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At least 379 records · Page 21

Mission Reliability Estimation for Repairable Robot Teams

A mission reliability estimation method has been designed to translate mission requirements into choices of robot modules in order to configure a multi-robot team to have high reliability at minimal cost. In order to build cost-effective robot teams for long-term missions, one must be able to compare alternative design paradigms in a principled way by comparing the reliability of different robot models and robot team configurations. Core modules have been created including: a probabilistic module with reliability-cost characteristics, a method for combining the characteristics of multiple modules to determine an overall reliability-cost characteristic, and a method for the generation of legitimate module combinations based on mission specifications and the selection of the best of the resulting combinations from a cost-reliability standpoint. The developed methodology can be used to predict the probability of a mission being completed, given information about the components used to build the robots, as well as information about the mission tasks. In the research for this innovation, sample robot missions were examined and compared to the performance of robot teams with different numbers of robots and different numbers of spare components. Data that a mission designer would need was factored in, such as whether it would be better to have a spare robot versus an equivalent number of spare parts, or if mission cost can be reduced while maintaining reliability using spares. This analytical model was applied to an example robot mission, examining the cost-reliability tradeoffs among different team configurations. Particularly scrutinized were teams using either redundancy (spare robots) or repairability (spare components). Using conservative estimates of the cost-reliability relationship, results show that it is possible to significantly reduce the cost of a robotic mission by using cheaper, lower-reliability components and providing spares. This suggests that the current design paradigm of building a minimal number of highly robust robots may not be the best way to design robots for extended missions.

Trebi-Ollennu, Ashitey↗

A Simplified Building Modeling Approach for Identifying Whole Building Retrofits

Building Energy Modeling (BEM) is an effective strategy for optimizing new and retrofit building design, evaluating its energy savings potential and rating its energy performance. However, because of the complexity and expense of modeling, only a small percentage of buildings are simulated. Over 80% of buildings are <25,000 ft2, and the cost associated with BEM can be a big deterrent for reaching this subsector, which usually ends up complying with energy codes and qualifying for incentives using prescriptive measures or generalized design guides. Similarly, efficiency considerations for small building retrofits are often identified through deemed measures or Technical Reference Manuals, which though a scalable and convenient approach, can limit innovation in design and optimization of measures. Simplification of the modeling process, where appropriate, can lead to increased energy savings and more informed decision making. This paper will discuss the development of a ruleset for a simplified approach based on the Performance Rating Method (PRM) contained in ASHRAE Standard 90.1. The approach aims to simplify and lower the cost of the energy modeling process in a controlled and documented manner. An anticipated outcome is an increased use of BEM and its effectiveness in the design, retrofit and operation of commercial buildings. In addition, simplification of the modeling process will result in fewer errors from misinterpretations of both program requirements and program intent in simulation software. The paper will discuss the need and advantages of a simplified modeling approach for whole building retrofits and the technical process for achieving the same.

Goel, Supriya↗

NASA’s Mid-Atlantic Communities and Areas at Intensive Risk Demonstration: Translating Compounding Hazards to Societal Risk

