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At least 1,027 records · Page 57

Using Bayesian Networks for Sensitivity Analysis of Complex Biogeochemical Models

Sensitivity analysis is a vital tool in numerical modeling to identify important parameters and processes that contribute to the overall uncertainty in model outputs. We developed a new sensitivity analysis method to quantify the relative importance of uncertain model processes that contain multiple uncertain parameters. The method is based on the concepts of Bayesian networks (BNs) to account for complex hierarchical uncertainty structure of a model system. We derived a new set of sensitivity indices using the methodology of variance-based global sensitivity analysis with the Bayesian inference. The framework is capable of representing the detailed uncertainty information of a complex model system using BNs and affords flexible grouping of different uncertain inputs given their characteristics and dependency structures. We have implemented the method on a real-world biogeochemical model at the groundwater-surface water interface within the Hanford Site’s 300 Area. The uncertainty sources of the model were first grouped into forcing scenario and three different processes based on our understanding of the complex system. The sensitivity analysis results indicate that both the reactive transport and groundwater flow processes are important sources of uncertainty for carbon-consumption predictions. Within the groundwater flow process, the structure of geological formations is more important than the permeability heterogeneity within a given geological formation. Our new sensitivity analysis framework based on BNs offers substantial flexibility for investigating the importance of combinations of interacting uncertainty sources in a hierarchical order, and it is expected to be applicable to a wide range of multi-physics models for complex systems.

Dai, Heng↗

Nuclear Forensics for Irradiated Materials using Kernel Regression Models

The ultimate purpose of nuclear forensics is to locate the origin of nuclear and other radioactive materials out of regulatory control used in nuclear security events such as classical forensics. For this purpose, some specific characteristics of interdicted materials (referred to as 'signatures') should be defined to compare the known sample database. In some cases, involved with irradiated material, the signatures could be specific amount of fission product inventory depending on reactor operational histories such as reactor type, initial enrichment, burn up rate of nuclear fuel and cooling period after irradiation in the reactor. In order to make inference model for irradiated material for nuclear forensics, we suggested 3 ways as follows; (i) analyzing ORIGEN produced nuclear substances for the fission product inventory, (ii) classifying the range of reactor type, (iii) predicting the operational history from the fission product inventory. In terms of nuclear substance analysis, the construction of spent fuel database has been internationally carried out since ITWG (Nuclear Smuggling International Technical Working Group) was established in 1995. However, enough sample data cannot be obtained in Korea to determine reactor type and operational histories because analyzing nuclear substances have been limited due to the international regulation. Thus, this study does not mention how to obtain mass or ratios of nuclides for the spent fuel. We just have generated simulation sample data as a fission product inventory using ORIGEN to construct spent fuel database. When unidentified radioactive materials are discovered, it is assumed that mass or ratios of the nuclides are analyzed by certain methods which are available in Korea as well as other countries. Then, a reactor type is determined, and finally, regression model can locate the origin or source of the radioactive materials by inferring operational histories using the fission product inventory. There are some studies on the classification of reactor type using statistical methods. As a part of predicting the operational history, this paper focuses on the development of spent fuel inference algorithm for nuclear forensics to estimate reactor operational histories that reflect characteristics of a reactor from the fission product inventory. The spent fuel inference algorithm for nuclear forensics has been developed on the basis of Kernel Regression (KR) which can conditionally generate the estimated output data by giving weight depending on geometric distance between sample data and input data. Also the KR which comprises Auto-Associative KR and Inferential KR have some benefits that can estimate only using data without assumption for specific physical model and re-learning process. Auto-associative KR (AAKR) was used to sort out outliers of input data and Inferential KR (IKR) was carried out to predict the operational histories for spent fuel. All of regression algorithms were performed in R programming tool. From the validation of both AAKR and IKR, it is expected that kernel regression has enough accuracy to be applied to nuclear forensics for spent fuel. Once the nuclear substance is measured to fill the fission product inventory with a certain reactor type, this kernel regression algorithm would predict the operational histories of spent fuel with high accuracy. Finally, this information is expected to be useful to find the origin of irradiated materials. (authors)

