By Ron Kolb
If he had to sum up the state of Berkeley Lab at this point in history in one phrase, Director Charles Shank would probably characterize it as "stable, productive, and in need of new initiatives for a secure future."
That was the message he delivered to a capacity audience in the Bldg. 50 auditorium on May 29 during his annual address assessing the scientific and operational health of the Laboratory. While summarizing the most noteworthy scientific achievements of the past year, Shank also cautioned that continuing success will depend upon creativity and the ability to work together.
"We all have to pull together" if the Laboratory's budget is to remain steady, he told employees in the auditorium, in Bldg. 66 via video link, and over the Internet in Washington. "This is a wonderful place to bring synergies together between the fields. To survive, we must be effective in our partnerships and we must deliver on our commitments."
It is ironic, he noted, that at Berkeley Lab--the birthplace of team science--professional conflicts have arisen, "and we haven't done the greatest job of resolving them. This is symptomatic of problems at many institutions that have long histories. What has to be done is to bring everyone together to solve problems."
He noted the challenge of the Advanced Light Source as a prime example. Criticized in a recent national review for its underdeveloped scientific program and its inattention to user needs, the ALS is now on a positive path toward reinventing itself thanks to a collaborative effort between scientists, technicians and the user community.
"The [Birgeneau] report was a wake-up call, and we will benefit from this review," Shank said. "We want to reestablish the scientific base. The workshop [on scientific directions, held here in March] produced a variety of exciting new ideas to begin revalidating the baseline of scientific programs."
Both the scientific effort and operational output of the ALS have been rising at a rapid pace, Shank noted on a viewgraph. Beamlines devoted to protein crystallography, environmental sciences, and advanced materials hold great promise, and cumulative station hours will nearly double in the 18 months that conclude Jan. 1, 1999.
Another challenge in Berkeley Lab's continuing role as a part of the nation's scientific enterprise is in structural and functional genomics. Shank recalled the opening last December of the new genome sciences lab and the forthcoming operation of the Joint Genome Institute sequencing facility in Walnut Creek. Sequencing submissions are expected to reach the goal of more than 22 million base pairs by September of this year, he said.
Further development of computational science--particularly the utilization of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center--was also cited as a priority. Shank noted the Department of Energy's development of a Strategic Simulation Initiative, which will propose major computing advances in the areas of climate modeling, combustion, and fundamental science in the FY2000 budget. Berkeley Lab hopes to play a major role in that initiative, he said.
Shank also mentioned "one of the most important, yet most frustrating, initiatives"--inertial confinement fusion--as important to Berkeley Lab's future. Building on the laser-based target science flowing from Livermore's National Ignition Facility, Berkeley Lab could build an accelerator alternative, taking advantage of heavy ions to create a fusion ignition. Funding such a $200-$300 million machine might be problematic, but the Lab's capabilities--which will sharpen from the experience of building an accelerator for the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility (DARHT)--are positioned to compete for the project.
The Director also highlighted various interlaboratory partnerships to which Berkeley Lab contributes--the Spallation Neutron Source, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, the B-Factory, and the Large Hadron Collider, for example--which hold important keys to the future for Berkeley Lab.
"These and future partnerships will be a very important way to stabilize our budget and provide an important scientific base for the future," Shank said. He characterized the prospective FY99 budget as "roughly flat," not likely to digress significantly from this year's $292 million operating budget.
Shank praised the individuals who had earned scientific honors during the past year and acknowleged their "extraordinary contributions" to their fields. He pointed out that Berkeley Lab recently finished third (behind Cambridge and NEC Corporation) on an international list of institutions whose citations in physical science papers had the greatest impact from 1990 to 1997.
The Director also took a moment to emphasize the importance of safety in the workplace. "We must have the creativity to do great science and the discipline to execute the work safely," he told employees. "If we're not executing properly, it will cost us in time and money. Incidents will happen, but it's how we respond that's important. Be vigilant."
Director Shank's State of the Labo-ratory address is available on videotape via overnight loan from the main library in Bldg. 50.
