An Assessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Measurement and Standards Laboratories Fiscal Year 2000 (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Information Technology Laboratory
Information Technology Laboratory
Pages 219-253
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8 Information Technology Laboratory 219
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Department of Commerce, Technology Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 1999 Information Technology Laboratory Technical Accomplishments, NISTIR 6365, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Md., 2000.
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The High Performance Systems and Services Division and the Distributed Computing and Information Services Division provide support for computer systems and software used in ITL and other NIST laboratories, as well as for the NIST-wide infrastructure. The Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division and the Statistical Engineering Division provide technical assistance and advice on analysis, modeling, and statistics through collaborations with staff throughout NIST.
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in the Software Diagnostics and Conformance Testing Division, and the standards development work in the Java Numerics project in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division. This year, the panel viewed two major new programs in the ITL, one in pervasive computing and the other in security.
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The current situation has services being supplied by an amalgam of groups, including the High Performance Systems and Services and the Distributed Computing and Information Services Divisions in ITL, several external companies (by means of outsourcing contracts) , and, occasionally, significant collections of staff in units outside ITL (e.g., as the Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory's Service Administration)
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The Statistical Engineering and the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Divisions provide valuable support in their specialties to other NIST laboratories and within ITL. All of these support activities are crucial to NIST, and ITL should make it clear to the employees providing these services that their contributions are appreciated and that their work in support of NIST's staff is essential to the valuable role NIST plays in the U.S.
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b The number of full-time permanent staff is as of January of that fiscal year. Computer Security and Statistical Engineering)
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Three years after the Software Diagnostics and Conformance Testing Division's original request for approval of its membership in the World Wide Web Consortium, the request was denied by the legal department, despite the fact that other government agencies are official members of this consortium.
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The programs of the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division conform very well to the division mission and to the ITL and NIST missions. Current programs provide mathematical modeling and analysis advice and tools for other NIST laboratories and for U.S.
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Many Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division programs support the NIST mission by providing the mathematical modeling and analysis needed for the success of important projects in other NIST laboratories. For example, the work on OOF was developed as part of the Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory's project on material microstructures.
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Examples of the division's positive impact on the latter three groups are noted in the above discussion of technical merit. The division is clearly continuing its strong support of and collaboration with scientists in other NIST laboratories, including teaching courses for NIST personnel on such topics as Fortran 90 and nonnumerical computational methods.
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As of January 2000, staffing for the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division included 27 full-time permanent positions, of which 24 were for technical professionals. There were also 14 nonpermanent and supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and part-time workers.
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There is a general impression of increasing strain on the infrastructure; for example, the loss of NIST's central UseNet service hinders the ability to participate in technical communities and eliminates what was once a useful channel for division personnel to respond to user questions about NIST software and resources. Division Mission Advanced Network Technologies Division According to division documentation, the mission of the Advanced Network Technologies Division is to provide the networking industry with the best in test and measurement technology.
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Impact of Programs The Advanced Network Technologies Division continues to be active in a variety of industry organizations, including the IETF, the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Forum, the Cross-Industry Working Team, and the International Telecommunication Union.
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In this division, the work on wireless standards and on pervasive computing are both subject to the pressures of Internet time. As of January 2000, staffing for the Advanced Network Technologies Division included 27 fulltime permanent positions, of which 22 were for technical professionals.
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Computer Security Division Division Mission According to division documentation, the mission of the Computer Security Division is to improve information systems security by raising awareness of IT risks, vulnerabilities, and protection requirements, particularly for new and emerging technologies; researching, studying, and advising agencies of IT vulnerabilities and devising techniques for the cost-effective security and privacy of sensitive federal systems; developing standards, metrics, tests, and validation programs to promote, measure, and validate security in systems and services. to educate consumers.
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As of January 2000, staffing for the Computer Security Division included 43 full-time permanent positions, of which 38 were for technical professionals. There were also five nonpermanent and supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and part-time workers.
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For example, the IPSec interoperability testbed and reference implementation work has been done in conjunction with the Advanced Network Technologies Division, and the Computer Security Division has also provided technical support for the use of digital signatures for internal NIST work flow. The organization of the Computer Security Division into two groups, each with three sections, facilitates its work.
