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At least 505 records · Page 28

Dendritic Computing with Multigate Ferroelectric Field-Effect Transistors

Although inspired by neuronal systems in the brain, artificial neural networks generally employ point-neurons, which offer computational complexity far less than that of their biological counterparts. Neurons have dendritic arbors that connect to different sets of synapses and offer local nonlinear accumulation – playing a pivotal role in processing and learning. Inspired by this, we propose a novel neuron design based on a multigate ferroelectric field-effect transistor that mimics dendrites. It leverages ferroelectric nonlinearity for local computations within dendritic branches while utilizing the transistor action to generate the neuronal output. The branched architecture enables smaller crossbar arrays in hardware integration, improving efficiency. Using an experimentally calibrated device-circuit-algorithm cosimulation framework, we demonstrate that networks incorporating our dendritic neurons achieve superior performance compared to much larger networks without dendrites (∼ 17× fewer trainable weight parameters). These findings suggest that dendritic hardware can significantly improve computational efficiency and learning capacity of neuromorphic systems optimized for edge applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Enabling Interoperability in Earth System Digital Twins (ESDT): Integrating Observations, Models, and AI for Actionable Insights Through NASA'S Intelligent Systems Technology Program

NASA’s Intelligent Systems Technology Program (IST) is driving a paradigm shift in Earth science through the development of Earth System Digital Twins (ESDT). These integrated information systems create a dynamic "digital replica" of the Earth by harmonizing continuous, multi-source observations with high-fidelity models and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) that enable “What now?”, “What next?”, and “What if?” scenario building. These scenarios are reflected in NASA IST’s series of ESDTs, from the Coastal Zone Digital Twin that integrates complex data on the current state of the Chesapeake Bay to the Terrestrial Environmental Rapid-Replication and Assimilation Hydrometeorological (TerraHydro) AI-based ESDT that forecasts water movement across Earth’s surface, to the Agriculture Land Information System (AgLIS) which can be used to assess optimal planting dates and crop yield estimates. By bridging the gap between vast data archives and actionable insights, these projects enable a system-of-systems approach to understanding complex, interacting Earth processes. This poster will highlight recent innovations and future directions from NASA’s ESDT initiatives: Continuous Data Assimilation & Multi-Source Fusion. A core requirement of the ESDT work is the transition from static models to dynamic "living" replicas. This involves creating frameworks for the continual assimilation of near-real-time data from uncoordinated, heterogeneous sources, including satellite observations and airborne assets, and ground-based Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. These systems link design, operational status, and environmental data, ensuring the digital twin accurately reflects the current state of the physical Earth system. High-Fidelity Hybrid Modeling & Computational Acceleration to enable interactive "what-if" explorations, programs are moving beyond traditional, slow physical solvers by developing fast surrogate machine learning models and Deep Generative Models (DGMs). These hybrid approaches use neural networks to emulate complex physics, such as cloud feedback or ocean dynamics, at a fraction of the original computing cost, often leveraging advanced hardware like Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to achieve the necessary scale. Federated Ecosystems & Interoperable Frameworks rather than building isolated tools, NASA IST is moving toward federated ESDTs and reusable analytic collaborative frameworks. This theme focuses on interoperability standards and common ontologies that allow specialized digital twins to interact and share data. This system-of-systems architecture supports multi-discipline investigations, such as analyzing how upstream watershed changes impact downstream urban flooding or how wildfire emissions affect regional air quality. By leveraging these advancements, ESDTs empower researchers and decision-makers to conduct real-time analysis and run complex hypothetical scenarios, ultimately improving our understanding of Earth’s evolving systems and informing critical real-world applications.

