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At least 1,117 records · Page 62
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1990

Dynamics and configurations of galaxy triplets

The purpose is to infer the probable dynamical states of galaxy triplets by the observed data on their configurations. Two methods are proposed for describing the distributions of the triplet configuration parameters characterizing a tendency to alignment and hierarchy: (1) obtaining a representative sample of configurations and determining its statistical parameters (moments and percentages); and (2) dividing the region of possible configurations of triple systems (Agekian and Anosova, 1967) into a set of segments and finding the probabilities for the configurations to find themselves in each of them. Both these methods allow representation of the data by numerical simulations as well as observations. The effect of projection was studied. It rather overestimates the alignment and hierarchy of the triple systems. Among the parameters of interest there are found some parameters that are least sensitive to projection effects. The samples consist of simulated galaxy triplets (with hidden mass) as well as of 46 probably physical triple galaxies (Karachentseva et al., 1979). The observed triples as well as numerical models show a tendency to alignment. The triple galaxies do not show any tendency to hierarchy (formation of the temporary binaries), but this tendency may be present for simulated triplets without significant dark matter. The significant hidden mass (of order ten times the total mass of a triplet) decreases the probability of forming a binary and so weakens the hierarchy. Small galaxy groups consisting of 3 to 7 members are probably the most prevalent types of galaxy aggregate (Gorbatsky, 1987). Galaxy triplets are the simplest groups, but dynamically nontrivial ones.

Anosova, Joanna P.↗
DOE OSTI2011

Improved Quality Control Processing of Peptide-centric LC-MS Proteomics Data

In the analysis of differential peptide peak intensities (i.e., abundance measures), LC-MS analyses with poor quality peptide abundance data can bias downstream statistical analyses and hence the biological interpretation for an otherwise high quality data set. Although considerable effort has been placed on assuring the quality of the peptide identification with respect to spectral processing, to date quality assessment of the subsequent peptide abundance data matrix has been limited to a subjective visual inspection of run-by-run correlation or individual peptide components. Identifying statistical outliers is a critical step in the processing of proteomics data as many of the downstream statistical analyses (e.g., ANOVA) rely upon accurate estimates of sample variance, and their results are influenced by extreme values. Results: We describe a multivariate statistical strategy for the identification of LC-MS runs with extreme peptide abundance distributions. Comparison with current method (run-by-run correlation) demonstrates the significantly better rate of identification of outlier runs by the multivariate strategy. Simulation studies also suggest this strategy significantly outperforms correlation alone in the identification of statistically extreme LC-MS runs.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

The completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: N-body mock challenge for the eBOSS emission line galaxy sample

ABSTRACT Cosmological growth can be measured in the redshift space clustering of galaxies targeted by spectroscopic surveys. Accurate prediction of clustering of galaxies will require understanding galaxy physics, which is a very hard and highly non-linear problem. Approximate models of redshift space distortion (RSD) take a perturbative approach to solve the evolution of dark matter and galaxies in the universe. In this paper, we focus on extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic (eBOSS) emission line galaxies (ELGs) that live in intermediate mass haloes. We create a series of mock catalogues using haloes from the Multidark and outer rim dark matter only N-body simulations. Our mock catalogues include various effects inspired by baryonic physics such as assembly bias and the characteristics of satellite galaxies kinematics, dynamics, and statistics deviating from dark matter particles. We analyse these mocks using the TNS RSD model in Fourier space and the convolution Lagrangian perturbation theory (CLPT) in configuration space. We conclude that these two RSD models provide an unbiased measurement of RSD within the statistical error of our mocks. We obtain the conservative theoretical systematic uncertainty of $3.3{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, $1.8{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, and $1.5{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ in fσ8, α∥, and α⊥, respectively, for the TNS and CLPT models. We note that the estimated theoretical systematic error is an order of magnitude smaller than the statistical error of the eBOSS ELG sample and hence are negligible for the purpose of the current eBOSS ELG analysis.

