NIST Technicalendar Online

	NIST Technicalendar August 20 to August 24, 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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AT A GLANCE - MEETINGS AT NIST
MONDAY - 8/20

No Scheduled Events

TUESDAY - 8/21

11:00 AM - Systems Biology: Perspective from NIH

WEDNESDAY - 8/22

No Scheduled Events

THURSDAY - 8/23

10:00 AM - Nano-Dimensional Metrology in the Atomic Force Microscope
10:45 AM - Status of 3He spin-filter at the ILL
1:00 PM - Botnet Detection and Response

FRIDAY - 8/24

2:00 PM - Review and Evaluation of Bayesian Diagnostic techniques for Detecting Hierarchical Structure

MEETINGS AT NIST
8/20 -- MONDAY

No Scheduled Events

8/21 -- TUESDAY

11:00 AM - INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY SEMINAR: Systems Biology: Perspective from NIH
Dr. Jeremy Berg, Director, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, will provide a perspective on where systems biology is going, the current state of the art, gaps in validation, standards, and stewardship, and potential opportunities for NIST to play a unique role.
Jeremy Berg, Ph.D. , Director, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Bethesda, MD, bergj@mail.nih.gov.
Administration Bldg, Red Auditorium. (NIST Contact: Mary Brady, 301-975-4094, mary.brady@nist.gov)

8/22 -- WEDNESDAY

No Scheduled Events

8/23 -- THURSDAY

10:00 AM - CERAMICS DIVISION SEMINAR: Nano-Dimensional Metrology in the Atomic Force Microscope
New technology for advanced sensors and devices based on nanoscale measurements requires accuracy and repeatability of measurements made at the level of 100 nm and below. These quantitative measurements must be calibrated and traceable to national standards. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is routinely used for metrology purposes such as surface roughness and characterization of nanoparticle size dimensions, yet surprisingly little work has been conducted until recently on the reliability of such measurements and on standardized methods for measurements. Research at UC Irvine has focused on nanoparticle size analysis in the AFM. A comparison of nanoparticle size distributions obtained using AFM and conventional Dynamic Light Scattering indicates the enhanced accuracy of the AFM for bimodal dispersions, if uniform dispersions can be made. We have developed methods for preparing uniform dispersions of nanoparticles (gold, silver, polystyrene, silica, and quantum dots) in the size range of 1 to 100 nm, including optimal parameters for spin coating and direct deposition in the AFM using a fluid flow cell. Measurement error is often a result of irregular AFM tip geometry, so we developed a method to fabricate more uniform AFM tips, replacing the unknown tip geometry with a silica nanosphere. Lastly, methods to achieve more accurate nanoparticle dimensional measurements, based on NIST-developed image reconstruction algorithms by John Villarrubia, will be discussed. This research is funded by the Navy (Corona Naval Surface Warfare Center under N00244-06-P-2341) with support-in-kind provided by Pacific Nanotechnology.
Martha Mecartney , University of California, Irvine.
Materials Bldg, Rm. A250. (NIST Contact: Robert Cook, 301-975-3207, robert.cook@nist.gov)

10:45 AM - NIST CENTER FOR NEUTRON RESEARCH SEMINAR: Status of 3He spin-filter at the ILL
The ILL operates a state-of-the-art MEOP filling station, providing 3He spin-filter cells for user experiments and instrument development work. Presentation of the current status and recent progress in the performance of the filling station. Recent developments in on-beam implementations of the spin-filter cells, magnetostatic cavities, cells and flippers will be presented.
David Jullien , ILL, Grenoble, France.
Building 235, Rm. E100. (NIST Contact: Tom Gentile, 301-975-5431, thomas.gentile@nist.gov)

