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At least 1,153 records · Page 64

C‐Cracking of Brittle‐Material Spheres From Eccentric Hertzian Contact

Contact of brittle-material spheres can occur while they are manufactured, handled, or used in operation as roller elements or in deformably processed composite material. Statistically, the directional contact between two spheres will nearly always be oblique or eccentric in an unconfined and mobile sphere population. Although analyses of oblique contact exist, the portrayal of its maximum (tensile) first principal stress ( S 1 ) field is lacking. This information is needed for improved judgment of the prospect of crack initiation. Given these, the S 1 due to eccentric contact and subsequent crack initiation was analyzed using finite element analysis (FEA) and corroborative demonstration of c-crack creation. The FEA shows that an asymmetric S 1 field is created about the contact patch and is caused by superimposed shear intrinsic to eccentric contact. A crack will initiate if the maximum S 1 exceeds the material's tensile strength, and its field will cause the crack to propagate and arrest to form a C-shaped crack, or c-crack. C-crack initiation trends with lower applied forces, with greater amount of contact eccentricity, higher coefficient of friction, and smaller spherical radius. Finally, these metrics deserve recognition, especially when c-cracked brittle-material spheres are used in a system whose functionality or reliability is potentially compromised by the c-cracks.

Hertzian contact↗

Lowering the barrier to access information-rich transient kinetic data for machine learning methods

Transient kinetic data contain a wealth of information about intrinsic features of a catalyst as well as the reaction mechanism. Currently, high volume transient data is underutilized, and data science methods could both increase the value of information that can be extracted from this data, integrate experimental with theoretical data sources, and accelerate the pace of catalyst technology advancement. Transient kinetic characterizations with simple probe molecules exhibiting reversible adsorption, irreversible adsorption and bulk-surface diffusion are presented as training components for similar experiments with more complex surface reactions. In conclusion, by increasing the availability and accessibility of transient kinetic data through details of its structure and acquisition, we aim to decrease the barrier for data scientists to apply machine learning methods to this valuable data source.

Catalysis↗

Approximate Bayesian Computation applied to the Diffuse Gamma-Ray Sky

ABSTRACT Many sources contribute to the diffuse gamma-ray background (DGRB), including star forming galaxies, active galactic nuclei, and cosmic ray interactions in the Milky Way. Exotic sources, such as dark matter annihilation, may also make some contribution. The photon counts-in-pixels distribution is a powerful tool for analysing the DGRB and determining the relative contributions of different sources. However, including photon energy information in a likelihood analysis of the counts-in-pixels distribution quickly becomes computationally intractable as the number of source types and energy bins increase. Here, we apply the likelihood-free method of approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) to the problem. We consider a mock analysis that includes contributions from dark matter annihilation in Galactic subhaloes as well as astrophysical backgrounds. We show that our results using ABC are consistent with the exact likelihood when energy information is discarded, and that significantly tighter parameter constraints can be obtained with ABC when energy information is included. ABC presents a powerful tool for analysing the DGRB and understanding its varied origins.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A compendium and meta-analysis of flatband potentials for TiO2, ZnO, and SnO2 semiconductors in aqueous media

Semiconductor/electrolyte interfaces are of great interest to numerous scientific fields including renewable energy, (photo)electrochemistry, and energy storage. The semiconductor flatband potential is a key parameter in locating the conduction band minimum or valence band maximum of the semiconductor material in electrolyte. Despite its importance for quantifying the energetic location of the semiconductor bands, literature reports for the same material demonstrate significant variability in the flatband potential. In this compendium and meta-analysis, reported flatband potentials of the common semiconductor materials TiO2, SnO2, and ZnO in aqueous electrolyte were compiled and assessed to quantify the spread in literature flatband potentials as well as determine the factors that lead to the significant spread. For TiO2, SnO2, and ZnO, literature flatband potentials referenced to the reversible hydrogen electrode span a range of nearly 2 V each. Flatband potential tabulations were separated by variables such as the solution pH, the crystalline polymorph, the crystal facet, the morphology, and the dimensions or combinations of these variables to assess the factors that contribute to the observed spread. Important and surprising findings from these categorizations are summarized: (1) Even for the narrowest categorizations, the spread in flatband potential is still large. (2) Flatband potentials of TiO2 and SnO2 follow the expected Nernstian dependence with solution pH. ZnO materials deviate from this Nernstian dependence. (3) In the aggregate, there is no statistically significant difference in the reported flatband potentials of anatase and rutile TiO2. Single crystal tabulations were the only distributions to have statistically significant differences in the flatband potential between anatase and rutile TiO2. (4) Anatase TiO2 materials with a nanotube morphology appear to have a +400 mV difference in mean flatband potential compared to all other morphologies, but we argue that this is likely due to widespread misuse of the Mott–Schottky analysis. Other interesting findings are revealed within the spread of literature flatband potentials, and possible explanations are provided to generate discussion. We also briefly review and discuss common techniques that were used to determine the flatband potential and the pitfalls/criticisms of these techniques. Last, we discuss some ways in which future research on the determination of the flatband potential can be performed to improve the reliability of reported values and the quality of the work. In total, the results from this meta-analysis suggest multiple factors can affect the measured flatband potential and that an abundance of caution should be applied when attempting to quantify the flatband potential of complex or nanostructured systems.

