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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1992

Methods and principles for determining task dependent interface content

Computer generated information displays provide a promising technology for offsetting the increasing complexity of the National Airspace System. To realize this promise, however, we must extend and adapt the domain-dependent knowledge that informally guides the design of traditional dedicated displays. In our view, the successful exploitation of computer generated displays revolves around the idea of information management, that is, the identification, organization, and presentation of relevant and timely information in a complex task environment. The program of research that is described leads to methods and principles for information management in the domain of commercial aviation. The multi-year objective of the proposed program of research is to develop methods and principles for determining task dependent interface content.

Shalin, Valerie L.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Proceedings of the 1993 Conference on Intelligent Computer-Aided Training and Virtual Environment Technology, Volume 1

These proceedings are organized in the same manner as the conference's contributed sessions, with the papers grouped by topic area. These areas are as follows: VE (virtual environment) training for Space Flight, Virtual Environment Hardware, Knowledge Aquisition for ICAT (Intelligent Computer-Aided Training) & VE, Multimedia in ICAT Systems, VE in Training & Education (1 & 2), Virtual Environment Software (1 & 2), Models in ICAT systems, ICAT Commercial Applications, ICAT Architectures & Authoring Systems, ICAT Education & Medical Applications, Assessing VE for Training, VE & Human Systems (1 & 2), ICAT Theory & Natural Language, ICAT Applications in the Military, VE Applications in Engineering, Knowledge Acquisition for ICAT, and ICAT Applications in Aerospace.

Hyde, Patricia R.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Center for Space Transportation and Applied Research Fifth Annual Technical Symposium Proceedings

This Fifth Annual Technical Symposium, sponsored by the UT-Calspan Center for Space Transportation and Applied Research (CSTAR), is organized to provide an overview of the technical accomplishments of the Center's five Research and Technology focus areas during the past year. These areas include chemical propulsion, electric propulsion, commerical space transportation, computational methods, and laser materials processing. Papers in the area of artificial intelligence/expert systems are also presented.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1999

Symmetry Breaking and the B3LYP Functional

The infrared spectra of six molecules, each of which contains a five-membered ring, and their cations are determined using density functional theory (DFT); both the B3LYP and BP86 functionals are used. The computed results are compared with the experimental spectra. For the neutral molecules, both methods are in good agreement with experiment. Even the Hartree-Fock (HF) approach is qualitatively correct for the neutrals. For the cations, the HF approach fails, as found for other organic ring systems. The B3LYP and BP86 approaches are in good mutual agreement for five of the six cation spectra, and in good agreement with experiment for four of the five cations where the experimental spectra are available. It is only for the fluoranthene cation, where the BP86 and B3LYP functionals yield different results; the BP86 yields the expected C2v symmetry, while the B3LYP approach breaks symmetry. The experimental spectra supports the BP86 spectra over the B3LYP, but the quality of the experimental spectra does not allow a critical evaluation of the accuracy of the BP86 approach for this difficult system.

Bauschlicher, Charles W., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Rethinking Human-Centered Computing: Finding the Customer and Negotiated Interactions at the Airport

The breakdown in the air transportation system over the past several years raises an interesting question for researchers: How can we help improve the reliability of airline operations? In offering some answers to this question, we make a statement about Huuman-Centered Computing (HCC). First we offer the definition that HCC is a multi-disciplinary research and design methodology focused on supporting humans as they use technology by including cognitive and social systems, computational tools and the physical environment in the analysis of organizational systems. We suggest that a key element in understanding organizational systems is that there are external cognitive and social systems (customers) as well as internal cognitive and social systems (employees) and that they interact dynamically to impact the organization and its work. The design of human-centered intelligent systems must take this outside-inside dynamic into account. In the past, the design of intelligent systems has focused on supporting the work and improvisation requirements of employees but has often assumed that customer requirements are implicitly satisfied by employee requirements. Taking a customer-centric perspective provides a different lens for understanding this outside-inside dynamic, the work of the organization and the requirements of both customers and employees In this article we will: 1) Demonstrate how the use of ethnographic methods revealed the important outside-inside dynamic in an airline, specifically the consequential relationship between external customer requirements and perspectives and internal organizational processes and perspectives as they came together in a changing environment; 2) Describe how taking a customer centric perspective identifies places where the impact of the outside-inside dynamic is most critical and requires technology that can be adaptive; 3) Define and discuss the place of negotiated interactions in airline operations, identifying how these interactions between customers and airline employees provided new insights into design problems in the airline system; 4) Show how taking a customer-centric perspective influences the HCC design of an airline system and make recommendations for new architectures and intelligent devices that will enable airline systems to adapt flexibly to delay situations, supporting both customers and airline employees.

