Welcome to an exploration of the nasa-smd-ibm-v0.1 model, also known as Indus. This state-of-the-art RoBERTa-based transformer model is designed to enhance natural language processing capabilities specifically tailored for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD). In this article, you will learn how to use this remarkable model effectively for your scientific projects.
Model Overview
The Indus model was fine-tuned on a selection of scientific journals and articles related to NASA SMD applications. Let’s break down its components:
- Base Model: RoBERTa
- Tokenizer: Custom
- Parameters: 125 Million
- Pretraining Strategy: Masked Language Modeling (MLM)
You can access a distilled version of the model with 30 million parameters here.
Training Data
The model was trained on a diverse set of materials, including:
- Wikipedia English (Feb 1, 2020)
- American Geophysical Union (AGU) Publications
- American Meteorological Society (AMS) Publications
- Scientific papers from Astrophysics Data Systems (ADS)
- PubMed abstracts
- Subset of PubMedCentral (PMC)
Training Procedure
Indus is built using the fairseq framework alongside PyTorch for training. The choice of frameworks is akin to selecting the right tools for a craft project. Just as a craftsman picks suitable tools to create a masterpiece, we use these frameworks to enhance the capabilities of our model.
Evaluation Metrics
To assess the model’s efficacy, the following benchmarks have been referenced:
- BLURB Benchmark
- Pruned SQuAD2.0 Benchmark (covering Amazon Rainforest, Oxygen, Geology, and NASA ES QAs)
- NASA SMD Expert QA Benchmark (Work In Progress)
For further evaluations and benchmarks, refer to these dataset cards:
Population of Uses
The model is versatile and can be employed in a variety of applications, including:
- Named Entity Recognition (NER)
- Information Retrieval
- Sentence Transformers
- Extractive Question Answering (QA)
Troubleshooting and Tips
As with any model in the experimental phase, you may encounter a few bumps along the road. Here are some common troubleshooting tips:
- If the model does not produce expected results, check if your input data aligns well with the training data. The model thrives on scientific text, so context is key.
- Make sure to use compatible libraries and versions as mentioned in the README (fairseq and PyTorch). This ensures stability and performance efficiency.
- For further insights or collaboration on AI developmental projects, stay connected with fxis.ai.
Final Note
At fxis.ai, we believe that such advancements are crucial for the future of AI, as they enable more comprehensive and effective solutions. Our team is continually exploring new methodologies to push the envelope in artificial intelligence, ensuring that our clients benefit from the latest technological innovations.

