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At least 127 records · Page 7

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the 1998-1999 NASA CONNECT Program

NASA CONNECT is a standards-based, integrated mathematics, science, and technology series of 30-minute instructional distance learning (satellite and television) programs for students in grades 5-8. Each of the five programs in the 1998-1999 NASA CONNECT series included a lesson, an educator guide, a student activity or experiment, and a web-based component. In March 1999, a mail (self-reported) survey (booklet) was sent to a randomly selected sample of 1,000 NASA CONNECT registrants. A total of 401 surveys (351 usable) were received by the established cut-off date. Most survey questions employed a 5-point Likert-type response scale. Survey topics included: (1) instructional technology and teaching, (2) instructional programming and technology in the classroom, (3) the NASA CONNECT program, (4) classroom use of computer technology, and (5) demographics. About 68% of the respondents were female, about 88% identified "classroom teacher" as their present professional duty, about 75% worked in a public school, and about 67% held a master's degree or master's equivalency. Regarding NASA CONNECT, respondents reported that: (1) they used the five programs in the 1998-1999 NASA CONNECT series; (2) the stated objectives for each program were met (4.49); (3) the programs were aligned with the national mathematics, science, and technology standards (4.61); (4) program content was developmentally appropriate for grade level (4.25); and (5) the programs in the 1998-1999 NASA CONNECT series enhanced/enriched the teaching of mathematics, science, and technology (4.45).

Pinelli, Thomas E.↗

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the 1999-2000 NASA CONNECT Program

NASA CONNECT is a standards-based, integrated mathematics, science, and technology series of 30-minute instructional distance learning (satellite and television) programs for students in grades 6-8. Each of the five programs in the 1999-2000 NASA CONNECT series included a lesson, an educator guide, a student activity or experiment, and a web-based component. In March 2000, a mail (self-reported) survey (booklet) was sent to a randomly selected sample of 1,000 NASA CONNECT registrants. A total of 336 surveys (269 usable) were received by the established cut-off date. Most survey questions employed a 5-point Likert-type response scale. Survey topics included (1) instructional technology and teaching, (2) instructional programming and technology in the classroom, (3) the NASA CONNECT program, (4) classroom use of computer technology, and (5) demographics. About 73% of the respondents were female, about 92% identified "classroom teacher" as their present professional duty, about 90% worked in a public school, and about 62% held a master's degree or master's equivalency. Regarding NASA CONNECT, respondents reported that (1) they used the five programs in the 1999-2000 NASA CONNECT series; (2) the stated objectives for each program were met (4.54); (3) the programs were aligned with the national mathematics, science, and technology standards (4.57); (4) program content was developmentally appropriate for grade level (4.17); and (5) the programs in the 1999-2000 NASA CONNECT series enhanced/enriched the teaching of mathematics, science, and technology (4.51).

Pinelli, Thomas E.↗

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the 2000-2001 NASA CONNECT(TM) Program

This report contains the results of the evaluation conducted for the 2000-2001 NASA CONNECT(TM) program conducted in March 2001. The analysis is based on the results collected from 154 surveys collected from educators registered for the program. Respondents indicated that the objectives for each program were met; the programs were aligned with the national (mathematics, science, and technology) standards; the programs were developmentally (grade level) appropriate; and the programs in the 2000-2001 NASA CONNECT(TM) series enhanced/enriched the teaching of mathematics, science, and technology.

Pinelli, Thomas E.↗

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the 2001-2002 NASA CONNECT(tm) Program

NASA CONNECT(tm) is a research and standards-based, integrated mathematics, science, and technology series of 30-minute instructional distance learning (television and web-based) programs for students in grades 6-8. Respondents who evaluated the programs in the 2001-2002 NASA CONNECT(tm) series reported that (1) they used the programs in the series; (2) the goals and objectives for the series were met; (3) the programs were aligned with the national mathematics, science, and technology standards; (4) the program content was developmentally appropriate for grade level; and (5) the programs in the series enhanced and enriched the teaching of mathematics, science, and technology.

Pinelli, Thomas E.↗

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the 2002-2003 NASA CONNECT(TM) Program

NASA CONNECT is a research-, inquiry-, and standards-based, integrated mathematics, science, and technology series of 30-minute instructional distance learning (television and web-based) programs for students in grades 6 8. Respondents who evaluated the programs in the 2002 2003 NASA CONNECT series reported that (1) they used the programs in the series; (2) the goals and objectives for the series were met; (3) the programs were aligned with the national mathematics, science, and technology standards; (4) the program content was developmentally appropriate for grade level; and (5) the programs in the series enhanced and enriched the teaching of mathematics, science, and technology.

