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All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Open Science for Life in Space

Understanding how biology changes in response spaceflight and how these changes affect crew and craft is important to the design of safe, robust and effective space missions. Advances in analytical technologies allow large volumes of new data to be generated from space biological experiments, and a growing library of legacy data can be re-analyzed in the context of a greater understanding of biological systems. This enables powerful insights into how biology changes during spaceflight. However, for this to be fully realized additional tools, programs, and communities must be developed. Now a developing suite of interconnected open science resources (GeneLab, the Ames Life Sciences Data Archive, the NASA Biological Institutional Science Collection, the Biospecimen Sharing Program) can be leveraged by dedicated Analysis Working Groups to accelerate the pace of discovery in the space biological sciences.

Open Science↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Testing and Application of Commercial Thermodynamics Software for Solid-Gas Equilibria in Planetary Science Applications

The ability to calculate chemical equilibria from thermochemical constants (e.g., H, S, Cp) or other experimental data is a tool widely employed by scientists. However, phase equilibria for planetary science problems is limited by easy access to libraries of thermochemical data, as well as the software to invert that data. Many academic software packages are focused on specific types of problems (e.g., aqueous solutions or melting and crystallization of magmas). This focus makes them excellent tools for specific uses, but poorer tools for other scenarios, especially those involving elements or chemical species that are less well-studied in that specific scientific field (e.g. NaCl vapor). Amongst the more general thermodynamic software tools, there are closed academic software packages, open-source options, as well as commercial software. We have explored the extent to which commercial chemistry/chemical engineering software may be able to satisfy the need for thermochemical modeling packages that can accommodate the diverse species and conditions of planetary science problems. Here we compare the output of software package HSC Chemistry™ (Metso Outotec) to published vapor-solid phase diagrams for a variety of major and minor elements. HSC Chemistry™ has been used in several recent geochemical studies of terrestrial volcanic systems [2- 4]. However, it has not to our knowledge been benchmarked against peer-reviewed model results for the conditions and compositions relevant to planetary science. We present one such comparison here, the low- pressure environment of the solar nebula, using literature data. In short, we find excellent agreement between HSC Chemistry™ and the well-regarded academic software package CONDOR. These preliminary results suggest that at least some commercial software packages are capable of robust thermochemical calculations for planetary science.

planetary science↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Life Sciences Portal (NLSP): Supporting Scientific Transparency and Reproducibility

NASA’s Life Sciences Ports (NLSP) serves the scientific community by providing curated data from space life science experiment. The Human Research Program (HRP) with the help of NLSP is currently transforming their life sciences data archive systems and processes to improve compliance with the FAIR principles [1]. Some of these improvements will at the same time support the twin pillars of Open Science [2]: transparency of methods and reproducibility of results. Scientific transparency is marked by the easily intelligible communication of what has been investigated: what were the procedures for collecting sample and the characteristics of samples collected? what kinds of measurements were made, what were the environmental conditions of the measurements? What were the analysis techniques of the collected data? Reproducibility of the results and findings from the investigation requires a high level of transparency for all but the simplest investigations; the slightest deviation in communicating and replicating complex experimental procedures or data analyses can often yield quite different data and even findings, thwarting their validation. One of the ways the NLSP is aiming to improve the communication of scientific information is through the use of ontology-driven metadata. Ontologies are powerful, graph-based knowledge representation structures, which can be leveraged to increase data interoperability, the area of the FAIR principles in which many data systems most lack compliance. Over the past decade, there has been a concerted effort in the biomedical community to develop modular and narrowly focused domain and application-specific ontologies in a common, open-source framework, the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry [3]. The open sharing and modular nature of this effort promises huge increases in harmonized data sharing for systems that leverage these models. Which is in line with the FAIR Data Principles of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse for scientific data management and stewardship.

Life Sciences data↗

NASA NTRS2023

NLSP: NASA Life Sciences Portal

Life Sciences data↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Artificial Intelligence for Future Earth Science Information Systems and Earth System Digital Twins

NASA's Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) Program is one of several Technology programs managed by the Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) in the Earth Science Division (ESD). The AIST Program focuses on advanced information systems and novel computer science technologies that will be needed by NASA Earth Science in the next 5 to 10 years. The three main thrusts of the AIST Program deal with Novel Observing Strategies (NOS), Analytic Collaborative Frameworks (ACF) and Earth System Digital Twins (ESDT). This presentation summarizes the AIST Program with a special focus on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies included in its funded projects.

