Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “big data”

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

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,207 records · Page 67

Data-Driven Template Discovery Using Graph Convolutional Neural Networks

Modeling adversarial activities is a critical component of developing high-con?dence indicators of efforts to acquire, fabricate, proliferate, and/or deploy weapons of mass terror (WMTs). Current approaches to generating representative patterns of interest (a.k.a templates) from the real-world domains involve a Subject Matter Expert (SME)-guided manual process. The goal of Data-Driven Template Discovery (DDTD) is to use a (potentially small) set of SME generated templates to discover other previously unknown and interesting templates in an attributed graph. A template is an activity pattern describing a set of interactions among a group of nodes in the graph. The motivation behind DDTD is to expand the original set of templates, without having SMEs craft all the templates by hand. DDTD also provides seed templates to SMEs, to help them construct larger, high-?delity, and scenario-oriented templates. In these cases, obtaining a larger set of templates that are related (contain similar signals) to the original set is of great value. In this work, we propose to use Graph Convolutional Neural Networks (GCNs) to discover new templates that are heavily related to the original set. GCNs are a family of Neural Network (NN) architectures especially designed to work directly on graphs. In contrast to the traditional NNs, that require considerable amounts of labeled data, GCNs do not require a big labeled training set because they can directly leverage the graph structure instead. This property makes GCNs the perfect tool for creating activity templates.

Joaristi, Mikel↗

A Study on the Potential Applications of Satellite Data in Air Quality Monitoring and Forecasting

In this study we explore the potential applications of MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) -like satellite sensors in air quality research for some Asian regions. The MODIS aerosol optical thickness (AOT), NCEP global reanalysis meteorological data, and daily surface PM(sub 10) concentrations over China and Thailand from 2001 to 2009 were analyzed using simple and multiple regression models. The AOT-PM(sub 10) correlation demonstrates substantial seasonal and regional difference, likely reflecting variations in aerosol composition and atmospheric conditions, Meteorological factors, particularly relative humidity, were found to influence the AOT-PM(sub 10) relationship. Their inclusion in regression models leads to more accurate assessment of PM(sub 10) from space borne observations. We further introduced a simple method for employing the satellite data to empirically forecast surface particulate pollution, In general, AOT from the previous day (day 0) is used as a predicator variable, along with the forecasted meteorology for the following day (day 1), to predict the PM(sub 10) level for day 1. The contribution of regional transport is represented by backward trajectories combined with AOT. This method was evaluated through PM(sub 10) hindcasts for 2008-2009, using ohservations from 2005 to 2007 as a training data set to obtain model coefficients. For five big Chinese cities, over 50% of the hindcasts have percentage error less than or equal to 30%. Similar performance was achieved for cities in northern Thailand. The MODIS AOT data are responsible for at least part of the demonstrated forecasting skill. This method can be easily adapted for other regions, but is probably most useful for those having sparse ground monitoring networks or no access to sophisticated deterministic models. We also highlight several existing issues, including some inherent to a regression-based approach as exemplified by a case study for Beijing, Further studies will be necessa1Y before satellite data can see more extensive applications in the operational air quality monitoring and forecasting.

Li, Can↗

BactoGeNIE: A large-scale comparative genome visualization for big displays

The volume of complete bacterial genome sequence data available to comparative genomics researchers is rapidly increasing. However, visualizations in comparative genomics--which aim to enable analysis tasks across collections of genomes--suffer from visual scalability issues. While large, multi-tiled and high-resolution displays have the potential to address scalability issues, new approaches are needed to take advantage of such environments, in order to enable the effective visual analysis of large genomics datasets. In this paper, we present Bacterial Gene Neighborhood Investigation Environment, or BactoGeNIE, a novel and visually scalable design for comparative gene neighborhood analysis on large display environments. We evaluate BactoGeNIE through a case study on close to 700 draft Escherichia coli genomes, and present lessons learned from our design process. In conclusion, BactoGeNIE accommodates comparative tasks over substantially larger collections of neighborhoods than existing tools and explicitly addresses visual scalability. Given current trends in data generation, scalable designs of this type may inform visualization design for large-scale comparative research problems in genomics.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Deploying Object Oriented Data Technology to the Planetary Data System

