Site Power Outage

The Test Lab electrical substation will be taken offline over the holiday break to replace aging equipment. The power outage will begin at noon on Friday, Dec. 21. The following buildings will be without power: EEL, Test Lab, CEBAF Center, Buildings 31, 33, 52, 54, 57, & 59, Rad Con Trailers 52A, B, C, Trailers 34A, 34B, 34D & Safety Trailer (35). Electrical power will remain off in these buildings until Dec. 31. No one will be allowed in these buildings until after 8 a.m., Jan. 1, 2008. For additional information, please see the website or contact Paul Powers at ext. 7258. 

12 GeV Upgrade

The 100 percent design package for the 12 GeV North and South Access Building Additions was completed by the JLab Facilities Design Team. The package has been distributed for an internal design and safety review, and a meeting to discuss the review findings is scheduled for Dec. 17.  Advance Procurement Plans for the 12 GeV Civil Construction FY09 Procurements related to the CHL Building Addition and the Hall D Complex have been developed. The initial procurement effort will be Sources Sought notices to identify interested vendors. The Sources Sought notice for the Hall D Complex is scheduled to be issued in Spring 2008. 

Physics

In Hall A, the Coulomb Sum Rule experiment, E05-110, has been taking production data. It was interrupted this week for two days to replace the defective transformer in the power supply of the second quadrupole of the left High Resolution Spectrometer. Production running remains characterized by a multitude of short runs at different spectrometer momentum and angle settings and beam energies for a variety of targets.

Accelerator

The week started with continued beam to all three halls. There were some problems encountered with various radio-frequency devices, due to low-conductivity cooling water temperature becoming unregulated and dropping several degrees. On Dec. 5, Hall A requested a pass change, which went well. An energy change on Dec. 8 took more time, due to Hall C current limitation investigations. For the most part, the accelerator ran very well, with 240 hours of beam delivery distributed among the three experimental halls.

Free-Electron Laser (FEL)

This week, FEL staff successfully applied high voltage to the gun in the test stand, ramping initially to 85 keV without incident. This important achievement is the culmination of activities ranging from conventional construction and facilities, sophisticated personnel and equipment protection systems, a very high-voltage power supply requiring a large sulfur hexafluoride system, extreme high vacuum, critical modifications to the gun design, preparations for the laser to produce the electron beam and an advanced computer remote control system. New mirrors have now been installed and are under vacuum in the high-reflector and output-coupler vacuum tanks. The center wavelengths of the three narrow-band mirrors in each cassette are 0.93, 1.2, and 2.8 microns. The additional space has a broadband mirror. A very advanced ONR-funded apparatus for pulsed laser deposition (PLD) was installed in FEL Lab 5 by the company that provided the equipment.

Theory Center

In the paper arXiv:0712.1214 [hep-lat], Theory Center staff have computed, for the first time in lattice QCD, certain weak nuclear couplings of the Sigma and Xi hyperons, which have not yet been measured experimentally. In addition, using the corresponding coupling of the nucleon, the effects of the breaking of "SU(3) flavor" symmetry, which relates the couplings of these baryons, has been estimated. The results indicate around a 20% symmetry breaking, with about 5% statistical and systematic errors.

JLab's Safety Numbers

84 Days since Last Recordable Accident (JLab Record: 319)
403 Days since Last Lost Workday Accident (JLab record: 455)

JLab Calendar of Events

Dec. 13: Quark Cafe Holiday Lunch Buffet
Dec. 24-Jan. 1: Holidays/Shutdown Days
Jan. 11: APS April Meeting Abstract Submission Deadline
Jan 14-18: PAC 33

Environment, Safety, Health & Quality

With the mild weather that we are enjoying this week, it is hard to believe that severe winter weather driving conditions are just around the corner. Here are some National Safety Council winter driving safety tips:

• Carry emergency supplies in your vehicle. No matter how moderate the climate is, be prepared for emergencies. Must-haves include jumper cables, flashlight, first aid kit, flares and nonperishable snacks.
• Check your owner's manual for proper tire pressure and inflate tires accordingly.
• Check windshield wipers and replace if needed. Keep your windshield wiper reservoir full with fluid that can withstand freezing temperatures.
• Park in well-lit areas. Have your keys ready before you approach the car. Lock doors immediately after entering your car and keep windows rolled up.
• Give yourself enough time knowing that traffic can delay your travel time.
• Take breaks if driving for long periods of time.
• Make sure all passengers in your vehicle are wearing their seat belts.

