January—February 2014 

Issue 127 

Information Technology Laboratory Newsletter

INSIDE THIS 

ISSUE

ITL Forensics Science Program

ITL Releases Test Tool for 

Meaningful Use Certification of 

Electronic Health Records 

ITL Collaborates on Design of 

Rheometers for Dense 

Suspensions 

Staff Recognition 

Selected New Publications

Upcoming Technical 

Conferences

ITL Forensics Science Program 

Forensic science provides one of the basic structural elements of the U.S. criminal justice system. It 

provides the methodologies for understanding crime scenes, analyzing evidence, identifying suspects, 

and prosecuting and convicting criminals while exonerating innocent people. Led by Dr. Martin Herman, 

the ITL Forensics Science Program advances the measurements and standards infrastructure for forensic 

science through the application of computer science, mathematics, statistics, computer engineering, 

metrology, and human factors. 

The program goals include improving the accuracy, reliability, and scientific validity of forensic science as 

well as enhancing the usability and interoperability of forensic systems and methods. The research fits 

into four underlying themes that cover the critical areas in which ITL’s unique expertise can contribute to 

forensic science: image and pattern analysis, measurement and uncertainty, interoperability of forensic 

data, and automated forensic technologies. 

Specific research areas in our program include the following fields. In the area of human identity, we are 

developing metrics, tests, and standards to accelerate development of technologies that analyze and 

match latent fingerprints, face images, and voice. These technologies will aid forensic examiners in 

identifying potential suspects. We are enhancing interoperability of forensic systems through interface 

standards that include, in addition to the above evidence, DNA, scars, marks, tattoos, bite marks, and 

dental records. We are also supporting the development and interoperability of large-scale operational 

automated fingerprint identification systems. 

In the area of computer forensics, our research results in methodologies to test and verify the operation 

and output of automated programs that examine computers, including cell phones and other mobile 

devices, for evidence. We also provide the National Software Reference Library (NSRL) Reference Data 

Set, a repository of known software, file profiles, and file signatures that is used by law enforcement and 

other investigators to determine the identity of files they recover. Finally, we are developing challenges 

and mitigation approaches that address forensic examination of cloud computing environments. 

In the area of image/video technologies, we are applying metrics and testing methodologies to advance 

technologies that detect and recognize events in video surveillance data, as well as search for specific 

persons, objects, or places in such data. These technologies will aid forensic examiners who analyze 

images and video. 

Finally, our activities in statistical science provide statistical analysis to various forensics research 

projects. Examples include uncertainty analysis for ballistic fingerprinting, for seized drug analysis, and for 

limits of detection for the presence of drugs. 

Through research, metrics, tests, and standards, ITL’s Forensics Science Program makes significant 

contributions to the criminal justice system of the United States. 

Credit: NIST
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ITL Releases Test Tool for Meaningful 

Use Certification of Electronic Health 

Records 

ITL recently released an interoperability test tool in support of the 

2014 Edition Electronic Health Record (EHR) certification 

program. ITL researchers developed the tool in response to the 

Medicare and Medicaid Programs Electronic Health Record 

Incentive Program--Stage 2, Final Rule. This final rule specifies 

the Stage 2 criteria (meaningful use objectives and measures) 

that eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access 

hospitals must meet in order to qualify for Medicare and/or 

Medicaid EHR incentive payments. The “randomizer” tool is 

designed to match providers with test EHR vendors so that the 

two parties exchanging the summary of care record use different 

vendor software, yet demonstrate interoperability. The NIST 

Randomizer test tool is available to the public at this website. 

ITL Collaborates on Design of 

Rheometers for Dense Suspensions 

A team of researchers from ITL and NIST’s Engineering 

Laboratory (EL) have been awarded 40 million hours of 

supercomputer time for calendar year 2014 from the Department 

of Energy (DOE) to support the design of rheometers for largeparticle dense suspensions such as concrete. The results will 

benefit the cement and concrete industry as well as a wide array 

of other industries that use rheometers and mixers on dense 

suspensions such as food processing, water treatment, coatings, 

and pharmaceuticals. The award is a Phase III allocation resulting 

from a series of proposals submitted to DOE’s peer-reviewed 

Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and 

Experiment (INCITE). 

