ALBERT

Description: Dr. Radhakrishnan, a researcher at the NASA Glenn Research Center, in collaboration with biomedical researchers at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, is developing computational models of human physiology that quantitate metabolism and its regulation, in both healthy and pathological states. These models can help predict the effects of stresses or interventions, such as drug therapies, and contribute to the development of customized medicine. Customized medical treatment protocols can give more comprehensive evaluations and lead to more specific and effective treatments for patients, reducing treatment time and cost. Commercial applications of this research may help the pharmaceutical industry identify therapeutic needs and predict drug-drug interactions. Researchers will be able to study human metabolic reactions to particular treatments while in different environments as well as establish more definite blood metabolite concentration ranges in normal and pathological states. These computational models may help NASA provide the background for developing strategies to monitor and safeguard the health of astronauts and civilians in space stations and colonies. They may also help to develop countermeasures that ameliorate the effects of both acute and chronic space exposure.

Description: Members of the Commercial Technology Office at the NASA Glenn Research Center have developed an exciting new tool that greatly reduces the lead time in creating and routing Space Act Agreements. The Space Act Agreement Maker (SAAM) is an e-government Web-based system that automates the initial drafting of Space Act Agreements by technical and program personnel. SAAM also is used for editing and will be used later for maintaining electronic copies of all Space Act Agreements. During the initial drafting, the software prompts NASA personnel proposing an agreement to answer questions regarding the agreement. On the basis of the answers, the software selects from a matrix of NASA standard clauses to produce a first draft of the agreement. The draft agreement and information submitted by the NASA personnel are electronically routed to Glenn s Commercial Technology Office for review and, where necessary, editing. The final version of the agreement, along with any supporting documentation, is then routed for electronic concurrence/approval to the necessary internal review participants using the electronic routing system (e-router). SAAM was developed cooperatively by Glenn s Commercial Technology Office and Glenn s Office of Chief Counsel. Currently, SAAM is being evaluated by the NASA Headquarters General Counsel Office for use at all NASA centers. This system allows for the effective processing of Space Act Agreements for NASA s internal and external customers. Document control is maintained by a database. With SAAM s electronic routing, review times can be reduced significantly, allowing Glenn to more rapidly establish partnerships with industry. Prior to the creation of SAAM, it took several hours to draft a Space Act Agreement. With SAAM in place, the document can be written in about 30 min. Using the e-router also saves time in determining where the agreement is in the routing process. The document can be tracked easily, and delays can be avoided. Important research with industry partners can commence quickly after preliminary discussions have been held. The development of these products is in line with the expanding e-government initiative that is part of the Presidential Management Agenda. By using this product, NASA researchers can secure greater support from industry and academia partners. The Space Act Agreement Maker has been very well received at NASA Headquarters and at some of the other NASA centers as well. We anticipate that the NASA Ames Research Center will have the system in place very soon, and that some of the other centers will use SAAM in the near future. The General Counsel s office at NASA Headquarters has encouraged the Glenn team to develop a similar system for processing patent licenses. Find out more about Glenn's Technology Transfer & Partnership Office http://technology.grc.nasa.gov/.

Description: Microgravity researcher Dr. Rafat R. Ansari, from the NASA Glenn Research Center, has found that the eye operates much like a camera and is the "window to the body." The eye contains transparent tissue through which light passes, providing us a view of what's going on inside. These transparent tissues represent nearly every tissue type that exists throughout the body. With the correlations and comparisons of these tissues done at Glenn, we hope to improve doctors' ability to diagnose diseases at much earlier stages. The medical community will be able to look noninvasively and quantitatively into a patient's eyes to detect disease before symptoms appear. Since the eye is easily accessed by light, the optical technologies created at Glenn can be used to evaluate its structure and physiology in health, aging, and disease.

Description: The Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS) is a full propulsion system simulation tool used by aerospace engineers to predict and analyze the aerothermodynamic behavior of commercial jet aircraft, military applications, and space transportation. The NPSS framework was developed to support aerospace, but other applications are already leveraging the initial capabilities, such as aviation safety, ground-based power, and alternative energy conversion devices such as fuel cells. By using the framework and developing the necessary components, future applications that NPSS could support include nuclear power, water treatment, biomedicine, chemical processing, and marine propulsion. NPSS will dramatically reduce the time, effort, and expense necessary to design and test jet engines. It accomplishes that by generating sophisticated computer simulations of an aerospace object or system, thus enabling engineers to "test" various design options without having to conduct costly, time-consuming real-life tests. The ultimate goal of NPSS is to create a numerical "test cell" that enables engineers to create complete engine simulations overnight on cost-effective computing platforms. Using NPSS, engine designers will be able to analyze different parts of the engine simultaneously, perform different types of analysis simultaneously (e.g., aerodynamic and structural), and perform analysis in a more efficient and less costly manner. NPSS will cut the development time of a new engine in half, from 10 years to 5 years. And NPSS will have a similar effect on the cost of development: new jet engines will cost about a billion dollars to develop rather than two billion. NPSS is also being applied to the development of space transportation technologies, and it is expected that similar efficiencies and cost savings will result. Advancements of NPSS in fiscal year 2001 included enhancing the NPSS Developer's Kit to easily integrate external components of varying fidelities, providing the initial Visual-Based Syntax (VBS) capability, and developing additional capabilities to support space transportation. NPSS was supported under NASA's High Performance Computing and Communications Program. Through the NASA/Industry Cooperative Effort agreement, NASA Glenn and its industry and Government partners are developing NPSS. The NPSS team consists of propulsion experts and software engineers from GE Aircraft Engines, Pratt & Whitney, The Boeing Company, Honeywell, Rolls-Royce Corporation, Williams International, Teledyne Continental Motors, Arnold Engineering Development Center, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and the NASA Glenn Research Center. Glenn is leading the way in developing NPSS--a method for solving complex design problems that's faster, better, and cheaper.