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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 325 records · Page 18

Data Driven Optimization Framework for Volt-age Regulation in Distribution Systems

This letter proposes a data-driven optimization framework for voltage regulation problems to address the challenge of model inaccuracy and parameter varying. To achieve online voltage optimization, the recursive kernel regression and interior point methods are integrated. The IEEE 123-Bus system and EPRI Ckt5 feeder are selected to validate the effectiveness of the proposed data-driven optimization framework. The proposed method is also compared with a linear function based method.

Hong, Tianqi↗

Blueprints for Training Information Bottlenecks for Collider Analyses

Dimensionality reduction is a crucial aspect of data analysis in high energy physics, even if accompanied by information loss. Several methods, including histogram- and kernel-based analyses, are only computationally feasible for low-dimensional data. Furthermore, simulation models used in HEP can often only be validated for low-dimensional data. We provide several blueprints for using machine learning to create low-dimensional data representations (continuous event variables and discrete classification labels) for use in signal discovery and parameter estimation tasks. We also describe how to design the learned representation to facilitate a) searches with unknown model parameters and b) validation of simulation models in data control regions.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

A reproducing kernel enhanced approach for peridynamic solutions

The most common discretization method for peridynamic models used in engineering problems is the node-based meshfree approach. This method discretizes peridynamic domains by a set of nodes, each associated with a nodal cell with a characteristic volume, leading to a particle-based description of continuum systems. The behavior of each particle is then considered representative of its cell. This limits the convergence rate to the first order. In this paper, we introduce a reproducing kernel (RK) approximation to the field variables in the peridynamic equations to increase the order of convergence of peridynamic numerical solutions. Furthermore, the numerical results demonstrate improved convergence rates in static peridynamic problems using the proposed method.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Statistical Sampling Plan for AGR-5/6/7 Fuel Materials

Kernels, coated particles, and compacts will be manufactured to predefined specifications for irradiation in the AGR 5/6/7 experiments. Many tests will be performed for quality assurance and most of these tests correspond to criteria that have to be met with 95% confidence, based on random samples. This report describes the statistical acceptance testing methods and gives minimum sample sizes for kernels to achieve 95% confidence. Coated particles and compacts will be addressed in revisions to this report. The methods used for sample size determination are described in detail in INL/EXT 05 00349, Statistical Methods Handbook for Advanced Gas Reactor Fuel Materials (Einerson 2005). The statistical approach is to collect a representative sample, apply an acceptance test to the sample, and accept or reject the product based on this test for each criterion. The criteria or “product specifications” are contained in SPC-1352, “AGR 5/6/7 Fuel Specification,” Revision 1 and are duplicated in this plan.

Approaches to reducing photon dose calculation errors near metal implants

Purpose: Dose calculation errors near metal implants are caused by limitations of the dose calculation algorithm in modeling tissue/metal interface effects as well as density assignment errors caused by imaging artifacts. The purpose of this study was to investigate two strategies for reducing dose calculation errors near metal implants: implementation of metal-based energy deposition kernels in the convolution/superposition (C/S) dose calculation method and use of metal artifact reduction methods for computed tomography (CT) imaging. Methods: Both error reduction strategies were investigated using a simple geometric slab phantom with a rectangular metal insert (composed of titanium or Cerrobend), as well as two anthropomorphic phantoms (one with spinal hardware and one with dental fillings), designed to mimic relevant clinical scenarios. To assess the dosimetric impact of metal kernels, the authors implemented titanium and silver kernels in a commercial collapsed cone C/S algorithm. To assess the impact of CT metal artifact reduction methods, the authors performed dose calculations using baseline imaging techniques (uncorrected 120 kVp imaging) and three commercial metal artifact reduction methods: Philips Healthcare’s O-MAR, GE Healthcare’s monochromatic gemstone spectral imaging (GSI) using dual-energy CT, and GSI with metal artifact reduction software (MARS) applied. For the simple geometric phantom, radiochromic film was used to measure dose upstream and downstream of metal inserts. For the anthropomorphic phantoms, ion chambers and radiochromic film were used to quantify the benefit of the error reduction strategies. Results: Metal kernels did not universally improve accuracy but rather resulted in better accuracy upstream of metal implants and decreased accuracy directly downstream. For the clinical cases (spinal hardware and dental fillings), metal kernels had very little impact on the dose calculation accuracy (<1.0%). Of the commercial CT artifact reduction methods investigated, the authors found that O-MAR was the most consistent method, resulting in either improved dose calculation accuracy (dental case) or little impact on calculation accuracy (spine case). GSI was unsuccessful at reducing the severe artifacts caused by dental fillings and had very little impact on calculation accuracy. GSI with MARS on the other hand gave mixed results, sometimes introducing metal distortion and increasing calculation errors (titanium rectangular implant and titanium spinal hardware) but other times very successfully reducing artifacts (Cerrobend rectangular implant and dental fillings). Conclusions: Though successful at improving dose calculation accuracy upstream of metal implants, metal kernels were not found to substantially improve accuracy for clinical cases. Of the commercial artifact reduction methods investigated, O-MAR was found to be the most consistent candidate for all-purpose CT simulation imaging. The MARS algorithm for GSI should be used with caution for titanium implants, larger implants, and implants located near heterogeneities as it can distort the size and shape of implants and increase calculation errors.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Technical Note: Image filtering to make computer-aided detection robust to image reconstruction kernel choice in lung cancer CT screening

