Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011
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Tuesday, Feb. 15
10 a.m. (Rescheduled from 10:30)
Research Techniques Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Kyung Kwang Joo, Chonnam National University
Title: Status of the RENO Reactor Neutrino Experiment
11 a.m.
All Hands Meeting - Ramsey Auditorium
Speaker: Pier Oddone, Fermilab Director
1 p.m.
Special Seminar - One West
Speaker: Amanda Thompson, Fermilab
TItle: Overview of Permanent Residence Process
3:30
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

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

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Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Tuesday, Feb. 15

- Bagel sandwich
- Tomato bisque soup
- Gyros
- *Caribbean grilled salmon
- Stuffed peppers
- Beef and cheddar panini
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Grilled chicken bowtie with tomato cream

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Feb. 16
Lunch
- Chili chicken skewers with cilantro pesto
- Chunky banana sweet-potato mash
-Keylime and tequila pie

Friday, Feb. 18
- Closed

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Special Announcement

All-hands talk today

Fermilab Director Pier Oddone will address the most recent budget news as it affects Fermilab in an all-hands meeting at 11 a.m. today in Ramsey Auditorium. Overflow seating will be available in One West. The talk will also be available via streaming video here.

Feature

Construction season begins early at Fermilab

Construction projects will cause road closures beginning in April. Photo: Cynthia Horwitz

If you drive by the Industrial Center Building this week, you’ll see a construction crew excavating a seven-foot deep hole near the Tractricious sculpture.

This work is part of a trio of large-scale infrastructure projects planned for now through the end of summer to upgrade the industrial area of the laboratory. In the short-term the work may cause some headaches because of traffic slowdowns and periodic detours, but in the long term, it will minimize work shutdowns and allow traffic to flow smoother and safer.

“We will be working in the busiest sections of the lab, we just ask for everyone’s patience,” said Chuck Federowicz with FESS engineering.

Below is brief overview of the projects. Watch Fermilab Today for more details.

Industrial cooling water upgrades

In October, crews started working on the water lines used for fire protection and to cool equipment in experimental areas.

Upgraded piping was added in front of the old KTev building, which now houses the SeaQuest experiment and inoperable water valves were replaced and additional ones added in about eight other areas. This will help limit the number of future pipe ruptures and reduce the size of work areas that are affected when repair work is needed. Adding additional valves will allow crews to shut down piping to small areas of the accelerator complex, New Muon Lab and Industrial Area rather than forcing a halt to work in large segments of those areas.

This current construction doesn’t necessitate road closures but may cause traffic delays. Crews will soon complete work in front of ICB. Future work will occur through March by the Meson Test Beam building, next to the Wilson Hall reflecting pond and by Casey’s Pond.

Closures in front of CDF

Starting in April, Road D in front of CDF and the Feynman Computing Center will experience closures for sewer line relocation, the addition of crosswalks, the placement of decorative walking paths around the Tractricious sculpture and a new parking lot at the west end of the CDF building and between the CHL and Industrial Area.

This work will replace existing sewer lines with newer, more reliable lines and relocate them from the south to north side of Road D. This work also will provide parking and road improvements for future upgrades to the area to enhance safety.

This will require closing Road D to non-essential traffic and rerouting traffic to the north.

Road work around Wilson Hall

Starting in late summer, crews will take the bumps out of your morning commute on Road D and improve safety for bicyclists and pedestrians by improving the intersection of Pine Street and Road A and repave the roadway from this intersection to the CDF building. This will include realigning the intersection at Road A and Pine Street in front of Wilson Hall to create an eight-foot wide, separated bicycle path through the new intersection.

This will require phased closures of Pine Street and rerouting of traffic near the intersection. The Lederman Center will not be affected. More information will be communicated well in advance of these activities.

-- Tona Kunz

In the News

Energy science: Obama's darling, Congress's target

From Science Insider, Feb. 14, 2011

It's a comforting idea for many scientists but may prove to be only a fantasy: The Obama Administration has requested a healthy increase for the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Science, the single largest funder of the physical sciences in the United States and steward of 10 national laboratories. This despite a proposed freeze in overall nondefense discretionary spending for 5 years. For fiscal year 2012, the Administration would increase the DOE science office's budget by $452 million, or 9% over current spending levels, to $5.4 billion. "In context, it's a very strong budget" that underscores the Administration's commitment to energy research and innovation, says Thom Mason, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

Researchers aren't dancing in the street, however. Last Friday, the appropriations committee in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives proposed cutting the Office of Science budget for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which started 1 October, 18% from 2010 levels of $4.9 billion to $4.0 billion. The cut is part of the committee's proposed continuing resolution to fund the federal government through the current year. So instead of celebrating the proposed increase, directors at DOE's labs are busy trying to prepare for the prospect of laying off thousands of workers.

