NIST Technicalendar February 19 to February 23, 2007 The NIST Technicalendar is issued each Friday. All items MUST be submitted electronically from this web page by 12:00 NOON each Wednesday unless otherwise stated in the NIST Technicalendar. The address for online weekly editions of the NIST Technicalendar and NIST Administrative Calendar is: http://www.nist.gov/tcal/.
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In this Issue: Meetings at NIST Meetings Elsewhere Announcements Talks by NIST Personnel NIST Web Site Announcements NIST Administrative Calendar (current)   NIST Vacancy Announcements (current)

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No Scheduled Events

1:30 PM - Mechanical Responses of Airway Smooth Muscle from Cell to Organ: A New Paradigm to Understand Airway Pathobiology?

10:45 AM - Insight Into The Helix-To-Coil Transition in DNA ... And More
10:45 AM - Insight Into the Helix-To-Coil Transition in DNA … and More

1:30 PM - Polyelectrolyte Brushes in Various Ionic Environments.
1:30 PM - Data! How To Make It Be There When You Want It, And Make It Go Away When You Want It Gone

10:30 AM - Adhesion and Fracture of a Sol-gel Reinforced Epoxy/Aluminum Interface

2/19 -- MONDAY

No Scheduled Events

2/20 -- TUESDAY

1:30 PM - POLYMERS DIVISION SEMINAR: Mechanical Responses of Airway Smooth Muscle from Cell to Organ: A New Paradigm to Understand Airway Pathobiology?
Mechanical signals such as stress and strain are continuously sensed and responded to by living tissue and/or cell during every breath, every heart beat and every peristalsis of the gut. These signals may not only cause passive flow or deformation of the cell, but also trigger active compositional and structural remodeling in the cell, thereby regulate its dynamics and ultimately influence cell function such as proliferation, differentiation, migration, and contraction. However, our knowledge of mechanical responses in living cells and tissues, particularly with regard to their role in pathobiology is limited at the best. Here, we present some recent findings of remarkable mechanical behaviors at both cellular and tissue levels in the airway smooth muscle.
Linhong Deng , Research Associate, Harvard University.
Polymer Building, Room A312. (NIST Contact: Martin Chiang, 301-975-5186, martin.chiang@nist.gov)


2/21 -- WEDNESDAY

10:45 AM - NIST CENTER FOR NEUTRON RESEARCH SEMINAR: Insight Into The Helix-To-Coil Transition in DNA ... And More
The helix-to-coil denaturation transition in DNA has been investigated in mixed solvents at high concentration using ultra-violet (UV) light absorption spectroscopy and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). This transition is driven by the unstacking of the amine bases and the breaking of hydrogen bonds between them. Two solvents have been used: water and ethylene glycol. The `melting' transition temperature was found to be lower by 56oC in ethylene glycol than in water. This can be understood in simple terms of hydrophobic/hydrophilic interactions. Moreover, the DNA melting transition temperature was found to vary linearly with the solvent fraction for mixed solvents. DNA structural information was obtained by SANS including a correlation length characteristic of the inter-distance between the hydrogen-containing (desoxyribose sugar-amine base) groups. This correlation length was found to increase from 0.85 nm to 1.23 nm across the melting transition. Ethylene glycol and water mixed solvents were found to mix randomly in the solvation region in the helix phase, but non-ideal solvent mixing was found in the melted coil phase. In the coil phase, solvent mixtures are more effective solvating agents than either of the individual solvents. Once melted, DNA coils behave like swollen water-soluble synthetic polymer chains. SANS data taken from other biopolymers will also be presented.
Boualem Hammouda , NCNR.
Bldg. 235, E100 (Large Conf. room). (NIST Contact: Boualem Hammouda, 301-975-3961, boualem.hammouda@nist.gov)

10:45 AM - NIST CENTER FOR NEUTRON RESEARCH SEMINAR: Insight Into the Helix-To-Coil Transition in DNA … and More
The helix-to-coil denaturation transition in DNA has been investigated in mixed solvents at high concentration using ultra-violet (UV) light absorption spectroscopy and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). This transition is driven by the unstacking of the amine bases and the breaking of hydrogen bonds between them. Two solvents have been used: water and ethylene glycol. The “melting” transition temperature was found to be lower by 56 oC in ethylene glycol than in water. This can be understood in simple terms of hydrophobic/hydrophilic interactions. Moreover, the DNA melting transition temperature was found to vary linearly with the solvent fraction for mixed solvents. DNA structural information was obtained by SANS including a correlation length characteristic of the inter-distance between the hydrogen-containing (desoxyribose sugar-amine base) groups. This correlation length was found to increase from 8.5 Å to 12.3 Å across the melting transition. Ethylene glycol and water mixed solvents were found to mix randomly in the solvation region in the helix phase, but non-ideal solvent mixing was found in the melted coil phase. In the coil phase, solvent mixtures are more effective solvating agents than either of the individual solvents. Once melted, DNA coils behave like swollen water-soluble synthetic polymer chains. SANS data taken from other biopolymers will also be presented.
Boualem Hammouda , NIST Center for Neutron Research.
Building 235, Room E100. (NIST Contact: Boualem Hammouda, 301-975-3961, hammouda@nist.gov)


