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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 343 records · Page 19
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Thoughts on Analyzing Neutron Multiplicity Data

Bayesian methods offer many advantages for analyzing neutron multiplicity data. Ideally one would make nonparametric estimates of the the posterior distributions, the probabilities - given the data - for unknowns to take on particular values. Once one has the posterior, uncertainty quantification is very natural. We describe how different ways of formulating the statistical theory of fission chains are mathematically equivalent. When confronted with actual data and the burden of finite statistics, different methods of expressing the theory offer advantages for understanding the underlying source parameters from an information theory standpoint.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Predicting Biological Cleanliness: An Empirical Bayes Approach for Spacecraft Bioburden Accounting

To comply with the international planetary protection policy set forth by the Committee on Space Research and NASA Agency level requirements, spacecraft destined to biologically sensitive planetary bodies have to minimize terrestrial biological contamination. Analysis, testing and inspection are the standard forward verification activities that are used to demonstrate compliance with the biological contamination requirements. For testing of spacecraft surface areas, a swab or wipe sample is collected from surfaces prior to last access and subsequently processed in the lab using NASA Approved Planetary Protection Methods for Culture Based Assays. Raw data resulting from this assay is then statistically treated employing a mathematical paradigm stemming from the 1970’s Viking Lander Project to generate the bioburden density and total microbial bioburden present. This standard approach arbitrarily accounts for error and provides an upper conservative bound as it reports the maximum number of spores estimated to be present on flight hardware surfaces. A bioburden density estimate factors in the following variables: the observed bioburden count, representative volume processed, sampling efficiencies. Notably, to account for error in the approach, a 0 observed count is arbitrarily changed to a count of 1 for each hardware grouping. The data generated by spacecraft bioburden verification campaigns in the past have resulted in <80% of wipes and <90% of swabs containing a bioburden count of 0. As such, having a robust and well documented statistical approach for dealing with the probability of low incident rates is necessary to be able to estimate spacecraft bioburden. Being able to statistically describe the bioburden distribution and associated confidence level is a gamechanger for the development of bioburden allocations during mission design and will allow for tighter management of risk throughout spacecraft build. Thus, Empirical Bayes statistical approach was evaluated to estimate the microbial bioburden on spacecraft to mitigate the aforementioned mathematical concerns and provide a probabilistic bioburden distribution of the flight hardware surface. For application of this approach to performing bioburden calculations, a range of non-informative prior assumptions on hardware surfaces are explored for Bayesian analyses while informative priors using posterior distributions from prior assays are utilized for Empirical Bayes analyses. Several non-informative priors are currently under investigation to assess fitness including use of these priors to serve as a foundation to build off of NASA specification values or a basis of risk to account for unknowns during the integration and testing process. Informative priors under consideration are generated using sampled bioburden values from hardware originating within like processing environments (e.g. vendor cleaning process or similar assembly process), temporal spacecraft status events as a prediction for hardware cleanliness of future samples, and heritage system bioburden actuals to predict allocation for subsequent missions. Informative priors and probabilistic bioburden distributions are then validated using data sets from the Mars Exploration Rover, Mars Science Laboratory, and InSight missions. Using Empirical Bayes approach to generate a probabilistic bioburden distribution as demonstrated through mission use cases provides a valid approach for use in the end-to-end requirements verification process.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Unbinned extraction of $γ$ from $B\to DK$ with normalizing flows

We introduce an unbinned method for extracting the CKM angle $γ$ from the decay chain $B^\pm \to (D \to K_S π^+ π^-) K^\pm$ using normalizing flows (NFs). The NFs, trained on $D$ decay data, learn a faithful continuous representation of the amplitude and strong phase variation over the $D\to K_Sπ^+π^-$ Dalitz plot whose fidelity improves with increased data sample sizes. With this input, the $B$ decay data can be used to extract the parameters $r_B$, $δ_B$, and $γ$. We test the method on Monte Carlo generated data, where it successfully recovers the injected value of $γ$ within uncertainties. The present implementation propagates statistical uncertainties from finite training data via an ensemble of independently trained flows, and does not attempt to capture the effects of systematic experimental errors. We explore two versions of the method that differ in how the trigonometric constraint on phase variation is encoded, and comment on the possible extension to Bayesian NFs, which would provide direct uncertainty estimates on the learned densities without requiring ensemble training.

