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At least 541 records · Page 30

Multiclass Continuous Correspondence Learning

We extend the Structural Correspondence Learning (SCL) domain adaptation algorithm of Blitzer er al. to the realm of continuous signals. Given a set of labeled examples belonging to a 'source' domain, we select a set of unlabeled examples in a related 'target' domain that play similar roles in both domains. Using these 'pivot samples, we map both domains into a common feature space, allowing us to adapt a classifier trained on source examples to classify target examples. We show that when between-class distances are relatively preserved across domains, we can automatically select target pivots to bring the domains into correspondence.

correspondence learning↗

NASA WorldWind: Open Source Visualization Technology for Earth Observation

NASA WorldWind: Open Source Visualization Technology for Earth Observation WorldWind, open source virtual globe technology for Java, iOS, Android and Web, is provided by NASA and is architected as API-centric modular componentry. This enable it to be continually optimized and feature-enriched in ways that allow applications based on this SDK (Software Development Kit) to benefit Earth Observation, especially Open Science, with minimal or no adjustment for the decade ahead. The next-generation National Airspace System (NAS) aviation management system for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, uses WorldWind, as do applications currently being developed by the European Space Agency, along with several other US and European government agencies and industry partners. This presentation will demonstrate several NASA open source use cases for WorldWind technology that include advances being made to optimize access to NetCDF and HDF data via WebWorldWind.NASA WorldWind: Multidimensional Geospatial Web Platform The ability to see spatial data in its native context is essential for that data to be appreciated whether by the scientific community, policy and decision-makers or the general public. Recently, the accessibility of spatial data has dramatically improved. Without the need to install an application, spatial data can now be experienced via any web browser, mobile devices included. For developers, by simply updating the app on your server, the latest version of your application is now immediately available to your entire usercommunity. Unlike other virtual globes such as Google Earth, NASA World Wind offers something very special, full control to customize the interface with any features or functionalities you might need. You decide how the data is accessed and experienced. This allows you to provide maximum value of the information to your user community. The web version of NASA WorldWind (WebWorldWind) has made it possible for a whole new suite of applications for managing and sharing spatial data. Apps built with this web version are ideal for immediate social media type activity and also facilitate delivery of sophisticated data exchange scenarios such as weather and climate research, disaster response, personal navigation, and industrial-strength tracking for transportation, supply chain, aviation and satellites. WebWorldWind is an application component, not an app in itself. It is written in JavaScript and provides the real world geographic context for spatial data and information visualization, using a rich set of shapes and graphic primitives. WebWorldWind also provides platform independence, while accommodating any number of data types. Web WorldWind runs on any platform via a browser, i.e., Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari. Features include, 3D virtual globe, 2D map with multiple projection choices (Mercator, Polar, UPS, Equirectangular), imagery and elevation import, extensible, data retrieval (via REST, WMS, WCS, WFS, Bing, User-Defined), decluttering, measurement, accurate line-ofsight, subsurface visualization, and more.

Open Source Mapping↗

Using X-Ray Computed Tomography as a Tool for Preliminary Examination Tool of Current and Future Extraterrestrial Sample Return Missions

The Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office at the Johnson Space Center is the past, present, and future home of all of NASA’s astromaterials sample collections. The primary goals of the curation office are to maintain the long-term integrity of the samples and ensure that the samples are distributed for scientific study in a fair, timely, and responsible manner, thus maximizing the return on each sample. Part of the curation process is planning for the future. To this end, we perform fundamental research in advanced curation initiatives to better prepared for future sample return missions. Advanced Curation is tasked with developing procedures, technology, and data sets necessary for curating new sample collections, or getting new results from existing sample collections. As part of these advanced curation efforts, we have installed and are operating a Nikon XTH 320 X-ray Computed Tomography(XCT) system in the JSC curation office with four interchangeable X-ray sources, a large-area detector, and a heavy-duty stage. These instrument characteristics allow us exceptional flexibility to analyze a wide range of sample sizes, from sub-mm soil particles to rocks >10 cm in diameter. The penetrative nature of the XCT scans allows for astromaterials samples to be analyzed within sealed low-density containers (e.g., Teflon bags), preserving the pristinity of the samples. We have begun scanning of the Apollo and Antarctic Meteorite sample suites in order to non-destructively map out lithic clasts (and other features) within the samples. The data from these scans will be made available to scientists via the JSC curation website and the Astromaterials Curation Newsletter. We anticipate sample requests from these “new” lithic clasts identified in these “old” samples. We also anticipate that XCT analyses like these would be useful for future sample return missions, like the OSIRIS REx mission, as well as future sample return missions.

