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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 271 records · Page 15
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2000

NASA SMART Probe: Breast Cancer Application

There is evidence in breast cancer and other malignancies that the physiologic environment within a tumor correlates with clinical outcome. We are developing a unique percutaneous Smart Probe to be used at the time of needle biopsy of the breast. The Smart Probe will simultaneously measure multiple physiologic parameters within a breast tumor. Direct and indirect measurements of tissue oxygen levels, blood flow, pH, and tissue fluid pressure will be analyzed in real-time. These parameters will be interpreted individually and collectively by innovative neural network techniques using advanced intelligent software. The goals are 1) develop a pecutaneous Smart Probe with multiple sensor modalities and applying advanced Information Technologies to provide real time diagnostic information of the tissue at tip of the probe, 2) test the percutaneous Smart Probe in women with benign and malignant breast masses who will be undergoing surgical biopsy, 3) correlate probe sensor data with benign and malignant status of breast masses, 4) determine whether the probe can detect physiologic differences within a breast tumor, and its margins, and in adjacent normal breast tissue, 5) correlate probe sensor data with known prognostic factors for breast caner, including tumor size, tumor grade, axillary lymph node metastases, estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor status.

Mah, Robert W.↗
NASA NTRS2016

NASA Blue Team: Determining Operational Security Posture of Critical Systems and Networks

Emergence of Cybersecurity has increased the focus on security risks to Information Technology (IT) assets going beyond traditional Information Assurance (IA) concerns: More sophisticated threats have emerged from increasing sources as advanced hacker tools and techniques have emerged and proliferated to broaden the attack surface available across globally interconnected networks.

cybersecurity↗
NASA NTRS2023

Computer Human Interface Challenges in Space Exploration

NASA’s plans to return humans to the Lunar surface require overcoming a variety of challenging technical and operational obstacles. In 2022, NASA formed the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) and Human Surface Mobility (HSM) Program (EHP) at the Johnson Space Center with responsibilities including development of space suits and surface mobility systems for Lunar missions. This program includes a Technology Development and Partnerships office chartered to identify high priority gaps in capabilities for Lunar surface mobility and to coordinate resources to close those gaps. This presentation details the EHP technology roadmap for “Informatics and Decision Support,” a subset of spacecraft avionics focused on effective and autonomous crew interaction with spaceflight systems. The gaps, grouped into displays, audio systems, and information technology infrastructure, are largely driven by the unique interaction requirements for human spacecraft and the severe radiation environments beyond low earth orbit. The roadmap identifies ongoing activities and paths to technology infusion into Lunar spacecraft. NASA is seeking input on the content and ideas for alternative paths to gap closure. Closing these gaps is important to successful human operations on the Lunar surface and vital to NASA’s long-term goal of human missions to Mars.

Spacecraft Displays↗
NASA NTRS1998

Site Remediation Technology InfoBase: A Guide to Federal Programs, Information Resources, and Publications on Contaminated Site Cleanup Technologies. First Edition

Table of Contents: Federal Cleanup Programs; Federal Site Remediation Technology Development Assistance Programs; Federal Site Remediation Technology Development Electronic Data Bases; Federal Electronic Resources for Site Remediation Technology Information; Other Electronic Resources for Site Remediation Technology Information; Other Electronic Resources for Site Remediation Technology Information; Selected Bibliography: Federal Publication on Alternative and Innovative Site Remediation; and Appendix: Technology Program Contacts.