Photo:Director Charles Shank. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt (XBD9805-01431-17)
Photo:Director Charles Shank emphasized the importance of interlaboratory projects, such as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider experiment. Berkeley Lab built the STAR Time Projection Chamber (above) and shipped it to Brookhaven last year.
By Lynn Yarris
"It shows us that we really don't know nothin'," said Nobel physics laureate Leon Lederman in response to last week's announcement from Japan of evidence that neutrinos have mass.
Results from two years of data collected on the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector indicate that the elusive subatomic particle has a mass at least one-ten billionth that of an electron. Most interpretations of the Standard Model of particles and forces hold that neutrinos have no more mass than a wraith.
"These results really do shake up the Standard Model in a serious way," said Lederman, former director of Fermilab who shared a Nobel prize for showing there was more than one type of neutrino. The Standard Model says there are three types or "flavors" of neutrinos--the electron, muon, and tau neutrinos. However, the Super-Kamiokande results imply that there might be a fourth, fifth, or even a sixth flavor--"sterile" neutrinos that could be detected only through their minuscule gravitational effects.
Despite its tiny mass, the neutrino story packed a mighty wallop with the media. Major stories appeared in the likes of The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Time magazine. There were reports on network television and radio and on the Internet. Science as a whole can be gladdened that the public shows keen interest when exciting research findings are announced. Even when the findings involve a subject as esoteric as the neutrino.
Theorized in 1930 but not detected until 1956, neutrinos, which were created in the Big Bang and in the nuclear fusion process that powers the stars, are the most plentiful residents of the universe. There are thought to be some 50 billion of them for every electron, and their collective mass could be comparable to that of all the visible stars and galaxies. Yet neutrinos interact so faintly with ordinary matter that they are much like ghosts, able to travel through millions of miles of lead without causing a stir.
The international team of about 100 U.S. and Japanese scientists at the Super-Kamiokande did not actually measure mass in the neutrinos, but instead observed a deficit and lower energies in muon neutrinos created in the atmosphere by cosmic radiation after the neutrinos traveled hundreds of kilometers through the Earth. This indicates that muon neutrinos oscillate--and to oscillate they must have mass.
"People will now have to take the idea of neutrino mass more and more seriously," Berkeley Lab physicist and neutrino authority Eric Norman told Science magazine.
Still, the Super-Kamiokande experiment did not provide an exact mass for the neutrino, nor, in studying atmospheric neutrinos, did it answer the mystery of solar neutrinos. Only a fraction of the neutrinos that the sun must be producing, according to what is known about nuclear fusion, reaches Earth. Scientists would like to know why. These answers won't be forthcoming until the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory comes on line next year. Unlike the Super-Kamiokande detector which could only detect muon and electron neutrinos, SNO can detect tau-neutrinos as well, and will directly detect fluxes of neutrinos coming from the sun.
Says Kevin Lesko, a Lab physicist and project leader for the Berkeley part of the SNO experiment, "Super-K has given us a tremendous statistical knowledge of neutrino (oscillation) events. With respect to atmospheric neutrinos, their announcement is exciting, but I'm still skeptical. There's an awful lot of theory that goes into the production of muons and ions when cosmic rays strike the atmosphere, which is hard to understand really well."
Any discussion involving the enigmatic neutrino seems bound to generate a difference of opinions. As far back as 1960, author John Updike wrote of neutrinos:
At night, they enter at Nepal
And pierce the lover and his lass.
From underneath the bed--you call
It wonderful; I call it crass."
Photo: Berkeley Lab is a collaborator in the experiments now underway at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada. SNO will be able to directly detect fluxes of neutrinos coming from the sun. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt (XBD9802-00210-02)
By Paul Preuss
How does Superman do it?
With wavelengths from less than a tenth of a nanometer (a billionth of a meter) to about 50 nanometers, x-rays and extreme ultraviolet light easily penetrate many materials and are strongly absorbed by others. Never mind the x-ray source; how does the Man of Steel focus his x-ray vision?
It's a good bet that there are no lenses in Superman's eyes, but mirrors or zone plates instead--not made of steel but of alternating layers of materials such as tungsten and carbon.