Earth System↗

DiffESM: Conditional Emulation of Temperature and Precipitation in Earth System Models With 3D Diffusion Models

Earth system models (ESMs) are essential for understanding the interaction between human activities and the Earth's climate. However, the computational demands of ESMs often limit the number of simulations that can be run, hindering the robust analysis of risks associated with extreme weather events. While low-cost climate emulators have emerged as an alternative to emulate ESMs and enable rapid analysis of future climate, many of these emulators only provide output on at most a monthly frequency. This temporal resolution is insufficient for analyzing events that require daily characterization, such as heat waves or heavy precipitation. We propose using diffusion models, a class of generative deep learning models, to effectively downscale ESM output from a monthly to a daily frequency. Trained on a handful of ESM realizations, reflecting a wide range of radiative forcings, our DiffESM model takes monthly mean precipitation or temperature as input, and is capable of producing daily values with statistical characteristics close to ESM output. Combined with a low-cost emulator providing monthly means, this approach requires only a small fraction of the computational resources needed to run a large ensemble. We evaluate model behavior using a number of extreme metrics, showing that DiffESM closely matches the spatio-temporal behavior of the ESM output it emulates in terms of the frequency and spatial characteristics of phenomena such as heat waves, dry spells, or rainfall intensity.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Leveraging operator learning to accelerate convergence of the preconditioned conjugate gradient method

We propose a new deflation strategy to accelerate the convergence of the preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCG) method for solving parametric large-scale linear systems of equations. Unlike traditional deflation techniques that rely on eigenvector approximations or recycled Krylov subspaces, we generate the deflation subspaces using operator learning, specifically the Deep Operator Network (DeepONet). To this aim, we introduce two complementary approaches for assembling the deflation operators. The first approach approximates near-null space vectors of the discrete PDE operator using the basis functions learned by the DeepONet. The second approach directly leverages solutions predicted by the DeepONet. To further enhance convergence, we also propose several strategies for prescribing the sparsity pattern of the deflation operator. Here, a comprehensive set of numerical experiments encompassing steady-state, time-dependent, scalar, and vector-valued problems posed on both structured and unstructured geometries is presented and demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed DeepONet-based deflated PCG method, as well as its generalization across a wide range of model parameters and problem resolutions.

Deflation↗

Fundamental limit of jet tagging

Identifying the origin of high-energy hadronic jets (jet tagging) has been a critical benchmark problem for machine learning in particle physics. Jets are ubiquitous at colliders and are complex objects that serve as prototypical examples of collections of particles to be categorized. Over the last decade, machine learning-based classifiers have replaced classical observables as the state of the art in jet tagging. Increasingly complex machine learning models are leading to increasingly more effective tagger performance. Our goal is to address the question of convergence—are we getting close to the fundamental limit on jet tagging or is there still potential for computational, statistical, and physical insights for further improvements? We address this question using state-of-the-art generative models to create a realistic, synthetic dataset with a known jet tagging optimum. Various state-of-the-art taggers are deployed on this dataset, showing that there is a significant gap between their performance and the optimum. Our dataset and software are made public to provide a benchmark task for future developments in jet tagging and other areas of particle physics.

Artificial intelligence↗

NASA's Moon to Mars Autonomous Habitat Status

NASA is developing a strategy for sending humans to the Mars vicinity, known broadly as the Moon to Mars (M2M) Campaign. A critical part of this campaign is the development of in-space and surface habitation systems capable of substantially extending human presence beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Mars missions feature an in-space transit habitat capable of supporting crews of four on ~850-1200-day missions, including transit to and from Mars and time in Mars orbit. Surface and transit habitats are complex elements which must keep crewmembers healthy and productive in deep-space environments with limited resources, long rescue times in contingency situations, and communication delays; all within constrained mass, volume, and power budgets. These habitats provide crew both living and workspace as well as most of the resources needed to support crew life. For deep space habitats, automation needs to be employed due to latency and for significant amounts of time when the habitats are uncrewed. Automation of systems is possible in space applications, but there are limitations. Outside of the Earth’s (or any) magnetosphere, radiation environments are harsh to both the physical hardware and the software components. Radiation (charged particles and ionizing electromagnetic waves) degrades and damages the hardware and causes single event upsets (SEUs) in software. If the hardware is damaged, data can be lost, or control actions not made. For software, SEUs cause algorithms to result in different solutions, or incorrect commands to be sent out. This means that algorithms and hardware used for deep space systems are different than what is used on Earth. Radiation-tolerant hardware is generations behind the current state-of-the-art hardware. Recent NASA missions, such as James Webb Space Telescope, continue to rely on older technologies such as the RAD750 processor, and the most advanced processors are still single core and less than 1.5 GHz. There have been attempts to use higher performance processors, but these often take multiple mitigation steps to handle the radiation environments, which limits the processing power and/or throughput. Current techniques for radiation mitigation have been redundancies, voting, physical separation of hardware, encasing materials, under-clocking hardware, and more. Some radiation mitigation techniques do provide benefits such as having a redundant system to improve the probability that a system will be available when needed. Autonomous software systems will have fewer interactions with humans on deep space missions and therefore need to be able to handle more off-nominal conditions. Microgravity also complicates the autonomous aspects of the mission because autonomous systems are usually built from known deterministic states, but microgravity causes physical objects to shift and move changing the location an autonomous system placed the object. Not only does the software need to be reliable and deterministic, losing resources due to a software error is not only costly but detrimental to reputation. The combination of having lower performance hardware and having to be able to verify and deterministically run software and an ever-changing environment makes deep space autonomous systems more complicated. Multiple gaps have been identified including verification of autonomous software algorithms (including artificial intelligence and machine learning), higher performance processors (graphics and general purpose), high speed networks (onboard and transmissions), memory, power distribution, data security, and variations from these. These gaps need to be closed for more advanced systems to be deployed and reduce the size, weight, and power impacts on the habitats.

