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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 883 records · Page 49

Thermal Reservoir Networks for Modularly Expandable Thermal Microgrids

The Department of Defense (DoD) faces the substantial challenge of cost-effectively retrofitting one to two installations per month, each comprising approximately 1,000 buildings, to improve resilience, reduce energy consumption, and enhance energy supply security. Achieving these objectives requires optimal system selection and effective risk mitigation during system integration. To address this need, we introduce Platform-Based Design (PBD), a structured, hierarchical methodology adapted from other industrial sectors to the domain of energy system retrofits. We demonstrate the effectiveness of PBD through a techno-economic feasibility study comparing geothermal-coupled thermal energy networks (TENs) with conventional energy systems for heating, cooling, and powering 17 buildings at Joint Base Andrews (JBA) in Maryland. Our analysis illustrates that the PBD approach enables rigorous, data-driven, sequential decision making, resulting in a family of Pareto-optimal systems, among which the TEN emerged as the most promising solution. The selected TEN design integrates geothermal borefields, heat recovery heat pumps, photovoltaic (PV) arrays, and battery storage. Compared to the baseline system – gas heating combined with air-source chillers – the proposed TEN reduces annual imported energy by 74% and peak electricity demand by 45%, achieves a levelized cost of energy of $\$0.210$/kWh, and substantially enhances resilience. Life-cycle costs increase by approximately 6%, and initial investment costs are about 2.5 times higher than the baseline. However, if central plant infrastructure, district loops, and utility-scale PV and battery systems are privately funded and operated, the initial investment would fall below the baseline system cost. Critical to achieving these significant performance improvements were detailed nonlinear dynamic simulations coupling geothermal heat transfer, energy system operation, and realistic feedback control logic. These simulations identified essential design modifications and control strategy refinements that substantially reduced energy use, peak demand, and compressor shortcycling, thereby improving durability and reliability—issues that would have been significantly more expensive to resolve during operation. Additionally, the verification step highlighted sensitivities to key design parameters that could reduce initial investment by approximately $\$2$ million and reduce annual life-cycle costs more than $\$300,000$. We recommend adopting the PBD methodology for future feasibility studies and TEN pilot projects to gain valuable operational experience. Furthermore, we recommend that DoD invest in transferring and scaling the PBD methodology to other installations. This entails developing standardized computational frameworks and component libraries as well as training industry in conducting PBD. Such investments would enable rapid, robust, reliable, and cost-effective retrofits, supporting DoD’s ambitious energy system modernization goals.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Orbit determination and prediction, and computer programs

Orbit determination and prediction programs are needed to generate ephemerides for the satellite. Orbit determination is from tracking data consisting of angles only, and is based on a modified version of a method by R. E. Briggs and J. W. Slowey of the Smithsonian Institution. Trends in the data due to perturbations from a Keplerian orbit are removed before this process, and estimates of the orbital elements from individual passes are combined statistically to produce refined estimates. Ephemeris calculation is by a semi-analytic method in which deviations from a Keplerian orbit are obtained by integrating the perturbing forces. The programs to implement these procedures have been written for both the IBM 7090 and the IBM 1620 computers.

EPHEMERIS↗

Ferroelectric Memory Capacitors For Neural Networks

Thin-film ferroelectric capacitors proposed as nonvolatile analog memory devices. Intended primarily for use as synaptic connections in electronic neural networks. Connection strengths (synaptic weights) stored as nonlinear remanent polarizations of ferroelectric films. Ferroelectric memory and interrogation capacitors combined into memory devices in vertical or lateral configurations. Photoconductive layer modulated by light provides variable resistance to alter bias signal applied to memory capacitor. Features include nondestructive readout, simplicity, and resistance to ionizing radiation. Interrogated without destroying stored analog data. Also amenable to very-large-scale integration. Allows use of ac coupling, eliminating errors caused by dc offsets in amplifier circuits of neural networks.

