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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 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Towards a Comparative Assessment of Data-Driven Process Models in Health Information Technology

Process mining for conformance analysis focuses on comparing a reference process model against a data-driven process model that is generated via log files from information technology systems. While this approach is helpful when there is an existing process model in an organization, it leaves the question of what to do in the absence of a complete reference process model unanswered. In this paper, we present a comparative assessment approach that combines process mining, process mapping for dimensionality reduction, and statistical analysis. Our goal is to find similarities and dissimilarities in data-driven process models among U.S. Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities to assess process conformance among different healthcare facilities, which can help assess the standardization of care. We illustrate our approach by applying it to two clinical radiology order process models generated by two similar facilities. Our results demonstrate statistical similarities in the standardization of care among those two facilities.

Klasky, Hilda↗
DOE OSTI2024

PCAST: Report to the President Review of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is the sole body of advisors from outside the federal government charged with making science, technology, and innovation policy recommendations to the President and the White House. Established by Executive Order, it is an independent Federal Advisory Committee comprised of distinguished individuals from industry, academia, and non-profit organizations with a range of perspectives and expertise. On December 5, 2024, PCAST sent a report to the President with recommendations to strengthen and improve the NITRD program and its activities to provide an even greater positive impact for the Nation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Fusion and Fission Energy and Science Directorate and Information Technology Services Directorate HPC Cluster Reduction, Consolidation, and Savings in Data Center Space, Power, and Cooling

This report evaluates the benefits of decommissioning six legacy FFESD purchased HPC clusters and consolidating services and workloads into a new HPC cluster named HELIOS. The findings demonstrate significant reductions in the data center power and cooling requirements, data center footprint, and operational overhead, while simultaneously increasing computational capacity.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Coexistence and Interplay of Two Ferroelectric Mechanisms in Zn 1-x Mg x O

Ferroelectric materials promise exceptional attributes including low power dissipation, fast operational speeds, enhanced endurance, and superior retention to revolutionize information technology. However, the practical application of ferroelectric-semiconductor memory devices has been significantly challenged by the incompatibility of traditional perovskite oxide ferroelectrics with metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. Recent discoveries of ferroelectricity in binary oxides such as Zn 1-x Mg x O and Hf 1-x Zr x O have been a focal point of research in ferroelectric information technology. Here, this work investigates the ferroelectric properties of Zn 1-x Mg x O utilizing automated band excitation piezoresponse force microscopy. This findings reveal the coexistence of two ferroelectric subsystems within Zn 1-x Mg x O. A “fringing-ridge mechanism” of polarization switching is proposed that is characterized by initial lateral expansion of nucleation without significant propagation in depth, contradicting the conventional domain growth process observed in ferroelectrics. This unique polarization dynamics in Zn 1-x Mg x O suggests a new understanding of ferroelectric behavior, contributing to both the fundamental science of ferroelectrics and their application in information technology.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Virtual Environment Platform for OT/IT Training Enhancement

TRADITIONAL TECHNIQUES OT/IT Concepts Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) concepts can often be difficult to visualize Teaching Methods Traditional teaching methods lack the intuitive & immersive aspects of hands-on activities Caveat: Unless taught by Team B! Physical Limitations Digital Twins require existing systems/hardware to mirror UPDATED TECHNIQUES Virtual Environment By making use of a virtual environment, we can represent abstract concepts in a more approachable and digestible way Increased Engagement Students are more engaged with the activities and are more likely to retain the information they are given. New/Emerging Technologies As the system is currently growing and developing, the technologies in use, as well as those represented by the system, stay up-to-date.

Deroller, Nicholas F.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Mechanistic modeling of copper corrosions in data center environments

Air-side economizers are increasingly used to take advantage of “free-cooling” in data centers with the intent of reducing the carbon footprint of buildings. However, they can introduce outdoor pollutants to indoor environment of data centers and cause corrosion damage to the information technology equipment. Here, to evaluate the reliability of information technology equipment under various thermal and air-pollution conditions, a mechanistic model based on multi-ion transport and chemical reactions was developed. The model was used to predict Cu corrosion caused by Cl2-containing pollutant mixtures. It also accounted for the effects of temperature (25 °C and 28 °C), relative humidity (50%, 75%, and 95%), and synergism. It also identified higher air temperature as a corrosion barrier and higher relative humidity as a corrosion accelerator, which agreed well with the experimental results. The average root mean square error of the prediction was 13.7 Å. The model can be used to evaluate the thermal guideline for data centers design and operation when Cl2 is present based on pre-established acceptable risk of corrosion in data centers’ environment.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

