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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 541 records · Page 30

Untargeted, tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS-MS) metaproteomes from soil samples in control and warming plots in Blodgett Forest, CA (2014-2021)

The pathways of carbon transport and loss through and from soils—soil organic matter (SOM) depolymerization to dissolved organic carbon and mineralization to carbon dioxide (CO2)—are fundamentally driven by microbial activity, which is strongly regulated by environmental conditions. As part of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Terrestrial Ecosystem Science (TES) Belowground Biogeochemistry Science Focus Area (SFA), we have established a novel whole-soil long-term warming experiment at the University of California (UC) Blodgett Forest Research Station (Sierra Nevada) in 2014, where we study the role of biogeochemical, microbial and geochemical process interactions in SOM decomposition and stabilization. This package contains soil metaproteomics data in the context of site specific metagenomes from soil depth profiles in three paired control and warming plots from a temperate mixed forest in Northern California. Each paired plot had been subjected to experimental warming since June 2014 to simulate a predicted climate change scenario for northern California. These metaproteomes were collected in 2018 after 4.5 years of warming from five depth intervals (0-10 cm, 10-30 cm, 30-45 cm, 45-60 cm, 60-80 cm). For protein identification, the collected spectra were searched following a target-decoy search strategy against a database of metagenome predicted proteins (covering 96 samples from 2014 to 2021) representing the complete sequence diversity at the site. Data was searched with mass spectrometry database search tool (MS-GF+) using Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)'s Data Management System (DMS) Processing pipeline. The metagenomes are published as part of another data package. Raw metaproteomic data and the data products from MS-GF+ are deposited in the Mass Spectrometry Interactive Virtual Environment (MassIVE) database under accession no. MSV000097826. Here we present a dataset that includes spectral counts for the detected proteins across samples (EMSL50964_BrodieAllMAGs_Globals_SC.txt), the sequences of the detected proteins, and sample metadata file that contains site information for the soil metaproteome samples.

Belowground Biogeochemistry Science Focus Area↗

Corrosion protection of steel pipelines with metal-polymer composite barrier liners

Pipelines are efficient in transporting natural gas over large distances. Wet carbon dioxide present in pipelines can create an environment that is corrosive to steel. Polymer liners made from either polyethylene or polyamide (nylon) are presently used to mitigate internal corrosion in natural gas pipelines. Gas diffuses through all polymers over time, and polymer-only liners lower the steel corrosion rate by reducing the reactive gas flux to the internal surface of a pipeline. Composite liners, which incorporate one or more metallic layers that are impermeable to corrosive gases, offer better protection than polymer-only liners. In this study, we measured the methane, water vapor, and carbon dioxide permeability of a multi-layer barrier film and found it to be more effective in resisting gas permeation than polyethylene and nylon-11 films.

03 NATURAL GAS↗

Automated pipeline framework for processing of large-scale building energy time series data

Commercial buildings account for one third of the total electricity consumption in the United States and a significant amount of this energy is wasted. Therefore, there is a need for “virtual” energy audits, to identify energy inefficiencies and their associated savings opportunities using methods that can be non-intrusive and automated for application to large populations of buildings. Here we demonstrate virtual energy audits applied to large populations of buildings’ time-series smart-meter data using a systematic approach and a fully automated Building Energy Analytics (BEA) Pipeline that unifies, cleans, stores and analyzes building energy datasets in a non-relational data warehouse for efficient insights and results. This BEA pipeline is based on a custom compute job scheduler for a high performance computing cluster to enable parallel processing of Slurm jobs. Within the analytics pipeline, we introduced a data qualification tool that enhances data quality by fixing common errors, while also detecting abnormalities in a building’s daily operation using hierarchical clustering. We analyze the HVAC scheduling of a population of 816 buildings, using this analytics pipeline, as part of a cross-sectional study. With our approach, this sample of 816 buildings is improved in data quality and is efficiently analyzed in 34 minutes, which is 85 times faster than the time taken by a sequential processing. The analytical results for the HVAC operational hours of these buildings show that among 10 building use types, food sales buildings with 17.75 hours of daily HVAC cooling operation are decent targets for HVAC savings. Overall, this analytics pipeline enables the identification of statistically significant results from population based studies of large numbers of building energy time-series datasets with robust results. These types of BEA studies can explore numerous factors impacting building energy efficiency and virtual building energy audits. This approach enables a new generation of data-driven buildings energy analysis at scale.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Cell to Ecosystem: Understanding Methane and Associated Nutrient Cycling by Sediment Hosted Syntrophic Consortia and Their Viral Predators

The anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) is a significant worldwide microbial process in anoxic lake and ocean sediments, responsible for sequestering up to 80% of this greenhouse gas. Often considered a metabolism on the edge of thermodynamic probability, the impact of ANaerobic MEthane-oxidizing ‘ANME’ archaea on carbon and nutrient cycling in sediment ecosystems is far reaching. They not only serve as a sink for methane coupled to diverse electron acceptors, but also catalyze the transformation of many important nutrients including nitrogen, phosphate, and iron. While information about the potential mechanisms supporting metabolism in AOM is now available, remarkably little has been learned about their nutritional requirements, their dependencies on bacterial partners, and consequentially their ultimate impact on nutrient transformation and bioavailability within sedimentary ecosystems, and beyond. Further, the role of viruses within sediment ecosystems represents an essential but vastly understudied aspect of the transformation of carbon and nutrients by AOM. Viruses are now widely appreciated as central players in biogeochemical cycles across diverse ecosystems. These nanoscale predators have been shown to enhance the turnover of essential nutrients, thus stimulating microbial growth and environmental viruses themselves may constitute an important reservoir of nitrogen and phosphorous. Little is known about the role of viruses in methane-impacted sedimentary ecosystems, however prior genomic and microscopy evidence suggests that AOM consortia are susceptible to phage infection. The overarching scientific goal of this multi-disciplinary research proposal is to build on these recent discoveries and expand our understanding of interactions and fundamental activities involved in cycling of carbon and nutrients by syntrophic methanotrophic archaeal-bacterial consortia and associated viruses in anoxic sedimentary environments. Our three specific objectives are to 1) Quantify energy and nutrient exchange (e.g. N, P, Fe and vitamins) within AOM consortia and between ANME-bacterial partners; 2) Identify virus-host interactions associated with AOM and assess C and N transfer through viruses in methane-impacted sediment ecosystems; 3) Model energy and nutrient exchange in AOM consortia and viral-host interactions (i.e. viral activity), and their environmental distribution patterns. Our experimental emphasis cuts across scales that are important for understanding microbial and viral interactions and activities within their habitats, as well as community wide biogeochemical transformations. These research goals will be accomplished through the application of novel molecular techniques targeting DNA, RNA, proteins, and metabolites combined with a unique multi-modal analytical imaging pipeline. We will then model the ecophysiological capabilities of diverse sediment-hosted methanotrophic consortia to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the energetic and nutritional interactions between different AOM partner couplings that occur in sediments.

03 NATURAL GAS↗

Expanding the Domain of Applicability of Machine Learning Models with Limited Data for Drug Property Prediction

Accurate machine learning models for predicting small molecule interactions with biological targets are essential for therapeutic discovery, biothreat response, and computational drug design, but their performance is often limited for understudied targets with sparse experimental data. To address this challenge, we developed and evaluated methods to improve molecular property prediction under low-data conditions, using the NimA-related kinase (NEK) family as a proof-of-concept. This work focused on two complementary goals within the ATOM Modeling PipeLine (AMPL) and the Generative Molecular Design (GMD) loop: expanding model applicability through transfer learning, representation learning, feature scaling, sampling strategies, and active-learning-inspired compound selection; and enabling efficient virtual screening to prioritize compounds that balance predicted activity, design objectives, and synthetic accessibility.

organic↗

Empirical Evidence for the Potential Climate Benefits of Decarbonizing Light Vehicle Transport in the U.S. with Bioenergy from Purpose-Grown Biomass with and without BECCS

