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Fall 2010 edition of the National Bioenergy Center's Biochemical Platform Integration Project quarterly newsletter. Issue topics: rapid analysis models for compositional analysis of intermediate process streams; engineered arabinose-fermenting Zymomonas mobilis strain.
Winter 2011 edition of the National Bioenergy Center's Biochemical Platform Integration Project quarterly newsletter. Issue topics: 33rd Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals program topic areas; results from reactive membrane extraction of inhibitors from dilute-acid pretreated corn stover; list of 2010 task publications.
Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed a new complex modeling and analysis tool capable of analyzing floating platform concepts for offshore wind turbines. The new modeling tool combines the computational methodologies used to analyze land-based wind turbines with the comprehensive hydrodynamic computer programs developed for offshore oil and gas industries. This new coupled dynamic simulation tool will enable the development of cost-effective offshore technologies capable of harvesting the rich offshore wind resources at water depths that cannot be reached using the current technology.
Acceleration has created an interactive energy tracking and visualization platform that supports decreasing electric, water, and gas usage. Homeowners have access to tools that allow them to gauge their use and track progress toward a smaller energy footprint. Real estate agents have access to consumption data, allowing for sharing a comparison with potential home buyers. Home builders have the opportunity to compare their neighborhood's energy efficiency with competitors. Home energy raters have a tool for gauging the progress of their clients after efficiency changes. And, social groups are able to help encourage members to reduce their energy bills and help their environment. EnergyIT.com is the business umbrella for all energy tracking solutions and is designed to provide information about our energy tracking software and promote sales. CompareAndConserve.com (Gainesville-Green.com) helps homeowners conserve energy through education and competition. ToolsForTenants.com helps renters factor energy usage into their housing decisions.
Spring 2011 edition of the National Bioenergy Center's Biochemical Platform Integration Project quarterly newsletter. Issue topics: 33rd Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals program sessions and special topic sessions; assessment of waste water treatment needs; and an update on new arabinose-to-ethanol fermenting Zymomonas mobilis strains.
Summer 2011 issue of the National Bioenergy Center Biochemical Platform Integration Project quarterly update. Issue topics: evaluating new analytical techniques for measuring soluble sugars in the liquid portion of biomass hydrolysates, and measurement of the fraction of insoluble solids in biomass slurries.
NREL has designed and developed a combined laser ablation/pulsed sample introduction/mass spectrometry platform that integrates pyrolysis and/or laser ablation with resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) time-of-flight mass spectrometry.
Creare was awarded a Phase 1 STTR contract from the US Office of Naval Research, with a seven month period of performance from 6/28/2010 to 1/28/2011. The objectives of the STTR were to determine the feasibility of developing a software package for estimating reliability of battery packs, and develop a user interface to allow the designer to assess the overall impact on battery packs and host platforms for cell-level faults. NREL served as sub-tier partner to Creare, providing battery modeling and battery thermal safety expertise.
This is the Winter 2011-2012 issue of the National Bioenergy Center Biochemical Platform Integration Project quarterly update. Issue topics include: 34th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals; feasibility of NIR spectroscopy-based rapid feedstock reactive screening; and demonstrating integrated pilot-scale biomass conversion.
The following provides an assessment of an experimental platform based on the ORION laser at AWE Aldermasten, England, for measuring the opacity of high-temperature and high-density LTE plasmas. The specific points addressed are (1) the range of electron density and temperature that can be achieved with short-pulse beams alone, as well as (2) by means of compression with a long-pulse beam; (3) the accuracy with which electron density, electron temperature, and absolute emissivity can be measured; (4) the use of pulse shaping to increase the sample density to above solid density; (5) the effect that target materials and target design have on maintaining spatial uniformity of the sample, and (6) the need for additional diagnostics to produce and characterize samples for decisive measurements.
In this project, we conducted preliminary research to create a flexible environment that encapsulates the knowledge of the application developers, site system administrators, and the vendors to assist application building and execution on HPC systems, in particular the DOE leadership computing platforms. The key research involved how to describe and use the knowledge from these varied sources to improve productivity of the end-user scientists, while creating a flexible and modular environment supporting all these features.
Over the last two years, Sandia National Laboratories made a significant investment in its network infrastructure with the Network Revitalization Project. There were two main components to this project: a Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) enabled backbone network and a Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) access layer. The GPON equipment used in the Network Revitalization Project is from Tellabs. This equipment includes the Tellabs 1150 Multiservice Access Platform (MSAP) Optical Line Terminal (OLT), the Tellabs ONT709 Optical Network Terminal (ONT), and the Panorama Integrated Network Manager (INM). In order to fully utilize this equipment to its greatest capacity, it needed to be thoroughly tested. This report documents that testing.
This paper describes a Grid Interconnection System Evaluator (GISE) that leverages hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation techniques to rapidly evaluate the grid interconnection standard conformance of an ICS according to the procedures in IEEE Std 1547.1. The architecture and test sequencing of this evaluation tool, along with a set of representative ICS test results from three different photovoltaic (PV) inverters, are presented. The GISE adds to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) evaluation platform that now allows for rapid development of ICS control algorithms using controller HIL (CHIL) techniques, the ability to test the dc input characteristics of PV-based ICSs through the use of a PV simulator capable of simulating real-world dynamics using power HIL (PHIL), and evaluation of ICS grid interconnection conformance.
