A Self Organizing Map (SOM) approach was used to analyze physiological data taken from a group of subjects participating in a cooperative video shooting game. The ultimate aim was to discover signatures of group cooperation, conflict, leadership, and performance. Such information could be fed back to participants in a meaningful way, and ultimately increase group performance in national security applications, where the consequences of a poor group decision can be devastating. Results demonstrated that a SOM can be a useful tool in revealing individual and group signatures from physiological data, and could ultimately be used to heighten group performance.
Deposition in next-step devices such as ITER will pose diagnostic challenges. Codeposition of hydrogen with carbon needs to be characterized and understood in the initial hydrogen phase in order to mitigate tritium retention and qualify carbon plasma facing components for DT operations. Plasma facing diagnostic mirrors will experience deposition that is expected to rapidly degrade their reflectivity, posing a challenge to diagnostic design. Some eroded particles will collect as dust on interior surfaces and the quantity of dust will be strictly regulated for safety reasons however, diagnostics of in-vessel dust are lacking. We report results from two diagnostics that relate to these issues. Measurements of deposition on NSTX with 4 Hz time resolution have been made using a quartz microbalance in a configuration that mimics that of a typical diagnostic mirror. Often deposition was observed immediately following the discharge suggesting that diagnostic shutters should be closed as soon as possible after the time period of interest. Material loss was observed following a few discharges. A novel diagnostic to detect dust particles on remote surfaces was commissioned on NSTX.
The Estancia Basin lies about 30 miles to the east of Albuquerque, NM. It is a closed basin in terms of surface water and is somewhat isolated in terms of groundwater. Historically, the primary natural outlet for both surface water and groundwater has been evaporation from the salt lakes in the southeastern portion of the basin. There are no significant watercourses that flow into this basin and groundwater recharge is minimal. During the 20th Century, agriculture grew to become the major user of groundwater in the basin. Significant declines in groundwater levels have accompanied this agricultural use. Domestic and municipal use of the basin groundwater is increasing as Albuquerque population continues to spill eastward into the basin, but this use is projected to be less than 1% of agricultural use well into the 21st Century. This Water Budget model keeps track of the water balance within the basin. The model considers the amount of water entering the basin and leaving the basin. Since there is no significant surface water component within this basin, the balance of water in the groundwater aquifer constitutes the primary component of this balance. Inflow is based on assumptions for recharge made by earlier researchers. Outflow from the basin is the summation of the depletion from all basin water uses. The model user can control future water use within the basin via slider bars that set values for population growth, water system per-capita use, agricultural acreage, and the types of agricultural diversion. The user can also adjust recharge and natural discharge within the limits of uncertainty for those parameters. The model runs for 100 years beginning in 1940 and ending in 2040. During the first 55 years model results can be compared to historical data and estimates of groundwater use. The last 45 years are predictive. The model was calibrated to match to New Mexico Office of State Engineer (NMOSE) estimates of aquifer storage during the historical period by making adjustments to recharge and outflow that were within the parameters uncertainties. Although results of this calibrated model imply that there may be more water remaining in the aquifer than the Estancia Water Plan estimates, this answer is only another possible result in a range of answers that are based on large parameter uncertainties.
This paper investigates the performance of tensor methods for solving small- and large-scale systems of nonlinear equations where the Jacobian matrix at the root is ill-conditioned or singular. This condition occurs on many classes of problems, such as identifying or approaching turning points in path following problems. The singular case has been studied more than the highly ill-conditioned case, for both Newton and tensor methods. It is known that Newton-based methods do not work well with singular problems because they converge linearly to the solution and, in some cases, with poor accuracy. On the other hand, direct tensor methods have performed well on singular problems and have superlinear convergence on such problems under certain conditions. This behavior originates from the use of a special, restricted form of the second-order term included in the local tensor model that provides information lacking in a (nearly) singular Jacobian. With several implementations available for large-scale problems, tensor methods now are capable of solving larger problems. We compare the performance of tensor methods and Newton-based methods for both small- and large-scale problems over a range of conditionings, from well-conditioned to ill-conditioned to singular. Previous studies with tensor methods only concerned the ends of this spectrum. Our results show that tensor methods are increasingly superior to Newton-based methods as the problem grows more ill-conditioned.
