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At least 1,369 records · Page 76

The parameter-level performance of covariance matrix conditioning in cosmic microwave background data analyses

Empirical estimates of the band power covariance matrix are commonly used in cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum analyses. While this approach easily captures correlations in the data, noise in the resulting covariance estimate can systematically bias the parameter fitting. Conditioning the estimated covariance matrix, by applying prior information on the shape of the eigenvectors, can reduce these biases and ensure the recovery of robust parameter constraints. In this work, we use simulations to benchmark the performance of four different conditioning schemes, motivated by contemporary CMB analyses. The simulated surveys measure the TT, TE, and EE power spectra over the angular multipole range 300 ≤ ℓ ≤ 3500 in Δℓ = 50 wide bins, for temperature map-noise levels of 10, 6.4, and $2\, \mu$K arcmin. We divide the survey data into N real = 30, 50, or 100 uniform subsets. We show the results of different conditioning schemes on the errors in the covariance estimate, and how these uncertainties on the covariance matrix propagate to the best-fitting parameters and parameter uncertainties. The most significant effect we find is an additional scatter in the best-fitting point, beyond what is expected from the data likelihood. For a minimal conditioning strategy, N real = 30, and a temperature map-noise level of 10$\, \mu$K arcmin, we find the uncertainty on the recovered best-fitting parameter to be ×1.3 larger than the apparent posterior width from the likelihood (×1.2 larger than the uncertainty when the true covariance is used). Stronger priors on the covariance matrix reduce the misestimation of parameter uncertainties to $\lt 1{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$. As expected, empirical estimates perform better with higher N real , ameliorating the adverse effects on parameter constraints.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

FY2019 Energy Efficient Mobility Systems Annual Progress Report

EEMS Program activities during FY 2019 focused on analytical research to understand the impacts that new mobility technologies and services will have at the vehicle, traveler, and overall transportation system-level. This research included the development of vehicle and transportation system simulation models and tools to evaluate the complex interactions among the various actors within the mobility landscape, analysis of empirical data to characterize which solutions may provide the largest benefits, and development of new control systems and algorithms that use vehicle connectivity and automation to improve the performance and efficiency of individual vehicles as well as the overall traffic system. This document presents a brief overview of the EEMS Program and documents progress and results for projects within four of the five EEMS activity areas: (1) the SMART (Systems and Modeling for Accelerated Research in Transportation) Mobility Lab Consortium, (2) High Performance Computing and Big Data Solutions for Mobility Data, (3) Advanced R&D Projects conducted by industry and academia, and (4) Core Modeling, Simulation, and Evaluation, Similarly, the remaining EEMS activity area – (5) Living Labs (managed under VTO’s Technology Integration Program). Each of the individual progress reports provide a project overview and highlights of the technical results.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Understanding Solar Photovoltaic System Performance: An Assessment of 75 Federal Photovoltaic Systems

This report presents a performance analysis of 75 photovoltaic systems based on PV system production data collected as part of a FEMP Federal PV Performance Assessment project combined with co-incident insolation, and ambient temperature to analyze how actual performance compares with a performance model. FEMP collaborated with 17 Federal agencies and sub-agencies to collect the information required to analyze the performance of each system. The systems represent a total capacity of 30,714 kW and range in size from 1 kW to 4,043 kW, with an average size of 410 kW, and were installed between 2011 and 2020. The data is analyzed for Key Performance Indicators, Availability, Performance Ratio and Energy Ratio by comparing the measured production data to model production data. The System Advisor Model (SAM) combines a description of the system (such as inverter capacity, de-rating for temperature, balance-of-system efficiency) with environmental parameters (coincident solar and temperature data) to calculate predicted performance. The performance metrics are calculated by lining up the measured production data with the model estimate on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day, or month-by-month basis (depending on the interval resolution of the production data). A report with system description, photo of the system, special assumptions made for the site, graph of measured production and model production, table of key performance indicators, and links to O&M resources that might improve performance was produced and delivered to site and agency staff with a short on-line briefing.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Additive Manufacturing in the Nuclear Reactor Industry

