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Have a safe day!
Tuesday, Nov. 6
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY
Wednesday, Nov. 7
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker: Subir Sachdev, Harvard University
Title: Dark Matter: Entanglement, Holography and the Quantum Phases of Matter
Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.
Ongoing and upcoming conferences at Fermilab
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Tuesday, Nov. 6
- Breakfast: All-American breakfast
- Minnesota chicken and rice
- Chicken quesadilla
- Chicken curry
- Smart cuisine: pork piccata
- California turkey panini
- Assorted pizza by the slice
- Refreshing summer salad
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu
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Wednesday, Nov. 7
Lunch
- Chicken in a coconut curry
- Steamed jasmine rice
- Vanilla flan with mango sauce
Friday, Nov. 9
Dinner
Closed
Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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Enrollment for 2013 benefits closes today
Benefits enrollment closes today. This is an active enrollment, which means that even if you intend to continue with the same plans and coverage that you have this year, you must re-enroll. If you do not re-enroll, your coverage will be suspended on Dec. 31, 2012.
If you have not done so, please complete your enrollment form and send it to the Benefits Office, mail stop 126, or fax it to 630-840-5207. Periodic active enrollments are necessary to ensure that beneficiaries and dependents are up to date.
For more information, visit http://wdrs.fnal.gov/benefits/index.html.
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East Coasters brave Hurricane Sandy to keep neutrino project on schedule
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Hurricane Sandy hit the night before an important project review, but scientists, engineers and project personnel didn't let that stand in their way. Image courtesy of CIMSS/Univ. Wisconsin-Madison/NASA/NOAA
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Physicist Milind Diwan of Brookhaven National Laboratory has devoted much time and energy to neutrino research over the years, but perhaps never so literally as he did last week.
Diwan is co-spokesperson of the proposed Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment, which aims to measure properties of neutrinos and to test our understanding of their role in the universe. LBNE was scheduled for an important review at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, just outside of Chicago, at the end of October. Diwan had tickets to travel from his home on Long Island on Monday, Oct. 29—the day Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast.
His flight was canceled.
About 30 scientists, engineers and other project personnel who meant to attend the review are based at Brookhaven, and still others live elsewhere on the East Coast. Many of them flew out by Sunday, but Diwan and 14 others who planned to travel on Monday were stranded.
This was a meeting they did not want to postpone. "It was very important that we attend this particular milestone," Diwan says.
More than 300 scientists from about 60 institutions participate in the LBNE collaboration. The review, which had been scheduled since July, would examine whether the experiment was ready for the Department of Energy's second stage of approval, Critical Decision 1. The collaboration had done some major reconfiguring at DOE's request since passing the first stage of approval in January 2010, and they needed a successful review to move the project forward.
Read more
—Kathryn Jepsen
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Slice of Fermilab prairie life
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Last week coyotes ventured near Feldott farm barn, captured in this photo by Steve Krave, TD.
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Accelerate to a Healthy Lifestyle program concludes
The Accelerate to a Healthy Lifestyle Program concluded on Oct. 31. ES&H would like to thank all participants for their commitment. We commend you for your efforts.
In order to ensure all participants are accounted for, please note that the deadline to record your activity is Nov. 16. The deadline to collect your participation reward is Nov. 30.
As part of a pilot initiative, ES&H has elected to provide logging capability as a means of keeping past and future participants motivated to exercise. Effective Nov. 1, any laboratory employee wanting to track his or her exercise activity is invited to visit our website. (Please note that participation rewards only apply to those who participated between Aug. 1 and Oct. 31.) Click on the link Accelerate to a Healthy Lifestyle. This will take you to the log where you can track your activity—all in an effort to maintain a healthier you.
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14th Congressional District
From 190 North, Nov. 4, 2012
Editor's note: View 190 North's video coverage of Fermilab at the 2:44 mark.
To check out the 14th Congressional District, you need to head west of the city. In fact, the outer reaches of it stretch nearly to the Iowa border ... but much of 'Chicagoland' is part of that district. It encompasses towns like Aurora, Elgin, Yorkville, Geneva and Plano.
Read more
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Taming mavericks: Stanford researchers use synthetic magnetism to control light
From Stanford University News Service, Nov. 1, 2012
Magnetically speaking, photons are the mavericks of the engineering world. Lacking electrical charge, they are free to run even in the most intense magnetic fields. But all that may soon change. In a paper published in Nature Photonics, an interdisciplinary team of Stanford physicists and engineers reports that they have created a device that tames the flow of photons with synthetic magnetism.
Read more
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This week's Director's Corner will appear tomorrow, Wednesday, Nov. 7.
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Travel card program
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Cindy Conger
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Cindy Conger, chief financial officer and head of the Finance Section, wrote this column.
The Finance and Business Services Sections have successfully launched the Fermilab Travel Card Program, and many employees across the laboratory have already begun using the new card for official Fermilab-related business travel. All Fermilab employees who expect to go on approved business travel now have the opportunity to enroll in the program and to receive a Visa travel card issued by U.S. Bank, which is accepted worldwide.
The laboratory's travel card website includes detailed information regarding the travel card program, as well as instructions on how to apply for a card. VPN login is required for remote access. Fermilab's Visa travel card program is voluntary except for trips during which you rent a vehicle in a foreign country, in which case the travel card is required.
You can use the Visa travel card to withdraw funds from an ATM while on official business travel, thus eliminating the need for travel advances. ATM fees for reasonable cash withdrawals are paid by the laboratory. Therefore, as of Dec. 1, the Accounting Department will discontinue the practice of providing travel advances via check.
The travel card can be used on all official business trips approved by Fermilab to pay for hotels, rental cars, conference registration fees and other travel-related expenses. When you return from your trip, you complete a travel voucher and use the reimbursement to pay the amount due on your travel card. U.S. Bank will send you a monthly paper statement when you use the card, and their Access Online feature allows you to monitor your transactions online. It is not a credit card, so the card does not incur interest, and there is therefore no credit limit that counts toward your personal credit score. There is a longer grace period on the card to accommodate necessary processing time for reimbursements, after which late fees will apply.
The travel card will also give you access to an Avis Wizard number linked to your card. This will allow you to bypass the Avis counter when renting a car for Fermilab-approved travel. The Travel Group will send you information on how to apply for your Wizard number soon after you apply for a card.
Feedback from those who have traveled with the card has been positive. I hope our lab travelers look closely at the travel card and take advantage of the program.
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Interior of the LArTF cylinder
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Whittaker Construction is preparing the interior of the LArTF building cylinder for the construction of the two enclosed access stairways. They have also installed a temporary access stair. Photo: Cindy Arnold
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Whittaker Construction Company, contracted to construct the Liquid-Argon Test Facility, has completed the removal of all the temporary work platforms inside the LArTF cylinder. They have poured concrete bases for the two enclosed stairways 40 feet below ground level and have constructed a temporary access stairway. Masons will now build the enclosed stairway structures. The loading dock area is visible at ground level on the other side of the cylinder.
Two large roof beams sit approximately 64 feet above the floor of the cylinder. The temporary stairway is seen at the right in the picture below. Contractors will build a removable roof in two sections to cover the rectangular opening. Precast concrete sections will cover the outer curved areas. The two roof beams are designed to support an additional 10 feet of shielding concrete that may be placed over the removable and arced roof sections to reduce cosmic-ray background in the MicroBooNE detector.
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This picture was taken standing on the floor of the LArTF cylinder, 40 feet below ground level, and looking up at two large concrete beams. The beams will support the removable roof, through which the MicroBooNE detector will be lowered into the cylinder. Photo: Cindy Arnold
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Rain