Grossman, Yuval [Cornell U., LEPP]↗
DOE OSTI2022

Uncertainty-aware mixed-variable machine learning for materials design

Abstract Data-driven design shows the promise of accelerating materials discovery but is challenging due to the prohibitive cost of searching the vast design space of chemistry, structure, and synthesis methods. Bayesian optimization (BO) employs uncertainty-aware machine learning models to select promising designs to evaluate, hence reducing the cost. However, BO with mixed numerical and categorical variables, which is of particular interest in materials design, has not been well studied. In this work, we survey frequentist and Bayesian approaches to uncertainty quantification of machine learning with mixed variables. We then conduct a systematic comparative study of their performances in BO using a popular representative model from each group, the random forest-based Lolo model (frequentist) and the latent variable Gaussian process model (Bayesian). We examine the efficacy of the two models in the optimization of mathematical functions, as well as properties of structural and functional materials, where we observe performance differences as related to problem dimensionality and complexity. By investigating the machine learning models’ predictive and uncertainty estimation capabilities, we provide interpretations of the observed performance differences. Our results provide practical guidance on choosing between frequentist and Bayesian uncertainty-aware machine learning models for mixed-variable BO in materials design.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Geometric Scale-up Experiments on Fluidization of Geldart B Glass Beads

The objective of this work is to provide a valuable database from controlled experiments for validating computational models. Recently, coarse-grained techniques such as particle-in-cell (PIC) or coarse-grained discrete element modeling (DEM) have gained popularity due to their computational efficiency while modeling large-scale systems; however, the influence of model parameters and their sensitivities at different geometric scales and flow conditions remain to be analyzed. These datasets are critical for the multiphase flow research community to assess predictive capability of modeling techniques as well as elucidate the hydrodynamic behavior in these systems. This study performed fluidization experiments using three different test sections with internal diameters of 2.5, 4, and 6 in. The operating conditions, bed material, and range of flow velocities at the inlet were constant in all the units, which were not hydrodynamically scaled. Glass beads having a Sauter Mean Diameter of 332 μm were used. Superficial velocity was varied from 2.97 to 5.35 times the minimum fluidization velocity and the initial static bed height was 0.1524 m. The order in which the experiments were performed was randomized and replicates were included to provide uncertainty in measurements. Statistics of differential pressure and bed height from these tests were reported. Future plans include validating PIC methodology in the open-source software, MFiX (Multiphase Flow with Interphase Exchanges) using results from this study. This could further be extended to determine optimal model parameters using inverse techniques such as deterministic calibration or Bayesian inference.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Geometric Scale-up Experiments on Fluidization of Geldart B Glass Beads

The objective of this work is to provide a valuable database from controlled experiments for validating computational models. Recently, coarse-grained techniques such as particle-in-cell (PIC) or coarse-grained discrete element modeling (DEM) have gained popularity due to their computational efficiency while modeling large-scale systems; however, the influence of model parameters and their sensitivities at different geometric scales and flow conditions remain to be analyzed. These datasets are critical for the multiphase flow research community to assess predictive capability of modeling techniques as well as elucidate the hydrodynamic behavior in these systems. This study performed fluidization experiments using three different test sections with internal diameters of 2.5, 4, and 6 in. The operating conditions, bed material, and range of flow velocities at the inlet were constant in all the units, which were not hydrodynamically scaled. Glass beads having a Sauter Mean Diameter of 332 μm were used. Superficial velocity was varied from 2.97 to 5.35 times the minimum fluidization velocity and the initial static bed height was 0.1524 m. The order in which the experiments were performed was randomized and replicates were included to provide uncertainty in measurements. Statistics of differential pressure and bed height from these tests were reported. Future plans include validating PIC methodology in the open-source software, MFiX (Multiphase Flow with Interphase Exchanges) using results from this study. This could further be extended to determine optimal model parameters using inverse techniques such as deterministic calibration or Bayesian inference.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Retrospective Analysis and Bayesian Model Averaging of CMIP6 Precipitation in the Nile River Basin