Remote sensing provides a unique perspective on our dynamic planet, tracking changes and revealing the course of complex interactions. Long term monitoring and targeted observation combine with modeling and mapping to provide increased awareness of hydro-meteorological and geological hazards. Disasters often follow hazards and the goal of NASA’s Disasters Program is to look at the earth as a highly coupled system to reduce risk and enable resilience. Remote sensing and geospatial science are used as tools to help answer critical questions that inform decisions. Data is not the same as information, nor does understanding of processes necessarily translate into decision support for disaster preparedness, response and recovery. Accordingly, NASA is engaging the scientific and decision-support communities to apply remote sensing, modeling, and related applications in Communities and Areas at Intensive Risk (CAIR). In 2017, NASA’s Applied Sciences Disasters Program hosted a regional workshop to explore these issues with particular focus on coastal Virginia and North Carolina. The workshop brought together partners in academia, emergency management, and scientists from NASA and partnering federal agencies to explore capabilities among the team that could improve understanding of the physical processes related to these hazards, their potential impact to changing communities, and to identify methodologies for supporting emergency response and risk mitigation. The resulting initiative, the mid-Atlantic CAIR project, demonstrates the ability to integrate satellite derived earth observations and physical models into actionable, trusted knowledge. Severe storms and associated storm surge, sea level rise, and land subsidence coupled with increasing populations and densely populated, aging critical infrastructure often leave coastal regions and their communities extremely vulnerable. The integration of observations and models allow for a comprehensive understanding of the compounding risk experienced in coastal regions and enables individuals in all positions make risk-informed decisions. This initiative uses a representative storm surge case as a baseline to produce flood inundation maps. These maps predict building level impacts at current day and for sea level rise (SLR) and subsidence scenarios of the future in order to inform critical decisions at both the tactical and strategic levels. To accomplish this analysis, the mid-Atlantic CAIR project brings together Federal research activities with academia to examine coastal hazards in multiple ways: 1) reanalysis of impacts from 2011 Hurricane Irene, using numerical weather modeling in combination with coastal surge and hydrodynamic, urban inundation modeling to evaluate combined impact scenarios considering SLR and subsidence, 2) remote sensing of flood extent from available optical imagery, 3) adding value to remotely sensed flood maps through depth predictions, and 4) examining coastal subsidence as measured through time-series analysis of synthetic aperture radar observations. Efforts and results are published via ArcGIS story maps to communicate neighborhoods and infrastructure most vulnerable to changing conditions. Story map features enable time-aware flood mapping using hydrodynamic models, photographic comparison of flooding following Hurricane Irene, as well as visualization of heightened risk in the future due to SLR and land subsidence.

Rogers, Laura↗

Evaluation of Envelope Energy in a High-Performance Manufactured Home in California

There are important applications for a robust energy model for new construction manufactured homes that can characterize the individual performance of the opaque wall and ceiling components of the building envelope. The efficacy of different insulation materials can be assessed with the confidence that modeled performance will closely predict installed performance. This study uses careful calibration of a standard energy model with a short-term co-heating test in an installed manufactured home to de-aggregate the contributions of planar wall sections from overall building envelope thermal resistance. The methodology takes into account thermal mass effects, solar gains, and physical adjustments to the structure to achieve successful calibration and to inform adjustments to the test procedure for future study.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

The CYBER security – Competency Health and Maturity Progression (CYBER-CHAMP) model: Extending the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Framework Across Organizational Security

Problem Statement: There is a pervasive talent deficit in the cybersecurity industry that prevents employers from being able to fill their open positions efficiently. A holistic approach to security is required to ensure organizations have adequate prevention and response capabilities in case of a cyberattack. Specifically, industrial control systems (ICS’s) and their operational technology (OT) components have become a constant target for cyberattacks. Research Questions: It is proposed that the NICE Framework should be extended in the following areas: 1) Include guidance regarding the job roles and competencies for both IT and OT professionals. 2) Offer step-by-step solutions, based on the work role mappings from the NICE Framework, to increase cybersecurity through employee training and education. 3) Provide a streamlined, lifecycle approach to building a cybersecurity program. Contribution: The CYBER security – Competency Health and Maturity Progression (CYBER-CHAMP©) model provides a customized solution for businesses to understand their education gaps in organizational security and target areas for improvement. Rationale: The Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity v1.1 addresses ICS but does not offer a measurement of cybersecurity maturity or clear methods to ascertain an organization’s current risk profile. In Phases 1 and 5 of the model, measurements are provided to help an organization build their current and target risk profiles. The NICE framework provides a structure for planning an IT cybersecurity workforce, but the OT aspects of cybersecurity are only briefly discussed. The model uses Phases 2-3 to examine the competencies of an organization’s workforce, which includes both IT and OT roles. Current frameworks do not offer next steps to increase an organization’s cybersecurity. During Phase 4, employees’ roles are mapped to training, education, and/or certifications from common vendors. Investigative Approach: The model provides measurements and metrics for both an organization’s status and continual improvement. This improvement methodology includes guidance for creating an overall strategic plan for security improvement via products designed to increase an organization’s operational readiness through workforce competency health. Lessons Learned: Depending on who was participating, there were contradicting answers given in Phase 1 due to different security cultures in the organization. This revelation has influenced the steps listed in the User’s Guide, where Phase 1’s first recommended step is to assemble a team that champions the facilitation and implementation of the model in the organization. During Phase 2, the discovery was made that organizations may be missing roles that are necessary to perform critical cybersecurity functions. By understanding the functional roles and competencies needed, they can contract or hire cybersecurity help to fill these gaps. Implications: Using the model, organizations can discuss quantitative measures for improvement as a business case for advancing their security program. Future research can validate and extend the present theory and model to a variety of environments. It is of interest to investigate additional security roles and knowledge domains that are used to build standardized cybersecurity curriculum.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Energy cost savings and expected payback for Re-tuning the controls of US Army buildings

