An efficient IP core of Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) Recommended Authenticated Cryptographic Algorithm

The Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR) which was published in the Federal Register on May 18, 2005, requires that calibration of mercury continuous emissions monitors (CEMs) be performed with NIST-traceable standards. Western Research Institute (WRI) is working closely with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to facilitate the development of the experimental criteria for a NIST traceability protocol for dynamic elemental mercury vapor generators. The traceability protocol will be written by EPA. Traceability will be based on the actual analysis of the output of each calibration unit at several concentration levels ranging from about 2-40 ug/m{sup 3}, and this analysis will be directly traceable to analyses by NIST using isotope dilution inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry (ID ICP/MS) through a chain of analyses linking the calibration unit in the power plant to the NIST ID ICP/MS. Prior to this project, NIST did not provide a recommended mercury vapor pressure equation or list mercury vapor pressure in its vapor pressure database. The NIST Physical and Chemical Properties Division in Boulder, Colorado was subcontracted under this project to study the issue in detail and to recommend a mercury vapormore » pressure equation that the vendors of mercury vapor pressure calibration units can use to calculate the elemental mercury vapor concentration in an equilibrium chamber at a particular temperature. As part of this study, a preliminary evaluation of calibration units from five vendors was made. The work was performed by NIST in Gaithersburg, MD and Joe Rovani from WRI who traveled to NIST as a Visiting Scientist.« less

A Look at its Past Decade and a Gaze towards its Future. As the National Metrology Institute (NMI) for the United States, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), formerly the National Bureau of Standards, has provided measurement services, both calibrations and reference materials, for more than 100 years. Through these services, our customers have benefitted from our measurement capabilities and expertise in many areas, including amount of substance; dimensional metrology; electricity and magnetism; ionizing radiation; mass and related quantities; photometry and radiometry; thermodynamics; and time and frequency. NIST’s customers have also had access to some of the lowest measurement uncertainties available and a dependable way to establish traceability to the International System of Units (SI) [http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/si-units.cfm].In response to the signing of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA), NIST first established an institution-wide quality system for the measurement services 10 years ago [http://www.bipm.org/en/cipm-mra/objectives.html]. NIST’s Quality System for Measurement Services has advanced the quality of service and measurements we provide our customers by fostering an environment in which NIST management and staff work towards continual improvement in the development and delivery of NIST measurement services. This paper describes NIST’s Quality System for the Measurement Services and its relevance to international standards of quality, such as the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) 17025 standard and ISO Guide 34 [http://www.nist.gov/nistqs/]. It also provides a history of this quality system and a glimpse of future goals for improving its implementation.

An efficient architecture of the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) issued standard CCSDS 122.0-B-1 image data compression is presented. The architecture is implemented on a space-qualified field programmable gate array (FPGA). The implementation can provide both lossless and lossy compression with a simple and efficient rate control mechanism. The achievable throughput depends on embedding into an application architecture and is typically higher than 100 Mbps. The implementation has been successfully used in two space projects. Due to the programmability of FPGAs, the design can be quickly adapted to fit the needs of different satellite projects, and to meet the requirement of high data volume and high-speed processing capability in many space missions. To the best of our knowledge, our implementation is the first flight FPGA implementation of CCSDS image data compression for an ESA mission.

Standards provide critical benefits across a wide variety of contexts, including safety and health, environmental protection, and quality of products and services. However, while these benefits are generally acknowledged, estimating the social and economic value of standards and determining how specific entities and activities influence their development require careful analysis. In October of 2018, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) asked the RAND Corporation to estimate the benefit of NIST’s research contributing to particular fire safety standards. The original objectives of the project were to (1) document the role of the NIST in the standards development process, (2) estimate the value these standards provide to society, and (3) thereby inform the economic value of NIST’s contribution to these standards. This report presents results for the first two objectives. Given that NIST’s contribution is one of several inputs combining to create these standards, NIST’s share of the credit for their value could not be quantified. Our analysis focused on case studies in standards for home smoke alarms and for protecting structures at the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Our analysis draws on a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to holistically describe the impacts of these standards and NIST’s role in their development. The intended audience of this report includes those who work on fire safety research, fire safety standards, building codes, and technology transfer. The conclusions presented here may also be of interest for broader resource allocation and federal budget justification purposes. Finally, this report was written to be accessible to any interested members of the general public.

Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes are a well known Error Correction Code family used for instance, in wireless and satellite communication links. Error correction performance of LDPC codes was further enhanced by extending it to higher order Galois fields, giving rise hence to the so-called non-binary LDPC codes (NB-LDPC). Error correction performance improvement (CCSDS 2014) is the main reason behind the adoption by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) of the NB-LDPC codes in the experimental specification for the future next generation uplinks (CCSDS 2014, 2015). The high error correction efficiency for short frames make NB-LDPC codes a good candidate for IoT applications. However, the performance gain comes at the expense of a high decoding computational complexity (CCSDS 2014; Conde-Canencia et al. 2009). In this paper, an x86 multicore NB-LDPC decoder implementation is provided. This decoder that implements the FFT-SPA algorithm provides a throughput improvement of about 1.3 × to 2.7 ×, a latency reduction of more than 95% and a power consumption halved in comparison with the most efficient works on GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) device. Indeed, an efficient memory mapping and computation optimizations on the x86 architecture enable to achieve a higher decoding throughput than the GPU-based in similar experimental setup. Consequently, the throughput efficiency, the low processing latency associated with a low power consumption makes this proposed multicore implementation practical and attractive for real time implementations of NB-LDPC decoders in future SDR or Cloud-RAN systems for CCSDS standard and IoT applications.

In the fall of 2019, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) funded threes studies to better understand equity and inclusivity. This report documents phase two of a three phased sequential, exploratory mixed methods study designed to provide an in-depth look at the population of NIST federal employees to identify factors, attitudes, and processes that might result in gender- specific barriers at NIST. Phase 1 analyzed human resources demographic data, compensation data, and performance data of NIST federal employees from 2011 to 2019 to determine any relevant trends. Phase 1 informed the development of an in-depth interview protocol designed to identify the differences, if any, in the ways in which men and women experience work at NIST. A total of 40 (36 female and 4 male) participants were interviewed. Three interconnected themes emerged in the data: 1) a culture at NIST that creates a Chilly Climate for women; 2) gendered experiences that contribute to and are outcomes of that chilly climate; and 3) gendered outcomes that influence women s experiences in the organization. The culture has evolved from NIST s scientific roots, scientific excellence, a strong belief in meritocracy, and as a Federal agency. Each of these characteristics contribute to a gendered social structure and the perception that change is not needed. This backdrop sets the stage for the characterizations of NIST from the interviews as a Boys Club and an Elitist environment. The radically different perspectives of men and women based in the culture result in experiences and outcomes that provide advantages and opportunities for men while erecting barriers to survival for women, including isolation and possibly exclusion. These barriers result in consequences of discrimination as well as lack of trust and resignation. Participant quotes are used as exemplars to provide details related to each of these themes. Overall, the interviews demonstrate that women and men experience a very different NIST.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), formerly the National Bureau of Standards, was established by the U.S. Congress in 1901 and charged with establishing a measurement foundation to facilitate U.S. and international commerce. NIST provides reference materials and reference instruments that are used to ensure the accuracy, metrological traceability, and comparability of measurement results in many diverse fields of science, industry, and technology. This document provides and explains the vocabulary used at NIST to describe the reference materials and reference instruments available to NIST s customers. This document also describes the methods used in developing NIST reference materials. The definitions and descriptions provided supersede those used in the original versions of this publication, NIST SP260-136 and SP260-136-2020.

This paper presents a summary of the strategies and activities underway at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in electronics packaging, interconnection and assembly (P/I/A). In addition, a sampling of collaborations involving these works is included. The overall NIST effort in P/I/A is composed of targeted programs conducted by the NIST laboratories and by the NIST Advanced Technology Program (ATP). A dominant aspect of the laboratory-based P/I/A program focuses on the metrology and data needed to support the product technologies envisioned within industry roadmaps. A significant aspect of the work includes efforts in metrology, materials, complex material assemblies, and microelectronic components and circuits. In parallel, the NIST ATP is supporting on a cost-share basis a variety of industry-based development projects of high-risk enabling technologies for new or improved products, manufacturing, and processes in P/I/A.

