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At least 271 records · Page 15

Enhancing Interdisciplinary Human System Risk Research Through Modeling and Network Approaches

NASA's Human Research Program (HRP) supports research to reduce human health and performance risks inherent in future human space exploration missions. Understanding risk outcomes and contributing factors in an integrated manner allows HRP research to support development of efficient and effective mitigations from cross‐disciplinary perspectives, and to enable resilient human and engineered systems for spaceflight. The purpose of this work is to support scientific collaborations and research portfolio management by utilizing modeling for analysis and visualization of current and potential future interdisciplinary efforts.

Mindock, Jennifer↗

LSKnowledge: Nexus for Transformative Scientific Discoveries and Enhanced Information Retrieval in NASA Life Sciences Portal

We stand at the brink of an extraordinary transformation in the field of AI, driven by the convergence of generative AI and semantic technologies (e.g., knowledge graphs). This fusion holds immense potential and could redefine the future of scientific exploration, particularly in the realm of life sciences research. In this context, we shed light on the pivotal roles that Large Language Models (LLMs) and semantic technologies will play in advancing research, unearthing and comprehending life sciences information through innovative approaches, and empowering researchers to extract insights from NASA's extensive Life Sciences Data Archive. Within the NASA Life Sciences Portal (NLSP), the integration of LLMs and semantic technologies unlocks several advanced capabilities. First and foremost, it equips scientists with sophisticated tools to manage the ever-expanding wealth of scientific literature and data. Furthermore, it facilitates the creation of knowledge graphs that visually represent intricate relationships among biological entities, enabling comprehensive systems-level analysis. Additionally, the fusion of generative AI (including LLMs) and semantic technology can significantly benefit NASA's life sciences research by enhancing information retrieval and hypothesis generation. These tools enhance natural language understanding, facilitating knowledge discovery within NLSP. The overarching vision is to establish a cohesive knowledge ecosystem within NLSP, harnessing the power of LLMs and semantic technologies to synthesize and cross-reference data from diverse missions, disciplines, and research domains. This holistic approach ultimately deepens our understanding of how space environments impact life sciences data. To advance this initiative, we have launched LSKnowledge, aimed at enhancing the information retrieval capabilities of NLSP. In the short term, our primary goal is to develop a robust semantic search system. This system will empower HRP (Human Research Program) researchers to navigate NLSP data repositories more efficiently and precisely, catalyzing the process of hypothesis formation and scientific breakthroughs. To achieve this, we have employed pre-trained LLMs as part of a semantic search tool that can rank and highlight the most relevant records for user queries. To assess the tool's performance, we have curated a set of approximately 200 queries from subject matter experts (SMEs) and manually ranked the top records retrieved by both the current search system and the new semantic search, using SME judgments as the gold standard for relevancy. Herein, we present the results of our comparative analysis and illustrate how these findings have informed the fine-tuning of the system for enhanced performance. In the long term, our objectives include 1) retrieving publicly available information and integrating it with NLSP data to provide more precise answers to user queries, and 2) incorporating non-textual information from the NLSP database into our approach. In conclusion, the fusion of LLMs and semantic technologies within NLSP represents a pioneering stride towards reshaping the landscape of scientific discovery. This synergy not only equips researchers with powerful tools to navigate the burgeoning sea of information but also facilitates a deeper understanding of complex biological relationships, all while accelerating hypothesis generation and knowledge discovery. Through our initiative, LSKnowledge, we are committed to continually refining and expanding these capabilities, with the aim of not only enhancing information retrieval but also integrating diverse data sources to provide more precise insights. In the grand vision, NLSP strives to become the cornerstone of a comprehensive knowledge ecosystem, unraveling the enigmatic intricacies of life sciences phenomena in the context of space environments.