1:00 PM - COMPUTER SECURITY DIVISION SEMINAR: Botnet Detection and Response
A botnet is a network of compromised computers (or bots) commandeered by an adversary. Botnets have already become the platform of choice for launching attacks and committing fraud on the Internet. In this talk, I will provide an overview of our research in botnet detection and response. I will first give an analysis of the botnet "command and control" structures. I will then describe our KarstNet project. KarstNet uses DDNS (Dynamics DNS) monitoring to identify domains associated with botnet command and control activities, and sinkholes such domains. I will also discuss some preliminary work in P2P botnet detection. Biography: Wenke Lee is an Associate Professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University in 1999. His research interests include systems and network security, network management, applied cryptography, and data mining. His research is currently supported by NSF, ARO, ONR, DHS, and the industry. He received a Best Paper Award at the 5th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD-99) in 1999, and a NSF CAREER Award in 2002. If you would like to invite someone from outside of NIST to attend the talk please use the following visitor registration link: http://winweb.nist.gov/visitors/RegisterVisitor.cfm If the visitor is a non-US citizen don't forget to submit the NIST-1260 form.
Wenke Lee , Georgia Tech.
AML Building, Room C103-C106. (NIST Contact: Tom Karygiannis, 301-975-4728, karygiannis@nist.gov)

8/24 -- FRIDAY

2:00 PM - STATISTICAL ENGINEERING SEMINAR: Review and Evaluation of Bayesian Diagnostic techniques for Detecting Hierarchical Structure
Motivated by an increasing number of Bayesian hierarchical model applications, we evaluate the performance of several diagnostic techniques when the fitted model includes some hierarchical structure, but the data are from a model with additional, unknown hierarchical structure. Our investigation suggests two promising techniques: (a) distribution of the set of individual posterior predictive p values, (b) the conventional posterior predictive p value with the F statistic as a checking function. We will start with a review of Bayesian model diagnostic approach, highlighting posterior predictive approach. We will present the numerical examples and a real data example to illustrate the methods and evaluation.
Guofen Yan , PBHS Public Health Sciences, University of Virginia.
222 Bldg, Rm. A264. (NIST Contact: Charles Hagwood, 301-975-2846, hagwood@nist.gov)

ADVANCE NOTICE

8/28/07 10:30 AM - ATOMIC SPECTROSCOPY GROUP SEMINAR: Observations of Magnetic Fluctuations in the Maryland Centrifugal Experiment
Initial results from magnetic probes on the Maryland Centrifugal eXperiment(MCX) provide details of the rotation and poloidal mode structure of magnetic fluctuations in the edge region. Magnetic coils placed azimuthally along the edge measure magnetic field changes in the axial direction during the plasma discharge. The eight evenly spaced coils can resolve poloidal modes up to m=3. The plasma rotates poloidally in MCX due to the imposed radial electric field. The auto and cross-correlation of the magnetic fields between the coils show that the magnetic fluctuations are dominantly convected by the plasma rotation for several rotation periods before significant decorrelation. The rotation speed so inferred is in the ExB direction and its magnitude is consistent with earlier spectroscopic measurements on MCX. These findings help identify the dominant modes at the edge and indicate that there are a few low mode numbers that are dominant during the discharge. Also, the speed of rotation determined by this method is found to change dramatically from the High Rotation (HR) state to a low rotation ordinary (O) state inferred previously from the plasma load voltage. There is also a significant change in the fluctuation spectrum before and after the transition.
Choi Seung-Ho , Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
Physics Bldg. (221), Rm. B70. (NIST Contact: John J. Curry, 301-975-2817, jjcurry@nist.gov)

9/7/07 10:30 AM - NIST COLLOQUIUM SERIES : Quantum Money, Teleportation and Computation - New Mysteries from the Quantum World
In the world of quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a key feature that for many years was thought of as a limitation or disadvantage. Physicists have recently come to realize that quantum uncertainty can in fact be a useful resource to encrypt information securely, create quantum money that cannot be counterfeited, teleport quantum states from one place to another, and build quantum computers that can solve certain problems exponentially faster than classical computers. This talk is an elementary introduction to these ideas and describes current experimental attempts to construct the quantum bits that might someday form the building blocks of a practical quantum computer. NOTE: This talk requires no prior knowledge of quantum mechanics.
Steven Girvin , Departments of Physics and Applied Physics, Yale University.
Administration Building, Red Auditorium. (NIST Contact: Kum Ham, 301-975-4203, kham@nist.gov)