Scott B. Tashakkor↗

SIVB's 2024 In Vitro Biology Meeting Proceedings

SIVB's 2024 World Congress on In Vitro Biology took place in Saint Louis, Missouri, from June 8th to 12th, 2024. The conference featured renowned speakers from academic and non-academic institutions who will present recent advancements in critical areas like plant transformation, genome editing, synthetic biology, advanced breeding technologies, cellular agriculture, future food sources, chromosome engineering, epigenetics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. The Society for In Vitro Biology (SIVB) has always considered the education and professional development of young researchers as an integral component of its mission. The 2024 World Congress program, along with SIVB’s student initiatives, was customized to foster scientific growth and professional development among students and young scientists empowering them in their professional journeys. The recording of the DOE supported "Single Cell RNA Sequencing" workshop was made publicly available at https://youtu.be/A0UnuYwefwg for easy retrieval and reference of all information shared during the live event, thereby increasing accessibility and knowledge transfer. Their are 14 articles in the proceedings and the full list of files is located at https://link.springer.com/journal/11626/volumes-and-issues/60-1/supplement.

10 SYNTHETIC FUELS↗

Universal Fourier Attack for Time Series

A wide variety of adversarial attacks have been proposed and explored using image and audio data. These attacks are notoriously easy to generate digitally when the attacker can directly manipulate the input to a model, but are much more difficult to implement in the real world. In this paper we present a universal, time invariant attack for general time series data such that the attack has a frequency spectrum primarily composed of the frequencies present in the original data. The universality of the attack makes it fast and easy to implement as no computation is required to add it to an input, while time invariance is useful for real world deployment. Additionally, the frequency constraint ensures the attack can withstand filtering defenses. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the attack on two different classification tasks through both digital and real world experiments, and show that the attack is robust against common transform-and-compare defense pipelines.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NASA Pilot-Engaged Expert Response Using IBM Watson Technology: Prototype Evaluation of Knowledge Retrieval System