Tonopah Test Range (TTR) in Nevada and Kauai Test Facility (KTF) in Hawaii are government-owned, contractor-operated facilities operated by Sandia Corporation, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), through the Sandia Site Office (SSO), in Albuquerque, NM, manages TTR and KTF's operations. Sandia Corporation conducts operations at TTR in support of DOE/NNSA's Weapons Ordnance Program and has operated the site since 1957. Westinghouse Government Services subcontracts to Sandia Corporation in administering most of the environmental programs at TTR. Sandia Corporation operates KTF as a rocket preparation launching and tracking facility. This Annual Site Environmental Report (ASER) summarizes data and the compliance status of the environmental protection and monitoring program at TTR and KTF through Calendar Year (CY) 2003. The compliance status of environmental regulations applicable at these sites include state and federal regulations governing air emissions, wastewater effluent, waste management, terrestrial surveillance, and Environmental Restoration (ER) cleanup activities. Sandia Corporation is responsible only for those environmental program activities related to its operations. The DOE/NNSA, Nevada Site Office (NSO) retains responsibility for the cleanup and management of ER TTR sites. Currently, there are no ER Sites at KTF. Environmental monitoring and surveillance programs are required by DOE Order 450.1, Environmental Protection Program (DOE 2003) and DOE Order 231.1 Chg 2., Environment, Safety, and Health Reporting (DOE 1996).
Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico (SNL/NM) is a government-owned, contractor-operated facility owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and managed by the Sandia Site Office (SSO), Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sandia Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, operates SNL/NM. This annual report summarizes data and the compliance status of Sandia Corporation's environmental protection and monitoring programs through December 31, 2003. Major environmental programs include air quality, water quality, groundwater protection, terrestrial surveillance, waste management, pollution prevention (P2), environmental restoration (ER), oil and chemical spill prevention, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Environmental monitoring and surveillance programs are required by DOE Order 450.1, ''Environmental Protection Program'' (DOE 2003a) and DOE Order 231.1 Chg.2, ''Environment, Safety, and Health Reporting'' (DOE 1996).
Efficient and environmentally sound methods of producing hydrogen are of great importance to the US as it progresses toward the H2 economy. Current studies are investigating the use of high temperature systems driven by nuclear and/or solar energy to drive thermochemical cycles for H2 production. These processes are advantageous since they do not produce greenhouse gas emissions that are a result of hydrogen production from electrolysis or hydrocarbon reformation. Double-substituted perovskites, A1-xSrxCo1-yBy O3-δ (A = Y, La; B = Fe, Ni, Cr, Mn) were synthesized for use as ceramic high-temperature oxygen separation membranes. The materials have promising oxygen sorption properties and were structurally robust under varying temperatures and atmospheres. Post-TGA powder diffraction patterns revealed no structural changes after the temperature and gas treatments, demonstrating the robustness of the material. The most promising material was the La0.1Sr0.9Co1-xMnx O3-δ perovskite. The oxygen sorption properties increased with increasing Mn doping.
This report presents tentative innovations to enable unmanned vehicle guidance for a class of off-road traverse at sustained speeds greater than 30 miles per hour. Analyses and field trials suggest that even greater navigation speeds might be achieved. The performance calls for innovation in mapping, perception, planning and inertial-referenced stabilization of components, hosted aboard capable locomotion. The innovations are motivated by the challenge of autonomous ground vehicle traverse of 250 miles of desert terrain in less than 10 hours, averaging 30 miles per hour. GPS coverage is assumed to be available with localized blackouts. Terrain and vegetation are assumed to be akin to that of the Mojave Desert. This terrain is interlaced with networks of unimproved roads and trails, which are a key to achieving the high performance mapping, planning and navigation that is presented here.
Modeling the response of buried reinforced concrete structures subjected to close-in detonations of conventional high explosives poses a challenge for a number of reasons. Foremost, there is the potential for coupled interaction between the blast and structure. Coupling enters the problem whenever the structure deformation affects the stress state in the neighboring soil, which in turn, affects the loading on the structure. Additional challenges for numerical modeling include handling disparate degrees of material deformation encountered in the structure and surrounding soil, modeling the structure details (e.g., modeling the concrete with embedded reinforcement, jointed connections, etc.), providing adequate mesh resolution, and characterizing the soil response under blast loading. There are numerous numerical approaches for modeling this class of problem (e.g., coupled finite element/smooth particle hydrodynamics, arbitrary Lagrange-Eulerian methods, etc.). The focus of this work will be the use of a coupled Euler-Lagrange (CEL) solution approach. In particular, the development and application of a CEL capability within the Zapotec code is described. Zapotec links two production codes, CTH and Pronto3D. CTH, an Eulerian shock physics code, performs the Eulerian portion of the calculation, while Pronto3D, an explicit finite element code, performs the Lagrangian portion. The two codes are run concurrently with the appropriate portions of a problem solved on their respective computational domains. Zapotec handles the coupling between the two domains. The application of the CEL methodology within Zapotec for modeling coupled blast/structure interaction will be investigated by a series of benchmark calculations. These benchmarks rely on data from the Conventional Weapons Effects Backfill (CONWEB) test series. In these tests, a 15.4-lb pipe-encased C-4 charge was detonated in soil at a 5-foot standoff from a buried test structure. The test structure was composed of a reinforced concrete slab bolted to a reaction structure. Both the slab thickness and soil media were varied in the test series. The wealth of data obtained from these tests along with the variations in experimental setups provide ample opportunity to assess the robustness of the Zapotec CEL methodology.
