Results for “collaborative change” — Page 16

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Black Hills Wildfires: Mapping Post-fire Conifer Regeneration using Snow-on Imagery

The 2000 Jasper Fire in the Black Hills of South Dakota was the largest wildfire to date in the region, burning over 83,000 acres of ponderosa pine forest. In collaboration with partners from the United States Forest Service (USFS) Black Hills Experimental Forest, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, and United States Geological Survey Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, we characterized post-fire forest regeneration within high-severity burn patches. We accomplished this by implementing novel conifer detection techniques using a snow index mask to create a winter, snow-on image composite from Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI) data. We utilized 2015 USFS stem maps of field-observed regeneration plots and ocularly sampled additional reforestation sites planted in 2001–2013. In Google Earth Engine (GEE), the field data and imagery were used to train a Random Forest (RF) model. The RF model classified 2021 conifer regeneration density as low, medium, or high across the high-severity burn area with an overall accuracy of 81.3%. Approximately 45.9% of the high-severity burn had low or no regeneration (0-40 trees per acre) 20 years post-fire. Given our partners' desire to find easily accessible low conifer regeneration zones, we identified 4,079 acres of priority planting sites that were within 1,500 feet of roads, had not been planted previously, and were larger than 50 acres. This method supports the use of snow-on imagery as a successful technique to identify conifer regeneration.

Casey Menick↗

NASA NTRS2022

Black Hills Wildfires: Mapping Post-Fire Conifer Regeneration using Snow-On Imagery

The 2000 Jasper Fire in the Black Hills of South Dakota was the largest wildfire to date in the region, burning over 83,000 acres of ponderosa pine forest. In collaboration with partners from the United States Forest Service (USFS) Black Hills Experimental Forest, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, and United States Geological Survey Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, we characterized post-fire forest regeneration within high-severity burn patches. We accomplished this by implementing novel conifer detection techniques using a snow index mask to create a winter, snow-on image composite from Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI) data. We utilized 2015 USFS stem maps of field-observed regeneration plots and ocularly sampled additional reforestation sites planted in 2001–2013. In Google Earth Engine (GEE), the field data and imagery were used to train a Random Forest (RF) model. The RF model classified 2021 conifer regeneration density as low, medium, or high across the high-severity burn area with an overall accuracy of 81.3%. Approximately 45.9% of the high-severity burn had low or no regeneration (0-40 trees per acre) 20 years post-fire. Given our partners' desire to find easily accessible low conifer regeneration zones, we identified 4,079 acres of priority planting sites that were within 1,500 feet of roads, had not been planted previously, and were larger than 50 acres. This method supports the use of snow-on imagery as a successful technique to identify conifer regeneration.

Casey Menick↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Mapping Post-fire Conifer Regeneration using Snow-on Imagery

The 2000 Jasper Fire in the Black Hills of South Dakota was the largest wildfire to date in the region, burning over 83,000 acres of ponderosa pine forest. In collaboration with partners from the United States Forest Service (USFS) Black Hills Experimental Forest, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, and United States Geological Survey Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, we characterized post-fire forest regeneration within high severity burn patches. We accomplished this by implementing novel conifer detection techniques using a snow index mask to create a winter, snow-on image composite from Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI) data. We utilized 2015 USFS stem maps of field-observed regeneration plots and ocularly sampled reforestation sites planted from 2001–2013. The field data and imagery were used to train a Random Forest (RF) model in Google Earth Engine. The RF model classified conifer regeneration density as low, medium, or high across the high-severity burn area with an overall accuracy of 81.3% for 2021. Approximately 45.9% of the high-severity burn area had low or no regeneration (0-40 trees per acre) 20 years post-fire. Given our partners' desire to find easily accessible low conifer regeneration zones, we identified 4,079 acres of priority planting sites that were within 1,500 feet of roads, had not been planted previously, and were larger than 50 acres. This method supports the use of snow-on imagery as a successful technique to identify conifer regeneration in a post-wildfire landscape.