The Nile River basin is one of the global hotspots vulnerable to climate change impacts because of a fast-growing population and geopolitical tensions. Previous studies demonstrated that general circulation models (GCMs) frequently show disagreement in the sign of change in annual precipitation projections. Here, we first evaluate the performance of 20 GCMs from phase six of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) benchmarked against a high-spatial-resolution precipitation dataset dating back to 1983 from Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information Using Artificial Neural Networks–Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR). Next, a Bayesian model averaging (BMA) approach is adopted to derive probability distributions of precipitation projections in the Nile basin. Retrospective analysis reveals that most GCMs exhibit considerable (up to 64% of mean annual precipitation) and spatially heterogenous bias in simulating annual precipitation. Moreover, it is shown that all GCMs underestimate interannual variability; thus, the ensemble range is underdispersive and is a poor indicator of uncertainty. The projected changes from the BMA model show that the value and sign of change vary considerably across the Nile basin. Specifically, it is found that projected changes in the two headwaters basins, namely, the Blue Nile and Upper White Nile, are 0.03% and -1.65%, respectively; both are statistically insignificant at α = 0.05. The uncertainty range estimated from the BMA model shows that the probability of a precipitation decrease is much higher in the Upper White Nile basin whereas projected change in the Blue Nile is highly uncertain both in magnitude and sign of change.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

The public health exposome and pregnancy-related mortality in the United States: a high-dimensional computational analysis

Racial inequities in maternal mortality in the U.S. continue to be stark. The 2015–2018, 4-year total population, county-level, pregnancy-related mortality ratio (PRM; deaths per 100,000 live births; National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), restricted use mortality file) was linked with the Public Health Exposome (PHE). Using data reduction techniques, 1591 variables were extracted from over 62,000 variables for use in this analysis, providing information on the relationships between PRM and the social, health and health care, natural, and built environments. Graph theoretical algorithms and Bayesian analysis were applied to PHE/PRM linked data to identify latent networks. PHE variables most strongly correlated with total population PRM were years of potential life lost and overall life expectancy. Population-level indicators of PRM were overall poverty, smoking, lack of exercise, heat, and lack of adequate access to food. In this high-dimensional analysis, overall life expectancy, poverty indicators, and health behaviors were found to be the strongest predictors of pregnancy-related mortality. This provides strong evidence that maternal death is part of a broader constellation of both similar and unique health behaviors, social determinants and environmental exposures as other causes of death.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Chiral Effective Field Theory and the High-Density Nuclear Equation of State

Born in the aftermath of core-collapse supernovae, neutron stars contain matter under extraordinary conditions of density and temperature that are difficult to reproduce in the laboratory. In recent years, neutron star observations have begun to yield novel insights into the nature of strongly interacting matter in the high-density regime where current theoretical models are challenged. At the same time, chiral effective field theory has developed into a powerful framework to study nuclear matter properties with quantified uncertainties in the moderate-density regime for modeling neutron stars. In this article, we review recent developments in chiral effective field theory and focus on many-body perturbation theory as a computationally efficient tool for calculating the properties of hot and dense nuclear matter. We also demonstrate how effective field theory enables statistically meaningful comparisons among nuclear theory predictions, nuclear experiments, and observational constraints on the nuclear equation of state.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

High-resolution x-ray spectrometer for x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy

Two extended x-ray absorption fine structure flat crystal x-ray spectrometers (EFX’s) were designed and built for high-resolution x-ray spectroscopy over a large energy range with flexible, on-shot energy dispersion calibration capabilities. The EFX uses a flat silicon [111] crystal in the reflection geometry as the energy dispersive optic covering the energy range of 6.3–11.4 keV and achieving a spectral resolution of 4.5 eV with a source size of 50 μm at 7.2 keV. A shot-to-shot configurable calibration filter pack and Bayesian inference routine were used to constrain the energy dispersion relation to within ±3 eV. The EFX was primarily designed for x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and provides significant improvement to the Laboratory for Laser Energetics’ OMEGA-60 XAFS experimental platform. The EFX is capable of performing extended XAFS measurements of multiple absorption edges simultaneously on metal alloys and x-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy to measure the electron structure of compressed 3d transition metals.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Monte Carlo goodness-of-fit tests for degree corrected and related stochastic blockmodels

Abstract We construct Bayesian and frequentist finite-sample goodness-of-fit tests for three different variants of the stochastic blockmodel for network data. Since all of the stochastic blockmodel variants are log-linear in form when block assignments are known, the tests for the latent block model versions combine a block membership estimator with the algebraic statistics machinery for testing goodness-of-fit in log-linear models. We describe Markov bases and marginal polytopes of the variants of the stochastic blockmodel and discuss how both facilitate the development of goodness-of-fit tests and understanding of model behaviour. The general testing methodology developed here extends to any finite mixture of log-linear models on discrete data, and as such is the first application of the algebraic statistics machinery for latent-variable models.