Wales, Roxana↗
NASA NTRS2009

Apollo Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Hardware Overview

This viewgraph presentation reviews basic guidance, navigation and control (GNC) concepts, examines the Command and Service Module (CSM) and Lunar Module (LM) GNC organization and discusses the primary GNC and the CSM Stabilization and Control System (SCS), as well as other CSM-specific hardware. The LM Abort Guidance System (AGS), Control Electronics System (CES) and other LM-specific hardware are also addressed. Three subsystems exist on each vehicle: the computer subsystem (CSS), the inertial subsystem (ISS) and the optical subsystem (OSS). The CSS and ISS are almost identical between CSM and LM and each is designed to operate independently. CSM SCS hardware are highlighted, including translation control, rotation controls, gyro assemblies, a gyro display coupler and flight director attitude indicators. The LM AGS hardware are also highlighted and include the abort electronics assembly and the abort sensor assembly; while the LM CES hardware includes the attitude controller assembly, thrust/translation controller assemblies and the ascent engine arming assemble. Other common hardware including the Orbital Rate Display - Earth and Lunar (ORDEAL) and the Crewman Optical Alignment Sight (COAS), a docking aid, are also highlighted.

Interbartolo, Michael↗
DOE OSTI2026

Powered by dGen Webinar [Slides]

NLR's Powered By Webinar Series featuring NLR's dGen Modeling Tool. The Distributed Generation Market Demand (dGenTM) model simulates customer adoption of distributed energy resources for residential, commercial, and industrial entities in the United States or other countries through 2050. The model enables analysis at multiple geographic levels (national, state, and utility, or below) and offers sophistication in representation of decision-making regarding economic and behavioral considerations. Analysts have used dGen to answer questions about load forecasting and integrated resource planning, policy analysis, locational value of distributed energy resources, and more. dGen is open source, and various energy organizations - including independent system operators, regional transmission organizations, and the California Energy Commission - use the model internally.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

A Knowledge Graph Approach to Analyze Systems and Assets Health

Nuclear power plants collect large amounts of equipment reliability data elements that contain information on the statuses of component, assets, and systems. All these data elements precisely record asset and system performance and health throughout the lifecycle of those assets and systems. However, several challenges have proved to be roadblocks to this process. While some of these challenges are technical in nature (i.e., data are often distributed over several physical servers or databases), others are conceptual in nature (i.e., data elements come in different formats, numeric or textual), and measured values have different scales (e.g., vibration spectra and oil temperature). This paper directly focuses on the integration of numeric and textual data elements in order to assist plant system engineers in analyzing equipment reliability data. This task begins with preprocessing the data by extracting knowledge from textual data via natural language processing methods and quantifying system, asset, and component health based on numeric data. We then employed model-based system engineering (MBSE) models of systems and assets to identify their architecture and functional (i.e., cause and effect) relations. Data elements were then associated with a single MBSE graph element, based on their nature. This bonding of MBSE models and data elements constitutes a first-of-its-kind knowledge graph of a nuclear power plants system, with data elements being organized in a structured manner that enables system engineers to identify cause-effect trends in data elements and carry out appropriate actions in response.

97 - MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2000

Shape-dependent control of cell growth, differentiation, and apoptosis: switching between attractors in cell regulatory networks

Development of characteristic tissue patterns requires that individual cells be switched locally between different phenotypes or "fates;" while one cell may proliferate, its neighbors may differentiate or die. Recent studies have revealed that local switching between these different gene programs is controlled through interplay between soluble growth factors, insoluble extracellular matrix molecules, and mechanical forces which produce cell shape distortion. Although the precise molecular basis remains unknown, shape-dependent control of cell growth and function appears to be mediated by tension-dependent changes in the actin cytoskeleton. However, the question remains: how can a generalized physical stimulus, such as cell distortion, activate the same set of genes and signaling proteins that are triggered by molecules which bind to specific cell surface receptors. In this article, we use computer simulations based on dynamic Boolean networks to show that the different cell fates that a particular cell can exhibit may represent a preprogrammed set of common end programs or "attractors" which self-organize within the cell's regulatory networks. In this type of dynamic network model of information processing, generalized stimuli (e.g., mechanical forces) and specific molecular cues elicit signals which follow different trajectories, but eventually converge onto one of a small set of common end programs (growth, quiescence, differentiation, apoptosis, etc.). In other words, if cells use this type of information processing system, then control of cell function would involve selection of preexisting (latent) behavioral modes of the cell, rather than instruction by specific binding molecules. Importantly, the results of the computer simulation closely mimic experimental data obtained with living endothelial cells. The major implication of this finding is that current methods used for analysis of cell function that rely on characterization of linear signaling pathways or clusters of genes with common activity profiles may overlook the most critical features of cellular information processing which normally determine how signal specificity is established and maintained in living cells. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

