JLab Weekly
Briefs
is an ongoing publication providing information on the status of
safety, accelerator operations, experiments, free-electron laser,
reviews, upcoming activities and special events. Deadline for
submission is every Tuesday by 10 a.m. Submit new items to: Public Affairs or contact Kandice
Carter at x7263.
Archives
|
|
Jefferson Lab Weekly Briefs
April 1, 2009
12 GeV Upgrade
The plans for installation of 12 GeV equipment in the experimental
halls have been reviewed. In preparation for this, hall technical and
scientific staff mapped the 12 GeV schedule into detailed installation
schedules typically used for hall work coordination. The review
committee checked timelines, logic of task sequence and manpower
requirements. Valuable recommendations were made to further streamline
installation schedules, formalize involvement of support groups and
assign laydown spaces, amongst others.
Physics
In Hall C, the BigCal electronics platform and surrounding
concrete bunker have been removed. The removal of 2,000 signal and
high-voltage cables, weighing approximately 5 tons, was also completed.
With the completion of these tasks, work on extending the raised
concrete floor has started. This floor will allow the High Resolution
Electron Spectrometer and the High Resolution Kaon Spectrometer to be
moved into position for the upcoming hypernuclear experiment (E05-115).
Accelerator
The second week of the scheduled accelerator down went well. Work on
Gun2 high-voltage chamber vacuum continued. Cryomodules NL12 and SL07
were installed; cryomodule SL15 was removed. General maintenance items
continued to be addressed. A Personnel Safety System functional
certification was complete. A Low-Conductivity Water leak was found
near the Free-Electron Laser building in underground piping. The
excavation started over the weekend. The modification and repair of the
piping will start soon.
Free-Electron Laser (FEL)
FEL staff made great progress in getting set up and taking initial run
data for the Light Pseudoscalar and Scalar Search experiment last week.
As a sidelight, the new Optical Transport System is proving to be much
more stable against drift than the previous system. By Friday, the team
was on its way toward completion of that experiment when a major
underground rupture in the CEBAF/FEL low-conductivity water feed shut
the FEL down. The full impact to the schedule has yet to be
determined.
Theory Center
When calculating the hadronic spectrum in a lattice QCD calculation, it
is necessary to extract the masses of the states from the hadronic
correlators, usually by multi-exponential fitting or the variational
method. In a new paper <arXiv:0903.2314
[hep-lat]>, an extension to the commonly used "effective mass"
technique is derived, which uses simple analytic formulae to extract
both ground and excited-state masses. These black-box methods, which do
not require initial conditions or hand-tuning, provide a simple and
useful alternative to current methods.
JLab's Safety Numbers
86 Days since Last Recordable Accident (JLab record:
331)
203 Days since Last Lost Workday Accident (JLab record: 676)
JLab Calendar of Events
April
14: 12 GeV Upgrade Groundbreaking
April 14: Science
Series Lecture: Hurricane Hunting
April 15: Science
Teacher Night
May 2-5: APS April
Meeting in Denver
May 25: Memorial
Day holiday, lab closed
|
Environment, Safety, Health & Quality
The
Quality-Value-Safety triad is one of the most important aspects of our
quality assurance work at JLab. When a problem or opportunity for
improvement arises, all three criteria should be balanced in order to
propose a feasible solution. To meet these criteria, the fundamental
questions are:
- What is the basic function? (i.e., what must it do to
perform the required function?)
- What are the secondary functions? These support
the basic function. Usually the basic and secondary functions are
targets for improvement.
- What are the quality and safety requirements to
perform the function?
- What is the value of the item expected to perform the
function?
- Are there alternatives to perform basic or secondary
functions that meet specified requirements?
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster shows the importance of using all
three criteria to make a balanced decision. NASA managers had known
that the contractor design of the solid rocket boosters contained a
potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings since 1977. They
continued, however, to use the design. NASA then eliminated an
extinguishing system for solid rocket motors because of cost and
weight, reducing the cost by about $100K-$375K per motor. The safety
aspect of the Quality-Value-Safety triad was not properly addressed, a
significant shortcoming with disastrous consequences.
Computing and Networking Infrastructure (CNI)
Beware of Suspicious
Holiday E-mail
We all might expect to see a few April Fool's Day messages from
relatives or friends with pointers to funny news items or videos. Any
holiday period is a time to be more than a bit skeptical
about clicking untrusted links. Hackers will readily use the increase
in general communications to deliver unpleasant surprises. Now, in
particular, is a bad time due to unpatched vulnerabilities in the
ubiquitous PDF reader, Adobe.
In general, this has been a tough year. One security provider
(www.scansafe.com) has reported that in 2008 there was a six-fold
increase in malware and a 16-fold increase in data-theft trojans (those
that steal your passwords, credit card information, etc.). This
increase
seems to be associated with the difficult economic times. At the
lab, we have seen a substantial increase in the last two months in
systems that had to be rebuilt due to infections.
One good rule of thumb to follow is to always be suspicious of
documents and links whose source is unknown.
Announcements
Jefferson Lab On WTKR
A video news story about Jefferson Lab is now available on the NewsChannel3 WTKR website. Check out
the News Video section halfway down the homepage. Click the "next"
button until you see the video link for "Newport News Jefferson Labs"
and click the play arrow on the thumbnail to watch the piece. You will
need an up-to-date version of Flashplayer to view the piece.
Discover Magazine Reports:
Spirit Sees Phenomenal Martian Vista
The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have been traversing Mars for
almost six years now, taking tons of images and great data. Phil Plait
shares the newest, coolest Martian
photos snapped by Spirit just a few days ago.
Want to Be JLab's "Biggest
Loser"?
A 12-week
weight-loss
contest will begin Friday, April 17. Weekly, confidential weigh-ins
will be taken by Occupational Medicine on Fridays, 2-4 p.m. The winner
will be determined by the highest percentage of weight loss. The $20
entry fee collected from each contestant will go into the prize pot.
Click the
link for more details. Participants must register with Christine
Wheeler (VARC, Room 76) no later than 2 p.m. on April 17.
Annual Validation of
Personal Property Underway
JLab's annual property custodian validation process runs
from March 23 to April 6. 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. The validation link can be
found on the JLab Insight
page. Look for the Property Validation link in your Personal
Information block on the left side of the Insight Front Page.
Food Drive Results Are In!
The JAG-sponsored food collection drive for the Foodbank of the
Virginia Peninsula brought in about 570 pounds of food. In addition,
monetary donations totaling $135 were also collected for the foodbank.
Last Chance to Vote for
JLab's 2009 T-shirt Design
View the entries by going to the Jefferson Lab
Activities Group webpage. You may only vote once. Voting closes
April 3 at 5 p.m. The winner(s) will be announced at the May
Run-A-Round.
|
Privacy and
Security Notice
|
