Below the Fold

JLab ISM Assessment Teams Report Preliminary Findings

After hundreds of interviews and the review of hundreds of documents, those involved in a review of Jefferson Lab's Integrated Safety Management System have issued their preliminary findings.

The review is part of the Lab's effort to continuously improve its safety culture and to prepare for a Department of Energy inspection of the Lab's ISM System in June.

Approximately 30 JLab supervisors and staff, working in five teams (ISM Core Function teams) reviewed the documents and conducted the interviews, including dozens of work-process interviews. They used the results to assess the Lab's compliance with DOE expectations and to identify areas where the Lab can improve. The team’s report is being reviewed and will be posted on the ISM webpage (http://www.jlab.org/ehs/ISM/) after it is approved later this month.

In a parallel effort, JLab invited three outside ISM experts to study the experimental facilities operated by the FEL and Physics divisions. This focus was chosen primarily because it was these types of activities that received the most scrutiny when DOE conducted an ISM inspection at Brookhaven National Lab. One of the experts was a member of BNL’s ESH&Q staff. A report by these experts will be posted on the ISM webpage when it becomes available.

Although the assessment activities by JLab staff and the experts were conducted independently, both arrived at similar conclusions:

1. There is still general confusion or a lack of knowledge of the meaning and impact of ISM throughout the Lab.
2. That the way the Lab plans and executes its work is not consistent across its organizations, or sometimes within organizations, and that the processes are not always in strict compliance with JLab policies and procedures.
3. That the Lab is not documenting and sharing lessons learned appropriately.
4. That the Lab needs to pay more attention to housekeeping in its workspaces.

Because the Lab has been constantly assessing and improving its safety program since it was established, the findings were not new and activities are in process to address the gaps. The assessments, however, did highlight the need to focus Lab efforts and to make some real changes in a short time period.

"These efforts will impact every staff member, subcontractor and user at JLab, and the continued support of all staff is expected and appreciated," added Lab Director Christoph Leemann.

William & Mary Students Develop THz Business Plans

College of William & Mary students talk with Rhonda Scales (foreground, far right), Legal Counsel, and Teresa Danforth, Contracts, as Gwyn Williams (back, center), FEL Division, listens.

Seven students from the College of William and Mary Mason School of Business and Wythe School of Law, visited Jefferson Lab on Feb. 28.  They had the opportunity to visit the Free-Electron Laser Terahertz laboratory and then ask questions of Rhonda Scales, Legal Counsel, and Teresa Danforth, Contracts.  As part of their course of study, the students will prepare business plans which are related to various THz applications.

Gwyn Williams, FEL Division, had earlier given a lecture to the class in which he presented a scientific introduction to the intellectual property contained in the field of high power THz production and applications.  At the end of their course work, 40 percent of the students' grades will be based on these business plans, and Jefferson Lab will help to judge them

Imager Spots and Samples Tiny Tumors

A new medical imager for detecting and guiding the biopsy of suspicious breast cancer lesions is capable of spotting tumors that are half the size of the smallest ones detected by standard imaging systems, according to a new study.

The positron emission mammography/tomography breast imaging and biopsy system was designed and constructed by scientists at Jefferson Lab, West Virginia University and the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The PEM/PET system is designed for detecting and guiding the biopsies of suspicious breast cancer lesions.

"This is the most-important and most-difficult imager we've developed so far," says Stan Majewski, JLab Radiation Detector and Medical Imaging Group leader.

This PEM/PET image of rods inside a plastic breast phantom show the resolution capabilities of the device. The diameters of the rods (in millimeters) are shown. Technical aspects of the image may be found in the paper, cited below. Image: Ray Raylman

How It Works
The PEM/PET system features components designed for imaging the unique contours of the breast. The complete system is the brainchild of Ray Raylman, a professor of radiology and vice chair of Radiology Research at WVU. He says the technology is built on traditional PET imaging, where a drug with a radiation-emitting component is injected into a patient and is then imaged. The system is designed for imaging tumors in women who have indeterminate mammograms because of dense or fibroglandular breasts.

