"Pentaquark" discovery: Press coverage and reactions are prolific surrounding the independent discovery of an exotic five-quark particle, the "pentaquark" by Japanese and American physicists. Jefferson Lab researcher Stepan Stepanyan presented results of the CLAS (CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer) collaboration experiment at the Conference on the Intersections of Nuclear and Particle Physics. See feature article in JLab On Target. For the general public, a description of the pentaquark is accessible on the Ohio University web site.
JLab and SNS: Jefferson Lab delivered its first production cryomodule for the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) superconducting linear accelerator in June. JLab, one of six national labs involved in the $1.4 billion DOE project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, built the prototype cryomodule last year. After testing, it was loaded onto a flatbed semi for a trial road trip, to ensure the rigors of travel would not damage the extremely sophisticated and sensitive mechanisms within the cryomodule. After a final round of tests ensured its road-worthiness, JLab load the first "medium-beta" Spallation Neutron Source production cryomodule onto a flatbed semi for transport to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Since that time JLab's cryomodule production line has been in full gear. Work on several more cryomodules is well underway. JLab will produce a total of 23 cryomodules for the SNS. JLab contact: Debbie Magaldi.
FY2004 funding for DOE Office of Science: Reports of both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees for FY2004 Energy and Water Development appropriations bills include increases for the Office of Science. The House recommendation provides for additional funding for increased operations and enhanced user support at Jefferson Lab and Brookhaven National Lab and for R&D and pre-conceptual design work for the Rare Isotope Accelerator. Both the House and Senate Committees encourage the Department of Energy to grant approval (CD-0) for the Jefferson Lab 12 GeV upgrade with adequate FY2005 funding. Source: FYI: the AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News, No.95, July 21, 2003.
National Laboratory Improvement Council (NLIC): At the recent meeting of the National Laboratory Improvement Council (NLIC) on July 17-18, senior DOE program officials discussed topics of interests in the Science, Defense, Fossil Energy, and Energy Conservation program areas with the Council. NLIC provides a forum for the DOE and its national labs to exchange information on topics of current interest, for the labs to share information, best practices and lessons learned, and to anticipate trends and developments in the application of modern management improvement principles to the administration and operations of the DOE national laboratories. SURA Director of Contract Relations Grace Plummer and JLab Director of the Office of Assessment James Murphy attended the meeting and represent SURA and the Lab on the NLIC. SURA contact: Grace Plummer; JLab contact: James Murphy.
Blue Ribbon Commission: The Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board (SEAB) Blue Ribbon Commission on the Use of Competitive Procedures for Department of Energy Laboratories heard from management and operating (M&O) contractors and lab directors on August 5 as part of its deliberation on the use of competition in renewing and extending the M&O contracts for DOE's national laboratories. This meeting had two parts: a closed fact-finding session where corporate representatives and lab directors met with the commission to discuss and clarify points presented in the laboratories written comments; followed by a public session which provided interested members of the public with an opportunity to provide input directly to the commission members concerning the use of competition in awarding M&O contracts for the national laboratories. SURA President Jerry Draayer, Jefferson Lab Director Christoph Leemann, and SURA Director of Contract Relations Grace Plummer appeared before the Commission on behalf of SURA.
Information Technology
AT&T partnership/networking infrastructure: SURA is continuing to work with AT&T to finalize a cooperative agreement that will provide SURA with no cost leases of dark fiber and donated equipment on AT&T's next generation national network. The completion of this cooperative agreement will support SURA's participation in the development of a new generation of regional and national advanced optical networks. In parallel to the completion of the cooperative agreement, SURA and our consulting partner Geographic Network Affiliates International, have begun to conduct site surveys to inspect some of the facilities and equipment that will be made available to SURA through this agreement. The information collected through these surveys will provide input for the development of a cost model for utilizing the assets and services that will be made available through the AT&T cooperative agreement. SURA contact: Gary Crane.
NSF Middleware Initiative: The NMI Integration Testbed sites will be disseminating the results of their NMI component evaluation and related application deployment at notable conferences in the coming months including two testbed track presentations at the Internet2 Members' meeting in October, Taking Grids out of the Lab and onto the Campus and Realizing Advanced Directory Services. The second NMI Integration Testbed Workshop will be held on November 3, preceding the EDUCAUSE annual conference in Anaheim, CA. Topics include enterprise-wide identity and directory services, directory-enabled applications deployment and management, and campus/research Grid roll-out strategies. A track presentation about the NMI Integration Testbed will be presented at the EDUCAUSE annual conference, on November 6. SURA contact: Mary Fran Yafchak.
