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SSRL Headlines Vol. 1, No. 7 January, 2001
Contents of This Issue:
1. SLAC to Provide Short-Term User Lodging Space
(contact: Keith Hodgson, hodgson@ssrl.slac.stanford.edu)
On January 31, SLAC Director Jonathan Dorfan announced a new initiative
to help accommodate the growing user community on site. A new building
project is being directed toward providing a remedy for the lack of
short-term lodging for users in the area. SLAC will be constructing a
three-story user lodging building that will have 110 rooms and some
common
meeting areas. The project team is currently working on the final design
and groundbreaking is scheduled for early summer (the location will be
in the area currently occupied by the Training and Conference Center off
to the left of the loop road as one comes from the SLAC Main Gate toward
the entrance to the SSRL/SPEAR complex). We expect that once the
construction is completed within about a year, there will be many
benefits for all of our users at SLAC. We will keep you informed as
plans develop and the project moves from planning to construction to
becoming a reality.
2. Stanford Faculty Senate Meeting and Field Trip to SLAC
(contact: Amy Rutherford, amyr@ssrl.slac.stanford.edu)
On January 11, the Stanford Faculty Senate came to SLAC for an
introduction to the facility, its programs and achievements and
future directions. It was the first ever meeting of the Faculty
Senate away from its normal venue on the main Stanford Campus.
After SLAC Director Jonathan Dorfan gave his report to the 35
faculty members and Senators in attendance, the group, which
included Stanford President John Hennessy and Provost John Etchemendy,
was taken on a tour of the B Factory, PEP-II, BaBar and SSRL. On the
SSRL part of the tour, several of SSRL's newest user research projects
and beam lines were highlighted. One study illustrated how collecting
data on soil from beneath leaking tanks at the Hanford nuclear storage
site in Washington is aiding in risk assessment and the development
of remediation strategies. Also in the area of environmental sciences,
a group from the U.S. Geological Survey discussed ongoing studies of
arsenic-contaminated drinking water in Bangladesh. In the area of
structural molecular biology, the visitors learned about how structural
information is revolutionizing the process of drug design and about the
new horizon of structural genomics which will associate function with the
large amount of sequence information coming from the genome projects.
A Stanford Report article is available on the web.
3. Evaluation of Crystallography Collaboratory Software
Development
(contact: Peter Kuhn, kuhn@stanford.edu)
A group of leading software developers from the synchrotron sources
ESRF, APS, and Elettra visited SSRL during the week of January 15-19th
in order to evaluate the design of the large scale Data Archive System
being developed by at SSRL within the framework of the Collaboratory
Testbed for Macromolecular Crystallography funded by the NIH-NCRR.
The panel was first given a tour of the SSRL macromolecular
crystallography beam lines and an overall introduction to the current
status of SSRL. They were then presented with an overview of the
evolution of the Collaboratory and its current status. The panel
focussed on the current design for the Archive System and critically
evaluated the proposal. The panel made comments and gave detailed
recommendations for the Archive System design, focusing particularly
on the issue of actual usefulness and likely utilization by the user
community. In later sessions, each member in the advisory group
presented aspects of their own work. These presentations included
descriptions of ProDC, a protein crystallography data collection
package developed at ESRF, and user management systems developed at
BioCARS (APS) and the Virtual User Office at Elettra. The effort
will contribute significantly to SSRL's progress on the Collaboratory.
4. SSRL Proposal Review Panel Meets for the 50th Time
(contact: Cathy Knotts, knotts@ssrl.slac.stanford.edu)
The SSRL Proposal Review Panel (PRP) held its 50th meeting on January
19-20, 2001. Over the entire 28 year life of the laboratory, the PRP has
played a key role in that its proposal reviews provide the evaluation of
all the beam time proposals and guide beam time allocation. The PRP
considers new initiatives such as PRTs and also advises on future plans
and developments. During the opening session on Friday morning, SLAC
Director Jonathan Dorfan welcomed the panel and emphasized the important
role of the peer review process -- a cornerstone of the lab's open
environment. When asked by PRP Chair Russ Chianelli (UTEP) what the panel
could do for him, Dorfan replied "Keep the standards high." Keith
Hodgson
followed with an overview of the SSRL scientific program and strategic
issues. Jo Stohr discussed the materials/nano science plans and
initiative.
