Modeling the Uptake of Hydrogen Chloride onto Interior Spacecraft Materials
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Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Suleyman Gokoglu.
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INTRODUCTION We use artificial neural networks (ANNs) as an example machine learning (ML) tool to predict the cognitive performance impairment of rats induced by irradiation. The experimental data in the analyses is attentional set-shifting (ATSET) test scores from a rodent model exposed to ≤15 cGy of individual galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) ions: 4He, 28Si, or 56Fe, expected for a Lunar or Mars mission [1]. This work investigates rats at a subject-based level and uses applied dose and performance scores taken before irradiation to predict whether a rat will be impaired when irradiated. The results of this study are significant to crewed space missions as they support the potential of predicting an astronaut’s impairment in a specific task before spaceflight through the implementation of appropriately trained ML tools. METHODS Data used in this work are scores from the ATSET, a multi-stage constrained cognitive flexibility test [2]. Our computational model utilizes the number of attempts to reach the criterion to pass a stage as a behavioral performance measure for rats. We use the post-irradiation scores, generate thresholds from cumulative distribution plots of non-irradiated rats, and calculate the percent of irradiated rats whose scores fall below the threshold to infer how each radiation type/dose affects a population. Rats scoring above the threshold are labeled impaired while the others are non-impaired. We then employ ANNs as a typical ML technique, and use each subject’s individual scores taken before radiation along with the applied dose, to predict their personal susceptibility to cognitive impairment due to space radiation exposure. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION A significant finding is the exhibition of a dose-dependent increasing probability of impairment for 1 to 10 cGy of 28Si or 56Fe in the simple discrimination (SD) stage of the ATSET, and for 1 to 10 cGy of 56Fe in the compound discrimination (CD) stage. On a subject-based level, implementing ML classifiers such as ANNs identifies rats that have a higher tendency for impairment after GCR exposure [1]. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and the precision-recall (PR) curves of the ML models show a better prediction of impairment when 56Fe is the ion in question in both SD (Figure 1) and CD stages. They, however, do not depict impairment due to 4He in SD (Figure 1) and 28Si in CD, suggesting no dose-dependent impairment response in these cases. In this work, “good” prediction pertains to “better-than-random-chance”, due to the limited sample size and the high inter- and intra-individual variabilities in response to brain stimulation paradigms, as applicable to both animals and humans. More behavioral tests and biomarkers should be investigated on the same subjects, to be fed to the ML models to capture the agents responsible for performance alterations of some individuals versus others.
INTRODUCTION We use artificial neural networks (ANNs) as an example machine learning (ML) tool to predict the cognitive performance impairment of rats induced by irradiation. The experimental data in the analyses is attentional set-shifting (ATSET) test scores from a rodent model exposed to ≤15 cGy of individual galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) ions: 4He, 28Si, or 56Fe, expected for a Lunar or Mars mission [1]. This work investigates rats at a subject-based level and uses applied dose and performance scores taken before irradiation to predict whether a rat will be impaired when irradiated. The results of this study are significant to crewed space missions as they support the potential of predicting an astronaut’s impairment in a specific task before spaceflight through the implementation of appropriately trained ML tools. METHODS Data used in this work are scores from the ATSET, a multi-stage constrained cognitive flexibility test [2]. Our computational model utilizes the number of attempts to reach the criterion to pass a stage as a behavioral performance measure for rats. We use the post-irradiation scores, generate thresholds from cumulative distribution plots of non-irradiated rats, and calculate the percent of irradiated rats whose scores fall below the threshold to infer how each radiation type/dose affects a population. Rats scoring above the threshold are labeled impaired while the others are non-impaired. We then employ ANNs as a typical ML technique, and use each subject’s individual scores taken before radiation along with the applied dose, to predict their personal susceptibility to cognitive impairment due to space radiation exposure. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION A significant finding is the exhibition of a dose-dependent increasing probability of impairment for 1 to 10 cGy of 28Si or 56Fe in the simple discrimination (SD) stage of the ATSET, and for 1 to 10 cGy of 56Fe in the compound discrimination (CD) stage. On a subject-based level, implementing ML classifiers such as ANNs identifies rats that have a higher tendency for impairment after GCR exposure [1]. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and the precision-recall (PR) curves of the ML models show a better prediction of impairment when 56Fe is the ion in question in both SD (Figure 1) and CD stages. They, however, do not depict impairment due to 4He in SD (Figure 1) and 28Si in CD, suggesting no dose-dependent impairment response in these cases. In this work, “good” prediction pertains to “better-than-random-chance”, due to the limited sample size and the high inter- and intra-individual variabilities in response to brain stimulation paradigms, as applicable to both animals and humans. More behavioral tests and biomarkers should be investigated on the same subjects, to be fed to the ML models to capture the agents responsible for performance alterations of some individuals versus others.
