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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

Organizational System Resilience to Disinformation: A Viable Systems Model Exploration

This paper explores the utility of organizational system modeling frameworks to provide valuable insight into information flows within organizations and subsequently the opportunities for increasing resilience against disinformation campaigns targeting the system's ability to utilize information within its decision making. Disinformation is a growing challenge for many organizations and in recent years has created delay in decision making. Here the paper has utilized the viable systems model (VSM) to characterize organizational systems and used this approach to outline potential subsystem requirements to promote resilience of the system. The results of this paper can support the development of simulations and models considering the human elements within the system as well as support the development of quantitative measures of resilience.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2025

The Impact of Cultural Values and Organizational Processes on Nuclear Security Operations

Human performance is a pivotal factor in the design, testing, maintenance, and operation of security systems. The effectiveness of these systems relies not only on the capabilities, limitations, motives, and attitudes of the individuals involved, but also on the quality of training, instructional content, and evaluation methods provided. To uphold security standards, seamless integration between technologies and operators necessitates reliable human input. In security operations, human errors, often attributed to blame, sanctions, low motivation, individual accountability, or complacency, are primary causes of system failures. Complacency, characterized by a false sense of security, reflects a lack of awareness of potential threats and is a significant contributing factor to lapses in security. Security incidents arise from various factors, many extend beyond individual control, highlighting the need for a holistic approach to human performance that integrates organizational processes and team collaboration. Historically, errors have been attributed to individual moral or cognitive failures. However, insights from Operational Experiences (OEs) suggest that organizational processes weakness and deficiencies in nuclear cultural values contribute more significantly to security failures than individual mistakes. This paper consolidates lessons learned from diverse international nuclear security cultures and aims to highlight the importance of security culture in shaping global perspectives on nuclear security. It underscores the role of cultural values in shaping nuclear security practices and enhancing the resilience of security systems in the nuclear sector.

Zineddin, Dr. Z. [ORNL] (ORCID:0009000848740725)↗
DOE OSTI2024

Best practices: Organizational execution

This article, the fourth and final installment in the DOE–IDEA series, focuses on organizational execution and how strong management practices, teamwork, and preparedness contribute to successful district energy systems. It highlights case studies from Ashley Energy and Cornell University to illustrate effective operational strategies. Ashley Energy demonstrates the importance of emergency preparedness and rapid response. After a major flood disrupted its plant, the organization restored service in under 72 hours by relying on pre-established plans, vendor relationships, and trained staff. The case emphasizes proactive contingency planning, understanding insurance processes, and empowering skilled personnel to improvise during crises. Cornell University’s example highlights the role of collaboration and transparency in long-term success. Its district energy system benefits from strong data sharing, real-time energy monitoring, and active involvement of faculty and students in system planning and innovation. This culture of teamwork and data-driven decision-making supports sustainability goals and continuous system improvement. Overall, the article shows that effective organizational execution—through preparedness, collaboration, and data transparency—is essential for maintaining reliable, efficient, and sustainable district energy systems.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Vouchers to Enable Laboratory and Organizational Collaboration for Innovation and Technology Improvements (VELOCITI) Round 6 (Abstract)

For the past several years, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have provided technical assistance to the recipients of Department of Energy (DOE)-funded voucher programs, namely American-Made Challenges (AMC), the Incubator Program, and the Small Business Vouchers Program. Drawing on lessons learned and from first-hand experiences, NREL is leading a new holistic and streamlined voucher program aimed at strengthening ties between American innovators and the national labs. This new program, “Vouchers to Enable Laboratory and Organizational Collaboration for Innovation and Technology Improvements,” or VELOCITI, will leverage the successful elements of past programs, create administrative efficiencies, and enable the buildout of a national program to drive strong relationships between entrepreneurs and the national labs to accelerate the roll-out of new technologies in the US solar sector. This work will develop a comprehensive techno-economic assessment to understand the potential of repurposed batteries to achieve the DOE’s target of 5 cents per kWh Levelized Cost of Storage (LCOS), thereby facilitating the more affordable and widespread adoption of solar energy.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Organizational Resilience in the Context of Information Quality: An Agent-Based Simulation of Structural and Cognitive Influences

