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At least 379 records · Page 21

Distributed IELI, Rebuilding IELI for Scalability

IELI is an NLP-based system designed to transform text into structured knowledge graphs, integrate domain-specific ontologies, and answer conceptual logic-based queries. This poster talks about how redesigning IELI can help address scalability and modularity challenges, as well as improving responsiveness and health monitoring of the system.

Trejo, Edwin Horacio [Sandia National Laboratories↗

Study and development of techniques for automatic control of remote manipulators

An overall conceptual design for an autonomous control system of remote manipulators which utilizes feedback was constructed. The system consists of a description of the high-level capabilities of a model from which design algorithms are constructed. The autonomous capability is achieved through automatic planning and locally controlled execution of the plans. The operator gives his commands in high level task-oriented terms. The system transforms these commands into a plan. It uses built-in procedural knowledge of the problem domain and an internal model of the current state of the world.

Shaket, E.↗

Analyzing spacecraft configurations through specialization and default reasoning

For an intelligent system to describe a real-world situation using as few statements as possible, it is necessary to make inferences based on observed data and to incorporate general knowledge of the reasoning domain into the description. These reasoning processes must reduce several levels of specific descriptions into only those few that most precisely describe the situation. Moreover, the system must be able to generate descriptions in the absence of data, as instructed by certain rules of inference. The deductions applied by the system, then, generate a high-level description from the low-level evidence provided by the real and default data sources. An implementation of these ideas in a real-world situation is described. The application concerns evaluation of Space Shuttle electromechanical system configurations by console operators in the Mission Control Center. A production system provides the reasoning mechanism through which the default assignments and specializations occur. Examples are provided within this domain for each type of inference, and the suitability is discussed of each toward achieving the goal of describing a situation in the fewest statements possible. Finally, several enhancements are suggested that will further increase the intelligence of similar spacecraft monitoring applications.

Barry, Matthew R.↗

Reasoning about software specifications - A case study

The launch intercept condition (LIC) problem was analyzed to better understand the complexity of the automated reasoning process and the nature and role of background knowledge. An extension to resolution-based logic processing systems, called constraint logic programming, is described. Consideration is also given to a knowledge-driven incremental reasoning architecture which integrates a generic constraint logic programming system with a knowledge base of the domain.

Wild, Chris↗

Intelligent computer-aided training and tutoring

Specific autonomous training systems based on artificial intelligence technology for use by NASA astronauts, flight controllers, and ground-based support personnel that demonstrate an alternative to current training systems are described. In addition to these specific systems, the evolution of a general architecture for autonomous intelligent training systems that integrates many of the features of traditional training programs with artificial intelligence techniques is presented. These Intelligent Computer-Aided Training (ICAT) systems would provide, for the trainee, much of the same experience that could be gained from the best on-the-job training. By integrating domain expertise with a knowledge of appropriate training methods, an ICAT session should duplicate, as closely as possible, the trainee undergoing on-the-job training in the task environment, benefitting from the full attention of a task expert who is also an expert trainer. Thus, the philosophy of the ICAT system is to emulate the behavior of an experienced individual devoting his full time and attention to the training of a novice - proposing challenging training scenarios, monitoring and evaluating the actions of the trainee, providing meaningful comments in response to trainee errors, responding to trainee requests for information, giving hints (if appropriate), and remembering the strengths and weaknesses displayed by the trainee so that appropriate future exercises can be designed.

Loftin, R. Bowen↗

IMAGESEER - IMAGEs for Education and Research

IMAGESEER is a new Web portal that brings easy access to NASA image data for non-NASA researchers, educators, and students. The IMAGESEER Web site and database are specifically designed to be utilized by the university community, to enable teaching image processing (IP) techniques on NASA data, as well as to provide reference benchmark data to validate new IP algorithms. Along with the data and a Web user interface front-end, basic knowledge of the application domains, benchmark information, and specific NASA IP challenges (or case studies) are provided.

Le Moigne, Jacqueline↗

An Agent-Based Model of New Venture Creation: Conceptual Design for Simulating Entrepreneurship

There is a growing debate over the means by which regions can foster the growth of entrepreneurial activity in order to stimulate recovery and growth of their economies. On one side, agglomeration theory suggests the regions grow because of strong clusters that foster knowledge spillover locally; on the other side, the entrepreneurial action camp argues that innovative business models are generated by entrepreneurs with unique market perspectives who draw on knowledge from more distant domains. We will show you the design for a novel agent-based model of new venture creation that will demonstrate the relationship between agglomeration and action. The primary focus of this model is information exchange as the medium for these agent interactions. Our modeling and simulation study proposes to reveal interesting relationships in these perspectives, offer a foundation on which these disparate theories from economics and sociology can find common ground, and expand the use of agent-based modeling into entrepreneurship research.

