Jefferson Lab and Nuclear Physics

Jefferson Lab - A Worthy Investment. Virginia state delegate Preston Bryant cited the Jefferson Lab as a worthy investment to which the Commonwealth of Virginia in its budget appropriations could justifiably point to "bridge the regional gaps that sometimes divide lawmakers" because there would be "something in it for most everyone." Bryant describes Jefferson Lab as "a source of high-tech pride." As state lawmakers deliberate on the 2005 budget, efforts are in play to increase the Commonwealth of Virginia's annual investment in the Lab to its original $1 Million. In the past several years of declining budgets, the state has cut funds to SURA for the Jefferson Lab to $600K. See complete news article in Roanoke Times, October 4, 2004. SURA contact: Greg Kubiak.

Jefferson Lab Institutional Management Review. A SURA appointed peer review committee, chaired by Charles Shank, Associate Director-at-Large of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab awarded the Jefferson Lab an Outstanding rating for its overall management. Shank noted that the "members of the Committee found Jefferson Lab to be a vibrant institution which continues to be well managed and to have a clear vision of its future." The Institutional Management Review, conducted in late August, is required biennially under the terms of SURA's contract with the Department of Energy (DOE). Review panelists evaluated three elements of laboratory management: strategic planning, managerial effectiveness and corporate culture, rating the Lab Outstanding in each of these areas. See JLab September/October 2004 On Target news article.

Jefferson Lab Science and Technology Review. The DOE's Office of Science released a highly favorable report of the science and technology programs of the Jefferson Lab, describing the programs as "truly outstanding." The S&T Review is conducted annually, as required by SURA's contract with DOE, to assess the quality, productivity and significance of the laboratory's research program. Reviewers, including Office of Science Program Manager Brad Tippens, "found the research, both experimental and theoretical, to be of high quality." The review panel noted that the "research program is doing an excellent job addressing the relevant scientific questions identified by the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC)" and that "the laboratory's research has attracted considerable attention that extends beyond the nuclear physics community." See JLab July 2004 On Target news article.

SURA Thesis Award. SURA Board Chair Stephen Wallace and SURA President and CEO Jerry Draayer presented the 2003 SURA/JLab Thesis Prize to Ludyvine Morand for her thesis Measurement of Omega Electro-Production at High Four-Momentum Transfer. Morand, a graduate student of Michael Garçon at the University of Paris, was selected from among eight competitors. Her thesis was based on the first completed analysis of the first 6-GeV experiment proposed in Hall B. The fourth recipient and the first international awardee of this prize, Morand presented her talk at the annual Users Group Meeting at JLab in June at which time she received her $1,000 award and a wall plague. JLab August 2004 On Target news article.

FEL Funding. The U.S. Congress passed, and the President signed, in August the FY2005 Department of Defense Appropriations bill which included continued funding for the Jefferson Lab's free electron laser (FEL) program. This action came just after the Jefferson Lab's FEL achieved the milestone of 10 kilowatts of infrared light on July 21 (see JLab August 2004 On Target news article). It is expected that the Lab will be allocated a minimum of $11 Million in 2005 from the Navy to continue the commissioning and operation of the 10 kilowatt infrared laser and to plan for the future follow-on upgrade. The 2005 Defense appropriation also included $2.2 Million for continuation of the Air Force ultraviolet laser program at the Lab.

SURA/JLab Graduate Fellowship Program. SURA is now accepting applications for the SURA/JLab Graduate Fellowship Program. Since its inception in 1989, SURA has awarded over 100 fellowships from among almost 300 applicants under this program. Eight awards are planned for the next period to doctoral program graduate students at SURA member universities for research at the Jefferson Lab. A SURA Board subcommittee will make awards based on competitive evaluation of the applicant's academic qualifications, references, plan of study, research potential and relevance to the Jefferson Lab research programs. SURA contact: Hugh Loweth.