Zeigler, Ryan↗

Three-Dimensional Atmospheric Dynamics of Jupiter from Ground-Based Doppler Imaging Spectroscopy in the Visible

We present three-dimensional (3D) maps of Jupiter’s atmospheric circulation at cloud-top level from Doppler-imaging data obtained in the visible domain with JIVE, the second node of the JOVIAL network, which is mounted on the Dunn Solar Telescope at Sunspot, New Mexico. We report on 12 nights of observations between May 4 and May 30, 2018, representing a total of about 80 hours. Firstly, the average zonal wind profile derived from our data is compatible with that derived from cloud-tracking measurements performed on Hubble Space Telescope images obtained in April 2018 from the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program. Secondly, we present the first ever two-dimensional maps of Jupiter’s atmospheric circulation from Doppler measurements. The zonal velocity map highlights well-known atmospheric features, such as the equatorial hot spots and the Great Red Spot (GRS). In addition to zonal winds, we derive meridional and vertical velocity fields from the Doppler data. The motions attributed to vertical flows are mainly located at the boundary between the equatorial belts and tropical zones, which could indicate active motion in these regions. Qualitatively, these results compare well to recent Juno data that have unveiled the three-dimensional structure of Jupiter’s wind field. To the contrary, the motions attributed to meridional circulation are very different from what is obtained by cloud tracking, except at the GRS. Because of limitations with data resolution and processing techniques, we acknowledge that our measurement of vertical or meridional flows of Jupiter are still to be confirmed.

Francois-Xavier Schmider↗

Application of Heat Capacity Mapping Mission data to regional geologic analysis for mineral and energy resource evaluation

Heat Capacity Mapping Mission thermal-inertia images of a diversity of terrains and geologic settings were examined in conjunction with topographic, geologic, geophysical, and LANDSAT data. The images were found to have attributes similar to bedrock maps. In the Cascades region, two new features were identified and a method was developed to characterize regional terranes using linear feature data. Two northeast-trending Lineaments were discovered in the Overthrust Belt of Montana and Idaho. The longer of the two extends from the Idaho-Oregon border, through the Idaho batholith and across the Lewis thrust. It coincides, along segments, with mapped faults and an aeromagnetic pattern change. A major lineament crossing the Colorado Plateau and the Southern Rocky Mountians was detected on several thermal-inertial images and evidence was found for the existence of a geologic discontinuity. Vegetation-covered areas in Richfield and the Silver City quadrangle (Arizona and New Mexico) displayed thermal-inertia differences within heavily vegetation areas although no apreciable correlation was found between vegetation cover and thermal inertia. Resistant ridges and knolls have high thermal inertias and thermal-inertia contrasts occurred at lithologic and fault contacts. In the heavy vegetated Pinaleno Mountains, Arizona, a Lithologic unit obscured on LANDSAT MSS data due to the vegetation cover, exhibited a thermal-inertia contrast with its surroundings.

