Monday, Aug. 11
- Breakfast: blueberry crepes
- Breakfast: sausage, egg and cheese croissant
- Philly-style cheesesteak with peppers
- Smart cuisine: chicken creole
- Blackened salmon
- Spicy Asian chicken wrap
- Stir fry sensations
- Corn chowder
- Texas-style chili
- Assorted pizza by the slice
Wilson Hall Cafe menu
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Wednesday, Aug. 13
Lunch
- Baked southwest chicken with jack cheese and peppers
- Frijoles
- Mexican rice
- Apricot pecan tartlets
Friday, Aug. 15
Dinner
- Wild mushroom tart
- Porcini-crusted filet
- Boursin creamed spinach
- Roasted new potatoes
- Double-caramel turtle cake
Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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Neutrino researchers pull double duty
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Neutrino researchers work collaboratively, sharing and comparing results to help advance the field of neutrino physics. Sandbox Studio with Shawna X
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For Philip Rodrigues, a postdoc at the University of Rochester, receiving a new dataset from the MINERvA neutrino experiment means two things: that one of the neutrino experiments in which he participates has met a milestone and that the other can verify some of its predictions.
Rodrigues, who is a member of both MINERvA in the U.S. and the T2K experiment in Japan, is not the only neutrino physicist to double dip like this. More than 50 percent of neutrino researchers work on multiple projects simultaneously.
"You want the scientists designing future generations of experiments to have a broad experience in current neutrino research," says Fermilab physicist Debbie Harris, co-leader of the MINERvA neutrino experiment. "So it's great to have people on multiple projects."
Unlike collaborative neutrino researchers like Rodrigues, the neutrino is extremely antisocial. We can't see it, we can't feel it, and we don't entirely understand it. But it may be important for understanding the formation of the universe.
The elusive nature of neutrinos makes working together even more appealing. Scientists who share Fermilab's neutrino beamline meet regularly to discuss neutrino flux, the quantity of neutrinos per unit area observed in the detectors, and how that information can inform their respective projects.
"It's impossible to have one detector that can measure every little last thing about the interaction at every neutrino energy that's important," Harris said. "So that's why we need to have a lot of different experiments to help each other make these measurements."
Neutrino experiments are usually in one of two categories: interaction experiments and oscillation experiments. The primary goal of interaction experiments is to observe the way neutrinos interact with different materials. The primary goal of oscillation experiments is to observe the way neutrinos, which come in three types, change from one type to the next. Both types of experiments can give researchers insight into neutrino characteristics such as their masses and how the different types of neutrinos relate to each other.
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—Hanae Armitage
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Hauling out the chaff
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Fermilab Natural Areas volunteer Dave Giese recently helped remove white sweet clover, an invasive species, from the Interpretive Trail prairie. Photo: Patsy Hirsch. Fermilab Natural Areas volunteer |
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The white sweet clover removal was a heroic group effort. A tractor hauls away a big bundle of the invasive plant. Photo: Patsy Hirsch, Fermilab Natural Areas volunteer |
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What's 250 million light-years big, almost empty and full of answers?
From Nautilus, Aug. 7, 2014
The darkest hole in the universe lies near the constellation Boötes, the plowman of the northern sky. This region, called a void, is 250 million light-years across and is almost entirely bereft of matter. If you centered a region of the same size on the Milky Way, you'd find thousands of galaxies. The Boötes void has only 60. Looking in all directions from its center, the cosmos would appear dark and empty.
If galaxies are cities, then the edges of a void are the suburbs, and the center is the deepest wilderness. But an atlas isn't complete if it includes only cities and roads; it also needs the empty spaces in between. Scientists are increasingly entering the deep, dark wilderness of the void to complete their atlas, and in doing so are learning about other, greater dark presences in our universe.
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Progress on Fermilab's Software Quality Assurance implementation plan
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Throughout the laboratory, staff have been making great strides on implementing Fermilab's SQA program. |
The implementation of Fermilab's Software Quality Assurance (SQA) Program is taking place across the laboratory. Thanks to the hard work of the divisions and sections, 988 software applications so far have been entered into the laboratory's Configuration Management Database, an inventory of all the applications used throughout the laboratory. Application owners are at different stages of completing the main deliverables of the SQA implementation plan, which are:
- an inventory of all applications
- an assignment of a QA level to each application
- a gap analysis to identify required control measures
- a corrective action plan to implement required control measures.
Based on the original due dates established in the implementation plan, application owners should have already completed deliverables 1, 2 and 3. Application owners are now working on deliverable 4 and have identified a corrective action plan to implement the missing control measures required by the program. Corrective action plans address how controls will be implemented. For legacy or existing applications, application owners are not required to retroactively create documentation. Rather, required documentation should be created as necessary to support new changes and releases.
As a next step, the ESH&Q Quality Assurance Group will perform a quality assessment, which is scheduled to begin this week. The group, working with each division's and section's quality assurance representative, will measure how far along each division and section is with the deliverables of the implementation plan and will highlight best practices as well as opportunities for improvement along the way. The assessment is scheduled to be completed by Sept. 30.
The Quality Assurance Group has developed online training for the SQA Program, which is available for anyone either developing applications or determining appropriate quality control measures for applications under his or her control. An introduction to the SQA Program (FN000510/CB/01) is now available via TRAIN by answering "yes" to the applicable ITNA question.
Information on Fermilab's SQA Program can be found in the SQA Program document. Any questions regarding the SQA Program or its implementation can be sent to fermi-sqa@fnal.gov.
—Kathy Zappia, Quality Assurance Group, and Julie Marsh, Office of the CIO
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Unusual new telescope gets green light
From Science, Aug. 5, 2014
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), the top-priority ground-based instrument for U.S. astronomers, has gotten the green light to go ahead with construction, with a view to seeing its first light in 2019. On 1 August, the National Science Foundation moved to release the first major chunk of construction funding — $27.5 million — for the $473 million project. The Department of Energy will also chip in about $165 million for the scope's camera and related instruments.
LSST has a highly unusual design, with a very wide field of view so it can scan the entire sky every few nights. "This concept is the next stage in the technological revolution that is going on in astronomy," says Gerry Gilmore of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Instead of looking at distant and faint objects for long periods to get enough light, LSST will look at things that change fast. "This next step will look at a big enough patch of sky and cover it repeatedly and rapidly. We're all looking forward to it," Gilmore says.
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