We explore stability of Random Boolean Networks as a model of biological interaction networks. We introduce surface-to-volume ratio as a measure of stability of the network. Surface is defined as the set of states within a basin of attraction that maps outside the basin by a bit-flip operation. Volume is defined as the total number of states in the basin. We report development of an object-oriented Boolean network analysis code (Attract) to investigate the structure of stable vs. unstable networks. We find two distinct types of stable networks. The first type is the nearly trivial stable network with a few basins of attraction. The second type contains many basins. We conclude that second type stable networks are extremely rare.
Historically, TCP/IP has been the protocol suite used to transfer data throughout the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) community. However, TCP was developed many years ago for an environment very different from the ASC Wide Area Network (WAN) of today. There have been numerous publications that hint of better performance if modifications were made to the TCP algorithms or a different protocol was used to transfer data across a high bandwidth, high delay WAN. Since Sandia National Laboratories wants to maximize the ASC WAN performance to support the Thor's Hammer supercomputer, there is strong interest in evaluating modifications to the TCP protocol and in evaluating alternatives to TCP, such as SCTP, to determine if they provide improved performance. Therefore, the goal of this project is to test, evaluate, compare, and report protocol technologies that enhance the performance of the ASC WAN.
Response of removable epoxy foam (REF) to high heat fluxes is described using a decomposition chemistry model [1] in conjunction with a finite element heat conduction code [2] that supports chemical kinetics and dynamic radiation enclosures. The chemistry model [1] describes the temporal transformation of virgin foam into carbonaceous residue by considering breakdown of the foam polymer structure, desorption of gases not associated with the foam polymer, mass transport of decomposition products from the reaction site to the bulk gas, and phase equilibrium. The finite element foam response model considers the spatial behavior of the foam by using measured and predicted thermophysical properties in combination with the decomposition chemistry model. Foam elements are removed from the computational domain when the condensed mass fractions of the foam elements are close to zero. Element removal, referred to as element death, creates a space within the metal confinement causing radiation to be the dominant mode of heat transfer between the surface of the remaining foam elements and the interior walls of the confining metal skin. Predictions were compared to front locations extrapolated from radiographs of foam cylinders enclosed in metal containers that were heated with quartz lamps [3,4]. The effects of the maximum temperature of the metal container, density of the foam, the foam orientation, venting of the decomposition products, pressurization of the metal container, and the presence or absence of embedded components are discussed.
In a recent paper, Starr and Segalman demonstrated that any Masing model can be represented as a parallel-series Iwan model. A preponderance of the constitutive models that have been suggested for simulating mechanical joints are Masing models, and the purpose of this discussion is to demonstrate how the Iwan representation of those models can yield insight into their character. In particular, this approach can facilitate a critical comparison among numerous plausible constitutive models. It is explicitly shown that three-parameter models such as Smallwood's (Ramberg-Osgood) calculate parameters in such a manner that macro-slip is not an independent parameter, yet the model admits macro-slip. The introduction of a fourth parameter is therefore required. It is shown that when a macro-slip force is specified for the Smallwood model the result is a special case of the Segalman four-parameter model. Both of these models admit a slope discontinuity at the inception of macro-slip. A five-parameter model that has the beneficial features of Segalman's four-parameter model is proposed. This model manifests a force-displacement curve having a continuous first derivative.
Wireless sensor networks allow detailed sensing of otherwise unknown and inaccessible environments. While it would be beneficial to include cameras in a wireless sensor network because images are so rich in information, the power cost of transmitting an image across the wireless network can dramatically shorten the lifespan of the sensor nodes. This paper describe a new paradigm for the incorporation of imaging into wireless networks. Rather than focusing on transmitting images across the network, we show how an image can be processed locally for key features using simple detectors. Contrasted with traditional event detection systems that trigger an image capture, this enables a new class of sensors which uses a low power imaging sensor to detect a variety of visual cues. Sharing these features among relevant nodes cues specific actions to better provide information about the environment. We report on various existing techniques developed for traditional computer vision research which can aid in this work.