The crew health and performance (CHP) system represents the span of technological interventions and tested processes and procedures that in combination address the human risk to space flight. The Human Research Program (HRP) mental model of the CHP system breaks the capabilities needed to meet NASA human flight systems standards into specific categories (i.e., countermeasures, behavioral health, medical intervention). These categories are further broken down into specific sub-groups generally associated with the human system risks that these capabilities seek to mitigate. Like the approach used to develop the Integrated Medical Model (IMM) and the Medical Extensible Dynamic Probabilistic Risk Analysis Tool (MEDPRAT), HRP tasked NASA GRC’s Cross-Cutting Computational Modeling Project with developing a CHP probabilistic risk assessment tool, the CHP-PRA. The CHP-PRA model seeks to quantify and relatively assess the human risk state within the crew health and performance domain, using a combination of knowledge about human system risks and technology and practices likely to be applied during space flight missions. This modeling system will incorporate customer and stakeholder feedback and be flexible enough to address multiple different questions about important low-level mission-specific parameters. This presentation will introduce the initial concept and development timeline for this tool and demonstrate proof-of-concept through an application addressing a specific human risk question posed within the Artemis program.
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The Crew Health and Performance-Probabilistic Risk Assessment (CHP-PRA) team at NASA Glenn Research Center is planning a customized approach to quantify human spaceflight performance changes with respect to changes to the CHP system functions and capabilities. Using the Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG) initiated by NASA’s Human Systems Risk Board (HSRB) [1], the team is surveying potential candidate models and novel strategies that generate metrics suitable for supporting decision making related to how the CHP system may influence human system performance risk. One such investigation includes classic Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) models. Traditionally, HRA methods estimate the occurrence of human errors and their impact on the success of an activity when designing and operating a system. While humans perceive, interpret, decide on, and carry out a course of action, the factors affecting performance and error likelihood are commonly referred to as performance shaping factors (PSFs). Originally developed to alleviate safety concerns related to nuclear power plant operations, HRA methods such as THERP [2] and CREAM [3] dismantle an activity into tasks, requiring elemental steps to be executed, and assess their failure due to predefined PSFs. In this study, we compare generic HRA methods and those that incorporate some human spaceflight aspects, such as sleep conditions (SCREAM [4]), with respect to how they may be adopted to capture performance with an intention to mitigate detrimental outcomes elucidated by the HSRB DAGs. We suggest strategies to quantify astronaut performance specific to spaceflight activities and illustrate how such concepts may help in optimizing the CHP system capabilities with respect to Artemis missions.
NASA has linked potential Long-Term Health (LTH) risks of astronauts to their spaceflight experience, including the effects of space radiation, microgravity, and stressors such as isolation, sleep deprivation, and stress. Therefore, assessing the LTH outcomes for astronauts exposed to these hazards becomes a critical investigation in ensuring any deleterious effects are minimal. Prior research conducted into LTH outcomes of astronauts has not revealed increases in non-accidental mortality rates when compared to the U.S. general population, analog healthy cohorts, and professional athletes. One study did report an increased incidence of non-fatal cardiovascular disease events (Hazard Ratio=2.41, 95% Confidence Interval 1.26 to 4.63). Additional evidence indicates that astronauts may have increases in incidences of melanoma, prostate, and hematologic cancers, though the former is consistent with rates observed among aircraft pilots and the latter two are likely caused by detection bias due to increased screening on former astronauts.
At NASA, the Crew Health and Performance (CHP) system represents the span of countermeasures, capabilities, interventions, and tested processes and procedures that in combination work to mitigate the human component of spaceflight mission risk. Across the varying NASA mental models of the CHP system, the different functionalities needed to meet human flight systems standards can be broken down into specific categories (i.e. medical capability, environmental health, behavioral health). These categories can be further broken down into specific subgroups generally associated with the CHP functionalities meant to mitigate or buy down individual human system risks. Taking a similar development approach we seek to leverage dynamic probabilistic risk assessment as a means to quantify and relatively assess the human risk state within the crew health and performance domain. By utilizing existing tools as integrators, we propose a rapid development strategy for incorporating research and operational data that represent the influence of the CHP system functionalities, in order to provide order of magnitudes estimates of the influence on most human system risks outcomes. The model system utilizes a modest cumulative risk approach and that limits the scope to primary paths of influence between the CHP functionalities and human system risks, thus enabling quick prototypes of the integrative effects of CHP functional combinations to solicit valuable feedback from stakeholders and customers on the data, relationship, and structure of the integration.