How do you provide more than 350 scientists and researchers access to data from every instrument in Odyssey when the data is curated across half a dozen institutions and in different formats and is too big to mail on a CD-ROM anymore? The Planetary Data System (PDS) faced this exact question. The solution was to use a metadata-based middleware framework developed by the Object Oriented Data Technology task at NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Using OODT, PDS provided - for the first time ever - data from all mission instruments through a single system immediately upon data delivery.

Kelly, S.↗

COMPACT DUST CONCENTRATION IN THE MWC 758 PROTOPLANETARY DISK

The formation of planetesimals requires that primordial dust grains grow from micron- to kilometer-sized bodies. Dust traps caused by gas pressure maxima have been proposed as regions where grains can concentrate and grow fast enough to form planetesimals, before radially migrating onto the star. We report new VLA Ka and Ku observations of the protoplanetary disk around the Herbig Ae/Be star MWC 758. The Ka image shows a compact emission region in the outer disk, indicating a strong concentration of big dust grains. Tracing smaller grains, archival ALMA data in band 7 continuum shows extended disk emission with an intensity maximum to the northwest of the central star, which matches the VLA clump position. The compactness of the Ka emission is expected in the context of dust trapping, as big grains are trapped more easily than smaller grains in gas pressure maxima. We develop a nonaxisymmetric parametric model inspired by a steady-state vortex solution with parameters adequately selected to reproduce the observations, including the spectral energy distribution. Finally, we compare the radio continuum with SPHERE scattered light data. The ALMA continuum spatially coincides with a spiral-like feature seen in scattered light, while the VLA clump is offset from the scattered light maximum. Moreover, the ALMA map shows a decrement that matches a region devoid of scattered polarized emission. Continuum observations at a different wavelength are necessary to conclude whether the VLA-ALMA difference is an opacity or a real dust segregation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Near 40 Years MERRA-2 Data at NASA GES DISC -Opportunity and Challenge to Support Extremes Study

To the end of 2019, 40 years NASA climate reanalysis data sets from the Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) will be available at NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). MERRA-2 consists atmosphere, land, and ocean data, which may be used for the studies ranging from the short scale weather events to the large scale decadal vulnerabilities. The hourly products, such as precipitation, soil moisture, temperature, and aerosols etc., have been used widely to study extreme events.In supporting users from broad communities, GES DISC have developed various data access services, including subsetter for downloading only data of interest with preferred format; OPeNDAP - for machine-to-machine data access; and Giovanni- for online visualization and analysis, etc. A big challenge for extreme study is to downloading and processing long-term hourly or daily data. The data downloading performance is not very satisfied by many users with current services and the native archived data structure. Late June 2019, many people in Europe had experienced extreme heat waves. The temperatures in several countries exceeded 40°C (104°F). For example, MERRA-2 shows that the near surface daily maximum temperature of June 28 2019 over Marseille, a city in southern France, reached 41.1 °C (106°F), which is the record breaking temperature in the last 40 years. GES DISC is working together with domain science experts to improve the performance of long time series access, making analysis ready data sets in supporting application researches, such as extreme study. In this presentation, using Europe heat wave as an example, we will show prototype of the in developing service for finding extremes from near 40 years MERRA-2 data at a given location. MERRA-2 data can be accessed from NASA GES DISC(https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ) by search keyword "MERRA-2".