"Mirrors are nothing new in x-ray astronomy, microscopy and other scientific applications," says James Underwood of the Lab's Center for X-Ray Optics (CXRO), "but until the last decade or so these have not been normal-incidence mirrors."
At normal incidence light strikes the surface more or less at right angles, as with an ordinary wall mirror; x-rays and extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) are mostly absorbed at these angles. However, as Underwood explains, "even materials which almost completely absorb radiation at normal incidence can be very good reflectors if the radiation strikes at a glancing or grazing incidence."
By stacking ring-shaped mirrors of different curvatures--sections of paraboloids and hyperboloids--x-rays can be coaxed through successive grazing angles to a tight focus. To get normal-incidence reflection at short wavelengths, however, requires a trick: interference.
Interference is a fundamental consequence of the wave nature of light. Waves that are out of phase interfere destructively and are canceled; waves that are in phase interfere constructively and are amplified.
When materials with different properties of refraction (bending) and absorption are layered together, some light is reflected from the interface and some is transmitted. Where the glass of a camera lens meets the air, for example, light is reflected and does not reach the film, but an optical coating of the right thickness can cancel the reflection.
A stack of layers of two different materials can also be designed to boost reflectivity instead of canceling it, so that light reflected at each interface constructively interferes with light reflected from other interfaces. The amplified reflection offsets losses due to absorption.
"Most good camera lenses have antireflective coatings," says Underwood. "In visible light there's a whole cookbook of designs for thin-film reflective coatings."
The idea of mirrors that could reflect x-rays and EUV at normal incidence by using constructive interference to amplify weak reflections was suggested in the early 1920s, long before their fabrication was practical.
"Finally in 1940 a multilayer mirror was fabricated from gold, which is dense, and from less-dense copper," Underwood says. "It had layers about 10 nanometers thick and could reflect x-rays with a wavelength of about seven nanometers. Unfortunately gold and copper rapidly diffuse into each other, and the mirror's reflective power decayed in a few days."
Then, in the late 1970s, Troy Barbee and his colleagues at Stanford University developed a precise method of depositing alternating layers of materials only a few atoms thick on a substrate. Atoms are sputtered off separate sources and mounted over a turntable which alternately moves the substrate under one source, then the other. By controlling such variables as power to the sources and distance to the substrate, uniform layers are built up.
Meanwhile Eberhard Spiller at IBM was developing a technique using electron beams to evaporate the materials. Both methods are now used to manufacture mirrors from materials such as tungsten and carbon, molybdenum and beryllium, and molybdenum and silicon. The mirrors typically have 30 to 100 layers, each no more than a dozen atoms thick. CXRO began making, testing and using multilayer mirrors in 1984.
"We make molybdenum and silicon multilayer mirrors that are capable of reflecting over 60 percent of 13.5-nanometer EUV," says Underwood. "Recently we've gotten up to 68 percent."
An area of great practical promise for multilayer mirrors lies in microlithography for the computer chips of the future. Manufacturers of integrated circuits continually seek to pack more and more features on chips, which requires better resolution, which in turn requires shorter wavelengths--much shorter than the 248-nanometer deep-ultraviolet light now used commercially.
"EUV light at 13.5 nanometers could etch features as small as 100 nanometers across," says Eric Gullikson, also a member of CXRO, "The path to high resolution leads to shorter wavelengths, but as wavelengths get shorter, it's the errors in the optical surface that will limit performance."
Gullikson and his colleagues have recently used one of the two Calibra-tion and Standards beamlines built by CXRO at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) to measure scattering from multilayer mirrors directly for the first time. No matter how uniform the layers, roughness in the underlying mirror substrate can cause EUV light to be scattered at angles away from the reflected beam, leading to a loss of contrast and brightness. "Scattering increases with decreased wavelength," Gullikson says, "and it's a big jump to go from a couple of hundred nanometers down to 13.5."
To count scattered photons at angles up to 40 degrees from the main reflected beam, Gullikson uses a channel electron multiplier mounted on a moving arm. Because the incoming beam of EUV light from the ALS is so intense and so tightly focused, scattering can be measured over angles as tiny as a hundredth of a degree.