Review↗
NASA NTRS1991

A vector-product information retrieval system adapted to heterogeneous, distributed computing environments

Vector-product information retrieval (IR) systems produce retrieval results superior to all other searching methods but presently have no commercial implementations beyond the personal computer environment. The NASA Electronic Library Systems (NELS) provides a ranked list of the most likely relevant objects in collections in response to a natural language query. Additionally, the system is constructed using standards and tools (Unix, X-Windows, Notif, and TCP/IP) that permit its operation in organizations that possess many different hosts, workstations, and platforms. There are no known commercial equivalents to this product at this time. The product has applications in all corporate management environments, particularly those that are information intensive, such as finance, manufacturing, biotechnology, and research and development.

Rorvig, Mark E.↗
NASA NTRS1989

A performance assessment of a byzantine resilient fault-tolerant computer

This report presents the results of a performance analysis of a quad-redundant Fault-Tolerant Processor (FTP). The FTP is a computing system specifically designed for applications where very high reliability is required. Examples of such applications are flight control systems, nuclear power systems, and spacecraft control systems. The FTP performance was analyzed in a hierarchical manner encompassing the hardware, the operating system, and the application. At the hardware level, the hardware organization and design was assessed in relation to system throughput and response. Analysis at the operating system level revealed that the scheduler took only 3.2 percent of each 40ms frame, while the redundancy management software took 10.4 percent. The application level performance was analyzed via a synthetic workload and a representative flight control model. The estimated throughput for this application was found to be 317.6 KIPS if not exercising the voter. Exercising the voter to ensure fault tolerance will diminish this number linearly as the number of votes is increased. This performance analysis method was proven effective by uncovering undesirable behavior and anomalies in the FTP system.

Young, Steven D.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Human Factors Directions for Civil Aviation

Despite considerable progress in understanding human capabilities and limitations, incorporating human factors into aircraft design, operation, and certification, and the emergence of new technologies designed to reduce workload and enhance human performance in the system, most aviation accidents still involve human errors. Such errors occur as a direct or indirect result of untimely, inappropriate, or erroneous actions (or inactions) by apparently well-trained and experienced pilots, controllers, and maintainers. The field of human factors has solved many of the more tractable problems related to simple ergonomics, cockpit layout, symbology, and so on. We have learned much about the relationships between people and machines, but know less about how to form successful partnerships between humans and the information technologies that are beginning to play a central role in aviation. Significant changes envisioned in the structure of the airspace, pilots and controllers' roles and responsibilities, and air/ground technologies will require a similarly significant investment in human factors during the next few decades to ensure the effective integration of pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintainers into the new system. Many of the topics that will be addressed are not new because progress in crucial areas, such as eliminating human error, has been slow. A multidisciplinary approach that capitalizes upon human studies and new classes of information, computational models, intelligent analytical tools, and close collaborations with organizations that build, operate, and regulate aviation technology will ensure that the field of human factors meets the challenge.

Hart, Sandra G.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Static Subspace Approximation for Random Phase Approximation Correlation Energies: Implementation and Performance

Developing theoretical understanding of complex reactions and processes at interfaces requires using methods that go beyond semilocal density functional theory to accurately describe the interactions between solvent, reactants and substrates. Methods based on many-body perturbation theory, such as the random phase approximation (RPA), have previously been limited due to their computational complexity. However, this is now a surmountable barrier due to the advances in computational power available, in particular through modern GPU-based supercomputers. In this work, we describe the implementation of RPA calculations within BerkeleyGW and show its favorable computational performance on large complex systems relevant for catalysis and electrochemistry applications. Our implementation builds off of the static subspace approximation which, by employing a compressed representation of the frequency dependent polarizability, enables the evaluation of the RPA correlation energy with significant acceleration and systematically controllable accuracy. We find that the computational cost of calculating the RPA correlation energy scales only linearly with system size for systems containing up to 50 thousand bands, and is expected to scale quadratically thereafter. We also show excellent strong scaling results across several supercomputers, demonstrating the performance and portability of this implementation.

