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At least 199 records · Page 11

Examining Runner’s Outdoor Heat Exposure Using Urban Microclimate Modeling and GPS Trajectory Mining

It is important to quantify human heat exposure in order to evaluate and mitigate the negative impacts of heat on human well-being in the context of global warming. This study proposed a human-centric framework to examine human personal heat exposure based on anonymous GPS trajectories data mining and urban microclimate modeling. The mean radiant temperature (Tmrt) that represents the human body’s energy balance was used to indicate human heat exposure. The meteorological data and high-resolution 3D urban model generated from multispectral remotely sensed images and LiDAR data were used as inputs in urban microclimate modeling to map the spatio-temporal distribution of the Tmrt in the Boston metropolitan area. The anonymous human GPS trajectory data collected from fitness Apps was used to map the spatiotemporal distribution of human outdoor activities. By overlaying the anonymous GPS trajectories on the generated spatio-temporal maps of Tmrt, this study further examined the heat exposure of runners in different age-gender groups in the Boston area. Results show that there is no significant difference in terms of heat exposure for female and male runners. The female runners in the age of 45-54 are exposed to more heat than female runners of 18-24 and 25-34, while there is no significant difference among male runners. This study proposed a novel method to estimate human heat exposure, which would shed new light on mitigating the negative impacts of heat on human health.

Personal heat exposure↗

Analyzing Double Delays at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)

When weather or congestion impacts the National Airspace System, multiple different Traffic Management Initiatives can be implemented, sometimes with unintended consequences. One particular perceived inequity that is commonly identified is in the interaction between Ground Delay Programs (GDPs) and time based scheduling of internal departures by the Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) (now operationally superseded by the FAA's the Time-Based Flow Management system). Internal departures under TMA scheduling can take large GDP delays, followed by large TMA scheduling delays, because they cannot easily fit into the arrival flow at the runway. In this paper we examine the causes of these double delays through an analysis of arrival operations at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) from June to August 2010. TMA scheduling delays are found to be generally higher than TMA airborne metering delays, regardless of prior GDP delays. Depending on how the double delay is defined, between 42 and 62 of all internal departures in GDP and TMA scheduling experienced double delays in this period. A deep dive into the data reveals that contributors to double delays include upstream flights departing before their Expect Departure Clearance Times (EDCTs); differences in the rates used for setting EDCTs and TMA Scheduled Times of Arrival; differences in the arrival demand expected based on EDCTs and the arrival demand entering TMA; and shorter en route times between takeoff and entry into TMA than assumed in the calculation of flight EDCTs, all of which undermine the sequencing and spacing underlying flight EDCTs. Double delays are also found to coincide with periods in which the virtual runway arrival queue being served by a TMA is large, there are periods of high demand relative to capacity, and there are high airborne metering delays. Data mining techniques are used to confirm that each of these factors contribute to the occurrence of double delay andor high internal departure scheduling delay across three months of data from June to August 2010. Predictors of the occurrence of double delay and high TMA scheduling delay are built using logistic regression, providing prediction accuracies of 69 and 73, respectively.

traffic flow management↗

International Space Station (ISS) Anomalies Trending Study: Appendices - Volume II

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) set out to utilize data mining and trending techniques to review the anomaly history of the International Space Station (ISS) and provide tools for discipline experts not involved with the ISS Program to search anomaly data to aid in identification of areas that may warrant further investigation. Additionally, the assessment team aimed to develop an approach and skillset for integrating data sets, with the intent of providing an enriched data set for discipline experts to investigate that is easier to navigate, particularly in light of ISS aging and the plan to extend its life into the late 2020s. This document contains the Appendices to the Volume I report.

Beil, Robert J.↗

International Space Station (ISS) Anomalies Trending Study

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) set out to utilize data mining and trending techniques to review the anomaly history of the International Space Station (ISS) and provide tools for discipline experts not involved with the ISS Program to search anomaly data to aid in identification of areas that may warrant further investigation. Additionally, the assessment team aimed to develop an approach and skillset for integrating data sets, with the intent of providing an enriched data set for discipline experts to investigate that is easier to navigate, particularly in light of ISS aging and the plan to extend its life into the late 2020s. This report contains the outcome of the NESC Assessment.

