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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 307 records · Page 17

A scalable framework for quantifying field-level agricultural carbon outcomes

Agriculture contributes nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which is motivating interest in adopting certain farming practices that have the potential to reduce GHG emissions or sequester carbon in soil. The related GHG emission (including N 2 O and CH 4 ) and changes in soil carbon stock are defined here as “agricultural carbon outcomes”. Accurate quantification of agricultural carbon outcomes is the basis for achieving emission reductions for agriculture, but existing approaches for measuring carbon outcomes (including direct measurements, emission factors, and process-based modeling) fall short of achieving the required accuracy and scalability necessary to support credible, verifiable, and cost-effective measurement and improvement of these carbon outcomes. Here we propose a foundational and scalable framework to quantify field-level carbon outcomes for farmland, which is based on the holistic carbon balance of the agroecosystem: Agroecosystem Carbon Outcomes = Environment (E) × Management (M) × Crop (C). Following a comprehensive review of the scientific challenges associated with existing approaches, as well as their tradeoffs between cost and accuracy, we propose that the most viable path for the quantification of field-level carbon outcomes in agricultural land is through an effective integration of various approaches (e.g. diverse observations, sensor/in-situ data, and modeling), defined as the “System-of-Systems” solution. Such a “System-of-Systems” solution should simultaneously comprise the following components: (1) scalable collection of ground truth data and cross-scale sensing of environment variables (E), management practices (M), and crop conditions (C) at the local field level; (2) advanced modeling with necessary processes to support the quantification of carbon outcomes; (3) systematic Model-Data Fusion (MDF), i.e. robust and efficient methods to integrate sensing data and models at each local farmland level; (4) high computation efficiency and artificial intelligence (AI) to scale to millions of individual fields with low cost; and (5) robust and multi-tier validation systems and infrastructures to ensure solution fidelity and true scalability, i.e. the ability of a solution to perform robustly with accepted accuracy on all targeted fields. In this regard, we provide here the detailed scientific rationale, current progress, and future research and development (R&D) priorities to achieve different components of the “System-of-Systems” solution, thus accomplishing the Environment×Management×Crop framework to quantify field-level agricultural carbon outcomes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Xanthos

Xanthos is a Python package designed to quantify and analyze global water availability in history and in future at 0.5° × 0.5° spatial resolution and a monthly time step under a changing climate. Its performance was also tested through real applications. It is open-source, extendable and convenient to researchers who work on long-term climate data for studies of global water supply, and Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM). This package integrates inherent global gridded data maps, I/O modules, Water-Balance Model modules and diagnostics modules by user-defined configuration.

Source record↗

Xanthos

Xanthos is a Python package designed to quantify and analyze global water availability in history and in future at 0.5° × 0.5° spatial resolution and a monthly time step under a changing climate. Its performance was also tested through real applications. It is open-source, extendable and convenient to researchers who work on long-term climate data for studies of global water supply, and Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM). This package integrates inherent global gridded data maps, I/O modules, Water-Balance Model modules and diagnostics modules by user-defined configuration.

Source record↗

Predicting and Managing Lighting and Visibility for Human Operations in Space

Lighting is critical to human visual performance. On earth this problem is well understood and solutions are well defined and executed. Because the sun rises and sets on average every 45 minutes during Earth orbit, humans working in space must cope with ~ extremely dynamic lighting conditions varying from very low light conditions to severe glare and contrast conditions. For critical operations, it is essential that lighting conditions be predictable and manageable. Mission planners need to detelmine whether low-light video cameras are required or whether additional luminaires, or lamps, need to be flown . Crew and flight directors need to have up to date daylight orbit time lines showing the best and worst viewing conditions for sunlight and shadowing. Where applicable and possible, lighting conditions need to be part of crew training. In addition, it is desirable to optimize the quantity and quality of light because of the potential impacts on crew safety, delivery costs, electrical power and equipment maintainability for both exterior and interior conditions. Addressing these issues, an illumination modeling system has been developed in the Space Human Factors Laboratory at ASA Johnson Space Center. The system is the integration of a physically based ray-tracing package ("Radiance"), developed at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, a human factors oriented geometric modeling system developed by NASA and an extensive database of humans and their work environments. Measured and published data has been collected for exterior and interior surface reflectivity; luminaire beam spread distribution, color and intensity and video camera light sensitivity and has been associated with their corresponding geometric models. Selecting an eye-point and one or more light sources, including sun and earthshine, a ~ snapshot of the light energy reaching the surfaces or reaching the eye point is computed. This energy map is then used to extract the required information needed for useful predictions. Using a validated, comprehensive illumination model integrated with empirically derived data, predictions of lighting and viewing conditions have been successfully used for Shuttle and Space Station planning and assembly operations. It has successfully balanced the needs for adequate human performance with the utili zation of resources. Keywords: Modeling, ray tracing, luminaires, refl ectivity, luminance, illuminance.