NASA has long used Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) when high-stakes decisions need to be made about complex systems. For spaceflight medical risk, the Human Research Program’s Medical Extensible Dynamic Probabilistic Risk Assessment Tool (MEDPRAT) is a significant step towards robustly quantifying the risk to crew health during exploration missions. However, there remains a significant gap in the ability to comprehensively characterize and assess risk across the disparate functionalities and capabilities which comprise the entire Crew Health and Performance (CHP) system. To fill this gap, the Crew Health and Performance – Probabilistic Risk Assessment (CHP-PRA) project aims to perform risk characterization for the CHP system by assessing performance risk in addition to medical risk. This effort also includes quantifying Long-Term Health (LTH) risk in addition to in-mission risk outcomes within the CHP-PRA results. LTH risk encompasses the timeframe from immediately post-flight, through the rest of an astronaut’s career, through retirement, and until death. A proof-of-concept LTH risk metric is based on medical condition end-state, as defined by the Evidence Library, capturing the spaceflight specific medical impacts persisting into post-flight[1]. Condition outcomes in the Evidence Library progress through three Clinical Phases (CP): the diagnostic phase (CP1), the treatment/convalescent phase (CP2), and the end-state phase (CP3) which represents the detrimental effects of the condition after the crew member has recovered to the maximal extent. Each CP has an associated Task Impairment (TI), defined as the degree of crew incapacity due to experiencing the condition, and is quantified with a 0-1 range. Conditions with an associated CP3 (e.g. Sepsis, Traumatic Hypovolemic Shock, Sudden Cardiac Arrest, etc.) typically have serious consequences that can cause an astronaut to be fully or partially debilitated throughout the remainder of the mission. Consequently, the Cumulative CP3 TI End-of-Mission Health Status Metric is developed by CHP-PRA to quantify the cumulative effects of all conditions which progressed to the CP3 state throughout the entirety of the mission. Hence, this End-of-Mission Health Status Metric attempts to serve as an indicator of an astronaut’s health state at the time of landing. The severity of the lingering effects of in-mission medical events are dependent on mission activities and the level of available in-mission medical care. This allows the associated cumulative TI metric to be used in comparison with the crew’s end of mission health status for different levels of in-mission resources. This presentation provides the strategy for using CP3 as an LTH metric component, as well as a proof-of-concept demonstration of LTH risk characterization using this component.
Astronauts face hazards during spaceflight, including space radiation exposure, isolation and confinement, traveling far distances from Earth, reduced gravity levels, and closed and hostile environments. These hazards drive the definition of human health and performance risks associated with spaceflight. NASA’s Human System Risk Board maintains the human spaceflight risk posture for in-mission risks, as well as post-flight, Long-Term Health (LTH)risks potentially occurring later in the astronaut’s life. LTH risk encompasses the timeframe from immediately post-flight, through the rest of an astronaut’s career, through retirement, and until death. Possible LTH risk outcomes include the time and interventions needed for the astronaut to return to preflight physiological states after experiencing spaceflight hazards and recovery from any in-mission medical events that persist into the post-flight timeframe. It includes chronic complications that may arise due to experiencing in-flight medical conditions or injuries and medical conditions that occur later in life with a higher probability of occurrence or with more severity because of their spaceflight exposure. Finally, LTH risk outcomes can also include a reduction in life expectancy due to spaceflight exposures. There have been 144 medical conditions identified by NASA’s Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health team to be associated with LTH risk. Epidemiological studies have been performed for some of these conditions to determine if astronauts suffer from an increased prevalence or severity of the condition due to their spaceflight experience compared to a comparable cohort .Differences in astronaut mortality or morbidity due to spaceflight experience were not detected in several of these studies. There were two cases where a modest increase in the incidence rate of astronaut LTH outcomes was detected. The first suggested an increase in the incidence of melanoma cases in astronauts, where the number of cases in astronauts were similar to the elevated number of cases observed in airplane pilots. The second provided some evidence of elevated numbers of cardiovascular disease events in astronauts compared to an appropriate healthy comparator cohort, which may warrant additional investigation. The lack of detection of LTH risk outcomes should not ease concerns about astronaut LTH. The studies highlighted here constitute only a small portion of the potential LTH conditions