Special Assistance Available

MEETINGS ELSEWHERE

8/20 -- MONDAY

No Scheduled Events

8/21 -- TUESDAY

No Scheduled Events

8/22 -- WEDNESDAY

No Scheduled Events

8/23 -- THURSDAY

No Scheduled Events

8/24 -- FRIDAY

No Scheduled Events

ADVANCE NOTICE

9/11/07 8:30 AM - BIOMETRIC CONSORTIUM CONFERENCE (BC2007)
The BC2007 is a multi-track conference that will address the latest trends in biometrics research, development and application on biometric technologies. This conference addresses the important role that biometrics can play in the identification and verification of individuals in this age of heightened security and privacy by examining biometric-based solutions for homeland security (airport security, travel documents, visas, border control, prevention of ID theft) as well as the utilization of biometrics in other applications such as point of sale and large-scale enterprise network environments.

The BC2007 is being held in conjunction with and co-located with the 2007 Biometrics Technology Expo hosted by AFCEA.
Dr. John Marburger, III , Science Advisor to the President and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Mr. David Wennergren , Deputy Asst Secretary of Defense for Information Mgmt, Integration & Technology and DoD Deputy CIO. The Honorable James W. Ziglar
President and Chief Executive Officer, Cross Match Technologies, Inc.

Featured DoD Speaker:
Mr. William Gravell
President, Diogenes Group LLC
Bldg, Rm. .

Baltimore Convention Center Baltimore, Maryland. (NIST Contact: Sara Caswell, 301-975-4634, bc2007info@nist.gov) http://www.nist.gov/bc2007

10/4/07 10:00 AM - NIST/DARPA WORKSHOP ON COMPACT X-RAY SOURCES BASED ON INVERSE COMPTON SCATTERING
Ronald Ruth , President and Chief Scientist, Lyncean Technologies, Inc.. David Moncton , Director, MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory. W.J. Brown, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, F.E. Carroll Jr, CEO & Chief Medical Officer, MXISystems, Inc., M. Richter, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt PTB, M.Bech, Swiss Light Source, PSI
Bldg, Rm. .
The Executive Conference Center (ECC), 3601 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 600, Arlington, Virginia 22201 . (NIST Contact: Uwe Arp, 301-975-3233, uwe.arp@nist.gov) http://physics.nist.gov/Divisions/Div841/Gp2/darpaWorkshop.html

TALKS BY NIST PERSONNEL

MASON, S. : QUANTUM MECHANICAL STUDIES OF INTERACTIONS IN MODEL.
Nanotechnology Interdisciplinary Research Teams, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, 8/8.

ROY, M. (Co-Authors: S.Lacerda , NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, silvia.lacerda@nist.gov J.Hwang , NIST / Optical Technology Division;, Gaithersburg, MD, jeeseong.hwang@nist.gov) Becker, M.L.; Jakupciak, J.P. : IMAGING TELOMERASE IN SITU USING APTAMER-DERIVATIZED QUANTUM DOTS.
American Chemical Society (ACS) 234th National Meeting & Exposition, Boston Convention & Exhibition Center / Room153C / 415 Summer Street / Boston / Massachusetts, 8/20.

LEE, Y. (Co-Author: M.Cicerone , Biomaterials Group Leader / NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, cicerone@nist.gov) : NEW APPROACH TO BROADBAND CARS GENERATION.
American Chemical Society (ACS) 234th National Meeting & Exposition, Boston Convention & Exhibition Center / Room104A / 415 Summer Street / Boston / Massachusetts, 8/21.

WONG-NG, W. : OVERVIEW OF THE NIST THERMOELECTRIC PROJECT.
2007 Direct Thermal-to-Electrical Energy Conversion Workshop, Vail, CO, 8/22.