Provance, Mike↗

Developing a Vision for Heliophysics Infrastructure: The LIKED Resource and the DIARieS Ecosystem

Heliophysics data and computational infrastracture are not equipped for 21st science, suffering from holes in the know-how to build better systems. Without a clear vision, efforts to improve the infrastructure have been incremental and incoherent. This poster presents both the vision and the technology required: an online LIbrary KnowledgE and Discovery (LIKED) resource for discovering and implementing knowledge, data, and infrastructure resources; and an online analysis ecosystem to simplify Discovery, Implementation, Analysis, Reproducibility, and Sharing (DIARieS) of scientific results and environments. The LIKED and DIARieS solutions adopt FAIR data principles and the best practices from the budding field of open science. The proposed new infrastructure components will close many of the current gaps in heliophysics’ infrastructure, such as the ability to search for data and knowledge by phenomenon across domains, and to find software and examples relevant to the desired data set (including model data). Further, these components will enable community members to more efficiently use the resources already present and improve upon the content via a community-curated and trusted library. Combining these solutions lowers the barriers to heliophysics resources for all, increasing the return on our investments. Finally, the structure behind these ideas are topic-agnostic, so they are fully extensible to other fields, leading to invaluable connections to other disciplines. Just as with the development and construction of a long-term satellite mission, we must work together as a community to build a vision of the infrastructure that will most benefit the community, and then collaborate to construct, assemble, and test all the necessary pieces individually and as a unit. Our purpose in presenting this work is to not only describe the proposed vision, but also to gather feedback from the community on this topic.

infrastructure↗

NASA Wearable Technology CLUSTER 2013-2014 Report

Wearable technology has the potential to revolutionize the way humans interact with one another, with information, and with the electronic systems that surround them. This change can already be seen in the dramatic increase in the availability and use of wearable health and activity monitors. These devices continuously monitor the wearer using on-­‐body sensors and wireless communication. They provide feedback that can be used to improve physical health and performance. Smart watches and head mounted displays are also receiving a great deal of commercial attention, providing immediate access to information via graphical displays, as well as additional sensing features. For the purposes of the Wearable Technology CLUSTER, wearable technology is broadly defined as any electronic sensing, human interfaces, computing, or communication that is mounted on the body. Current commercially available wearable devices primarily house electronics in rigid packaging to provide protection from flexing, moisture, and other contaminants. NASA mentors are interested in this approach, but are also interested in direct integration of electronics into clothing to enable more comfortable systems. For human spaceflight, wearable technology holds a great deal of promise for significantly improving safety, efficiency, autonomy, and research capacity for the crew in space and support personnel on the ground. Specific capabilities of interest include: Continuous biomedical monitoring for research and detection of health problems. Environmental monitoring for individual exposure assessments and alarms. Activity monitoring for responsive robotics and environments. Multi-modal caution and warning using tactile, auditory, and visual alarms. Wireless, hands-free, on-demand voice communication. Mobile, on-demand access to space vehicle and robotic displays and controls. Many technical challenges must be overcome to realize these wearable technology applications. For example, to make a wearable device that is both functional and comfortable for long duration wear, developers must strive to reduce electronic mass and volume while also addressing constraints imposed by the body attachment method. Depending on the application, the device must be placed in a location that the user can see and reach, and that provides the appropriate access to air and the wearer's skin. Limited power is available from body-­‐worn batteries and heat must be managed to prevent discomfort. If the clothing is to be washed, there are additional durability and washability hurdles that traditional electronics are not designed to address. Finally, each specific capability has unique technical challenges that will likely require unique solutions. In addition to the technical challenges, development of wearable devices is made more difficult by the diversity of skills required and the historic lack of collaboration across domains. Wearable technology development requires expertise in textiles engineering, apparel design, software and computer engineering, electronic design and manufacturing, human factors engineering, and application-­‐specific fields such as acoustics, medical devices, and sensing. Knowledge from each of these domains must be integrated to create functional and comfortable devices. For this reason, the diversity of knowledge and experience represented in the Wearable Technology is critical to overcoming the fundamental challenges in the field.