Alam, Shadab↗
NASA NTRS2008

Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows as Probes of Environment and Blast Wave Physics. II. The Distribution of rho and Structure of the Circumburst Medium

We constrain blast wave parameters and the circumburst media ofa subsample of 10 BeppoSAX gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). For this sample we derive the values of the injected electron energy distribution index, p, and the density structure index of the circumburst medium, k, from simultaneous spectral fits to their X-ray, optical, and NIR afterglow data. The spectral fits have been done in count space and include the effects ofmetallicity, and are compared with the previously reported optical and X-ray temporal behavior. Using the blast wave model and some assumptions which include on-axis viewing and standard jet structure, constant blast wave energy, and no evolution of the microphysical parameters, we find a mean value ofp for the sample as a whole of 9.... oa -0.003.0" 2 a_ statistical analysis of the distribution demonstrates that the p-values in this sample are inconsistent with a single universal value forp at the 3 _ level or greater, which has significant implications for particle acceleration models. This approach provides us with a measured distribution ofcircumburst density structures rather than considering only the cases of k ----0 (homogeneous) and k - 2 (windlike). We find five GRBs for which k can be well constrained, and in four of these cases the circumburst medium is clearly windlike. The fifth source has a value of 0 < k < 1, consistent with a homogeneous circumburst medium.

Starling, R. L. C.↗
DOE OSTI2012

Measurements of Turbulence at Two Tidal Energy Sites in Puget Sound, WA

Field measurements of turbulence are pre- sented from two sites in Puget Sound, WA (USA) that are proposed for electrical power generation using tidal current turbines. Rapidly sampled data from multiple acoustic Doppler instruments are analyzed to obtain statistical mea- sures of fluctuations in both the magnitude and direction of the tidal currents. The resulting turbulence intensities (i.e., the turbulent velocity fluctuations normalized by the harmonic tidal currents) are typically 10% at the hub- heights (i.e., the relevant depth bin) of the proposed turbines. Length and time scales of the turbulence are also analyzed. Large-scale, anisotropic eddies dominate the energy spectra, which may be the result of proximity to headlands at each site. At small scales, an isotropic turbulent cascade is observed and used to estimate the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy. Data quality and sampling parameters are discussed, with an emphasis on the removal of Doppler noise from turbulence statistics.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2012

A PUBLIC VOID CATALOG FROM THE SDSS DR7 GALAXY REDSHIFT SURVEYS BASED ON THE WATERSHED TRANSFORM

We produce the most comprehensive public void catalog to date using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 main sample out to redshift z = 0.2 and the luminous red galaxy sample out to z = 0.44. Using a modified version of the parameter-free void finder ZOBOV, we fully take into account the presence of the survey boundary and masks. Our strategy for finding voids is thus appropriate for any survey configuration. We produce two distinct catalogs: a complete catalog including voids near any masks, which would be appropriate for void galaxy surveys, and a bias-free catalog of voids away from any masks, which is necessary for analyses that require a fair sampling of void shapes and alignments. Our discovered voids have effective radii from 5 to 135 h {sup -1} Mpc. We discuss basic catalog statistics such as number counts and redshift distributions and describe some additional data products derived from our catalog, such as radial density profiles and projected density maps. We find that radial profiles of stacked voids show a qualitatively similar behavior across nearly two decades of void radii and throughout the full redshift range.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Discontinuities in effective permeability due to fracture percolation

Motivated by a triaxial coreflood experiment with a sample of Utica shale where an abrupt jump in permeability was observed, possibly due to the creation of a percolating fracture network through the sample, we perform numerical simulations based on the experiment to characterize how the effective permeability of otherwise low-permeability porous media depends on fracture formation, connectivity, and the contrast between the fracture and matrix permeabilities. While a change in effective permeability due to fracture formation is expected, the dependence of its magnitude upon the contrast between the matrix permeability and fracture permeability and the fracture network structure is poorly characterized. We use two different high-fidelity fracture network models to characterize how effective permeability changes as percolation occurs. The first is a dynamic two-dimensional fracture propagation model designed to mimic the laboratory settings of the experiment. The second is a static three-dimensional discrete fracture network (DFN) model, whose fracture and network statistics are based on the fractured sample of Utica shale. Once the network connects the inflow and outflow boundaries, the effective permeability increases non-linearly with network density. In most networks considered, a jump in the effective permeability was observed when the embedded fracture network percolated. We characterize how the magnitude of the jump, should it occur, depends on the contrast between the fracture and matrix permeabilities. For small contrasts between the matrix and fracture permeabilities the change is insignificant. However, for larger contrasts, there is a substantial jump whose magnitude depends non-linearly on the difference between matrix and fracture permeabilities. A power-law relationship between the size of the jump and the difference between the matrix and fracture permeabilities is observed. In conclusion, the presented results underscore the importance of fracture network topology on the upscaled properties of the porous medium in which it is embedded.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Activity-Based Protein Profiling to Probe Relationships between Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Early-Age Metabolism of Two Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs): Phenanthrene and Retene