In Phase III of this project, researchers will perform highly detailed 

simulations of various rheometer designs, operating on manyparticle suspensions with a wide range of particle sizes and 

shapes suspended in a non-Newtonian fluid matrix. Novel 

rheometer blade designs suggested by the simulations will be 

constructed using additive manufacturing techniques for polymers 

and metals. Experiments using these rheometers will be 

compared to the simulation results. The research team includes 

William George, Marc Olano, Steven Satterfield, and Judith Terrill 

of ITL, Nicos Martys and Edward Garboczi of EL, and Pascal 

Hebraud of CNRS/ESPCI (France). The simulations will be run in 

the Leadership Computing Facility of Argonne National Laboratory 

on the “Mira IBM BlueGene/Q” system, which is currently ranked 

number 5 in the “Top 500” list of supercomputer installations. 

Staff Recognition 

At the annual NIST Awards Ceremony on December 11, 2013, 

the following ITL employees received awards: 

Paul E. Black – Bronze Medal for leadership in the development 

of software assurance test methods and reference data. 

Richard Kissel – Bronze Medal for increasing small and mediumsize business awareness of information security through NIST’s 

information security outreach program. 

Elaine M. Newton – Bronze Medal for sustained leadership in the 

preservation of the global voluntary consensus standards system 

for information and communications technologies. 

Lori Buckland (posthumously) – Director’s Award for Excellence 

in Administration for support of ITL’s Text Retrieval Conference, 

Text Analysis Conference, and TRECVID Video Retrieval 

Evaluation. 

Frederick (Tim) Boland – Equal Employment Opportunity/

Diversity Award for excellence in promoting diversity and 

accessibility at NIST, and for dedication to removing barriers for 

all in information technology use. 

In addition, the following ITL staff members will receive the 

Department of Commerce Gold and Silver Medal Awards at a 

department awards ceremony in January. 

Mark Carson, Sheila Frankel, Douglas Montgomery, Stephen 

Nightingale and Darrin Santay – Gold Medal for development of 

the USGv6 Program that established the U.S. Government as a 

world leader in adoption of the next-generation Internet protocol 

IPv6. 

Brian Antonishek, Athanasios Karygiannis, Stephen 

Quirolgico, and Jeffrey Voas – Gold Medal for developing 

innovative techniques to secure and measure the performance of 

smartphones and applications. 

Audrey Tong – Silver Medal for developing a novel evaluation 

framework/metrology and data supporting significant advances in 

automatic translation of foreign language handwriting. 

ITL staff also received the following external awards: 

FierceGovernmentIT announced its Second Annual Fierce 15 

Winners, and the list of 15 creative and innovative federal 

employees includes three ITL leaders: 

 Patrick Grother, Biometric Testing Project Leader in 

ITL’s Information Access Division 

 Naomi Lefkovitz, Senior Privacy Policy Advisor, Office 

of the ITL Director 

 Kevin Stine, Leader of the Security Outreach and 

Integration Group, Computer Security Division 

FierceGovernmentIT is a trusted and growing online source for indepth federal IT reporting. The benchmark for inclusion in the 

Fierce 15 list is high; the publication recognizes federal 

employees who have demonstrated groundbreaking creativity and 

innovation. 

NIST Fellow Ron Ross has been recognized with the inaugural 

Lynn F. McNulty Tribute U.S. Government Information Security 

Leadership Award from the (ISC)2

 U.S. Government Advisory 

Board for Cyber Security. The award recognizes Ross’ “key role in 

establishing cybersecurity requirements for federal agencies for 

decades.” The award was established in 2012 following the death 

of McNulty, former ITL Associate Director for Computer Security 

and a leading innovator of information security in the federal 

arena in the 1990s. 
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Selected New Publications 

Secure Domain Name System (DNS) 

Deployment Guide

By Ramaswamy Chandramouli and Scott Rose 

NIST Special Publication 800-81-2 

September 2013 

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a distributed computing 

system that enables access to Internet resources by user-friendly 

domain names rather than IP addresses, by translating domain 

names to IP addresses and back. The DNS infrastructure is 

made up of computing and communication entities called Name 

Servers each of which contains information about a small portion 

of the domain name space. The domain name data provided by 

DNS is intended to be available to any computer located 

anywhere in the Internet. This document provides deployment 

guidelines for securing DNS within an enterprise. It provides 

extensive guidance on maintaining data integrity and performing 

source authentication. 