Patel, Milan Y. (ORCID:0000000291948141)↗

Functional Data Analysis in Wearable Body Sensor Networks

Improving response time of indirect room-size calorimeters is still an outstanding problem in metabolic research. Accurate estimates of instantaneous rates of gaseous exchange require numerical differentiation of measured gaseousgas concentrations. We propose a new method to estimate the instantaneous gaseousgas exchange rates in indirect calorimetry. In contrast to the previously developed techniques, the method addresses the problem of differentiation of gaseous concentrations as an ill-posed problem. By applying the method of regularization, the problem of differentiation is converted into a well-posed problem resulting in smooth and consistent gaseous exchange rates. The validity of the method is tested on a large dataset of calorimeter experiments which included 313 human experiments along with 231 alcohol combustion experiments. It is demonstrated that the method is able to reliably differentiate between the “unphysiological” process of alcohol combustion and physiological variations produced by human metabolism. The method also allowed unraveling the previously unreported relative kinetics of O2 consumption and Respiratory Quotient (RQ) in humans. It was found that the kinetics of oxidative fuel selection lags behind the energy expenditure in humans exhibiting some sort of oxidative inertia. The time lag varies from 2-3 min up to 30 min, depending on particular individual. No such lag was found in alcohol combustion experiments. In addition to the relative kinetics of substrate oxidation, two statistical indexes reflecting variability of minute-by-minute RQ were estimated. The indexes were the RQ’s standard deviation and RQ’s first-order derivative. Both indexes showed statistically significant difference between human experiments and alcohol combustion experiments. We conclude that the proposed method can consistently extract physiologically-relevant information from noisy calorimetry data and the aforesaid information can provide additional insights into the mechanism of metabolic fuel selection in humans.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Association of clonal hematopoiesis mutations with clinical outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Clonal hematopoiesis (CH) mutations are common among individuals without known hematologic disease. CH mutations have been associated with numerous adverse clinical outcomes across many different studies. We systematically reviewed the available literature for clinical outcomes associated with CH mutations in patients without hematologic disease. We searched PubMed, EMBASE, and Scopus for eligible studies. Three investigators independently extracted the data, and each study was verified by a second author. Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. We identified 32 studies with 56 cohorts that examine the association between CH mutations and clinical outcomes. We conducted meta-analyses comparing outcomes among individuals with and without detectable CH mutations. We conducted meta-analyses for cardiovascular diseases (nine studies; HR = 1.61, 95% CI = 1.26–2.07, p = .0002), hematologic malignancies (seven studies; HR = 5.59, 95% CI = 3.31–9.45, p < .0001), therapy-related myeloid neoplasms (four studies; HR = 7.55, 95% CI = 4.3–13.57, p < .001), and death (nine studies; HR = 1.34, 95% CI = 1.2–1.5, p < .0001). The cardiovascular disease analysis was further stratified by variant allele fraction (VAF) and gene, which showed a statistically significant association only with a VAF of ≥ 10% (HR = 1.42, 95% CI = 1.24–1.62, p < .0001), as well as statistically significant associations for each gene examined with the largest magnitude of effect found for CH mutations in JAK2 (HR = 3.5, 95% CI = 1.84–6.68, p < .0001). Analysis of the association of CH mutations with hematologic malignancy demonstrated a numeric stepwise increase in risk with increasing VAF thresholds. This analysis strongly supports the association of CH mutations with a clinically meaningful increased risk of adverse clinical outcomes among individuals without hematologic disease, particularly with increasing VAF thresholds.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

