Meetings and Minutes
Minutes of the December 10, 2005 UEC Meeting
Present: Alton, Casey, Chertok (video), Diehl, Finley, Gollin (phone),
Kopp, Merritt, Nguyen, Quinn, Trischuk
Apologies: Bertram, Hughes
From the GSA: Degenhardt, Maki, Welty-Rieger
The Chair called the meeting to order at 9:05 am.
CHAIR'S REPORT
Sacha Kopp noted that the new users safety requirements which were
presented at the November UEC meeting (see
http://www.fnal.gov/orgs/fermilab_users_org/minutes/minutes_11192005.txt )
are already being implemented. There is a web site for the points of
contact to use for signing up for the accounts needed to execute the
Individual Training Needs Assessments (ITNAs); UEC members have
tested the site but not from offsite, so it will be important to test
it from home institutions as well. The ES&H web site is located at the
URL below:
http://www-esh.fnal.gov/pls/default/esh_home_page.page?this_page=22009
He reported that URA has approved the trip for UEC members to go to
SLAC for a joint meeting with their Users Organization (SLUO) for
planning the joint trip to Washington DC in March. The DC Trip chair
will work with the DC subcommittee on that SLUO meeting.
He reported that Roy Rubinstein has indicated that there are some
private funds available for a purchase to benefit international students.
The international subcommittee needs to provide suggestions within
a week; the money needs to be disbursed before the end of the year.
The Committee then heard reports from the DC Trip, Users Meeting,
Quality of Life, and Outreach subcommittees.
DC TRIP (Quinn, Chertok, Diehl, Finley, Hughes, Merritt, Nguyen)
Breese Quinn, subcommittee Chair, reported that the subcommittee
is now meeting weekly. The schedules for the DC trip and for the joint
planning with the SLAC Users Organization (SLUO) are now definite,
and the agenda and guest list for the planning meeting are under
discussion. The choice of dates for the DC Trip has been endorsed as
a good choice by the Fermilab and SLAC lobbying firms. The schedule
for work on the set of talking points, for discussion at the planning
meeting, was presented. Another action item for the subcommittee is
to plan home office visits to Congressional representatives on the
relevant committees, to thank them for last year's efforts on behalf of
science and high energy physics. Quinn has a list of legislators to
target for the March visits. Committee members can now make
reservations for the DC Trip. The web site for the DC Trip is up and
running.
It was suggested that the planning meeting with SLUO be video-
conferenced, since not all on the UEC can attend in person.
USERS MEETING (Casey, Trischuk, Bertram, Alton, Nguyen, Kopp)
Brendon Casey, subcommittee Chair, requested that the email on
the possible invited speakers should be commented on soon. He
indicated that the subcommittee will go to weekly meetings after the
holiday break. The GSA officers reported on their plans for the New
Perspectives meeting. There will be a call for posters and abstracts,
and a separate call for nominations for the proposed competition to
select graduate student talks for the general Users Meeting. These
nominations would be guaranteed a slot at the New Perspectives
meeting. The nominees should be within a year of graduation,
should be good speakers, and should submit a three page paper on
their research to accompany the nominations. The call for
nominations will go out February 1, with applications returned by
April 1 and the selection made by May 1.
QUALITY OF LIFE (Diehl, Alton, Finley, Merritt, Kopp)
Tom Diehl, subcommittee Chair, provided a report on the
activities this month. Pursuing the investigation of possible
women-only accommodations in the Fermilab Village, the
subcommittee met with Jack Hawkins, head of the Accommodations
Office. He presented his thoughts on this proposal, including the
current procedures and how the staff currently attempt to address
user preferences, including women's privacy issues and personal
preferences.
The subcommittee conveyed its sense that there is significant
interest in a women-only area of at least 3-6 rooms. This would not
be an entire dorm (the smallest dorms are 8 rooms.) The proposal
of a 6-room area in Aspen East was reviewed. Practically speaking,
the procedure for assigning rooms in this proposal would not be very
different from the current procedure, since there is already an effort to
assign women without a specific preference to areas near women's
bathrooms. The suggested new procedure is:
- Women who express an explicit preference will be assigned their
preferred dorm or room.
- Women who don't express a preference will be assigned in the
women-only area, as long as it has open rooms.
- Men would not be assigned rooms in the women-only area, starting
from the initiation of this procedure.
The timeline proposed is to implement the women-only area as soon
as the current occupancy can be turned over without undue disruption.
The further actions will include discussions with Bruce Chrisman and
Roy Rubinstein.
There have been some further discussions with the West Chicago
mayor and with the Public Affairs office regarding the possibility of
train service adjacent to the site.
The Guide to Life is expected from Aguilar-Arevalo in late January.
OUTREACH (Gollin, Quinn, Casey, Kopp)
George Gollin, subcommittee Chair, reported that the revision of the
template letter to representatives is still in progress.