The Headquarters Department of the Army (HQDA) sponsored a study to determine the national impact of deploying the Re-tuning™ methodology in 5 buildings types that account for over 40% of the Army’s conditioned building stock. Re-tuning is a systematic process that improves operational efficiency and reduces energy consumption at no- or low-cost through the building automation system (BAS) by correcting operational problems that plague buildings. The study relied on successful demonstration of the re-tuning methodology at 4 pilot US Army installations that informed a holistic effort that included simulating 12 individual re-tuning energy efficiency measures (EEMs) and 6 packages of EEMs in 5 selected Army building prototype models that represent 311 million ft2 (28.9 million m2) of the Army’s conditioned floor space. Both the baseline buildings and the packages were customized to capture the expected outcomes of re-tuning a diverse set of buildings. The study highlighted the benefit of individual re-tuning EEMs and economics of implementing packages of EEMs in applicable Army buildings across 16 climates and 2 building vintages. The average whole-building energy savings ranged from 10.8% to 40.5% by building type, with the company operations facility (COF) building having the highest value proposition from re-tuning. In addition, the study reveals that all large office (LO) buildings in the Army are economical to re-tune. The total modeled cost savings potential for re-tuning the five building types across the US Army is $204/1,000 sf ($220/100 m2), or $64M annually. This cost savings represents 5.6% of all the Army’s energy expenditures.

Fernandez, Nicholas EP↗

PDF Entity Annotation Tool (PEAT)

While different text mining approaches – including the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other machine based methods - continue to expand at a rapid pace, the tools used by researchers to create the labeled datasets required for training, modeling, and evaluation remain rudimentary. Labeled datasets contain the target attributes the machine is going to learn; for example, training an algorithm to delineate between images of a car or truck would generally require a set of images with a quantitative description of the underlying features of each vehicle type. Development of labeled textual data that can be used to build natural language machine learning models for scientific literature is not currently integrated into existing manual workflows used by domain experts. Published literature is rich with important information, such as different types of embedded text, plots, and tables that can all be used as inputs to train ML/natural language processing (NLP) models, when extracted and prepared in machine readable formats. Currently, both normalized data extraction of use to domain experts and extraction to support development of ML/NLP models are labor intensive and cumbersome manual processes. Automatic extraction of data and information from formats such as PDFs that are optimized for layout and human readability, not machine readability. The PDF (Portable Document Format) Entity Annotation Tool (PEAT) was developed with the goal of allowing users to annotate publications within their current print format, while also allowing those annotations to be captured in a machine-readable format. One of the main issues with traditional annotation tools is that they require transforming the PDF into plain text to facilitate the annotation process. While doing so lessens the technical challenges of annotating data, the user loses all structure and provenance that was inherent in the underlying PDF. Also, textual data extraction from PDFs can be an error prone process. Challenges include identifying sequential blocks of text and a multitude of document formats (multiple columns, font encodings, etc.). As a result of these challenges, using existing tools for development of NLP/ML models directly from PDFs is difficult because the generated outputs are not interoperable. We created a system that allows annotations to be completed on the original PDF document structure, with no plain text extraction. The result is an application that allows for easier and more accurate annotations. In addition, by including a feature that grants the user the ability to easily create a schema, we have developed a system that can be used to annotate text for different domain-centric schemas of relevance to subject matter experts. Different knowledge domains require distinct schemas and annotation tags to support machine learning.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

High y + Shear-Stress Turbulence Implementation for High Flux Isotope Reactor Narrow Channel Flows

