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At least 235 records · Page 13

Quantifying socio-economic indicators in developing countries from mobile phone communication data: applications to Côte d’Ivoire

The widespread adoption of mobile devices that record the communications, social relations, and movements of billions of individuals in great detail presents unique opportunities for the study of social structures and human dynamics at very large scales. This is particularly the case for developing countries where social and economic data can be hard to obtain and is often too sparse for real-time analytics. In this paper, we leverage mobile call log data from Côte d’Ivoire to analyze the relations between its nation-wide communications network and the socio-economic dynamics of its regional economies. We introduce the CallRank indicator to quantify the relative importance of an area on the basis of call records, and show that a region’s ratio of in- and out-going calls can predict its income level. We detect a communication divide between rich and poor regions of Côte d’Ivoire, which corresponds to existing socio-economic data. Our results demonstrate the potential of mobile communication data to monitor the economic development and social dynamics of low-income developing countries in the absence of extensive econometric and social data. Finally, our work may support efforts to stimulate sustainable economic development and to reduce poverty and inequality.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Efficient calculation of carrier scattering rates from first principles

Abstract The electronic transport behaviour of materials determines their suitability for technological applications. We develop a computationally efficient method for calculating carrier scattering rates of solid-state semiconductors and insulators from first principles inputs. The present method extends existing polar and non-polar electron-phonon coupling, ionized impurity, and piezoelectric scattering mechanisms formulated for isotropic band structures to support highly anisotropic materials. We test the formalism by calculating the electronic transport properties of 23 semiconductors, including the large 48 atom CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 hybrid perovskite, and comparing the results against experimental measurements and more detailed scattering simulations. The Spearman rank coefficient of mobility against experiment ( r s = 0.93) improves significantly on results obtained using a constant relaxation time approximation ( r s = 0.52). We find our approach offers similar accuracy to state-of-the art methods at approximately 1/500th the computational cost, thus enabling its use in high-throughput computational workflows for the accurate screening of carrier mobilities, lifetimes, and thermoelectric power.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Improved Mobilome Delineation in Fragmented Genomes

The mobilome of a microbe, i.e., its set of mobile elements, has major effects on its ecology, and is important to delineate properly in each genome. This becomes more challenging for incomplete genomes, and even more so for metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), where misbinning of scaffolds and other losses can occur. Genomic islands (GIs), which integrate into the host chromosome, are a major component of the mobilome. Our GI-detection software TIGER, unique in its precise mapping of GI termini, was applied to 74,561 genomes from 2,473 microbial species, each species containing at least one MAG and one isolate genome. A species-normalized deficit of ∼1.6 GIs/genome was measured for MAGs relative to isolates. To test whether this undercount was due to the higher fragmentation of MAG genomes, TIGER was updated to enable detection of split GIs whose termini are on separate scaffolds or that wrap around the origin of a circular replicon. This doubled GI yields, and the new split GIs matched the quality of single-scaffold GIs, except that highly fragmented GIs may lack central portions. Cross-scaffold search is an important upgrade to GI detection as fragmented genomes increasingly dominate public databases. TIGER2 better captures MAG microdiversity, recovering niche-defining GIs and supporting microbiome research aims such as virus-host linking and ecological assessment.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Normal mode analysis of macromolecular systems with the mobile block Hessian method

Until recently, normal mode analysis (NMA) was limited to small proteins, not only because the required energy minimization is a computationally exhausting task, but also because NMA requires the expensive diagonalization of a 3N{sub a}×3N{sub a} matrix with N{sub a} the number of atoms. A series of simplified models has been proposed, in particular the Rotation-Translation Blocks (RTB) method by Tama et al. for the simulation of proteins. It makes use of the concept that a peptide chain or protein can be seen as a subsequent set of rigid components, i.e. the peptide units. A peptide chain is thus divided into rigid blocks with six degrees of freedom each. Recently we developed the Mobile Block Hessian (MBH) method, which in a sense has similar features as the RTB method. The main difference is that MBH was developed to deal with partially optimized systems. The position/orientation of each block is optimized while the internal geometry is kept fixed at a plausible - but not necessarily optimized - geometry. This reduces the computational cost of the energy minimization. Applying the standard NMA on a partially optimized structure however results in spurious imaginary frequencies and unwanted coordinate dependence. The MBH avoids these unphysical effects by taking into account energy gradient corrections. Moreover the number of variables is reduced, which facilitates the diagonalization of the Hessian. In the original implementation of MBH, atoms could only be part of one rigid block. The MBH is now extended to the case where atoms can be part of two or more blocks. Two basic linkages can be realized: (1) blocks connected by one link atom, or (2) by two link atoms, where the latter is referred to as the hinge type connection. In this work we present the MBH concept and illustrate its performance with the crambin protein as an example.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Interplay between microstructure, defect states, and mobile charge generation in transition metal dichalcogenide heterojunctions

