Fermilab Today Wednesday, July 7, 2010
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Have a safe day!

Wednesday, July 7
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
THERE WILL BE NO FERMILAB COLLOQUIUM THIS WEEK

Thursday, July 8
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Sanjib Kumar Agarwalla, Virginia Tech
Title: A New Approach to Anti-Neutrino Running in Long Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Experiments
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

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Weather Chance of thunderstorms
88°/71°

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Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Wednesday, July 7
- Breakfast: English muffin sandwich
- Smart cuisine: Chicken noodle soup
- Steak sandwich
- Smart cuisine: Maple Dijon salmon
- Smart cuisine: Mongolian beef
- California club
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Chicken pesto pasta

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, July 7
Lunch
- Cornmeal crusted catfish
- Green beans with hot pepper vinegar
- Creamy coleslaw with bacon
- Sweet potato pie

Thursday, July 8
Dinner
- Pasta carbonara
- Stuffed fillet of sole with crabmeat
- Sauteed spinach
- Pecan rum cake

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Feature

MINERvA keeps on rockin'

Steve Manly, professor at the University of Rochester, takes data from the MINERvA detector in the UROC while connecting remotely with Rutgers University student Brian Tice, shown on the screen, at Fermilab.

MINERvA experiment collaborators were only a few months into running their detector when they learned about a scheduled18-hour power outage only two weeks away.

The scientists who run the fine-grained neutrino detector weren't about to let the outage to Wilson Hall, where the experiment's control room is located, affect the experiment's data taking.

"With all the efforts to construct the detector fresh in their minds, MINERvA collaborators see every neutrino as sacred," said MINERvA co-spokesperson Kevin McFarland.

To save run time for the fledgling detector, MINERvA collaborators worked with laboratory senior management, Computing Division networking personnel and accelerator operators to develop a workaround plan to reroute the data to another building, where it could be broadcast, and run the experiment from a collaborating university.

"This was a huge leap forward for us in remote operation," said MINERvA scientist Dave Schmitz, who serves as a run coordinator for the experiment.

Jeremy Wolcott, a student at the University of Rochester, spent two 40-hour weeks preparing a room for remote access. Although it wasn't intended for routine use until 2011, the University Remote Operations Console (UROC - pronounced "you rock" for the Guitar Hero generation), was ready by the day of the outage.

Back at Fermilab, Computing Divison's Don Gustafson and Orlando Colón devised a plan to add a second data connection from MINERvA to Feynman data center.  Data from MINERvA comes from the detector to the data center located on the eighth floor of Wilson Hall.  The second connection added redundancy to the experiment, which enabled the remote control room to access the experiment during the outage.

When the power outage began on the night of Friday, June 4, Schmitz and a few others on shift at the laboratory transferred control to collaborators at the University of Rochester.

"We saw that they were taking data so we shut down here. We remained on shift here from a conference room at CDF so that we could answer any questions or address any problems that could have come up," Schmitz said. "We had a very successful experience. The experiment kept on running."

--Rhianna Wisniewski

In the News

Lab reallocates Sanford dollars from education fund to facility outfitting

From DUSEL Watch, June 22, 2010

LEAD  A portion of funds from T. Denny Sanford’s $20 million gift for development of a science and education center at the DUSEL have been re-allocated, and will be used to outfit the Sanford Lab, officials decided Thursday. .

Due to a shortage of money for outfitting the Davis Cavern with utilities to accommodate early science experiments, Sanford has authorized the S.D. Science and Technology Authority to shift $7.5 million from the education center fund to the interim-lab development fund. On Thursday Sanford Lab Executive Director Ron Wheeler told members of the S.D. Science and Technology Authority Board that education money will be replaced with funds from the $15 million donation Sanford has pledged for pumping down to the 8,000 foot level if DUSEL is approved.

In 2006 Sioux Falls philanthropist Sanford announced his donation of $70 million to the project to build a deep underground science and engineering laboratory in Lead. That money was divided in chunks for various aspects of the project, and Sanford established specific milestones to be met for each portion. The donation included $35 million for re-entry into the former Homestake Mine and development of the state’s interim laboratory, which would be dubbed the Sanford Lab; $20 million for development of the Sanford Center for Science Education; and $15 million for lab development down to 8,000 feet underground if the DUSEL is approved.

Read more

From FESS

Preparing for the future

Randy Ortgiesen, head of the Facilities Engineering Services Section, wrote this week’s column.

Randy Ortgiesen

Mission readiness is a term we will begin to hear much more about.  The DOE Office of Science defines mission readiness as providing facilities and infrastructure to enable the delivery of the scientific mission.  You can imagine the importance of mission readiness for Fermilab as we prepare to implement our strategic plan for the Energy, Intensity and Cosmic Frontiers. 

To ensure that the DOE national laboratories can deliver the DOE mission now and in the future, the chief operating officers from all Office of Science laboratories have developed and gained DOE approval for a series of mission readiness peer reviews of all laboratories. The Fermilab peer review will take place July 2011; the review team will consist of personnel from other science laboratories.

Fermilab, working closely with the DOE Fermi Site Office, has developed a mission-readiness plan. In particular, we have created a facility mission matrix that includes all buildings and infrastructure on the Fermilab site and shows how these assets support existing and proposed experiments and projects such as NOvA, MicroBooNE, Mu2e, LBNE and Project X.

We also make sure that Fermilab’s facility and infrastructure experts are an integral part of the teams that are developing our proposed science projects. This allows our facility experts to help coordinate impacts to existing operations and avoid interference among projects.

In the last 18 months, mission-readiness peer reviews have already taken place at Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, Lawrence Berkeley and Argonne national laboratories. Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and Princeton Plasma Phyiscs Laboratory are scheduled in the next few months. Fermilab and Fermi Site Office personnel have either observed, participated or plan to participate in these peer reviews.

The completed peer reviews have already revealed the importance of the Office of Science’s Science Laboratory Infrastructure (SLI) program. The SLI funding helps create the stable base from which future science programs can be successfully developed and implemented at all science labs, including Fermilab. 

Safety Update

ES&H weekly report, July 6

This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, includes two first aid injuries. Find the full report here.

Safety report archive

Announcements

Argentine Tango - July 7-28

Format change for new personnel requisition form

Deadline approaching for requests for fall 2010 & spring 2011 on-site housing

Day Camp payments due

All supervisors: Do you need help preparing for performance reviews?

Time to complete accomplishment reports

10,000 Steps-a-Day walking program

Introduction to LabVIEW course -July 13

Embedded Design with LabVIEW FPGA and CompactRIO seminar-July 13

Interaction Management coaching forum - July 27

SciTech summer camps started June 14

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