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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
DOE OSTI2011

Addiction circuitry in the human brain (*).

A major challenge in understanding substance-use disorders lies in uncovering why some individuals become addicted when exposed to drugs, whereas others do not. Although genetic, developmental, and environmental factors are recognized as major contributors to a person's risk of becoming addicted, the neurobiological processes that underlie this vulnerability are still poorly understood. Imaging studies suggest that individual variations in key dopamine-modulated brain circuits, including circuits involved in reward, memory, executive function, and motivation, contribute to some of the differences in addiction vulnerability. A better understanding of the main circuits affected by chronic drug use and the influence of social stressors, developmental trajectories, and genetic background on these circuits is bound to lead to a better understanding of addiction and to more effective strategies for the prevention and treatment of substance-use disorders.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1978

The child in coma

Children in coma continue to pose medical, social, economic, ethical, moral, and legal problems. Modern life-support technology has aggravated these problems. Coma is viewed as a pathological state of unconsciousness from which the patient has not achieved arousal, and which calls for vigorous action to help him regain consciousness. There are two variables that have an especially important bearing on the ability to achieve arousal. These are: the character of the brain injury that caused the coma, and environmental factors that affect the patient after the injury.

Lewinn, E. B.↗
DOE OSTI2022

The impacts of COVID-19 on clean energy labor markets: Evidence from multifaceted analysis of public health interventions and COVID-health factors

COVID-19 pandemic has affected clean energy labor market. Using real-time job vacancy data, this study analyzes the impacts of the pandemic on the U.S. clean energy labor market in 2020, including biomass, energy efficiency (EE), electric vehicle (EV), power/microgrid, solar, and wind industries. This study identifies how COVID-health factors and public health interventions influence clean energy job availability during the early COVID pandemic. Overall, California had the most energy jobs and experienced a significant decrease in April 2020. EV and solar had the highest percentages of job vacancies during the pandemic in general. Still, lockdowns had the most severe influence on EE and wind jobs. Stay-at-home orders negatively affected clean energy job vacancies in biomass, EV, power/microgrid, and wind. Social-gathering restrictions, however, did not have much influence. Increased COVID tests at the state level had the strongest and most positive influence on clean energy job postings, indicating the importance of a state's ability to manage public health infrastructure or crisis issues. COVID hospitalizations negatively influenced the job vacancies in biomass and wind but did not affect the other four sectors; conversely, as COVID death numbers increased, the number of jobs in biomass, EV, power grid, solar, and wind decreased, but not in EE jobs.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

GraphCH: A Deep Framework for Assessing Cyber-Human Aspects in Insider Threat Detection

Insider threat is one of the most damaging cyber attacks that could cause the loss of intellectual property and enterprise data security breaches. Action sequence data such as host logs are used to investigate such threats and develop anomaly-based AI detectors. However, insider threat actions are similar to legitimate user activities, causing AI detectors to fail and suffer from high false alarm rates. Therefore, user cyber activity logs are inadequate to fully unfold insider threats. In this study, we adopt human psychological principles of risk-taking and impulsiveness along with host data to assess the influence and usefulness of human behavioral aspects in insider threat detection. Here, we hypothesize that individuals' impulsive and risk-taking behavior correlates with cyberspace activities. To validate our hypothesis, we conducted an IRB-approved study recruiting 35 participants who work in a large U.S. university and collected their cyber and psychological data for 90 days. Host and human-behavioral data analysis and mapping indicate that impulsive and risk-taking users trigger more system errors causing (un)intentional insider threats and are susceptible to attackers' social engineering and cognitive hacking. Utilizing cyber-human aspects, we introduce a Cyber-Human Graph Neural Network (GNN) based framework GraphCH to identify abnormal user behaviors and detect insider threats.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2022

Light in Ecological Settings: Entrainment, Circadian Disruption, and Interventions

Light is the predominant signal for the human circadian clock to synchronize to the solar 24-h day through an active process called entrainment. Modern light profiles are characterized by exposure to both natural daylight and artificial lighting. A mismatch between these self-selected light profiles and the solar day-night alternation can disrupt the circadian system, resulting in acute and chronic effects for health and safety. In this chapter, we describe (i) how entrainment works in the real world, illustrating the major role of light for this process; (ii) ways in which the circadian system can be disrupted by (external) factors such as irregular sleep, shift work, daylight saving time, and longitudinal position in a time zone; and (iii) how field studies have used light interventions to reduce direct and indirect effects of circadian disruption in ecological settings.

