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Assessing Urban Heat in the Cincinnati and Covington Area to Inform Local Decision-Makers and Environmental Justice Initiatives

The Urban Heat Island effect is a phenomenon characterized by urban areas experiencing temperatures that are, on average, warmer than surrounding suburban and rural regions. Urban Heat Islands are fueled by expansive impervious surfaces, vehicle emissions, and insufficient urban green space. Densely populated urban centers like the Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky area can experience negative health impacts due to the Urban Heat Island. NASA DEVELOP partnered with Groundwork USA and Groundwork Ohio River Valley to combine environmental education and outreach with technical capacity building in NASA Earth observations. The DEVELOP team used Landsat 5 TM and ISS ECOSTRESS to calculate daytime and nighttime land surface temperature anomalies. The team found that the Cincinnati and Covington area was 8.32°F warmer during the day and 4.97°F warmer at night compared to non-urban areas. The team also ran the Natural Capital Project InVEST Urban Cooling Model to map a heat mitigation index for the study area. The heat mitigation index models the cooling capacity of each pixel and the effect of green spaces on the pixel’s ability to mitigate heat. Results show which communities are most vulnerable to impacts of increased urban heat. The team also assessed alternative tree canopy scenarios with the InVEST model to better understand the effectiveness of potential heat mitigation strategies. Increasing tree canopy cover by 25% in urbanized land cover types was found to reduce mean temperature across the study area by 0.87°F. Combining these results with work from Groundwork’s Climate Safe Neighborhoods program highlights the relationship between extreme heat and historical-race based housing practices in the region. Results provide partners at Groundwork with refined methodologies to support future education and outreach, as well as increase future capacity to NASA Earth observations.

Celeste Gambino↗

DOE OSTI2022

“Snowmass’21 Discussions on Future HEP Facilities in the US

The US particle physics community planning exercise (a.k.a. “Snowmass”) is organized every 7 to 9 years to provide a forum for discussions among the entire particle physics community to develop a scientific vision for the future of particle physics in the U.S. and its international partners. The Snowmass'21 Accelerator Frontier activities include discussions on high-energy hadron and lepton colliders, high-intensity beams for neutrino research and for “Physics Beyond Colliders”, accelerator technologies, science, education and outreach as well as the progress of core accelerator technologies, including RF, magnets, targets and sources. Here we summarize the Snowmass'21 discussions on future HEP accelerator facilities.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

NASA NTRS2011

Mission X: Train Like an Astronaut. International Fitness Challenge

The Mission X, Train like an Astronaut, pilot project was a 2-year effort directed by the International Life Science Working Group. The pilot was funded by the Human Research Program and was lead by the Human Research Program Education and Outreach (HRPEO) project and supported by a group of space agencies providing in-kind resources. The aim was to identify an international educational outreach concept that would promote a life science topic utilizing the education and outreach expertise of the various space agencies working on the utilization of the International Space Station. This in turn serves as an inspiration for the younger generation to aspire to go further in school, and provides insight into the capability of a participating country to ensure the effort provided value for their communities and children. The pilot project developed the necessary tools to promote communications between the partners and to use materials and expertise from all the countries? space agencies. The Mission X Website (trainlikeanastronaut.org) provided a single repository for the educational activities as well as a place for the Challenge Teams to provide their progress in the international fitness challenge. It also added to the International flavor as different countries were able to share and learn about what was happening with all those involved in the 6-week challenge period. A point system was utilized to promote constructive, cooperative competition in which 4164 students participated. The points were used to help FitKid, Astro Charlie, "Walk-To-The-Moon". The 18 physical and educational Mission X activities were made available on the Mission X website in seven languages. The Mission X pilot project was considered a success in 1) the design, development, and implementation of the multi-language website, 2) the expansion of healthy lifestyle awareness, and 3) the concept for drawing an international educational community together to highlight global topics in association with human space exploration. Metrics (70 post-event surveys) and lessons learned were collated and assessed. Key Lessons Learned were 1) foster and strengthen partnerships at all levels, 2) enhance and standardize MX Training, and 3) further expansion of activities and methods to teach the importance of fitness and nutrition. Methods used to teach the importance of nutrition and fitness are provided in the report.

