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Large covariance matrices: smooth models from the two-point correlation function
We introduce a new method for estimating the covariance matrix for the galaxy correlation function in surveys of large-scale structure. Our method combines simple theoretical results with a realistic characterization of the survey to dramatically reduce noise in the covariance matrix. For example, with an investment of only ≈1000 CPU hours we can produce a model covariance matrix with noise levels that would otherwise require ~35 000 mocks. Non-Gaussian contributions to the model are calibrated against mock catalogues, after which the model covariance is found to be in impressive agreement with the mock covariance matrix. Since calibration of this method requires fewer mocks than brute force approaches, we believe that it could dramatically reduce the number of mocks required to analyse future surveys.
Calibrated intercepts for solar radiometers used in remote sensor calibration
Calibrated solar radiometer intercepts allow spectral optical depths to be determined for days with intermittently clear skies. This is of particular importance on satellite sensor calibration days that are cloudy except at the time of image acquisition. This paper describes the calibration of four solar radiometers using the Langley-Bouguer technique for data collected on days with a clear, stable atmosphere. Intercepts are determined with an uncertainty of less than six percent, corresponding to a maximum uncertainty of 0.06 in optical depth. The spread of voltage intercepts calculated in this process is carried through three methods of radiometric calibration of satellite sensors to yield an uncertainty in radiance at the top of the atmosphere of less than one percent associated with the uncertainty in solar radiometer intercepts for a range of ground reflectances.
Uncertainty Evaluation of Computational Model Used to Support the Integrated Powerhead Demonstration Project
NASA and the U.S. Air Force are working on a joint project to develop a new hydrogen-fueled, full-flow, staged combustion rocket engine. The initial testing and modeling work for the Integrated Powerhead Demonstrator (IPD) project is being performed by NASA Marshall and Stennis Space Centers. A key factor in the testing of this engine is the ability to predict and measure the transient fluid flow during engine start and shutdown phases of operation. A model built by NASA Marshall in the ROCket Engine Transient Simulation (ROCETS) program is used to predict transient engine fluid flows. The model is initially calibrated to data from previous tests on the Stennis E1 test stand. The model is then used to predict the next run. Data from this run can then be used to recalibrate the model providing a tool to guide the test program in incremental steps to reduce the risk to the prototype engine. In this paper, they define this type of model as a calibrated model. This paper proposes a method to estimate the uncertainty of a model calibrated to a set of experimental test data. The method is similar to that used in the calibration of experiment instrumentation. For the IPD example used in this paper, the model uncertainty is determined for both LOX and LH flow rates using previous data. The successful use of this model is then demonstrated to predict another similar test run within the uncertainty bounds. The paper summarizes the uncertainty methodology when a model is continually recalibrated with new test data. The methodology is general and can be applied to other calibrated models.
Reducing Broadband Shortwave Radiometer Calibration Bias Caused by Longwave Irradiance in the Reference Direct Beam
This poster provides a high-level overview of reducing broadband shortwave radiometer calibration bias caused by longwave irradiance in the reference direct beam.
Small Scale Mass Flow Plug Calibration
A simple control volume model has been developed to calculate the discharge coefficient through a mass flow plug (MFP) and validated with a calibration experiment. The maximum error of the model in the operating region of the MFP is 0.54%. The model uses the MFP geometry and operating pressure and temperature to couple continuity, momentum, energy, an equation of state, and wall shear. Effects of boundary layer growth and the reduction in cross-sectional flow area are calculated using an in- integral method. A CFD calibration is shown to be of lower accuracy with a maximum error of 1.35%, and slower by a factor of 100. Effects of total pressure distortion are taken into account in the experiment. Distortion creates a loss in flow rate and can be characterized by two different distortion descriptors.