ROY, M. (Co-Authors: E.Amis , Deputy Director / MSEL / NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, eric.amis@nist.gov M.Becker , Research Chemist / NIST, Ga', MD, matt.becker@nist.gov) : ENGINEERING LIGANDS FOR CHARACTERIZING BIOMATERIALS USING COMBINATORIAL PHAGE DISPLAY.
American Chemical Society (ACS) 234th National Meeting & Exposition, Westin Boston Waterfront -- Grand Ballroom D / 425 Summer Street / Boston / Massachusetts, 8/22.

GREENE, M. : FLUORESCENCE CHARACTERIZATION OF PROTEASE INACTIVATION USING SINGLE MOLECULES CONFINED IN OPTICALLY TRAPPED AQUEOUS NANODROPLETS.
American Chemical Society , Boston, MA, 8/22.

BECKER, M. : ENGINEERING SUBSTRATES TO DIRECT CELL RESPONSE.
American Chemical Society (ACS) 234th National Meeting & Exposition, Westin Boston Waterfront (Grand Ballroom D) Boston, Massachusetts USA, 8/22.

RICHTER, L. : MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF ORGANIC SEMICONDUCTORS FOR THIN FILM TRANSISTORS.
American Chemical Society Meeting and Exposition, Boston Convention Center, Boston, MA, 8/22.

HACKER, C. (Co-Authors: C.A.Hacker , NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, christina.hacker@nist.gov C.A.Richter , NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, curt.richter@nist.gov) ; Richter, L.J., NIST; Gergel-Hackett, N., NIST : METAL-MOLECULE INTERFACE REACTIONS FOR SILICON-BASED MOLECULAR ELECTRONIC DEVICES.
234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, 8/22.

SOLES, C. : NANOIMPRINT PATTERNING OF HIGH MODULUS, SPIN-ON ORGANOSILICATES: THE IMPACT ON PATTERN QUALITY AND POROSITY.
American Chemical Society Meeting, Boston, MA, 8/22.

SOLES, C. : THERMAL STABILITY AND RELAXATION OF POLYMERIC NANOIMPRINTED STRUCTURES.
American Chemical Society Meeting, Boston, MA, 8/23.

KARIM, A. : DIRECTED SELF-ASSEMBLY OF BLOCK COPOLYMER FILMS FROM CURVED INTERFACES.
American Chemical Society Meeting, Boston, MA, 8/23.

LI, Y. : ENGINEERING CHAIN IN THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY.
STC USA Meeting, Boston, MA USA, 8/23.

SCOTT, K. : SYNTHETIC ELEMENTAL MAPS OF CELLULAR COMPONENTS USING MONTE CARLO SIMULATIONS.
American Chemical Society, Boston Convention Center, Boston, MA, 8/23.

WOLF, L. : DOUBLY-RESONANT SUM-FREQUENCY GENERATION SPECTROSCOPY FOR THE STUDY OF MOLECULAR STRUCTURE AT BIOLOGICAL INTERFACS.
American Chemical Society, Boston, MA, 8/23.

TSANG, W. : MECHANSIM AND RATE CONSTANTS FOR THE PYROLYSIS OF LIQUID TRANSPORTATION FUELS.
234th American Chemical Society National Meeting, Boston, MA, 8/23.

LIN-GIBSON, S. (Co-Author: J.Sun ) : POLYMERIZATION SHRINKAGE OF POLYMERIC DENTAL COMPOSITES CHARACTERIZED BY X-RAY MICROCOMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY.
American Chemical Society (ACS) 234th National Meeting & Exposition, Boston, MA, 8/23.

KARIM, A. : DIRECTED SELF-ASSEMBY OF BLOCK COPOLYMER FILMS FROM CURVED INTERFACES.
SUNY Binghamton, Binghamton, NY, 8/24.

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: . ., ., .