2/22 -- THURSDAY

1:30 PM - POLYMERS DIVISION SEMINAR: Polyelectrolyte Brushes in Various Ionic Environments.
Matthew Tirrell , Professor.
224 Bldg, Rm. B245. (NIST Contact: Kalman Migler, 301-975-4876, kalman.migler@nist.gov)

1:30 PM - ITL SEMINAR SERIES: Data! How To Make It Be There When You Want It, And Make It Go Away When You Want It Gone
This talk describes a system that supports high availability of data, until the data should be expunged, at which time it is impossible to recover the data. This design supports three types of assured delete; expiration time known at file creation, on-demand deletion of individual files, and custom keys for classes of data. The obvious approach, of course, is to encrypt the data on nonvolatile storage, and then destroy keys at the appropriate times. However, managing ephemeral keys; robustly keeping them for some amount of time, and then reliably destroying every copy, is difficult. We partition the problem so that the burden of ephemeral key management can be out sourced to a minimally trusted third party we refer to as an “ephemerizer”, with negligible performance overhead, resulting in a file system that is easy and inexpensive to manage. Bio: Radia Perlman is a Sun Fellow at Sun Microsystems, working on network and security protocols.She invented many of the basic algorithms that make today's network infrastructure robust and scalable. She is author of "Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols", and coauthor of "Network Security: Private Communication in a Public World", both of which are widely used both as textbooks in universities and for engineers to learn the field. She holds over 80 patents, a PhD in computer science from MIT, and an honorary doctorate from KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. She recently was given a lifetime achievement award by Usenix, and named SVIPLA (Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association) Inventor of the year.
Dr. Radia Perlman , Fellow, Sun Microsystems Laboratories .
Building 215, AML, Room C103. (NIST Contact: Larry Reeker, 301-975-5147, larry.reeker@nist.gov)


2/23 -- FRIDAY

10:30 AM - POLYMERS DIVISION SEMINAR: Adhesion and Fracture of a Sol-gel Reinforced Epoxy/Aluminum Interface
Jiong Liu , University of Washington, Chemical Engineering.
224 Bldg, Rm. A312. (NIST Contact: Christopher Stafford, 301-975-4368, chris.stafford@nist.gov)


ADVANCE NOTICE

2/26/07 1:45 PM - CHEMICAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY OFFICE SEMINAR: Black History Month Event Honoring Dr. Percy L. Julian
Our Black History Month event will honor Dr. Percy L. Julian with the airing of the NOVA film "Percy Julian: Forgotten Genius." The program for the event is below. 1:45pm Welcoming Remarks: Dr. William Jeffrey, Director, NIST Commentary - Dr. James P. Shoffner, American Chemical Society - Dr. Bernhard Witkop, National Academy of Science 2:00pm Airing of NOVA Documentary “Percy Julian: Forgotten Genius” 4:00pm Gaithersburg, MD Attendee’s Reception Employee Lounge
James Shoffner , American Chemical Society. Bernhard Witkop , National Academy of Sciences.
Administration Bldg, Red Auditorium. (NIST Contact: Willie May, 301-975-8300, wem@nist.gov)
Special Assistance Available

3/2/07 10:30 AM - SYSTEMS BIOLOGY SEMINAR SERIES: Sequence-Resolved Detection of Pausing by Single RNA Polymerase Molecules
We apply an ultrastable optical-trapping assay to follow the motion of individual molecules of RNA polymerase (RNAP) transcribing templates engineered with repeated sequences carrying imbedded, sequence-specific pause sites of known regulatory function. Both the known and ubiquitous pauses appeared at reproducible locations, identified with base-pair accuracy. Ubiquitous pauses were associated with DNA sequences that show similarities to regulatory pause sequences. Data obtained for the lifetimes and efficiencies of pauses support a model where the transition to pausing branches off of the normal elongation pathway and is mediated by a common elemental state, which corresponds to the ubiquitous pause. This result complements single-molecule studies,which showed that bacterial RNAP pauses frequently during transcriptional elongation; our results clarify the relationship of these 'ubiquitous' pauses to the underlying DNA sequence.
Arthur LaPorta , Dept. of Physics and Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
Radiation Physics Bldg, Rm. C301. (NIST Contact: Charles Clark, 301-975-3709, charles.clark@nist.gov) http://physics.nist.gov/sbss
Special Assistance Available

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MEETINGS ELSEWHERE


2/19 -- MONDAY

No Scheduled Events

2/20 -- TUESDAY

4:15 PM - THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIV. CHEMISTRY DEPT/ EPHRAIM AND WILMA SHAW ROSEMAN COLLOQUIUM SERIES: COENZYME A AND MODULAR SYNTHASES
M. Burkart , Univ. of California, San Diego, CA.
Bldg, Rm. .
Chemistry Dept., The Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD. (NIST Contact: R. Elder, 410-516-7432, rosalie@jhu.edu)



2/21 -- WEDNESDAY

No Scheduled Events

2/22 -- THURSDAY

No Scheduled Events

2/23 -- FRIDAY

No Scheduled Events

ADVANCE NOTICE

No Scheduled Events

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TALKS BY NIST PERSONNEL

MITCHELL, W. : AN H-P ADAPTIVE STRATEGY WITH BOUNDED P".
SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, Orange County, CA, 2/21.

