Fermilab Today Wednesday, June 11, 2008
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Layoff Information

New information on Fermilab layoffs, including an up-to-date Q&A section, appears on the layoff Web pages.

Furlough Information

Information on the furloughs at Fermilab, which stopped May 31, 2008, is available on the furlough Web pages.

Calendar

Wednesday, June 11
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m. Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker: P. Freund, University of Chicago
Title: A Passion for Discovery

Thursday, June 12
THERE WILL BE NO PHYSICS AND DETECTOR SEMINAR THIS WEEK
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - WH-3NW
Speaker: J. Zurita, Universidad de Buenos Aires
Title: Soft-Gluon Resummation for Pseudoscalar Higgs Boson Production at Hadron Colliders
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - One West
Speaker: V. Kamerdzhiev, Fermilab
Title: Beam-Beam Compensation and Related Beam Diagnostics at the Tevatron

Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

Weather

Weather

Mostly sunny
85°/65°

Extended Forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Wednesday, June 4
- Portabello harvest grain
- Smart cuisine: Roasted pepper & artichoke quesadilla
- Hoisin chicken
- Smart cuisine: salmon Provencal
- Cuban panini
- Assorted slice pizza
- Pesto shrimp linguini w/leeks & tomatoes


Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, June 11
Lunch
- Parmesan crusted chicken
- Roasted potatoes w/ garlic and rosemary
- Vegetables of the season
- Blueberry tart w/ vanilla ice cream

Thursday, June 12
Dinner
- Closed

Chez Leon Menu
Call x4598 to make your reservation.

Archives

Fermilab Today
Result of the Week
Safety Tip of the Week
ILC NewsLine

Info

Fermilab Today
is online at:
www.fnal.gov/today/

Send comments and suggestions to:
today@fnal.gov

Feature

NASA's GLAST scheduled
to launch today

Artist rendering of the GLAST satellite. Credit: NASA/Sonoma State University/Aurore Simonnet

NASA plans to launch its Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope from Cape Canaveral this morning between 10:45 a.m. and 12:40 p.m. CST. You can watch the launch online.

A team of Fermilab technicians manufactured a key component of GLAST's main instrument, the Large Area Telescope. Read the Fermilab Today story to find out more about Fermilab's GLAST contribution. Once in orbit, GLAST will open a wide window on the universe through the study of gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. Data from this new observatory will enable scientists to answer questions about a broad range of topics, including supermassive black-hole systems, pulsars, the origin of cosmic rays and searches for signals of new physics.

There is a chance that the launch will be delayed due to cloud coverage. The countdown clock is available on the Kennedy Space Center Web site.

Feature

Citizens' task force delivers recommendations

ILC Citizens' Task Force member Herman White hands over the report produced by the task force to Fermilab Director Pier Oddone at a dinner celebration on June 3.

When Fermilab reached out to neighbors five years ago to engage community members in laboratory decision making, some people in science and some neighbors doubted it would work.

But last week when the second of two task forces presented its recommendations, both sides said the partnership was invaluable and they would do it again.

"It was one of the best experiences I have had in my life," said Craig Jones, a former opponent of the Superconducting Super Collider. Jones served on the initial Community Task Force and the subsequent ILC Citizens' Task Force, which presented its final report to Fermilab Director Pier Oddone June 3.

The report makes recommendations on issues related to the International Linear Collider and other future projects. It also suggests how and when to involve the public in those plans. Task force members addressed the possible health, safety and economic issues that would concern Fermilab's neighbors. The report advocates complete transparency and the sharing of early information about future projects. Task force members were not charged with making a recommendation on the ILC plan, but members expressed support for Fermilab's continued involvement in future science projects.

Joanna Livengood, DOE site director, said the public-involvement was unique. "This was ground breaking. This is going to be a model for the department. It is a model for the Office of Science. And I believe it will be a model internationally for how to get science built," she said.

Even before the report was printed, science collaborations were asking if they could use it to help their own ventures. "As we struggled to figure out how to do this, our hope was that it wouldn't end with us. That it would be a kernel, and that it would grow. And it sounds like it has," said Warrenville Mayor Dave Brummel, a task force member.

For the local area, Brummel added, the partnership has been a valuable asset, teaching neighboring towns how to integrate the laboratory into their lives and teaching the laboratory how to have open, productive conversations with its neighbors.

"We are committed to being a good neighbor and being part of the community," Oddone said. "Your participation shows you are committed to science. What you have done here will be enormously useful for whatever we build."

--Tona Kunz

Announcement

Parking restricted for Wilson Hall repairs

The second phase of exterior repairs to the east side of Wilson Hall will begin Monday, June 16. To insure employee and visitor safety, Fermilab will restrict parking along Wilson Hall's east permit-parking area for the duration of the project, which has a tentative completion in until mid-August. The parking restriction also will include the east bicycle and motorcycle parking. View a map of the restricted parking area here.