Thakoor, Sarita↗

The anaerobic degradation of organic matter in Danish coastal sediments - Iron reduction, manganese reduction, and sulfate reduction

A combination of porewater and solid phase analysis as well as a series of sediment incubations are used to quantify organic carbon oxidation by dissimilatory Fe reduction, Mn reduction, and sulfate reduction, in sediments from the Skagerrak (located off the northeast coast of Jutland, Denmark). Solid phase data are integrated with incubation results to define the zones of the various oxidation processes. At S(9), surface Mn enrichments of up to 3.5 wt pct were found, and with such a ready source of Mn, dissimilatory Mn reduction was the only significant anaerobic process of carbon oxidation in the surface 10 cm of the sediment. At S(4) and S(6), active Mn reduction occurred; however, most of the Mn reduction may have resulted from the oxidation of acid volatile sulfides and Fe(2+) rather than by a dissimilatory sulfate. Dissolved Mn(2+) was found to completely adsorb onto sediment containing fully oxidized Mn oxides.

Canfield, Donald E.↗

Electric Fields, Cloud Microphysics, and Reflectivity in Anvils of Florida Thunderstorms

A coordinated aircraft - radar project that investigated the electric fields, cloud microphysics and radar reflectivity of thunderstorm anvils near Kennedy Space Center is described. Measurements from two cases illustrate the extensive nature of the microphysics and electric field observations. As the aircraft flew from the edges of anvils into the interior, electric fields very frequently increased abruptly from approximately 1 to more than 10 kV m(exp -1) even though the particle concentration and radar reflectivity increased smoothly. The abrupt increase in field usually occurred when the aircraft entered regions with a reflectivity of 10 to 15 dBZ. It is suggested that the abrupt increase in electric field may be because the charge advection from the storm core did not occur across the entire breadth of the anvil and was not constant in time. Screening layers were not detected near the edges of the anvils. Some long-lived anvils showed subsequent enhancement of electric field and reflectivity and growth of particles, which if localized, might be a factor in explaining the abrupt change of field in some cases. Comparisons of electric field magnitude with particle concentration or reflectivity for a combined data set that included all anvil measurements showed a threshold behavior. When the average reflectivity, such as in a 3-km cube, was less than approximately 5 dBZ, the electric field magnitude was les than kV m(exp -1). Based on these findings, the Volume Averaged Height Integrated Radar Reflectivity (VAHIRR) is now being used by NASA, the Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration in new Lightning Launch Commit Criteria as a diagnostic for high electric fields in anvils.

Dye, J. E.↗

Cloud and Precipitation Analyses using Merged Datasets from Two Airborne Microwave Radiometers Covering 10–183 GHz

Microwave radiometers provide valuable insight into the structure and characteristics of clouds and precipitation. In NASA’s airborne remote-sensing arsenal, the Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR) and the Conical Scanning Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (CoSMIR) have been used extensively in field campaigns throughout the world. AMPR operates with four channels between 10.7 and 85.5 GHz, while CoSMIR operates with nine channels ranging from 50.3 to 183.31 GHz. Although these datasets provide key information when used separately, the combination of these radiometers covers virtually the full range of frequencies used by the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Microwave Imager (GMI), enabling suborbital observations to compare with GPM spaceborne measurements. This presentation will detail the merger of AMPR and CoSMIR data during two NASA airborne field campaigns: the Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment (IPHEx) and the Olympic Mountains Experiment / Radar Definition Experiment (OLYMPEX/RADEX). Other field campaigns, such as the Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS), may be included as well. Using the merged brightness temperature dataset, features of precipitating and non-precipitating clouds containing liquid and/or ice hydrometeors will be discussed from selected flight segments. Geophysical retrievals derived from these brightness temperatures using a one-dimensional variational (1DVAR) technique and/or multi-linear regression equations will also be employed in these analyses. Observed transitions between precipitating and non-precipitating systems will be explored in greater detail. Dropsonde data will be used to provide environmental contexts throughout each flight, and additional observations (e.g., from airborne and/or land-based radar) will be incorporated to supplement the radiometer-based results. The broader implications of these results and pathways for future work will also be discussed.

Corey G. Amiot↗

Climate-Water-Electricity Interactions in the U.S. Under Alternative Decarbonized Futures

The U.S. electric sector is rapidly evolving, with widespread renewable energy deployment, building and transport electrification, and nuanced decarbonization policies. Climate change influences the supply and demand for electricity by altering water resources for cooling and hydropower, thermal plant efficiencies, and heating and cooling demand. This research combines global climate model data, asset-level water and streamflow modeling, and electric sector capacity expansion modeling to study climate-water-electricity interactions across myriad future climate and electricity scenarios that consider electrification and decarbonization using renewable, hydrogen, carbon capture, and nuclear technologies. Multi-model integration leads to insights into power-water sector interactions and their impacts on grid economics and environmental outcomes.