The research objective of this work was to improve the engineering predictions of the turbulence characteristics of flows in curved narrow channels. Such channel flows are commonly encountered in nuclear research and test reactors, with one of them being the high-flux isotope reactor (HFIR). Research reactors bear high heat fluxes, and the proper computing of turbulence is paramount for safe and reliable reactor operation. The study builds on the results of a previous direct numerical simulation of turbulence to inform a well-known Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes shear-stress turbulence model and improves its accuracy in simulating parallel channel flows. A new formulation of the loss term in the dissipation conservation equation is suggested. Combined with high wall distance computational grids, the new implementation provides a fast-running flow solution, suitable for engineering purposes. Model generalization for parallel channel flows, in a broader range of frictional Reynolds numbers, is suggested by introducing a new form of the model constants.

CFD↗

MPST Software: grl_pef_check

This innovation is a tool used to verify and validate spacecraft sequences at the predicted events file (PEF) level for the GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, see http://www.nasa. gov/mission_pages/grail/main/index. html) mission as part of the Multi-Mission Planning and Sequencing Team (MPST) operations process to reduce the possibility for errors. This tool is used to catch any sequence related errors or issues immediately after the seqgen modeling to streamline downstream processes. This script verifies and validates the seqgen modeling for the GRAIL MPST process. A PEF is provided as input, and dozens of checks are performed on it to verify and validate the command products including command content, command ordering, flight-rule violations, modeling boundary consistency, resource limits, and ground commanding consistency. By performing as many checks as early in the process as possible, grl_pef_check streamlines the MPST task of generating GRAIL command and modeled products on an aggressive schedule. By enumerating each check being performed, and clearly stating the criteria and assumptions made at each step, grl_pef_check can be used as a manual checklist as well as an automated tool. This helper script was written with a focus on enabling the user with the information they need in order to evaluate a sequence quickly and efficiently, while still keeping them informed and active in the overall sequencing process. grl_pef_check verifies and validates the modeling and sequence content prior to investing any more effort into the build. There are dozens of various items in the modeling run that need to be checked, which is a time-consuming and errorprone task. Currently, no software exists that provides this functionality. Compared to a manual process, this script reduces human error and saves considerable man-hours by automating and streamlining the mission planning and sequencing task for the GRAIL mission.

Call, Jared A.↗

Southern Bhutan Ecological Forecasting Tech Paper: Modeling Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) Habitat Suitability along the Southern Bhutan Border with NASA Earth Observations

Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) are a flagship species essential for the functioning of forest ecosystems, and they also have cultural significance in Bhutan. Elephants receive the highest legal protection as listed under Schedule I of the Bhutan Forests and Nature Conservation Act, 1995. Yet, they face threats of extinction due to poaching for ivory as well as the loss and fragmentation of their habitat. Due to the recent clearing of forests and the growing populations in these areas, there has been an increase in incidents of human-elephant conflict. These conflicts have been detrimental to farmer’s annual harvests and livelihoods and have led to retaliatory killing and injury of elephants in southern Bhutan. The DEVELOP Southern Bhutan Ecological Forecasting team partnered with the Bhutan Foundation and Bhutan Tiger Center to help address this problem. The team integrated NASA Earth observations, including Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) to acquire information on land cover change and elephant habitat suitability along the southern border of Bhutan. The team utilized Esri ArcGIS Pro and Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling (SAHM) for data analysis, modeling, and visualization. The team used elephant occurrence data and environmental variables to model current habitat suitability for migrating elephant populations. This analysis provided partners with maps to inform decisions about the placement and conservation of elephant corridors and helped build their capacity to use satellite data for future studies and project planning.

