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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 343 records · Page 19

Remote Control and Data Acquisition: A Case Study

This paper details software tools developed to remotely command experimental apparatus, and to acquire and visualize the associated data in soft real time. The work was undertaken because commercial products failed to meet the needs. This work has identified six key factors intrinsic to development of quality research laboratory software. Capabilities include access to all new instrument functions without any programming or dependence on others to write drivers or virtual instruments, simple full screen text-based experiment configuration and control user interface, months of continuous experiment run-times, order of 1% CPU load for condensed matter physics experiment described here, very little imposition of software tool choices on remote users, and total remote control from anywhere in the world over the Internet or from home on a 56 Kb modem as if the user is sitting in the laboratory. This work yielded a set of simple robust tools that are highly reliable, resource conserving, extensible, and versatile, with a uniform simple interface.

DeGennaro, Alfred J.↗

Random Experiment Program Resource Impact (REPRI) program: User's manual

A complete user and programmer guide for the REPRI program is presented. This program was developed to perform mission concept, subsystem capability, and experiment support compatibility studies for a space station. The program utilizes Monte Carlo techniques to randomly schedule events in discrete intervals. Resources, logistics, cost, and space station volume are considered.

Pease, W. T.↗

Improving the User Interface of the DeepLynx Data Warehouse

DeepLynx is an open-source ontology-based data warehouse created by INL to support the creation and life cycle of digital engineering projects, with a particular emphasis on digital twins [1]. Digital twins are systems that represent physical assets and process in a real-time digital environment [1]. Most well-known commercial data warehouses use Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) for users to interact with their systems [3]. Limited publications have addressed the design of these interfaces and understanding of their target users. The current users and development team acknowledge the need to improve the current UI, not just for aesthetics but to improve functionality and workflow of DeepLynx. Traditional data warehouse users are developers, data scientists and business analysts [2]. DeepLynx users have a vast range of experience using data warehouses, and diverse roles, including engineers, scientists and management positions. Because there is a broader audience of target users for DeepLynx than a typical data warehouse, it is essential that DeepLynx has a useable and intuitive user interface. To achieve this the team performed human-computer interaction methods, including a Heuristic Evaluation of current UI using Neilsen’s Usability Heuristic, create personas based on current users by designing a user survey, data analysis and develop of personas. Followed by a redesign of the UI following using Neilsen’s Usability Heuristic and Norman’s Principles of Interactive Design in industry standard software Figma. Lastly a Heuristic Evaluation of new UI design, using Neilsen’s Usability Heuristic and User testing of redesign UI and have a group of users complete a Thinking Aloud Test of the new UI. Preliminary results of the Heuristic Evaluation of current UI arise issue with Consistency and Standards, Visibility of System Status, Match System and Real World and Recognition Rather than Recall. These issues were addressed in the proposed redesign by applying Neilsen’s Usability Heuristic and Norman’s Principles of Interactive Design. Next steps include formalized list of lessons learned and design implications for future publications.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Establishing effective working relations with a potential user community - NASA Lewis Research Center experience

The NASA Lewis Research Center has held a series of six major and unique technology utilization conferences which were major milestones in planned structured efforts to establish effective working relationships with specific technology user communities. These efforts were unique in that the activities undertaken prior to the conference were extensive, and effectively laid the groundwork for productive technology transfer following, and as a direct result of, the conferences. The effort leading to the conference was in each case tailored to the characteristics of the potential user community, however, the common factors comprise a basic framework applicable to similar endeavors. The process is essentially a planned sequence of steps that constitute a technical market survey and a marketing program for the development of beneficial applications of aerospace technology beyond the aerospace field.

Foster, P.↗

Three-dimensional user interfaces for scientific visualization

The focus of this grant was to experiment with novel user interfaces for scientific visualization applications using both desktop and virtual reality (VR) systems, and thus to advance the state of the art of user interface technology for this domain. This technology has been transferred to NASA via periodic status reports and papers relating to this grant that have been published in conference proceedings. This final report summarizes the research completed over the past three years, and subsumes all prior reports.

