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At least 253 records · Page 14

Improving GES Disc Data Search and Discovery Through AI Metadata Augmentation

NASA’s Goddard Earth Science (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) is one of twelve data centers in NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD), providing vital earth science data to a diverse user base. To enhance the discoverability of this data, GES DISC employs a keyword search system, which leverages scientific keywords embedded in dataset metadata. However, the evolving nature of scientific applications of our data necessitates regular review and augmentation of these keywords. To address this, we developed a service to automatically predict missing science keywords in the metadata. This service constructs a knowledge graph from the latest GES DISC metadata within NASA’s Common Metadata Repository (CMR). Using an open-source library, we trained a machine learning model to predict absent science keywords in the metadata. Our preliminary results indicate that the model has high levels of accuracy at predicting science keywords in the dataset metadata when exposed to data not included in its training. These predicted keywords were then evaluated by GES DISC data curation scientists and compared against other AI tools for metadata augmentation. We aim to enhance the overall usability and accessibility of NASA’s earth science data by implementing this tool in our data curation processes.

Kendall Gilbert↗

Self-Guided Multimedia Stress Management and Resilience Training for Flight Controllers

Stress and anxiety-related problems are among the most common and costly behavioral health problems in society, and for those working in operational environments (i.e. astronauts, flight controllers, military) this can seriously impact crew performance, safety, and wellbeing. Technology-based interventions are effective for treating behavioral health problems, and can significantly improve the delivery of evidence-based health care. This study is evaluating the effectiveness, usefulness, and usability of a self-guided multimedia stress management and resilience training program in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a sample of flight controllers at Johnson Space Center. The intervention, SMART-OP (Stress Management and Resilience Training for Optimal Performance), is a six-session, cognitive behavioral-based computer program that uses self-guided, interactive activities to teach skills that can help individuals build resilience and manage stress. In a prior RCT with a sample of stressed but otherwise healthy individuals, SMART-OP reduced perceived stress and increased perceived control over stress in comparison to an Attention Control (AC) group. SMART-OP was rated as "highly useful" and "excellent" in usability and acceptability. Based on α-amylase data, individuals in SMART-OP recovered quicker and more completely from a social stress test as compared to the AC group [1]. In the current study, flight controllers are randomized either to receive SMART-OP training, or to a 6-week waitlist control period (WLC) before beginning SMART-OP. Eligible participants include JSC flight controllers and instructors without any medical or psychiatric disorder, but who are stressed based on self-report. Flight controllers provide a valid analog sample to astronauts in that they work in an operational setting, use similar terminology to astronauts, are mission-focused, and work under the same broader work culture. The study began in December 2014, and to date 79 flight controllers and instructors have expressed interest in the study, 49 of those were cleared for participation, we have screened 44 for eligibility, and 23 have met inclusion criteria. Recruitment is ongoing and the study will continue until December 2016. Outcome measures include perceived stress, perceived control over stress, resilience, mood, personality, emotion regulation, sleep, health behaviors, and psychophysiological data such as 24-hour heart rate, alpha amylase, and urinary and salivary cortisol. We are also collecting user feedback such as usability, working alliance, usefulness, and treatment credibility.

Rose, R. D.↗

Crop, soil, and geological mapping from digitized multispectral satellite photography.

An experimental study was conducted of digitized multispectral satellite photography to seek answers to the following two questions: what are the data handling problems and requirements of converting photographic density measurements to a usable digital form, and what surface features can be distinguished using multispectral data taken at satellite altitudes. Results include the digitization of three multiband black and white photographs and a color infrared photograph, the conversion of the results of digitization to a useful digital form, and several data analysis experiments. As a whole, they encourage the use of multiband photography as a multispectral data collection instrument.

Anuta, P. E.↗

Cascaded convolutional codes

Due to the hardware design of Galileo's Command and Data Subsystem (CDS), the channel code usable in an S-band (2290-2300 MHz) mission must include the NASA standard (7,1/2) convolutional code. Galileo's hardware encoder for the (15,1/4) code is not usable in S-band mode. However, the need for higher coding gain dictates the use of long constraint length convolutional codes. Theoretical results show how a large subclass of such codes is realizable by using a software encoder in the CDS cascaded with the hardware encoder for the NASA standard code.