"I got the idea as a postdoc when I was working with some radiologists who wanted to use PET to image breast cancer. They could do it, but they couldn't get the resolution," Raylman says.

In this imaging procedure, a small dose of radioactive molecules that look like sugar, called fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), are injected into the body, where they're absorbed by cancerous tumors.

"The patient lays on the bed, with one breast at a time falling through a hole in the table that goes to the center of the scanner, which is sort of the standard way to do stereotactic breast biopsies right now," Raylman explains.

The system images the breast with a movable array of two pairs of two flat scanners. The scanners detect the radiation from the drug, and a sophisticated software package produces a three-dimensional image from scanner information. The images are available in about 10 minutes from the start of the scan.

If a suspected lesion is found, a single pair of scanners is then used to guide a needle biopsy of the lesion. The biopsy is performed with a person-controlled robot arm.
"Just before we take the tissue sample, we take a new image. The needle we use has a little radioactive source embedded in its tip, so that we can see the relative position between the biopsy needle and our suspicious lesion," Raylman says.

A Difficult Task
One important difficulty to overcome was the time it takes for the system to combine the information of the individual scanners into a three-dimensional image.

Mark Smith is currently an associate professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. While working on the software, he was affiliated with both the JLab Radiation Detector and Medical Imaging Group and UM.

"I developed the image reconstruction algorithms so that we can use the data from the detector system to form a three-dimensional image. And this is challenging, due to the fact that we want image reconstruction to be done within approximately five to 10 minutes after the woman has been imaged with the device," he says.

System Testing
Raylman led the initial testing of the system and is the lead author on the study. His team imaged various radioactive sources to test the resolution of the system. In one test, a series of capillary tubes were imaged to test the resolution capabilities.

To visually demonstrate the capabilities of the scanner, fluorine-18, a radioactive source, was deposited in thin rods of known diameter inside a plastic device used as a proxy for the breast – a breast phantom. In another test, two spheres of radioactive material in a water-filled cylinder, another type of breast phantom, were also imaged.

"We had good performance characteristics, with image resolution below two millimeters. In regular PET, the image resolution is over five millimeters, so we're quite a bit better than that," Raylman says.

In addition, thanks in part to speedy image reconstruction, the initial tests revealed that the PEM/PET system takes about the same amount of time to image cancer and complete a biopsy as it takes to complete a traditional biopsy.

This is a schematic composite image of the PEM/PET imaging and biopsy system. Image: Ray Raylman / J,Griffin.

The Next Steps
The next steps for the team include minor improvements in the detector systems and image reconstruction software and the addition of components for taking X-ray computed tomography (CT) scans. Initial clinical trials are planned after completion of system testing.

"The system is another example of nuclear physics detector technology that we have put a lot of time and effort into adapting for the common good," Majewski says.

Smith agrees, explaining, "I'm continuing to collaborate with Jefferson Lab and Ray Raylman on this project, because I feel very strongly it's something I'd like to see clinically implemented."

Other Radiation Detector and Medical Imaging Group members that worked on the project include Brian Kross, John McKisson, Vladimir Popov (now with the JLab Radiation Control Group), James Proffitt and Drew Weisenberger.

The work was supported by a National Cancer Institute grant to West Virginia University and by DOE's Office of Science. Construction of the JLab portion of the imager was supported through a subcontract from WVU.

By Kandice Carter
JLab Science Writer

The results of these tests were published in the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology on Feb. 7.
Technical Paper: The positron emission mammography/tomography breast imaging and biopsy system (PEM/PET): design, construction and phantom-based measurements
Raymond R Raylman, Stan Majewski, Mark F Smith, James Proffitt, William Hammond, Amarnath Srinivasan, John McKisson, Vladimir Popov, Andrew Weisenberger, Clifford O Judy, Brian Kross, Srikanth Ramasubramanian, Larry E Banta, Paul E Kinahan and Kyle Champley

Further Reading:
Nuclear Physics Technology Saves Lives
Jefferson Lab Medical Imager Spots Breast Cancer
JLab news release: Device Zeroes in on Small Breast Tumors

Jefferson Lab Accelerator Physics Featured in Physics Today

Graphic by J. Griffin, JLab.