Earth Science Remote Sensing; Information Systems↗

NASA NTRS2020

Clouds Around the World: How a Simple Citizen Science Data Challenge Became a Worldwide Success

Citizen science is often recognized for its potential to directly engage the public in science, and is uniquely positioned to support and extend participants’ learning in science. In March 2018, the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program, NASA’s largest and longest-lasting citizen science program about Earth, organized a month-long event that asked people around the world to contribute daily cloud observations and photographs of the sky (15 March–15 April 2018). What was considered a simple engagement activity turned into an unprecedented worldwide event that garnered major public interest and media recognition, collecting over 55,000 observations from 99 different countries, in more than 15,000 locations, on every continent including Antarctica. The event was called the “Spring Cloud Challenge” and was created to 1) engage the general public in the scientific process and promote the use of the GLOBE Observer app, 2) collect ground-based visual observations of varying cloud types during boreal spring, and 3) increase the number and locations of ground-based visual cloud observations collocated with cloud-observing satellites. The event resulted in roughly 3 times more observations than during the historic and highly publicized 2017 North American total solar eclipse. The dataset also includes observations over the Drake Passage in Antarctica and reports from intense Saharan dust events. This article describes how the challenge was crafted, outreach to volunteer scientists around the world, details of the data collected, and impact of the data.

GLOBE↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA’s Role in Putting Earth Science Information to Use in Decision-Making

The demand for decision-relevant climate information is continually growing, both because of the severity and intensity of climate change impacts and because of the growing recognition that people can take actions today that will mitigate the risk from future climate impacts. Agencies across the federal government are responding to this need by working together to support the Nation in becoming more resilient to climate change. NASA Earth Science has been a key engine of understanding global climate change and how it impacts people around the world. Additionally, for over two decades, the Agency has worked, via partnerships, to connect NASA Earth Science knowledge with decision support needs, often taking a service-oriented approach by working with boundary organizations and climate service providers. In this presentation, we describe NASA’s unique role in enabling new and practical uses of Earth science information, and how the Agency supports public and private sector partners. We highlight several key examples of NASA projects and activities that support local to regional climate resilience efforts. In addition, we discuss how NASA’s new Earth Information Center, a partnership among several federal agencies, enables in-person and virtual visitors to see how our planet is changing in ways that affect their lives and livelihoods. Lastly, we discuss plans for how NASA Earth Science will continue to help build a more climate resilient future.

earth science↗

NASA NTRS2023

Design Status of Gondola for High-Altitude Planetary Science (GHAPS)

The Gondola for High-Altitude Planetary Science (GHAPS) project was initiated to develop a balloon platform to meet planetary science goals and objectives as outlined in the NASA decadal survey. GHAPS is a first-generation reusable platform design optimized for multiple long-duration flights and planetary science. The gondola design was intended to accommodate infrared (IR) and ultraviolet/visible (UV-Vis) observations, supporting detection of water and carbon dioxide and allowing for long-duration flights to enable time-based studies. It was anticipated that the GHAPS gondola design would evolve over time with changing science demands. This report describes the as-designed configuration and capabilities of the GHAPS gondola.

Planetary Science↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Active Optical Remote Sensing Sensors and Instrumentation for NASA’s Future Earth and Space Science Measurements/Missions

STRIVES Entry: 20230013683, Abstract—Active optical (Laser/Lidar) measurement techniques are critical for the future National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth, Planetary Science, Exploration, and Aeronautics measurements. The latest science decadal surveys recommend several missions requiring active optical systems to meet the science measurement objectives and the aeronautics community continues to use Laser/Lidar technologies to meet the aeronautics measurement objectives. This presentation will provide an overview of NASA efforts in developing and maturing state-of-the-art advanced solid-state flight laser/lidar systems for airborne and space-borne remote sensing measurements. The presentation will also provide details of a strategic approach for active optical technologies and techniques to meet the NASA’s future Earth and Space Science measurements/missions needs and requirements for space-based applications.

NASA's Future↗

NASA NTRS2023

Atmospheric Science Questions for a Uranian Probe

The Ice Giants represent a unique and relatively poorly characterized class of planets that have been largely unexplored since the brief Voyager 2 flyby in the late 1980’s. Uranus is particularly enigmatic, due to its extreme axial tilt, offset magnetic field, apparent low heat budget, mysteriously cool stratosphere and warm thermosphere, as well as a lack of well-defined, long-lived storm systems and distinct atmospheric features. All these characteristics make Uranus a scientifically intriguing target, particularly for missions able to complete in situ measurements. The 2023-2032 Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology prioritized a flagship orbiter and probe to explore Uranus with the intent to “...transform our knowledge of Ice Giants in general and the Uranian system in particular” (National Academies of Sciences and Medicine, 2022). In support of this recommendation, we present community-supported science questions, key measurements, and a suggested instrument suite that focuses on the exploration and characterization of the Uranian atmosphere by an in situ probe. The scope of these science questions encompasses the origin, evolution, and current processes that shape the Uranian atmosphere, and in turn the Uranian system overall. Addressing these questions will inform vital new insights about Uranus, Ice Giants and Gas Giants in general, the large population of Neptune-sized exoplanets, and the Solar System as a whole.

