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At least 145 records · Page 8

Securing against malicious control of circuit breakers in electrical substations

An example method for detecting and mitigating attacks on electric power substations comprises detecting a command to open or close a circuit breaker in the electric power substation. A modified extended substation model for the electric power substation is generated, based on the detected command and based on measurements in substation, where the modified extended substation model is a power flow model for the substation and for one or more directly connected neighboring substations. A power flow analysis is performed, using the modified extended substation model, to generate a predicted voltage for each of a plurality of nodes in the substation and in the one or more directly connected neighboring substations. Each predicted voltage is compared to a corresponding allowable voltage range, and execution of the command is blocked in response to determining that one or more of the voltages is outside the corresponding allowable voltage range.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A novel priority selection system for nuclear power plant - 287

The priority selection system is an important component of security level instrument control platform for nuclear power plant, the main function of which is priority processing the manual or automatic command with various security levels and driving engineering safety features and field devices, such as pump and valve. Its stability and safety plays a crucial role in the operation of the power plant. The main objective of the present paper is to describe the new nuclear power plant-oriented priority selection system, which is developed independently by China Nuclear Control System Engineering Company. In this system, the control commands from 1E DCS, ECP and DAS systems are transmitted via hardwire, while those from NC DCS are transmitted by field-bus. The control commands experience priority output to control the field actuators. Meanwhile, in order to control key field devices when failure of the instrument control systems occurs, the issuing interface for native instructions with permissions setting is also offered. The whole system provides collection-feedback functions for field devices, high coverage self-diagnostic functions and periodic test functions for safety systems. Moreover, the feedback information of field devices, the results of self-diagnosis and periodic test will be submitted to DCS of nuclear power plant. In addition, the core part of priority selection system, namely priority selection module, is obtained by pure FPGA technology, which is different from DCS systems and could avoid common cause failure of software effectively. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

An Autonomous MCP Bridge to Rucio: Enhancing Data Management Accessibility for High Energy Physics

The Rucio Data Management System [1] is an important tool used by High Energy Physics experiments, including those at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, to store and manage exabyte-scale scientific datasets. Despite its central role in coordinating data across globally distributed storage sites, Rucio's command line interface (CLI) presents a steep learning curve, and makes it difficult for scientists to navigate through. To solve this issue, a containerized Model Context Protocol (MCP) [2] server was built that connects Large Language Models directly to Rucio, allowing AI agents to handle data tasks by using simple, natural language rather than memorized terminal commands. The core engineering focus of this project was moving the server away from slow terminal commands that require text parsing and replacing them with a native Python Client API toolset and a planned REST API framework. Moving to the Python API handles data operations directly in memory, which helps clear up formatting errors, provides the AI with clean, structured JSON data and speeds up tool execution. To prove that the system actually works, a benchmarking pipeline was also built with various questions to test the AI across four different model configurations. The questions included finding data scopes, tracking down specific datasets, and checking replication rules. Through benchmarking, early runs showed that with raw terminal text, the model would get confused and stuck, whereas switching to the Python API to feed the AI clean, structured data yielded massive improvement. By creating an intelligent and autonomous bridge to a storage network, this project shows how AI can be implemented in scientific data management, which ultimately helps scientists at Fermilab spend less time sorting through data and more time focusing on their experiments and analysis.

Akella, Kashyap [William Rainey Harper Coll.]↗

Enabling a Physical Twin for Control Methods Evaluation

Advanced nuclear reactors play an important role in the energy future of the United States and the rest of the world. They are designed and operated based on a different model than that of the current operating fleet, thus enabling deployment in remote locations and allowing for safe semi-autonomous or autonomous operations. Such characteristics require the development of a new reactor control paradigm. A significant factor in the development of control technologies and methods is integration of the various technologies and methods with each other and with hardware (both reactor system hardware and control hardware). A recent workshop on control of advanced reactors identified the lack of a flexible, expandable software/hardware infrastructure to enable such integration as a key gap. A previous phase of the current effort involved developing and demonstrating the Control and Optimization Modular Modeling Application for Nuclear Deployment (COMMAND) platform, which is capable of integrating autonomous-control-enabling technologies and methods, without the constraints imposed by existing software solutions. This platform will enable advanced reactor developers to deploy and test any developed technologies and methods by employing a common framework, and to couple them with their own models and hardware. The present phase of this effort entails using the Microreactor Automated Control System (MACS) platform, which was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Microreactor Program, to serve as a control method testbed. MACS can be used by advanced reactor developers to integrate their control related research activities with any reactor system. For the present effort, MACS was customized to mirror Idaho National Laboratory (INL)’s Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) microreactor, and COMMAND was leveraged to enable MACS to emulate the physics of MARVEL, thus positioning MACS as a physical twin of MARVEL.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

