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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

Feasibility of critical infrastructure protection using network functions for programmable and decoupled ICS policy enforcement over WAN

Industrial control systems (ICS) represent a major component of our critical infrastructure. With the increasing need for more control and monitoring of such systems, ICS have seen an increase in connectivity to wide area networks (WAN) exposing aging equipment to rapidly evolving cybersecurity threats. Furthermore, the ICS data requires a reliability measure from the networks for critical functions for infrastructure monitoring and control. Especially when remote plant sites are involved such as pipelines, energy distribution networks, and transportation, WAN transport impairments most often provide a best effort delivery with no strict reliability guarantees. Network functions can provide a vendor agnostic, programmable critical infrastructure protection with a single maintenance, policy determination, and reliability assurance surface. A network function (NF) can be utilized for policy enforcement over the communication between remote entities and the main control office. This paper presents the research on transparent integration with existing ICS without disrupting communications, resulting in minimal downtime while decoupling the fast paced evolution of defensive security measures from the upgrade cycle of expensive long term hardware. We report our measurements on the resource requirements and overhead in the network for successful NF insertion under a wide variety of network impairments (network packet delay, reordering, and loss). Our paired NF implementation provides a policy enforcement platform extensible to cover myriad cybersecurity-related communication goals, including packet signing for verification, encryption for data privacy, packet filtering and data diode operation (i.e. protecting against eavesdropping, packet injection, and denial-of-service). Furthermore, bundling communication specifications into packet flows allows for tunability in applying policies as coarse- or fine-grained as the needs of the operator. We report on network function resource requirements in the form of required queue depth and network utilization overhead to inform the decision making against hardware cost constraints.

42 ENGINEERING↗

"PoliMOR: A Policy Engine \"Made-to-Order\" for Automated and Scalable Data Management in Lustre"

Modern supercomputing systems are increasingly reliant on hierarchical, multi-tiered file and storage system architectures due to cost-performance-capacity trade-offs. Within such multi-tiered systems, data management services are required to maintain healthy utilization, performance, and capacity levels. We present PoliMOR, a pragmatic and reliable policy-driven data management framework. PoliMOR is composed of modular, single-purpose agents that gather file system metadata and enforce policies on storage systems. PoliMOR facilitates automated and scalable data management with customizable agents tailored to HPC facility-specific storage systems and policies. Our evaluations demonstrate the scalability and performance of PoliMOR both by its individual agents and as a collective entity. We believe PoliMOR is widely applicable across HPC facilities with large-scale data management challenges and will garner interest from the HPC community, given its flexible and open-source nature.

George, Anjus↗

A map of roadmaps for zero and low energy and carbon buildings worldwide

Formulation of targets and establishing which factors in different contexts will achieve these targets are critical to successful decarbonization of the building sector. To contribute to this, we have performed an evidence map of roadmaps for zero and low energy and carbon buildings (ZLECB) worldwide, including a list and classification of documents in an on-line geographical map, a description of gaps, and a narrative review of the knowledge gluts. We have retrieved 1219 scientific documents from Scopus, extracted metadata from 274 documents, and identified 117 roadmaps, policies or plans from 27 countries worldwide. We find that there is a coverage bias towards more developed regions. The identified scientific studies are mostly recommendations to policy makers, different types of case studies, and demonstration projects. The geographical inequalities found in the coverage of the scientific literature are even more extreme in the coverage of the roadmaps. These underexplored world regions represent an area for further investigation and increased research/policy attention. Our review of the more substantial amount of literature and roadmaps for developed regions shows differences in target metrics and enforcement mechanisms but that all regions dedicate some efforts at national and local levels. Roadmaps generally focus more on new and public buildings than existing buildings, despite the fact that the latter are naturally larger in number and total floor area, and perform less energy efficiently. A combination of efficiency, technical upgrades, and renewable generation is generally proposed in the roadmaps, with behavioral measures only reflected in the use of information and communication technologies, and minimal focus being placed on lifecycle perspectives. We conclude that insufficient progress is being made in the implementation of ZLECB. More work is needed to couple the existing climate goals, with realistic, enforceable policies to make the carbon savings a reality for different contexts and stakeholders worldwide.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Quantifying policy gaps for achieving the net-zero GHG emissions target in the U.S. light-duty vehicle market through electrification

