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Small
Business
Help in Spanish Now Available for
'El Problema del Aņo 2000'
Free advice and user-friendly
software now are available to help Spanish-speaking small businesses better deal with the
year 2000 computer problem.
Analysts at the Y2K Help
Center for Small Business, (800) Y2K-7557 (925-7557), can provide year 2000 advice and
assistance in English or Spanish. The help also is available electronically by sending
e-mail to y2khelp@nist.gov.
In addition, a Spanish
version of "Conversion 2000: Y2K Self-Help Tool" now complements the popular
English-language original. The free software helps small businesses conduct an inventory
of equipment, identify core business systems and rate their importance to the survival of
the business, develop contingency plans, and plan and manage remediation projects. The
tool and other related material can be downloaded from the World Wide Web at y2khelp.nist.gov. It also is available by calling the
Y2K Help Center for Small Business, NIST's nationwide network of Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers
(800-MEP-4MFG, 637-4634), or field offices of the U.S. Small Business Administration and
the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Media Contact:
Jan Kosko, (301) 975-2767 
Information
Technology
NIST Helps Give Java™
a Bigger Kick
NIST mathematicians have made a
significant contribution to scientific computing by spearheading an effort to make the
popular Java™ programming language more useful for scientists and engineers.
Java™, which began in 1995, is now in wide use on the World Wide Web and in embedded
systems.
A change in Java™
proposed by a NIST-led working group eliminated a bottleneck that prevented scientists who
used popular microprocessors such as the Intel PentiumŪ from running calculations at full
speed.
The affected calculations
involve floating point arithmetic--the kind of arithmetic favored by scientists and
engineers who do massive number crunching to get good results. In floating point
arithmetic, numbers are stored using scientific notation, which allows people to use a
tremendous range of values in their calculations. The storage method involved is different
from that used in integer arithmetic, which involves storing all the digits in a number.
The changes in the latest
version of Java™ allow floating point arithmetic calculations to run as much as 10
times faster on certain microprocessors. Sun Microsystems Inc. developed Java™ and
released the new version earlier this year.
These changes to the
Java™ floating point specifications are a result of recommendations made to Sun by
the Java Grande Forum. The Forum is a consortium of business, academic and government
participants who are interested in using Java™ for high-performance computing.
Two NIST mathematicians are
co-chairs of the Forum's Numerics Working Group, which proposed the changes. Other working
group members include representatives from the University of California at Berkeley,
Syracuse University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and business participants
ranging from England's Numerical Algorithms Group to America's IBM Corp.
Media Contact:
Philip Bulman, (301) 975-5661
Electric
Power
Standards Important to Deregulating
Industry
With restructuring of the electric
power industry looming in all 50 states, NIST has
initiated efforts to anticipate needs for measurement services and other technical support
that may arise as the industry transitions from a system of monolithic utilities to a
diverse collection of firms competing to generate, distribute, or meter the power that
goes to homes and businesses. In its role as the nation's measurement authority, NIST
recently commissioned the Research Triangle Institute to study technology trends in the
generation, transmission and distribution sectors.
RTI also will assess
measurement and standards needs identified by power industry experts interviewed during
the study. Results will be presented during a NIST-sponsored national conference on
"New Challenges for Measurements and Standards in a Deregulated Electric Power
Industry" which will be held on Dec. 6-8, 1999, at the Key Bridge Marriott in
Arlington, Va.
"For the first time in
anyone's memory, utility companies will not be controlling vertically integrated systems
stretching all the way from the turbine to the end user's meter," explains Robert
Hebner, acting director of NIST's Electronics and
Electrical Engineering Laboratory. "Different people will be designing, building
and controlling different parts of the system."
Restructuring will mean
more choices and more competition. Industry-wide adoption of standard measurement methods
will help to assure reliable, high-quality service, Hebner says. Development of these
standards, he advises, could be an international matter, involving foreign manufacturers
and service providers certain to vie for customers in the large U.S. market. Topics to be
addressed at the December conference include competitive metering, bulk power measurement,
power quality, distributed generation, and communication and control technologies.
For more information on the
content of conference sessions, contact James
Olthoff, (301) 975-2431.
Information on registration
is available at www.nist.gov/public_affairs/confpage/991206.htm,
or by calling Lori Phillips Buckland, (301) 975-4513.
Media Contact:
Mark Bello, (301) 975-3776
State
Econimcs
Grant Aims to Foster Business
Growth in Michigan
Two Commerce
Department agencies, the Economic Development Administration and NIST, have awarded a
$350,000 grant to the Michigan Industrial Technology Institute in Ann Arbor, Mich., for a
technology-based economic development project to boost the growth of Michigan's small and
medium-sized enterprises.