The Next Generation NC3 Enterprise: Opportunities and Challenges

The 2018 Department of Defense Nuclear Posture Review emphasized the importance of modernizing the existing nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) architecture. Heightened awareness of US reliance upon technology developed in the 1970s and emerging challenges posed by frontier technologies spurred Secretary of Defense Mattis to task USSTRATCOM with identifying the technologies, processes, and institutions needed to build a next-generation NC3 system. General Hyten, USAF Commander, has noted that this will require an “overhaul of our existing processes from requirements definition to systems engineering and integration, acquisition, and budgeting. A framework is required for modern processes to enable delivery of a flexible, continuously evolving, threat-driven set of capabilities.” This brief, prepared in response to Gen. Hyten’s call for memoranda to address the “Next Generation NC3 Enterprise,” outlines three distinct approaches to NC3 modernization, each with a system lifecycle of approximately 50 years (2030-2080): upgrading the existing system, a hybrid approach to integrating new technologies, and creating an entirely new NC3 architecture. It is organized as follows: First, it outlines the integral role of NC3 in strategic operations. Second, it examines the current status of NC3 tools and the contemporary challenges that future systems must address. Third, it provides a series of paths forward for USSTRATCOM’s consideration. Fourth and finally, it recommends a “hybrid” approach to maintain the strengths of the current NC3 architecture, increase the resilience of the system, and leverage the advantages of new sensing, ISR, and communication technology.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

Visualizing biomolecular electrostatics in virtual reality with UnityMol-APBS

The APBS software was developed to solve the equations of continuum electrostatics for large biomolecular assemblages. APBS has enjoyed widespread adoption throughout the biomedical community and is used in numerous applications involving biomolecular structures. However, visualization of complex biomolecular electrostatic properties can be challenging for two-dimensional graphics systems. Therefore, advanced visualization and manipulation capabilities have been incorporated. In particular, APBS tools have been integrated with the UnityMolX virtual reality platform to provide an immersive experience for preparing biomolecular systems for calculations as well as visualizing and comparing calculated results.

electrostatics, molecular visualization, solvation↗

Experimental Assessment of a Novel Touchless Interface for Intraprocedural Imaging Review

Purpose: To examine the feasibility of a novel technology platform that enables real-time touchless interaction with radiology images in both a simulated and an actual clinical setting. Materials and Methods: This platform offers three different modes for image interaction. The gesture recognition mode uses a depth camera to detect the user’s hand gestures which are translated to image manipulation commands. The light projection mode uses the same camera to detect finger point-and-tap movements above the icons which are projected on a surface to activate the commands. The capacitive sensing mode is enabled by a handheld, portable device, over which finger movements are detected by capacitive sensors to control the image review. Following initial feedback, light projection and capacitive sensing modes were selected for further testing by comparing with the conventional mode of image interaction in time trials for performing a series of standardized image manipulation tasks. Finally, the usability of the technology platform was examined in actual clinical procedures. Results: The light projection and the capacitive sensing modes were evaluated in the time trials and exhibited 60% and 71% reduction in time, respectively, relative to the control mode (p < 0.001). Clinical feasibility for this platform was demonstrated in three actual interventional radiology cases. Conclusion: Accessing, navigating, and extracting relevant information from patient images intraprocedurally are cumbersome and time-consuming tasks that affect safety, efficiency, and decision-making during image-guided procedures. This study demonstrated that the novel technology addressed this issue by allowing touchless interaction with these images in the sterile field.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Data Acquisition System of Nobeyama MKID Camera

We are developing a superconducting camera based on microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) to observe 100-GHz continuum with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope. A data acquisition (DAQ) system for the camera has been designed to operate the MKIDs with the telescope. This system is required to connect the telescope control system (COSMOS) to the readout system of the MKIDs (MKID DAQ) which employs the frequency-sweeping probe scheme. The DAQ system is also required to record the reference signal of the beam switching for the demodulation by the analysis pipeline in order to suppress the sky fluctuation. The system has to be able to merge and save all data acquired both by the camera and by the telescope, including the cryostat temperature and pressure and the telescope pointing. A collection of software which implements these functions and works as a TCP/IP server on a workstation was developed. The server accepts commands and observation scripts from COSMOS and then issues commands to MKID DAQ to configure and start data acquisition. We made a commissioning of the MKID camera on the Nobeyama 45-m telescope and obtained successful scan signals of the atmosphere and of the Moon.

