Results for “Open Source Open Science” — Page 41

DOE OSTI2019

ROBOT: A Tool for Automating Ontology Workflows

BACKGROUND:Ontologies are invaluable in the life sciences, but building and maintaining ontologies often requires a challenging number of distinct tasks such as running automated reasoners and quality control checks, extracting dependencies and application-specific subsets, generating standard reports, and generating release files in multiple formats. Similar to more general software development, automation is the key to executing and managing these tasks effectively and to releasing more robust products in standard forms. For ontologies using the Web Ontology Language (OWL), the OWL API Java library is the foundation for a range of software tools, including the Protégé ontology editor. In the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) community, we recognized the need to package a wide range of low-level OWL API functionality into a library of common higher-level operations and to make those operations available as a command-line tool. RESULTS:ROBOT (a recursive acronym for "ROBOT is an OBO Tool") is an open source library and command-line tool for automating ontology development tasks. The library can be called from any programming language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Most usage is through the command-line tool, which runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows. ROBOT provides ontology processing commands for a variety of tasks, including commands for converting formats, running a reasoner, creating import modules, running reports, and various other tasks. These commands can be combined into larger workflows using a separate task execution system such as GNU Make, and workflows can be automatically executed within continuous integration systems. CONCLUSIONS:ROBOT supports automation of a wide range of ontology development tasks, focusing on OBO conventions. It packages common high-level ontology development functionality into a convenient library, and makes it easy to configure, combine, and execute individual tasks in comprehensive, automated workflows. This helps ontology developers to efficiently create, maintain, and release high-quality ontologies, so that they can spend more time focusing on development tasks. It also helps guarantee that released ontologies are free of certain types of logical errors and conform to standard quality control checks, increasing the overall robustness and efficiency of the ontology development lifecycle.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

DOE OSTI2026

Electrostatic Superlattices Beyond 1:1 Stoichiometry

ABSTRACT Exotic nanoparticle superstructures can be accessed by harnessing nanoparticle softness and charge regulation, features often viewed as obstacles to structural control. Here, we show that regulated charge mismatch in polymer‐grafted nanoparticles enables the assembly of high‐stoichiometry cubic superlattices. By co‐tuning grafting density, particle size, and bulk composition, we realize ionic‐lattice analogues, such as and , as well as single‐component and superlattices without atomic counterparts. The superlattice has recently been identified theoretically as a photonic band‐gap lattice. These phases emerge from a 1:1 “parent” lattice when local charge neutrality cannot be satisfied, driving either progressive interstitial filling or reorganization into a larger basis. For instance, the systematic occupation of ZnS tetrahedral sites yields , while ligand‐swapping symmetry breaking converts CsCl into . Upon heating, the assemblies exhibit reversible lattice contraction and pronounced negative thermal expansion. Furthermore, the energetic penalty for defects increases with nanoparticle size, facilitating the scalable production of high‐quality, open superlattices for photonic applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2016

Crowdsourcing quality control for Dark Energy Survey images

We have developed a crowdsourcing web application for image quality control employed by the Dark Energy Survey. Dubbed the "DES exposure checker", it renders science-grade images directly to a web browser and allows users to mark problematic features from a set of predefined classes. Users can also generate custom labels and thus help identify previously unknown problem classes. User reports are fed back to hardware and software experts to help mitigate and eliminate recognized issues. We report on the implementation of the application and our experience with its over 100 users, the majority of which are professional or prospective astronomers but not data management experts. We discuss aspects of user training and engagement, and demonstrate how problem reports have been pivotal to rapidly correct artifacts which would likely have been too subtle or infrequent to be recognized otherwise. We conclude with a number of important lessons learned, suggest possible improvements, and recommend this collective exploratory approach for future astronomical surveys or other extensive data sets with a sufficiently large user base. We also release open-source code of the web application and host an online demo versionat http://des-exp-checker.pmelchior.net

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2018

Subnanogram proteomics: Impact of LC column selection, MS instrumentation and data analysis strategy on proteome coverage for trace samples