This article discusses the application of additive manufacturing in the nuclear reactor industry.Additive manufacturing for nuclear applications increased significantly in the late 2010s due to rapid progress in technology, particularly with methods using metals and ceramics.Because these manufacturing technologies are uniquely data-rich, they allow for an advanced understanding of materials, and they offer the potential to predict part performance based on build data. The inherent characteristics of additive manufacturing technologies allow for rapid prototyping and geometric freedom, making it possible to implement an accelerated agile design process for advanced nuclear reactor applications. Predictive high-fidelity multiphysics simulations are crucial to fully leverage this geometric flexibility. Qualification and regulator acceptance ultimately determine the breadth and scope of applications for these technologies. The US Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy Transformational Challenge Reactor program integrates many of these elements to accelerate the deployment of additive manufacturing technologies to industry.

Betzler, Benjamin↗

Airborne hyperspectral imaging of cover crops through radiative transfer process-guided machine learning

Cover cropping between cash crop growing seasons is a multifunctional conservation practice. Timely and accurate monitoring of cover crop traits, notably aboveground biomass and nutrient content, is beneficial to agricultural stakeholders to improve management and understand outcomes. Currently, there is a scarcity of spatially and temporally resolved information for assessing cover crop growth. Remote sensing has a high potential to fill this need, but conventional empirical regression operated with coarse-resolution multispectral data has large uncertainties. Therefore, this study utilized airborne hyperspectral imaging techniques and developed new process-guided machine learning approaches (PGML) for cover crop monitoring. Specifically, we deployed an airborne hyperspectral system covering visible to shortwave-infrared wavelengths (400–2400 nm) to acquire high spatial (0.5 m) and spectral (3–5 nm) resolution reflectance over 23 cover crop fields across Central Illinois in March and April of 2021. Airborne hyperspectral surface reflectance with high spectral and spatial resolution can be well matched with field data to quantify cover crop traits. Furthermore, the PGML models were pre-trained by synthetic data from soil-vegetation radiative transfer modeling (one million records), and then fine-tuned with field data of cover crop biomass and nutrient content. Results show that airborne hyperspectral data with PGML can achieve high accuracy to predict cover crop aboveground biomass (R 2 = 0.72, relative RMSE = 15.16%) and nitrogen content (R 2 = 0.69, relative RMSE = 16.59%) through leave-one-field-out cross-validation. Unlike the pure data-driven approach (e.g., partial least-squares regression), PGML incorporated radiative transfer knowledge and obtained higher predictive performance with fewer field data. Meanwhile, with field data for model fine-tuning, PGML predicted biomass more accurately than the inversion of radiative transfer models. Here we also found that the red edge has a high contribution in quantifying aboveground biomass and nitrogen content, followed by green and shortwave spectra. This study demonstrated the first attempt of utilizing hyperspectral remote sensing to accurately quantify cover crop traits. We highlight the strength of PGML in exploiting sensing data to quantify ecosystem variables to advance agroecosystem monitoring for sustainable agricultural management.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Machine learning based unfolding of x-ray spectra from filter stack spectrometer data

We demonstrate the application of neural networks to perform x-ray spectra unfolding from data collected by filter stack spectrometers. A filter stack spectrometer consists of a series of filter-detector pairs, where the detectors behind each filter measure the energy deposition through each layer as photo-stimulated luminescence (PSL). The network is trained on synthetic data, assuming x-rays of energies < 1 MeV and of two different distribution functions (Maxwellian and Gaussian) and the corresponding measured PSL values obtained from five different filter stack spectrometer designs. Predicted unfolds of single distributions are near identical reproductions of the ground truth spectra, with differences in the values lower than 20% at the higher energy end in some cases. The neural network has also demonstrated robustness to experimental measurement errors of < 5% and some capability of performing unfolds for linear combinations of the two distributions without previous training. The network can perform unfolds at rates > 1 Hz, ideal for application to some high-repetition-rate systems.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Extending the Brick schema to represent metadata of occupants