Climate mitigation scenarios limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 °C rely on decarbonizing vehicle transport with bioenergy production plus carbon capture and storage (BECCS), but climate impacts for producing different bioenergy feedstocks have not been directly compared experimentally or for ethanol vs electric light-duty vehicles. A field experiment at two Midwest U.S. sites on contrasting soils revealed that feedstock yields of seven potential bioenergy cropping systems varied substantially within sites but little between. Bioenergy produced per hectare reflected yields: miscanthus > poplar > switchgrass > native grasses ≈ maize stover (residue) > restored prairie ≈ early successional. Greenhouse gas emission intensities for ethanol vehicles ranged from 20 to -179 g CO 2 e MJ –1 : maize stover $\gg$ miscanthus ≈ switchgrass ≈ native grasses ≈ poplar > early successional ≥ restored prairie; direct climate benefits ranged from ~80% (stover) to 290% (restored prairie) reductions in CO 2 e compared to petroleum and were similar for electric vehicles. With carbon capture and storage (CCS), reductions in emission intensities ranged from 204% (stover) to 416% (restored prairie) for ethanol vehicles and from 329 to 558% for electric vehicles, declining 27 and 15%, respectively, once soil carbon equilibrates within several decades of establishment. Extrapolation based on expected U.S. transportation energy use suggests that, once CCS potential is maximized with CO 2 pipeline infrastructure, negative emissions from bioenergy with CCS for light-duty electric vehicles could capture >900 Tg CO 2 e year –1 in the U.S. In the future, as other renewable electricity sources become more important, electricity production from biomass would offset less fossil fuel electricity, and the advantage of electric over ethanol vehicles would decrease proportionately.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Hypermut 3: identifying specific mutational patterns in a defined nucleotide context that allows multistate characters

Abstract Motivation The detection of APOBEC3F- and APOBEC3G-induced mutations in virus sequences is useful for identifying hypermutated sequences. These sequences are not representative of viral evolution and can therefore alter the results of downstream sequence analyses if included. We previously published the software Hypermut, which detects hypermutation events in sequences relative to a reference. Two versions of this method are available as a webtool. Neither of these methods consider multistate characters or gaps in the sequence alignment. Results Here, we present an updated, user-friendly web and command-line version of Hypermut with functionality to handle multistate characters and gaps in the sequence alignment. This tool allows for straightforward integration of hypermutation detection into sequence analysis pipelines. As with the previous tool, while the main purpose is to identify G to A hypermutation events, any mutational pattern and context can be specified. Availability and implementation Hypermut 3 is written in Python 3. It is available as a command-line tool at https://github.com/MolEvolEpid/hypermut3 and as a webtool at https://www.hiv.lanl.gov/content/sequence/HYPERMUT/hypermutv3.html.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Constructing Self-Labeled Materials Imaging Datasets from Open Access Scientific Journals with EXSCLAIM!

Due to recent improvements in image resolution and acquisition speeds, materials microscopy is experiencing an explosion in imaging data. Yet, despite the volume of images generated, the overall accessibility landscape is highly fragmented, as researchers who do release images to the public, often only do so as snapshots of their larger private dataset in context of scientific journal publications. The effort to automatically consolidate images and descriptive information from web-based platforms has garnered broad attention from the computer vision, language technologies, and chemistry/materials informatics communities. However, these methods are problematic for scientific figures because over 30% of figures are compound in nature, and it is the individual images themselves, paired with relevant context, that are necessary for construction a proper labeled dataset. To this end, we outline in this paper the design of a software pipeline for the automatic EXtraction, Separation, and Caption-based natural Language Annotation of IMages from scientific figures (EXSCLAIM!). Successful consolidation of materials imaging across literature sources will enhance navigation and searchability of materials microscopy images for both novice and experienced researchers, as well as establish the framework necessary for users to search by images, text, or some combination of both.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

An Uncertainty Management Framework for Integrated Gas-Electric Energy Systems

In many parts of the world, electric power systems have seen a significant shift toward generation from renewable energy and natural gas. Because of their ability to flexibly adjust power generation in real time, gas-fired power plants are frequently seen as the perfect partner for variable renewable generation. However, this reliance on gas generation increases interdependence and propagates uncertainty between power grids and gas pipelines and brings coordination and uncertainty management challenges. To address these issues, we propose an uncertainty management framework for uncertain, but bounded gas consumption by gas-fired power plants. The admissible ranges are computed based on a joint optimization problem for the combined gas and electricity networks, which involves chance-constrained scheduling for the electric grid and a novel robust optimization formulation for the natural-gas network. This formulation ensures feasibility of the integrated system with a high probability, while providing a tractable numerical formulation. A key advance with respect to existing methods is that our method is based on a physically accurate, validated model for transient gas pipeline flows. Our case study benchmarks our proposed formulation against methods that ignore how reserve activation impacts the fuel use of gas power plants and only consider predetermined gas consumption. Here, the results demonstrate the importance of considering uncertainty to avoid operating constraint violations and curtailment of gas to the generators.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DoCeph: DPU-Offloaded Messaging in Ceph for Reduced Host CPU Utilization

