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DOE OSTI2024

FacultyHack Events: Faculty-Focused Hackathons for High-Performance Computing Curriculum Development

Broadening participation initiatives are important for engaging underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Such initiatives help foster supportive and inclusive work environments that promote creativity and productivity. While there are initiatives that aim to engage students and faculty, opportunities remain to improve faculty support. Hackathons have proved to be a useful approach for student engagement. There are, however, limited insights into whether and how such events would also work for faculty aiming to develop curricula. This paper discusses the design of a faculty-focused hackathon event, FacultyHack, for curriculum development. We outline the logistics and structure for two past FacultyHack events, detail changes between events, and describe potential improvements and lessons learned.

Holmen, John [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000259342641)↗

DOE OSTI2025

Adversarial Binaries: AI-guided Instrumentation Methods for Malware Detection Evasion

Adversarial binaries are executable files that have been altered without loss of function by an AI agent in order to deceive malware detection systems. Progress in this emergent vein of research has been constrained by the complex and rigid structure of executable files. Although prior work has demonstrated that these binaries deceive a variety of malware classification models which rely on disparate feature sets, a consensus as to the best approach has not been reached, either in terms of the optimization algorithms or the instrumentation methods. Furthermore, although inconsistencies in the data sets, target classifiers, and functionality verification methods make head-to-head comparisons difficult, here we extract lessons learned and make recommendations for future research.

malware obfuscation↗

DOE OSTI2025

Scaling Uintah on the Aurora Exascale System up to 122,880 Intel Ponte Vecchio Xe Stacks

The challenge of being able to scale application codes based on the Asynchronous Many-Task (AMT) Uintah framework on the Department of Energy (DOE) Aurora exascale system is addressed in this work by considering a challenging Reverse Monte Carlo Ray Tracing radiation benchmark calculation. This benchmark involves potentially global all-to-all communication and uses adaptive mesh refinement and ray tracing to achieve scalability. This benchmark has been used as part of previous scalability studies on a number of pre-exascale systems and on the DOE Frontier exascale system. This paper describes steps taken to enable this benchmark to run successfully on up to 10,240 nodes and 122,880 Intel® Ponte Vecchio Xe stacks on the DOE Aurora exascale system. This scalability was achieved through a limited number of experiments on Aurora, given machine loads and its uniqueness. These experiments constitute valuable lessons learned to achieve scalability at this level. The resulting scalability runs, while few in number, demonstrate relatively good strong-scaling characteristics. A detailed analysis of these results provides important indications about the path to scalability on Aurora for future work. Overall, these results continue the remarkable ability of this AMT approach to produce scalable solutions for challenging problems at extreme scale on heterogeneous architectures.

Garcia, Marta [Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)]↗

DOE OSTI2025

Insights from Optimizing HPL Performance on Exascale Systems: A Comparative Analysis of Panel Factorization

High performance LINPACK (HPL) remains the primary benchmark for evaluating supercomputing performance. It includes many parts with substantial internal complexity, and its performance is affected by a large number of parameters that interact in ways that are difficult to predict on large-scale heterogeneous supercomputer systems. We present a comprehensive performance analysis of HPL on Frontier, the world’s first exascale supercomputer, which achieved HPL performance of 1.35 exaflops. Through empirical parameter tuning, detailed modeling, and comparative evaluation, we uncover critical performance insights, share lessons learned, and outline best practices for effective parameter tuning on exascale systems. We introduce and evaluate two novel PDFACT strategies: a dedicated-thread (DT) variant and a GPU-based variant (GPUPDFACT) implementation using HIP cooperative groups, demonstrating that GPU-based factorization outperforms conventional CPU-based PDFACT on Frontier’s architecture. Our findings establish key performance factors for HPL on exascale systems and offer valuable guidance for future high-performance computing and benchmarking efforts.

Lu, Hao [ORNL] (ORCID:000000018941870X)↗

DOE OSTI2024

The Standard Model from String Theory: What Have We Learned?