This paper proposes an improved procedure to watermark soft Intellectual Property (IP) Cores at the Register Transfer Level (RTL) using Genetic Algorithms (GA). In order to merge the watermark signature and the IP Core's behavioral description, both are translated into Finite State Machines (FSM). The resulting FSM contains the watermarked IP Core maintaining its original functionality without disruption. However, a set of hanging states (a group of states not deeply embedded) has been observed and if any of these is deleted, the watermark could be removed and possibly the original IP Core functionality would not be disrupted, allowing for copyright infringements. Thus, a reduction procedure is applied to the watermarked design to reduce the number of hanging states, which to the best of the authors' knowledge has not been developed. Both FSM merging and reduction are NP-Complete problems. In this study, an improved objective function is proposed to accurately model the FSM reduction problem while applying GAs as optimization techniques at both stages. Empirical results show a significant improvement in terms of the number of final hanging states and watermark embedding strength as regards previous reported approaches.

On September 5–8, 2023, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) held the second Standards and Performance Metrics for On‐Road Automated Vehicles Workshop. This four‐day virtual event provided updates on NIST’s recent work in automated vehicles (AVs) and gave stakeholders an opportunity to provide feedback and input on current and future NIST research. The workshop included high‐level keynote presentations, a series of industry keynote presentations, and NIST presentations on its current AV activities. The industry keynotes and NIST presentations were paired with breakout sessions that discussed NIST’s progress, community challenges, and stakeholder research needs in six key areas: systems interaction, perception, cybersecurity, communications, artificial intelligence, and digital infrastructure. There was general agreement that developing standards allows for better comparisons and evaluations of emerging technologies. Other key themes included: 1) Digital technologies for automation and related security/privacy concerns, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and smart communication technologies (i.e., vehicle‐to‐vehicle (V2V), vehicle‐to‐infrastructure (V2I), and vehicle‐to‐everything (V2X)), 2) Need for standardized or common language to improve information sharing, 3) Open data sets to support and validate technical advances and standardization across system components and areas (i.e., standards evolving in parallel with technology), and 4) Pivotal role for NIST as a convener to bring diverse stakeholders together for knowledge exchange and cross‐industry dialogue.

In consultation with ASTM and other stakeholders in Tissue-Engineered Medical Products (TEMPs) industry, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated a project designed to produce Reference Material scaffolds for tissue engineering. The rationale for Reference Material scaffolds was developed through several NIST/Industry workshops. In brief, Reference Material scaffolds have multiple uses: facilitating the development and the validation of new test methods that measure interactions among various components of a TEMP; comparison with other scaffolds and scaffold materials in terms of cellular responses, biodegradation, and releases of growth factors; and comparisons of responses among various cell lines. The primary customers for Reference Material scaffolds are expected to be the TEMPs industry, academic researchers, regulators, and standards developing organizations. There are many properties of a TEMP that warrant development of multiple Reference Material scaffolds. Currently, NIST is defining a set of Reference Material scaffolds based on geometric descriptors such as permeability, pore volume, pore size distribution, interconnectivity, and tortuosity. In consultation with ASTM, NIST is testing three candidate scaffolds produced by: three dimensional (3-D) printing, stereolithography, and fused deposition modeling (FDM). Scaffolds made by these methods have been obtained from Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN), Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) (Cleveland, OH), and Osteopore International (Singapore), respectively, for structural characterization. These prototype scaffolds, with well-defined architectures, have been selected to address the following items of interest: 1) establishment of useful functional definitions of porosity content, interconnectivity, and pores; 2) evaluation of testing methods listed in the Standard Guide for the Porosity of Polymeric Scaffolds for Use in Tissue-Engineered Medical Products, which is being drafted by ASTM. Currently, NIST and the Center for Devices and Radiological Health of the Food and Drug Administration, as well as other groups from US and foreign laboratories, are actively carrying out cross-validation test of these prototype scaffolds.