Coastal Research

SCOOP - SURA Coastal Ocean Observing & Prediction Program. The U.S. is on the verge of launching a national coastal ocean observing system that will revolutionize research, management, use, and stewardship of the oceans. The concept has been more than a decade in development, and has been extensively documented by Ocean.US, which coordinates activities at the Federal level. Ocean.US is developing the design framework for putting the national system into place.

The community vision is a federation of linked regional systems, with each regional system contributing data and information about its particular region. The federation should provide a seamless tapestry of integrated observations and predictions of the phenomena occurring in our coastal waters; the risk is a patchwork quilt of uncoordinated small-scale projects. This is where the SURA SCOOP program will help provide the information technology to create a seamless, integrated system.

The SCOOP program is deploying information technology that will integrate the various ocean-observing systems along the east coast of the United States, from Canada to Mexico. The goal is "interoperability," that is, a coordinated system of the data-collection and modeling activities at our partner research institutions, linked with Federal agencies and state government. The integrated system will provide an unprecedented view into the coastal ocean, it will offer new opportunities to predict marine events in much the same way that the National Weather Service predicts weather, and it will enable real-world solutions to problems of vital importance to the Nation. Scientists at several of SURA member universities are helping to lead the charge in implementing various components of the regional observing systems. SURA itself is contributing its extensive experience in using IT to facilitate regional, multi-institutional collaborations.

In the coming year, SCOOP will implement key elements of a distributed system for assessing and predicting environmental response to extreme events in the eastern U.S. coastal zone from Canada to Mexico. The program will focus on storm surge, wind waves, and surface currents, with special attention to predicting and visualizing phenomena that cause damage and inundation of coastal regions during severe storms and hurricanes. Ongoing efforts include three initiatives in: 1) data standards development; 2) a "data grid" demonstration of interoperability at the data level based on Open GIS Consortium (OGC) standards for web services; and 3) a "model grid" demonstration of coupled storm surge and wind wave prediction models that employ "Grid" technologies.

SURA contact: Joanne Bintz.

Information Technology

SURA IT Committee Meeting. The next scheduled meeting of the full SURA IT Committee will be held in conjunction with the Fall SURA Board of Trustees meeting on November 4-5 at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. The meeting agenda will focus on specific discipline and project areas, such as bio-med, international connectivity, and the work of the newly formed SURA HPC/Grids Planning Group. SURA contact: Gary Crane.

HPC/Grids Working Group Formation. The SURA HPC/Grids Initiatives Planning Group has been formed to fulfill the components of the revised SURA IT strategy focused on engaging the high performance computing and grid communities in the SURA region. The resurgence of high performance computing and e-science activities in the SURA region, coupled with new grid-related SURA programmatic activities, provide the basic building blocks for a coordinated HPC and Grid program in support of science. Further, the resources available through the SURA-AT&T GridFiber agreement complement these efforts as well. The Planning Group will be co-chaired by Ed Seidel (LSU) and Jed Diem (Tulane). SURA contact: Gary Crane.

SURA-AT&T GridFiber Deployments. SURA and AT&T have completed an important amendment to the GridFiber Agreement. This amendment, motivated by members of SURA and the national advanced networking community, including the National LambdaRail (NLR), alters several key provisions and allows for several deployments (see below). SURA contact: Gary Crane.

•  1,000 miles of AT&T dark fiber in support of the NLR backbone deployment between Jacksonville, Florida and Houston, Texas;
•  600 miles of AT&T dark fiber in support of the Texas LEARN (Lonestar Education And Research Network) network initiative;
•  approximately 340 miles of AT&T dark fiber in support of the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI);
•  150 miles of AT&T dark fiber between the Oregon cities of Eugene and Portland in support of the Network for Education and Research in Oregon (NERO); and,
•  under discussion, approximately 980 miles in support of an optical network link between Seattle, WA and Billings, MT for Lariat, a project funded by the National Institutes of Health to upgrade the network infrastructure in six rural states: Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, and Wyoming in support of the biological sciences and telemedicine.