Fermilab will provide new, temporary spaces for handicap parking in the east lot. Bicycle and motorcycles should use the parking area on the west side of the building only. Signs and barricades will be posted later this week.

From the CMS Center

Testing by acronyms

Lothar Bauerdick, director of the CMS Center at Fermilab, wrote this week's column.

Lothar Bauerdick

CMS collaborators love their acronyms, particularly if they have a nice ring to them. The collaboration named the recent cosmic muon event data taking test in the CMS detector "CRUZET," which sounds especially nice if you pronounce it in French. CRUZET stands for our Cosmic Run at Zero Tesla. The original acronym, CR0T, just didn't make it.

CRUZET took place in May and went very well. Within just a few days of running shifts around the clock we recorded 30 million events. Our data taking was so successful that the run ended two days earlier than planned. Most detector subsystems were part of the test, including the event trigger, the muon detection system and the electron and hadron calorimeters. The data readout was stable throughout the CRUZET period.

Prompt processing at the CERN Tier-0 center resulted in data ready for checks and analysis within hours. We found impressively good data quality by looking at formats, gains, timing, noise, occupancies, resolutions and efficiencies of detector subsystems.

In May, while detector commissioning and hardware tuning continued and rapidly improved, we ran two computing challenges: the Computing, Software and Analysis Challenge and the Combined Computing Readiness Challenge. Known as CSA and CCRC, these two challenges simulated the first days of real data taking.

Using 120 million computer-generated events, we successfully exercised prompt data reconstruction, alignment and calibration processing at CERN's Tier-0 center. We ran rapid reprocessing and skimmed data sets for analysis at the CMS Tier-1 centers, including Fermilab. We successfully demonstrated use of our Tier-2 centers for data analysis by a large number of physicists. All this happened while we shared large parts of the computing grid infrastructure with other experiments without noticeable interference.

We are now ready for CRUZET-2, the cosmic run that starts this week. In July, we'll close the detector and begin testing it at its full magnetic field with CRAFT: the Cosmic Run At Four Tesla. Then we will record the first proton-proton collisions at 10 TeV. No acronym exists yet for the real run.

Announcement

Voluntary layoff information

This week Kay Van Vreede, the head of the Fermilab Workforce Development and Resources Section, sent e-mails with information on the Voluntary Self Select Option Program to 750 employees. To make sure that employees who are part of the VSSOP did receive their offers, WDRS asks these employees to confirm the receipt of these e-mails if they haven't already done so. If you use an e-mail reader that allows for Read Receipts, you can acknowledge the receipt by clicking on the OK button of the pop-up message. Otherwise, please reply to the e-mail you received with the subject line "Voluntary Self Select Option Plan" or send an e-mail to wdrs_voluntary@fnal.gov. Employees who received the offer and who would like to take voluntary separation need to apply before 5:30 p.m. on June 20.

Safety Update

ES&H weekly report, June 10

This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, lists two minor, non-recordable injuries. Fermilab employees and contractors have worked 66 days without a recordable injury. Find the full report here.

Safety report archive

Announcements

NALWO sponsors wildlife talk
Fermilab's women's organization NALWO will sponsor "Wildlife on the Prairie," a talk by lead groundskeeper Jim Kalina at 10 a.m. on Thursday, June 12. Kalina will share stories about coyotes, deer, American bison and other wildlife that have made their homes here at Fermilab. The informal talk will take place near the picnic tables at Kuhn Barn or inside the barn if it rains. Anyone can attend. Please show photo ID to enter the laboratory.

NALWO lunch June 11
Join Fermilab's women's organization NALWO for a get-together lunch at noon on Wednesday, June 11, at Chez Leon. Meet other laboratory women, network or just relax over a delicious meal. The event costs $14, and the menu includes parmesan crusted chicken, roasted potatoes with garlic and rosemary, vegetables of the season and a blueberry tart with vanilla ice cream. Please respond by e-mail to Marjorie Appel or call her at (630) 293-9349 by Friday, June 6, so she can make the reservations at Chez Leon.

Special discount on SciTech
summer camps

The SciTech Hands-on Children's Museum in Aurora offers all Fermilab employees discounts on its Science Adventure summer camps, honoring the long-standing relationship between the two organizations. The week-long camps begin on June 23 and run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with before and after care available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fermilab employees only pay from $174 to $199 and the before and after care is free. Visit the SciTech Web site to register. (Do not use the Web site to sign up for before and after care. SciTech will call you to confirm whether you want this service.) To receive your discount enter the code FERMI2008 on checkout.

 
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