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At least 1,513 records · Page 84

Closing the loop between microstructure and charge transport in conjugated polymers by combining microscopy and simulation

A grand challenge in materials science is to identify the impact of molecular composition and structure across a range of length scales on macroscopic properties. We demonstrate a unified experimental–theoretical framework that coordinates experimental measurements of mesoscale structure with molecular-level physical modeling to bridge multiple scales of physical behavior. Here we apply this framework to understand charge transport in a semiconducting polymer. Spatially-resolved nanodiffraction in a transmission electron microscope is combined with a self-consistent framework of the polymer chain statistics to yield a detailed picture of the polymer microstructure ranging from the molecular to device relevant scale. Using these data as inputs for charge transport calculations, the combined multiscale approach highlights the underrepresented role of defects in existing transport models. Short-range transport is shown to be more chaotic than is often pictured, with the drift velocity accounting for a small portion of overall charge motion. Local transport is sensitive to the alignment and geometry of polymer chains. At longer length scales, large domains and gradual grain boundaries funnel charges preferentially to certain regions, creating inhomogeneous charge distributions. While alignment generally improves mobility, these funneling effects negatively impact mobility. The microstructure is modified in silico to explore possible design rules, showing chain stiffness and alignment to be beneficial while local homogeneity has no positive effect. This combined approach creates a flexible and extensible pipeline for analyzing multiscale functional properties and a general strategy for extending the accesible length scales of experimental and theoretical probes by harnessing their combined strengths.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Improving the secretion of designed protein assemblies through negative design of cryptic transmembrane domains

Computationally designed protein nanoparticles have recently emerged as a promising platform for the development of new vaccines and biologics. For many applications, secretion of designed nanoparticles from eukaryotic cells would be advantageous, but in practice, they often secrete poorly. Here we show that designed hydrophobic interfaces that drive nanoparticle assembly are often predicted to form cryptic transmembrane domains, suggesting that interaction with the membrane insertion machinery could limit efficient secretion. We develop a general computational protocol, the Degreaser, to design away cryptic transmembrane domains without sacrificing protein stability. The retroactive application of the Degreaser to previously designed nanoparticle components and nanoparticles considerably improves secretion, and modular integration of the Degreaser into design pipelines results in new nanoparticles that secrete as robustly as naturally occurring protein assemblies. Both the Degreaser protocol and the nanoparticles we describe may be broadly useful in biotechnological applications.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

Modeling direct air carbon capture and storage in a 1.5 °C climate future using historical analogs

Limiting the rise in global temperature to 1.5 °C will rely, in part, on technologies to remove CO 2 from the atmosphere. However, many carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies are in the early stages of development, and there is limited data to inform predictions of their future adoption. Here, we present an approach to model adoption of early-stage technologies such as CDR and apply it to direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS). Our approach combines empirical data on historical technology analogs and early adoption indicators to model a range of feasible growth pathways. We use these pathways as inputs to an integrated assessment model (the Global Change Analysis Model, GCAM) and evaluate their effects under an emissions policy to limit end-of-century temperature change to 1.5 °C. Adoption varies widely across analogs, which share different strategic similarities with DACCS. If DACCS growth mirrors high-growth analogs (e.g., solar photovoltaics), it can reach up to 4.9 GtCO 2 removal by midcentury, compared to as low as 0.2 GtCO 2 for low-growth analogs (e.g., natural gas pipelines). For these slower growing analogs, unabated fossil fuel generation in 2050 is reduced by 44% compared to high-growth analogs, with implications for energy investments and stranded assets. Residual emissions at the end of the century are also substantially lower (by up to 43% and 34% in transportation and industry) under lower DACCS scenarios. The large variation in growth rates observed for different analogs can also point to policy takeaways for enabling DACCS.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Learning dynamical systems from data: An introduction to physics-guided deep learning