Lloyd, Charles↗

DOE OSTI2022

Snowmass 21 Discussions on Future Accelerator HEP Facilities

The US particle physics community planning exercise (a.k.a. Snowmass) is organized every 7 to 9 years to provide a forum for discussions among the entire particle physics community to develop a scientific vision for the future of particle physics in the U.S. and its international partners. The Snowmass 21 Accelerator Frontier activities include discussions on high-energy hadron and lepton colliders, high-intensity beams for neutrino research and for Physics Beyond Colliders, accelerator technologies, science, education and outreach as well as the progress of core accelerator technologies, including RF, magnets, targets and sources. Here we summarize the Snowmass 21 discussions on future HEP accelerator facilities.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

NASA NTRS2023

Exploration Habitat (X-Hab) 2013-2014 Academic Innovation Challenge

Outreach activities were coordinated with OSU’s NASA Education Office and focused around the Space Habitat Innovation Challenge. Two challenges were developed for this year: the Rapidly Prototyped Tool Challenge (RaPTC) and the Space Habitat Airlock Challenge (SHAC). RaPTC was open to eligible high school student teams while SHAC was open to eligible community college student teams. Teams involved 3-6 students from 12 states across the country and submitted videos or virtual presentations.1 Entries were judged by the OSU XHab students and were provided with feedback on feasibility and design. Three groups in each challenge were selected as finalists for a final virtual presentation and interview with students and professors in the engineering program at Oklahoma State University. Three groups total were selected to present their design to engineers and astronauts at a NASA JSC. Judges included astronauts Joe Acaba, Nicole Stott, and Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger.

Jamey D Jacob↗

DOE OSTI2022

Snowmass'21 Accelerator Frontier

The Particle Physics Community Planning Exercise (a.k.a. “Snowmass”) is the form of organization of regular, every 6 to 8 years, discussions among the entire particle physics community to develop a scientifc vision for the future of particle physics in the U.S. and its international partners. The Snowmass’21 Accelerator Frontier activities include discussions on high-energy hadron and lepton colliders, high-intensity beams for neutrino research and for the “Physics Beyond Colliders”, accelerator technologies, science, education and outreach as well as the progress of core accelerator technology, including RF, magnets, targets and sources.

Gourlay, Stephen Alan↗

NASA NTRS2018

An Introduction to SPEARS (Spectrum Education Awareness)

This presentation provides an overview of the SPectrum Education AwaRenesS (SPEARS) initiative developed by the NASA Spectrum Office under HEO/SCaN. SPEARS is a strategic initiative that is comprised of fourteen (14) activities/tasks targeted for various stakeholders within and external to NASA and from the spectrum and non-spectrum communities. These activities will also facilitate fostering partnerships and enhance the regulatory and policy understanding with international spectrum regulators and other space agencies. Further, SPEARS will institute several activities geared to promote spectrum management and to gain the interest of the next and future generations of spectrum managers, through Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) outreach.

