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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 109 records · Page 6

Shadow of the Future: Developing Trust and Software within the Exascale Computing Project

Collaboration and team science are emerging areas of interest in software production. Historically, multi-institutional research collaborations are difficult to initiate and maintain, negatively impacting communication, negotiation, and dialogue between industry, government, and academic researchers. The Exascale Computing Project (ECP), a massive, multi-team, high-stakes initiative, facilitated broader research collaboration under a shared funding structure and extended timeline to support scientific discovery. Here, we conducted interviews with ECP teams, representing a variety of domain specialties, research institutions, and programming backgrounds. Using thematic analysis, we assessed how ECP’s structure created an environment of increased trust among projects and how software shared between teams facilitated sustained collaboration. We found that the expectation of future collaboration, i.e., the shadow of the future, greatly enhanced trust among teams and the quality of scientific software produced. Based on our findings within ECP projects, we connect to the existing literature on trust in software engineering and share recommendations for sustainable multi-institutional collaboration and shared best software practices.

Exascale computing project↗

Long Range Community Planning Process for Fusion Sciences and Plasma Physics (Final Technical Report)

This grant facilitated the APS-DPP Community Planning Process (DPP-CPP) which was a strategic planning process with the goals of identifying scientific and technological opportunities in the fields of Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy Science, and making consensus recommendations for a strategy to address these opportunities to the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Science Advisory Committee (FESAC). The DPP-CPP was initiated by the APS-DPP executive committee in order to help FESAC fulfill a charge from DOE to develop a strategic plan for the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Science (FES). In this charge, the DOE Deputy Director for Science, Dr. Stephen Binkley, requests “that the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) undertake a new long-range strategic planning activity for the Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program. The strategic planning activity - to encompass the entire FES research portfolio (namely, burning plasma science and discovery plasma science) - should identify and prioritize the research required to advance both the scientific foundation needed to develop a fusion energy source, as well as the broader FES mission to steward plasma science.” The process as set out in the proposal (and below) was successful in meeting all of its stated goals culminating in the final report to the FESAC subcommittee given the charge.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Brochure

The Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program advances fundamental research and scientific user facilities to support Department of Energy (DOE) missions in scientific discovery and innovation, energy security, and environmental responsibility. BER seeks to understand the biological, biogeochemical, and physical principles needed to predict a continuum of processes occurring across scales, from molecular and genomics-controlled mechanisms at the smallest scales to environmental and Earth system change at the largest scales.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Predictive Phenomics Initiative Project Dataset Catalog Collection

The Predictive Phenomics Science & Technology Initiative (PPI) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are tackling the grand challenge of understanding and predicting phenotype by identifying the molecular basis of function and enable function-driven design and control of biological systems. Research projects within this initiative are divided into three Thrust Areas (TAs): TA1) Enhancing Multi-Scale Phenomics Measurements, TA2) Identifying Molecular Patterns of Biological Function, and TA3) Computational Methods - Phenotypic Signatures. In efforts to enable discovery, reproducibility, and reuse of PPI-funded digital research data generated or used through the course of the proposed research-funded lifecycles, all corresponding digital data assets conducted under the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at PNNL are linked to this PPI dataset catalog collection.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Predictive Phenomics Initiative Project Dataset Catalog Collection

The Predictive Phenomics Science & Technology Initiative (PPI) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are tackling the grand challenge of understanding and predicting phenotype by identifying the molecular basis of function and enable function-driven design and control of biological systems. Research projects within this initiative are divided into three Thrust Areas (TAs): TA1) Enhancing Multi-Scale Phenomics Measurements, TA2) Identifying Molecular Patterns of Biological Function, and TA3) Computational Methods - Phenotypic Signatures. In efforts to enable discovery, reproducibility, and reuse of PPI-funded digital research data generated or used through the course of the proposed research-funded lifecycles, all corresponding digital data assets conducted under the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at PNNL are linked to this PPI dataset catalog collection.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Improving Di-Higgs Sensitivity at Future Colliders in Hadronic Final States with Machine Learning