A Framework for Designing Cryptographic Key Management 

Systems

By Elaine Barker, Miles Smid, Dennis Branstad, and Santosh 

Chokhani 

NIST Special Publication 800-130 

August 2013 

This Framework for Designing Cryptographic Key Management 

Systems (CKMS) contains topics that should be considered by a 

CKMS designer when developing a CKMS design specification. 

For each topic, there are one or more documentation 

requirements that need to be addressed by the design 

specification. Thus, any CKMS that addresses each of these 

requirements would have a design specification that is compliant 

with this Framework. 

Effects of JPEG 2000 Lossy Image Compression on 1000 ppi 

Latent Fingerprint Casework

By Shahram Orandi, John M Libert, John D. Grantham, Frederick 

R. Byers, Lindsay M. Petersen, and Michael D. Garris 

NISTIR 7780 Rev. 1 

October 2013 

This paper presents the findings of a study conducted to measure 

the impact of JPEG 2000 lossy compression on the comparison 

of 1000 ppi latent fingerprint imagery and 1000 ppi exemplar 

fingerprint imagery. Combinations of image pairs that vary by the 

compression rate applied to one of the images in the pair are 

observed and analyzed. The impact of lossy compression to both 

Galton and non-Galton-based features of a fingerprint is 

measured by professional judgment of expert fingerprint 

examiners. The impact of compression is analyzed by quantifying 

multiple decisions relative to different levels of loss incurred 

during image compression. In addition to measuring the 

perceived visual impact of compression on the aforementioned 

features of the fingerprint, the paper also looks at the impact of 

lossy compression on the examiner’s ability to correctly render 

their identification decisions. 

Fingerprint Scanner Affordances

By Michelle Steves, Brian Stanton, Mary Theofanos, Dana 

Chisnell, and Hannah Wald 

NISTIR 7944 

September 2013 

This study examines the light emitting diode (LED) indicators and 

instructional icons on the fingerprint scanner type in place in U.S. 

ports of entry (at the time of the study) to learn if people interpret 

these features as intended, are guided through the fingerprint 

collection process, and whether they can present usable 

fingerprint samples to the scanner without assistance. The results 

from this study will be used to inform the development of a “selfservice” fingerprinting solution. 

A Vision of Cyber-Physical Cloud Computing for Smart 

Networked Systems

By Eric Simmon, Kyoung-Sook Kim, Eswaran Subrahmanian, 

Ryong Lee, Frederic de Vaulx, Yohei Murakami, Koji Zettsu, and 

Ram D. Sriram 

NISTIR 7951 

August 2013 

A key aspect of the next-generation Smart Networked System 

(SNS) is the bridge between the physical and virtual worlds. 

These systems that tightly interlink the cyber and physical worlds 

are often referred to as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). A CPS is 

the “integration of computation with physical processes” and uses 

sensors and actuators to link the computational systems to the 

physical world. The interlinked networks of sensors, actuators 

and processing devices create a vast network of connected 

computing resources, things, and humans that we will refer to as 

a Smart Networked System. This publication discusses five 

technologies that are core to the concept of a SNS: networked 

computer systems, real-time systems, wireless sensor/actuator 

networks, social networks, and cloud computing services. 

Measurement Uncertainty in Cell Image Segmentation Data 

Analysis

By Jin Chu Wu, Michael Halter, Raghu N. Kacker, John T. Elliot, 

and Anne L. Plant 

NISTIR 7954 

August 2013 

Cell image segmentation is a part of quantitative studies 

regarding cell movement and cell behavior, and it plays a critical 

role in molecular biology and cellular biochemistry. Therefore, it is 

fundamentally important to evaluate the performance levels of 

cell image segmentation algorithms. In our previous study, the 

performance metrics for cell image segmentation algorithms were 

proposed. The sampling variability can result in measurement 

uncertainties. In this article, the uncertainty of the measure, i.e., 

the total error rate, in the cell image segmentation is computed in 

terms of standard error and 95 % confidence interval using 

bootstrap method as well as an analytical method. Examples are 

provided. 

