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Fire
Research
Burning
Mattresses Yield a Safer Night’s Sleep for All
Bedroom
fires typically begin with the flaming ignition, not of the bed,
but of the bed coverings. Fatalities occur after flashover, when
all combustibles in a room burst into flames and the fire spreads
rapidly.
NIST engineers have developed a technique for testing the threat
to a mattress from burning bed coverings such as sheets, blankets
and comforters. The testing advance completes the first phase
of a program, supported by the Sleep Products Safety Council,
aimed at reducing hazards associated with the open-flame ignition
of residential mattresses. All mattresses sold in the United States
since 1973 are already resistant to ignition by cigarettes.
To
quantify the intensity of a fire that a mattress might experience,
the researchers burned 12 different combinations of bed coverings.
They developed a unique infrared imaging technique to follow the
spread of flames and heat intensity on camera and used the NIST-devised
technique of oxygen consumption calorimetry to measure the rate
of heat release. With the results, they created a two-propane
burner device that simulates the shape and intensity of a bed
covering fire. This was used on four experimental mattress/boxspring
designs with a variety of fire-retardant features to determine
how well the burner-initiated fires mirrored real ones.
Further
research is under way to ascertain what reduction of fire losses,
in terms of reduced fatalities, injuries and property damage,
can be expected from bed assemblies that achieve reduced rate
of heat release. A major goal is to develop a standard test for
manufacturers to measure the fire performance of different mattress/boxspring
designs and component combinations in a bed covering-ignited fire.
A single copy of the report on this research, Flammability
Assessment Methodology for Mattresses (NISTIR 6497), is available
from NIST Public Inquiries
by fax at (301) 926-1630.
Media
Contact:
John
Blair, (301) 975-4261
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Information Technology
NIST
Can Help Your Computer Speak Fluent XML
An
Internet language called XML is rapidly becoming one of the most
popular languages in the world.
Incorporated into many Internet web pages—particularly those
involved in electronic commerce—XML is a language that describes
information in a way that allows computers to exchange information
and automatically act on it. Consequently, it can speed up automation
of certain processes.
NIST computer scientists recently completed a major expansion
of software tests that allow people to make sure that their XML
systems conform to voluntary industry standards. This lets people
check their systems to ensure they can communicate flawlessly
with other systems that use XML. In addition to the XML tests,
NIST computer scientists have released software tests for the
Document Object Model. The DOM is an application programming interface
for XML and HTML that lets people or computers dynamically access
and update web pages.
NIST
teamed up with OASIS, an industry consortium, to expand and refine
the XML conformance testing program. OASIS members include many
of the nation’s leading computer hardware and software companies.
The XML Conformance Test Suite and a companion test suite for
DOM contains more than 4,000 test files. It can be downloaded
from the World Wide Web at www.nist.gov/xml/.
Media
Contact:
Philip
Bulman, (301) 975-5661
Medicine
Workshop
Seeks More Open European Market for Lab, Diagnostic Tests
NIST
will host a workshop, Nov. 2-3, 2000, to address a potential non-tariff
trade barrier for U.S. medical diagnostic devices in the European
Union. The workshop, “Measurement Traceability for Clinical
Laboratory Testing and In Vitro Diagnostic Test Systems,”
is geared for members of the medical diagnostics industry, professional
organizations, government, and national and international standards
developing organizations.
A
new EU directive on in vitro diagnostics will require that calibration
of all new medical diagnostic devices be traceable to “standards
of a higher order” by 2003. Existing diagnostic products,
without the EU stamp of approval, can remain on the market only
until 2005. Although NIST produces many reference materials for
medical tests, the United States currently does not have a formalized
system for tracing the accuracy of all tests performed with in
vitro diagnostic devices and systems. U.S. manufacturers, who
produce over 60 percent of the devices sold in Europe, potentially
could have their products challenged on the basis of this directive.
The two-day workshop will be held at NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. It
is co-sponsored by NIST, the American Association for Clinical
Chemistry, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the
Health Industry Manufacturers Association and the National Committee
for Clinical Laboratory Standards.
Registration is $250 and due by Sept. 15, 2000. Visit www.cstl.nist.gov/nist839/ivd.html
on the World Wide Web for workshop details and an online registration
form.
Media
Contact:
Linda
Joy, (301) 975-4403
Construction
What’s
the Buzz? New BEES Build Better Buildings
BEES
(Building for
Environmental and Economic Sustainability) 2.0, an updated,
expanded version of the powerful NIST software designed to help
the construction industry select cost-effective “green”
building products, is available for free download over the Internet.