Life Sciences↗

Creating a Prototype Web Application for Spacecraft Real-Time Data Visualization on Mobile Devices

Mobile devices (smart phones, tablets) have become commonplace among almost all sectors of the workforce, especially in the technical and scientific communities. These devices provide individuals the ability to be constantly connected to any area of interest they may have, whenever and wherever they are located. The Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) is attempting to take advantage of this constant connectivity to extend the data visualization component of the Payload Operations and Integration Center (POIC) to a person's mobile device. POIC users currently have a rather unique capability to create custom user interfaces in order to view International Space Station (ISS) payload health and status telemetry. These displays are used at various console positions within the POIC. The Software Engineering team has created a Mobile Display capability that will allow authenticated users to view the same displays created for the console positions on the mobile device of their choice. Utilizing modern technologies including ASP.net, JavaScript, and HTML5, we have created a web application that renders the user's displays in any modern desktop or mobile web browser, regardless of the operating system on the device. Additionally, the application is device aware which enables it to render its configuration and selection menus with themes that correspond to the particular device. The Mobile Display application uses a communication mechanism known as signalR to push updates to the web client. This communication mechanism automatically detects the best communication protocol between the client and server and also manages disconnections and reconnections of the client to the server. One benefit of this application is that the user can monitor important telemetry even while away from their console position. If expanded to the scientific community, this application would allow a scientist to view a snapshot of the state of their particular experiment at any time or place. Because the web application renders the displays that can currently be created with the POIC ground system, the user can tailor their displays for a particular device using tools that they are already trained to use.

Lang, Jeremy S.↗

Trades, Architecture, and Design of the Joint Augmented Reality Visual Informatics (Joint AR) Product

Future expeditions will enable exploration and study of the planetary surfaces of the Moon and Mars by performing extravehicular activity (EVA) operations. Present-day International Space Station (ISS) EVA operations require an intricate and tight choreography of crew, space suits, tools, systems, and flight teams to plan, train, and execute with limited advanced informatics. Additionally, EVA operations, aside from the Apollo Lunar surface missions, have predominately focused on maintenance and construction tasks where success criteria are clearly measurable. However, future exploration missions expect to enable crew to carry out scientific objectives in increasingly Earth-independent ways. In this paper, the Joint Augmented Reality Visual Informatics System (Joint AR) characterizes the design space for developing a modular augmented reality (AR) device for a spacesuit form factor that can support crew decision-making for EVA. This paper highlights the project’s experience with a product-focused management style and use-case centered systems engineering approach to iteratively design, build, and test. The Joint AR product features were defined via trade studies and market analysis of previous EVA display efforts, various AR components such as optics, commercial AR systems, light engines, data interfaces, graphics engine software and analog test beds. We outline the defining architectural design decisions, including safety criticality considerations, suit mounting interfaces, computer architectures, and partnership contracting mechanisms. The outcomes of these studies, architecture decisions, and management requirements result in a recommended design which is the Joint AR product. We discuss the evolution, development of these system components, and what work remains. We hope to share a unified understanding of various design decisions and how they impact the future of crew members’ access to data during Lunar and Martian EVAs. This ongoing effort can enable a community-wide discovery process toward realizing necessary AR features and capabilities for future missions.

Augmented Reality↗

SCITUNE: Aligning Large Language Models with Human-Curated Scientific Multimodal Instructions

Instruction finetuning is a popular paradigm to align large language models (LLM) with human intent. Despite its popularity, this idea is less explored in improving the LLMs to align existing foundation models with scientific disciplines, concepts and goals. In this work, we present SciTune as a tuning framework to improve the ability of LLMs to follow scientific multimodal instructions. To test our methodology, we use a human-generated scientific instruction tuning dataset and train a large multimodal model LLaMA-SciTune that connects a vision encoder and LLM for science-focused visual and language understanding. LLaMA-SciTune significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art models in the generated figure types and captions in multiple scientific multimodal benchmarks. In comparison to the models that are fine-tuned with machine generated data only, LLaMA-SciTune surpasses human performance on average and in many sub-categories on the ScienceQA benchmark.

• Artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning ↗

NASA GeneLab Multi-study Visualization Portal

NASA GeneLab has helped advance the field of Space Biology by providing a public repository where researchers can store, share, analyze and visualize the results of space flight related omics experiments. The GeneLab data visualization portal allows any user, regardless of bioinformatics knowledge or access to computational resources, to interact with the experimental data, draw their own conclusions, and gain insights about the effects of space on living systems. These tools help democratize scientific research and foster the NASA Open Science initiative. The new multi-study feature of the GeneLab visualization platform allows users to mine study metadata from RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) experiments to identify samples of interest by filtering datasets based on organism, tissue, assay technology type, and/or factor. Once samples are selected from multiple datasets, users can combine and normalize the sample data, then utilize the visualization displays, including Principal Component Analysis (PCA) plots, to assess sample distributions. Finally, users can perform differential gene expression analysis on the combined data and visualize the results through PCA plots, Volcano plots, Pair plots, Heatmap, Ideogram and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis. All user-generated results and visualizations will be available for download. Here, we present a biological study using samples from multiple GeneLab RNA-seq datasets and analyzed using the multi-study visualization platform to demonstrate inter- and intra-study variability, as well as commonly differentially expressed genes between spaceflight and ground control conditions across datasets. This new feature opens a wide range of possibilities and opportunities for further development including combining other assay technology types and integration with batch effect correction techniques and machine learning applications. Overall, this tool allows users to increase the statistical power of individual experiments, validate hypothesis, identify patterns, and opens the door to new and exciting research.

space biology↗

Future Large-Aperture Ultraviolet/Optical/Infrared Space Observatory

Since the beginning of modern astronomical science in the early 1900s, astronomers have yearned to escape the turbulence and absorption of Earth's atmosphere by placing observatories in space. One of the first papers to lay out the advantages of space astronomy was by Lyman Spitzer in 1946, "Astronomical Advantages of an Extra-Terrestrial Observatory," though later in life he minimized the influence of this work. Since that time, and especially gaining momentum in the 1960s after the launch of Sputnik, astronomers, technologists, and engineers continued to advance, organizing scientific conferences, advocating for necessary technologies, and assessing sophisticated designs for increasingly ambitious space observations at ultraviolet, visual, and infrared (UVOIR) wavelengths. These community-wide endeavors, combined with the explosion in technological capability enabled by the Apollo era, led to rapid advancement in space observatory performance that culminated in the spectacularly successful Hubble Space Telescope (HST), launched in 1990 and still returning surpassing scientific results.

Thronson, Harley↗

Electronic Visualization Laboratory's 50th Anniversary Retrospective: Look to the Future, Build on the Past

September 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). EVL's introduction of the CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment in 1992, the first widely replicated, projection-based, walk-in, virtual-reality (VR) system in the world, put EVL at the forefront of collaborative, immersive data exploration and analytics. However, the journey did not begin then. Since its founding in 1973, EVL has been developing tools and techniques for real-time, interactive visualizations—pillars of VR. But EVL's culture is also relevant to its successes, as it has always been an interdisciplinary lab that fosters teamwork, where each person's expertise contributes to the development of the necessary tools, hardware, system software, applications, and human interface models to solve problems. Over the years, as multidisciplinary collaborations evolved and advanced scientific instruments and data resources were distributed globally, the need to access and share data and visualizations while working with colleagues, local and remote, synchronous and asynchronous, also became important fields of study. This paper is a retrospective of EVL's past 50 years that surveys the many networked, immersive, collaborative visualization and VR systems and applications it developed and deployed, as well as lessons learned and future plans.

