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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 235 records · Page 13
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Computer-based procedure for field activities: Results from three evaluations at nuclear power plants

Nearly all activities that involve human interaction with the systems of a nuclear power plant are guided by procedures. The paper-based procedures (PBPs) currently used by industry have a demonstrated history of ensuring safety; however, improving procedure use could yield tremendous savings in increased efficiency and safety. One potential way to improve procedure-based activities is through the use of computer-based procedures (CBPs). Computer-based procedures provide the opportunity to incorporate context driven job aids, such as drawings, photos, just-in-time training, etc into CBP system. One obvious advantage of this capability is reducing the time spent tracking down the applicable documentation. Additionally, human performance tools can be integrated in the CBP system in such way that helps the worker focus on the task rather than the tools. Some tools can be completely incorporated into the CBP system, such as pre-job briefs, placekeeping, correct component verification, and peer checks. Other tools can be partly integrated in a fashion that reduces the time and labor required, such as concurrent and independent verification. Another benefit of CBPs compared to PBPs is dynamic procedure presentation. PBPs are static documents which limits the degree to which the information presented can be tailored to the task and conditions when the procedure is executed. The CBP system could be configured to display only the relevant steps based on operating mode, plant status, and the task at hand. A dynamic presentation of the procedure (also known as context-sensitive procedures) will guide the user down the path of relevant steps based on the current conditions. This feature will reduce the user’s workload and inherently reduce the risk of incorrectly marking a step as not applicable and the risk of incorrectly performing a step that should be marked as not applicable. As part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Light Water Reactors Sustainability Program, researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) along with partners from the nuclear industry have been investigating the design requirements for computer-based work instructions (including operations procedures, work orders, maintenance procedures, etc.) to increase efficiency, safety, and cost competitiveness of existing light water reactors.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Computational Modeling To Adapt Neutralizing Antibody

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) is the leading therapy for viral infections because it provides immediate protection and can be administered at higher levels than in a natural immune response. Finding mAbs that neutralize a broad spectrum of viral targets has proven difficult because many species and strains exist and blanket targeting is a slow and laborious process to experimentally screen 108 variants. A new method is needed to rapidly redesign mAbs for homologous targets. This project speeds up redesign using structure-based computational design to reduce the mAbs search space to a manageable level and screen mutants at a much higher rate than in experiments. Computation will also provide critical knowledge about the fundamental interactions. The project will adapt S230, a human antibody that neutralizes SARS-CoV, to neutralize SARS-COV-2.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2014

Interactive lung segmentation in abnormal human and animal chest CT scans

Purpose: Many medical image analysis systems require segmentation of the structures of interest as a first step. For scans with gross pathology, automatic segmentation methods may fail. The authors’ aim is to develop a versatile, fast, and reliable interactive system to segment anatomical structures. In this study, this system was used for segmenting lungs in challenging thoracic computed tomography (CT) scans. Methods: In volumetric thoracic CT scans, the chest is segmented and divided into 3D volumes of interest (VOIs), containing voxels with similar densities. These VOIs are automatically labeled as either lung tissue or nonlung tissue. The automatic labeling results can be corrected using an interactive or a supervised interactive approach. When using the supervised interactive system, the user is shown the classification results per slice, whereupon he/she can adjust incorrect labels. The system is retrained continuously, taking the corrections and approvals of the user into account. In this way, the system learns to make a better distinction between lung tissue and nonlung tissue. When using the interactive framework without supervised learning, the user corrects all incorrectly labeled VOIs manually. Both interactive segmentation tools were tested on 32 volumetric CT scans of pigs, mice and humans, containing pulmonary abnormalities. Results: On average, supervised interactive lung segmentation took under 9 min of user interaction. Algorithm computing time was 2 min on average, but can easily be reduced. On average, 2.0% of all VOIs in a scan had to be relabeled. Lung segmentation using the interactive segmentation method took on average 13 min and involved relabeling 3.0% of all VOIs on average. The resulting segmentations correspond well to manual delineations of eight axial slices per scan, with an average Dice similarity coefficient of 0.933. Conclusions: The authors have developed two fast and reliable methods for interactive lung segmentation in challenging chest CT images. Both systems do not require prior knowledge of the scans under consideration and work on a variety of scans.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2006