Uranus↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Science Office for Mission Assessments Overview

The Science Office for Mission Assessments (SOMA) at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) supports the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) at NASA Headquarters in the acquisition of competed, Principal Investigator-led, Earth and space science missions and instruments. SOMA Acquisition Managers work with SMD Program Scientists to develop Announcement of Opportunity (AO) solicitations, and to lead the Technical, Management, and Cost (TMC) evaluations of proposals received in response to the AO solicitations and Phase A concept studies. The SOMA proposal evaluation process is described, along with examples of space science missions that SOMA personnel have worked on.

SOMA↗

DOE OSTI2026

FAIRLinked: Data FAIRification Tools for Materials Data Science

FAIRLinked is a software package created to support the FAIRification of materials science data, ensuring proper alignment with FAIR principles: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. It is built to be compatible with MDS-Onto, an ontology designed to capture the semantics of various types of materials data, enabling integration and sharing across different research workflows. The package is subdivided into three subpackages: InterfaceMDS, RDFTableConversion, and QBWorkflow. The first subpackage, InterfaceMDS allows users to search for terms using either string search or various filters, explore different domains and subdomains, and add terms to MDS-Onto. RDFTableConversion is used for serialization and deserialization of data from CSV into JSONLDs and vice versa in a way that captures the semantics of the data using MDS-Onto. Lastly, QBWorkflow is a serialization and deserialization workflow that incorporates RDF Data Cube vocabulary, useful for working with multidimensional datasets. By offering these packages, FAIRLinked lowers the barrier of creating FAIR, machine-actionable data for researchers in the materials science community.

FAIR↗

DOE OSTI2022

Hydrological Perspectives on Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) Science

Hydrologic sciences depend on data monitoring, analyses, and simulations of hydrologic processes to ensure safe, sufficient, and equal water distribution. These hydrologic data come from but are not limited to primary (lab, plot, and field experiments) and secondary sources (remote sensing, UAVs, hydrologic models) that typically follow FAIR Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable: (go-fair.org)). Easy availability of FAIR data has become possible because the hydrology-oriented organizations have pushed the community to increase coordination of the protocols for generating data and sharing model platforms. In addition, networking at all levels has emerged with an invigorated effort to activate community science efforts that complement conventional data collection methods. However, it has become difficult to decipher various complex hydrologic processes with increasing data. Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, provide more accurate and faster alternatives to better understand different hydrological processes. The Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) framework provides a pathway for water users to include and respect diversity, equity, and inclusivity. In addition, ICONs support the integration of peoples with historically marginalized identities into this professional discipline of water sciences. This article comprises three independent commentaries about the state of ICON principles in hydrology and discusses the opportunities and challenges of adopting them.

(ICON) principles to address↗

DOE OSTI2022

Enabling FAIR data in Earth and environmental science with community-centric (meta)data reporting formats

Abstract Research can be more transparent and collaborative by using Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) principles to publish Earth and environmental science data. Reporting formats—instructions, templates, and tools for consistently formatting data within a discipline—can help make data more accessible and reusable. However, the immense diversity of data types across Earth science disciplines makes development and adoption challenging. Here, we describe 11 community reporting formats for a diverse set of Earth science (meta)data including cross-domain metadata (dataset metadata, location metadata, sample metadata), file-formatting guidelines (file-level metadata, CSV files, terrestrial model data archiving), and domain-specific reporting formats for some biological, geochemical, and hydrological data (amplicon abundance tables, leaf-level gas exchange, soil respiration, water and sediment chemistry, sensor-based hydrologic measurements). More broadly, we provide guidelines that communities can use to create new (meta)data formats that integrate with their scientific workflows. Such reporting formats have the potential to accelerate scientific discovery and predictions by making it easier for data contributors to provide (meta)data that are more interoperable and reusable.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

DOE Plasma Science Center - Predictive Control of Plasma Kinetics: Multi-Phase and Bounded Systems (Final Report DE-SC0001939)

