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At least 703 records · Page 39

Evolutionary Based Techniques for Fault Tolerant Field Programmable Gate Arrays

The use of SRAM-based Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) is becoming more and more prevalent in space applications. Commercial-grade FPGAs are potentially susceptible to permanently debilitating Single-Event Latchups (SELs). Repair methods based on Evolutionary Algorithms may be applied to FPGA circuits to enable successful fault recovery. This paper presents the experimental results of applying such methods to repair four commonly used circuits (quadrature decoder, 3-by-3-bit multiplier, 3-by-3-bit adder, 440-7 decoder) into which a number of simulated faults have been introduced. The results suggest that evolutionary repair techniques can improve the process of fault recovery when used instead of or as a supplement to Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR), which is currently the predominant method for mitigating FPGA faults.

Larchev, Gregory V.↗

Maya Forest Water Resources II: Mapping Inundation Below the Forest Canopy in the Maya Tri-National Forest

To monitor seasonal flooding within the tri-National Maya Forest the team completed the methodology started by the Summer 2021 term to analyze changes in inundation dynamic throughout 2017. The team analyzed inundation dynamics in Google Earth Engine (GEE) using Earth observation products from the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) 2, and International Space Station (ISS) Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation LiDAR (GEDI). The team improved the landcover classification using the Random Forest algorithm in GEE by adding canopy height data derived from GEDI, elevation and slope data from Copernicus, and additional multi-spectral band ratios from Landsat 8. The pixel-based land cover classification produced an overall accuracy of 88%. Experiments measuring inundation extent using L-band SAR included comparing results with a priori knowledge, topography datasets, and auxiliary datasets. We iteratively tested and found threshold values for identifying forested inundation using the ratio for HH divided by HV. The resulting methodology and products helped end users from Belize’s Land Information Center (LIC) and Forest Department, Guatemala’s Center for Monitoring and Evaluation (CEMEC), and Mexico’s El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) manage land and water resources and protect communities.

Stephanie Jiménez↗

AR/D image processing system

General Dynamics has developed advanced hardware, software, and algorithms for use with the Tomahawk cruise missile and other unmanned vehicles. We have applied this technology to the problem of locating and determining the orientation of the docking port of a target vehicle with respect to an approaching spacecraft. The system described in this presentation utilizes a multi-processor based computer to digitize and process television imagery and extract parameters such as range to the target vehicle, approach, velocity, and pitch and yaw angles. The processor is based on the Inmos T-800 Transputer and is configured as a loosely coupled array. Each processor operates asynchronously and has its own local memory. This allows additional processors to be easily added if additional processing power is required for more complex tasks. Total system throughput is approximately 100 MIPS (scalar) and 60 MFLOPS and can be expanded as desired. The algorithm implemented on the system uses a unique adaptive thresholding technique to locate the target vehicle and determine the approximate position of the docking port. A target pattern surrounding the port is than analyzed in the imagery to determine the range and orientation of the target. This information is passed to an autopilot which uses it to perform course and speed corrections. Future upgrades to the processor are described which will enhance its capabilities for a variety of missions.

Wookey, Cathy↗

Scientific machine learning benchmarks

Deep learning has transformed the use of machine learning technologies for the analysis of large experimental datasets. In science, such datasets are typically generated by large-scale experimental facilities, and machine learning focuses on the identification of patterns, trends and anomalies to extract meaningful scientific insights from the data. In upcoming experimental facilities, such as the Extreme Photonics Application Centre (EPAC) in the UK or the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the rate of data generation and the scale of data volumes will increasingly require the use of more automated data analysis. Furthermore, at present, identifying the most appropriate machine learning algorithm for the analysis of any given scientific dataset is a challenge due to the potential applicability of many different machine learning frameworks, computer architectures and machine learning models. Historically, for modelling and simulation on high-performance computing systems, these issues have been addressed through benchmarking computer applications, algorithms and architectures. Extending such a benchmarking approach and identifying metrics for the application of machine learning methods to open, curated scientific datasets is a new challenge for both scientists and computer scientists. Here, we introduce the concept of machine learning benchmarks for science and review existing approaches. As an example, we describe the SciMLBench suite of scientific machine learning benchmarks.

