934 research outputs found
EarthN: A new Earth System Nitrogen Model
The amount of nitrogen in the atmosphere, oceans, crust, and mantle have
important ramifications for Earth's biologic and geologic history. Despite this
importance, the history and cycling of nitrogen in the Earth system is poorly
constrained over time. For example, various models and proxies contrastingly
support atmospheric mass stasis, net outgassing, or net ingassing over time. In
addition, the amount available to and processing of nitrogen by organisms is
intricately linked with and provides feedbacks on oxygen and nutrient cycles.
To investigate the Earth system nitrogen cycle over geologic history, we have
constructed a new nitrogen cycle model: EarthN. This model is driven by mantle
cooling, links biologic nitrogen cycling to phosphate and oxygen, and
incorporates geologic and biologic fluxes. Model output is consistent with
large (2-4x) changes in atmospheric mass over time, typically indicating
atmospheric drawdown and nitrogen sequestration into the mantle and continental
crust. Critical controls on nitrogen distribution include mantle cooling
history, weathering, and the total Bulk Silicate Earth+atmosphere nitrogen
budget. Linking the nitrogen cycle to phosphorous and oxygen levels, instead of
carbon as has been previously done, provides new and more dynamic insight into
the history of nitrogen on the planet.Comment: 36 pages, 12 figure
Database Learning: Toward a Database that Becomes Smarter Every Time
In today's databases, previous query answers rarely benefit answering future
queries. For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, we change this
paradigm in an approximate query processing (AQP) context. We make the
following observation: the answer to each query reveals some degree of
knowledge about the answer to another query because their answers stem from the
same underlying distribution that has produced the entire dataset. Exploiting
and refining this knowledge should allow us to answer queries more
analytically, rather than by reading enormous amounts of raw data. Also,
processing more queries should continuously enhance our knowledge of the
underlying distribution, and hence lead to increasingly faster response times
for future queries.
We call this novel idea---learning from past query answers---Database
Learning. We exploit the principle of maximum entropy to produce answers, which
are in expectation guaranteed to be more accurate than existing sample-based
approximations. Empowered by this idea, we build a query engine on top of Spark
SQL, called Verdict. We conduct extensive experiments on real-world query
traces from a large customer of a major database vendor. Our results
demonstrate that Verdict supports 73.7% of these queries, speeding them up by
up to 23.0x for the same accuracy level compared to existing AQP systems.Comment: This manuscript is an extended report of the work published in ACM
SIGMOD conference 201
On the enigmatic mid-Proterozoic : Single-lid versus plate tectonics
The mid-Proterozoic (ca. 1850-850 Ma) is a peculiar period of Earth history in many respects: ophiolites and passive margins of this age are rare, whereas anorthosite and A-type granite suites are abundant; metamorphic rocks typically record high thermobaric (temperature/pressure) ratios, whereas ultrahigh pressure (UHP) rocks are rare; and the abundance of economic mineral deposits features rare porphyry Cu-Au and abundant Ni-Cu and Fe-oxide Cu-Ag (IOCG) deposit types. These collective observations have been used to propose that a stagnant-lid, or single-lid, tectonic regime operated at this time, between periods of plate tectonics in the Paleoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic. In our reappraisal of the mid -Proterozoic geological record, we not only assess the viability of the single-lid hypothesis for each line of evidence, but also that of the plate tectonic alternative. We find that evidence for the single-lid hypothesis is equivocal in all cases, whereas for plate tectonics the evidence is equivocal or supporting. We therefore find no reason to abandon a plate tectonic model for the mid-Proterozoic time period. Instead, we propose that the peculiarities of this enigmatic interval can be reconciled through the combination of two processes working in tandem: secular mantle cooling and the exceptionally long tenure and incomplete breakup of Earth's first supercontinent, where both of these phenomena had a dramatic effect on lithospheric behaviour and its resulting imprint in the geological record. (c) 2022 British Geological Survey (c) UKRI 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe
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Design of an Integrated Laboratory Scale Test for Hydrogen Production via High Temperature Electrolysis
The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is researching the feasibility of high-temperature steam electrolysis for high-efficiency carbon-free hydrogen production using nuclear energy. Typical temperatures for high-temperature electrolysis (HTE) are between 800º-900ºC, consistent with anticipated coolant outlet temperatures of advanced high-temperature nuclear reactors. An Integrated Laboratory Scale (ILS) test is underway to study issues such as thermal management, multiple-stack electrical configuration, pre-heating of process gases, and heat recuperation that will be crucial in any large-scale implementation of HTE. The current ILS design includes three electrolysis modules in a single hot zone. Of special design significance is preheating of the inlet streams by superheaters to 830°C before entering the hot zone. The ILS system is assembled on a 10’ x 16’ skid that includes electronics, power supplies, air compressor, pumps, superheaters, , hot zone, condensers, and dew-point sensor vessels. The ILS support system consists of three independent, parallel supplies of electrical power, sweep gas streams, and feedstock gas mixtures of hydrogen and steam to the electrolysis modules. Each electrolysis module has its own support and instrumentation system, allowing for independent testing under different operating conditions. The hot zone is an insulated enclosure utilizing electrical heating panels to maintain operating conditions. The target hydrogen production rate for the ILS is 5000 Nl/hr
Unprecedented Alexandrium blooms in a previously low biotoxin risk area of Tasmania, Australia.
