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At least 451 records · Page 25

Automating and Evaluating Large Language Models for Accurate Text Summarization Under Zero-Shot Conditions

Automated text summarization (ATS) is crucial for collecting specialized, domain-specific information. Zero-shot learning (ZSL) allows large language models (LLMs) to respond to prompts on information not included in their training, playing a vital role in this process. This study evaluates LLMs' effectiveness in generating accurate summaries under ZSL conditions and explores using retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and prompt engineering to enhance factual accuracy and understanding. We combined LLMs with summarization modeling, prompt engineering, and RAG, evaluating the summaries using the METEOR metric and keyword frequencies through word clouds. Results indicate that LLMs are generally well-suited for ATS tasks, demonstrating an ability to handle specialized information under ZSL conditions with RAG. However, web scraping limitations hinder a single generalized retrieval mechanism. While LLMs show promise for ATS under ZSL conditions with RAG, challenges like goal misgeneralization and web scraping limitations need addressing. Future research should focus on solutions to these issues.

Priebe Mendes Rocha, Maria Eduarda [ORNL]↗

Evaluating post-fire watershed response to varying burn severity and precipitation regimes using fully-distributed and integrated hydrologic models

Wildfires can cause significant changes in vegetation and soil, which may lead to increased surface runoff and soil erosion, thereby affecting water cycling within ecosystems. This study uses the Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS), an integrated and fully distributed hydrologic model at the watershed scale, to examine post-fire hydrologic responses in selected watersheds with varying burn severities in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The model integrates surface overland flow, subsurface flow, and canopy biophysical processes. We have developed a new fire module in ATS to account for changes in soil hydraulic properties caused by fire in the topsoil layer. Modeling results indicate that, in the year following a high-severity burn, watershed-averaged evapotranspiration decreases by 25%. Additionally, post-fire peak flows increase by 18-29% in watersheds burned with medium to high severity due to changes in soil properties. Conversely, a low-severity burn results in less than a 1% increase in post-fire peak flow. Furthermore, a high-severity fire causes a 38% reduction in the infiltration rate within the affected watershed during the first post-fire wet season. Hypothetical numerical experiments with varying precipitation regimes after a high-severity fire show that post-fire peak flows can increase by 1-29% due to fire-induced changes in soil hydraulic properties. This study highlights the importance of using fully distributed hydrologic models to quantify disturbance-feedback loops, which are essential for understanding the complexities brought about by spatial heterogeneity in post-fire landscapes.

ATS↗

Data-model files associated with the manuscript "Modeling the Effects of Wetland Restoration on Coastal Hydrology: A Case Study of Elkhorn Slough Watershed, California"

This package contains the data, simulation setups, notebooks and figures used in “Modeling the Effects of Wetland Restoration on Coastal Hydrology: A Case Study of Elkhorn Slough Watershed, California” (Xu et al., 2025). In this study, we selected Elkhorn Slough, a tidal estuary, in California, to investigate the impact of wetland restoration and sea level rise on coastal hydrology using the process-based coastal hydrologic model, Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS), informed by site-specific data. We designed a novel modeling workflow for incorporating wetland restoration features into land cover and soil properties for the model parameterization. The validation results demonstrate a strong agreement between modeled and observed data. We studied the characteristics of coastal watershed hydrology, then focused on the surface water dynamics at two wetland sites within Elkhorn Slough, a reference site and a restored site. Our simulation results indicate that the restored site successfully maintains surface elevation, resulting in reduced surface inundation. We also examined the impact of wetland restoration under expected sea level rise over the next few decades. The low-lying Yampah Marsh, the reference site, is likely to be inundated due to future sea level rise when highest tides arrive; while a higher percentage of Hester Marsh, the restored site, would retain marsh vegetation in coming decades, regardless of tidal conditions. Our study provides important information for examining the outcome of restoration practices that include surface elevation in tidal wetlands under climate changes.Several files can be found from this data package.1. README.md: This file describes the title, journal, co-authors, abstract, repository structure and model version.2. Simulation_Setups.zip: The file contains the model configuration files (XML format) for ATS. 3. Notebooks.zip: The file contains the Jupyter notebooks for generating the pre- and post-restoration meshes and the meshes of future scenarios. 4. Figures.zip: The file contains the figures used in the manuscript.5. Data.zip: The file contains the data used to drive the model simulations, including watershed and wetlands boundaries, mesh files and references to additional datasets (e.g., meteorological forcing, tidal dataset, DEMs, land cover, soil properties). Also, it contains water level observations at the restored wetland.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Advancing process-based flood frequency analysis for assessing flood hazard and population flood exposure