light interventions↗
DOE OSTI2021

Time-dependent heterogeneity leads to transient suppression of the COVID-19 epidemic, not herd immunity

Significance Epidemics generally spread through a succession of waves that reflect factors on multiple timescales. Here, we develop a general approach bridging across these timescales and demonstrate how to incorporate population heterogeneity into a wide class of epidemiological models. We demonstrate that a fragile state of transient collective immunity emerges during early, high-paced stages of the epidemic, leading to suppression of individual epidemic waves. However, this state is not an indication of lasting herd immunity: Subsequent waves may emerge due to stochastic changes in individual social activity. Parameters of transient collective immunity are estimated using empirical data from the COVID-19 epidemic in several US locations.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis (Final Report)

The goal of this research is to theorize and quantify the relationships between safety and the financial performance of nuclear power plants (NPPs). The Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA) theoretical framework, which connects the social aspects (e.g., safety culture) and structural features (e.g., safety practices) of an organization with organizational safety and financial risks, is used to theorize the direct and indirect relationships between safety and the financial performance of NPPs. An Integrated Enterprise Risk Management (I-ERM) methodological framework is developed to operationalize SoTeRiA to quantify NPP safety and financial performance in a unified platform where their underlying physical degradation mechanisms, coupled with maintenance performance (considering human and organizational factors), are explicitly incorporated to depict the interconnections and dependencies between safety and financial performance. In this study, NPP safety refers to both occupational safety and system safety (estimated from Probabilistic Risk Assessment, PRA), and financial performance refers to the monetary values associated with NPP operation and maintenance (O&M) strategies. This report covers a case study demonstrating the feasibility of the I-ERM methodological framework. More detailed development of one of the I-ERM modules, i.e., Probabilistic Physics-of-Failure (PPoF) analysis, and its connection with other I-ERM modules is demonstrated in a second case study. The outcome of this research will help NPP decision-makers create cost-saving maintenance strategies while maintaining safety by providing cost- and risk-informed recommendations regarding maintenance work processes and operational strategies.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Understanding the perceptions, roles and interactions of stakeholder networks managing health-care waste: A case study of the Gaza Strip

Highlights: • We systematically review scientific literature about health-care waste management. • We identify and discuss gaps, trends, efforts, and key-factors. • We suggest areas for improvement and best practices reported in literature. • We include recommendations for policy makers, practitioners and researchers. • We promote a holistic and harmonized approach to health-care waste management. - Abstract: The sustainable management of waste requires a holistic approach involving a range of stakeholders. What can often be difficult is to understand the manner in which different types of stakeholder networks are composed and work, and how best to enhance their effectiveness. Using social network analysis and stakeholder analysis of healthcare waste management stakeholders in the case study region of the Gaza Strip, this study aimed to understand and examine the manner in which the networks functioned. The Ministry of Health was found to be the most important stakeholder, followed by municipalities and solid waste management councils. Some international agencies were also mentioned, with specific roles, while other local institutions had a limited influence. Finally while health-care facilities had a strong interest in waste management, they were generally poorly informed and had limited links to each other. The manner in which the networks operated was complicated and influenced by differences in perception, sharing of information, access to finance and levels of awareness. The lack of a clear legal framework generated various mistakes about roles and responsibilities in the system, and evidently regulation was not an effective driver for improvement. Finally stakeholders had different priorities according to the waste management issues they were involved with, however segregation at the source was identified as a key requirement by most. Areas for improving the effectiveness of the networks are suggested. The analysis utilized an innovative methodology, which involved a large number of stakeholders. Such an approach served to raise interest and awareness at different levels (public authorities, health providers, supporting actors, others), stimulate the discussion about the adoption of specific policies, and identify the effective way forward.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2023

Quantitative Systems Modeling for Critical Infrastructure Predictions in Climate Change: A National Defense Framework