DISCUSSION WITH DIRECTOR ODDONE
Director Oddone first discussed the recent discovery of a small tritium
release into Indian Creek. He indicated the measures taken to
communicate with surrounding communities, and indicated that he is
happy with the cooperation of DOE and the results of the Lab policy of
complete openness. He said that it is a credit to his predecessors
that the Lab has a very good relationship and good credibility with its
neighbors. He thinks that the local coverage to date is fair and
reasonable. The release measured in the cooling ponds and Indian
Creek is small and there are steps being taken in the NuMI tunnel
(believed to be the source) to mitigate these levels further. The
Laboratory welcomes comments and questions from the community,
and has placed a web site with some of the details surrounding
this incident for their information:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/about/community/
He discussed the current budget picture, which is very uncertain
because of the possibility of rescission. The numbers floated for a
rescission have fluctuated significantly, and are still not known.
The UEC had provided a list of questions.
- What were some of the issues considered by the PAC at its
December meeting? Are there any conclusions at this time?
The PAC is considering the move of the SciBar detector to the lab
and will be giving advice on this. It will also advise on the relative
priorities of the smaller projects, in the event that the final budget
does not cover all needs. The Director's priority is to protect the
ILC development.
- Can you update us on the progress in TeV repairs and the Pbar
source studies?
The repairs are coming along very well. First beam was put in the
TeV Friday evening. The Director is encouraged that the alignment
procedure which the PBar group has executed, taking advantage of
the unscheduled shutdown (see last month's minutes) found some
problems which can be corrected. They will be scheduling some very
long stores in the future, to allow this alignment work to finish up.
There may be a need for another 1-2 week shutdown of NuMI for a
permanent fix to the tritium issue.
MINOS will have results relatively soon with more data than K2K.
Once public results are available, that will help make the point that
we have a formidable neutrino facility. Director Oddone continues to
make the case to the agencies that the Lab needs a program which
is resilient to delays in the ILC.
The committee asked whether the EPP2010 report will be out in time
for use as supporting material in the DC trip? The Director thought
not. The review process for such reports usually takes more time
than that, so the estimate is late spring for a public release.
- Recently, DOE announced "mission need statements" for several
projects. What does this mean for Fermilab?
It allows us to go ahead with planning and R&D spending. The
agencies are launching multiple paths, but this does not guarantee
that all the initiatives will survive.
BATAVIA LIBRARY - POSSIBLE SERVICE ARRANGEMENTS FOR
FERMILAB USERS
Following the inquiry of several users, the UEC sought advice on how
users living on site at Fermilab could gain access to the library
facilities at one or more local libraries. George Scheetz, Director of
Batavia Public Library, joined the committee to discuss possible
arrangements for use of the library by Fermilab users. He showed
maps of the Batavia library district, which does include a small portion
of the Fermilab site for historical reasons (but not the village, which is
in a different county), and of the library districts in DuPage County. He
stated that now Fermilab users can use an interlibrary loan
mechanism through the Fermilab library. However, he and his library
board are receptive to finding a way to provide full library service to
Fermilab residents, with issuance of library cards. This service
would include reciprocal borrowing privileges at other area libraries.
He doesn't feel that such an arrangement would be a large impact on
the library, given the relatively small number of resident users. The
UEC will approach the Directorate with the matter to see if some
arrangement between the Lab and the Batavia Library's Board can
be worked out.
USER OPPORTUNITIES FOR USE OF THE M-TEST TEST BEAMS
Erik Ramberg, PPD, gave the committee a talk on the M-Test test
beams, and opportunities for users to get beam time there. He has
been working to publicize this facility, which he thinks will be
supported by the Directorate for the foreseeable future. This talk has
also been given at the All Experimenters Meeting. He gave an
overview of the MTBF. There is a web site at
http://www-ppd.fnal.gov/MTBF-w/
on which the schedule, parameters, and request forms can be found.
The westernmost beam line in the Meson Area is the test beam. The
area has been further shielded, in order to take the Main Injector
beam. There have also been upgrades to facilities and ease of use.
There are 6 user stations, with a 7th downstream of the beam dump,
and 2 control rooms. An experiment can use more than one of the
stations.
Ramberg described the extraction process and the operational beam
characteristics. The beam can be operated to provide 120 GeV
protons, or secondary beam from 3 to 66 GeV. Particle ID in the beam
is provided with Cherenkov counters. User requests for beam
conditions are negotiable. It can deliver 100KHz of 120 Gev protons,
during a 4 second spill every 2 minutes. It can also deliver about
100 Hz of electrons between 4 and 16 GeV. A multiple station
tracking system and DAQ have been developed and used to good
effect by several users.
The facility has been operating for about two years, and in that time
has had MOU's with 14 groups. Three are taking data now. There
are modest requests for the foreseeable future. A possible long term
occupation by ILC calorimetry has been postponed, at least until the
end of 2006; this effort will go to the CERN test beam. CERN is the
largest competing test beam, and required running time, proximity to
the university groups, and visa issues were cited as reasons that the
ILC calorimetry effort will go to CERN.
Ramberg stated that a modest user request can get through the MOU
process in a couple of weeks.
NEW BUSINESS
GSA is organizing a Winter Ball in conjunction with the University of
Chicago, on Feb 25, at the University.
FUTURE MEETINGS
Future meeting dates in 2006: Jan 28; Feb 25; Apr 1; May 6
Note added in proof: The Jan 28 meeting has been moved to Feb 4.
Other dates in 2006: DC Trip - March 8-10
Users Meeting - May 31-Jun 1
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