During October 2012, a shipment of blue mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) from the poorly monitored east coast of Tasmania, Australia, was tested by Japanese import authorities and found to be contaminated with unacceptable levels of Paralytic Shellfish Toxins (PSTs; 10 mg/kg). Subsequently local oysters, scallops, clams, the viscera of abalone and rock lobsters were also found to be contaminated. This led to a global product recall and loss to the local economy of AUD 23M. Following low toxicity during 2013 and 2014 and implementation of minimal shellfish farm closures, a more severe bloom event occurred during July-November 2015 and again June-September 2016 (up to 300,000 Alexandrium cells/L; 24 mg/kg PST in mussels, 6 mg/kg in Crassostrea gigas oysters), also causing 4 human illnesses resulting in hospitalization after consumption of wild shellfish. While Alexandrium tamarense had been detected in low concentrations in southeastern Australia since 1987, all cultured strains belonged to the mostly non-toxic group 5 (now designated A. australiense; detected since 1987) and weakly toxic group 4 (A. pacificum; detected in 1997). In contrast, the 2012 to 2016 outbreaks were dominated by highly toxic group 1 (A. fundyense) never detected previously in the Australian region. Molecular analyses suggest that A. fundyense may have been a cryptic ribotype previously present in Tasmania, but newly stimulated by altered water column stratification conditions driven by changing rainfall and temperature patterns. Increased seafood and plankton monitoring of the area now include the implementation of Alexandrium qPCR, routine Neogenâ„¢ immunological and HPLC PST tests, but ultimately may also drive change in harvesting strategies and aquaculture species selection by the local seafood industry
VerdictDB: Universalizing Approximate Query Processing
Despite 25 years of research in academia, approximate query processing (AQP)
has had little industrial adoption. One of the major causes of this slow
adoption is the reluctance of traditional vendors to make radical changes to
their legacy codebases, and the preoccupation of newer vendors (e.g.,
SQL-on-Hadoop products) with implementing standard features. Additionally, the
few AQP engines that are available are each tied to a specific platform and
require users to completely abandon their existing databases---an unrealistic
expectation given the infancy of the AQP technology. Therefore, we argue that a
universal solution is needed: a database-agnostic approximation engine that
will widen the reach of this emerging technology across various platforms.
Our proposal, called VerdictDB, uses a middleware architecture that requires
no changes to the backend database, and thus, can work with all off-the-shelf
engines. Operating at the driver-level, VerdictDB intercepts analytical queries
issued to the database and rewrites them into another query that, if executed
by any standard relational engine, will yield sufficient information for
computing an approximate answer. VerdictDB uses the returned result set to
compute an approximate answer and error estimates, which are then passed on to
the user or application. However, lack of access to the query execution layer
introduces significant challenges in terms of generality, correctness, and
efficiency. This paper shows how VerdictDB overcomes these challenges and
delivers up to 171 speedup (18.45 on average) for a variety of
existing engines, such as Impala, Spark SQL, and Amazon Redshift, while
incurring less than 2.6% relative error. VerdictDB is open-sourced under Apache
License.Comment: Extended technical report of the paper that appeared in Proceedings
of the 2018 International Conference on Management of Data, pp. 1461-1476.
ACM, 201
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Characterization of the Transient Response of the ILS with One Module Installed to Heatup Changes in Power Level and Cooldown
This report provides documentation of the initial startup and testing of the first electrolysis module in the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) High Temperature Steam Electrolysis Integrated Laboratory Scale (ILS) facility. Initial shakedown testing of the INL ILS experimental facility commenced on August 22, 2007. This fulfilled a DOE Level 2 milestone. Heatup of the first ILS module started at approximately 4:10 PM on September 24, 2007. Initial module testing continued for 420 hours. The test average H2 production rate was approximately 1.3 Nm3/hr (0.116 kg H2/hr), with a peak measured value of over 2 Nm3/hr (0.179 kg H2/hr). Significant module performance degradation was observed over the first 250 hours, after which no further degradation was noted for the remainder of the test. Once all test objectives had been successfully met, the test was terminated in a controlled fashion. Discussion is included concerning several modifications that will be incorporated into the facility components to improve reliability and ease of operation for future long term testing
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