spectrum training↗

NASA NTRS2022

Ideas on the NASA Senior Review and Mission Extension Process

Extended mission budgets fund a significant part of our community, particularly young scientists who in a relatively short time are exposed to a broad range of experiences and opportunities available in space science and other STEM fields. In particular, mission-funded science offers a relatively stable funding stream that enables meaningful mentoring efforts and interactions, including apprenticeships ranging from project management, to mission operations, to data processing and analysis, to hardware and software development, to STEM-related education and outreach. It moreover provides professional contacts that fuel diversity in mission leadership and in the science and technical workforce at-large. Last but not least, it sustains the scientific productivity of NASA’s missions, which constitute major national investments meriting their full exploitation. Budgets cuts, however, are exercising pressure on the science and operations of the extended mission fleet despite being only a small portion of the overall Division budget. The history of Heliophysics has demonstrated that maintaining the operation of missions beyond their prime phase invariably leads to a much deeper knowledge of the original mission science goals, together with new applications often not foreseen during their original design. Their operation as part of the Heliophysics System Observatory (HSO)---a coordinated, 1eliophysics, multipoint observing system of the heliosphere, is a prime example. Some of the first activities undertaken by the Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter missions required recreating the larger context of their new observations by using the diversity of HSO mission capabilities. The marginal cost of maintaining this valuable, working science resource, in the form of both continuing high quality data access and expertise, is small compared to the cost of the original missions or of new missions to achieve similar objectives, making the operation of extended missions, the best “science per dollar” investment in Heliophysics. We argue that reducing both extended mission operations and science budgets will have a ripple effect across the community, including reducing employment and training opportunities for young scientists, to lowering the quality/impact of the Heliophysics Systems Observatory. Instead, we suggest that the proposal process for mission extension should be re-examined. We offer several ideas for reducing costs of extended missions toward maintaining science output and streamlining the management process.

A. Vourlidas↗

NASA NTRS2012

WFIRST Project Science Activities

The WFIRST Project is a joint effort between GSFC and JPL. The project scientists and engineers are working with the community Science Definition Team to define the requirements and initial design of the mission. The objective is to design an observatory that meets the WFIRST science goals of the Astr02010 Decadal Survey for minimum cost. This talk will be a report of recent project activities including requirements flowdown, detector array development, science simulations, mission costing and science outreach. Details of the interim mission design relevant to scientific capabilities will be presented.

Gehrels, Neil↗

DOE OSTI2026

National Solar Thermal Test Facility: Operations & Maintenance Report

The NSTTF O&M Project continues the operation and maintenance activities of the existing critical capabilities and infrastructure at the NSTTF. This project is to support and assure the success of Solar Heat for Industrial Process in the United States and the larger global community by ensuring the NSTTF is a safe and operational facility. The primary goal of this project will be to maintain the solar tower and heliostat field while also allowing NSTTF staff to improve processes for operations and maintenance. This includes expanding our preventative maintenance program, inventory systems, and our data sharing capabilities. Additionally, this will support an outreach program with regular seminars, sharing of data, and the release of open-source software to support heliostat metrology

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

NASA NTRS2004

Grist : grid-based data mining for astronomy

The Grist project is developing a grid-technology based system as a research environment for astronomy with massive and complex datasets. This knowledge extraction system will consist of a library of distributed grid services controlled by a workflow system, compliant with standards emerging from the grid computing, web services, and virtual observatory communities. This new technology is being used to find high redshift quasars, study peculiar variable objects, search for transients in real time, and fit SDSS QSO spectra to measure black hole masses. Grist services are also a component of the 'hyperatlas' project to serve high-resolution multi-wavelength imagery over the Internet. In support of these science and outreach objectives, the Grist framework will provide the enabling fabric to tie together distributed grid services in the areas of data access, federation, mining, subsetting, source extraction, image mosaicking, statistics, and visualization.

grid computing↗

DOE OSTI2024

Final Report on the 2023 LaserNetUS Annual Meeting

LaserNetUS is a network of advanced laser facilities created by the Department of Energy Fusion Energy Sciences to provide greatly improved access to the most powerful lasers in North America. It is dedicated to the development of the high energy density physics workforce, especially the training and advancement of early career scientists. The network is helping to build a larger, better skilled and more diverse scientific community. The result of the work of LaserNetUS towards these goals was on display at the 2023 LaserNetUS Annual Meeting, held at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland on June 27-29, 2023 (Figure 1). The meeting had 216 participants, the largest sponsor/exhibitor participation of any LaserNetUS annual meeting, wide ranging plenary, invited, and contributed talks, a vigorous poster session, outreach to a diverse range of students, and two awards sessions.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2026

Integrated Hydrogen Energy System Testing/Validation: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-21-18272

Through the ARIES platform, this proposed project aims to bridge a gap and utilize the power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) and controller hardware-in-the-loop (CHIL) experiments and create open-source interconnection and interoperability information that can aid in faster and cheaper installation and operation of grid forming fuel cell inverters.

