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Awards
Cahn Awarded Nation's
Highest Scientific Honor
John W. Cahn, a leading materials scientist
at NIST was named by President Clinton in December to receive the 1998 National Medal of
Science. He is the first NIST scientist to be awarded the medal, which is the nation's
highest scientific honor.
The National Science Foundation
announced that Cahn is recognized for his contributions to the fields of materials
science, solid-state physics, chemistry and mathematics. He is most widely known for his
elegant theories of how materials transform from one phase to another. These theories have
been used by researchers in fields ranging from materials science to astronomy.
During his 40-year career, Cahn
has had a profound influence on the progress of materials and mathematics research. He has
published approximately 250 scientific papers, delivered 400 invited lectures on his work
and received numerous national and international honors and awards.
Cahn, 70, of Bethesda, Md., began
working at NIST in 1977, when the agency was still called the National Bureau of
Standards. A NIST Fellow since 1984, he is one of nine recipients of the 1998 medal, which
is awarded by NSF.
For background information on
John Cahn, go to http://www.ctcms.nist.gov/~cahn/
on the World Wide Web. Online information about the National Medal of Science can be found
at http://www.asee.org/nstmf/.
Media Contact:
Emil Venere, (301) 975-5745 
Consumerism
Survey on Retail
Pricing Accuracy Finds Mixed Performance
A new survey conducted by the Federal Trade
Commission, NIST and weights and measures offices in 37
jurisdictions concluded that pricing accuracy has improved since the first study in 1996.
The wrong price, however, was charged for approximately one in 30 items checked in the
survey of more than 100,000 consumer products in all types of retail stores. Grocery
stores, as a group, had the highest pricing accuracy in the survey with 77 percent of
inspected food stores passing. Drug stores were next best with 72 percent passing
inspection, while 70 percent of mass merchandise stores passed and 67 percent of
department stores passed. Hardware stores had the worst performance in the survey, with a
pass rate of 55 percent.
NIST and the National Conference
on Weights and Measures developed the inspection procedure which state weights and
measures inspectors used to assess price scanning accuracy. NIST also provided training in
the inspection procedure which is also available to businesses to check their own
accuracy.
Price Check II is a follow-up
to a 1996 report about the accuracy of prices in stores with electronic checkout scanners.
The 1998 study is a larger, more comprehensive review that compares scanned prices with
the lowest posted or advertised price of a randomized sample of items in food, department,
mass merchandise, drug, hardware and other stores.
More details are available on the
NIST World Wide Web site at http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/scanner.htm.
Copies of the 1998 and 1996 Price Check studies, as well as consumer and business
education materials, are available from the FTC's web site at http://www.ftc.gov and also from the FTC's Consumer Response
Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580, (202) FTC-HELP
(382-4357).
Media Contact:
Linda Joy, (301) 975-4403
Electricity
Superconducting
Sensor Provides More Sensitive AC Measures
Engineers measure alternating current
voltage or current by using devices known as "thermal transfer standards," where
the temperature of a structure is elevated in a well defined and predictable fashion when
electricity is applied. An unknown AC signal is applied to the device and the temperature
rise is recorded. A known direct current signal is then applied and adjusted until the
same temperature rise is reached. This establishes a comparison between the unknown AC and
known DC signals. If the error in the transfer standard is known (a quantity calibrated by
NIST) and if the DC signal is known, then the AC voltage or current can be determined.
Present thermal transfer
standards operate at room temperature, and are limited by the performance of their
temperature sensors and by other effects that can be reduced at very low temperatures.
Therefore, a NIST research team designed and built a new prototype standard cooled with
liquid helium that uses a much more sensitive, superconducting temperature sensor. The new
device operates at temperatures below 10 Kelvin (minus 263 degrees Celsius or minus 441
degrees Fahrenheit).
Because of its high sensitivity,
the superconducting sensor runs at millionths of a watt, where conventional
thermal-transfer devices may require more than a hundredth of a watt to operate.
This reduction in operating
temperature and power allows for comparisons at unprecedented low signal levels with a
level of precision comparable to (and potentially better than) the best room temperature
measurements.
For more information, contact Joseph
R. Kinard, NIST, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8111, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-8111, (301)
975-4250.
Media Contact:
Emil Venere, (301) 975-5745
Computer Security
FedCIRC Passes
Test, Begins Permanent Service
NIST has completed a highly successful
pilot project designed to protect the federal government's computer systems from attacks.
NIST's Information Technology Laboratory, along with
operational support from Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute
Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center and the Department of Energy's
Computer Incident Advisory Capability, pioneered the Federal Computer Incident Response
Capability. FedCIRC, launched by NIST in 1996, provided the first comprehensive computer
incident handling capability to the federal government's civilian agencies. During the
two-year pilot project managed by NIST, FedCIRC staff handled 1,937 problems ranging from
computer viruses to unauthorized system intrusions, gave 21 computer security seminars and
maintained a World Wide Web site accessed hundreds of thousands of times.