Amid all candidates of physics beyond the Standard Model, string theory provides a unique proposal for incorporating gauge and gravitational interactions. In string theory, a four-dimensional theory that unifies quantum mechanics and gravity is obtained automatically if one posits that the additional dimensions predicted by the theory are small and curled up—a concept known as compactification. The gauge sector of the theory is specified by the topology and geometry of the extra dimensions, and the challenge is to reproduce all of the features of the Standard Model of particle physics from them. We review the state of the art in reproducing the Standard Model from string compactifications and summarize the lessons drawn from this fascinating quest. We describe novel scenarios and mechanisms that string theory provides to address some of the Standard Model puzzles as well as the most frequent signatures of new physics that could be detected in future experiments. We then comment on recent developments that connect, in a rather unexpected way, the Standard Model with quantum gravity and that may change our field theory notion of naturalness.

Physics↗

DOE OSTI2024

Electronic Visualization Laboratory's 50th Anniversary Retrospective: Look to the Future, Build on the Past

September 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). EVL's introduction of the CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment in 1992, the first widely replicated, projection-based, walk-in, virtual-reality (VR) system in the world, put EVL at the forefront of collaborative, immersive data exploration and analytics. However, the journey did not begin then. Since its founding in 1973, EVL has been developing tools and techniques for real-time, interactive visualizations—pillars of VR. But EVL's culture is also relevant to its successes, as it has always been an interdisciplinary lab that fosters teamwork, where each person's expertise contributes to the development of the necessary tools, hardware, system software, applications, and human interface models to solve problems. Over the years, as multidisciplinary collaborations evolved and advanced scientific instruments and data resources were distributed globally, the need to access and share data and visualizations while working with colleagues, local and remote, synchronous and asynchronous, also became important fields of study. This paper is a retrospective of EVL's past 50 years that surveys the many networked, immersive, collaborative visualization and VR systems and applications it developed and deployed, as well as lessons learned and future plans.

Johnson, Andrew E.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Human-Centered and Explainable Artificial Intelligence in Nuclear Operations

Nuclear power plants in the United States are critical to the nation’s energy security, accounting for 20% of all electricity produced for the power grid. As energy needs grow, 100 gigawatts of additional nuclear power will be necessary by 2050, more than double the current capacity. Realizing this target requires cutting-edge technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) that can bring about significant increases in the level of automation. Human-centered AI (HCAI) is a combination of human-centered design (human factors, human-in-the-loop, etc.) with AI/ML to help produce an efficient and reliable system with full consideration for human engagement. This paper provides a comprehensive and novel discussion of HCAI considerations in nuclear power, introducing unique applications for the existing fleet as well as new advanced reactor designs. We include real-life use cases of AI applications to work management processes at nuclear power sites and highlight lessons learned for HCAI.

Hall, Anna↗

DOE OSTI2024

ECP libraries and tools: An overview

The Exascale Computing Project (ECP) Software Technology and Co-Design teams addressed the growing complexities in high-performance computing (HPC) by developing scalable software libraries and tools that leverage exascale system capabilities. As we enter the exascale era, the need for reusable, optimized software solutions that can handle the unique challenges posed by these systems becomes increasingly important. The primary challenges the ECP teams faced were to create software libraries and tools that are performant on exascale architectures and portable and usable across diverse hardware platforms. Efforts addressed issues related to concurrent execution, memory management, and the integration of heterogeneous computing resources, such as GPUs from multiple vendors. The ECP’s strategy involved a structured development process encompassing the creation, optimization, and deployment of software in collaboration with industry, academia, and national laboratories. The project was organized into several technical areas: co-design of domain-specific suites with target applications, programming models and runtimes, development tools, mathematical libraries, data and visualization tools, and software ecosystem and delivery mechanisms. ECP has successfully developed a large portfolio of software libraries and tools that demonstrate significant improvements in performance and scalability on exascale systems. These products have been integrated into the Department of Energy’s computing facilities, supporting various scientific applications and ensuring robust performance across different hardware setups. ECP advancements in software development for exascale computing highlight the importance of a collaborative and adaptive approach to handling next-generation HPC systems complexities. The lessons learned emphasize the need for continuous engagement with end-users and vendors, and the importance of maintaining a balance between innovation and practical implementation. Future efforts will focus on ensuring scalability, keeping pace with rapid hardware advancements, and further enhancing the interoperability and usability of the software ecosystem. In conclusion, subsequent articles in this special issue provide in-depth discussions and case studies into specific library and tool efforts.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2025

