components with DVH metrics (dose to 95% and 5% of PTV, mean dose or max dose to OARs) from the forward calculated dose on each corrected CBCT. The accuracy of this model was verified on the datasets from the 9th patient. Results: The predicted changes of DVH metrics from the model were in good agreement with actual values calculated on corrected CBCT images. Median differences were within 1 Gy for most DVH metrics except for larynx and constrictor mean dose. However, a large spread of the differences was observed, indicating additional training datasets and predictive features are needed to improve the model. Conclusion: Intensity corrected CBCT scans hold the potential to be used for online verification of proton therapy and prediction of delivered dose distributions.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Turbulence in The Marine Boundary Layer and Air Motions Below Stratocumulus Clouds at the ARM Eastern North Atlantic Site

Marine stratocumulus clouds are intimately coupled to the turbulence in the boundary layer and drizzle is known to be ubiquitous within them. Six years of data collected at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM)’s Eastern North Atlantic site are utilized to characterize turbulence in the marine boundary layer and air motions below stratocumulus clouds. Profiles of variance of vertical velocity binned by wind direction (wdir) yielded that the boundary layer measurements are affected by the island when the wdir is between 90° and 310° (measured clockwise from North where air is coming from). Data collected during the marine conditions (wdir<90 or wdir>310) showed that the variance of vertical velocity was higher during the winter months than during the summer months due to higher cloudiness, wind speeds, and surface fluxes. Furthermore, during marine conditions the variance of vertical velocity and cloud fraction exhibited a distinct diurnal cycle with higher values during the nighttime than during the daytime. Detailed analysis of 32 cases of drizzling marine stratocumulus clouds showed that for a similar amount of radiative cooling at the cloud top, within the sub-cloud layer 1) drizzle increasingly falls within downdrafts with increasing rain rates, 2) the strength of the downdrafts increases with increasing rain rates, and 3) the correlation between vertical air motion and rain rate is highest in the middle of the sub-cloud layer. The results presented herein have implications for climatological and model evaluation studies conducted at the ENA site, along with efforts of accurately representing drizzle-turbulence interactions in a range of atmospheric models.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Alkaline-SDS cell lysis of microbes with acetone protein precipitation for proteomic sample preparation in 96-well plate format

Plate-based proteomic sample preparation offers a solution to the large sample throughput demands in the biotechnology field where hundreds or thousands of engineered microbes are constructed for testing is routine. Meanwhile, sample preparation methods that work efficiently on broader microbial groups are desirable for new applications of proteomics in other fields, such as microbial communities. Here, we detail a step-by-step protocol that consists of cell lysis in an alkaline chemical buffer (NaOH/SDS) followed by protein precipitation with high-ionic strength acetone in 96-well format. The protocol works for a broad range of microbes ( e . g ., Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria, non-filamentous fungi) and the resulting proteins are ready for tryptic digestion for bottom-up quantitative proteomic analysis without the need for desalting column cleanup. The yield of protein using this protocol increases linearly with respect to the amount of starting biomass from 0.5–2.0 OD*mL of cells. By using a bench-top automated liquid dispenser, a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly option to eliminating pipette tips and reducing reagent waste, the protocol takes approximately 30 minutes to extract protein from 96 samples. Tests on mock mixtures showed expected results that the biomass composition structure is in close agreement with the experimental design. Lastly, we applied the protocol for the composition analysis of a synthetic community of environmental isolates grown on two different media. This protocol has been developed to facilitate rapid, low-variance sample preparation of hundreds of samples and allow flexibility for future protocol development.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Advanced Algorithms for Scrutiny of Mandatory State Reports Declarations to the IAEA (Final Project Report)