One of the greatest challenges for mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics is the limited ability to analyze small samples. Here we investigate the relative contributions of liquid chromatography (LC), MS instrumentation and data analysis methods with the aim of improving proteome coverage for sample sizes ranging from 0.5 ng to 50 ng. We show that the LC separations utilizing 30-µm-i.d. columns increase signal intensity by >3-fold relative to those using 75-µm-i.d. columns, leading to 32% increase in peptide identifications. The Orbitrap Fusion Lumos mass spectrometer significantly boosted both sensitivity and sequencing speed relative to earlier generation Orbitraps (e.g., LTQ-Orbitrap), leading to a ~3× increase in peptide identifications and 1.7× increase in identified protein groups for 2 ng tryptic digests of bacterial lysate. The Match Between Runs algorithm of open-source MaxQuant software further increased proteome coverage by ~ 95% for 0.5 ng samples and by ~42% for 2 ng samples. The present platform is capable of identifying >3000 protein groups from tryptic digestion of cell lysates equivalent to 50 HeLa cells and 100 THP-1 cells (~10 ng total proteins), respectively, and >950 proteins from subnanogram bacterial and archaeal cell lysates. The present ultrasensitive LC-MS platform is expected to enable deep proteome coverage for subnanogram samples, including single mammalian cells.

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory↗

DOE OSTI2020

Sample shape and boundary dependence of measured transverse thermal properties

In spite of increased interest in thermal Hall measurements for the analysis of insulating quantum materials, there remains large uncertainty in such measurements due to contact misalignment. In this paper, we propose that sample geometry and uncertain boundary conditions provide an additional source of uncertainty in the measurement of $D_{xy}$ or $κ_{xy}$. By running simple simulations in an open source finite-element solver, we demonstrate that measured $D_{xy}$ can be changed by a non-negligible fraction in samples with similar width and length. This geometric corrective factor depends on the distinction between a uniform heat flow and constant temperature boundary couplings to a bath. Sample geometry and boundary conditions can be accounted for through simulation or by using rectangular samples to make thermal Hall measurements more reliable and reproducible. Finally, we detail a contactless optical method for measuring $D_{xy}$ based on an existing photothermal microscope technique. This method is insensitive to the longitudinal diffusivity pollution caused by contact misalignment.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2022

Insights on sources and formation mechanisms of liquid-bearing clouds over MOSAiC examined from a Lagrangian framework

Understanding Arctic stratiform liquid-bearing cloud life cycles and properly representing these life cycles in models is crucial for evaluations of cloud feedbacks as well as the faithfulness of climate projections for this rapidly warming region. Examination of cloud life cycles typically requires analyses of cloud evolution and origins on short time scales, on the order of hours to several days. Measurements from the recent Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition provide a unique view of the current state of the central Arctic over an annual cycle. Here, we use the MOSAiC radiosonde measurements to detect liquid-bearing cloud layers over full atmospheric columns and to examine the cloud-generating air masses’ properties. We perform 5-day (120 h) back-trajectory calculations for every detected cloud and cluster them using a unique set of variables extracted from these trajectories informed by ERA5 reanalysis data. This clustering method enables us to separate between the air mass source regions such as ice-covered Arctic and midlatitude open water. We find that moisture intrusions into the central Arctic typically result in multilayer liquid-bearing cloud structures and that more than half of multilayer profiles include overlying liquid-bearing clouds originating in different types of air masses. Finally, we conclude that Arctic cloud formation via prolonged radiative cooling of elevated stable subsaturated air masses circulating over the Arctic can occur frequently (up to 20% of detected clouds in the sounding data set) and may lead to a significant impact of ensuing clouds on the surface energy budget, including net surface warming in some cases.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2022

Transforming the Future of Marine Aquaculture: A Circular Economy Approach

By mid-century, society will need to significantly intensify the output of its food production system while simultaneously reducing that system’s detrimental impacts on climate, land use, freshwater resources, and biodiversity. This will require finding alternatives to carbon emissions-intensive agriculture, which provides the backbone of today’s global food production system. Here, we explore the hypothesis that marine algae-based aquaculture can help close the projected gap in society’s future nutritional demands while simultaneously improving environmental sustainability. Food production from marine algae-based aquaculture has the potential to contribute more than the total global protein demand projected for 2050, which ranges from 263.8 Mt/yr to 286.5 Mt/yr. It also offers important nutritional and environmental sustainability advantages relative to terrestrial agriculture. Marine algae can provide a better source of high-quality nutritional protein, essential amino acids, and other micronutrients relative to terrestrial plants. In addition, because marine algae do not require soil, irrigation, and the open application of fertilizer, their cultivation does not need to compete with agriculture for arable land and freshwater nor does it lead to fertilizer runoff and downstream eutrophication. Furthermore, by reducing agriculture’s demand for arable land and freshwater, marine algae-based aquaculture can reduce the pressure for deforestation, potentially leading to globally significant reductions in carbon emissions and biodiversity loss.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2022