The grant, a product of
EDA's Local Technical Assistance Program, will be used by MITI to assess the technology
needs of the state's rural and inner-city SMEs, and then provide them with technical
assistance. The Michigan pilot program is expected to serve as a model for a possible
state and nationwide effort on behalf of SMEs.
Deficiencies in resources
related to manufacturing technology have contributed to the slow growth of many SMEs.
Factors include a depleted number of skilled, reliable and available workers; little
access to technology, both regionally and among disadvantaged population segments; the
lack of a research and development base linking technology development activity with the
local business community; and the lack of a cost-efficient and effective means of
providing small manufacturers with technical assistance in rural portions of the state.
In addition, many small-
and medium-sized manufacturers are owned by minorities and are located in largely rural or
inner-city locations, which have little access to the latest technology.
This program will study
ways in which technical assistance can best be provided to these businesses, so that they
may grow and contribute to the creation of jobs and the sustained economic vitality of the
communities in which they are based.
For more information on the
Local Technical Assistance Program, go to www.doc.gov/eda/html/locltech.htm on
the World Wide Web.
Media Contact:
Michael E. Newman, NIST
(301) 975-3025
John
B. Atwood, (EDA) (202)
482-2309
Preservation
Technology
New Website Tells How NIST,
Partners 'Make a Case' for History
The Declaration of Independence, the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights (on permanent display at the National Archives in
Washington, D.C.) have guaranteed the rights and freedoms of Americans for more than 200
years. Since 1951, these great documents--known collectively as the Charters of
Freedom--have been preserved in helium-filled cases created by NIST's predecessor, the
National Bureau of Standards. Now, NIST, the National Archives and Records Administration,
NASA and Heery International have teamed to design new state-of-the-art enclosures for the
Charters of Freedom.
A new NIST World Wide Web
site, www.nist.gov/charters, provides details
on the current encasement project, the 1950s preservation work and the Charters
themselves. Included are fast facts about the documents, specifications for the new
encasements, a 1951 circular describing the technology behind the original project and a
1951 color video (in T1 and 56K formats) showing NBS researchers sealing the Declaration
of Independence into its case.
The website will be updated
throughout the duration of the Charters encasement project, currently scheduled to end in
2003.
Media Contact:
Michael E. Newman, (301) 975-3025
Optoelectronics
Paper Details Pros and Cons of
Annealing Optical Fibers
NIST has been a pioneer in the
development of annealed optical fiber current sensors for use in commercial utility and
power monitoring applications. Agency researchers discovered that annealing optical fibers
enhances their ability to evaluate the behavior of electrical generators and the power
transmission grid. Annealing a fiber involves raising the glass to a temperature above the
strain point for a short time and then cooling it slowly back to room temperature. For
instance, a fiber may be heated to a temperature of 850 degrees Celsius (1,562 degrees
Fahrenheit) for eight hours.
While this process reduces
stress in the glass, it also initiates a number of physical and chemical changes in the
glass which need to be understood and monitored. A new paper from the NIST Optoelectronics Division,
Boulder, Colo., discusses these detrimental effects which include increasing the
oxygen-hydrogen concentration in the glass and devitrification (the nucleation and growth
of crystals) within the glass.
The paper states that to
produce an annealed-fiber coil for utility company applications, the annealing process
must be held within time and temperature bounds or the detrimental effects will degrade
coil performance. On the other hand, devitrification may produce useful fiber components
for other applications.
For a copy of paper 25-99,
"Annealing Optical Fiber: Applications and Properties" by Allen H. Rose, contact
Sarabeth Harris, MC 104, NIST, Boulder,
Colo., 80303-3337; (303) 497-3237.
Media Contact:
Fred McGehan (Boulder), (303) 497-3246
Technology
NIST Videos Now Just a Click Away
Over the past several
years, NIST has produced a number of videos to better
explain its partnerships, projects and programs for U.S. industry,
as well as document important events in the agency's recent history
Now, a showcase for these videos has been set up on the World
Wide at www.nist.gov/videos. [Editor's note 12/14/04: The NIST
Video Web site is no longer available, please contact Public Inquiries
to obtain a VHS or DVD copy of the video.]
Visitors to the site can
sample videos with either a T-1 line or 56K modem, so downloading to a hard drive is
unnecessary. Anyone without a video player can download one for free from the new NIST
website. All programs eventually will be closed captioned for the hearing impaired. Longer
programs (more than 15 minutes run time) are excerpted.
To obtain a VHS copy of any
NIST video on the site, contact the Public Inquiries office at (301) 975-NIST (6478) or inquiries@nist.gov.
Media Contact:
Michael E. Newman, (301) 975-3025
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