Dashlink is Online Home for Collaborative Research

Dashlink is Online Home for Collaborative Research

08.09.10

 

Want to know what scientists say to each other? Dashlink looks pretty scientific, but anyone can read it. The topics can be kind of interesting so take a look. Screen capture: NASA

Ashok Srivastava, NASA Ames researcher and Dashlink founder. Photo Credit: NASA / Dominic Hart

Want to know what scientists want to know? This is a tag cloud at Dashlink.Screen capture: NASA
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NASA researchers have created an online resource that dramatically changed how the agency fosters collaborative research. In this new innovative method capitalizing strengths of the Internet, scientists can share information about systems health and data mining while aiming to help improve aviation safety in ways never before possible.

The web site is called Dashlink. DASH stands for Discovery in Aeronautics Systems Health. The name hints at the identity of the particular group of scientists who created this online gathering place in 2008. The site has more than 410 registered users.

"The primary goal of Dashlink is to disseminate information on the latest data mining and systems health algorithms, data and research," said Ashok Srivastava, principal investigator for NASA's Integrated Vehicle Health Management Project at the agency's Ames Research Center in California.

Integrated vehicle health management, or IVHM, involves technologies designed to monitor all the different systems that enable an aircraft to fly. IVHM technologies are sensors and software applications that work in concert to detect and address potential problems with an aircraft before the problems become serious.

To be effective, IVHM requires new software programs that can record and analyze instantly many variables such as temperature, pressures, stresses, and even cockpit switch positions.

Also needed are new computer algorithms, which are sets of mathematical rules used by the computers to make decisions on how to solve a problem given a certain set of data.

Dashlink allows researchers, whether inside or outside NASA, who are working on a particular software application to share the applications they have written, test each other's work, and openly discuss the results.

"It’s totally different from how other projects are run," Srivastava said, noting that the usual form of communication among scientists is published papers, which can take months to distribute and offer no immediate interaction with the author.

Interaction is important because a staple of scientific research is the ability of one group of scientists to duplicate the work of another group and achieve the same results. In the data mining field, duplicating results can be difficult and infrequent.

"We realized that the best way to validate our work was to put it out there for others to review, check our work and see what's going on. Now we have a community of researchers across the country working together and interacting with each other," Srivastava said.

Dashlink is available to anyone with an interest in integrated vehicle health management software and sensor applications. Those outside NASA can join if a NASA civil servant sponsors the registration. That is what Suratna Budalakoti did when he joined the site in September 2008.

Then a student at the University of California Santa Cruz, he collaborated with Srivastava and others in writing a data mining algorithm called Sequence Miner and used Dashlink to communicate remotely with other researchers – something he continues to do today.

"Dashlink enables open and quick exchange of ideas, data and software. It makes the process of knowledge sharing convenient and fast," Budalakoti said.

As of July 2010, Dashlink had 16 algorithms posted to it, as well as 10 different datasets available for study.

In posting these programs and datasets in a public environment, all of NASA's policies and procedures related to privacy protection, proprietary rights and the transfer of technology are being followed to the letter, Srivastava said.

"If a user wants to put up something they have to certify they've followed the instructions for posting. Users also can flag inappropriate content, but we've never had that problem," Srivastava said. "We’re very happy with the size of the community."

And now the online research community is set to expand.

Researchers from other NASA organizations such as the Earth Sciences Division are eyeing Dashlink's features. The Earth Sciences Division is planning its own Web site to facilitate the same sort of peer-to-peer interaction, said Elizabeth Foughty, the current Dashlink team lead.

In fact, the programmers behind Dashlink and the new Web site already are collaborating to create a single computer platform from which both sites can operate sharing the same code and functionality.

With the introduction of the new cross-discipline collaboration platform expected "sometime soon," Foughty said, Dashlink will get a facelift and have additional interactive features enabled. The new platform will allow other NASA science disciplines to create and roll out quickly their own collaborative Web sites.

"Our hope is that this new capability for researchers to access NASA resources and collaborate with each other will hasten and spur the kind of innovation needed to solve our future challenges in aviation and space," Foughty said.

 

 

Jim Banke
NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate

Technology Readiness Levels Demystified 08.20.10

Technology Readiness Levels Demystified

08.20.10

 

In the research and development world, ideas are like schoolchildren. All new technologies must pass through a number of grades before they are declared ready for graduation.