Simon, Cory↗

Sim-to-real supervised domain adaptation for radioisotope identification

Machine learning has the potential to improve the speed and reliability of radioisotope identification using gamma spectroscopy. However, meticulously labeling an experimental dataset for training is often prohibitively expensive, while training models purely on synthetic data is risky due to the domain gap between simulated and experimental measurements. In this research, we demonstrate that supervised domain adaptation can substantially improve the performance of radioisotope identification models by transferring knowledge between synthetic and experimental data domains. We consider two domain adaptation scenarios: (1) a simulation-to-simulation adaptation, where we perform multi-label proportion estimation using simulated high-purity germanium detectors, and (2) a simulation-to-experimental adaptation, where we perform multi-class, single-label classification using measured spectra from handheld lanthanum bromide (LaBr) and sodium iodide (NaI) detectors. We begin by pretraining a spectral classifier on synthetic data using a custom transformer-based neural network. After subsequent fine-tuning on just 64 labeled experimental spectra, we achieve a test accuracy of 96% in the sim-to-real scenario with a LaBr detector, far surpassing a synthetic-only baseline model (75%) and a model trained from scratch (80%) on the same 64 spectra. Furthermore, we demonstrate that domain-adapted models learn more human-interpretable features than experiment-only baseline models. Overall, our results highlight the potential for supervised domain adaptation techniques to bridge the sim-to-real gap in radioisotope identification, enabling the development of accurate and explainable classifiers even in real-world scenarios where access to experimental data is limited.

Lalor, Peter W.↗

Reuse: A knowledge-based approach

This paper describes our research in automating the reuse process through the use of application domain models. Application domain models are explicit formal representations of the application knowledge necessary to understand, specify, and generate application programs. Furthermore, they provide a unified repository for the operational structure, rules, policies, and constraints of a specific application area. In our approach, domain models are expressed in terms of a transaction-based meta-modeling language. This paper has described in detail the creation and maintenance of hierarchical structures. These structures are created through a process that includes reverse engineering of data models with supplementary enhancement from application experts. Source code is also reverse engineered but is not a major source of domain model instantiation at this time. In the second phase of the software synthesis process, program specifications are interactively synthesized from an instantiated domain model. These specifications are currently integrated into a manual programming process but will eventually be used to derive executable code with mechanically assisted transformations. This research is performed within the context of programming-in-the-large types of systems. Although our goals are ambitious, we are implementing the synthesis system in an incremental manner through which we can realize tangible results. The client/server architecture is capable of supporting 16 simultaneous X/Motif users and tens of thousands of attributes and classes. Domain models have been partially synthesized from five different application areas. As additional domain models are synthesized and additional knowledge is gathered, we will inevitably add to and modify our representation. However, our current experience indicates that it will scale and expand to meet our modeling needs.

Iscoe, Neil↗

The StarView intelligent query mechanism

The StarView interface is being developed to facilitate the retrieval of scientific and engineering data produced by the Hubble Space Telescope. While predefined screens in the interface can be used to specify many common requests, ad hoc requests require a dynamic query formulation capability. Unfortunately, logical level knowledge is too sparse to support this capability. In particular, essential formulation knowledge is lost when the domain of interest is mapped to a set of database relation schemas. Thus, a system known as QUICK has been developed that uses conceptual design knowledge to facilitate query formulation. By heuristically determining strongly associated objects at the conceptual level, QUICK is able to formulate semantically reasonable queries in response to high-level requests that specify only attributes of interest. Moreover, by exploiting constraint knowledge in the conceptual design, QUICK assures that queries are formulated quickly and will execute efficiently.

Semmel, R. D.↗

Expert Seeker

Expert Seeker is a computer program of the knowledge-management-system (KMS) type that falls within the category of expertise-locator systems. The main goal of the KMS system implemented by Expert Seeker is to organize and distribute knowledge of who are the domain experts within and without a given institution, company, or other organization. The intent in developing this KMS was to enable the re-use of organizational knowledge and provide a methodology for querying existing information (including structured, semistructured, and unstructured information) in a way that could help identify organizational experts. More specifically, Expert Seeker was developed to make it possible, by use of an intranet, to do any or all of the following: Assist an employee in identifying who has the skills needed for specific projects and to determine whether the experts so identified are available. Assist managers in identifying employees who may need training opportunities. Assist managers in determining what expertise is lost when employees retire or otherwise leave. Facilitate the development of new ways of identifying opportunities for innovation and minimization of duplicated efforts. Assist employees in achieving competitive advantages through the application of knowledge-management concepts and related systems. Assist external organizations in requesting speakers for specific engagements or determining from whom they might be able to request help via electronic mail. Help foster an environment of collaboration for rapid development in today's environment, in which it is increasingly necessary to assemble teams of experts from government, universities, research laboratories, and industries, to quickly solve problems anytime, anywhere. Make experts more visible. Provide a central repository of information about employees, including information that, heretofore, has typically not been captured by the human-resources systems (e.g., information about past projects, patents, or hobbies). Unify myriad collections of data into Web-enabled repository that could easily be searched for relevant data.

