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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 1,729 records · Page 96
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Gene expression of functionally-related genes coevolves across fungal species: detecting coevolution of gene expression using phylogenetic comparative methods

Researchers often measure changes in gene expression across conditions to better understand the shared functional roles and regulatory mechanisms of different genes. Analogous to this is comparing gene expression across species, which can improve our understanding of the evolutionary processes shaping the evolution of both individual genes and functional pathways. One area of interest is determining genes showing signals of coevolution, which can also indicate potential functional similarity, analogous to co-expression analysis often performed across conditions for a single species. However, as with any trait, comparing gene expression across species can be confounded by the non-independence of species due to shared ancestry, making standard hypothesis testing inappropriate. We compared RNA-Seq data across 18 fungal species using a multivariate Brownian Motion phylogenetic comparative method (PCM), which allowed us to quantify coevolution between protein pairs while directly accounting for the shared ancestry of the species. Our work indicates proteins which physically-interact show stronger signals of coevolution than randomly-generated pairs. Interactions with stronger empirical and computational evidence also showing stronger signals of coevolution. We examined the effects of number of protein interactions and gene expression levels on coevolution, finding both factors are overall poor predictors of the strength of coevolution between a protein pair. Simulations further demonstrate the potential issues of analyzing gene expression coevolution without accounting for shared ancestry in a standard hypothesis testing framework. Furthermore, our simulations indicate the use of a randomly-generated null distribution as a means of determining statistical significance for detecting coevolving genes with phylogenetically-uncorrected correlations, as has previously been done, is less accurate than PCMs, although is a significant improvement over standard hypothesis testing. These methods are further improved by using a phylogenetically-corrected correlation metric. Our work highlights potential benefits of using PCMs to detect gene expression coevolution from high-throughput omics scale data. This framework can be built upon to investigate other evolutionary hypotheses, such as changes in transcription regulatory mechanisms across species.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Design and Technology Maturation of the Stratospheric Projectile Experiment of Entry Dynamics

A new technique for obtaining stratospheric free-flight dynamics data for atmospheric entry capsules is described. The Stratospheric Projectile Experiment of Entry Dynamics (SPEED) represents a new approach to characterizing the free-flight dynamics of vehicles in the supersonic and transonic regime of flight. The SPEED test architecture leverages a stratospheric balloon and 3D-printed flight system in a novel two-stage configuration to deliver test articles to supersonic conditions in the atmosphere which achieve dynamic similitude with a full-scale vehicle. Designed to address the limitations of existing test facilities, SPEED captures the complete time evolution of a vehicle’s dynamic state while producing a statistically significant number of observed flight trajectories to address the stochastic nature of the wake-driven dynamic stability phenomenon. SPEED was developed over two years at NASA Ames Research Center. This presentation describes the motivation for a new test architecture, operational constraints and achievable flight test envelopes, the design, and development of the SPEED concept.

Dynamic Stability↗
DOE OSTI2024

Cluster expansion by transfer learning for phase stability predictions

Recent progress towards universal machine-learned interatomic potentials holds considerable promise for materials discovery. Yet the accuracy of these potentials for predicting phase stability may still be limited. In contrast, cluster expansions provide accurate phase stability predictions but are computationally demanding to parameterize from first principles, especially for structures of low dimension or with a large number of components, such as interfaces or multimetal catalysts. We overcome this trade-off via transfer learning. Using Bayesian inference, we incorporate prior statistical knowledge from machine-learned and physics-based potentials, enabling us to sample the most informative configurations and to efficiently fit first-principles cluster expansions. Furthermore, this algorithm is tested on Pt:Ni, showing robust convergence of the mixing energies as a function of sample size with reduced statistical fluctuations.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS2009