In another technique, the beam is shone directly onto the test mirror through a hole in a circular plate. Most of the beam is reflected straight back through the hole, but scattered light hits the plate, which is riddled with microchannels that produce showers of electrons when struck by photons. These excite a phosphor screen immediately behind the plate to create a pattern that can be viewed directly.
"One of the main outcomes of our work was to show that we could use conventional optics and atomic-force microscopes to predict the pattern of scattering that we actually observed," says Gullikson. "This lends confidence to the design, manufacture, and quality control of multilayer mirrors for EUV lithography."
Multilayer coatings have many other applications. They can improve the performance of glancing-incidence mirrors; used on diffraction gratings, they can sharply select certain wavelengths and suppress others; and lens-like zone plates (concentric clear and opaque rings) etched into multilayers can focus x-rays of highly specific wavelengths.
In less than two decades multilayer technology has become an indispensable tool for the scientific investigation of the physical world--and the creation of a new world of computer technology to come.
Results of multilayer-mirror scattering measurements can be seen on the ALS website at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/science/sci_archive/EUVmirrors.html.
Photo: James Underwood and Eric Gullikson used the CXRO's Calibration and Standards Beamline at the Advnced Light Source to measure scattering from multilayer mirrors. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt (XBD9806-01458-03)
A channel electron multiplier looks like a miniature French horn, positioned so that its bell points toward the light scattered from the mirror being tested. When a photon flies into the glass bell it knocks an electron off the resistive inner surface; that electron flies into the spiraling tube and knocks off more electrons, which in turn knock off more and more until a strong electrical signal is produced. A mechanical arm moves the device to various angles in front of the mirror, and a computer records the intensity of the scattered photons at each position.
Photo:Channel electron multiplier. (XBD9806-01458-04)
Attorneys representing Berkeley Lab argued in court this week that the Laboratory's environmental review on proposed changes to its waste handling facility operations were more than adequate to satisfy California legal requirements.
Berkeley Lab defended its procedures in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland, with Judge Henry Needham presiding. The Lab was sued last June by an environmental activist coalition, the Group to Eliminate Toxics, which charged that an additional Environmen-tal Impact Report (EIR) was required before the University of California approved the facility changes.
The Laboratory completed an EIR on Hazardous Waste Handling Facility operations in 1990.
After hearing about 90 minutes of arguments from the two sides, Needham took the matter under submission. He promised to return with his verdict by Friday, June 19, or "hopefully sooner."
"The Laboratory is proud of the pro-cess it conducted," said Mike Zischke, at attorney from Landels, Ripley and Diamond representing Berkeley Lab. "We think the Lab has done much more than CEQA [the California Environ-mental Quality Act] requires. We offered a longer public comment period than was required, and we responded to all comments, which was not required."
Zischke spent most of his time before Judge Needham rejecting the charges of the plaintiffs' attorney, Michael Freund. In his remarks, Freund accused the Laboratory of failing to include certain facts in the Initial Study for the waste handling facility changes. And he said the Lab did an inadequate job assessing the impacts of the proposed project changes on the environment.
"The Lab has not followed through in its stewardship responsibility," Freund told the judge.
Zischke pointed out that an additional EIR was not required because the facility's changes would not create any new or substantially more significant impacts than those considered in prior CEQA reviews. Among the reviews were the 1990 EIR on the Hazardous Waste Handling Facility, a 1992 Supplemental EIR, and two Initial Studies. The Lab's present CEQA determination, a "subsequent mitigated negative declaration," is based on these reviews and on an additional Initial Study.
"The Lab made a very reasoned decision after a great deal of analysis," Zischke said. "It has a thorough and abundant record which meets the `substantial evidence' test for this case."
The waste handling facility changes will allow the Lab to continue its handling and storage of hazardous, radioactive and mixed wastes in an environmentally safe manner. Most of the modifications accommodate on-site storage for the Lab's mixed waste until off-site storage, treatment and disposal facilities can receive the Lab's waste.
Freund spent considerable time addressing the Lab's tritium emissions and their alleged risks to families and children. Zischke called the issue a "red herring" and reminded the court that tritium air emissions make up about one percent of the regulatory standards established by the Environmental Protection Agency. "Tritium is in the environment, and it occurs naturally," he said. "But its presence is so low as to be insignificant."