Modeling complex physical dynamics is a fundamental task in science and engineering. Traditional physics-based models are first-principled, explainable, and sample-efficient. However, they often rely on strong modeling assumptions and expensive numerical integration, requiring significant computational resources and domain expertise. While deep learning (DL) provides efficient alternatives for modeling complex dynamics, they require a large amount of labeled training data. Furthermore, its predictions may disobey the governing physical laws and are difficult to interpret. Physics-guided DL aims to integrate first-principled physical knowledge into data-driven methods. It has the best of both worlds and is well equipped to better solve scientific problems. Recently, this field has gained great progress and has drawn considerable interest across discipline Here, we introduce the framework of physics-guided DL with a special emphasis on learning dynamical systems. We describe the learning pipeline and categorize state-of-the-art methods under this framework. We also offer our perspectives on the open challenges and emerging opportunities.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Structural and physical features that distinguish tumor-controlling from inactive cancer neoepitopes

Neoepitopes arising from amino acid substitutions due to single nucleotide polymorphisms are targets of T cell immune responses to cancer and are of significant interest in the development of cancer vaccines. However, understanding the characteristics of rare protective neoepitopes that truly control tumor growth has been a challenge, due to their scarcity as well as the challenge of verifying true, neoepitope-dependent tumor control in humans. Taking advantage of recent work in mouse models that circumvented these challenges, here, we compared the structural and physical properties of neoepitopes that range from fully protective to immunologically inactive. As neoepitopes are derived from self-peptides that can induce immune tolerance, we studied not only how the various neoepitopes differ from each other but also from their wild-type counterparts. We identified multiple features associated with protection, including features that describe how neoepitopes differ from self as well as features associated with recognition by diverse T cell receptor repertoires. In conclusion, we demonstrate both the promise and limitations of neoepitope structural analysis and predictive modeling and illustrate important aspects that can be incorporated into neoepitope prediction pipelines.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Enhanced polymorph metastability drives glycine nucleation in aqueous salt solutions

Crystal nucleation from aqueous solutions influences countless geological, biochemical, astrophysical, environmental, and materials science–related phenomena, including ice formation, the manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients, development of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and the origin of life itself. Understanding and controlling nucleation is essential for designing materials with specific properties, developing strategies to inhibit or promote crystallization in various contexts and preventing pathological aggregation in neurodegenerative diseases. Similar to the protein structure prediction problem—where a single amino acid sequence can in theory adopt one most stable conformation but in practice may sample multiple competing conformations—crystal nucleation faces a parallel challenge: the same chemical species can form diverse polymorphs under different environmental conditions (e.g., temperature, pressure, solvent). Each polymorph presents its own set of physical and chemical properties, highlighting the importance of understanding and controlling polymorph selection in fields ranging from pharmaceuticals to materials design. Despite advances in experimental and computational methods for studying phase transitions and polymorph stability, nucleation remains challenging due to its nanoscale nature. Furthermore, in practical settings, salts and impurities can further influence crystal nucleation in diverse contexts, from scaling in pipelines and desalination plants to the durability of concrete and the efficiency of battery materials. This can lead to the formation of polymorphs that may differ from the most stable phase in pure solutions. Or, even though the final structure might appear same irrespective of whether the environment contained impurities or not, the mechanism through which it was formed might be completely different and not intuitive.

Wang, Ruiyu [University of Maryland, College Park,↗

LCLS Big Data Handling – How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Data Deluge

Advanced data and computing systems are vital to Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) operations, data interpretation and overall scientific productivity. The transition to MHz-era operation marks a fundamental change in scale that requires new infrastructure and architectures to link LCLS to the required scale of computing needed for scientific interpretation. The LCLS-II Data System meets big data challenges by implementing configurable data reduction that can adapt to multiple science areas, real-time analysis frameworks to provide visualization and fast feedback, and the ability to transfer data to local and remote computational facilities for near real time analysis at the appropriate scale. Feature extracted information generated in the data analysis pipeline - at the edge, local compute, or remote High-Performance Computing (HPC) resources - can be used to steer experiments and inform user decisions during beam time. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) techniques present new opportunities to rapidly analyse large datasets and direct experiments, but create new challenges in scaling, adaptability, complexity, and trustworthiness. We describe how the LCLS-II Data System architecture addresses its data-driven challenges in the areas of data acquisition, data processing, data management, and workflow orchestration to decrease the overall time-to-science and provide a vision for future developments.