CATS Update
The JLab Corrective Action Tracking System has been updated to provide better reporting of action completion. Until recently, an action was not considered closed until all required approvals had been received. In some cases, this made an action that was completed on or before its due date to be late due to the need to wait for all approvals. A recent update to CATS has changed the box originally titled "Closure Date" to "Completion Date" and added the box "Approval Date." Completion Date is the date the action owner reports the action complete in the status update.  This date is used to calculate "On Time" completion statistics and to stop the "Overdue" e-mail transmission. Approval Date is the date all approvals are received. For additional CATS information or training, contact Bob Doane of the Lab's Quality Assurance/Continuous Improvement Department at x6380 or bobdoane@jlab.org.

Computing and Networking Infrastructure

Scientific Computing Outage
Scientific Computing, including the Auger batch farms, JASMine mass storage system and LQCD clusters, will be unavailable starting Dec. 21, for the holiday power outage. Auger batch job submissions will be closed on Dec. 19, to allow running jobs to complete. The Auger batch farm and the LQCD clusters will remain down through the holidays; some interactive scientific computing services will return to service after maintenance work (see next brief) is completed. All services will be restored starting Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2008.

Network Outage Dec. 21
All Central Computing Services (those systems that provide JLab's file services, e-mail, internet, web presence and other critical services) will be taken offline for system maintenance at noon on Dec. 21. Services should be back up by 10 p.m.

Site Power Outage Ramifications
Following system maintenance on Dec. 21, Central Computing Services will remain online during the site power outage, using the Computer Center's secondary power source. However, networks and non-critical workgroup computing resources located in buildings without power will remain down through the holidays.

Announcements

ORNL Visitor Information Hacked
A hacker illegally gained access to Oak Ridge National Laboratory computers by sending staff e-mails that appeared to be official communications. When the employees opened an attachment or accessed a link embedded in the e-mails, the hacker planted a program on the employees' computers that enabled the hacker to copy and retrieve information. The first potential corruption occurred on Oct. 29. ORNL staff believes that data was stolen from a database used for ORNL visitors. If you visited ORNL between the years 1990 and 2004, your name and other personal information, such as your social security number or date of birth, may have been part of the stolen information. For more information, visit the ORNL web site.

Winter Feast at the Quark Cafe
Join your colleagues for a holiday buffet lunch at Quark Cafe on Thursday, Dec. 13 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The buffet will include rosemary and garlic roasted top round served with au jus & horseradish whipped cream, seared leg of lamb with tomato compote, spiral carved ham with mixed chutney, herb polenta, green beans almandine, sweet peas with roasted shallots, roasted garlic red bliss potatoes, cinnamon sweet potatoes and an assortment of holiday pies. The buffet is $7.99 plus tax and includes a 24 oz. beverage.

End-of-year TLD badge change out nears
The end-of-year TLD (thermoluminescent dosimeter) badge change out will occur over the holiday shutdown period. The last day of regular work before the shutdown will be Dec. 21. Everyone with a JLab TLD should place his or her badge in the badge racks before leaving for the holiday break. Special Note: If you come back from the holidays and have a black TLD badge, you will be wearing the incorrect badge. To have it exchanged for the correct badge, contact Becky Mosbrucker in Trailer 52B, phone x7236 or page 584-7236.

Holiday Pie Orders Taken Through Dec. 14
The Quark Cafe is taking holiday pie orders through 2 p.m. Friday, Dec. 14. Desserts available for ordering include eggnog cheesecake and coconut cream, pumpkin, pecan, sweet potato and fruits-of-the-forest pies. Fruits-of-the-forest pie includes apples, cherries, raspberries and blueberries. Dessert order forms may be picked up and turned in at Quark Cafe. Your dessert order may be picked up during lunch on Dec. 19 and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Dec. 20.

Ready, Set, Decorate!
Deadline for Holiday Office Door/Cubicle Decorating Contest entries is 5 p.m. Friday, Dec. 14. To enter, visit the JAG website.