Fernandez, Becerra↗

Influences of North Pacific Ocean Domain Extent on the Western U.S. Winter Hydroclimatology in Variable-Resolution CESM

Variable-resolution global climate models (VRGCMs) are a dynamical downscaling method that can reach spatiotemporal scales needed for regional climate assessments. Over the years, several users of VRGCMs have assumed where the location and extent of the refinement domain should be based on knowledge of the prevailing storm tracks and resolution dependence of important regional climate processes (e.g., atmospheric rivers [ARs] and orographic uplift), but the effect of high-resolution domain size and extent on the simulation of downstream hydroclimatic phenomena has not been systematically evaluated. Here, we use variable resolution in the Community Earth System Model (VR-CESM) to perform such a test. To do this, three VR-CESM grids were generated that span the entire, two thirds, and one third of the North Pacific and evaluated for a 30-year climatology using Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project protocols. Simulations are compared with reanalysis products offshore (fifth-generation of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts atmospheric reanalysis [ERA5]) and onshore (Livneh, 2015, https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2015.42, and Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model [PRISM]) of the western United States. The westward expansion of refinement domain influenced integrated vapor transport (IVT), which was generally high biased but minimally impacted AR characteristics. Due to slight differences in landfalling AR counts in the western United States, California winter precipitation generally improved with westward expansion of the refinement domain. Western U.S. mountain snowpack and surface temperatures were insensitive to refinement domain size and were more influenced by changes in topographic resolution and/or land surface model version. Here, given minimal dependence of simulated western U.S. hydroclimate on refinement domain size over the North Pacific, we advise future VR-CESM studies to focus grid resolution on better resolving land surface heterogeneity.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Improving Earth Science Dataset Search with Publication

The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GESDISC) archives a large number of Earth observational datasets. Thousands of the publications are created each year based on these datasets. The content of these publications can be used for discovery of the datasets based on the characteristics of applicational research. We leverage the content of these publications to retrieve the information about phenomena and domains where measurements from the datasets were utilized through linking these publications and dataset in Knowledge Graph. We retrieve phenomena and domain information using SWEET ontology and produce the set of keywords that are linked to the datasets. Further, we evaluate this link strength according to the frequency of dataset usage in the papers mentioning these keywords. We demonstrate how this linkage can improve dataset search by comparing the search results obtained from Common Metadata Repository (CMR) search and the publications based data.

Kristina Stoyanova↗

Generic domain models in software engineering

This paper outlines three research directions related to domain-specific software development: (1) reuse of generic models for domain-specific software development; (2) empirical evidence to determine these generic models, namely elicitation of mental knowledge schema possessed by expert software developers; and (3) exploitation of generic domain models to assist modelling of specific applications. It focuses on knowledge acquisition for domain-specific software development, with emphasis on tool support for the most important phases of software development.

Maiden, Neil↗

Executive control systems in the engineering design environment

An executive control system (ECS) is a software structure for unifying various applications codes into a comprehensive system. It provides a library of applications, a uniform access method through a cental user interface, and a data management facility. A survey of twenty-four executive control systems designed to unify various CAD/CAE applications for use in diverse engineering design environments within government and industry was conducted. The goals of this research were to establish system requirements to survey state-of-the-art architectural design approaches, and to provide an overview of the historical evolution of these systems. Foundations for design are presented and include environmental settings, system requirements, major architectural components, and a system classification scheme based on knowledge of the supported engineering domain(s). An overview of the design approaches used in developing the major architectural components of an ECS is presented with examples taken from the surveyed systems. Attention is drawn to four major areas of ECS development: interdisciplinary usage; standardization; knowledge utilization; and computer science technology transfer.

Hurst, P. W.↗

An automated consultant for MACSYMA

A consultant is necessary whenever on is faced with a problem solving situation in a domain one does not fully understand. The lack of knowledge may be incidental, as it is when the domain or device is fairly simple but time constraints make it impossible for the user to learn all that is necessary. Computer systems like MACSYMA in which the level of commands is so close to the level of the task environment that the user is apt to confuse a simply defined procedure (like COEFF) with its mathematical counterpart (here coefficient) that it at best approximates. A computer program is described which has the capability of conversing with its user in English about a difficulty he has encountered, and providing information tailored to his need. The MACSYMA Advisor is a program distinct from MACSYMA with its own separate data base and expertise. For convenience the program can be called directly from MACSYMA and can access the user's data structures contained therein. The Advisor described here deals only with the "straightline" or nested use of MACSYMA commands and not loops or user-defined functions. The implementation of the Advisor relies heavily on an explict, internal "model" of the user's state of knowledge, his goals, and his "plan" for achieving them.

Genesereth, M. R.↗