One of the central goals of the physics program at the future colliders is to elucidate the origin of electroweak symmetry breaking, including precision measurements of the Higgs sector. This includes a detailed study of Higgs boson (H) pair production, which can reveal the H self-coupling. Since the discovery of the Higgs boson, a large campaign of measurements of the properties of the Higgs boson has begun and many new ideas have emerged during the completion of this program. One such idea is the use of highly boosted and merged hadronic decays of the Higgs boson ($\mathrm{H}\to\mathrm{b}\bar{\mathrm{b}}$, $\mathrm{H}\to\mathrm{W}\mathrm{W}\to\mathrm{q}\bar{\mathrm{q}}\mathrm{q}\bar{\mathrm{q}}$) with machine learning methods to improve the signal-to-background discrimination. In this white paper, we champion the use of these modes to boost the sensitivity of future collider physics programs to Higgs boson pair production, the Higgs self-coupling, and Higgs-vector boson couplings. We demonstrate the potential improvement possible at the Future Circular Collider in hadron mode, especially with the use of graph neural networks.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

On the ATLAS top mass measurements and the potential for stealth stop contamination

The discovery of the stop — the Supersymmetric partner of the top quark — is a key goal of the physics program enabled by the Large Hadron Collider. Although much of the accessible parameter space has already been probed, all current searches assume the top mass is known. This is relevant for the “stealth stop” regime, which is characterized by decay kinematics that force the final state top quark off its mass shell; such decays would contaminate the top mass measurements. We investigate the resulting bias imparted to the template method based ATLAS approach. A careful recasting of these results shows that effect can be as large as 2.0 GeV, comparable to the current quoted uncertainty on the top mass. Thus, a robust exploration of the stealth stop splinter requires the simultaneous consideration of the impact on the top mass. Additionally, we explore the robustness of the template technique, and point out a simple strategy for improving the methodology implemented for the semi-leptonic channel.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Curating Carbon Storage Data for Reuse: Enabling Research and Modeling from Earth’s Surface to Subsurface

The volume of public geologic carbon storage (GCS) data resources has continued to increase in recent years as the result of an increase in funding from government, industry, and academia towards national, basin, regional and field scale studies to ensure carbon capture and storage becomes a commercially viable operation. Despite the increasing volume of data, GCS data applied towards analyses such as geologic, cost, and risk modeling continues to be multi-sourced and often disparate in nature, published across government agencies, websites, data repositories and buried in derivative reports and documents. Much of the time preparing for an analysis and derivative product development is spent collecting, aggregating, transforming and preparing input data. There have been significant efforts within the DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory’s Carbon Storage Program to optimize multi-source, multi-scale subsurface geologic data curation and aggregation to support data discovery, interoperability, and reuse. Methods include the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science techniques. This talk will discuss the workflows, best practices, and processes developed to support the aggregation and curation of data through the whole system – surface to subsurface data - that support multi-scale, multi-purpose analysis for carbon storage research.

Morkner, Paige↗

OLCF’s Advanced Computing Ecosystem (ACE): FY25 Update for Ongoing Efforts

The advent of widespread use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models in science, coupled with fast data production rates of scientific instruments strain the traditional batch-oriented high-performance computing (HPC) environment. As scientific exploration continues to require more data and faster processing and analysis, new emerging technologies and capabilities to enable cross-facility and time-sensitive workflows are required for seamless integration of HPC and experimental facilities. The Advanced Computing Ecosystem (ACE) is a strategic initiative within the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) established in 2024 to support the development of cutting-edge technologies to advance computational research and infrastructure at OLCF and across the Department of Energy (DOE). Several DOE initiatives are spearheading the evolution of the scientific landscape by blurring facility boundaries and connecting the user facilities to advance scientific capabilities and ensure energy dominance. The DOE Integrated Research Infrastructure (IRI) program is one example that is laying a foundation to support complex cross-facility workflows. The IRI program aims to integrate diverse computational resources, data infrastructures, and scientific instruments to facilitate collaboration and accelerate scientific discovery. The Interconnected Science Ecosystem (INTERSECT) initiative at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is another example that aims to revolutionize scientific research through AI-driven, interconnected autonomous laboratories and research facilities. Finally, the American Science Cloud (AmSC), recently announced in the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, aims to leverage prior infrastructure efforts of the IRI and automation and AI efforts of INTERSECT (and others) to build a federated, AI-augmented AmSC platform to unify the DOE’s computing, experimental, and data resources to catalyze scientific innovation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

