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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 433 records · Page 24
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

FAIR for AI: An interdisciplinary and international community building perspective

A foundational set of findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) principles were proposed in 2016 as prerequisites for proper data management and stewardship, with the goal of enabling the reusability of scholarly data. The principles were also meant to apply to other digital assets, at a high level, and over time, the FAIR guiding principles have been re-interpreted or extended to include the software, tools, algorithms, and workflows that produce data. FAIR principles are now being adapted in the context of AI models and datasets. Here, we present the perspectives, vision, and experiences of researchers from different countries, disciplines, and backgrounds who are leading the definition and adoption of FAIR principles in their communities of practice, and discuss outcomes that may result from pursuing and incentivizing FAIR AI research. The material for this report builds on the FAIR for AI Workshop held at Argonne National Laboratory on June 7, 2022.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Priority research directions for in situ data management: Enabling scientific discovery from diverse data sources

In January 2019, the US Department of Energy, Office of Science program in Advanced Scientific Computing Research, convened a workshop to identify priority research directions (PRDs) for in situ data management (ISDM). A fundamental finding of this workshop is that the methodologies used to manage data among a variety of tasks in situ can be used to facilitate scientific discovery from many different data sources—simulation, experiment, and sensors, for example—and that being able to do so at numerous computing scales will benefit real-time decision-making, design optimization, and data-driven scientific discovery. This article describes six PRDs identified by the workshop, which highlight the components and capabilities needed for ISDM to be successful for a wide variety of applications—making ISDM capabilities more pervasive, controllable, composable, and transparent, with a focus on greater coordination with the software stack and a diversity of fundamentally new data algorithms.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1998

NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Paper 68: Who is Managing Knowledge? The Implications for Knowledge Production and Management of Global Strategic Alliances in Knowledge Dependent Industries

Knowledge is the foundation upon which researchers build as they innovate. Innovation lies at the core of a state's or a firm's ability to survive in a competitive world. Indeed, some economic historians ever that technological innovation, not trade, is the engine to economic growth. Despite the centrality of knowledge to corporate success, analysts have only recently shown an interest in the "knowledge capital" or "intellectual capital" of the firm, often literally trying to assign a value to this resource.

Golich, Vicki L.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Nitrogen acquisition and retention pathways in sustainable perennial bioenergy grass cropping systems

Abstract Perennial tall grasses show promise as bioenergy crops due to high productivity and efficient nutrient use. Ongoing research on bioenergy grasses seeks to reduce their reliance on synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilizer, the manufacture of which relies on fossil fuel combustion. Excessive use of fertilizers also causes adverse environmental consequences and leads to the evolutionary loss of plant traits beneficial to sustainable N cycle. Notably, perennial tall grasses have exhibited the potential to maintain high biomass yield without the need for N fertilizer or causing soil N depletion. Perennial grasses can be adept at interacting with their microbial partners to facilitate N acquisition and retention via mechanisms such as biological N fixation and nitrification inhibition. These inherent N management traits should be preserved and optimized at the this early stage of bioenergy grass breeding programs. This review examines the impact of external N on bioenergy grass production and explores the potential of leveraging advantageous N‐cycling attributes of perennial tall grasses, laying groundwork for future management and research efforts. With minimized dependency on external N input, the cultivation of perennial energy grasses will pave the way toward more resilient agricultural systems and play a significant role in addressing key global energy and environmental challenges.

Agriculture↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Virginia Earth System Science Scholars (VESSS) Experience: Inspiring High School Students in Stem Through Mentorship and Collaborative Skills Development