Wissler Simulations of a Liquid Cooled and Ventilation Garment (LCVG) for Extravehicular Activity (EVA)

In order to provide effective cooling for astronauts during extravehicular activities (EVAs), a liquid cooling and ventilation garment (LCVG) is used to remove heat by a series off tubes through which cooling water is circulated. To better predict the effectiveness of the LCG and determine possible modifications to improve performance, computer simulations dealing with the interaction of the cooling garment with the human body have been run using the Wissler Human Model. Simulations have been conducted to predict the heat removal rate for various liquid cooled garment configurations. The current LCVG uses 48 cooling tubes woven into a fabric with cooling water flowing through the tubes. The purpose of the current project is to decrease the overall weight of the LCVG system. In order to achieve this weight reduction, advances in the garment heat removal rates need to be obtained. Currently, increasing the fabric s thermal conductivity along with also examining an increase in the cooling tube conductivity to more efficiently remove the excess heat generated during EVA is being simulated. Initial trials varied cooling water temperature, water flow rate, garment conductivity, tube conductivity, and total number of cooling tubes in the LCVG. Results indicate that the total number of cooling tubes could be reduced to 22 and still achieve the desired heat removal rate of 361 W. Further improvements are being made to the garment network used in the model to account for temperature gradients associated with the spacing of the cooling tubes over the surface of the garment

Kesterson, Matthew↗
NASA NTRS2018

Do You See What I See? Interactive Visualization of Mission Design and Navigation

Mission Design and Navigation (MDNav) is an intensive process requiring advanced computational resources, expert human intuition, and many successive human-in-the-loop iterations to converge on acceptable trajectory designs or navigation solutions. The current bottleneck in MDNav is not the underlying computational algorithms but the human cognitive capacity to prune through a multitude of simulated results to select high-value candidates. One approach to alleviate this burden is through the judicious application of visualizations that allow humans to interactively filter data in multiple dimensions to reveal salient patterns and highlight divergences. When designed efficiently, such interactive visualizations should aid human operators to get familiar with data faster, visually observe correlations, and communicate findings more effortlessly. In this work, we present three visualization case studies that have the potential to increase human operator efficiency in MDNav. While identifying the most critical “pain points” that operators face, and also working on potential solutions, we followed a human-centered design approach. We started with a series of interviews with potential users, and then rapidly created prototypes for alternative solutions, validated outcomes with feedback from users through out development of these proof of concept visualizations. With this survey of our current efforts, we demonstrate the transformative capability of interactive data visualizations for improving mission development and operations, enabling operators to grow intuition, and communicating key concepts across diverse mission teams.

Arora, Nitin↗
NASA NTRS1980

Handling qualities of large flexible control-configured aircraft

The effects on handling qualities of low frequency symmetric elastic mode interaction with the rigid body dynamics of a large flexible aircraft was analyzed by use of a mathematical pilot modeling computer simulation. An extension of the optimal control model for a human pilot was made so that the mode interaction effects on the pilot's control task could be assessed. Pilot ratings were determined for a longitudinal tracking task with parametric variations in the undamped natural frequencies of the two lowest frequency symmetric elastic modes made to induce varying amounts of mode interaction. Relating numerical performance index values associated with the frequency variations used in several dynamic cases, to a numerical Cooper-Harper pilot rating has proved successful in discriminating when the mathematical pilot can or cannot separate rigid from elastic response in the tracking task.

