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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

Early MRI Blood Volume Changes in Constrictor Muscles Correlate With Postradiation Dysphagia

Predicting individual patient sensitivity to radiation therapy (RT) for tumor control or normal tissue toxicity is necessary to individualize treatment planning. In head and neck cancer, radiation doses are limited by many nearby critical structures, including structures involved in swallowing. Previous efforts showed that imaging parameters correlate with RT dose; here, we investigate the role of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) blood volume (BV) changes in predicting dysphagia.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Noise from undetected sources in Dark Energy Survey images

ABSTRACT For ground-based optical imaging with current CCD technology, the Poisson fluctuations in source and sky background photon arrivals dominate the noise budget and are readily estimated. Another component of noise, however, is the signal from the undetected population of stars and galaxies. Using injection of artifical galaxies into images, we demonstrate that the measured variance of galaxy moments (used for weak gravitational lensing measurements) in Dark Energy Survey (DES) images is significantly in excess of the Poisson predictions, by up to 30 per cent, and that the background sky levels are overestimated by current software. By cross-correlating distinct images of ‘empty’ sky regions, we establish that there is a significant image noise contribution from undetected static sources (US), which, on average, are mildly resolved at DES resolution. Treating these US as a stationary noise source, we compute a correction to the moment covariance matrix expected from Poisson noise. The corrected covariance matrix matches the moment variances measured on the injected DES images to within 5 per cent. Thus, we have an empirical method to statistically account for US in weak lensing measurements, rather than requiring extremely deep sky simulations. We also find that local sky determinations can remove most of the bias in flux measurements, at a small penalty in additional, but quantifiable, noise.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Quantifying Seasonal and Diurnal Cycles of Solar‐Induced Fluorescence With a Novel Hyperspectral Imager

Abstract Solar‐induced fluorescence (SIF) is a proxy of ecosystem photosynthesis that often scales linearly with gross primary productivity (GPP) at the canopy scale. However, the mechanistic relationship between GPP and SIF is still uncertain, especially at smaller temporal and spatial scales. We deployed a ultra‐hyperspectral imager over two grassland sites in California throughout a soil moisture dry down. The imager has high spatial resolution that limits mixed pixels, enabling differentiation between plants and leaves within one scene. We find that imager SIF correlates well with diurnal changes in leaf‐level physiology and gross primary productivity under well‐watered conditions. These relationships deteriorate throughout the dry down event. Our results demonstrate an advancement in SIF imaging with new possibilities in remotely sensing plant canopies from the leaf to the ecosystem. These data can be used to resolve outstanding questions regarding SIF's meaning and usefulness in terrestrial ecosystem monitoring.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Imaging Valley Excitons in a 2D Semiconductor with Scanning Tunneling Microscope-Induced Luminescence

Valley excitons dominate the optoelectronic response of transition-metal dichalcogenides and are drastically affected by structural and environmental inhomogeneities localized in these materials. Critical to understanding and controlling these nanoscale excitonic changes is the ability to correlate the imaging of excitonic states with crystalline structures on the atomic scale. Here, in this study, we apply scanning tunneling microscope-induced luminescence microscopy to image valley excitons in a semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayer decoupled by a 10 nanometer-thick hexagonal-boron-nitride flake incorporated in a lateral homojunction on an Au electrode surface. This design enables the observation of chiral excitonic emission arising from neutral and charged valley excitons of the monolayer semiconductor at ambipolar voltages with a quantum efficiency up to similar to ~10 -5 photon/electron. The measured light helicity demonstrates considerable circular polarization dependent on the sample voltage, reaching as much as 40%. The real-space luminescence imaging maps$-$at subnanometer resolution$-$of the valley excitons reveal striking spatial variations associated with localized inhomogeneities, including surface impurities and possibly nanoscale dielectric and/or potential disorders in the monolayer. Our study introduces a promising format for 2D materials to explore and tailor their optoelectronic processes at the atomic scale.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Velocity Profiling of a Gas–Solid Fluidized Bed Using Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography

In this study, a method of producing velocity profile maps from electrical capacitance volume tomography (ECVT) measurements by reconstructing displacement from measured changes in capacitance is developed and applied to fluidized bed systems. The mapping of the reconstruction leverages the gradient of the sensitivity distribution of the ECVT sensor to circumvent the need for image cross correlation techniques. Experimental data of both bubbling and slugging fluidized beds are collected in a cold flow model. Adaptation of the technique is discussed in detail, and velocity profiles are obtained for a range of gas flow rates. The produced velocity maps are compared against the established methods of cross correlation and against empirical correlations from the literature and are found to agree well in tracking slug and bubble velocity. The exception is when the tracked object is large relative to the ECVT sensor dimensions, a scenario that can be avoided through proper sensor design. The quantities of average velocity, momentum, and solid and gas volume fraction are derived from the image and velocity profiles. The results demonstrate and extend the power of ECVT as a measurement tool for the study and monitoring of gas–solid fluidized beds by providing a computationally cheaper alternative to 3-D cross correlation for deriving velocity profiles.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Revealing Soil Organic Matter-mineral Associations with Advanced Chemical Imaging Methods

Although macro-scale in nature, most biogeochemical processes are driven by interactions at the microand nano-scale. Therefore, precise characterization of both organic and inorganic system components requires multi-scale, often multi-capability approaches. In this work, we present the state-of-the-art characterization of organic matter-mineral associations by high-resolution correlated chemical imaging.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Pressure Drop with Moving Contact Lines and Dynamic Contact Angles in a Hydrophobic Round Minichannel: Visualization via Synchrotron X-ray Imaging and Verification of Experimental Correlations

In hydrophobic mini- and microchannels, slug flow with moving contact lines is typically generated under various two-phase flow conditions. There is a significant pressure drop in this flow pattern with moving contact lines, which is closely related to the dynamic contact angles. Researchers have investigated dynamic contact angles experimentally for decades, but due to the limitations of visualization techniques, these experiments have typically been conducted in low Weber number regions (We < 10 –3 ). In this study, we clearly visualized the dynamic contact angles of a liquid slug in high Weber number regions (10 –3 < We <1) via synchrotron X-ray imaging with high temporal (~1000 fps) and spatial (~ 2 μm/pixel) resolutions. We precisely measured the pressure drop with moving contact lines in a hydrophobic minichannel (inner diameter = 1.018 mm). On the basis of our experimental data, we verified previous correlations for dynamic contact angles and explored the relationship between pressure drop with moving contact lines and dynamic contact angles.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Nanoscale imaging of quantum dot dimers using time-resolved super-resolution microscopy combined with scanning electron microscopy

Abstract Time-resolved super-resolution microscopy was used in conjunction with scanning electron microscopy to image individual colloidal CdSe/CdS semiconductor quantum dots (QD) and QD dimers. The photoluminescence (PL) lifetimes, intensities, and structural parameters were acquired with nanometer scale spatial resolution and sub-nanosecond time resolution. The combination of these two techniques was more powerful than either alone, enabling us to resolve the PL properties of individual QDs within QD dimers as they blinked on and off, measure interparticle distances, and identify QDs that may be participating in energy transfer. The localization precision of our optical imaging technique was ∼3 nm, low enough that the emission from individual QDs within the dimers could be spatially resolved. While the majority of QDs within dimers acted as independent emitters, at least one pair of QDs in our study exhibited lifetime and intensity behaviors consistent with resonance energy transfer from a shorter lifetime and lower intensity donor QD to a longer lifetime and higher intensity acceptor QD. For this case, we demonstrate how the combined super-resolution optical imaging and scanning electron microscopy data can be used to characterize the energy transfer rate.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Spurious Correlations between Galaxies and Multiepoch Image Stacks in the DESI Legacy Surveys

A nonnegligible source of systematic bias in cosmological analyses of galaxy surveys is the on-sky modulation that is caused by foregrounds and variable image characteristics, such as observing conditions. Standard mitigation techniques perform a regression between the observed galaxy density field and sky maps of the potential contaminants. Such maps are ad hoc lossy summaries of the heterogeneous sets of coadded exposures that contribute to the survey. We present a methodology for addressing this limitation, and we extract spurious correlations between the observed distributions of galaxies and arbitrary stacks of single-epoch exposures. We study four types of galaxies (luminous red galaxies, emission-line galaxies, quasars, and Lyman-break galaxies) in the three regions of the DESI Legacy Surveys (North, South, and Dark Energy Survey), resulting in 12 samples with varying levels and types of contamination. We find that the new technique outperforms the traditional ones in all cases, and is able to remove higher levels of contamination. This paves the way for new methods that extract more information from multiepoch galaxy survey data and mitigate large-scale biases more effectively.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Ultrafast nano-imaging and nano-spectroscopy

