1. PETROFF REPORTS TO BESAC

At this week's meeting of the U.S. Department of Energy's Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC), Yves Petroff, Director General of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), reported on the recent BESAC-sponsored review of the ALS (see ALSNews Vol. 144). Early reports indicate that the presentation was extremely complimentary to the scientific excellence of the ALS user community, to the leadership of ALS Division Director Daniel Chemla, and to ALS staff. BESAC unanimously accepted Petroff's report, which concluded that the ALS is doing an outstanding job in many areas, and that the criticisms of the ALS in the previous BESAC review (known as the "Birgeneau Report") are no longer valid. The report recommended that any penalties imposed on the ALS as a result of the Birgeneau Report should now be lifted and that the ALS does not need to undergo another review in the near future. ALSNews will provide a detailed report as more information becomes available.

2. MACROMOLECULAR CRYSTALLOGRAPHY BEAMTIME PROPOSALS DUE MARCH 15

The ALS User Services Office is accepting proposals from scientists who wish to conduct research as independent investigators at the Macromolecular Crystallography Facility (Beamline 5.0.2) between July and December 2000. The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2000. (The deadline for the subsequent cycle is September 1, 2000.) Scientists wishing to renew a previous proposal must notify the ALS User Services Office Manager, Bernie Dixon, at alsproposals@lbl.gov.

The following resources are available for further information:

ALS User Services Administrator

alsuser@lbl.gov

Independent-investigator process/proposal form (PDF)

http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/independinvest.html

Beamline 5.0.2 information

http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_users_bl/5.0-Datasheet.pdf

http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/bl5.0.2.html

Macromolecular Crystallography Facility Web site

http://www.lbl.gov/LBL-Programs/mcf/

3. NEW LONG-TERM SCHEDULE ON THE WEB
(Contact: GFKrebs@lbl.gov)

A new long-term operating schedule, extending to December 2000, has been approved by the Users' Executive Committee. The schedule can be seen on the Web at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/schedules/next_ltsch.html. You can also reach it by following the "Operating Schedules" link from the ALS home page. For convenient printing, the schedule appears as a graphic, in Portable Document Format, as an Excel file, and as a Word document.

4. SHUTDOWN ACTIVITIES PROCEEDING ON SCHEDULE
(Contact: JPHarkins@lbl.gov)

The ALS is entering the third week of the February shutdown, and things are proceeding well. In Sectors 8 and 12, machining of the storage ring in preparation for the future installation of the superconducting bend magnets (superbends) has been completed. (Machining of Sector 4 was performed during last year's shutdown.) Another major task to be accomplished during this time is the survey and alignment of the storage ring. The surveying crew has been working 10-hour days and is now completing the survey of the last sector. Alignment will begin today and is scheduled to be completed on March 8. At that time, accelerator start-up will begin. Ten days have been allotted for the commissioning of the new quadrupole power supplies and new control system. Beam to users is on schedule to resume on March 21.

Also during this shutdown, the mezzanine contractor is working to complete the most intrusive portions of the elevator construction. This includes constructing the elevator pit and modifying the opening through the second floor. This work is well under way, with the concrete pit having been completed. While the noisiest work will be completed by March 15, the temporary plastic wall near Beamline 1.4 will remain in place until the middle of April, when the shaft work will be completed. The contractor is also installing the drain piping that is to run overhead above Beamlines 9 through 12. Even though the contractor is required to take precautions to minimize the generation of airborne dust, as an extra precaution, plastic has been draped over sensitive equipment in this area. This work has started and will be completed by March 10.

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

As reported above, on February 29th, Dr. Yves Petroff of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility delivered to the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of Energy his report summarizing the review of the ALS that was held on February 3-4, 2000. We will inform you of the details of the report as soon as possible.

The UEC will meet on March 28th at the ALS. The main agenda item for this meeting will concern space. If you would like to contribute ideas and/or suggest agenda items that you would like the UEC to address, please contact me or your nearest UEC member (contact information is available at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/uec/UECcontacts.html). The UEC meeting will occur one day before the ALS spring retreat (March 29th), which will be attended by several UEC members.

6. RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Kortright, J., S. Kim, and H. Ohldag, "Sigmalike phase and nanoscale segregation in polycrystalline Fe[x]Cr[1-x] films: An element-resolved magnetic and structural study," Phys. Rev. B 61(1), 64-67 (January 2000).

Robinson, R.C., M. Mejillano, V.P. Le, L.D. Burtnick, H.L. Yin, and S. Choe, "Domain movement in gelsolin: A calcium-activated switch," Science 286(5446), 1939-1942 (December 1999).

Sussman, D.R., J. Nix, and C. Wilson, "The structural basis for molecular recognition by the vitamin B12 RNA aptamer," Nat. Struct. Biol. 7(1), 53-57 (January 2000).

Xu, S.H., M. Keeffe, Y. Yang, C. Chen, M. Yu, G.J. Lapeyre, E. Rotenberg, J.D. Denlinger, and J.T. Yates, Jr., "Photoelectron diffraction imaging for C2H2 and C2H4 chemisorbed on Si(100) reveals a new bonding configuration," Phys. Rev. Lett. 84(5), 939-942 (January 2000).

Yencha, A.J., G.C. King, M.C.A. Lopes, J.D. Bozek, and N. Berrah, "Photo-double ionization of deuterium chloride studied by threshold photoelectrons coincidence spectroscopy," Chem. Phys. Lett. 315(1-2), 37-42 (December 1999).

Zhang, Z.D., H.J. Choi, R.K. Kawakami, E.J. Escorcia-Aparicio, M.O. Bowen, J.H. Wolfe, E. Rotenberg, N.V. Smith, and Z.Q. Qiu, "Magnetic interlayer coupling between Co films across Cu/Ni30Cu70/Cu100 double quantum wells," Phys. Rev. B 61(1), 76-79 (January 2000).

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

The ALS is currently in a planned shutdown for installations and maintenance. User operations are scheduled to resume at 12:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 21.

A power outage on February 1 caused by the accidental electrocution of a rat in the Big C substation shut down a large part of Berkeley Lab and interrupted operations during the first shift of the recent two-bunch run. Problems restoring insertion device gap control and communications links to the transverse feedback system resulted in approximately eight hours elapsing before user operations resumed.

This recent incident highlighted the age and unreliability of portions of the Lab's electrical system. Over the years, the U.S. Department of Energy has funded four partial upgrades, and the Lab is now nearing the end of phase IV. This particular project, the Blackberry Canyon Upgrade, will remove the Big C substation from the system and vastly improve the Lab's electrical reliability. Electrical shutdowns will be scheduled for the next few weeks (for details, see ALSNews Vol. 143). These are required to make the final connections of the new cables from Grizzly Peak, which will remove the old equipment and cabling from the system. The final phase in this long process will be the upgrade of the Grizzly Peak substation by the Univ. of California, Berkeley, as part of a project to build its own substation. The Lab plans to enter the next year with a completely overhauled electrical distribution system. Lab and ALS management would like to thank users for their patience while roads have been blocked, etc., and now ask for continued cooperation while the final portion of the project is completed.

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.