42 ENGINEERING↗

FY 2025 End of Year Report: Seismic Monitoring of Underground Vibration Sources using Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) and Seismometers

This end-of-year report summarizes progress on using seismic monitoring to detect, associate, and locate anomalous vibration signals that may indicate potential containment breaches. The work focused on four key tasks: 1. Developing a database of continuous waveforms and ground-truth event data from multiple sensing modalities. 2. Refining and implementing detection and association algorithms to generate a catalog of anomalous underground activities. 3. Testing and improving distributed acoustic sensing amplitude-based geolocation methods to build an event location catalog. 4. Testing and refining seismic array polarization-based geolocation methods to build an event location catalog. This report provides a brief recap of results from the FY25 midyear report (Tasks 1 and 2) and presents new findings from geolocation methods (Tasks 3 and 4).

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Identification of characteristic oligonucleotides in the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA sequence dataset

MOTIVATION: The phylogenetic structure of the bacterial world has been intensively studied by comparing sequences of 16S ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA). This database of sequences is now widely used to design probes for the detection of specific bacteria or groups of bacteria one at a time. The success of such methods reflects the fact that there are local sequence segments that are highly characteristic of particular organisms or groups of organisms. It is not clear, however, the extent to which such signature sequences exist in the 16S rRNA dataset. A better understanding of the numbers and distribution of highly informative oligonucleotide sequences may facilitate the design of hybridization arrays that can characterize the phylogenetic position of an unknown organism or serve as the basis for the development of novel approaches for use in bacterial identification. RESULTS: A computer-based algorithm that characterizes the extent to which any individual oligonucleotide sequence in 16S rRNA is characteristic of any particular bacterial grouping was developed. A measure of signature quality, Q(s), was formulated and subsequently calculated for every individual oligonucleotide sequence in the size range of 5-11 nucleotides and for 15mers with reference to each cluster and subcluster in a 929 organism representative phylogenetic tree. Subsequently, the perfect signature sequences were compared to the full set of 7322 sequences to see how common false positives were. The work completed here establishes beyond any doubt that highly characteristic oligonucleotides exist in the bacterial 16S rRNA sequence dataset in large numbers. Over 16,000 15mers were identified that might be useful as signatures. Signature oligonucleotides are available for over 80% of the nodes in the representative tree.

NASA Discipline Life Sciences Technologies↗

Miniaturized multiplex label-free electronic chip for rapid nucleic acid analysis based on carbon nanotube nanoelectrode arrays

BACKGROUND: Reducing cost and time is the major concern in clinical diagnostics, particularly in molecular diagnostics. Miniaturization technologies have been recognized as promising solutions to provide low-cost microchips for diagnostics. With the recent advancement in nanotechnologies, it is possible to further improve detection sensitivity and simplify sample preparation by incorporating nanoscale elements in diagnostics devices. A fusion of micro- and nanotechnologies with biology has great potential for the development of low-cost disposable chips for rapid molecular analysis that can be carried out with simple handheld devices. APPROACH: Vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) are fabricated on predeposited microelectrode pads and encapsulated in SiO2 dielectrics with only the very end exposed at the surface to form an inlaid nanoelectrode array (NEA). The NEA is used to collect the electrochemical signal associated with the target molecules binding to the probe molecules, which are covalently attached to the end of the MWNTs. CONTENT: A 3 x 3 microelectrode array is presented to demonstrate the miniaturization and multiplexing capability. A randomly distributed MWNT NEA is fabricated on each microelectrode pad. Selective functionalization of the MWNT end with a specific oligonucleotide probe and passivation of the SiO2 surface with ethylene glycol moieties are discussed. Ru(bpy)2+ -mediator-amplified guanine oxidation is used to directly measure the electrochemical signal associated with target molecules. SUMMARY: The discussed MWNT NEAs have ultrahigh sensitivity in direct electrochemical detection of guanine bases in the nucleic acid target. Fewer than approximately 1000 target nucleic acid molecules can be measured with a single microelectrode pad of approximately 20 x 20 microm2, which approaches the detection limit of laser scanners in fluorescence-based DNA microarray techniques. MWNT NEAs can be easily integrated with microelectronic circuitry and microfluidics for development of a fully automated system for rapid molecular analysis with minimum cost.