Watson, K.↗

Getting around Antarctica: New High-Resolution Mappings of the Grounded and Freely-Floating Boundaries of the Antarctic Ice Sheet Created for the International Polar Year

Two ice-dynamic transitions of the Antarctic ice sheet - the boundary of grounded ice features and the freely-floating boundary - are mapped at 15-m resolution by participants of the International Polar Year project ASAID using customized software combining Landsat-7 imagery and ICESat/GLAS laser altimetry. The grounded ice boundary is 53 610 km long; 74% abuts to floating ice shelves or outlet glaciers, 19% is adjacent to open or sea-ice covered ocean, and 7% of the boundary ice terminates on land. The freely-floating boundary, called here the hydrostatic line, is the most landward position on ice shelves that expresses the full amplitude of oscillating ocean tides. It extends 27 521 km and is discontinuous. Positional (one-sigma) accuracies of the grounded ice boundary vary an order of magnitude ranging from +/- 52m for the land and open-ocean terminating segments to +/- 502m for the outlet glaciers. The hydrostatic line is less well positioned with errors over 2 km. Elevations along each line are selected from 6 candidate digital elevation models based on their agreement with ICESat elevation values and surface shape inferred from the Landsat imagery. Elevations along the hydrostatic line are converted to ice thicknesses by applying a firn-correction factor and a flotation criterion. BEDMAP-compiled data and other airborne data are compared to the ASAID elevations and ice thicknesses to arrive at quantitative (one-sigma) uncertainties of surface elevations of +/-3.6, +/-9.6, +/-11.4, +/-30 and +/-100m for five ASAID-assigned confidence levels. Over one-half of the surface elevations along the grounded ice boundary and over one-third of the hydrostatic line elevations are ranked in the highest two confidence categories. A comparison between ASAID-calculated ice shelf thicknesses and BEDMAP-compiled data indicate a thin-ice bias of 41.2+/-71.3m for the ASAID ice thicknesses. The relationship between the seaward offset of the hydrostatic line from the grounded ice boundary only weakly matches a prediction based on beam theory. The mapped products along with the customized software to generate them and a variety of intermediate products are available from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Bindschadler, R.↗

Analysis of the quality of image data acquired by the LANDSAT-4 thematic mapper and multispectral scanners

The geometric quality of the TM and MSS film products were evaluated by making selective photo measurements such as scale, linear and area determinations; and by measuring the coordinates of known features on both the film products and map products and then relating these paired observations using a standard linear least squares regression approach. Quantitative interpretation tests are described which evaluate the quality and utility of the TM film products and various band combinations for detecting and identifying important forest and agricultural features.

Colwell, R. N.↗

Questions for the geologic exploration of Venus

Venus is the last terrestrial planet to be mapped in the Solar System. This is an indication not of its relative importance for comparative planetary studies but of the previous lack of demonstrated, affordable technology. Venus is, in fact, the most important planet to study for improving our understanding of global terrestrial processes such as plate tectonics. The next NASA mission to Venus, in 1988, will map the planet at a resolution comparable to that of the Mars Mariner 9 mission. The objective is 70 percent coverage at 1 km per line pair or better. This is the minimum resolution that will allow analysis of tectonic, volcanic, aeolian, meteorite impact and other features. An altimeter will provide a global map of topography that will considerably improve our data base and, together with gravity field measurements, provide better interior geophysical models.

Saunders, R. S.↗

Reduced Order Modeling conditioned on monitored features for response and error bounds estimation in engineered systems

Reduced Order Models (ROMs) form essential tools across engineering domains by virtue of their function as surrogates for computationally intensive digital twinning simulators. Although purely data-driven methods are available for ROM construction, schemes that allow to retain a portion of the physics tend to enhance the interpretability and generalization of ROMs. However, physics-based techniques can adversely scale when dealing with nonlinear systems that feature parametric dependencies. This study introduces a generative physics-based ROM that is suited for nonlinear systems with parametric dependencies and is additionally able to provide numerical error bounds associated with the respective estimates. A main contribution of this work is the conditioning of these parametric ROMs to features that can be derived from monitoring measurements, feasibly in an online fashion. This is contrary to most existing ROM schemes, which remain restricted to the prescription of the physics-based, and usually a priori unknown, system parameters. Our work utilizes conditional Variational Autoencoders to continuously map the required reduction bases to a feature vector extracted from limited output measurements, while additionally allowing for a probabilistic assessment of the ROM-estimated Quantities of Interest. An auxiliary task using a neural network-based parametrization of suitable probability distributions is introduced to re-establish the link with physical model parameters. We verify the proposed scheme on a series of simulated case studies incorporating effects of geometric and material nonlinearity under parametric dependencies related to system properties and input load characteristics.