Here, energy-related behaviors of occupants constitute a key factor influencing building performance; accordingly, the measured occupant data can support the objective assessment of the indoor environment and energy performance of buildings, which can inform building design and operational decisions. Existing data schemas focus on metadata of sensors, meters, physical equipment, and IoT devices in buildings; however, they are limited in representing the metadata of occupant data, including occupants' presence in spaces, movement between spaces, interactions with building systems or IoT devices, and preference of indoor environmental needs. To address this gap, an extension to the widely adopted metadata schema, Brick, is proposed to represent the contextual, behavioral, and demographic information of occupants. The proposed extension includes four parts: (1) a new “Occupant” class to represent occupants' demography and energy related behavioral patterns, (2) new subclasses under the Equipment class to represent envelope system and personal thermal comfort devices, (3) new subclasses under the Point class to represent occupant sensing and status, and (4) new auxiliary properties for occupant interactable equipment to represent the level of controllability for each piece of equipment by occupants. The extension is implemented in the Brick schema and has been tested using multiple occupant datasets from the ASHRAE Global Occupant Database. The extension enables Brick schema to capture diverse types of occupant sensing data and their metadata for FAIR data research and applications.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Striped Data Analysis Framework

A columnar data representation is known to be an efficient way for data storage, specifically in cases when the analysis is often done based only on a small fragment of the available data structures. A data representation like Apache Parquet is a step forward from a columnar representation, which splits data horizontally to allow for easy parallelization of data analysis. Based on the general idea of columnar data storage, working on the [LDRD Project], we have developed a striped data representation, which, we believe, is better suited to the needs of High Energy Physics data analysis. A traditional columnar approach allows for efficient data analysis of complex structures. While keeping all the benefits of columnar data representations, the striped mechanism goes further by enabling easy parallelization of computations without requiring special hardware. We will present an implementation and some performance characteristics of such a data representation mechanism using a distributed no-SQL database or a local file system, unified under the same API and data representation model. The representation is efficient and at the same time simple so that it allows for a common data model and APIs for wide range of underlying storage mechanisms such as distributed no-SQL databases and local file systems. Striped storage adopts Numpy arrays as its basic data representation format, which makes it easy and efficient to use in Python applications. The Striped Data Server is a web service, which allows to hide the server implementation details from the end user, easily exposes data to WAN users, and allows to utilize well known and developed data caching solutions to further increase data access efficiency. We are considering the Striped Data Server as the core of an enterprise scale data analysis platform for High Energy Physics and similar areas of data processing. We have been testing this architecture with a 2TB dataset from a CMS dark matter search and plan to expand it to multiple 100 TB or even PB scale. We will present the striped format, Striped Data Server architecture and performance test results.

Gutsche, Oliver↗

RISE: Reducing I/O Contention in Staging-based Extreme-Scale In-situ Workflows

While in-situ workflow formulations have addressed some of the data-related challenges associated with extreme-scale scientific workflows, these workflows involve complex interactions and different modes of data exchange. In the context of increasing system complexity, such workflows present significant resource management challenges, requiring complex cost-performance tradeoffs. This paper presents RISE, an intelligent staging-based data management middleware, which builds on the DataSpaces framework and performs intelligent scheduling of data management operations to reduce I/O contention. In RISE, data are always written immediately to local buffers to reduce the effect of the transfer impact upon application performance. RISE identifies applications’ data access patterns and moves data towards data consumers only when the network is expected to be idle, reducing the impact of asynchronous background data movement upon critical data read/write requests. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that RISE can take advantage of staging nodes to offload data during writes without degrading application data movement performance.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Synergistic data analytics for electromechanical oscillation in electric power systems