Compensating Operators and Stable Backward in Time Marching 

in Nonlinear Parabolic Equations

By Alfred S. Carasso 

NISTIR 7967 

November 2013 

Step by step time-marching schemes are fundamental tools in 

the numerical exploration of well-posed nonlinear evolutionary 

partial differential equations. However, when the initial value 

problem is ill-posed, such stepwise numerical schemes are 

necessarily unconditionally unstable and result in explosive noise 

amplification. This paper outlines a novel stabilized timemarching procedure for computing nonlinear parabolic equations 

on 2D rectangular regions, backward in time. 
The InformaƟon Technology Laboratory (ITL) is a major research component of the NaƟonal InsƟtute of

Standards and Technology (NIST). As a world‐class measurement and tesƟng laboratory encompassing a wide

range of areas of computer science, mathemaƟcs, staƟsƟcs, and systems engineering, our research program

supports NIST’s mission to promote U.S. innovaƟon and industrial compeƟƟveness by advancing measurement

science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life. ITL

cybersecurity experts collaborate to develop cybersecurity standards, guidelines, and associated methods and

techniques for federal agencies and industry. Our mathemaƟcians and staƟsƟcians collaborate with

measurement scienƟsts across NIST to help ensure that NIST maintains and delivers the world’s leading

measurement capability. ITL computer scienƟsts and other research staff provide technical experƟse and

development that underpins naƟonal prioriƟes such as cloud compuƟng, the Smart Grid, homeland security,

informaƟon technology for improved healthcare, and electronic voƟng. We invite you to learn more about

how ITL is enabling the future of the naƟon’s measurement and standards infrastructure for informaƟon

technology by visiƟng our website at hƩp://www.itl.nist.gov.

ITL Editor: Elizabeth B. Lennon

NaƟonal InsƟtute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8900

Gaithersburg, MD 20899‐8900

Phone: (301) 975‐2832

Fax: (301) 975‐2378

Email: elizabeth.lennon@nist.gov

T඗ ඛඝඊඛඋකඑඊඍ ග඗ ගඐඍ

ඍඔඍඋගක඗ඖඑඋ ඍඌඑගඑ඗ඖ ඗ඎ

ගඐඍ ITL Nඍඟඛඔඍගගඍක, ඏ඗

ග඗ 

ITL ඐ඗ඕඍ඘ඉඏඍ

Upcoming Technical 

Conferences 

2014 Cybersecurity Innovation Forum

Dates: January 28-30, 2014 

Place: Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore, Maryland 

Sponsors: National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, 

Department of Homeland Security, National Security Agency, 

and NIST 

Cost: $495 

The forum will cover the existing threat landscape and provide 

presentations and keynotes on current and emerging practices, 

technologies and standards. The 2014 forum will provide actionoriented outputs to fuel voluntary principle-driven consensusbased standards efforts, create opportunities for industry growth 

and drive research activities, and define use cases for subsequent 

exploration, which in turn will feed back into the coming years’ 

forums, continually evolving the state of the art. 

NIST contact: Melanie Cook

Cryptographic Key Management Workshop 2014

Dates: March 4-5, 2014 

Place: NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland 

Sponsor: NIST 

Cost: $26 

The purpose of the workshop is to discuss a draft of NIST Special 

Publication 800-153, A Profile for U.S. Federal CKMS. Available 

for public comment prior to the workshop, the document 

establishes specific requirements for federal organizations wanting 

to use or operate a CKMS, either directly or under contract. The 

Profile addresses the topics included in SP 800-130, A Framework 

for Designing Cryptographic Key Management Systems, and 

includes discussions on CKMS testing, procurement, installation, 

administration, operation, maintenance, and use. 

NIST contact: Elaine Barker

Cloud Computing Forensic Science Workshop

Date: March 24, 2014 

Place: NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland 

Cost: None 

This workshop will present experts in the fields of cloud, digital 

forensics, and measurement for sessions on the perspectives, 

vision, current state, and future of cloud forensic science. Leaders 

in cloud computing and digital forensics from government, 

industry, and academia should attend, as well as architects, 

researchers, and implementers of cloud computing and digital 

forensics technologies. 

NIST contact: Michaela Iorga, 

The Intersection of Cloud and Mobility

Dates: March 25-27, 2014 

Place: NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland 

Cost: None 

As part of its continuing cloud computing series, ITL is sponsoring 

a new forum on cloud and mobility. Topics will include federal 

perspectives on and vision of cloud and mobility, current and 

future intersections of cloud and mobility, challenges and lessons 

learned, and the path forward to a federated mobile cloud. 

NIST contacts: Michaela Iorga and Frederic de Vaulx

Disclaimer: Any mention of commercial products or reference to commercial 

organizations is for information only; it does not imply recommendation or 

endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology nor does it imply 

that the products mentioned are necessarily the best available for the purpose.

The  NIST campus in

Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Credit: NIST

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