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At least 685 records · Page 38

Knowledge Network Embedding of Transcriptomic Data From Spaceflown Mice Uncovers Signs and Symptoms Associated With Terrestrial Diseases

There has long been an interest in understanding how the hazards from spaceflight may trigger or exacerbate human diseases. With the goal of advancing our knowledge on physiological changes during space travel, NASA GeneLab provides an open-source repository of multi-omics data from real and simulated spaceflight studies. Alone, this data enables identification of biological changes during spaceflight, but cannot infer how that may impact an astronaut at the phenotypic level. To bridge this gap, SPOKE, a heterogeneous knowledge graph connecting biological and clinical data from over 30 databases, was used in combination with GeneLab transcriptomic data from six studies. This integration identified critical symptoms and physiological changes incurred during spaceflight.

spaceflight↗

Expanding NeMO-Net Machine Learning Capabilities for Citizen Science

NASA NeMO-Net, the neural multi-modal observation and training network for global coral reef assessment, is an open-source deep convolutional neural network and interactive active learning training software aiming to accurately assess the present and past dynamics of coral reef ecosystems through determination of percent living cover and morphology as well as mapping of spatial distribution. We present an interactive citizen science video game, released this April, for desktop and iOS devices where users interactively label morphology classifications over mm-scale 3D coral reef imagery captured using diver photomosaic imagery, the UAV enabled NASA FluidCam instrument, and satellite datasets. To date, the application has had over 40,000 downloads and over60,000 unique coral reef classifications, each filtered through a user-based rating and expert evaluation system. We also present results from NeMO-Net’s convolutional neural network (CNN) models used to semantically segment 2D satellite imagery as well as projections of 3D coral reconstructions using user input data as training datasets. Fusing datasets using machine learning from multiple remote sensing platforms presents novel methodologies for assessing the health of coral ecosystems, which are critically endangered by a changing climate. In partnering with Mission Blue, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Living Oceans Foundation (LOF), NeMO-Net leverages an international consortium of subject matter experts to provide both proper training for citizen scientists and the generation of a labeled datasets to ingest into machine learning algorithms for global coral reef identification.

NeMO-Net↗

NASA Class A Certification of Core Flight Software (cFS)

NASA Gateway program has named cFS as the software architecture for the vehicle. The core CFS team (GSFC+JSC) is tasked to develop a certifiable release of the cFS bundle, by components, as class A, safety-critical flight software. It is to be available to all Gateway software developers, including our element vendors and international partners. Its availability & usage will be as stated by the Gateway User Agreement license. In this presentation, we will describe our general certification process, and more importantly, our certification artifacts that can be re-run to certify cFS on different platforms. Our goal is to also make available these certifiable packages to the open source community, specifically for cFE, OSAL and certain cFS applications and libraries that are currently hosted on NASA github (https://github.com/nasa).

Tam M Ngo↗

An Integrated Data Analytics Platform

An Integrated Science Data Analytics Platform is an environment that enables the confluence of resources for scientific investigation. It harmonizes data, tools and computational resources which subsequently enable the research community to focus on the investigation rather than spending time on security, data preparation, management, etc. OceanWorks is a NASA technology integration project to establish a cloud-based Integrated Ocean Science Data Analytics Platform at NASA’s Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) for big ocean science. It focuses on advancement and maturity by bringing together several NASA open-source, big data projects for parallel analytics, anomaly detection, in-situ to satellite data matchup, quality-screened data subsetting, search relevancy, and data discovery. Our communities are relying on data distributed through data centers such as the PO.DAAC, COAPS, NCAR, and many others to conduct their research. In typical investigations, scientists would engage in: search for data, evaluate the relevance of that data, download it, and then apply algorithms to identify trends. Such workflow cannot scale if the research involves a massive amount of data or multi-variate measurements. NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission is expected to produce massive amount of observational data during its 3-year nominal mission. Collections like SWOT challenges all existing Earth Science data archival, distribution and analysis paradigms. In this paper, we will discuss how OceanWorks enhances the analysis of physical ocean data where the computation is done on an elastic cloud platform next to the archive to deliver fast, web-accessible services for working with oceanographic measurements.