VanDam, Andries↗

Coffea -- Columnar Object Framework For Effective Analysis

The coffea framework provides a new approach to High-Energy Physics analysis, via columnar operations, that improves time-to-insight, scalability, portability, and reproducibility of analysis. It is implemented with the Python programming language, the scientific python package ecosystem, and commodity big data technologies. To achieve this suite of improvements across many use cases, coffea takes a factorized approach, separating the analysis implementation and data delivery scheme. All analysis operations are implemented using the NumPy or awkward-array packages which are wrapped to yield user code whose purpose is quickly intuited. Various data delivery schemes are wrapped into a common front-end which accepts user inputs and code, and returns user defined outputs. We will discuss our experience in implementing analysis of CMS data using the coffea framework along with a discussion of the user experience and future directions.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Personalized learning via task load optimization

A method for providing task load-optimized computer-generated training experiences to a user of a training system that includes: a display, a training simulator, a prediction program (ML1), and a training optimization program (ML2). In response to receiving a predicted optimal task load, ML2 provides a first training experience recommendation related to the training content and/or training conditions that, if utilized in providing a training experience to the user, is predicted to result in the predicted actual task load of the user equaling the predicted optimal task load. In response to receiving biometric information or performance metric information, ML1 determines the predicted actual task load. If the predicted actual task load does not match the predicted optimal task load, ML2 provides a second training experience recommendation and a second training experience is provided where at least one of the training content or the training conditions is changed.

Bertolli, Michael G.↗

OpenSatKit Enables Quick Startup for CubeSat Missions

The software required to develop, integrate, and operate a spacecraft is substantial regardless of whether its a large or small satellite. Even getting started can be a monumental task. To solve this problem, NASAs Core Flight System (cFS), NASA's 42 spacecraft dynamics simulator, and Ball Aerospaces COSMOS ground system have been integrated together into a kit called OpenSatKit that provides a complete and open source software solution for starting a new satellite mission. Users can have a working system with flight software, dynamics simulation, and a ground command and control system up and running within hours.Every satellite mission requires three primary categories of software to function. The first is Flight Software (FSW) which provides the onboard control of the satellites and its payload(s). NASA's cFS provides a great platform for developing this software. Second, while developing a satellite on earth, it is necessary to simulate the satellites orbit, attitude, and actuators, to ensure that the systems that control these aspects will work correctly in the real environment. NASAs 42 simulator provides these functionalities. Finally, the ground has to be able to communicate with the satellite, monitor its performance and health, and display its data. Additionally, test scripts have to be written to verify the system on the ground. Ball Aerospace's COSMOS command and control system provides this functionality. Once the OpenSatKit is up and running, the next step is to customize the platform and get it running on the end target. Starting from a fully working system makes porting the cFS from Linux to a users platform much easier. An example Raspberry Pi target is included in the kit so users can gain experience working with a low cost hardware target. All users can benefit from OpenSatKit but the greatest impact and benefits will be to SmallSat missions with constrained budgets and small software teams. This paper describes OpenSatKits system design, the steps necessary to run the system to target the Raspberry Pi, and future plans. OpenSatKit is a free fully functional spacecraft software system that we hope will greatly benefit the SmallSat community.

Software↗

Three-Dimensional User Interfaces for Immersive Virtual Reality

The focus of this grant was to experiment with novel user interfaces for immersive Virtual Reality (VR) systems, and thus to advance the state of the art of user interface technology for this domain. Our primary test application was a scientific visualization application for viewing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) datasets. This technology has been transferred to NASA via periodic status reports and papers relating to this grant that have been published in conference proceedings. This final report summarizes the research completed over the past year, and extends last year's final report of the first three years of the grant.