Accurate real-time estimation of the four electromechanical oscillation properties, i.e., dominant oscillation modes, mode shapes, participation factors, and coherent groups, is of great importance to assess and mitigate potential electromechanical oscillations in interconnected power systems. While eigenvalue analysis can realize such estimation, it requires precise linearized dynamic models and accurate parameters, which are highly difficult to obtain in practice. Data fusion-based modal estimation methods can extract the properties of electromechanical oscillations from measurement data without the power system model and parameters, but most of the time only one or two property assessments can be accomplished each time. To overcome this challenge, this paper presents a synergistic data analytics solution to characterize the dynamic behaviors of electromechanical oscillations from real-time measurement data. Here, the proposed method uses optimized variable projection, and it is capable of estimating all four electromechanical oscillation behavior properties from measured responses. Case studies are performed using the simulated measurement data of a 16-generator 68-bus test system and the field measurements collected by the PMUs deployed in the Yunnan Power Grid. The results demonstrate that the proposed synergistic data analytics solution can achieve satisfactory performance in capturing the properties of electromechanical oscillations from measurement data and exhibit strong robustness against measurement noise when compared with existing measurement-based methods.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Machine learning applied to classifying neutron resonances

The performance of nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems depends on a precise understanding of the neutron interaction cross sections for materials used in these systems. These cross sections exhibit resonance structure whose shape is determined in part by the angular momentum quantum numbers of the resonances. The correct assignment of the quantum numbers of neutron resonances is therefore of paramount importance. In this project, we apply a machine learning technique, namely decision trees, to automate the quantum number assignments. The tree is trained from simulated data generated to mimic the errors found in real data. We explore the use of several physics-motivated features for training our trees, including the nearest neighbor spacing distribution, cumulative level distribution, and channel width distributions. Initial results using random matrix theory motivated fits which demonstrated that we can determine resonance spin groups somewhat reliably. If we use these fits as features in our trees, we can train them to spot outliers corresponding to misassigned resonances. We found that with the large number of features used in this project that the decision tree tended to over t training data resulting in poor performance with respect to the test data. By reducing the number of features, we can achieve nearly perfect assignment of quantum numbers with our training data.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Domain-Adaptive Neural Posterior Estimation for Strong Gravitational Lens Analysis

Modeling strong gravitational lenses is prohibitively expensive for modern and next-generation cosmic survey data. Neural posterior estimation (NPE), a simulation-based inference (SBI) approach, has been studied as an avenue for efficient analysis of strong lensing data. However, NPE has not been demonstrated to perform well on out-of-domain target data -- e.g., when trained on simulated data and then applied to real, observational data. In this work, we perform the first study of the efficacy of NPE in combination with unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA). The source domain is noiseless, and the target domain has noise mimicking modern cosmology surveys. We find that combining UDA and NPE improves the accuracy of the inference by 1-2 orders of magnitude and significantly improves the posterior coverage over an NPE model without UDA. We anticipate that this combination of approaches will help enable future applications of NPE models to real observational data.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Requirements Document for a Replacement Data Acquisition System

A flight vehicle is in the developmental stages. While in development flight testing is required by both the manufacturer and customer to rate design performance. The performance of the vehicle must fulfill the agreed upon requirements. Testing of a flight vehicle during operation requires various sensors in order to record and monitor performance for evaluation. A Data Acquisition System (DAQ) is needed in order to control and capture data from various sensors placed throughout the vehicle during flight. This DAQ will receive the analog data from the suite of sensors and convert them to a digital signal that can be transmitted to a recording station where the data will later be analyzed by test experts. Some of the key features to be included in the DAQ will be a self-check operation to verify the health of all sensors including the DAQ. The DAQ will also have the capability to store sensor calibration data files loaded during assembly and transmit those files to the recording station during flight. Breakthroughs in new technologies has allowed for higher resolution recording systems and faster sampling rates. Improved sensor data using a new Data Acquisition System (DAQ) can provide important answers to questions discovered during the last few flight tests. These questions arose when the flight system expressed unexpected behaviors. Having the capability of the new DAQ in flight tests would allow for more high-fidelity data to be captured from the system during flight tests and ultimately reducing the number of required flight test. Reducing the number of flight tests also reduce developmental cost and schedule.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Toward lower-diameter large-scale HPC and data center networks with co-packaged optics

