The Maturity Method: From Theory to Application

Recent Advances in Computational Design of Organic Materials for Corrosion Protection of Steel in Aqueous Media

The Chemical Propulsion Information Agency (CPIA) and Technology Applications, Inc. (TAI), in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has reconstructed and updated the database of the former National Bureau of Standards (NBS) Cryogenic Data Center. NBS maintained a database of cryogenic technical documents that served the national need until the early 1980s. The electronic database, maintained on a mainframe computer, was a highly specific bibliography of cryogenic literature and thermophysical-property data that covered 100 years of data. However, since then, the database has not been maintained for use. We have undertaken a project to convert the NBS database to a personal-computer (PC) platform and to backfill the database with citations of cryogenic literature dating from 1980 up to the present.

ATOMIC IMAGING H einrich Rohrer and Gerd Binnig were not the first to spy on the world of atoms when the two IBM scientists invented the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) in the early 1980s. In the late 1950s, for example, Erwin Mueller at Pennsylvania State University had invented an atom-resolving device called the field ion microscope. In a vacuum chamber, a strong electric field tore charged atoms from the surface of a sample, sending them careening into a detector in positions that reflected their arrangement in the sample. Field ion microscopy, however, was limited to metal samples drawn into very sharp points. But in the late 1960s, one of Mueller's former students invented a device that could have anticipated the STM directly—if only he had completed it. Russell Young, then at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology), called his instrument the “topografiner,” after a Greek word meaning to describe a place. And to STM aficionados, its basic scheme has a familiar ring. Piezoelectric elements scanned its fine metal tip across a surface, with feedback and control systems maintaining the tip at a constant height. Young and colleagues John Ward and Fredric Scire even measured tunneling currents—the basis of the STM—when they brought the topografiner's tip sufficiently close to a metal sample. They published reports claiming that the effect could, in principle, be used to measure a surface position to within about 0.3 nanometer, or about atomic resolution. “One can honestly say that the instrument developed [at NBS] and the instrument that achieved atomic resolution [at the IBM Zurich Research Center] looked very similar,” says Roland Wiesendanger of the University of Hamburg. But Young ran into technical and bureaucratic difficulties. Vibrations and other perturbations were preventing the topografiner from seeing atoms. In a 1972 paper in the Review of Scientific Instruments , the NBS researchers gave some sense of the difficulties by pointing out that they were able to achieve tunneling currents only by running experiments during odd hours when their building's air conditioner was off and by operating the instrument remotely so that their own movements would not generate resolution-killing disturbances. Binnig and Rohrer later solved these problems with multitiered isolation systems. Young never had a chance to try. In 1971, NBS management took him off the topografiner project in a resource-allocation decision. But Young never forgot that he was once on the verge of seeing atoms—and neither did the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In awarding the 1986 Nobel Prize in physics to Binnig and Rohrer, the Nobel committee acknowledged Young's close approach to the STM and blamed his failure to beat Binnig and Rohrer on “exceptionally large experimental difficulties.”

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.

Concentration data on 73 individual constituents in United States Geological Survey (USGS) Geochemical Exploration Reference Materials GXR‐1 to GXR‐6 have been collected from 131 journal articles and technical reports. These data are summarized as consensus (mean) values with uncertainties expressed as one standard deviation. Mean values are also calculated as a function of analytical procedure and all raw data are given in the tables. Recommended values are proposed based upon data criteria used by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, formerly the National Bureau of Standards or NBS).

Authors

DOE's Inventions and Innovation Programs--the Energy-Related Inventions Program (ERIP) and the Innovative Concepts Program (ICP)--are a unique federal response to the needs of individual and small businesses with creative ideas that could make a difference in our national use of energy. ERIP was established by Congress in 1974 to focus and nourish the creative powers of American inventors, no matter what the level of sophistication of the technology or its creator. This strategy, developed to recognize the potential contributions inherent in independent inventors and small businesses, has successfully supported innovators whose ideas are not yet attracting private investors but have technical and commercial potential. ERIP is, above all, a process. An unusual feature of the program is its joint operation by DOE and the US Department of Commerce through its National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST (formerly NBS, the National Bureau of Standards). This process involves increasing the awareness of ERIP in the community of inventors; NIST performing technical evaluations and feasibility studies; and DOE awarding grants, holding commercialization workshops, and performing periodic program evaluations. These activities are directed toward developing energy-related inventions closer to the stage where the private sector is willing to finance development and commercialization.

During the author's 39 years with the National Bureau of Standards (NBS)/National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) as an employee, and since then as Guest Researcher, he has been intimately involved with biological Standard Reference Material (SRM) production and analyses. His involvement with biological reference materials started with the very first biological certified reference material (CRM), the SRM 1571, Orchard Leaves, initiated in 1968 and issued in 1971, through the latest material (SRM 1575a, Pine Needles - renewal), issued in 2003. In addition, for more than 20 years he was Technical Coordinator for botanical SRMs for the NBS/NIST Analytical Chemistry Division. This paper contains his historical reflections and highlights from those years, and includes the techniques used to obtain and process these materials, new developments and procedures that resulted in vastly improved reference materials, the application of high accuracy neutron activation analysis to the certification of these standards, and the trace element quality assurance vital to the accuracy of these standards.