Recent studies have showcased the use of process-based hydrological models with Stochastic Storm Transposition (SST) techniques to conduct Flood Frequency Analysis (FFA). This framework, referred hereby FFA-SST, has proved to be a robust strategy to estimate peak flows of specific annual exceedance probability (e.g., 100-year peak flow) that can reflect natural and anthropogenic disturbances, including changes in land use and meteorological patterns. With the objective of advancing the FFA-SST framework, this study presents for the first time the use of an Integrated Surface-Subsurface Hydrological Model (ISSHM) to conduct FFA-SST by extending the analysis from peak flow responses to flood extent, enabling a unique view and analysis of flood hazard and population flood exposure at the basin scale. As a proof-of-concept, we used the ISSHM, Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (Amanzi-ATS) model, and the SST model, RainyDay, to conduct FFA-SST by simulating the flood response to 5,000 annual synthetic storm events in a 2,227 $km^2$ Southeast Texas watershed. We demonstrate that ATS, without site-specific calibration, provides a robust process-based representation of peak flows, flood extent, streamflow, evapotranspiration, soil moisture content, and water storage changes. Our results and analyses, covering frequency curves up to a 500-year return period for peak flows, basin inundation fractions, and the number of people exposed to flooding, offer a unique perspective to analyze flood impacts across spatial scales. Overall, this study provides critical insights for flood risk management by extending the FFA-SST framework to include both flood hazard and population flood exposure analyses at the basin scale. Such an approach will empower stakeholders and disaster emergency agencies with a more comprehensive understanding of flood impacts across the entire basin domain, facilitating informed decision-making for flood risk assessment and management.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Data Files for Runoff Evaluation in an Earth System Land Model for Permafrost Regions

Modeling of hydrological runoff is essential for accurately capturing spatiotemporal feedbacks within the land–atmosphere system, particularly in sensitive regions such as permafrost landscapes. However, substantial uncertainties persist in the terrestrial runoff parameterization schemes used in Earth system and land surface models. This is particularly true in permafrost regions, where landscape heterogeneity is high and reliable observational data are scarce.This data set includes all files that were produced and applied in the paper Runoff Evaluation in an Earth System Land Model for Permafrost Regions [Xiang et al. in review]. The paper is in review as of July 1 2025 in Geoscientific Model Development (GMD). In this study, we evaluate the performance of runoff parameterization schemes in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) land model (ELM). Our proposed framework leverages simulation results from the Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS), which is a physics-rich integrated surface/subsurface hydrologic model that has been successfully evaluated previously in Arctic tundra regions. We used ATS to simulate runoff from 22 representative hillslopes in the Sagavanirktok River basin, located on the North Slope of Alaska, then compared the output with ELM’s parameterized representation of total runoff. This dataset contains 2 figure image files (*.png, *jpg) that describe the study site and methods, as well as folders (Figure*.zip) that contain the associated data files (*.csv, *.dat) and python code notebooks (*.ipynb) for figures 3-7 in the paper. Jupyter notebook (*.ipynb) files that produce the figure files using the associated data files will run within a python environment configured with Jupyter Lab or Notebook packages.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Atmospheric measurements from satellites.

Atmospheric measurements from satellites, discussing ATS-1 cloud images for definition of wind and use of WEFAX through ATS 2 satellites for data transmission

Rados, R. M.↗

VHF navigation experiment

Navigational accuracy resulting from sidetone signals relayed by two synchronous ATS-1 and ATS-3 satellites and application to aircraft navigation

Dubose, J. F.↗

The application of color display techniques for the analysis of Nimbus infrared radiation data

A color enhancement system designed for the Applications Technology Satellite (ATS) spin scan experiment has been adapted for the analysis of Nimbus infrared radiation measurements. For a given scene recorded on magnetic tape by the Nimbus scanning radiometers, a virtually unlimited number of color images can be produced at the ATS Operations Control Center from a color selector paper tape input. Linear image interpolation has produced radiation analyses in which each brightness-color interval has a smooth boundary without any mosaic effects. An annotated latitude-longitude gridding program makes it possible to precisely locate geophysical parameters, which permits accurate interpretation of pertinent meteorological, geological, hydrological, and oceanographic features.