A growing body of literature has linked early life exposures to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) with adverse neurodevelopmental effects. Once in the body, metabolism serves as a powerful mediator of PAH toxicity by bioactivating and detoxifying PAH metabolites. Since enzyme expression and activity varies considerably throughout human development, we evaluated infant metabolism of PAHs as a potential contributing factor to PAH susceptibility. Here, we measured and compared rates of phenanthrene and retene (two primary PAH constituents of woodsmoke) metabolism in human hepatic microsomes from individuals ≤21 months of age to a pooled sample (n = 200) consisting primarily of adults. We used activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) to characterize cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYPs) in the same hepatic microsome samples. Once incubated in microsomes, phenanthrene demonstrated rapid depletion. Best fit models for phenanthrene metabolism demonstrated either 1 or 2 phases, depending on the sample, indicating that multiple enzymes could metabolize phenanthrene. We observed no statistically significant differences in phenanthrene metabolism as a function of age, although samples from the youngest individuals had the slowest phenanthrene metabolism rates. We observed slower rates of retene metabolism compared to phenanthrene also in multiple phases. Rates of retene metabolism increased in an age-dependent manner until adult (pooled) levels were achieved at ~12 mo. ABPP identified 28 unique CYPs among all samples, and we observed lower amounts of active CYPs in individuals ≤21 months of age compared to the pooled sample. Phenanthrene metabolism correlated to CYPs 1A1, 1A2, 2C8, 4A22, 3A4, and 3A43 and activities and retene metabolism correlated to CYPs 1A1, 1A2, and 2C8 activities measured by ABPP and vendor-supplied substrate marker activities. These results will aid efforts to determine human health risk and susceptibility to PAHs exposures during early life.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2002

Forecasting Coronal Mass Ejections from Vector Magnetograms

In a 17 vector magnetogram study of 12 bipolar active regions (Falconer, Moore, & Gary, 2002, ApJ in press), we correlated four quantitative global magnetic measures with the Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) productivity of the active region. The global measures included a measure of active region size, the total magnetic flux phi and three measures of an active region global nonpotentiality 1) the net current (I (sub N)), 2) the length of the strong-shear, strong-field main neutral line (L(sub SS)) and 3) and the normalized twist (alpha = muIN/PHI). The CME productivity was determined from YOHKOH/SXT observations, Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), and when possible Solar and Heliospheric Observatory/Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (SOHO/LASCO) observations within 12 days of the day of the magnetogram. We found that the three measures of global nonpotentiality (I(sub N), L(sub SS), alpha) were all well correlated (greater than 99% confidence level) with an active region's CME productivity. The sample size was to small to confirm if there was a statistical significant correlation of the globally nonscientist measures with future CME activity (i.e. from the date of the magnetogram forward). We are doubling our sample, and will report on the statistical significance of global nonpotentiality as a predictor of future CME productivity. The new active regions are all from the first year of the upgraded MSFC vector magnetograms. This work, is funded by NSF through the Space Weather Program, by NASA through the Living with the Star, Targeted Research and Technology, and by NASA Solar Physics Supporting Research and Technology Program. The upgrade to the MSFC vector magnetograph was supported by the High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) mission.

Falconer, D. A.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Relativistic beaming and the nuclei of double-lobed quasars

If the simple relativistic beaming model for extragalactic radio sources is at all correct, Doppler boosting may bias us toward choosing those objects pointing nearly at us in flux-density limited samples. In order to minimize any such effects in statistical tests of physical theories of these objects, an attempt is made to define a complete sample of sources with random orientations. For a sample of 26 double-lobed quasars, the dependence of a number of observable features on the angle to the line of sight and on the superluminal velocity is examined, and the distribution of superluminal velocities for the sources is measured. Two new superluminals are reported, and their apparent velocities and nuclear strengths are discussed.

