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At least 19 records

NSI conference support

One of the many services NSI provides as an extension of customer/user support is to attend major scientific conferences. The conference effort provides NASA/OSSA scientists with many benefits: (1) scientist get to see NSI in action; they utilize the network to read email, and have recently begun to demonstrate their scientific research to their colleagues; (2) scientist get an opportunity to meet and interact with NSI Staff, which gives scientists a chance to get status on their requirements, ask about network status, get acquainted with our procedures, and learn about services; and (3) scientists are exposed to networking in a larger sense; particularly by knowing about other NASA groups who provide valuable scientific resources over the Internet.

Aaron, Susan↗

E-Theatre

Mesoscale/severe storms and results from Terra Fritz Hasler (NASA/Goddard) will show the latest spectacular animations of the hurricanes and tropical storms: Floyd, Georges, Mitch, Bonnie etc. from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) and Tropical Rain Measuring Mission (TRMM) supported by MMS 3D nested numerical model results. See dust storms in Africa and smoke plumes from fires in Mexico. See how High-Definition Television (HDTV) is revolutionizing entertainment and the way we communicate scientific results. Fly in from space and take a tour of Africa. Drop in on Albuquerque using 1-m Ikonos 'Spy Satellite' technology. See data from the new Earth Observing System (EOS) Terra satellite as well as Landsat 7, and SeaWiFS. See climate change in action with Global Land and Ocean productivity changes over the last 20 years. Remote sensing observations of Sea Surface Temperature (SST), El Nino, height, winds and ocean color from GOES, National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI), and SeaWiFS put in context with ten year LANL global ocean model. Compare the Gulf Stream observed by Terra with the simulations. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Hasler, Arthur F.↗

Earth and Space Science Electronic Theater: State-of-the-Art Visualization from the Latest Remote Sensing Observations. High Definition Television on the SMM IMAX Screen with Ultra High Performance Projector

Fritz Hasler (NASA/Goddard) will demonstrate the latest Blue Marble Digital Earth technology. We will fly in from space through Terra, Landsat 7, to 1 m Ikonos "Spy Satellite" data to Washington, NYC, Chicago, and LA. You will see animations using the new 1 km global datasets from the EOS Terra satellite. Spectacular new animations from Terra, Landsat 7, and SeaWiFS will be presented. See the latest animations of the super hurricanes like, Floyd, Luis, and Mitch, from GOES & TRMM. See movies assembled using new low cost HDTV nonlinear editing equipment that is revolutionizing the way we communicate scientific results. See climate change in action with Global Land & Ocean productivity changes over the last 20 years. Remote sensing observations of ocean SST, height, winds, color, and El Nino from GOES, AVHRR, SSMI & SeaWiFS are put in context with atmospheric and ocean simulations. Compare symmetrical equatorial eddies observed by GOES with the simulations.

Hasler, A. F.↗

2002 Blue Marble and Developments in HDTV Technology for Public Outreach

Fritz Hasler (NASA/Goddard) will demonstrate the latest Blue Marble Digital Earth technology. We will fly in from space through Terra, Landsat 7, to 1 m Ikonos "Spy Satellite" data of Disney World and the Orlando Convention Center. You will see the complete global cloud free and cloudy 500 m datasets from the EOS Terra satellite. Spectacular new animations from Terra, Landsat 7, and SeaWiFS will be presented. See also animations of the hurricanes & tropical storms of the 2001 season, as well as Floyd, Georges, and Mitch, etc. from GOES & TRMM supported by MM5 3-D nested numerical model results. See movies assembled using new low cost HDTV nonlinear editing equipment that is revolutionizing the way we communicate scientific results. See climate change in action with Global Land & Ocean productivity changes over the last 20 years. Remote sensing observations of ocean SST, height, winds, color, and El Nino from GOES, AVHRR, SSMI & SeaWiFS are put in context with atmospheric and ocean simulations. Compare symmetrical equatorial eddies observed by GOES with the simulations.

