1. INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATOR CRYSTALLOGRAPHY PROPOSALS DUE MARCH 15
(Contact: alsuser@lbl.gov)

The deadline for independent investigator proposals for beamtime at the Macromolecular Crystallography Facility (MCF) from July 1999 to December 1999 is fast approaching. Proposals from scientists who wish to conduct research at the MCF as independent investigators during that time must reach the ALS by March 15, 1999. All proposals for beamtime submitted by that date will be considered for the next two proposal cycles. The number of eight-hour shifts requested in this proposal submission will automatically be considered for both the July to December 1999 and the January to June 2000 running periods. Proposals arriving after March 15 will only be considered for beamtime from January to June 2000. Scientists wishing to renew a previous proposal should notify the ALS User Services Administrator, Ruth Pepe (contact information below), before the March 15 deadline.

The proposal form for independent investigators is available in Portable Document Format (PDF) on the Web (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/independinvest.html). Information on the proposal process and a summary of the proposal deadlines for both general sciences and protein crystallography are available at the same location. Data sheets on beamlines at the ALS (available in Portable Document Format on the Web at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_users_bl/datasheets.html) provide information that may be useful to prospective ALS users.

To request a proposal form by mail, contact:
Ruth Pepe, ALS User Services Administrator
Tel: (510) 486-5268
Fax: (510) 486-4773
Email: alsuser@lbl.gov

For information on beamlines available to independent investigators, contact:
Gary Krebs, ALS User Services Group Leader
Tel: (510) 486-7727
Fax: (510) 486-4773
Email: g_krebs@lbl.gov

2. NEW DEADLINE FOR COMPENDIUM ABSTRACTS: MARCH 31, 1999
(Contact: LSTamura@lbl.gov)

The period for submitting ALS Compendium abstracts has been extended to March 31, 1999. The Compendium provides an excellent opportunity for users to share the exciting and innovative work they've done over the past year. While each project alone is significant, the cumulative effect of collecting into one place all the research performed at the ALS in one year is truly impressive. To accommodate the volume of information and improve usability, we will be publishing the Compendium on CD this year in addition to publishing on the Web and on paper. Don't be left out!

There will be no exceptions to this new deadline, so if you have not yet submitted your abstract(s), please budget your time accordingly. By now, all users should have received in the mail a call for abstracts. If you have questions about the abstract-submission process, contact Lori Tamura by email (LSTamura@lbl.gov), fax (510-495-2111), or phone (510-486-6172) as soon as possible. A Web site located at http://alspubs.lbl.gov/Compendium_old/ provides details on the abstract-submission process as well as a convenient way to submit your electronic files. In addition, don't forget to mail a printed copy of your abstract (and completed abstract-submission form) to the address below.

Lori Tamura
Advanced Light Source, MS 4-230
Berkeley Lab
Berkeley, CA 94720
USA

3. SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE REVIEWS WHITE PAPERS
(Contact: GFKrebs@lbl.gov)

The Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) met on February 20, 1999, to review several white papers proposing new beamlines at the ALS. The committee advises Berkeley Lab and ALS management on issues relating to ALS operations, resource allocation, strategic planning, and PRT proposals and performance.

Three of the proposals were for new protein crystallography beamlines, and these were given very high marks. A proposal for high-pressure research using diamond anvil cells also fared very well. In addition to the white papers, two briefings were given to the SAC, one on future femtosecond experiments and the other on a user-friendly nanostructure characterization endstation at Beamline 8.0.1. The briefings were well received by the SAC and strongly endorsed. Those white papers that received the committee's approval will now be submitted to the appropriate funding agencies.

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.

The ALS will be running in two-bunch (timing) mode for special studies during this period.

Beamline 4.0: Nora Berrah's research group (Western Michigan University) will be using white elliptically polarized light to conduct experiments with a newly built spin-resolved system made by Gyorgy Snell (a graduate student working with Nora) in collaboration with Burkhard Langer (Max Born Institut, Berlin).

Beamline 6.3.2: K. Tong Leung (Univ. of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) and Ivan Dominguez (Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas) will be examining photoionization cross sections of the new freon substitutes.

Beamline 7.0.1: Reinhard Doerner (Univ. of Frankfurt) will be measuring cross sections for double ionization of deuterium molecules.

Beamline 7.3.3: The research group of Roger Falcone (Univ. of California, Berkeley) will be doing picosecond diffraction studies of semiconductor melting.

Beamline 8.0.1: Oliver Hemmers (Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas), Honghong Wang (Berkeley Lab), and Pedro Focke (Univ. of Tennessee) will be studying the nondipole effect and the violation of the independent particle approximation for diatomic molecules.

Beamline 9.0.2.2: Karl-Michael Weitzel (Freie Universitaet Berlin) and Tom Baer (Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) will perform pulsed-field-ionization photoelectron-photoion coincidence (PEPICO) and zero-kinetic-energy PEPICO studies of H2S, HCl, C2H4, and C2H6. Also, Ralph Sheil (Univ. of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) will be studying threshold ion-pair processes with CF4 and H2.

Beamline 9.3.1: Dennis Lindle (Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas) and John Levin (Univ. of Tennessee) will be studying the photoionization cross sections of CCl4.

Beamline 10.0.1: Nora Berrah's research group (Ant Wills, Oleg Nayandin, and Marco Wiendenhoft, all of Western Michigan University) will conduct coincidence experiments with an apparatus newly built by Marco (a graduate student working with Nora).

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

Beam reliability for the last two weeks (February 15-28) was 99.2% for user shifts. There were no significant outages.

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.