Volume rendering of the energy dissipation through the current in the development of magneto-rotational instability, believed to be important in accretion of matter onto a central compact object such as a black hole.

July 10, 2006 -- Some of this week's stories:

Visionary projects receive time on Blue Gene/L supercomputers

Donna Jones Pelkie

Computing projects ranging from understanding Parkinson's disease to modeling climate change have been awarded large amounts of joint time on Blue Gene/L computer systems at Argonne and IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights , N.Y. The computer time is available to researchers through the Department of Energy Office of Science's INCITE program — Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment.

“It's good to see the Department of Energy fostering the big ideas, the visionary projects that wouldn't happen otherwise,” said Ray Bair, director of the Laboratory Computing Resource Center and senior computational scientist in Argonne's Mathematics and Computer Science Division. “These projects are ones you couldn't approach on a lesser facility. Some of them might even be the wellspring of the next generation for science directions of computation.”

Six projects were allocated more than 10 million processor hours through the Argonne and IBM collaboration, ranging from a University of Washington project on high-resolution protein structure prediction to aircraft engine maker Pratt and Whitney's high-fidelity simulations of an aircraft engine combustor.

Through this collaboration Argonne will provide 10 percent of its Blue Gene/L hours to INCITE, and IBM will provide five percent of BGW's hours to INCITE. The BGW system is the second fastest computer in the world, with a capacity of 91 teraflops — 91 trillion calculations per second.

“It's often hard for researchers to get big enough allocations on supercomputers for the most challenging projects,” Bair said. “With the extended joint time on the two Blue Gene systems, DOE researchers can attack cutting-edge problems in science and engineering that were previously unfeasible on traditional systems.”

A computation needing 500,000 hours could run on 1,000 processors for 500 hours, or about 21 days, he said. Running the same project on a single-processor desktop computer would take about 20 years.

INCITE seeks computationally intensive research projects of large scale that can make high-impact scientific advances through the use of a large allocation of computer time and data storage.

Blue Gene

"Argonne 's Mathematics and Computer Science Division,” Bair said, “is focusing on petascale computation — creating the tools and applications for addressing the challenges of very large science and engineering problems with computers soon capable of 1015 operations per second. Blue Gene has design features that make it especially attractive for computational science. We're evaluating it to see how broadly applicable it is to science and engineering problems.”

In the past year scientists from across the nation have identified more applications for Blue Gene than originally expected. Such broad applicability indicates that the supercomputer could well become a mainstay for leadership computing.

The Blue Gene/L is the most powerful computer Argonne has ever had. “It's an example of a machine that's opening many doors in science,” Bair said. “Of the 100 most powerful computers, 19 are Blue Genes, and of those, one is Argonne 's.”

Safety council hears about biosafety, electrical safety

Argonne 's Institutional Biosafety and the Electrical Safety committees recently gave presentations to the Director's Safety Council.

The Director's Safety Council manages issues related to Environment, Safety, Security and Health (ESS&H) and promotes safe culture. It is part of Argonne 's commitments to safety, security and quality as defined by Integrated Safety Management (ISM), Integrated Safeguards and Security Management (ISSM) and Quality Assurance (QA) programs. The council meets every other week and focuses on ensuring that Argonne is a safe workplace for its employees.

Meeting activities include listening to reports from all of Argonne 's safety committees and giving them guidance and suggestions for improvement.

Biosafety

The Institutional Biosafety Committee approves every use and transport on site of biological materials that could be hazardous to human health. Committee chair Diane Rodi said these can include materials such as biological toxins, human tissues, bacterial pathogens and frozen viruses. The committee also offers four educational courses on how to work with blood-borne pathogens, tailored to the needs of different employees. In the future, they plan to offer training regarding NIH policy on work with recombinant DNA.

Rodi is a cancer biologist for the Biosciences Division (BIO). She researches how tumors build blood vessels, which could have applications for stopping tumors early in their growth. She has three teenage sons, and enjoys reading and knitting outside work.