Any national defense is dependent on the efficacy of the available physical infrastructure. Whatever degrades infrastructure, structurally, physically, architecturally, or esthetically, is of interest to the nation. Climate change is now a major significant factor of interest impinging on national critical infrastructure. The devastating effects of climate change have increasing pervasiveness throughout the world. The impact on critical infrastructure is of particular interest to researchers. In consonance with ASCE-ASME's special issue on critical infrastructure protection and resilience, this paper presents a systems-modeling approach for critical infrastructure and predictions in relation to climate change agreements in COP26. The paper addresses high-level critical systems-based assessment of the social, legal, economic, and technical nuances impinging on the viability of COP26 agreements. The paper was written using a multinational collaboration approach. In conclusion, the specific focus of national defense is used as the backdrop for the methodology of the paper.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Hantavirus is Associated With Open Developed Areas and Arid Climates, Highlighting Increased Risk in the Western United States

In the United States, hantaviruses can cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in humans, an acute respiratory illness with a high mortality rate. Most people contract HPS from exposure to infected rodent excrement. The interannual dynamics of hantavirus transmission are tied to both environmental and human-related factors, including changes in annual climate conditions, rodent populations, and the built environment in which humans are more likely to be exposed. Similar environmental conditions and socioeconomic factors also likely determine the long-term risk of hantavirus exposure. Here, we use ecological niche models and human cases of HPS in the U.S. from 1993 to 2022 to assess hantavirus risk using four socioeconomic variables, 17 land use variables, one variable of rodent richness, and seven climate variables to determine both the geographical locations of highest exposure risk and leading environmental predictors. We found that areas with higher relative risk tend to be where it is drier, higher social vulnerability, increased rodent richness, and more open to low levels of development—this largely mapped to the western U.S. We found evidence that fringe ecosystems may be important areas of hantavirus transmission, similar to other emerging diseases. Increased rodent richness was associated with increased hantavirus risk, warranting further investigation into how the abundance and community composition of rodents could impact long-term risk. These risk maps can help public health officials develop plans for mitigating hantavirus, especially for the most susceptible populations. They can also be used to further investigate regions estimated to be at high risk for hantavirus where disease cases have not been as common but may be underreported.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2002

Simulating Activities: Relating Motives, Deliberation and Attentive Coordination

Activities are located behaviors, taking time, conceived as socially meaningful, and usually involving interaction with tools and the environment. In modeling human cognition as a form of problem solving (goal-directed search and operator sequencing), cognitive science researchers have not adequately studied "off-task" activities (e.g., waiting), non-intellectual motives (e.g., hunger), sustaining a goal state (e.g., playful interaction), and coupled perceptual-motor dynamics (e.g., following someone). These aspects of human behavior have been considered in bits and pieces in past research, identified as scripts, human factors, behavior settings, ensemble, flow experience, and situated action. More broadly, activity theory provides a comprehensive framework relating motives, goals, and operations. This paper ties these ideas together, using examples from work life in a Canadian High Arctic research station. The emphasis is on simulating human behavior as it naturally occurs, such that "working" is understood as an aspect of living. The result is a synthesis of previously unrelated analytic perspectives and a broader appreciation of the nature of human cognition. Simulating activities in this comprehensive way is useful for understanding work practice, promoting learning, and designing better tools, including human-robot systems.

Clancey, William J.↗
NASA NTRS2019

20,000 Years of Societal Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Southwest Asia

The Fertile Crescent, its hilly flanks and surrounding drylands has been a critical region for studying how climate has influenced societal change, and this review focuses on the region over the last 20,000 years. The complex social, economic, and environmental landscapes in the region today are not new phenomena and understanding their interactions requires a nuanced, multidisciplinary understanding of the past. This review builds on a history of collaboration between the social and natural palaeoscience disciplines. We provide a multidisciplinary, multiscalar perspective on the relevance of past climate, environmental, and archaeological research in assessing present day vulnerabilities and risks for the populations of southwest Asia. We discuss the complexity of palaeoclimatic data interpretation, particularly in relation to hydrology, and provide an overview of key time periods of palaeoclimatic interest. We discuss the critical role that vegetation plays in the human–climate–environment nexus and discuss the implications of the available palaeoclimate and archaeological data, and their interpretation, for palaeonarratives of the region, both climatically and socially. We also provide an overview of how modelling can improve our understanding of past climate impacts and associated change in risk to societies. We conclude by looking to future work, and identify themes of “scale” and “seasonality” as still requiring further focus. We suggest that by appreciating a given locale's place in the regional hydroscape, be it an archaeological site or palaeoenvironmental archive, more robust links to climate can be made where appropriate and interpretations drawn will demand the resolution of factors acting across multiple scales.