This study examines how organizational structure and stress levels affect decision-making with poor quality information. Using an agent-based model, it finds loosely structured organizations are timely but less effective at filtering bad information, while tightly structured ones are slower but better at filtering. The research highlights a trade-off between timeliness and robustness and suggests an optimal stress level for decision-making efficacy.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

A typology of organizational readiness for change based on a latent profile analysis

Companies have to undergo many change processes to succeed in the transforming economy. However, many change processes fail because employees are insufficiently accompanied through the process in a targeted manner. This study of N = 427 employees from a steel industry company undergoing a transformation process examines whether the organizational readiness for change (ORC) of highly affected employees can be classified into profiles, how these profiles can be predicted by various antecedents, and whether outcome variables such as job satisfaction can be explained by profile membership. Based on five facets of ORC (i.e., individual valence and positive affect), a total of six ORC profiles were identified: Proactives , Acceptors , Opens , Neutrals , Reluctants and Deniers . Employees’ optimism and the degree of perceived interpersonal and informational fairness can predict profile membership. It was shown that profiles significantly differ in relevant outcome variables satisfaction and intention to leave. These results contribute to the basic understanding of ORC and provide an initial approach for improving ORC profiles which could increase the success rate of change processes in companies.

Köhler, Alina↗
DOE OSTI2024

Organizational Influence on Supply Chain for Digital Energy Infrastructure: Business Models, and Policy Landscape

Significant investment is driving the essential modernization and digitization of U.S. energy infrastructure, but the United States faces a key challenge in this grid transformation: our renewable and clean energy supply chains have limited capacity to source necessary digital assets through U.S. or allied sources. Batteries and their associated power electronic interfaces are key components to delivering clean and more resilient energy delivery, providing much-needed fast ramping, emergency discharge, generation, and operations support to the electric grid. These services have grown to be invaluable over the past 10 years and will soon be an irreplaceable component of energy delivery. While there have been significant strides to move supply chains for raw and critical materials to U.S. and allied nations, the control and power electronic industry has lagged, in part because of lower cost margins. For example, the United States now has growing capacity to manufacture solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, but 90% of the inverters—which are essential to the conversion of DC to AC for grid connection and controls—are made in or source parts from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). While a global supply chain is beneficial for many economic and supply diversification reasons, presence of foreign entities of concern (FEOC) in a dominant role in this supply chain brings additional concerns for national security of infrastructure. The BESS relationship and new clean energy have features that warrant discussions and additional focus on impact for technology security, given their critical role. This review considers the impact and solutions for complex business and policy landscapes in clean energy supply chain, and the benefit trade-offs, focusing on the Battery Energy Storage System case study, and its complex organizational relationships across both the US, Allied countries and Foreign Entities of Concern. While many examples in this paper are presented on PRC focused manufacture, this could apply to any potentially adversarial relationship

25 - ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Visualizing Organizational Influence on Energy Infrastructure

Energy Infrastructure components depend on an evolving, interdependent business ecosystem exposed to long-term, legal, adversarial tactics. An INL-Naval Postgraduate School partnership was designed to support INL Lab Directed Research and Development, NPS graduate research projects, and joint publications. The Technology, Organization, and Person of interest Graph Extraction, Analysis, and Reporting (TOP GEAR) enumerates networks of organizations and people that own, operate, and maintain regional infrastructure assets. TOP GEAR allows analysts to model current and future state what-if scenarios that include technological and policy mitigations.

29 - ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Light Water Sustainability Program: Optimizing Information Automation Using a New Method Based on System-Theoretic Process Analysis