From the November Revolution toward the Millennium

The 4th International Symposium on the History of Particle Physics spanned two decades, from approximately 1980 to 2000. In this opening keynote lecture, I survey developments in particle physics from the prehistory of the $J/ψ$ discovery to the early nineteen-eighties. I offer context for the contributions that follow in the symposium program.

Quigg, Chris [Fermilab] (ORCID:0000000227282445)↗

2018 LDRD Annual Report (Argonne National Laboratory)

Argonne National Laboratory’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program encourages the development of novel technical concepts, enhances the Laboratory’s research and development (R&D) capabilities, and enables pursuit of strategic laboratory goals. Argonne’s LDRD projects are proposal based and peer reviewed, supporting ideas that require advanced exploration so they can be sufficiently developed to pursue support through normal programmatic channels. Among the aims of the projects supported by the LDRD program are the establishment of engineering proofs of principle, assessment of design feasibility for prospective facilities, development of instrumentation or computational methods or systems, and discoveries in fundamental science and exploratory development. All LDRD projects have demonstrable ties to one or more of the science, energy, environment, and national security missions of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and many are also relevant to the missions of other federal agencies that sponsor work at Argonne. A natural consequence of the more “applied” type projects is their concurrent relevance to industry. The LDRD program is managed in overarching portfolios, each containing multiple projects each fiscal year. The LDRD Prime portfolio is further divided into strategic focus areas aligned with Argonne’s strategic plan. The largest component of Argonne’s program is LDRD Prime, which emphasizes R&D explicitly aligned with Laboratory major initiatives in support of Argonne’s strategic plan. The choice of Focus Areas under the LDRD Prime component reflects the major initiatives; the state of development of relevant technical fields; the potential value of advancing those fields to DOE/NNSA and the nation; and the compatibility of the fields with existing facilities, capabilities, and staff expertise at Argonne. Focus Areas with projects that ended in FY18 are: Advanced Computing, Biological and Environmental Science Capability Development, Energy Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Hard X-ray Sciences, Materials and Chemistry, Securing Energy and Critical Resources, and The Universe as Our Laboratory (ULab).

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

A compact and portable gamma-ray spectrometer (GRASP) for inertial confinement fusion and basic science experiments

A compact and portable gamma-ray spectrometer has been designed to diagnose different components of the inertial confinement fusion-relevant γ-ray spectrum with energies between ∼3.7–17.9 MeV. The system is designed to be as compact as possible for convenient transportation and fielding in diagnostic ports on the OMEGA laser, the National Ignition Facility, and other photon-source facilities. The system consists of a conversion foil for Compton scattering in front of four magnetic spectrometer “arms,” each covering a different energy range and constructed out of cylindrical permanent magnet Halbach arrays. Monte Carlo simulations have been used to optimize and assess the performance of the conversion foil, and COSY INFINITY ion-optical simulations have been used to optimize the spectrometer magnets. The performance of the design is assessed for a simulated direct-drive γ-ray spectrum. Spanning its total γ-ray energy bandwidth and using a 1.7 mm thick boron conversion foil, the system’s total energy resolution and efficiency are ∼15.8%–4.5% and 5.4 × 10−7–3.7 × 10−7e−/γ, respectively, with room for improvement. Spectral γ-ray measurements will provide guidance to the inertial confinement fusion program toward achieving high-energy gain relevant to inertial fusion energy and enable new measurement capabilities for basic discovery science.