In compliance with their Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements, based on INFCIRC/153 (corrected) (International Atomic Energy Agency, 1972), States Party to the Treaty on the NonProliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) are obligated to declare to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) all changes in their nuclear material inventory as well as movement of the material across boundaries of IAEA recognized material balance areas (MBA), inventories and nuclear material balances. This project addresses capabilities to detect irregularities in State reports, thus ensuring their accuracy and completeness, and in the broader context, States’ compliance with safeguards obligations of the NPT. A recent study (Henzl et al., 2022) (lead by this project’s PI) demonstrated how analysis of dynamic correlations in nuclear material movement within the entire fuel cycle of a State (viewed as a single system) can reveal variances consistent with and indicative of “irregular” activities. Expanding on this concept, novel ways to analyze State declarations themselves—again, for the State as a whole entity—will help the IAEA draw accurate safeguards conclusions and trust the validity and authenticity of Stategenerated declaration reports. Introducing new declaration analyses capabilities explored in this project will help to provide credible assurance of both the non-diversion of nuclear material from declared activities and of the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in the State in general.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

Analysis of surface moisture variations within large field sites

A statistical analysis was made on ground soils to define the general relationship and ranges of values of the field moisture relative to both the variance and coefficient of variation for a given test site and depth increment. The results of the variability study show that: (1) moisture variations within any given large field area are inherent and can either be controlled nor reduced; (2) neither a single value of the standard deviation nor coefficient of variation uniquely define the variability over the complete range of mean field moisture contents examined; and (3) using an upper bound standard deviation parameter clearly defines the maximum range of anticipated moisture variability. 87 percent of all large field moisture content standard deviations were less than 3 percent while about 96 percent of all the computed values had an upper bound of sigma=4 percent for these intensively sampled fields. The limit of accuracy curves of mean soil moisture measurements for large field sites relative to the required number of samples were determined.

Bell, K. R.↗

Observation of muons from Cygnus X-3 in the NUSEX experiment

Ground based observations by means of Cerenkov light detectors and air shower arrays have established that Cyngus X-3 is a powerful source of high energy particles. The detection of a 10 to the 15th power eV signal was first reported by the Kiel experiment. Air showers with large age parameter were accepted in order to select those generated by primary gamma rays. At variance with the expectation, the muon density associated with these events was found to be surprisingly high. This puzzling result stimulated a temporal analysis of the muons recorded in Nucleon Stability Experiment (NUSEX) coming from the region around the source. A positive signal was found suggesting the presentation of this result. The analysis of the data recorded during the 2.4 years of effective working time is presented with a fine tuning of the period and the energy spectrum of the muons from the Cygnus X-3 direction derived assuming consistency between NUSEX and SOUDAN results.

Piazzoli, B. D.↗

A comment on the suspected solar neutrino -- solar activity connection

Recently, it has been proposed that there exists a highly statistically significant (at greater than or equal to 98% level of confidence) relationship between Ar-37 production rate (namely, solar neutrinos) and the Ap geomagnetic index (namely, solar particles), based on the chi-square goodness-of-fit test and correlation analysis, for the interval 1970-1990. While a relationship between the two parameters, indeed, seems to be discernible, the strength of the relationship has been overstated. Instead of being significant at the afore-mentioned level of confidence, the relationship is found to be significant at only greater than or equal to 95% level of confidence, based on Yates' modification to the chi-square test for 2 x 2 contingency tables. Likewise, while correlation analysis yields a value of r = 0.2691, it is important to note that such a value suggests that only about 7% of the variance can be 'explained' by the inferred correlation and that the remaining 93% of the variance must be attributed to other sources.

Wilson, Robert M.↗

A Comment on the Suspected Solar Neutrino-Solar Activity Connection

Recently, it has been proposed that there exists a highly statistically significant (at greater than or equal to 98% level of confidence) relationship between Ar-37 production rate (viz., solar neutrinos) and the Ap geomagnetic index (viz., solar particles), based on the (chi)-square goodness-of-fit test and correlation analysis, for the interval 1970-1990. While a relationship between the two parameters, indeed, seems to be discernible, the strength of the relationship has been overstated. Instead of being significant at the afore-mentioned level of confidence, the relationship is found to be significant at only greater than or equal to 95% level of confidence, based on Yates' modification to the (chi)-square test for 2 x 2 contingency tables. Likewise, while correlation analysis yields a value of r = 0.2691, it is important to note that such a value suggests that only about 7% of the variance can be 'explained' by the inferred correlation and that the remaining 93% of the variance must be attributed to other sources.

Wilson, Robert M.↗