Addressing Low-Cost Methane Sensor Calibration Shortcomings with Machine Learning
Quantifying methane emissions is essential for meeting near-term climate goals and is typically carried out using methane concentrations measured downwind of the source. One major source of methane that is important to observe and promptly remediate is fugitive emissions from oil and gas production sites but installing methane sensors at the thousands of sites within a production basin is expensive. In recent years, relatively inexpensive metal oxide sensors have been used to measure methane concentrations at production sites. Current methods used to calibrate metal oxide sensors have been shown to have significant shortcomings, resulting in limited confidence in methane concentrations generated by these sensors. To address this, we investigate using machine learning (ML) to generate a model that converts metal oxide sensor output to methane mixing ratios. To generate test data, two metal oxide sensors, TGS2600 and TGS2611, were collocated with a trace methane analyzer downwind of controlled methane releases. Over the duration of the measurements, the trace gas analyzer’s average methane mixing ratio was 2.40 ppm with a maximum of 147.6 ppm. The average calculated methane mixing ratios for the TGS2600 and TGS2611 using the ML algorithm were 2.42 ppm and 2.40 ppm, with maximum values of 117.5 ppm and 106.3 ppm, respectively. A comparison of histograms generated using the analyzer and metal oxide sensors mixing ratios shows overlap coefficients of 0.95 and 0.94 for the TGS2600 and TGS2611, respectively. Overall, our results showed there was a good agreement between the ML-derived metal oxide sensors’ mixing ratios and those generated using the more accurate trace gas analyzer. This suggests that the response of lower-cost sensors calibrated using ML could be used to generate mixing ratios with precision and accuracy comparable to higher priced trace methane analyzers. This would improve confidence in low-cost sensors’ response, reduce the cost of sensor deployment, and allow for timely and accurate tracking of methane emissions.
Absolute radiometric calibration of advanced remote sensing systems
The distinction between the uses of relative and absolute spectroradiometric calibration of remote sensing systems is discussed. The advantages of detector-based absolute calibration are described, and the categories of relative and absolute system calibrations are listed. The limitations and problems associated with three common methods used for the absolute calibration of remote sensing systems are addressed. Two methods are proposed for the in-flight absolute calibration of advanced multispectral linear array systems. One makes use of a sun-illuminated panel in front of the sensor, the radiance of which is monitored by a spectrally flat pyroelectric radiometer. The other uses a large, uniform, high-radiance reference ground surface. The ground and atmospheric measurements required as input to a radiative transfer program to predict the radiance level at the entrance pupil of the orbital sensor are discussed, and the ground instrumentation is described.
Absolute radiometric calibration of advanced remote sensing systems
The distinction between the uses of relative and absolute spectroradiometric calibration of remote sensing systems is discussed. The advantages of detector-based absolute calibration are described, and the categories of relative and absolute system calibrations are listed. The limitations and problems associated with three common methods used for the absolute calibration of remote sensing systems are addressed. Two methods are proposed for the in-flight absolute calibration of advanced multispectral linear array systems. One makes use of a sun-illuminated panel in front of the sensor, the radiance of which is monitored by a spectrally flat pyroelectric radiometer. The other uses a large, uniform, high-radiance reference ground surface. The ground and atmospheric measurements required as input to a radiative transfer program to predict the radiance level at the entrance pupil of the orbital sensor are discussed, and the ground instrumentation is described. Previously announced in STAR as N83-28544
Ground Operations of the ISS GNC Babb-Mueller Atmospheric Density Model
The ISS GNC system was updated recently with a new software release that provides onboard state determination capability. Prior to this release, only the Russian segment maintained and propagated the onboard state, which was periodically updated through Russian ground tracking. The new software gives the US segment the capability for maintaining the onboard state, and includes new GPS and state vector propagation capabilities. Part of this software package is an atmospheric density model based on the Babb-Mueller algorithm. Babb-Mueller efficiently mimics a full analytical density model, such as the Jacchia model. While lacchia is very robust and is used in the Mission Control Center, it is too computationally intensive for use onboard. Thus, Babb-Mueller was chosen as an alternative. The onboard model depends on a set of calibration coefficients that produce a curve fit to the lacchia model. The ISS GNC system only maintains one set of coefficients onboard, so a new set must be uplinked by controllers when the atmospheric conditions change. The onboard density model provides a real-time density value, which is used to calculate the drag experienced by the ISS. This drag value is then incorporated into the onboard propagation of the state vector. The propagation of the state vector, and therefore operation of the BabbMueller algorithm, will be most critical when GPS updates and secondary state vector sources fail. When GPS is active, the onboard state vector will be updated every ten seconds, so the propagation error is irrelevant. When GPS is inactive, the state vector must be updated at least every 24 hours, based on current protocol. Therefore, the Babb-Mueller coefficients must be accurate enough to fulfill the state vector accuracy requirements for at least one day. A ground operations concept was needed in order to manage both the on board Babb-Mueller density model and the onboard state quality. The Babb-Mueller coefficients can be determined operationally in two ways. The first method is to calibrate the coefficients in real-time, where a set of custom coefficients is generated for the real-time atmospheric conditions. The second approach is to generate pre-canned sets of coefficients that encompass the expected atmospheric conditions over the lifetime of the vehicle. These predetermined sets are known as occurrences. Even though a particular occurrence will not match the true atmospheric conditions, the error will be constrained by limiting the breadth of each occurrence. Both methods were investigated and the advantages and disadvantages of each were considered. The choice between these implementations was a trade-off between the additional accuracy of the real-time calibration and the simpler development for the approach using occurrences. The operations concept for the frequency of updates was also explored, and depends on the deviation in solar flux that still achieves the necessary accuracy of the coefficients. This was determined based on historical solar flux trends. This analysis resulted in an accurate and reliable implementation of the Babb-Mueller coefficients and how flight controllers use them during realtime operations.