Hasler, Fritz↗

ASK Magazine

What makes a successful team? In this issue our contributors look closely at the subject and come up with several answers. Working on team chemistry is the "Activation Energy" Dr. Owen Gadeken's story is about. Scott Cameron thinks it's getting to know people one to one. Tony Maturo says it's getting the most out of your support staff. Dr. Michael Hecht finds the best people he can and build the team around their talents. Teamwork is a theme we explore often in Academy Sharing Knowledge (ASK), but never so directly as in this issue. You'll not only find formulas for building successful teams, you'll see examples of ones in action, strategies for how project managers can motivate their teams, and expert advice on how to choose who to work with and who not to work with. It seems like all the stories make one common point: everyone on a team counts. Few project managers can pull off a project alone, and when the whole team is performing to everyone's potential, the chances of pulling off a successful project goes up exponentially. If that doesn't seem like enough by itself, listen to this... Discerning fans of ASK will note the last two issues our Special Feature was "There are no Mistakes, Only Lessons." We have not abandoned this feature, but for now we want to broaden our repertoire. In this issue we add a new Special Feature, "My Metaphor," starting with Paul Espinosa's article "My Big Wall" about his rock climbing adventures on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. If you think getting to Mars is work, read what it's like to scale a 3,000-foot rock face. This issue we're also welcoming two new members to our Review Board, Hugh Woodward and Jody Kusek. Hugh and Jody are our first reviewers from outside NASA, and we are delighted to have them on our team. Read their bios on the ASK Review Board page and see why we feel privileged to have them on our team.

Post, Todd↗

Tethered body problems and relative motion orbit determination

Selected problems dealing with orbiting tethered body systems have been studied. In addition, a relative motion orbit determination program was developed. Results from these tasks are described and discussed. The expected tethered body motions were examined, analytically, to ascertain what influence would be played by the physical parameters of the tether, the gravity gradient and orbit eccentricity. After separating the motion modes these influences were determined; and, subsequently, the effects of oscillations and/or rotations, on tether force, were described. A study was undertaken, by examining tether motions, to see what type of control actions would be needed to accurately place a mass particle at a prescribed position relative to a main vehicle. Other applications for tethers were studied. Principally these were concerned with the producing of low-level gee forces by means of stabilized tether configurations; and, the initiation of free transfer trajectories from tether supported vehicle relative positions.

Eades, J. B., Jr.↗

A comparison of control modes for time-delayed remote manipulation

Transmission time delay in the communication channel of a manual control system is investigated. A time delay can exist in remote manipulation systems, caused by long communication distances or bandwidth limitations. Ferrell 1 conducted the first research in time-delayed manipulation using a two degree-of-freedom manipulator. His subjects, working at time delays of 1.0, 2.1, and 3.2 s, could accomplish tasks even requiring great accuracy. The subjects spontaneously adopted a pattern of moving cautiously, then waiting to see the results of their actions. In experiments with a six degree-of-freedom master-slave manipulator system and time delays of 1.0 to 6 s, Black 2 saw that subjects tried to use the move-and-wait strategy; but there were often difficulties. The subjects seemed to have a problem in holding the master arm stationary while waiting for feedback. Any undesired drifting of the master arm introduced a discrepancy between the positions of the master and slave. This discrepancy was not perceived because of the time delay. The subject would then begin his next move with an inherent error. The difficulty of effectively using the move-and-wait strategy with a master-slave manipulator suggested that rate control might be a more effective control mode with time delay.