BOSC 2025, the 26th Bioinformatics Open Source Conference

The 26th annual Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC 2025, open-bio.org/events/bosc-2025) brought its community-driven focus on open-source bioinformatics and open science to the 2025 conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology and the European Conference on Computational Biology (ISMB/ECCB 2025). Since its launch in 2000, BOSC has been the premier annual meeting covering open-source bioinformatics and open science. Framed by two keynote addresses and a thought-provoking panel discussion, the two-day conference included sessions dedicated to open data, analytic tools and pipelines, workflow platforms, knowledge representation, and the application of AI/ML. The first keynote talk was delivered by Christine Orengo: “Working together to develop, promote and protect our data resources: Lessons learnt developing CATH and TED.” A joint session with the Bio-Ontologies and Knowledge Representation (BOKR) track the second day of BOSC started with a keynote talk by Chris Mungall entitled “Open Knowledge Bases in the Age of Generative AI”. A closing panel on Data Sustainability, moderated by Mónica Muñoz Torres, featured panelists Scott Edmunds, Varsha Khodiyar, Tony Burdett, Nicky Mulder, and Chris Mungall. This year, the CollaborationFest collaborative work event that typically precedes or follows ISMB was incorporated as part of the main conference and organized by BOSC with help from the Function and 3D-SIG tracks.

bioinformatics↗

DOE OSTI2026

Observations of marine animal interactions with a small tidal turbine

The risk of collisions between animals and operating tidal turbines remains a concern in the scientific and regulatory communities. A sensor package including optical cameras was deployed to monitor animal interactions with a small-scale (1 m 2 ) cross-flow tidal turbine. The turbine was deployed in Washington State, USA for 141 days at a site with peak flow speeds of 2.5 m/s. We analyze optical camera imagery spanning 109 days of turbine operation. The analyzed images contain 1044 observations of fish, fish schools, seabirds, or seals in the vicinity of the turbine. No instances of collision with seabirds or seals were observed. Seabirds were only observed during daylight hours and while the turbine was stationary. Both seals and fish were observed during both day and night and while the turbine was stationary and rotating. Four fish were observed colliding with the moving turbine and in all but one case the animals swam away following the collision. Over the same period of time, over fifty times more fish (224 individual fish and 5 fish schools) were observed passing the moving turbine without collision. Fish encounters were likely under counted due to the difficulty in discerning small fish from plant matter in the water column. These observations represent the first optical camera imagery showing fish, bird, and marine mammal interactions with a tidal turbine in North America. In addition to quantitative and qualitative discussion of the implications of our observations for collision risk, we discuss lessons learned on sampling schemes and deployment of machine learning for detection of animals to inform future data collection strategies in future monitoring campaigns.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

DOE OSTI2024

Are We on Track for 2050? A Materials Research & Sustainability Perspective

In commemoration of the Materials Research Society (MRS)'s 50th anniversary, the 2050 panel hosted a discussion to reflect on the past, present, and future of sustainability and the role of materials research and development. Three panelists discussed their views, based on their expertise, about future challenges and lessons from the past. Sustainable development is a broad topic; therefore, the discussion centered on their experience as material researchers and their efforts for a better and greener future. This work is developed in collaboration with the co-authors team, highlighting the need for accelerating research and development efforts, especially in materials science and applications, fostering interdisciplinary partnerships, and mobilizing collective action to address the complex and interconnected sustainability challenges that humanity is currently facing.

ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY,ENVIRONMENTAL↗

DOE OSTI2024

Board 160: Empowerment in STEM Day: Introducing High School Girls to Careers at National Laboratories (Work in Progress)

In the US, women are still vastly underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers, and various studies have shown that girls' interest in STEM careers wane as high school progresses. With this challenge in mind, Empowerment in STEM Day was organized by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), hosting 47 high school students from 6 public high schools in the area. This one-day event was designed and executed through a collaboration between the Women's Support and Empowerment Council (WSEC) and the K-12 STEM Education and Outreach Program at LBNL. The main goal of this program was to provide high school girls, who have little access to STEM career role-models in their immediate surroundings with insights into how a career in STEM looks like. Invitations to participate in the program were sent out to six local high schools in the Bay area asking educators to identify female students that were interested in STEM. Each high school participant was provided with an opportunity to experience a national laboratory environment, learn more about summer workshops and paid summer research internship opportunities at LBNL for high school students, and engage directly with LBNL's employees through job shadow, career mapping and speed networking sessions. In this paper, we will present an overview of the event organization, challenges faced during planning and execution of the event, discuss the lessons learned from the first Empowerment in STEM Day and suggest strategies for incorporating such events at other national laboratories and academic institutions as part of a vital effort into recruiting and retaining more high school girls in STEM-based careers. Additionally, since this was the first in-person event hosted by LBNL's K-12 Program after the pandemic, we will also share the strategies implemented at the event so as to engage both remote and on-site employees as volunteers.

Bose, Baishakhi↗

DOE OSTI2026

Towards continual machine learning for particle accelerators

This talk covers our work on errant beam prognostics at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), focusing on the end-to-end process from data collection to the development and deployment of predictive models in specific. A short overview of AIML work done for accelerators and current trends will be presented. We will walk through key steps involved in creating robust Machine Learning (ML) models, including model training, validation, and deployment in an operational setting. In addition to presenting our technical approach, we will share valuable lessons learned, emphasizing the importance of infrastructure to support the continuous adaptation of models to evolving data and system behaviors. This talk will provide insights into the challenges and solutions involved in applying ML to real-world operational environments, with a particular focus on managing data drift and changes in accelerator setup while ensuring model resilience over time.

Accelerator Physics↗

DOE OSTI2025

Evaluating Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) frameworks for the Accelerator Control System

As particle accelerator control systems evolve in complexity and scale, the need for responsive, scalable, and cost-effective computational infrastructure becomes increasingly critical. Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) offers an alternative to traditional monolithic architecture by enabling event-driven execution, automatic scaling, and fine-grained resource utilization. This paper explores the applicability and performance of FaaS frameworks in the context of a modern particle accelerator control system, with the objective of evaluating their suitability for short lived and triggered workloads. In this paper, we evaluate prominent open-source FaaS platforms in executing functional logic, triggers, and diagnostics routines. Evaluation metrics consist of cold-start latency, scalability, performance, integration with other open-source tools like Kafka. Experimental workloads were designed to simulate real-world control tasks when implemented as stateless FaaS functions. These workloads were benchmarked under various invocation loads and network conditions. Self-hosted FaaS platforms, when deployed within accelerator networks, offer greater control over execution environment, better integration with legacy systems, and support for real-time guarantees when paired with message queues. Based on lessons learned and evaluation metrics, this paper describes reliability of the FaaS framework for the Accelerator Control Systems (ACS).

Jaikar, A. [Fermilab] (ORCID:0000000332046217)↗

DOE OSTI2026

Analysis of vapor diffusion Nb$^{3}$Sn coating at Fermilab: Minimizing impurities using TOF-SIMS

Nb₃Sn demonstrates steady advancements nowadays offering reduced power cost in superconducting radio-frequency cavities due to its high critical temperature, quality factor, and achieved accelerating gradient. However, theoretical estimates of its radio-frequency parameters have not been achieved due to several potentially limiting mechanisms: tin spots, patchy regions, defects, thermal impedance, and impurities. While some of these limitations have been intensively studied, impurity analysis in Nb$_3$Sn coatings have received less attention. We report an investigation of impurities in several vapor-diffused Nb₃Sn coated samples using time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (TOF-SIMS) and show allowable impurity levels in view of superconducting cavity performance. Challenges and lessons learned in maintaining clean Nb$_3$Sn coatings are also discussed.