Yang, Chaowei↗

ExEP Yield Modeling Tool and Validation Test Results

EXOSIMS is an open-source simulation tool for parametric modeling of the detection yield and characterization of exoplanets. EXOSIMS has been adopted by the Exoplanet Exploration Programs Standards De nition and Evaluation Team (ExSDET) as a common mechanism for comparison of exoplanet mission concept studies. To ensure trustworthiness of the tool, we developed a validation test plan that leverages the Python-language unit-test framework, utilizes integration tests for selected module interactions, and performs end-to-end cross- validation with other yield tools. This paper presents the test methods and results, with the physics-based tests such as photometry and integration time calculation treated in detail and the functional tests treated summarily. The test case utilized a 4m unobscured telescope with an idealized coronagraph and an exoplanet population from the IPAC radial velocity (RV) exoplanet catalog. The known RV planets were set at quadrature to allow deterministic validation of the calculation of physical parameters, such as working angle, photon counts and integration time. The observing keepout region was tested by generating plots and movies of the targets and the keepout zone over a year. Although the keepout integration test required the interpretation of a user, the test revealed problems in the L2 halo orbit and the parameterization of keepout applied to some solar system bodies, which the development team was able to address. The validation testing of EXOSIMS was performed iteratively with the developers of EXOSIMS and resulted in a more robust, stable, and trustworthy tool that the exoplanet community can use to simulate exoplanet direct-detection missions from probe class, to WFIRST, up to large mission concepts such as HabEx and LUVOIR.

Nunez, Paul↗

A GNSS Receiver for Small-Sats Enabling Precision POD, Radio Occultations and Reflections

A low cost, low power, and low mass GNSS receiver (called Cion) has been developed and is currently flying on the CICERO cubesats. The receiver was designed in less than a year by JPL for Tyvak and GeoOptics for use in the GeoOptics CICERO constellation and leverages 25 years of JPL GNSS reciever design experience. Cion uses a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) computer along with existing space qualified RF down-converters, software, and firmware to produce atmospheric Radio Occultation (RO) data. By combining a FPGA with dual core ARM processor and an embedded system controller, the Xilinx Zynq processor is an enabling technology that provides a customizable digital signal processing platform integrated into the computer (System on a chip) and enables off-the-shelf hardware to become the main engine behind this software defined radio. Using Linux for the on-board computer allows for fast development times and liberal use of existing open source software libraries. The parts of the receiver that require realtime implementation are performed in the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), which can also be reprogrammed in flight. While the Zynq is not rad hard, the silicon on insulator (SOI) technology is rad tolerant ‘by accident’, allowing for its use in many space-based applications. Early results show that the Cion is working as designed, has demonstrated the first known GLONASS occultations, and obtains high quality atmospheric profiles with excellent lower troposphere penetration (near Earth’s surface).

Young, Larry↗

Fast Linearized Coronagraph Optimizer (FALCO) I: A Software Toolbox for Rapid Coronagraphic Design and Wavefront Correction

The Fast Linearized Coronagraph Optimizer (FALCO) is an open-source toolbox of routines for coronagraphic focal plane wavefront correction. The goal of FALCO is to provide a free, modular framework for the simulation or testbed operation of several common types of coronagraphs. FALCO includes routines for pair-wise probing estimation of the complex electric field and Electric Field Conjugation (EFC) control, and we ask the community to contribute other wavefront correction algorithms. FALCO utilizes and builds upon PROPER, an established optical propagation library. The key innovation in FALCO is the rapid computation of the linearized response matrix for each deformable mirror (DM), which facilitates re-linearization after each control step for faster DM-integrated coronagraph design and wavefront correction experiments. FALCO is freely available as source code in MATLAB at github.com/ajeldorado/falco-matlab and will be available later this year in Python 3 at github.com/ajeldorado/falco-python.