Simplified Approach to Predicting Rough Surface Transition

Turbine vane heat transfer predictions are given for smooth and rough vanes where the experimental data show transition moving forward on the vane as the surface roughness physical height increases. Consistent with smooth vane heat transfer, the transition moves forward for a fixed roughness height as the Reynolds number increases. Comparisons are presented with published experimental data. Some of the data are for a regular roughness geometry with a range of roughness heights, Reynolds numbers, and inlet turbulence intensities. The approach taken in this analysis is to treat the roughness in a statistical sense, consistent with what would be obtained from blades measured after exposure to actual engine environments. An approach is given to determine the equivalent sand grain roughness from the statistics of the regular geometry. This approach is guided by the experimental data. A roughness transition criterion is developed, and comparisons are made with experimental data over the entire range of experimental test conditions. Additional comparisons are made with experimental heat transfer data, where the roughness geometries are both regular and statistical. Using the developed analysis, heat transfer calculations are presented for the second stage vane of a high pressure turbine at hypothetical engine conditions.

Boyle, R. J.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Study of η(1405)/η(1475) in $J/\psi \to \gamma {K}_S^0{K}_S^0{\pi}^0$ decay

Using a sample of (10 . 09 ± 0 . 04) × 10 9 J/ψ decays collected with the BESIII detector, partial wave analyses of the decay $ J/\psi \to \gamma {K}_S^0{K}_S^0{\pi}^0$ are performed within the ${K}_S^0{K}_S^0{\pi}^0$ invariant mass region below 1.6 GeV/ c 2 . The covariant tensor amplitude method is used in both mass independent and mass dependent approaches. Both analysis approaches exhibit dominant pseudoscalar and axial vector components, and show good consistency for the other individual components. Furthermore, the mass dependent analysis reveals that the ${K}_S^0{K}_S^0{\pi}^0$ invariant mass spectrum for the pseudoscalar component can be well described with two isoscalar resonant states using relativistic Breit-Wigner model, i.e., the η (1405) with a mass of $1391.7\pm {0.7}_{-0.3}^{+11.3}$ MeV/ c 2 and a width of $60.8\pm {1.2}_{-12.0}^{+5.5}$ MeV, and the η (1475) with a mass of $1507.6\pm {1.6}_{-32.2}^{+15.5}$ MeV/ c 2 and a width of $115.8\pm {2.4}_{-10.9}^{+14.8}$ MeV. The first and second uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively. Alternate models for the pseudoscalar component are also tested, but the description of the ${K}_S^0{K}_S^0{\pi}^0$ invariant mass spectrum deteriorates significantly.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Robotic-Assisted Versus Manual Prostatic Arterial Embolization for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia: A Comparative Analysis

PurposeProstatic artery embolization (PAE) is a safe and efficacious procedure for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), though is technically challenging. We present our experience of technical and clinical outcomes of robotic and manual PAE in patients with BPH.Materials and MethodsIRB-approved retrospective study of 40 consecutive patients 49–81 years old with moderate or severe grade BPH from May 2014 to July 2015: 20 robotic-assisted PAE (group 1), 20 manual PAE (group 2). Robotic-assisted PAE was performed using the Magellan Robotic System. American Urological Association (AUA-SI) score, cost, technical and clinical success, radiation dose, fluoroscopy, and procedure time were reviewed. Statistical analysis was performed within and between each group using paired t test and one-way analysis of variance respectively, at 1 and 3 months.ResultsNo significant baseline differences in age and AUA-SI between groups. Technical success was 100% (group 1) and 95% (group 2). One unsuccessful subject from group 2 returned for a successful embolization using robotic assistance. Fluoroscopy and procedural times were similar between groups, with a non-significant lower patient radiation dose in group 1 (30,632.8 mGy/cm{sup 2} vs 35,890.9, p = 0.269). Disposable cost was significantly different between groups with the robotic-assisted PAE incurring a higher cost (group 1 $4530.2; group 2 $1588.5, p < 0.0001). Clinical improvement was significant in both arms at 3 months: group 1 mean change in AUA-SI of 8.3 (p = 0.006), group 2: 9.6 (p < 0.0001). No minor or major complications occurred.ConclusionsRobotic-assisted PAE offers technical success comparable to manual PAE, with similar clinical improvement with an increased cost.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
DOE OSTI2016

A multimodel intercomparison of resolution effects on precipitation: simulations and theory