Beil, Robert J.↗

Utilization of Unsupervised Anomalies Detector as a Tool for Managing the TDRS Constellation at GSFC

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) operates a constellation of ten geosynchronous Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS). The mission of the TDRS constellation is to provide relay communications from low-earth orbiting spacecraft to the primary ground station at the White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Major customers include the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope. The NASA Space Network project office at GSFC manages the constellation of spacecraft. The constellation is over 30 years old, and a wide range of technologies and manufacturing techniques are represented on-orbit. Since 1983, the TDRS constellation has recorded thousands of gigabytes of telemetry data. Spacecraft telemetry data has changed throughout the three generations of TDRS spacecraft, however each spacecraft has the same basic functions with some generational enhancements. The constellation includes several spacecraft that have significantly outlived the manufacturer's projected lifetime. This has provided NASA with a significant benefit in terms of return on investment, however it places a burden on efficient management of the assets for maximum life without permitting a TDRS spacecraft to become stranded in its geosynchronous orbital slot. Consequently, the highest level of attention is paid to systems whose failure could strand a TDRS spacecraft in orbit. In this paper, we proposed two stages of analyzing spacecraft anomalies using data mining (DM) to enhance on-going predictions of spacecraft life, subsystem performance, and analysis of subsystem anomalies. The first stage conducts the unsupervised anomaly detector to detect potential anomalies in real-time telemetry data. The second stage introduced telemetry weight (TW) to each telemetry parameter to determine which parameter caused the strongest anomaly. We will present case studies of some of these analyses and how the data can impact decisions on the management of the constellation.

Ma, Kenneth Y.↗

NASA Software Cost Estimation Model: An Analogy Based Estimation Model

The cost estimation of software development activities is increasingly critical for large scale integrated projects such as those at DOD and NASA especially as the software systems become larger and more complex. As an example MSL (Mars Scientific Laboratory) developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory launched with over 2 million lines of code making it the largest robotic spacecraft ever flown (Based on the size of the software). Software development activities are also notorious for their cost growth, with NASA flight software averaging over 50% cost growth. All across the agency, estimators and analysts are increasingly being tasked to develop reliable cost estimates in support of program planning and execution. While there has been extensive work on improving parametric methods there is very little focus on the use of models based on analogy and clustering algorithms. In this paper we summarize our findings on effort/cost model estimation and model development based on ten years of software effort estimation research using data mining and machine learning methods to develop estimation models based on analogy and clustering. The NASA Software Cost Model performance is evaluated by comparing it to COCOMO II, linear regression, and K-­ nearest neighbor prediction model performance on the same data set.

Hihn, Jairus↗

EVA Wiki - Transforming Knowledge Management for EVA Flight Controllers and Instructors

The EVA Wiki was recently implemented as the primary knowledge database to retain critical knowledge and skills in the EVA Operations group at NASA's Johnson Space Center by ensuring that information is recorded in a common, easy to search repository. Prior to the EVA Wiki, information required for EVA flight controllers and instructors was scattered across different sources, including multiple file share directories, SharePoint, individual computers, and paper archives. Many documents were outdated, and data was often difficult to find and distribute. In 2011, a team recognized that these knowledge management problems could be solved by creating an EVA Wiki using MediaWiki, a free and open-source software developed by the Wikimedia Foundation. The EVA Wiki developed into an EVA-specific Wikipedia on an internal NASA server. While the technical implementation of the wiki had many challenges, one of the biggest hurdles came from a cultural shift. Like many enterprise organizations, the EVA Operations group was accustomed to hierarchical data structures and individually-owned documents. Instead of sorting files into various folders, the wiki searches content. Rather than having a single document owner, the wiki harmonized the efforts of many contributors and established an automated revision controlled system. As the group adapted to the wiki, the usefulness of this single portal for information became apparent. It transformed into a useful data mining tool for EVA flight controllers and instructors, as well as hundreds of others that support EVA. Program managers, engineers, astronauts, flight directors, and flight controllers in differing disciplines now have an easier-to-use, searchable system to find EVA data. This paper presents the benefits the EVA Wiki has brought to NASA's EVA community, as well as the cultural challenges it had to overcome.

Johnston, Stephanie S.↗

EVA Wiki - Transforming Knowledge Management for EVA Flight Controllers and Instructors