NASA Langley Research Center and IBM have been investigating the use of IBM Watson technology in aerospace research and development. One application of Watson technology is the Pilot-Engaged Expert Response (PEER) use case. The PEER system is envisioned as an in-cockpit advisor that will act as a source of situationally-relevant information for pilots and other flight crew members to assist in decision making about real-time events and situations that arise in the course of aircraft operations. PEER will make available vast stores of knowledge and information quickly and directly, putting important informational resources where they are needed most. IBM has worked with NASA to develop an architecture and articulate a roadmap for the development of the PEER system. That vision is built around Watson Discovery Advisor (WDA) software solution, derived from IBM's Jeopardy!-winning automatic question answering system. PEER makes use of WDA's sophisticated question-answering capabilities as its core, adding important User Interface components and other customizations for the cockpit environment, including communication with flight systems and other external data sources. The development plan for PEER includes four development stages, with the current project constituting the first phase. In this project, a prototype instance of PEER was successfully adapted to the aviation domain, enabling users to ask questions about aviation topics and receive useful and accurate answers to these questions. Major tasks accomplished include the development of procedures for domain adaptation through automatic lexicon extraction from domain glossaries; generation of question-answer training data which was used to train the system; and assessment of the effectiveness of domain adaptation, which showed a dramatic improvement in the ability of the PEER system to answer domain-relevant questions. In addition, the vision for the PEER system was pushed forward by the articulation of a plan for the automatic enhancement of question-answering with contextual information. This initial phase focused on two main goals: 1) the targeted domain adaptation of the underlying WDA system to the aviation domain; and, 2) the design of the software systems needed to leverage flight-contextual data. Domain adaptation of the WDA system proceeds via three main activities: Domain data ingestion, lexical customization and model training. A textual corpus consisting of 1,147 individual documents with more than 7.5 million words of text was ingested into the system and this served as the basis of all further development. A domain lexicon of over 3,500 aviation-domain terms was semi-automatically generated from domain documents and used to train the system. In addition, a set of over 500 question-answer (QA) pairs relevant to the PEER use case was developed; these were used to train and assess the system. These important first steps established the basis for the PEER system. In addition, steps were taken towards the integration of the PEER system into the cockpit environment with the development of a functional design for the Contextual Data Augmentation (CDA) subsystem. This subsystem brings to bear contextual data to improve system responses. It has three main submodules: the Contextual Data Collection module, the Contextual Data Selection module, and the Contextual QA Augmentation module. These modules form a processing pipeline that addresses the problems associated with automatically integrating information from external resources into the knowledge-retrieval mechanism.

Machine learning↗

Multilevel Cybersecurity for Photovoltaic Systems

The motivation behind this project is to protect critical infrastructure in electric power generation pertaining to solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. This growing renewable energy resource is becoming a more vital part of the nation’s energy portfolio, particularly since it has achieved grid-parity to existing generation methods in terms of cost. It is thus vital that steps be taken to ensure the cybersecurity of these assets. The project goal was to devise a multilevel cybersecurity solution to address PV security gaps at the inverter and system levels, and field test the solution under the supervision and review of a US-based solar inverter manufacturer and PV installer/operator. A two-level cyberattack defense approach was formulated whereby the first level, the solar inverter level, hardens individual devices and achieves a deeply cyber-secure inverter. The inverter level security involves a multi-layer defense-in-depth approach for securing the inverter while also providing data for the system level algorithms. The second level, the system level, addresses intrusion detection and restoration involving an ensemble of inverters and relevant systems.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Enhanced Detection of Primary Biological Aerosol Particles Using Machine Learning and Single-Particle Measurement

Accurately identifying primary biological aerosol particles (PBAPs) using analytical techniques poses inherent challenges due to their resemblance to other atmospheric carbonaceous particles. Here, we present a study of an enhanced method for detecting PBAPs by combining single-particle measurement with advanced supervised machine learning (SML) techniques. We analyzed ambient particles from a variety of environments and lab-generated standards, focusing on chemical composition for traditional rule-based and clustering approaches and incorporating morphological features into the SML approaches, neural networks and XGBoost, for improved accuracy. This study demonstrates that SML methods outperform traditional methods in quantifying PBAPs, achieving significant improvements in precision, recall, F1-score, and accuracy, leading to an increased number of detected PBAPs by at least 19%. The adaptability of the proposed XGBoost-based SML model is showcased in comparison to traditional methods in categorizing PBAPs for blind data sets from different geographical locations. Two field case studies were investigated, over agricultural land and Amazonia rain forest, representing relatively low and high concentrations of PBAPs, respectively, where XGBoost consistently detected up to 3.5 times more PBAPs than traditional methods. Precise detection of PBAPs in the atmosphere could significantly improve the prediction of climatic impacts by them.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Applying Space Technology to Enhance Control of an Artificial Arm for Children and Adults With Amputations