Shaklan, Stuart B.↗

Predicting near-saturated hydraulic conductivity in urban soils

Pedotransfer functions (PTFs) provide point predictions of soil hydraulic properties from more readily measured soil characteristics, yet uncertainties and biases in measurement methods, sampling distributions, and boundary conditions can limit accuracy when estimating near-saturated hydraulic conductivity (K(n)). These limitations may be particularly problematic in understudied urban landscapes that often contain altered hydraulic properties. To better treat deficiencies in PTF performance, we addressed three objectives, which were to: 1) develop PTFs to predict urban K(n), 2) assess bulk density and coarse fragments as explanatory variables; and 3) evaluate the predictive capability of these PTFs by comparing their output to measured hydraulic conductivity values from three other studies of urban soil hydraulics. We used artificial neural networks (ANN) and random forest (RF) approaches to predict urban K(n), with the training dataset including 307 tension infiltrometer tests and other measurements drawn from urban soil assessments in 11 U.S. cities. The PTFs utilized a hierarchy of inputs, starting with percentage sand, silt, clay, and then adding percentage coarse fragments and bulk density. The ANN models performed similar to the RF models, and all models exhibited similar or better predictive performance as models results collected from published articles. The inclusion of bulk density or coarse fragments did not improve accuracy over soil texture alone. Possible reasons for this result include low correlation between K(n) and bulk density and the exclusion of large voids during flow measurements with tension infiltrometers. The models have been made available as an open-source software package to encourage adoption by users working in urban systems.

Jinshi Jian↗

Julia Language 1.1 Ephemeris Reader and Gravitational Modeling Program for Solar System Bodies

This paper analyzes the advancements to the Julia Language 1.1 Ephemeris and Physical constants Reader including the addition of gravitational modeling. Originally written in MATLAB, this Julia Language program is intended to be used in for trajectory design. Written in an open-source coding language, this ephemeris reader can output the state of planetary bodies including asteroids as well as other constants such as gravitational parameters. Two primary methods were chosen to calculate the gravitational potentials which include polyhedral modeling and spherical harmonics.

Gray, Brennan↗

Flare Statistics for Young Stars from a Convolutional Neural Network Analysis of TESS Data

All-sky photometric time-series missions have allowed for the monitoring of thousands of young (t(age) < 800 Myr) stars in order to understand the evolution of stellar activity. Here, we developed a convolutional neural network (CNN), stella, specifically trained to find flares in Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) short-cadence data. We applied the network to 3200 young stars in order to evaluate flare rates as a function of age and spectral type. The CNN takes a few seconds to identify flares on a single light curve. We also measured rotation periods for 1500 of our targets and find that flares of all amplitudes are present across all spot phases, suggesting high spot coverage across the entire surface. Additionally, flare rates and amplitudes decrease for stars t(age) > 50 Myr across all temperatures T(eff) ≥ 4000 K, while stars from 2300 ≤ T(eff) < 4000 K show no evolution across 800 Myr. Stars of T(eff) ≤ 4000 K also show higher flare rates and amplitudes across all ages. We investigate the effects of high flare rates on photoevaporative atmospheric mass loss for young planets. In the presence of flares, planets lose 4%–7% more atmosphere over the first 1 Gyr. stella is an open-source Python toolkit hosted on GitHub and PyPI.

Adina D. Feinstein↗

Optimization of Lyot Coronagrah focal plane masks for improved low-order wavefront sensing

The WFIRST Coronagraph uses a Low-Order Wavefront Sensing and Control (LOWFS/C) subsystem to stabilize the stellar wavefront. This is true for the Hybrid Lyot Coronagraph (HLC), the Shaped Pupil Coronagraph (SPC) spectrograph, and the SPC wide field of view modes. For the SPC spectrograph, we have found via modeling and simulations that a focal plane mask (FPM) with an elliptical phase dimple can reduce the LOWFS errors significantly compared to the conventional, circular phase dimple. For HLC designs, we concurrently optimized the FPM parameters and deformable mirror shapes using our open-source software toolbox, the Fast Linearized Coronagraph Optimizer (FALCO). This process resulted in new FPMs with non-uniform central-area phase modulation. We have found in numerical simulations that such FPMs still provide sufficient LOWFS performance. In this paper, we will present the LOWFS performance for several new HLC and SPC FPM designs.