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Machine Learning-Driven Conservative-to-Primitive Conversion in Hybrid Piecewise Polytropic and Tabulated Equations of State

We present a novel machine learning (ML)-based method to accelerate conservative-to-primitive inversion, focusing on hybrid piecewise polytropic and tabulated equations of state. Traditional root-finding techniques are computationally expensive, particularly for large-scale relativistic hydrodynamics simulations. To address this, we employ feedforward neural networks (NNC2PS and NNC2PL), trained in PyTorch (2.0+) and optimized for GPU inference using NVIDIA TensorRT (8.4.1), achieving significant speedups with minimal accuracy loss. The NNC2PS model achieves 𝐿 1 and 𝐿 ∞ errors of 4.54 × 10 −7 and 3.44 × 10−6, respectively, while the NNC2PL model exhibits even lower error values. TensorRT optimization with mixed-precision deployment substantially accelerates performance compared to traditional root-finding methods. Specifically, the mixed-precision TensorRT engine for NNC2PS achieves inference speeds approximately 400 times faster than a traditional single-threaded CPU implementation for a dataset size of 1,000,000 points. Ideal parallelization across an entire compute node in the Delta supercomputer (dual AMD 64-core 2.45 GHz Milan processors and 8 NVIDIA A100 GPUs with 40 GB HBM2 RAM and NVLink) predicts a 25-fold speedup for TensorRT over an optimally parallelized numerical method when processing 8 million data points. Moreover, the ML method exhibits sub-linear scaling with increasing dataset sizes. We release the scientific software developed, enabling further validation and extension of our findings. By exploiting the underlying symmetries within the equation of state, these findings highlight the potential of ML, combined with GPU optimization and model quantization, to accelerate conservative-to-primitive inversion in relativistic hydrodynamics simulations.

conservative-to-primitive conversion↗

Salvaging Data Records with Missing Data: Data Imputation using the Multivariate t Distribution

When doing multivariate data analysis, one commonobstacle is the presence of incomplete observations, i.e., observationsfor which one or more key fields are blank. Missing datais often countered by deleting entire observations that containmissing data. The negative effects of deleting entire observationsare multiple: deleting observations reduces sample size andcan also result in biased inferences even if data is missing atrandom. In addition, knowledge contained within incompleteobservations is knowledge lost when they are deleted– and theeffort spent collecting that knowledge is effort wasted. Data imputationmethods, or methods of statistically “filling-in” missingdata, can help combat small sample sizes by using the existinginformation in partially complete observations with the end goalof producing less biased and higher confidence inferences. Whena sample from a multivariate normal population is only partiallycomplete, and the missing data meets appropriate assumptions(missing at random), robust data imputation of the missing datacan be implemented with monotone data augmentation (MDA)using the multivariate t distribution.Missing data imputation is applied to data from the NASA InstrumentCost Model (NICM) using the MDA algorithm underthe assumption of having a multivariate t distribution with fixeddegrees of freedom. A sensitivity analysis to the degrees offreedom parameter is presented to demonstrate robustness ofthe multivariate t distribution when dealing with small samplesas compared to the multivariate normal distribution.

DiNicola, Michael↗

Improved Bayesian regularization of inverse problems in vibrations and acoustics using noise-only measurements

Here, this paper studies Tikhonov regularization (ridge regression) parameter selection for problems in vibrations and acoustics. The selection method is based on a popular Bayesian method, but it incorporates measurements of sensor noise. The regularization parameter is closely related to the ratio of system input energy to noise energy, so noise measurements inform the inference procedure and improve parameter identification. In cases where standard Bayesian regularization identifies zero as the optimal regularization parameter, noise measurements guarantee a unique nonzero optimum. Sufficient theoretical criteria are developed for this guarantee. The method is verified in even-determined and under-determined configurations in an acoustic source localization simulation and a vibration load identification experiment. It is shown to yield significant improvements over existing empirical Bayesian regularization. Improvements are larger in the even-determined case and smaller in the under-determined case, wherein the inverse solution is less sensitive to the regularization parameter.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Studies using IMP, Voyager and Pioneer cosmic ray data to determine the size of the heliosphere