The first single function myoelectric prosthetic hand was introduced in the 1960's. This hand was controlled by the electric fields generated by muscle contractions in the residual limb of the amputee user. Electrodes and amplifiers, embedded in the prosthetic socket, measured these electric fields across the skin, which increase in amplitude as the individual contracts their muscle. When the myoelectric signal reached a certain threshold amplitude, the control unit activated a motor which opened or closed a hand-like prosthetic terminal device with a pincher grip. Late in the 1990's, little has changed. Most current myoelectric prostheses still operate in this same, single-function way. To better understand the limitations of the current single-function myoelectric hand and the needs of those who use them, The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (TIRR), sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NUH), surveyed approximately 2,500 individuals with upper limb loss [1]. When asked to identify specific features of their current myoelectric prostheses that needed improvement, the survey respondents overwhelmingly identified the lack of wrist and finger movement, as well as poor control capability. However, simply building a mechanism with individual finger and wrist motion is not enough. In the 1960's and 1970's, engineers built a number of more dexterous prosthetic hands. Unfortunately, these were rejected during clinical trials due to a difficult and distracting control interface. The goal of this project, "Applying Space Technology to Enhance Control of an Artificial Arm for Children and Adults with Amputations," was to lay the foundation for a multi-function, intuitive myoelectric control system which requires no conscious thought to move the hand. We built an extensive myoelectric signal database for six motions from ten amputee volunteers, We also tested a control system based on new artificial intelligence techniques on the data from two of these subjects. This data is available to anyone doing myoelectric control research. Its availability is an important contribution to the prosthetics research community, as many researchers do not have access to amputee subjects. Since we collected myoelectric data from subjects' sound arms as well as their residual arms, this database will also prove useful to virtual reality and robotics researchers who want to explore myoelectric-based interfaces between any user and a machine. Currently, one small company (Intelligenta, Inc.) and one university (University of New Brunswick, Canada) are using this myoelectric database under other funding to develop multifunction control systems for prostheses. A prosthetics manufacturer (Liberty Technology, Inc.) is making plans to incorporate the results of their work into an artificial hand capable of several different movements to provide functionality only dreamed of by current myoelectric users. Methods Six adults and four children, all with unilateral, below-elbow amputations served as subjects. Five of the adults (3 male, 2 female, average age 34 years) had amputations due to traumatic injury, while one adult (female, age 32 years) and the four children (3 male, 1 female, average age 13 years) had congenital (i.e. from birth) limb deficiencies.

Atkins, Diane J.↗

Developing Concepts of Operations Using Multi-Step Tool Techniques With Large Language Models

