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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 91 records · Page 5

Benzo[d]thiazole Based Wide Bandgap Donor Polymers Enable 19.54% Efficiency Organic Solar Cells Along with Desirable Batch-to-Batch Reproducibility and General Applicability

The limited selection pool of high-performance wide bandgap (WBG) polymer donors is a bottleneck problem of the nonfullerene acceptor (NFA) based organic solar cells (OSCs) that impedes the further improvement of their photovoltaic performances. In this work, a series of new WBG polymers, namely PH-BTz, PS-BTz, PF-BTz, and PCl-BTz, are developed by using the bicyclic difluoro-benzo[d]thiazole (BTz) as the acceptor block and benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene (BDT) derivatives as the donor units. By introducing S, F, and Cl atoms to the alkylthienyl sidechains on BDT, the resulting polymers exhibit lowered energy levels and enhanced aggregation properties. The fluorinated PBTz-F not only exhibits a low-lying HOMO level, but also has stronger face-on packing order and results in more uniform fibril-like interpenetrating networks in the related PF-BTz:L8-BO blend. A high-power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.57% is achieved. Moreover, PBTz-F also exhibits a good batch-to-batch reproducibility and general applicability. In addition, ternary blend OSCs based on the host PBTz-F:L8-BO blend and PM6 guest donor exhibits a further enhanced PCE of 19.54%, which is among the highest values of OSCs.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A molecular dynamics study of laser-excited gold

The structural evolution of laser-excited systems of gold has previously been measured through ultrafast MeV electron diffraction. However, there has been a long-standing inability of atomistic simulations to provide a consistent picture of the melting process, leading to large discrepancies between the predicted threshold energy density for complete melting, as well as the transition between heterogeneous and homogeneous melting. We make use of two-temperature classical molecular dynamics simulations utilizing three highly successful interatomic potentials and reproduce electron diffraction data presented by Mo et al. [Science 360, 1451–1455 (2018)]. We recreate the experimental electron diffraction data, employing both a constant and temperature-dependent electron–ion equilibration rate. In all cases, we are able to match time-resolved electron diffraction data, and find consistency between atomistic simulations and experiments, only by allowing laser energy to be transported away from the interaction region. This additional energy-loss pathway, which scales strongly with laser fluence, we attribute to hot electrons leaving the target on a timescale commensurate with melting.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

TSS-1R Failure Mode Evaluation

Soon after the break of the tether during the Tethered Satellite System (TSS-1R) mission in February, 1996, a Tiger Team was assembled at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center to determine the tether failure mode. One possible failure scenario was the Kevlar' strength member of the tether failed because of degradation due to electrical discharge or electrical arcing. During the next several weeks, extensive electrical discharge testing in low vacuum and plasma environments was conducted in an attempt to reproduce the electrical activity recorded by on-board science instruments during the mission. The results of these tests are presented in this paper.

Vaughn, Jason A.↗

Tracking and Establishing Provenance of Earth Science Datasets: A NASA-based Example

Information quality is of paramount importance to science. Accurate, scientifically vetted and statistically meaningful and, ideally, reproducible information engenders scientific trust and research opportunities. Therefore, so-called Highly Influential Scientific Assessments (HISA) such as the U.S. Third National Climate Assessment undergo a very rigorous process to ensure transparency and credibility. As an activity to support the transparency of such reports, the U.S. Global Change Research Program has developed the Global Change Information System (GCIS). Specifically related to the transparency of NCA3, a recent activity was carried out to trace the provenance as completely as possible for all figures in the NCA3 report that predominantly used NASA data. This paper discusses lessons learned from this activity that trace the provenance of NASA figures in a major HISA-class pdf report.

Ramapriyan, Hampapuram K.↗

Tracking and Establishing Provenance of Earth Science Datasets: A NASA-Based Example

Information quality is of paramount importance to science. Accurate, scientifically vetted and statistically meaningful and, ideally, reproducible information engenders scientific trust and research opportunities. Not surprisingly, federal bodies (e.g., NASA, NOAA, USGS) have very strictly affirmed the importance of information quality in their product requirements. So-called Highly Influential Scientific Assessments (HISA) such as The Third US National Climate Assessment (NCA3) published in 2014 undergo a very rigorous review process to ensure transparency and credibility. To support the transparency of such reports, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) has developed the Global Change Information System (GCIS). A recent activity was performed to trace the provenance as completely as possible for all NCA3 figures that were predominantly based on NASA data. This poster presents the mechanics of that project and the lessons learned from that activity.