Starr, G. P.↗

PlanWorks: A Debugging Environment for Constraint Based Planning Systems

Numerous planning and scheduling systems employ underlying constraint reasoning systems. Debugging such systems involves the search for errors in model rules, constraint reasoning algorithms, search heuristics, and the problem instance (initial state and goals). In order to effectively find such problems, users must see why each state or action is in a plan by tracking causal chains back to part of the initial problem instance. They must be able to visualize complex relationships among many different entities and distinguish between those entities easily. For example, a variable can be in the scope of several constraints, as well as part of a state or activity in a plan; the activity can arise as a consequence of another activity and a model rule. Finally, they must be able to track each logical inference made during planning. We have developed PlanWorks, a comprehensive system for debugging constraint-based planning and scheduling systems. PlanWorks assumes a strong transaction model of the entire planning process, including adding and removing parts of the constraint network, variable assignment, and constraint propagation. A planner logs all transactions to a relational database that is tailored to support queries for of specialized views to display different forms of data (e.g. constraints, activities, resources, and causal links). PlanWorks was specifically developed for the Extensible Universal Remote Operations Planning Architecture (EUROPA(sub 2)) developed at NASA, but the underlying principles behind PlanWorks make it useful for many constraint-based planning systems. The paper is organized as follows. We first describe some fundamentals of EUROPA(sub 2). We then describe PlanWorks' principal components. We then discuss each component in detail, and then describe inter-component navigation features. We close with a discussion of how PlanWorks is used to find model flaws.

Daley, Patrick↗

High level intelligent control of telerobotics systems

A high level robot command language is proposed for the autonomous mode of an advanced telerobotics system and a predictive display mechanism for the teleoperational model. It is believed that any such system will involve some mixture of these two modes, since, although artificial intelligence can facilitate significant autonomy, a system that can resort to teleoperation will always have the advantage. The high level command language will allow humans to give the robot instructions in a very natural manner. The robot will then analyze these instructions to infer meaning so that is can translate the task into lower level executable primitives. If, however, the robot is unable to perform the task autonomously, it will switch to the teleoperational mode. The time delay between control movement and actual robot movement has always been a problem in teleoperations. The remote operator may not actually see (via a monitor) the results of high actions for several seconds. A computer generated predictive display system is proposed whereby the operator can see a real-time model of the robot's environment and the delayed video picture on the monitor at the same time.

Mckee, James↗

ETM Industry: Tabletop Defining Notions for Cooperative Operating Practices

This tabletop plans to cover 3 main topics in regards to the research that NASA has conducted for High-E Traffic Management (ETM), as well as implementing it to stand up an ETM system in the Airspace Operations Lab to invite industry participants to join us in a collaborative evaluation at the end of 2023. (Or earlier for system architectural connectivity). Working to define the notions that go into Cooperative Operating Practices for a collaborative traffic management process, we will be showing and training to some of our early prototype concepts and discussing: 1. Operational Intent: We have built an OI generation tool and would like to discuss specifics to the requirements of OI size, update rates, and duration. 2. Strategic Conflict Detection: We have built a concept to detect overlapping OI’s and would like to discuss the output information; time horizon, geometry and confidence level of intersection. In addition we are looking at a service that would provide all users with additional information in regards to the probability of your actual flight intent getting within a specified separation envelope. 3. Cooperative Operating Practices (COPS): Specifically looking at COPs for strategic deconfliction, we are looking to industry to build the actual COPS based on various criteria; vehicle-to-vehicle interactions, or company to company agreements. What is the strategy when OIs intersect; wait and see, take a pre-negotiated COPS action, or ad-hoc negotiation and discuss what that looks like.

High-E Traffic Management (ETM)↗

Biennial oscillation associated with the East Asian summer monsoon and tropical sea surface temperatures

In this paper, the interannual variability of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) rainfall and the tropical sea surface temperature (SST) have been studied. It is found that the EASM rainfall prossesses a strong biennial signal, which is particularly pronounced over the southeast China. For the SST, the biennial oscillation is the second most significant quasi-periodic signal over the entire tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans. Results indicate that the biennial variations in the SST and EASM rainfall are closely linked. The SST pattern which is best correlated with EASM rainfall appears in the form of a double see-saw with quasi-stationary centers of action over the Indian Ocean, the Asian monsoon region and the eastern Pacific. The most pronounced SST signals are found in the equatorial eastern Pacific and Indian Ocean about two seasons preceding and following the EASM rainfall. Evidence is presented suggesting that the biennial variability of the EASM rainfall is phase-locked to a global scale biennial oscillation involving the interplay of the Asian monsoon, the Hadley and Walker circulations, and basin wide fluctuations in SST. In particular, the eastward propagation of zonal wind anomalies from the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific, which regulates the moisture fluxes from the western Pacific to the East Asian region, appears to be a key component of the biennial fluctuation associated with EASM rainfall. Results suggest that the relationship between the Asian monsoon and tropical SST is more robust in the biennial that the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) time scale, hence raising the possibility that the biennial oscillation may be more fundamentally related to monsoon-ocean-atmosphere interaction than ENSO itself.