At NASA, as in the rest of the research community, these grades are called technology readiness levels, or TRLs. Each TRL represents the evolution of an idea from a thought, perhaps written on a cocktail napkin or the back of an envelope, to the full deployment of a product in the marketplace.

"NASA acknowledges the system as a useful, commonly understood method for explaining to collaborators and stakeholders just how mature a particular technology is," said Tony Strazisar, senior technologist for NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate in Washington.

In fact, NASA invented the system.

A NASA researcher, Stan Sadin, conceived the first scale in 1974. It had seven levels which were not formally defined until 1989. In the 1990s NASA adopted a scale with nine levels which gained widespread acceptance across industry and remains in use today.

This Flash graphic defines what kind of testing or research takes place at each level along the technology readiness roadmap. Credit: NASA/Maria Werries

Industry and other government organizations, such as the U.S. Air Force, have tailored definitions for certain TRLs to suit their own needs, but their overall scales match NASA's traditional scale very closely, Strazisar said.

Today's scale runs from TRL 1 through TRL 9.

The lowest level, TRL 1, indicates that information already learned from basic scientific research is taking its first step from an idea to a practical application of a lesson learned. For example, after learning that hydrogen and oxygen can be combined to generate electricity, some would suggest an idea for building a machine to do just that.

The space shuttle orbiter gets electricity from fuel cells that reached TRL 9. Image credit: NASA
›  Link to larger photoA technology that has achieved TRL 9 is one that has been incorporated fully into a larger system. It has been proven to work smoothly and is considered operational. An example of an operational TRL 9 technology are the fuel cells which combine hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity for NASA's space shuttle.

In this example, if an engineer were to suggest a major improvement to the fuel cell technology, the new idea would be considered to be at TRL 1. It would make its way through the development process, while the original fuel cell design remained at TRL 9.

The distance between TRL 1 and TRL 9 often amounts to years of paper studies, prototype modeling, component building and testing, integration of tested components into other systems, and more tests in the laboratory and the real world.

Chevron nozzles—the saw-toothed edges on the back of this jet engine—followed the TRL roadmap and are now seen on engines today. Image credit: NASA/The Boeing Company
›  Link to larger photoA jet engine noise reduction device called a chevron, now in use on commercial airliners, is a good example of a NASA-developed technology that climbed the TRL scale to success, said Fay Collier, manager of NASA's Environmentally Responsible Aviation Project.

Chevrons are the saw-tooth pattern that can be seen on the trailing edges of some jet engine nozzles. As hot air from the engine core mixes with cooler air blowing through the engine fan, the jagged edges serve to smooth the mixing, which reduces turbulence that creates noise.

The new Boeing 787 is among the most modern jets relying on chevrons to reduce engine noise levels, sporting chevrons on the nacelles, or fan housings. The Boeing 747-8 has chevrons on both the nacelles and inner core engine nozzles.

"From basic concept to use on commercial aircraft, chevrons went through an almost meteoric rise through the TRLs in a space of just about seven years," Collier said. "We had a bunch of smart NASA people pushing hard, and that gave us the momentum necessary to carry the technology all the way."

Use of TRLs will remain important at NASA, especially as the agency's new Integrated Systems Research Program evolves. The program provides an opportunity for projects to move up the TRL scale from fundamental research to systems research.

This chart shows how a new technology called chevron nozzles moved through the TRL scale. Image credit: NASA/Maria Werries
›  Link to larger photoThere is no firm rule about the TRL at which NASA-led aeronautics technology should graduate from fundamental research to systems research, but Strazisar said it generally happens at TRL 3 or TRL 4.

At this range on the scale, a technology has moved beyond studies on paper and its components are undergoing active research and development. It is ready to be integrated into a larger system for further testing in increasingly realistic environments.

It is generally thought that NASA works on a new idea up through TRL 6, then turns it over to industry because higher TRLs are associated with technology commercialization and certification. But Strazisar said that view is not entirely accurate.

"In truth, we transfer knowledge at all technology readiness levels," he said. "This especially occurs when we work with industry and academia on collaborative projects. In those cases, NASA works with others as equal partners and information flows organically throughout the technology development life cycle."