Exponential Backoff and Its Security Implications for Safety-Critical OT Protocols over TCP/IP Networks

The convergence of Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) networks has become increasingly prevalent with the growth of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications. This shift, while enabling enhanced automation, remote monitoring, and data sharing, also introduces new challenges related to communication latency and cybersecurity. Oftentimes, legacy OT protocols were adapted to the TCP/IP stack without an extensive review of the ramifications to their robustness, performance, or safety objectives. To further accommodate the IT/OT convergence, protocol gateways were introduced to facilitate the migration from serial protocols to TCP/IP protocol stacks within modern IT/OT infrastructure. However, they often introduce additional vulnerabilities by exposing traditionally isolated protocols to external threats. This study investigates the security and reliability implications of migrating serial protocols to TCP/IP stacks and the impact of protocol gateways, utilizing two widely used OT protocols: Modbus TCP and DNP3. Our protocol analysis finds a significant safety-critical vulnerability resulting from this migration, and our subsequent tests clearly demonstrate its presence and impact. A multi-tiered testbed, consisting of both physical and emulated components, is used to evaluate protocol performance and the effects of device-specific implementation flaws. Through this analysis of specifications and behaviors during communication interruptions, we identify critical differences in fault handling and the impact on time-sensitive data delivery. The findings highlight how reliance on lower-level IT protocols can undermine OT system resilience, and they inform the development of mitigation strategies to enhance the robustness of industrial communication networks.

DNP3↗
DOE OSTI2024

Essence2.0 Development and Deployment (Final Report)

The objective of the project was to take two core technologies that have been developed under the Recipient’s solid laboratory products and integrate them into a single CyberPhysical awareness platform and complete development on current field-tested prototypes that will extend the integrated capability of the platform. During the final development phase, the Recipient development team and its selected industry partners tested and hardened the platform to ensure resilient and secure operation of the integrated platform. The team also executed substantial field testing and established the framework for defining the organization and/or commercial infrastructure needed to sustain operations and provide readiness for a national scale deployment. The focus of the project was (1) the improvement, refinement, and deployment of technology for the detection of cyber-attacks on utility operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) networks and assets, including Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems (SCADA) systems; and (2) support for containment and remediation of adversarial threats and actions against those systems and environments.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Center of Excellence for Operational Technology

The Center of Excellence for Operational Technology Traditional Presentation Abstract 2025 National Laboratories Information Technology Summit | Denver, CO Traditional Presentation Session Managing cybersecurity risk in Operational Technology (OT) presents a significant challenge across the Department, and critically, at many of the national laboratories. This includes IT-OT convergence, aging OT systems, cost of updating OT systems, and increased Advanced Persistent Threat efforts against OT including the 16 critical infrastructure sectors as listed in Presidential Policy Directive 21. DoE’s Office of Science and NNSA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer are taking the lead in addressing this challenge to include critical systems, by establishing the Center of Excellence (CoE) for Operational Technology. Championed by NNSA Deputy Chief Information Officer Steven McAndrews and the Office of Science Chief Information Officer Shila Cooch, the CoE for OT was chartered in February 2025 to address the challenges of OT cybersecurity and compliance. The CoE for OT will create partnerships and leverage expertise from across the NNSA National Security Enterprise and DOE Labs, Plants and Sites. The CoE will also collaborate with colleagues in other government agencies, industry partners and academia. The CoE for OT discussion at the National Laboratories Information Technology Summit ’25 will include the genesis of the CoE, stated goals, organizational structure, and the effort to attract OT subject matter experts to join the CoE effort to share knowledge and expertise. The discussion will include opportunities to get involved and contribute to this important effort. This session will be led by CoE for OT Co-Chairs Matt Kwiatkowski, Fermi National Laboratory Chief Information Security Officer, and Steven Weldon, Savannah River National Laboratory Cyber Program Director at the Georgia Cyber Center. The session will be of particular interest to CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, as well as IT and OT practitioners.

