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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 127 records · Page 7

A multi-state magnetic memory dependent on the permeability of Metglas

A three-state magnetic memory was developed based on differences in the magnetic permeability of a soft ferromagnetic media, Metglas 2826MB (Fe{sub 40}Ni{sub 38}Mo{sub 4}B{sub 18}). By heating bits of a 250 nm thick Metglas film with 70–100 mW of laser power, we were able to tune the local microstructure, and hence, the permeability. Ternary memory states were created by using lower laser power to enhance the initial permeability through localized atomic rearrangement and higher power to reduce the permeability through crystallization. The permeability of the bits was read by detecting variations in an external 32 Oe probe field within 10 μm of the media via a magnetic tunnel junction read head. Compared to data based on remanent magnetization, these multi-permeability bits have enhanced insensitivity to unexpected field and temperature changes. We found that data was not corrupted after exposure to fields of 1 T or temperatures of 423 K, indicating the effectiveness of this multi-state approach for safely storing large amounts of data.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Delayed neutron fraction and prompt decay constant measurement in the MINERVE reactor using the PSI instrumentation

The critical decay constant (B/A), delayed neutron fraction (B) and generation time (A) of the Minerve reactor were measured by the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) and the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA) in September 2014 using the Feynman-alpha and Power Spectral Density neutron noise measurement techniques. Three slightly subcritical configuration were measured using two 1-g {sup 235}U fission chambers. This paper reports on the results obtained by PSI in the near critical configuration (-2g). The most reliable and precise results were obtained with the Cross-Power Spectral Density technique: B = 708.4±9.2 pcm, B/A = 79.0±0.6 s{sup -1} and A 89.7±1.4 micros. Predictions of the same kinetic parameters were obtained with MCNP5-v1.6 and the JEFF-3.1 and ENDF/B-VII.1 nuclear data libraries. On average the predictions for B and B/A overestimate the experimental results by 5% and 11%, respectively. The discrepancy is suspected to come from either a corruption of the data or from the inadequacy of the point kinetic equations to interpret the measurements in the Minerve driven system. (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Can Applications Recover from fsync Failures?

We analyze how file systems and modern data-intensive applications react to fsync failures. First, we characterize how three Linux file systems (ext4, XFS, Btrfs) behave in the presence of failures. We find commonalities across file systems (pages are always marked clean, certain block writes always lead to unavailability) as well as differences (page content and failure reporting is varied). Next, we study how five widely used applications (PostgreSQL, LMDB, LevelDB, SQLite, Redis) handle fsync failures. Our findings show that although applications use many failure-handling strategies, none are sufficient: fsync failures can cause catastrophic outcomes such as data loss and corruption. Our findings have strong implications for the design of file systems and applications that intend to provide strong durability guarantees.

Computer Science↗

Encryption of Signal Pulses to Replace Tamper-indicating Conduit

In order to verify signal integrity and point of origin for TTL pulse data used in IAEA systems, and to avoid the need for expensive tamper-indicating conduit or electronic techniques, we propose the development of a signal pulse signing and encryption in-line device. In measurement applications in which the data acquisition electronics is separate from the enclosed, sealed detector, tamper-indicating techniques are required to protect raw TTL pulse streams between the detector and the data acquisition module, i.e UMSR. The goal of this proposed project is to design a rad-tolerant transmitter that would mount inside the sealed detector system and a receiver in the sealed electronics cabinet with the data acquisition instrument. This transmitter/receiver pair would digitally sign and encrypt the pulse stream data at the detector then transmit the data to the sealed cabinet where the receiver would decrypt the data and reproduce the original pulse stream. Existing tamper indicating techniques, such as LiveWire’s spread spectrum time domain reflectometry rely on detecting physical changes to the wiring system and can be blind to fast coupling of micro-second wide pulses. Digital signing and encryption techniques such as the Sandia Laboratories Enhanced Data Authentication System (EDAS) are capable of encrypting communications data, i.e. RS-232, but are not capable reproducing a critical time correlated data streams. Recent NA-241 Safeguards Technology supported developments have reduced the need for special conduit to transmit data via Ethernet by incorporating the IAEA RAINSTORM data encryption and authentication protocol, a tamper indicator is still required to protect raw pulse data from detectors to the acquisition electronics. Encrypting pulse data is especially complicated for radiation detection instruments due to the time correlation data analysis that is performed on this data stream. Any corruption in the timing information will produce errors in measurement values.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Probing the cosmic causes of errors in supercomputers