Purpose: In lung cancer computed tomography (CT) screening, the performance of a computer-aided detection (CAD) system depends on the selection of the image reconstruction kernel. To reduce this dependence on reconstruction kernels, the authors propose a novel application of an image filtering method previously proposed by their group. Methods: The proposed filtering process uses the ratio of modulation transfer functions (MTFs) of two reconstruction kernels as a filtering function in the spatial-frequency domain. This method is referred to as MTF{sub ratio} filtering. Test image data were obtained from CT screening scans of 67 subjects who each had one nodule. Images were reconstructed using two kernels: f{sub STD} (for standard lung imaging) and f{sub SHARP} (for sharp edge-enhancement lung imaging). The MTF{sub ratio} filtering was implemented using the MTFs measured for those kernels and was applied to the reconstructed f{sub SHARP} images to obtain images that were similar to the f{sub STD} images. A mean filter and a median filter were applied (separately) for comparison. All reconstructed and filtered images were processed using their prototype CAD system. Results: The MTF{sub ratio} filtered images showed excellent agreement with the f{sub STD} images. The standard deviation for the difference between these images was very small, ∼6.0 Hounsfield units (HU). However, the mean and median filtered images showed larger differences of ∼48.1 and ∼57.9 HU from the f{sub STD} images, respectively. The free-response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curve for the f{sub SHARP} images indicated poorer performance compared with the FROC curve for the f{sub STD} images. The FROC curve for the MTF{sub ratio} filtered images was equivalent to the curve for the f{sub STD} images. However, this similarity was not achieved by using the mean filter or median filter. Conclusions: The accuracy of MTF{sub ratio} image filtering was verified and the method was demonstrated to be effective for reducing the kernel dependence of CAD performance.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Multilevel summation methods for efficient evaluation of long-range pairwise interactions in atomistic and coarse-grained molecular simulation.

The availability of efficient algorithms for long-range pairwise interactions is central to the success of numerous applications, ranging in scale from atomic-level modeling of materials to astrophysics. This report focuses on the implementation and analysis of the multilevel summation method for approximating long-range pairwise interactions. The computational cost of the multilevel summation method is proportional to the number of particles, N, which is an improvement over FFTbased methods who s cost is asymptotically proportional to N logN. In addition to approximating electrostatic forces, the multilevel summation method can be use to efficiently approximate convolutions with long-range kernels. As an application, we apply the multilevel summation method to a discretized integral equation formulation of the regularized generalized Poisson equation. Numerical results are presented using an implementation of the multilevel summation method in the LAMMPS software package. Preliminary results show that the computational cost of the method scales as expected, but there is still a need for further optimization.

Bond, Stephen D.↗

SU-F-SPS-09: Parallel MC Kernel Calculations for VMAT Plan Improvement

Purpose: Adding kernels (small perturbations in leaf positions) to the existing apertures of VMAT control points may improve plan quality. We investigate the calculation of kernel doses using a parallelized Monte Carlo (MC) method. Methods: A clinical prostate VMAT DICOM plan was exported from Eclipse. An arbitrary control point and leaf were chosen, and a modified MLC file was created, corresponding to the leaf position offset by 0.5cm. The additional dose produced by this 0.5 cm × 0.5 cm kernel was calculated using the DOSXYZnrc component module of BEAMnrc. A range of particle history counts were run (varying from 3 × 10{sup 6} to 3 × 10{sup 7}); each job was split among 1, 10, or 100 parallel processes. A particle count of 3 × 10{sup 6} was established as the lower range because it provided the minimal accuracy level. Results: As expected, an increase in particle counts linearly increases run time. For the lowest particle count, the time varied from 30 hours for the single-processor run, to 0.30 hours for the 100-processor run. Conclusion: Parallel processing of MC calculations in the EGS framework significantly decreases time necessary for each kernel dose calculation. Particle counts lower than 1 × 10{sup 6} have too large of an error to output accurate dose for a Monte Carlo kernel calculation. Future work will investigate increasing the number of parallel processes and optimizing run times for multiple kernel calculations.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

