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Preservation

Fall Conference to Showcase New Cases for Charters of Freedom

Millions of Americans consider three documents—the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence—tangible, irreplaceable works of political genius and national patriotism. This Constitution Day, Sept. 17, 2001, NIST will host a scientific conference celebrating its current role in preserving these “Charters of Freedom” for future generations. The conference will be held at NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md.
The NIST-built encasement for the Bill of Rights will be formally transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration during the conference’s opening ceremony. The handover completes a two-year project to make nine state-of-the-art encasements that will secure the Charters against all types of environmental assault including light, oxygen and humidity. Five of the gold-plated titanium frames will hold the four pages of the Constitution and its transmittal page, which was signed by George Washington. One encasement will hold the Declaration of Independence and another, the Bill of Rights. Two prototype frames, built at the start of the project, will be used as spares.

The Charters will be moved to their new “homes” while away from public display between July 5, 2001, and sometime in 2003.

Conference speakers will describe the current Charters encasements—built by NIST in the 1950s—and present data on their performance. They will then discuss the design, manufacture and initial performance of the new NIST cases that embody the best manufacturing and preservation technology have to offer. Cutaway models of the two case sizes manufactured will be on display.

Detailed design and production information on the new Charters encasements, historical background on the documents and their 1950s preservation, visuals and more are available at www.nist.gov/charters. Also available is a link to the web site for the Sept. 17 conference, “A History of Encasements: Technology Preserving the Charters of Freedom,” that includes an online registration form.

Media Contact:
John Blair, (301) 975-4261

 

 

Electronics

New Division to Explore Magnetic Technology

NIST has formally organized the Magnetic Technology Division within the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory. The new division develops and disseminates measurement technology for industries concerned with magnetic information storage and superconductors for power applications.

Research areas include magnetic calibration standards, high-density and high-speed magnetic recording, magnetoresistive sensors and memory elements, magneto-optic and inductive magnetometry, recovery of data from damaged or erased recording media, scanned-probe microscopy, microelectromechanical systems and electromechanical properties of and standards for superconductors.

The new division can be reached at (303) 497-5477.

Media Contact:
Fred McGehan (Boulder), (303) 497-3246

 

 

 

Manufacturing

NIST Forms Team to Tackle Inspection Software Problems

Automating the process of product inspection during manufacturing should cut product development cycle time and manufacturing costs. However, the wide variety of inspection software and hardware products on the market may make it difficult to achieve full benefit from an automated process. Common interfaces may be non-existent, measurement programs may require retooling to make them compatible with new or added software packages, and training for multiple operator interfaces adds to production costs and delays inspections.

Last month, NIST joined manufacturers and information technology vendors in an effort to overcome software interface barriers for automated dimensional measurement. The new group, known as the Metrology Interoperability Consortium, will be developing and testing interoperability standards for the hardware and software components used.

The consortium’s three-year action plan includes: cataloguing gaps in current standards; evaluating current and developing standards for particular interfaces to determine which ones deserve support; identifying and assisting in harmonization of competing or overlapping standards; developing specifications for interfaces where no satisfactory non-proprietary standard exists; and assembling consensus user requirements to provide as input to standards developing organizations.

Finally, consortium members will develop and perform conformance and interoperability tests for software that incorporates the standards. Projects that require testing will be carried out using a National Metrology Testbed that consists of equipment and software owned and operated by the participants at their own sites. NIST will develop procedures and tools for conformance and interoperability testing.

Membership in the Metrology Interoperability Consortium is open to users, vendors and third party organizations. For more information, contact Al Wavering, (301) 975-3461, albert.wavering@nist.gov.

Media Contact:
John Blair, (301) 975-4261

 

 

 

Facilities

Work Well Under Way on World's Premier Measurement Lab

A drive past NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md., these days might have you looking twice. There’s an ever-growing stockpile of dirt on the campus’ southern side from excavations, five (and soon to be six) cranes poised high above a construction site and the sight of people and machines busily at work on a very special building.

When it is ready for occupancy in 2004, the 47,480-square-meter (511,070-square-foot), $235.2 million Advanced Measurement Laboratory will give NIST and its partners in U.S. industry and science access to research and development capabilities not available anywhere else in the world. The laboratory will have state-of-the-art controls for humidity, temperature, vibration, and air quality. Two of the AML’s five wings will be built underground with special active and passive vibration isolation systems. The unique characteristics will help its occupants achieve higher quality reference materials, improved measurements and standards, and more rapidly developed research advances.

The AML construction project recently reached a number of milestones. Seventy-five percent of the concrete and 15 percent of the structural steel work on the facility’s Class 100 clean room, which will maintain a constant purity level of fewer than 3.5 particles per liter of air, was completed this month. Excavations for the Metrology East and West wings are nearing completion. On the Instrument East wing, 40 percent of the concrete work has been done.

Instrument East, currently scheduled to wrap up in mid-2003, will be the first portion of the AML finished. Other target completion dates are mid-to-late 2003 for the cleanroom and the Metrology East wing, and late 2003 for the Instrument West and Metrology West wings.

For more information on the AML, along with an artist’s rendition of the finished facility and a live webcam view of the construction site, go to http://aml.nist.gov.

Media Contact:
Michael E. Newman, (301) 975-3025

 

 

 

Time & Frequency

Got a Minute? NIST Wants Your Views on Time Services

For the third time in 26 years, NIST is surveying customers of the time and frequency services, specifically:

Media Contact:
Collier Smith (Boulder), (303) 497-3198

 

 

 

Administration

New Members Named to Visiting Committee

NIST Acting Director Karen Brown has tapped two distinguished technology experts from industry and academia to serve on the Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology, the agency’s primary private-sector policy adviser. The new VCAT members—both of whom will serve three-year terms until Jan. 31, 2004—bring the body’s number to 11. The committee can have as many as 15 members.

Starting their service on the VCAT are: Lloyd R. Harriott, chaired professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va., and Wayne H. Pitcher Jr., a technology management consultant most recently with Quantum Dot Corp. Hayward, Calif. The four remaining seats on the committee will be filled at a later date.

Harriott worked for Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies from 1980 until his university position started in January of this year. He was part of the Bell team that developed the EBES4 field emission electron beam lithography system for mas and wafer lithography. Pitcher was with Corning Glass Works from 1972 until 1983, when he became part of the team that started the biotechnology firm Genencor. He was with Genencor from 1983 until 2001. As a consultant, Pitcher also served as acting vice president, research and development, for Quantum Dot.

The VCAT was established by Congress in 1988 to review and make recommendations on NIST’s policies, organization, budget and programs.

Media Contact:
Michael E. Newman, (301) 975-3025