Carbon↗

Automated Wildfire Detection Through Artificial Neural Networks

We have tested and deployed Artificial Neural Network (ANN) data mining techniques to analyze remotely sensed multi-channel imaging data from MODIS, GOES, and AVHRR. The goal is to train the ANN to learn the signatures of wildfires in remotely sensed data in order to automate the detection process. We train the ANN using the set of human-detected wildfires in the U.S., which are provided by the Hazard Mapping System (HMS) wildfire detection group at NOAA/NESDIS. The ANN is trained to mimic the behavior of fire detection algorithms and the subjective decision- making by N O M HMS Fire Analysts. We use a local extremum search in order to isolate fire pixels, and then we extract a 7x7 pixel array around that location in 3 spectral channels. The corresponding 147 pixel values are used to populate a 147-dimensional input vector that is fed into the ANN. The ANN accuracy is tested and overfitting is avoided by using a subset of the training data that is set aside as a test data set. We have achieved an automated fire detection accuracy of 80-92%, depending on a variety of ANN parameters and for different instrument channels among the 3 satellites. We believe that this system can be deployed worldwide or for any region to detect wildfires automatically in satellite imagery of those regions. These detections can ultimately be used to provide thermal inputs to climate models.

Miller, Jerry↗

Integrated Performance of Next Generation High Data Rate Receiver and AR4JA LDPC Codec for Space Communications

Low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are the state-of-the-art in forward error correction (FEC) technology that exhibits capacity approaching performance. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has designed a family of LDPC codes that are similar in structure and therefore, leads to a single decoder implementation. The Accumulate-Repeat-by-4-Jagged- Accumulate (AR4JA) code design offers a family of codes with rates 1/2, 2/3, 4/5 and lengths 1024, 4096, 16384 information bits. Performance is less than one dB from capacity for all combinations.Integrating a stand-alone LDPC decoder with a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) receiver faces additional challenges than building a single receiver-decoder unit from scratch. In this work, we outline the issues and show that these additional challenges can be over-come by simple solutions. To demonstrate that an LDPC decoder can be made to work seamlessly with a COTS receiver, we interface an AR4JA LDPC decoder developed on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) with a modern high data rate receiver and mea- sure the combined receiver-decoder performance. Through optimizations that include an improved frame synchronizer and different soft-symbol scaling algorithms, we show that a combined implementation loss of less than one dB is possible and therefore, most of the coding gain evidence in theory can also be obtained in practice. Our techniques can benefit any modem that utilizes an advanced FEC code.

Cheng, Michael K.↗

Maya Forest Water Resources I: Using NASA Earth Observations to Map Forested Inundation in the Maya Forest

As climate change increases the severity and frequency of extreme weather events in the tropics, it is vital for the safety of local communities and the health of ecosystems to monitor seasonal inundation. Forested inundation affects the ability of forested wetlands to provide ecosystem services, such as flood mitigation, water filtration, carbon storage, and erosion mitigation. While ground-based monitoring has traditionally been used to map inundation extent, those methods are costly and time-intensive. The NASA DEVELOP team focused on seasonal inundation throughout 2008 in the Maya Forest, when changes in inundation were drastic. To monitor seasonal inundation, our team used in situ field data and Earth observations from Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+), Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) 1, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), and products from the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). The team applied a Random Forest algorithm to Landsat 7 imagery, generating an object-level land cover classification with an overall accuracy of 72.1% and forest class with 100% recall and 78% precision. The team applied L-band backscatter thresholds from existing literature to forest-masked ALOS imagery and refined the thresholds in an iterative process using field data and hydrology models to delineate seasonal inundation extent. These publicly available data products help end users from Belize’s Land Information Center (LIC) and Forest Department, Guatemala’s Center for Monitoring and Evaluation (CEMEC), and Mexico’s El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) to inform land management and protect community infrastructure.

