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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 865 records · Page 48
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Evaluation of co-circulating pathogens and microbiome from COVID-19 infections

Co-infections or secondary infections with SARS-CoV-2 have the potential to affect disease severity and morbidity. Additionally, the potential influence of the nasal microbiome on COVID-19 illness is not well understood. In this study, we analyzed 203 residual samples, originally submitted for SARS-CoV-2 testing, for the presence of viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens and non-pathogens using a comprehensive microarray technology, the Lawrence Livermore Microbial Detection Array (LLMDA). Eighty-seven percent of the samples were nasopharyngeal samples, and 23% of the samples were oral, nasal and oral pharyngeal swabs. We conducted bioinformatics analyses to examine differences in microbial populations of these samples, as a proxy for the nasal and oral microbiome, from SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative specimens. We found 91% concordance with the LLMDA relative to a diagnostic RT-qPCR assay for detection of SARS-CoV-2. Sixteen percent of all the samples (32/203) revealed the presence of an opportunistic bacterial or frank viral pathogen with the potential to cause co-infections. The two most detected bacteria, Streptococcus pyogenes and Streptococcus pneumoniae , were present in both SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative samples. Human metapneumovirus was the most prevalent viral pathogen in the SARS-CoV-2 negative samples. Sequence analysis of 16S rRNA was also conducted to evaluate bacterial diversity and confirm LLMDA results.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

The structural basis of mRNA recognition and binding by yeast pseudouridine synthase PUS1

The chemical modification of RNA bases represents a ubiquitous activity that spans all domains of life. Pseudouridylation is the most common RNA modification and is observed within tRNA, rRNA, ncRNA and mRNAs. Pseudouridine synthase or ‘PUS’ enzymes include those that rely on guide RNA molecules and others that function as ‘stand-alone’ enzymes. Among the latter, several have been shown to modify mRNA transcripts. Although recent studies have defined the structural requirements for RNA to act as a PUS target, the mechanisms by which PUS1 recognizes these target sequences in mRNA are not well understood. Here we describe the crystal structure of yeast PUS1 bound to an RNA target that we identified as being a hot spot for PUS1-interaction within a model mRNA at 2.4 Å resolution. The enzyme recognizes and binds both strands in a helical RNA duplex, and thus guides the RNA containing the target uridine to the active site for subsequent modification of the transcript. The study also allows us to show the divergence of related PUS1 enzymes and their corresponding RNA target specificities, and to speculate on the basis by which PUS1 binds and modifies mRNA or tRNA substrates.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

The Helix-Loop-Helix motif of human EIF3A regulates translation of proliferative cellular mRNAs

Improper regulation of translation initiation, a vital checkpoint of protein synthesis in the cell, has been linked to a number of cancers. Overexpression of protein subunits of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 3 (eIF3) is associated with increased translation of mRNAs involved in cell proliferation. In addition to playing a major role in general translation initiation by serving as a scaffold for the assembly of translation initiation complexes, eIF3 regulates translation of specific cellular mRNAs and viral RNAs. Mutations in the N-terminal Helix-Loop-Helix (HLH) RNA-binding motif of the EIF3A subunit interfere with Hepatitis C Virus Internal Ribosome Entry Site (IRES) mediated translation initiation in vitro . Here we show that the EIF3A HLH motif controls translation of a small set of cellular transcripts enriched in oncogenic mRNAs, including MYC . We demonstrate that the HLH motif of EIF3A acts specifically on the 5' UTR of MYC mRNA and modulates the function of EIF4A1 on select transcripts during translation initiation. In Ramos lymphoma cell lines, which are dependent on MYC overexpression, mutations in the HLH motif greatly reduce MYC expression, impede proliferation and sensitize cells to anti-cancer compounds. These results reveal the potential of the EIF3A HLH motif in eIF3 as a promising chemotherapeutic target.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