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (2D-TMDCs) have gained attention for their promise in next-generation energy-harvesting and quantum computing technologies, but realizing these technologies requires a greater understanding of TMDC properties that influence their photophysics. To this end, we discuss here the interplay between TMDC microstructure and defects with the charge generation yield, lifetime, and mobility. As a model system, we compare monolayer-only and monolayer-rich MoS 2 grown by chemical vapor deposition, and we employ the TMDCs in Type-II charge-separating heterojunctions with semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNTs). Our results suggest longer lifetimes and higher yields of mobile carriers in samples containing a small fraction of defect-rich multilayer islands on predominately monolayer MoS 2 . Compared to the monolayer-only heterojunctions, the carrier lifetimes increase from 0.73 μs to 4.71 μs, the hole transfer yield increases from 23% to 34%, and the electron transfer yield increases from 39% to 59%. We reach these conclusions using a unique combination of microwave photoconductivity (which probes only mobile carriers) along with transient absorption spectroscopy (which identifies spectral signatures unique to each material and type of photoexcited quasiparticle, but does not probe mobility). Overall, our results highlight the substantial changes in photophysics that can occur from small changes in TMDC microstructure and defect density, where the presence of defects does not necessarily preclude improvements in charge generation.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Alkali‐Ion‐Assisted Activation of ε‐VOPO 4 as a Cathode Material for Mg‐Ion Batteries

Abstract Rechargeable multivalent‐ion batteries are attractive alternatives to Li‐ion batteries to mitigate their issues with metal resources and metal anodes. However, many challenges remain before they can be practically used due to the low solid‐state mobility of multivalent ions. In this study, a promising material identified by high‐throughput computational screening is investigated, ε‐VOPO 4 , as a Mg cathode. The experimental and computational evaluation of ε‐VOPO 4 suggests that it may provide an energy density of >200 Wh kg −1 based on the average voltage of a complete cycle, significantly more than that of well‐known Chevrel compounds. Furthermore, this study finds that Mg‐ion diffusion can be enhanced by co‐intercalation of Li or Na, pointing at interesting correlation dynamics of slow and fast ions.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Security vulnerabilities of connected vehicle streams and their impact on cooperative driving

Autonomous vehicles capable of navigating unpredictable real-world environments with little human feedback are a reality today. Such systems rely heavily on onboard sensors such as cameras, radar/LIDAR, and GPS as well as capabilities such as 3G/4G connectivity and V2V/V2I communication to make real-time maneuvering decisions. Autonomous vehicle control imposes very strict requirements on the security of the communication channels used by the vehicle to exchange information as well as the control logic that performs complex driving tasks such as adapting vehicle velocity or changing lanes. This research presents a first look at the effects of security attacks on the communication channel as well as sensor tampering of a connected vehicle stream equipped to achieve CACC. Our simulation results show that an insider attack can cause significant instability in the CACC vehicle stream. We also outline how different countermeasures, such as downgrading to ACC mode, could potentially be used to improve the security and safety of the connected vehicle streams.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Piezoelectric Electron-Phonon Interaction from Ab Initio Dynamical Quadrupoles: Impact on Charge Transport in Wurtzite GaN

First-principles calculations of $\textit{e}$-ph interactions are becoming a pillar of electronic structure theory. However, the current approach is incomplete. The piezoelectric (PE) $\textit{e}$-ph interaction, a long-range scattering mechanism due to acoustic phonons in noncentrosymmetric polar materials, is not accurately described at present. Current calculations include short-range $\textit{e}$-ph interactions (obtained by interpolation) and the dipolelike Frölich long-range coupling in polar materials, but lack important quadrupole effects for acoustic modes and PE materials. Here we derive and compute the long-range $\textit{e}$-ph interaction due to dynamical quadrupoles, and apply this framework to investigate $\textit{e}$-ph interactions and the carrier mobility in the PE material wurtzite GaN. In this work, we show that the quadrupole contribution is essential to obtain accurate $\textit{e}$-ph matrix elements for acoustic modes and to compute PE scattering. Our work resolves the outstanding problem of correctly computing $\textit{e}$-ph interactions for acoustic modes from first principles, and enables studies of $\textit{e}$-ph coupling and charge transport in PE materials.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Automated Work Package: Initial Wireless Communication Platform Design, Development, and Evaluation

