Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology最新文献

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are a growing social and economic problem in the United States. A HAI is an infection that develops as a result of medical care and is typically contracted in a hospital, outpatient surgery center, nursing home, rehabilitation facility, or while receiving wound care services. One new tool to fight the increasing threat of HAIs is photonic disinfection (optical light-based disinfection). Photonic disinfection of air, surfaces, and liquids has witnessed rapid adoption within many industries (e.g., drinking water purification, wastewater treatment, indoor air purification) over the past 20 years. More recently, light-based disinfection technologies have started to make their way into hospitals, clinics, and medical centers to aid in the disinfection of air and surfaces. Two photonic disinfection methods of interest are the use of ultraviolet-C wavelengths (200 nm to 280 nm) and blue wavelengths (400 nm to 420 nm). These wavelengths of interest have been proven to be effective disinfection tools and should be put into use to augment traditional infection-prevention techniques.

Strong cryptographic algorithms are essential for the protection of stored and transmitted data throughout the world. This publication discusses the development of Federal Information Processing Standards Publication (FIPS) 197, which specifies a cryptographic algorithm known as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). The AES was the result of a cooperative multiyear effort involving the U.S. government, industry, and the academic community. Several difficult problems that had to be resolved during the standard's development are discussed, and the eventual solutions are presented. The author writes from his viewpoint as former leader of the Security Technology Group and later as acting director of the Computer Security Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he was responsible for the AES development.

[This corrects the article on p. 729 in vol. 116.].

A new method is described to provide a primary calibration of shock measurements produced by a shock measurement system consisting of pendulum excitation and laser Doppler velocimetry. The method uses the laser Doppler velocimeter to determine the total distance traveled by a rigid block that slides along a Teflon (fluorocarbon) channel after being struck by a pendulum head, and the resulting distance is compared to the distance measured by an SI-traceable length measurement. The instantaneous velocity of the block is measured by the velocimeter and is used to calculate the displacement of the block by integrating the velocity data. The result is compared to the displacement measured using calibrated rulers and calipers. The method was applied to an independently calibrated commercial velocimeter for impact accelerations ranging from 2000 to 30,000 m/s2. The results of the independent mechanical displacement measurements agreed with those from the commercial velocimeter to within ±0.3 %, with better agreement above accelerations of order 10,000 m/s2 to within ±0.1 %. A conservative, upper-bound, uncertainty analysis included the effects of noise and other random errors, as well as type B estimates for systematic errors from occasional momentary demodulation failures (dropouts), use of a different number of rulers before and after shock distance measurement, and the relative frequency response of the velocimeter.

Instrumented impact testing allows the applicability of conventional Charpy tests to be extended toward assessing mechanical properties such as dynamic fracture toughness and dynamic tensile properties. In this work, we present design considerations for engineering instrumented strikers for Charpy V-notch impact testing. Specific attention is given to the mechanical and geometric features, as well as the placement of strain gauges and corresponding bridge circuits for instrumentation. These design considerations are intended to make the sensitivity invariant to the location and distribution of impact forces. The concepts presented in this work were applied to an actual instrumented striker, which was then statically calibrated. Data from this calibration indicate that the device has good repeatability, shows a linear response, and is relatively insensitive to impact location.

The immersion coefficient accounts for the difference in responsivity for a radiometer placed in the air versus water or another medium. In this study, the immersion coefficients for the radiance collectors on the Marine Optical Buoy (MOBY) were modeled and measured. The experiment showed that the immersion coefficient for the MOBY radiance collectors agreed with a simple model using only the index of refraction for water and fused silica. With the results of this experiment, we estimate that the uncertainty in the current value of the immersion coefficient used in the MOBY project is 0.05 % (k = 1).

Radiation dose is central to much of radiobiological research. Precision and accuracy of dose measurements and reporting of the measurement details should be sufficient to allow the work to be interpreted and repeated and to allow valid comparisons to be made, both in the same laboratory and by other laboratories. Despite this, a careful reading of published manuscripts suggests that measurement and reporting of radiation dosimetry and setup for radiobiology research is frequently inadequate, thus undermining the reliability and reproducibility of the findings. To address these problems and propose a course of action, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) brought together representatives of the radiobiology and radiation physics communities in a workshop in September, 2011. The workshop participants arrived at a number of specific recommendations as enumerated in this paper and they expressed the desirability of creating dosimetry standard operating procedures (SOPs) for cell culture and for small and large animal experiments. It was also felt that these SOPs would be most useful if they are made widely available through mechanism(s) such as the web, where they can provide guidance to both radiobiologists and radiation physicists, be cited in publications, and be updated as the field and needs evolve. Other broad areas covered were the need for continuing education through tutorials at national conferences, and for journals to establish standards for reporting dosimetry. This workshop did not address issues of dosimetry for studies involving radiation focused at the sub-cellular level, internally-administered radionuclides, biodosimetry based on biological markers of radiation exposure, or dose reconstruction for epidemiological studies.

We report a measurement of lunar spectral irradiance with an uncertainty below 1 % from 420 nm to 1000 nm. This measurement uncertainty meets the stability requirement for many climate data records derived from satellite images, including those for vegetation, aerosols, and snow and ice albedo. It therefore opens the possibility of using the Moon as a calibration standard to bridge gaps in satellite coverage and validate atmospheric retrieval algorithms. Our measurement technique also yields detailed information about the atmosphere at the measurement site, suggesting that lunar observations are a possible solution for aerosol monitoring during the polar winter and can provide nighttime measurements to complement aerosol data collected with sun photometers. Our measurement, made with a novel apparatus, is an order of magnitude more accurate than the previous state-of-the-art and has continuous spectral coverage, removing the need to interpolate between filter passbands.