KilonovaNet : Surrogate models of kilonova spectra with conditional variational autoencoders

ABSTRACT Detailed radiative transfer simulations of kilonova spectra play an essential role in multimessenger astrophysics. Using the simulation results in parameter inference studies requires building a surrogate model from the simulation outputs to use in algorithms requiring sampling. In this work, we present kilonovanet, an implementation of conditional variational autoencoders (cVAEs) for the construction of surrogate models of kilonova spectra. This method can be trained on spectra directly, removing overhead time of pre-processing spectra, and greatly speeds up parameter inference time. We build surrogate models of three state-of-the-art kilonova simulation data sets and present in-depth surrogate error evaluation methods, which can in general be applied to any surrogate construction method. By creating synthetic photometric observations from the spectral surrogate, we perform parameter inference for the observed light-curve data of GW170817 and compare the results with previous analyses. Given the speed with which kilonovanet performs during parameter inference, it will serve as a useful tool in future gravitational wave observing runs to quickly analyse potential kilonova candidates.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Constraints on S 8 from a full-scale and full-shape analysis of redshift-space clustering and galaxy–galaxy lensing in BOSS

ABSTRACT We present a novel simulation-based cosmological analysis of galaxy–galaxy lensing and galaxy redshift-space clustering. Compared to analysis methods based on perturbation theory, our simulation-based approach allows us to probe a much wider range of scales, $0.4 \, h^{-1} \, \mathrm{Mpc}$ to $63 \, h^{-1} \, \mathrm{Mpc}$, including highly non-linear scales, and marginalizes over astrophysical effects such as assembly bias. We apply this framework to data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey LOWZ sample cross-correlated with state-of-the-art gravitational lensing catalogues from the Kilo Degree Survey and the Dark Energy Survey. We show that gravitational lensing and redshift-space clustering when analysed over a large range of scales place tight constraints on the growth-of-structure parameter $S_8 = \sigma _8 \sqrt{\Omega _{\rm m} / 0.3}$. Overall, we infer S8 = 0.792 ± 0.022 when analysing the combination of galaxy–galaxy lensing and projected galaxy clustering and S8 = 0.771 ± 0.027 for galaxy redshift-space clustering. These findings highlight the potential constraining power of full-scale studies over studies analysing only large scales and also showcase the benefits of analysing multiple large-scale structure surveys jointly. Our inferred values for S8 fall below the value inferred from the CMB, S8 = 0.834 ± 0.016. While this difference is not statistically significant by itself, our results mirror other findings in the literature whereby low-redshift large-scale structure probes infer lower values for S8 than the CMB, the so-called S8-tension.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Inverse design of equilibrium cluster fluids applied to a physically informed model

Inverse design strategies have proven highly useful for the discovery of interaction potentials that prompt self-assembly of a variety of interesting structures. However, often the optimized particle interactions do not have a direct relationship to experimental systems. In this work, we show that Relative Entropy minimization is able to discover physically meaningful parameter sets for a model interaction built from depletion attraction and electrostatic repulsion that yield self-assembly of size-specific clusters. Here, we then explore the sensitivity of the optimized interaction potentials with respect to deviations in the underlying physical quantities, showing that clustering behavior is largely preserved even as the optimized parameters are perturbed.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Kepler Data Analysis: Non-Gaussian Noise and Fourier Gaussian Process Analysis of Stellar Variability

We develop a statistical analysis model of Kepler stellar flux data in the presence of planet transits, non-Gaussian noise, and stellar variability. We first develop a model for the Kepler noise probability distribution in the presence of outliers, which make the noise probability distribution non-Gaussian. We develop a signal likelihood analysis based on this probability distribution, in which we model the signal as a sum of the star variability and planetary transits. We argue that these components need to be modeled together if optimal signal is to be extracted from the data. For the stellar variability model we develop an optimal Gaussian process analysis using a Fourier-based Wiener filter approach, where the power spectrum is non-parametric and learned from the data. We develop high dimensional optimization of the objective function, where we jointly optimize all the model parameters, including thousands of star variability modes, and planet transit parameters. We apply the method to Kepler-90 data and show that it gives a better match to the stellar variability than the existing methods, and robustly handles noise outliers. As a consequence, the planet radii have a higher value than what the existing methods give, including splines and celerite.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Field-level reconstruction from foreground-contaminated 21-cm maps