The purpose of this project was to use the cosmic ray data from the IMP, Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft in the heliosphere out to approximately 65 AU to estimate the size of the heliosphere. We used several techniques to develop a consistent picture of the size of the heliosphere. The first method used a response function approach which determined the intensity as a function of time by scaling the modulation effect as they move outward and eventually reach the boundary of the heliosphere. In this model the effects of transient cosmic ray disturbances is included. A second approach using the perturbation method in which drifts are considered as a perturbation to the standard diffusion-convection modulation models was not fully developed. In a third approach the location of the modulation boundary beyond the termination shock was estimated using observations of the intensity and radial gradients between Voyager 2 and Pioneer 10 along with new estimates of the interstellar intensity of more than 70 MeV galactic cosmic rays. Using this method we found that for 7 years, from 1983 to 1990, the modulation boundary remained constant at 83 +/- 5 AU. We infer from these studies that a modulation boundary can be estimated only by extrapolating the observed radial gradients when the solar magnetic field polarity is such that cosmic-ray particles are drifting in the heliosphere inward toward the Earth along the neutral sheet. The boundary distance is larger than the estimates of the location of the termination shock at 67 +/- 5 AU using the same method. Two other studies partially supported by this grant are attached. The first deals with the recovery period of the greater than 70 MeV cosmic rays in the outer heliosphere from 1992-1995. In the second paper we compare the rigidity dependence of the 11-year cosmic ray variation at the Earth in two cycles of opposite solar magnetic field polarity.

Lockwood, John A.↗

Simulating self-powered neutron detector responses to infer burnup-induced power distribution perturbations in next-generation light water reactors

Understanding how 3D power distribution will be monitored throughout reactor core volumetric space in next-generation nuclear power reactors is crucial to the design, deployment, and licensing of these reactors. Although numerous techniques exist for 3D power distribution monitoring based on the response of both in situ and ex situ sensors currently implemented or proposed for use in the US reactor fleet, crucial details about these techniques are often unclear. The publicly available documentation does not include information such as how well these techniques are characterized and optimized in their implementations and the levels of uncertainty in the inferred 3D power distribution. The work described herein investigated a recently developed 3D power distribution inferencing method as applied to two next-generation reactor simulations: (1) the NuScale small modular reactor design and (2) the Westinghouse AP1000 design, both of which contain in-core strings of vanadium self-powered neutron detectors (SPNDs). This investigation considered a range of SPND string sensor densities, as well as a range of 3D power distribution axial segment sizes. In this work, SPND response simulation is informed by neutron flux calculations in representative homogenized cores. For the different sensor densities and power distribution axial segment sizes in these simulations, the average solution error, solver iterations, and run time were tracked to parameterize the sensor-core configuration.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Isotope effects and Alfvén eigenmode stability in JET H, D, T, DT, and He plasmas

While much about Alfvén eigenmode (AE) stability has been explored in previous and current tokamaks, open questions remain for future burning plasma experiments, especially regarding exact stability threshold conditions and related isotope effects; the latter, of course, requiring good knowledge of the plasma ion composition. In the JET tokamak, eight in-vessel antennas actively excite stable AEs, from which their frequencies, toroidal mode numbers, and net damping rates are assessed. The effective ion mass can also be inferred using measurements of the plasma density and magnetic geometry. Thousands of AE stability measurements have been collected by the Alfvén Eigenmode Active Diagnostic in hundreds of JET plasmas during the recent Hydrogen, Deuterium, Tritium, DT, and Helium-4 campaigns. In this novel AE stability database, spanning all four main ion species, damping is observed to decrease with increasing Hydrogenic mass, but increase for Helium, a trend consistent with radiative damping as the dominant damping mechanism. These data are important for confident predictions of AE stability in both non-nuclear (H/He) and nuclear (D/T) operations in future devices. In particular, if radiative damping plays a significant role in overall stability, some AEs could be more easily destabilized in D/T plasmas than their H/He reference pulses, even before considering fast ion and alpha particle drive. Active MHD spectroscopy is also employed on select HD, HT, and DT plasmas to infer the effective ion mass, thereby closing the loop on isotope analysis and demonstrating a complementary method to typical diagnosis of the isotope ratio.