After a general introduction to OLEDs and OLED-based PL sensors, the transient emission mechanism of guest-host OLEDs is described both experimentally and theoretically. A monolithic and easy-to-apply process is demonstrated for fabricating multicolor microcavity OLEDs (that improve the sensor platform). The outcoupling issues of OLEDs at the substrate/air interface are addressed by using a microstructured polymer film resulting from a PS and polyethylene glycol (PEG) mixture. Based on the understanding of OLEDs and their improvement, research was done in order to realize integrated all organic-based O 2 and pH sensors with improved signal intensity and sensitivity. The sensor design modification and optimization are summarized
In this project, we created a novel systems biology technology platform and resources that can be used to reverse engineer and analyze gene regulatory networks and metabolic pathways that influence and control microbial hydrogen production. We constructed genome-scale transcriptional regulatory and metabolic models using automated model reconstruction methods, and subsequently integrated the regulatory and metabolic models for computational analysis. We devised novel algorithms for inferring putative regulatory architectures of metabolic pathways based on their topology, and for integrating gene expression information in flux balance analysis (FBA) models towards computing dynamical changes in metabolic objectives. From a metabolic engineering perspective, we improved and applied a method for predicting optimal environmental conditions and genetic modifications towards maximal productions of multiple desired metabolic outputs. We also developed and tested an improved flux balance approach for predicting the response of metabolic networks to genetic perturbations, proving that errors in model predictions are approaching the limit of experimental uncertainty. We also used the metabolic and regulatory models to identify relevant metabolic processes and pathways involved in hydrogen production. Below we provide a summary and details of our achievements.
Metal organic frameworks (MOF) are a recently discovered class of nanoporous, defect-free crystalline materials that enable rational design and exploration of porous materials at the molecular level. MOFs have tunable monolithic pore sizes and cavity environments due to their crystalline nature, yielding properties exceeding those of most other porous materials. These include: the lowest known density (91% free space); highest surface area; tunable photoluminescence; selective molecular adsorption; and methane sorption rivaling gas cylinders. These properties are achieved by coupling inorganic metal complexes such as ZnO4 with tunable organic ligands that serve as struts, allowing facile manipulation of pore size and surface area through reactant selection. MOFs thus provide a discovery platform for generating both new understanding of chemistry in confined spaces and novel sensors and devices based on their unique properties. At the outset of this project in FY06, virtually nothing was known about how to couple MOFs to substrates and the science of MOF properties and how to tune them was in its infancy. An integrated approach was needed to establish the required knowledge base for nanoscale design and develop methodologies integrate MOFs with other materials. This report summarizes the key accomplishments of this project, which include creation of a new class of radiation detection materials based on MOFs, luminescent MOFs for chemical detection, use of MOFs as templates to create nanoparticles of hydrogen storage materials, MOF coatings for stress-based chemical detection using microcantilevers, and "flexible" force fields that account for structural changes in MOFs that occur upon molecular adsorption/desorption. Eight journal articles, twenty presentations at scientific conferences, and two patent applications resulted from the work. The project created a basis for continuing development of MOFs for many Sandia applications and succeeded in securing $\$$2.75 M in funding from outside agencies to continue the research.
The National Data Service (NDS) presents a broad-reaching vision of integrating discovery, publishing, and sharing of data. Metcalfe's Law states that the value of a network increases with the number of connections in the network, not the number of nodes. The NDS must develop and steward connections not only between data, as is in its vision statement, but between individuals as well. We propose that this be accomplished by explicitly developing it as a platform on which data exploration can be constructed by individual researchers.
Provenance is dened as information about the origin of objects, a concept that applies to both physical and digital objects and often overlaps both. The use of provenance in systems designed for research is an important but forgotten feature. Provenance allows for proper and exact tracking of information, its use, its lineage, its derivations and other metadata that are important for correctly adhering to the scien- tic method. In our project's prescribed use of provenance, researchers can determine detailed information about the use of sensor data in their experiments on ORNL's Flexible Research Platforms (FRPs). Our project's provenance system, Provenance Data Management System (ProvDMS), tracks information starting with the creation of information by an FRP sensor. The system determines station information, sensor information, and sensor channel information. The system allows researchers to derive generations of experiments from the sensor data and tracks their hierarchical flow. Key points can be seen in the history of the information as part of the information's workflow. The concept of provenance and its usage in science is relatively new and while used in other cases around the world, our project's provenance diers in a key area. To keep track of provenance, most systems must be designed or redesigned around the new provenance system. Our system is designed as a cohesive but sepa- rate entity and allows for researchers to continue using their own methods of analysis without being constrained in their ways in order to track the provenance. We have designed ProvDMS using a lightweight provenance library, Core Provenance Library (CPL) v.6 In addition to keeping track of sensor data experiments and its provenance, ProvDMS also provides a web-enabled visualization of the inheritance.