The U.S. light-duty vehicle (LDV) industry, a major greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting sector, is embracing decarbonization. Considering only electrification pathways, this study uses publicly-available tools – MA3T and VISION on vehicle market penetration, fleet accounting and life-cycle analysis to quantify the policy gaps for LDVs to achieve the net-zero GHG emissions target in nine vehicle penetration cases under two electricity mix scenarios, including the U.S. administration's decarbonization strategy – 100% clean electricity by 2035. The MA3T model is a multinomial discrete choice model for market share projection by vehicle technology, and the VISION is a vehicle stocks and GHG emissions projection model by using vehicle and travel characteristics. This study projects the impacts of technology and policy enforcement on shaping the dynamics and decarbonization of the LDV market. Additionally, achieving the expected improvement of battery technology and charging infrastructure is critical but can only reduce the 2050 GHG emissions to 48–54% of the 2020 level under the electricity renewable mix scenario. It is almost impossible to achieve a 100% battery electric vehicle stock by 2050 and the 2050 net-zero target in the LDV industry unless ban of internal combustion engine technology is implemented starting in 2035 and under the 2035 100% clean electricity scenario. These extreme conditions also sacrifice most from the consumer welfare perspective. A greater policy forcing intensity accelerates plug-in electric vehicle penetration, while with declining marginal effect and reduced consumer welfare. Among the investigated policy scenarios, the policy forcing intensity equivalent to a fuel tax of $1–2 per gasoline gallon reduces the most GHG emissions while keeping a positive consumer welfare.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Igor

SAND2023-05551O Igor, an open-source software, manages large clusters of users in a high-performance computing community. The systems allows users to choose an operating system and reserve and request hosts. The administrative side sets up and executes requests from users while simultaneously giving them tools to manage and enforce reservation policies and user access to the hosts. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

Bagwell, Allen↗

Performance Assessment of High-Efficiency Refrigerated Display Cases with Low-GWP Refrigerants: Preprint

As California policy makers enforce new regulations such as SB 1383 to achieve state greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals, it will be critical to understand the energy efficiency implications of low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants in commercial refrigeration applications. The goal of this research project, funded by Commonwealth Edison was to assess the energy performance of two high efficiency medium-temperature, self-contained, reach-in display cases that utilized natural refrigerant propane (R-290), and hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) drop-in hydrofluoroolefin R-513a, respectively. Performance of these display cases were compared to a baseline fixture using HFC (R-134a) under equal conditions in a controlled environment chamber. These display cases were selected due to their widespread use in convenience stores, and small supermarkets. The high efficiency cases were equipped with energy efficient lighting, improved panel insulation, high efficiency evaporator and condenser fan motors, and high effectiveness heat exchangers. The test method used in this project was foundationally inspired by the ANSI/ASHRAE 72-2018 standard method to evaluate each case under equivalent conditions. However, minor modifications to this methodology were implemented to better represent more realistic operation of the units. While maintaining target product temperature, the energy efficient fixtures containing R-290 and R-513a consumed 61.8% to 32.6% less energy, respectively, than a baseline case using R-134a refrigerant. The daily energy consumption of the R-290, R-513a, and baseline display cases at the upper limit of environmental conditions was 4.30, 7.59, and 11.26 kWh/day, respectively.

alternative refrigerants↗

Performance Assessment of High-Efficiency Refrigerated Display Cases With Low Global Warming Potential Refrigerants

As California policy makers enforce new regulations such as SB 1383 to achieve state greenhouse gas reduction goals, it will be critical to understand the energy efficiency implications of low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants in commercial refrigeration applications. The goal of this research project, funded by Commonwealth Edison, was to assess the energy performance of two high-efficiency medium-temperature, self-contained, reach-in display cases that utilized natural refrigerant propane (R-290, GWP = 3), and hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) drop-in hydrofluoroolefin R-513A (GWP = 573). Performance of these display cases was compared to a baseline fixture using HFC (R-134A, GWP = 1301) under equal conditions in a controlled environment chamber. These display cases were selected due to their widespread use in convenience stores and small supermarkets. The high-efficiency cases were equipped with energy-efficient lighting, improved panel insulation, high-efficiency evaporator and condenser fan motors, and high-effectiveness heat exchangers. The test method used in this project was foundationally inspired by the ANSI/ASHRAE 72-2018 standard method to evaluate each case under equivalent conditions (ASHRAE 2018). However, minor modifications to this methodology were implemented to better represent more realistic operation of the units. While maintaining equivalent target product temperature, the energy-efficient fixtures A (containing R-290, improved insulation, heat exchangers with a higher overall heat transfer coefficient (higher UA), and more efficient lighting and fan motors) and B (containing R-513A, improved fans, and higher UA-heat exchangers, and more efficient lighting and fan motors) consumed 61.8% to 32.6% less energy, respectively, than a baseline case using R-134A refrigerant. The daily energy consumption of the R-290, R-513A, and baseline display cases at the upper limit of environmental conditions was 4.30, 7.59, and 11.26 kWh/day, respectively.