Shen, Suhung↗

Dark matter self-interactions from the internal dynamics of dwarf spheroidals

Dwarf spheroidal galaxies provide well-known challenges to the standard cold and collisionless dark matter scenario: the too-big-to-fail problem (namely the mismatch between the observed mass enclosed within their half-light radius and cold dark matter N-body predictions) and the hints for inner constant-density cores. While these controversies may be alleviated by baryonic physics and environmental effects, revisiting the standard lore of cold and collisionless dark matter remains an intriguing possibility. Self-interacting dark matter may be the successful proposal to such a small-scale crisis. Self-interactions correlate dark matter and baryon distributions, allowing for constant-density cores in low-surface-brightness galaxies. Here, we perform a data-driven study of the too-big-to-fail problem of Milky Way dwarf spheroidals within the self-interacting dark matter paradigm. In this study, we find a good description of their stellar kinematics and compatibility with the concentration–mass relation from the pure cold dark matter simulation in ref. Within this concentration–mass relation, a subset of Milky Way dwarfs are well fitted by cross-sections of 0.5–3.0 cm 2 g —1 , while others point to values greater than 10 cm 2 g —1 .

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Multiresolution With Super-Compact Wavelets

The solution data computed from large scale simulations are sometimes too big for main memory, for local disks, and possibly even for a remote storage disk, creating tremendous processing time as well as technical difficulties in analyzing the data. The excessive storage demands a corresponding huge penalty in I/O time, rendering time and transmission time between different computer systems. In this paper, a multiresolution scheme is proposed to compress field simulation or experimental data without much loss of important information in the representation. Originally, the wavelet based multiresolution scheme was introduced in image processing, for the purposes of data compression and feature extraction. Unlike photographic image data which has rather simple settings, computational field simulation data needs more careful treatment in applying the multiresolution technique. While the image data sits on a regular spaced grid, the simulation data usually resides on a structured curvilinear grid or unstructured grid. In addition to the irregularity in grid spacing, the other difficulty is that the solutions consist of vectors instead of scalar values. The data characteristics demand more restrictive conditions. In general, the photographic images have very little inherent smoothness with discontinuities almost everywhere. On the other hand, the numerical solutions have smoothness almost everywhere and discontinuities in local areas (shock, vortices, and shear layers). The wavelet bases should be amenable to the solution of the problem at hand and applicable to constraints such as numerical accuracy and boundary conditions. In choosing a suitable wavelet basis for simulation data among a variety of wavelet families, the supercompact wavelets designed by Beam and Warming provide one of the most effective multiresolution schemes. Supercompact multi-wavelets retain the compactness of Haar wavelets, are piecewise polynomial and orthogonal, and can have arbitrary order of approximation. The advantages of the multiresolution algorithm are that no special treatment is required at the boundaries of the interval, and that the application to functions which are only piecewise continuous (internal boundaries) can be efficiently implemented. In this presentation, Beam's supercompact wavelets are generalized to higher dimensions using multidimensional scaling and wavelet functions rather than alternating the directions as in the 1D version. As a demonstration of actual 3D data compression, supercompact wavelet transforms are applied to a 3D data set for wing tip vortex flow solutions (2.5 million grid points). It is shown that high data compression ratio can be achieved (around 50:1 ratio) in both vector and scalar data set.

Lee, Dohyung↗

Cosmological constraints on the neutron lifetime

We derive new constraints on the neutron lifetime based on the recent Planck 2015 observations of temperature and polarization anisotropies of the CMB. Under the assumption of standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, we show that Planck data constrains the neutron lifetime to τ{sub n} = (907±69) [s] at 68% c.l.. Moreover, by including the direct measurements of primordial Helium abundance of Aver et al. (2015) and Izotov et al. (2014), we show that cosmological data provide the stringent constraints τ{sub n} = (875±19) [s] and τ{sub n} = (921±11) [s] respectively. The latter appears to be in tension with neutron lifetime value quoted by the Particle Data Group (τ{sub n} = (880.3±1.1) [s]). Future CMB surveys as COrE+, in combination with a weak lensing survey as EUCLID, could constrain the neutron lifetime up to a ∼ 6 [s] precision.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

TURBO: Terabits/s Using Reconfigurable Bandwidth Optics (Final Report)

