Kaori Maeshima named U.S. CMS Operations Coordinator

In her new role, Kaori Maeshima (front row, far right) will lead the U.S. CMS Operations Group during the experiment's commissioning phase.

On Jan. 25, the U.S. Compact Muon Solenoid collaboration appointed Fermilab's Kaori Maeshima as its new Operations Coordinator. From remote operations to managing service work, Maeshima will work very closely with the CMS commissioning team to prepare the detector for the first collisions this summer at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

"The CMS detector parts have been built in many different places in the world and brought together at Point 5, a position on the LHC ring. Now is the time to learn how to operate CMS as one experiment," Maeshima said.

One of Maeshima's major roles focuses on coordinating the operation of Fermilab's Remote Operations Center with the CMS operations at CERN. The main CMS control room resides at the detector's collision hall at Point 5. Because this is a half-hour drive from the Meynin site, the experiment also has a CMS Centre on the main site. Maeshima, who helped develop Fermilab's Center, emphasized that monitoring tools will have a crucial role.

"When developing a monitoring tool, we made sure that relevant information can be accessed from a remote location from the beginning," she said. "Having location-independent monitoring tools is very important for seamless operations. We will also need a lot of support to make the operation successful. I'm looking forward to working with everyone."

Maeshima speaks from experience because she led the design and operation of the online monitoring system for CDF. In fact, she said, CMS imported some of the monitoring tools that CDF originally developed.

In addition to coordinating remote operations, Maeshima will manage service work, such as detector shifts, for U.S. CMS collaboration members. She also will maintain close communication with Fermilab management. Starting March 3, Fermilab's All Experimenters' Meeting will include an update from U.S. CMS on the first Monday of every month.

-- Elizabeth Clements

Taking sharper aim at cancer

From Chicago Tribune, Feb. 27, 2008

NIU will build state's first proton-therapy center in West Chicago, but another treatment site is proposed nearby

Northern Illinois University won state permission Tuesday to build a $160 million proton-therapy cancer-treatment center in West Chicago, the first such facility in Illinois, but another is proposed only 6 miles away.

The Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board approved the DeKalb university's ambitious plan to build the 130,000-square-foot cancer-treatment and research center in the DuPage National Technology Park.

Proponents of proton therapy believe it holds tremendous potential to treat cancer with radiation. Besides bringing the treatment to the Chicago area, the project will spur research and development and be an economic boon, NIU officials said.

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Energy Under Secretary Orbach discusses impacts of funding shortfalls

From AIP FYI,
Feb. 26, 2008

Under Secretary for Science Raymond Orbach spoke in unambiguous terms at recent meetings of the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel and the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee. Describing the FY 2008 budget outcome for the high energy physics program as a "slap across the face" for the field and for all of science, and telling the fusion committee that "we are really in trouble," Orbach warned that the large FY 2009 budget request for the Office of Science is a "sitting duck."

Orbach spoke to the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel on February 14, with most of his remarks centering on the FY 2008 budget and the FY 2009 outlook. This year (FY 2008), the program is $93 million short of the Administration's request, and $43 million less than what the program received in FY 2007. Orbach characterized the funding outcome as "a grave setback" and as an "attack" on high energy physics that was the result of deliberate action and not by accident. Describing the essential role of HEP as outlined in the National Academy EPP 2010 report as "a message that was not heard," Orbach said that "Congress picked apart the unity of science" by the under funding of the field. This is, he said, "a major point in the time for the High Energy Physics community."

Orbach called the FY 2009 Office of Science budget request "magnificent", but warned that it could again be a "donor" to short-term demonstration projects in other areas of the DOE budget. "The consequences are extreme if this [HEP] budget is not adopted," he told the committee. The community must change the way it makes it case, Orbach saying that the "entitlement attitude" of scientists that research was "the right thing to do" was one that other interest groups have made in support of other programs, and that it was a failed attitude.

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