Kwiatkowski, Matt [Fermilab]↗
DOE OSTI2024

Computing in AEC Education: Hindsight, Insight, and Foresight

In the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) fields, computing and information technologies play an increasingly prevalent and complex role in day-to-day work. Consequently, educators must adjust and, in many cases, reimagine curricula and teaching methodologies to adapt to the changing landscape. Past research efforts led by the ASCE Computing Division Education Committee, formerly called the Task Committee on Computing Education of the Technical Council on Computing and Information Technology (TCCIT), have regularly surveyed AEC educators to understand computing trends in AEC curricula, with the latest survey taking place nearly a decade ago. This work presents the results of an updated survey that used this prior work as a springboard, providing timely insights into the computing skills and curricular barriers faced by AEC educators today. The results showed that the technical skills used by students have evolved, but the barriers faced in incorporating new skills into curricula have remained largely the same. In addition to comparisons with prior surveys, this work presents the results of an expanded, open-ended portion of the survey that explores educator perspectives on the future of the AEC workforce in a broader lens than used in previous surveys. Thematic analysis of these open-ended responses revealed themes that were common among responses and provided organization to the findings. For example, educators provided their vision of what competencies the future AEC workforce would need, which were thematically organized into a continuum based on the level of interaction between humans and technology. These results suggest an increasingly complex and evolving relationship between the AEC workforce and emerging technology, highlighting the need for educators to encourage the development of technological adaptability and agility. Overall, this work provides a systematic comparison of current educational practices in AEC computing with a decade ago to illustrate educational shifts and adds a prediction of AEC trends from experts in AEC education, providing crucial discussion of curricular transformations that will better position students for success in the workforce.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Amplifying Magnetic Field Effects on Upconversion Emission via Molecular Qubit-Driven Triplet–Triplet Annihilation

Triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) enables photon upconversion by combining two lower-energy triplet excitons to produce a higher-energy singlet exciton. This mechanism enhances light-harvesting efficiency for solar energy conversion and enables the use of lower-energy photons in bioimaging and photoredox catalysis applications. The magnetic modulation of such high-energy excitons presents an exciting opportunity to develop molecular quantum information technologies. While the spin dynamics of triplet exciton pairs are sensitive to external magnetic fields, the magnetic field effects (MFEs) associated with these pairs are generally limited by spin statistics to at most 10% at low fields (<1 Tesla), making them challenging to apply in technological advancements. In contrast, MFEs on spin-correlated radical pairs (SCRPs) can be significantly greater, surpassing those on triplet pairs. By using SCRPs-based molecular qubits as triplet sensitizers in the sensitized TTA scheme, we can magnetically modulate TTA and consequently, the delayed fluorescence of annihilators. In our current system, we have achieved more than 70% magnetic modulation of delayed fluorescence, effectively harnessing and even amplifying magnetic modulation within SCRPs to influence high-energy excitons. In conclusion, this work opens new opportunities for advancing spin-controlled chemical reactions and molecular quantum information technologies.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

Higher-order topological and nodal superconducting transition-metal sulfides M S ( M = Nb and Ta )

Intrinsic topological superconducting materials are exotic and vital to develop the next-generation topological superconducting devices, topological quantum calculations, and quantum information technologies. Here, we predict the topological and nodal superconductivity of NiAs-type M ⁢S ( M = Nb and Ta) transition-metal sulfides. We reveal their higher-order topology nature with an index of Z 4 = 2. These materials have a higher T c than the Nb or Ta metal superconductors due to their flat band and strong electron-phonon coupling nature. Electron doping and lighter isotopes can effectively enhance the T c . In conclusion, our findings show that the M ⁢S ( M = Nb and Ta) systems can be platforms to study exotic physics in the higher-order topological superconductors, and provide a theoretical support to utilize them as the topological superconducting devices in the field of advanced topological quantum calculations and information technologies.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2024

EHR-BERT: A BERT-based model for effective anomaly detection in electronic health records