SuperScreen: An open-source package for simulating the magnetic response of two-dimensional superconducting devices

Quantitative understanding of the spatial distribution of magnetic fields and Meissner screening currents in two-dimensional (2D) superconductors and mesoscopic thin film superconducting devices is critical to interpreting the results of magnetic measurements of such systems. Here, we introduce SuperScreen, an open-source Python package for simulating the response of 2D superconductors to trapped flux and applied time-independent or quasi-DC magnetic fields for any value of the effective magnetic penetration depth, Λ. Given an applied magnetic field, SuperScreen solves the 2D London equation using an efficient matrix inversion method to obtain the Meissner currents and magnetic fields in and around structures composed of one or more superconducting thin films of arbitrary geometry with spatially nonuniform magnetic penetration depth. SuperScreen can be used to model screening effects and calculate self- and mutual-inductance in superconducting devices, and simulate the magnetic response of inhomogeneous 2D superconductors.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2023

Multi‐Decadal Decarbonization Pathways for U.S. Freight Rail

A‐STEP is a first‐of‐its‐kind, integrated, open‐source software tool aimed at guiding freight rail decarbonization decision‐making. It has tools for studying energy use details for individual trains, networks of trains, battery and hydrogen charging stations, national energy sourcing and pricing, and overall decarbonization costs and environmental impacts. It gives analysts an ability to study the challenges of making such change happen. Completely amenable to analyst specified inputs and parameter values, it can be customized to provide outputs for a wide variety of assumptions about future energy conditions and technological advances. Written in Python, C++, and VB.Net, A‐STEP can be implemented on both Windows and Linux‐based platforms.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2019

SimCCS: An open-source tool for optimizing CO 2 capture, transport, and storage infrastructure

Commercial-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology will involve deploying infrastructure on a massive and costly scale. This effort will require careful and comprehensive planning to ensure that capture locations, storage sites, and the dedicated CO 2 distribution pipelines are selected in a robust and cost-effective manner. Presented in 2009, SimCCS is an optimization model for integrated system design that enables researchers, stakeholders, and policy makers to design CCS infrastructure networks. SimCCS 2.0 is a complete, ground-up redesign that is now a portable software package, useable and shareable by the CCS research, industrial, policy, and public communities. SimCCS 2.0 integrates multiple new capabilities including a refined optimization model, novel candidate network generation techniques, and optional integration with high-performance computing platforms. Accessing user-provided CO 2 source, sink, and transportation data, SimCCS 2.0 creates candidate transportation routes and formalizes an optimization problem that determines the most cost-effective CCS system design. This optimization problem is further solved either through a high-performance computing interface, or through third-party software on a local desktop computing platform. Finally, SimCCS 2.0 employs an open-access geographic information system framework to enable analysis and visualization capabilities. SimCCS 2.0 is written in Java and is publicly available via GitHub to encourage collaboration, modification, and community development.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2016