 

 

Jim Banke
NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate

SOFIA

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SOFIA Prepares for the Stars

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, 747SP sat on the tarmac during nighttime telescope operations at NASA’s Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in October 2010.

SOFIA, which is a cooperative program between NASA and the German Aerospace Center DLR, took off for the heavens on its first science flight Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2010, focusing on the Orion nebula and the Sharpless 140 star cluster.

Image Credit: NASA/Tom Tschida

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Back in the Air: X-48B Resumes Flight Tests at NASA Dryden

Back in the Air: X-48B Resumes Flight Tests at NASA Dryden

09.21.10

 

(NASA / Tony Landis)After undergoing a major overhaul and upgrades, the Boeing / NASA X-48B Blended Wing Body research aircraft resumed flight tests with a checkout flight Sept. 21 from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

The subscale, manta ray-shaped, remotely piloted airplane, also called a hybrid wing body, is a tool of NASA's new Environmentally Responsible Aviation, or ERA, project. ERA aims to develop the technology needed to create quieter, cleaner, and more fuel-efficient airplanes for the future.

After completion of its first phase of flight testing, the airplane was disassembled for a complete inspection and refurbishment. This new series of flight tests will focus on additional parameter identification investigations following installation and checkout of a new flight computer. The parameter identification work will evaluate the new computer’s control of the aircraft’s flight control surfaces and the airplane's performance.

(NASA / Carla Thomas)In addition to NASA and Boeing, the X-48B team includes Cranfield Aerospace Ltd. in the United Kingdom, and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

The team completed the 80th and last flight of the project's first phase on March 19, 2010, almost three years after the X-48B's first flight on July 20, 2007.

 

 

Gray Creech NASA Dryden public affairs

 

NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical

NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical

12.02.10

 

Image of Mono Lake Research area
Click photo for larger image.

Felisa Wolfe-Simon processing mud from Mono Lake to inoculate media to grow microbes on arsenic.
Image Credit: Henry Bortman
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Image of GFAJ-1 grown on arsenic.
Image Credit: Jodi Switzer Blum
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Image of GFAJ-1 grown on phosphorus.
Image Credit: Jodi Switzer Blum
Click photo for larger image.
NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.

Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

"The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."

This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this week's edition of Science Express.

Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the six basic building blocks of all known forms of life on Earth. Phosphorus is part of the chemical backbone of DNA and RNA, the structures that carry genetic instructions for life, and is considered an essential element for all living cells.

Phosphorus is a central component of the energy-carrying molecule in all cells (adenosine triphosphate) and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, is poisonous for most life on Earth. Arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways because chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate.

"We know that some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new -- building parts of itself out of arsenic," said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and the research team's lead scientist. "If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet?"

The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria. In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic. When researchers removed the phosphorus and replaced it with arsenic the microbes continued to grow. Subsequent analyses indicated that the arsenic was being used to produce the building blocks of new GFAJ-1 cells.

The key issue the researchers investigated was when the microbe was grown on arsenic did the arsenic actually became incorporated into the organisms' vital biochemical machinery, such as DNA, proteins and the cell membranes. A variety of sophisticated laboratory techniques was used to determine where the arsenic was incorporated.

The team chose to explore Mono Lake because of its unusual chemistry, especially its high salinity, high alkalinity, and high levels of arsenic. This chemistry is in part a result of Mono Lake's isolation from its sources of fresh water for 50 years.

The results of this study will inform ongoing research in many areas, including the study of Earth's evolution, organic chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, disease mitigation and Earth system research. These findings also will open up new frontiers in microbiology and other areas of research.

"The idea of alternative biochemistries for life is common in science fiction," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Until now a life form using arsenic as a building block was only theoretical, but now we know such life exists in Mono Lake."

The research team included scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Penn., and the Stanford Synchroton Radiation Lightsource in Menlo Park, Calif.

NASA's Astrobiology Program in Washington contributed funding for the research through its Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology program and the NASA Astrobiology Institute. NASA's Astrobiology Program supports research into the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life on Earth.

For more information about the finding and a complete list of researchers, visit:

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov

 

 

Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters

Cathy Weselby
NASA Ames Research Center