Karwa, Vishesh↗
DOE OSTI2023

Constraining neutrino oscillation and interaction parameters with the NOvA Near Detector and Far Detector data using Markov Chain Monte Carlo

This thesis reports a constraint of the neutrino oscillation parameters $\Delta m^{2}_{32}$, $\sin^2 \theta_{23}$, and $\delta_{CP}$ using the NuMI Off-Axis $\nu$ Appearance (NOvA) experiment's Near Detector (ND) data and Far Detector (FD) fake data set simultaneously. This thesis also reports a constraint on NOvA's systematic uncertainty model solely with its Near Detector data. The Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm is used to estimate Bayesian Credible Intervals for the oscillation and interaction parameters. The $1\sigma$ Credible Intervals for $\sin^2 \theta_{23}$ are $(0.44, 0.512)$ $\cup$ $(0.536, 0.56)$, for $\Delta m^{2}_{32}$ $(2.41 \times 10^{-3}$ eV$^2,\ 2.52 \times 10^{-3}$ eV$^2)$, and for $\delta_{CP}$ $(0.74\pi,\ 1.1\pi)$ $\cup$ $(1.38\pi,\ 1.58\pi)$. The statistical power of the ND data constrains NOvA's interaction parameters, while the FD fake data constrains the oscillation parameters. This is the first analysis within NOvA to constrain the ND and FD prediction sim ultaneously, and to investigate the neutrino interaction modeling in the context of constraining the oscillation parameters. To constrain the ND data requires a sophisticated understanding of the neutrino interaction modeling and its uncertainties. The interested reader is advised to focus on Chapters 4 and 6, which discuss the ND selection, uncertainties, and ND-only fits to data. The reader interested in oscillation parameter constraints will find this in Chapter 7.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Evaluating cosmological biases using photometric redshifts for Type Ia Supernova cosmology with the Dark Energy Survey Supernova Program

Cosmological analyses with Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) have traditionally been reliant on spectroscopy for both classifying the type of supernova and obtaining reliable redshifts to measure the distance–redshift relation. While obtaining a host-galaxy spectroscopic redshift for most SNe is feasible for small-area transient surveys, it will be too resource intensive for upcoming large-area surveys such as the Vera Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time, which will observe on the order of millions of SNe. Here, we use data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) to address this problem with photometric redshifts (photo-z) inferred directly from the SN light curve in combination with Gaussian and full p(z) priors from host-galaxy photo-z estimates. Using the DES 5-yr photometrically classified SN sample, we consider several photo-z algorithms as host-galaxy photo-z priors, including the Self-Organizing Map redshifts (SOMPZ), Bayesian Photometric Redshifts (BPZ), and Directional-Neighbourhood Fitting (DNF) redshift estimates employed in the DES 3 × 2 point analyses. With detailed catalogue-level simulations of the DES 5-yr sample, we find that the simulated w can be recovered within ±0.02 when using SN+SOMPZ or DNF prior photo-z, smaller than the average statistical uncertainty for these samples of 0.03. With data, we obtain biases in w consistent with simulations within ~1σ for three of the five photo-z variants. We further evaluate how photo-z systematics interplay with photometric classification and find classification introduces a subdominant systematic component. This work lays the foundation for next-generation fully photometric SNe Ia cosmological analyses.

(cosmology:) dark energy↗
DOE OSTI2022

Multifidelity Ensemble Kalman Filtering Using Surrogate Models Defined by Theory-Guided Autoencoders