INFORMATION RESOURCES↗
NASA NTRS2004

Space-Based Sensor Web for Earth Science Applications: An Integrated Architecture for Providing Societal Benefits

There is a significant interest in the Earth Science research and user remote sensing community to substantially increase the number of useful observations relative to the current frequency of collection. The obvious reason for such a push is to improve the temporal, spectral, and spatial coverage of the area(s) under investigation. However, there is little analysis available in terms of the benefits, costs and the optimal set of sensors needed to make the necessary observations. Classic observing system solutions may no longer be applicable because of their point design philosophy. Instead, a new intelligent data collection system paradigm employing both reactive and proactive measurement strategies with adaptability to the dynamics of the phenomena should be developed. This is a complex problem that should be carefully studied and balanced across various boundaries including: science, modeling, applications, and technology. Modeling plays a crucial role in making useful predictions about naturally occurring or human-induced phenomena In particular, modeling can serve to mitigate the potentially deleterious impacts a phenomenon may have on human life, property, and the economy. This is especially significant when one is interested in learning about the dynamics of, for example, the spread of forest fires, regional to large-scale air quality issues, the spread of the harmful invasive species, or the atmospheric transport of volcanic plumes and ash. This paper identifies and examines these challenging issues and presents architectural alternatives for an integrated sensor web to provide observing scenarios driving the requisite dynamic spatial, spectral, and temporal characteristics to address these key application areas. A special emphasis is placed on the observing systems and its operational aspects in serving the multiple users and stakeholders in providing societal benefits. We also address how such systems will take advantage of technological advancement in small spacecraft and emerging information technologies, and how sensor web options may be realized and made affordable. Specialized detector subsystems and precision flying techniques may still require substantial innovation, development time and cost: we have presented the considerations for these issues. Finally, data and information gathering and compression techniques are also briefly described.

Habib, Shahid↗
NASA NTRS1989

[NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Report 1, part 1:] Technical communications in aeronautics: Results of an exploratory study

A study was undertaken that explored several aspects of technical communications in aeronautics. The study, which utilized survey research in the form of a self-administered questionnaire, was sent to 2,000 randomly selected members of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Six hundred and six usable questionnaires (30.3 percent) were received by the established cut off date. The study had five objectives. The first was to solicit the opinions of aeronautical engineers and scientists regarding the importance of technical communications to their profession; second, to determine their use and production of technical communications; third, to seek their views on the content of an undergraduate course in technical communications; fourth, to determine their use of libraries/technical information centers; and finally, to determine the use and importance of computer and information technology to them. The findings add considerable information to the knowledge of technical communications practices among aeronautical engineers and scientists and reinforce some of the conventional wisdom about technical communications and question other widely-held notions.

Pinelli, Thomas E.↗
NASA NTRS2011

NASA-DoD Lead-Free Electronics Project. DRAFT Joint Test Report

The use of conventional tin-lead (SnPb) in circuit board manufacturing is under ever-increasing political scrutiny due to increasing regulations concerning lead. The "Restriction of Hazardous Substances" (RoHS) directive enacted by the European Union (EU) and a pact between the United States National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI), Europe's Soldertec at Tin Technology Ltd. and the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) are just two examples where worldwide legislative actions and partnerships/agreements are affecting the electronics industry. As a result, many global commercial-grade electronic component suppliers are initiating efforts to transition to lead-free (Pb-free) in order to retain their worldwide market. Pb-free components are likely to find their way into the inventory of aerospace or military assembly processes under current government acquisition reform initiatives. Inventories "contaminated" by Pb-free will result in increased risks associated with the manufacturing, product reliability, and subsequent repair of aerospace and military electronic systems. Although electronics for military and aerospace applications are not included in the RoHS legislation, engineers are beginning to find that the commercial industry's move towards RoHS compliance has affected their supply chain and changed their parts. Most parts suppliers plan to phase out their non-compliant, leaded production and many have already done so. As a result, the ability to find leaded components is getting harder and harder. Some buyers are now attempting to acquire the remaining SnPb inventory, if it's not already obsolete. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), depots, and support contractors have to be prepared to deal with an electronics supply chain that increasingly provides more and more parts with Pb-free finishes-some labeled no differently than their Pb counterparts-while at the same time providing the traditional Pb parts. The longer the transition period, the greater the likelihood of Pb-free parts inadvertently being mixed with Pb parts and ending up on what are supposed to be Pb systems. As a result, OEMs, depots, and support contractors need to take action now to either abate the influx of Pb-free parts, or accept it and deal with the likely interim consequences of reduced reliability due to a wide variety of matters, such as Pb contamination, high temperature incompatibility, and tin whiskering. Allowance of Pb-free components produces one of the greatest risks to the reliability of a weapon system. This is due to new and poorly understood failure mechanisms, as well as unknown long-term reliability. If the decision is made to consciously allow Pb-free solder and component finishes into SnPb electronics, additional effort (and cost) will be required to make the significant number of changes to drawings and task order procedures. This project is a follow-on effort to the Joint Council on Aging Aircraft/Joint Group on Pollution Prevention (JCAA/JG-PP) Pb-free Solder Project which was the first group to test the reliability of Pb-free solder joints against the requirements of the aerospace and military community.