Instruments & Instrumentation↗

Knowledge Beacons: Web services for data harvesting of distributed biomedical knowledge

The continually expanding distributed global compendium of biomedical knowledge is diffuse, heterogeneous and huge, posing a serious challenge for biomedical researchers in knowledge harvesting: accessing, compiling, integrating and interpreting data, information and knowledge. In order to accelerate research towards effective medical treatments and optimizing health, it is critical that efficient and automated tools for identifying key research concepts and their experimentally discovered interrelationships are developed. As an activity within the feasibility phase of a project called “Translator” (https://ncats.nih.gov/translator) funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to develop a biomedical science knowledge management platform, we designed a Representational State Transfer (REST) web services Application Programming Interface (API) specification, which we call a Knowledge Beacon. Knowledge Beacons provide a standardized basic API for the discovery of concepts, their relationships and associated supporting evidence from distributed online repositories of biomedical knowledge. This specification also enforces the annotation of knowledge concepts and statements to the NCATS endorsed the Biolink Model data model and semantic encoding standards (https://biolink.github.io/biolink-model/). Implementation of this API on top of diverse knowledge sources potentially enables their uniform integration behind client software which will facilitate research access and integration of biomedical knowledge.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

Advancing International Integration and Strengthening Responsible Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Applications Through Specialized Curriculums

Nuclear technology has been pivotal in addressing some of the most pressing global challenges, ranging from energy production to combatting infectious diseases to agricultural security. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), as a leader in nuclear research and development including in the field of radioisotopes, is well situated to share lessons learned and enhance global collaboration from years of discoveries in the field. Accordingly, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) sponsors specialized educational programs at ORNL, with support from the IAEA, focused on advancing peaceful nuclear applications and associated industries while upholding strong nuclear safety, security, and safeguards standards. The Joint U.S./IAEA International School on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Applications, launched in 2024, is a cornerstone of this collaboration. The school provides an opportunity for early-career professionals from around the globe to gain practical knowledge and skills in utilizing nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes. This initiative demonstrates the United States’ commitment to its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), specifically Article IV, which calls on nuclear-weapon states to facilitate access to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy while guarding against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In this paper, we explore the curriculum, objectives, and global impact of the program. Participants of the ICARST-2025 conference are invited to learn more about this program, contribute to its development, and explore opportunities for collaboration. This school exemplifies how strategic partnerships, and educational initiatives can drive the peaceful and beneficial use of nuclear technology worldwide

Raffo Caiado, Ana [ORNL] (ORCID:0009000239304805)↗

Fostering Radiation Oncology Physician Scientist Trainees Within a Diverse Workforce: The Radiation Oncology Research Scholar Track

There is a need to foster future generations of radiation oncology physician scientists, but the number of radiation oncologists with sufficient education, training, and funding to make transformative discoveries is relatively small. A large number of MD/PhD graduates have entered he field of radiation oncology over the past 2 decades, but this has not led to a significant cohort of externally funded physician scientists. Because radiation oncologists leading independent research labs have the potential to make transformative discoveries that advance our field and positively affect patients with cancer, we created the Duke Radiation Oncology Research Scholar (RORS) Program. In crafting this program, we sought to eliminate barriers preventing radiation oncology trainees from becoming independent physician scientists. The RORS program integrates the existing American Board of Radiology Holman Pathway with a 2-year post-graduate medical education instructor position with 80% research effort at the same institution. We use a separate match for RORS and traditional residency pathways, which we hope will increase the diversity of our residency program. Since the inception of the RORS program, we have matched 2 trainees into our program. We encourage other radiation oncology residency programs at peer institutions to consider this training pathway as a means to foster the development of independent physician scientists and a diverse workforce in radiation oncology.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Discovering faint and high apparent motion rate near-Earth asteroids using a deep learning program