An ensemble of six pairs of RCM experiments performed at 25 and 50 km for the period 1961–2000 over a large European domain is examined in order to evaluate the effects of resolution on the simulation of daily precipitation statistics. Application of the non-parametric two-sample Kolmorgorov–Smirnov test, which tests for differences in the location and shape of the probability distributions of two samples, shows that the distribution of daily precipitation differs between the pairs of simulations over most land areas in both summer and winter, with the strongest signal over southern Europe. Two-dimensional histograms reveal that precipitation intensity increases with resolution over almost the entire domain in both winter and summer. In addition, the 25 km simulations have more dry days than the 50 km simulations. The increase in dry days with resolution is indicative of an improvement in model performance at higher resolution, while the more intense precipitation exceeds observed values. The systematic increase in precipitation extremes with resolution across all models suggests that this response is fundamental to model formulation. Simple theoretical arguments suggest that fluid continuity, combined with the emergent scaling properties of the horizontal wind field, results in an increase in resolved vertical transport as grid spacing decreases. This increase in resolution-dependent vertical mass flux then drives an intensification of convergence and resolvable-scale precipitation as grid spacing decreases. In conclusion, this theoretical result could help explain the increasingly, and often anomalously, large stratiform contribution to total rainfall observed with increasing resolution in many regional and global models.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

What is a particle-conserving Topological Superfluid? The fate of Majorana modes beyond mean-field theory

We investigate Majorana modes of number-conserving fermionic superfluids from both basic physics principles, and concrete models perspectives. After reviewing a criterion for establishing topological superfluidity in interacting systems, based on many-body fermionic parity switches, we reveal the emergence of zero-energy modes anticommuting with fermionic parity. Those many-body Majorana modes are constructed as coherent superpositions of states with different number of fermions. While realization of Majorana modes beyond mean field is plausible, we show that the challenge to quantum-control them is compounded by particle-conservation, and more realistic protocols will have to balance engineering needs with astringent constraints coming from superselection rules. Majorana modes in number-conserving systems are the result of a peculiar interplay between quantum statistics, fermionic parity, and an unusual form of spontaneous symmetry breaking. We test these ideas on the Richardson–Gaudin–Kitaev chain, a number-conserving model solvable by way of the algebraic Bethe ansatz, and equivalent in mean field to a long-range Kitaev chain.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

Impacts of anthropogenic gadolinium on the activity of the ammonia oxidizing bacterium Nitrosomonas europaea

Widespread use of gadolinium-based contrast agents in medical imaging has resulted in increased Gd inputs to municipal wastewater treatment plants. Others have reported that typical wastewater treatment does not attenuate Gd, resulting in discharges to natural waters. However, whether elevated Gd impacts the performance of biological treatment has not been investigated. We examined whether gadolinium chloride or Gd chelated with diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) affected the activity of the model nitrifying bacterium Nitrosomonas europaea. At nominal GdCl 3 additions ranging from 1 to 500 µM, no impact was observed compared to the control. Most (>98%) of the added Gd precipitated, and extracellular GdPO 4 nanoparticles were observed. When chelated with DTPA, Gd remained soluble, but no statistically significant impact on ammonia oxidation was observed until the highest concentrations tested. At 300 and 500 µM Gd-DTPA, a temporary reduction of nitrite production relative to the control (effect size 1.3 mg l -1 and 1.5 mg l -1 , respectively, at 24 h) was seen. By itself, DTPA was highly inhibitory. Modeling suggested that DTPA likely chelated other metals, but adjusting the concentrations of the most abundant metals in the medium, calcium and magnesium, indicated that lowering their free ion activities was probably not the cause of inhibition. Complexation of other essential metals was more likely. Furthermore, our studies indicate that while the low bioavailability of Gd may limit its ecosystem impacts, the role of synthetic ligands used with Gd and other rare earth elements should e considered as the production, use and disposal of these elements increases.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Reticulated porous lanthanum strontium manganite structures for solar thermochemical hydrogen production