Ramapriyan, Hampapuram K.↗

Towards Lightweight Data Integration Using Multi-Workflow Provenance and Data Observability

Modern large-scale scientific discovery requires multidisciplinary collaboration across diverse computing facilities, including High Performance Computing (HPC) machines and the Edge-to-Cloud continuum. Integrated data analysis plays a crucial role in scientific discovery, especially in the current AI era, by enabling Responsible AI development, FAIR, Reproducibility, and User Steering. However, the heterogeneous nature of science poses challenges such as dealing with multiple supporting tools, cross-facility environments, and efficient HPC execution. Building on data observability, adapter system design, and provenance, we propose MIDA: an approach for lightweight runtime Multi-workflow Integrated Data Analysis. MIDA defines data observability strategies and adaptability methods for various parallel systems and machine learning tools. With observability, it intercepts the dataflows in the background without requiring instrumentation while integrating domain, provenance, and telemetry data at runtime into a unified database ready for user steering queries. We conduct experiments showing end-to-end multi-workflow analysis integrating data from Dask and MLFlow in a real distributed deep learning use case for materials science that runs on multiple environments with up to 276 GPUs in parallel. We show near-zero overhead running up to 100,000 tasks on 1,680 CPU cores on the Summit supercomputer.

Santos Souza, Renan↗

An MLCommons Scientific Benchmarks Ontology

Scientific machine learning research spans diverse domains and data modalities, yet existing benchmark efforts remain siloed and lack standardization. This makes novel and transformative applications of machine learning to critical scientific use-cases more fragmented and less clear in pathways to impact. This paper introduces an ontology for scientific benchmarking developed through a unified, community-driven effort that extends the MLCommons ecosystem to cover physics, chemistry, materials science, biology, climate science, and more. Building on prior initiatives such as XAI-BENCH, FastML Science Benchmarks, PDEBench, and the SciMLBench framework, our effort consolidates a large set of disparate benchmarks and frameworks into a single taxonomy of scientific, application, and system-level benchmarks. New benchmarks can be added through an open submission workflow coordinated by the MLCommons Science Working Group and evaluated against a six-category rating rubric that promotes and identifies high-quality benchmarks, enabling stakeholders to select benchmarks that meet their specific needs. The architecture is extensible, supporting future scientific and AI/ML motifs, and we discuss methods for identifying emerging computing patterns for unique scientific workloads. The MLCommons Science Benchmarks Ontology provides a standardized, scalable foundation for reproducible, cross-domain benchmarking in scientific machine learning. A companion webpage for this work has also been developed as the effort evolves: https://mlcommons-science.github.io/benchmark/

Hawks, Ben [Fermilab] (ORCID:0000000157000288)↗

Progress in containerless science and technologies

One of the unique features of space which cannot be reproduced on earth is long duration zero gravity. Experiments that take the greatest advantage that space can offer are containerless processing experiments. This is precisely the reason why NASA has developed a variety of containerless processing technologies and facilities to allow the scientific community to perform experiments prior to and during Space Shuttle flights. This paper will briefly review recent progress in some of these technologies and facilities.

Wang, T. G.↗

Analysis of two-color photoelectron spectroscopy for attosecond metrology at seeded free-electron lasers

The generation of attosecond pulse trains at free-electron lasers opens new opportunities in ultrafast science, as it gives access, for the first time, to reproducible, programmable, extreme ultraviolet (XUV) waveforms with high intensity. In this work, we present a detailed analysis of the theoretical model underlying the temporal characterization of the attosecond pulse trains recently generated at the free-electron laser FERMI. In particular, the validity of the approximations used for the correlated analysis of the photoelectron spectra generated in the two-color photoionization experiments are thoroughly discussed. The ranges of validity of the assumptions, in connection with the main experimental parameters, are derived.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Bioinformatic teaching resources - for educators, by educators - using KBase, a free, user-friendly, open source platform

Over the past year, biology educators and staff at the Department of Energy Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase) initiated a collaborative effort to develop a curriculum for bioinformatics education. KBase is a free and easily accessible data science platform that integrates many bioinformatics resources into a graphical user interface built upon reproducible analysis notebooks. KBase held conversations with college and high school instructors to understand how KBase could potentially support their educational goals. These conversations morphed into a working group of biological and data science instructors that adapted the KBase platform to their curriculum needs, specifically around concepts in Genomics, Metagenomics, Pangenomics, and Phylogenetics. The KBase Educators Working Group developed modular, adaptable, and customizable instructional units. Each instructional module contains teaching resources, publicly available data, analysis tools, and markdown capability to tailor instructions and learning goals for each class. The online user interface enables students to conduct hands-on data science research and analyses without requiring programming skills or their own computational resources (these are provided by KBase). Alongside these resources, KBase continues to work with instructors, supporting the development of additional curriculum modules. For anyone new to the platform, KBase, and the growing KBase Educators Organization, provides a community network, accompanied by community-sourced guidelines, instructional templates, and peer support to use KBase within a classroom whether virtual or in-person.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Open Hardware in Science: The Benefits of Open Electronics

Abstract Openly shared low-cost electronic hardware applications, known as open electronics, have sparked a new open-source movement, with much untapped potential to advance scientific research. Initially designed to appeal to electronic hobbyists, open electronics have formed a global “maker” community and are increasingly used in science and industry. In this perspective article, we review the current costs and benefits of open electronics for use in scientific research ranging from the experimental to the theoretical sciences. We discuss how user-made electronic applications can help (I) individual researchers, by increasing the customization, efficiency, and scalability of experiments, while improving data quantity and quality; (II) scientific institutions, by improving access to customizable high-end technologies, sustainability, visibility, and interdisciplinary collaboration potential; and (III) the scientific community, by improving transparency and reproducibility, helping decouple research capacity from funding, increasing innovation, and improving collaboration potential among researchers and the public. We further discuss how current barriers like poor awareness, knowledge access, and time investments can be resolved by increased documentation and collaboration, and provide guidelines for academics to enter this emerging field. We highlight that open electronics are a promising and powerful tool to help scientific research to become more innovative and reproducible and offer a key practical solution to improve democratic access to science.