Ceph is a widely used distributed object store, but its messenger layer imposes substantial CPU overhead on the host. To address this limitation, we propose DoCeph, a DPU-offloaded storage architecture for Ceph that disaggregates the system by offloading the communication-intensive messaging component to the DPU while retaining the storage backend on the host. The DPU efficiently manages communication, using lightweight RPC for metadata operations and DMA for data transfer. Moreover, DoCeph introduces a pipelining technique that overlaps data transmission with buffer preparation, mitigating hardware-imposed transfer size limitations. We implemented DoCeph on a Ceph cluster with NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs. Evaluation results indicate that DoCeph cuts host CPU usage by up to 92% while sustaining stable throughput and providing larger performance benefits for object writes over 1 MB.

Park, Kuri [Sogang University]↗

Proteomics Analysis of Human Contaminant Proteins

Complete characterization of unknowns via proteomics remains challenging. There exist regions of mass spectrometry-based proteomics data where empirical measurements are not attributed to peptides, and/or sequenced peptides from mass spectra are not attributed to any source. These uncharacterized regions are known as the “dark” proteome. Many proteomics tools rely on some a priori knowledge of sample composition; few tools allow for investigation of unknowns without relying on composition assumptions. Further, the potential low abundance of minor traces in these uncharacterized regions can make elucidation of the “dark” proteome challenging. Herein, we describe the development and evaluation of approaches to study the “dark” proteome and move towards an untargeted approach for more complete characterization, namely by studying minor human protein traces in non-human samples and combining that approach with non-human source organism identification without relying on assumptions. Human protein markers, in the form of genetically variant peptides, have been extensively examined in a variety of human matrices, including blood, plasma, and hair, but have yet to be investigated in non-human samples, such as cell cultures, as human contaminant traces. Genetically variant peptides are those that are found in proteins carrying single nucleotide polymorphisms. In this work, we aimed to (1) investigate the feasibility of detecting human contaminant genetically variant peptides (GVPs) in a diverse set of non-human organisms using public proteomics data and a computational pipeline, as well as to (2) develop a combined capability for untargeted source organism characterization and GVP detection. To our knowledge, this is the first report of applying these approaches towards a more complete proteomic characterization of unknowns. We successfully demonstrate the feasibility of broad human contaminant GVP detection in proteomics data, develop a better understanding of GVP detectability, characterize the sample-to-sample variability in GVP detection, and identify a core set of GVPs that can potentially be used as markers indicative of the human contaminant traces portion of the “dark” proteome. Further, we developed and evaluated a combined pipeline, MARLOWE-GVP, that enables both untargeted source organism characterization and GVP detection. We show high accuracy of correct source organism characterization and high degree of similarity of human contaminant GVP detection compared to the conventional approach. Success on both these efforts have allowed us to advance our understanding and characterization of the “dark” proteome.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Towards a flexible framework for community-wide ensemble forecasting tailored for major space environment impacts

To build continuously improving space weather predictive capabilities based on science and enable assessments and rapid implementations of advances in research into source-to-impact modelling systems we need: to assemble parts of the puzzle by solving problems focused on specific physical domains; to identify essential space environment quantities (ESEQs) passed between domains and linked to impacts; evaluate modeling capabilities for each ESEQ; connect all validated solutions from space weather origins on the sun to impacts on humans and critical infrastructure; to design displays for ensemble predictions tailored for major space weather user groups; to build a collaborative environment for efficient sharing of information and capabilities (models/data/expertise) and collaborative development. The presentation will overview existing community-wide space weather forecasting frameworks and research-to-operations pipelines and discuss opportunities to build a collaborative plug-and-play platform for interconnecting predictive capabilities developed under different space weather programs.

space weather↗

Towards A Flexible Framework for Community-Wide Ensemble Forecasting Tailored for Major Space Environment Impacts

To build continuously improving space weather predictive capabilities based on science and enable assessments and rapid implementations of advances in research into source-to-impact modelling systems we need: to assemble parts of the puzzle by solving problems focused on specific physical domains; to identify essential space environment quantities (ESEQs) passed between domains and linked to impacts; evaluate modeling capabilities for each ESEQ; connect all validated solutions from space weather origins on the sun to impacts on humans and critical infrastructure; to design displays for ensemble predictions tailored for major space weather user groups; to build a collaborative environment for efficient sharing of information and capabilities (models/data/expertise) and collaborative development. The presentation will overview existing community-wide space weather forecasting frameworks and research-to-operations pipelines and discuss opportunities to build a collaborative plug-and-play platform for interconnecting predictive capabilities developed under different space weather programs.

