The proliferation of consumer-facing technology and personal health information technology has grown steadily over the past decade, and has certainly exploded over the past several years. As Bernard Rosof, chief executive officer of the Quality in Healthcare Advisory Group, noted in his introductory remarks to the workshop, many people have embraced smartphones and wearable health-monitoring de…
Cryptology, the study of crypto systems, can be subdivided into two disciplines. Cryptography concerns itself with the design of crypto systems, while cryptanalysis studies the breaking of crypto systems. These two aspects are closely related; when setting up a crypto system the analysis of its security plays an important role. At this time we will not give a formal definition of a crypto syste…
The mission of the Department of State (department) is to shape and sustain a peaceful, prosperous, just, and democratic world and foster conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people and people everywhere. The strategy calls for the department to become more efficient, accountable, and effective in a world in which rising powers, growing instability, and technolo…
The mission of the Engineering Laboratory (EL) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness through measurement science and standards for technology-intensive manufacturing, construction, and cyberphysical systems in ways that enhance economic prosperity and improve the quality of life. To support this mission, the EL …
The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate ba…
The reader of this book is about to encounter a rare intellectual treat. Once every 20 to 25 years, a work appears on the scene that simultaneously integrates a field of knowledge and markedly advances that field. Two decades ago, such a book was Nico Frijda’s masterpiece, The emotions (1986), which was both a superlative though selective review of the literature on emotion, and a power…
The Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been assessed by the Panel on Information Technology, appointed by the National Research Council (NRC). The panel of experts visited the six divisions of the laboratory and reviewed their activities. The scope of the assessment included the following criteria, provided by the Director of…
In January 2004, President George W. Bush announced new elements of the nation’s space policy by issuing the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE),1 which instructed NASA to “extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations.” NASA was also directed to “develop the in…
Organizations exist for a purpose. The mission is articulated in a broadly defined but enduring statement of purpose that identifies the scope of an organization’s operations and its offerings to affected groups and entities
In a sense, we know a lot more than we realize, because everything that we know has consequences logical consequences—that follow automatically. If you know that all humans are mortal, and you know that you are human, then in a sense you know that you are mortal, whether or not you have ever considered or wanted to consider that fact. This is an example of logical deduction: From the pre…
The continued advance of the nation's space program is directly dependent upon the development and use of new technology. Technology is the foundation for every aspect of space missions and ground operations. The improvements in technology that will enable future advances are not only in device and system performance, but also in permitting missions to be carried out more rapidly and at lower c…