Electron beams are essential in microwave ovens, radio transmitters and medical X-ray scanners. They're also important in the more exotic world of nuclear and high-energy physics. Read more about the exotic uses of electron beams in accelerators and free-electron lasers in "Electron Sources for Accelerators," an article in Physics Today written by Jefferson Lab authors Carlos Hernandez-Garcia and Marcy L. Stutzman and co-author Patrick G. O'Shea from the University of Maryland.

The article appears in the February issue of Physics Today. If you don’t have access to an electronic subscription to Physics Today, a copy of the magazine has been put on reserve in the JLab Library (1th floor, ARC).

Property Custodians: Property Validation Season is Here; Refresher Training Required

Tom Briggs, JLab's Property Manager, asks all Property Custodians to complete their annual validation and take their refresher training before the April 15 deadline.

Nearly every employee at JLab is a property custodian, whether you are responsible for one item or 100. A property custodian is responsible for proper use, control, physical protection and disposition of assigned property. Custodians will be pleased to see that some lower-dollar-value items are coming off their property lists, which should make the annual validation process go more smoothly, according to Tom Briggs, JLab's property manager.

The validation process started on March 10 and continues through April 15. During this period, each custodian must validate all of the items on his or her inventory list and take the Property Custodian Refresher GEN 150 training (about 5 minutes).

Tom's Guidelines for Better Property Management
-- Keep track of your property.
-- Don't sign for equipment or materials you haven't seen or don't know where it is.
-- Make sure all equipment is tagged or marked appropriately. (Make sure anything personally owned is marked with your name.)
-- If you make a new piece of equipment, contact the Property Office to get it tagged or marked appropriately.
-- If you have visitors or users bringing their own equipment on campus, it must be appropriately marked. The Property Office can provide property tags for visitor/user equipment and materials.
-- Don't take government property off campus without the appropriate Property Office paperwork.

New Tool Crib is Open: Borrow Items Instead of Buying Them

Lawrence Ferbee, Jr., tool crib manager, shows off some of the tools and equipment available to sign out and use while conducting JLab work.

In an effort to make certain types of tools and equipment more readily available to staff and users conducting JLab work, a tool crib has been set up.

"As you plan your work, if you don't have the right item to do a job, check the tool crib before ordering that new tool or piece of equipment," says Lawrence Ferbee, Jr., tool crib manager.

"A tool crib is great because it can reduce the amount of money your work group spends on tools or specialized equipment – especially items that you use infrequently. It also reduces the number of tools that you (as a property custodian) need to manage and the space required to store them," Ferbee adds. "The tool crib has items to support simple jobs as well as some specialized tasks."

The JLab Tool Crib is located in the back of Shipping and Receiving (Bldg. 90, the Experimental Equipment Lab), and has hundreds of items on hand. The shelves hold items ranging from hammers, screwdrivers and flashlights to soldering stations, portable band saws, oscilloscopes and pulse generators. Tools may be signed out for as little as one day or for as long as six months, and must be used for JLab work.

After finding the item(s) you need in the inventory listing or to browse the shelves, contact Ferbee, ext. 6297 or email ferbee@jlab.org, to set up a time to meet him at the tool crib. There you will sign the paperwork and pick up the item(s). Users are asked to have their JLab sponsor make their loan requests. Contact Ferbee to access the crib Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.

"We started setting up the tool crib last year," Ferbee notes. "A few work groups donated tools and equipment that they weren't fully using – making those items available for others to sign out on an as-needed basis."