Hough, David H.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Assessment of regional biomass-soil relationships using vegetation indexes

The development of photosynthetic active biomass in different ecological conditions, as indicated by normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVIs) is compared by performing a stratified sampling (based on soil assocations) on data acquired over Indiana. Data from the NOAA-10 AVHRR were collected for the 1987 and 1988 growing seasons. An NDVI transformation was performed using the two optical bands of the sensor (0.58-0.68 microns and 0.72-1.10 microns). The NDVI is related to the amount of active photosynthetic biomass present on the ground. Samples of NDVI values over 45 fields representing eight soil associations throughout Indiana were collected to assess the effect of soil conditions and acquisition date on the spectral response of the vegetation, as shown by the NDVIs. Statistical analysis of results indicate that land-cover types (forest, forest/pasture, and crops), soil texture, and soil water-holding capacity have an important effect on vegetation biomass changes as measured by AVHRR data. Acquisition dates should be selected with condideration of the phenological stages of vegetation. Sampling of AVHRR data over extended areas should be stratified according to physiographic units rather than man-made boundaries. This will provide more homogeneous samples for statistical analysis.

Lozano-Garcia, D. Fabian↗
DOE OSTI2020

Computing Potential of the Mean Force Profiles for Ion Permeation Through Channelrhodopsin Chimera, C1C2

Umbrella sampling, coupled with a weighted histogram analysis method (US-WHAM), can be used to construct potentials of mean force (PMFs) for studying the complex ion permeation pathways of membrane transport proteins. Despite the widespread use of US-WHAM, obtaining a physically meaningful PMF can be challenging. Here, we provide a protocol to resolve that issue. Then, we apply that protocol to compute a meaningful PMF for sodium ion permeation through channelrhodopsin chimera, C1C2, for illustration.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2013

EXPLORING THE VARIABLE SKY WITH LINEAR. III. CLASSIFICATION OF PERIODIC LIGHT CURVES

We describe the construction of a highly reliable sample of ∼7000 optically faint periodic variable stars with light curves obtained by the asteroid survey LINEAR across 10,000 deg{sup 2} of the northern sky. The majority of these variables have not been cataloged yet. The sample flux limit is several magnitudes fainter than most other wide-angle surveys; the photometric errors range from ∼0.03 mag at r = 15 to ∼0.20 mag at r = 18. Light curves include on average 250 data points, collected over about a decade. Using Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) based photometric recalibration of the LINEAR data for about 25 million objects, we selected ∼200,000 most probable candidate variables with r < 17 and visually confirmed and classified ∼7000 periodic variables using phased light curves. The reliability and uniformity of visual classification across eight human classifiers was calibrated and tested using a catalog of variable stars from the SDSS Stripe 82 region and verified using an unsupervised machine learning approach. The resulting sample of periodic LINEAR variables is dominated by 3900 RR Lyrae stars and 2700 eclipsing binary stars of all subtypes and includes small fractions of relatively rare populations such as asymptotic giant branch stars and SX Phoenicis stars. We discuss the distribution of these mostly uncataloged variables in various diagrams constructed with optical-to-infrared SDSS, Two Micron All Sky Survey, and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer photometry, and with LINEAR light-curve features. We find that the combination of light-curve features and colors enables classification schemes much more powerful than when colors or light curves are each used separately. An interesting side result is a robust and precise quantitative description of a strong correlation between the light-curve period and color/spectral type for close and contact eclipsing binary stars (β Lyrae and W UMa): as the color-based spectral type varies from K4 to F5, the median period increases from 5.9 hr to 8.8 hr. These large samples of robustly classified variable stars will enable detailed statistical studies of the Galactic structure and physics of binary and other stars and we make these samples publicly available.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Analog neutron transport for nuclear instrumentation applications with the Monte-Carlo code TRIPOLI-4 - Paper 3