Riggs, A.J. Eldorado↗

From Partial to Global Assume-Guarantee Contracts: Compositional Realizability Analysis in FRET

Realizability checking refers to the formal procedure that aims to determine whether an implementation exists, always complying to a set of requirements, regardless of the stimuli provided by the system’s environment. Such a check is essential to ensure that the specification does not allow behavior that can force the system to violate safety constraints. In this paper, we present an approach that decomposes realizability checking into smaller, more tractable problems. More specifically, our approach automatically partitions specifications into sets of non-interfering requirements. We prove that checking whether a specification is realizable reduces to checking that each partition is realizable.We have integrated realizability checking and implemented our decomposition approach within the open-source Formal Requirements ElicitationTool (FRET). A FRET user may check the realizability of a specification monolithically or compositionally. We evaluate our approach by comparing monolithic and compositional checking and showcase the strengths of our decomposition approach on a variety of industrial-level case studies

Anastasia Mavridou↗

Concurrent Runtime Verification of Data Rich Events

This paper presents the open source runtime verification tool MESA (MEssage-based System Analysis), implemented in Scala, which supports concurrent monitors using the Actor model. Furthermore, the tool supports indexing (slicing) on the data values occurring in data-carrying events, for each individual monitor. The tool is generic in the sense that any monitoring system can be used for creating monitors. In this paper, we use the internal Scala DSL Daut for programming such in data parameterized state machines and temporal logic. To illustrate MESA/Daut, we present a case study that monitors flights from live U.S. airspace data streams, verifying that they conform to planned routes. With base in the case study, we then perform an extensive empirical study of the potential benefits from monitoring slices of a single property in concurrently executing actors. Due to the overhead of scheduling “small” actors (one for each slice or a small number of slices), it is not obvious that concurrent execution of such is beneficial. However, as a main result, we demonstrate that concurrent monitoring of slices to handle data-carrying events can provide considerable speed gains.

finite state machines↗

NASA biological and physical sciences databases: who’s the FAIRest of them all?

Conceptual models are a key part of the foundation of scientific study. Scientific data discovery and retrieval are often inaccurate and incomplete because these models are not sufficiently well-incorporated into data retrieval systems. Systems often don’t provide the necessary tools to those producing scientific data to fully and unambiguously annotate them and the result is consumers of the data cannot find them efficiently. The capability of data archives to provide these tools to link data to underlying conceptual models is one of dimensions of the recently developed “FAIR” principles (https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/ ), and is key to many automated processes being able to operate on these data, particularly analytics involving artificial intelligence. We used an open-source web service to measure the FAIR compliance of the three data archives operated by NASA for the biological and physical sciences: the Life Sciences Data Archive, the Physical Sciences Informatics database, and GeneLab. The service ingests references to data sets in these archives, and then executes domain-non-specific examinations of these data and metadata that test compliance to the FAIR principles. Of the 22 metrics tested, GeneLab passed 11 (50%), and PSI and LSDA each passed 7 (32%). These data were gathered using only one representative data set from each archive and we anticipate variability in results as we continue to apply these metrics to other data. A preliminary study of the failure traces for each metric suggests there is a wide range of effort and complexity in the enhancements required for each system to elevate FAIR compliance, and this is the subject of continued investigation. This information has been and will likely continue to be important information in planning these enhancements, with the goal of increased readiness of the data for automated processes.

database↗

Particle Interaction Physics Model Formulation for Plume-Surface Interaction Erosion and Cratering