Cathy Knotts, the Manager of the SSRL User Administration, gave a brief
presentation on user operations. During the remainder of the meeting, the
PRP subpanels reviewed 56 new proposals and considered a number of
proposal extension requests. They further evaluated a proposal by an
outside group for a new PRT and reviewed two new cooperative R&D
agreements. An NIH NCRR SMB Advisory Committee Meeting was also held
on Friday afternoon.
5. LCLS Technical Advisory Committee Meeting
(contact: Max Cornacchia, cornacchia@ssrl.slac.stanford.edu)
The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Linac Coherent Light Source
met at SLAC January 12-13. The LCLS team made presentations covering all
aspects of the design, from the photo-injector to the FEL physics to the
x-ray optics. Although the written report of the Committee has yet to be
issued, the outcome of the meeting was quite positive. TAC expressed its
satisfaction at the progress that has been made in all areas. The
highlights of the presentations were the observed high gain, with
evidence of saturation, at the LEUTL facility at the APS, and the
computer
modeling of both the electron beam from the gun to the end of the
undulator
and of the FEL radiation generated by such beam. The computer modelling
work is the result of the constructive and close collaboration between
Argonne National Laboratory, SLAC and the UCLA Particle Beam Physics
Laboratory. The Committee expressed concern on the fact that the
experimental results at the Gun Test Facility (GTF) have not yet
progressed
to the point where the achievement of the LCLS goals can be demonstrated
or
inferred. The Committee acknowledged that the SLAC Management has taken
appropriate steps to increase its support of the GTF.
Some administrative changes to note: Art Toor (LLNL), leader of the LCLS
x-ray optics effort, retired in early January. His position in the LCLS
organization was taken over by Alan Wootton, also from LLNL.
6. User Research Administration
(contact: Cathy Knotts, knotts@ssrl.slac.stanford.edu)
- Schedule Updates and Upcoming Deadlines
The beam time notification/user support forms for the X-ray and VUV beam
lines for the current 2001-02 scheduling period (February-April) were
distributed earlier in January. These schedules can also be accessed
through our website at:
http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/schedules/
Macromolecular crystallography beam time assignments for March through
May will be distributed and posted in early February.
The call for X-ray and VUV beam time requests for the third scheduling
period for the 2001 run will go out soon, and these will be
due back to Cathy Knotts by February 23, 2001. This scheduling period
covers May through the end of the experimental run.
- California Power Crisis
A number of users have inquired about the status of SSRL operations
during the continuing California power crisis. We cannot guarantee that
our operating schedule will not be impacted by rolling outages and
requests to conserve, but so far in January, SLAC has been able to reduce
its power consumption without impacting the operation of SPEAR and beam
to SSRL users. We expect to be able to protect SPEAR operations at least
through the first part of February. We hope that the aggressive measures
being taken by the State will lead to a long-term solution, but should
the
situation change in the coming few weeks such that SPEAR operations are
significantly threatened, we will let you know in the most timely manner
possible.
- Help After Regular Working Hours
We would like to remind SSRL users that if they encounter any problems or
difficulties after regular working hours, particularly as they relate to
facilities or security at SSRL or more broadly on the SLAC site, to
please
contact the SSRL duty operator. The duty operator will try to help or
will know whom to contact to provide after hours assistance.
- SSRL Needs Your Input
As mentioned in the December issue of Headlines, all SSRL users are
encouraged to provide feedback on their SSRL experiences as well as any
comments or suggestions regarding the current design or operation of the
beam lines. This can be accomplished easily by completing the End-of-Run
Summary Form immediately after your SSRL experiments and submitting them
to the SSRL staff or via the
web form.
We look forward to including more information on user activities and news
in future editions of the SSRL Headline News, but to do so, we need your
input. So
please let us know if you have any news to share or ideas for future
articles in SSRL Headlines. Your news can be in the form of abstracts,
summarized research
findings or presentations. Any other news that may be of interest to SSRL
users such as important publications or other relevant scientific
meetings would also be
appreciated. These can be forwarded to Cathy Knotts or Lisa Dunn.
SSRL Headlines is published electronically monthly to inform SSRL users,
sponsors and other interested people about happenings at SSRL. SSRL is a
national synchrotron user facility operated by Stanford University for the U.S.
Department of Energy Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Additional support for
the structural biology program is provided by the DOE
Office of Biological and Environmental Research, the NIH
National Center for Research Resources and the
NIH Institute for General Medical Sciences. Additional information about
SSRL and its operation and schedules is available from the SSRL WWW site: http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/
You can subscribe or remove your name from the distribution list by sending a
brief email with your request to Lisa Dunn, editor, at lisa@ssrl.slac.stanford.edu.
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