Planning of Phase IV. the special-purpose laboratory buildings, was well under way and bids were expected to be obtained and a contract placed for these buildings in the late spring of 1965. Also in the planning stage was a major building to house the expanding activities of the Radio Standards Laboratory at Boulder, Colo. At the end of the year, the full-time permanent staff of the Bureau totalled 3.905 persons. Of this number 2.675 were employed in the Washington laboratories, and most of the remainder were attached to the Bureau's laboratories in Boulder, Colo. Additional information concerning the staff can be found in appendix 3.2 (p. 236). Funds obligated by NBS during fiscal year 1964 totalled $99,315,000 which included $43,272,000 for facilities. The total available for operation of the Bureau's technical programs amounted to $47,893,000, of which $30,009,000 came from direct appropriations to the Bureau and $17,884,000 from other Government agencies and private sources. In addition, calibrations, testing, information services, and other reimbursable technical services amounted to $7,341,000. A more complete presentation of financial data can be found in appendix 3.3 (p. 236). TECHNICAL INFORMATION To be fully useful to the Nation, the large volume of scientific and technical information that is continually being developed at NBS must flow as rapidly as possible into science, industry, and commerce. Several channels were utilized to maintain this flow; they included seven series of nonperiodical publications, papers by NBS scientists in the Bureau's periodicals as well as in professional journals, participation in exhibits, and the production and dissemination of motion pictures. During the year NBS publications totalled 1,112 formally published papers and documents. In addition, some 445 classified and unclassified reports were issued to other Government agencies. A list of publications for the fiscal year is given in appendix 3.7 (p. 246). Of the formal publications, 217 appeared in the Journal of Research, and 685 in the journals of professional and scientific societies. Also, 121 summary articles were presented in the Bureau's monthly Technical News Bulletin. A third periodical, the monthly Central Radio Propagation Laboratory lonospheric Predictions, presented radio propagation data needed for determining the best radio frequencies for use in long-range radio communications. In the nonperiodical series, 89 documents were published: 9 in the Monograph series, 9 in the Handbook series, 1 in the Applied Mathematics series, 10 in the Miscellaneous Publication series, 46 in the Technical Note series, 9 Commercial Standards, and 5 Simplified Practice. Recommendations. The Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information. (p. 167) processed 30,000 titles into its collection of reports, bibliographic information, and translations. These were made available to the public and announced in U.S. Government Research Reports and Technical Translations, both published semimonthly. An outstanding publication of the year was the Handbook of Mathematical Functions-With Formulas, Graphs, and Tables (NBS Applied Mathematics Series 55). This comprehensive reference work, the product of seven years' effort, brings together, under one cover for the first time, text, tables, graphs, and even bibliographies of the more important mathematical functions. It includes all functions normally needed by teachers. students, mathematicians, engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, bio chemists, and medical researchers. The Handbook was compiled with fi nancial support from the National Science Foundation and technical advice from a committee of the Mathematics Division of the National Research Council. It has already gone into its second printing, and portions of the book are now being reprinted by private publishers. Another major publication was Methods for the Dynamic Calibration of Pressure Transducers (NBS Mono. 67). The practicing engineer, faced with the problem of making dynamic measurements and calculations of the rapidly changing pressures in missiles and space vehicles, should have at hand and be familiar with a large quantity of very precise information. Monograph 67 provides this information, for the first time in a single reference source. Experimental Statistics (NBS Handbook 91), also issued this past year, is a one-volume collection of statistical procedures useful in the design, development, and testing of materials; the evaluation of equipment performance; and the conduct and interpretation of scientific experiments. This Handbook is for the user with an engineering background who occasionally needs to use statistical techniques, but who does not have the time or inclination to become an expert on statistical theory or methodology. Originally developed for the Army and issued by that service in a series of pamphlets, Experimental Statistics has now been made available to other groups concerned with research and development. Among other nonperiodical publications of the year were Compilation of the Melting Points of the Metal Oxides (NBS Mono. 68), The NBS Standard Hygrometer (NBS Mono. 73), Tabulation of Data on Receiving Tubes (NBS Handb. 83), Tensile Impact Properties of Selected Materials from 20 to 300 °K. (NBS Mono. 63), Inspection of Processed Photographic Record Films for Aging Blemishes (NBS Handb. 96), and Creep and Drying Shrinkage of Lightweight and Normal Weight Concretes (NBS Mono. 74). During the year, the Bureau participated in 13 exhibits, including those of the National Academy of Sciences; Standards Engineers Society; Color Marketing Group; Instrument Society of America; and Howard University Engineers Day. An interest-arousing new exhibit was an audience-participation model of FIST (Fault Isolation by Semi-Automatic Techniques) (see p. 192). NBS films continued to convey Bureau information to an impressive number of people. Prints were loaned for 4,559 showings last year to an esti mated total of nearly one-half million persons. This figure includes formal screenings of the films on educational television, but does not include other uses of the films on television channels. Released during the year was The Calibration of the Platinum Resistance Thermometer, a film directed prima. rily toward standards and calibration laboratory supervisors and their staffs. It is also of interest to other industrial and science groups concerned with precision measurement. The NBS film, Scatter Radar: Space Research from the Ground, produced in 1963, this year won third prize in the popular science category at the Festival of Technical-Scientific Films in Budapest, Hungary, and was selected for entry in the Second International Congress of Scientific and Medical Films, held in Bologna, Italy. 2. HIGHLIGHTS OF THE The Bureau's technical program is carried out through organizational units within the four Institutes. These are shown in appendix 3.1 in numerical order within each Institute. A review of selected research and development programs is presented in this section under headings corresponding generally to these organizational units. |