Tagdulang, Nikki [Fermilab]↗

DOE OSTI2026

Final design and first use of in-situ measuring apparatus for measurement of permanent magnet resiliency in CEBAF’s radiation environment

In this work we outline the final design and initial measurement lessons for the holders and measuring apparatus of the permanent magnet resiliency experiment which is a part of the FFA@CEBAF proposed upgrade. The experiment will expose permanent magnets to the radiation environment of CEBAF. Due to safety regulations we need to measure the magnets in the tunnel without bringing them out, so we designed a mobile measuring system as well as a series of protocols to allow us to speedily measure these samples even under adverse conditions. We also designed our system to be capable of taking measurements even with component failures.

Accelerator Physics↗

DOE OSTI2026

Conduction-Cooled Operation of an SRF Multi-Cell Cavity

The development of compact, SRF-based accelerators for applications beyond research is experiencing notable advancements due to the use of cryocoolers for conduction-cooling instead of traditional liquid cryogens. Following the successful demonstration of a single-cell cavity operated through conduction cooling with three two-stage cryocoolers, Jefferson Lab (JLab) has made strides in the operation of a multi-cell resonator. This milestone paves the way for high-energy applications of compact, conduction-cooled SRF machines. The demonstration, carried out in collaboration with General Atomics, will take place in a dedicated horizontal test cryostat (HTC) at their San Diego facility. This presentation will highlight the technological developments, the latest results, and valuable lessons learned.

Vennekate, J. [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerat↗

DOE OSTI1992

Nuclear Safety [Vol. 33, No. 1, January-March 1992]

Nuclear Safety is a review journal that covers significant developments in the field of nuclear safety. Its scope includes the analysis and control of hazards associated with nuclear energy, operations involving fissionable materials, and the products of nuclear fission and their effects on the environment. Primary emphasis is on safety in reactor design, construction, and operation; however, the safety aspects of the entire fuel cycle, including fuel fabrication, spent-fuel processing, nuclear waste disposal, handling of radioisotopes, and environmental effects of these operations, are also treated. Table of Contents for this issue follows. GENERAL SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS: 1 Technical Note: A New Approach to Fission Reactor Safety, Yu. V. Petrov; 5 Erratum; ACCIDENT ANALYSIS: 6 Analysis and Modeling of Fission Product Release from Various Uranium-Aluminum Plate-Type Reactor Fuels, R. P. Taleyarkhan; CONTROL AND INSTRUMENTATION: 23 Applications of a Surveillance and Diagnostics Methodology Using Neutron Noise From a Pressurized-Water Reactor, R. T. Wood, L. F. Miller, and R. B. Perez; DESIGN FEATURES: 36 Westinghouse Advanced Passive 600 Plant, B. A. McIntyre and R. K. Beck; 47 System 80+™ PWR Safety Design, C. W. Bagnal, R. A. Matzie, and R. S. Turk; ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS: 58 The MATS Experiments—Mesoscale Atmospheric Transport Studies at the Savannah River Site, A. H. Weber, S. Berman, R. J. Kurzeja, and R. P. Addis; 75 Book Review: Environmental Radioactivity in the European Community 1984-1985-1986, C. A. Little; WASTE AND SPENT FUEL MANAGEMENT: 76 Activities Related to Waste and Spent Fuel Management, M. D. Muhlheim and E. G. Silver; OPERATING EXPERIENCES: 87 Aging Assessment of BWR Control Rod Drive Systems, R. H. Greene; 100 Reactor Shutdown Experience, Compiled by J. W. Cletcher; 103 Selected Safety-Related Events, Compiled by G. A. Murphy; 110 Operating U.S. Power Reactors, Compiled by M. D. Muhlheim and E. G. Silver; RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: 129 General Administrative Activities, Compiled by M. D. Muhlheim and E. G. Silver; 139 Reports, Standards, and Safety Guides, D. S. Queener; 143 Proposed Rule Changes as of Sept. 30 1991; ANNOUNCEMENTS: 128 Harvard School of Public Health Announces Short Courses; 128 16th Biennial ANS Topical Meeting on Reactor Operating Experience: Present and Future Technologies—Applying Lessons Learned (Call for Papers); 147 The Authors; 150 Indexes to Nuclear Safety, Volume 32; 154 Errata.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