08 HYDROGEN↗

NASA NTRS2010

NASA's Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP) Mission

The Soil Moisture Active-Passive (SMAP) Mission is one of the first Earth observation satellites being formulated by NASA in response to the 2007 National Research Council s Decadal Survey. SMAP will make global measurements of soil moisture at the Earth's land surface and its freeze-thaw state. These measurements will allow significantly improved estimates of water, energy and carbon transfers between the land and atmosphere. Soil moisture measurements are also of great importance in assessing flooding and monitoring drought. Knowledge gained from SMAP observations can help mitigate these natural hazards, resulting in potentially great economic and social benefits. SMAP observations of soil moisture and freeze/thaw timing over the boreal latitudes will also reduce a major uncertainty in quantifying the global carbon balance and help to resolve an apparent missing carbon sink over land. The SMAP mission concept will utilize an L-band radar and radiometer sharing a rotating 6-meter mesh reflector antenna flying in a 680 km polar orbit with an 8-day exact ground track repeat aboard a 3-axis stabilized spacecraft to provide high-resolution and high-accuracy global maps of soil moisture and freeze/thaw state every two to three days. In addition, the SMAP project will use these surface observations with advanced modeling and data assimilation to provide estimates of deeper root-zone soil moisture and net ecosystem exchange of carbon. SMAP recently completed its Phase A Mission Concept Study Phase for NASA and transitioned into Phase B (Formulation and Detailed Design). A number of significant accomplishments occurred during this initial phase of mission development. The SMAP project held several open meetings to solicit community feedback on possible science algorithms, prepared preliminary draft Algorithm Theoretical Basis Documents (ATBDs) for each mission science product, and established a prototype algorithm testbed to enable testing and evaluation of the performance of candidate algorithms. SMAP conducted an Applications Workshop in September 2009 to coordinate with potential application users interested in the mission data. A draft Applications Plan describing the Project s planned outreach to potential applications users has been prepared and will be updated during Phase B. SMAP made a significant evaluation of the potential terrestrial radio frequency interference (RFI) source environment and established radiometer and radar flight hardware and ground processing mitigation approaches. SMAP finalized its science orbit and orbit injection approach to optimize launch mass and prepared launch and commissioning scenarios and timeline. A science data communications approach was developed to maximize available science data volume to improve science margins while maintaining moderately short data product latencies to support many potential applications using existing ground assets and with minimum impact to the flight system. SMAP developed rigid multi-body and flexible body dynamics and control models and system designs for the 6-meter rotating instrument reflector-boom assembly (RBA) and flight system to confirm pointing and control performance, and devised strategies to efficiently implement on-orbit balancing if needed. Industry partners were selected for the spin mechanism assembly (SMA) and RBA. Preliminary designs for the radar and radiometer were initiated, including constructing breadboards of key assemblies.