Shen, Suhung↗

Electronic Router

Electronic Router (E-Router) is an application program for routing documents among the cognizant individuals in a government agency or other organization. E-Router supplants a prior 14 NASA Tech Briefs, May 2005 system in which paper documents were routed physically in packages by use of paper slips, packages could be lost, routing times were unacceptably long, tracking of packages was difficult, and there was a need for much photocopying. E-Router enables a user to create a digital package to be routed. Input accepted by E-Router includes the title of the package, the person(s) to whom the package is to be routed, attached files, and comments to reviewers. Electronic mail is used to notify reviewers of needed actions. The creator of the package can, at any time, see the status of the package in the routing structure. At the end of the routing process, E-Router keeps a record of the package and of approvals and/or concurrences of the reviewers. There are commercial programs that perform the general functions of E-Router, but they are more complicated. E-Router is Web-based, easy to use, and does not require the installation or use of client software.

Crusan, Jason↗

Crater Lakes on Mars: Development of Quantitative Thermal and Geomorphic Models

Impact craters on Mars have served as catchments for channel-eroding surface fluids, and hundreds of examples of candidate paleolakes are documented [1,2] (see Figure 1). Because these features show similarity to terrestrial shorelines, wave action has been hypothesized as the geomorphic agent responsible for the generation of these features [3]. Recent efforts have examined the potential for shoreline formation by wind-driven waves, in order to turn an important but controversial idea into a quantitative, falsifiable hypothesis. These studies have concluded that significant wave-action shorelines are unlikely to have formed commonly within craters on Mars, barring Earth-like weather for approx.1000 years [4,5,6].

Barnhart, C. J.↗

Embedded expert system for space shuttle main engine maintenance

The SPARTA Embedded Expert System (SEES) is an intelligent health monitoring system that directs analysis by placing confidence factors on possible engine status and then recommends a course of action to an engineer or engine controller. The technique can prevent catastropic failures or costly rocket engine down time because of false alarms. Further, the SEES has potential as an on-board flight monitor for reusable rocket engine systems. The SEES methodology synergistically integrates vibration analysis, pattern recognition and communications theory techniques with an artificial intelligence technique - the Embedded Expert System (EES).

Pooley, J.↗

Implications of Climate Mitigation for Future Agricultural Production

Climate change is projected to negatively impact biophysical agricultural productivity in much of the world. Actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate future climate changes, are thus of central importance for agricultural production. Climate impacts are, however, not unidirectional; some crops in some regions (primarily higher latitudes) are projected to benefit, particularly if increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is assumed to strongly increase crop productivity at large spatial and temporal scales. Climate mitigation measures that are implemented by reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations lead to reductions both in the strength of climate change and in the benefits of carbon dioxide fertilization. Consequently, analysis of the effects of climate mitigation on agricultural productivity must address not only regions for which mitigation is likely to reduce or even reverse climate damages. There are also regions that are likely to see increased crop yields due to climate change, which may lose these added potentials under mitigation action. Comparing data from the most comprehensive archive of crop yield projections publicly available, we find that climate mitigation leads to overall benefits from avoided damages at the global scale and especially in many regions that are already at risk of food insecurity today. Ignoring controversial carbon dioxide fertilization effects on crop productivity, we find that for the median projection aggressive mitigation could eliminate approximately 81% of the negative impacts of climate change on biophysical agricultural productivity globally by the end of the century. In this case, the benefits of mitigation typically extend well into temperate regions, but vary by crop and underlying climate model projections. Should large benefits to crop yields from carbon dioxide fertilization be realized, the effects of mitigation become much more mixed, though still positive globally and beneficial in many food insecure countries.