Ultrafast pump–probe nano-imaging combines scanning probe-based optical near-field microscopy with ultrafast spectroscopy to enable imaging with deep sub-wavelength spatial resolution, femtosecond temporal resolution and simultaneous spectral resolution. Ultrafast nano-imaging has gained increased attention for its ability to provide far-from-equilibrium excitation and excited-state contrast. With coherent and nonlinear probing, coupled electron, spin and lattice dynamics on elementary timescale and length scale can be resolved. Through nano-movies, ultrafast nano-imaging visualizes correlated quantum dynamics underlying the properties of solid-state materials, semiconductors, molecular electronic, photonic, photovoltaic and other functional materials. With nanometre spatial resolution, this method probes elementary dynamic processes across multiple length scales that are otherwise obscured in conventional ultrafast spectroscopy in which heterogeneities are spatially averaged. Furthermore, this Primer describes the theoretical background and experimental implementation of ultrafast nano-imaging; signal interpretation and modelling; representative examples and a perspective for the future development of the field.

Microscopy↗

Qualification and Quantification of Porosity at the Top of the Fuel Pins in Metallic Fuels Using Image Processing

Approximately 130,000 metal fuel pins were irradiated in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) during its 30 years of operation to develop and characterize existing and prospective fuels. For many of the metal fuel irradiation experiments, neutron radiography imaging was performed to characterize fuel behavior, such as fuel axial expansion. While several fuel expansion results obtained from neutron radiography imaging have been published, the analysis of neutron radiography for the purpose of describing statistical properties of porous matter formed on top of the fuel pins, also referred to as fluff in previous publications, is significantly less represented in the literature with just a single paper so far. This study aims to validate and augment results reported in previous publications using automated image processing. The paper describes the statistical properties of the porous matter in terms of nine parameters derived from radiography images and correlates those parameters with such fuel properties as composition, expansion, temperature, and burnup. The reported results are based on 1097 fuel pins of eight different fuel compositions. For three major fuel types, U-10Zr, U-8Pu-10Zr, and U-19Pu-10Zr, a clear negative correlation is found between the Pu content and five parameters describing the amount of porous matter generated. The parameters describing granularity properties, however, showed either negative correlation or nonlinear dependency from fuel composition. The parameters describing the amount showed a positive correlation with fuel axial expansion, while granularity parameters showed a negative correlation with axial expansion. The dependency on cladding temperature was found to be weak. A positive correlation is demonstrated for volume parameters and fuel burnup. In general, reported results confirm and validate findings published in previous studies using a much larger number of pins and automated processing techniques, which easily lend themselves to reproducibility, thus avoiding subjective bias.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Overcoming Barriers Associated with Oral Delivery of Differently Sized Fluorescent Core‐Shell Silica Nanoparticles

Oral delivery, while a highly desirable form of nanoparticle-drug administration, is limited by challenges associated with overcoming several biological barriers. Here, in this study, the authors study how fluorescent and poly(ethylene glycol)-coated (PEGylated) core-shell silica nanoparticles sized 5 to 50 nm interact with major barriers including intestinal mucus, intestinal epithelium, and stomach acid. From imaging fluorescence correlation spectroscopy studies using quasi-total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy, diffusion of nanoparticles through highly scattering mucus is progressively hindered above a critical hydrodynamic size around 20 nm. By studying Caco-2 cell monolayers mimicking the intestinal epithelia, it is observed that ultrasmall nanoparticles below 10 nm diameter (Cornell prime dots, [C’ dots]) show permeabilities correlated with high absorption in humans from primarily enhanced passive passage through tight junctions. Particles above 20 nm diameter exclusively show active transport through cells. After establishing C’ dot stability in artificial gastric juice, in vivo oral gavage experiments in mice demonstrate successful passage through the body followed by renal clearance without protein corona formation. Results suggest C’ dots as viable candidates for oral administration to patients with a proven pathway towards clinical translation and may generate renewed interest in examining silica as a food additive and its effects on nutrition and health.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Deformation twinning and detwinning in extruded Mg-4Al: In-situ experiment and crystal plasticity simulation