Kellogg, Kent↗

DOE OSTI2026

Jupiter Laser Facility Annual Report, FY 2025

Dear JLF community, I cannot believe I am now entering my third year as JLF director — time definitely flies when you are having fun! FY25 was another pivotal year for the Jupiter Laser Facility, marked by both scientific achievement and growing visibility for our community. Building on the successful reopening and refurbishment of the facility, we continued to demonstrate how JLF drives innovation in high energy density and fusion energy science, laser technology, and workforce development. Across Janus, Titan, and COMET, users executed a diverse portfolio of experiments, from dynamic compression and opacity measurements to laser plasma interactions, laboratory astrophysics, and advanced diagnostics. These efforts are highlighted in this report, including the development of new probes that capture the time evolution of plasmas on a single shot, and diagnostics and platforms that are already impacting experiments at NIF and other large facilities. JLF continues to serve as both a testbed for new ideas and a bridge to larger scale campaigns. FY25 also showcased the broader role of JLF within the Laboratory and the national HED science ecosystem. The NIF JLF User Groups Meeting in February brought nearly 180 participants to Livermore and highlighted the scientific progress made during JLF’s first full year of renewed operations. JLF research and users were recognized with Director’s Institutional Awards and Early and Mid Career awards, underscoring the quality and impact of the work performed here. Our team also contributed prominently to national conversations about laser safety, plasma physics, and inertial fusion energy through invited talks, conferences, and professional society leadership. JLF’s integration with LaserNetUS deepened this year as well. We launched a new technical exchange program across LaserNetUS facilities and kicked it off with a JLF team visit to the BELLA Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. These exchanges are strengthening operations, sharing best practices, and improving the user experience across the network. Filming for the LaserNetUS “Behind the Scenes” series and participation in the annual LaserNetUS meeting further increased the visibility of our facility and our users. At the same time, JLF continues to play a central role in ambitious new programs, such as the Big Aperture Thulium laser effort funded through one of the DOE Office of Science Microelectronics Science Research Centers, which will use JLF infrastructure to explore next generation high rep rate lasers for EUV and x-ray source development. A core part of our mission remains training the next generation of scientists. In FY25, we welcomed another cohort of summer students, who joined experimental teams on Titan and presented their research at LLNL’s student poster symposium and national inertial fusion energy meetings. JLF users and early career scientists showcased their work at conferences across the country, highlighting experiments performed at the facility. These hands on experiences, and the mentoring provided by our staff and user teams, are central to JLF’s identity as a true user facility. Finally, FY25 reinforced JLF’s role as a focal point for partnerships and outreach. We hosted visits from international collaborators, science leaders, and we shared the story of the facility through venues such as the Big Ideas Lab podcast. These interactions help connect our work to a broader scientific and policy audience and open new pathways for collaboration. As we look ahead, the combination of refurbished hardware, new capabilities like STILETTO and enhanced short pulse performance on Titan, strong partnerships across LLNL and LaserNetUS, and a growing user community positions JLF for an even more ambitious program in the coming years. I am deeply grateful to our technical and operations staff for their dedication, to our LLNL partners for their continued support, and to our users for bringing bold, creative ideas to the facility. I look forward to more experiments, capabilities, partnerships, and groundbreaking science in the years to come! With brightest regards, Félicie Albert, JLF Director.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

NASA NTRS2013

STEM Engagement and Robotics Workshops in the Community

It is my objective to inspire and engage students and the public in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) through hands on STEM activities during the City of Palmdale's Thursday Nights on the Square (TNOTS) as well as various robotics workshops throughout the AV and the San Bernardino County.

