ALSNews is a biweekly electronic newsletter to keep users and other interested parties informed about developments at the Advanced Light Source, a national user facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California. To be placed on the mailing list, send your name and complete internet address to ALSNews@lbl.gov. We welcome suggestions for topics and content.

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ALSNews           Vol. 109          August 19, 1998

Table of Contents


    1. TEACHERS GET DOSE OF REAL-LIFE MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE
    2. INDEPENDENT-INVESTIGATOR BEAM TIME ALLOCATED
    3. LAST CALL FOR USERS' MEETING ABSTRACTS
    4. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS
    5. OPERATIONS UPDATE

1. TEACHERS GET DOSE OF REAL-LIFE MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE
By Lori Tamura (Contact: MOWilkins@lbl.gov)

Twelve high school science teachers from the Bay Area spent their summer vacations working at the ALS as part of the Integrated Science Partnership Program. Integrated science is an approach to teaching that doesn't divide science into discrete subjects such as physics, chemistry, biology, etc., but rather focuses on a situation or problem and applies whatever scientific concepts are relevant to understanding the situation or solving the problem. The ALS--where scientists approach their research with a similar multidisciplinary spirit--is a natural setting for a summer institute for teachers of integrated science.

For four weeks in July, the teachers attended daily lectures by ALS scientists on topics ranging from image processing to cosmology. Under the guidance of ALS volunteers, they also worked on projects such as building a vacuum chamber, measuring equipment vibrations, and configuring beam alignment software. In addition to this hands-on experience, the teachers will take back to their classrooms ideas for new curricula based on what they saw and learned at the ALS. These ranged from straightforward lessons on topics such as photosynthesis, the periodic table, and the electromagnetic spectrum, to more complex activities. One proposal was to have students collect Bay Area soil and shell samples and analyze them using ALS facilities over the Internet. Another idea was to present students with a crime scenario to be solved using forensic science techniques made possible by ALS technology.

Through this program, teachers of integrated science are given the opportunity to create partnerships with Berkeley Lab scientists and strengthen their knowledge of subjects outside their pre-service training. As a result, they will be better prepared to help students understand the interconnections between the various branches of science as well as between science and everyday life.

This program was funded by an education grant from the State of California; sponsored by Gary Krebs, ALS User Services Group Leader; and coordinated by Marva Wilkins, Berkeley Lab Center for Science and Engineering Education.

2. INDEPENDENT-INVESTIGATOR BEAM TIME ALLOCATED
By Gary Krebs (Contact: GFKrebs@lbl.gov)

The allocation process for independent-investigator beam time for the running period October 1998 to March 1999 is complete. A total of 741 shifts, only 55% of all time requested in the proposals, were allocated. Competition for beam time on insertion-device beamlines was especially keen; for these beamlines, the ALS was able to grant only 35% of the beam time requested. It is regrettable that so many good proposals were not granted beam time. In addition, those proposals granted beam time were only granted a fraction of the total time they requested. We hope that, with the completion of beamline 6.3.1 early next year, we will be able to accommodate more of the many users who requested time on the Center for X-Ray Optics (CXRO) Beamline 6.3.2. Those who request time on the insertion-device beamlines will continue to find the proposal process for independent investigators extremely competitive.

Beam-time requests for independent-investigator experiments are reviewed twice each year. A Proposal Study Panel (PSP) evaluates each proposal, providing the basis for granting beam time. The PSP is made up of five scientists from a variety of synchrotron science disciplines. There is a separate PSP for the macromolecular crystallography facility at Beamline 5.0. More information about the PSP and the independent-investigator process is available on the ALS web site (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/independinvest.html).

Total 8-hour shifts available from October '98 to March '99 = 389. (Each beamline's total is equal to the total operating time minus time allotted to its Participating Research Team.)

Beamline      Proposals     shifts requested    shifts allocated      % allocated
1.4               7               160                 160                 100

6.1.2             7               116                 101                  87

6.3.2            22               325                  93                  27

7.0.1            25               298                 118                  40

8.0.1            22               263                  81                  30

9.3.2             7               101                  93                  92

10.3.1            8                95                  95                 100

Totals           98              1358                 741                  55

3. LAST CALL FOR USERS' MEETING ABSTRACTS
(Contact: w_meyer-ilse@lbl.gov)

Thursday, August 20, 1998, is the last day to submit abstracts for the annual Advanced Light Source Users' Meeting, which will be held at Berkeley Lab on October 22-23, 1998. The ALS Users' Executive Committee invites users, including students and postdocs, to submit abstracts. Some abstracts will be selected as highlights for oral presentation; other submissions will be presented as posters. A special student poster competition with a cash award will also be held at this year's meeting. The poster sessions will be held in conjunction with the vendor exhibits on Thursday, October 22, from 12 to 3 p.m., and Friday, October 23, from 12 to 2 p.m.

To propose a presentation, submit a one-page abstract to

Ruth Pepe
Advanced Light Source, MS 6-2100
Berkeley Lab
Berkeley, CA 94720
Fax: 510-486-4773
Email: alsum@lbl.gov

The annual Users' Meeting, sponsored by the Users' Executive Committee, will include new results from the ALS, reports from ALS management, and updates on funding prospects. If you have not received a copy of the meeting's first announcement, which was mailed a month ago, and wish to be added to the ALS mailing list, please send your name, affiliation, and complete postal address by email to alsuser@lbl.gov. Meeting information is also available on the web at the address noted above.

4. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS

To highlight the richness of our user community and help introduce recent arrivals, we offer this listing of some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during the next two weeks at the ALS.

Beamline 1.4.3: Robert Glaeser and Felicia Hendrikson (University of California, Berkeley, and Berkeley Lab) will conduct infrared spectroscopy of bacteriorhodopsin microcrystals.

Beamline 9.0.2.1: Osman Sorkhabi and Arthur Suits (both of Chemical Sciences Division, Berkeley Lab) will be studying the photochemistry of aromatic molecules.

Beamline 9.0.2.2: Rick Lafleur (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and Gary Jarvis (Chemical Sciences Division, Berkeley Lab) will be studying decay dynamics of energy-selected ions.

Beamlne 9.0.2.3: Darcy Peterka and Arthur Suits (both of Chemical Sciences Division, Berkeley Lab) will be commissioning a new ion imaging endstation that will employ position-sensitive detection and electron-ion coincidence for studies of the photochemistry and dynamics of transient molecules.

Beamline 9.3.2: Dietrich Menzel (Technische Universitaet Muenchen) will conduct soft x-ray fluorescence and high-resolution x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies of nitric oxide adsorbed on Ru(0001). Rich Saykally (University of California, Berkeley) will investigate the structure of water in the deeply supercooled regime.

Beamline 10.3.2: Richard Reeder (State University of New York, Stonybrook) will be working on compositional variations in Fe- and Mg-bearing solid solutions.

5. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: rmmiller@lbl.gov)

Beam reliability for the last two weeks was 95.8% overall and 95.3% for user shifts. All outages were of short duration. Tests of the new global orbit feedback system were begun on August 11, as scheduled, but trouble with a control system computer halted testing after about one hour. The feedback tests will resume as soon as the computer system problems are resolved. Any questions or concerns about the feedback system tests should be directed to Greg Portmann (GJPortmann@lbl.gov, ext. 5924 from Lab phones).

Long-term and weekly operations schedules are available on the Web (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/accelinfo.html). Weekly operations scheduling meetings are held on Fridays at 3:30 p.m. in the Building 6 conference room. The Accelerator Status Hotline at (510) 486-6766 (ext. 6766 from Lab phones) features a recorded message giving up-to-date information on the operational status of the accelerator.