Porous ceramic foams are utilized in various fields and applications due to their advantageous properties such as high porosity, high specific surface area, and controlled permeability. Non-stoichiometric oxide foams are of particular interest for the solar thermochemical production of hydrogen in directly irradiated solar receivers due to their enhanced heat transfer capabilities and structural integrity. Here we report the fabrication of lanthanum strontium manganite replica foams and their solar thermochemical water splitting performance. Highly porous (>80%) foams were produced with controlled structure and tested in a high temperature water splitting furnace to demonstrate stability and overall performance. The temperature profile of the burnout and sintering of the foam structure were altered based on simultaneous differential scanning calorimetry and thermal gravimetry analysis. Two-step sintering was used both to retain micron-sized pores (D50 = 0.4 μm) on the foam's struts and to limit grain growth to a grain size of ~1 μm. The structural characteristics were confirmed by porosimetry and scanning electron microscopy. The foams were repeatedly cycled, producing approximately 200 μmol/g of H 2 per cycle. Water splitting performance was tested for 50 cycles and approximately 35 h at 1400 °C. No statistical difference in the effective hydrogen production per cycle was observed, which is promising for long-term redox cycle stability.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2020

A corrected method for Coulomb scattering in arbitrarily weighted particle-in-cell plasma simulations

A physically and statistically accurate method to perform binary, pairwise Coulomb collisions for arbitrarily-weighted macroparticles in particle-in-cell simulations is described. The method is shown to conserve global energy and momentum on average and to produce physically accurate scattering frequencies. This is justified using the statistically expected values of the method and through a series of numerical tests showing that the method is valid independently of macroparticle weight. This novel method is required due to an error in previous work on binary scattering, initially by Nanbu and Yonemura [J. Comp. Phys. 145, 639 (1998)] and applied to subsequent work, that causes inaccuracies in the scattering frequencies for unequally weighted simulations; a problem that occurs both for scattering within the group and between different groups.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Challenges in the detection of gases in exoplanet atmospheres

Claims of detections of gases in exoplanet atmospheres often rely on comparisons between models including and excluding specific chemical species. However, the space of molecular combinations available for model construction is vast and highly degenerate. Only a limited subset of these combinations is typically explored for any given detection. As a result, apparent detections of trace gases risk being artefacts of incomplete modelling rather than robust identification of atmospheric constituents, especially in the low-signal-to-noise regime. Here, using the sub-Neptune K2-18 b as a case study, we show that recent biosignature claims vanish when the model space is expanded, with numerous alternatives providing equally good or better fits. We demonstrate that the significance of a claimed detection relies on the choice of models being compared, and that model preference does not in itself imply the presence of a specific gas. In conclusion, we recommend treating model comparisons instead as relative adequacy tests, which should be supported by theoretical predictions and complementary metrics of statistical significance to attribute a signal to a particular gas.

Astronomy and AstroPhysics↗
DOE OSTI2016

Loading-rate-independent delay of catastrophic avalanches in a bulk metallic glass

The plastic flow of bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) is characterized by intermittent bursts of avalanches, and this trend results in disastrous failures of BMGs. In the present work, a double-side-notched BMG specimen is designed, which exhibits chaotic plastic flows consisting of several catastrophic avalanches under the applied loading. The disastrous shear avalanches have, then, been delayed by forming a stable plastic-flow stage in the specimens with tailored distances between the bottoms of the notches, where the distribution of a complex stress field is acquired. Differing from the conventional compressive testing results, such a delaying process is independent of loading rate. The statistical analysis shows that in the specimens with delayed catastrophic failures, the plastic flow can evolve to a critical dynamics, making the catastrophic failure more predictable than the ones with chaotic plastic flows. Lastly, the findings are of significance in understanding the plastic-flow mechanisms in BMGs and controlling the avalanches in relating solids.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2016

