Fermilab Today

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

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Wednesday, Oct. 10
THERE WILL BE NO FERMILAB ILC R&D MEETING THIS WEEK
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker: B. Fitzpatrick, Google
Title: Building Scalable Systems and Moving Large Datasets

Thursday, Oct. 11
1 p.m.
ILC ALCPG Physics and Detector R&D Seminar - West Wing, WH-10NW
Speaker: M. Charles, University of Iowa
Title: PFA for SiD: Where We Are and Where We Aren't
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: M. Schwartz, Johns Hopkins University
Title: The Extraordinary Predictive Power of Holographic QCD
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

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

Breezy 53°/42°

Extended Forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Secon Level 3

Thursday, Oct. 3
- Portabello harvest grain
- Santa Fe chicken quesadilla
- Hoisin chicken
- Beef stroganoff
- Cuban panini
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Pesto shrimp linguini w/leeks & tomatoes

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Wednesday, Oct. 10
Lunch
- Middle Eastern cornish hens
- Lentil rice
- Stuffed plum tomatoes
- Almond baklava

Thursday, Oct. 11
Dinner
Closed

Chez Leon Menu
Call x4598 to make your reservation.

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

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

Send comments and suggestions to:
today@fnal.gov

LPC gears up for US CMS First Physics Workshop

Simulation of the signature of the Higgs boson in a collision in the CMS experiment. Image courtesy of CERN.

Like CMS physics groups around the world, the physicists of Fermilab's LHC Physics Center are preparing for analysis of early LHC data. After years of working to put the elements in place for the LPC, the group is finally ready to tackle the physics.

The LPC, the Fermilab hosted LHC Physics Center, will sponsor the US CMS First Physics Workshop at Fermilab this week. More than 200 people are expected to attend. Sessions of the workshop will take place in One West on Thursday, Oct.11, with parallel working groups meeting on Friday and a workshop summary on Saturday, Oct. 13.

Recently, Fermilab's Dan Green and Princeton's Chris Tully were appointed co-coordinators of the LPC. This workshop is the first major effort under the new leadership of the LPC. They have focused their efforts on building and organizing the group and the collaboration. The workshop marks the end of the beginning, said Green, who is one of the workshop's organizers.

"It is tremendously exciting that we have completed the building stage and are able to now really focus our efforts on physics," said Green.

The workshop will include parallel sessions on the analysis of first physics tolopologies, plenary talks and status reports on experiment-wide developments on the start of data taking. The workshop will focus on U.S. participation in these projects.

More information and the workshop agenda can be found here.

-- Rhianna Wisniewski

Pat Mascione retires tomorrow

Pat Mascione

Pat Mascione has ties binding her to Fermilab. It's the place she began her long-lived career in administrative support, and the place where she met the man she would eventually marry. Even though she's retiring after nearly 30 years, Mascione has no intention of letting Fermilab go.

"Oh, I won't be a stranger," Mascione said. "I'll still be in the area and I plan to come by and socialize."

Pat Mascione was working as a temporary employee for the site security office in 1976 when she was set up on a blind date. On New Years Eve she met Mike Mascione, formerly of PPD. They married a little more than a year later.

Soon afterward, PatMascione started as a full-time employee in Fermilab's Proton Department.

"I only planned on staying for about six months," Mascione said. She had thought she would quit work to take care of her family. Instead, Fermilab became part of that family. "Those thirty years have gone by really fast."

Mascione has worked in varying administrative support positions during her career, most recently as an administrative associate in CD's Human Resources department.

People seek out Mascione because she knows how everything works.

"She's a fantastic resource," said Griselda Lopez, group leader in administrative support.

After she joins her husband in retirement, Mascione plans to enjoy perennial gardening and golf and put to use her love for interior design and decorating. She already has plans to help her children redesign rooms in their homes.

There will be cake and coffee to celebrate Mascione's retirement today at 2:30 p.m. in the FCC1 lobby.

-- Rhianna Wisniewski

Fermilab is recognized for 'top quark' discovery

Daily Herald, Oct. 7, 2007

Fermilab in Batavia nabbed the seventh spot on the list of the Chicago area's biggest scientific achievements last week.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley made the announcement of the top 10 achievements, innovations and discoveries in the field at an event to start the "Science in the City" program.

Topping the list was the first controlled sustainable nuclear reaction ever produced at the University of Chicago in 1942.