alternative refrigerants↗

DNN-based policies for stochastic AC OPF

We report a prominent challenge to the safe and optimal operation of the modern power grid arises due to growing uncertainties in loads and renewables. Stochastic optimal power flow (SOPF) formulations provide a mechanism to handle these uncertainties by computing dispatch decisions and control policies that maintain feasibility under uncertainty. Most SOPF formulations consider simple control policies such as affine policies that are mathematically simple and resemble many policies used in current practice. Motivated by the efficacy of machine learning (ML) algorithms and the potential benefits of general control policies for cost and constraint enforcement, we put forth a deep neural network (DNN)-based policy that predicts the generator dispatch decisions in real time in response to uncertainty. The weights of the DNN are learnt using stochastic primal–dual updates that solve the SOPF without the need for prior generation of training labels and can explicitly account for the feasibility constraints in the SOPF. The advantages of the DNN policy over simpler policies and their efficacy in enforcing safety limits and producing near optimal solutions are demonstrated in the context of a chance constrained formulation on a number of test cases.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Stochastic DC optimal power flow with reserve saturation

We propose an optimization framework for stochastic optimal power flow with uncertain loads and renewable generator capacity. Our model follows previous work in assuming that generator outputs respond to load imbalances according to an affine control policy, but introduces a model of saturation of generator reserves by assuming that when a generator’s target level hits its limit, it abandons the affine policy and produces at that limit. This is a particularly interesting feature in models where wind power plants, which have uncertain upper generation limits, are scheduled to provide reserves to balance load fluctuations. Here, the resulting model is a nonsmooth nonconvex two-stage stochastic program, and we use a stochastic approximation method to find stationary solutions to a smooth approximation. Computational results on 6-bus and 118-bus test instances demonstrate that by considering the effects of saturation, our model can yield solutions with lower expected generation costs (at the same target line violation probability level) than those obtained from a model that enforces the affine policy to stay within generator limits with high probability.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

GridSTIX

SF-25-112 Grid-STIX is a comprehensive extension of the STIX (Structured Threat Information Expression) 2.1 ontology specifically designed for electrical grid cybersecurity applications. This ontology provides a standardized, machine-readable framework for modeling grid assets, operational technology devices, threats, vulnerabilities, supply chain risks, and security relationships in electrical power systems. ## Key Features - **Comprehensive Grid Coverage**: Physical assets, OT devices, grid components, sensors, and energy storage systems - **Zero Trust Architecture**: Policy decision points, enforcement points, trust brokers, and continuous monitoring - **AMI Infrastructure**: Advanced metering networks, head-end systems, mesh gateways, and MDM systems - **Advanced Security Modeling**: Attack patterns, vulnerabilities, mitigations, and supply chain risks - **Critical Grid Relationships**: Power flow, protection, control, and synchronization relationships - **Supply Chain Security**: Supplier modeling, country of origin tracking, and risk assessment - **Protocol Support**: DNP3, Modbus, IEC 61850, IEC 60870-5-104, OPC-UA, and IEEE standards - **Python Code Generation**: Automated STIX-compliant Python class generation from ontologies - **Interactive Visualization**: Enhanced HTML network graphs with grid-specific categorization - **STIX 2.1 Compliance**: Full compatibility with STIX threat intelligence ecosystem