Maida, James C.↗

Geographical Database Integrity Validation

Airport Safety Modeling Data (ASMD) was developed at the request of a 1997 White House Conference on Aviation Safety and Security. Politicians, military personnel, commercial aircraft manufacturers and the airline industry attended the conference. The objective of the conference was to study the airline industry and make recommendations to improve safety and security. One of the topics discussed at the conference was the loss of situational awareness by aircraft pilots. Loss of situational awareness occurs when a pilot loses his geographic position during flight and can result in crashes into terrain and obstacles. It was recognized at the conference that aviation safety could be improved by reducing the loss of situational awareness. The conference advised that a system be placed in the airplane cockpit that would provide pilots with a visual representation of the terrain around airports. The system would prevent airline crashes during times of inclement weather and loss of situational awareness. The system must be based on accurate data that represents terrain around airports. The Department of Defense and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) released ASMD to be used for the development of a visual system for aircraft pilots. ASMD was constructed from NIMA digital terrain elevation data (DTED).

Jacobs, Derya↗

Summary of Phase 1 and Plans for Phase 2 of the Washington State Geothermal Play-Fairway Analysis

A geothermal play fairway is constituted by the collocation of heat, permeability, and saturated porosity in sufficient volume that provide adequate heat exchange at depths accessible by modern drilling technologies. The focus of Phase 1 of the Washington State play-fairway analysis (PFA) was to develop and apply a methodology to integrate detailed models of heat and permeability potential for each play (study area). The goal is to minimize risk associated with investments in geothermal exploration of greenfield projects by rigorously analyzing available data, applying favorability modeling concepts that have been successfully used at known geothermal systems, and addressing data quality and model sensitivity. The integrated results indicate locations where commercial geothermal potential is highest, based on available data. Here, these results also reveal where new data are needed to increase resolution and reduce uncertainty to minimize risk (work conducted in Phase 2), and thus successfully identify sites for exploration wells (in Phase 3).

geothermal favorability↗

Integrating Orbital Debris Measurements and Modeling - How Observations and Laboratory Data are used to Help Make Space Operations Safer

The NASA Orbital Debris Program Office has been statistically surveying human-made resident space objects (RSOs) in geocentric orbits for several decades, using optical and infrared telescopes. The prime goal has been to understand the evolving population and characteristics of debris generated by RSOs. The debris population includes any non-functioning RSO that no longer serves a useful purpose. Any object that cannot be purposely maneuvered, including non-functioning satellites, rocket bodies, and any object generated by a collision, explosion, or fragmentation event, may pose a future collisional threat to active satellites. Key questions immediately surface from this knowledge: What can we do to protect our precious functioning satellites from collisions? How do we design our satellites to prevent them from being future sources of debris? And what can we do as a society to protect the environment surrounding Earth to preserve it for future generations? To begin to address these questions, and to better understand this population as well as break-up events contributing to it, NASA has developed a suite of models and experimental laboratory data to work in tandem with observational and laboratory measurements of RSOs. These models include the Orbital Debris Engineering Model (ORDEM), the Standard Satellite Break-up Model (SSBM), and an evolutionary model of the environment from LEO to GEO (LEGEND). Ground-based data have been collected from the infrared telescope UKIRT (UK Infrared Telescope) in Hawaii, as well as the 1.3m Eugene Stansbery Meter Class Autonomous Telescope, ES-MCAT, historically called MCAT, on Ascension Island. MCAT will be tasked to collect GEO (Geosynchronous) survey data, scanning orbits to search for uncatalogued objects (e.g. fragmentation/break-up events (SSBM)), and targeted observations of catalogued objects for more intensive studies, e.g. when a break-up or anomalous event occurs. Laboratory experimental data includes DebriSat, a satellite impacted at ~6.9 km/s in an impact laboratory on Earth, and optical photometry from the Optical Measurements Center at NASA JSC. An integrated view will be discussed of how our telescopic observations and lab measurements interplay with models to understand the current (ORDEM) and future (LEGEND) environment, the evolution of satellite breakups (SSBM), and how this knowledge can help to promote an environment that is safer for operations.