Objective: Physicians and clinicians rely on data contained in electronic health records (EHRs), as recorded by health information technology (HIT), to make informed decisions about their patients. The reliability of HIT systems in this regard is critical to patient safety. Consequently, better tools are needed to monitor the performance of HIT systems for potential hazards that could compromise the collected EHRs, which in turn could affect patient safety. In this paper, we propose a new framework for detecting anomalies in EHRs using sequence of clinical events. This new framework, EHR-Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), is motivated by the gaps in the existing deep-learning related methods, including high false negatives, sub-optimal accuracy, higher computational cost, and the risk of information loss. EHR-BERT is an innovative framework rooted in the BERT architecture, meticulously tailored to navigate the hurdles in the contemporary BERT method; thus, enhancing anomaly detection in EHRs for healthcare applications.Methods: The EHR-BERT framework was designed using the Sequential Masked Token Prediction (SMTP) method. This approach treats EHRs as natural language sentences and iteratively masks input tokens during both training and prediction stages. This method facilitates the learning of EHR sequence patterns in both directions for each event and identifies anomalies based on deviations from the normal execution models trained on EHR sequences.Results: Extensive experiments on large EHR datasets across various medical domains demonstrate that EHR-BERT markedly improves upon existing models. It significantly reduces the number of false positives and enhances the detection rate, thus bolstering the reliability of anomaly detection in electronic health records. This improvement is attributed to the model’s ability to minimize information loss and maximize data utilization effectively.Conclusion: EHR-BERT showcases immense potential in decreasing medical errors related to anomalous clinical events, positioning itself as an indispensable asset for enhancing patient safety and the overall standard of healthcare services. The framework effectively overcomes the drawbacks of earlier models, making it a promising solution for healthcare professionals to ensure the reliability and quality of health data.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

United States–Brazil Joint Study: A Preliminary Assessment of Opportunities and Challenges for Small Modular Reactors in Brazil

This report supplies the technical information to enable a broader understanding of different technology choices for nuclear reactors in Brazil. The assessment characteristics of this process include reactor technology, economic costs for deployment, and regulatory analyses of small modular reactors, advanced reactors, and microreactors. The analysis documented in this report provides economic and technological information to assist Brazil, whose official indicative scenarios show an increase in operating nuclear power from 2 Gigawatt in 2022 to 8–10 Gigawatt by 2050, in policy making and long-term energy planning. To protect company proprietary information, the information in this report was limited to publicly available information and therefore can only inform preliminary reactor technology assessments. This report does not recommend or endorse any specific reactor developer or technology.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Lithography-Defined Semiconductor Moirés with Anomalous In-Gap Quantum Hall States

Quantum materials and phenomena have attracted great interest for their potential applications in next-generation microelectronics and quantum-information technologies. In one especially interesting class of quantum materials, moiré superlattices (MSLs) formed by twisted bilayers of 2D materials, a wide range of novel phenomena are observed. However, there exist daunting challenges such as reproducibility and scalability of utilizing 2D MSLs for microelectronics and quantum technologies due to their exfoliate-tear-stack method. Here, we propose lithography-defined semiconductor MSLs, in which three fundamental parameters electron−electron interaction, spin−orbit coupling, and band topology are designable. We experimentally investigate quantum-transport properties in a moiré specimen made in an InAs quantum well. Strong anomalous in-gap states are observed within the same integer quantum Hall state. Our work opens up new horizons for studying 2D quantum-materials phenomena in semiconductors featuring superior industry-level quality and state-of-the-art technologies, and they may potentially enable new quantum-information and microelectronics technologies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Addressing Consequence within Operational Risk: An Approach for Understanding an Organization’s Unique Infrastructure Environment

The endeavor of tackling operational risk focused on consequences is challenging even for the most resourced entity but can be advanced though a simplified approach: identifying, binning, and prioritizing the infrastructure environment. While no two entities within a single element of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors are exactly alike when it comes to risk, there is a basic process to move toward a greater understanding of operational risk through becoming more informed about the infrastructure landscape in which the entity exists. The process starts with bringing internal and external stakeholders and subject matter experts together to analyze key areas such as Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) components and points of convergence, analyzing internal and external cyber and physical dependencies, accounting for explosive growth in devices and wireless technology, and leveraging the contributions of people inside and outside the operational environment. Attaining a common understanding of the infrastructure landscape as part of addressing consequences within operational risk is not easy to do or resource light, but the process outlined provides the framework to further any entity’s efforts in this space.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Addressing Data Center Cooling Needs through the Use of Subsurface Thermal Energy Storage Systems

This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of addressing the cooling needs for information technology (IT) equipment in data centers by using reservoir thermal energy storage (RTES) to provide reliable and sustainable low-temperature fluid. This project focuses on the technical viability of operating such a system in Houston, Texas, which is a representative location for crypto mining data centers. An analysis has been performed to investigate the technical feasibility with climate data for Houston. Results show that data centers on the scale of 30 MW, and operating at a temperature of 27 degrees C, can be reliably cooled by a combined RTES and dry coolers setup. A techno-economic analysis will be performed and energy/water saving benefits will be quantified in the future. In addition, the study will be extended to other representative data center locations with different climates and geographical locations.

cooling↗