Madelyn Savan↗

Causes and Effects of AIRS Optics Temperature Cycles

In addition to the expected orbital thermal cycle, geophysical conditions with high thermal and reflected upwelling infrared (IR) drive measurable changes in the AIRS instrument with a period of 24 hours. Especially hot and bright scenes are important, with about 30% of the variability driven by thermal IR and 70% by reflected IR. We show how these cycles manifest in the instrument telemetry for temperatures and gain and with careful analysis can even be detected in spectral shifts.Thermal cycles are an unavoidable feature of instruments observing upwelling radiances from Earth, because the signal inherently carries varying amounts of energy into the instrument. Temperature control of the optical bench, on-board calibrator blackbody, and Focal Plane Array (FPA) in AIRS reduce the impacts of temperature variability to extremely small levels. This combined with good on-board telemetry of the temperatures and including temperature variability in our calibration algorithm has resulted in an instrument that achieves ‘climate quality’ measurements. Careful instrument and algorithm design allows us to characterize and document the impact of temperature variability and limit the effects to negligible levels, helping the instrument meet important climate-quality criteria specified in Ohring 2005

Overoye, Kenneth↗

Evolutionary Design of a Phased Array Antenna Element

We present an evolved S-band phased array antenna element design that meets the requirements of NASA's TDRS-C communications satellite scheduled for launch early next decade. The original specification called for two types of elements, one for receive only and one for transmit/receive. We were able to evolve a single element design that meets both specifications thereby simplifying the antenna and reducing testing and integration costs. The highest performance antenna found using a genetic algorithm and stochastic hill-climbing has been fabricated and tested. Laboratory results are largely consistent with simulation. Researchers have been investigating evolutionary antenna design and optimization since the early 1990s, and the field has grown in recent years its computer speed has increased and electromagnetic simulators have improved. Many antenna types have been investigated, including wire antennas, antenna arrays and quadrifilar helical antennas. In particular, our laboratory evolved a wire antenna design for NASA's Space Technology 5 (ST5) spacecraft. This antenna has been fabricated, tested, and is scheduled for launch on the three spacecraft in 2006.

Globus, Al↗

Benchmarking Quantum Chemistry Computations with Variational, Imaginary Time Evolution, and Krylov Space Solver Algorithms

Quantum chemistry is a key application area for noisy-intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) devices, and therefore serves as an important benchmark for current and future quantum computer performance. Previous benchmarks in this field have focused on variational methods for computing ground and excited states of various molecules, including a benchmarking suite focused on the performance of computing ground states for alkali-hydrides under an array of error mitigation methods. State-of-the-art methods to reach chemical accuracy in hybrid quantum-classical electronic structure calculations of alkali hydride molecules on NISQ devices from IBM are outlined here. Here it is demonstrated how to extend the reach of variational eigensolvers with symmetry preserving Ansätze. Next, it is outlined how to use quantum imaginary time evolution and Lanczos as a complementary method to variational techniques, highlighting the advantages of each approach. Finally, a new error mitigation method is demonstrated which uses systematic error cancellation via hidden inverse gate constructions, improving the performance of typical variational algorithms. These results show that electronic structure calculations have advanced rapidly, to routine chemical accuracy for simple molecules, from their inception on quantum computers a few short years ago, and they point to further rapid progress to larger molecules as the power of NISQ devices grows.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Current Status of SAMMY [Slides]

SAMMY is used to analyze experimental data mainly in the resolved range to generate evaluated data files for use in transport codes. The code base in SAMMY is still mostly F77, i.e., fixed line length and almost no use of modules. SAMMY is used in production environments, so during the modernization its functionality cannot be lost. That means we cannot simply rewrite it from scratch. Modernization is needed to allow us to add new features (for example new and improved algorithms in the resolved range). SAMMY has a large suite of regression tests that can be run and whose outputs can be checked automatically. During the modernization process, we will not change the results of these regression tests, except if errors in the original coding are found and corrected. Future plans for SAMMY include converting all container array access to Fortran allocate (or use C++ storage) and finishing the conversion to use C++ storage for all resonance parameters. We have an initial C++ implementation of the cross section reconstruction from R-Matrix parameters, used in AMPX. We will update this code, add reconstruction of angular data and derivatives and will use it in AMPX and SAMMY. Once this is done, we can start to add new features to the R-Matrix algorithm, like complex channel radii or relativistic effects. We also intend to modularize SAMMY to separate cross section reconstruction, experimental effect etc. from the Bayes fitting routines.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