SURA-MATP. SURA is also working with the Mid-Atlantic Terascale Partnership (MATP), a collection of SURA member institutions that support the creation of a National LambdaRail node in Northern Virginia. With a SURA investment of up to $1M to enhance network connectivity options for SURA, the Jefferson Lab and the greater Norfolk area, this effort includes membership in the MATP, thereby allowing SURA/JLab to connect to the Virginia NLR node and funds to support the lighting of a DC - Norfolk AT&T fiber route for interested Norfolk area participants. SURA contact: Gary Crane.

Atlantic Wave. The SURA Executive Committee approved the IT Steering Group's proposal that SURA pursue a collaborative project with interested regional and national Gigapops to create an East Coast-wide, open, international and domestic distributed peering and exchange infrastructure. The primary goal of this project is to provide improved access for SURA members and Jefferson Lab to international facilities such as CERN. By incorporating the primary international network landing points on the East Coast and the key networking hubs in DC (MAX) and Atlanta (SoX) into linked and integrated 'metapop' nodes, Atlantic Wave will provide easy and affordable access to very high bandwidth international connections to the research and education community in the eastern U.S. Atlantic Wave is a coordinated plan for creating lambda-level transport capability and open, neutral exchange fabrics along the Atlantic Coast. SURA contact: Gary Crane.

NMI Middleware Integration Case Studies. Case studies are being developed from the users' points of view, with emphasis on the value of NMI middleware to real life applications and decision points for successful integration. Studies will be available on the NMI Testbed Web site and disseminated at various Testbed results events and presentations. SURA contact: Mary Fran Yafchak.

NMI Testbed Final Results Workshops. SURA and the Testbed sites will present at two major academic community events this fall. Presenters will share their perspectives and knowledge gained from their work on NMI middleware integration and evaluation. SURA contact: Mary Fran Yafchak.

•  Internet2 Meeting, Austin, Texas, September 29 (immediately after the close of the I2 event) and through October 1. See agenda.
•  Perspectives from Campus and Research Middleware Integration, pre-conference seminar at EDUCAUSE 2004, October 19, 2004. See EDUCAUSE pre-conference site for program details and registration.

NMI Integration Testbed Grid. The NMI Testbed Grid project added additional participants through a recent call for expanded participation to the SURA IT Committee. The University of Arkansas, Duke, George Mason, University of South Carolina, and Tulane are joining the initial NMI Testbed sites in this effort. The project will also present at several events. SURA contact: Mary Fran Yafchak.

•  Track presentation and application demo at the Internet2 Fall 2004 members meeting, September 27-30, Austin, Texas
•  Presentation and related poster session at the Oklahoma SuperComputing Symposium 2004, October 6 & 7, University of Oklahoma
•  Poster session at SuperComputing 2004, November 6-12, Pittsburgh

NMI Integration Testbed Project Extended. The NSF has approved a no-cost extension of the Cooperative Agreement supporting SURA's management of the NMI Integration Testbed. SURA will extend its contract for this work through February 2005 while extending Testbed Site subcontracts through November 2004. This will enable Testbed sites to participate fully in workshops and case study documentation to disseminate overall project results. It will also provide time to enrich and increase the impact of the REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) and Testbed Grid sub-projects. SURA contact: Mary Fran Yafchak.

Technology Transfer and Academic Outreach

INBRE (BRIN) Biomedical Networking Workshop. SURA hosted a two-day workshop in July for over thirty participants who, following presentations and group discussions, developed a general vision statement and plan of action. The workshop was an outcome of SURA's exploration in creating a bio-medical network for the Southeast. Interested potential parties in such an initiative include the National Institutes of Health (NIH) NCRR leadership and the BRIN (now INBRE) researchers in the SURA region. SURA's IT and networking expertise were noted as being inherent benefits to such an initiative. SURA contact: Matt Thomas.