Pollara, F.↗

Planetary data analysis and display system: A version of PC-McIDAS

We propose to develop a system for access and analysis of planetary data from past and future space missions based on an existing system, the PC-McIDAS workstation. This system is now in use in the atmospheric science community for access to meteorological satellite and conventional weather data. The proposed system would be usable by not only planetary atmospheric researchers but also by the planetary geologic community. By providing the critical tools of an efficient system architecture, newer applications and customized user interfaces can be added by the end user within such a system.

Limaye, Sanjay S.↗

Planetary data analysis and display system: A version of PC-McIDAS

We propose to develop a system for access and analysis of planetary data from past and future space missions based on an existing system, the PC-McIDAS workstation. This system is now in use in the atmospheric science community for access to meteorological satellite and conventional weather data. The proposed system would be usable not only by planetary atmospheric researchers but also by the planetary geologic community. By providing the critical tools of an efficient system architecture, newer applications and customized user interfaces can be added by the end user within such a system.

Limaye, Sanjay S.↗

Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) Support of User Spacecraft without TDRSS Transponders

NASA GSFC VNS TSG personnel have proposed the use of TDRSS to obtain telemetry and/or S-band one-way return Doppler tracking data for spacecraft which do not have TDRSS-compatible transponders and therefore were never considered candidates for TDRSS support. For spacecraft with less stable local oscillators (LO), one-way return Doppler tracking data is typically of poor quality. It has been demonstrated using UARS, WIND, and NOAA-J tracking data that the simultaneous use of two TDRSS spacecraft can yield differenced one-way return Doppler data of high quality which is usable for orbit determination by differencing away the effects of oscillator instability.

Jackson, James A.↗

Situational Lightning Climatologies for Central Florida, Phase 2, Part 3

The threat of lightning is a daily concern during the warm season in Florida. The forecasters at the Spaceflight Meteorology Group (SMG) at Johnson Spaceflight Center in Houston, TX consider lightning in their landing forecasts for space shuttles at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), FL Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). The forecasters at the National Weather Service in Melbourne, FL (NWS MLB) do the same in their routine Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts (TAFs) for seven airports in the NWS MLB County Warning Area (CWA). The Applied Meteorology Unit created flow regime climatologies of lightning probability in the 5-, 10-, 20-, and 30-n mi circles surrounding the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) and all airports in the NWS MLB county warning area in 1-, 3-, and 6-hour increments. The results were presented in tabular and graphical format and incorporated into a web-based graphical user interface so forecasters could easily navigate through the data and to make the GUI usable in any web browser on computers with different operating systems.

Bauman, William H., III↗

Evaluation of Technology Concepts for Energy, Automation, and System State Awareness in Commercial Airline Flight Decks

A pilot-in-the-loop flight simulation study was conducted at NASA Langley Research Center to evaluate flight deck systems that (1) provide guidance for recovery from low energy states and stalls, (2) present the current state and expected future state of automated systems, and/or (3) show the state of flight-critical data systems in use by automated systems and primary flight instruments. The study was conducted using 13 commercial airline crews from multiple airlines, paired by airline to minimize procedural effects. Scenarios spanned a range of complex conditions and several emulated causal and contributing factors found in recent accidents involving loss of state awareness by pilots (e.g., energy state, automation state, and/or system state). Three new technology concepts were evaluated while used in concert with current state-of-the-art flight deck systems and indicators. The technologies include a stall recovery guidance algorithm and display concept, an enhanced airspeed control indicator that shows when automation is no longer actively controlling airspeed, and enhanced synoptic pages designed to work with simplified interactive electronic checklists. An additional synoptic was developed to provide the flight crew with information about the effects of loss of flight critical data. Data was collected via questionnaires administered at the completion of flight scenarios, audio/video recordings, flight data, head and eye tracking data, pilot control inputs, and researcher observations. This paper presents findings derived from the questionnaire responses and subjective data measures including workload, situation awareness, usability, and acceptability as well as analyses of two low-energy flight events that resulted in near-stall conditions.