An adaptive fast multipole method in Cartesian basis, enabled by algorithmic differentiation

A novel form of the fast multipole method is realized by the combination of adaptive data structures with implementation of the multipole expansions and their translations in Cartesian basis, and enabled by algorithmic differentiation. It may be possible to generalize it to any kernel that allows its formulation as a function of small quantities with respect to which they can be expanded. There is no hard and fast rule recipe that works for all cases. However, it is shown how to do it for the softened Coulomb kernel, which is different from the Coulomb kernel. The characteristics and performance of the method are mapped and shown to provide an attractive option for a generic fast multipole algorithm in a wide region of the parameter space. The algorithm is illustrated with a beam dynamics application.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

TU-CD-304-07: Intensity Modulated Electron Beam Therapy Employing Small Fields in Virtual Scanning Mode

Purpose: Dynamic electron radiation therapies such as dynamic electron arc radiotherapy (DEAR) utilize small fields to provide target conformity and fluence modulation. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the feasibility of virtual scanning mode using small fields. Methods: Monte Carlo simulations (EGSnrc/BEAMnrc/DOSXYZnrc) were performed using validated Varian TrueBeam phase space files for electron beam energies of 6, 9, 12, and 16 MeV and square/circular fields (1×1/1, 2×2/2, 3×3/3, 4×4/4, 5×5/5 cm{sup 2}/cm diameter). Resulting dose distributions (kernels) were used for subsequent calculations. The following analyses were performed: (1) Comparison of composite square fields and reference 10×10 cm{sup 2} dose distributions and (2) Scanning beam deliveries for square and circular fields realized as the convolution of kernels and scanning pattern. Preliminary beam weight and pattern optimization were also performed. Two linear scans of 10 cm with/without overlap were modeled. Comparison metrics included depth and orthogonal profiles at dmax. Results: (1) Composite fields regained reference depth dose profiles for most energies and fields within 5%. Smaller kernels and higher energies increased dose in the build-up and Bremsstrahlung region (30%, 16MeV and 1×1 cm{sup 2}), while reference dmax was maintained for all energies and composite fields. Smaller kernels (<2×2 cm{sup 2}) maintained penumbra and field size within 0.2 cm, and flatness within 2%. Deterioration of penumbra for larger kernels (5×5 cm{sup 2}) were observed. Balancing desirable dosimetry and efficiencies suggests that smaller kernels are used at edges and larger kernels in the center of the target. (2) Beam weight optimization improved cross-plane penumbra (0.2 cm) and increased the field size (0.4 cm) on average. In-plane penumbra and field size remained unchanged. Overlap depended on kernel size and optimal overlap resulted in flatness ±2%. Conclusion: Dynamic electron beam therapy in virtual scanning mode is feasible by employing small fields to achieve desired dose distributions and acceptable efficiencies.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Fast Bayesian blind deconvolution with Huber Super Gaussian priors

We report expectation Maximization (EM) based inference has already proven to be a very powerful tool to solve blind image deconvolution (BID) problems. Unfortunately, three important problems still impede the application of EM in BID: the undesirable saddle points and local minima caused by highly nonconvex priors, the instability around zero of some of the most interesting sparsity promoting priors, and the intrinsic high computational cost of the corresponding BID algorithm. In this paper we first show how Super Gaussian priors can be made numerically tractable around zero by introducing the family of Huber Super Gaussian priors and then present a fast EM based blind deconvolution method formulated in the image space. In the proposed computational approach, image and kernel estimation are performed by using the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM), which allows to exploit the advantages of FFT computation. For highly nonconvex priors, we propose a Smooth ADMM (SADMM) approach to avoid poor BID estimates. In conclusion, extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperforms state-of-the-art BID methods in terms of quality of the reconstructions and speed.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Acceleration of the Parameterization of Unified Microphysics Across Scales (PUMAS) on the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) With Directive-Based Methods