There are winners and losers among the six research programs the office supports. The biggest program, basic energy sciences, would receive the biggest increase, a 24% boost up to $1.98 billion, to support research in condensed matter physics, chemistry, and material sciences and to run the program's x-ray synchrotrons, neutron source, and other user facilities. Biological and environmental research (BER) would receive a 22% bump to $718 million, and advanced scientific computing would also get a 22% increase to $466 million. DOE's nuclear physics program would get a 16% boost to $605 million, including an increase of $46 million for the ongoing upgrade of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Virginia, and an increase of $18 million in the construction budget for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, an accelerator in the works at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Read more

Director's Corner

Budgets

Fermilab Director Pier Oddone

We live with a great deal of tension waiting for the resolution of various budgets. February is the month when everything piles up: actions by Congress on the budget for the current fiscal year, FY11; the FY12 budget that the President proposed yesterday to Congress; and preparations for the FY13 budget that DOE has started developing.

We’ll start with the FY13 budget. We have received guidance from DOE on the scenarios that we should use to propose budgets for the laboratory. The guidance has three scenarios. The middle scenario is essentially flat funding with respect to FY11, in effect the FY10 level since we are in a Continuing Resolution and do not yet know our final budget for FY11. Then there is a lower scenario representing a 5 percent cut from FY10, which is already a very tight situation. Finally there is the scenario that we all dream about but never get, namely one where we propose the budget that we need to carry out our program at full capacity. We will be presenting these three budgets to the Office of High Energy Physics on March 3.

Yesterday we saw the President’s proposed budget for FY12. This is a budget that is supportive of the Office of Science, with a 9 percent increase over the level of FY10. The major increases are targeted to areas given priority by the administration and that can impact clean energy technologies. Importantly, it maintains the funding for particle physics at the same level as FY10, allowing us to continue development of important programs for our future. At this point we know the amount of funding proposed for the overall particle physics program, but not yet the amount for the laboratory. We assume that it will be roughly flat with respect to FY10, or perhaps slightly lower.

Finally there is the very troublesome FY11 budget which is the subject of current deliberation by Congress. This is the budget that the President proposed a year ago and that the Congress has not yet put to bed. There will an open debate this week in the House of Representatives to receive amendments to a year-long Continuing Resolution diminished by a cut of $100 billion in non-defense discretionary spending as proposed by the Committee on Appropriations. This would be a very dramatic cut. There will be much debate in the House and the Senate before any such cut becomes law.

Read more

Accelerator Update

Feb. 11-14

- Five stores provided ~40.5 hours of luminosity
- MiniBooNE frozen sump discharge line cleared
- Tevatron lost some luminosity due to an earthquake in Chile
- Store 8488 aborted. No cause was found
- ComEd power glitch caused the loss of store 8492, the stash, the stack, cryo systems, CDF equipment, the Pelletron and the failure of equipment throughout the accelerators
- MI safety system tripped off due to a ground fault indication

Read the Current Accelerator Update
Read the Early Bird Report
View the Tevatron Luminosity Charts

Announcements

WDRS announcements

FRA scholarship applications due March 1

Latest Announcements

Best of Dance Chicago - dedicated to Dr. Morris Binkley - Feb. 19

InDiCo upgrade - Feb. 21

Urgent plea for blood donors - Feb. 14-15

Project Management Introduction class - Feb. 14, 16 & 18

Immigration presentation on permanent residence - Feb. 15

Toastmasters - Feb. 17

Apply now for URA Visiting Scholars Awards program deadline - Feb. 18

NALWO - Piano Concert at noon - Feb. 21

Argentine Tango classes through Feb. 23

School's Day Out - Feb. 21 and 25

Introduction to LabVIEW course - Feb. 25

Embedded Design with LabVIEW FPGA and CompactRIO class - Feb. 25

Rapid Hardware Prototyping and Industrial Control Application Development with LabVIEW FPGA, Compact RIO, and FlexRIO by National Instruments course - Feb. 25

NALWO - Mardi Gras potluck - March 3

March Deadline for The University of Chicago Tuition Remission program - March 4

On-site housing for summer 2011 - Now taking requests deadline - March 7

NALWO arts & crafts show & tell - March 15

Fermilab Employee Art Show applications due - March 16

The Service Desk is offering a new loaner laptop service

View UEC tax presentation for users online

FRA Scholarship 2011

Open basketball at the gym

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