Swaim, R. L.↗
DOE OSTI2018

A hydrological emulator for global applications – HE v1.0.0

Abstract. While global hydrological models (GHMs) are very useful in exploring water resources and interactions between the Earth and human systems, their use often requires numerous model inputs, complex model calibration, and high computation costs. To overcome these challenges, we construct an efficient open-source and ready-to-use hydrological emulator (HE) that can mimic complex GHMs at a range of spatial scales (e.g., basin, region, globe). More specifically, we construct both a lumped and a distributed scheme of the HE based on the monthly abcd model to explore the tradeoff between computational cost and model fidelity. Model predictability and computational efficiency are evaluated in simulating global runoff from 1971 to 2010 with both the lumped and distributed schemes. The results are compared against the runoff product from the widely used Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model. Our evaluation indicates that the lumped and distributed schemes present comparable results regarding annual total quantity, spatial pattern, and temporal variation of the major water fluxes (e.g., total runoff, evapotranspiration) across the global 235 basins (e.g., correlation coefficient r between the annual total runoff from either of these two schemes and the VIC is >0.96), except for several cold (e.g., Arctic, interior Tibet), dry (e.g., North Africa) and mountainous (e.g., Argentina) regions. Compared against the monthly total runoff product from the VIC (aggregated from daily runoff), the global mean Kling–Gupta efficiencies are 0.75 and 0.79 for the lumped and distributed schemes, respectively, with the distributed scheme better capturing spatial heterogeneity. Notably, the computation efficiency of the lumped scheme is 2 orders of magnitude higher than the distributed one and 7 orders more efficient than the VIC model. A case study of uncertainty analysis for the world's 16 basins with top annual streamflow is conducted using 100 000 model simulations, and it demonstrates the lumped scheme's extraordinary advantage in computational efficiency. Our results suggest that the revised lumped abcd model can serve as an efficient and reasonable HE for complex GHMs and is suitable for broad practical use, and the distributed scheme is also an efficient alternative if spatial heterogeneity is of more interest.

Liu, Yaling↗
NASA NTRS1976

Interactive computerized air combat opponent

A computer program developed to fly interactive one-on-one simulated air combat maneuvers against human pilots is described. The program which is called Adaptive Maneuvering Logic (AML), is being used in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center's Differential Maneuvering Simulator. The basic control logic evaluates the relative states of the two aircraft and reacts by choosing the best of several elemental maneuvers. Pilot comments and results obtained when the computer was flown against combat-qualified fighter pilots indicate that the program performs realistic maneuvers and offers a very competitive standard pilot.

Hankins, W. W., III↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Aviation Safety Research at NASA Langley: Applications of Physiological Computing and Neuroergonomics

The emerging field of research, known as Neuroergonomics, maintains that in order to investigate complex real-world behavior it is necessary to undePhysiological Computing systems are technological systems that incorporate physiological data from humans into their functionality or display these data at their interfaces. Neuroergonomics examines the brain mechanisms and underlying human–technology interaction in increasingly naturalistic settings representative of work and in everyday-life situations. The presenters will introduce Physiological Computing and Neuroergonomics in applications that vary from social robotics and videogames in laboratory settings to firearms training in virtual reality to aviation operations in highly ecological environments.

Aviation Safety Research↗
DOE OSTI2021

Urban Energy Systems: Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

In the coming decades, our planet will witness unprecedented urban population growth in both established and emerging communities. The development and maintenance of urban infrastructures are highly energy-intensive. Urban areas are dictated by complex intersections among physical, engineered, and human dimensions that have significant implications for traffic congestion, emissions, and energy usage. In this chapter, we highlight recent research and development efforts at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the largest multipurpose science laboratory within the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) national laboratory system, that characterizes the interactions between the human dynamics and critical infrastructures in conjunction with the integration of four distinct components: data, critical infrastructure models, and scalable computation and visualization, all within the context of physical and social systems. Discussions focus on four key topical themes: population and land use, sustainable mobility, the energy-water nexus, and urban resiliency, that are mutually aligned with DOE’s mission and ORNL’s signature science and technology capabilities. Using scalable computing, data visualization, and unique datasets from a variety of sources, the institute fosters innovative interdisciplinary research that integrates ORNL expertise in critical infrastructures including energy, water, transportation, and cyber, and their interactions with the human population.