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Air Mobility Pathfinders (AMP) project is developing and evaluating concepts of operations (ConOps) for safe, secure, and scalable Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations. The AMP project’s Operational Concepts, Architecture, and Requirements Integration (OCARI) Team is using a Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) approach for integration, interoperability, and traceability of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystems centered around urban air taxi services. The team’s goal is to define structures and behaviors needed for system feasibility, readiness, and interoperability, establish a UAM knowledge base, and trace and validate assumptions and requirements relevant to AAM. NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) is spearheading an innovative digital engineering approach to integrate, communicate, and facilitate the research of multi-modal transportation systems. The Knowledge-based Digital Platform (KbDP) is a concept being developed that ties the workflows of Project Managers (PM), Principal Investigators (PI), and System Engineers together across organizational boundaries. It does so through the management of an information database defined by mathematical, data science, and system engineering principles. Machine Learning (ML) algorithms play a key role in this concept by extracting meaningful knowledge from relational and graph databases, document repositories, and system artifacts, which the human user leverages to greatly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their research. Recent advancements in the field of Large Language Models (LLMs), specifically models trained for tool use, such as Command-R , now allow for the reliable implementation of single-step and multi-step tool-centric systems. These techniques provide the LLM with a set of tools, in our case Python functions, that can be called on to answer a much wider range of questions compared to LLMs implemented using a traditional single-source or Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) approach. Through this method, the LLM can pull information from multiple data sources, such as relational or graph databases, document repositories, application programming interfaces (APIs), and SysML artifacts depending on the user’s question. The LLM can also output the information in a variety of different formats, using output generation tools, such as CSV, UML, or SysML artifacts. Additionally, tools can be assigned roles and can work together to provide answers to queries in an “agent” like approach, similar to that implemented by Microsoft’s AutoGen framework where different agents can converse with each other to accomplish tasks. Previously, our team developed a chatbot system with “agent like” functionality in the form of different “modes” the user could select from a user interface (UI), this architecture can be seen on the left in figure 1. Three different modes were implemented, the first mode allowed the LLM to utilize the structures and algorithms within a graph database to trace UAM requirements. The second mode gave the LLM access to a vector search capable of providing relevant information from thousands of document pages related to UAM ConOps and requirements. The third mode served as a general assistant where users could enter open-ended questions and custom prompts to utilize the LLM for different use-cases. This system improved the process surrounding generating and analyzing information related to UAM requirements, however, the implementation provided a clunky user experience. Users were required to know what mode to select within the UI in advance before entering their question to the selected tool. Moreover, the different tools were isolated from each other, they lacked bidirectional links that would allow for tools to collaborate to generate better responses. Our team is working on a new architecture, seen on the right in the below figure, with the goal to address many of the UX shortcomings of our original system while improving the accuracy and depth of responses from the LLM. This new system will automatically select the appropriate tool to use based off the user’s question. Each tool will be capable of calling on any of the other tools available to the LLM, resulting in a collaborative pipeline where tools can pass data between other tools until enough data is received to generate an answer to the user’s question. Using a locally deployed, open-source, LLM, the NASA OCARI team, in collaboration with Collins Aerospace, will implement a prototype application that will bridge knowledge across multiple sources to assist System Engineers (SEs) with requirements discovery and tracing, research question and use case identification, and assumption validation. Such a system will also allow SEs to more easily, and intuitively, explore the AAM ecosystem, ultimately improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the SE's research and decision-making processes surrounding ConOps development and validation. In this session, our team will provide a video demonstration of our new prototype architecture in action. We will also present an overview of our prototype system architecture and talk about its advantages over traditional LLM deployments along with how those advantages can provide additional value to the field of System Engineering.

systems engineering↗

A Machine Learning Framework for Predicting Microphysical Properties of Ice Crystals From Cloud Particle Imagery

The microphysical properties of ice crystals are important because they significantly alter the radiative properties and spatiotemporal distributions of clouds, which in turn strongly affect Earth's climate. However, it is challenging to measure key properties of ice crystals, such as mass or morphological features. Here, we present a proof-of-concept framework for predicting three-dimensional (3D) microphysical properties of ice crystals from in situ two-dimensional (2D) imagery. First, we computationally generated synthetic ice crystals using 3D modeling software along with geometric parameters estimated from the 2021 Ice Cryo-Encapsulation Balloon (ICEBall) field campaign. Then, we used synthetic crystals to train machine learning (ML) models to predict effective density ($ρ_e$), effective surface area ($A_e$), and number of bullets ($N_b$) from synthetic rosette imagery. On unseen synthetic images, our ML models accurately predicted ice crystal properties. ResNet-18 performed best, achieving $R^2$ values of 0.99 and 0.98 for $ρ_e$ and $A_e$, respectively, and MAE of 0.10 for mathematical equation in single view tasks. Stereo view ResNet-18 further reduced RMSE by 40% for $ρ_e$ and $A_e$ and reduced MAE by 0.08 for $N_b$. This work provides a novel ML-driven framework for estimating ice microphysical properties from in situ imagery, which will allow for downstream constraints on microphysical parameterizations, such as the mass-size relationship.

Ko, J. [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United State↗

Use of multiresolution wavelet feature pyramids for automatic registration of multisensor imagery

The problem of image registration, or the alignment of two or more images representing the same scene or object, has to be addressed in various disciplines that employ digital imaging. In the area of remote sensing, just like in medical imaging or computer vision, it is necessary to design robust, fast, and widely applicable algorithms that would allow automatic registration of images generated by various imaging platforms at the same or different times and that would provide subpixel accuracy. One of the main issues that needs to be addressed when developing a registration algorithm is what type of information should be extracted from the images being registered, to be used in the search for the geometric transformation that best aligns them. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate several wavelet pyramids that may be used both for invariant feature extraction and for representing images at multiple spatial resolutions to accelerate registration. We find that the bandpass wavelets obtained from the steerable pyramid due to Simoncelli performs best in terms of accuracy and consistency, while the low-pass wavelets obtained from the same pyramid give the best results in terms of the radius of convergence. Based on these findings, we propose a modification of a gradient-based registration algorithm that has recently been developed for medical data. We test the modified algorithm on several sets of real and synthetic satellite imagery.

