Scientific Digital Visions is developing software technologies that support the U.S. and international nuclear data programs. Much of our effort has been supported by the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program at the U.S. Department of Energy, a program that provides early funding for the development of strategic technologies. This program has allowed us to develop new Internet technologies, database technologies and scientific data management tools. Collaborations have been established with the National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC) and San Jose State University to facilitate the development of these technologies, tailoring them to the needs of the nuclear data community. The collaboration with the NNDC has produced new methods of accessing information in the Nuclear Science References (NSR), Evaluated Nuclear Structured Data File (ENSDF), and NuDat databases. Our collaboration with San Jose State University has focused on testing and evaluating software that interacts with the NNDC databases through software applications such as MacNuclide. Our goal is to further improve the access and dissemination of large-scale nuclear databases over the Internet.

Development of nuclear data software for desktop computers has created considerable problems for the nuclear data community. The desktop computer has allowed us to exploit new developments in user interactivity and graphics, but it has forced us to create databases that are derived from the NNDC databases. Infrequent updating of these secondary databases has traditionally diminished the utility of existing nuclear data software.

We are developing technologies that improve the methods of accessing the NNDC databases from desktop computers. A key component of this technology is known as a registry system. This software is located on the NNDC server and tracks the addition, deletion, and modification of nuclear data in the relevant databases. Remote applications, known as user profilers, communicate with the registry system which responds by sending a list of records that have changed. The user profiler then requests specific records to be transferred to the desktop computer. The volume of information stored in the databases is substantial. Also, users may only be interested in a subset of the data. Filters are used to limit the information transferred from the NNDC. These filters, which are known as profiles, can be created in two ways. One method for defining a profile is to interact with a nuclear data application such as MacNuclide. The application can define which nuclides and information are of interest to the user based on how the user interacts with the application. In another method, the user can specify which databases and key information to track. The profiler then downloads only that information which is of interest to the user. More importantly, nuclear data applications can use this technology to automatically update the local databases. We have implemented this technology for the ENSDF, NSR, and NuDat databases.

We have recently begun development on technologies in three key areas of nuclear data: scientific graphics and electronic publishing, the accurate and consistent management of scientific data, and Java database systems. Research in these areas is sponsored by the Department of Energy through the SBIR program. Although it is too early at this time to disclose details of these projects, we envision their eventual use at the NNDC and in nuclear data applications within the nuclear data community.

Scientific Digital Visions, Inc. would like to recognize the efforts of the National Nuclear Data Center and San Jose State University. Funding has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy under grants DEFG03-96ER82275, DE-FG03-98ER82666, DE-FG03-98ER82665, and DE-FG03-98ER82664.

For further information on these technologies, please contact Tracy Langlands by e-mail at tracy@sdv.vip.best.com or by telephone at (408)289-8494.