Levant↗
NASA NTRS1979

The effects of context on multidimensional spatial cognitive models

Spatial cognitive models obtained by multidimensional scaling represent cognitive structure by defining alternatives as points in a coordinate space based on relevant dimensions such that interstimulus dissimilarities perceived by the individual correspond to distances between the respective alternatives. The dependence of spatial models on the context of the judgments required of the individual was investigated. Context, which is defined as a perceptual interpretation and cognitive understanding of a judgment situation, was analyzed and classified with respect to five characteristics: physical environment, social environment, task definition, individual perspective, and temporal setting. Four experiments designed to produce changes in the characteristics of context and to test the effects of these changes upon individual cognitive spaces are described with focus on experiment design, objectives, statistical analysis, results, and conclusions. The hypothesis is advanced that an individual can be characterized as having a master cognitive space for a set of alternatives. When the context changes, the individual appears to change the dimension weights to give a new spatial configuration. Factor analysis was used in the interpretation and labeling of cognitive space dimensions.

Dupnick, E. G.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Technology Assessment of High Capacity Data Storage Systems: Can We Avoid a Data Survivability Crisis

The density of digital storage media in our information-intensive society increases by a factor of four every three years, while the rate at which this data can be migrated to viable long-term storage has been increasing by a factor of only four every nine years. Meanwhile, older data stored on increasingly obsolete media, are at considerable risk. When the systems for which the media were designed are no longer serviced by their manufacturers (many of whom are out of business), the data will no longer be accessible. In some cases, older media suffer from a physical breakdown of components - tapes simply lose their magnetic properties after a long time in storage. The scale of the crisis is compatible to that facing the Social Security System. Greater financial and intellectual resources to the development and refinement of new storage media and migration technologies in order to preserve as much data as possible.

Halem, M.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Mortality among workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1943–2017

During World War II (WWII), the Manhattan Engineering District established a secret laboratory in the mountains of northern New Mexico. The mission was to design, construct and test the first atomic weapon, nicknamed ‘The Gadget’ that was detonated at the TRINITY site in Alamogordo, NM. After WWII, nuclear weapons research continued, and the laboratory became the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The mortality experience of 26,328 workers first employed between 1943 and 1980 at LANL was determined through 2017. Included were 6157 contract workers employed by the ZIA Company. Organ dose estimates for each worker considered all sources of exposure, notably photons, neutrons, tritium, 238Pu and 239Pu. Vital status determination included searches within the National Death Index, Social Security Administration and New Mexico State Mortality Files. Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMR) and Cox regression models were used in the analyses. Most workers (55%) were hired before 1960, 38% had a college degree, 25% were female, 81% white, 13% Hispanic and 60% had died. Vital status was complete, with only 0.1% lost to follow-up. The mean dose to the lung for the 17,053 workers monitored for radiation was 28.6 weighted-mGy (maximum 16.8 weighted-Gy) assuming a Dose Weighting Factor of 20 for alpha particle dose to lung. The Excess Relative Risk (ERR) at 100 weighted-mGy was 0.01 (95%CI -0.02, 0.03; n = 839) for lung cancer. The ERR at 100 mGy was -0.43 (95%CI -1.11, 0.24; n = 160) for leukemia other than chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), -0.06 (95%CI -0.16, 0.04; n = 3043) for ischemic heart disease (IHD), and 0.29 (95%CI 0.02, 0.55; n = 106) for esophageal cancer. Among the 6499 workers with measurable intakes of plutonium, an increase in bone cancer (SMR 2.44; 95%CI 0.98, 5.03; n = 7) was related to dose. The SMR for berylliosis was significantly high, based on 4 deaths. SMRs for Hispanic workers were significantly high for cancers of the stomach and liver, cirrhosis of the liver, nonmalignant kidney disease and diabetes, but the excesses were not related to radiation dose. There was little evidence that radiation increased the risk of lung cancer or leukemia. Esophageal cancer was associated with radiation, and plutonium intakes were linked to an increase of bone cancer. IHD was not associated with radiation dose. More precise evaluations will await the pooled analysis of workers with similar exposures such as at Rocky Flats, Savannah River and Hanford.

