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Time
and Frequency
NIST
Radio Station Now Transmitting at Full Power
As
a result of a recently completed upgrade, NIST’s standard time
and frequency radio station WWVB now broadcasts at over 50 kilowatts,
five times more power than previously.
The
upgrade, which included adding more powerful transmitters and
thoroughly refurbishing the system antennas, extends the usable
range of the 60-kilohertz station near Fort Collins, Colo., to
most of the North American continent. It means that clock and
watch manufacturers can install tiny WWVB-receiving antennas in
their products that will automatically reset to track official
U.S. time. Similar receivers can be designed into almost any appliance
that contains a clock, such as computers, kitchen ranges, microwave
ovens, thermostats, televisions and video cassette recorders.
One nice feature: the clock will reset automatically after a power
outage once it has received the WWVB signal.
World
War-II-era transmitters were replaced with more modern, reconditioned
Navy transmitters, which allow WWVB to operate with greater reliability
as well as increased power. Antenna system improvements included
replacing 35-year-old, pole-mounted transmission lines with underground
lines; redesigning and refurbishing two huge antennas and their
mounting systems; and improving the antenna tuning coils and their
servo controllers.
Technical
questions regarding this project should be directed to Wayne Hanson,
NIST, MC 847.40, Boulder, Colo. 80303-3337; (303) 497-5233; fax:
(303) 497-6461, hanson@boulder.nist.gov.
Media
Contact:
Fred
McGehan (Boulder), (303) 497-3246 
Computer Security
Institute
to Protect America's Cyberspace Proposed for NIST
President
Clinton announced on Jan. 7, 2000, that he is proposing the creation
of the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection to
fund research and technology development to protect America’s
cyberspace from attack or other failures. The I3P would fill research
gaps that neither the private sector nor the government is addressing.
The
President announced that he would seek $50 million for the institute
in the proposed fiscal year 2001 federal budget for NIST to be
submitted to Congress in February.
NIST’s
Information Technology Laboratory is involved in planning
for the I3P, which would work directly with private-sector information
technology suppliers and consumers to define research priorities.
If the I3P is approved, cybersecurity research would be performed
at existing institutions, including corporations, universities
and non-profit research organizations. While it is anticipated
that NIST would coordinate this research, the bulk of the work
would be done outside the agency.
Media
Contact:
Philip
Bulman , (301) 975-5661
Technology
Partnerships
New ATP Advisory
Committee to Hold First Meeting
A
new
advisory committee established by NIST to review and advise the
Advanced Technology Program
will hold its first meeting on Feb. 2, 2000, at the NIST headquarters
in Gaithersburg, Md.
Established
under the Federal Advisory Committee Act and drawn largely from
universities and private industry, the new committee is charged
to provide advice on ATP programs, plans, and policies; review
ATP efforts to assess the program’s economic impact; and report
on the general health of the program and its effectiveness in
achieving its mission. The committee will issue reports on its
findings and recommendations as needed, along with an annual report
to the ATP Director, the NIST Director and the Secretary of Commerce.
The
initial membership of the ATP Advisory Committee, which can have
up to 12 members, includes Arden L. Bement Jr., Basil S. Turner
Distinguished Professor of Engineering, Purdue University, West
Lafayette, Ind.; Howard Frank, dean, Robert H. Smith School of
Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Md.; Shane Mitchell
Greenstein, associate professor of management and strategy, Kellogg
Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston,
Ill.; Joseph D. Lichtenhan, founder and president, Hybrid Plastics,
Fountain Valley, Calif.; Marsha R.B. Schachtel, senior fellow,
Institute for Policy Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
Md.; and John N. Yochelson, president, Council on Competitiveness,
Washington, D.C.
The
ATP provides cost-shared funding to industry to carry out high-risk,
high-payoff R&D; projects on emerging and enabling technologies
that offer significant, broad-based benefits to the nation’s economy.
Media
Contacts:
Michael
Baum , (301) 975-2763
Materials
New NIST
Effort Seeks to Improve Utility of Property Data
Much
of science and technology owe their progress to the careful collection,
logging and interpretation of data. And as information technology
becomes more efficient, so do the methods scientists use for sorting
and accessing data. Now hoping to improve the utility of electronic
materials property data, NIST scientists have just embarked on
a project to standardize the way such information is posted on
the World Wide Web.