Bhaduri, Budhu↗
NASA NTRS1995

Distributed and collaborative synthetic environments

Fast graphics workstations and increased computing power, together with improved interface technologies, have created new and diverse possibilities for developing and interacting with synthetic environments. A synthetic environment system is generally characterized by input/output devices that constitute the interface between the human senses and the synthetic environment generated by the computer; and a computation system running a real-time simulation of the environment. A basic need of a synthetic environment system is that of giving the user a plausible reproduction of the visual aspect of the objects with which he is interacting. The goal of our Shastra research project is to provide a substrate of geometric data structures and algorithms which allow the distributed construction and modification of the environment, efficient querying of objects attributes, collaborative interaction with the environment, fast computation of collision detection and visibility information for efficient dynamic simulation and real-time scene display. In particular, we address the following issues: (1) A geometric framework for modeling and visualizing synthetic environments and interacting with them. We highlight the functions required for the geometric engine of a synthetic environment system. (2) A distribution and collaboration substrate that supports construction, modification, and interaction with synthetic environments on networked desktop machines.

Bajaj, Chandrajit L.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Comprehensive characterization of protein–protein interactions perturbed by disease mutations

Technological and computational advances in genomics and interactomics have made it possible to identify how disease mutations perturb protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks within human cells. Here, we show that disease-associated germline variants are significantly enriched in sequences encoding PPI interfaces compared to variants identified in healthy participants from the projects 1000 Genomes and ExAC. Somatic missense mutations are also significantly enriched in PPI interfaces compared to noninterfaces in 10,861 tumor exomes. We computationally identified 470 putative oncoPPIs in a pan-cancer analysis and demonstrate that oncoPPIs are highly correlated with patient survival and drug resistance/sensitivity. Further, we experimentally validate the network effects of 13 oncoPPIs using a systematic binary interaction assay, and also demonstrate the functional consequences of two of these on tumor cell growth. In summary, this human interactome network framework provides a powerful tool for prioritization of alleles with PPI-perturbing mutations to inform pathobiological mechanism- and genotype-based therapeutic discovery.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Competitive docking model for prediction of the human nicotinic acetylcholine receptor α7 binding of tobacco constituents

The detrimental health effects associated with tobacco use constitute a major public health concern. The addiction associated with nicotine found in tobacco products has led to difficulty in quitting among users. Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are the targets of nicotine and are responsible for addiction to tobacco products. However, it is unknown if the other >8000 tobacco constituents are addictive. Since it is time-consuming and costly to experimentally assess addictive potential of such larger number of chemicals, computationally predicting human nAChRs binding is important for in silico evaluation of addiction potential of tobacco constituents and needs structures of human nAChRs. Therefore, we constructed three dimensional structures of the ligand binding domain of human nAChR α7 subtype and then developed a predictive model based on the constructed structures to predict human nAChR α7 binding activity of tobacco constituents. The predictive model correctly predicted 11 out of 12 test compounds to be binders of nAChR α7. The model is a useful tool for high-throughput screening of potential addictive tobacco constituents. These results could inform regulatory science research by providing a new validated predictive tool using cutting-edge computational methodology to high throughput screen tobacco additives and constituents for their binding interaction with the human α7 nicotinic receptor. The tool represents a prediction model capable of screening thousands of chemicals found in tobacco products for addiction potential, which improves the understanding of the potential effects of additives.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Transferrin receptor targeting by de novo sheet extension

The de novo design of polar protein–protein interactions is challenging because of the thermodynamic cost of stripping water away from the polar groups. Here, we describe a general approach for designing proteins which complement exposed polar backbone groups at the edge of beta sheets with geometrically matched beta strands. We used this approach to computationally design small proteins that bind to an exposed beta sheet on the human transferrin receptor (hTfR), which shuttles interacting proteins across the blood–brain barrier (BBB), opening up avenues for drug delivery into the brain. We describe a design which binds hTfR with a 20 nM K d , is hyperstable, and crosses an in vitro microfluidic organ-on-a-chip model of the human BBB. Our design approach provides a general strategy for creating binders to protein targets with exposed surface beta edge strands.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Zero-Trust Architecture for Autonomous Edge Computing