Large scale, big science applications are generating petabytes of data that need to be shared among multiple locations. Moving a petabyte of data at 100 Gb/s takes 22 hours. Reducing this to single digit hours or below is clearly attractive and with future applications anticipating exabyte scale transfers, multi-terabit per second capacities are needed. This scale of capacity is available using optical systems. Core optical systems have aggregate per fiber capacities on the order of 10 Tb/s and more than 100 Tb/s system experiments have been realized in the lab. But large optical capacities are not just reserved for the core as similar system capacities are available in metro networks right up to the enterprise, campus, or data center. In general, the same technology is used today in the metro area as in the long-haul networks—reconfigurable optical add drop multiplexing (ROADM) node-based wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems. Data centers already support massive internal capacities on the scale of 100’s of Tb/s. As new photonic integrated technologies mature, for example through initiatives such as the Integrated Photonics Innovative Manufacturing Institute (IP-IMI), the cost of optical interfaces is expected to decrease, and higher capacity and higher performance interfaces will become more affordable. This set of circumstances creates the potential that Tb/s capacities will be available at the enterprise and campus level to support large scale science network applications.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Los Alamos National Laboratory High Performance Computing Overview [Slides]

We need such big computers because without testing, we don't understand the health of the AGING stockpile. Our big computers store a wealth of test data. We model weapons as they were tested and see if we can match the results to validate models, and we then use validated models along with dismantlement information on aging to certify the stockpile. Sometimes the results of tests can’t be explained well, so even that part requires massive computations, but applying the model to future use is an astonishing amount of computing.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

HIGH RESOLUTION He i 10830 Å NARROW-BAND IMAGING OF AN M-CLASS FLARE. I. ANALYSIS OF SUNSPOT DYNAMICS DURING FLARING

In this paper, we report our first-step results of high resolution He i 10830 Å narrow-band imaging (bandpass: 0.5 Å) of an M1.8 class two-ribbon flare on 2012 July 5. The flare was observed with the 1.6 m aperture New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory. For this unique data set, sunspot dynamics during flaring were analyzed for the first time. By directly imaging the upper chromosphere, running penumbral waves are clearly seen as an outward extension of umbral flashes; both take the form of absorption in the 10830 Å narrow-band images. From a space–time image made of a slit cutting across a flare ribbon and the sunspot, we find that the dark lanes for umbral flashes and penumbral waves are obviously broadened after the flare. The most prominent feature is the sudden appearance of an oscillating absorption strip inside the ribbon when it sweeps into the sunspot’s penumbral and umbral regions. During each oscillation, outwardly propagating umbral flashes and subsequent penumbral waves rush out into the inwardly sweeping ribbon, followed by a return of the absorption strip with similar speed. We tentatively explain the phenomena as the result of a sudden increase in the density of ortho-helium atoms in the area of the sunspot being excited by the flare’s extreme ultraviolet illumination. This explanation is based on the observation that 10830 Å absorption around the sunspot area gets enhanced during the flare. Nevertheless, questions are still open and we need further well-devised observations to investigate the behavior of sunspot dynamics during flares.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Nonlinear Effects in Three-minute Oscillations of the Solar Chromosphere. I. An Analytical Nonlinear Solution and Detection of the Second Harmonic

The vertical propagation of nonlinear acoustic waves in an isothermal atmosphere is considered. A new analytical solution that describes a finite-amplitude wave of an arbitrary wavelength is obtained. Although the short- and long-wavelength limits were previously considered separately, the new solution describes both limiting cases within a common framework and provides a straightforward way of interpolating between the two limits. Physical features of the nonlinear waves in the chromosphere are described, including the dispersive nature of low-frequency waves, the steepening of the wave profile, and the influence of the gravitational field on wavefront breaking and shock formation. The analytical results suggest that observations of three-minute oscillations in the solar chromosphere may reveal the basic nonlinear effect of oscillations with combination frequencies, superposed on the normal oscillations of the system. Explicit expressions for a second-harmonic signal and the ratio of its amplitude to the fundamental harmonic amplitude are derived. Observational evidence of the second harmonic, obtained with the Fast Imaging Solar Spectrograph, installed at the 1.6 m New Solar Telescope of the Big Bear Observatory, is presented. The presented data are based on the time variations of velocity determined from the Na i D{sub 2} and H α lines.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A new view of Baryon symmetric cosmology based on grand unified theories