Palchen Wangchuk↗

Southern Bhutan Ecological Forecasting Project Summary - Modeling Asian Elephant (Elephas Maximus) Habitat Suitability along the Southern Bhutan Border with NASA Earth Observations

Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) are a flagship species essential for the functioning of forest ecosystems, and they also have cultural significance in Bhutan. Elephants receive the highest legal protection as listed under Schedule I of the Bhutan Forests and Nature Conservation Act, 1995. Yet, they face threats of extinction due to poaching for ivory as well as the loss and fragmentation of their habitat. Due to the recent clearing of forests and the growing populations in these areas, there has been an increase in incidents of human-elephant conflict. These conflicts have been detrimental to farmer’s annual harvests and livelihoods and have led to retaliatory killing and injury of elephants in southern Bhutan. The DEVELOP Southern Bhutan Ecological Forecasting team partnered with the Bhutan Foundation and Bhutan Tiger Center to help address this problem. The team integrated NASA Earth observations, including Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) to acquire information on land cover change and elephant habitat suitability along the southern border of Bhutan. The team utilized Esri ArcGIS Pro and Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling (SAHM) for data analysis, modeling, and visualization. The team used elephant occurrence data and environmental variables to model current habitat suitability for migrating elephant populations. This analysis provided partners with maps to inform decisions about the placement and conservation of elephant corridors and helped build their capacity to use satellite data for future studies and project planning.

DEVELOP Project Summary↗

Advances in Land Data Assimilation at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Research in land surface data assimilation has grown rapidly over the last decade. In this presentation we provide a brief overview of key research contributions by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The GSFC contributions to land assimilation primarily include the continued development and application of the Land Information System (US) and the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF). In particular, we have developed a method to generate perturbation fields that are correlated in space, time, and across variables and that permit the flexible modeling of errors in land surface models and observations, along with an adaptive filtering approach that estimates observation and model error input parameters. A percentile-based scaling method that addresses soil moisture biases in model and observational estimates opened the path to the successful application of land data assimilation to satellite retrievals of surface soil moisture. Assimilation of AMSR-E surface soil moisture retrievals into the NASA Catchment model provided superior surface and root zone assimilation products (when validated against in situ measurements and compared to the model estimates or satellite observations alone). The multi-model capabilities of US were used to investigate the role of subsurface physics in the assimilation of surface soil moisture observations. Results indicate that the potential of surface soil moisture assimilation to improve root zone information is higher when the surface to root zone coupling is stronger. Building on this experience, GSFC leads the development of the Level 4 Surface and Root-Zone Soil Moisture (L4_SM) product for the planned NASA Soil-Moisture-Active-Passive (SMAP) mission. A key milestone was the design and execution of an Observing System Simulation Experiment that quantified the contribution of soil moisture retrievals to land data assimilation products as a function of retrieval and land model skill and yielded an estimate of the error budget for the SMAP L4_SM product. Terrestrial water storage observations from GRACE satellite system were also successfully assimilated into the NASA Catchment model and provided improved estimates of groundwater variability when compared to the model estimates alone. Moreover, satellite-based land surface temperature (LST) observations from the ISCCP archive were assimilated using a bias estimation module that was specifically designed for LST assimilation. As with soil moisture, LST assimilation provides modest yet statistically significant improvements when compared to the model or satellite observations alone. To achieve the improvement, however, the LST assimilation algorithm must be adapted to the specific formulation of LST in the land model. An improved method for the assimilation of snow cover observations was also developed. Finally, the coupling of LIS to the mesoscale Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model enabled investigations into how the sensitivity of land-atmosphere interactions to the specific choice of planetary boundary layer scheme and land surface model varies across surface moisture regimes, and how it can be quantified and evaluated against observations. The on-going development and integration of land assimilation modules into the Land Information System will enable the use of GSFC software with a variety of land models and make it accessible to the research community.

Reichle, Rolf↗

A non-isothermal breakage-damage model for plastic-bonded granular materials incorporating temperature, pressure, and rate dependencies

Plastic-bonded granular materials (PBM) are widely used in industrial sectors, including building construction, abrasive applications, and defense applications such as plastic-bonded explosives. The mechanical behavior of PBM is highly nonlinear, irreversible, rate dependent, and temperature sensitive governed by various micromechanical attributions such as grain crushing and binder damage. This paper presents a thermodynamically consistent, microstructure-informed constitutive model to capture these characteristic behaviors of PBM. Key features of the model include a breakage internal variable to upscale the grain-scale information to the continuum level and to predict grain size evolution under mechanical loading. In addition, a damage internal state variable is introduced to account for the damage, deterioration, and debonding of the binder matrix upon loading. Temperature is taken as a fundamental external state variable to handle non-isothermal loading paths. The proposed model is able to capture with good accuracy several important aspects of the mechanical properties of PBM, such as pressure-dependent elasticity, pressure-dependent yield strength, brittle-to-ductile transition, temperature dependency, and rate dependency in the post-yielding regime. Furthermore, the model is validated against multiple published datasets obtained from confined and unconfined compression tests, covering various PBM compositions, confining pressures, temperatures, and strain rates.