SU-A-BRA-01: Introduction

Vic Montemayor - No one has been more passionate about improving the quality and effectiveness of the teaching of Medical Physics than Bill Hendee. It was in August of 2008 that the first AAPM Workshop on Becoming a Better Teacher of Medical Physics was held, organized and run by Bill Hendee. This was followed up in July of 2010 with a summer school on the same topic, again organized by Bill. There has been continued interest in alternate approaches to teaching medical physics since those initial gatherings. The momentum established by these workshops is made clear each year in the annual Innovation in Medical Physics Education session, which highlights work being done in all forms of medical physics education, from one-on-one residencies or classroom presentations to large-scale program revisions and on-line resources for international audiences. This symposium, presented on behalf of the Education Council, highlights the work of three finalists from past Innovation in Education sessions. Each will be presenting their approaches to and innovations in teaching medical physics. It is hoped that audience members interested in trying something new in their teaching of medical physics will find some of these ideas and approaches readily applicable to their own classrooms. Rebecca Howell - The presentation will discuss ways to maximize classroom learning, i.e., increasing the amount of material covered while also enhancing students’ understanding of the broader implications of the course topics. Specifically, the presentation will focus on two teaching methodologies, project based learning and flip learning. These teaching methods will be illustrated using an example of graduate medical physics course where both are used in conjunction with traditional lectures. Additionally, the presentation will focus on our experience implementing these methods including challenges that were overcome. Jay Burmeister - My presentation will discuss the incorporation of active learning techniques into a traditional medical physics classroom course. I will describe these techniques and how they were implemented as well as student performance before and after implementation. Student feedback indicated that these course changes improved their ability to actively assimilate the course content, thus improving their understanding of the material. Shahid Naqvi - My talk will focus on ways to help students visualize crucial concepts that lie at the core of radiation physics. Although particle tracks generated by Monte Carlo simulations have served as an indispensable visualization tool, students often struggle to resolve the underlying physics from a simultaneous jumble of tracks. We can clarify the physics by “coding” the tracks, e.g., by coloring the tracks according to their “starting” or “crossing” regions. The regionally-coded tracks when overlaid with dose distributions help the students see the elusive connection between dose, kerma and electronic disequilibrium. Tracks coded according to local energy or energy-loss rate can illustrate the need for stopping power corrections in electron beams and explain the Bragg peak in a proton beam. Coding tracks according to parent interaction type and order can clarify the often misunderstood distinction between primary and scatter dose. The students can thus see the “whole” simultaneously with the “sum of the parts,” which enhances their physical insight and creates a sustainable foundation for further learning. After the presentations the speakers and moderator will be open to questions and discussion with the audience members. Learning Objectives: Be able to explain Project-Based Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. Be able to explain Flipped Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. Be able to explain active-learning strategies for the teaching of Medical Physics. Be able to explain how Monte Carlo simulations can be used to deepen a student’s understanding of radiation physics and dosimetry.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

SU-A-BRA-02: Making the Most of a One Hour Lecture with Alternative Teaching Methodologies: Implementing Project-Based and Flipped Learning

Vic Montemayor - No one has been more passionate about improving the quality and effectiveness of the teaching of Medical Physics than Bill Hendee. It was in August of 2008 that the first AAPM Workshop on Becoming a Better Teacher of Medical Physics was held, organized and run by Bill Hendee. This was followed up in July of 2010 with a summer school on the same topic, again organized by Bill. There has been continued interest in alternate approaches to teaching medical physics since those initial gatherings. The momentum established by these workshops is made clear each year in the annual Innovation in Medical Physics Education session, which highlights work being done in all forms of medical physics education, from one-on-one residencies or classroom presentations to large-scale program revisions and on-line resources for international audiences. This symposium, presented on behalf of the Education Council, highlights the work of three finalists from past Innovation in Education sessions. Each will be presenting their approaches to and innovations in teaching medical physics. It is hoped that audience members interested in trying something new in their teaching of medical physics will find some of these ideas and approaches readily applicable to their own classrooms. Rebecca Howell - The presentation will discuss ways to maximize classroom learning, i.e., increasing the amount of material covered while also enhancing students’ understanding of the broader implications of the course topics. Specifically, the presentation will focus on two teaching methodologies, project based learning and flip learning. These teaching methods will be illustrated using an example of graduate medical physics course where both are used in conjunction with traditional lectures. Additionally, the presentation will focus on our experience implementing these methods including challenges that were overcome. Jay Burmeister - My presentation will discuss the incorporation of active learning techniques into a traditional medical physics classroom course. I will describe these techniques and how they were implemented as well as student performance before and after implementation. Student feedback indicated that these course changes improved their ability to actively assimilate the course content, thus improving their understanding of the material. Shahid Naqvi - My talk will focus on ways to help students visualize crucial concepts that lie at the core of radiation physics. Although particle tracks generated by Monte Carlo simulations have served as an indispensable visualization tool, students often struggle to resolve the underlying physics from a simultaneous jumble of tracks. We can clarify the physics by “coding” the tracks, e.g., by coloring the tracks according to their “starting” or “crossing” regions. The regionally-coded tracks when overlaid with dose distributions help the students see the elusive connection between dose, kerma and electronic disequilibrium. Tracks coded according to local energy or energy-loss rate can illustrate the need for stopping power corrections in electron beams and explain the Bragg peak in a proton beam. Coding tracks according to parent interaction type and order can clarify the often misunderstood distinction between primary and scatter dose. The students can thus see the “whole” simultaneously with the “sum of the parts,” which enhances their physical insight and creates a sustainable foundation for further learning. After the presentations the speakers and moderator will be open to questions and discussion with the audience members. Learning Objectives: Be able to explain Project-Based Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. Be able to explain Flipped Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. Be able to explain active-learning strategies for the teaching of Medical Physics. Be able to explain how Monte Carlo simulations can be used to deepen a student’s understanding of radiation physics and dosimetry.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