Johnson, Andrew E.↗

Improving NASA Earth Science Data and Information Access Through Natural Language Processing Based Data Analysis and Visualization

NASA: The Research Access initiative is part of the agency's framework for increasing public access to scientific publications and digital scientific data. The initiative follows the release of White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's (OSTP) memorandum "Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research," to ensure federally funded research is available to the public within one year of publication. NASA answered the mandate by creating an agency plan entitled "NASA Plan for Increasing Access to the Results of Scientific Research" and associated policy, NPD 2230.1, Research Data and Publication Access. Principles in NASA SMD Strategic Plan for Scientific Data and Computing: Continued free and open access to scientific data for any use. Improved ease of use and discoverability. Enhanced science applications and new use cases. Incorporates best practices and "state of the art" through partnerships. Earth Data and Systems are Evolving: Increasing archive and file sizes. More complicated data structures. More user-friendly and data services. What is the future direction?

Liu, Zhong↗

SAVS: A Space and Atmospheric Visualization Science system

The research environment faced by space and atmospheric scientists in the 1990s is characterized by unprecedented volumes of new data, by ever-increasing repositories of unexploited mission files, and by the widespread use of empirical and large-scale computational models needed for the synthesis of understanding across data sets and discipline boundaries. The effective analysis and interpretation of such massive amounts of information have become the subjects of legitimate concern. With SAVS (a Space and Atmospheric Visualization Science System), we address these issues by creating a 'push-button' software environment that mimics the logical scientific processes in data acquisition, reduction, and analysis without requiring a detailed understanding of the methods, networks, and modules that link the tools and effectively execute the functions. SAVS provides (1) a customizable framework for accessing a powerful set of visualization tools based on the popular AVS visualization software with hooks to PV-Wave and access to Khoros modules, (2) a set of mathematical and statistical tools, (3) an extensible library of discipline-specific functions and models (e.g., MSIS, IRI, Feldstein Oval, IGRF, satellite tracking with CADRE-3, etc.), and (4) capabilities for local and remote data base access. The system treats scalar, vector, and image data, and runs on most common Unix workstations. We present a description of SAVS and its components, followed by several applications based on generic research interests in interplanetary and magnetospheric physics (IMP/ISTP), active experiments in space (CRRES), and mission planning focused on the Earth's thermospheric, ionospheric, and mesospheric domains (TIMED).

Szuszczewicz, E. P.↗

Expanding Access to Science Participation: A FAIR Framework for Petascale Data Visualization and Analytics

The massive data generated by scientists daily serve as both a major catalyst for new discoveries and innovations, as well as a significant roadblock that restricts access to the data. Here, our paper introduces a new approach to removing Big Data barriers and democratizing access to petascale data for the broader scientific community. Our novel data fabric abstraction layer allows user-friendly querying of scientific information while hiding the complexities of dealing with file systems or cloud services. We enable FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) access to datasets such as NASA’s petascale climate datasets. Our paper presents an approach to managing, visualizing, and analyzing petabytes of data within a browser on equipment ranging from the top NASA supercomputer to commodity hardware like a laptop. Our novel data fabric abstraction utilizes state-of-the art progressive compression algorithms and machine-learning insights to power scalable visualization dashboards for petascale data. The result provides users with the ability to identify extreme events or trends dynamically, expanding access to scientific data and further enabling discoveries. We validate our approach by improving the ability of climate scientists to visually explore their data via three fully interactive dashboards. We further validate our approach by deploying the dashboards and simplified training materials in the classroom at a minority-serving institution. These dashboards, released in simplified form to the general public, contribute significantly to a broader push to democratize the access and use of climate data.

Computer science↗

Coordinating Council. Second Meeting: International Acquisitions

The theme of this NASA Scientific and Technical Information Program Coordinating Council was International Acquisitions. Included are both visuals for presentations and reports on discussions related to the topics. Presentations were made on the following topics: Coordination council organization international plan, STI global network, International aerospace climate, Foreign exchange program, Foreign activities RMS & AIAA, NASA translation program, A.F. machine translation system, and CIRC cooperation.