Conditional VAEs↗

Nebular Hydrogen Absorption in the Ejecta of Eta Carinae

Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) observations of Eta Carinae and immediate ejecta reveal narrow Balmer absorption lines in addition to the nebular-scattered broad P-Cygni absorptions. The narrow absorption correlates with apparent disk structure that separates the two Homunculus lobes. We trace these features about half way up the Northern lobe until the scattered stellar Balmer line doppler-shifts redward beyond the nebular absorption feature. Three-dimensional data cubes, made by mapping the Homunculus at Balmer alpha and Balmer beta with the 52 x 0.1 arcsecond aperture and about 5000 spectral resolving power, demonstrate that the absorption feature changes slowly in velocity with nebular position. We have monitored the stellar Balmer alpha line profile of the central source over the past four years. The equivalent width of the nebular absorption feature changes considerably between observations. The changes do not correlate with measured brightness of Eta Carinae. Likely clumps of neutral hydrogen with a scale size comparable to the stellar disk diameter are passing through the intervening light path on the timescales less than several months. The excitation mechanism involves Lyman alpha radiation (possibly the Lyman series plus Lyman continuum) and collisions leading to populating the 2S metastable state. Before the electron can jump to the ground state by two photon emission (lifetime about 1/8 second), a stellar Balmer photon is absorbed and the electron shifts to an NP level. We see the absorption feature in higher Balmer lines, and but not in Paschen lines. Indeed we see narrow nebular Paschen emission lines. At present, we do not completely understand the details of the absorption. Better understanding should lead to improved insight of the unique conditions around Eta Carinae that leads to these absorptions.

Gull, Theodore R.↗

Mars' global properties - Maps and applications

Mars data sets from many sources have been put into a common digital format and global maps at constant scale have been produced. These formatted data sets form the basis of the Mars Consortium. They currently include maps of geology, volcanic units, channels, wind features, topography, gravity, Viking approach and apoapsis color, predawn temperature residuals, thermal inertia, radiometric and solar albedo, water vapor abundance, 1.4 micrometers albedo, crater abundance, Earth-based radar and photographic telescope observations, and terrestrial spectral observations. The generation of these data sets is briefly described. As an example of their use, the mapped geologic units are characterized in terms of color, predawn temperature and elevation, and unusual areas identified. The Oxia Palus region is examined as an example of combining higher resolution data with the Consortium data sets. Use of the existing data sets and submission of new ones are encouraged.

Kieffer, H. H.↗

Images of Venus by three-station radar interferometry - 1977 results

During the 1977 inferior conjunction of Venus, radar observations were made using three receiving stations as a multiple interferometer. Maps of surface reflectivity and altimetry were prepared from these observations. The new altimetry maps show considerable improvement in relation to many of the earlier maps made using the two-station interferometer. In particular, there are consistent and explainable correlations between the altimetry and reflectivity maps that did not always exist in the past. The highest-resolution maps (about 8 km) show three isolated mountains having altitudes of approximately 2 km above their environs, a pair of ridges separated by approximately 100 km and extending 800 km, and a few anomalous reflectivity features for which little or no altitude change is observed. Other maps at slightly lower resolution show a bright irregular ringed crater, a few large low-reflectivity regions, a shallow crater 150 km in diameter, a gently sloping mountain, and a short ridge running north-south. Many of the later features have been seen in earlier radar maps and should be useful in refining the spin axis and further characterizing the regolith of certain areas of Venus.