Blakely, Benjamin [Argonne National Laboratory (AN↗

Uncertainty-Proof Hosting Capacity with Surrogate Affine Policy

Physical constraints must be enforced when dis-tributed energy resources, such as PV, are integrated into distribution network. Hosting capacity (HC) is thus introduced to define the maximum renewable that distribution system can accommodate. When the grid is further pushed towards low-carbon, many research efforts are devoted to increasing HC. Security and cost-efficiency become even more important in determining HC. This work proposes an uncertainty-proof HC with surrogate affine policy. Flexible resources are leveraged to increase HC. We propose a novel hybrid two-stage AC model with variable uncertainty set. An iterative algorithm is designed to solve the problem. The proposed model and solution approach are validated in modified 141-node feeders, and HC performance is also analyzed.

hosting capacity↗

Drug providers’ perspectives on antibiotic misuse practices in eastern Ethiopia: a qualitative study

Objective Antibiotic misuse includes using them to treat colds and influenza, obtaining them without a prescription, not finishing the prescribed course and sharing them with others. Although drug providers are well positioned to advise clients on proper stewardship practices, antibiotic misuse continues to rise in Ethiopia. It necessitates an understanding of why drug providers failed to limit such risky behaviours. This study aimed to explore drug providers’ perspectives on antibiotic misuse practices in eastern Ethiopia. Setting The study was conducted in rural Haramaya district and Harar town, eastern Ethiopia. Design and participants An exploratory qualitative study was undertaken between March and June 2023, among the 15 drug providers. In-depth interviews were conducted using pilot-tested, semistructured questions. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, translated into English and analysed thematically. The analyses considered the entire dataset and field notes. Results The study identified self-medication pressures, non-prescribed dispensing motives, insufficient regulatory functions and a lack of specific antibiotic use policy as the key contributors to antibiotic misuse. We found previous usage experience, a desire to avoid extra costs and a lack of essential diagnostics and antibiotics in public institutions as the key drivers of non-prescribed antibiotic access from private drug suppliers. Non-prescribed antibiotic dispensing in pharmacies was driven by client satisfaction, financial gain, business survival and market competition from informal sellers. Antibiotic misuse in the setting has also been linked to traditional and ineffective dispensing audits, inadequate regulatory oversights and policy gaps. Conclusion This study highlights profits and oversimplified access to antibiotics as the main motivations for their misuse. It also identifies the traditional antibiotic dispensing audit as an inefficient regulatory operation. Hence, enforcing specific antibiotic usage policy guidance that entails an automated practice audit, a responsible office and insurance coverage for persons with financial limitations can help optimise antibiotic use while reducing resistance consequences.

General & Internal Medicine↗

Decarbonizing via disparities: Problematizing the relationship between social identity and solar energy transitions in the United States

As solar adoption across the United States continues to grow, so do the gaps between rural and urban communities in how they choose to embrace these technologies, leading to serious questions of social justice and equity by researchers and policymakers alike. While recent studies have examined the racial and social justice elements of solar adoption alongside institutions' role in shaping pro-solar policies, codes, and code enforcement, an opportunity exists to discuss how the place and composition of the body politic in terms of race/ethnicity and rurality exists. This paper establishes a methodology for examining location and body politic composition concerning adopting all types of solar (residential, non-residential, utility-scale), utilizing the State of Georgia as a case study. Results indicate that the approach yields useful and informative findings; namely, there is a significant difference in adopting non-residential and utility-scale solar between rural and urban counties. We conclude by discussing further opportunities to expand on this analysis and the impact of assessing solar adoption in terms of value alignment between a body politic and the policies that shape the adoption of sustainable energy technologies. Finally, combining solar adoption information for the State of Georgia with Census data, this study compares solar adoption trends across counties--grouped by urban/rural classification and racial and ethnic majority.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Enabling cooperative adaptive cruise control on strings of vehicles with heterogeneous dynamics and powertrains