The federal government's General
Services Administration is now managing FedCIRC, and CERT/CC handles FedCIRC's day-to-day
operations.
NIST no longer hosts the FedCIRC
web site, which is now at http://www.fedcirc.gov. Inquiries should be directed to fedcirc@fedcirc.gov or (888) 282-0870.
Media Contact:
Philip Bulman, (301) 975-5661
Welding
New Paper
Discusses Standards Activity for NDE
Researchers in welding and the general
field of nondestructive evaluation will want to get a new paper from NIST that details the
standards activities and organizations, both domestic and international, that affect them.
The paper discusses the
International Standards Organization and its role in promoting the development of
standards and related activities throughout the world. ISO lists 64 standards that apply
directly to the inspection of welds in structures. Both the technical and administrative
aspects of ISO are discussed.
In particular, the paper focuses
on ISO Technical Committee 135 which covers nondestructive testing. The American National
Standards Institute and other organizations involved in welding standards also are
profiled.
For a copy of paper no. 48-98,
The International Standards System and NDE, contact Sarabeth Harris, MS 104, NIST, Boulder,
Colo., 80303-3337, (303) 497-3237.
Media Contact:
Fred McGehan (Boulder), (303) 497-3198
Semiconductors
Scientists Define
Complex Chemistry in Chip Making Devices
NIST scientists are among the first to
identify and measure the types of ions generated from gases used to process computer chips
in the inductively coupled plasma reactor, a device rapidly becoming a favorite of the
semiconductor industry.
The inductively coupled plasma
reactor, steadily replacing its capacitively coupled predecessor because of the higher
quality microchips it creates, might be made more efficient if the complex chemistry
taking place inside was better understood. Such knowledge could enable engineers to design
reactors that consume less electricity and lower quantities of the required gases, some of
which may contribute to global warming.
Both reactors work by ionizing
gases into plasmas and triggering a series of chemical reactions. Researchers suspected
that the inductively coupled reactor produced a far more complex combination of ions than
the capacitively coupled version, making it extremely difficult to predict reaction
outcomes and formulate theoretical models needed to improve the new device. Now, NIST
researchers have confirmed that inductively coupled plasma reactors do indeed produce a
complex brew of ions. They also identified the specific ions and measured their
proportions. The findings were reported in two research papers delivered during recent
scientific conferences.
The research also raised further
questions, when under certain conditions, different results were obtained in two seemingly
identical reactors at NIST and Sandia National Laboratories. This means there are
parameters that have yet to be adequately quantified.
For more information, contact James K. Olthoff, NIST, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop
8113, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-8113, (301) 975-2431.
Media Contact:
Emil Venere, (301) 975-5745
Electronic Commerce
DSS Expansion
Broadens Federal IT Security Choices
Upon NIST's
favorable recommendation, the Secretary of Commerce has expanded the Digital Signature
Standard, clearing the way for federal agencies to choose from a broader field of computer
security products.
Digital signatures confirm the
identity of the signer and verify that electronic information has not been altered. They
are gaining wide use in electronic commerce transactions.
The DSS was approved in 1994. It
specified the use of a single technique for generating signatures using the Digital
Signature Algorithm. Mathematical formulas called algorithms are at the heart of
computerized encryption systems and various other computer security products.
In 1997, NIST announced that it
was considering revising the standard to allow for other algorithms in generating digital
signatures. The notice specifically mentioned the possibility of adding RSA and elliptic
curve techniques for generating signatures, and asked for public comments. These
overwhelmingly supported a revision.
The revised federal standard
allows for the RSA technique. This follows the recent approval of an RSA standard (X9.31)
by the private-sector American National Standards Institute. ANSI is expected to approve a
standard based on the elliptic curve technique in the future.
The revision of the federal
standard will greatly increase the number of off-the-shelf digital signature products that
federal agencies can buy.
NIST, in a recent Federal
Register notice, asked for public comments on the revised standard, which is formally
known as Federal Information Processing Standard 186-1, Digital Signature Standard. The
public may send comments to the Information Technology
Laboratory, Attn: DSS/X9.31 Comments, NIST, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8970, Gaithersburg,
Maryland, 20899-8970. Comments may be sent electronically to FIPS186RSA@nist.gov. Specifications of the FIPS
186-1 are available electronically at http://csrc.nist.gov/fips/.
Media Contact:
Philip Bulman, (301) 975-5661
U.S.
Department of Commerce
Technology Administration
National Institute of Standards and Technology
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