Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Environmental changes”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 955 records · Page 53
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2012

Novel Materials for cell Studies and harvesting

Controlling cell growth on different surfaces is crucial for many applications. For instance after surgery, unspecific adhesion on exogenous materials can lead to fouling that may result in infections. On the other hand, fast attachment of tissue cells is pivotal for the healing process. Hence, specific regulation of cell adhesion to substrates is a significant task especially in the biomedical field. It has long been known that surface conditions like topology/roughness, wettability, charge, etc. are major factors in cell adhesion on various synthetic materials including Polytetrafluoroethylene, titanium or silicone. However, the literature is sparse on studies of cell growth on medical relevant substrates. We investigated the growth of different cells types on polyelectrolyte (PE) multilayers with and without lipid bilayers deposited and could observe confluence and multiplication of cells on both substrate types. Our neutron reflectometry studies of lipid bilayers deposited on polyelectrolyte multilayer demonstrates that the size of the water gap between the lipid bilayer and the PE covered substrate can be influenced by the environmental conditions, e.g. the pH of the surrounding medium. In principal, this 'floating' of a lipid bilayer can also be applied for growing monolayer of cells and detaching them by an environmental change. Such a fabrication would simplify cell growing and harvesting for various medical application, e.g. tissue engineering. Our approach for the fabrication of cellular monolayers that are easy to detach and transfer, creating free-floating sheets of cells also enables us to study those structures more conveniently and under in-situ conditions using neutron scattering.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2011

NanoSIP: Developing Community Imaging for Phylogenetic and Functional Characterization Using Cyanobacterial Mats

This project was to develop and optimize the following technologies: stable isotope probing + NanoSIMS analysis (nanoSIP), FISH, functional gene analysis, H2 production measurements, culturing, and metatranscriptomics for specific use in microbial mat systems. The larger goal was to further develop these methodologies in a way that facilitates their linkage, high fidelity 3-D correlation to location specific environmental change integrating geochemical characterization, such that ability to see and characterize microbial community responses to normal daily fluctuations and further ecological manipulations, in different locations of the mat communities is optimized.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2012

Decisionmaking, Transitions, and Resilient Futures

The article describes the focus of research in the social sciences on environmental change, describing studies on adaptation and mitigation. It is the first of 5 articles in the NAS quarterly journal IS&T on the occasion of the launch of a new Board at the NAS chaired by the author.

Moss, Richard H↗
DOE OSTI2017

David Weston – DOE Early Career Research Program Award Winner

Plant biologist David Weston is one of this year's U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Program award recipients. With this award, he will identify the genes and metabolic functions involved in the exchange of nutrients between certain plants and microbes and study their response to environmental changes in both laboratory and field settings. Deeper fundamental understanding of the symbiotic plant-microbe relationship could reveal pathways to improve bioenergy crop production in nutrient-limiting environments.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Development of Thermoacoustic Sensors for Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors

This Final Report refers to the project “Development of Thermoacoustic Sensors for Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor Systems”, which was led by Westinghouse Electric Company (Westinghouse) and carried out in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and University of Pittsburgh. Thermo-acoustic Power Sensors (TAPS) are self-powered, wireless sensors envisioned for measuring key parameters, such as local temperature and neutron flux, in a nuclear reactor core. This project was intended to specifically investigate their applicability to Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors (SFR). TAPS are non-invasive (wireless) and passive (self-powered) devices. The passivity derives from their ability to use conditions that “naturally” exist in a nuclear reactor, such as gamma and neutron flux, as power sources. They generate oscillating pressure waves (i.e., sound waves) which, with a frequency and amplitude dependent upon these conditions, can travel through the core and associated structures, and reach the outside of the reactor vessel where a properly designed network of receivers can detect and interpret them. These receivers require a very small amount of power which, during loss of power events, can be provided for example by harvesting gamma radiation energy, thus resulting in a monitoring system that can function both during normal operation and during loss of power events. The project aimed at TAPS development through a series of tasks which are listed and briefly discussed as follows. TASK 1 – Sensor hardware design Subtask 1a: Assessment of sensor applications to SFRs Subtask 1b: Development of sensor functional requirements Subtask 1c: Definition of sensor hardware design specifications Task description: TAPS design was informed by considerations on their application (Subtask 1a), both the ultimate one in an SFR and the actual one in the ANL testing facilities that was intended to be used in support of the project. Considerations were made to identify optimum sensor design features that optimize the sensor size, materials, and output signal, for installation inside an SFR core. These considerations led to the development of Functional Requirements (Subtask 1b) and Design Requirements (Subtask 1c). TASK 2 – Sensor Hardware Manufacture Subtask 2a: Sensor hardware construction drawing development Subtask 2b: Sensor manufacture and assembly Task description: TAPS technical drawings were developed (Subtask 2a) using the Design Requirements established under Task 1. Subsequently, in spite of some problems which ultimately caused the program to be delayed, TAPS manufacturing was completed based on drawings (Subtask 2b). TASK 3 – Development of TAPS Signal Measurement System and TAPS Testing in Water Subtask 3a: Design, assembly and testing of signal measurement system, and TAPS testing in water Subtask 3b: Signal prediction-correction methodology development Task description: An assessment was performed on the techniques that can potentially be used to detect the signals emitted by the TAPS, e.g. a fiber-optic based acoustic signal measurement system, a laser vibrometer system, or an accelerometer-based system. The most suited technology, i.e. the accelerometer-based system, was developed further, and tested in water (Subtask 3a). Moreover, efforts were made to develop the methodology required to determine the actual system temperature and neutron flux distribution using differences between the measured and predicted TAPS responses (Subtask 3b). TASK 4 – Sensor System Testing in Sodium Subtask 4a: Test plan development Subtask 4b: Design, assembly and testing in small-scale sodium facility Subtask 4c: Design, assembly and testing in large-scale sodium and structures facility Task description: Upon proper test plan development (Subtask 4a), the fabricated TAPS was planned to be tested in sodium, by using two sodium facilities at ANL having different size and different purpose. The Under Sodium Viewing (USV) small-scale facility was intended to be used to investigate the effect of sodium on the sensor and its performance (Subtask 4b). The Mechanism Engineering Test Loop (METL) large-scale facility was instead intended to be used to assess the additional effect of prototypical SFR structures, such as fuel assembly mockup or parts of the core restrain structure, on sensor performance (Subtask 4c). As discussed in Section 3.2.2.7, unexpected issues during the TAPS manufacturing process resulted in some activities being delayed, with the TAPS and USV facility developed to the point to be ready for testing in sodium, however without the possibility to actually perform such testing (including the testing in METL) due to the end of the program’s performance period. Overall, through the development and testing (in water only) of two TAPS devices (a First-Generation TAPS followed by an optimized Second-Generation TAPS), the project confirmed the capability of this technology to generate acoustic signals proportional to temperature, which can be detected through a network of accelerometers identified as the best-suited type of receivers for acoustic signal detection. Moreover, the project also developed a computational model to predict the characteristics of the acoustic signals being generated, which combines thermal analysis of the TAPS with Finite Element Modeling (FEM)-aided acoustic characterization of the system. This model was benchmarked against experimental data collected during the project and, although general agreement was obtained, some limitations of the modeling methods were identified, which require additional development. Additional testing is needed in order to assess the effect, on TAPS operation and performance, of environmental changes resulting from the transition from water to liquid sodium. Such testing, which is suggested to be performed in the future, should look specifically at 1) both the effect resulting from the different thermoacoustic behavior of sodium (relative to water) and the effects of higher temperature on TAPS performance, and 2) the performance of the sensor-receiver system when multiple TAPS are used simultaneously and prototypical reactor structures are positioned in the testing environment. The latter testing is needed to assess the effects that potential signal attenuation/ distortion phenomena, as well as potential interference between signals emitted simultaneously, have on the performance of the technology for ultimate application in a nuclear reactor.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Spectral and Microclimate Measurements in Relation to Gold-Standard Methods Field Campaign Report