42 ENGINEERING↗

The g-code file

The slicing process for additive manufacturing (AM) involves many steps, including slicing the object to be printed and fitting toolpaths to each resulting layer. The toolpaths define the trajectories that the machine must follow during printing to construct the object. Once the slicing is complete and all toolpaths have been found and properly planned, this data must be transferred to the 3D printer in a way the printer can use to construct the object. This is achieved by exporting a file, usually a g-code file, from the slicing software. The g-code file is a text-based file that contains instructions for the machine, controlling the system and defining the motions for each toolpath. The file, which often contains thousands of lines of code, is mostly composed of numbers that command positions for axis motions. This chapter will outline the contents of a g-code file, discuss various commands and their implementation, then provide example codes and files for object construction.

Roschli, Alex↗

Disasters can happen to anybody: The case of Korea

In Korea, there is a pervasive feeling of invincibility to the point that people and organizations do not believe that disasters can strike them. This has impact on the level of preparedness for disasters. This study aims to delve into how Korea has to change its governmental policies/practices with some private partners' efforts to mitigate disaster risks. A case study was utilized as the major methodology by comparing exclusive management with inclusive management. These two approaches have been comparatively analyzed via four variables, namely the central government, the local governments, the incident commander, and other stakeholders. The major finding is that Korea's practices and policies have to evolve from the current exclusive management into future-oriented inclusive management. Moreover, the importance of communication, cooperation, collaboration, and multi-discipline coordination is discussed. Additionally, the problem of reductionism and equal participation among all stakeholders, as well as the resistance from vested interests, are recognized and elaborated for Korea and the international community. - Highlights: • Only a few stakeholders in Korea believe that disaster can happen to anyone. This study aims to delve into how Korea has to change its current practices to mitigate disaster risks. • To compare exclusive management with inclusive management, we have examined four comparative variables, namely the central government's policy, local government's strategy, the incident commander's post, and other stakeholders' efforts. • The major finding is that Korea's practices and policies have to evolve from the current exclusive management into future-oriented inclusive management.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

In-Situ 27Al NMR Spectroscopy of Aluminate in Sodium Hydroxide Solutions Above and Below Saturation with Respect to Gibbsite

Aluminum hydroxide (Al(OH)3, gibbsite) dissolution and precipitation processes in alkaline environments play a commanding role in aluminum refining and nuclear waste processing, yet mechanistic aspects underlying sluggish kinetics during crystallization have remained obscured due to a lack of in situ probes capable of isolating incipient ion pairs. At a molecular level Al is cycling between tetrahedral (Td) coordination in solution to octahedral (Oh) in the solid. We explored dissolution of Al(OH)3 that prepared variably saturated aluminate (Al(OH)4 -)-containing solutions under alkaline conditions (pH > 13) with in-situ 27Al magic angle spinning (MAS)-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and interrogated the results with ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations complemented with chemical shift calculations based on high level theory. The collective results highlight the overall stability of the solvation structure for Td Al in the Al(OH)4 - oxyanion as a function of both temperature and Al concentration. The observed chemical shift did not change significantly even when the Al concentration in solution became supersaturated upon cooling and limited precipitation of the octahedral Al(OH)3 phase occurred. However, subtle changes in Al(OH)4 - speciation correlated with the dissolution/precipitation reaction were found. AIMDinformed chemical shift calculations indicate that measurable perturbations should begin when the Al(OH)4 -?Na+ distance is less than 6 Å, increasing dramatically at shorter distances, coinciding with appreciable changes to the electrostatic interaction and reorganization of the Al(OH)4 - solvation shell. The integrated findings thus suggest that, at conditions incipient to and concurrent with gibbsite crystallization, nominally expected contact ion pairs are insignificant and instead medium-range (4 – 6 Å) solvent-separated Al(OH)4 -?Na+ pairs predominate. Moreover, the fact that these medium-range interactions bear directly on resulting gibbsite characteristics was demonstrated by detailed microscopic and X-ray diffraction analysis, and by progressive changes in the FWHM of the Oh resonance, as measured by in-situ NMR. Sluggish gibbsite crystallization may arise from the activation energy associated with disrupting this robust medium-range ion pair interaction.