Methodology for Digital Image Correlation and Infrared Measurement of Melting Aluminum Bars
Ultimately, our experiment measures two quantities on an aluminum bar: motion (which modeling must predict) and temperature (which sets thermal boundary conditions). For motion, stereo DIC is a technique to use imaging data to provide displacements relative to a reference image down to 1/100th of a pixel. We use a calibrated infrared imaging method for accurate temperature measurements. We will be capturing simultaneous data and then registering temperature data in space to the same coordinate system as the displacement data. While we will later show that our experiments are repeatable, indicating that separate experiments for motion and temperature would provide similar data, the simultaneous and registered data removes test to test variability as a source of uncertainty for model calibration and reduces the number of time-consuming tests that must be performed.
The Laser calibration of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter during the LHC run 1
This article describes the Laser calibration system of the ATLAS hadronic Tile Calorimeter that has been used during the run 1 of the LHC . First, the stability of the system associated readout electronics is studied. It is found to be stable with variations smaller than 0.6 %. Then, the method developed to compute the calibration constants, to correct for the variations of the gain of the calorimeter photomultipliers, is described. These constants were determined with a statistical uncertainty of 0.3 % and a systematic uncertainty of 0.2 % for the central part of the calorimeter and 0.5 % for the end-caps. Lastly, the detection and correction of timing mis-configuration of the Tile Calorimeter using the Laser system are also presented.
Calibration of a 1 meter diameter normal incidence extreme ultraviolet telescope/spectrometer
A 1-meter normal incidence telescope, with a normal incidence concave diffraction grating spectrometer at its focus, has been developed. The instrument's spectral coverage is 350 to 1150A with a spectral resolution of 5A and a peak effective area of 6 sq cm at 500A. The instrument was launched on an Aries sounding rocket on November 27, 1983 in an effort to determine the hydrogen and helium abundance in the local interstellar medium. A description of this instrument, with the primary emphasis on the methods used to calibrate it, is presented.
Hybrid Image-Plane/Stereo Manipulation
Hybrid Image-Plane/Stereo (HIPS) manipulation is a method of processing image data, and of controlling a robotic manipulator arm in response to the data, that enables the manipulator arm to place an end-effector (an instrument or tool) precisely with respect to a target (see figure). Unlike other stereoscopic machine-vision-based methods of controlling robots, this method is robust in the face of calibration errors and changes in calibration during operation. In this method, a stereoscopic pair of cameras on the robot first acquires images of the manipulator at a set of predefined poses. The image data are processed to obtain image-plane coordinates of known visible features of the end-effector. Next, there is computed an initial calibration in the form of a mapping between (1) the image-plane coordinates and (2) the nominal three-dimensional coordinates of the noted end-effector features in a reference frame fixed to the main robot body at the base of the manipulator. The nominal three-dimensional coordinates are obtained by use of the nominal forward kinematics of the manipulator arm that is, calculated by use of the currently measured manipulator joint angles and previously measured lengths of manipulator arm segments under the assumption that the arm segments are rigid, that the arm lengths are constant, and that there is no backlash. It is understood from the outset that these nominal three-dimensional coordinates are likely to contain possibly significant calibration errors, but the effects of the errors are progressively reduced, as described next. As the end-effector is moved toward the target, the calibration is updated repeatedly by use of data from newly acquired images of the end-effector and of the corresponding nominal coordinates in the manipulator reference frame. By use of the updated calibration, the coordinates of the target are computed in manipulator-reference-frame coordinates and then used to the necessary manipulator joint angles to position and orient the end-effector at the target with respect to the same kinematic model from the calibration step. As the end-effector/target distance decreases, the computed coordinates of the end-effector and target become more nearly affected by the same errors, so that the differences between their coordinates become increasingly precise. When the end-effector reaches the target, the remaining effective position error is the distance that corresponds to more than about one pixel in the stereoscopic images of the target.
