March 17, 2003

In This Issue:
	NIST Reports Significant Advances Made in Facial Recognition
	NIST Device Helps Ensure Gunlock Performance
	NIST, International Team Develop Materials Data Exchange Language
	Interagency Effort Opens the ‘GATE’ on Manufacturing R&D
	NIST Guide to State/Local Accreditation Programs Updated
	Visiting Committee Praises NIST, Offers Recommendations

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Biometrics

NIST Reports Significant Advances Made in Facial Recognition

Computers have become much more adept at “recognizing” human faces during the past two years, says a new report by scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and two other federal agencies. The researchers have completed the most comprehensive evaluation to date of commercially available face recognition systems and concluded that there has been a 50 percent reduction in error rates since comparable tests were conducted in 2000.

Ten companies participated in the tests, which involved matching facial images provided by the U.S. Department of State from its consular office in Mexico. The tests involved matching 121,589 images of 37,437 individuals.

Demographic results show that males are easier to identify than females, and older people are easier to recognize than younger people. The study also found significant differences in matching abilities depending on where the images are made. Face recognition in outdoor environments is only about half as good as images taken in indoor environments, where controlling lighting conditions is easier.

For verification (i.e., determining whether a person is who he or she claims to be), the best facial recognition systems are equivalent to 1998 fingerprint matching technologies, yielding a 90 percent probability of verification with a 1 percent probability of false acceptance.

NIST conducted the tests last summer in conjunction with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center (CTAC).

The comprehensive report is available at http://www.itl.nist.gov/iad/894.03/face/face.html#FRVT2002 and also is posted at www.frvt.org.

Media Contact:
Philip Bulman, (301) 975-5661

 

Firearm Safety

NIST Device Helps Ensure Gunlock Performance

In recent years, many states have enacted safety laws in order to help gun owners reduce the chance of accidental shootings or inappropriate use of their firearms. These laws often either require or encourage the use of gunlocks, but there is currently no standard for evaluating the effectiveness of such devices. This leads to a potential problem where ineffective gunlocks may be sold to consumers.

To help solve the problem, researchers in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES) have invented a system that tests cable gunlocks to ensure at least some minimal level of performance. The work has been carried out in conjunction with ASTM International, which has been developing a performance standard for firearm locks so that the gunlock industry and consumers have a consistent tool for evaluating these protective devices.

The NIST system is a prototype test fixture that subjects cable gunlocks to impacts at certain speeds and angles, allowing researchers to assess how well they hold up to abuse. ASTM has adopted the NIST test method as part of its draft performance standard, ASTM Subcommittee F15.53 “Non-Integral Firearm Locking Devices.”

The draft standard is in the final stages of the ASTM approval process.

For more information, contact Kirk Rice, (301) 975-8071, kirk.rice@nist.gov.

Media Contact:
Philip Bulman, (301) 975-5661

 

 

Materials Science

NIST, International Team Develop Materials Data Exchange Language

Scientists and engineers trying to share materials property data over the Internet will have an easier time now thanks to a new computer language called MatML—Materials Markup Language—developed by an international group of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), industry, government laboratories, universities, standards organizations and professional societies. MatML provides a standard format for managing and exchanging materials property data on the World Wide Web, eliminating interoperability and interpretation
problems.

Based on the Extensible Markup Language (known as XML), MatML is a non-proprietary, generic language that makes it possible to parse and process data without the need for human intervention. The MatML format makes it easily readable and understandable by scientists and engineers. At the same time, MatML provides software developers with a protocol that is both structured and ordered, facilitating the transmission, validation, and interpretation of materials property data between different applications and across different platforms.

Currently, the MatML Steering Committee is coordinating acceptance testing as well as prototype software development.

More information, including the MatML Version 3.0 Schema, which contains the formal specification for the materials markup language, is available at www.matml.org or by calling Ed Begley, (301) 975-6118, begley@nist.gov.

Media Contact:
Jan Kosko, (301) 975-2767

 

 

Manufacturing

Interagency Effort Opens the ‘GATE’ on Manufacturing R&D

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is among six federal agencies seeking to enhance the payoffs from federal investments in manufacturing research and development (R&D) through a new effort to exchange information about technical programs in this area, collaborate when it makes sense to leverage resources, and advance issues on an inter-agency level.

The Government Agencies Technology Exchange in Manufacturing (GATE-M) effort will comprehensively address manufacturing R&D across the federal government to benefit the agencies, U.S. manufacturers and the economy as a whole. Strategies will include detailed interagency reviews of programs in specific areas and issuance of joint white papers or position papers. Agencies also may jointly sponsor workshops, promote and sponsor the development of “roadmaps” in specific technical areas, and jointly encourage or support industrial research. The intent is to involve the
manufacturing community of industry, government and trade associations in an integrated effort.

Two topics have been identified as initial priority areas: intelligence in manufacturing, a cross-cutting technology area that could transform how manufacturing is carried out in the future; and nano- and micro-scale systems and technologies, an emerging area of science and technology that promises to have a significant and broad impact on U.S. manufacturing as well as the nation’s economy. Other technical areas, including homeland and national security, are of interest as well.

Other agencies involved in GATE-M include the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy (represented by two separate entities: the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation.

A copy of the GATE-M report is available online at www.mel.nist.gov/pdfs/ir6950.pdf. For more information, contact David Stieren, (301) 975-3197, david.stieren@nist.gov.

Media Contact:
Laura Ost, (301) 975-4034

 

 

Conformity Assessment

NIST Guide to State/Local Accreditation Programs Updated

A newly updated NIST directory provides detailed information on 21 state and 11 local government programs that assess the competence of laboratories to conduct tests or inspections required by regulations or agencies’ procurement specifications.

Updated for the first time since 1991, the Directory of State and Local Government Laboratory Accreditation/Designation Programs was assembled from responses to a nationwide survey and from previously published sources. The compilation can serve as a guide for manufacturers, distributors and service companies competing for government business in the local and state markets included in the directory.

The directory may be even more valuable as a tool for evaluating laboratory accreditation programs across state and local governments, explains NIST economist Maureen Breitenberg.

“Not all U.S. accreditation programs are technically equivalent, especially at state and local levels,” she says. “Differing requirements can translate into differing levels of confidence in the competence of accredited laboratories. It’s important to understand these differences to avoid impeding the flow of goods and services.”

Responding to the need to reduce duplication and inefficiencies, NIST and a number of public and private-sector organizations joined together in 1998 to create the National Cooperation for Laboratory Accreditation (NACLA). The organization’s goal is to recognize qualified U.S. laboratory accreditation programs as meeting internationally accepted requirements for technical competence. The updated directory will be useful to NACLA in its outreach efforts.

In preparing this directory, much effort was devoted to gathering information on all relevant state and local programs. However, many agencies did not respond for a variety of reasons. For example, some agencies said that they lacked resources to accredit more laboratories than those already designated to test for compliance with state or local standards.

The Directory of State and Local Government Laboratory Accreditation/Designation Programs (NIST Special Publication 815) and other NIST reports on conformity assessment are available at: http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/210/gsig/cainfo.htm. For more information, contact Maureen Breitenberg, (301) 975-4031, maureen.breitenberg@nist.gov.

Media Contact:
Mark Bello, (301) 975-7000