Kessel, Kurt↗
DOE OSTI2015

Best practices mobile application for D and D KM-IT - 15712

The Deactivation and Decommissioning Knowledge Management Information Tool (D and D KM-IT) is the repository of useful information built specifically for D and D community. The knowledge provided by the D and D KM-IT is the experience and expertise gained by people within the field and fellow employees of the Department of Energy (DOE). This information has been the result of gathering, analyzing, storing, and sharing knowledge to help reduce time spent on discovering previously found data. In order to help in organizing all the data from all the professional contributors, the D and D KM-IT has been divided into 12 different modules. Each individual module pertains to a different area of information for users, such as vendor and technology information, collaboration tools, and even a hotline that contains problems posted by the users. Purpose: - Design and develop the module for the Best Practices on D and D KM-IT mobile platform deployed at https://m.dndkm.org; - The Best Practices mobile module should integrate with existing modules seamlessly; - Use the D and D KM-IT existing database to consume information for the mobile system. jQuery Mobile framework was used to develop Best Practices module for mobile devices. jQuery Mobile framework provides support for responsive web design (RWD). RWD allows adaptation of the layout and user interface of web sites and web apps to different device resolutions, screen densities, and views. UI design was implemented with three fundamental elements: CSS media queries, An adaptable grid, Flexible images and media. Advantages/benefits: - A responsive web design adapts to any-sized screen / resolution and orientation view; - ASP.NET compatible which allows the D and D KM-IT database to support all platforms accessing the system; - Navigating pages is more bandwidth efficient by refreshing data in small section with Ajax instead of reloading the entire page; - Multiple parts of a page can perform different tasks resulting in improved user's experience. Results: - Mobile system is accessible on compatible devices running Android, Apple, Blackberry, Palm, and Windows devices; - Best Practices searches through Characterization, Decontamination, Dismantlement, Material Disposition, and Worker Safety; - Keyword search is enabled for the best practices that are available on both the desktop and mobile systems - Documents are formatted into a PDF file format to ensure compatibility on any device. Conclusion: - Fully integrated with the desktop Best Practices module and displays documents that are uploaded on web platform; - Fast-loading with D and D KM-IT mobile system and downloadable documents; - Responsive design which gives the same user experience when either viewed on smart phone or tablet.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2017

Storages Are Not Forever

Not unlike the concern over diminishing fossil fuel, information technology is bringing its own share of future worries. Here, we chose to look closely into one concern in this paper, namely the limited amount of data storage. By a simple extrapolatory analysis, it is shown that we are on the way to exhaust our storage capacity in less than two centuries with current technology and no recycling. This can be taken as a note of caution to expand research initiative in several directions: firstly, bringing forth innovative data analysis techniques to represent, learn, and aggregate useful knowledge while filtering out noise from data; secondly, tap onto the interplay between storage and computing to minimize storage allocation; thirdly, explore ingenious solutions to expand storage capacity. Throughout this paper, we delve deeper into the state-of-the-art research and also put forth novel propositions in all of the abovementioned directions, including space- and time-efficient data representation, intelligent data aggregation, in-memory computing, extra-terrestrial storage, and data curation. The main aim of this paper is to raise awareness on the storage limitation we are about to face if current technology is adopted and the storage utilization growth rate persists. In the manuscript, we propose some storage solutions and a better utilization of storage capacity through a global DIKW hierarchy.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Addressing Consequence within Operational Risk: An Approach for Understanding an Organization’s Unique Infrastructure Environment

