Uncertainty quantification

News and Updates

A New Harmony: NIST Researchers Develop a Universal Method for Calculating the Resonances of Oscillators

September 15, 2021

The natural, or resonance, frequency at which a simple harmonic oscillator vibrates reveals with exquisite sensitivity the essential properties of the physical

Making the DNA Melt Curve More Accurate

August 18, 2020

DNA is not only the blueprint of life; it has become the backbone for making tiny structures that can be inserted into the human body to diagnose and treat

Divide and Conquer: New Algorithm Examines Crime-Scene Bullets Segment by Segment

March 26, 2020

On the morning of March 22, 1915, residents of the small town of West Shelby, New York, awoke to a horrific scene. A woman clad only in a bloodied nightgown lay

Projects and Programs

Autonomous Materials Science

Ongoing

We use autonomous experimentation (the merger of automated synthesis, characterization, AI-driven decision-making) to elucidate the role of composition

Compatibility Assessment and Bias Estimation for Standard Reference Materials

Ongoing

NIST produces a number of food-matrix Standard Reference Materials. A problem that frequently occurs in their analysis is one of assessing compatibility of data

Detecting Change Points in Surface Temperature Records

Ongoing

The long records (sometimes over 100 years) of surface temperatures available from meteorological monitoring stations in the Unites States can be a valuable

Sensing and Imaging of concealed objects

Ongoing

Emergency response, law enforcement and military personnel must face threats and dangerous situations as part of their jobs. These threats can vary from knives

Publications

Mixture model analysis of Transition Edge Sensor pulse height spectra

December 9, 2021

Author(s)

Kevin J. Coakley, Jolene Splett, Thomas Gerrits

To calibrate an optical transition edge sensor, for each pulse of the light source (e.g., pulsed laser), one must determine the ratio of the expected number of

Estimation of a Minimum Allowable Structural Strength Based on Uncertainty in Material Test Data

December 7, 2021

Author(s)

Jeffrey Fong, N. Alan Heckert, James J. Filliben, Pedro V. Marcal, Stephen W. Freiman

Three types of uncertainties exist in the estimation of the minimum fracture strength of a full-scale component or structure size. The first, to be called the

Estimating Regions of Wireless Coexistence with Gaussian Process Surrogate Models

October 22, 2021

Author(s)

Jake Rezac, Noel C. Hess, Jason Coder

Simultaneous coexistence of multiple wireless communications systems sharing the same spectrum is critical for the success of modern and future communications

Fundamental limits and optimal estimation of the resonance frequency of a linear harmonic oscillator

September 15, 2021

Author(s)

Mingkang Wang, Rui Zhang, Robert Ilic, Yuxiang Liu, Vladimir Aksyuk

All physical oscillators, from optical cavities to mechanical cantilevers, are subject to thermodynamic and quantum perturbations and detection uncertainty

Tools and Instruments

Reference Ballistic Chronograph

The NIST-developed reference ballistic chronograph (RBC) provides repeatable measurements of the speed of a bullet that will impact a test article, such as