As part of the Game Changing Development (GCD) Program, funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), the development of simulation capability for the prediction of extra-terrestrial Plume Surface Interaction (PSI) environments has been undertaken by the Fluid Dynamics Branch at NASA/MSFC. The Predictive Simulation Capability (PSC) Element is focused on creating simulation capability for the reliable and accurate prediction of PSI in Martian (~650 Pa) and Lunar (vacuum) ambient environments. In addition to the predictive simulation capability, the GCD Program also contains a companion Ground Testing Element for development of focused datasets for validation of predictive capability as well as a Flight-focused Instrumentation Element. This paper will present the status of implementing and maturing particle-particle interaction constituent physics models essential in simulating the landing surface granular material flow under PSI effects. This gas-particle multi-phase interaction modeling of plume impingement flow on the extra-terrestrial soil material is performed with the Gas-Granular Flow Solver (GGFS) addressed in a companion paper. The response of regolith particle flow induced by lander PSI requires accurate representation of the regolith granular material fluidic behavior and gas-granular interactions. The lunar regolith, as the extreme example, is poorly sorted with broad particle size distributions and large fines content. It has significant cohesion, due to interlocking particle shapes for the very jagged particles. The combination of particle shape and size distribution has been identified as major drivers in the complex particle flow response and resulting crater shape characteristics of extraterrestrial granular material. Constituent models for spherical particles can be formulated directly from particle kinetics theory. Complex particle shapes can be modeled by gluing together elemental spherical shapes into composite particles, requiring a Discrete Element Model (DEM) particle kinetics modeling approach to extract data and formulate constituent models. Mixture constituent models for poly-disperse mixtures (i.e, containing distribution of particle sizes) have recently been developed. The required non-spherical particle mixture granular material response closure models are then obtained through small-scale unit physics DEM simulations for the range of particle shapes, mixtures and packing densities. The granular material response closure models are then implemented in the Eulerian granular flow formulation. This DEM-based constituent model extraction process and formulation of poly-disperse particle mixtures has been successfully developed by small business and academic partners in the development of the Gas-Granular Flow Solver (GGFS) simulation program simulation framework. The currently implemented capabilities have reached the capability level of modeling bi-disperse, non-spherical particle mixtures is being continuously extended towards computational modeling of full range irregular particle mixtures. Under the GCD project, this technology is being further developed, transferred to NASA analysts, and matured towards application readiness. The predictive simulation capability team under the GCD project has acquired the modeling tools and processes of the DEM based constituent model formulation from the GGFS development team and is developing the capability to replicate the existing process. This is the first important step towards the ability of the NASA team to independently perform such model development in a production setting. Further efforts are underway to migrate the DEM based model simulation process performed with the academic based tools to more capable Open Source, highly parallelized simulation tools for efficient operation on NASA HPC assets. Evaluation of the currently implemented (such as mono-disperse and bi-disperse spherical and irregular shape particle constituent model applications) and continuously evolving full-range particle physics models in the GGFS tool is performed by the NASA team to advance application readiness of the simulations. Application testing for complex PSI erosions and cratering scenarios such as the Apollo LM is performed for axi-symmetric and full 3D simulations to aid the tool developers in achieving practical application readiness for NASA projects. Important validation and application testing will further be performed against experimental data generated under the GCD PSI project experimental component.

Peter A Liever↗

Evaluation of VSPAERO Analysis Capabilities for Conceptual Design of Aircraft with Propeller-Blown Wings

Advancements in electric propulsion and the emergence of Advanced Air Mobility are driving the evolution of new aircraft designs. Since electric propulsion enables flexibility in propeller location, there is an increasing need for reliable, quick analyses of propeller-airframe interactions during the conceptual design phase. Many existing analysis tools capable of accurately modeling propeller-airframe interactions are computationally expensive and require a high level of expertise and significant time investment for setup. VSPAERO is a NASA-developed, open source, computational analysis tool that runs a Vortex-Lattice Method (VLM) solver and is targeted at conceptual design. This paper assesses the applicability of the VSPAERO VLM in the conceptual design phase by comparing VSPAERO predictions to predictions by OVERFLOW, a Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Computational Fluid Dynamics solver, and RoBIN, another VLM tool. The paper details the modeling, meshing, and analysis techniques used within VSPAERO. Analyses were performed for a wing in isolation, a propeller in isolation, and then for two propeller-blown wing configurations: one with a propeller located at the midspan and another with a propeller located at the wingtip. The propeller was modeled both as an actuator disk and as rotating blades.

VSPAERO↗