The Department of Energy's Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program is developing the scientific basis to ensure long-term reliability, productivity, safety, and security of the nuclear power industry in the United States. The Instrumentation, Information, and Control (II and C) pathway of the program aims to increase the role of advanced II and C technologies to achieve this objective. One of the pathway efforts at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is to improve the work packages execution process by replacing the expensive, inefficient, bulky, complex, and error-prone paper-based work orders with automated work packages (AWPs). An AWP is an automated and dynamic presentation of the work package designed to guide the user through the work process. It is loaded on a mobile device, such as a tablet, and is capable of communicating with plant equipment and systems to acquire plant and procedure states. The AWP replaces those functions where a computer is more efficient and reliable than a human. To enable the automatic acquisition of plant data, it is necessary to design and develop a prototype platform for data exchange between the field instruments and the AWP mobile devices. The development of the platform aims to reveal issues and solutions generalizable to large-scale implementation of a similar system. Topics such as bandwidth, robustness, response time, interference, and security are usually associated with wireless communication. These concerns, along with other requirements, are listed in an earlier INL report. Specifically, the targeted issues and performance aspects in this work are relevant to the communication infrastructure from the perspective of promptness, robustness, expandability, and interoperability with different technologies. The development of a prompt system entailed significant performance optimization, including the use of parallel processing, parallel communication, modularity, noise filtering, and frequency tuning. A robust system was achieved by enforcing a persistent continuous data exchange that automatically detects and conveys a failure of any link or component in any part of the system, and that automatically restores the communication once the link or component is restored. An expandable topology was enabled by modularity and load sharing. The number of servers, mobile devices, and field instruments is not limited from a system structure point of view. The system interoperability was achieved by enforcing the independence of the field communication application from the mobile device application. (authors)

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Twisted fracton models in three dimensions

We study novel three-dimensional gapped quantum phases of matter which support quasiparticles with restricted mobility, including immobile “fracton” excitations. So far, most existing fracton models may be instructively viewed as generalized Abelian lattice gauge theories. Here, by analogy with Dijkgraaf-Witten topological gauge theories, we discover a natural generalization of fracton models, obtained by twisting the gauge symmetries. Introducing generalized gauge transformation operators carrying an extra phase factor depending on local configurations, we construct a plethora of exactly solvable three-dimensional models, which we dub “twisted fracton models.” A key result of our approach is to demonstrate the existence of rich non-Abelian fracton phases of distinct varieties in a three-dimensional system with finite-range interactions. For an accurate characterization of these novel phases, the notion of being inextricably non-Abelian is introduced for fractons and quasiparticles with one-dimensional mobility, referring to their new behavior of displaying braiding statistics that is, and remains, non-Abelian regardless of which quasiparticles with higher mobility are added to or removed from them. We also analyze these models by embedding them on a 3-torus and computing their ground-state degeneracies, which exhibit a surprising and novel dependence on the system size in the non-Abelian fracton phases. Furthermore, as an important advance in the study of fracton order, we develop a general mathematical framework which systematically captures the fusion and braiding properties of fractons and other quasiparticles with restricted mobility.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Computational simulations of hydrogen circular migration in protonated acetylene induced by circularly polarized light