UNM High Energy Physics: Task B

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory provides a unique window into the "TeV" gamma-ray universe. HAWC provides an important 1 TeV to 1000 TeV high-mass window for indirect searches for dark matter (DM) annihilation or decay. Additional fundamental physics studies benefit from HAWC's sensitivity to variable and/or transient sources. Such transient sources include: gamma ray bursts (GRBs), temporal studies of super massive black holes (specifically Markarian (Mrk) 421 and 501), and most recently searches for gamma-ray counterparts to PeV neutrino sources (observed by IceCube) and gravitational wave sources (observed by LIGO/Virgo). The UNM (Task B) research program includes leadership of the HAWC detector and of HAWC science. During this final reporting period the UNM group includes Professor John Matthews and graduate student Zhixiang Ren with the research goal focused on the development of analysis tools to enhance the sensitivity of HAWC to <1 TeV, gamma rays. This program began in 2016 with an initial focus to work to resolve known problems with the low energy analysis bins in the HAWC data. In 2017 this evolved to the development of new analysis tools to optimize current HAWC <1 TeV sensitivity as well as how HAWC (or a future HAWC-like detector) could be modified to be significantly more sensitive to <1 TeV gamma rays. In these studies Ren lead the development and evaluation of new HAWC <1 TeV analysis tools and Matthews lead the study of possible experimental modifications to HAWC to improve the <1 TeV sensitivity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

BYU Capstone Next Generation Vacuum Compton Detector

This BYU Capstone Team Gamma final poster summarizes the work of the team towards a next generation vacuum Compton detector (VCD) for the Nevada National Security Site. The NNSS sponsored this team. Amber Guckes was the mentor.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2022

Multiple Mutations Associated with Emergent Variants Can Be Detected as Low-Frequency Mutations in Early SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Clinical Samples

Genetic analysis of intra-host viral populations provides unique insight into pre-emergent mutations that may contribute to the genotype of future variants. Clinical samples positive for SARS-CoV-2 collected in California during the first months of the pandemic were sequenced to define the dynamics of mutation emergence as the virus became established in the state. Deep sequencing of 90 nasopharyngeal samples showed that many mutations associated with the establishment of SARS-CoV-2 globally were present at varying frequencies in a majority of the samples, even those collected as the virus was first detected in the US. A subset of mutations that emerged months later in consensus sequences were detected as subconsensus members of intra-host populations. Spike mutations P681H, H655Y, and V1104L were detected prior to emergence in variant genotypes, mutations were detected at multiple positions within the furin cleavage site, and pre-emergent mutations were identified in the nucleocapsid and the envelope genes. Because many of the samples had a very high depth of coverage, a bioinformatics pipeline, “Mappgene”, was established that uses both iVar and LoFreq variant calling to enable identification of very low-frequency variants. This enabled detection of a spike protein deletion present in many samples at low frequency and associated with a variant of concern.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

IceCube Search for Neutrinos Coincident with Gravitational Wave Events from LIGO/Virgo Run O3

Using data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, we searched for high-energy neutrino emission from the gravitational-wave events detected by the advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors during their third observing run. We did a low-latency follow-up on the public candidate events released during the detectors' third observing run and an archival search on the 80 confident events reported in the GWTC-2.1 and GWTC-3 catalogs. An extended search was also conducted for neutrino emission on longer timescales from neutron star containing mergers. Follow-up searches on the candidate optical counterpart of GW190521 were also conducted. We used two methods; an unbinned maximum likelihood analysis and a Bayesian analysis using astrophysical priors, both of which were previously used to search for high-energy neutrino emission from gravitational-wave events. No significant neutrino emission was observed by any analysis, and upper limits were placed on the time-integrated neutrino flux as well as the total isotropic equivalent energy emitted in high-energy neutrinos.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Comprehensive Review of Latent Space Dynamics Identification Algorithms for Intrusive and Non-Intrusive Reduced-Order-Modeling

Numerical solvers of partial differential equations (PDEs) have been widely employed for simulating physical systems. However, the computational cost remains a major bottleneck in various scientific and engineering applications, which has motivated the development of reduced-order models (ROMs). Recently, machine-learning-based ROMs have gained significant popularity and are promising for addressing some limitations of traditional ROM methods, especially for advection dominated systems. In this chapter, we focus on a particular framework known as Latent Space Dynamics Identification (LaSDI), which transforms the high-fidelity data, governed by a PDE, to simpler and low-dimensional latent-space data, governed by ordinary differential equations (ODEs). These ODEs can be learned and subsequently interpolated to make ROM predictions. Each building block of LaSDI can be easily modulated depending on the application, which makes the LaSDI framework highly flexible. In particular, we present strategies to enforce the laws of thermodynamics into LaSDI models (tLaSDI), enhance robustness in the presence of noise through the weak form (WLaSDI), select high-fidelity training data efficiently through active learning (gLaSDI, GPLaSDI), and quantify the ROM prediction uncertainty through Gaussian processes (GPLaSDI). We demonstrate the performance of different LaSDI approaches on Burgers equation, a non-linear heat conduction problem, and a plasma physics problem, showing that LaSDI algorithms can achieve relative errors of less than a few percent and up to thousands of times speed-ups.

Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science (c↗
DOE OSTI2024

The Weak Form Is Stronger Than You Think

The weak form is a ubiquitous, well-studied, and widely-utilized mathematical tool in modern computational and applied mathematics. In this work we provide a survey of both the history and recent developments for several fields in which the weak form can play a critical role. In particular, we highlight several recent advances in weak form versions of equation learning, parameter estimation, and coarse graining, which offer surprising noise robustness, accuracy, and computational efficiency. We note that this manuscript is a companion piece to our October 2024 SIAM News article of the same name. Here we provide more detailed explanations of mathematical developments as well as a more complete list of references. Lastly, we note that the software with which to reproduce the results in this manuscript is also available on our group's GitHub website https://github.com/MathBioCU .

26A33, 35D30, 62FXX, 62JXX, 65L09, 65M32, 68Q32,↗
NASA NTRS1972

Two-Stage Fan I: Aerodynamic and Mechanical Design

A two-stage, highly-loaded fan was designed to deliver an overall pressure ratio of 2.8 with an adiabatic efficiency of 83.9 percent. At the first rotor inlet, design flow per unit annulus area is 42 lbm/sec/sq ft (205 kg/sec/sq m), hub/tip ratio is 0.4 with a tip diameter of 31 inches (0.787 m), and design tip speed is 1450 ft/sec (441.96 m/sec). Other features include use of multiple-circular-arc airfoils, resettable stators, and split casings over the rotor tip sections for casing treatment tests.

Messenger, H. E.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Two stage low noise advanced technology fan. 1: Aerodynamic, structural, and acoustic design

A two-stage fan was designed to reduce noise 20 db below current requirements. The first-stage rotor has a design tip speed of 365.8 m/sec and a hub/tip ratio of 0.4. The fan was designed to deliver a pressure ratio of 1.9 with an adiabatic efficiency of 85.3 percent at a specific inlet corrected flow of 209.2kg/sec/sq m. Noise reduction devices include acoustically treated casing walls, a flowpath exit acoustic splitter, a translating centerbody sonic inlet device, widely spaced blade rows, and the proper ratio of blades and vanes. Multiple-circular-arc rotor airfoils, resettable stators, split outer casings, and capability to go to close blade-row spacing are also included.

Messenger, H. E.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Two-stage fan. 2: Data and performance with redesigned second stage rotor uniform and distorted inlet flows

A two-stage fan with a first rotor tip speed of 1450 ft/sec (441.96 m/sec) and no inlet guide vanes was tested with uniform and distorted inlet flows, with a redesigned second rotor having a part span shroud to prevent flutter, with variable-stagger stators set in nominal positions, and without rotor casing treatment. The fan achieved a pressure ratio 2.8 at a corrected flow of 185.4 lbm/sec (84.0 kg/sec), an adiabatic efficiency of 85.0 percent, and a stall margin of 12 percent. The redesigned second rotor did not flutter. Tip radial distortion reduced the stall margin at intermediate speed, but had little effect on stall margin at high or low speeds. Hub radial distortion reduced the stall margin at design speed but increased stall margin at low speed. Circumferential distortion reduced stall pressure ratio and flow to give approximately the same stall lines with uniform inlet flow. Distortions were attenuated by the fan. For Vol. 1, see N74-11421.