Alfvén eigenmodes↗

Scaled Vecchia Approximation for Fast Computer-Model Emulation

Many scientific phenomena are studied using computer experiments consisting of multiple runs of a computer model while varying the input settings. Gaussian processes (GPs) are a popular tool for the analysis of computer experiments, enabling interpolation between input settings, but direct GP inference is computationally infeasible for large datasets. We adapt and extend a powerful class of GP methods from spatial statistics to enable the scalable analysis and emulation of large computer experiments. Specifically, we apply Vecchia’s ordered conditional approximation in a transformed input space, with each input scaled according to how strongly it relates to the computer-model response. The scaling is learned from the data by estimating parameters in the GP covariance function using Fisher scoring. Our methods are highly scalable, enabling estimation, joint prediction, and simulation in near-linear time in the number of model runs. In several numerical examples, our approach substantially outperformed existing methods.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Phylogeny and character evolution in the Dacrymycetes , and systematics of Unilacrymaceae and Dacryonaemataceae fam. nov.

We present a multilocus phylogeny of the class Dacrymycetes, based on data from the 18S, ITS, 28S, RPB1,RPB2,TEF-1α, 12S, andATP6DNA regions, with c. 90 species including the types of most currently accepted genera. A variety of methodological approaches was used to infer phylogenetic relationships among the Dacrymycetes, from a supermatrix strategy using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference on a concatenated dataset, to coalescence-based calculations, such as quartet-based summary methods of independent single-locus trees, and Bayesian integration of single-locus trees into a species tree under the multispecies coalescent. We evaluate for the first time the taxonomic usefulness of some cytological phenotypic characters, i.e., vacuolar contents (vacuolar bodies and lipid bodies), number of nuclei of recently discharged basidiospores, and pigments, with especial emphasis on carotenoids. These characters, along with several others traditionally used for the taxonomy of this group (basidium shape, presence and morphology of clamp connections, morphology of the terminal cells of cortical/marginal hyphae, presence and degree of ramification of the hyphidia), are mapped on the resulting phylogenies and their evolution through the class Dacrymycetes discussed. Our analyses reveal five lineages that putatively represent five different families, four of which are accepted and named. Three out of these four lineages correspond to previously circumscribed and published families (Cerinomycetaceae, Dacrymycetaceae, and Unilacrymaceae), and one is proposed as the new family Dacryonaemataceae. Provisionally, only a single order, Dacrymycetales, is accepted with in the class. Furthermore, the systematics of the two smallest families, Dacryonaemataceae and Unilacrymaceae, are investigated to the species level, using coalescence-based species delimitation on multilocus DNA data, and a detailed morphological study including morphometric analyses of the basidiospores. Three species are accepted in Dacryonaema, the type, Da. rufum, the newly combined Da. Macnabbii (basionym Dacrymyces macnabbii), and a new species named Da. macrosporum. Two species are accepted in Unilacryma, the new U. bispora, and the type, U. unispora, the latter treated in a broad sense pending improved sampling across the Holarctic.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

The Ingestion of Fluorescent, Magnetic Nanoparticles for Determining Fluid-uptake Abilities in Insects

Here, fluid-feeding insects ingest a variety of liquids, which are present in the environment as pools, films, or confined to small pores. Studies of liquid acquisition require assessing mouthpart structure and function relationships; however, fluid uptake mechanisms are historically inferred from observations of structural architecture, sometimes unaccompanied with experimental evidence. Here, we report a novel method for assessing fluid-uptake abilities with butterflies (Lepidoptera) and flies (Diptera) using small amounts of liquids. Insects are fed with a 20% sucrose solution mixed with fluorescent, magnetic nanoparticles from filter papers of specific pore sizes. The crop (internal structure used for storing fluids) is removed from the insect and placed on a confocal microscope. A magnet is waved by the crop to determine the presence of nanoparticles, which indicate if the insects are able to ingest fluids. This methodology is used to reveal a widespread feeding mechanism (capillary action and liquid bridge formation) that is potentially shared among Lepidoptera and Diptera when feeding from porous surfaces. In addition, this method can be used for studies of feeding mechanisms among a variety of fluid-feeding insects, including those important in disease transmission and biomimetics, and potentially other studies that involve nano- or micro-sized conduits where liquid transport requires verification.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Bayesian Redshift Classification of Emission-line Galaxies with Photometric Equivalent Widths