vanDam, Andries↗

Open Science for Life in Space: Data Sharing and Tools for Knowledge Discovery

The next era in human space exploration is rapidly approaching and will require the use of countermeasures to deep space health hazards. The development of countermeasures (or, the re-purposing of existing agents) will be highly dependent on our understanding of basic biological responses to space stressors (e.g. ionizing radiation, altered gravitational fields, altered day-night cycles, confinement, isolation, hostile-closed environments, distance-duration from Earth, exposure to celestial regolith, etc.). The fast-growing array of space biological data, which in the past was simply archived after minimal analysis, holds great potential if it can be reorganized and formatted for Open Science. Organizing the data for such analysis is a challenge because of its diverse nature (molecular, cellular, tissue, imaging, whole organism and behavior). We will discuss here several strategies that NASA’s Biological and Physical Science Division has put in place to maximize the return on investment for spaceflight bioscience data. Open Science, as a scientific philosophy, is the concept that the more people who have access to the data, the more knowledge will be gained from it. This guiding principle led NASA to develop GeneLab in 2015. GeneLab houses spaceflight and relevant ground-based multi-omics data, and has grown to ~400 transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and epigenomic datasets from plant, rodent, small animal, and microbial space experiments. GeneLab provides users with various tools for data analysis and a visualization portal that allows users to interact with gene expression data from space-related ‘omics experiments. Open Science is also about building scientific communities, and with this spirit in mind, GeneLab has spawned several Analysis Working Groups (AWGs), comprised of more than 200 volunteer scientists. The AWGs initially provided feedback on the processing pipeline and metadata ‘omics standards for GeneLab. Over the last few years, they have become a community-driven science enterprise, engaging in large meta-analysis of GeneLab datasets, resulting in 10 publications (beyond the originally submitted research). Overall, the Open Science nature of GeneLab has resulted in a high degree of data re-use, resulting in 38 additional publications derived from the original 67 publication over the past four years. The enormous success and knowledge gained from GeneLab has led to a collection of sister NASA “Open Science Data Repositories (OSDR)” and research support groups. These include the NASA Ames Life Sciences Data Archive (ALSDA), the NASA Biological Institutional Scientific Collection (NBISC), and the Biospecimen Sharing Program (BSP). All are adopting the GeneLab data architecture system to maximize open-access, find-ability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (FAIR). ALSDA collects and curates phenotypic-physiological bioimaging-behavioral data from space and space-relevant non-human experiments, oftentimes coming from the same omics-associated experimental datasets found in GeneLab. Since 2021, a community of ~100 researchers have rallied around ALSDA, to provide feedback in a new ALSDA AWG focused on phenotypic-physiological investigation-sample-assay metadata standards (e.g., Micro-Computed Tomography, Light/Fluorescence Microscopy, Western Blot, Flow Cytometry, Novel Object Recognition, Elevated Plus Maze, etc. of ~50 assays collected). These standards are part of a new single point-of-entry data submission portal for all non-human Space Biology and Human Research Program principal investigators, to submit, curate, and share their research data. With open-access space biological data now collected and curated together with rich metadata, and with the potential for linkage to “big data” from the international biological and medical communities (NIH, EBI, etc.), the artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) era has started for Space Biology. Several other talks will cover these topics in this conference.

life sciences↗

Open Science for Life in Space: Data Sharing and Tools for Knowledge Discovery

The next era in human space exploration is rapidly approaching and will require the use of countermeasures to deep space health hazards. The development of countermeasures (or, there-purposing of existing agents) will be highly dependent on our understanding of basic biological responses to space stressors (e.g. ionizing radiation, altered gravitational fields, altered day-night cycles, confinement, isolation, hostile-closed environments, distance-duration from Earth, exposure to celestial regolith, etc.). The fast-growing array of space biological data, which in the past was simply archived after minimal analysis, holds great potential if it can be reorganized and formatted for Open Science. Organizing the data for such analysis is a challenge because of its diverse nature (molecular, cellular, tissue, imaging, whole organism and behavior). We will discuss here several strategies that NASA's Biological and Physical Science Division has put in place to maximize the return on investment for spaceflight bioscience data. Open Science, as a scientific philosophy, is the concept that the more people who have access to the data, the more knowledge will be gained from it. This guiding principle led NASA to develop GeneLab in 2015. GeneLab houses spaceflight and relevant ground-based multi-omics data, and has grown to ~400 transcriptomatic, proteomic, metabolomic and epigenomic datasets from plant, rodent, small animal, and microbial space experiments. GeneLab provides users with various tools for data analysis and a visualization portal that allows users to interact with gene expression data from space-related 'omics experiments. Open Science is also about building scientific communities, and with this spirit in mind, GeneLab has spawned several Analysis Working Groups (AWGs), comprised of more than 200 volunteer scientists. The AWGs initially provided feedback on the processing pipeline and metadata 'omics standards for GeneLab. Over the last few years, they have become a community-driven science enterprise, engaging in large meta-analysis of GeneLab datasets, resulting in 10 publications (beyond the originally submitted research). Overall, the Open Science nature of GeneLab has resulted in a high degree of data-use, resulting in 40 enabled publications by open data. The enormous success and knowledge gained from GeneLab has led to a collection of sister NASA "Open Science Data Repositories (OSDR)" and research support groups. These include the NASA Ames Life Sciences Data Archive (ALSDA), the NASA Biological Institutional Scientific Collection (NBISC), and the Biospecimen Sharing Program (BSP). All are adopting the GeneLab data architecture system to maximize open-access, find-ability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (FAIR). ALSDA collects and curates phenotypic-physiological bioimaging-behavioral data from space and space-relevant non-human experiments, oftentimes coming from the same omics-associated experimental datasets found in GeneLab. Since 2021, a community of ~100 researchers have rallied around ALSDA, to provide feedback in a new ALSDA AWG focused on phenotypic-physiological investigation-sample-assay metadata standards (e.g., Micro-Computed Tomography, Light/Flourescence Microscopy, Western Blot, Flow Cytometry, Novel Object Recognition, Elevated Plus Maze, etc. of ~50 assays collected). These standards are part of a new single point-of-entry data submission portal for all non-human Space Biology and Human Research Program principal investigators, to submit, curate, and share their research data. With open-access space biological data now collected and curated together with rich metadata, and with the potential for linkage to "big data" from the international biological and medical communities (NIH, EBI, etc.), the artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) era has started for Space Biology.