It offers comparative environmental and economic performance data
for 65 building products, more than twice the number of the earlier
version.
The software evaluates generic products for framing, exterior
and interior wall finishes, wall and roof sheathing, ceiling and
wall insulation, roof and floor coverings, slabs, basement walls,
beams, columns, parking lot paving and driveways. With BEES 2.0,
designers, builders and manufacturers now can contrast competing
products’ impacts on global warming, acidification, eutrophication,
indoor air quality, resource depletion, solid waste, ecological
toxicity, human toxicity, ozone depletion and smog. BEES 2.0 measures
the environmental performance of each product by using a life-cycle
assessment approach. All stages in the life of a product are considered:
raw material acquisition, manufacture, transportation, installation,
use, and recycling and waste management.
BEES
2.0’s economic assessment of a product takes into consideration
the costs of initial investment, replacement, operation, maintenance
and repair, and disposal. Environmental and economic performance
are combined into an overall performance measure.The developers
of BEES 2.0 plan to update the software every 12 to 18 months.
BEES 2.0 runs on a Windows 95, 98, 2000, or NT personal computer
with 486 or higher microprocessor, 32 megabytes or more of RAM,
and at least 31 megabytes of available disk space. A printer must
be installed. BEES 2.0 can be downloaded from the Internet at
www.bfrl.nist.gov/oae/bees.html.
A compact disc and printed manual are available from the EPA Pollution
Prevention Information Clearinghouse by calling (202) 260-1023
or e-mailing ppic@epamail.epa.gov.
Media
Contact:
John
Blair, (301) 975-4261
Materials
Using
Ferroelectric Materials for Microwave Electronics
Thin-film
ferroelectric materials have received considerable attention because
of their growing use in electronic, electro-optic, optical and
acoustic devices. Potential applications include random access
memories, pyroelectric detectors, acoustic transducers and microwave
devices.
An important characteristic of these materials is the ability
to change their dielectric constants by an externally applied
electric field. This idea is being pursued in a class of novel
high-temperature-superconducting tunable microwave devices such
as microstrip line phase shifters, high-Q resonators and tunable
filters. Of the various ferroelectric materials, perovskite oxide
thin films are considered potential candidates for tunable microwave
devices because of their high dielectric constant.
As part of its program on new non-linear dielectric films, scientists
from the NIST Materials Reliability Division and the University
of Colorado at Boulder have investigated perovskite oxide thin
films for cryogenic and ambient temperature applications. In a
recent technical paper, they discuss film growth as well as the
structural and low-frequency dielectric properties of the films.
They also present dielectric data obtained on some bulk samples
and, in order to understand the effect of strain on dielectric
properties, present results on high-resolution X-ray diffraction
studies on some of the films.
Copies of paper no. 32-00, “A Tunable, Low-Loss Epitaxial
Oxide Films for Microwave Electronics,” are available from
Sarabeth
Harris, MC104, NIST, Boulder, Colo. 80305-3337; (303) 497-3237.
Media
Contact:
Fred
McGhean, Boulder (303)
497-3246
Optoelectronics
September
Symposium Plans (Optical) Fiber-Rich Menu
Symposium
on Optical Fiber Measure-ments will be held Sept. 26-28, 2000,
in Boulder, Colo., devoted to measurements on fibers, integrated
optics, components and systems. This biennial symposium is sponsored
by NIST in cooperation with the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics
Society and the Optical Society of America.
The symposium consists entirely of experimental and analytical
papers on all measurement aspects of guided lightwave technology.
Attendees will focus on measurements on optical fiber telecommunications,
sensors, fiber lasers/amplifiers, integrated optics, planar waveguides,
photonic crystals, switches, couplers, systems (long haul, LANs/subscriber
loops, WDM and TDM), standards, and field and laboratory instrumentation.
The types of measurements under discussion will include attenuation/loss,
chromatic dispersion, cross talk, cutoff wavelength, effective
area, effective index, four-wave mixing efficiency, index of refraction
profile, mode-field diameter, non-linear coefficients, polarization
dependent loss and polarization-mode dispersion.
The fee for the symposium is $295. On-line registration is available
on the World Wide Web at www.nist.gov/public_affairs/confpage/000925.htm.
For registration information, contact Wendy
Ortega Henderson, (303) 497-3693. For technical information,
contact Paul
Williams, (303) 497-3805.
Media
Contact:
Collier
Smith, Boulder (303)
497-3198
Editor:
Michael Newman
HTML conversion: Crissy
Robinson
Last updated: July 17, 2000
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