Graham, Trenton R.↗

Electron Mobility and Trapping in Ferrihydrite Nanoparticles

Iron is the most abundant transition metal in the Earth's crust, and naturally occurring iron oxide minerals play a commanding role in environmental redox reactions. Although iron oxide redox reactions are well studied, their precise mechanisms are not fully understood. Recent work has shown that these involve electron transfer pathways within the solid, suggesting that overall reaction rates could be dependent on electron mobility. Initial ultrafast spectroscopy studies of iron oxide nanoparticles sensitized by fluorescein derivatives supported a model for electron mobility based on polaronic hopping of electron charge carriers between iron sites, but the constitutive relationships between hopping mobilities and interfacial charge transfer processes has remained obscured. We developed a coarse-grained lattice Monte Carlo model to simulate the collective mobilities and lifetimes of these photoinjected electrons with respect to recombination with adsorbed dye molecules for the essential nanophase ferrihydrite, and tested predictions made by the simulations using pump-probe spectroscopy. We acquired optical transient absorption spectra as a function of particle size and under a variety of solution conditions, and used cryogenic transmission electron microscopy to determine the aggregation state of the nanoparticles. We observed biphasic electron recombination kinetics over timescales that spanned picoseconds to microseconds, the slower regime of which was fit with a stretched exponential decay function. The recombination rates were weakly affected by nanoparticle size and aggregation state, suspension pH, and the injection of multiple electrons per nanoparticle. We conclude that electron mobility indeed limits the rate of interfacial electron transfer in these systems with the slowest processes relating to escape from deep traps, the presence of which outweighs the influence of environmental factors such as pH-dependent surface charge.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

Capability-Coordinated Frequency Control Scheme of a Virtual Power Plant with Renewable Energy Sources

Growing trends in the deployment of inverter-based renewable energy will decrease the inertia and frequency control capability of electric power systems by replacing conventional power plants; thus, the frequency of future power systems might be dynamic. This study proposes a capability-coordinated frequency control (CCFC) scheme of a virtual power plant (VPP) including adjustable-speed pumped storage hydropower (AS-PSH), a wind power plant (WPP), and an energy storage system to support the frequency nadir and reduce the steady-state error of system frequency. The CCFC scheme is based on a hierarchical-control structure in which a CCFC organises the output of local frequency control units. To support the frequency nadir, the CCFC dispatches weighted frequency errors that are proportional to the available headroom of the units; thus, the errors are forwarded separately with a system frequency error to the primary control loop of each unit and thereby arrest the frequency nadir at a higher value than a system without the CCFC. To reduce the steady-state error of the system frequency, the CCFC determines a partial active power command by additionally feeding an integrator of the CCFC with a modified frequency error that depends on the unit with the largest control.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Planck 2015 results: XXV. Diffuse low-frequency Galactic foregrounds

In this paper, we discuss the Galactic foreground emission between 20 and 100 GHz based on observations by Planck and WMAP. The total intensity in this part of the spectrum is dominated by free-free and spinning dust emission, whereas the polarized intensity is dominated by synchrotron emission. The Commander component-separation tool has been used to separate the various astrophysical processes in total intensity. Comparison with radio recombination line templates verifies the recovery of the free-free emission along the Galactic plane. Comparison of the high-latitude Hα emission with our free-free map shows residuals that correlate with dust optical depth, consistent with a fraction (≈30%) of Hα having been scattered by high-latitude dust. We highlight a number of diffuse spinning dust morphological features at high latitude. There is substantial spatial variation in the spinning dust spectrum, with the emission peak (in I ν ) ranging from below 20 GHz to more than 50 GHz. There is a strong tendency for the spinning dust component near many prominent H ii regions to have a higher peak frequency, suggesting that this increase in peak frequency is associated with dust in the photo-dissociation regions around the nebulae. The emissivity of spinning dust in these diffuse regions is of the same order as previous detections in the literature. Over the entire sky, the Commander solution finds more anomalous microwave emission (AME) than the WMAP component maps, at the expense of synchrotron and free-free emission. This can be explained by the difficulty in separating multiple broadband components with a limited number of frequency maps. Future surveys, particularly at 5–20 GHz, will greatly improve the separation by constraining the synchrotron spectrum. We combine Planck and WMAP data to make the highest signal-to-noise ratio maps yet of the intensity of the all-sky polarized synchrotron emission at frequencies above a few GHz. Most of the high-latitude polarized emission is associated with distinct large-scale loops and spurs, and we re-discuss their structure. We argue that nearly all the emission at 40deg > l > -90deg is part of the Loop I structure, and show that the emission extends much further in to the southern Galactic hemisphere than previously recognised, giving Loop I an ovoid rather than circular outline. However, it does not continue as far as the “Fermi bubble/microwave haze”, making it less probable that these are part of the same structure. We identify a number of new faint features in the polarized sky, including a dearth of polarized synchrotron emission directly correlated with a narrow, roughly 20deg long filament seen in Hα at high Galactic latitude. In conclusion, we look for evidence of polarized AME, however many AME regions are significantly contaminated by polarized synchrotron emission, and we find a 2σ upper limit of 1.6% in the Perseus region.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Planck 2018 results - IV. Diffuse component separation