Monte-Carlo codes simulating particle transport usually make use of well-known variance reduction techniques, leading to more efficient simulations. Even in configurations which do not deal with deep-penetration, some of these techniques, such as the implicit capture, are actually often used by default. The statistical weight of the simulated particles is then modified in order to take into account the modification of the sampling without introducing any bias in the estimation process. For instance, the implicit capture decreases the statistical weight of the particles at each collision, whereas the sampling of a single outgoing particle increases this statistical weight in case of scattering reactions producing multiple neutrons. In addition, Russian roulette and splitting operations, which are usually also played at each collision, lead to other modifications of the statistical weights. As a result, Monte-Carlo codes provide particle histories that are valid on average, but collect statistical weights which differ from 1, when tallying the estimation of the quantities of interest. Yet, some nuclear instrumentation calculations inherently need to work with statistical weights equal to 1, since either individual events have to be collected (such as the arrival of a particle at a detector, the measurement of a time of flight, etc), or the coincidence of events or also correlations between individual events have to be taken into account. To address these specific applications with Monte-Carlo simulation codes, users need a full analog simulation mode. The continuous-energy Monte-Carlo code TRIPOLI4{sup R} is mainly dedicated to shielding, reactor physics and criticality safety calculations. Its capabilities have recently been extended to widen its use to nuclear instrumentation with the possibility of γ-spectrometry calculations and the simulation of photonuclear reactions for instance. Other features needed by nuclear instrumentation applications have been available in TRIPOLI-4 for a long time, such as the sampling of the time variable and the possibility of tallying in a time grid for most of the available tallies (fluxes, reaction rates, dose equivalent rates, energy depositions, etc). In TRIPOLI-4, the transport between two consecutive collisions is analog if no variance reduction technique is requested by the user to handle deep-penetration configurations. However, up to the version 9 of the code, the collision itself is sampled in a non-analog way. This paper presents a first implementation of a full analog neutron transport mode in TRIPOLI-4, preliminary verification results and an application of this functionality to the simulation of the Nucifer detector located in Saclay, France. It should be noted that only neutron transport is dealt with in this work and that all nuclear data come from JEFF-3.1.1 or ENDF/B-VII.0 evaluations, including fission data when needed. (authors)

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗
DOE OSTI2012

KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD: A DETAILED MODEL ATMOSPHERE ANALYSIS OF NEARBY WHITE DWARFS

We present improved atmospheric parameters of nearby white dwarfs lying within 20 pc of the Sun. The aim of the current study is to obtain the best statistical model of the least-biased sample of the white dwarf population. A homogeneous analysis of the local population is performed combining detailed spectroscopic and photometric analyses based on improved model atmosphere calculations for various spectral types including DA, DB, DC, DQ, and DZ stars. The spectroscopic technique is applied to all stars in our sample for which optical spectra are available. Photometric energy distributions, when available, are also combined to trigonometric parallax measurements to derive effective temperatures, stellar radii, as well as atmospheric compositions. A revised catalog of white dwarfs in the solar neighborhood is presented. We provide, for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of the mass distribution and the chemical distribution of white dwarf stars in a volume-limited sample.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Supernova Driving. IV. The Star-formation Rate of Molecular Clouds

We compute the star-formation rate (SFR) in molecular clouds (MCs) that originate ab initio in a new, higher-resolution simulation of supernova-driven turbulence. Because of the large number of well-resolved clouds with self-consistent boundary and initial conditions, we obtain a large range of cloud physical parameters with realistic statistical distributions, which is an unprecedented sample of star-forming regions to test SFR models and to interpret observational surveys. We confirm the dependence of the SFR per free-fall time, SFR{sub ff}, on the virial parameter, α {sub vir}, found in previous simulations, and compare a revised version of our turbulent fragmentation model with the numerical results. The dependences on Mach number, M, gas to magnetic pressure ratio, β, and compressive to solenoidal power ratio, χ at fixed α {sub vir} are not well constrained, because of random scatter due to time and cloud-to-cloud variations in SFR{sub ff}. We find that SFR{sub ff} in MCs can take any value in the range of 0 ≤ SFR{sub ff} ≲ 0.2, and its probability distribution peaks at a value of SFR{sub ff} ≈ 0.025, consistent with observations. The values of SFR{sub ff} and the scatter in the SFR{sub ff}–α {sub vir} relation are consistent with recent measurements in nearby MCs and in clouds near the Galactic center. Although not explicitly modeled by the theory, the scatter is consistent with the physical assumptions of our revised model and may also result in part from a lack of statistical equilibrium of the turbulence, due to the transient nature of MCs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Polynomial chaos representation of databases on manifolds

Characterizing the polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) of a vector-valued random variable with probability distribution concentrated on a manifold is a relevant problem in data-driven settings. The probability distribution of such random vectors is multimodal in general, leading to potentially very slow convergence of the PCE. In this paper, we build on a recent development for estimating and sampling from probabilities concentrated on a diffusion manifold. The proposed methodology constructs a PCE of the random vector together with an associated generator that samples from the target probability distribution which is estimated from data concentrated in the neighborhood of the manifold. The method is robust and remains efficient for high dimension and large datasets. The resulting polynomial chaos construction on manifolds permits the adaptation of many uncertainty quantification and statistical tools to emerging questions motivated by data-driven queries.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