Yeshey Seldon↗

NASA NTRS2017

Coping with Higher Sea Levels and Increased Coastal Flooding in New York City

The 837 km New York City shoreline is lined by significant economic assets and dense population vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal flooding. After Hurricane Sandy in 2012, New York City developed a comprehensive plan to mitigate future climate risks, drawing upon the scientific expertise of the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), a special advisory group comprised of university and private-sector experts. This paper highlights current NPCC findings regarding sea level rise and coastal flooding, with some of the City's ongoing and planned responses. Twentieth century sea level rise in New York City (2.8 cm/decade) exceeded the global average (1.7 cm/decade), underscoring the enhanced regional risk to coastal hazards. NPCC (2015) projects future sea level rise at the Battery of 28 - 53 cm by the 2050s and 46 - 99 cm by the 2080s, relative to 2000 - 2004 (mid-range, 25th - 75th percentile). High-end SLR estimates (90th percentile) reach 76 cm by the 2050s, and 1.9 m by 2100. Combining these projections with updated FEMA flood return period curves, assuming static flood dynamics and storm behavior, flood heights for the 100-year storm (excluding waves) attain 3.9-4.5 m (mid-range), relative to the NAVD88 tidal datum, and 4.9 m (high end) by the 2080s, up from 3.4 m in the 2000s. Flood heights with a 1% annual chance of occurrence in the 2000s increase to 2.0 - 5.4% (mid-range) and 12.7% per year (high-end), by the 2080s. Guided by NPCC (2013, 2015) findings, New York City has embarked on a suite of initiatives to strengthen coastal defenses, employing various approaches tailored to specific neighborhood needs. NPCC continues its collaboration with the city to investigate vulnerability to extreme climate events, including heat waves, inland floods and coastal storms. Current research entails higher-resolution neighborhood-level coastal flood mapping, changes in storm characteristics, surge height interactions with sea level rise, and stronger engagement with stakeholders and community-based organizations.

Coastal flooding↗

NASA NTRS2017

Understanding the International Space Station Crew Perspective following Long-Duration Missions through Data Analytics & Visualization of Crew Feedback

The International Space Station (ISS) first became a home and research laboratory for NASA and International Partner crewmembers over 16 years ago. Each ISS mission lasts approximately 6 months and consists of three to six crewmembers. After returning to Earth, most crewmembers participate in an extensive series of 30+ debriefs intended to further understand life onboard ISS and allow crews to reflect on their experiences. Examples of debrief data collected include ISS crew feedback about sleep, dining, payload science, scheduling and time planning, health & safety, and maintenance. The Flight Crew Integration (FCI) Operational Habitability (OpsHab) team, based at Johnson Space Center (JSC), is a small group of Human Factors engineers and one stenographer that has worked collaboratively with the NASA Astronaut office and ISS Program to collect, maintain, disseminate and analyze this data. The database provides an exceptional and unique resource for understanding the "crew perspective" on long duration space missions. Data is formatted and categorized to allow for ease of search, reporting, and ultimately trending, in order to understand lessons learned, recurring issues and efficiencies gained over time. Recently, the FCI OpsHab team began collaborating with the NASA JSC Knowledge Management team to provide analytical analysis and visualization of these over 75,000 crew comments in order to better ascertain the crew's perspective on long duration spaceflight and gain insight on changes over time. In this initial phase of study, a text mining framework was used to cluster similar comments and develop measures of similarity useful for identifying relevant topics affecting crew health or performance, locating similar comments when a particular issue or item of operational interest is identified, and providing search capabilities to identify information pertinent to future spaceflight systems and processes for things like procedure development and training. In addition, the comments were scored for sentiment using a polarity scoring algorithm to identify both positive and negative comments for particular groups and clusters, allowing the team to make analytically informed decisions regarding future hardware and operating procedures. The use of polarity scoring with time series analysis was used to provide insight into how crew health and habitability is changing throughout various spaceflight increments or the station lifecycle as a whole. Finally, a visualization framework was developed to address the needs of the end users to search for and analyze comments by user, category or mission. This paper will discuss how the use of an analytical framework in conjunction with the current human interface, improved the understanding of crew perspective and shortened the time for analysis allowing for more informed decisions and rapid development of improvements. These methods are significantly optimizing the way that this valuable data can be assessed and applied to current and future spaceflight design and development. This collaboration allows the FCI OpsHab team to effectively analyze and share data in a more automated and timely fashion. Trends are no longer derived manually and can be illustrated effectively and accurately with these evolving techniques to an ever growing group of human spaceflight end users.