Breakage↗

Towards Sheaf Theoretic Analyses for Delay Tolerant Networking

The goal of Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) is to take a collection of heterogeneous, disparate connections between satellites, space assets, ground stations, and ground infrastructure and bring it together into a cohesive, functioning overlay network. Depending on the systems being considered, one can find links with a one-way light time exceeding minutes (and hours),periodic links which can sometimes be predicted by orbital mechanics, and restrictions based on the variety of capabilities built into these systems. These characteristics preclude traditional network models and routing techniques and have classically led to either rigid routing tables or purely probabilistic models. As the deeper underlying structures remain unknown, development of more DTN-optimized algorithms has lacked the necessary foundation. In a continuation of previous work, the goal of this paper is to identify and study these fundamental structures that exist in delay tolerant networks (DTN), with a focus on space networks. The current routing methodology has been to use contact graph routing (CGR) algorithms. CGR models a series of known contacts as a static graph. For CGR to work, this graph must be globally consistent and must have an accurate picture of the network. Because this is a globally controlled structure, there is little room for flexibility in the event of changes to the network which would naturally occur as the network grows. As a response to the desire for flexibility as the network changes, we introduced the mathematical structure known as sheaves to DTNs last year. The tag-line for sheaves is that they are a mathematically precise way of gluing local data together into unique global data. Thus, sheaves lend extra power to traditional models(and routing algorithms) by taking additional information and merging it, in as consistent a manner as possible, with the representation itself. The clearest example of how Earth-bound networks exhibit behavior that is “sheafy” is link state routers, which build a local-to-global picture of their network by gluing local information together into a global network, exactly as a sheaf would do. For routing within delay tolerant networks to truly exploit this structure, a deeper structure than a graph is required. In this paper, we develop sheaves that can work over directed graphs such as temporal flow networks, we construct a sheaf representation for Dijkstra’s algorithm, and we outline a construction for routing sheaves capable of modeling multicast scenarios. Finally, there is a section of future work suggesting follow-on research.

Robert Short↗

COVID-19, An Exercise in Data Governance at Sandia National Laboratories

In April of 2020, Sandia National Laboratories had an urgent need to identify and manage the data that could be used to create mobile applications, models, reports, and visualizations to assist management in safely bringing the workforce onsite during the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple divisions volunteered to design and build software solutions; meanwhile, requests for new data sources, including duplicate requests, were inundating Information Technology (IT) and data owners. The Enterprise Data Governance Team was assigned to resolve obtaining and accessing new sources of data in an accelerated timeframe. Through successful collaboration with multiple stakeholders and domain owners across Sandia, the Enterprise Data Governance Team rapidly developed a centralized data strategy and solution for use in safeguarding the Sandia workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. This foundation enabled teams to successfully develop solutions, including reports for executives and management as well as the data for modeling and scientific analysis.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

Transitioning Enhanced Land Surface Initialization and Model Verification Capabilities to the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD)