Redesign of the DFT/MRCI Hamiltonian

The combined density functional theory and multireference configuration interaction (DFT/MRCI) method of Grimme and Waletzke [J. Chem. Phys. 111, 5645 (1999)] is a well-established semi-empirical quantum chemical method for efficiently computing excited-state properties of organic molecules. As it turns out, the method fails to treat bi-chromophores owing to the strong dependence of the parameters on the excitation class. In this work, we present an alternative form of correcting the matrix elements of a MRCI Hamiltonian which is built from a Kohn-Sham set of orbitals. It is based on the idea of constructing individual energy shifts for each of the state functions of a configuration. The new parameterization is spin-invariant and incorporates less empirism compared to the original formulation. By utilizing damping techniques together with an algorithm of selecting important configurations for treating static electron correlation, the high computational efficiency has been preserved. The robustness of the original and redesigned Hamiltonians has been tested on experimentally known vertical excitation energies of organic molecules yielding similar statistics for the two parameterizations. Besides that, our new formulation is free from artificially low-lying doubly excited states, producing qualitatively correct and consistent results for excimers. The way of modifying matrix elements of the MRCI Hamiltonian presented here shall be considered as default choice when investigating photophysical processes of bi-chromophoric systems such as singlet fission or triplet-triplet upconversion.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Evaluation of a pair-based, joint-likelihood association approach for regional infrasound event identification

SUMMARY A Bayesian framework for the association of infrasonic detections is presented and evaluated for analysis at regional propagation scales. A pair-based, joint-likelihood association approach is developed that identifies events by computing the probability that individual detection pairs are attributable to a hypothetical common source and applying hierarchical clustering to identify events from the pair-based analysis. The framework is based on a Bayesian formulation introduced for infrasonic source localization and utilizes the propagation models developed for that application with modifications to improve the numerical efficiency of the analysis. Clustering analysis is completed using hierarchical analysis via weighted linkage for a non-Euclidean distance matrix defined by the negative log-joint-likelihood values. The method is evaluated using regional synthetic data with propagation distances of hundreds of kilometres in order to study the sensitivity of the method to uncertainties and errors in backazimuth and time of arrival. The method is found to be robust and stable for typical uncertainties, able to effectively distinguish noise detections within the data set from those in events, and can be made numerically efficient due to its ease of parallelization.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

WE-H-BRA-05: Investigation of LET Spectral Dependence of the Biological Effects of Therapeutic Protons

Purpose: To investigate the dependence of biologic effect (BE) of therapeutic protons on LET spectra by comparing BEs with equal dose-averaged LET (LETd) derived from different LET spectra using high-throughput in vitro clonogenic survival assays. Methods: We used Geant4 to design the relevant experimental setups and perform the dose, LETd, and LET spectra calculations for spot-scanning protons. The clonogenic assay was performed using the H460 lung cancer cell line cultured in 96-well plates. In the first experimental setup (S1), cells were irradiated using 127.4 MeV protons with a 93.22 mm Lucite buildup resulting in a LETd value of 3.4 keV/µm in the cell layer. In the second experimental setup (S2), cells were irradiated by a combination of 127.4 MeV and 136.4 MeV protons with a 96.61 mm Lucite buildup. The LETd values in the cell layer were 11.4 keV/µm and 1.5 keV/µm respectively, but an average LETd of 3.4 keV/µm was obtained by adjusting the relative fluence of each beam. Ten discrete dose levels with 0.5 Gy increments were delivered. Results: In the two setups, the energies or LET spectra were different but resulted in identical LETd values. We quantified the dose contributions from high-LET (≥10 keV/µm, threshold determined by previous experiments) events in the LET spectra separately for these two setups as 3.2% and 10.5%. The biologic effects at each identical dose level yielded statistically significant different survival curves (extra sum-of-squares F-test, P<0.0001). The second setup with a higher contribution from high-LET events exhibited the higher biologic effect with a dose enhancement factor of 1.17±0.03 at 0.10 surviving fraction. Conclusion: The dose-averaged LET may not be an accurate indicator of the biological effects of protons. Detailed LET spectra may need to be considered explicitly to accurately quantify the biologic effects of protons. Funding Support: U19 CA021239-35, R21 CA187484-01 and MDACC-IRG.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Pecos v. 1.0

Pecos is a python package designed to perform quality control analysis on time series data for system operations. The software loads time indexed databases, performs a series of quality control tests defined by the user, and creates automated reports which include summary statistics, tables, and graphics.

Klise, Katherine↗