Bryant, Cody↗

DOE OSTI2025

Transmission electron microscopy with in-situ ion irradiation: Facilities and community

Whilst there is a clear scientific and technological need for the technical capabilities of transmission electron microscopes with in-situ ion irradiation, it also requires a collaborative community of international researchers to support such facilities in successfully meeting this demand. Instruments of this type serve to provide fundamental understanding of the mechanisms which drive changes in materials important to nuclear fission and fusion energy, the semiconductor industry, quantum information systems, space travel, astronomy, geology and many more applications. As these areas continue to evolve and the instrumentation possibilities expand, the capacity of in-situ ion irradiation facilities must also develop hand-in-hand with the user community to deliver an ever-greater diversity of high-fidelity extreme-environment experimentation. Future directions for the field, such as miniaturization from MEMS/microfluidic devices and advanced controls with ML-based analysis, continuously emerge to advance both the hardware and software which support the coupling of TEMs with ion beams. This review sets out to provide up-to-date insights into the community and advancement of current, and development of future, facilities which have the potential to further unlock access to the nanoscale exploration of coupled extreme environments crucial to many of the important science and engineering challenges we face today.

In-situ irradiation↗

NASA NTRS1999

An Evaluation of Collagen Metabolism in Non Human Primates Associated with the Bion 11 Space Program-Markers of Urinary Collagen Turnover and Muscle Connective Tissue

Patients exhibiting changes in connective tissue and bone metabolism also show changes in urinary by-products of tissue metabolism. Furthermore, the changes in urinary connective tissue and bone metabolites precede alterations at the tissue macromolecular level. Astronauts and Cosmonauts have also shown suggestive increases in urinary by-products of mineralized and non-mineralized tissue degradation. Thus, the idea of assessing connective tissue and bone response in spaceflight monkeys by measurement of biomarkers in urine has merit. Other investigations of bone and connective histology, cytology and chemistry in the Bion 11 monkeys will allow for further validation of the relationship of urinary biomarkers and tissue response. In future flights the non-invasive procedure of urinary analysis may be useful in early detection of changes in these tissues. Purpose: The purpose of this grant investigation was to evaluate mineralized and non-mineralized connective tissue responses of non-human primates to microgravity by the non-invasive analysis of urinary biomarkers. Secondly, we also wanted to assess muscle connective tissue adaptive changes in three weight-bearing skeletal muscles: the soleus, medial gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior by obtaining pre-flight and post-flight small biopsy specimens in collaboration with Dr. V. Reggie Edgerton's laboratory at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Vailas, Arthur C.↗

NASA NTRS1999

An Evaluation of Collagen Metabolism in Non Human Primates Associated with the Bion 11 Space Program-Markers of Urinary Collagen Turnover and Muscle Connective Tissue

Patients exhibiting changes in connective tissue and bone metabolism also show changes in urinary by-products of tissue metabolism. Furthermore, the changes in urinary connective tissue and bone metabolites precede alterations at the tissue macromolecular level. Astronauts and Cosmonauts have also shown suggestive increases in urinary by-products of mineralized and non-mineralized tissue degradation. Thus, the idea of assessing connective tissue and bone response in spaceflight monkeys by measurement of biomarkers in urine has merit. Other investigations of bone and connective histology, cytology and chemistry in the Bion 11 monkeys will allow for further validation of the relationship of urinary biomarkers and tissue response. In future flights the non-invasive procedure of urinary analysis may be useful in early detection of changes in these tissues. The purpose of this grant investigation was to evaluate mineralized and non-mineralized connective tissue responses of non-human primates to microgravity by the non-invasive analysis of urinary biomarkers. Secondly, we also wanted to assess muscle connective tissue adaptive changes in three weight-bearing skeletal muscles: the soleus, media] gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior by obtaining pre-flight and post-flight small biopsy specimens in collaboration with Dr. V. Reggie Edgerton's laboratory at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Vailas, Arthur C.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Bioastronautics: optimizing human performance through research and medical innovations

