Fermilab Today Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009
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Wednesday, Feb. 18
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
Speaker: John A. Rogers, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speakers: Christina Frederick-Recascino, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Doug Sweigard, Lockheed Martin Corporation
Title: The Integrated Airport: Building a Successful NextGen Testbed

Thursday, Feb. 19
11 a.m.
Computing Techniques Seminar - FCC2A
Speaker: Douglas Thain, University of Notre Dame
Title: Programming Multicore Clouds Using High Level Abstractions
THERE WILL BE NO PHYSICS AND DETECTOR SEMINAR THIS WEEK
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Darren Forde, University of California, Los Angeles/ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Title: Automating One-Loop Amplitudes for the LHC
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - One West
Speaker: Sandor Feher, Fermilab
Title: Experience with the Commissioning of the LHC Superconducting Magnets

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

Weather

Weather

Rain/Snow
36°/14°

Extended Forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Wednesday, Feb. 18
- Navy bean
- Catfish sandwich
- Southern fried chicken
- Pork chops
- California club
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Chicken pesto pasta

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Feb. 18
Lunch
- Swiss steak
- Mashed potatoes
- Steamed broccoli
- Praline cheesecake

Thursday, Feb. 19
Dinner
- Closed

Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Info

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

Send comments and suggestions to:
today@fnal.gov

Feature

Pumping up Fermilab's gym

Jeanne Koester, recreation services supervisor, plans to improve the Fermilab gym.

When Jeanne Koester took over as Fermilab's recreation services supervisor in January, she took one look at the gym and knew it could be better.

Already Koester has improved membership policy, is looking into buying more cardio equipment and is offering free aerobics classes, the first starts today at 12:15 p.m.

"If people are exercising and caring about being healthy, it's overall a good thing for the laboratory," she said. "They're going to be less likely to be sick or injured."

Koester had extensive experience in exercise and recreation services before coming to Fermilab. The first thing that she did at the laboratory was to make memberships more flexible. You can get a membership lasting one month, three months or one year from the day you start. Previously, membership started at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Koester also raised fees slightly to $100 for one year for non-students, $65 for students, $55 for three months and a one-month membership is $30. Anyone interested in trying the gym can obtain a one-day free pass.

With the money from the fee hike, Koester hopes to purchase an elliptical machine with arms and another treadmill. Currently the gym has one armless elliptical, a treadmill and three bikes. It also has a weight room, a big gymnasium with basketball courts, and a smaller workout room with a punching bag, mats, and steps. There is also a cabinet with exercise tapes that people may check out.

Koester said people typically use the on-site gym during the winter to condition for warm-weather sports. "What people really seem to like is the convenience," Koester said. "They tell me, 'If I didn't go at lunch, or before or after work, I wouldn't work out.'"

Koester will hold a free 30-minute class on the third Wednesday of every month. Workouts will vary.

The gym also hosts classes in muscle toning and Kyuki-Do, a Korean martial art. There is a yoga class at Wilson Auditorium. View a schedule of courses.

-- Kristine Crane

In the News

Fermilab 'closing in' on the God particle

From New Scientist, Feb. 17, 2009

Scientists with the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Illinois, home of the Tevatron particle accelerator, say their ageing machine now stands at least a 50 percent chance of spotting the elusive Higgs boson by the end of next year.

The estimate is based on the accelerator's efficiency at producing high energy particle collisions, now running at an all-time high, and the chances that the Higgs' mass falls within a range detectable at Fermilab.

With CERN's malfunctioning Large Hadron Collider (LHC) more than six months away from restarting, and another year or more from releasing data, it looks increasingly likely that the Tevatron will have a clear run at being the first to spot the Higgs.

Not a race?

"We're not racing CERN," says Fermilab director, Pier Oddone, who points out that many physicists working at the Tevatron are also heavily involved with the LHC. However, other scientists at Fermilab told New Scientist that the sense of competition is real, and that researchers are "working their tails off" analysing data from the Tevatron's two key particle experiments, named CDF and DZero.

"Indirectly, we're helping them," says DZero spokesman Dmitri Denisov of his European counterparts. "They're definitely feeling the heat and working a little harder."

Read more

In the News

Hollywood star could restart damaged particle accelerator

From Nature News, Feb. 16, 2009

Tinseltown goes to CERN as Tom Hanks promotes latest thriller.

Actor Tom Hanks has agreed to turn on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) once it has been fixed.

The world's most powerful particle accelerator, based at the European particle-physics facility CERN in Geneva, is currently being repaired after breaking down in September last year, just nine days after circulating its first proton beams (see 'Eight-month delay for LHC').

Read more

From the Finance Section

Looking for your ideas

Cindy Conger, chief financial officer and head of the Finance Section, wrote this week's column.

Cindy Conger

A Fermilab maxim I learned when I started here more than 19 years ago is "A dollar spent on administration is a dollar not spent on physics." I took this to heart and have lived by it, and I know that goes for my colleagues in the administrative and support functions of the laboratory. I would even assert that we have long had "integrated cost savings" embedded in our culture, just as we have Integrated Safety Management across the laboratory and are now establishing Integrated Quality Assurance.

But can we do better? One of the laboratory's DOE performance measures this year requires that we put together a cost savings plan, including how we will go about achieving the cost savings listed in the plan.

Across the laboratory, in the directorate as well as in the sections and divisions, we already have many efforts to manage our budgets and to reduce costs. One might think that given the catastrophic funding cut the laboratory experienced last year, we already have cut all the costs we can. But the speed with which we were forced to deal with last year's funding cut and the magnitude of the problem did not lend themselves to exploring smaller or long-term savings.

Bruce Chrisman and I would like to know what ideas you have that could save money for the laboratory. We are particularly interested in ideas that would reduce indirect costs (often called overhead) and make more of the laboratory's funds available for science. Or perhaps you have already implemented cost-saving measures that we do not know about. All ideas, whether they save money in the short term or the long term, a little money or a lot, are welcome.

Please e-mail your ideas to cost_savings@fnal.gov by March 27. If you would rather submit your suggestions anonymously, feel free to send them to me at Mail Station 200. While I may not be able to respond to every idea submitted, all ideas will be given due consideration for inclusion in our cost savings plan.

Safety Update

ES&H weekly report, Feb. 17

This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, includes two injuries that were reported to the Medical Department last week. One, a reportable incident, involved a helium contractor who fell off the back of a truck and lost consciousness. The other incident was not reportable. We have now worked 15 days since the last recordable injury. Find the full report here.

Safety report archive

Announcements

Resource Update

Online Oxford English Dictionary now available site wide

Have a safe day!

Daycamp information and registration

Muscle Toning Classes

Outlook 2007 New Features classes scheduled Feb. 26

Recreation Facility Open House

Fermilab Blood Drive Feb. 17 & 18

Argentine Tango Classes begin Feb. 18

Special Seminar: Programming Multicore Clouds - Feb. 19

NALWO - Mardi Gras Potluck Dinner - Feb. 20

Discount Tickets: World's Toughest Rodeo Presents Toughest Cowboy - Feb. 21

NALWO - Brown Bag Lunch Program - "Australia: Travels in the Land Down Under" - Feb. 24

English Country Dancing, March 1

Introduction to LabVIEW class offered March 5

On-Site housing - summer 2009

NALWO - Adler Planetarium Trip - March 21

Child Care program offered - March 24 deadline

Conflict Management & Negotiation Skills class offered April 1

2009 standard mileage reimbursement rate

 
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