Southeast Technology Expo. SURA participated in the Southeast Technology Expo October 5-7 in the North Carolina Research Triangle as a Founding Sponsor ($20K). This first Expo, New Frontiers in Therapeutics: Emerging Technologies in Infectious Disease and Oncology, showcased emerging technologies from across the Southeast that have been created in order to forge new partnerships between universities and industry. Thirty universities and labs, including fourteen SURA member universities, presented fifty abstracts. SURA contact: Matt Thomas.

Girvan Collaboration. SURA's expanding collaboration with the Girvan Institute in Santa Clara, California, have enabled startup companies to present their company for funding to a panel of interested Silicon Valley venture capitalists. A biotech startup company that has licensed technologies in the field of chip-scale diagnostics from the University of Virginia presented in July. In August, potential investors heard from Luxxer Corporation, the same company that licensed from SURA Jefferson Lab's invention of light guide technology. See upcoming Biotech Forum, November 10-11, San Jose, CA. SURA contact: Matt Thomas.

UVa Partnership for Jefferson Lab technologies. SURA  is working with the University of Virginia Patent Foundation (UVAPF) on a trial basis to assist with technology transfer activities. UVAPF has been engaged to conduct market analysis and marketing /communications efforts on selected Jefferson Lab inventions in pursuit of licensing opportunities. UVAPF licensing managers combine scientific and  business backgrounds to bring a broad range of market expertise that will hopefully enable a streamlined process and significantly increase success rates on creating valuable licensing agreements.  SURA contact: Matt Thomas .

Executive, Management, Administrative

Fall 2004 Board Meeting. The University of Arkansas will host the Fall 2004 SURA Board of Trustees meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas on November 4 & 5, 2004. Guest speakers include Hermann Grunder, Director of Argonne National Lab and founding Director of Jefferson Lab, and Richard Spinrad, Assistant Administrator of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which, along with the Office of Naval Research, provides funds for SURA's SCOOP program. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.

Executive Committee Meeting. At its meeting in early September, the SURA Executive Committee approved the following actions. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.

Board Appointment. SURA welcomes Stephan Mintz to the Board of Trustees. Mintz is Chair and Professor of Physics at Florida International University and will serve as a member of the SURA Jefferson Lab Committee. In October 2003, FIU President Modesto Maidique awarded the Council of 100 Outstanding Faculty Award " to Mintz, a theorist in the field of nuclear and particle physics. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.

Board Appointment. SURA welcomes Ali Ansari to the Board of Trustees. Ansari is Acting Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, Research and Outreach at Virginia State University. Ansari has been appointed by President Eddie Moore to replace Wayne Virag who retired. He will serve as a member of the SURA Development Committee. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.

Board Appointment. SURA welcomes Cecil D. Burge to the Board of Trustees. Burge serves as the Vice President for Research and Economic Development at Southern Miss. He was appointed by President Shelby Thames to complete Angeline Dvorak's term as SURA Trustee following Dvorak's appointment as the President of the University's Research Foundation. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.

Board Appointment. SURA welcomes Khalil Ali Shujaee to the Board of Trustees. Shujaee, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering at Clark Atlanta University, was appointed by President Walter Broadnax to complete John Hurley's term as SURA Trustee. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.

Board Appointment. The Executive Committee endorsed the IT Committee's election of Robert Reynolds, University of Virginia, to the SURA IT Committee Steering Group. Reynolds has been UVa's Vice President and CIO since 1999. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.

SURA Staff. Joanne Bintz joins SURA as SCOOP Program Manager. Bintz, who holds a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from the University of Rhode Island, was most recently a Program Officer with the National Academies Ocean Studies Board, directing studies on various topics of ocean sciences. Bintz will be managing SURA's SCOOP program, facilitating the work and input of internal and external stakeholders.