Arable is an agricultural data and analytics company offering an Internet of things (IOT)-enabled irrigation management tool, weather station, and crop monitor: the Arable Mark. The device synthesizes both climate and plant data to produce actionable insights on natural resource management, mainly commercial agriculture at any scale. Arable collected 11 months of microclimate and radiometric data at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) observatory to compare measurements of the Arable Mark to the ARM-SGP gold-standard sensors, and for demonstrating the ease of installation and system value to stakeholders. A member from Arable labs installed the device on January 10, 2018, at the ARM facilities and the site managers were in charge of maintaining the sensors in a clean state until the unit’s removal on January 15, 2019. The sampling was positively uneventful, except for a period during the winter when the device stopped posting data for about one week. The verdict was that the equipment required an external solar panel to stay powered through the shorter days of winter. A solar panel was shipped to the SGP, and the unit came back to full charge to continue sending data for the rest of the sampling period. The main goal of the project is to use the data collected by the Arable Mark and build a model that can establish a close relationship with the current methodologies applied to measure ecosystem response to environmental changes. During the sampling period, our team discovered that there was a drift in some of the meteorological data and also in the radiometry, so all efforts are focused into the development of models that would reduce the errors in the reported values.

Southern Great Plains, evapotranspiration, photosy↗
DOE OSTI2019

Designing and Testing a Simplified Thermal Comfort Sensor

The goal of this project was to design and test an inexpensive device to replace the need for air velocity and mean radiant temperature measurements in thermal comfort studies. The new device works by measuring heat flux across plates maintained at body temperature, mimicking the heat transfer between a person and their surroundings. Two designs were prototyped and tested. One uses thin-film heat flux sensors and one calculates heat flux from power input and surface area. Both designs consist of two plates, insulated on all but the front face, heated to 37 °C by PID controlled relays. One plate is covered in a low emissivity tape and the other in a high emissivity tape, allowing differentiation between convective and radiative heat flux. Preliminary results and literature suggest the device is feasible and responsive to environmental changes. More testing and alteration of design is necessary to fully quantify sensitivity and applicability.

Moring, Hannah↗
DOE OSTI2012

Vehicle Radiation Monitoring Systems for Medical Waste Disposal - 12102

Hospitals often declare their waste as being 'non-radioactive'; however this material often has excessive levels of radiation caused either by an accident or lack of control. To ensure the best possible protection against the accidental receipt of radioactive materials and as a safety precaution for their employees, waste-handling companies have installed large-scale radiation portal monitors at their weigh scales or entry gates of the incinerator plant, waste transfer station, and/or landfill. Large-volume plastic scintillator-based systems can be used to monitor radiation levels at entry points to companies handling medical waste. The recent and intensive field tests together with the thousands of accumulated hours of actual real-life vehicle scanning have proven that the plastic scintillation based system is an appropriate radiation control instrument for waste management companies. The Real-Time background compensation algorithm is flexible with automatic adjustable coefficients that will response to rapidly changing environmental and weather conditions maintaining the preset alarm threshold levels. The Dose Rate correction algorithms further enhance the system's ability to meet the stringent requirements of the waste industries need for Dose Rate measurements. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2024

Beam Loss Assessment Through Use of Photomultiplier Tubes

Modern accelerators aim to deliver maximal beam current at stable energy with minimal beam loss. Environmental changes, among other factors, can result in increased beam loss and decreased beam throughput, prompting daily retuning of the accelerator. The compact nature of the oldest part of the linear accelerator limits the available beam instrumentation, making beam loss assessment and tuning difficult. Thus, additional devices for beam loss monitoring must be considered. Photomultiplier tube-based beam loss monitors (BLMs) were installed along the Fermilab drift tube Linac to assess beam loss. Due to noise, the data from the installed photomultiplier tubes was difficult to assess. After noise reduction and signal analysis, it was found that the signals produced by the photomultiplier tubes in response to beam loss were consistent for a given configuration and therefore a reasonable measure of beam loss. This project lays groundwork for future work in beam loss assessment using photomultiplier tubes, with the automation of the process developed in this project being the next step in this effort.

Waggoner, Alexander↗
DOE OSTI2024

Error and Correction Analysis for the FFA@CEBAF Energy Upgrade

An energy upgrade design for the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) is under development, using fixed field alternating gradient (FFA) return arcs to recirculate electron beam up to an additional five times through the accelerating structures at CEBAF. A necessary component of any large accelerator is a beam steering and optical correction system. Small environmental changes and system errors can lower beam quality or even shut down the machine; and in pursuit of the scientific mission of JLab, high quality electron beams must be delivered to the experimental halls on a predictable schedule. Correction in the novel FFA arcs of the current upgrade design is complicated by several factors. These complexities inform the choice of correction algorithm structure and parameter values. A baseline algorithm in addition to diagnostic and correction hardware configuration is presented. The effect of this correction protocol is shown with respect to estimated errors, and several possible extensions of the algorithm are discussed. This work presents an important proof of concept for the FFA@CEBAF design effort, and provides a functional correction strategy which may be simply adjusted and optimized for future design changes.