COLEMAN, J. : METHOD TO DETERMINE COLLECTION EFFICIENCY OF PARTICLES BY SWIPE SAMPLING.
American Academy of Forensic Sciences Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX 78205, 2/21.

LANGER, S. : OOF: ANALYZING MATERIAL MICROSTRUCTURE.
SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, Orange County, CA, 2/21.

MESSINA, J. : ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION WATCH: WHAT IS COMING NEXT? .
APEX, APEX Conference, Los Angeles, CA, 2/21.

NAJARRO, M. : ANALYSIS OF ILLICIT NARCOTICS.
American Academy of Forensic Sciences Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX, 2/23.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

VISITOR REGISTRATION FOR NIST EVENTS
Because of heightened security at the NIST Gaithersburg site, members of the public who wish to attend meetings, seminars, lectures, etc. must first register in advance. For more information please call or e-mail the "NIST Contact" for the particular event you would like to attend.
NIST Contact: . ., ., .

BLACK HISTORY MONTH EVENT HONORING DR. PERCY L. JULIAN
Honoring Dr. Percy L. Julian 1:45pm Welcoming Remarks Dr. William Jeffrey, Director, NIST Commentary - Dr. James P. Shoffner, American Chemical Society - Dr. Bernhard Witkop, National Academy of Science 2:00pm Airing of Documentary NOVA “Percy Julian: Forgotten Genius” 4:00pm Gaithersburg, MD Attendee’s Reception Employee Lounge
NIST Contact: Willie may, 301-975-8300, wem@nist.gov

2007 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FRONTIERS OF CHARACTERIZATION AND METROLOGY FOR NANOELECTRONICS--------------------------------------------REGISTER TODAY!
March 27-29, 2007 National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland Industry, government, and academia unite to present the latest advances related to frontier, state of the art materials and device characterization and metrology! Attend the 2007 International Conference on Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics! The conference is scheduled for March 27-29, 2007, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, USA. Please visit our conference website at http://www.eeel.nist.gov/812/conference/ for more information and/or to view the conference program. Let your voice be heard with those of our industry leaders. Join with Mark Durcan, COO of Micron; Michel Brillouett, Deputy Director of CEA/LETI; Hisatsune Watanabe, President and CEO of Selete; and Dan Hutcheson, CEO and President of VLSI Research Inc., as we examine the latest advances in characterization and metrology that will help shape the future of the nanoelectronics revolution. NIST REGISTRATION: All payments for advanced registration ($475) and student registration ($200) must be received by March 8, 2007. A late registration ($600) will be offered to attendees registering after March 8th, but no later than March 22, 2007. There will be no on-site registration. The registration fee includes coffee breaks, lunches, a reception, two evening dinner events, an extended abstract booklet, and the hardback book containing the workshop proceedings, along with a CD-ROM. The committee of the 2007 International Conference on Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics is pleased to accept payment by either check (make checks payable to "Semiconductor Characterization Conference") or credit card (MasterCard or Visa). We have provided a text-based registration form under the "Registration" heading of our Conference Web page (http://www.eeel.nist.gov/812/conference/) that may be printed and mailed or faxed with all of your payment information. Or, if you would prefer, you may contact Brenda Main, our conference contractor, (see contact information below) and pay via MasterCard or Visa over the phone. CONTACT: Brenda Main Phone: (910) 620-5165 FAX: (910) 799-0323 e-mail: blmain22@yahoo.com. Requests for cancellation and refund must be received in writing by March 8, 2007.
NIST Contact: David Seiler, 301-975-2054, david.seiler@nist.gov

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NIST WEB SITE ANNOUNCEMENTS

SOURCE CODE SECURITY ANALYZERS
A source code security analyzer finds weaknesses in source code that can lead to security vulnerabilities. This web site lists dozens of such tools and has a draft specification, SP 500-268, which is now open for comment.
NIST Contact: Paul E. Black, 301-975-4794, paul.black@nist.gov

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For more information, contact Ms. Sharon Hallman, Editor, Stop 2500, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg MD 20899-2500; Telephone: 301-975-TCAL (3570); Fax: 301-926-4431; or Email: tcal@nist.gov.

All lectures and meetings are open unless otherwise stated.

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