that could occur. Once epidemiological studies are performed on all conditions, significant findings may be detected. The analysis of astronaut LTH also suffers from limited numbers of data points because of the limited numbers of astronauts overall and the even fewer who have reached an age where LTH outcomes may begin to manifest. As shuttle and ISS astronauts begin to age and increase the feasibility of analysis, LTH outcomes may be detected. An application of risk quantification is the use of risk metrics within trade studies for resource prioritization and decision making. Trade studies regarding countermeasures to LTH risk outcomes would benefit from a quantification of LTH risk. NASA has ground-based processes in place such as astronaut screening and access to continuous medical monitoring and care during and after their astronaut career which are the main methods for mitigating LTH risk. In-mission countermeasures, such as acceptable levels of medical care and available countermeasures to counter spaceflight related physiological decrements, can mitigate a poor health and performance status immediately post-flight. Identifying appropriate risk metrics, obtaining valid quantities for them, and tying them to LTH countermeasures are necessary steps for realizing their use in trade studies. This presentation will highlight the challenges associated with the identification, quantification, and utilization of LTH risk metrics
The Crew Health and Performance-Probabilistic Risk Assessment (CHP-PRA) team at NASA Glenn Research Center has developed a range of tools to evaluate astronaut health during spaceflight and to optimize the medical set required for missions. Among these, the Performance Risk Model (PRisM) represents a novel advancement, extending CHP-PRA’s focus beyond medical systems into the domain of human performance. Such tool could be pivotal in optimizing astronaut capabilities during space travel, thereby enhancing overall mission success. PRisM leverages data from well-established performance assessments conducted during previous crewed space missions and Earth analogs to strategically predict outcomes for planned tasks, even when direct performance testing has not been conducted for those specific tasks. To evaluate performance, PRisM references the various metrics outlined in NASA-STD-3001 and employs a methodology to integrate different performance scales. This framework analyzes the contribution of various human system task categories (HSTCs) to task execution and compares these contributions to the HSTCs’ involvement in other known tests. The model further employs a Monte Carlo simulation to sample performance scores from their distribution in operationally relevant tests such as those in Mulavara et al. (2018) and, by leveraging similarities in HSTC involvement, transfers this knowledge to actual mission tasks, such as those outlined in the "Human Exploration of Mars: Preliminary List of Crew Tasks”. The current PRisM proof-of-concept includes analyses of the impact of exercise and specific medications on astronauts’ performance, with provisions to incorporate additional countermeasures as data becomes available. Furthermore, the tool is customizable to include any system necessary to fully encompass the domain of human systems and can be adapted to evaluate performance for any spaceflight activities as requested by operational stakeholders. PRisM has the potential to assist the Human Research Program in exploring the capabilities trade space for optimized crew performance.
Human Research Program aims to develop methods to support astronauts’ health and productivity during spaceflight. The Crew Health and Performance Probabilistic Risk Assessment (CHP-PRA) team uses powerful computational methods to predict mission risk in both domains: medical and performance. Here, we show how CHP-PRA uses the Performance Risk Model (PRisM) to quantify the performance risk and show an application of the model on operationally relevant tasks. There are various metrics adopted across performance researchers that PRisM can accommodate. For data analysis, interpretation, and integration, we use a method of unifying data from multiple sources by converting each to a single metric. We consult subject matter experts prior to integrating the converted data into PRisM. The method we use is inspired by the Cooper-Harper rating scale [1]. Using this unified metric, we can easily combine data from various tests and lab groups. We explain our conversion method in detail and show how it pertains to the process of testing and validation of PRisM on operational tasks. We conducted an initial validation in collaboration with the Behavioral Health and Performance (BHP) lab. We test PRisM using data on their operationally relevant task ROBoT-r, a track-and-capture task for grappling incoming resupply vehicles [2]. Several other labs at NASA Johnson Space Center worked together to design 7 Functional Task Tests (FTTs) in pursuit of simulating the tasks required after landing on a planetary surface and after return to Earth [3]. Here we use the results from both ROBoT-r and the 7 FTTs and compare their experiment data to PRisM’s computational output to demonstrate how PRisM can support operations by predicting crew performance on future missions.