NIST’s
Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory is inviting others
in the materials property data community to join this effort called
Materials Property Data Markup Language, or MatML.
The
goal of MatML is to create a standard markup language for web-based
materials property data collections. While current hypertext markup
language specifies elements of web page design, it contains no
mechanism for tagging or specifying any of the hundreds of materials
properties that materials scientists and engineers need to know.
MatML will address interpretation and inter- operability of this
information. The goal is to develop a markup language that will
describe the data source, the material and its properties. Ultimately,
this project could allow researchers to easily use electronic
materials property data from multiple sources in models, simulations
or distributed databases.
For
more information or to join the MatML effort, contact project
leader Ed Begley at NIST, (301) 975-6118, begley@nist.gov.
The MatML web site can be found at www.ceramics.nist.gov/matml/matml.htm.
Media
Contact:
Linda
Joy, (301) 975-4403
Joint
Ventures
New
Features for the ATP Alliance Network Site
The
Advanced Technology Program
has unveiled several new features and services on its Alliance
Network website. The Alliance Network was established two years
ago to help companies establish and manage joint R&D; projects
by providing information on the business, managerial, administrative
and legal resources necessary for a successful joint venture.
Now,
in addition to browsing such resources as a collection of joint
venture “best practices” and hints on navigating the ATP process,
visitors to the Alliance Network web pages can:
- use
anonymous posts and replies on the Alliance Network Collaboration
Bulletin Board to seek potential joint venture partners without
immediately revealing company R&D; interests;
- join
the Alliance Forum, a new list serve (Internet-based discussion
group) on R&D; alliances; or
- visit
a special section on partnerships with universities and nonprofit
organizations, including the latest data on university participation
in ATP; the benefits to companies and non-profits of collaborating
in ATP projects; the rules regarding intellectual property when
non-profits are involved; and some best practices for collaborative
R&D; between companies and non-profits.
Access
the ATP Alliance Network web site at www.atp.nist.gov/alliance.
General information on the NIST Advanced Technology Program, including
policy, procedures and projects funded to date, can be found on
the ATP web site at www.atp.nist.gov.
Media
Contact:
Michael
Baum , (301) 975-2763
Awards
Two
Labs Share Honor for Materials Testing Software
A
computer program that allows scientists to improve materials testing
while saving considerable amounts of time has received one of
Industry Week magazine’s Technology of the Year Awards.
With
the unusual name of OOF (rhymes with “goof”), the program is a
computational tool that analyzes and predicts the behavior of
solid materials with very complex microstructures. Microstructures
are the collection of grains, second phases, cracks, pores and
other features seen in materials on a microscopic scale. While
these features are tiny, they can affect important material properties,
such as how long the material survives under stress before it
fails. If the material makes up a critical component such as a
jet turbine blade, this information is crucial.
Researchers
in two NIST laboratories, Information
Technology and Materials
Science and Engineering, teamed up to develop OOF, an acronym
for Object-Oriented Finite element program. OOF allows scientists
to take an image of a material, automatically find all of its
features and develop a mathematical model.
OOF
then uses the mathematical model to predict how the materials
will respond to a variety of stresses and strains. This point-and-click
approach allows scientists to interface theory with experiment
in a new way, and then probe materials behavior in ways that were
not previously possible. The program works with many kinds of
materials, including metals, ceramics and polymers.
The
OOF advantage to industry could be substantial. Because OOF can
replace weeks of laboratory experiments with quick computational
calculations, it can help researchers run their labs more strategically.
While
the current version of OOF predicts how the materials respond
to a variety of stresses, NIST is developing a more sophisticated
version. The new version will allow researchers to do thermal
calculations as well as to include the effects of electric and
magnetic fields.
OOF
is written in the C++ programming language and currently requires
a Unix operating system. The future version will run on both UNIX
and Windows platforms.
OOF
can be downloaded from NIST’s World Wide Web site at www.ctcms.nist.gov/oof/.
Media
Contacts:
Philip
Bulman , (301) 975-5661
Linda
Joy, (301) 975-4403
Editor:
Michael Newman
HTML conversion: Crissy
Robinson
Last updated: Jan. 18, 2000
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