Jurgens, R. F.↗

Challenges and Solutions for Precision Solar Pointing on the ISS for the TSIS Instrument

The International Space Station offers an attractive platform for external payloads in many regards, but its large, complex structure is challenging for payloads that require precise, unobstructed pointing. As an instrument that measures solar irradiance on a continual basis, the TSIS payload was designed to robustly account for these ISS challenges and is now performing its mission on the ISS with great success.This paper first describes how TSIS was able to measure the ISS background jitter using High-rate Fine Sun Sensor data that was taken during passive solar transits through its field of view. The measurements showed that ISS jitter at the TSIS location on ELC-3 Site 5 is relatively benign with less than 4 arcseconds 1 at frequencies less than 0.5 Hz. This value is lower than previous estimates but agrees well with recent measurements from other external payloads, including OPALS and SAGE III. Because TSIS was designed to be robust to base motion jitter, it has achieved less than 4 arcseconds 1 of pointing error, which provides an extremely precise pointing platform for the solar irradiance measurements. The other challenging ISS characteristic is its large, complex structure that obscures solar viewing at sunrise and sunset from the zenith-facing location of TSIS. Although TSIS was able to predict solar viewing durations during the design phase with relatively high accuracy, the exact timing and causes of obscuration were difficult to predict and understand after TSIS began operating on the ISS. To aid in the understanding of blockage by ISS structure, detailed obscuration maps were created using HFSS measurements that clearly show the exact gimbal angles where blockage occurs and the specific structural features of the ISS that cause the blockage. These maps have helped TSIS to maximize its solar tracking durations each orbit, which has supported the mission in meeting its science objectives.

background jitter↗

Modeling and Prediction of Wildfire Hazard in Southern California, Integration of Models with Imaging Spectrometry

Large urban wildfires throughout southern California have caused billions of dollars of damage and significant loss of life over the last few decades. Rapid urban growth along the wildland interface, high fuel loads and a potential increase in the frequency of large fires due to climatic change suggest that the problem will worsen in the future. Improved fire spread prediction and reduced uncertainty in assessing fire hazard would be significant, both economically and socially. Current problems in the modeling of fire spread include the role of plant community differences, spatial heterogeneity in fuels and spatio-temporal changes in fuels. In this research, we evaluated the potential of Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) and Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) data for providing improved maps of wildfire fuel properties. Analysis concentrated in two areas of Southern California, the Santa Monica Mountains and Santa Barbara Front Range. Wildfire fuel information can be divided into four basic categories: fuel type, fuel load (live green and woody biomass), fuel moisture and fuel condition (live vs senesced fuels). To map fuel type, AVIRIS data were used to map vegetation species using Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) and Binary Decision Trees. Green live biomass and canopy moisture were mapped using AVIRIS through analysis of the 980 nm liquid water absorption feature and compared to alternate measures of moisture and field measurements. Woody biomass was mapped using L and P band cross polarimetric data acquired in 1998 and 1999. Fuel condition was mapped using spectral mixture analysis to map green vegetation (green leaves), nonphotosynthetic vegetation (NPV; stems, wood and litter), shade and soil. Summaries describing the potential of hyperspectral and SAR data for fuel mapping are provided by Roberts et al. and Dennison et al. To utilize remotely sensed data to assess fire hazard, fuel-type maps were translated into standard fuel models accessible to the FARSITE fire spread simulator. The FARSITE model and BEHAVE are considered industry standards for fire behavior analysis. Anderson level fuels map, generated using a binary decision tree classifier are available for multiple dates in the Santa Monica Mountains and at least one date for Santa Barbara. Fuel maps that will fill in the areas between Santa Barbara and the Santa Monica Mountains study sites are in progress, as part of a NASA Regional Earth Science Application Center, the Southern California Wildfire Hazard Center. Species-level maps, were supplied to fire managing agencies (Los Angeles County Fire, California Department of Forestry). Research results were published extensively in the refereed and non-refereed literature. Educational outreach included funding of several graduate students, undergraduate intern training and an article featured in the California Alliance for Minorities Program (CAMP) Quarterly Journal.