algorithmic development↗
NASA NTRS2004

The Center Master Plan For NASA Glenn Research Center

The Center Master Plan for NASA Glenn Research Center is a comprehensive survey of NASA Glenn's current facility assets and a vision of how we see the facilities will change over the next 20 years in order to support the changing NASA Mission. This Center Master Plan is a vital management tool used by all organizations for making near term decisions and in future planning. During the summer of 2004, I worked with Joseph Morris, the Chief Architect in the Facilities Division, on beginning this Center Master Planning Process. The previous Master Plan was completed by the Center in 1985 and contained general information on the background of the facility as well as maps detailing environmental and historic records, land use, utilities, etc. The new Master Plan is required for the Center by NASA headquarters and will include similar types of information as used in the past. The new study will provide additional features including showing how individual buildings are linked to the programs and missions that they serve. The Master Plan will show practical future options for the facility s assets with a twenty year look ahead. The Plan will be electronically retrievable so that it becomes a communications tool for Center personnel. A Center Master Plan, although required, is very beneficial to NASA Glenn Research Center in aiding management with the future direction of the campus. Keeping up-to-date information and future plans readily available to all of NASA Glenn will insure that future real property development efficiently and effectively supports the missions camed out and supported by the Center. A Center Master Plan will also facilitate coordination with Center supported programs, stakeholders, and customers. In addition, it will provide a basis for cooperative planning with local and other governmental organizations and ultimately ensure that future budgets include the Center program needs described in the plan. This will ensure that development plans are safe, practical, and cost effective. To properly formulate any future plans, background information and research are required. Before bringing in a consultant to tackle the three year process anticipated to prepare a Center Master Plan, my job was to gather information on different organizations contributions to the NASA mission, their facility needs, consistent trends they observe, etc. I conducted numerous interviews with personnel such as Directorate Representatives, Division Chiefs, Branch Chiefs, System Managers and Building Managers. I documented the information I received from them for future use. I used the information to create various color-coded maps layering the different data. This was done with the ending objective being to collect the information and place it in a database that will be linked with Aperture (a computer program that generates color-coded map layers from database information) and made electronically retrievable to the Planning Consultant, NASA personnel, program stakeholders, and other governmental agencies. My goal this summer was to gather information and ideas appropriate for use in NASA Glenn Research Center s Master Plan and organize them for future application by the Planning Consultant. By the end of the summer, after completion of my goal, I will utilize my knowledge and create an array of preliminary future plans for the facility that can be passed along as a guidance tool.

Bigach, Kristin M.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Institute for Catalysis in Energy Processes (ICEP) (Final Report)

The Institute for Catalysis in Energy Processes (ICEP) was a multi-PI program located at the Northwestern University Center for Catalysis and Surface Science from 2006-2024. Over several renewal cycles and several organizing themes, ICEP addressed fundamental questions in catalysis science. In turn, the scientific questions addressed were directly relevant to the efficient use of the nation’s resources to produce fuels and commodity chemicals, harness alternate energy sources for chemical reactions such as light or electricity, reduce emissions and waste, and minimize the impact of our use of plastics. Selective oxidation, (oxidative) dehydrogenation, deNOx, CO 2 reduction, hydrogen release, polymer decomposition / depolymerization, and many other reactions of intense interest to the US Department of Energy were studied in the center. Major ICEP strengths were in catalyst synthesis, in measurements that elucidated catalyst properties, in reaction mechanisms and kinetics, and in predictive theory and modeling. ICEP researchers were often the inventors or developers of materials and methods that were brought to bear on the Institute’s catalytic systems. Key characterization tools advanced through this project included resonance Raman and related techniques, sum frequency generation, and X-ray standing wave spectroscopy. Center members relied extensively on computational tools such as density functional theory and microkinetic modeling to fully investigate catalyst structures and catalytic mechanisms. ICEP researchers were early developers of atomic layer deposition (ALD) for catalyst synthesis and were early pioneers of metal organic frameworks for catalysis. ICEP innovations are found in areas of intense research such as single-atom catalysts, catalytic deconstruction of plastics, and catalytic MOFs, to name a few. Research areas initiated by ICEP indirectly led to DOE EFRCs, startup companies, and other achievements. Over its 18 years of existence, ICEP involved two different PIs (Stair and Notestein) and 24 senior investigators across several academic disciplines at Northwestern University. There were tight collaborations with Argonne National Laboratory, including specialized equipment and experiments permanently located there. The center supported ~400 person-years of effort by graduate students and postdocs, either directly through DOE support or indirectly by leveraging independent support provided to the trainees, e.g. through the NSF GRFP or internal fellowships. The project resulted in 328 manuscripts and numerous conference presentations.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1994

