This award will permit the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to manage activities of its Numerical Data Advisory Board (NDAB), a standing board of the National Research Council, for the 12-month period from July 1, 1988 through June 30, 1989. NDAB's activities focus on numerical data for the scientific and technical disciplines (physics, chemistry, and engineering), for space- and time-dependent disciplines (the geosciences and biosciences), and for interdisciplinary and sociotechnical fields (resources, energy, and environment). NDAB provides the United States' formal mechanism to interact with CODATA (the Committee on Data for Science and Technology), which is a part of ICSU (the International Council of Scientific Unions). Through the NAS, the National Science Foundation supports U.S. membership and participation in both CODATA and ICSU. In consideration of the merit of NDAB as a way of improving the quality, reliability, accessiblity, dissemination, informed use, and management of scientific data to meet the present and future needs of the scientific and technological community, and of the highly satisfactory management of U.S. participation in CODATA and in ICSU overall through the NAS, the program manager recommends an award.
