Pulak Nath of Los Alamos National Laboratory holds the Pulmonary Lung Model (PulMo). The invention received a R&D 100 Award Thursday. Courtesy/LANL
LANL News:
R&D 100, the national magazine of research and development, named the winners of its 2016 technology innovation awards Thursday night at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in a Maryland suburb just outside Washington, D.C.
Los Alamos National Laboratory captured several awards: Two, for co-developed cyber security products, Entropy Engine and Path-Scan; two for a pair of large collaborations, the CCSI (Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative) Toolset and the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA); one for a medical device, the PulMo (Pulmonary Lung Model); and another Special Recognition Award Winner for Quantum-Dot Solar Windows.
LANL’s Winning Projects:
- Entropy Engine, co-developed with Whitewood Encryption Systems, Inc. is described in the award literature as “a computer hardware system that uses quantum mechanics to generate an inexhaustible supply of pure random numbers at speeds of 200 megabits per second. The unpredictability and speed of such entropy provides the highest possible level of defense because the quantum processes used in this technology are irreducibly random.Modern cryptosystems rely on high-quality randomness, consuming surprisingly high quantities of random numbers to generate their keys and perform cryptographic operations. Unlike all these systems, the Entropy Engine uses the unique properties of quantum mechanics to generate true entropy in a way that makes it immune from all external influences.”
- PathScan, an Ernst & Young L.L.P. cyber defense tool, co-developed by LANL, is said torepresent“a game-changing new way of tackling this problem by looking at behavioral anomalies that indicate an attack and allowing enterprises to be proactive in their defense. Forged in the fires of U.S. government operational security at LANL, PathScan has proven successful in detecting sophisticated adversaries at a level of specificity that no other tool can match—and doing so before they have a chance to do any damage or extract any assets from the network. Through the statistical analysis of abnormal behavior across a network and identification of which behaviors are deviating in attack-consistent ways, PathScan provides a deeper, more targeted layer of defense against network attacks.”
- The CCSI Toolset “supports and accelerates the development, scale-up and commercialization of CO2 capture technology by enabling more thorough vetting of options, complete understanding how processes will operate at scale under relevant field conditions, and increased understanding how uncertainty affects risk. The CCSI Toolset is the sole suite of computational tools and models specifically tailored to help maximize learning during the scale-up process in order to reduce risk.”
- Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA)is an extensive collaboration led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory with co-developers including LANL, Sandia and Idaho National laboratories, along with three universities, the Electrical Power Research Institute and the Tennessee Valley AuthorityThis virtual environment“represents a new generation of capabilities that can be used by the nuclear industry to improve the operation of nuclear reactors. It provides high-fidelity, science-based simulation tools to address key challenges, enabling increased clean, safe and reliable generation of electricity.”
- PuLMOwas developed by scientists and engineers at LANL to avoid lung disease complications. They describe The Pulmonary Lung Model as “a miniature, tissue-engineered lung platform that precisely mimics the response of human lungs to pharmaceuticals and other agents. The principal application of PulMo is to revolutionize the reliability of drug toxicity assessments and better predict the efficacy of a new drug in humans. Since PulMo is the size of an actual human lung, such miniaturization makes it possible to evaluate multiple units at a time. Customization of integrated components could also create models for different lung-specific diseases and conditions.”
- Winner of a Special Recognition Award, Quantum-Dot Solar Windows co-developed with the University of Milano-Bicocca, according to a LANL press release, “contain highly emissive semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots) that collect sunlight for photovoltaics and provide a desired degree of shading. The material can turn windows and building facades into electrical generators of nonpolluting power.”