The proceedings began with the Laboratory attorneys winning a motion to strike from the record documents dealing with tritium inventories and transportation which Freund proposed to include.
Today's edition of the Web Corner offers a few suggestions for searching through the maze of websites at Berkeley Lab. See Page 5.
The subcommittee approved DOE's requests for $157 million for the Spallation Neutron Source and for small increases in the high energy and nuclear physics programs.
Funding of $407.6 million ($15 million more than DOE requested) was approved for biological and environmental research activities. Energy Research Director Martha Krebs said the increase would allow the department to develop a 10-year program to assess how people are affected by low doses of ionizing radiation. The department would have 120 days after Presi-dent Clinton approves the FY99 budget to submit an initial five-year plan for the program.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences also fared well under the committee's bill which tabbed it to get the same $232 million in FY99 that it received in FY98. DOE had sought to cut fusion funding to $228.2 million. The committee called on DOE "to determine which fusion or fusion technologies the United States should pursue to achieve a fusion energy device."
One area of ER programs that did not fare so well was computational sciences, which the committee voted to cut by $10.6 million, leaving them with $172.2 million. Krebs said the reduction may have resulted from appropriators' displeasure with DOE's plan for participating in the Next Generation Internet. Despite the proposed reduction, DOE still plans to fully fund its NGI participation, Krebs says.
The appropriations bill also proposes to change the name of Krebs' office from "Energy Research" to the "Office of Science Research," to reflect the division's real mission, the report said. Krebs has apparently told reporters for Inside Energy that she prefers the existing name. "I think `energy research' gives a better picture about the office's responsibilities," she said.
The Senate's version of the ER budget is expected to face a fight in the House. Harlan Watson, staff director for the House Science subcommittee on energy, recently said, "There's a concern within the House that the department is building new facilities but never asks for enough money to operate them." Watson predicted the subcommittee would approve its part of the DOE budget by June 26, when Congress leaves for the Fourth of July recess. --Lynn Yarris
Photo: A PBS crew filmed at the Advanced Light Source last week for their four-part documentary series on microbes, entitled "Intimate Strangers: Unseen Life on Earth," to be aired early next year. The crew interviewed Jennie Hunter-Cevera (far right) and her colleagues, and took helicopter shots of the Lab. Hoi-Ying Holman is pictured next to Hunter-Cevera. Producer Julio Moline described the special as "the first-ever comprehensive look at microbiology on prime-time television." Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt (XBD9806-01479)
Colleagues of scientist Chun-Fai Chan of the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division were shocked and saddened by the news of his death from liver failure on May 23. Chan worked in the Lab's fusion program, conducting numerical analysis of proposed alternative methods of creating and transporting high current ion beams. He was 57.
Born in China and raised in Hong Kong, Chan earned his bachelor of science degree in physics from the National Taiwan University in 1962. He came to the United States in 1966 to attend UC Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. in physics in 1972. His thesis work was concerned with consequences of the multiperipheral model of high energy particle scattering.
Chun-Fai Chan joined the staff at Berkeley Lab in 1972 and worked as a mathematician and computer scientist until 1981. He then moved to AFRD's Magnetic Fusion Program, where he became an expert in the computational modeling of ion sources and their extraction systems.
His careful and organized work style were an ideal match to this area of applied research, in which seemingly minor variations of electrode design can produce major differences in extracted beam quality.
He was particularly proud of his numerical analysis of the TFTR injector design, an essential feature in the success of this fusion experiment located at Princeton, NJ. Chan's main tool in this work, as in other designs, was the WOLF particle-in-cell simulation code, for which he became the principal caretaker, documenter and world expert.
Besides spending time with his family, Chan enjoyed reading, photography, and automobiles. He is survived by his wife of 29 years, Mei Mei, and his children, Frank, 25, and Amy, 21.--Edward Lee
The Technology Transfer Department is announcing two calls for proposals, with kickoff meetings on Friday, June 26, 9 to 10 a.m., and Tuesday, June 30, noon to 1 p.m., in Bldg. 2-100.