As cybersecurity issues surge, it highlights the pressing need for increased awareness. In our digitally interconnected world, where information technology underpins the lives of individuals, businesses, and even national security, the threat of cyberattacks looms large. To enhance national cybersecurity preparedness, there is a critical call to action: we must promote public awareness of cybersecurity issues and bolster the ranks of trained cybersecurity professionals. This research introduces a novel cybersecurity awareness model based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Its primary goal is to make NIST accessible to secondary school students pursuing ICT courses and their invaluable resource, the school counselling units. The model aims to instil cybersecurity awareness in secondary school students and guide them in choosing the most suitable higher education paths, particularly in the ICT and cybersecurity fields. The study comprises three phases. In the first phase, a systematic literature review (SLR) examines globally applicable cybersecurity education models. The second phase investigates the implementation of cybersecurity education for secondary school students in Malaysia. This includes interviews with school counselling units responsible for guiding students toward higher education and surveys of students in grades four and five enrolled in ICT courses. The third and pivotal phase focuses on developing the proposed model. It involves analysing and implementing the results of the SLR, mapping them to the NIST framework, and incorporating themes from interviews and surveys. As a tangible representation of the model, a mobile application prototype has been developed. The Cybersecurity Awareness Model empowers school counselling units to seamlessly integrate career exploration with career decision-making for secondary students at any stage of their development. Moreover, it offers a means to create strategies for after-school programs, particularly in the dynamic field of cybersecurity. This model is expected to guide students in exploring academic majors and careers, preparing for higher education post-high school, initiating internships or job searches, and adapting to a world in constant flux. In doing so, it not only empowers individuals but also strengthens the nation's resilience in the face of cybersecurity challenges.

Quasi-Cyclic Low-Density Parity-Check Codes (QC-LDPC) have been recently adopted by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) as recommended standard for channel coding in near-earth (C2) and deep-space (AR4JA) communications. Existing QC-LDPC encoder architectures proposed in the literature so far, are optimized for other standards (e.g. DVB-S2, IEEE 802.11e), but they are not suitable for efficient implementations for the specific CCSDS codes. In this paper, we introduce for the first time a novel encoder architecture, suitable for these codes. The architecture is a parallel implementation based on a series of recursive convolutional encoders and it leverages the inherent parallelism of generator's matrix QC structure to boost throughput performance. Furthermore, the generic definition of key encoder's parameters provides increased flexibility in terms of latency, FPGA resources and speed. In the special case of C2 code for near-earth communications, a novel architecture is introduced to efficiently handle the challenges arising from the generator's matrix circulant size (511 bits), which is not a power of 2. The proposed encoders operate on a continuous uninterrupted stream of input data and implement all the functions specified by CCSDS data-link layer protocols (i.e. framing, synchronization and randomization). The efficiency of the introduced architecture is demonstrated on a Xilinx XUPV5 development board, achieving multi-Gbps throughput and a significant speed-up when compared with existing approaches.

Long period pseudo-random sequence plays an important role in modern information processing systems. Base on residue number system (RNS) and permutation polynomials over finite fields, a pseudorandom sequence generation scheme is proposed in this paper. It extends several short period random sequences to a long period pseudo-random sequence by using RNS. The short period random sequences are generated parallel by the iterations of permutation polynomials over finite fields. Due to the small dynamic range of each iterative calculation, the bit width in hardware implementation is reduced. As a result, we can use full look-up table (LUT) architecture to achieve high-speed sequence output. The methods to find proper permutation polynomials to generate long period sequences and the optimization algorithm of Chinese remainder theorem (CRT) mapping are also proposed in this paper. The period of generated pseudorandom sequence can exceed 2100 easily based on common used field programmable gate array (FPGA) chips. Meanwhile, this scheme has extensive freedom in choosing permutation polynomials. For example, 10905 permutation polynomials meet the long period requirement over the finite field F q with q ≢ 1(mod 3) and q ⩽ 503. The hardware implementation architecture is simple and multiplier free. Using Xilinx XC7020 FPGA chip, we implement a sequence generator with the period over 250, which only costs 20 18kb-BRAMs (block RAM) and a small amount of logics. And the speed can reach 449.236 Mbps. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) test results show that the sequence has good random properties.

Today’s scenario of semiconductor technology is a tremendous innovation; it includes a large number of intellectual property (IP) cores, interconnects, or buses in system on chip (SOC) design and based upon the necessity its complexity keeps on increasing. Hence, for the communication between these IP cores, a standard protocol is developed. The necessity of IP reuse, abridging the design time and the complexity makes large-scale SOC more challenging in order to endorse IP core reusability for SOC designs. An efficient non-proprietary protocol for communication between IP cores is open core protocol (OCP). OCP comes under socket-based interface and openly licensed core concentric protocol. This paper addresses on the verification of implemented design of OCP. The proposed paper is to verify the implemented design by using System Verilog and Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) in SimVision tool.