1. BESAC REVIEW BEGINS TOMORROW

A major review of the ALS, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy's Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC), is scheduled to begin tomorrow morning and continue through Friday. Users are invited to observe the review sessions, which will take place in the mezzanine conference room (Building 6, Room 2202). Due to the very limited seating in the conference room, video coverage of the meeting will be sent live to both the mezzanine area next to the User Office and the conference room on the experiment floor (Building 6, Room 1105). Berkeley Lab Director Charles Shank will open the proceedings with a brief welcome at 9:00 a.m. The agenda for the two-day review includes science and technology highlights presented by ALS users, lunches with representatives of the Scientific Advisory Committee and Users' Executive Committee, and poster sessions on the ALS floor. To see a detailed agenda, go to http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_news/besac.html.

2. MEZZANINE CONSTRUCTION PROCEEDS APACE
(Contact: JPHarkins@lbl.gov)

The new ALS mezzanine area is beginning to take shape. The majority of the walls have been framed, and the mechanical pads on the roof are in place. The installation of the floor structure in the curved window areas at column lines 5 and 8 should be complete by the end of February, at which time the main-floor coffee areas will be put back into service. The construction of the pit and shaft for the elevator first-floor stop will start on February 14 and will be completed the first week in April. Access to the mezzanine construction area is restricted because of the many hazards associated with construction. Please refrain from entering this area. If you have business in this area, you must get prior approval to enter from Facilities Construction Manager Bob Kertis (extension 6213) and wear proper safety equipment (as noted on the postings at the entrances).

3. BUILDING OCCUPANTS MUST HEED ALL FIRE ALARMS
(Contact: B_Feinberg@lbl.gov)

Due to the mezzanine construction in Building 6, we have lately experienced some false fire alarms. We are looking into the cause of these false alarms to minimize the interruptions. The ALS is concerned, however, that these false alarms may be considered "routine" and, therefore, evacuation may be considered unnecessary.

This is a reminder that you must evacuate the building whenever a fire alarm sounds, and return only after a member of the fire department or the emergency team informs you it is safe to reenter the building. All are urged to comply with instructions given by the fire department or a member of the emergency team. Failure to respond appropriately to emergency alarms is a serious matter that could lead to expulsion from the ALS or even prosecution. Thank you for your cooperation.

4. UEC CORNER: NOTES FROM THE USERS' EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
by Nora Berrah
(Contact: berrah@wmich.edu)

Preparations for the BESAC review on February 3-4 are under way. ALS management and the user community worked closely together to produce an outstanding compendium of publications, students theses, and descriptions of the beamlines and facilities! This compendium reflects a vibrant facility and excellent scientific accomplishments! It is the product of a now strong marriage between the user community and ALS management and testifies to tremendous improvements. Please check the final version of the BESAC agenda at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_news/besac.html.

The Proposal Study Panel (PSP) needs new members because some members are rotating off. Please send us your suggestions for new PSP members. The areas that need representation are highly correlated materials, environment, and atomic and molecular science. The PSP also strongly recommends that proposal submitters check the guidelines on how to write a complete proposal. Abstracts are not acceptable.

In an effort to increase communication with the user community, we have added one new communication channel. ALS management and the UEC will communicate directly via email with all beamline spokespersons about specific issues on an as-needed basis. This is in addition to the biweekly UEC Corner in ALSNews.

Please contact us with any suggestions or issues you may want to see implemented or resolved.

5. RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Govil, R., W.P. Leemans, E.Yu. Backhaus, and J.S. Wurtele, "Observation of return current effects in a passive plasma lens," Phys. Rev. Lett. 83(16), 3202-3205 (October 1999).

Huang, L., E.R.E. Kinnucan, G.L. Wang, S. Beaudenon, P.M. Howley, J.M. Huibregtse, and N.P. Pavletich, "Structure of an E6AP-UbcH7 complex: insights into ubiquitination by the E2-E3 enzyme cascade," Science 286(5443), 1321-1326 (November 1999).

Kukk, E., J.D. Bozek, W.-T. Cheng, R.F. Fink, A.A. Wills, and N. Berrah, "Auger decay of the C 1s[-1]2pi* resonance in carbon monoxide: vibrationally and angularly resolved spectra," J. Chem. Phys. 111(21), 9642-9650 (December 1999).

Lindenberg, A.M., I. Kang, S.L. Johnson, T. Missalla, P.A. Heimann, Z. Chang, J. Larson, P.H. Bucksbaum, H.C. Kapteyn, H.A. Padmore, R.W. Lee, J.S. Wark, and R.W. Falcone, "Time-resolved x-ray diffraction from coherent phonons during a laser-induced phase transition," Phys. Rev. Lett. 84(1), 111-114 (January 2000).

Spiller, B., A. Gershenson, F.H. Arnold, and R.C. Stevens, "A structural view of evolutionary divergence," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 96(22), 12305-12310 (October 1999).

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

The ALS will be operating in two-bunch mode from February 1-14. Following are some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during this time.

Beamline 1.4.2:
Chris Weber and Joe Orenstein (Univ. of California, Berkeley)

Beamline 1.4.3:
Alberto Salleo (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

Beamline 7.0.1:
Dennis Lindle (Univ. of Nevada-Las Vegas) Wayne Stolte (Berkeley Lab)

Beamline 7.3.3:
Christian Bressler and Melanie Saes (Univ. of Lausanne, Switzerland) Rafael Abela (Swiss Light Source)

Beamline 8.0.1:
Dennis Lindle (Univ. of Nevada-Las Vegas)

Beamline 9.3.1:
Gunnar Ohrwall (Berkeley Lab and Univ. of Nevada-Las Vegas) Lan Dang (Univ. of Nevada-Las Vegas)

Beamline 9.3.2:
Michael Prior (Berkeley Lab)

Beamline 10.0.1:
Nora Berrah and group (Western Michigan Univ.)

7. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: B_Feinberg@lbl.gov)

Beam reliability for the last two weeks (January 17 to 30) was 96% for user shifts. There were no significant outages.

While we have maintained an overall beam availability of about 95%, the beam continuity has fallen during the commissioning of the third-harmonic cavities. As described earlier (see ALS News Vols. 131 and 136), the third-harmonic cavities were installed this summer to increase the bunch length, and thus the beam lifetime, without reducing brightness.

Once the cavities were placed into bunch-lengthening mode, however, a series of "dropouts" ensued. Although we have increased the beam lifetime by 50%, from four to six hours, the rate of run completion (the fraction of scheduled user runs that meet the scheduled length) decreased from about 85% to about 75%. This was due partly to interactions between the cavities, the beam bunches, and the longitudinal feedback system.

As of last week, improvements in the longitudinal feedback system have brought us back to more than an 80% rate of run completion. During the upcoming shutdown, the feedback system will be upgraded to further improve its reliability. Commissioning of the systems to increase the lifetime will be continuing during accelerator physics shifts over the next several months.

Long-term and weekly operations schedules are available on the Web (http://www- als.lbl.gov/als/accelinfo.html). Requests for special operations use of the "scrubbing" shift should be sent to Bob Miller (RMMiller@lbl.gov, x4738) by 1:00 p.m. Friday. 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.