Current and upcoming 21-cm experiments will soon be able to map 21-cm spatial fluctuations in three dimensions for a wide range of redshifts. However, bright foreground contamination and the nature of radio interferometry create significant challenges, making it difficult to access rich cosmological information from the Fourier modes that lie within the “foreground wedge”. Here, in this work, we introduce two approaches aiming to reconstruct the full 21-cm density field, including the missing modes in the wedge: (a) a field-level inference under an effective field theory (EFT) framework; (b) a diffusion-based deep generative model trained on simulations. Under the EFT framework, we implement a fully differentiable forward model that maps the initial conditions of matter fluctuations to the observed, foreground-filtered 21-cm maps. This enables a gradient-based sampler to simultaneously sample the initial conditions and bias parameters, allowing a physically motivated mode reconstruction. Alternatively, we apply a variational diffusion model to perform 21-cm density reconstruction at the map level. Our model is trained on semi-numerical simulations over a wide range of astrophysical parameters. Our results from both approaches should provide improved cosmological constraints from the field level and also enable cross-correlation between experiments that have little or no overlapping modes.

cosmological perturbation theory↗

Online evolutionary neural architecture search for multivariate non-stationary time series forecasting

Time series forecasting (TSF) is one of the most important tasks in data science. TSF models are usually pre-trained with historical data and then applied on future unseen datapoints. However, real-world time series data is usually non-stationary and models trained offline usually face problems from data drift. Models trained and designed in an offline fashion can not quickly adapt to changes quickly or be deployed in real-time. To address these issues, this work presents the Online NeuroEvolution-based Neural Architecture Search (ONE-NAS) algorithm, which is a novel neural architecture search method capable of automatically designing and dynamically training recurrent neural networks (RNNs) for online forecasting tasks. Without any pre-training, ONE-NAS utilizes populations of RNNs that are continuously updated with new network structures and weights in response to new multivariate input data. ONE-NAS is tested on real-world, large-scale multivariate wind turbine data as well as the univariate Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dataset. These results demonstrate that ONE-NAS outperforms traditional statistical time series forecasting methods, including online linear regression, fixed long short-term memory (LSTM) and gated recurrent unit (GRU) models trained online, as well as state-of-the-art, online ARIMA strategies. Additionally, results show that utilizing multiple populations of RNNs which are periodically repopulated provide significant performance improvements, allowing this online neural network architecture design and training to be successful.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Validation of seismic velocity models in southern California with full-waveform simulations

SUMMARY Crustal seismic velocity models provide essential information for many applications including earthquake source properties, simulations of ground motion and related derivative products. We present a systematic workflow for assessing the accuracy of velocity models with full-waveform simulations. The framework is applied to four regional seismic velocity models for southern California: CVM-H15.11, CVM-S4.26, CVM-S4.26.M01 that includes a shallow geotechnical layer, and the model of Berg et al. For each model, we perform 3-D viscoelastic wave propagation simulations for 48 virtual seismic noise sources (down to 2 s) and 44 moderate-magnitude earthquakes (down to 2 s generally and 0.5 s for some cases) assuming a minimum shear wave velocity of 200 m s–1. The synthetic waveforms are compared with observations associated with both earthquake records and noise cross-correlation data sets. We measure, at multiple period bands for well-isolated seismic phases, traveltime delays and normalized zero-lag cross-correlation coefficients between the synthetic and observed data. The obtained measurements are summarized using the mean absolute derivation of time delay and the mean correlation coefficient. These two metrics provide reliable statistical representations of model quality with consistent results in all data sets. In addition to assessing the overall (average) performance of different models in the entire study area, we examine spatial variations of the models’ quality. All examined models show good phase and waveform agreements for surface waves at periods longer than 5 s, and discrepancies at shorter periods reflecting small-scale heterogeneities and near-surface structures. The model performing best overall is CVM-S4.26.M01. The largest misfits for both body and surface waves are in basin structures and around large fault zones. Inaccuracies generated in these areas may affect tomography and model simulation results at other regions. The seismic velocity models for southern California can be improved by adding better resolved structural representations of the shallow crust and volumes around the main faults.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Angular correlation between the fission fragment intrinsic spins