Source record↗

Interdisciplinary Research Scenario Testing of EOSDIS

During the reporting period, the Principle Investigator (PI) has continued to serve on numerous review panels, task forces and committees with the goal of providing input and guidance for the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) program at NASA Headquarters and NASA GSFC. In addition, the PI has worked together with personnel at the University of Virginia and the subcontractor (Simpson Weather Associates (SWA)) to continue to evaluate the latest releases of various versions of the user interfaces to the EOSDIS. Finally, as part of the subcontract, SWA has created an on-line Hierarchial Data Format (HDF) tutorial for non-HDF experts, particularly those that will be using EOSDIS and future EOS data products. A summary of these three activities is provided. The topics include: 1) Participation on EODIS Panels and Committees; 2) Evaluation and Tire Kicking of EODIS User Interfaces; and 3) An On-line HDF Tutorial. The report also includes attachments A, B, and C. Attachment A: Report From the May 1999 Science Data Panel. The topics include: 1) Summary of Data Panel Meeting; and 2) Panel's Comments/Recommendations. Attachment B: Survey Requesting Integrated Design Systems (IDS) Teams Input on the Descoping and Rescoping of the EODIS; and Attachment C: An HDF Tutorial for Beginners: EODIS Users and Small Data Providers (HTML Version). The topics include: 1) Tutorial Overview; 2) An introduction to HDF; 3) The HDF Library: Software and Hardware; 4) Methods of Working with HDF Files; 5) Scientific Data API; 6) Attributes and Metadata; 7) Writing a SDS to an HDF file; 8) Obtaining Information on Existing HDF Files; 9) Reading a Scientific Data Set from an HDF file: 10) Example Programs; 11) Browsing and Visualizing HDF Data; and 12) Laboratory (Question and Answer).

Emmitt, G. D.↗

Visual target tracking for rover-based planetary exploration

To command a rover to go to a location of scientific interest on a remote planet, the rover must be capable of reliably tracking the target designated by the scientist from ten or more meters away. The rover must maintain lock on the target while traversing rough terrain and avoiding obstacles without the need for communication with Earth.

Bualat, Maria↗

Performance analysis and data reduction for exascale scientific workflows

Chimbuko is the first in situ, scalable, workflow-level performance analysis tool for trace-level analysis and visualization of application performance. This tool was developed by the Co-design Center for Online Data Analysis and Reduction and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project. We provide a detailed description of Chimbuko’s architecture and illustrate our online and offline visualization with multiple use cases. We also present results for the deployment and scalability of the tool as applied to a high-energy physics workflow running at large scale on the Frontier supercomputer.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

The ALTEA/ALTEINO projects: studying functional effects of microgravity and cosmic radiation

The ALTEA project investigates the risks of functional brain damage induced by particle radiation in space. A modular facility (the ALTEA facility) is being implemented and will be operated in the International Space Station (ISS) to record electrophysiological and behavioral descriptors of brain function and to monitor their time dynamics and correlation with particles and space environment. The focus of the program will be on abnormal visual perceptions (often reported as "light flashes" by astronauts) and the impact on retinal and brain visual structures of particle in microgravity conditions. The facility will be made available to the international scientific community for human neurophysiological, electrophysiological and psychophysics experiments, studies on particle fluxes, and dosimetry. A precursor of ALTEA (the 'Alteino' project) helps set the experimental baseline for the ALTEA experiments, while providing novel information on the radiation environment onboard the ISS and on the brain electrophysiology of the astronauts during orbital flights. Alteino was flown to the ISS on the Soyuz TM34 as part of mission Marco Polo. Controlled ground experiments using mice and accelerator beams complete the experimental strategy of ALTEA. We present here the status of progress of the ALTEA project and preliminary results of the Alteino study on brain dynamics, particle fluxes and abnormal visual perceptions. c2004 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

manned↗

Analyzing Multifaceted Scientific Data with Topological Analytics (Final Technical Report)

This final technical report describes the activities undertaken through Department of Energy, Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research Early Career award DE-SC-0019039, “Analyzing Multifaceted Scientific Data with Topological Analytics." This report summarizes contributions made toward the research of visualization, machine learning, and topological data analysis of complex simulation data.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