Deformation twinning and detwinning in extruded Mg-4Al were investigated using in-situ SEM-DIC experiments and crystal plasticity finite element (CPFE) simulation. In this study, the in-situ SEM-DIC method was used to provide a unique set of data including twin/detwin characteristics and twin area fraction in addition to strain maps. A statistical analysis of the activation of twin variants and twin area fraction during both twinning and detwinning was conducted. A strong correlation was found between twin growth/shrinkage and the Schmid Factor (SF) for individual twin variants Higher twin SF during loading and unloading led to higher twin growth and shrinkage, respectively. However, after the applied compressive strain was removed, the pattern of the twin area fractions of the residual twin variants versus their nominal SFs did not follow the trend observed at the maximum compressive strain. Using a systematic methodology and an advanced twin/detwin model, the PRISMS-Plasticity CPFE simulation was calibrated using experimentally determined stress versus strain and twin area fraction versus strain information. A comprehensive evaluation of the CPFE model was conducted to determine its ability to capture the statistics of twin variants activation and twin area fraction. CPFE accurately captured the statistical aspects of both twinning and detwinning. Finally, it also predicted the first dominant twin variant for 47.5% of the grains and at least one of the two dominant twin variants for 80% of the grains at maximum compressive strain.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A Range and Performance Optimized Version of the Computer-Aided Speckle Interferometry Algorithm for Real-Time Displacement-Strain Field Monitoring

Abstract This work presents an optimized implementation of the Computer-Aided Speckle Interferometry algorithm which enables full-field determination of displacements and strains on commodity Graphics Processing Units at high resolution and frame rates. By combining careful control of the average speckle size in a laser speckle pattern with a simple sampling rate conversion scheme, a compact representation of the optical speckle is achieved. This allows for optimal use of Graphics Processing Unit architecture with robust range extension. The optimal mapping of the Computer-Aided Speckle Interferometry algorithm to Graphics Processing Unit architecture is shown in detail, and a straightforward method for disambiguating large displacements is illustrated. Lastly, this paper demonstrates a two-step subimage-tapering modification to the original algorithm that enables robust range enhancement while maintaining resolution. Results from numerical simulations on synthetic speckle patterns are shown, and runtime performance metrics are provided, with performance ranging up to 60 frames per second in some cases. The method is suitable for interactive experimental mechanics research, process and testing or any application where real-time high-resolution displacement-strain monitoring is needed. A .NET Framework class library enabling the incorporation of the algorithm into 3rd -party applications is available for download.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Mesoscopic-scale complexity in macroscopically-uniform plastic flow of an Al 0.3 CoCrFeNi high-entropy alloy

The concept of a smooth and homogeneous plastic flow of solids is nowadays constantly challenged by various observations of the self-organization of crystal defects on mesoscopic scales pertaining, e.g., to acoustic emission or the evolution of the local strain field. Such investigations would be of particular interest for High-Entropy Alloys (HEAs) characterized by extremely complex microstructures. However, the complexity of their deformation has been only studied in relation to the jerky flow. The present work explores a mesoscale complexity of the macroscopically-smooth plastic flow of an Al 0.3 CoCrFeNi alloy. Here, an inclusive approach involving various experimental methods and complementary nonlinear analyses allowed to reveal transitions between distinct dynamical regimes, which may be assimilated with noises of different colors, in particular the blue noise that is rarely observed in complex systems, and various kinds of reddened behavior. Such findings provide significant new insights into the micro/macro transition in the deformation behavior of HEAs.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Modeling the evolution of slip localization: Realization of link to material strength

Slip localization formation is the chief mechanism underlying the deformation of almost all metals, from pure elements to high-performance superalloys. The intensity of individual slip localizations is often related to the ultimate strain level for failure but not to the strength of the metal. Here we show that across 15 distinct metals, the intensity of slip in individual slip localizations and slip localization spacings are strongly related to material yield strength. Using a three-dimensional crystal plasticity-based micromechanical model that explicitly simulates the growth of discrete slip localizations, we reveal that the stronger the metal, the faster and earlier slip localizations intensify. The relationship is attributed to the formation of a zone that surrounds the slip localization where the driving force for slip is absent. We find that the zone size is controlled by the strength of the neighboring crystal. Consequently, as strength increases, slip becomes increasingly preferred within the slip localization itself and formation of other slip localizations becomes more likely further away.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