We are at the apex of an aviation revolution where autonomy will play a central role in enabling complex, multi-agent systems to communicate, interact, and collaborate on a myriad of applications spanning autonomous swarms to wild-fire management. Autonomy is not an absolute but rather a spectrum ranging from a system requiring significant human intervention to one requiring little to none [1]. For example, the extreme, in the case of an autonomous aircraft, is one that operates independently in the airspace interacting with all other elements (air traffic controllers, other pilots) as if it were a human pilot. Critical to this vision is an architecture that enables autonomous agents to interact with minimal latency. Edge computing is an emerging architecture where compute and storage is pushed to the ‘edge’ of the network in order to minimize the round-trip time from agent to resource thereby mitigating the latency associated with cloud-only based approaches. Additionally, services can generate massive amounts of data (e.g., video feeds), which may require analysis in near real-time. Moving this data to the cloud for further processing may not be feasible due to latency, bandwidth, and cost. Privacy, security, and reliability can also be improved by edge computing architectures. However, this geo-distributed and dynamic* architecture complicates the establishment of unambiguous network security boundaries and can lead to vulnerabilities including man in the middle attacks, replay attacks, physical security breaches of edge nodes, signal interception, etc. This motivates the need for zero-trust architectures [2–4] which de-emphasize the notion of static network perimeters and, as the name implies, do not instill any innate trust in any particular agent. It is required that all agents must be authorized and approved in every transaction. In this paper, we present a zero-trust architecture suitable for edge-computing applications that demand significant low-latency, security, privacy, and reliability.

zero trust↗
NASA NTRS1990

Pilot interaction with automated airborne decision making systems

Ways in which computers can aid the decision making of an human operator of an aerospace system are investigated. The approach taken is to aid rather than replace the human operator, because operational experience has shown that humans can enhance the effectiveness of systems. As systems become more automated, the role of the operator has shifted to that of a manager and problem solver. This shift has created the research area of how to aid the human in this role. Published research in four areas is described. A discussion is presented of the DC-8 flight simulator at Georgia Tech.

Hammer, John M.↗
DOE OSTI2025

A multi-scale cognitive interaction model of instrument operations at the Linac Coherent Light Source

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) is the world’s first x-ray free electron laser. It is a scientific user facility operated by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, at Stanford, for the U.S. Department of Energy. As beam time at LCLS is extremely valuable and limited, experimental efficiency—getting the most high quality data in the least time—is critical. Our overall project employs cognitive engineering methodologies with the goal of improving experimental efficiency and increasing scientific productivity at LCLS by refining experimental interfaces and workflows, simplifying tasks, reducing errors, and improving operator safety and stress. Here, in this study, we describe a multi-agent, multi-scale computational cognitive interaction model of instrument operations at LCLS. Our model simulates the aspects of human cognition at multiple cognitive and temporal scales, ranging from seconds to hours, and among agents playing multiple roles, including instrument operator, real time data analyst, and experiment manager. The model can roughly predict impacts stemming from proposed changes to operational interfaces and workflows. Example results demonstrate the model’s potential in guiding modifications to improve operational efficiency. We discuss the implications of our effort for cognitive engineering in complex experimental settings and outline future directions for research. The model is open source, and the videos of the supplementary material provide extensive detail.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
NASA NTRS1975

An adaptive maneuvering logic computer program for the simulation of one-on-one air-to-air combat. Volume 1: General description

A technique for computer simulation of air combat is described. Volume 1 decribes the computer program and its development in general terms. Two versions of the program exist. Both incorporate a logic for selecting and executing air combat maneuvers with performance models of specific fighter aircraft. In the batch processing version the flight paths of two aircraft engaged in interactive aerial combat and controlled by the same logic are computed. The realtime version permits human pilots to fly air-to-air combat against the adaptive maneuvering logic (AML) in Langley Differential Maneuvering Simulator (DMS). Volume 2 consists of a detailed description of the computer programs.

Burgin, G. H.↗