The organic surface of 5145 Pholus: Constraints set by scattering theory

No known body in the Solar System has a spectrum redder than that of object 5145 Pholus. We use Hapke scattering theory and optical constants measured in this laboratory to examine the ability of mixtures of a number of organic solids and ices to reproduce the observed spectrum and phase variation. The primary materials considered are poly-HCN, kerogen, Murchison organic extract, Titan tholin, ice tholin, and water ice. In a computer grid search of over 10 million models, we find an intraparticle mixture of 15% Titan tholin, 10% poly-HCN, and 75% water ice with 10-micrometers particles to provide an excellent fit. Replacing water ice with ammonia ice improves the fits significantly while using a pure hydrocarbon tholin, Tholin alpha, instead of Titan tholin makes only modest improvements. All acceptable fits require Titan tholin or some comparable material to provide the steep slope in the visible, and poly-HCN or some comparable material to provide strong absorption in the near-infrared. A pure Titan tholin surface with 16-micrometers particles, as well as all acceptable Pholus models, fit the present spectrophotometric data for the transplutonian object 1992 QB(sub 1). The feasibility of gas-phase chemistry to generate material like Titan tholin on such small objects is examined. An irradiated transient atmosphere arising from sublimating ices may generate at most a few centimeters of tholin over the lifetime of the Solar System, but this is insignificant compared to the expected lag deposit of primordial contaminants left behind by the sublimating ice. Irradiation of subsurface N2/CH4 or NH3/CH4 ice by cosmic rays may generate approximately 20 cm of tholin in the upper 10 m of regolith in the same time scale but the identity of this tholin to its gas-phase equivalent has not been demonstrated.

Wilson, Peter D.↗
DOE OSTI2025

CRCNS22 Learning Rules in the Hippocampus and their Mapping to Neuromorphic Systems (Final Technical Report)

Large scale biologically-realistic computational models are key to investigating the interplay between structure and function in nervous systems, thus paving the way to new clinical methods and neuro-inspired computing solutions. This project focuses on the hippocampus, in particular the CA3-CA1 regions, due to their role in associative learning and memory, pattern separation and completion, and spatial navigation. Investigations into the neuronal organization and learning rule(s) of this circuit can shed light into how declarative memories are formed, stored, recalled and forgotten and inform computational, experimental and clinical neuroscience work. Our project aims at developing a novel data-driven methodology supported by a broad heterogeneous base of neuroscience experimental knowledge and inspired from advances in computer science and engineering. Specifically, this work will benchmark existing and new learning rules within a full-scale spiking neural network simulation of the CA3-CA1 region. The model will be based on an open-source repository, called the Hippocampome, which contains neuronal morphologies, firing patterns, synapse probabilities, and most other required parameters for all known neuron types in the rodent hippocampal formation. The model will be first trained in a supervised fashion for associative memory tasks using backpropagation through time traditionally used in computer science, enhanced with a new technique called the surrogate gradient method. This optimization method will be used to obtain a global loss minimization, but it is not biologically inspired as it assumes the use of data not locally available to the synapses. However, we propose its use as a benchmarking tool, to compare the training performance of local biologically plausible and hardware-mappable learning rules at scale. New rules or combinations will be proposed and tested as needed, based on the obtained results. Progress in this area will also drive the development of novel hardware-mappable algorithms for continual lifelong learning and categorization of new events from few presented examples. This project goes beyond the existing state-of-the-art by looking at large scale realistic neuronal circuits as networks trainable via global optimization methods such as surrogate gradient descent. The objective function of the brain that supports learning is largely unknown, but it is likely that it operates through local learning rules. Studying network trajectories around local minima as proposed in this work represents a useful strategy for understanding whether a network is training by using a specific (set of) learning rule(s). Starting from a completely untrained network is a challenging test since it is difficult to determine how the learning rule affects the trajectory of the network. This interdisciplinary project will help understand what rule governs learning in these regions or if multiple learning rules are involved. The work will develop a robust methodology to measure if the network is converging to the target solution, oscillating around it, or diverging away.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1983

Human factors aspects of control room design

A plan for the design and analysis of a multistation control room is reviewed. It is found that acceptance of the computer based information system by the uses in the control room is mandatory for mission and system success. Criteria to improve computer/user interface include: match of system input/output with user; reliability, compatibility and maintainability; easy to learn and little training needed; self descriptive system; system under user control; transparent language, format and organization; corresponds to user expectations; adaptable to user experience level; fault tolerant; dialog capability user communications needs reflected in flexibility, complexity, power and information load; integrated system; and documentation.

Jenkins, J. P.↗