SU-A-BRA-03: Creative Stimulation: A Flexible Hands-On Approach to Building a Deeper Understanding of Critical Concepts in Radiation Physics

Vic Montemayor - No one has been more passionate about improving the quality and effectiveness of the teaching of Medical Physics than Bill Hendee. It was in August of 2008 that the first AAPM Workshop on Becoming a Better Teacher of Medical Physics was held, organized and run by Bill Hendee. This was followed up in July of 2010 with a summer school on the same topic, again organized by Bill. There has been continued interest in alternate approaches to teaching medical physics since those initial gatherings. The momentum established by these workshops is made clear each year in the annual Innovation in Medical Physics Education session, which highlights work being done in all forms of medical physics education, from one-on-one residencies or classroom presentations to large-scale program revisions and on-line resources for international audiences. This symposium, presented on behalf of the Education Council, highlights the work of three finalists from past Innovation in Education sessions. Each will be presenting their approaches to and innovations in teaching medical physics. It is hoped that audience members interested in trying something new in their teaching of medical physics will find some of these ideas and approaches readily applicable to their own classrooms. Rebecca Howell - The presentation will discuss ways to maximize classroom learning, i.e., increasing the amount of material covered while also enhancing students’ understanding of the broader implications of the course topics. Specifically, the presentation will focus on two teaching methodologies, project based learning and flip learning. These teaching methods will be illustrated using an example of graduate medical physics course where both are used in conjunction with traditional lectures. Additionally, the presentation will focus on our experience implementing these methods including challenges that were overcome. Jay Burmeister - My presentation will discuss the incorporation of active learning techniques into a traditional medical physics classroom course. I will describe these techniques and how they were implemented as well as student performance before and after implementation. Student feedback indicated that these course changes improved their ability to actively assimilate the course content, thus improving their understanding of the material. Shahid Naqvi - My talk will focus on ways to help students visualize crucial concepts that lie at the core of radiation physics. Although particle tracks generated by Monte Carlo simulations have served as an indispensable visualization tool, students often struggle to resolve the underlying physics from a simultaneous jumble of tracks. We can clarify the physics by “coding” the tracks, e.g., by coloring the tracks according to their “starting” or “crossing” regions. The regionally-coded tracks when overlaid with dose distributions help the students see the elusive connection between dose, kerma and electronic disequilibrium. Tracks coded according to local energy or energy-loss rate can illustrate the need for stopping power corrections in electron beams and explain the Bragg peak in a proton beam. Coding tracks according to parent interaction type and order can clarify the often misunderstood distinction between primary and scatter dose. The students can thus see the “whole” simultaneously with the “sum of the parts,” which enhances their physical insight and creates a sustainable foundation for further learning. After the presentations the speakers and moderator will be open to questions and discussion with the audience members. Learning Objectives: Be able to explain Project-Based Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. Be able to explain Flipped Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. Be able to explain active-learning strategies for the teaching of Medical Physics. Be able to explain how Monte Carlo simulations can be used to deepen a student’s understanding of radiation physics and dosimetry.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