A strategic use of resources is essential to achieving long-duration space travel and understanding the human physiological changes in space, including the roles of food and nutrition in space. To effectively address the challenges of space flight, the Bioastronautics Initiative, undertaken in 2001, expands extramural collaboration and leverages unique capabilities of the scientific community and the federal government, all the while applying this integrated knowledge to Earth-based problems. Integral to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's missions in space is the reduction of risk of medical complications, particularly during missions of long duration. Cumulative medical experience and research provide the ability to develop evidence-based medicine for prevention, countermeasures, and treatment modalities for space flight. The early approach applied terrestrial clinical judgment to predict medical problems in space. Space medicine has evolved to an evidence-based approach with the use of biomedical data gathered and lessons learned from previous space flight missions to systematically aid in decision making. This approach led, for example, to the determination of preliminary nutritional requirements for space flight, and it aids in the development of nutrition itself as a countermeasure to support nutritional mitigation of adaptation to space.

Nutritional Requirements↗

DOE OSTI2026

Genetic variations and their interaction with thirdhand smoke exposure on anxiety and memory in Collaborative Cross mice

Thirdhand smoke (THS) is linked to adverse health effects, but the effect of genetic variations on behavioral outcomes is poorly understood. To investigate this, we assessed anxiety- and memory-related behaviors in 820 mice from 21 strains of the genetically diverse Collaborative Cross (CC) mouse that were exposed to THS from 4 through 10 weeks of age. Anxiety was evaluated with a light/dark box assay with a previously established risk score system. Females were generally more sensitive: THS reduced anxiety risk in strains CC013, CC019, and CC051, but increased risk in CC036 and CC061, while males showed no significant effects. Memory was tested using passive avoidance: impairments were observed in both sexes in CC016 and CC019, with sex-dependent effects in CC002 and CC051. A genome-wide association study identified 2,347 SNPs associated with anxiety and 1,568 SNPs with memory, with 32 and 85 SNPs, respectively, interacting with THS exposure. Enrichment analyses revealed distinct biological processes underlying susceptibility, including axonogenesis, synapse organization, cognition, and learning and memory. KEGG pathway analysis identified distinct genetic pathways, including GTPase binding and GTPase regulatory activity, that act as critical molecular switches in the brain that regulate synaptic plasticity, dendritic spine structure, and neuronal signaling, directly influencing anxiety-like behaviors and memory formation. These findings show that THS exposure affects neurobehavioral outcomes in a sex- and genotype-dependent manner, highlighting critical gene-environment interactions and providing a foundation for mechanistic insights into THS neurotoxicity

Anxiety↗

NASA NTRS2017

Cultivating a Grassroots Aerospace Innovation Culture at NASA Ames Research Center

This paper details the adaptation of specific 'knowledge production' methods to implement a first of its kind, grassroots event that provokes a cultural change in how the NASA Ames civil servant community engages in the creation and selection of innovative ideas. Historically, selection of innovative proposals at NASA Ames Research Center is done at the highest levels of management, isolating the views and perspectives of the larger civil servant community. Additionally, NASA innovation programs are typically open to technical organizations and do not engage non-technical organizations to bring forward innovative processes/business practices. Finally, collaboration on innovative ideas and associated solutions tend to be isolated to organizational silos. In this environment, not all Ames employees feel empowered to innovate and opportunities for employee collaboration are limited. In order to address these issues, the 'innovation contest' method was adapted to create the NASA Ames Innovation Fair, a unique, grassroots innovation opportunity for the civil servant community. The Innovation Fair consisted of a physical event with a virtual component. The physical event provided innovators the opportunity to collaborate and pitch their innovations to the NASA Ames community. The civil servant community then voted for the projects that they viewed as innovative and would contribute to NASA's core mission, making this event a truly grassroots effort. The Innovation Fair website provided a location for additional knowledge sharing, discussion, and voting. On March 3rd, 2016, the 'First Annual NASA Ames Innovation Fair' was held with 49 innovators and more than 300 participants collaborating and/or voting for the best innovations. Based on the voting results, seven projects were awarded seed funding for projects ranging from innovative cost models to innovations in aerospace technology. Surveys of both innovators and Fair participants show the Innovation Fair was successful in fostering cross-organizational collaborations, soliciting participation of non-technical innovations, and increasing employee engagement in influencing the future of NASA Ames Research Center. The grassroots component of the Innovation Fair has been bench marked by the agency as a solid foundation for increasing employee engagement in the development of game changing aerospace technology and processes in support of NASA's mission.