Lederer, S. M.↗

The Monarch Initiative: an integrative data and analytic platform connecting phenotypes to genotypes across species

The correlation of phenotypic outcomes with genetic variation and environmental factors is a core pursuit in biology and biomedicine. Numerous challenges impede our progress: patient phenotypes may not match known diseases, candidate variants may be in genes that have not been characterized, model organisms may not recapitulate human or veterinary diseases, filling evolutionary gaps is difficult, and many resources must be queried to find potentially significant genotype-phenotype associations. Nonhuman organisms have proven instrumental in revealing biological mechanisms. Advanced informatics tools can identify phenotypically relevant disease models in research and diagnostic contexts. Large-scale integration of model organism and clinical research data can provide a breadth of knowledge not available from individual sources and can provide contextualization of data back to these sources. The Monarch Initiative (monarchinitiative.org) is a collaborative, open science effort that aims to semantically integrate genotype-phenotype data from many species and sources in order to support precision medicine, disease modeling, and mechanistic exploration. Our integrated knowledge graph, analytic tools, and web services enable diverse users to explore relationships between phenotypes and genotypes across species.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Recommendations for developing, documenting, and distributing data products derived from NEON data

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) provides over 180 distinct data products from 81 sites (47 terrestrial and 34 freshwater aquatic sites) within the United States and Puerto Rico. These data products include both field and remote sensing data collected using standardized protocols and sampling schema, with centralized quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) provided by NEON staff. Such breadth of data creates opportunities for the research community to extend basic and applied research while also extending the impact and reach of NEON data through the creation of derived data products—higher level data products derived by the user community from NEON data. Derived data products are curated, documented, reproducibly-generated datasets created by applying various processing steps to one or more lower level data products—including interpolation, extrapolation, integration, statistical analysis, modeling, or transformations. Derived data products directly benefit the research community and increase the impact of NEON data by broadening the size and diversity of the user base, decreasing the time and effort needed for working with NEON data, providing primary research foci through the development via the derivation process, and helping users address multidisciplinary questions. Creating derived data products also promotes personal career advancement to those involved through publications, citations, and future grant proposals. However, the creation of derived data products is a nontrivial task. Here we provide an overview of the process of creating derived data products while outlining the advantages, challenges, and major considerations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DIAS: A Data-Informed Active Subspace Regularization Framework for Inverse Problems

This paper presents a regularization framework that aims to improve the fidelity of Tikhonov inverse solutions. At the heart of the framework is the data-informed regularization idea that only data-uninformed parameters need to be regularized, while the data-informed parameters, on which data and forward model are integrated, should remain untouched. We propose to employ the active subspace method to determine the data-informativeness of a parameter. The resulting framework is thus called a data-informed (DI) active subspace (DIAS) regularization. Four proposed DIAS variants are rigorously analyzed, shown to be robust with the regularization parameter and capable of avoiding polluting solution features informed by the data. They are thus well suited for problems with small or reasonably small noise corruptions in the data. Furthermore, the DIAS approaches can effectively reuse any Tikhonov regularization codes/libraries. Though they are readily applicable for nonlinear inverse problems, we focus on linear problems in this paper in order to gain insights into the framework. Various numerical results for linear inverse problems are presented to verify theoretical findings and to demonstrate advantages of the DIAS framework over the Tikhonov, truncated SVD, and the TSVD-based DI approaches.