SU-A-BRA-04: Incorporating Active Learning Into Medical Physics Education

Vic Montemayor - No one has been more passionate about improving the quality and effectiveness of the teaching of Medical Physics than Bill Hendee. It was in August of 2008 that the first AAPM Workshop on Becoming a Better Teacher of Medical Physics was held, organized and run by Bill Hendee. This was followed up in July of 2010 with a summer school on the same topic, again organized by Bill. There has been continued interest in alternate approaches to teaching medical physics since those initial gatherings. The momentum established by these workshops is made clear each year in the annual Innovation in Medical Physics Education session, which highlights work being done in all forms of medical physics education, from one-on-one residencies or classroom presentations to large-scale program revisions and on-line resources for international audiences. This symposium, presented on behalf of the Education Council, highlights the work of three finalists from past Innovation in Education sessions. Each will be presenting their approaches to and innovations in teaching medical physics. It is hoped that audience members interested in trying something new in their teaching of medical physics will find some of these ideas and approaches readily applicable to their own classrooms. Rebecca Howell - The presentation will discuss ways to maximize classroom learning, i.e., increasing the amount of material covered while also enhancing students’ understanding of the broader implications of the course topics. Specifically, the presentation will focus on two teaching methodologies, project based learning and flip learning. These teaching methods will be illustrated using an example of graduate medical physics course where both are used in conjunction with traditional lectures. Additionally, the presentation will focus on our experience implementing these methods including challenges that were overcome. Jay Burmeister - My presentation will discuss the incorporation of active learning techniques into a traditional medical physics classroom course. I will describe these techniques and how they were implemented as well as student performance before and after implementation. Student feedback indicated that these course changes improved their ability to actively assimilate the course content, thus improving their understanding of the material. Shahid Naqvi - My talk will focus on ways to help students visualize crucial concepts that lie at the core of radiation physics. Although particle tracks generated by Monte Carlo simulations have served as an indispensable visualization tool, students often struggle to resolve the underlying physics from a simultaneous jumble of tracks. We can clarify the physics by “coding” the tracks, e.g., by coloring the tracks according to their “starting” or “crossing” regions. The regionally-coded tracks when overlaid with dose distributions help the students see the elusive connection between dose, kerma and electronic disequilibrium. Tracks coded according to local energy or energy-loss rate can illustrate the need for stopping power corrections in electron beams and explain the Bragg peak in a proton beam. Coding tracks according to parent interaction type and order can clarify the often misunderstood distinction between primary and scatter dose. The students can thus see the “whole” simultaneously with the “sum of the parts,” which enhances their physical insight and creates a sustainable foundation for further learning. After the presentations the speakers and moderator will be open to questions and discussion with the audience members. Learning Objectives: Be able to explain Project-Based Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. Be able to explain Flipped Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. Be able to explain active-learning strategies for the teaching of Medical Physics. Be able to explain how Monte Carlo simulations can be used to deepen a student’s understanding of radiation physics and dosimetry.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