The hydrogens in protonated acetylene are very mobile and can easily migrate around the C 2 core by moving between classical and non-classical structures of the cation. The lowest energy structure is the T-shaped, non-classical cation with a hydrogen bridging the two carbons. Conversion to the classical H 2 CCH + ion requires only 4 kcal/mol. The effect of circularly polarized light on the migration of hydrogens in oriented C 2 H 3 + has been simulated by Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics. Classical trajectory calculations were carried out with the M062X/6-311+G(3df,2pd) level of theory using linearly and circularly polarized 32 cycle 7 μm cosine squared pulses with peak intensity of 5.6 × 10 13 W/cm 2 and 3.15 × 10 13 W/cm 2 , respectively. These linearly and circularly polarized pulses transfer similar amounts of energy and total angular momentum to C 2 H3 + . The average angular momentum vectors of the three hydrogens show opposite directions of rotation for right and left circularly polarized light, but no directional preference for linearly polarized light. This difference results in an appreciable amount of angular displacement of the three hydrogens relative to the C 2 core for circularly polarized light, but only an insignificant amount for linearly polarized light. In conclusion, over the course of the simulation with circularly polarized light, this corresponds to a propeller-like motion of the three hydrogens around the C 2 core of protonated acetylene.

08 HYDROGEN↗

LESSONS LEARNED Biosurveillance Mobile App Development Intern Competition (Summer 2013)

The purpose of the lessons learned document for the BEOWulf Biosurveillance Mobile App Development Intern Competition is to capture the project’s lessons learned in a formal document for use by other project managers on similar future projects. This document may be used as part of new project planning for similar projects in order to determine what problems occurred and how those problems were handled and may be avoided in the future. Additionally, this document details what went well with the project and why, so that other project managers may capitalize on these actions. Project managers may also use this document to determine who the project team members were in order to solicit feedback for planning their projects in the future. This document will be formally communicated with the organization and will become a part of the organizational assets and archives.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Controlling Interfacial Properties of Lithium-Ion Battery Cathodes with Alkylphosphonate Self-Assembled Monolayers

In this paper, the preparation and characterization of modified LiMn 2 O 4 (LMO) cathodes utilizing chemisorbed alkylphosphonic acids to chemically modify their surfaces are reported. Electrochemical methods to study ionic and molecular mobility through the alkylphosphonate self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) for different alkyl chain compositions, in order to better understand their impact on the lithium-ion electrochemistry, are utilized. Electrochemical trends for different chains correlate to trends observed in contact angle measurements and solvation energies obtained from computational methods, indicating that attributes of the microscopic wettability of these interfaces with the battery electrolyte have an important impact on ionic mobility. The effects of surface modification on Mn dissolution are also reported. The alkylphosphonate layer provides an important mode of chemical stabilization to the LMO, suppressing Mn dissolution by 90% during extended immersion in electrolytes. A more modest reduction in dissolution is found upon galvanostatic cycling, in comparison to pristine LMO cathodes. Finally, taken together, the data suggest that alkylphosphonates provide a versatile means for the surface modification of lithium-ion battery cathode materials allowing the design of specific interfaces through modification of organic chain functionalities.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Larger than uncorrelated vacancy diffusion contributions in chemically disordered crystalline materials

Arising from a variational approach to compute diffusion coefficients, we introduce “superkinetic kinosons”, which are contributions to the diffusion flux of mobile defects and atomic species by single jump mechanisms that can exceed their uncorrelated values. In vacancy-mediated diffusion in crystalline random and high entropy materials, these contributions primarily arise from intermittent jumps of slow moving atoms that remove the vacancy out of correlation traps and enable a quantification of such effects on the diffusion coefficients. They can be significant contributors to diffusion, even when faster moving atoms have infinite percolation networks. Furthermore, their existence and importance provide fundamental insights about underlying aspects of vacancy diffusion such as formation of localized correlation traps and deviation of vacancy diffusion from percolation behavior.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Brahman

The Adversary & Interdiction Methods (AIM) program provides training and capability assessment services to government agencies around the country. Interdisciplinary teams equipped with gear and radioactive sources are repeatedly fielded to offsite events to collaborate with law enforcement agencies at all levels of government. AIM has grown rapidly over the past three years. A knowledge management system as evolved along with the program but it has failed to keep pace. A new system is needed. The new system must comply with cybersecurity and information technology solutions already in place at an institutional level. The offsite nature of AIM activities must also be accommodated. Cost and schedule preclude the commissioning of new software and the procurement of expensive hardware. The new system must exploit in-house capabilities and be established quickly. A novel system is proposed. This solution centers on a recently introduced institutional file sharing capability called Syncplicity. AIM-authored software will be combined with a dedicated institutional account to vastly extend the capability of this resource. The new knowledge management system will reduce error and increase efficiency through automation and be accessible offsite via mobile devices.

42 ENGINEERING↗