This report describes the interim progress for research supporting the design and optimization of information automation systems for nuclear power plants. Much of the domestic nuclear fleet is currently focused on modernizing technologies and processes, including transitioning toward digitalization in the control room and elsewhere throughout the plant, along with a greater use of automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, and other emerging technologies. While there are significant opportunities to apply these technologies toward greater plant safety, efficiency, and overall cost-effectiveness, optimizing their design and avoiding potential safety and performance risks depends on ensuring that human-performance-related organizational and technical design issues are identified and addressed. This report describes modeling tools and techniques, based on sociotechnical system theory, to support these design goals and their application in the current research effort. The report is intended for senior nuclear energy stakeholders, including regulators, corporate management, and senior plant management. We have developed and employed a method to design an optimized information automation ecosystem (IAE) based on the systems-theoretic constructs underlying sociotechnical systems theory in general and the Systems-Theoretic Accident Modeling and Processes (STAMP) approach in particular. We argue that an IAE can be modeled as an interactive information control system whose behavior can be understood in terms of dynamic control and feedback relationships amongst the system’s technical and organizational components. Up to this point, we have employed a Causal Analysis based on STAMP (CAST) technique to examine a performance- and safety-related incident at an industry partner’s plant that involved the unintentional activation of an emergency diesel generator. This analysis provided insight into the behavior of the plant’s current information control structure within the context of a specific, significant event. Our ongoing analysis is focused on identifying near-term process improvements and longer-term design requirements for an optimized IAE system. The latter analyses will employ a second STAMP-derived technique, System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA). STPA is a useful modeling tool for generating and analyzing actual or potential information control structures. Finally, we have begun modeling plantwide organizational relationships and processes. Organizational system modeling will supplement our CAST and STPA findings and provide a basis for mapping out a plantwide information control architecture. CAST analysis findings indicate an important underlying contributor to the incident under investigation, and a significant risk to information automation system performance, was perceived schedule pressure, which exposed weaknesses in interdepartmental coordination between and within responsible plant organizations and challenged the resilience of established plant processes, until a human caused the initiating event. These findings are discussed in terms of their risk to overall system performance and their implications for information automation system resilience and brittleness. We present two preliminary information automation models. The proactive issue resolution model is a test case of an information automation concept with significant near-term potential for application and subsequent reduction in significant plant events. The IAE model is a more general representation of a broader, plantwide information automation system. From our results, we have generated a set of preliminary system-level requirements and safety constraints. These requirements will be further developed over the remainder of our project in collaboration with nuclear industry subject matter experts and specialists in the technical systems under consideration. Additionally, we will continue to pursue the system analyses initiated in the first part of our effort, with a particular emphasis on STPA as the main tool to identify weak or weakening control structures that affect the resilience of organizations and programs. Our intent is to broaden the scope of the analysis from an individual use case to a related set of use cases (e.g., maintenance tasks, compliance tasks) with similar human-system performance challenges. This will enable more generalized findings to refine the Proactive Issue Resolution and IAE models, as well as their system-level requirements and safety constraints. We will use organizational system modeling analyses to supplement STPA findings and model development. We conclude the report with a set of summary recommendations and an initial draft list of system-level requirements and safety constraints for optimized information automation systems.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Enhancing Nuclear and Radiological Security in Polarized Times: Safeguarding Against Extremist Insider Threats

Domestic violent extremism has been on the rise in recent years, fueled by growing political polarization, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the spread of misinformation online. This concerning trend raises an important question: has this increase in extremist violence manifested in more incidents involving radioactive or nuclear (RN) materials and a corresponding security concern? To explore this question, we analyzed existing data on events involving chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear materials over time. Specifically, we examined the rate of RN-related incidents, the targets of these events, and the ideologies motivating the perpetrators by using the Violent Non-State Actor Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Event Database from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Our analysis aimed to determine whether the broader rise of violent extremism has translated to an elevated risk of attacks involving RN materials. Results of the analysis revealed that there was no clear increase in events involving RN material in the dataset. However, given the rarity of these events, this conclusion does not indicate that such a trend might not appear in coming years if violent extremism continues to rise. To address the potential risk presented by violent extremism, in addition to quantifying the frequency of RN events, we also reviewed traits that could make organizations more susceptible to insider threats from radicalized employees. Focusing on the literature around counterproductive workplace behavior, we identified organizational characteristics that might increase the risk of malicious acts committed by radicalized insiders. These risk factors include abusive leadership, situational constraints, and organizational injustice. Finally, using these organizational risk characteristics, we discuss interventions that organizations with RN material can take to reduce their risk of attacks stemming from violent extremism while still protecting individual rights to privacy and civil liberties. Overall, this article provides an overview of the intersections between rising domestic extremism, insider threats, and risks posed by RN materials. We present current data on trends and patterns in this space as well as practical guidance for organizational resilience.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2023