Other Awardees:
Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics |
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Battelle |
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Ohio Soybean Council |
3Bar Biologics Inc., The Ohio State University |
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Dow Coating Materials |
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Divergent 3D |
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PPG Industries |
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GreenMantra Recycling Technologies Ltd. |
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JunFu Clean Energy Co., Ltd. |
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Philips Ultrasound |
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LEMO SA |
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Sandia National Laboratories |
Arbin Instruments, Ford Motor Co., Montana Tech |
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Los Alamos National Laboratory |
University of Milano-Bicocca |
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Ohio Soybean Council |
Redwood Innovations, L.L.C., Battelle Memorial Institute |
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ULC Robotics |
UK Gas Network, SGN and ULC Robotics Inc. |
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Sandia National Laboratories |
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Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing North America |
The R&D 100
CCSI Toolset R&D 100 Conference
CCSI Toolset
Organization: U.S. Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory
Co-Developer(s): Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, West Virginia University, Princeton University, Boston University, University of Texas at Austin
Carbon capture is critical to cost effectively reduce global CO2 emissions, and commercial CCS technology must be available soon. The CCSI Toolset supports and accelerates the development, scale-up and commercialization of CO2 capture technology by enabling more thorough vetting of options, complete understanding how processes will operate at scale under relevant field conditions, and increased understanding how uncertainty affects risk. The CCSI Toolset is the sole suite of computational tools and models specifically tailored to help maximize learning during the scale-up process in order to reduce risk. This is critically important since pilot projects represent an expensive, limited opportunity to collect the data necessary to move to commercial scale. By maximizing the learning during such pilot projects, the CCSI Toolset can help reduce the timeline for subsequent commercialization and enable greater investment confidence. This product can also be employed in related industries to enable faster, more cost effective scale up of other new technologies.
Entropy Engine R&D 100 Conference
Entropy Engine
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Co-Developer(s): Whitewood Encryption Systems Inc.
Keeping cyber attackers and eavesdroppers out of electronic assets is a tricky business. Unpredictable random numbers are at the heart of all modern computer security today.The Entropy Engine is a computer hardware system that uses quantum mechanics to generate an inexhaustible supply of pure random numbers at speeds of 200 megabits per second. The unpredictability and speed of such entropy provides the highest possible level of defense because the quantum processes used in this technology are irreducibly random.Modern cryptosystems rely on high-quality randomness, consuming surprisingly high quantities of random numbers to generate their keys and perform cryptographic operations. Unlike all these systems, the Entropy Engine uses the unique properties of quantum mechanics to generate true entropy in a way that makes it immune from all external influences.
PathScan
Organization: Ernst & Young L.L.P.
Co-Developer(s): Los Alamos National Laboratory
Year: 2016
Traditional network defense tools continually prove to insufficiently protect enterprises from expensive data breaches. The prevailing signature-based systems are easily avoided by attackers. But mitigating cybersecurity threats is no longer about deterring and detecting something that “looks” like a threat. It is now about being able to identify and anticipate something that “acts” like a threat. PathScanrepresents a game-changing new way of tackling this problem by looking at behavioral anomalies that indicate an attack and allowing enterprises to be proactive in their defense. Forged in the fires of U.S. government operational security at LANL, PathScan has proven successful in detecting sophisticated adversaries at a level of specificity that no other tool can match—and doing so before they have a chance to do any damage or extract any assets from the network. Through the statistical analysis of abnormal behavior across a network and identification of which behaviors are deviating in attack-consistent ways, PathScan provides a deeper, more targeted layer of defense against network attacks.
PuLMo: Pulmonary Lung Model
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Year: 2016
To avoid lung disease complications, scientists and engineers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed PuLMo: Pulmonary Lung Model—a miniature, tissue-engineered lung platform that precisely mimics the response of human lungs to pharmaceuticals and other agents. The principal application of PuLMo is to revolutionize the reliability of drug toxicity assessments and better predict the efficacy of a new drug in humans. Since PuLMo is the size of an actual human lung, such miniaturization makes it possible to evaluate multiple units at a time. Customization of integrated components could also create models for different lung-specific diseases and conditions. Another application is using PuLMo as a platform from which to study the flow dynamics of particles inside a lung. These flow dynamics are essential in many research and development applications, including drug delivery, smoke and e-cigarette inhalation studies, as well as particle/pathogen deposition studies.
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Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA)
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Co-Developer(s): Electric Power Research Institute, Idaho National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, Sandia National Laboratories, Tennessee Valley Authority, University of Michigan, Westinghouse Electric Co.
Year: 2016
Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) represents a new generation of capabilities that can be used by the nuclear industry to improve the operation of nuclear reactors. It provides high-fidelity, science-based simulation tools to address key challenges, enabling increased clean, safe and reliable generation of electricity. The numerical algorithms and design embodied in VERA and its components provide a foundation that advances the state of the art in nuclear simulation tools, able to take advantage of both current and future computational resources ranging from industry clusters to leadership-class supercomputers. VERA’s user inter-face allows easy creation of complex models, making the use of high performance computing for engineering and design more available and usable. VERA has been proven in real-world applications through the simulation of Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, first reproducing 18 years of operation for the first unit, and currently modeling startup of the second unit.