Radiometric Calibration of the Earth Observing System's Imaging Sensors
The work on the grant was mainly directed towards developing new, accurate, redundant methods for the in-flight, absolute radiometric calibration of satellite multispectral imaging systems and refining the accuracy of methods already in use. Initially the work was in preparation for the calibration of MODIS and HIRIS (before the development of that sensor was canceled), with the realization it would be applicable to most imaging multi- or hyper-spectral sensors provided their spatial or spectral resolutions were not too coarse. The work on the grant involved three different ground-based, in-flight calibration methods reflectance-based radiance-based and diffuse-to-global irradiance ratio used with the reflectance-based method. This continuing research had the dual advantage of: (1) developing several independent methods to create the redundancy that is essential for the identification and hopefully the elimination of systematic errors; and (2) refining the measurement techniques and algorithms that can be used not only for improving calibration accuracy but also for the reverse process of retrieving ground reflectances from calibrated remote-sensing data. The grant also provided the support necessary for us to embark on other projects such as the ratioing radiometer approach to on-board calibration (this has been further developed by SBRS as the 'solar diffuser stability monitor' and is incorporated into the most important on-board calibration system for MODIS)- another example of the work, which was a spin-off from the grant funding, was a study of solar diffuser materials. Journal citations, titles and abstracts of publications authored by faculty, staff, and students are also attached.
WE-EF-210-05: Diagnosis and Quantification of Liver Steatosis with Quantitative Ultrasound Backscatter Technique
Purpose: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease in the United States, affects 30% of adult Americans and may progress to more serious diseases. Liver biopsy is the standard method for diagnosing NAFLD. MRI can accurately diagnose and quantify hepatic steatosis but is expensive. Sonography with qualitative interpretation by radiologists is lower cost, more accessible but less sensitive for detection. The objective of this study, using MRI proton density fat fraction (PDFF) as reference, is to assess the accuracy for diagnosing and quantifying steatosis with two quantitative US parameters-- backscatter coefficient (BSC) and attenuation coefficient (AC)--derived from RF signals using the calibration phantom technique. Methods: We performed a prospective, cross-sectional analysis of a cohort of adults (n=204) with NAFLD (MRI-PDFF≥5%) and without NAFLD (controls). Subjects underwent MRI-PDFF and BSC and AC US analyses of the liver on the same day. Patients were randomly assigned to training (n=102, mean age 51±17 years, mean body mass index 31±7 kg/m{sup 2}) and validation (n=102, mean age 49±17 years, body mass index 30±6 kg/m{sup 2}) groups; 69% of patients in each group had NAFLD. Results: BSC provided AUC 0.98 (95% CI 0.95–1.00, p<0.0001) for diagnosis of NAFLD; the optimal BSC cut-off provided sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values (PPV, NPV) of 87%, 91%, 95%, and 76%, respectively. AC provided AUC 0.89 (95% CI 0.81–0.96, p<0.0001) for diagnosis of steatosis; the optimal AC cut-off provided sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV of 80%, 84%, 92%, and 66%, respectively. BSC and AC both correlated significantly with MRI-PDFF (P<0.0001). Conclusion: QUS BSC and AC can accurately diagnose and quantify hepatic steatosis, using MRI-PDFF as reference. With further validation, QUS may emerge as an inexpensive, widely available tool for NAFLD assessment. General support: NIH R01 CA111289, K23 -DK090303, AmerGastroAssoc Found, TF Williams Scholarship, S3000 scanner loaned by Siemens, Sucampo, JA Hartford Found, Atlantic Philanthropies Amer Gastroenterological Assoc. Agencies had no role in design/conduct of study, collection, management, analysis or interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.
Improving the flux calibration in reverberation mapping by spectral fitting: application to the Seyfert galaxy MCG-6-30-15
We propose a method for the flux calibration of reverberation mapping spectra, based on accurate measurement of [O iii] λ5007 emission by spectral fitting. Our method can achieve better accuracy than the traditional method of Groningen and Wanders, allowing reverberation mapping measurements for objects with variability amplitudes as low as ∼5%. As a demonstration, we reanalyze the data of the Seyfert 1 galaxy MCG–6-30-15, taken from the 2008 campaign of the Lick active galactic nucleus monitoring project, which previously failed to obtain a time lag for this weakly variable object, owing to a relatively large flux calibration uncertainty. We detect a statistically significant rest-frame time lag of 6.38{sub −2.69}{sup +3.07} days between the Hβ and V-band light curves. Combining this lag with FWHM(Hβ) = 1933 ± 81 km s{sup −1} and a virial coefficient of f = 0.7, we derive a virial black hole mass of 3.26{sub −1.40}{sup +1.59}×10{sup 6} M {sub ⊙}, which agrees well with previous estimates by other methods.