Cosmic rays from outer space are causing errors in supercomputers. The neutrons that pass through the CPU may be causing binary data to flip leading to incorrect calculations. Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed detectors to determine how much data is being corrupted by these cosmic particles.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

A Multi-layer, Hierarchical Information Management System for the Smart Grid

This paper presents the modeling approach, methodologies, and initial results of setting up a multi-layer, hierarchical information management system (IMS) for the smart grid. The IMS allows its users to analyze the data collected by multiple control and communication networks to characterize the states of the smart grid. Abnormal, corrupted, or erroneous measurement data and outliers are detected and analyzed to identify whether they are caused by random equipment failures, unintentional human errors, or deliberate tempering attempts. Data collected from different information networks are crosschecked for data integrity based on redundancy, dependency, correlation, or cross-correlations, which reveal the interdependency between data sets. A hierarchically structured reasoning mechanism is used to rank possible causes of an event to aid the system operators to proactively respond or provide mitigation recommendations to remove or neutralize the threats. The model provides satisfactory performance on identifying the cause of an event and significantly reduces the need of processing myriads of data collected.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Binary classification with noisy quantum circuits and noisy quantum data

We study the effects of single-qubit noises in the quantum circuit and the corruption in the quantum training data to the performance of binary classification problem. We find that under the presence of errors, the measurement at a qubit is affected only by the noise in the corresponding qubit, and that the errors on other qubits do not affect this outcome. Furthermore, for the task where we fit a binary classifier using a quantum training data, we show that the noise in the data can work as a regularizer, implying that we can benefit from the noise in certain cases. We support our findings with simulations.

Lee, Yonghoon↗

Data Analysis of Multi-Laser Standoff Spectral identification of chemical and biological compounds

With the availability of tunable broadband coherent sources that emit mid-infrared radiation with well-defined beam characteristics, spectroscopies that were traditionally not practical for standoff detection1 or for develop- ment of miniaturized infrared detectors2, 3 have renewed interest. While obtaining compositional information for objects from a distance remains a major challenge in chemical and biological sensing, recently we demonstrated that capitalizing on mid-infrared excitation of target molecules by using quantum cascade lasers and invoking a pump probe scheme can provide spectral fingerprints of substances from a variable standoff distance.3 However, the standoff data is typically associated with random fluctuations that can corrupt the fine spectral features and useful data. To process the data from standoff experiments toward better recognition we consider and apply two types of denoising techniques, namely, spectral analysis and Karhunen-Loeve Transform (KLT). Using these techniques, infrared spectral data have been effectively improved. The result of the analysis illustrates that KLT can be adapted as a powerful data denoising tool for the presented pump-probe infrared standoff spectroscopy.

Farahi, R H↗

NVL-C: Static Analysis Techniques for Efficient, Correct Programming of Non-Volatile Main Memory Systems

Computer architecture experts expect that non-volatile memory (NVM) hierarchies will play a more significant role in future systems including mobile, enterprise, and HPC architectures. With this expectation in mind, we present NVL-C: a novel programming system that facilitates the efficient and correct programming of NVM main memory systems. The NVL-C programming abstraction extends C with a small set of intuitive language features that target NVM main memory, and can be combined directly with traditional C memory model features for DRAM. We have designed these new features to enable compiler analyses and run-time checks that can improve performance and guard against a number of subtle programming errors, which, when left uncorrected, can corrupt NVM-stored data. Moreover, to enable recovery of data across application or system failures, these NVL-C features include a flexible directive for specifying NVM transactions. So that our implementation might be extended to other compiler front ends and languages, the majority of our compiler analyses are implemented in an extended version of LLVM's intermediate representation (LLVM IR). We evaluate NVL-C on a number of applications to show its flexibility, performance, and correctness.

Denny, Joel↗

Investigating the Vulnerabilities of the Direct Transfer Trip Scheme for Network Protector Units in the Secondary Networks of Electric Power Distribution Grids