We present full-sky maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and polarized synchrotron and thermal dust emission, derived from the third set of Planck frequency maps. These products have significantly lower contamination from instrumental systematic effects than previous versions. The methodologies used to derive these maps follow closely those described in earlier papers, adopting four methods (Commander, NILC, SEVEM, and SMICA) to extract the CMB component, as well as three methods (Commander, GNILC, and SMICA) to extract astrophysical components. Our revised CMB temperature maps agree with corresponding products in the Planck 2015 delivery, whereas the polarization maps exhibit significantly lower large-scale power, reflecting the improved data processing described in companion papers; however, the noise properties of the resulting data products are complicated, and the best available end-to-end simulations exhibit relative biases with respect to the data at the few percent level. Using these maps, we are for the first time able to fit the spectral index of thermal dust independently over 3° regions. We derive a conservative estimate of the mean spectral index of polarized thermal dust emission of β d = 1.55 ± 0.05, where the uncertainty marginalizes both over all known systematic uncertainties and different estimation techniques. For polarized synchrotron emission, we find a mean spectral index of β s = -3.1 ± 0.1, consistent with previously reported measurements. We note that the current data processing does not allow for construction of unbiased single-bolometer maps, and this limits our ability to extract CO emission and correlated components. The foreground results for intensity derived in this paper therefore do not supersede corresponding Planck 2015 products. For polarization the new results supersede the corresponding 2015 products in all respects.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Precision control of multiple quantum cascade lasers for calibration systems

We present a precision, 1-A, digitally interfaced current controller for quantum cascade lasers, with demonstrated temperature coefficients for continuous and 40-kHz full-depth square-wave modulated operation, of 1–2 ppm/ °C and 15 ppm/ °C, respectively. High precision digital to analog converters (DACs) together with an ultra-precision voltage reference produce highly stable, precision voltages, which are selected by a multiplexer (MUX) chip to set output currents via a linear current regulator. The controller is operated in conjunction with a power multiplexing unit, allowing one of three lasers to be driven by the controller, while ensuring protection of controller and all lasers during operation, standby, and switching. Simple ASCII commands sent over a USB connection to a microprocessor located in the current controller operate both the controller (via the DACs and MUX chip) and the power multiplexer.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Mathematical model of unmanned aerial vehicle used for endurance autonomous monitoring

The paper purpose is to present some aspects regarding the control system of unmanned aerial vehicle - UAV, used to local observations, surveillance and monitoring interest area. The calculus methodology allows a numerical simulation of UAV evolution in bad atmospheric conditions by using nonlinear model, as well as a linear one for obtaining guidance command. The UAV model which will be presented has six DOF (degrees of freedom), and autonomous control system. This theoretical development allows us to build stability matrix, command matrix and control matrix and finally to analyse the stability of autonomous UAV flight. A robust guidance system, based on uncoupled state will be evaluated for different fly conditions and the results will be presented. The flight parameters and guidance will be analysed.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Market-based Policies for Non-Proliferation

Access to weapons-useable fissile material—highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium—is the primary technical barrier to nuclear weapons development. Nuclear non-proliferation policy is largely concerned with the secure distribution and use of these materials and the technologies that produce them. To the extent that both materials and technologies are traded in markets, the problem may be viewed as one of regulating markets to give an acceptable set of allocative outcomes. While a laissez-faire approach to these markets was rejected long ago, most current policy is based on prescribed or proscribed behavior rather than market incentives. “Market-based” non-proliferation policies would act through incentives in the nuclear materials and technology markets rather than by prescribing outcomes or behavior. Possible polices of this sort include subsidized enrichment services, credits to impute value to spent nuclear fuel, and new markets for special scarce nuclear materials. While market-based policies will not replace command-and-control policies entirely, they could lead to efficient regulation which suffices for most market participants, reserving special, more discriminatory instruments for the few hard cases.

nulcear fuel markets, nonproliferation, SWU↗