Coxe, Alex [Old Dominion Univ., Norfolk, VA (Unite↗
DOE OSTI2017

Environmental impacts of climate change adaptation

Climate change adaptation reduces adverse effects of climate change but may also have undesirable environmental impacts. However, these impacts are yet poorly defined and analysed in the existing literature. To complement this knowledge-gap, we reviewed the literature to unveil the relationship between climate change adaptation and environmental impact assessment, and the degree to which environmental impacts are included in climate change adaptation theory and practice. Our literature review showed that technical, social and economic perspectives on climate change adaptation receive much more attention than the environmental perspective. The scarce interest on the environmental impacts of adaptation may be attributed to (1) an excessive sectoral approach, with dominance of non-environmental perspectives, (2) greater interest in mitigation and direct climate change impacts rather than in adaptation impacts, (3) a tendency to consider adaptation as inherently good, and (4) subjective/preconceived notions on which measures are good or bad, without a comprehensive assessment. Environmental Assessment (EA) has a long established history as an effective tool to include environment into decision-making, although it does not yet guarantee a proper assessment of adaptation, because it is still possible to postpone or even circumvent the processes of assessing the impacts of climate adaptation. Our results suggest that there is a need to address adaptation proactively by including it in EA, to update current policy frameworks, and to demand robust and reliable evaluation of alternatives. Only through the full EA of adaptation measures can we improve our understanding of the primary and secondary impacts of adaptation to global environmental change. - Highlights: • Climate change adaptation may have undesirable environmental impacts. • The impacts of adaptation are yet poorly analysed in the literature. • There is an excessive sectoral approach to adaptation, mainly non-environmental.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2015

Switchable and non-switchable zero backscattering of dielectric nano-resonators

Previous studies have shown that two-dimensional (2D) arrays of high-permittivity dielectric nanoparticles are capable of fully suppressing backward light scattering when the resonant frequencies of electrical and magnetic dipolar modes are coincident. In this paper, we numerically demonstrate that the zero-backscattering of 2D Si nanocuboid arrays can be engineered to be switchable or non-switchable in response to a variation in the environmental refractive index. For each cuboid width/length, there exist certain cuboid heights and orthogonal periodicity ratio for which the electrical and magnetic resonances exhibit similar spectra widths and equivalent sensitivities to the environmental index changes, so that the zero-backscattering is non-switchable upon environmental change. For some other cuboid heights and certain anisotropic periodicity ratios, the electric and magnetic modes exhibit different sensitivities to environmental index changes, making the zero-backscattering sensitive to environmental changes. We also show that by using two different types of nano-resonators in the unit cell, Fano resonances can be introduced to greatly enhance the switching sensitivity of zero-backscattering.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Uncertainty quantification of machine learning models to improve streamflow prediction under changing climate and environmental conditions

Machine learning (ML) models, and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks in particular, have demonstrated remarkable performance in streamflow prediction and are increasingly being used by the hydrological research community. However, most of these applications do not include uncertainty quantification (UQ). ML models are data driven and can suffer from large extrapolation errors when applied to changing climate/environmental conditions. UQ is required to quantify the influence of data noises on model predictions and avoid overconfident projections in extrapolation. In this work, we integrate a novel UQ method, called PI3NN, with LSTM networks for streamflow prediction. PI3NN calculates Prediction Intervals by training 3 Neural Networks. It can precisely quantify the predictive uncertainty caused by the data noise and identify out-of-distribution (OOD) data in a non-stationary condition to avoid overconfident predictions. We apply the PI3NN-LSTM method in the snow-dominant East River Watershed in the western US and in the rain-driven Walker Branch Watershed in the southeastern US. Results indicate that for the prediction data which have similar features as the training data, PI3NN precisely quantifies the predictive uncertainty with the desired confidence level; and for the OOD data where the LSTM network fails to make accurate predictions, PI3NN produces a reasonably large uncertainty indicating that the results are not trustworthy and should avoid overconfidence. PI3NN is computationally efficient, robust in performance, and generalizable to various network structures and data with no distributional assumptions. It can be broadly applied in ML-based hydrological simulations for credible prediction.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Environmental Thermodynamic Effects on Future Changes of Mesoscale Convective Systems and Isolated Deep Convection Over the US: A Case Study

Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) and isolated deep convection (IDC) significantly influence local weather conditions and the hydrological cycle across the United States. Their future changes under warming is critical to the society. However, the exact impacts of thermodynamic environmental changes on them are difficult to resolve using climate model simulations which integrate both dynamic and thermodynamic factors. This study explores a theoretical modeling approach to isolate environmental thermodynamic effects on their future changes through a case study. For a 50-day period during the 2020 summer, a pair of convection-permitting model simulations indicate contrasting changes in MCSs and IDC between inland and coastal regions under pseudo global warming. Driven by the thermodynamic environments of these simulations, a single-column parcel model indicates a decrease in the frequency of IDC occurrences, along with increases in duration and precipitation amount under warming, attributable to rising most unstable convective available potential energy (MUCAPE), convective inhibition (MUCIN), and precipitable water (PW). A multi-column parcel model reveals contrasting changes in the frequency and mean area of MCSs between inland and coastal regions, underscoring the increase in mean MUCIN over inland regions and increases in mean MUCAPE and PW over coastal regions. The increase in mean MCS area over inland regions is linked to the interplay between accelerated gust fronts and enhanced subsidence strength, which is further traced to the unchanged mean MUCIN but increased mean MUCAPE in large-scale environments. In conclusion, these case study results suggest a major role of thermodynamic environmental changes in controlling characteristics of MCSs and IDC under warming.

Mesoscale convective system↗
NASA NTRS2005

Using a Web Browser for Environmental and Climate Change Studies

A new web browser for viewing and manipulating meteorological data sets is located on a web server at NASA, Langley Research Center. The browser uses a live access server (LAS) developed by the Thermal Modeling and Analysis Project at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. LAS allows researchers to interact directly with the data to view, select, and subset the data in terms of location (latitude, longitude) and time such as day, month, or year. In addition, LAS can compare two data sets and can perform averages and variances, LAS is used here to show how it functions as an internet/web browser for use by the scientific and educational community. In particular its versatility in displaying and manipulating data sets of atmospheric measurements in the earth's radiation budget (ERB) or energy balance, which includes measurements of absorbed solar radiation, reflected shortwave radiation (RSW), thermal outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), and net radiation is demonstrated. These measurements are from the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) experiment and the surface radiation budget (SRB) experiment.

Bess, T. Dale↗
NASA NTRS2002

Using a Web Browser for Environmental and Climate Change Studies

A new web browser for viewing and manipulating meteorological data sets is located on a web server at NASA, Langley Research Center. The browser uses a live access server (LAS) developed by the Thermal Modeling and Analysis Project at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. LAS allows researchers to interact directly with the data to view, select, and subset the data in terms of location (latitude, longitude) and time such as day, month, or year. In addition, LAS can compare two data sets and can perform averages and variances, LAS is used here to show how it functions as an internet/web browser for use by the scientific and educational community. In particular its versatility in displaying and manipulating data sets of atmospheric measurements in the earth s radiation budget (ERB) or energy balance, which includes measurements of absorbed solar radiation, reflected shortwave radiation (RSW), thermal outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), and net radiation is demonstrated. These measurements are from the Clouds and the Earth s Radiant Energy System (CERES) experiment and the surface radiation budget (SRB) experiment.

Bess, T. Dale↗
DOE OSTI2013

Avoiding climate change uncertainties in Strategic Environmental Assessment

This article is concerned with how Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) practice handles climate change uncertainties within the Danish planning system. First, a hypothetical model is set up for how uncertainty is handled and not handled in decision-making. The model incorporates the strategies ‘reduction’ and ‘resilience’, ‘denying’, ‘ignoring’ and ‘postponing’. Second, 151 Danish SEAs are analysed with a focus on the extent to which climate change uncertainties are acknowledged and presented, and the empirical findings are discussed in relation to the model. The findings indicate that despite incentives to do so, climate change uncertainties were systematically avoided or downplayed in all but 5 of the 151 SEAs that were reviewed. Finally, two possible explanatory mechanisms are proposed to explain this: conflict avoidance and a need to quantify uncertainty.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