Cloud microphysics is one of the most time-consuming components in a climate model. In this study, we port the cloud microphysics parameterization in the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM), known as Parameterization of Unified Microphysics Across Scales (PUMAS), from CPU to GPU to seek a computational speedup. The directive-based methods (OpenACC and OpenMP target offload) are determined as the best fit specifically for our development practices, which enable a single version of source code to run either on the CPU or GPU, and yield a better portability and maintainability. Their performance is first examined in a PUMAS stand-alone kernel and the directive-based methods can outperform a CPU node as long as there is enough computational burden on the GPU. A consistent behavior is observed when we run PUMAS on the GPU in a practical CAM simulation. A 3.6× speedup of the PUMAS execution time, including data movement between CPU and GPU, is achieved at a coarse horizontal resolution (8 NVIDIA V100 GPUs against 36 Intel Skylake CPU cores). This speedup further increases up to 5.4× at a high resolution (24 NVIDIA V100 GPUs against 108 Intel Skylake CPU cores), which highlights the fact that GPU favors larger problem size. This study demonstrates that using GPU in a CAM simulation can save noticeable computational costs even with a small portion of code being GPU-enabled. Therefore, we are encouraged to port more parameterizations to GPU to take advantage of its computational benefit.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Performance-Portable Particle Advection with VTK-m

Particle advection is the fundamental kernel behind most vector field visualization methods. Yet, the efficient parallel computation of large amounts of particle traces remains challenging. This is exacerbated by the variety of hardware trends in today's HPC arena, including increasing core counts in classical CPUs, many-core designs such as the Intel Xeon Phi, and massively parallel GPUs. The dedicated optimization of a particle advection kernel for each individual target architecture is both time-consuming and error prone. In this paper, we propose a performance-portable algorithm for particle advection. Our algorithm is based on the recently introduced VTK-m system and chiefly relies on its device adapter abstraction. We demonstrate the general portability of our implementation across a wide variety of hardware. Finally, our evaluation shows that our hardware-agnostic algorithm has comparable performance to hardware-specific algorithms.

Pugmire, Dave↗

Compactly‐Supported Nonstationary Kernels for Computing Exact Gaussian Processes on Big Data

The Gaussian process (GP) is a widely used method for analyzing large-scale data sets, including spatio-temporal measurements of nonlinear processes that are now commonplace in the environmental sciences. Traditional implementations of GPs involve stationary kernels (also termed covariance functions) that limit their flexibility, and exact methods for inference that prevent application to data sets with more than about 10,000 points. Modern approaches to address stationarity assumptions generally fail to accommodate large data sets, while all attempts to address scalability focus on approximating the Gaussian likelihood, which can involve subjectivity and lead to inaccuracies. In this work, we explicitly derive an alternative kernel that can discover and encode both sparsity and nonstationarity. We embed the kernel within a fully Bayesian GP model and leverage high-performance computing resources to enable the analysis of massive data sets. We demonstrate the favorable performance of our novel kernel relative to existing exact and approximate GP methods across a variety of synthetic data examples. Furthermore, we conduct space–time prediction based on more than 1 million measurements of daily maximum temperature and verify that our results outperform state-of-the-art methods in the Earth sciences. More broadly, having access to exact GPs that use ultra-scalable, sparsity-discovering, nonstationary kernels allows GP methods to truly compete with a wide variety of machine learning methods.

Gaussian processes↗

Accurate, Fast and Scalable Kernel Ridge Regression on Parallel and Distributed Systems

Kernel Ridge Regression (KRR) is a fundamental method in machine learning. Given an n-by-d data matrix as input, a traditional implementation requires Θ(n2) memory to form an n-by-n kernel matrix and Θ(n3) flops to compute the final model. These time and storage costs prohibit KRR from scaling up to large datasets. For example, even on a relatively small dataset (a 520k-by-90 input requiring 357 MB), KRR requires 2 TB memory just to store the kernel matrix. Additionally, the reason is that n usually is much larger than d for real-world applications. On the other hand, weak scaling becomes a problem: if we keep d and n/p fixed as p grows (p is # machines), the memory needed grows as Θ(p) per processor and the flops as Θ(p2) per processor. In the perfect weak scaling situation, both the memory needed and the flops grow as Θ(1) per processor (i.e. memory and flops are constant). The traditional Distributed KRR implementation (DKRR) only achieved 0.32% weak scaling efficiency from 96 to 1536 processors. In this work, we propose two new methods to address these problems: the Balanced KRR (BKRR) and K-means KRR (KKRR). These methods consider alternative ways to partition the input dataset into p different parts, generating p different models, and then selecting the best model among them. Compared to a conventional implementation, KKRR2 (optimized version of KKRR) improves the weak scaling efficiency from 0.32% to 38% and achieves a 591x speedup for getting the same accuracy by using the same data and the same hardware (1536 processors). BKRR2 (optimized version of BKRR) achieves a higher accuracy than the current fastest method using less training time for a variety of datasets. For the applications requiring only approximate solutions, BKRR2 improves the weak scaling efficiency to 92% and achieves 3505x speedup (theoretical speedup: 4096x).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Assessing electronic structure approaches for gas-ligand interactions in metal-organic frameworks: The CO{sub 2}-benzene complex