The EVA (Extravehicular Activity) Wiki was recently implemented as the primary knowledge database to retain critical knowledge and skills in the EVA Operations group at NASA's Johnson Space Center by ensuring that information is recorded in a common, searchable repository. Prior to the EVA Wiki, information required for EVA flight controllers and instructors was scattered across different sources, including multiple file share directories, SharePoint, individual computers, and paper archives. Many documents were outdated, and data was often difficult to find and distribute. In 2011, a team recognized that these knowledge management problems could be solved by creating an EVA Wiki using MediaWiki, a free and open-source software developed by the Wikimedia Foundation. The EVA Wiki developed into an EVA-specific Wikipedia on an internal NASA server. While the technical implementation of the wiki had many challenges, the one of the biggest hurdles came from a cultural shift. Like many enterprise organizations, the EVA Operations group was accustomed to hierarchical data structures and individually-owned documents. Instead of sorting files into various folders, the wiki searches content. Rather than having a single document owner, the wiki harmonized the efforts of many contributors and established an automated revision control system. As the group adapted to the wiki, the usefulness of this single portal for information became apparent. It transformed into a useful data mining tool for EVA flight controllers and instructors, and also for hundreds of other NASA and contract employees. Program managers, engineers, astronauts, flight directors, and flight controllers in differing disciplines now have an easier-to-use, searchable system to find EVA data. This paper presents the benefits the EVA Wiki has brought to NASA's EVA community, as well as the cultural challenges it had to overcome.

Johnston, Stephanie↗

EVA Wiki - Transforming Knowledge Management for EVA Flight Controllers and Instructors

The EVA Wiki was recently implemented as the primary knowledge database to retain critical knowledge and skills in the EVA Operations group at NASA's Johnson Space Center by ensuring that information is recorded in a common, easy to search repository. Prior to the EVA Wiki, information required for EVA flight controllers and instructors was scattered across different sources, including multiple file share directories, SharePoint, individual computers, and paper archives. Many documents were outdated, and data was often difficult to find and distribute. In 2011, a team recognized that these knowledge management problems could be solved by creating an EVA Wiki using MediaWiki, a free and open-source software developed by the Wikimedia Foundation. The EVA Wiki developed into an EVA-specific Wikipedia on an internal NASA server. While the technical implementation of the wiki had many challenges, one of the biggest hurdles came from a cultural shift. Like many enterprise organizations, the EVA Operations group was accustomed to hierarchical data structures and individually-owned documents. Instead of sorting files into various folders, the wiki searches content. Rather than having a single document owner, the wiki harmonized the efforts of many contributors and established an automated revision controlled system. As the group adapted to the wiki, the usefulness of this single portal for information became apparent. It transformed into a useful data mining tool for EVA flight controllers and instructors, as well as hundreds of others that support the EVA. Program managers, engineers, astronauts, flight directors, and flight controllers in differing disciplines now have an easier-to-use, searchable system to find EVA data. This paper presents the benefits the EVA Wiki has brought to NASA's EVA community, as well as the cultural challenges it had to overcome.

Johnston, Stephanie S.↗

Space Weather Impacts to Conjunction Assessment: A NASA Robotic Orbital Safety Perspective

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recognizes the risk of on-orbit collisions from other satellites and debris objects and has instituted a process to identify and react to close approaches. The charter of the NASA Robotic Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) task is to protect NASA robotic (unmanned) assets from threats posed by other space objects. Monitoring for potential collisions requires formulating close-approach predictions a week or more in the future to determine analyze, and respond to orbital conjunction events of interest. These predictions require propagation of the latest state vector and covariance assuming a predicted atmospheric density and ballistic coefficient. Any differences between the predicted drag used for propagation and the actual drag experienced by the space objects can potentially affect the conjunction event. Therefore, the space environment itself, in particular how space weather impacts atmospheric drag, is an essential element to understand in order effectively to assess the risk of conjunction events. The focus of this research is to develop a better understanding of the impact of space weather on conjunction assessment activities: both accurately determining the current risk and assessing how that risk may change under dynamic space weather conditions. We are engaged in a data-- ]mining exercise to corroborate whether or not observed changes in a conjunction event's dynamics appear consistent with space weather changes and are interested in developing a framework to respond appropriately to uncertainty in predicted space weather. In particular, we use historical conjunction event data products to search for dynamical effects on satellite orbits from changing atmospheric drag. Increased drag is expected to lower the satellite specific energy and will result in the satellite's being 'later' than expected, which can affect satellite conjunctions in a number of ways depending on the two satellites' orbits and the geometry of the conjunction. These satellite time offsets can form the basis of a new technique under development to determine whether space weather perturbations, such as coronal mass ejections, are likely to increase, decrease, or have a neutral effect on the collision risk due to a particular close approach.