The endeavor of tackling operational risk focused on consequences is challenging even for the most resourced entity but can be advanced though a simplified approach: identifying, binning, and prioritizing the infrastructure environment. While no two entities within a single element of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors are exactly alike when it comes to risk, there is a basic process to move toward a greater understanding of operational risk through becoming more informed about the infrastructure landscape in which the entity exists. The process starts with bringing internal and external stakeholders and subject matter experts together to analyze key areas such as Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) components and points of convergence, analyzing internal and external cyber and physical dependencies, accounting for explosive growth in devices and wireless technology, and leveraging the contributions of people inside and outside the operational environment. Attaining a common understanding of the infrastructure landscape as part of addressing consequences within operational risk is not easy to do or resource light, but the process outlined provides the framework to further any entity’s efforts in this space.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Electrical control of coherent spin rotation of a single-spin qubit

Nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers, optically active atomic defects in diamond, have attracted tremendous interest for quantum sensing, network, and computing applications due to their excellent quantum coherence and remarkable versatility in a real, ambient environment. One of the critical challenges to develop NV-based quantum operation platforms results from the difficulty in locally addressing the quantum spin states of individual NV spins in a scalable, energy-efficient manner. Here, we report electrical control of the coherent spin rotation rate of a single-spin qubit in NV-magnet based hybrid quantum systems. By utilizing electrically generated spin currents, we are able to achieve efficient tuning of magnetic damping and the amplitude of the dipole fields generated by a micrometer-sized resonant magnet, enabling electrical control of the Rabi oscillation frequency of NV spins. Our results highlight the potential of NV centers in designing functional hybrid solid-state systems for next-generation quantum-information technologies. The demonstrated coupling between the NV centers and the propagating spin waves harbored by a magnetic insulator further points to the possibility to establish macroscale entanglement between distant spin qubits.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Addressing Data Center Cooling Needs through the Use of Subsurface Thermal Energy Storage Systems

This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of addressing the cooling needs for information technology (IT) equipment in data centers by using reservoir thermal energy storage (RTES) to provide reliable and sustainable low-temperature fluid. This project focuses on the technical viability of operating such a system in Houston, Texas, which is a representative location for crypto mining data centers. An analysis has been performed to investigate the technical feasibility with climate data for Houston. Results show that data centers on the scale of 30 MW, and operating at a temperature of 27 degrees C, can be reliably cooled by a combined RTES and dry coolers setup. A techno-economic analysis will be performed and energy/water saving benefits will be quantified in the future. In addition, the study will be extended to other representative data center locations with different climates and geographical locations.

cooling↗
DOE OSTI2020

Adaptive Anomaly Detection for Dynamic Clinical Event Sequences

Over the past decade, health information technology (IT) has enabled the amount of digital information stored in electronic health records (EHRs) to expand greatly. However, according to some studies, hazards in health IT can lead to changes in clinical decisions, care processes, and care outcomes, as well as other issues. Thus, the effects of health IT hazards on patient safety have been at the forefront of recent patient safety research. Nonetheless, hazard detection in health IT remains a challenge. In this paper, the authors assume that safety-related issues in health IT would exhibit anomalous characteristics in EHR data. Although all hazards will exhibit some anomalous characteristics, not all anomalies can be regarded as hazards. The authors hypothesize that errors in health IT could lead to interruptions in the sequence of clinical actions. To this end, the problem of detecting anomalous sequences in big EHR data is considered. This paper focuses on dynamic event sequences, which are a series of clinical actions in motion. The authors propose an adaptive anomaly detection approach that uses higher-order network representation to detect anomalous sequences. Furthermore, the authors propose a contiguous subsequence anomaly detection approach that identifies abnormal subsequences in the detected anomalous sequences. The proposed approaches are tested by using synthetic and real-world EHR data. The proposed methods outperform existing state of the art anomaly detection techniques. To reduce the computational complexity associated with the operational implementation of the proposed approaches, the Apache Spark environment was leveraged, and a much shorter run time together with improved performance were achieved, especially for data with more than 60,000 sequences.