Data assimilation is a Bayesian inference process that obtains an enhanced understanding of a physical system of interest by fusing information from an inexact physics-based model, and from noisy sparse observations of reality. The multifidelity ensemble Kalman filter (MFEnKF) recently developed by the authors combines a full-order physical model and a hierarchy of reduced order surrogate models in order to increase the computational efficiency of data assimilation. The standard MFEnKF uses linear couplings between models, and is statistically optimal in case of Gaussian probability densities. This work extends the MFEnKF into to make use of a broader class of surrogate model such as those based on machine learning methods such as autoencoders non-linear couplings in between the model hierarchies. We identify the right-invertibility property for autoencoders as being a key predictor of success in the forecasting power of autoencoder-based reduced order models. We propose a methodology that allows us to construct reduced order surrogate models that are more accurate than the ones obtained via conventional linear methods. Numerical experiments with the canonical Lorenz'96 model illustrate that nonlinear surrogates perform better than linear projection-based ones in the context of multifidelity ensemble Kalman filtering. We additionality show a large-scale proof-of-concept result with the quasi-geostrophic equations, showing the competitiveness of the method with a traditional reduced order model-based MFEnKF.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Probabilistic inversion of circular phase spectra: application to two-station phase-velocity dispersion estimation in western Canada

SUMMARY Periodic directional and temporal measurements are common in seismology, and necessitate specific statistical analyses that are appropriate for circular quantities. In this work, we explore the use of a von Mises distribution as a representation of errors on circular seismological observations. Specifically, we automate the estimation of surface-wave phase-velocity dispersion for the teleseismic two-station method, which generally suffers from a 2π phase ambiguity. The use of Bayesian inverse techniques, which aim to rigorously quantify model parameter uncertainty, have become widespread throughout seismology over the last decade. Here, we apply Bayesian inversion to measurements of surface-wave phase spectra in order to estimate 1-D, path-averaged Earth structure between station pairs. The dispersion curve and associated uncertainties are additional results of the inversion, which can then be used as input for subsequent analyses (e.g. tomography). We demonstrate this technique through application to surface-wave recordings from long-running seismic stations throughout western Canada. Our results for over 10 000 station pairs reveal first-order tectonic features consistent with previous studies, which provides confidence in our approach as well as an initial step towards resolving a full 3-D seismic velocity model for the region. This work also presents a foundation for the inversion of surface-wave phase spectra to estimate 3-D Earth structure directly. Finally, the ideas presented in this work are not limited to the inversion of surface-wave phase spectra, but can also be considered for Bayesian geophysical inversion of any circular quantities.

Gosselin, Jeremy M. (ORCID:0000000203754102)↗
DOE OSTI2021

Energy dependent calculations of fission product, prompt, and delayed neutron yields for neutron induced fission on 235 U, 238 U, and 239 Pu

In this article, we perform energy-dependent calculations of independent and cumulative fission product yields for 235 U, 238 U, and 239 Pu in the first chance fission region. Starting with the primary fission fragment distributions taken from available experimental data and analytical functions based on assumptions for the excitation energy and spin-parity distributions, the Hauser-Feshbach statistical decay treatment for fission fragment de-excitation is applied to more than 1,000 fission fragments for the incident neutron energies up to 5 MeV. The calculated independent yields are then used as an input of β-decay calculations to produce the cumulative yield, and summation calculations are performed. Model parameters in these procedures are adjusted by applying the Bayesian technique at the thermal energy for 235 U and 239 Pu and in the fast energy range for 238 U. The calculated fission observable quantities, such as the energy-dependent cumulative yields, and prompt and delayed neutron yields, are compared with available experimental data. We also study the possible impact of the second chance fission opening on the energy dependence of the delayed neutron yield by on the opening of second chance fission on the energy dependence calculation.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Application of the Approximate Bayesian Computation Algorithm to Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy

Radioisotope identification (RIID) algorithms for gamma-ray spectroscopy aim to infer what isotopes are present and in what amounts in test items. RIID algorithms either use all energy channels in the analysis region or only energy channels in and near identified peaks. Because many RIID algorithms rely on locating peaks and estimating each peak’s net area, peak location and peak area estimation algorithms continue to be developed for gamma-ray spectroscopy. This paper shows that approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) can be effective for peak location and area estimation. Algorithms to locate peaks can be applied to raw or smoothed data, and among several smoothing options, the iterative bias reduction algorithm (IBR) is recommended; the use of IBR with ABC is shown to potentially reduce uncertainty in peak location estimation. Extracted peak locations and areas can then be used as summary statistics in a new ABC-based RIID. ABC allows for easy experimentation with candidate summary statistics such as goodness-of-fit scores and peak areas that are extracted from relatively high dimensional gamma spectra with photopeaks (1024 or more energy channels) consisting of count rates versus energy for a large number of gamma energies.

Burr, Tom↗