ABSTRACT Although many near-Earth objects have been found by ground-based telescopes, some fast-moving ones, especially those near detection limits, have been missed by observatories. We developed a convolutional neural network for detecting faint fast-moving near-Earth objects. It was trained with artificial streaks generated from simulations and was able to find these asteroid streaks with an accuracy of 98.7 per cent and a false positive rate of 0.02 per cent on simulated data. This program was used to search image data from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) in four nights in 2019, and it identified six previously undiscovered asteroids. The visual magnitudes of our detections range from ∼19.0 to 20.3 and motion rates range from ∼6.8 to 24 deg d−1, which is very faint compared to other ZTF detections moving at similar motion rates. Our asteroids are also ∼1–51 m diameter in size and ∼5–60 lunar distances away at close approach, assuming their albedo values follow the albedo distribution function of known asteroids. The use of a purely simulated data set to train our model enables the program to gain sensitivity in detecting faint and fast-moving objects while still being able to recover nearly all discoveries made by previously designed neural networks which used real detections to train neural networks. Our approach can be adopted by any observatory for detecting fast-moving asteroid streaks.

Wang, Franklin (ORCID:0000000344887355)↗

Report of the Topical Group on Particle Dark Matter for Snowmass 2021

This report summarizes the findings of the CF1 Topical Subgroup to Snowmass 2021, which was focused on particle dark matter. One of the most important scientific goals of the next decade is to reveal the nature of dark matter (DM). To accomplish this goal, we must delve deep, to cover high priority targets including weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs), and search wide, to explore as much motivated DM parameter space as possible. A diverse, continuous portfolio of experiments at large, medium, and small scales that includes both direct and indirect detection techniques maximizes the probability of discovering particle DM. Detailed calibrations and modeling of signal and background processes are required to make a convincing discovery. In the event that a candidate particle is found through different means, for example at a particle collider, the program described in this report is also essential to show that it is consistent with the actual cosmological DM. The US has a leading role in both direct and indirect detection dark matter experiments -- to maintain this leading role, it is imperative to continue funding major experiments and support a robust R&D program.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program Activities (LDRD 2021 Annual Report)

Each year, Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is required to provide a report of its completed Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program (LDRD) projects to the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information in accordance with DOE Order 413.2C Chg1 (MinChg) dated August 2, 2018. This report provides a detailed look at the scientific and technical activities for each of the LDRD projects funded by BNL in FY 2021, in fulfillment of that requirement. In FY 2021, the BNL LDRD Program funded 68 projects, 24 of which were new starts, at a total cost of $17.1M. The investments that BNL makes in its LDRD program support the Laboratory’s strategic goals. BNL has identified six scientific initiatives that define the Laboratory’s scientific future and that will enable it to realize its overall vision. This requires simultaneous excellence in all aspects of BNL’s work – from science and operations, to external partnerships with the local, state, and national communities, and beyond. This is enabled by safe, efficient, and secure operations; by an unwavering commitment to a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment, including workforce development, both with staff and reaching out to the community; and by a strong focus on renewed infrastructure. The six scientific initiatives are: (1) Nuclear Physics: The Electron Ion Collider, (2) Clean Energy and Climate, (3) Quantum Information Science and Technology, (4) Discovery Science Driven by the Human-AI-Facility Integration, (5) High Energy Physics: Building for Discovery, and (6) Accelerating Isotope Production: Ensuring the Nation’s Supply is Secure. The funded projects support BNL’s six scientific initiatives and priority programs as well as new areas of research and competencies at the Laboratory that are consistent with the Laboratory’s vision and mission. In total, these LDRD investments supported 80 postdoctoral researchers and graduate students in whole or in part and resulted in 136 publications and 3 awards. This Program Activities Report represents the future of BNL science; it is an impressive body of exploratory work that investigates many scientific and technical directions in support of the DOE and BNL missions.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