Oellermann, Michael (ORCID:0000000153926737)↗

Community-wide Validation of Geospace Model Ground Magnetic Field Perturbation Predictions to Support Model Transition to Operations

In this paper we continue the community-wide rigorous modern space weather model validation efforts carried out within GEM, CEDAR and SHINE programs. In this particular effort, in coordination among the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC), NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), modelers, and science community, we focus on studying the models' capability to reproduce observed ground magnetic field fluctuations, which are closely related to geomagnetically induced current phenomenon. One of the primary motivations of the work is to support NOAA SWPC in their selection of the next numerical model that will be transitioned into operations. Six geomagnetic events and 12 geomagnetic observatories were selected for validation.While modeled and observed magnetic field time series are available for all 12 stations, the primary metrics analysis is based on six stations that were selected to represent the high-latitude and mid-latitude locations. Events-based analysis and the corresponding contingency tables were built for each event and each station. The elements in the contingency table were then used to calculate Probability of Detection (POD), Probability of False Detection (POFD) and Heidke Skill Score (HSS) for rigorous quantification of the models' performance. In this paper the summary results of the metrics analyses are reported in terms of POD, POFD and HSS. More detailed analyses can be carried out using the event by event contingency tables provided as an online appendix. An online interface built at CCMC and described in the supporting information is also available for more detailed time series analyses.

MAGNETIC↗

Design-driven optimization of low-cost reagent formulations for reproducible and high-yielding cell-free gene expression

Access to recombinant proteins is vital in basic science and biotechnology research. Cell-free gene expression systems provide one approach to address this need, but widespread utilization remains limited by the cost, complexity, and inconsistency of current platforms. To address these limitations, we carry out a multi-dimensional definitive screening design to reduce the number of reagent components and remove costly secondary energy substrates. From 1,231 different reagent formulations, we discover a simple and reproducible system based on 12 components. The optimized reagent formulation can produce 2.4 ± 0.3 g/L of protein product at the 15-µL scale (~$\$60$/gprotein) and 3.7 ± 0.2 g/L (~$\$39$/gprotein) at the 4-mL scale with oxygen supplementation. This provides an average 95% reduction in cost over previous cell-free reagent formulations. We further show that the optimized reagent formulation can produce nucleoside triphosphates from nitrogenous bases and ribose and that it is robust to failure across batches of cell lysates, users/locations, and in the synthesis of more than 20 different proteins. For example, we demonstrate the production of fifteen therapeutically relevant products, including full-length aglycosylated monoclonal antibodies. We anticipate that our optimized reagent formulation will democratize the use of cell-free systems for protein manufacturing and synthetic biology applications.

Biologics↗

JARVIS-Leaderboard: a large scale benchmark of materials design methods

Abstract Lack of rigorous reproducibility and validation are significant hurdles for scientific development across many fields. Materials science, in particular, encompasses a variety of experimental and theoretical approaches that require careful benchmarking. Leaderboard efforts have been developed previously to mitigate these issues. However, a comprehensive comparison and benchmarking on an integrated platform with multiple data modalities with perfect and defect materials data is still lacking. This work introduces JARVIS-Leaderboard, an open-source and community-driven platform that facilitates benchmarking and enhances reproducibility. The platform allows users to set up benchmarks with custom tasks and enables contributions in the form of dataset, code, and meta-data submissions. We cover the following materials design categories: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Electronic Structure (ES), Force-fields (FF), Quantum Computation (QC), and Experiments (EXP). For AI, we cover several types of input data, including atomic structures, atomistic images, spectra, and text. For ES, we consider multiple ES approaches, software packages, pseudopotentials, materials, and properties, comparing results to experiment. For FF, we compare multiple approaches for material property predictions. For QC, we benchmark Hamiltonian simulations using various quantum algorithms and circuits. Finally, for experiments, we use the inter-laboratory approach to establish benchmarks. There are 1281 contributions to 274 benchmarks using 152 methods with more than 8 million data points, and the leaderboard is continuously expanding. The JARVIS-Leaderboard is available at the website: https://pages.nist.gov/jarvis_leaderboard/

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

User Manual for BLADE main.py

This manual provides step-by-step instructions for installing, configuring, and using BLADE, an automated framework for analyzing and classifying bolide light curves from NASA CNEOS datasets. BLADE enables efficient, reproducible analysis of atmospheric entry phenomena, supporting planetary defense and atmospheric science research through standardized signal processing and event classification.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