Pinelli, Thomas E.↗

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the 2003-2004 NASA CONNECT(trademark)Program

NASA CONNECT is an Emmy-award-winning series of instructional (distance learning) programs for grades 6-8. Produced by the NASA Center for Distance Learning, the nine programs in the 2003-2004 NASA CONNECT series are research-, inquiry-, standards-, teacher-, and technology-based and include a 30-minute program, an educator guide containing a hands-on activity, and a web-based component. The 1,500 randomly selected NASA CONNECT registered users were invited to complete an electronic (self-reported) survey that employed a 5-point Likert-type scale. Regarding NASA CONNECT, respondents reported that the programs (1) enhance the teaching of mathematics, science, and technology (4.53); (2) are aligned with the national mathematics, science, and technology standards (4.52); (3) raise student awareness of careers requiring mathematics, science, and technology (4.48); (4) demonstrate the application of mathematics, science, and technology (4.47); and (5) present women and minorities performing challenging engineering and science tasks (4.50).

Caton, Randall H.↗

Effective theory tower for μ → e conversion

We present theoretical predictions for μ → e conversion rates using a tower of effective field theories connecting the UV to nuclear physics scales. The interactions in nuclei are described using a recently developed nonrelativistic effective theory (NRET) that organizes contributions according to bound nucleon and muon velocities, ${\overrightarrow{v}}_N$ and ${\overrightarrow{v}}_μ$, with |${\overrightarrow{v}}_N$| > |${\overrightarrow{v}}_μ$|. To facilitate the top-down matching, we enlarge the set of Lorentz covariant nucleon-level interactions mapped onto the NRET operators to include those mediated by tensor interactions, in addition to the scalar and vector interactions already considered previously, and then match NRET nonperturbatively onto the Weak Effective Theory (WET). At the scale μ ≈ 2 GeV WET is formulated in terms of u, d, s quarks, gluons and photons as the light degrees of freedom, along with the flavor-violating leptonic current. We retain contributions from WET operators up to dimension 7, which requires the full set of 26 NRET operators. The results are encoded in the open-source Python- and Mathematica-based software suite MuonBridge, which we make available to the theoretical and experimental communities interested in μ → e conversion.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Sustainable Public Transport: Providing Responsive, On-Demand Service with Clean Energy

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) uses the Mobility Energy Productivity (MEP) as a metric and a lens to guide applied research into high performance public mobility. In the current initiative to abate global warming, the US needs not only zero-emission vehicles in the transit fleet (such as buses and shuttles) but also time- and cost-effective services to connect people with goods, services and employment toward a high-quality of life. Our current transportation system is overly dependent on personally-owned automobiles for high quality mobility, with public modes being less viable in many areas. Simply electrifying the drivetrains of existing public transit modes will fail to improve the quality of mobility for those that do not have access to private automobiles. The slow rebound by transit from the pandemic reveals the need to reinvent public transit service. Using the MEP lens, NREL researchers have tracked various novel developments in the public mobility space, with the confluence of shared, on-demand transit (ODT) services using light duty vehicles emerging as a key enabler of high-efficiency public mobility. Deployments such as those in Arlington, TX, Dallas, TX, Fort Erie, ON, and Innisfil, ON showcase the use of fleets of light-duty vehicles as the basis for community circulation and first/last mile to intra-regional transit. ODT services have demonstrated improvements in being more time efficient for riders, more energy efficient in operation (even before the introduction of fully electric vehicles), as well as being cost effective. It appears that aspects of the long-awaited promise of Personal Rapid Transit from the 1970s are beginning to be realized through ODT deployments, leveraging transportation network company (TNC) logistics, popularized by Uber and Lyft, but applied to public mobility. Currently, manually driven ODT operations are already cost competitive with traditional transit systems on a cost per ride basis, and full automation promises to reduce costs by 50% while providing additional safety and verified customer service. Connecting these ODT systems with efficient and effective intra-regional backbone transit service is the next step, with transit agencies like DART providing early results. This discussion will walk through the evidence for this postulated outcome and show results from a series of case-studies.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Early-Time (E1) High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse Effects on Trip Coils