Network protector units (NPUs) are crucial parts of the protection of secondary networks to effectively isolate faults occurring on the primary feeders. When a fault occurs on the primary feeder, there is a path of the fault current going through the service transformers that causes a negative flow of current on the NPU connected to the faulted feeder. Conventionally, NPUs rely on the direction of current with respect to the voltage to detect faults and make a correct trip decision. However, the conventional NPU logic does not allow the reverse power flow caused by distributed energy resources installed on secondary networks. The communication-assisted direct transfer trip logic for NPUs can be used to address this challenge. However, the communication-assisted scheme is exposed to some vulnerabilities arising from the disruption or corruption of the communicated data that can endanger the reliable operation of NPUs. This paper evaluates the impact of the malfunction of the communication system on the operation of communication-assisted NPU logic. To this end, the impact of packet modification and denial-of-service cyberattacks on the communication-assisted scheme are evaluated. The evaluation was performed using a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) co-simulation testbed that includes both real-time power system and communication network digital simulators. This paper evaluates the impact of the cyberattacks for different fault scenarios and provides a list of recommendations to improve the reliability of communication-assisted NPU protection.

direct transfer trip↗

Power System Event Detection Using the Energy Detector: A Performance Analysis

As the grid becomes smarter, the need to accurately detect, predict, and classify waveform phenomena is growing. When it comes to detecting high-frequency behaviors, i.e. transients, it is especially important to employ an event detection system that is able to accurately uncover these types of disturbances that would otherwise be lost with traditional hardware. In this paper, we first present the energy detector; a waveform event detection system that adaptively monitors a signal's energy and picks out high-frequency events that deviate from the nominal state. Secondly, we evaluate the performance of this detector against waveform data that have been corrupted by sensor irregularities. Using Oak Ridge National Laboratory's sensor testbed, we are able to show the results of the detector's performance against events that have been corrupted by three distinct sensor types, and examine how these results change with multiple trials. The results show excellent performance when detecting the beginning of an anomalous event with an average of less than 1% error.

Ekti, Ali Riza↗

Complete and Correct Transfer of Information (CACTI)

Many distributed systems, file transfer mechanisms, and message passing systems offer reliability mechanisms such as acknowledgements, retries, and durability. While these tools may be “good enough” for their typical use cases, they may not offer sufficient coverage for the wide range of faults that impact data transfers and communication. A gap in the reliability measures may lead to some small amount of data loss. Some high-consequence systems cannot tolerate the loss or corruption of even a single record. We present seven principles that will counter a wide range of faults and protect against data loss and corruption. These principles bring together lessons learned from a wide range of technologies and can inform appropriate system design and application usage. These principles will help readers reason on how prevent data loss in a multi-hop pipeline and how to properly use tools that may have a deficiency in reliability.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Community Energy by Design: A Simulation-Based Design Workflow Using Measured Data Clustering to Calibrate Urban Building Energy Models (UBEMs)

This paper presents a workflow that informs urban design decisions using measured data clustering to calibrate urban building energy models. The method's goal is to support urban design in terms of form, building systems configurations, as well as influencing user behavior aspects in the built environment through a systemic analysis of measured data to develop reliable future-case design scenario energy models. Detailed data on appliance-level electricity use are employed via data clustering to calibrate a urban building energy model for the Mueller community in Austin, TX, USA. The data were collected by the Pecan Street Institute for a year in 2014 from consumers in Austin and other surrounding cities. First, collected energy data were restructured and cleaned from corrupt and/or missing information. Second, in order to identify common energy use patterns, a model-based clustering algorithm for functional data was applied. Behavioral/usage profiles are determined through clustering and translated into usage schedules and behaviors. As a result, an urban building energy model built in the urban modeling interface (umi) was calibrated, with fully calibrated and semi-calibrated buildings, within a maximum calibration error margin of 14% for daily-scale averages. Finally, an illustration of calibrated-urban building energy model design case scenarios is presented, and implications on community energy potential effects are discussed.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Boosting the signal-to-noise of low-field MRI with deep learning image reconstruction

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in inexpensive low magnetic field (< 0.3 T) MRI systems mainly due to advances in magnet, coil and gradient set designs. Most of these advances have focused on improving hardware and signal acquisition strategies, and far less on the use of advanced image reconstruction methods to improve attainable image quality at low field. We describe here the use of our end-to-end deep neural network approach (AUTOMAP) to improve the image quality of highly noise-corrupted low-field MRI data. We compare the performance of this approach to two additional state-of-the-art denoising pipelines. We find that AUTOMAP improves image reconstruction of data acquired on two very different low-field MRI systems: human brain data acquired at 6.5 mT, and plant root data acquired at 47 mT, demonstrating SNR gains above Fourier reconstruction by factors of 1.5- to 4.5-fold, and 3-fold, respectively. In these applications, AUTOMAP outperformed two different contemporary image-based denoising algorithms, and suppressed noise-like spike artifacts in the reconstructed images. The impact of domain-specific training corpora on the reconstruction performance is discussed. The AUTOMAP approach to image reconstruction will enable significant image quality improvements at low-field, especially in highly noise-corrupted environments.

