Streamlining operations successful at CDF and Pisa

Above: John Yoh and Michal Kreps share the CDF shift work with Simone Donati, who is stationed in Pisa, Italy. Below: Donati in Pisa.

You won't find any new particles in the results from the latest CDF experiment; you'll just find fewer people. The CDF main control room was once staffed at all times by four physicists, but thanks to an overnight remote operator in Europe and the combination of two local jobs into one, on some shifts the number of staffers has been reduced by half.

For one week out of each of the last four months, the 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. consumer operator "owl" shift has been carried out via internet and video conferencing by physicists at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Pisa, Italy, where the shift falls at a more manageable 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Many physicists travel from abroad to serve a week-long shift at CDF's control room. Having a remote shifter "saves time and travel costs, and makes people fresher and more prepared to do their work," said Fabrizio Scuri, a physicist at CDF and at Pisa.

The consumer operator scans monitoring data distributions for errors and performs calibration checks between stores. Remote CO's are required to have served at least a one-week shift in the main control room at CDF before operating remotely. The operator in Pisa has constant contact with the main control room, but if the network connection fails, a local CO is always on call. Peter Wilson, co-head of operations with Mary Convery, hopes that all the owl shifts will be operated out of other institutions worldwide by 2008.

Convery and Wilson also directed the automation of many tasks formerly done by two researchers, called aces, who run the experiment's data acquisition and control voltage to the detectors. "Having one ace is actually easier in some ways for communications," said Convery.

The recent changes to CDF's control room are not unique; many experiments use similar tools to simplify their operations. "We have to run experiments more efficiently because so many people on CDF are also on CMS or ATLAS," said Kaori Maeshima, who develops remote operation technology for both CDF and CMS. "We have to make sure that when the LHC comes online, we don't compromise the quality of our lab."
--Christine Buckley

Another record

Munchies: AD's Greg Vogel snapped this picture of a coyote on Friday. He writes: "While running out to get some lunch today, I happened upon one of the local residents along Eola Road, doing much the same thing."

The Financial Express
February 24, 2007:

Vanishing letters of old

...Now that e-mail has replaced letter writing as the principal means of informal communication, one has to feel sorry for future science historians, who will be unable to use letters and telegrams to establish facts and gauge reactions to events.

...Catherine Westfall, who has composed histories of both the Fermilab and Argonne national laboratories, likes to point out that letters often reveal leadership styles in striking ways. "[Former Fermilab director] Robert R Wilson knew he was making history and was ironically self-conscious," she once told me. "Leon Lederman [another Fermilab director] told jokes, [while former Argonne director] Hermann Grunder wrote letters that were really never-ending to-do lists...."

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