Low temperature plasmas (LTPs) are the plasmas of electron-volt (eV) physics and eV technologies. LTPs have characteristic electron temperatures of a few eV and fractional ionizations that are typically small. Since LTPs have electron temperatures commensurate with the threshold energies of excited states in neutral atoms and molecules, power transfer from electrons to these atoms and molecules efficiently produces activated species (e.g., radicals, excited states, photons). Acceleration of ions in the sheaths of LTPs to energies of tens to hundreds of eV enable activation of surface modifying processes – sputtering, etching, deposition. With such properties, LTPs are often and beneficially used in technological devices, ranging from etching and deposition in microelectronics and solar cell fabrication, to hardening of surgical instruments. LTPs harbor fundamental science issues that are intellectually challenging and rewarding. At the same time, there are enormous societal benefits that are enabled by LTPs. The entire present-day and future information technology infrastructure owes its very existence to LTPs. Renewable energy sources, such as solar cell arrays, could not be economically produced in the absence of deposition and etching by LTPs. In acknowledgment of the importance of LTPs, the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences supported the Plasma Science Center for Predictive Control of Plasma Kinetics: Multi-Phase and Bounded Systems from August 2009 to July 2021, consisting of an initial 5-year grant, 3 funded extensions and 2 no-cost extensions. This is the final report of the Center in which the productivity of the Center is discussed in terms of publications, impact and personnel. High-lights of the research performed in the Center are provided.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2021

Assimilation of citizen science data in snowpack modeling using a new snow data set: Community Snow Observations

A physically based snowpack evolution and redistribution model was used to test the effectiveness of assimilating crowd-sourced snow depth measurements collected by citizen scientists. The Community Snow Observations project gathers, stores, and distributes measurements of snow depth recorded by recreational users and snow professionals in high mountain environments. These citizen science measurements are valuable since they come from terrain that is relatively undersampled and can offer in situ snow information in locations where snow information is sparse or nonexistent. The present study investigates (1) the improvements to model performance when citizen science measurements are assimilated, and (2) the number of measurements necessary to obtain those improvements. Model performance is assessed by comparing time series of observed (snow pillow) and modeled snow water equivalent values, by comparing spatially distributed maps of observed (remotely sensed) and modeled snow depth, and by comparing fieldwork results from within the study area. The results demonstrate that few citizen science measurements are needed to obtain improvements in model performance, and these improvements are found in 62 % to 78 % of the ensemble simulations, depending on the model year. Model estimations of total water volume from a subregion of the study area also demonstrate improvements in accuracy after CSO measurements have been assimilated. These results suggest that even modest measurement efforts by citizen scientists have the potential to improve efforts to model snowpack processes in high mountain environments, with implications for water resource management and process-based snow modeling.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Transforming Energy Through Computational Excellence: NREL's Computational Science Center

Computational methods underpin advancing the science and engineering of energy efficiency, sustainable transportation, renewable power technologies, and developing a knowledge base to optimize energy systems. NREL's Computational Science Center (CSC) proudly focuses on providing the service of computing, advancing the science of computing, and enabling NREL's clean energy mission.

applied mathematics↗

DOE OSTI2021

Expert Text Analysis in the Inclusion of History and Philosophy of Science in Higher Education

The history and philosophy of science (HPS) plays a special role in education. An elective HPS course onthe philosophy of scientific experimentation for young scientists and graduate students of natural scienceis presented. The course bears a pragmatic character, and its main aims include the development of criticalthinking (CT), familiarization with philosophical problems in the relevant areas of knowledge, and thecultivation of a taste for reflective, critical analysis, both individual and group-based, which contributes todeeper understanding of the features of scientific practice in the context of modern complex groupcooperation. Students are offered a classical HPS program that included debates on the relationship betweenempiricism and rationalism, the role of Kant’s transcendental philosophy, modern topics associated withthe practical success of rationalism in the emergence of modern natural science, and the theory-ladennessof experimentation. Particular attention during the course is paid to the problems of megascience, theinclusion of which is justified by the specifics of the students’ engagement with science, technology,engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Emphasis is placed on the structure and typology of the collectivesubject in the modern educational process as well as in experimental practice. Lessons on the methodologyof expert text analysis (META), which are aimed at the development of critical thinking skills and thecreation of an interdisciplinary discussion space, are included in the course and relied on the example ofthe history and philosophy of high energy physics to motivate professional reflection. META classesincluded in the course prepare graduate students for teamwork in big science, proto-megascience, andmegascience. The course offers practical recommendations that could be applied to students’ own researchand could be useful for practitioners.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