Niu, Haoran↗
DOE OSTI2018

NBIC Biofeeds: Deploying a New, Digital Tool for Open Source Biosurveillance across Federal Agencies

The National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC) is deploying a scalable, flexible open source data collection, analysis, and dissemination tool to support biosurveillance operations by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its federal interagency partners.IntroductionNBIC integrates, analyzes, and distributes key information about health and disease events to help ensure the nation’s responses are well-informed, save lives, and minimize economic impact. To meet its mission objectives, NBIC utilizes a variety of data sets, including open source information, to provide comprehensive coverage of biological events occurring across the globe. NBIC Biofeeds is a digital tool designed to improve the efficiency of analyzing large volumes of open source reporting and increase the number of relevant insights gleaned from this dataset. Moreover, the tool provides a mechanism to disseminate tailored, electronic message notifications in near-real time so that NBIC can share specific information of interest to its interagency partners in a timely manner. NBIC intends to implement operational use of the capability in FY 2018. The core components of the system are data collection, curation, and dissemination of information deemed important by NBIC subject matter experts. NBIC Biofeeds has captured information from more than 70,000 unique sources published from around the globe and presents, on average, 9,000 new biosurveillance-relevant articles to users each day. NBIC leverages a variety of data feeds, including third party aggregators like Google and subscription-based feeds such as HealthMap, as well as Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds and web-scraping of highly relevant sources. The NBIC biosurveillance taxonomy imbedded in the tool consists of more than 600 metadata targets that cover key information for understanding the significance of an active biological event, including etiologic agents, impact to humans and animals (e.g., infection severity, healthcare workers involved, type of host), social disruption, infrastructure strain, countermeasures engaged, and ‘red flag’ characteristics (e.g., pathogen appearance in a new geographic area, unusual clinical signs). This taxonomy serves as a foundation for data curation and can be tailored by NBIC partners to more directly meet their own mission objectives. At this time, metadata is predominately captured by NBIC analysts, who manually tag information, which triggers the population of three automatically-disseminated products from the tool: 1) the NBIC Daily Biosurveillance Review, 2) immediate and daily summary email notifications, and 3) custom-designed RSS feeds. These products are meant for individual recipients in the federal interagency and for consumption by other biosurveillance information technology systems, such as the Department of Defense, Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Biosurveillance Ecosystem (BSVE). NBIC is working in partnership with DTRA to integrate NBIC Biofeeds as an application directly into the BSVE and further develop the BSVE as an all-in-one platform for biosurveillance data analytics. To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of gaining insights using NBIC Biofeeds, developers of the tool at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) are researching and testing a variety of advanced analytics techniques focused on: 1) article relevancy ratings to improve the review of queried data, 2) significance ratings to elucidate the perceived severity of an event based on reported characteristics, 3) full-text article retrieval and storage for improved machine-tagging, and 4) anomaly detection for emerging threats. Testing and implementation of new analytic capabilities in NBIC Biofeeds is planned for this fiscal year. NBIC Biofeeds was developed to serve as a sophisticated and powerful open source biosurveillance technology of value to the federal government by providing information to stakeholders conducting open source biosurveillance as well as those consuming biosurveillance information. In FY 2018, NBIC Biofeeds will begin operational use by NBIC and an initial set of users in various federal agencies. User accounts for testing purposes will be available to other federal partners, and a broad scope of federal stakeholders can receive products directly from NBIC Biofeeds based on their interests. NBIC Biofeeds is expected to enable more rapid recognition and enhanced analysis of emerging biological events by NBIC analysts. NBIC anticipates other federal agencies with biosurveillance missions will find this technology of value and intends to offer use of the platform to those federal partners that can benefit from access to the tool and information generated from NBIC Biofeeds.