STEM↗

DOE OSTI2025

Initial Mobility Analysis for ORNL VA-EDH Synthetic Populations

Travel burdens are a major barrier to healthcare access among US Veteran patient populations, particularly those residing in rural areas. Spatial accessibility to points of care for US Veteran populations is commonly assessed in two ways. The first approach uses open data from the US Census to represent collective travel burdens, for example the distance between population-weighted census tract centroids and VHA points of care. The second approach uses restricted-access VHA patient data to measure travel costs (e.g., distance, time) for accessing points of care with respect to geolocated patient addresses and real or approximated transportation networks. While the advantage of the open data approach lies in its reproducibility, it has notable limitations in its tendency to infer individual travel behavior from aggregate population characteristics, a problem known as ecological fallacy. Conversely, while the patient data approach is able to account for individual travel behavior, its ability to account for localized access disparities (e.g., a neighborhood with exceptionally high transportation costs) and patient demographics is limited as protecting individual patient data requires their storage in closed systems with limited capacity for adequately modeling real-world travel patterns or for supplementing patient attributes. Additionally, the patient data approach cannot account for veterans who are not enrolled in the VHA system but who may be eligible for care. These challenges limit the ability to perform “what if” analyses on the effects of place-specific interventions on veteran populations with high access barriers to healthcare. To address these challenges, we explore the application of realistic synthetic populations to examine travel burdens and spatial accessibility issues among veteran patient populations. Synthetic populations provide a virtual, individually-resolved and cross-sectional representation of the veteran patient population that enables investigation of spatial access to points of care in ways in which aggregate data and patient data do not. First, synthetic populations allow one to directly assess how individuals access points of care, from synthesized residential locations to outpatient facilities on real-world transportation networks. Modeling access to points of care at the individual scale addresses the ecological fallacy problem associated with using aggregated census data to represent veteran populations and patterns of movement. Second, synthetic populations provide a means of completely representing an area’s veteran population using only publicly available, anonymized census microdata from the American Community Survey (ACS) to ensure the privacy of real-world individuals. Generating synthetic populations from the ACS also expands descriptive characteristics beyond what patient data typically offers to include socio-demographic, economic, housing, and mobility attributes. More detailed profiles of both VHA patient populations and veterans not enrolled in the VA system will provide a comprehensive picture of groups that may benefit from interventions or outreach. As an initial exercise for using synthetic populations to measure veteran travel burdens to VA care, we apply Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) UrbanPop capability to generate a series of synthetic VHA patient populations for 9 Veterans Integrated Services Networks (VISN) market areas in 9 Census Divisions across the continental United States, which are listed in Table 1. We use UrbanPop to produce synthetic populations for the VISN markets selected for each US Census Division, then assign VA outpatient clinic destinations to synthetic VHA patients based on travel about each VISN market’s road network. To demonstrate using the synthetic populations to evaluate healthcare travel burdens, we compare the time-based impedance between simulated home locations and VA outpatient clinics in each VISN market. We then perform validation exercises on the synthetic populations with respect to neighborhood (block group) demographic composition as well as patient mobility, comparing aggregate origin-destination statistics for the synthetic population to outpatient visits available in restricted patient data from the VA’s Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) database.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NASA NTRS2000

NASA/University JOint VEnture (JOVE) Program. VIXEN(tm): Object-Oriented, Technology-Adaptive, Virtual Information Exchange Environment

Vixen is a collection of enabling technologies for uninhibited distributed object computing. In the Spring of 1995 when Vixen was proposed, it was an innovative idea very much ahead of its time. But today the technologies proposed in Vixen have become standard technologies for Enterprise Computing. Sun Microsystems J2EE/EJB specifications, among others, are independently proposed technologies of the Vixen type. I have brought Vixen completely under the J2EE standard in order to maximize interoperability and compatibility with other computing industry efforts. Vixen and the Enterprise JavaBean (EJB) Server technologies are now practically identical; OIL, another Vixen technology, and the Java Messaging System (JMS) are practically identical; and so on. There is no longer anything novel or patentable in the Vixen work performed under this grant. The above discussion, notwithstanding, my independent development of Vixen has significantly helped me, my university, my students and the local community. The undergraduate students who worked with me in developing Vixen have enhanced their expertise in what has become the cutting edge technology of their industry and are therefore well positioned for lucrative employment opportunities in the industry. My academic department has gained a new course: "Multi-media System Development", which provides a highly desirable expertise to our students for employment in any enterprise today. The many Outreach Programs that I conducted during this grant period have exposed local Middle School students to the contributions that NASA is making in our society as well as awakened desires in many such students for careers in Science and Technology. I have applied Vixen to the development of two software packages: (a) JAS: Joshua Application Server - which allows a user to configure an EJB Server to serve a J2EE compliant application over the world wide web; (b) PCM: Professor Course Manager: a J2EE compliant application for configuring a course for distance learning. These types of applications are, however, generally available in the industry today.

Anyiwo, Joshua C.↗