42 ENGINEERING↗

An adaptive regularization parameter choice strategy for multispectral bioluminescence tomography

Purpose: Bioluminescence tomography (BLT) provides an effective tool for monitoring physiological and pathological activities in vivo. However, the measured data in bioluminescence imaging are corrupted by noise. Therefore, regularization methods are commonly used to find a regularized solution. Nevertheless, for the quality of the reconstructed bioluminescent source obtained by regularization methods, the choice of the regularization parameters is crucial. To date, the selection of regularization parameters remains challenging. With regards to the above problems, the authors proposed a BLT reconstruction algorithm with an adaptive parameter choice rule. Methods: The proposed reconstruction algorithm uses a diffusion equation for modeling the bioluminescent photon transport. The diffusion equation is solved with a finite element method. Computed tomography (CT) images provide anatomical information regarding the geometry of the small animal and its internal organs. To reduce the ill-posedness of BLT, spectral information and the optimal permissible source region are employed. Then, the relationship between the unknown source distribution and multiview and multispectral boundary measurements is established based on the finite element method and the optimal permissible source region. Since the measured data are noisy, the BLT reconstruction is formulated as l{sub 2} data fidelity and a general regularization term. When choosing the regularization parameters for BLT, an efficient model function approach is proposed, which does not require knowledge of the noise level. This approach only requests the computation of the residual and regularized solution norm. With this knowledge, we construct the model function to approximate the objective function, and the regularization parameter is updated iteratively. Results: First, the micro-CT based mouse phantom was used for simulation verification. Simulation experiments were used to illustrate why multispectral data were used rather than monochromatic data. Furthermore, the study conducted using an adaptive regularization parameter demonstrated our ability to accurately localize the bioluminescent source. With the adaptively estimated regularization parameter, the reconstructed center position of the source was (20.37, 31.05, 12.95) mm, and the distance to the real source was 0.63 mm. The results of the dual-source experiments further showed that our algorithm could localize the bioluminescent sources accurately. The authors then presented experimental evidence that the proposed algorithm exhibited its calculated efficiency over the heuristic method. The effectiveness of the new algorithm was also confirmed by comparing it with the L-curve method. Furthermore, various initial speculations regarding the regularization parameter were used to illustrate the convergence of our algorithm. Finally, in vivo mouse experiment further illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Conclusions: Utilizing numerical, physical phantom and in vivo examples, we demonstrated that the bioluminescent sources could be reconstructed accurately with automatic regularization parameters. The proposed algorithm exhibited superior performance than both the heuristic regularization parameter choice method and L-curve method based on the computational speed and localization error.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

Fault-tolerant dynamic task graph scheduling

In this paper, we present an approach to fault tolerant execution of dynamic task graphs scheduled using work stealing. In particular, we focus on selective and localized recovery of tasks in the presence of soft faults. We elicit from the user the basic task graph structure in terms of successor and predecessor relationships. The work stealing-based algorithm to schedule such a task graph is augmented to enable recovery when the data and meta-data associated with a task get corrupted. We use this redundancy, and the knowledge of the task graph structure, to selectively recover from faults with low space and time overheads. We show that the fault tolerant design retains the essential properties of the underlying work stealing-based task scheduling algorithm, and that the fault tolerant execution is asymptotically optimal when task re-execution is taken into account. Experimental evaluation demonstrates the low cost of recovery under various fault scenarios.

fault tolerance↗

Makalu: fast recoverable allocation of non-volatile memory

Byte addressable non-volatile memory (NVRAM) is likely to supplement, and perhaps eventually replace, DRAM. Applications can then persist data structures directly in memory instead of serializing them and storing them onto a durable block device. However, failures during execution can leave data structures in NVRAM unreachable or corrupt. In this paper, we present Makalu, a system that addresses non-volatile memory management. Makalu offers an integrated allocator and recovery-time garbage collector that maintains internal consistency, avoids NVRAM memory leaks, and is efficient, all in the face of failures. We show that a careful allocator design can support a less restrictive and a much more familiar programming model than existing persistent memory allocators. Our allocator significantly reduces the per allocation persistence overhead by lazily persisting non-essential metadata and by employing a post-failure recovery-time garbage collector. Experimental results show that the resulting online speed and scalability of our allocator are comparable to well-known transient allocators, and significantly better than state-of-the-art persistent allocators.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