Since 2016, the Virginia Earth System Science Scholars (VESSS) program offered by the Virginia Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) has provided an interactive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning experience for Virginia high school juniors and seniors. The VESSS program was created through a partnership with VSGC, NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), and Hampton University to engage students in learning about Earth’s climate change and its global impacts. High school students from all areas of Virginia learn about Earth science and climate change in a 16 week online course focused on the Earth’s surface and interior, atmospheric composition, weather, water energy cycles, and climate variability. Students that complete the online course are invited to a no-cost seven-day residential summer academy at NASA LaRC where students are divided into teams based on four of the major spheres of study for Earth: atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere. Each team is guided by a Master Teacher and teams of undergraduate student interns who were also previous VESSS scholars. Students interview for team positions and are given a role reflecting an actual satellite design team position such as project scientist, research scientist, budget analyst, launch and orbit analyst, contamination analyst, and education and public outreach specialist. The students spend a week mentored by NASA and industry scientists and engineers as they learn how to select science goals and objectives, select science instruments, balance a mission budget, determine the mission launch location and orbit, and communicate the importance of the mission to the public. Each team produces a mission proposal, and at the end of the week, each team presents their portion of the mission to a panel of experts, followed by a question and answer period. Through this week students learn teamwork, communication, time management, meeting management, and research skills. Project work is supplemented by team-building activities, NASA facility tours, and lectures by acclaimed guest speakers such as Dr. Christine Darden, a NASA “Hidden Figure.” Students have conveyed through course evaluations and testimonials not only the vast personal learning and growth they achieved, but also the new perspectives they gained on future STEM career fields and opportunities to explore.

Elaine Seasly↗
NASA NTRS2019

Effectiveness of Redundant Communications Systems in Maintaining Operational Control of Small Unmanned Aircraft

As a part of NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) research, a test was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the redundant Command and Control (C2) communications system for maintaining operational control of small UAS in the airspace over a rural area. In the test, operators set up a primary and a secondary UAS C2 communications system, sent a maneuver command to an Unmanned Aircraft (UA) with and without a functioning primary system, then verified the execution of the sent command to confirm the operator control. Operators reported that the tested redundancy configurations were effective in maintaining operational control in the test airspace over rural locations. Since the next phase of UTM research focuses on operations in an urban area where an increased level of Radio Frequency (RF) activities occur compared to a rural area, four recommendations are provided to sustain the effectiveness of redundancy in urban operations. First, the operator should not include C2 systems that use the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) radio bands in redundancy configurations. Second, the operator should verify the RF characteristics of the intended operation area and examine the area’s radio noise floor. Third, the operator should monitor the availability, quality, and reliability of communications services used by a redundant system. Fourth, the small UAS community should adopt a standard set of contingency steps to handle the loss of C2 communications so that such events are managed in a consistent manner across the airspace. The insights from the test will be used to accommodate the FAA’s UAS integration effort.

Jung, Jaewoo↗
DOE OSTI2020

Overcoming challenges to support US resumption of high specific activity cobalt-60

Domestic production of high specific activity 60 Co was halted after a target rupture in 2012 at the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR). The Isotope Program (IP) within the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science tasked a multilaboratory team of researchers and managers from Oak Ridge and Idaho National Laboratories with the redesign the radioisotope capsule. The objective of this effort was to create a more robust and reliable design, compared to the pre-2012 target. The team successfully completed this task to produce the DOE-IP cobalt (Co) production capsule design. Furthermore, 66 capsules were successfully fabricated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and delivered to Idaho National Laboratory (INL) for irradiation in the ATR between January 2014 and October 2016. This paper describes the efforts of the team to prepare and disposition the two initial DOE-IP Co production capsules that were processed in March 2020. These efforts include performing accurate production predictions, experimentally validating predictions with assay measurements, shipping with the Orano-furnished Battelle Energy Alliance Research Reactor shipping package, and disassembling capsules at the isotope vendor site.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Obtaining Public Opinion about sUAS Activity in an Urban Environment

The Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) research project has been developing and testing concept ideas for enabling small UAS (sUAS) operations in low altitude airspace (ground to 400 feet). To do this, a series of flight test demonstrations were organized over five years at seven test sites. Technology Capability Level-4 (TCL4), the most complex flight tests, were conducted in Texas, USA, during August 2019. This testing resulted in over 400 data collection flights using eight live rotorcraft, with nine flight crews flying pre-planned scenarios in the urban downtown and waterfront areas of Corpus Christi, Texas. Test scenarios were designed to include a variety of elements, including live and simulated vehicles, and personnel in many different roles, including flight crews and mission personnel. One group of people who did not have a role in the flight tests but will be affected by UAS operations as they become more ubiquitous, are the general public. What do the public think about sUAS operations in urban areas? In order to obtain a reference point that noted the public's view of the operations in the TCL4 demonstration, a short survey was developed and offered to members of the public who wished to comment on the sUAS activities they saw in their city during two weeks in August, 2019.Forty five people completed the online public opinion survey. Participants volunteered to take it, creating a self-selected sample. The survey included eleven questions that asked participants about their level of comfort and concerns with UAS activity; their knowledge of UAS operations; and, whether a traffic management system like UTM would increase their confidence in urban UAS activity. The general public in Corpus Christi showed a good level of knowledge of sUAS regulations, with almost half of their responses to the knowledge portion of the survey being correct. They expressed a moderate level of concern (x = 4.7 out of 7) at urban sUAS activity and, of those who cited a concern, the majority reported this was about privacy (54%), which are all responses in line with those reported in earlier research on public opinion. Views on UTM were mixed, with respondents indicating they thought the introduction of UTM will improve safety somewhat (5.2 out of 7) but it will also increase their concern a little (4.6 out of 7). This would indicate there needs to be more information and educational material about the UTM concept made available to the public with the aim to reduce public concerns about the system.

Caterina Grossi↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Obtaining Public Opinion About sUAS Activity in an Urban Environment

The Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) research project has been developing and testing concept ideas for enabling small UAS (sUAS) operations in low altitude airspace (ground to 400 feet). To do this, a series of flight test demonstrations were organized over five years at seven test sites. Technology Capability Level-4 (TCL4), the most complex flight tests, were conducted in Texas, USA, during August 2019. This testing resulted in over 400 data collection flights using eight live rotorcraft, with nine flight crews flying pre-planned scenarios in the urban downtown and waterfront areas of Corpus Christi, Texas. Test scenarios were designed to include a variety of elements, including live and simulated vehicles, and personnel in many different roles, including flight crews and mission personnel. One group of people who did not have a role in the flight tests but will be affected by UAS operations as they become more ubiquitous, are the general public. What do the public think about sUAS operations in urban areas? In order to obtain a reference point that noted the public’s view of the operations in the TCL4 demonstration, a short survey was developed and offered to members of the public who wished to comment on the sUAS activities they saw in their city during two weeks in August, 2019. Forty five people completed the online public opinion survey. Participants volunteered to take it, creating a self-selected sample. The survey included eleven questions that asked participants about their level of comfort and concerns with UAS activity; their knowledge of UAS operations; and, whether a traffic management system like UTM would increase their confidence in urban UAS activity. The general public in Corpus Christi showed a good level of knowledge of sUAS regulations, with almost half of their responses to the knowledge portion of the survey being correct. They expressed a moderate level of concern (x = 4.7 out of 7) at urban sUAS activity and, of those who cited a concern, the majority reported this was about privacy (54%), which are all responses in line with those reported in earlier research on public opinion. Views on UTM were mixed, with respondents indicating they thought the introduction of UTM will improve safety somewhat (5.2 out of 7) but it will also increase their concern a little (4.6 out of 7). This would indicate there needs to be more information and educational material about the UTM concept made available to the public with the aim to reduce public concerns about the system.

UTM↗
NASA NTRS1996

The Neurolab mission and biomedical engineering: a partnership for the future

Over the last five years, with the advent of flights of U.S. Shuttle/Spacelab missions dedicated entirely to life sciences research, the opportunities for conducting serious studies that use a fully outfitted space laboratory to better understand basic biological processes have increased. The last of this series of Shuttle/Spacelab missions, currently scheduled for 1998, is dedicated entirely to neuroscience and behavioral research. The mission, named Neurolab, includes a broad range of experiments that build on previous research efforts, as well as studies related to less mature areas of space neuroscience. The Neurolab mission provides the global scientific community with the opportunity to use the space environment for investigations that exploit microgravity to increase our understanding of basic processes in neuroscience. The results from this premier mission should lead to a significant advancement in the field as a whole and to the opening of new lines of investigation for future research. Experiments under development for this mission will utilize human subjects as well as a variety of other species. The capacity to carry out detailed experiments on both human and animal subjects in space allows a diverse complement of studies that investigate functional changes and their underlying molecular, cellular, and physiological mechanisms. In order to conduct these experiments, a wide array of biomedical instrumentation will be used, including some instruments and devices being developed especially for the mission.