Innovation↗

DOE OSTI2025

Fiscal Year 2025 Software Quality Assurance Activities for the ARC Software

The continued goal of the ARC SQA project in the Advanced Reactor Technologies program of DOE is to resolve the QA gaps for the ARC software that limit, or prevent, commercialization of the software for industry users. This project started in earnest in fiscal year 2023 which saw the entire code system moved from a SVN repository to a GitLab repository and an associated software quality assurance plan (SQAP) developed and ratified. Most of the QA gaps in the ARC software were identified in collaboration with industry partners and work begin in fiscal year 2023 and continued through 2024 and 2025. The continuous integration testing was extended to RCT, DASSH, and SE2ANL. Minor changes were required to the original continuous integration methodology to make this happen. When full confidence in the methodology is complete, a report will be created to detail the automated regression testing methodology and minor reports will be created to detail the tolerance settings that have been applied to the output for each ARC code. The primary documentation that is missing includes user manuals, user guides, software verification reports, and code coverage assessments. The DASSH, SE2ANL, and SE2RCT manuals were completed this fiscal year. A review of the SE2ANL software identified that it is unrealistic to include updated correlations or different geometry models and it was scheduled for deprecation in favor of DASSH. The SE2ANL manual is essential for SE2RCT as they are similar but quite different in purpose. The only piece of software missing a manual consistent with the source code is NUBOW-3D which is a focus of the coming year. The code coverage report for DIF3D was updated and code coverage reports were created for REBUS, RCT, PERSENT, GAMSRC, and DASSH. Minor coverage issues were identified for all of these pieces of software which did not prevent the work done to transition them to the OneAPI compiler. Because SE2ANL was scheduled for deprecation, it was not transitioned, but it was successfully tested with the OneAPI compiler. This leaves SE2RCT and NUBOW-3D as the only pieces of software not transitioned to OneAPI and further work is required to get SE2RCT to work properly. The SE2RCT software transition will begin early next year while the NUBOW-3D software requires a manual before it can begin. Software verification work has been completed for DIF3D, REBUS, GAMSOR, GAMSRC, VARPOW, EvaluateFlux, and SUMMAR. The PERSENT software verification work was completed this year which was somewhat delayed because of unexpected bugs in the software. The PERSENT manual was updated to detail some of the issues and discuss the bowing reactivity worth feature added in the previous fiscal year. The RCT, DASSH, SE2RCT, and NUBOW-3D software are the only maintained pieces of software without verification reports. The software verification work for DASSH will be a focus in the upcoming fiscal year and it is hoped that some of the test cases created can serve as verification tests for SE2RCT. The NUBOW-3D work will begin when the manual and requirements report are completed. Only minor industry partner software development funds were provided this year. The DASSH software was updated to handle general axial geometry for each assembly and the NUBOW-3D software was updated to incorporate a new input format and better output. Overall progress on resolving the QA gaps has been good this year.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Fiscal Year 2025 Software Quality Assurance Activities for the ARC Software