DOE's ER Laboratory Technology Research program is calling for proposals for new multi-year partnership projects to begin in FY99. Each project is targeted for up to $750,000 in DOE funds over a three-year period. Pre-proposals are due by August 14.
The Thrust 2 proposals for the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention Program involve a Lab PI, a US industrial partner, and a scientific team at a defense facility in the Newly Independent States. Proposals are funded at the $250,000/year level for up to three years.
For more information on ER-LTR, contact Tech Transfer's Chris Kniel (X5566; crkniel@lbl.gov). For Thrust 2 IPP, contact Tech Transfer's Glen Dahlbacka (X5358; ghdahlbacka@ lbl.gov).
Martha Krebs, director of the Office of Energy Research, will make an address on "Energy Research: Looking Ahead" on Tuesday, June 23, from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in the Bldg. 50 auditorium. The talk will also be broadcast via video link to Bldg. 66.
Ron Kolb, PID department head.
EDITOR: Monica Friedlander, X2248 (495-2248 from outside),
msfriedlander@lbl.gov
STAFF WRITERS: Paul Preuss, X6249; Lynn Yarris, X5375
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Jon Bashor, X5849; Allan Chen, X4210; Jeffery Kahn
X4019
FLEA MARKET / CALENDAR: Jacqueline Noble, X5771
fleamarket@lbl.gov / currents_calendar@lbl.gov
Public Information Department, Berkeley Lab, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley CA 94720 Tel: (510) 486-5771 Fax: (510) 486-6641
Berkeley Lab is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Gathered together with supervisors flanked at their sides, four recent participants in the UC Professional Skills Assessment Program (PSAP) were happy to have just completed the three-and-a-half day in-residence program. It was a far cry from the apprehension they felt just days before.
PSAP is designed to give administrative assistants I through III an opportunity to devote time and energy to their professional development in order to enhance their career-related skills. Applicants must be career employees with at least one year of service at the Lab.
Before arriving for the PSAP, participants had to complete a managerial exercise. The homework consisted of a business problem which they had to analyze and provide recommendations for. It took Edith Perry of the Environment Health and Safety Division some 15 hours to complete the exercise.
Perry, who works with Deputy Division Director Jack Bartley, has been with the Lab for four years and hopes to move up to the division administrator level. Two years ago her supervisor first encouraged her to apply for the program even though she felt she was not ready yet. It was an opportunity Perry did not want to miss, and she was selected as a first alternate. Although she did not participate in PSAP that year, she received some valuable feedback from a few of her mentors, which prepared her for this year's program.
Each year in January, the administrative staff may submit a PSAP application and statement of purpose, which are reviewed by a selection committee. According to coordinator Delia Clark, the committee considers each employee's work history, the quality of the statement of purpose, as well as a statement of support from the employee's supervisor.
Supervisors are specifically asked why they are recommending an employee, how they intend to support the employee in his or her career development and whether or not they see any potential benefits of PSAP both for the employee and for the department.
During the course of the program, participants are evaluated on 11 specific skills: oral communication, written communication, data analysis, problem analysis and formulation of recommendation, interpersonal, effective planning and organizing, political awareness, leadership and initiative, personal impact, conflict resolution, and delegation.
Once the professional level exercises have been completed, each participant is evaluated on a certain skills set. Then participants evaluate each other on the same overall skills. "I thought the exercises fit the objectives," said Carol Taliaferro of the Earth Sciences Division. "It's the only function I've been to where they focused on me."
Taliaferro said she was particularly impressed with her assessor. "She knew the procedures for feedback and was very frank and forthright," Taliaferro said. "I respected her opinion a lot."
Each participant is assigned an assessor who is selected from the administrative pool of participating campuses and labs. The role of the assessor is to provide the participant with objective feedback based on observations and behaviors. Clark says the participant must be very open to hear what the assessor is telling them.
Says Karin Levy of the Directorate, "It gave me time to look at myself, work on myself and assess my strengths and weaknesses. I would definitely recommend it for others."
