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An Assessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Measurement and Standards Laboratories, Fiscal Year 1998 (1998) / Chapter Skim
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1 The State of the Laboratories
Pages 1-8

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From page 1...
... TI`e State of file Laboratories
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From page 3...
... Where available, NIST makes effective use of"technology roadmaps" assembled by industrial groups. For example, programs in the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory are guided by the metrology needs identified in the Semiconductor Industry Association's National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, and the Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory is making use of Technology Vision 2020, a roadmap coordinated by several major organizations representing chemists, chemical engineers, and the chemical industry.
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From page 4...
... There now is unanimous agreement in the information technology community that the world needs a new standard suitable for electronic commerce, banking, and secure communications. No organization or standards group stepped forward to provide one until the NIST Information Technology Laboratory took on this task.
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From page 5...
... Measurement of Performance and Impact For short-term evaluation of ongoing programs, the MIST Measurement and Standards Laboratories employ a variety of measures of the quality and quantity of such programs, including the number of papers published, citation rates for papers, professional awards, number of invited talks given by staff, number of participants in NIST-sponsored workshops, and other similar measures. These metrics primarily sample the acceptance and use of NIST results by the technical community in industry and universities and differ between laboratories and programs, as is appropriate.
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From page 6...
... These issues include poor air cleanliness, poor temperature and humidity control, excessive building vibrations, and other problems that inhibit progress on making and developing precise and accurate measures on smaller and smaller scales. LIST has been able to make significant improvements in some facilities in the past year.
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From page 7...
... In view of the expense of duplicate support and the difficulties in attracting and retaining skilled information technology stab in a very active market for information technology skills, NIST might consider performing a rigorous evaluation of its needs for supporting older hardware and nonstandard software packages for basic Unctions, such as e-mail, spreadsheets, and word processing. Units that continue to use hardware and software that diverge from an accepted NIST norm without documented and approved need could be held responsible for the costs of supporting such systems and of maintaining their interoperability with the Institute's norm.
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Key Terms

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  • chemical science
  • fire research
  • highly respected
  • national bureau
  • technical community

  • electronic commerce
  • technical merit
  • calibration services
  • ongoing programs
  • world standard

  • roadmap coordinated
  • organizations representing
  • measurement science
  • secure communications
  • physics underlying

  • regularly publish
  • national technology
  • board applauds
  • microelectronics applications
  • work closely


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