Allison, L. J.↗

Applications Technology Satellites -F and -G.

The objectives of the Applications Technology Satellite (ATS) Program are to advance space technology in areas of importance to mankind. A brief description of the planned satellites and experiments is presented. The experiments include instructional television, communications, navigation, meteorology, spacecraft technology and science. The ATS-F and -G satellites will have 30-foot deployable antennas and will serve as three-axis stabilized platforms in geostationary orbit with 0.1 degree pointing accuracy.

Gerwin, H. L.↗

Detection of solar wind at synchronous orbit.

During the March 8, 1970 geomagnetic storm, the synchronous spacecraft ATS-5 spent more than 6 hours outside the magnetosphere. At the height of the storm, ATS was fortuitously located near local noon when both the on-board magnetometer and the UCSD plasma detector indicated that the environment had changed from typical magnetosheath (i.e. shocked) to interplanetary character (unshocked). This situation lasted for approximately 3 minutes at 2000 UT before the spacecraft was again immersed in the magnetosheath. Ground-based magnetograms show high activity, but no unusual features at this time. In the magnetosheath the component of magnetic field parallel to the earth axis was about -60 gamma with about plus or minus 30 gamma variations. Outside the magnetosheath, this dropped to an indicated 15 gamma with no large variations.

Deforest, S. E.↗

VLBI determination of synchronous equatorial satellite orbits.

A first-order theory of satellite orbit determination using time-difference data is developed for the case of a synchronous, equatorial spacecraft. Also, a first order error analysis is presented that permits one to estimate how errors in assumed or measured quantities affect the values of the derived orbital parameters. The theory is applied to observational data obtained during a series of VLBI (Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry) experiments conducted between stations at Rosman, North Carolina, and Mojave, California, using the ATS-3 satellite as a radio source. Orbit parameters derived from the VLBI data show good agreement with those determined by the ATS project office using more conventional tracking techniques.

Ross, S.↗

Study of a wideband probe

The design of an experiment to measure communication characteristics of wideband satellite-to-ground links is reported. Of special concern are the effects of rainstorms and atmospheric turbulence on path attenuation and phase fluctuation. Multi-tone and pulse probing are considered. A multi-tone technique which is a modification of ATS-5 and ATS-F hardware is recommended. Data extraction and data processing techniques and key hardware requirements for the experiment are reviewed.

Alexander, P., Jr.↗

Spin reorientation of a nonsymmetric body with energy dissipation

Stable rotating semi-rigid bodies were demonstrated analytically, and verified in flights such as Explorer 1 and ATS-5 satellites. The problem arises from the two potential orientations which the final spin vector can take after large angle reorientation from minor to major axis, i.e., along the positive or negative axis of the maximum inertia. Reorientation of a satellite initially spinning about the minor axis using an energy dissipation device may require that the final spin orientation be controlled. Examples of possible applications are the Apogee Motor Assembly with Paired Satellites (AMAPS) configuration, where proper orientation of the thruster is required; and reorientation of ATS-5, where the spin sensitive nature of the despin device (yo-yo mechanism) requires that the final spin vector point is a specified direction.

Cenker, R. J.↗

Vanguard/PLACE experiment system design and test plan

A system design and test plan are described for operational evaluation of the NASA-Goddard position location and aircraft communications equipment (PLACE), at C band (4/6GHz), using NASA's ship, the USNS Vanguard, and the ATS 3 and ATS 5 synchronous satellites. The Sea Test phase, extending from March 29, 1973 to April 15, 1973 was successfully completed; the principal objectives of the experiment were achieved. Typical PLACE-computed, position-location data is shown for the Vanguard. Position location and voice-quality measurements were excellent; ship position was determined within 2 nmi; high-quality, 2-way voice transmissions resulted as determined from audience participation, intelligibility and articulation-index analysis. A C band/L band satellite trilateration experiment is discussed.

Taylor, R. E.↗