He asks all workers and work groups to look over their tools and equipment. "If you have items that you seldom or never use, please donate them to the tool crib. I can even accept some types of items that may be in need of repair," Ferbee adds. He sends out a "big thanks" to Jack Segal, Physics Division and Ken Boyes, Facilities Management, for their tool and equipment contributions that helped set up the tool crib.

Free Stock: Leftover Work Materials Available For Use; Already Paid For

Check out Free Stock before you order supplies or materials for that small JLab job, or if you run short during a bigger job. Free Stock is located adjacent to the JLWS Stockroom in Building 90, the Experimental Equipment Lab.

The Free Stock inventory currently includes wiring, cabling, switches (resistors, connectors and other electronic items), fasteners (nuts, bolts and washers), and some general office supplies.

The items in Free Stock are left over from various JLab work activities and projects, and are available at no cost to the person or work group that can use them. With nearly 850 different types of items currently available in Free Stock, what you need just might be there, according to Lawrence Ferbee, Jr., Free Stock clerk. The next time you visit the JLWS Stockroom or the new Tool Crib, stop by Free Stock to see what is available, he says.

These materials and supplies must be used to conduct JLab work. For more information contact Ferbee, ext. 6297 or email ferbee@jlab.org.

Likewise, individuals and work groups may submit usable or reusable, excess or leftover materials to Free Stock. Say you've finished a job, moved your office, or cleaned out a storage cabinet and have usable quantities of materials or supplies you have no further use for – not trash, but stuff others can use – give them to Free Stock, Ferbee asks. "It's a great way to use up leftover materials and supplies that the Lab has already paid for. After all, one person's junk can be another's treasure."

Milestones

Hello – Dec. 2007 through Feb. 2008

Mindy Carman, Hall B Technician, Experimental Nuclear Physics Division
Silviu-Doru Covrig, Hall C Post Doctoral Fellow, Experimental Nuclear Physics Division
Stephen Furches, Mechanical Designer, Experimental Nuclear Physics Division
Abhishek Gupta, Electrical/Electronics Engineer, Experimental Nuclear Physics Division
Paul Hansen, Mechanical Designer, Engineering Division
Derrick James, Mechanical Designer, Engineering Division
Mitchell Laney, Sr. Subcontracting Officer, Chief Operating Officer Division
Christopher Larrieu, Scientific Computing Programmer Analyst, Information Technology Division
Stephanie Schatzel, Public Affairs Associate (previously with Staff Services), Chief Operating Officer Division
Alexander Somov, Hall D Staff Scientist, 12 GeV Upgrade Project

Goodbye – Nov. 2007 through Feb. 2008

William Brooks, Associate Project Manager, 12 GeV Upgrade Project (joined JLab's User community)
Tanest Chinwanawich, Electrical/Electronics Engineer, Experimental Nuclear Physics Division
Richard Cothren, Project Services Manager, Office of Project Management & Integration
Adam Crosby, Cyber Security Analyst, Information Technology Division
Richard Dickson, Computer Scientist, Accelerator Operations, R&D Division
Barbara Donovan-Swanick, Procurement Administrator, Chief Operating Officer Division
Craig Ferguson, Associate Director, Environment, Safety, Health & Quality Division
Donna Gilchrist, Administrative Assistant, Free-Electron Laser Division & Office of the Chief Technology Officer
Eduardo Gutierrez, Student Intern, Engineering Division
Patricia Hunt, EH&S Engineer, Environment, Safety, Health & Quality Division (now an Environmental Scientist with JLab's DOE Site Office)
William Rust, Electrical/Mechanical Maintenance Section Manager, Chief Operating Officer Division
Diane Sarrazin, Administrative Assistant, 12 GeV Upgrade Project
Stephen Scheithauer, Project Planner, Office of Project Management & Integration
Gevorg Stepanyan, Student Intern, Experimental Nuclear Physics Division
Shyla Thomas, Student Intern, Engineering Division
Karen White, Business Manager, Accelerator Operations, R&D Division