Ghrist, Richard↗

Robust Informatics Infrastructure Required For ICME: Combining Virtual and Experimental Data

With the increased emphasis on reducing the cost and time to market of new materials, the need for robust automated materials information management system(s) enabling sophisticated data mining tools is increasing, as evidenced by the emphasis on Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) and the recent establishment of the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI). This need is also fueled by the demands for higher efficiency in material testing; consistency, quality and traceability of data; product design; engineering analysis; as well as control of access to proprietary or sensitive information. Further, the use of increasingly sophisticated nonlinear, anisotropic and or multi-scale models requires both the processing of large volumes of test data and complex materials data necessary to establish processing-microstructure-property-performance relationships. Fortunately, material information management systems have kept pace with the growing user demands and evolved to enable: (i) the capture of both point wise data and full spectra of raw data curves, (ii) data management functions such as access, version, and quality controls;(iii) a wide range of data import, export and analysis capabilities; (iv) data pedigree traceability mechanisms; (v) data searching, reporting and viewing tools; and (vi) access to the information via a wide range of interfaces. This paper discusses key principles for the development of a robust materials information management system to enable the connections at various length scales to be made between experimental data and corresponding multiscale modeling toolsets to enable ICME. In particular, NASA Glenn's efforts towards establishing such a database for capturing constitutive modeling behavior for both monolithic and composites materials

Mutli-scale models↗

Living with a Star Space Environment Testbed

Summary of activities: (1) FYO1 NRA - Model development and data mining. (2) FY03 NRA - Flight investigations. (3) SET carrier development. (4) Study for accommodation of SET carrier to support advanced detectors. (5) Collaboration with other programs: LWS TR&T to maximize synergy between TR&T space environment research and SET space environment effects research. LWS Data System to optimize dissemination of SET data. NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging Program to leverage ground testing of technologies. Defense Threat Reduction Agency to leverage ground testing and common interests in advanced detectors. and Air Force Research Laboratory to leverage flight opportunities. (6) Education and Public Outreach.

Barth, Janet↗

Value-added Data Services at the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center

The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), in addition to serving the Earth Science community as one of the major Distributed Active Archives Centers (DAACs), provides much more than just data. Among the value-added services available to general users are subsetting data spatially and/or by parameter, online analysis (to avoid downloading unnecessarily all the data), and assistance in obtaining data from other centers. Services available to data producers and high-volume users include consulting on building new products with standard formats and metadata and construction of data management systems. A particularly useful service is data processing at the DISC (i.e., close to the input data) with the users algorithm. This can take a number of different forms: as a configuration-managed algorithm within the main processing stream; as a stand-alone program next to the on-line data storage; as build-it-yourself code within the Near-Archive Data Mining (NADM) system; or as an on-the-fly analysis with simple algorithms embedded into the web-based tools. Partnerships between the GES DISC and scientists, both producers and users, allow the scientists to concentrate on science, while the GES DISC handles the data management, e.g., formats, integration, and data processing. The existing data management infrastructure at the GES DISC supports a wide spectrum of options: from simple data support to sophisticated on-line analysis tools, producing economies of scale and rapid time-to-deploy. At the same time, such partnerships allow the GES DISC to serve the user community more efficiently and to better prioritize on-line holdings. Several examples of successful partnerships are described in the presentation.

Leptoukh, Gregory G.↗

An Ensemble Approach to Building Mercer Kernels with Prior Information

This paper presents a new methodology for automatic knowledge driven data mining based on the theory of Mercer Kernels, which are highly nonlinear symmetric positive definite mappings from the original image space to a very high, possibly dimensional feature space. we describe a new method called Mixture Density Mercer Kernels to learn kernel function directly from data, rather than using pre-defined kernels. These data adaptive kernels can encode prior knowledge in the kernel using a Bayesian formulation, thus allowing for physical information to be encoded in the model. Specifically, we demonstrate the use of the algorithm in situations with extremely small samples of data. We compare the results with existing algorithms on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and demonstrate the method's superior performance against standard methods. The code for these experiments has been generated with the AUTOBAYES tool, which automatically generates efficient and documented C/C++ code from abstract statistical model specifications. The core of the system is a schema library which contains templates for learning and knowledge discovery algorithms like different versions of EM, or numeric optimization methods like conjugate gradient methods. The template instantiation is supported by symbolic-algebraic computations, which allows AUTOBAYES to find closed-form solutions and, where possible, to integrate them into the code.