NASA Program Flight↗
NASA NTRS2021

Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Optimal Landsat Data for Burn Severity Index Calculations: Implications for High Northern Latitudes Wildfire Research

Satellite remote sensing has been widely used for the evaluation of wildfire burn severity in various ecosystems. While a variety of remote sensing-based burn severity indices have been developed, the Landsat-based differ-enced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) presents the most widely-used approach to burn severity assessment for fire research and management. Although dNBR-based approaches have been continuously updated, including the development of the relative dNBR (RdNBR) and the Relativized Burn Ratio (RBR), one key obstacle for the reliable applications of the burn severity indices in the high northern latitudes has not been adequately addressed. Specifically, optimal Landsat image pairs are very rarely available for the calculation of the burn severity indices in certain regions of the high northern latitudes (HNL), resulting in the burn severity index outputs calculated for a large number of wildfires being considerably affected by non-fire-related factors. The suboptimal selection of image pairs may have partially contributed to the lack of consistency in the performance of the burn severity indices in the HNL regions. In this paper, we systematically evaluated the impacts of sub-optimal image pairs on signal stability through two sets of analyses conducted at different spatial scales. First, at the regional scale, we examined the burn severity indices calculated for a selection of wildfires in Alaska. Here, we demonstrate the inconsistent performance of the same index calculated based on Landsat data that are typically considered as “optimal”. In addition, we show that the calculated indices may be more prone to the negative impacts of these inconsistencies, thus leading to reduced reliability, when there is limited Landsat data availability. Second, at the continental scale, we show that certain areas in the HNL, especially Alaska during the pre-2000 era, are subject to the potentially strong negative impact associated with the limited data availability. Through systematically analyzing this issue, we hope to not only divert more attention to it but also to provide potential solutions, based on which further improvements that may be of particular importance for research on Arctic wildfires could be made.

Dong Chen↗
NASA NTRS2010

The Trajectory Synthesizer Generalized Profile Interface

The Trajectory Synthesizer is a software program that generates aircraft predictions for Air Traffic Management decision support tools. The Trajectory Synthesizer being used by researchers at NASA Ames Research Center was restricted in the number of trajectory types that could be generated. This limitation was not sufficient to support the rapidly changing Air Traffic Management research requirements. The Generalized Profile Interface was developed to address this issue. It provides a flexible approach to describe the constraints applied to trajectory generation and may provide a method for interoperability between trajectory generators. It also supports the request and generation of new types of trajectory profiles not possible with the previous interface to the Trajectory Synthesizer. Other enhancements allow the Trajectory Synthesizer to meet the current and future needs of Air Traffic Management research.

Lee, Alan G.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Ecohydrology of wetland plant communities along an estuarine to tidal river gradient

Abiotic filters that interact with wetland plant communities along tidal–fluvial gradients are highly dynamic, and understanding their quantitative thresholds and relationships to interspecific competition is important during an era of sea-level rise and watershed hydrologic change. Yet, landscape-scale studies of major coastal rivers from the river mouth to the head of tide, such as this study, remain rare. Here, we develop a new predictive framework for estuarine–tidal river research and management using a river-specific low-water datum and the wetland inundation indicator SEVg, the growing-season sum exceedance value of hourly surface-water depth. The distribution and variability of the wetland species pool (n = 203) on the 234 river kilometer (rkm) lower Columbia River and estuary floodplain are described for the first time. 4,940 quadrats at 50 marshes were surveyed (2005–2016). Throughout the estuarine–tidal river system, SEVg was well suited to describe the wetland inundation regime and its variability based on the combination of longitudinal river position and elevation. SEVg increased significantly landward. Two primary wetland inundation regimes were identified: the seaward-tidal, usually greatest during the winter months, and landward-fluvial, greatest during the growing season. Nearest the ocean, salinity is the abiotic factor limiting species richness and non-native species. Farther upriver, the daily, seasonal, and interannual variability of the wetting and drying cycle encourage disturbance-tolerant species and non-natives and limit the number of hydrophytes and total vegetative cover. Hence, the average between-year similarity of site-scale areal cover significantly decreased landward. Hierarchical cluster analysis indicated five vegetative groups and five ecohydrologic zones between rkm 0 and 234 were discriminated with 76 significant species–zone associations. All zones had unique indicator species. Species with high indicator values were Carex lyngbyei throughout the estuarine zones, and Eleocharis palustris, Sagittaria latifolia, and the invasive non-native Phalaris arundinacea in the upper estuarine and lower, middle, and upper tidal river zones (IV > 0.90). Competition from C. lyngbyei nearest the ocean and P. arundinacea in the tidal river was associated with reduced species richness when total cover was >65%. This framework of filters informs the design and prediction of future wetland plant communities on coastal river floodplains.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Validation of Scale-Derived Ages in Wild Juvenile and Adult Steelhead Using Parental-Based Tagging