Nguyen, Hai↗

Sensor Management for Applied Research Technologies (SMART)-On Demand Modeling (ODM) Project

NASA requires timely on-demand data and analysis capabilities to enable practical benefits of Earth science observations. However, a significant challenge exists in accessing and integrating data from multiple sensors or platforms to address Earth science problems because of the large data volumes, varying sensor scan characteristics, unique orbital coverage, and the steep learning curve associated with each sensor and data type. The development of sensor web capabilities to autonomously process these data streams (whether real-time or archived) provides an opportunity to overcome these obstacles and facilitate the integration and synthesis of Earth science data and weather model output. A three year project, entitled Sensor Management for Applied Research Technologies (SMART) - On Demand Modeling (ODM), will develop and demonstrate the readiness of Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) capabilities that integrate both Earth observations and forecast model output into new data acquisition and assimilation strategies. The advancement of SWE-enabled systems (i.e., use of SensorML, sensor planning services - SPS, sensor observation services - SOS, sensor alert services - SAS and common observation model protocols) will have practical and efficient uses in the Earth science community for enhanced data set generation, real-time data assimilation with operational applications, and for autonomous sensor tasking for unique data collection.

Goodman, M.↗

Aerosol Mapping From Space: Strengths, Limitations, and Applications

The aerosol data products from the NASA Earth Observing System's MISR and MODIS instruments provide significant advances in regional and global aerosol optical depth (AOD) mapping, aerosol type measurement, and source plume characterization from space. These products have been and are being used for many applications, ranging from regional air quality assessment, to aerosol air mass type identification and evolution, to wildfire smoke injection height and aerosol transport model validation. However, retrieval uncertainties and coverage gaps still limit the quantitative constraints these satellite data place on some important questions, such as global-scale long-term trends and direct aerosol radiative forcing. Major advances in these areas seem to require a different paradigm, involving the integration of satellite with suborbital data and with models. This presentation will briefly summarize where we stand, and what incremental improvements we can expect, with the current MISR and MODIS aerosol products, and will then elaborate on some initial steps aimed at the necessary integration of satellite data with data from other sources and with chemical transport models.

Kahn, Ralph↗

3C 273 with NuSTAR: Unveiling the active galactic nucleus

We present results from a 244 ks NuSTAR observation of 3C 273 obtained during a cross-calibration campaign with the Chandra, INTEGRAL, Suzaku, Swift, and XMM-Newton observatories. We show that the spectrum, when fit with a power-law model using data from all observatories except INTEGRAL over the 1–78 keV band, leaves significant residuals in the NuSTAR data between 30 and 78 keV. The NuSTAR 3–78 keV spectrum is well described by an exponentially cutoff power law (Γ=1.646±0.006, E{sub cutoff}=202{sub −34}{sup +51} keV) with a weak reflection component from cold, dense material. There is also evidence for a weak (EW=23±11 eV) neutral iron line. We interpret these features as arising from coronal emission plus reflection off an accretion disk or distant material. Beyond 80 keV INTEGRAL data show clear excess flux relative to an extrapolation of the active galactic nucleus model fit to NuSTAR. This high-energy power law is consistent with the presence of a beamed jet, which begins to dominate over emission from the inner accretion flow at 30–40 keV. Modeling the jet locally (in the NuSTAR + INTEGRAL band) as a power law, we find that the coronal component is fit by Γ{sub AGN}=1.638±0.045, E{sub cutoff}=47±15 keV, and jet photon index by Γ{sub jet}=1.05±0.4. We also consider Fermi/LAT observations of 3C 273, and here the broadband spectrum of the jet can be described by a log-parabolic model, peaking at ∼2 MeV. Finally, we investigate the spectral variability in the NuSTAR band and find an inverse correlation between flux and Γ.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Forced and Moment Measurements with Pressure-Sensitive Paint

The potential of pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) to provide aerodynamic loads measurements has been a driving force behind the development of this measurement technique. To demonstrate the suitability of PSP for this purpose, it is necessary to show that PSP-derived pressures can be accurately integrated over the model surface. This cannot be done simply by demonstrating the accuracy of PSP as compared to pressure taps. PSP errors due to misregistration or temperature sensitivity may be high near model edges, where they will have a strong effect on moment measurements, but where pressure taps are rarely installed. A more suitable technique is to compare integrated PSP data over the entire model surface with balance and/or CFD results. This paper presents results from three experiments in which integrated PSP data is compared with balance and/or CFD data. This allows the usefulness of PSP for force and moment measurements, and by implication for loads measurements, to be assessed.

Bell, James H.↗