Mueller, Christoph↗

Future Trends in Business Travel Decision Making

This research surveys twenty large companies and their travellers to identify and evaluate the effects of pressures on the business travel market in the future. The influence of the following areas on the decision making process are addressed: (1) Corporate travel policies and increasing professionalism in corporate purchasing; (2) The development of global strategic airline alliances; (3) The emergence of low cost airlines on short haul markets; and (4) The development of internet based booking tools and travel agency IT. The survey shows differences in views between travel managers, and travellers with regard to corporate travel policies. While travel managers see policy rules, travellers interpret these as guidelines, indicating travel managers will need to take further actions to exercise true control of travel budgets. The data shows that companies are more likely to prescribe a class of airline ticket, than the choice of airline itself. Corporate hierarchical bias in travel policies is still common both for short and particularly long haul flying. Other findings show that while travel managers believe that their companies are likely to sign global deals with strategic airline groups within a five year period in a bid to consolidating spending, they also believe that nearly a third of short haul flying will be taken with low cost carriers, indicating further penetration in this business travel market by these carriers. The paper also provides other predictions about the business travel market, based on the survey findings.

Mason, Keith J.↗

Integrating Inland and Coastal Water Quality Data for Actionable Knowledge

Water quality measures for inland and coastal waters are available as discrete samples from professional and volunteer water quality monitoring programs and higher-frequency, near-continuous data from automated in situ sensors. Water quality parameters also are estimated from model outputs and remote sensing. The integration of these data, via data assimilation, can result in a more holistic characterization of these highly dynamic ecosystems, and consequently improve water resource management. It is becoming common to see combinations of these data applied to answer relevant scientific questions. Yet, methods for scaling water quality data across regions and beyond, to provide actionable knowledge for stakeholders, have emerged only recently, particularly with the availability of satellite data now providing global coverage at high spatial resolution. In this paper, data sources and existing data integration frameworks are reviewed to give an overview of the present status and identify the gaps in existing frameworks. We propose an integration framework to provide information to user communities through the the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) AquaWatch Initiative. This aims to develop and build the global capacity and utility of water quality data, products, and information to support equitable and inclusive access for water resource management, policy and decision making.

Ghada Y.H. El Serafy↗

Using Social Media and Mobile Devices to Discover and Share Disaster Data Products Derived From Satellites

Data products derived from Earth observing satellites are difficult to find and share without specialized software and often times a highly paid and specialized staff. For our research effort, we endeavored to prototype a distributed architecture that depends on a standardized communication protocol and applications program interface (API) that makes it easy for anyone to discover and access disaster related data. Providers can easily supply the public with their disaster related products by building an adapter for our API. Users can use the API to browse and find products that relate to the disaster at hand, without a centralized catalogue, for example floods, and then are able to share that data via social media. Furthermore, a longerterm goal for this architecture is to enable other users who see the shared disaster product to be able to generate the same product for other areas of interest via simple point and click actions on the API on their mobile device. Furthermore, the user will be able to edit the data with on the ground local observations and return the updated information to the original repository of this information if configured for this function. This architecture leverages SensorWeb functionality [1] presented at previous IGARSS conferences. The architecture is divided into two pieces, the frontend, which is the GeoSocial API, and the backend, which is a standardized disaster node that knows how to talk to other disaster nodes, and also can communicate with the GeoSocial API. The GeoSocial API, along with the disaster node basic functionality enables crowdsourcing and thus can leverage insitu observations by people external to a group to perform tasks such as improving water reference maps, which are maps of existing water before floods. This can lower the cost of generating precision water maps. Keywords-Data Discovery, Disaster Decision Support, Disaster Management, Interoperability, CEOS WGISS Disaster Architecture