climate change↗

Combining qualitative and quantitative spatial and temporal information in a hierarchical structure: Approximate reasoning for plan execution monitoring

The problem of plan generation (PG) and the problem of plan execution monitoring (PEM), including updating, queries, and resource-bounded replanning, have different reasoning and representation requirements. PEM requires the integration of qualitative and quantitative information. PEM is the receiving of data about the world in which a plan or agent is executing. The problem is to quickly determine the relevance of the data, the consistency of the data with respect to the expected effects, and if execution should continue. Only spatial and temporal aspects of the plan are addressed for relevance in this work. Current temporal reasoning systems are deficient in computational aspects or expressiveness. This work presents a hybrid qualitative and quantitative system that is fully expressive in its assertion language while offering certain computational efficiencies. In order to proceed, methods incorporating approximate reasoning using hierarchies, notions of locality, constraint expansion, and absolute parameters need be used and are shown to be useful for the anytime nature of PEM.

Hoebel, Louis J.↗

Models of Sector Flows Under Local, Regional and Airport Weather Constraints

Recently, the ATM community has made important progress in collaborative trajectory management through the introduction of a new FAA traffic management initiative called a Collaborative Trajectory Options Program (CTOP). FAA can use CTOPs to manage air traffic under multiple constraints (manifested as flow constrained areas or FCAs) in the system, and it allows flight operators to indicate their preferences for routing and delay options. CTOPs also permits better management of the overall trajectory of flights by considering both routing and departure delay options simultaneously. However, adoption of CTOPs in airspace has been hampered by many factors that include challenges in how to identify constrained areas and how to set rates for the FCAs. Decision support tools providing assistance would be particularly helpful in effective use of CTOPs. Such DSTs tools would need models of demand and capacity in the presence of multiple constraints. This study examines different approaches to using historical data to create and validate models of maximum flows in sectors and other airspace regions in the presence of multiple constraints. A challenge in creating an empirical model of flows under multiple constraints is a lack of sufficient historical data that captures diverse situations involving combinations of multiple constraints especially those with severe weather. The approach taken here to deal with this is two-fold. First, we create a generalized sector model encompassing multiple sectors rather than individual sectors in order to increase the amount of data used for creating the model by an order of magnitude. Secondly, we decompose the problem so that the amount of data needed is reduced. This involves creating a baseline demand model plus a separate weather constrained flow reduction model and then composing these into a single integrated model. A nominal demand model is a flow model (gdem) in the presence of clear local weather. This defines the flow as a function of weather constraints in neighboring regions, airport constraints and weather in locations that can cause re-routes to the location of interest. A weather constrained flow reduction model (fwx-red) is a model of reduction in baseline counts as a function of local weather. Because the number of independent variables associated with each of the two decomposed models is smaller than that with a single model, need for amount of data is reduced. Finally, a composite model that combines these two can be represented as fwx-red (gdem(e), l) where e represents non-local constraints and l represents local weather. The approaches studied to developing these models are divided into three categories: (1) Point estimation models (2) Empirical models (3) Theoretical models. Errors in predictions of these different types of models have been estimated. In situations when there is abundant data, point estimation models tend to be very accurate. In contrast, empirical models do better than theoretical models when there is some data available. The biggest benefit of theoretical models is their general applicability in wider range situations once the degree of accuracy of these has been established.

Kulkarni, Deepak↗

Models of Sector Aircraft Counts in the Presence of Local, Regional and Airport Constraints