We present a Bayesian approach to the redshift classification of emission-line galaxies when only a single emission line is detected spectroscopically. We consider the case of surveys for high-redshift Lyα-emitting galaxies (LAEs), which have traditionally been classified via an inferred rest-frame equivalent width (EW; W{sub Lyα}) greater than 20 Å. Our Bayesian method relies on known prior probabilities in measured emission-line luminosity functions and EW distributions for the galaxy populations, and returns the probability that an object in question is an LAE given the characteristics observed. This approach will be directly relevant for the Hobby–Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), which seeks to classify ∼10{sup 6} emission-line galaxies into LAEs and low-redshift [O II] emitters. For a simulated HETDEX catalog with realistic measurement noise, our Bayesian method recovers 86% of LAEs missed by the traditional W{sub Lyα} > 20 Å cutoff over 2 < z < 3, outperforming the EW cut in both contamination and incompleteness. This is due to the method’s ability to trade off between the two types of binary classification error by adjusting the stringency of the probability requirement for classifying an observed object as an LAE. In our simulations of HETDEX, this method reduces the uncertainty in cosmological distance measurements by 14% with respect to the EW cut, equivalent to recovering 29% more cosmological information. Rather than using binary object labels, this method enables the use of classification probabilities in large-scale structure analyses. It can be applied to narrowband emission-line surveys as well as upcoming large spectroscopic surveys including Euclid and WFIRST.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Mitigating the Impact of Extragalactic Foregrounds for the DR6 Cosmic Microwave Background Lensing Analysis

We investigate the impact and mitigation of extragalactic foregrounds for the cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing power spectrum analysis of Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) data release 6 (DR6) data. Two independent microwave sky simulations are used to test a range of mitigation strategies. We demonstrate that finding and then subtracting point sources, finding and then subtracting models of clusters, and using a profile bias-hardened lensing estimator together reduce the fractional biases to well below statistical uncertainties, with the inferred lensing amplitude, A lens , biased by less than 0.2σ. We also show that another method where a model for the cosmic infrared background (CIB) contribution is deprojected and high-frequency data from Planck is included has similar performance. Other frequency-cleaned options do not perform as well, either incurring a large noise cost or resulting in biased recovery of the lensing spectrum. In addition to these simulation-based tests, we also present null tests on the ACT DR6 data for sensitivity of our lensing spectrum estimation to differences in foreground levels between the two ACT frequencies used, while nulling the CMB lensing signal. These tests pass whether the nulling is performed at the map or bandpower level. The CIB-deprojected measurement performed on the DR6 data is consistent with our baseline measurement, implying that contamination from the CIB is unlikely to significantly bias the DR6 lensing spectrum. This collection of tests gives confidence that the ACT DR6 lensing measurements and cosmological constraints presented in companion papers to this work are robust to extragalactic foregrounds.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The inference of atmospheric ozone using satellite nadir measurements in the 1042/cm band

A description and detailed analysis of a technique for inferring atmospheric ozone information from satellite nadir measurements in the 1042 cm band are presented. A method is formulated for computing the emission from the lower boundary under the satellite which circumvents the difficult analytical problems caused by the presence of atmospheric clouds and the watervapor continuum absorption. The inversion equations are expanded in terms of the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of a least-squares-solution matrix, and an analysis is performed to determine the information content of the radiance measurements. Under favorable conditions there are only two pieces of independent information available from the measurements: (1) the total ozone and (2) the altitude of the primary maximum in the ozone profile.

Russell, J. M., III↗

Amino acid precursors in lunar samples.