Adsorption of gas molecules in metal-organic frameworks is governed by many factors, the most dominant of which are the interaction of the gas with open metal sites, and the interaction of the gas with the ligands. Herein, we examine the latter class of interaction in the context of CO{sub 2} binding to benzene. We begin by clarifying the geometry of the CO{sub 2}–benzene complex. We then generate a benchmark binding curve using a coupled-cluster approach with single, double, and perturbative triple excitations [CCSD(T)] at the complete basis set (CBS) limit. Against this ΔCCSD(T)/CBS standard, we evaluate a plethora of electronic structure approximations: Hartree-Fock, second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) with the resolution-of-the-identity approximation, attenuated MP2, and a number of density functionals with and without different empirical and nonempirical van der Waals corrections. We find that finite-basis MP2 significantly overbinds the complex. On the other hand, even the simplest empirical correction to standard density functionals is sufficient to bring the binding energies to well within 1 kJ/mol of the benchmark, corresponding to an error of less than 10%; PBE-D in particular performs well. Methods that explicitly include nonlocal correlation kernels, such as VV10, vdW-DF2, and ωB97X-V, perform with similar accuracy for this system, as do ωB97X and M06-L.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Multilevel summation with B-spline interpolation for pairwise interactions in molecular dynamics simulations

The multilevel summation method for calculating electrostatic interactions in molecular dynamics simulations constructs an approximation to a pairwise interaction kernel and its gradient, which can be evaluated at a cost that scales linearly with the number of atoms. The method smoothly splits the kernel into a sum of partial kernels of increasing range and decreasing variability with the longer-range parts interpolated from grids of increasing coarseness. Multilevel summation is especially appropriate in the context of dynamics and minimization, because it can produce continuous gradients. This article explores the use of B-splines to increase the accuracy of the multilevel summation method (for nonperiodic boundaries) without incurring additional computation other than a preprocessing step (whose cost also scales linearly). To obtain accurate results efficiently involves technical difficulties, which are overcome by a novel preprocessing algorithm. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the resulting method offers substantial improvements in accuracy and that its performance is competitive with an implementation of the fast multipole method in general and markedly better for Hamiltonian formulations of molecular dynamics. The improvement is great enough to establish multilevel summation as a serious contender for calculating pairwise interactions in molecular dynamics simulations. In particular, the method appears to be uniquely capable for molecular dynamics in two situations, nonperiodic boundary conditions and massively parallel computation, where the fast Fourier transform employed in the particle–mesh Ewald method falls short.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Smoothing Lexis diagrams using kernel functions: A contemporary approach

Lexis diagrams are rectangular arrays of event rates indexed by age and period. Analysis of Lexis diagrams is a cornerstone of cancer surveillance research. Typically, population-based descriptive studies analyze multiple Lexis diagrams defined by sex, tumor characteristics, race/ethnicity, geographic region, etc. Inevitably the amount of information per Lexis diminishes with increasing stratification. Several methods have been proposed to smooth observed Lexis diagrams up front to clarify salient patterns and improve summary estimates of averages, gradients, and trends. In this article, we develop a novel bivariate kernel-based smoother that incorporates two key innovations. First, for any given kernel, we calculate its singular values decomposition, and select an optimal truncation point—the number of leading singular vectors to retain—based on the bias-corrected Akaike information criterion. Second, we model-average over a panel of candidate kernels with diverse shapes and bandwidths. The truncated model averaging approach is fast, automatic, has excellent performance, and provides a variance-covariance matrix that takes model selection into account. We present an in-depth case study (invasive estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer incidence among non-Hispanic white women in the United States) and simulate operating characteristics for 20 representative cancers. The truncated model averaging approach consistently outperforms any fixed kernel. Our results support the routine use of the truncated model averaging approach in descriptive studies of cancer.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