Kramer, Lynda J.↗

pyQuARC: Open Source Library for Earth Observation Metadata Quality Assessment

Metadata quality is essential to effective data discovery and has become increasingly vital as more Earth Science data sets become available. The Common Metadata Repository (CMR) hosts metadata describing NASA’s Earth Observation data products, which are archived across 12 Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs). The Analysis and Review of CMR (ARC) Team, located at Marshall Space Flight Center, conducts metadata quality assessments to ensure that these data products are discoverable, accessible, and usable. To achieve these goals, the ARC team has developed a metadata quality assessment framework to evaluate metadata completeness, correctness, and consistency. ARC uses a combination of manual and automated methods to assess these three components and identify areas of improvement; the team then collaborates with the DAACs to resolve any findings. To streamline this process, ARC is currently developing a host of scripts, known as pyQuARC, to automate metadata quality assessments as much as possible. pyQuARC is an open source library for Earth Observation Metadata Quality Assessment, and the tool utilizes ARC’s metadata quality assessment framework to make basic validation checks, pinpoint inconsistencies between dataset-level (i.e. collection) and file-level (i.e. granule) metadata, and identify opportunities for more descriptive and robust information. Since pyQuARC is also customizable, other users can make modifications as needed, and future metadata standards can also be implemented. Once pyQuARC is fully developed, it will support multiple schema types to serve the broader EOSDIS metadata community. This presentation will provide an overview of pyQuARC and its process of development while showcasing the tool’s valuable features and uses.

Jenny Wood↗

QuARC: Development of a Service to Enable FAIR-er Metadata

The ARC Project: The ARC Team located at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center conducts quality assessments of metadata records that catalog NASA’s collection of over 9,000 Earth observation data products, stored in a centralized database called the Common Metadata Repository (CMR). The ARC Team has developed a metadata quality assessment framework to evaluate metadata completeness, correctness, and consistency with the goal of making NASA’s data products more discoverable, accessible, and usable. ARC = Analysis and Review of the CMR

Earth Science Informatics↗

Designing a User Interface for Real-Time Magnetometer Data Acquisition

The Matter-wave Atomic Gradiometer Interferometric Sensor (MAGIS-100) is a next-generation quantum sensor designed to search for ultralight dark matter and explore new frontiers in quantum mechanics. Due to the experiment s sensitivity to magnetic interference, a magnetometer trolley system was developed to scan magnetic fields along a vacuum tube. Interacting with the system required command-line inputs, creating usability challenges. To improve accessibility and streamline data acquisition, I developed a graphical user interface (GUI) using Python and the customtkinter library. The GUI supports real-time data display, state/mode switching, command execution, and CSV file management. I collaborated with another intern to integrate data visualization features into the GUI, allowing users to generate 3D plots of post-acquisition magnetic field data. In the future, I aim to fix the real-time plotting feature as it results in an unresponsive GUI.

Mendez, Milagros [DuPage Coll.]↗

Designing a User Interface for Real-Time Magnetometer Data Acquisition

The Matter-wave Atomic Gradiometer Interferometric Sensor (MAGIS-100) is a next-generation quantum sensor designed to search for ultralight dark matter and explore new frontiers in quantum mechanics. Due to the experiment’s sensitivity to magnetic interference, a magnetometer trolley system was developed to scan magnetic fields along a vacuum tube. Interacting with the system required command-line inputs, creating usability challenges. To improve accessibility and streamline data acquisition, I developed a graphical user interface (GUI) using Python and the customtkinter library. The GUI supports real-time data display, state/mode switching, command execution, and CSV file management. I collaborated with another intern to integrate data visualization features into the GUI, allowing users to generate 3D plots of post-acquisition magnetic field data. In the future, I aim to fix the real-time plotting feature as it results in an unresponsive GUI.