JavaGenes and Condor: Cycle-Scavenging Genetic Algorithms

A genetic algorithm code, JavaGenes, was written in Java and used to evolve pharmaceutical drug molecules and digital circuits. JavaGenes was run under the Condor cycle-scavenging batch system managing 100-170 desktop SGI workstations. Genetic algorithms mimic biological evolution by evolving solutions to problems using crossover and mutation. While most genetic algorithms evolve strings or trees, JavaGenes evolves graphs representing (currently) molecules and circuits. Java was chosen as the implementation language because the genetic algorithm requires random splitting and recombining of graphs, a complex data structure manipulation with ample opportunities for memory leaks, loose pointers, out-of-bound indices, and other hard to find bugs. Java garbage-collection memory management, lack of pointer arithmetic, and array-bounds index checking prevents these bugs from occurring, substantially reducing development time. While a run-time performance penalty must be paid, the only unacceptable performance we encountered was using standard Java serialization to checkpoint and restart the code. This was fixed by a two-day implementation of custom checkpointing. JavaGenes is minimally integrated with Condor; in other words, JavaGenes must do its own checkpointing and I/O redirection. A prototype Java-aware version of Condor was developed using standard Java serialization for checkpointing. For the prototype to be useful, standard Java serialization must be significantly optimized. JavaGenes is approximately 8700 lines of code and a few thousand JavaGenes jobs have been run. Most jobs ran for a few days. Results include proof that genetic algorithms can evolve directed and undirected graphs, development of a novel crossover operator for graphs, a paper in the journal Nanotechnology, and another paper in preparation.

Globus, Al↗

Bayesian projection pursuit regression

In projection pursuit regression (PPR), a univariate response variable is approximated by the sum of $M$ “ridge functions,” which are flexible functions of one-dimensional projections of a multivariate input variable. Traditionally, optimization routines are used to choose the projection directions and ridge functions via a sequential algorithm, and $M$ is typically chosen via cross-validation. Here, we introduce a novel Bayesian version of PPR, which has the benefit of accurate uncertainty quantification. To infer appropriate projection directions and ridge functions, we apply novel adaptations of methods used for the single ridge function case ($M$=1), called the Bayesian Single Index Model; and use a Reversible Jump Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm to infer the number of ridge functions $M$. We evaluate the predictive ability of our model in 20 simulated scenarios and for 23 real datasets, in a bake-off against an array of state-of-the-art regression methods. Finally, we generalize this methodology and demonstrate the ability to accurately model multivariate response variables. Its effective performance indicates that Bayesian Projection Pursuit Regression is a valuable addition to the existing regression toolbox.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Coarse-grain cluster analysis of tensors with application to climate biome identification

A tensor provides a concise way to codify the interdependence of complex data. Treating a tensor as a d-way array, each entry records the interaction between the different indices. Clustering provides a way to parse the complexity of the data into more readily understandable information. Clustering methods are heavily dependent on the algorithm of choice, as well as the chosen hyperparameters of the algorithm. However, their sensitivity to data scales is largely unknown. In this work, we apply the discrete wavelet transform to analyze the effects of coarse-graining on clustering tensor data. We are particularly interested in understanding how scale affects clustering of the Earth's climate system. The discrete wavelet transform allows classification of the Earth's climate across a multitude of spatial-temporal scales. The discrete wavelet transform is used to produce an ensemble of classification estimates, as opposed to a single classification. Each element of the ensemble is a clustering at a different spatial-temporal scale. Information theoretic approaches are used to identify important scale lengths in clustering the L15 Climate Datset. We also discover a sub-collection of the ensemble that spans the majority of the variance observed, allowing for efficient consensus clustering techniques that can be used to identify climate biomes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