Other items on the list were: the first portable cell phone, hormonal treatment of prostate and breast cancer, magnetic recording, malaria treatment, skyscrapers, the discovery of chromosome abnormalities in cancers, carbon-14 dating and the discovery of how the body makes insulin.

Fermilab was on the list for the discovery of the "top quark" in 1995. Quarks make up protons, neutrons and electrons, which make up atoms.

Read more

Preparing for LHC data

Today's column is by Lothar Bauerdick, director of the CMS Center at Fermilab.

Lothar Bauerdick

Pretty soon, according to schedule in May 2008, we will see the first beam in the LHC. Much difficult work is still ahead. So far, more than half of the 12,500-ton CMS detector has been lowered into the collision hall without accidents. Finishing this enormously complex task safely is our highest priority.

The CMS collaboration is busy preparing for data taking. We are commissioning the silicon tracker and other detector components using cosmic muons. It's exciting to see real data in the detector being displayed, reconstructed and analyzed.

In May, we started the monthly global data taking with the forward hadron calorimeter. This month, the global data taking already includes seven subdetector systems. Using our LHC@FNAL Remote Operations Center, which is located next to our cafeteria, we can monitor and analyze this data live.

This month, CMS began the 2007 Computing, Software and Analysis mock-data challenge. We are testing all steps of the CMS data processing chain using simulated data. The data is processed first at CERN and then transferred to the Tier-1 centers in various countries. The Tier-1 centers skim the data for physics signals and provide them to Tier-2 centers around the world. Fermilab has the largest CMS Tier-1 center, and our computing facilities are as "mission critical" for CMS as they are for our Tevatron experiments.

A recent power outage in the middle of our mock-data challenge allowed our Computing Division to test another critical part of our computing system: the backup power. Without power for cooling, the multi-megawatt computing room could overheat within seconds. But our facility team was well prepared. It safely switched to diesel generators and kept all systems up and running.

This week, you'll see a lot of LHC activity at Fermilab. The LHC Physics Center, led by Fermilab's Dan Green and Princeton's Chris Tully, will host a physics workshop. About 200 participants are coming to Fermilab to discuss and prepare for the start of the LHC.

All these activities are great opportunities for us to understand and prepare for the important role that Fermilab will play for the LHC and the CMS experiment. After more than a decade of preparations, we are looking forward to the first data!

New hires

New hires Oct. 1-8:

Regine Cowans - accountant - FI
Jesus DeLeon Jr. - technician - AD
Pedro Ttito Guzman - guest scientist - PPD
Mariano Quiros - guest scientist - PPD
Jerel Brown - technician - TD
Fang Wang - communications - CD
Anupama Atre - research associate - PPD
Patrick Fox - scientist - PPD
Jan-Christopher Winter - research associate - PPD
Miao Yu - engineer - TD
Jon Bailey - research associate - PPD
Hee Jong Seo - research associate - PPD
Jiri Kvita - scientist - PPD
Yang Bai - research associate - PPD
Patina Waterstreet - day care - WDRS

ES&H weekly report, Oct. 8

Beginning this week, Fermilab Today will publish the weekly safety report compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section. It includes information on injuries reported at the Medical Department as well as the overall safety performance at the lab.

This week's report includes one DART case (Days Away, Restricted or Transferred). The full report is here.

Have a safe day!

RSVP for Amy Lee Segami lecture
In celebration of Illinois Arts Week, the Fermilab Art Gallery will host a public lecture by Amy Lee Segami from 1 to 2 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 12, in One West. The lecture will explore the "Probability of Certainty in Creative Problem Solving Technique" along with a demonstration of Suminagashi.

Interpersonal Communication Skills
Learn effective communication strategies by assessing your communication style and developing skills for more productive work relationships through the "Interpersonal Communications Skills" course on Oct. 18. Learn more and enroll.

Wanted: Graduate students and Postdocs for ALCPG07
Are you a graduate student or postdoc who would like free food and a T-shirt? Volunteer to be a scientific secretary at the ALCPG/GDE meeting at Fermilab on Oct. 22-26. For details contact Andreas Kronfeld.

Fermilab Barn Dance Oct. 14
Fermilab Barn Dance will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday Oct. 14 with music by Jennifer Jeffries and Roger Diggle and calling by Tony Scarimbolo. More information can be found out the Web site.

Additional Activities