The continued goal of the ARC SQA project in the Advanced Reactor Technologies program of DOE is to resolve the QA gaps for the ARC software that limit, or prevent, commercialization of the software for industry users. This project started in earnest in fiscal year 2023 which saw the entire code system moved from a SVN repository to a GitLab repository and an associated software quality assurance plan (SQAP) developed and ratified. Most of the QA gaps in the ARC software were identified in collaboration with industry partners and work begin in fiscal year 2023 and continued through 2024 and 2025. The continuous integration testing was extended to RCT, DASSH, and SE2ANL. Minor changes were required to the original continuous integration methodology to make this happen. When full confidence in the methodology is complete, a report will be created to detail the automated regression testing methodology and minor reports will be created to detail the tolerance settings that have been applied to the output for each ARC code. The primary documentation that is missing includes user manuals, user guides, software verification reports, and code coverage assessments. The DASSH, SE2ANL, and SE2RCT manuals were completed this fiscal year. A review of the SE2ANL software identified that it is unrealistic to include updated correlations or different geometry models and it was scheduled for deprecation in favor of DASSH. The SE2ANL manual is essential for SE2RCT as they are similar but quite different in purpose. The only piece of software missing a manual consistent with the source code is NUBOW-3D which is a focus of the coming year. The code coverage report for DIF3D was updated and code coverage reports were created for REBUS, RCT, PERSENT, GAMSRC, and DASSH. Minor coverage issues were identified for all of these pieces of software which did not prevent the work done to transition them to the OneAPI compiler. Because SE2ANL was scheduled for deprecation, it was not transitioned, but it was successfully tested with the OneAPI compiler. This leaves SE2RCT and NUBOW-3D as the only pieces of software not transitioned to OneAPI and further work is required to get SE2RCT to work properly. The SE2RCT software transition will begin early next year while the NUBOW-3D software requires a manual before it can begin. Software verification work has been completed for DIF3D, REBUS, GAMSOR, GAMSRC, VARPOW, EvaluateFlux, and SUMMAR. The PERSENT software verification work was completed this year which was somewhat delayed because of unexpected bugs in the software. The PERSENT manual was updated to detail some of the issues and discuss the bowing reactivity worth feature added in the previous fiscal year. The RCT, DASSH, SE2RCT, and NUBOW-3D software are the only maintained pieces of software without verification reports. The software verification work for DASSH will be a focus in the upcoming fiscal year and it is hoped that some of the test cases created can serve as verification tests for SE2RCT. The NUBOW-3D work will begin when the manual and requirements report are completed. Only minor industry partner software development funds were provided this year. The DASSH software was updated to handle general axial geometry for each assembly and the NUBOW-3D software was updated to incorporate a new input format and better output. Overall progress on resolving the QA gaps has been good this year.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NASA NTRS2008

Cassini Information Management System in Distributed Operations Collaboration and Cassini Science Planning

Launched on October 15, 1997, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft began its ambitious journey to the Saturnian system with a complex suite of 12 scientific instruments, and another 6 instruments aboard the European Space Agencies Huygens Probe. Over the next 6 1/2 years, Cassini would continue its relatively simplistic cruise phase operations, flying past Venus, Earth, and Jupiter. However, following Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI), Cassini would become involved in a complex series of tasks that required detailed resource management, distributed operations collaboration, and a data base for capturing science objectives. Collectively, these needs were met through a web-based software tool designed to help with the Cassini uplink process and ultimately used to generate more robust sequences for spacecraft operations. In 2001, in conjunction with the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and later Venustar Software and Engineering Inc., the Cassini Information Management System (CIMS) was released which enabled the Cassini spacecraft and science planning teams to perform complex information management and team collaboration between scientists and engineers in 17 countries. Originally tailored to help manage the science planning uplink process, CIMS has been actively evolving since its inception to meet the changing and growing needs of the Cassini uplink team and effectively reduce mission risk through a series of resource management validation algorithms. These algorithms have been implemented in the web-based software tool to identify potential sequence conflicts early in the science planning process. CIMS mitigates these sequence conflicts through identification of timing incongruities, pointing inconsistencies, flight rule violations, data volume issues, and by assisting in Deep Space Network (DSN) coverage analysis. In preparation for extended mission operations, CIMS has also evolved further to assist in the planning and coordination of the dual playback redundancy of highvalue data from targets such as Titan and Enceladus. This paper will outline the critical role that CIMS has played for Cassini in the distributed ops paradigm throughout operations. This paper will also examine the evolution that CIMS has undergone in the face of new science discoveries and fluctuating operational needs. And finally, this paper will conclude with theoretical adaptation of CIMS for other projects and the potential savings in cost and risk reduction that could potentially be tapped into by future missions.