The generation of fission fragment (FF) spins and of their relative orbital angular momentum has been debated for more than six decades, and no consensus has been achieved so far. The interpretation of recent experimental results of Wilson et al., has been challenged by several recent theoretical studies, which are not in agreement with one another. According to the interpretation by Wilson et al., the FF spins emerge very long after scission occurrs. Randrup and Vogt, while agreeing that the FF spins are uncorrelated, conclude on the basis of a phenomenological model that these spins are uncorrelated already before scission. Bulgac et al., in a fully microscopic study demonstrate that the primordial FF spin final values are defined before the emission of prompt neutrons and statistical gammas and are strongly correlated with a relative angle between spins close to 2π/3, a result in full agreement with the present independent analysis. The prompt neutrons and statistical gammas carry a significant amount of angular momentum according to the study of Stetcu et al. which can lead to a decorrelation of the FF bandhead spins of the yrast lines measured by Wilson et al., and which also provides arguments why these measured spins are so different from the primordial FF spins evaluated by Bulgac et al.. Here, I show that the unexpected character of the angular correlation between the primordial FF intrinsic spins, recently evaluated by Bulgac et al., which favors FF intrinsic spins pointing predominantly in opposite directions, can be understood by using simple general phase space arguments. The observation by Wilson et al., that the FF spins are uncorrelated follows from both the results of the microscopic calculation of Bulgac et al., and the present analysis of the full correlated probability distribution of the FF spins together with the relative orbital angular momentum of the primordial FFs. These arguments may apply also to heavy-ion collisions and, since there is no use of specifics of the particle interactions, the present results might apply to atomic and molecular systems as well.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Supercooled Liquid Water Detection Capabilities from Ka-Band Doppler Profiling Radars: Moment-Based Algorithm Formulation and Assessment

The occurrence of supercooled liquid water in mixed-phase cloud (MPC) affects their cloud microphysical and radiative properties. The prevalence of MPCs in the mid- and high latitudes translates these effects to significant contributions to Earth’s radiative balance and hydrological cycle. The current study develops and assesses a radar-only, moment-based phase partition technique for the demarcation of supercooled liquid water volumes in arctic, MPC conditions. The study utilizes observations from the Ka band profiling radar, the collocated high spectral resolution lidar, and ambient temperature profiles from radio sounding deployments following a statistical analysis of 5.5 years of data (January 2014–May 2019) from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement observatory at the North Slope of Alaska. The ice/liquid phase partition occurs via a per-pixel, neighborhood-dependent algorithm based on the premise that the partitioning can be deduced by examining the mean values of locally sampled probability distributions of radar-based observables and then compare those against the means of climatologically derived, per-phase probability distributions. Analyzed radar observables include linear depolarization ratio (LDR), spectral width, and vertical gradients of reflectivity factor and radial velocity corrected for vertical air motion. Results highlight that the optimal supercooled liquid water detection skill levels are realized for the radar variable combination of spectral width and reflectivity vertical gradient, suggesting that radar-based polarimetry, in the absence of full LDR spectra, is not as critical as Doppler capabilities. The cloud phase masking technique is proven particularly reliable when applied to cloud tops with an Equitable Threat Score (ETS) of 65%; the detection of embedded supercooled layers remains much more uncertain (ETS = 27%).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Bayesian chain graph models to characterize microbe-environment dynamics

Microbiome data require statistical models that can simultaneously decode microbes' reaction to the environment and interactions among microbes. While a multiresponse linear regression model seems like a straight-forward solution, we argue that treating it as a graphical model is problematic given that the regression coefficient matrix does not encode the conditional dependence structure between response and predictor nodes. This observation is especially important in biological settings when we have prior knowledge on the edges from specific experimental interventions that can only be properly encoded under a conditional dependence model. Here, we propose a chain graph model with two sets of nodes (predictors and responses) whose solution yields a graph with edges that indeed represent conditional dependence, thus agreeing with the experimenter's intuition on the average behavior of nodes under treatment. The solution to our model is sparse via the Bayesian linear regression (LASSO). In addition, we propose an adaptive extension so that different shrinkages can be applied to different edges to incorporate edge-specific prior knowledge. Our model is computationally inexpensive through an efficient Gibbs sampling algorithm and can account for binary, counting, and compositional responses via an appropriate hierarchical structure. We test the performance of our model in a variety of simulated datasets, thereby showing superior performance to state-of-the-art approaches. We further apply our model to human gut and soil microbial compositional datasets, and we highlight that CG-LASSO can estimate biologically meaningful network structures in the data.