space weather↗

Protocol for applying a network-enabled gene discovery pipeline to non-model plant species

Identifying upstream regulators of key genes is essential for understanding gene regulatory mechanisms and translating these insights into functional targets. Here, we present a protocol for applying the network-enabled gene discovery pipeline (NEEDLE) to non-model plant species. We describe steps for environment setup, data preparation, computational analysis, expected outputs, and parameter considerations. NEEDLE integrates RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) processing, weighted gene co-expression analysis (WGCNA), Gene Network Inference with Ensemble of trees (GENIE3), and promoter conservation analysis to prioritize candidate transcriptional regulators.

Plant Sciences↗

Observations Regarding Face Covering Designs Using Commonly Available Materials

The Center for Disease Control has recommended that the public should wear cloth face coverings in public settings'. A Sandia COVID-19 LDRD effort, the Sandia E-PiPEline Team, systematically evaluated design options for face coverings constructed from commonly available materials (CAMS). The design options were analyzed with subject matter expert input considering the design's effectiveness (metric fiber density, material construction, and water saturation), reusability (degree of inertness), producibility (ability to obtain materials, build time), cost, and comfort (fit on face, breathability). Observations for the design of face coverings using CAMs are provided here.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

TopPICR: A Companion R Package for Top-Down Proteomics Data Analysis

Top-down proteomics is the analysis of proteins in their intact form without proteolysis, thus preserving valuable information about post-translational modifications, isoforms, and proteolytic processing. However, it is still a developing field due to limitations in the instrumentation, difficulties with interpretation of complex mass spectra, and a lack of well-established quantification approaches. TopPIC is one of the popular tools for proteoform identification. Here we extended its capabilities into label-free proteoform quantification by developing a companion R package (TopPICR). Key steps in the TopPICR pipeline include filtering identifications, inferring a minimal set of protein accessions explaining the observed sequences, aligning retention times, recalibrating measured masses, clustering features across datasets, and finally compiling feature intensities using the match-between-runs approach. The output of the pipeline is an MSnSet object which makes downstream data analysis seamlessly compatible with packages from the Bioconductor project. It also provides the capability for visualizing proteoforms within the context of the parent protein sequence. The functionality of TopPICR is demonstrated on top-down LC-MS/MS datasets of 10 human-in-mouse xenografts of luminal and basal breast tumor samples.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Industrial Carbon Capture from a Cement Facility Using the Cryocap™ FG Process

The objective of the project was to execute and complete front-end engineering and design (FEED) studies for commercial-scale, carbon capture projects that separate 95% of the total CO 2 emissions at an industrial facility, producing at least 100,000 metric tonnes/year of CO 2 for sequestration. The industrial facility selected is the Holcim (US) Ste. Genevieve cement manufacturing facility (the largest single kiln line in the world), while the carbon capture system selected is Pressure Swing Adsorption system (PSA) assisted Cryocap™ technology developed by Air Liquide. The industrial host site emits approximately 3 million tonnes CO 2 /year based on plant data from 2020-2022. The captured CO 2 will meet the requirements of transport (Pipeline Grade) and geological storage, and the geological storage facilities within 80 miles of the CO 2 source. The impact of the project on Environmental Justice and the regional economy was also analyzed.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

Uncovering natural variation in root system architecture and growth dynamics using a robotics-assisted phenomics platform

The plant kingdom contains a stunning array of complex morphologies easily observed above-ground, but more challenging to visualize below-ground. Understanding the magnitude of diversity in root distribution within the soil, termed root system architecture (RSA), is fundamental in determining how this trait contributes to species adaptation in local environments. Roots are the interface between the soil environment and the shoot system and therefore play a key role in anchorage, resource uptake, and stress resilience. Previously, we presented the GLO-Roots (Growth and Luminescence Observatory for Roots) system to study the RSA of soil-grown Arabidopsis thaliana plants from germination to maturity (Rellán-Álvarez et al., 2015). In this study, we present the automation of GLO-Roots using robotics and the development of image analysis pipelines in order to examine the temporal dynamic regulation of RSA and the broader natural variation of RSA in Arabidopsis , over time. These datasets describe the developmental dynamics of two independent panels of accessions and reveal highly complex and polygenic RSA traits that show significant correlation with climate variables of the accessions’ respective origins.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