We investigate the advantages of using co-packaged optics for building low-diameter, large-scale high-performance computing (HPC) and data center networks. The increased escape bandwidth offered by co-packaged optics can enable high-radix switch implementations of more than 150 switch ports, which can be combined with data rates of up to 400 Gb/s per port. From the network architecture perspective, the key benefits of using co-packaged optics in future fat-tree networks include (a) the ability to implement large-scale topologies of > <#comment/> 11 , 000 end points by eliminating the need for a third switching layer and (b) the ability to provide up to 4 × <#comment/> higher bisection bandwidth compared to existing solutions, reducing at the same time the number of required switch application-specific integrated circuits by > <#comment/> 80 % <#comment/> . From the network operation perspective, both reduced energy consumption and lower packet delays can be achieved since fewer hops are required; i.e., packets need to traverse fewer serializer/deserializer lanes and fewer switch buffers, which reduces the probability of contending with other packets and improves the tolerance of network congestion. The performance of the proposed architecture is evaluated via discrete-event simulations for a wide range of representative HPC synthetic-traffic cases that include both hotspot and non-hotspot scenarios. The simulation results suggest that co-packaged optics form a promising solution to keep up with bandwidth scaling in future networks, while the reduced number of switching layers can lead to significant mean packet delay improvements that start from 30% and reach up to 74% for high-load conditions.

Maniotis, Pavlos (ORCID:0000000244905253)↗

Small Reactors in Microgrids: Technology Modeling and Selection (Net-Zero Microgrid Program Project Report)

This report demonstrates the capabilities of the net-zero microgrid (NZM) Xendee platform for modeling an SR module with electricity, heat extraction and thermal storage in microgrids configurations. The model effectively captures the most important technical and economic considerations for SR technology specific analysis: cost and operational characteristics of SR technology and financial costs and incentives. The model can analyze multiple scenarios to establish metrics for cost-competitive and zero-carbon microgrids connected to the grid or completely isolated. The model is fully integrated within the Xendee platform for modeling and analysis of clean energy microgrids with storage and generation from renewable energy sources. The model captures the capabilities, constraints, and nuances of SR by incorporating parameters related to plant economics, design efficiency and performance, plant operation and component and fuel lifespan. The cost and operational parameters modeled in the SR module are specific to the technology selected for integration in the microgrid. Cost parameters recognize advanced nuclear technology for modular production and installation based on economies of scale from factory manufacture and related commissioning, and cost reduction through technology maturation—first-of-a-kind (FOAK) and nth-of-a-Kind (NOAK). The cost parameters include installation, operations and maintenance (O&M), fuel refueling cycle, and reactor life. Installation cost reflects economies of scale due to unit sizing at scale and colocation. O&M economies of scale for both fixed- and variable-cost fuel life-cycle costs are incurred at every refueling interval, with separate front- and back-end fuel costs, as well as waste-handling and disposition costs. This report investigates key characteristics of different SR technologies suitable for microgrid applications, including design principles, sizing, coolant properties, temperature ratings, fuel structures, and life-cycle considerations. This also includes fuel technologies applicable to these SR systems, alongside strategies for nuclear-waste and spent-fuel management and approaches to address safety, security, and proliferation challenges. Four primary groups of SR technologies are examined: water-cooled, liquid-metal-cooled, high-temperature gas-cooled, and molten-salt-cooled systems. In this report, an initial guideline for technology selection is established, aligning the characteristics of the technologies with the requirements of microgrids. The selection of technology in a microgrid is influenced by various factors, including financial capacity, location and accessibility, demand type and characteristics, reliability and resilience requirements, area constraints, and the lifespan of the microgrid. The types of electrical and non-electrical applications within the microgrid also play a significant role in technology selection. The characteristics of SRs, such as their smaller size, modularity, transportability, long refueling interval, improved safety features, ability to operate in autonomous or semi-autonomous mode, and provision of high-grade heat, are particularly appealing for microgrids. Furthermore, a list of considerations for implementing SRs in microgrids is outlined. The SR model is created to be continuously improved with the acquisition of actual data on investment and operational costs, experience with supply chains, production at scale, and field deployments. In the near term, performance data on applications in microgrids will become available from lessons learned from laboratory tests, such as those planned for the Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation Project (MARVEL), led by Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The SR model incorporates scenario data and known SR design specifications, enabling technoeconomic analysis for SR deployment in microgrids. It specifically considers the distinctive attributes of SRs as generators in technoeconomic studies. SRs can be modeled and analyzed with generation from renewable-energy sources, energy storage, and flexible loads over a range of functionality and applications. This offers a comprehensive tool for feasibility studies, scenario development, and sensitivity analysis for “what-if” consideration of any range of assumptions about SRs in microgrids and other aggregations of distributed-energy resources, including virtual power plants.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Octet scalars shaping LHC distributions in 4-jet final states