Recently, the ATM community has made important progress in collaborative trajectory management through the introduction of a new FAA traffic management initiative called a Collaborative Trajectory Options Program (CTOP). FAA can use CTOPs to manage air traffic under multiple constraints (manifested as flow constrained areas or FCAs) in the system, and it allows flight operators to indicate their preferences for routing and delay options. CTOPs also permits better management of the overall trajectory of flights by considering both routing and departure delay options simultaneously. However, adoption of CTOPs in airspace has been hampered by many factors that include challenges in how to identify constrained areas and how to set rates for the FCAs. Decision support tools providing assistance would be particularly helpful in effective use of CTOPs. Such DSTs tools would need models of demand and capacity in the presence of multiple constraints. This study examines different approaches to using historical data to create and validate models of maximum flows in sectors and other airspace regions in the presence of multiple constraints. A challenge in creating an empirical model of flows under multiple constraints is a lack of sufficient historical data that captures diverse situations involving combinations of multiple constraints especially those with severe weather. The approach taken here to deal with this is two-fold. First, we create a generalized sector model encompassing multiple sectors rather than individual sectors in order to increase the amount of data used for creating the model by an order of magnitude. Secondly, we decompose the problem so that the amount of data needed is reduced. This involves creating a baseline demand model plus a separate weather constrained flow reduction model and then composing these into a single integrated model. A nominal demand model is a flow model (gdem) in the presence of clear local weather. This defines the flow as a function of weather constraints in neighboring regions, airport constraints and weather in locations that can cause re-routes to the location of interest. A weather constrained flow reduction model (fwx-red) is a model of reduction in baseline counts as a function of local weather. Because the number of independent variables associated with each of the two decomposed models is smaller than that with a single model, need for amount of data is reduced. Finally, a composite model that combines these two can be represented as fwx-red (gdem(e), l) where e represents non-local constraints and l represents local weather. The approaches studied to developing these models are divided into three categories: (1) Point estimation models (2) Empirical models (3) Theoretical models. Errors in predictions of these different types of models have been estimated. In situations when there is abundant data, point estimation models tend to be very accurate. In contrast, empirical models do better than theoretical models when there is some data available. The biggest benefit of theoretical models is their general applicability in wider range situations once the degree of accuracy of these has been established.

Kulkarni, Deepak↗

Geothermal Deep Direct Use for Turbine Inlet Cooling in East Texas

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Southern Methodist University Geothermal Laboratory (SMU), Eastman Chemical (Longview, TX), and TAS (Houston, TX) evaluated the feasibility of using geothermal heat to improve the performance of a natural-gas power plant in East Texas. The area of interest is the Eastman Chemical plant in Longview, Texas, which is on the northwestern margin of a geologic region known as the Sabine Uplift. The feasibility study focused on determining the potential for accessing a subsurface hot-water geothermal resource within a 10-km radius of the site to provide thermal energy for absorption chillers. Wells within a 20-km radius are included for broader geological comparison to determine the heat flow, temperature-at-depth, field porosity and permeability. The lithologies of most interest are the Lower Cretaceous Trinity Group and Upper Jurassic Cotton Valley Group. The deeper Cotton Valley formations are hotter (averaging 117 to 130°C), yet permeability and porosity are low. The shallower Trinity Group contains more variability in permeability and porosity and lower temperatures averaging about 98 to 117°C. The shallower formations are considered despite the lower temperature because of increased ability to produce larger volumes of water and extract enough heat before reinjection. The complete SMU analysis is available in the National Geothermal Data System (NGDS). Tapping such deep geothermal sources for direct heating (as opposed to power generation) is known as geothermal deep direct use (DDU). Geothermal DDU has potential across a wide swath of the United States but is underutilized due to challenging project economics associated with developing a deep geothermal resource for what are typically small-scale, variable-demand projects. This project examines the feasibility of geothermal energy integration in a natural-gas combined cycle power station in East Texas. The DDU resource is tapped to drive absorption chillers (24/7) for production of chilled water at 5-10°C (41-50°F). This chilled water is stored until needed, which allows for continuous operation with a relatively small-capacity geothermal/absorption chiller system. When conditions are favorable, the chilled water is dispatched to cool the air entering the compressor stage of a gas combustion turbine. This process, known as turbine inlet cooling (TIC), boosts power production during periods of high temperature and high-power demand. Such systems can enhance grid reliability and reduce the cost for peak-demand power. A simulation model of the power plant was developed in IPSEpro software and validated against operational data from the plant. This model allowed the team to estimate the additional power that could be produced by applying TIC under different operating and ambient conditions. Absorption chiller performance was estimated from vendor sources to determine the production rate of chilled water from the geothermal resource. Geothermal drilling and development costs were estimated using NREL's GEOPHIRES 2.0. The expected lower drilling costs in this region led to an estimated cost of geothermal heat of about $4/MMBtu (1.4 cents/kWh t ). The estimated cost for the absorption chillers and TIC hardware were obtained from literature sources and project partners. Hourly data were obtained for weather, natural gas and electricity prices, and plant operating state for 2017, which served as a representative year. NREL estimated the capital cost, operating cost, and additional electricity production and revenue for different combinations of geothermal capacity, chiller capacity, and water storage-tank size. The analysis drove toward smaller geothermal and chiller systems to reduce equipment cost. A relatively low-cost water storage tank accumulated the near-continuous chilled water output for later use when TIC was most valued.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Assessing the Additional Carbon Savings with Biofuel