Recent studies have shown that positive impact of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) can only be guaranteed as market penetration rate increases. Removing the string homogeneity constraint is essential to encourage widespread adoption. In this work, a hierarchical architecture is proposed to enable CACC on vehicles with not only mixed dynamics but also different powertrain types. A low-level layer deals with the vehicle and powertrain dynamics to provide accurate and consistent reference speed tracking response. The high-level layer uses: (1) a Linear Parameter Varying feedback system to provide loop stability, robustness and enforce a variable time gap policy and (2) a feedforward system that processes Vehicle-to-Vehicle information to enhance string stability and response bandwidth, by dealing with the string heterogeneity. A gap management strategy is built on top of the CACC architecture to handle gap setting changes or cut-in/out situations, via a dynamics constrained time gap trajectory planning algorithm. We report the proposed work has been designed, developed and validated on three different real passenger vehicles on public highways and test tracks, showing the potential of the proposed algorithm to enable robust string stable CACC, despite the different dynamics and powertrains considered.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Energy Storage and Decarbonization Analysis for Energy Regulators: Technical Analysis for the Illinois Commerce Commission

Jurisdictions around the world are enacting and enforcing an increasing number of policies to fight climate change, leading to higher penetration of variable renewable energy (VRE) and energy storage systems (ESSs) in the power grid. One of the biggest challenges associated with this process is the evaluation of the appropriate amount of ESS required to mitigate the variability of the VREs and achieve decarbonization goals of a particular jurisdiction. This report presents methodologies developed and results obtained for determining the minimum amount of ESS required to adequately serve load in a system where fossil fueled generators are being replaced by VREs over the next two decades. This technical analysis is performed by Sandia National Laboratories for the DOE Office of Electricity Energy Storage Program in collaboration with the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC). The Illinois MISO Zone 4 is used as a case study. Several boundary conditions are investigated in this analysis including capacity adequacy and energy adequacy to determine the quantity of ESS required for MISO Zone 4. Multiple scenarios are designed and evaluated to incorporate the impact of varying capacity values of VREs and on the resource adequacy of the system. Several retirement scenarios involving fossil-fueled assets are also considered. Based on the current plans of new additions and retirements of generating assets, the results of the technical analysis indicate that Illinois MISO Zone 4 will require a significant quantity of ESS to satisfy their electricity demand over the next two decades.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

How do the research and public communities view biofuel development?

Understanding how public and research view biofuel development, especially the unsynchronized views, can explain the gaps between the actual biofuel production and consumption and the government mandates in the US. Applying a comparative text mining technique, these views are explored using 9924 news articles and 57,849 research abstracts. It is found both the public and research communities respond actively to major policy and incentive programs and market conditions and the public has been closely following important research advances. However, research and practice should be coordinated to achieve economies of scale for regular and alternative biofuels. Priority is particularly needed for policy research to support legislation and enforcement and remove technical barriers to commercialization; meanwhile, greater attention is needed to prompt the commercialization of mature technologies. In addition, sentiment analysis shows positive public perceptions in general and negative perceptions primarily stemming from fraud in biofuel tax-credit programs with minor concerns on unintended negative impacts of biofuel development and policy implementation issues. This study contributes to methodology by using cutting-edge text-mining techniques to the largest and most up-to-date datasets of public news articles and research publication abstracts so as to compare public and academic views on biofuel development. As a result, this study also contributes to knowledge discovery by providing new perspectives on biofuel development, which will support policy design and identify future research directions.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Flexible and Effective Object Tiering for Heterogeneous Memory Systems

Computing platforms that package multiple types of memory, each with their own performance characteristics, are quickly becoming mainstream. To operate efficiently, heterogeneous memory architectures require new data management solutions that are able to match the needs of each application with an appropriate type of memory. As the primary generators of memory usage, applications create a great deal of information that can be useful for guiding memory management, but the community still lacks tools to collect, organize, and leverage this information effectively. To address this gap, this work introduces a novel software framework that collects and analyzes object-level information to guide memory tiering. The framework includes tools to monitor the capacity and usage of individual data objects, routines that aggregate and convert this information into tier recommendations for the host platform, and mechanisms to enforce these recommendations according to user-selected policies. Moreover, the developed tools and techniques are fully automatic, work on standard Linux systems, and do not require modification or recompilation of existing software. Using this framework, this study evaluates and compares the impact of a variety of design choices for memory tiering, including different policies for prioritizing objects for the fast memory tier as well as the frequency and timing of migration events. In conclusion, the results, collected on a modern Intel platform with conventional DDR4 SDRAM as well as Intel Optane NVRAM, show that guiding data tiering with object-level information can enable significant performance and efficiency benefits compared with standard hardware- and software-directed data-tiering strategies for a diverse set of memory-intensive workloads.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