artificial intelligence↗

Quantifying and Visualizing Uncertainty for Source Localisation in Electrocardiographic Imaging

Electrocardiographic imaging (ECGI) presents a clinical opportunity to noninvasively understand the sources of arrhythmias for individual patients. To help increase the effectiveness of ECGI, we provide new ways to visualise associated measurement and modelling errors. Here, we study source localisation uncertainty in two steps: First, we perform Monte Carlo simulations of a simple inverse ECGI source localisation model with error sampling to understand the variations in ECGI solutions. Second, we present multiple visualisation techniques, including confidence maps, level-sets, and topology-based visualisations, to better understand uncertainty in source localization. Our approach offers a new way to study uncertainty in the ECGI pipeline.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Platform for Automated Anomaly Detection in the Mercury Process System at the Target System in the Spallation Neutron Source

The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory accelerates proton beams, which are directed toward a mercury target to generate the world’s most intense neutron beams via spallation. The target system consists of several interconnected subsystems and accounts for a major share of the facility’s overall downtime. Early detection of anomalies in the target system response can thus provide the possibility of taking corrective actions to reduce downtime. Accelerator facilities have largely focused on the beam side for data-driven fault prognostics. On the target side, SNS relies on operational shift technicians (OSTs), who respond to alarms and manually flag anomalies onto the System Tracking and Reliability (STAR) platform. This paper presents one of the first studies of using machine learning (ML) to automate anomaly detection in the target system. The study focused on the mercury process system as the first use case and employed reconstruction-based anomaly detection on minutely sampled time series signals. The pipeline was integrated into the STAR platform to autonomously rank and flag anomalies every week. The STAR platform provides a user interface for the OSTs to evaluate the flagged anomalies, thereby incorporating human feedback.

Anomaly detection↗

Multimeric antibodies from antigen-specific human IgM+ memory B cells restrict Plasmodium parasites

Multimeric immunoglobulin-like molecules arose early in vertebrate evolution, yet the unique contributions of multimeric IgM antibodies to infection control are not well understood. This is partially due to the difficulty of distinguishing low-affinity IgM, secreted rapidly by plasmablasts, from high-affinity antibodies derived from later-arising memory cells. We developed a pipeline to express B cell receptors (BCRs) from Plasmodium falciparum–specific IgM+ and IgG+ human memory B cells (MBCs) as both IgM and IgG molecules. BCRs from both subsets were somatically hypermutated and exhibited comparable monomeric affinity. Crystallization of one IgM+ MBC-derived antibody complexed with antigen defined a linear epitope within a conserved Plasmodium protein. In its physiological multimeric state, this antibody displayed exponentially higher antigen binding than a clonally identical IgG monomer, and more effectively inhibited P. falciparum invasion. Forced multimerization of this IgG significantly improved both antigen binding and parasite restriction, underscoring how avidity can alter antibody function. This work demonstrates the potential of high-avidity IgM in both therapeutics and vaccines.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Active learning of a crystal plasticity flow rule from discrete dislocation dynamics simulations

Continuum-scale material deformation models, such as crystal plasticity (CP), can significantly enhance their predictive accuracy by incorporating input from lower-scale (i.e. mesoscale) models. The procedure to generate and extract the relevant information is however typically complex and ad hoc, involving decision and intervention by domain experts, leading to long development times. In this study, we develop a principled approach for calibration of continuum-scale models using lower scale information by representing a CP flow rule as a Gaussian process model. This representation allows for efficient parameter space exploration, guided by the uncertainty embedded in the model through a process known as Bayesian optimization (BO). We demonstrate a semi-autonomous BO loop which instantiates discrete dislocation dynamics simulations whose initial conditions are automatically chosen to optimize the uncertainty of a model CP flow rule. Our self-guided computational pipeline efficiently generated a dataset and corresponding model whose error, uncertainty, and physical feature sensitivities were validated with comparison to an independent dataset four times larger, demonstrating a valuable and efficient active learning implementation readily transferable to similar material systems.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Advanced techniques in automated high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy

Scanning transmission electron microscopy is a common tool used to study the atomic structure of materials. It is an inherently multimodal tool allowing for the simultaneous acquisition of multiple information channels. Despite its versatility, however, experimental workflows currently rely heavily on experienced human operators and can only acquire data from small regions of a sample at a time. Here, we demonstrate a flexible pipeline-based system for high-throughput acquisition of atomic-resolution structural data using an all-piezo sample stage applied to large-scale imaging of nanoparticles and multimodal data acquisition. As a result, the system is available as part of the user program of the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

4D-STEM↗

Tomographic galaxy clustering with the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam first year public data release

We analyze the clustering of galaxies in the first public data release of the HSC Subaru Strategic Program. Despite the relatively small footprints of the observed fields, the data are an excellent proxy for the deep photometric datasets that will be acquired by LSST, and are therefore an ideal test bed for the analysis methods being implemented by the LSST DESC. We select a magnitude limited sample with i<24.5 and analyze it in four redshift bins covering 0.15≲z≲1.5. We carry out a Fourier-space analysis of the two-point clustering of this sample, including all auto- and cross-correlations. We demonstrate the use of map-level deprojection methods to account for fluctuations in the galaxy number density caused by observational systematics. Through an HOD analysis, we place constraints on the characteristic halo masses of this sample, finding a good fit up to scales k max = 1Mpc –1 , including both auto- and cross-correlations. Our results show monotonically decreasing average halo masses, which can be interpreted in terms of the drop-out of red galaxies at high redshifts for a flux-limited sample. In terms of photometric redshift systematics, we show that additional care is needed in order to marginalize over uncertainties in the redshift distribution in galaxy clustering, and that these uncertainties can be constrained by including cross-correlations. We are able to make a ~3σ detection of lensing magnification in the HSC data. Our results are stable to variations in σ 8 and Ω c and we find constraints that agree well with measurements from Planck and low-redshift probes. Lastly, we use our pipeline to study the clustering of galaxies as a function of limiting flux, and provide a simple fitting function for the linear galaxy bias for magnitude limited samples as a function of limiting magnitude and redshift.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

LyaCoLoRe : synthetic datasets for current and future Lyman-α forest BAO surveys

The statistical power of Lyman-α forest Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) measurements is set to increase significantly in the coming years as new instruments such as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument deliver progressively more constraining data. Generating mock datasets for such measurements will be important for validating analysis pipelines and evaluating the effects of systematics. With such studies in mind, here we present LyaCoLoRe: a package for producing synthetic Lyman-α forest survey datasets for BAO analyses. LyaCoLoRe transforms initial Gaussian random field skewers into skewers of transmitted flux fraction via a number of fast approximations. In this work we explain the methods of producing mock datasets used in LyaCoLoRe, and then measure correlation functions on a suite of realisations of such data. We demonstrate that we are able to recover the correct BAO signal, as well as large-scale bias parameters similar to literature values. Finally, we briefly describe methods to add further astrophysical effects to our skewers — high column density systems and metal absorbers — which act as potential complications for BAO analyses.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Cosmic shear power spectra in practice