Abstract Accurate age information is a critical component in fisheries monitoring, management, and research. The ability to assign accurate ages to fish by using nonlethal structures is vital in calculating cohort productivity for fish species with low abundances and variable life histories. A common nonlethal method to assign ages is by interpretation of patterns in scales. Validation of ages is not easily obtained for free-ranging fishes; however, the development of genetic “tags” has expanded age validation opportunities. In this study, we used parental-based genetic tagging to validate ages determined from scales collected from juvenile and adult steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss in two streams within the Snake River basin. Juvenile scale ages were in agreement with 93% of the known ages. Adult scale ages were in agreement with 89% of the known ages. Although overall bias in juvenile ages was very low, we saw a slight positive bias in younger fish (young of the year and age 1) and a small negative bias in older juveniles (ages 2–4). A small negative bias in ages of adults was a consequence of errors in freshwater age. The errors observed did not significantly bias age compositions because the 90% confidence intervals about the age proportions based on scales contained the known proportions; therefore, scale analysis is an acceptable method for assigning ages to Snake River steelhead. We discuss the value of validated known-age scales as a reference collection, and as an illustrative use, we constructed a circulus count guide to aid technicians in identifying missing annuli and distinguishing true from false annuli. To demonstrate the use of the circulus guidelines, we reanalyzed samples with age discrepancies, applying the circulus count data and the known age to identify mistakes.

Reinhardt, Leslie↗
DOE OSTI2021

Do Remote Camera Arrangements and Image Capture Settings Improve Individual Identification of Golden Eagles?

Individual identification of animals from camera traps has become an important task in wildlife research, but camera deployment methods often do not facilitate this important undertaking. Identification of individual golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) is possible using uniquely marked rectrices, but no studies have explored methods to maximize the rate of individual identification from camera images. Furthermore, our objectives were to assess whether different camera heights (1 m vs. 3 m), image capture settings (one image after a 1-min delay vs. burst of 5 images after a 30 sec delay), and arrangements relative to bait (dorsally vs. ventrally aimed) affected views of rectrices on golden eagles and our ability to identify individuals. We conducted our study from 15 December 2016 to 3 March 2017 on the Savannah River Site, South Carolina. First, we developed a scoring system based on views of rectrices and used a linear mixed-effects model to compare image scores among different camera arrangements and image settings. Next, after identifying individual eagles, we used generalized linear mixed-effects models to compare total individual eagle detections, total days an individual was detected, and probability of obtaining an unknown individual identification among camera arrangements and settings. Overall, we scored a total of 27,499 images, with 8,083 providing views of marked rectrices that allowed identification of 18 individual eagles. Average image scores and proportion of images suitable for individual identification were higher from elevated (3 m) camera arrangements than standard arrangements (1 m) across sites. Regardless of camera height, faster frequency of image capture provided more images that could be used to identify individuals and the most trap days per individual. Researchers and managers should consider deploying elevated cameras traps with faster frequency of image capture to improve data quality and potential for analysis of golden eagle populations and trends across the species’ range.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