The cost of chemical process equipment per ton of product depends strongly on the original choice of materials of construction, and on the proper application of these materials. Inappropriate material selection or improper fabrication methods raises the process cost because of the downtime and maintenance costs required to repair corrosion damage. Where processes involve hazardous chemicals, incorrect materials usage can also jeopardize the safety of plant workers. Computer-based intelligent information systems can provide relevant material selection and fabrication advice in a readily accessible format. If made available to plant personnel who are not materials specialists, such advice can contribute to reduced equipment costs and minimized safety hazards. The Materials Technology Institute of the Chemical Process Industries (MTI) with the support of the Nickel Development Institute is sponsoring a project at the NACE-NIST Corrosion Data Center in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), formerly the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), to develop expert systems concerning materials for handling hazardous chemicals. Expert systems are computer programs that provide expert advice within a specific domain. Useful not only by themselves, expert systems can also be incorporated within intelligent information systems which may include other expert systems, databases, full-text search and retrieval from technical articles, subroutines for calculations, and other types of computer programs. This paper will summarize expert system technology, describe an MTI-NACE-NIST system which provides advice on the use of materials for shipping, handling and storing concentrated sulfuric acid and oleum, and suggest other areas in which this technology may develop.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (formerly the National Bureau of Standards), in cooperation with the College of American Pathologists (CAP), has certified the concentrations of phencyclidine (PCP) in two new reference materials (RMs). One of these materials is Standard Reference Material (SRM) 1511, Multidrugs of Abuse in Freeze-dried Urine, and the other material is a CAP PCP RM. In order to minimize the possibility of undetected bias, two independent analytical methods, employing gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, were used to certify PCP in these materials. Results from the two methods were in good agreement and were statistically combined to yield certified values of 23.8 ng/mL for PCP in SRM 1511 and 11.9, 23.4, and 49.5 ng/mL for three levels of PCP in the CAP RM. A round-robin study of SRM 1511 among five military laboratories demonstrated the suitability of the SRM for its intended purpose.

Concentration data on up to 90 individual constituents in USGS AGV‐1, GSP‐1, and G‐2 have been collected from 1270 journal articles and technical reports. These data are summarized in consensus (mean) values with uncertainties expressed as +/‐ one standard deviation. Mean values are also calculated as a function of analytical procedure and all raw data are given in the tables. Recommended values are proposed based upon data criteria used by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, formerly the National Bureau of Standards or NBS).

Mass energy-transfer l^tr/P mass energy-absorption coefficients are tabulated in units of cm^/g for photon energies between 1 keV and 100 MeV for 29 elements (Z=l-92) , and 14 mixtures and compounds of general dosimetric interest. Cross sections for photo-effect, incoherent scattering, pair and triplet production are those compiled or generated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) , (formerly the National Bureau of Standards) . Corrections are included for in-flight positron annihilation, previously not applied in NIST calculations for energies above 10 MeV. Agreement with recently published data is good for energies above 1 MeV, but we find differences in mass energy-absorption coefficients in the low energy region of as much as 4% compared with the last NIST compilation, and as much as 9% when compared with other recent compilations A150 TE plastic

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.

Numerous image processing functions involve repetitive operations and therefore can benefit from parallel processing, where performance may be significantly improved as a function of the number of processors applied to the task. One such application that requires processing to be as near to real-time as possible is vision processing and, in particular, low level vision processing. A system developed by the National Bureau of Standards (now known as the National Institute of Standards and Technology) and commercialized by Aspex Incorporated typifies the performance improvements which may be realized in vision processing through the use of parallelism. The Pipelined Image Processing Engine (PIPE) is a coarse-grained parallel system ranging from three to eight stages. Using an innovative implementation of parallel hardware and software, the efficiency in executing complex imaging algorithms may be greatly improved. As will be seen, it is extremely useful in accelerating image processing functions in the areas of point processing, spatial processing, sequence processing and Boolean processing. These functions may be used for real-time or near real-time edge extraction, motion detection and disparity map generation. Applications include inspection in food processing and electronics and textiles manufacture; robot and autonomous vehicle guidance; and research into image understanding, image processing and vision processing.

Spectrometer calibrations have been performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (formerly the National Bureau of Standards) for over 10 yr using the calculable synchrotron radiation from the SURF II electron storage ring. SURF II is now a high-performance storage ring that can operate at electron energies up to 300 MeV and with over 250 mA of stored current. One beam line, operationally supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is dedicated for use as a radiometric instrumentation calibration facility for outside users.