NBIC↗
NASA NTRS2014

Tech Transfer News

On October 28, 2011, the White House released a Presidential Memorandum entitled: Accelerating Technology Transfer and Commercialization of Federal Research in Support of High-Growth Businesses. With this memo, the President challenged all federal agencies conducting R&D to accelerate technology transfer and commercialization of federally developed technology to help stimulate the national economy. The NASA Technology Transfer Program responded by asking the center technology transfer offices to reach out to - and work more closely with - their regional economic development organizations to promote the transfer of NASA technologies to the local private sector for use in the marketplace. Toward that effort, the KSC Technology Transfer Office teamed with the Florida Space Coast Economic Development Commission (EDC) to host a technology transfer forum designed to increase our business community's awareness of available KSC technologies for transfer. In addition, the forum provided opportunities for commercial businesses to collaborate with KSC in technology development. (see article on page 12) The forum, held on September 12, 2013, focused on KSC technology transfer and partnership opportunities within the Robotics, Sustainability, Information Technology and Environmental Remediation technology areas. The event was well attended with over 120 business leaders from the community. KSC Center Director Robert Cabana and the Center Chief Technologist Karen Thompson provided remarks, and several KSC lead researchers presented technical information and answered questions, which were not in short supply. Florida Today and the Orlando Sentinel ran news stories on the forum and both NASA TV and Channel 6 News filmed portions of the event. Given the reaction by the media and local business to the forum, it is evident the community is recognizing the opportunities that NASA-developed technologies can provide to aspiring entrepreneurs and existing companies to bring new technologies to market, as well as the positive impact KSC technology transfer can have on the local economy. We see even more evidence of this in the efforts by several other organizations to develop programs that provide aspiring entrepreneurs with the opportunity and training needed to identify the commercial potential of specific NASA technologies and develop business plans to exploit that potential. Several initiatives include Florida Startup Quest, CareerSource Brevard Energy Launch, Rollins College Entrepreneurial Scholar of Distinction Program, and a new effort led by the University of Central Florida Office of Research and Commercialization to stimulate new business growth in Florida based on NASA technologies. The KSC Technology Transfer Office has stepped up to support each of these programs and is providing them with the NASA technologies they need to help move the economy forward.

News↗
DOE OSTI2021

Patternable Mesoporous Thin Film Quantum Materials via Block Copolymer Self-Assembly: An Emergent Technology?

Recent developments in quantum materials hold promise for revolutionizing energy and information technologies. The use of soft matter self-assembly, for example, by employing block copolymers (BCPs) as structure directing or templating agents, offers facile pathways toward quantum metamaterials with highly tunable mesostructures via scalable solution processing. Here, we report the preparation of patternable mesoporous niobium carbonitride-type thin film superconductors through spin-coating of a hybrid solution containing an amphiphilic BCP swollen by niobia sol precursors and subsequent thermal processing in combination with photolithography. Spin-coated as-made BCP-niobia hybrid thin films on silicon substrates after optional photolithographic definition are heated in air to produce a porous oxide, and subsequently converted in a multistep process to carbonitrides via treatment with high temperatures in reactive gases including ammonia. Grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering suggests the presence of ordered mesostructures in as-made BCP-niobia films without further annealing, consistent with a distorted alternating gyroid morphology that is retained upon thermal treatments. Wide-angle X-ray scattering confirms the synthesis of phase-pure niobium carbonitride nanocrystals with rock-salt lattices within the mesoscale networks. Electrical transport measurements of unpatterned thin films show initial exponential rise in resistivity characteristic of thermal activation in granular systems down to 12.8 K, at which point resistivity drops to zero into a superconducting state. Magnetoresistance measurements determine the superconducting upper critical field to be over 16 T, demonstrating material quality on par with niobium carbonitrides obtained from traditional solid-state synthesis methods. Here. we discuss how such cost-effective and scalable solution-based quantum materials fabrication approaches may be integrated into existing microelectronics processing, promising the emergence of a technology with tremendous academic and industrial potential by combining the capabilities of soft matter self-assembly with quantum materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