omics↗

Assessing the Needs of NASA's Near Real-Time Earth Observation Products

"The 2017-2027 Decadal Survey for Earth Science and Applications from Space stated that NASA's Earth Science with planned implementation of applications provides sustained earth observations for societal benefits [1]. The Decadal Survey indicated that data latency is invaluable for time-sensitive applications including disaster risk reduction, wildland fire carbon emissions quantification, real-time measurements of the state of the hydrologic systems and many more. Data latency refers to the time between earth observation and data products available to users. During the past 13 years, NASA's Land, Atmosphere Near Real-Time Capability for Earth Observing Systems (LANCE) continues to provide free access to earth observation products that are made available much quicker than routine processing allows. The latency of most LANCE data products is Near Real-time (NRT) which is defined as less than three hours from satellite observations [2]. LANCE is managed by the Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center [3], and a User Working Group (UWG) is responsible for providing guidance to LANCE. LANCE data are used by direct users and brokers who add value to the data [4]. NASA Earth Applied Sciences Program (ASP) is one of the primary users of LANCE, which collaborates with partner organizations and provides support to scientists to solve problems in applications of earth observations. ASP promotes the use of LANCE NRT data products to demonstrate applications in decision making, facilitates end-user feedback to the science team to improve data products, and provides information on future demands for research. LANCE supports applications that need a rapid response including detecting wildland fires and volcanic eruptions, tracking smoke, ash and dust plumes, monitoring air quality and tracking extreme weather events such as hurricanes, landslides, and floods. To gather feedback regarding the availability, accessibility and actionability of NASA's NRT data products for societal benefit, three surveys and a few discussions with experts involved in the topic within ASP were conducted from the perspective of users. Feedback has been collected from users who are interested in using low latency NASA data within application communities of agriculture, disasters, water resources, health and air quality, ecological conservation, wildland fires and capacity building. Analysis-ready NRT data products in a variety of formats have been mentioned many times in the collected feedback, especially for applied users with little to no experience using research-grade earth observation products. Users prefer to have products that can be easily integrated into their existing workflows and take their analysis to the data. HDF5 is a commonly used data format for research, but typically requires some conversion to a more friendly format for applications and regular use in decision-making. Users prefer the GeoTIFF data format that can be directly ingested into a GIS mapping software and platform for data analysis and visualization. For example, LANCE’s fire, flood, SO2 and Black Marble Nighttime Blue/Yellow Composite data products have been integrated into NASA Disasters Mapping Portal, which is an GIS-based open data portal, for users in the disaster management community. There are 291 LANCE NRT layers available through GIBS and Worldview, where users can download a snapshot in GeoTIFF format. Operational users expect data to be processed as close to the user as possible. The collected feedback indicates that LANCE fire products within 3 hours latency would meet the needs of the wildland fire community. The ideal latency for volcanic application is 10-15 minutes. Users in Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers (VAAC) reported that the first forecast volcanic product should be issued within 75 minutes from the volcano eruption [5]. Overall, for disaster applications, data latency within 3 hours is useful while latency greater than 12 hours is not timely enough for operational use. Capacity building and training are critical for users to be able to access, interpret and use data products and tools for their decision making, especially for applied users with limited experience using earth observation products. LANCE data products have been used in a number of capacity building projects domestically and internationally [6]. As LANCE continues to bring new products into the system, users request training to utilize LANCE new and upcoming data products and capabilities in their applications. Due to the limitation of bandwidth and downstream flow paths, users in some developing countries need tools to select and download data for a specific area of interest instead of bulk downloads. The collected feedback also shows the lack of available SAR satellite low latency data products. The advantages of SAR to monitor conditions and changes on the ground through darkness, clouds, volcanic ash, and other atmospheric conditions, are appealing to low latency users. For example, terabytes of low latency but cloudy optical images are not helpful in rapidly identifying the extent of flood or fire impacts. LANCE could be complemented with low latency measurements via the upcoming NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission [7]. Requests for higher spatial resolution products are expressed. A user from the wildland fire management community reported that products with 30-m spatial resolution could be used to detect small fires. The 30-m Landsat OLI fire data is now part of NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) US/Canada [8]. Within the open and free NASA resources, LANCE disseminates NRT data products in a manner that allows them to be accessible and understandable to both scientific and applied users. In many application areas, latency plays an important or even decisive role where low latency earth observations help people to observe areas of interest, detect and track changes in the environment and make timely decisions. NASA’s Earth Applied Sciences Program promotes the use of LANCE NRT products and builds a bridge between application users and research teams. The collected feedback indicates data latency within 3 hours is useful for most of the applications, and shows the needs of user-friendly, analysis-ready products, and requests training on LANCE’s new and upcoming data products. User feedback has been provided to LANCE UWG for guidance and recommendations, and for translating findings into something actionable.