PACS NMI Workshops: The SURA PACS NMI workshop on Enterprise Directories and Directory-Enabled Applications is a prototype small group training intended to catalyze broad NMI deployment. The workshop on August 19 & 20 invites participants from the AN-MSI (Advanced Networking Project for Minority-Serving Institutions) project and the CIC (Council of Independent Colleges). Attendees are taking this workshop in preparation for near-term implementation of their enterprise directory service. It will be offered again on September 23 & 24 to other members of these same communities. SURA is developing this workshop with funding from the NSF PACS program, in collaboration with NMI Integration Testbed sites Georgia State, University of Florida, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Alabama in Huntsville and the NMI-EDIT project team. SURA contact: Mary Fran Yafchak.
NSF NMI Testbed REU: SURA has been awarded an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) supplement to support five undergraduate student experiences at four NMI Integration Testbed sites: Georgia State University, the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas Austin, the University of Michigan, and the University of Virginia. The NMI Testbed sites will host students and provide proposed research experiences. Each REU position is grounded in the qualifications, experience, and facilities of the host institution but will be part of a unified NMI experience through the integration of student input into the processes of the NMI Integration Testbed Program. Students will work with middleware that is actively under development and will have opportunities to influence how that development proceeds. SURA contact: Mary Fran Yafchak.
DOE Networking Plan: SURA Director of IT Initiatives Gary Crane and IT Program Coordinator Mary Fran Yafchak provided input to the realization of the new vision for DOE Science networking. DOE Science Networking: A Roadmap to 2008 was held June 3-5, and was the culminating event in a series of related workshops sponsored by the Office of Science to re-examine its long-term strategy for high performance networking infrastructure. Key areas of the final report include: Production and High Impact Networking, Research Networking, Technology and Services. Jefferson Lab Chief Information Officer, Roy Whitney, chaired this workshop. Workshop proceedings will be published in the next few weeks. SURA contact: Gary Crane; JLab contact: Roy Whitney.
SURA Cybersecurity Working Group. SURA has approved funding for a project submitted by the SURA Cybersecurity Working Group, led by Joy Hughes, V.P.I.T. and CIO, George Mason University. SURA's funds of $33.7K will be supplemented by funds of $40K from two other sources, the Critical Infrastructure Project (a joint project of George Mason University and James Madison University) and by the GMU Instructional Foundation to support project activity in the coming year. The group will conduct a formal survey of security practices, projects, and expertise at SURA institutions in an effort to leverage regional strengths and collaboration. The specific goals are to gather data, test concepts, and develop products aimed at increasing security research funding to SURA institutions and disseminating best practices in securing IT infrastructure. Specific deliverables include a white paper that will propose partnerships and strategies to address these specific goals, an online directory of security resources, and a database of SURA institutions' best practices in various aspects of university security. SURA contact: Mary Fran Yafchak; GMU contact: Joy Hughes.
Coastal Research
Coastal Data Working Group & Workshop. SURA has received a $127K grant from the Office of Naval Research to manage a partnership project that will complement SCOOP goals. SURA will manage a one-year activity designed to engage a broad cross-section of the coastal science community in developing and implementing community standards for data exchange. Activities will include a workshop, in coordination with Ocean.US, to - lay the foundation for collaboration between researchers and around the country along with participating federal agencies. The Working Group will coordinate with Ocean.US to target top priorities in their Data Management and Communications (DMAC) Implementation Plan, which will launch the creation of a national federation of regional ocean observing systems. SURA contact: Philip Bogden.
GRID Workshop: Several SCOOP partners attended an informal Grid workshop at the University of Florida on July 31. The University of Florida's Peter Sheng was the organizer of this SCOOP-supported one-day event, which included key leaders in two established Grid projects: Grid Physics Network (GriPhyN) and In-Virtual Information Grid Organizations (In-VIGO). In addition to SURA representatives, President Jerry Draayer, Acting SCOOP Director Philip Bogden, IT Steering Group member Don Riley, Coastal Research Fellow Don Wright, about thirty others from SURA partner institutions and southeastern observing systems participated in this one-day event. Workshop findings will be published shortly on the SCOOP web pages. SURA contact: Philip Bogden.