Within the framework of grand unified theories, it is shown how spontaneous CP violation leads to a domain structure in the universe with the domains evolving into separate regions of matter and antimatter excesses. Subsequent to exponential horizon growth, this can result in a universe of matter galaxies and antimatter galaxies. Various astrophysical data appear to favor this form of big bang cosmology. Future direct tests for cosmologically significant antimatter are discussed.

Stecker, F. W.↗

The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE)

The Primordial Inflation Explorer is an Explorer-class mission to measure the gravity-wave signature of primordial inflation through its distinctive imprint on the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background. PIXIE uses an innovative optical design to achieve background-limited sensitivity in 400 spectral channels spanning 2.5 decades in frequency from 30 GHz to 6 THz (1 cm to 50 micron wavelength). Multi-moded non-imaging optics feed a polarizing Fourier Transform Spectrometer to produce a set of interference fringes, proportional to the difference spectrum between orthogonal linear polarizations from the two input beams. The differential design and multiple signal modulations spanning 11 orders of magnitude in time combine to reduce the instrumental signature and confusion from unpolarized sources to negligible levels. PIXIE will map the full sky in Stokes I, Q, and U parameters with angular resolution 2.6 deg and sensitivity 0.2 uK per 1 deg square pixel. The principal science goal is the detection and characterization of linear polarization from an inflationary epoch in the early universe, with tensor-to-scalar ratio r <10(exp -3) at 5 standard deviations. In addition, the rich PIXIE data will constrain physical processes ranging from Big Bang cosmology to the nature of the first stars to the physical conditions within the interstellar medium of the Galaxy. We describe the PIXIE instrument and mission architecture needed to detect the signature of an inflationary epoch in the early universe using only 4 semiconductor bolometers.

Kogut, Alan J.↗

The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE) Mission

The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE) is an Explorer-class mission to map the absolute intensity and linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background and diffuse astrophysical foregrounds over the full sky from frequencies 30 GHz to 6 THz (I cm to 50 I-tm wavelength). PIXIE uses a polarizing Michelson interferometer with 2.7 K optics to measure the difference spectrum between two orthogonal linear polarizations from two co-aligned beams. Either input can view either the sky or a temperature-controlled absolute reference blackbody calibrator. The multimoded optics and high etendu provide sensitivity comparable to kilo-pixel focal plane arrays, but with greatly expanded frequency coverage while using only 4 detectors total. PIXIE builds on the highly successful COBEIFIRAS design by adding large-area polarization-sensitive detectors whose fully symmetric optics are maintained in thermal equilibrium with the CMB. The highly symmetric nulled design provides redundant rejection of major sources of systematic uncertainty. The principal science goal is the detection and characterization of linear polarization from an inflationary epoch in the early universe, with tensor-to-scalar ratio r much less than 10(exp -3). PIXIE will also return a rich data set constraining physical processes ranging from Big Bang cosmology, reionization, and large-scale structure to the local interstellar medium. Keywords: cosmic microwave background, polarization, FTS, bolometer

Kogut, Alan J.↗

Do joint CMB and HST data support a scale invariant spectrum?

We combine current measurements of the local expansion rate, H {sub 0}, and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) estimates of helium abundance with the latest cosmic microwave background (CMB) data from the Planck Collaboration to discuss the observational viability of the scale invariant Harrison-Zeldovch-Peebles (HZP) spectrum. We also analyze some of its extensions, namely, HZP + Y {sub P} and HZP + N {sub eff}, where Y {sub P} is the primordial helium mass fraction and N {sub eff} is the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom. We perform a Bayesian analysis and show that the latter model is favored with respect to the standard cosmology for values of N {sub eff} lying in the interval 3.70 ± 0.13 (1σ), which is currently allowed by some independent analyses.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