A recent study claims that corn used for ethanol should not be considered to be inherently biogenically carbon-neutral because not all that corn was grown additional to the level otherwise. By assessing the extent of carbon neutrality of corn for ethanol using the reference point baseline approach and historical data that study concluded that the carbon intensity of US corn ethanol is 27% higher than that of gasoline. We develop a framework to determine the carbon neutrality of corn for ethanol by assessing the additional carbon uptake by crops using an anticipated baseline approach. We also apply this framework to determine the additional corn produced for ethanol and include the direct life cycle carbon emissions of only that portion of corn in the direct life cycle carbon intensity of corn ethanol. We implement this framework by integrating an economic model of the agricultural sector in the USA with a biogenic carbon model and life cycle analysis to quantify biogenic carbon uptake and direct life cycle emissions with and without corn ethanol expansion over the 2007–2027 period. We find that the combined biogenic carbon emissions and direct life cycle carbon emission intensity of corn ethanol (not including indirect land use related emissions) is 21% lower than gasoline. In conclusion, the lower value of this carbon intensity of corn ethanol compared with gasoline is robust to a wide range of parametric assumptions.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Building a Real-Time Predictive Flood Model for Improving Early Warning Systems in Ellicott City, Maryland

As flood events in the United States grow in frequency and intensity, the use of applied remote sensing analyses is increasingly necessary for effective flood monitoring and warning systems. The NASA DEVELOP National Program partnered with the Howard County government in Maryland to investigate the use of machine learning for advanced flood risk detection, and to test the feasibility of integrating this approach into the county’s flood early warning system. To strengthen the efforts of the Howard County Office of Emergency Management (OEM), the project developed a prediction model capable of hindcasting the two severe flash flood events that devastated Ellicott City, and transitioned to an Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) based sequence-to-sequence deep learning model with 8-hour forecast capability. The team combined data inputs from public sources including river and precipitation gauges, NASA and NOAA Earth observations, and numerical weather model products using scripts written in the Google Colaboratory Python scripting environment. In addition to designing the deep learning architecture, the team trained and tested the model, and evaluated its performance using the Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE). The final product, called the Sequentially Trained Real-time EstimAted Model (STREAM), predicts stage height for the Hudson Branch gauge in Ellicott City using data products available in near real-time, including the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model’s accumulated precipitation forecasts supplemented by stream gauge data from the OEM and the U.S. Geological Survey. STREAM was incorporated into an online dashboard in a user-friendly interface capable of triggering the alarms that initiate the OEM’s emergency response protocols up to 8 hours in advance of a predicted severe flood event. The project demonstrated the potential for the integration of open data and Earth observations into a flood risk forecasting tool capable of informing near real-time decision making.

Ryan Hammock↗

Adaptive experimental design for multi-fidelity surrogate modeling of multi-disciplinary systems

We present an adaptive algorithm for constructing surrogate models of multi-disciplinary systems composed of a set of coupled components. With this goal we introduce “coupling” variables with a priori unknown distributions that allow surrogates of each component to be built independently. Once built, the surrogates of the components are combined to form an integrated-surrogate that can be used to predict system-level quantities of interest at a fraction of the cost of the original model. The error in the integrated-surrogate is greedily minimized using an experimental design procedure that allocates the amount of training data, used to construct each component-surrogate, based on the contribution of those surrogates to the error of the integrated-surrogate. Here, the multi-fidelity procedure presented is a generalization of multi-index stochastic collocation that can leverage ensembles of models of varying cost and accuracy, for one or more components, to reduce the computational cost of constructing the integrated-surrogate. Extensive numerical results demonstrate that, for a fixed computational budget, our algorithm is able to produce surrogates that are orders of magnitude more accurate than methods that treat the integrated system as a black-box.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Measurement of the Higgs boson production in association with top quarks in multilepton final states in pp collisions at s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement of the associated production of a top-quark pair with the Higgs boson (tt¯H$$ t\overline{t}H $$) in multilepton final states is presented. The analysis is based on a data sample of proton-proton collisions at s=13$$ \sqrt{s}=13 $$ TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb−1. Six final states defined by the number and flavour of reconstructed charged leptons are combined in a simultaneous likelihood fit to extract the tt¯H$$ t\overline{t}H $$ signal and constrain the most relevant backgrounds. The measured tt¯H$$ t\overline{t}H $$ cross-section normalised to Standard Model (SM) prediction is σtt¯H/σSM=0.63−0.19+0.20$$ {\sigma}_{t\overline{t}H}/{\sigma}^{\mathrm{SM}}=0.{63}_{-0.19}^{+0.20} $$. This result corresponds to an observed (expected) significance of 3.3σ (5.3σ). Additionally, two other fits are used to measure the tt¯H$$ t\overline{t}H $$ cross-section differentially in bins of the Higgs boson transverse momentum in the simplified template cross-section framework, and to extract the associated production cross-section of a single top-quark with the Higgs boson (tH) together with the tt¯H$$ t\overline{t}H $$ one. The CP structure of the top quark-Higgs boson Yukawa coupling is probed through an analysis of tt¯H$$ t\overline{t}H $$ and tH events. The results are compatible with the SM hypothesis, and values of the mixing angle between CP-even and CP-odd top-Higgs Yukawa couplings of |α| > 62° are excluded at 68% confidence level.