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTAN↗
DOE OSTI2013

Trapped Between Two Tails: Trading Off Scientific Uncertainties via Climate Targets

Climate change policies must trade off uncertainties about future warming, about the social and ecological impacts of warming, and about the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We show that laxer carbon targets produce broader distributions for climate damages, skewed towards severe outcomes. However, if potential low-carbon technologies fill overlapping niches, then more stringent carbon targets produce broader distributions for the cost of reducing emissions, skewed towards high-cost outcomes. We use the technology- rich GCAM integrated assessment model to assess the robustness of 450 ppm and 500 ppm carbon targets to each uncertain factor. The 500 ppm target provides net benefits across a broad range of futures. The 450 ppm target provides net benefits only when impacts are greater than conventionally assumed, when multiple technological breakthroughs lower the cost of abatement, or when evaluated with a low discount rate. Policy evaluations are more sensitive to uncertainty about abatement technology and impacts than to uncertainty about warming.

climate change↗
NASA NTRS1998

From Crew Communication to Coordination: A Fundamental Means to an End

This viewgraph presentation describes the purposes and contexts of communication, factors which affect the interpretation of communication, and the advantages of effective, systematic communication to and from crews. Communication accomplishes information transfer, team/task management, shared problem solving and decision making, and establishment of the interpersonal climate. These accomplishments support outcomes: Technical task performance; CRM (crew resource management); Procedures and ATC (air traffic control); and Work/team atmosphere. The presentation lists various types of management inefficiency which can result from a lack of each of the four accomplishments. Communication skills are used within the following contexts: physical; social and organizational; task and operational; and speech and linguistic. Crew communication can be evaluated through investigation (case study), research (experimentation), and training.

Kanki, Barbara G.↗
NASA NTRS2021

Exploration Mission Tasks: A Technical Manual

This technical manual is an abridgement of the Generalizable Skills and Knowledge for Exploration Missions (NASA/CR-2018-22045) report (Stuster et al., 2019), describing research conducted under Cooperative Agreement 80NSSC18K0042 for the Human Factors and Behavioral Performance Element, Human Research Program, located at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Johnson Space Center. The research identified tasks that will be conducted by human crew during an expedition to Mars, and the abilities, skills, and knowledge that will be required of crew members. The 3-year study uses research methods that were developed to analyze the work performed by a variety of civilian and military occupational specialties and is consistent with Human Factors methods. The work began by developing a comprehensive inventory of 1,125 tasks that are likely to be performed during the 12 phases of the first human expeditions to Mars, from launch to landing 30 months later. Sixty subject matter experts (SMEs) rated expedition tasks in terms of (likely) frequency of performance, difficulty to learn, and importance to mission success; a fourth metric (criticality), was derived by summing the mean ratings of the three dimensions. Seventy-two SMEs placed the physical, cognitive, and social abilities necessary to perform the tasks in order of importance for specialist domains identified by the task analysis. The research team then identified: 1) Abilities, skills, and knowledge that can be retained and generalized across tasks and 2) Implications for crew size and composition. Study results also led to recommendations concerning equipment, habitats, and procedures for exploration-class space missions. Note: The full-mission task inventory was developed during a comprehensive review of documentation and concepts of operations. It was understood by the study team that the tasks were based on currently available information, and that the tools, equipment, propulsion methods, and/or other aspects of actual human expeditions to Mars might be different from those described here, as a consequence of technological development and evolving Mars Design Reference Missions. The purpose and scope of this technical manual is to present the core, actionable information that resulted from this research. The abridged format is intended to address the needs of development and research teams to quickly access, discern, and use the information in the course of their exploration-related work.

Brandin Munson↗