Use of machine learning to analyze chemistry card sort tasks

Education researchers are deeply interested in understanding the way students organize their knowledge. Card sort tasks, which require students to group concepts, are one mechanism to infer a student’s organizational strategy. However, the limited resolution of card sort tasks means they necessarily miss some of the nuance in a student’s strategy. Here in this work, we propose new machine learning strategies that leverage a potentially richer source of student thinking: free-form written language justifications associated with student sorts. Using data from a university chemistry card sort task, we use vectorized representations of language and unsupervised learning techniques to generate qualitatively interpretable clusters, which can provide unique insight in how students organize their knowledge. We compared these to machine learning analysis of the students’ sorts themselves. Machine learning-generated clusters revealed different organizational strategies than those built into the task; for example, sorts by difficulty or even discipline. There were also many more categories generated by machine learning for what we would identify as more novice-like sorts and justifications than originally built into the task, suggesting students’ organizational strategies converge when they become more expert-like. Finally, we learned that categories generated by machine learning for students’ justifications did not always match the categories for their sorts, and these cases highlight the need for future research on students’ organizational strategies, both manually and aided by machine learning. In sum, the use of machine learning to analyze results from a card sort task has helped us gain a more nuanced understanding of students’ expertise, and demonstrates a promising tool to add to existing analytic methods for card sorts.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2026

Cyber-Informed Engineering for Strategic Planning

The CIE Guide for Engaging Organizational Leadership: Board and C-Suite describes how to apply CIE at the senior-level of organizational management. This guidance integrates CIE concepts into theory and practice of guiding coalition leadership to improve permeation of CIE concepts throughout organizational culture. This guide incorporates feedback from CIE community of practice volunteers in a study of how business administrative and strategic planning and management guidance and course materials can be applied to CIE implementation throughout an organization's principles and processes. This guide defines the interests guiding senior leadership, managers and supervisors, and technicians and workers involved in creating and operating and maintaining systems, and cultural/ historical/ political assumptions or influences shaped the landscape that could facilitate or impede development of CIE. The included guidance for organizational strategic management and leadership can be imbedded into contract guidance based on the CIE implementation guide and lessons learned from industry application.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Expert and operator perspectives on barriers to energy efficiency in data centers

Abstract It was last estimated in 2016 that data centers (DCs) comprise approximately 2% of total US electricity consumption. However, this estimate is currently being updated to account for the massive increase in computing needs due to streaming, cryptocurrency, and artificial intelligence (AI). To prevent energy consumption that tracks with increasing computing needs, it is imperative we identify energy efficiency strategies and investments beyond the low-hanging fruit solutions. In a two-phased research approach, we ask: What non-technical barriers still impede energy efficiency (EE) practices and investments in the data center sector, and what can be done to overcome these barriers? In particular, we are focused on social and organizational barriers to EE. In Phase I, we performed a literature review and found that technical solutions are abundant in the literature, but fail to address the top-down cultural shifts that need to take place in order to adapt new energy efficiency strategies. In Phase II, reported here, we interviewed 16 data center operators/experts to ground-truth our literature findings. Our interview protocols focus on three aspects of DC decision-making: procurement practices, metrics and monitoring, and perceived barriers to energy efficiency. We find that vendors are the key drivers of procurement decisions, advanced efficiency metrics are facility-specific, and there is convergence in the design of advanced facilities due to the heat density of parallelized infrastructure. Our ultimate goals for our research are to design DC decarbonization policies that target organizational structure, empower individual staff, and foster a supportive external market.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Multiple Pathways of Influence for Tightly and Loosely Structured Organizations: Implications for Systems Resilience

Organizations play a key role in supporting various societal functions, ranging from environmental governance to the manufacturing of goods. Here, the behaviors of organization are impacted by various influences, including information, technology, authority, economic leverage, historical experiences, and external factors, such as regulations. This paper introduces a generalized framework, focused on the relative structure of an organization (tight vs. loose), that can be used to understand how different influence pathways can impact decision-making within differently structured organizations. This generalized framework is then translated into a modeling and simulation platform to support and assess implications of these structural differences in resilience to disinformation (measured by organizational behaviors of timeliness and inclusion of quality information) using a systems dynamics approach Preliminary results indicate that a tightly structured organization may be less timely at processing information but could be more resilient against using poor quality information in organizational decisions compared to a loosely structured organization. Ongoing work is underway to understand the robustness of these findings and to validate current model design activities with empirical insights.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