Equils, Douglas J.↗

NASA NTRS2017

The Future of Ground Magnetometer Arrays in Support of Space Weather Monitoring and Research

A community workshop was held in Greenbelt, Maryland, on 5-6 May 2016 to discussrecommendations for the future of ground magnetometer array research in space physics. The community reviewed findings contained in the 2016 Geospace Portfolio Review of the Geospace Section of the Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Science of the National Science Foundation and discussed the present state of ground magnetometer arrays and possible pathways for a more optimal, robust, and effective organization and scientific use of these ground arrays. This paper summarizes the report of that workshop to the National Science Foundation (Engebretson & Zesta, 2017) as well as conclusions from two follow-up meetings. It describes the current state of U.S.-funded ground magnetometer arrays and summarizes community recommendations for changes in both organizational and funding structures. It also outlines a variety of new and/or augmented regional and global data products and visualizations that can be facilitated by increased collaboration among arrays. Such products will enhance the value of ground-based magnetometer data to the community's effort for understanding of Earth's space environment and space weather effects.

earths space environment↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Using Federated Learning to Overcome Data Gravity in Space

Humans intend to take longer missions to outer space. Understanding the impact that space has on human health is paramount to the success of these missions. Controlled experiments with model organisms are run to infer the impact of space conditions on human health, but the data these experiments generate are too large to transfer to Earth for building models. The same is true for space-relevant data generated on Earth. Ideally, these datasets should be combined to improve statistical power and model accuracy without having to transfer data. Federated learning is such a method which trains an algorithm across decentralized computing systems, each of which has their own local copy of training and testing data. In this research, made possible by NASA@Work, the AI for Life in Space group at NASA demonstrates the use of federated learning to train an ensemble of causality inference models on a combination of data residing on the International Space Station (ISS) and in the cloud. Our work leverages CRISP, a causal inference platform developed during the 2020 Frontier Development Lab’s “Astronaut Health Challenge.” We also leverage the OpenFL federated learning library which was collaboratively developed at Intel and UPenn. We used publicly available data from the NASA Ames Life Sciences Data Archive to identify features in ionizing radiation experiments as causal of changes in cardiac blood velocity. This research demonstrates, for the first time, the possibility of running machine learning algorithms on datasets separated by astronomical distances. In this experiment, all the data were generated in terra, half of which were transferred to the ISS and analyzed on the Spaceborne Computer. In the future, our research will leverage federated learning on data generated in situ on the ISS with data generated terrestrially to predict the impact of spaceflight on mammalian female reproductive capacity.

James Casaletto↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Unveiling NASA’s Agile Projects, Successes, Challenges, and Transformative Insight

The NASA Agile Community of Practice recently hosted the first NASA Agile Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM). The TIM provided an opportunity for Agile practitioners across the Agency to share their successes, challenges, and recommendations from Agile transformations. NASA has increasingly turned to private industry for collaborative efforts in space exploration, satellite deployment, and other missions. Embracing Agile principles, NASA is adapting its project management strategies to foster more flexible, efficient, and collaborative relationships with commercial partners. This paper provides highlights from the projects presented at the Agile TIM on how those teams have been able to iterate rapidly, respond to changing requirements, and deliver value more effectively.

agile↗

NASA NTRS2002

Research on Intelligent Synthesis Environment

The ultimate goal of this research project is to develop a methodology for the assessment and continuous improvement of engineering team effectiveness in distributed collaborative environments. This review provides the theoretical foundation upon which subsequent empirical work will be based. Our review of the team performance literature has identified the following 12 conceptually distinct team interaction processes as characteristic of effective teams. 1) Mission Analysis; 2) Resource Distribution; 3) Leadership; 4) Timing; 5) Intra-team Feedback; 6) Motivational Functions; 7) Team Orientation; 8) Communication; 9) Coordination; 10) Mutual Performance Monitoring; 11) Back-up Behaviors; and 12) Cooperation. In addition, this review summarizes how team task characteristics (i.e., task type, task complexity, motivation, and temporal changes), team characteristics (i.e., team structure and team knowledge), and individual team member characteristics (i.e., dispositions and teamwork knowledge, skills, and abilities) affect team interaction processes, determine the relevance of these processes, and influence team performance. The costs and benefits of distributed team collaboration are also considered. The review concludes with a brief discussion of the nature of collaborative team engineering tasks.

Loftin, R. Bowen↗