A High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) is a potential threat to the power grid. HEMP can couple to transmission lines and cables, causing significant overvoltages which can be harmful to line connected equipment. The effects of overvoltages on various types of power systems components need to be understood. HEMP effects on trip coils were tested and presented in this report. A high voltage pulser was built to replicate the induced voltage waveform from a HEMP. The pulser was used to test breaker trip coils with increasing pulse magnitudes ranging from 20 kV to 80 kV. The State-of-Health of each trip coils was measured via mechanical operation and impedance measurements before and after each insult to identify any damage or degradation to the trip coils. Dielectric breakdown was observed at the conductor leads during testing, causing the HEMP insult to be diverted to the grounded casing. However, the dielectric breakdown did not cause interference with regular device operation.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Right-Angle Mechanized Electrical Connector

Right-angle electrical connector embedded in mechanism accommodates some initial misalignment and aligns itself. Connection and disconnection effected with relatively small forces and torques and simple movements. Actuated by one gloved hand or by robotic manipulator. Useful in underwater, nuclear, hot, cold, or toxic environments in which connections made or broken by heavily clothed technicians or by robots.

Collins, Clint A.↗

The flexible mounting of an airplane engine

Discussed here is the suggested installation of the 'unbalanced' 8-cylinder VE-engine. The suggestion was that a flexible mounting be used instead of bolting the engine rigidly to the airplane structure. It was concluded that a flexible connection between the engine and the airplane is probably possible. A flexible connection primarily diminishes the vibrations due to inertia and, to a lesser degree, those due to torque variation. However, engines vibrate more when freely suspended than when rigidly mounted, and this vibration has a detrimental effect on all connections between the engine and the airplane. Therefore, in view of the relatively insignificant advantages which may be derived from the elastic suspension of the engine, the present rigid mounting is to be preferred. Vibration reduction can be achieved by incorporating in the fuselage as many of the rigid airplane parts as possible.

Kutzbach, K↗

A neural network with modular hierarchical learning

This invention provides a new hierarchical approach for supervised neural learning of time dependent trajectories. The modular hierarchical methodology leads to architectures which are more structured than fully interconnected networks. The networks utilize a general feedforward flow of information and sparse recurrent connections to achieve dynamic effects. The advantages include the sparsity of units and connections, the modular organization. A further advantage is that the learning is much more circumscribed learning than in fully interconnected systems. The present invention is embodied by a neural network including a plurality of neural modules each having a pre-established performance capability wherein each neural module has an output outputting present results of the performance capability and an input for changing the present results of the performance capabilitiy. For pattern recognition applications, the performance capability may be an oscillation capability producing a repeating wave pattern as the present results. In the preferred embodiment, each of the plurality of neural modules includes a pre-established capability portion and a performance adjustment portion connected to control the pre-established capability portion.

Baldi, Pierre F.↗

Modular, Hierarchical Learning By Artificial Neural Networks

Modular and hierarchical approach to supervised learning by artificial neural networks leads to neural networks more structured than neural networks in which all neurons fully interconnected. These networks utilize general feedforward flow of information and sparse recurrent connections to achieve dynamical effects. The modular organization, sparsity of modular units and connections, and fact that learning is much more circumscribed are all attractive features for designing neural-network hardware. Learning streamlined by imitating some aspects of biological neural networks.

Baldi, Pierre F.↗

Probing ab initio emergence of nuclear rotation

Structural phenomena in nuclei, from shell structure and clustering to superfluidity and collective rotations and vibrations, reflect emergent degrees of freedom. Ab initio theory describes nuclei directly from a fully microscopic formulation. We can therefore look to ab initio theory as a means of exploring the emergence of effective degrees of freedom in nuclei. For the illustrative case of emergent rotational bands in the $Be$ isotopes, we establish an understanding of the underlying oscillator space and angular momentum (orbital and spin) structure. We consider no-core configuration interaction (NCCI) calculations for 7, 9, 11 Be with the Daejeon16 internucleon interaction. Although shell model or rotational degrees of freedom are not assumed in the ab initio theory, the NCCI results are suggestive of the emergence of effective shell model degrees of freedom (0$\hbar$ω and 2$\hbar$ω excitations) and LS-scheme rotational degrees of freedom, consistent with an Elliott–Wilsdon SU(3) description. Finally, these results provide some basic insight into the connection between emergent effective collective rotational and shell model degrees of freedom in these light nuclei and the underlying ab initio microscopic description.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Effects of Composition and Oxidation States on the Structures of Chromium-Containing Sodium Silicate Glasses: Molecular Dynamics Simulations using Machine Learning Interatomic Potentials