DETECTION AND MEASUREMENT OF PLUTONIUM ISOTOPES IN THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY (NIST)�S PERUVIAN SOIL STANDARD REFERENCE MATERIAL (SRM 4355) BY ALPHA SPECTROMETRY AND THERMAL IONIZATION MASS SPECTROMETRY (TIMS)
The intense interest in the location and fate of plutonium in the environment has stimulated extensive development of analytical techniques to measure its isotopes over a range greater than 1018 (Pentreath, Appl.Radiat.Isot.,1995). NIST SRMs containing plutonium in environmental matricies have been used routinely to quantify accuracy and precision and demonstrate detection limits. Low level radiochemical separations combined with alpha-particle and mass spectrometry have been routinely used over the past 30 years to detect and characterize the plutonium concentration and isotopic content of environmental samples (eg. Buessler & Halverson, J. Environ. Radioactivy, 1987). Recent efforts have focused on demonstrating the sensitivity of this technique with soil samples for analytical measurements at the femtogram level with sub-femtogram detection limits. NIST�s SRM 4355 is a well characterized soil from an agricultural station near Lima, Peru. It was originally developed as a radioactivity blank for activation/fission product activities in a soil matrix. It contains traces of fallout plutonium with a certified value for only the 239+240Pu activity by alpha spectrometry. This work describes the modification of the technique to process 10 gram soil samples and the measurements of the 239Pu and 240Pu contents of SRM 4355 by TIMS. J. R. Cadieux, Savannah River National Laboratory, 28 August 2007, 10:30AM, Bldg. 245, room C301
NIST Contact: Jerome La Rosa, 301-975-8333, jerome.larosa@nist.gov

2007 U.S. WORLD STANDARDS DAY PAPER COMPETITION
The U.S. standards community will celebrate World Standards Day on Thursday, October 18, 2007, at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC. This year�s theme, �Standards and the Global Village� recognizes the global consensus-building capacity of standards developing organizations. Along with this event, the 2007 World Standards Day Sponsors, including NIST, will hold the annual paper competition. Papers are invited that show, using specific examples, ways that standards developing organizations have encouraged and created global consensus for the economic and social benefit of the global village. Paper competition winners will be announced and given their awards at the U.S. celebration of World Standards Day. Cash prizes are awarded by the Standards Engineering Society (SES) and the World Standards Day Planning Committee. The first place winner will receive a plaque and $2,500. Second and third place winners will receive $1,000 and $500, respectively, along with a certificate. In addition, the winning papers will be published in SES�s journal, Standards Engineering. ELIGIBILITY: The competition is open to all U.S. individuals in the private sector or at government facilities. Papers may be co-authored. RULES: Entries must be original and not previously published. NIST papers must be processed through WERB or BERB. All paper contest submissions must be received with an official entry form by midnight August 31, 2007, by the SES Executive Director, 13340 SW 96th Avenue, Miami, Florida, 33176. Complete details and entry forms are available on the SES website www.ses-standards.org (follow the link for �2007 WSD Paper Competition.�) For additional information about the U.S. Celebration of World Standards Day, or to register for the event, please visit www.wsd-us.org.
NIST Contact: Mary Donaldson, 301-975-6197, mary.donaldson@nist.gov

NIST WEB SITE ANNOUNCEMENTS

DIGITAL LIBRARY OF MATHEMATICAL FUNCTIONS (DLMF) AVAILABLE FOR NIST BETA TEST
The DLMF is being developed as a Web and hardcopy replacement for the 1964 Handbook of Mathematical Functions, M. Abramowitz and I.A. Stegun, eds., published originally by the US Government Printing Office for NBS and subsequently by Dover. A beta version of the Web site is available now for testing within NIST. Important: This site is to be used only for testing and evaluation within NIST. It is not to be cited or released outside NIST. Please send comments by email to DLMF-feedback@nist.gov. http://dlmf-i.nist.gov NIST STAFF ONLY
NIST Contact: Daniel Lozier, 301-975-2706, daniel.lozier@nist.gov

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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