The use of hot water to extract lunar samples, followed by the hydrolysis of the aqueous extract, appears to be the method of choice for identification and quantitation of amino acid precursors in extraterrestrial sources. The net inferences from the analyses to date are (1) that amino acid precursors are verifiably present in lunar dust, and (2) that they are quite certainly not the consequence of contamination by terrestrial organisms, including man. It is suggested that prebiotic evolutionary pathways such as have been traversed on the earth were terminated on the moon for lack of sufficient water. Although some or all of the amino acid precursors may be indigenous, the low level observed suggests that they may also result from onfall of organic compounds from interstellar matter, comets, tails, solar wind, or meteorites.

Fox, S. W.↗

Study of the energy spectrum of primary cosmic rays: EAS size fluctuations at a fixed primary energy

During the initial period of the Samarkand EAS array operations the showers were selected on the basis of charged-particle flux density, and during the subsequent periods the showers were selected on the basis of Cerenkov light flux density. This procedure made it possible to measure the shower energy, to estimate the EAS size fluctuations at a fixed primary energy, and to experimentally obtain the scaling factor K(Ne, Eo) from the EAS size spectrum to the primary energy spectrum. Six scintillators of area S = 2 sq m each were added to the array. The fluctuations of EAS sizes in the showers of fixed primary energies and the scaling factors K(Ne, Eo) were inferred from the data obtained. The showers with zenith angles 30 deg were selected. The EAS axis positions were inferred from the amplitude data of the scintillators. The primary energy Eo was determined by the method of least squares for the known EAS axis position using the data of the Cerenkov detector located at 80 to 150 m EAS axis. It is shown that the Cerenkov light flux fluctuations at 100 m from EAS axis, q sub 100, do not exceed 10% at a fixed EAS energy, so the parameter q sub 100 may be used to estimate the EAS-generating primary particle-energy.

Allev, N.↗

Convective motions in a spherical shell

We compute the axisymmetric convective motions that exist in a spherical shell heated from below with inner to outer radius ratio equal to 0.5. The boundaries are stress-free and gravity is directly proportional to radius. Accurate solutions at large Rayleigh numbers, O(100000), are made feasible by a spectral method that employs diagonal-mode truncation. By examining the stability of axisymmetric motions it is inferred that the preferred form of convection varies dramatically according to the value of the Rayleigh number. While axisymmetric motions with different patterns may exist for modestly nonlinear convection, only a single motion persists at sufficiently large values of the Rayleigh number. This circulation is symmetric about the equator and has two meridional cells with rising motion at the poles. Instability of this single axisymmetric motion determines that the preferred pattern of three-dimensional convection has one azimuthal wave.

Zebib, A.↗

Dynamics and configurations of galaxy triplets

The purpose is to infer the probable dynamical states of galaxy triplets by the observed data on their configurations. Two methods are proposed for describing the distributions of the triplet configuration parameters characterizing a tendency to alignment and hierarchy: (1) obtaining a representative sample of configurations and determining its statistical parameters (moments and percentages); and (2) dividing the region of possible configurations of triple systems (Agekian and Anosova, 1967) into a set of segments and finding the probabilities for the configurations to find themselves in each of them. Both these methods allow representation of the data by numerical simulations as well as observations. The effect of projection was studied. It rather overestimates the alignment and hierarchy of the triple systems. Among the parameters of interest there are found some parameters that are least sensitive to projection effects. The samples consist of simulated galaxy triplets (with hidden mass) as well as of 46 probably physical triple galaxies (Karachentseva et al., 1979). The observed triples as well as numerical models show a tendency to alignment. The triple galaxies do not show any tendency to hierarchy (formation of the temporary binaries), but this tendency may be present for simulated triplets without significant dark matter. The significant hidden mass (of order ten times the total mass of a triplet) decreases the probability of forming a binary and so weakens the hierarchy. Small galaxy groups consisting of 3 to 7 members are probably the most prevalent types of galaxy aggregate (Gorbatsky, 1987). Galaxy triplets are the simplest groups, but dynamically nontrivial ones.

Anosova, Joanna P.↗