Srivastava, Ashok N.↗

Putting Priors in Mixture Density Mercer Kernels

This paper presents a new methodology for automatic knowledge driven data mining based on the theory of Mercer Kernels, which are highly nonlinear symmetric positive definite mappings from the original image space to a very high, possibly infinite dimensional feature space. We describe a new method called Mixture Density Mercer Kernels to learn kernel function directly from data, rather than using predefined kernels. These data adaptive kernels can en- code prior knowledge in the kernel using a Bayesian formulation, thus allowing for physical information to be encoded in the model. We compare the results with existing algorithms on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The code for these experiments has been generated with the AUTOBAYES tool, which automatically generates efficient and documented C/C++ code from abstract statistical model specifications. The core of the system is a schema library which contains template for learning and knowledge discovery algorithms like different versions of EM, or numeric optimization methods like conjugate gradient methods. The template instantiation is supported by symbolic- algebraic computations, which allows AUTOBAYES to find closed-form solutions and, where possible, to integrate them into the code. The results show that the Mixture Density Mercer-Kernel described here outperforms tree-based classification in distinguishing high-redshift galaxies from low- redshift galaxies by approximately 16% on test data, bagged trees by approximately 7%, and bagged trees built on a much larger sample of data by approximately 2%.

Srivastava, Ashok N.↗

An Integrated Approach for Gear Health Prognostics

In this paper, an integrated approach for gear health prognostics using particle filters is presented. The presented method effectively addresses the issues in applying particle filters to gear health prognostics by integrating several new components into a particle filter: (1) data mining based techniques to effectively define the degradation state transition and measurement functions using a one-dimensional health index obtained by whitening transform; (2) an unbiased l-step ahead RUL estimator updated with measurement errors. The feasibility of the presented prognostics method is validated using data from a spiral bevel gear case study.

He, David↗

Software Tools Streamline Project Management

Three innovative software inventions from Ames Research Center (NETMARK, Program Management Tool, and Query-Based Document Management) are finding their way into NASA missions as well as industry applications. The first, NETMARK, is a program that enables integrated searching of data stored in a variety of databases and documents, meaning that users no longer have to look in several places for related information. NETMARK allows users to search and query information across all of these sources in one step. This cross-cutting capability in information analysis has exponentially reduced the amount of time needed to mine data from days or weeks to mere seconds. NETMARK has been used widely throughout NASA, enabling this automatic integration of information across many documents and databases. NASA projects that use NETMARK include the internal reporting system and project performance dashboard, Erasmus, NASA s enterprise management tool, which enhances organizational collaboration and information sharing through document routing and review; the Integrated Financial Management Program; International Space Station Knowledge Management; Mishap and Anomaly Information Reporting System; and management of the Mars Exploration Rovers. Approximately $1 billion worth of NASA s projects are currently managed using Program Management Tool (PMT), which is based on NETMARK. PMT is a comprehensive, Web-enabled application tool used to assist program and project managers within NASA enterprises in monitoring, disseminating, and tracking the progress of program and project milestones and other relevant resources. The PMT consists of an integrated knowledge repository built upon advanced enterprise-wide database integration techniques and the latest Web-enabled technologies. The current system is in a pilot operational mode allowing users to automatically manage, track, define, update, and view customizable milestone objectives and goals. The third software invention, Query-Based Document Management (QBDM) is a tool that enables content or context searches, either simple or hierarchical, across a variety of databases. The system enables users to specify notification subscriptions where they associate "contexts of interest" and "events of interest" to one or more documents or collection(s) of documents. Based on these subscriptions, users receive notification when the events of interest occur within the contexts of interest for associated document or collection(s) of documents. Users can also associate at least one notification time as part of the notification subscription, with at least one option for the time period of notifications.

Source record↗

Robotic Rock Classification

This report describes a three-month research program undertook jointly by the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and Ames Research Center as part of the Ames' Joint Research Initiative (JRI.) The work was conducted at the Ames Research Center by Mr. Liam Pedersen, a graduate student in the CMU Ph.D. program in Robotics under the supervision Dr. Ted Roush at the Space Science Division of the Ames Research Center from May 15 1999 to August 15, 1999. Dr. Martial Hebert is Mr. Pedersen's research adviser at CMU and is Principal Investigator of this Grant. The goal of this project is to investigate and implement methods suitable for a robotic rover to autonomously identify rocks and minerals in its vicinity, and to statistically characterize the local geological environment. Although primary sensors for these tasks are a reflection spectrometer and color camera, the goal is to create a framework under which data from multiple sensors, and multiple readings on the same object, can be combined in a principled manner. Furthermore, it is envisioned that knowledge of the local area, either a priori or gathered by the robot, will be used to improve classification accuracy. The key results obtained during this project are: The continuation of the development of a rock classifier; development of theoretical statistical methods; development of methods for evaluating and selecting sensors; and experimentation with data mining techniques on the Ames spectral library. The results of this work are being applied at CMU, in particular in the context of the Winter 99 Antarctica expedition in which the classification techniques will be used on the Nomad robot. Conversely, the software developed based on those techniques will continue to be made available to NASA Ames and the data collected from the Nomad experiments will also be made available.

Hebert, Martial↗