Tian Yao↗

Power-to-Gas Tool: User's Guide

PNNL, working in collaboration with ITM Power and HG&E, has developed a suite of products to support analysis of P2G in Massachusetts. These products include: (a) P2G model that can be accessed at eset.pnnl.gov, (b) P2G system valuation report that describes in detail the methodology underpinning the P2G model and presents the results of 82 scenarios run using the model, and (c) a P2G model user’s guide. This user’s guide accompanies the other products and is designed to simplify the experience of each user, providing useful instructions while guiding users as they input data and interpret results.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Solar parabolic dish thermal power systems - Technology and applications

Activities of two projects at JPL in support of DOE's Small Power Systems Program are reported. These two projects are the Point-Focusing Distributed Receiver (PFDR) Technology Project and the Point-Focusing Thermal and Electric Applications (PFTEA) Project. The PFDR Technology Project's major activity is developing the technology of solar concentrators, receivers and power conversion subsystems suitable for parabolic dish or point-focusing distributed receiver power systems. Other PFDR activities include system integration and cost estimation under mass production, as well as the testing of the hardware. The PFTEA Project's first major activity is applications analysis, that is seeking ways to introduce PFDR systems into appropriate user sectors. The second activity is systems engineering and development wherein power plant systems are analyzed for specific applications. The third activity is the installation of a series of engineering experiments in various user environments to obtain actual operating experience

Lucas, J. W.↗

The Utility in Conjoint Analysis as a Fast Expert Elicitation Technique

This paper presents an interface and analysis technique for quickly conducting expert elicitation with the goal of determining entity importance. Our interface deploys a two-alternative choice experiment that is capable of representing knowledge graphs in an easy to interpret fashion for users with limited experience with knowledge graphs. Our analysis methodology takes advantage of conjoint analysis techniques and provides entity weights for many SMEs simultaneously. The results largely align with individual participant fits.

Conjoint Analysis, interface, Expert Elicitation, ↗

FIREWHEEL

SAND2024-16910O FIREWHEEL is a tool for experiment orchestration that assists a user in building and controlling repeatable experiments of distributed network systems at any scale. This version also includes FIREWHEEL v2.7 and its associated companion model components. With FIREWHEEL, users can easily construct modular parts of a cyber system, called Model Components. The Model Components can be combined to form an experiment. Most experiments are then instantiated using an emulation tool, such as minimega.

Kajder, Thomas↗

Cinema:Snap: Real-time tools for analysis of dynamic diamond anvil cell experiment data

We report we developed tools and a workflow for real-time analysis of data from dynamic diamond anvil cell experiments performed at user light sources. These tools allow users to determine the phases of matter observed during the compression of materials in order to make decisions during an experiment to improve the quality of experimental results and maximize the use of scarce experimental facility time. The tools fill a gap in dynamic compression data analysis tools that are real-time, are flexible to the needs of high-pressure scientists, connect to automated processing of results, can be easily incorporated into workflows with existing tools and data formats, and support remote experimental data analysis workflows. Specific analytics developed include novel automated two-peak analysis for overlapping peaks and multiple phases, coordinated views of pressure and temperature values, full-compression contour plots, and configurable views of integrated x-ray diffraction. We present an experimental use case to show how the tools produce real-time analytics that help the scientists revise parameters for the next compression

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