Flooding, severe weather, and drought are key forecasting challenges for the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD), based in Nairobi, Kenya. Atmospheric processes leading to convection, excessive precipitation and/or prolonged drought can be strongly influenced by land cover, vegetation, and soil moisture content, especially during anomalous conditions and dry/wet seasonal transitions. It is thus important to represent accurately land surface state variables (green vegetation fraction, soil moisture, and soil temperature) in Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models. The NASA SERVIR and the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) programs in Huntsville, AL have established a working partnership with KMD to enhance its regional modeling capabilities. SPoRT and SERVIR are providing experimental land surface initialization datasets and model verification capabilities for capacity building at KMD. To support its forecasting operations, KMD is running experimental configurations of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF; Skamarock et al. 2008) model on a 12-km/4-km nested regional domain over eastern Africa, incorporating the land surface datasets provided by NASA SPoRT and SERVIR. SPoRT, SERVIR, and KMD participated in two training sessions in March 2014 and June 2015 to foster the collaboration and use of unique land surface datasets and model verification capabilities. Enhanced regional modeling capabilities have the potential to improve guidance in support of daily operations and high-impact weather and climate outlooks over Eastern Africa. For enhanced land-surface initialization, the NASA Land Information System (LIS) is run over Eastern Africa at ~3-km resolution, providing real-time land surface initialization data in place of interpolated global model soil moisture and temperature data available at coarser resolutions. Additionally, real-time green vegetation fraction (GVF) composites from the Suomi-NPP VIIRS instrument is being incorporated into the KMD-WRF runs, using the product generated by NOAA/NESDIS. Model verification capabilities are also being transitioned to KMD using NCAR's Model *Corresponding author address: Jonathan Case, ENSCO, Inc., 320 Sparkman Dr., Room 3008, Huntsville, AL, 35805. Email: Jonathan.Case-1@nasa.gov Evaluation Tools (MET; Brown et al. 2009) software in conjunction with a SPoRT-developed scripting package, in order to quantify and compare errors in simulated temperature, moisture and precipitation in the experimental WRF model simulations. This extended abstract and accompanying presentation summarizes the efforts and training done to date to support this unique regional modeling initiative at KMD. To honor the memory of Dr. Peter J. Lamb and his extensive efforts in bolstering weather and climate science and capacity-building in Africa, we offer this contribution to the special Peter J. Lamb symposium. The remainder of this extended abstract is organized as follows. The collaborating international organizations involved in the project are presented in Section 2. Background information on the unique land surface input datasets is presented in Section 3. The hands-on training sessions from March 2014 and June 2015 are described in Section 4. Sample experimental WRF output and verification from the June 2015 training are given in Section 5. A summary is given in Section 6, followed by Acknowledgements and References.

land surface modeling↗

H2@Scale CRADA: CA Research Consort. (Ref. Station, Fueling Perf. Test Device, Station Cap Model)

In support of DOE's H2@Scale initiative, this project leverages with national lab capabilities at SNL, NREL, and ANL with collaboration and funding cost share from California agencies (CEC, South Coast AQMD, and GO-Biz) to enable the build-out of heavy-duty (HD) hydrogen fueling stations with large dispensing capacity and high flow rates by providing tools and information that lead to more efficient design, acceptance, and commissioning. In this presentation, we describe the progress as related to the subtasks of: HD Reference Station Design, HD Station Test Device Design, and the Station Capacity Model.

AMR↗

The NASA DEVELOP Model: Multidisciplinary Teams Conduct Interdisciplinary Projects to Produce Transdisciplinary Outcomes

The DEVELOP Program, part of NASA’s Earth Applied Sciences’ Capacity Building Program, conducts 50-70 feasibility studies each year that utilize Earth observations to address local decision-making challenges and help inform action. DEVELOP uses these projects as the mechanism to build skills in its participants and partner organizations to assess and apply satellite data insights to environmental decision-making processes. While organized by thematic focus (ex. water resource management, ecological forecasting, disaster management), projects use a multidisciplinary team approach with teams of students, recent graduates, early career professionals, and transitioning career professionals, bringing different disciplines, life experience, and perspectives to execute projects that have been collaboratively designed with end-user partner organizations (federal agencies, state and local governments, non-profit and for-profit organizations, and international organizations). Projects are interdisciplinary in nature as they integrate methods from multiple disciplines, with a focus on the incorporation of satellite data with other data sources such as socioeconomic and demographic data, in situ measurements, model outputs, and partners’ knowledge, and take place under the guidance of science advisors from NASA, academia, and other partner organizations. The culmination of these multidisciplinary teams working on projects that draw from interdisciplinary methods and approaches, is a transdisciplinary solution for the partner organizations to explore further for potential adoption. This presentation will highlight the DEVELOP model of co-production and collaboration, lessons learned integrating people and project methodologies, and impact assessment activities surrounding the program’s efforts.

Capacity Building↗