We study properties of a hypothetical scalar particle, Θ, which is a color octet and an electroweak singlet. At hadron colliders, Θ is pair produced through its QCD coupling to gluons, so that its mass determines the cross section. It decays at tree level into $q\bar{q}$ through dimension-5 operators, and at one loop into gluons. Thus, the main LHC signature of Θ is a pair of dijets of equal invariant mass. The CMS search in this channel shows a 3.6σ excess over the QCD background for a dijet mass M jj ≈ 0.95 TeV, which can be due to Θ : its production cross section (65 fb for a real scalar) and the acceptance of the CMS event selection applied to pp → ΘΘ → ($q\bar{q}$) ($q\bar{q}$) yield a rate consistent with the excess. Furthermore, the shape of the dσ/dM jj signal is in agreement with the CMS result. Given the data-driven background fit performed by CMS, we find that a complex scalar (whose production rate is twice as large) fits better the data than a real scalar. Besides the pair of dijets, testable LHC signals include a trijet-dijet topology, a $t\bar{t}$ pair plus a dijet resonance, as well as final states involving a Higgs, W or Z boson plus jets.

Dobrescu, Bogdan A. [Fermi National Accelerator La↗

Electrical Resistivity Tomography based monitoring of stress perturbations to optimize placement of high-precision strain meters

The Center for Understanding Subsurface Signals and Permeability is a new U.S. Department of Energy Earthshot Center focused on understanding and predicting the long-term evolution of permeability in enhanced geothermal systems. The center will use a highly instrumented testbed within the Sanford Underground Research Facility to conduct field scale experiments that elucidate and test capabilities to simulate geochemical-geomechanical interactions and permeability evolution. Here we demonstrate initial developments using previously collected electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) monitoring data with high-performance multi-physics modelling advancements to inform the optimal location of two new monitoring boreholes. Specifically, ERT monitoring data collected during shear stimulation testing shows marked responses to changes in stress during borehole pressurization. We demonstrate how the same response is being simulated, ultimately to train a machine-learning algorithm to estimate rock properties and enable enhanced prediction of stress and strain responses anticipated during future testing campaigns.

Stress, EGS, CUSSP, 3D Electrical Imaging↗

Dimuon production in the MicroBooNE detector

This analysis studies the production of the rare signal with two muons (dimuon) in the finalstate at µB using the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) as source of neutrino interactions. Themain background source for the dimuon signal are pions. Differentiating muons and pions hasbeen challenging at µB because the tracks left by these particles are almost identical. Thisanalysis faces this problem using a supervised classifier algorithm called boosted decisiontree (BDT). A Monte Carlo simulation (MC) enhanced dimuon signal sample was producedto train a BDT capable of recognizing this signal. A set of variables that show somediscrimination characteristics was used to perform the training. A MC neutrino interactionsimulation sample was used to estimate the background. Estimations of dimuon productionin real data samples were made for different cases. Additionally, an analysis of the systematicuncertainties, fake data studies, and BDT performance checks were obtained.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