Mendez, Milagros [DuPage Coll.]↗

Incorporation of a hierarchical grid component structure into GRIDGEN

The underlying framework of the GRIDGEN multiple block grid generation system has been refined so that grid components are now stored within a hierarchical data structure. This restructuring has enhanced the usability of the software by allowing grids to be generated on a more intuitive level. This new framework also provides a means by which the multiple block system can be edited at most any level in the grid generation process. Editing tools are currently being added to GRIDGEN so that a change to the grid can be propagated backward and forward in the data hierarchy. The new data structure, the editing tools, and other recent GRIDGEN improvements are described in this paper.

Steinbrenner, John P.↗

Global Land Ice Measurements from Space

The NSIDC at the University of Colorado has successfully completed the tasks outlined in its proposal 0999.08.1216B, the 'Global Land Ice Measurements from Space' grant funded by NASA under NAG5-9722. The Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) grant reported on here is one of the first completed elements of the overall GLIMS project that continues with separate funding from NASA, the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and internationally by many national agencies and universities. The primary goals of GLIMS are to survey significant numbers of the world's 160,000 glaciers with data collected by the ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and reflection Radiometer) instrument aboard the EOS Terra spacecraft, and Landsat ETM+ (Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus) and to make these data available to users in a common and easily usable format. GLIMS participants include: NSIDC as developer of the GLIMS database, USGS Flagstaff as the GLIMS Coordination Center, USGS EROS Data Center (EDC) as the archive for satellite imagery used in GLIMS analyses (NASA funding for GLIMS also includes the Flagstaff group and EDC through the related ASTER Science Team and Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center [LP DAAC] activities), and approximately twenty two Regional Centers (RCs). RCs are funded by the national agencies of participating countries to analyze satellite imagery for a specified set of glaciological parameters and provide the results to NSIDC for archive and distribution to the public.

Scharfen, Gregory R.↗

Propagation effects handbook for satellite systems design. A summary of propagation impairments on 10 to 100 GHz satellite links with techniques for system design

This Propagation Handbook provides satellite system engineers with a concise summary of the major propagation effects experienced on Earth-space paths in the 10 to 100 GHz frequency range. The dominant effect, attenuation due to rain, is dealt with in some detail, in terms of both experimental data from measurements made in the U.S. and Canada, and the mathematical and conceptual models devised to explain the data. In order to make the Handbook readily usable to many engineers, it has been arranged in two parts. Chapters 2-5 comprise the descriptive part. They deal in some detail with rain systems, rain and attenuation models, depolarization and experimental data. Chapters 6 and 7 make up the design part of the Handbook and may be used almost independently of the earlier chapters. In Chapter 6, the design techniques recommended for predicting propagation effects in Earth-space communications systems are presented. Chapter 7 addresses the questions of where in the system design process the effects of propagation should be considered, and what precautions should be taken when applying the propagation results.

Ippolito, L. J.↗

Cross-Measurement Comparisons for a CFD Validation Dataset on Mach 2.5 Axisymmetric Turbulent Shock-Wave/Boundary-Layer Interactions

Experimental data for a shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction has been collected using multiple measurement techniques. Unfortunately, diversity of methods for acquisition begets an aggregation of data which does not directly quantify the same properties of the flowfield. The objective in this paper was to (a) present the collection of flowfield measurements in one venue in a format more usable for those validating CFD models against the data, (b) evaluate the degree to which the experimental data support each other, and (c) highlight the differences and relative advantages/shortcomings of each measurement techniques. To present the various measured quantities into common format, CFD results from a companion paper also submitted for presentation at this meeting are utilized. For the case where the boundary layer remains attached, there is agreement between the various measurements as well as with Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulation solutions. As the impinging shock strength is increased beyond the point of separating the boundary layer, the congruity of the data wanes. Generally, agreement among the measurements exceeds the degree to which the CFD solutions agree with experiments. This suggests that unmodeled physical phenomena, such as transient motion of the reflected shock and separation bubble, give rise to the discrepancies observed in the computational results.

Shock-wave Boundary-layer interaction↗