In This Issue:
NIST's
William Phillips Awarded 1997 Physics Prize
Tenth Baldrige Award Given to Four U.S. Companies
1997 Baldrige Awardees Share Winning Ways at QE X
New Study Finds Program Speeds Technology Development
Take Five' to Learn About NIST in New Video
New Partnership Gets Industry Support
Calorimeter Makes Better Gas and Liquid Measurements
[Credits] [NIST Update Archives] [Media Contacts] [Subscription Information]
Nobel Prize
NIST's William Phillips Awarded 1997 Physics Prize
William D. Phillips, a leading researcher in laser cooling of atoms at NIST, was named as a co-winner of the 1997 Nobel Physics Prize on Oct. 15, 1997, along with Steven Chu of Stanford University and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji of the Collège de France and the École Normale Supérieure. Phillips, 48, is internationally known for advancing basic knowledge and new techniques using laser light to trap and chill atoms to extremely low temperatures. Phillips and the team he built have made numerous pivotal contributions to the field. For example, in the mid-1980s, Phillips' team demonstrated that it actually was possible to chill atoms well below the accepted limits down to a few microKelvins, or just millionths of a degree above absolute zero. Based on this work and similar research, scientists today are able to observe and measure quantum phenomena in atoms in great detail. Laser trapping and cooling may one day lead to the design of atomic clocks with a 100-fold greater precision than today's models and atomic lasers that can etch ultra-small structures for electronic circuits.
The Nobel Prize caps an impressive year for Phillips who earlier in1997 was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and was named to receive the 1998 Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science from the American Physical Society.
For more information on Phillips (including photographs), his research and the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, visit the NIST World Wide Web homepage at http://www.nist.gov.
Media Contact:
Linda Joy (301) 975-4403
Quality
Tenth Baldrige Award Given to Four U.S. Companies
Two manufacturers--one for a second time--and two service firms have received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for their achievements in quality and business performance. The 1997 awards, announced by President Clinton and Commerce Secretary William Daley on Oct. 15, 1997, went to 3M Dental Products Division, St. Paul, Minn. (manufacturing); Solectron Corp., Milpitas, Calif. (manufacturing); Merrill Lynch Credit Corp., Jacksonville, Fla. (service); and Xerox Business Services, Rochester, N.Y. (service). Solectron Corp. also won the award in the manufacturing category in 1991.
Congress established the Baldrige Award in 1987; the first awards were presented in 1988. With this year's 10th anniversary recipients, the total number of companies honored is 32. The award's goals are to enhance U.S. competitiveness by promoting quality awareness, recognize quality and business achievements of U.S. companies and publicize these companies' successful performance. It is not given for specific products or services.
Further information on the 1997 award winners and the award itself is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.quality.nist.gov.
Media Contact:
Jan Kosko (301) 975-2767
Quality Conference
1997 Baldrige Awardees Share Winning Ways at QE X
The four companies recently announced as winners of the 1997 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (see previous item) will present details of their exceptional business practices at the Quest for Excellence X conference. Presentations covering all seven categories of the Baldrige Award criteria will be made by the CEOs and others in the winning companies. The conference takes place on Feb. 8-11, 1998, at the Washington Hilton and Towers, Washington, D.C. A celebration to mark the Baldrige Award's 10th anniversary is planned for the evening of Feb. 8. Attendees to the Quest for Excellence conference are invited to attend this anniversary celebration.
Registration fee for the conference and the celebration event is $850 if postmarked by Jan. 10, 1998. After that date, the fee will be $950. A separate fee is available for the conference only.
For details, contact the American Society for Quality, (800) 248-1946, fax: (414) 272-1734, asq@asq.org.
Media Contact:
Jan Kosko (301) 975-2767
ATP
New Study Finds Program Speeds Technology Development
The NIST Advanced Technology Program is having a significant impact in accelerating the pace of technology development, according to a new study of 28 early ATP award winners. Half of the companies surveyed (14 out of 28) estimated that participation in the ATP reduced their technology development cycle by 50 percent, typically reducing a six-year process to three years. The majority (27 out of 28, or 96 percent) estimated that ATP participation reduced the cycle time anywhere from 30 to 66 percent. Accelerated technology development translates to dollars and cents according to the majority of companies studied, with estimates of the economic impact of reducing cycle time ranging from one million to several billions of dollars for a single year of time saved.