All the participants agreed that the program met its objectives and more. Perry said the program heightened her goals but it did not change them. Alicia Sheppard of the Life Sciences Division, on the other hand, felt her goals had changed considerably. It was during the preparation process for submission that Sheppard mentioned her other career interest to her supervisor, Karen Springsteen. "I am interested in proposal preparation and submission of grants" she told her. "I hope to eventually work in the proposal section of Life Sciences Division." After attending the program, Sheppard feels she is able to look at her strengths and weaknesses more critically and is ready to take on new challenges. As a result, Sheppard is now moving on to a different position.
PSAP program coordinator Delia Clark would like to see more participation in the program, and encourages former participants to get word to their colleagues about their experiences with PSAP. "Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool," she said. "We need more communication about the program to create a better awareness for the ASD staff and their supervisors."
Photo: Carol Taliaferro, Edith Perry and Karin Levy are three of the four Lab employees who went through the Professional Skills Assessment Program last month. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt (XBD9801-01491)
What is the quickest way to find information on the web here at the Laboratory? Two tools, both accessible from the Laboratory's home page (http://www.lbl.gov), probably offer the best shortcut to finding information. Both the Site Index and the search engine can provide nonstop service to web browsers.
The search site at http://search.lbl.gov allows you to do a keyword search, either labwide or on one of 24 major individual Lab websites. In its ability to do both types of searches, the Lab's search site is unique within the national laboratory complex.
You can search by keyword on individual websites run by each of the different scientific and support divisions here. Other sites that can be searched individually include Facilities Planning, Human Resources, the Health and Safety Manual, the Library, Public Information, and Technology Transfer. To choose a site to search, use the dropdown menu on the Lab's search page.
From the same search page, a separate form allows you to search the web worldwide. Another dropdown menu allows you to select your favorite search engine. The choices--AltaVista, HotBot, Metacrawler, Excite, Infoseek, Yahoo, and Lycos--are among the highest rated, most efficient search engines on the web.
Using this internal site to submit a query to an offsite search engine has several advantages. Because the site is internal, connection to it is swift. Moreover, if you do not find what you seek right away, you can readily send your query to another search engine.
An alternate way to find information here is to use the Site Index link on the Lab's home page. This connects you to an alphabetized list of some 350 different Laboratory websites. To add a new website or one that is not currently included to the index, contact either Jeffery Kahn (jbkahn@lbl.gov) or Martin Gelbaum (mgelbaum@lbl.gov), who run the main web server.
Finally, keep this in mind when searching the web: Finding information in a library or bookstore takes a little time and effort. The same is true for the web--a realm equally vast.--Jeffery Kahn
Berkeley Lab's Michael O'Keefe of the National Center for Electron Microscopy and Bahram Parvin of Information Computing Sciences will show members of Congress how to use the Internet to perform real-time experiments with electron microscopes in California from a workstation in the House of Represent-atives in Washington, D.C.
Four demonstrations on June 17 and 18 will showcase collaborative technologies organized through Department of Energy labs. O'Keefe and Parvin will demonstrate the Materials Microcharac-terization Collaboratory, a "virtual collaboration" which integrates instrumentation at six DOE user facilities to study materials at the atomic and molecular level.
Those of you who cannot make it to Washington next week will have a chance to see remote-controlled microscopy demonstrated here at the Lab at an NCEM symposium on electron microscopy on June 25 from 1 to 5 p.m. in the Bldg. 66 auditorium. Uli Dahmen, director of NCEM, will demonstrate remote operation of the microscopes.
The Berkeley Lab Web Publishers Group will meet on Thursday, June 25, from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in the 50A-5132 conference room. The subject for this session will be "Two Development Approaches for Web Interfaces to Relational Databases: Apache Perl and Seeker Framework."
Berkeley Lab will participate in the twelfth annual Juneteenth Festival, to be held Sunday, June 21, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Berkeley's Ashby-Adeline business district.
Juneteenth is now emerging as a major expression of African American culture across the country. The Lab's Work Force Diversity Office and the Human Resources Department are co-sponsoring a booth to provide general information on the Lab's research, programs, and employment opportunities. Attendance is expected to exceed last year's figure of 40,000.