Tech Transfer and Commercialization and Other SURA Projects
COVITS: Senior executives from business, government and academia will meet at the Commonwealth of Virginia Information Technology Summit (COVITS 2003) to discuss technology issues and solutions and propose solutions to critical technology issues. This year's conference will take place September 21-23, at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center in Roanoke, Virginia and will explore the challenges of merging disparate systems and organizations into a single, highly responsive and secure enterprise IT environment. COVITS 2003 is hosted by Virginia Secretary of Technology George C. Newstrom, in partnership with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), on behalf of Virginia Governor Mark R. Warner. SURA is participating as a Bronze Sponsor. SURA contact: Matt Thomas.
Girvan Institute: SURA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Girvan Institute, a non-profit corporation chartered to foster public-private partnerships for NASA. Girvan and SURA have agreed to work together in commercialization efforts of their respective technologies, specifically to: geographically cover the east, west, and southern coasts of the U.S; enhance the scope and scale of activities; increase the leverage from private sector sources; share best practices and business approaches; and effectively develop joint programs to leverage resources. SURA contact: Matt Thomas.
Dingman Center partnership: The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business has concluded its work for SURA on two projects related to the commercialization of technologies emerging from the Jefferson Lab, specifically terahertz energy and its applications and gamma ray detection of nuclear cargo. The Dingman Center has submitted reports elucidating potential paths of commercialization, supported by market data, sizing and trends, and analysis of potential applications. SURA contact: Matt Thomas.
Executive, Management, Administrative
Council Vice-Chair. Chancellor John White, University of Arkansas, will serve as the Vice-Chair of the SURA Council of Presidents. Chancellor White is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and serves on the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation. He joined the University of Arkansas five years ago after 22 years at Georgia Tech including his tenure as the dean of engineering. Chancellor White will assume the SURA Council presidency in 2004 during which time he will also chair the SURA Executive Committee. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.
Board appointment - College of William & Mary: SURA welcomes to the Board Provost Geoffrey Feiss, who has been appointed by President Timothy Sullivan as the institutional representative from the College of William and Mary. Feiss will complete the unexpired term of Gillian Cell who retired in June. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.
Board appointment - University of Tennessee: SURA welcomes to the Board Henry (Harry) McDonald, Interim Vice President for Research and Information Technology, who has been appointed by President John Shumaker as the institutional representative from the University of Tennessee. McDonald will complete the unexpired term of Dwayne McCay who left the University in July. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.
Fall Board meeting: LSU Chancellor Mark Emmert, Council Chair, will host the Board at Louisiana State University for its Fall meeting on November 11&12, 2003. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.
Development Committee: The SURA Development Committee met to discuss future, large- scale collaborative efforts among our institutions. Over twenty Chief Research Officers were represented from our universities and colleges. Presentations from Gillian Woollett, VP Science of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and Nathan Tinker, Vice President of the NanoBusiness Alliance, were followed by discussion among the group on the areas of biotechnology/biomedical research and nanotechnology. The group also discussed other areas of potential collaboration, including homeland security science and technology and next-generation light sources. A Steering Committee was formed and will be following up on the action items and discussion points from this meeting. SURA contact: Matt Thomas.
SURA staff. SURA welcomes new staff members:
Acting Director of SCOOP. Philip Bogden joins SURA as Acting Director of SCOOP. Bogden, CEO of the Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System (GoMOOS), will also serve concurrently to direct SURA's coastal research initiative to create a robust integrated data system linking coastal ocean observations along the entire east coast from Maine to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Texas and a complementary modeling grid. Bogden holds a Ph.D. in oceanography from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and has been an assistant professor in the University of Connecticut Department of Marine Sciences and in Yale University's Department of Geology and Geophysics.
Director of Contract Relations. Grace Plummer joins SURA as Director of Contract Relations. Plummer has over 20 years experience with the Department of Energy with her most recent assignment being the Lead Project Officer in the Office of Contract Reform in the Deputy Secretary's Office working on incorporating performance-based contracting in the DOE. Prior to that position, Plummer was the Director of the Pacific Area Support Office in the Nevada Operations Office, directing the activities and contract administration for a major base operations and logistics contract. Plummer holds a BA in history and English, MS in Information and Library Science, and MS in National Resource Management.
Office Administrator. Christie Smith joins SURA as an Office Administrator. Smith is responsible for receptionist, secretarial, and office organization duties. She is a recent graduate of the University of Georgia with a BA in Political Science and has worked on the campaigns for several congressional candidates.