In addition, 24 of the companies (86 percent) indicated that participation in ATP resulted in cycle-time improvements that carried over to other technology development projects outside of ATP. They spoke of adapting specific "ATP practices" to related programs.
The results are documented in "Acceleration of Technology Development by the Advanced Technology Program: The Experience of 28 Projects Funded in 1991," one of a series of studies commissioned by the ATP as part of the program's evaluation and analysis efforts.
Copies of the study are available from the ATP Office of Economic Assessment, (301) 975-4332. Information about the ATP may be obtained by calling (800) ATP-FUND (287-3863) or on the World Wide Web at http://www.atp.nist.gov.
Media Contact:
Michael Baum (301) 975-2763
Technology Partnerships
'Take Five' to Learn About NIST in New Video
A new video, "NIST in 5 Minutes and 41 Seconds," takes viewers on a quick but informative tour of the agency and its portfolio of four major programs for U.S. industry's success: the Advanced Technology Program, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, the Laboratory Program and the Baldrige National Quality Program.
Highlighting the four segments are interviews with some of NIST's industry customers who describe the benefits of partnering with the agency.
For a free, single VHS copy of the video, send a self-addressed mailing label to Public Inquiries, A903 Administration Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-0001; call (301) 975-3058; fax a request to (301) 926-1630 or send an e-mail message to inquiries @nist.gov.
Media Contact:
Michael Newman (301)
975-3025
Information Security
New Partnership Gets Industry Support
To encourage independent testing of information security products, NIST, the National Security Agency and several industry supporters provided more details about the National Information Assurance Partnership at the recent 20th National Information Systems Security Conference in Baltimore, Md. The NIAP aims, among other things, to improve the efficiency of the information technology security evaluation process and to transfer methodologies and techniques to private-sector laboratories.
This program has the potential to improve the quality of security products and the efficiency of the buying process. This is exactly the right role for the government to be playing now," said Chris Byrnes, vice president of services and systems management strategies for the META Group.
The NIAP will serve several functions, including:
- developing tests, test methods and other tools that developers and testing laboratories may use to evaluate and improve security products;
- using the Common Criteria, an emerging international standard for specifying and evaluating information technology security, to develop protection profiles and associated test sets for selected classes of security products and systems; and
- working to establish a formal, international mutual recognition scheme for a Common Criteria-based evaluation.
The two federal agencies established the partnership in August as a means of enhancing the quality of information security products and increasing consumer confidence in those products that have been evaluated objectively.
Additional information on the National Information Assurance Partnership is available at http://niap.nist.gov/.
Media Contact:
Anne Enright Shepherd
(301) 975-4858
Chemical Engineering
Calorimeter Makes Better Gas and Liquid Measurements
The energy needed to increase the temperature of a kilogram of substance by 1 Kelvin--the specific heat capacity--is a quantity of considerable interest for many industrial applications. Reliable thermal property data are required for efficient design in the field of chemical engineering. NIST has used the adiabatic method to measure heat capacity for nearly four decades. R.D. Goodwin developed a low-temperature adiabatic calorimeter in 1961 that has been used to measure constant-volume heat capacities for many fluids at temperatures from 20 to 345 Kelvin and at pressures to 35 millipascals.
Now, NIST scientist Joseph W. Magee and colleagues Renee J. Deal and John C. Blanco have designed, built and characterized a new calorimeter that extends the upper temperature limit to 700 Kelvin without any compromise in accuracy. A recent paper describes the experimental apparatus, discusses its principles of operation, presents the results of performance tests and provides an assessment of uncertainties.
For a copy of paper no. 39-97, contact Sarabeth Harris, MC 104, NIST, Boulder, Colo. 80303-3328, (303) 497-3237.
Media Contact:
Fred McGehan (Boulder)
(303) 497-3246
Go back to NIST News Page