Aad, G↗

Multiscale Modeling Meets Machine Learning: What Can We Learn?

Machine learning is increasingly recognized as a promising technology in the biological, biomedical, and behavioral sciences. There can be no argument that this technique is incredibly successful in image recognition with immediate applications in diagnostics including electrophysiology, radiology, or pathology, where we have access to massive amounts of annotated data. However, machine learning often performs poorly in prognosis, especially when dealing with sparse data. This is a field where classical physics-based simulation seems to remain irreplaceable. In this review, we identify areas in the biomedical sciences where machine learning and multiscale modeling can mutually benefit from one another: Machine learning can integrate physics-based knowledge in the form of governing equations, boundary conditions, or constraints to manage ill-posted problems and robustly handle sparse and noisy data; multiscale modeling can integrate machine learn- ing to create surrogate models, identify system dynamics and parameters, analyze sensitivities, and quantify uncertainty to bridge the scales and understand the emergence of function. With a view towards applications in the life sciences, we discuss the state of the art of combining machine learning and multiscale modeling, identify applications and opportunities, raise open questions, and address potential challenges and limitations. We anticipate that it will stimulate discussion within the community of computational mechanics and reach out to other disciplines including mathematics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, biomedicine, systems biology, and precision medicine to join forces towards creating robust and efficient models for biological systems.

machine learning, multiscale modeling, physics-bas↗

The need for an integrated multi-OMICs approach in microbiome science in the food system

Microbiome science as an interdisciplinary research field has evolved rapidly over the past two decades, becoming a popular topic not only in the scientific community and among the general public, but also in the food industry due to the growing demand for microbiome-based technologies that provide added-value solutions. Microbiome research has expanded in the context of food systems, strongly driven by methodological advances in different -omics fields that leverage our understanding of microbial diversity and function. However, managing and integrating different complex -omics layers are still challenging. Within the Coordinated Support Action MicrobiomeSupport (https://www.microbiomesupport.eu/), a project supported by the European Commission, the workshop “Metagenomics, Metaproteomics and Metabolomics: the need for data integration in microbiome research” gathered 70 participants from different microbiome research fields relevant to food systems, to discuss challenges in microbiome research and to promote a switch from microbiome-based descriptive studies to functional studies, elucidating the biology and interactive roles of microbiomes in food systems. A combination of technologies is proposed. This will reduce the biases resulting from each individual technology and result in a more comprehensive view of the biological system as a whole. Although combinations of different datasets are still rare, advanced bioinformatics tools and artificial intelligence approaches can contribute to understanding, prediction, and management of the microbiome, thereby providing the basis for the improvement of food quality and safety.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Machine learning to extend and understand the sources and limits of water cycle predictability on subseasonal-to-decadal timescales in the Earth system

This white paper provides initial insight on how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), including interpretability and explainable AI (XAI) methods, can be leveraged to glean insight from complex data for a paradigm-changing improvement in Earth system predictability on subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) and seasonal-to-decadal (S2D) timescales. The application of AI to extend and improve predictability, in combination with causal inference and uncertainty quantification, could lead to a transformative understanding of the integrative water cycle and associated extremes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