Roberts, Dar A.↗

Residual Study: Testing Jupiter Atmosphere Models Against Juno MWR Observations

The Juno spacecraft provides unique close-up views of Jupiter underneath the synchrotron radiation belts while circling Jupiter in its 53-day orbits. The microwave radiometer (MWR) onboard measures Jupiter thermal radiation at wavelengths between 1.37 and 50 cm, penetrating the atmosphere to a pressure of a few hundred bars and greater. The mission provides the first measurements of Jupiter's deep atmosphere, down to ~250 bars in pressure, constraining the vertical distributions of its kinetic temperature and constituents. As a result, vertical structure models of Jupiter's atmosphere may now be tested by comparison with MWR data. Taking into account the MWR beam patterns and observation geometries, we test several published Jupiter atmospheric models against MWR data. Our residual analysis confirms Li et al.'s (2017, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL073159) result that ammonia depletion persists down to 50–60 bars where ground-based Very Large Array was not able to observe. We also present an extension of the study that iteratively improves the input model and generates Jupiter brightness temperature maps which best match the MWR data. A feature of Juno's north-to-south scanning approach is that latitudinal structure is more easily obtained than longitudinal, and the creation of optimum two-dimensional maps is addressed in this approach.

Zhimeng Zhang↗

Venus gravity fields

Results of Pioneer Venus Orbiter observations concerning the gravity field of Venus are presented. The gravitational data was obtained from reductions of Doppler radio tracking data for the Orbiter, which is in a highly eccentric orbit with periapsis altitude varying from 145 to 180 km and nearly fixed periapsis latitude of 15 deg N. The global gravity field was obtained through the simultaneous estimation of the orbit state parameters and gravity coefficients from long-period variations in orbital element rates. The global field has been described with sixth degree and order spherical harmonic coefficients, which are capable of resolving the three major topographical features on Venus. Local anomalies have been mapped using line-of-sight accelerations derived from the Doppler residuals between 40 deg N and 10 deg S latitude at approximately 300 km spatial resolution. Gravitational data is observed to correspond to topographical data obtained by radar altimeter, with most of the gravitational anomalies about 20-30 milligals. Simulations evaluating the isostatic states of two topographic features indicate that at least partial isostasy prevails, with the possibility of complete compensation.

Sjogren, W. L.↗

Evaluate the application of ERTS-A data for detecting and mapping sea ice

The author has identified the following significant results. Generally good agreement has been observed between the location of ice edges and ice concentrations as indicated on aerial observation charts and as mapped from ERTS-1 imagery. Moreover, ice surface features reported to be ridges and thaw holes are readily detected in the ERTS-1 imagery. Reported hummocks, puddles, frozen puddles, and rafted ice are not as readily detected in the imagery, although brightness variations on some ice surfaces can be distinguished, thereby suggesting their presence. In the ERTS-1 imagery, although dark new ice and nilas are difficult to detect, other younger forms of ice can be mapped and can usually be distinguished from older ice because of their lower, more uniform reflectance. A preliminary examination of the initial sample of ERTS-1 imagery collected during the spring, during the season of maximum ice extend, indicates several ice features of interest. Compact pack ice can be distinguished from coastal fast ice, and many leads can be mapped, even in the mid-Beaufort Sea. Several leads have distinct variation in reflectance.

Barnes, J. C.↗

A Statistical Analysis of Corona Topography: New Insights into Corona Formation and Evolution

Extensive mapping of the surface of Venus and continued analysis of Magellan data have allowed a more comprehensive survey of coronae to be conducted. Our updated corona database contains 514 features, an increase from the 326 coronae of the previous survey. We include a new set of 106 Type 2 or stealth coronae, which have a topographic rather than a fracture annulus. The large increase in the number of coronae over the 1992 survey results from several factors, including the use of the full Magellan data set and the addition of features identified as part of the systematic geologic mapping of Venus. Parameters of the population that we have analyzed to date include size and topography.

Stofan, E. R.↗