Chromium represents a significant challenge for the vitrification of high-level nuclear waste into silicate and borosilicate glasses due to its low solubility and variable oxidation states, which can limit the waste loading due to promotion of crystallization or phase separation during processing. In this study, we modeled chromium containing silicate glasses using molecular dynamics simulations with three machine learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs), MACE, CHGNet, and PFP were employed, to gain insights on glass composition and oxidation states on the structures of these glasses. One of the goals is to evaluate their ability of these MLIPs to accurately represent the general structure of silicate glasses and chromium local environments as a function of chromium oxidation states. Density Functional Theory (DFT) based calculations and experimental data such as neutron structure factors were used to validate the structural models. It was found that the foundation models of all three MLIPs are able to reproduce general structural features of the sodium silicate glass structure consistent with experimental and DFT data, but only CHGNet and PFP can accurately capture the oxidation states and local environment of chromium: tetrahedral for Cr6+ and octahedral for Cr3+. Furthermore, we studied the effect of varying Cr3+/ Cr6+ (Cr3+/Crtotal) ratio and total chromium content using PFP. Our results show that Cr6+ enhances network polymerization by reducing non-bridging oxygens through Na? charge compensation required due to the formation of chromate (CrO42-) species, while Cr³? acts as a network modifier that disrupts connectivity. System size effects on the structural characteristics and chromium environments were also tested using the PFP potential. This work highlights the importance of careful validation on the precision, transferability, and potential of MLIPs for modeling glasses containing transition metal elements that can exist in multiple oxidation states. It is also encouraging to see the foundational models are all three MLFFs are able to reproduce the basic sodium silicate glass structures, while suggesting additional training or refining is needed to improve the description of more complex systems containing transition metals.

Puga, Christina L.↗

Ethane-CO2 Mixture Adsorption in Silicalite: Influence of Tortuosity and Connectivity of Pores on Selectivity

Selective adsorption using nanoporous materials is an efficient strategy for separating gas mixtures. In a nanoporous material, pores can exist in different shapes and can have different degrees of inter-connectivity. In recent studies, both pore connectivity and tortuosity have been found to affect the adsorption and dynamical properties of ethane and CO2 in silicalite differently. Here, using Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate if these two attributes can affect the selective adsorption of one component from a mixture of ethane and CO2 in silicalite. For this, the adsorption of an equimolar mixture of ethane and CO2 is simulated in 12 models of silicalite—SnZm (n, m = 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4; with n and m denoting, respectively, the fraction (out of 4) of straight and zigzag channels of silicalite that are available for adsorption)—differing in degrees of pore connectivity and tortuosity. The adsorption selectivity in this system is found to exhibit a reversal with the adsorption dominated by ethane at low pressures (below ~1 atm) and by CO2 at higher pressures (above ~10 atm). Pore connectivity is found to suppress the selective adsorption of CO2 at higher pressures and also shifts the selectivity reversal to higher pressures. The selectivity reversal results from a competition between the polarizability-affected adsorption at lower pressures and efficient packing at higher pressures. The efficient packing of CO2 is a compounded effect resulting from the larger effective pore volume available for CO2 due to its stronger interaction with the pore surface and smaller molecular volume. CO2 molecules show a preference to adsorb in non-tortuous pores, and this preference is found to be stronger in the presence of ethane. The effects of pore connectivity and tortuosity elucidated here should be applicable to a wide range of natural and engineered nanoporous materials, and this knowledge could be used to identify materials with better capability for separating and storing CO2 based on their pore attributes.

Gautam, Siddharth (ORCID:0000000314435382)↗

3-D Geologic Controls of Hydrothermal Fluid Flow at Brady geothermal field, Nevada, USA

In many hydrothermal systems, fracture permeability along faults provides pathways for groundwater to transport heat from depth. Faulting generates a range of deformation styles that cross-cut heterogeneous geology, resulting in complex patterns of permeability, porosity, and hydraulic conductivity. Vertical connectivity (a throughgoing network of permeable areas that allows advection of heat from depth to the shallow subsurface) is rare and is confined to relatively small volumes that have highly variable spatial distribution. This local compartmentalization of connectivity represents a significant challenge to understanding hydrothermal circulation and for exploring, developing, and managing hydrothermal resources. Here, we present an evaluation of the geologic characteristics that control this compartmentalization in hydrothermal systems through 3-D analysis of the Brady geothermal field in western Nevada. A published 3-D geologic map of the Brady area is used as a basis to develop structural and geological variables that are hypothesized to control or effect permeability or connectivity. The 3-D distribution of these variables is compared to the distribution of productive and non-productive fluid flow intervals along production wells and non-productive wells via principal component analysis (PCA). This comparison elucidates which geologic and structural variables are most closely associated with productive fluid flow intervals. Results indicate that production intervals at Brady are located: (1) within or near to known and stress-loaded macro-scale faults, and (2) in areas of high fault and fracture density.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