Cosmic shear is one of the most powerful probes of Dark Energy, targeted by several current and future galaxy surveys. Lensing shear, however, is only sampled at the positions of galaxies with measured shapes in the catalog, making its associated sky window function one of the most complicated amongst all projected cosmological probes of inhomogeneities, as well as giving rise to inhomogeneous noise. Partly for this reason, cosmic shear analyses have been mostly carried out in real-space, making use of correlation functions, as opposed to Fourier-space power spectra. Since the use of power spectra can yield complementary information and has numerical advantages over real-space pipelines, it is important to develop a complete formalism describing the standard unbiased power spectrum estimators as well as their associated uncertainties. Building on previous work, this paper contains a study of the main complications associated with estimating and interpreting shear power spectra, and presents fast and accurate methods to estimate two key quantities needed for their practical usage: the noise bias and the Gaussian covariance matrix, fully accounting for survey geometry, with some of these results also applicable to other cosmological probes. Here, we demonstrate the performance of these methods by applying them to the latest public data releases of the Hyper Suprime-Cam and the Dark Energy Survey collaborations, quantifying the presence of systematics in our measurements and the validity of the covariance matrix estimate. We make the resulting power spectra, covariance matrices, null tests and all associated data necessary for a full cosmological analysis publicly available.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The growth of density perturbations in the last ~10 billion years from tomographic large-scale structure data

In order to investigate the origin of the ongoing tension between the amplitude of matter fluctuations measured by weak lensing experiments at low redshifts and the value inferred from the cosmic microwave background anisotropies, we reconstruct the evolution of this amplitude from z ~ 2 using existing large-scale structure data. To do so, we decouple the linear growth of density inhomogeneities from the background expansion, and constrain its redshift dependence making use of a combination of 6 different data sets, including cosmic shear, galaxy clustering and CMB lensing. We analyze these data under a consistent harmonic-space angular power spectrum-based pipeline. We show that current data constrain the amplitude of fluctuations mostly in the range 0.2 < z < 0.7, where it is lower than predicted by . This difference is mostly driven by current cosmic shear data, although the growth histories reconstructed from different data combinations are consistent with each other, and we find no evidence of systematic deviations in any particular experiment. In spite of the tension with , the data are well-described by the model, albeit with a lower value of S 8 ≡ σ 8 (Ω m /0.3) 0.5 . As part of our analysis, we find constraints on this parameter of S 8 = 0.7781 ± 0.0094 (68% confidence level), reaching almost percent-level errors comparable with CMB measurements, and 3.4σ away from the value found by .

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

CoLoRe: fast cosmological realisations over large volumes with multiple tracers

We present CoLoRe, a public software package to efficiently generate synthetic realisations of multiple cosmological surveys.CoLoRe can simulate the growth of structure with different degrees of accuracy, with the current implementation supporting lognormal fields, first, and second order Lagrangian perturbation theory.CoLoRe simulates the density field on an all-sky light-cone up to a desired maximum redshift, and uses it to generate multiple 2D and 3D maps: galaxy positions and velocities, lensing (shear, magnification, convergence), integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, line intensity mapping, and line of sight skewers for simulations of the Lyman-α forest. We test the accuracy of the simulated maps against analytical theoretical predictions, and showcase its performance with a multi-survey simulation including DESI galaxies and quasars, LSST galaxies and lensing, and SKA intensity mapping and radio galaxies. We expect CoLoRe to be particularly useful in studies aiming to characterise the impact of systematics in multi-experiment analyses, quantify the covariance between different datasets, and test cross-correlation pipelines for near-future surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Real-world CMB lensing quadratic estimator power spectrum response

I describe a method to estimate response matrices of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) lensing power spectra estimators to the true sky power under realistic conditions. Applicable to all lensing reconstruction pipelines based on quadratic estimators (QE), it uses a small number of Gaussian CMB Monte-Carlos and specially designed QE's in order to obtain sufficiently accurate matrices with little computational effort. This method may be used to improve the modelling of CMB lensing band-powers by incorporating at least some of the non-idealities encountered in CMB lensing reconstruction. These non-idealities always include masking, and often inhomogeneous filtering, either in the harmonic domain or pixel space. I obtain these matrices for Planck latest lensing reconstructions, and then show that the residual couplings induced by masking explain very well the residual multiplicative bias seen on the Planck simulations, removing the need for an empirical correction.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