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The Natural Language Processing and Information Retrieval Group works with industry, academia, and other government agencies to promote the use of more effective and efficient techniques for manipulating (largely) unstructured textual information, including methods for browsing, searching, and presenting the information.
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It achieves its mission by working with private industry, academia, and government to develop evaluation methodologies and reference sets; by conducting research in visualization to support the development of these test and evaluation methods; and by building visualization and virtual reality prototype systems for application areas such as manufacturing, information retrieval, and collaborative work. Three-dimensional imaging and modeling is a relatively new endeavor on the World Wide Web, and despite the emerging importance of three-dimensional environments and interfaces, the community still lacks widely accepted standards.
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Impact of Programs Both industry and government have benefited greatly from the work done in the Information Access and User Interfaces Division. The databases and metrics developed by the Spoken Natural Language Processing Group have contributed to the creation and refinement of commercial speech recognition systems by several companies.
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Division Resources Funding sources for the Information Access and User Interfaces Division are shown in Table 8.5. As of January 2000, staffing for the Information Access and User Interfaces Division included 39 fulltime permanent positions, of which 35 were for technical professionals.
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The service and support elements of the division's activities and mission conform to the NIST mission indirectly by enabling other NIST staff to fulfill that mission. NIST staff are also supported by the Distributed Computing and Information Services Division.
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Mechanisms for such input should be discussed at the laboratory level. A possible approach to strengthen the firewall program would be to endow the High Performance Systems and Services and the Distributed Computing and Information Services Divisions with a solid responsibility for information security.
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As of January 2000, staffing for the High Performance Systems and Services Division included 81 fulltime permanent positions, of which 59 were for technical professionals. There were also 21 nonpermanent and supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and part-time workers.
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computers, and focused and deep efforts on electronic commerce. Distributed Computing and Information Services Division Division Mission According to division documentation, the mission of the Distributed Computing and Information Services Division is to provide the information technology resources, supporting infrastructure, applied research, and assistance to NIST staff, collaborators, and clients for application in the conduct of scientific, engineering and administrative applications and in the dissemination of information.
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Efforts have begun on this task, and the panel urges ~ ~ _ that the activity continue to be given a high priority and that the Distributed Computing and Information Services Division be involved in these efforts. Impact of Programs The Distributed Computing and Information Services Division provides a wide range of important support services to staff throughout NIST.
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Division Resources Funding sources for the Distributed Computing and Information Services Division are shown in Table 8.7. As of January 2000, staffing for the Distributed Computing and Information Services Division included 77 full-time permanent positions, of which 71 were for technical professionals.
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The joint project with the Statistical Engineering Division to investigate whether statistical analysis can ensure that software conforms to a specification seems to be well under way, after a hiatus last year. This work remains both intriguing and potentially valuable, and the panel is pleased to see resources applied to it by both divisions and by other NIST Laboratories (Manufacturing Engineering, Electronics and Electrical Engineering, and Chemical Science and Technology)
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Impact of Programs The Software Diagnostics and Conformance Testing Division's programs continue to have a positive impact in many ways. To disseminate information about technologies developed at NIST, division staff publish reports in external journals and books, write internal (but publicly available)
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As of January 2000, staffing for the Software Diagnostics and Conformance Testing Division included 37 full-time permanent positions, of which 33 were for technical professionals. There were also nine nonpermanent and supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and parttime workers.
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Technical Merit and Appropriateness of Work Statistical Engineering Division personnel apply state-of-the-art statistical techniques to the projects undertaken by staff members throughout NIST laboratories. When existing techniques are inadequate, division staff develop new approaches.
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Staff efforts to build new relationships with personnel in other NIST laboratories, although successful, are seriously impeded by the division's relative isolation in NIST North. The panel strongly urges that the Statistical Engineering Division be relocated to the main campus.
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which 17 were for technical professionals. There were also seven nonpermanent and supplemental personnel, such as postdoctoral research associates and part-time workers.
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· The Statistical Engineering Division plays a fundamental role in the execution of the NIST mission throughout the Measurement and Standards Laboratories. To ensure that this group can continue to meet the diverse statistical needs of NIST activities and contribute to the national statistics community, it is important for ITL management to reinforce the message that the work of the division is valued and to identify and hire a strong leader for the division as soon as possible.
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