Messenger, H. E.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Preliminary analysis of LDEF instrument A0187-1: Chemistry of Micrometeoroids Experiment

The Chemistry of Micrometeoroids Experiment (CME) exposed approximately 0.8 sq. m of gold on the Long Duration Exposure Facility's (LDEF's) trailing edge (location A03) and approximately 1.1 sq. m of aluminum in the forward-facing A11 location. The most significant results to date relate to the discovery of unmelted pyroxene and olivine fragments associated with natural cosmic dust impacts. The latter are sufficiently large for detailed phase studies, and they serve to demonstrate that recovery of unmelted dust fragments is a realistic prospect for further dust experiments that will employ more advanced collector media. We also discovered that man-made debris impacts occur on the LDEF's trailing edge with substantially higher frequency than expected, suggesting that orbital debris in highly elliptical orbits may have been somewhat underestimated.

Hoerz, Friedrich↗
NASA NTRS1993

High temperature annealing of minority carrier traps in irradiated MOCVD n(+)p InP solar cell junctions

Deep level transient spectroscopy was used to monitor thermal annealing of trapping centers in electron irradiated n(+)p InP junctions grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition, at temperatures ranging from 500 up to 650K. Special emphasis is given to the behavior of the minority carrier (electron) traps EA (0.24 eV), EC (0.12 eV), and ED (0.31 eV) which have received considerably less attention than the majority carrier (hole) traps H3, H4, and H5, although this work does extend the annealing behavior of the hole traps to higher temperatures than previously reported. It is found that H5 begins to anneal above 500K and is completely removed by 630K. The electron traps begin to anneal above 540K and are reduced to about half intensity by 630K. Although they each have slightly different annealing temperatures, EA, EC, and ED are all removed by 650K. A new hole trap called H3'(0.33 eV) grows as the other traps anneal and is the only trap remaining at 650K. This annealing behavior is much different than that reported for diffused junctions.

Messenger, S. R.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Radiation effects in Ga(0.47)In(0.53)As solar cells

The effects of irradiating Ga(0.47)In(0.53)As p-i-n junctions with 1 MeV electrons were measured using Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy (DLTS) and both dark and illuminated (1 sun, air mass zero (AM0)) current-voltage (I-V) measurements. The I-V measurements were made over the range 100K less than T less than 350K. Temperature coefficients of the Ga(0.47)In(0.53)As photovoltaic parameters are presented which follow the same general behavior as other solar cell materials (e.g. Si and GaAs). Fits of the dark I-V data to the two term diode equation before irradiation were satisfactory, yielding an estimated band-gap energy of 0.79 eV. The recombination component of the dark current was found to increase linearly with fluence. DLTS detected two radiation-induced defect levels one shallow (E(sub c)-0.10 eV) and one near mid-gap (E(sub c)-0.29 eV), and it is the near mid-gap level which is expected to be the cause of the dark current increase. The radiation-induced degradation of the open circuit voltage is shown to be accurately predicted from the dark I-V measurements. The degradation of the open circuit voltage dominated the radiation response of the photovoltaic parameters while the short circuit current was only moderately degraded. This behavior is qualitatively explained in terms of the base thickness and dopant level. Appropriate changes in the device structure are suggested which should increase the radiation resistance. Isochronal thermal annealing induced recovery in the photovoltaic parameters at approximately 400K, coinciding with an annealing stage of the near mid-gap defect level.

Walters, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Electron-irradiated two-terminal, monolithic InP/Ga0.47In0.53As tandem solar cells and annealing of radiation damage

Radiation damage results from two-terminal monolithic InP/Ga(0.47)In(0.53)As tandem solar cells subject to 1 MeV electron irradiation are presented. Efficiencies greater than 22 percent have been measured by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory from 2x2 sq cm cells at 1 sun, AMO (25 C). The short circuit current density, open circuit voltage and fill factor are found to tolerate the same amount of radiation at low fluences. At high fluence levels, slight differences are observed. Decreasing the base amount of radiation at the Ga(0.47)In(0.53)As bottomcell improved the radiation resistance of J(sub sc) dramatically. This is turn, extended the series current flow through the subcell substantially up to a fluence of 3x10(exp 15) cm(exp -2) compared to 3x10(exp 14) cm(exp -2), as observed previously. The degradation of the maximum power output form tandem device is comparable to that from shallow homojunction (SHJ) InP solar cells, and the mechanism responsible for such degradation is explained in terms of the radiation response of the component cells. Annealing studies revealed that the recovery of the tandem cell response is dictated by the annealing characteristics exhibited by SHJ InP solar cells.

Cotal, H. L.↗