The festival is a joint effort involving city officials, corporations, community groups, businesses, churches, media representatives, educators, and artists.
Volunteers are needed to help staff the booth in shifts of either two or three hours. To volunteer, please send e-mail to Adele Ahanotu at acahanotu@lbl.gov and indicate whether you can staff the booth in the morning or afternoon.
The Facilities Department is providing the Lab with rush courier service with pick-up and delivery both on- and off-site. Transportation can deliver up to 2,000 pounds anywhere in the Bay Area or in central or northern California. On-site materials will be delivered within one hour. For off-site service, a driver is available during normal business hours for same-day pick up and delivery, with rush service depending on destination. Off hour pick-ups and deliveries are referred to IDS Courier Service.
To request a pick up, call Peggy Patterson at X5404.
The full text and photographs of Currents are also published on the World Wide Web. You can find a link to Currents on the Lab's home page (http://www.lbl.gov) under the heading "Publications." The site allows users to do searches of past articles. To set up your computer to access the web, call the Mac and PC Support Group at X6858.
Photo: A mother robin feeds her babies in a nest she built in a Japanese maple tree next to the main entrance to Bldg. 66, to the delight of several employees in the building. "We have been watching her sit on the nest for several weeks-- even through all the rains!" said Wayne Mitchell of the Materials Sciences Division. (XBD9806-01466)
Requests for Fiscal Year 1999 computing resources on NERSC's supercomputers and data storage systems can be submitted now through Friday, July 17. To be eligible, projects must be funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Research. The allocations process is known as "ERCAP"--Energy Research Computing Allocations Process.
There are two allocation programs, corresponding to two types of computer use:
Requests for computing resources will once again be handled via the web. For an overview and allocation request form, visit the website at http://www.nersc.gov/start/allocations/.
The web page requires Version 3 or later of Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer. Javascript must be enabled. If you do not currently use the web, need to update your browser, or would like more information, send an e-mail to consult@nersc.gov or call NERSC consultants at X8611.
Applications will be reviewed and allocation decisions announced by Sept. 23. FY99 allocations will begin on Oct. 1, 1998.
Pre-registration is required for all courses except EHS 010, Introduction to Environment, Health & Safety.
To pre-register for classes, send name, employee ID number, extension, course title, EH&S course code, and date of course to EH&S: via the web (http://www-ehs.lbl.gov/training/registration/), e-mail (EHS-Train@lbl.gov), mail (EH&S Training, 90-0026, room 16C), fax (X4805) or phone (X7366).
In order to minimize inventory, keep prices down and maintain customer service, the Lab's Procurement and Facilities Departments have improved the system contract now in place with Boise Cascade, allowing employees to order directly online or by fax. Copier paper (in ten-ream cartons) formerly available from Stores, is now among the items to be ordered through Boise on a 24 hour turnaround schedule. For ordering information and pricing, visit the Procurement website at http://purch1. lbl.gov/ system.htm.
Vendors of various laser accessories, --eyewear, optics, tables, etc.--will be available to discuss their products and answer questions on Tuesday, June 16, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Perseverance Hall (Bldg. 54). Refreshments will be served.
The next tournament will be held on July 11 at Mountain Shadows Rhonert Park. For more information call Denny Parra at X4598.
Published once a month by the Communications Department for the employees and retirees of Berkeley Lab.
Reid Edwards, Public Affairs Department head
Ron Kolb, Communications Department headEDITOR
Pamela Patterson, 486-4045, pjpatterson@lbl.gov
Associate editor
Lyn Hunter, 486-4698, lhunter@lbl.govSTAFF WRITERS
Dan Krotz, 486-4019
Paul Preuss, 486-6249
Lynn Yarris, 486-5375CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Ucilia Wang, 495-2402
Allan Chen, 486-4210
David Gilbert, (925) 296-5643DESIGN
Caitlin Youngquist, 486-4020
Creative Services OfficeBerkeley Lab
Communications Department
MS 65, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley CA 94720
(510) 486-5771
Fax: (510) 486-6641Berkeley Lab is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Flea Market is now online at www.lbl.gov/fleamarket