compositional data↗

Determining Cs-137 Background body burdens for Wild Pigs At Savannah River Site

Savannah River Site (SRS) is a unique U.S. Department of Energy facility in that most of the 310-square miles of land has not be industrialized since operations began in 1953. This has allowed abundant, undisturbed vegetation structure to exists as well as an increase in herd sizes among wildlife populations onsite. Cs-137 is widespread across SRS due to the production of nuclear materials, but is mostly from global atmospheric fallout from nuclear weapons testing. Due to most of SRS being undisturbed land, the concentrations of Cs-137 are higher on site than off site. The SRS began conducting annual deer harvests that were open to the public beginning in 1965. All animals harvested during these hunts are monitored for Cs-137, which is measured using a Sodium Iodide detector. There has been an effective method for calculating the background Cs-137 body burden for the deer population at the SRS, developed by Gaines and Novak using data collected during hunts and gamma overflight data to determine the areas contaminated by site activities. For animals that have a Cs-137 concentration above the established background level, a dose is assigned to the hunter. By applying the same method for wild pigs using data collected from hunts, gamma overflight, and developing a site-specific home range of wild pigs, we were able to calculate the Cs-137 background body burden concentrations of wild pigs on site. Objectives: Develop site-specific home range for wild pigs at SRS; Determine the average concentrations of Cs-137 in wild pigs from background; Use Gaines and Novak method for determining background Cs-137 body burdens wild pigs on SRS. Methods and Materials: Development of site-specific home range of wild pigs was determined to be 2.5 miles using: Four studies conducted between 1969 and 1992 for the SRS wild pig population. (Mayer and Brisbin) The background compartments were determined using: Gamma overflight data showing contaminated areas; Site-specific home range of the wild pigs. Results and Conclusion: All data were generated through the JMP software to provide a histogram and summary statistics. The estimate of an upper tolerance limit for the background contamination with 95% confidence is 1.965 pCi/g for the wild pigs. This means that for wild pigs on SRS from the background compartments are expected to have Cs-137 concentrations of less than 1.965 pCi/g. The current background for the deer is 2.59 pCi/g. For the background compartments Cs-137 concentrations from 2012-2018: Mean: 0.815 pCi/g, Maximum: 2.341 pCi/g, Minimum: -0.704 pCi/g.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

A large-scale comparison of Artificial Intelligence and Data Mining (AI&DM) techniques in simulating reservoir releases over the Upper Colorado Region

In recent years, the Artificial Intelligence and Data Mining (AI&DM) models have become popular tools in assisting various aspects of reservoir operation. However, the practical uses are still rarely reported. Comparison experiment of many AI&DM models over a large number of reservoir cases is particularly valuable to help reservoir operators first examine the usefulness and transferability of different AI&DM models, and then identify the most stable and reliable AI&DM model in assist of various decision-making processes. In this study, a total of 12 AI&DM models with different parameterizations and simulation scenarios are comprehensively tested out and compared in simulating the controlled reservoir outflows of 33 reservoir cases over the Upper Colorado Region, United States. Results show that the Random Forecast and the Long-Short-Term-Memory model could consistently derive the best statistical performance than other models under the baseline simulation scenario. The employed AI&DM models could obtain satisfactory statistical interquartile ranges (25–75%) between [0.6–0.9], [0.3–0.8], and [0.2–0.8], for CORR, NSE, and KGE measurements, respectively, and [1.5–6.5], [–15 to 20], and [0.5–8.5] for the normalized RMSE, PBIAS and RSR measurements, respectively. Results also show Multi-Layer Perceptron model and Extreme Gradient Boosting Tree Algorithm produced more stable and superior performance than other models under more complex input scenarios. We also found that the performance of different AI&DM models are closely relevant to the reservoir elevations, sizes, and functionalities. Discussions were made about the sensitivity of AI&DM models’ parameterizations and the key advantages of AI&DM models over the rule-based reservoir models. We further identify that the main advantage of AI&DM models is the flexibility in designing input structures, whereas the rule-based simulation model is rather limited. Future studies were suggested regarding the best way reservoir operators and researchers could use, select, and apply different AI&DM models in simulating reservoir releases under different natural and modeling environments. Finally, this comparison study also serves as a reference and a piece of groundwork for further promoting the practical uses of AI&DM models in assisting reservoir operation.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