SU-A-BRA-05: Panel Discussion

Vic Montemayor - No one has been more passionate about improving the quality and effectiveness of the teaching of Medical Physics than Bill Hendee. It was in August of 2008 that the first AAPM Workshop on Becoming a Better Teacher of Medical Physics was held, organized and run by Bill Hendee. This was followed up in July of 2010 with a summer school on the same topic, again organized by Bill. There has been continued interest in alternate approaches to teaching medical physics since those initial gatherings. The momentum established by these workshops is made clear each year in the annual Innovation in Medical Physics Education session, which highlights work being done in all forms of medical physics education, from one-on-one residencies or classroom presentations to large-scale program revisions and on-line resources for international audiences. This symposium, presented on behalf of the Education Council, highlights the work of three finalists from past Innovation in Education sessions. Each will be presenting their approaches to and innovations in teaching medical physics. It is hoped that audience members interested in trying something new in their teaching of medical physics will find some of these ideas and approaches readily applicable to their own classrooms. Rebecca Howell - The presentation will discuss ways to maximize classroom learning, i.e., increasing the amount of material covered while also enhancing students’ understanding of the broader implications of the course topics. Specifically, the presentation will focus on two teaching methodologies, project based learning and flip learning. These teaching methods will be illustrated using an example of graduate medical physics course where both are used in conjunction with traditional lectures. Additionally, the presentation will focus on our experience implementing these methods including challenges that were overcome. Jay Burmeister - My presentation will discuss the incorporation of active learning techniques into a traditional medical physics classroom course. I will describe these techniques and how they were implemented as well as student performance before and after implementation. Student feedback indicated that these course changes improved their ability to actively assimilate the course content, thus improving their understanding of the material. Shahid Naqvi - My talk will focus on ways to help students visualize crucial concepts that lie at the core of radiation physics. Although particle tracks generated by Monte Carlo simulations have served as an indispensable visualization tool, students often struggle to resolve the underlying physics from a simultaneous jumble of tracks. We can clarify the physics by “coding” the tracks, e.g., by coloring the tracks according to their “starting” or “crossing” regions. The regionally-coded tracks when overlaid with dose distributions help the students see the elusive connection between dose, kerma and electronic disequilibrium. Tracks coded according to local energy or energy-loss rate can illustrate the need for stopping power corrections in electron beams and explain the Bragg peak in a proton beam. Coding tracks according to parent interaction type and order can clarify the often misunderstood distinction between primary and scatter dose. The students can thus see the “whole” simultaneously with the “sum of the parts,” which enhances their physical insight and creates a sustainable foundation for further learning. After the presentations the speakers and moderator will be open to questions and discussion with the audience members. Learning Objectives: Be able to explain Project-Based Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. Be able to explain Flipped Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. Be able to explain active-learning strategies for the teaching of Medical Physics. Be able to explain how Monte Carlo simulations can be used to deepen a student’s understanding of radiation physics and dosimetry.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Toward 2035: Forging a High-Ambition U.S. Climate Pathway

This analysis takes an integrated, innovative approach to develop plausible, high-ambition pathways through 2035 to inform the third U.S. NDC target setting. This approach combines: (1) an extensive consultation and engagement process with a broad set of federal and subnational stakeholders to build a robust U.S. policy platform; and (2) an open-source, field-leading integrated assessment model focused on the U.S. containing subnational details. The modeling tool assesses existing and possible new policies from both federal and subnational levels to assess the overall emissions reduction potential and the policy pathways to deliver the ambition needed for 2035 and leading on to 2050. In addition, we highlight how different actors can contribute to the needed transition in each sector and showcase successful implementation stories by various subnational actors.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

NRAP-open-IAM: A flexible open-source integrated-assessment-model for geologic carbon storage risk assessment and management

Large-scale implementation of geologic carbon storage (GCS) to help reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions requires stakeholder confidence that injected CO2 will remain contained and that potential subsurface environmental risks are acceptably small and manageable. The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP) has developed an open-source integrated assessment model (NRAP-Open-IAM) to help address questions about a potential GCS site’s ability to effectively contain injected CO 2 and protect groundwater and other overlying environmentally sensitive receptors. NRAP-Open-IAM allows a user to: (1) incorporate relevant site geologic and injection scenario data; (2) characterize important site features and events;(3) couple fast prediction models of various system components of the engineered geologic system; and (4) execute stochastic, dynamic simulation of whole GCS system performance, leakage risk assessment, and uncertainty quantification. NRAP-Open-IAM is available on GitLab (https://gitlab.com/NRAP/OpenIAM), and is accompanied by multiple application examples and detailed user and developer guides.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

PRISMS-Fatigue computational framework for fatigue analysis in polycrystalline metals and alloys

Abstract The PRISMS-Fatigue open-source framework for simulation-based analysis of microstructural influences on fatigue resistance for polycrystalline metals and alloys is presented here. The framework uses the crystal plasticity finite element method as its microstructure analysis tool and provides a highly efficient, scalable, flexible, and easy-to-use ICME community platform. The PRISMS-Fatigue framework is linked to different open-source software to instantiate microstructures, compute the material response, and assess fatigue indicator parameters. The performance of PRISMS-Fatigue is benchmarked against a similar framework implemented using ABAQUS. Results indicate that the multilevel parallelism scheme of PRISMS-Fatigue is more efficient and scalable than ABAQUS for large-scale fatigue simulations. The performance and flexibility of this framework is demonstrated with various examples that assess the driving force for fatigue crack formation of microstructures with different crystallographic textures, grain morphologies, and grain numbers, and under different multiaxial strain states, strain magnitudes, and boundary conditions.

Chemistry↗