Evaluation Studies↗

Discovery of tunable and soluble organic emitters for solid-state lasers with a self-driving laboratory

We have recently demonstrated the ability of using self-driving laboratories for AI-driven searches of organic emitters for solid-state lasing devices. Our past workflow featured solubility challenges for such large molecular moieties. In this next-generation study, we return to the drawing board to explore a family of com-pounds that are much solution processable and composed of a set of electronic cores that provide a broader color response. Out of 252 potential candidates,and with guidance from DFT calculations, we selectively perform a compre-hensive study exploring 51 fluorene-based A-B-A type organic laser oligomers, armed with our self-driving lab. The candidates range from simple hydrocarbon molecules to complex hetero atom-mixed molecules. As a result of this study, we highlight diketopyrrolopyrrole and benzodiazole derivatives for their largely red-shifted emissions. Furthermore, we investigate the effect of color change aris-ing from hetero atom permutation, fluorine addition, thiophene coupling, and a combination of fluorine addition and thiophene coupling. Amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) measurements in the solid state further corroborate the lasing potential of selected candidates, reinforcing their suitability for future device applications. The computational study with density functional theory confirms the experimental results.

fluorescence↗

Machine Learned Empirical Numerical Integrator from Simulated Data

Recently, a number of state-of-the-art surrogate machine learning (ML) models have been designed for global weather and climate prediction, which have been trained using reanalysis data products. Reanalysis data products are constructed using numerical model simulations that combine numerical integration of partial differential equations and parameterization schemes. These products are typically only archived and made available using coarsened spatial and temporal resolutions. This study explores the impact of the numerical generation methods used to produce the training datasets and the temporal resolution of those datasets on machine learning surrogate models. Using the nonlinear vector autoregression (NVAR) machine as an explainable ML technique, simple dynamical systems are emulated with ML models trained on data produced by three classical numerical integration schemes. NVAR is validated as a skillful ML method, capable of producing accurate predictions and, more importantly, reconstructing both the underlying dynamics and the numerical integration scheme used to generate the training data. However, the machine fails to generalize predictions on unseen test data generated by different numerical integration schemes, despite the underlying dynamical system being the same. This result provides a word of caution for the growing field of machine learning emulation of weather and climate dynamics. Furthermore, we illustrate using NVAR that training on temporally coarsened data may increase the required complexity of ML models and potentially introduce new numerical challenges. Finally, we discover that empirical integration schemes with arbitrary time-stepping sizes can be constructed directly from the data, which implies a potential for the development of empirical numerical integration schemes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Timeseries Photos of a Variably Inundated Stream: Umtanum Creek, Washington, United States

This dataset is associated with a broader study using game camera timeseries photos collected to evaluate stream variable inundation via changes in width (i.e. wet fraction). Four game cameras were deployed along Umtanum Creek (Washington, United States) to track changes in stream inundation over time. Drone imagery was collected at the same location on October 18, 2024 which was used to construct a digital elevation model (DEM) of the streambed topography. The associated paper and data can be found at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2025.106715 (Bao et al., 2025a)) and https://doi.org/10.15485/2589885 (Bao et al., 2025b), respectively. For details on how to navigate data packages generated by this project, see https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/portals/PNNLRiverCorridorSFA/About. In addition to this readme, this data package also includes a file-level metadata (FLMD) files that describes each file and a data dictionaries (DD) that describe all column/row headers and variable definitions. This dataset is comprised of (1) file-level metadata; (2) data dictionary; (3) readme; (4) field metadata; (5) field protocol; and (5) folders containing game camera photos. Game camera photos are organized into folders for each camera (CDL, CUL, CDR, CUR; see readme for information on camera naming) by the month photos were collected. All files are .csv, .jpg, or .pdf.

AI image segmentation↗