Electrical safety

The Electrical Safety Committee (ESC) works to ensure an effective, compliant and uniform electrical safety program is implemented. The duties of this mostly volunteer committee include, but are not limited to, providing technical expertise in the interpretation of codes and standards, evaluating proposed solutions for electrical issues, developing and promoting safe work practices and reviewing electrical incidents.

The ESC has made progress in the last year in areas such as setting up a practical electrical safety training room, and setting up a program to ensure that all equipment used by Argonne has been inspected to ensure compliance with safety standards. The committee has also instituted an Argonne-wide electrical safety glove replacement program to ensure that all gloves are in compliance and save the laboratory money by purchasing and testing gloves in volume. The ESC has also been proactive in areas such as the procurement of hand-held digital multimeters to replace non-compliant meters at no direct cost to the users, creating the as-built documentation required for arc flash studies and assisting in the establishment of electrical safety training programs.

“Our goal is to make Argonne as electrically safe as possible with the minimum possible burden on lab,” said committee chair Joe Zurad. “We are always looking for volunteers to serve on one of our many subcommittees as well as for suggestions and input from all lab employees. With the variety of tasks we have to complete there is a need for a wide range of interests and experience.”

Zurad is the manager of Engineering and Crafts for the Project Management and Engineering (PME) division and project manager for the SAMM building, currently under construction. Outside of work, his hobbies include electric motor design, golfing with the new clubs he received for Father's Day, watching his grandchildren's sporting events and volunteering for the Ray Graham Association for People with Disabilities.

Avian flu is focus of medical director's talk

Argonne Medical Department Director Jamie Stalker will present a general overview of the avian (“bird”) flu Wednesday, July 19, at noon in the Building 200 Auditorium. Stalker will present a general overview of pandemic flu, with an emphasis on the avian flu.

She will compare the avian flu to the regular flu and explain why this particular flu is of importance to Argonne employees and to the general public. She will talk about maintaining essential laboratory functions should this flu become pandemic in the United States . Stalker will also touch on how other countries are different from the United States in regard to the spread of this flu and will provide a current update of the status of avian flu throughout the world.

Stalker will offer information on planning for the spread of this flu, including what employees need to be aware of for personal planning and preparation. Everyone who attends will receive a “personal pandemic flu kit” to take home, which includes a particulate respirator, an oral thermometer, a pair of nitrile gloves, hand cleanser, and a copy of the CDC pandemic plan guidelines. Employees who are unable to attend may pick up a flu kit at any time from the Medical Department. Employees will also be given the opportunity to ask Stalker any related questions.

Chiarizia honored for actinide separation work

Eva Sylwester

An Argonne chemist has been honored at the 30th Actinide Separations Conference in Richland , Washington for his innovative research on processes that can be used to recycle and dispose of nuclear waste.

Argonne Chemistry Division Senior Scientist Renato Chiarizia received the Glenn T. Seaborg Actinide Separations Award. The award recognizes a scientist or engineer who develops a new or improved method of recovery, separation and purification of the actinide elements on a laboratory or productions scale; develops new or improved methods for the plant-scale recovery, separation and purification of actinide elements; or conducts basic research that is directly and clearly related to the separation of actinide elements.

Actinides are a series of radioactive elements. Some examples include uranium and plutonium. Separating these elements from fission products and other elements in nuclear fuel has applications such as recycling nuclear fuel. In a nuclear reactor, about 10 percent of the uranium in the fuel is used. The rest, if not recycled, is discharged as waste. Techniques such as those Chiarizia works with can be used to separate the excess usable uranium from the rest of the waste for reprocessing into new fuel.

Separating actinide from the waste stream would also make more efficient use of repositories. The long-lived actinides can be isolated from the rest and stored in the repositories, while shorter-lived isotopes can be stored separately, freeing up room in the repositories.

Actinide separation is generally done through a process called solvent extraction. Actinides in a water-based solution interact with molecules called extractants and separate into what is known as an organic phase. Ideally, they then return to another water-based phase, where the actinides can be recovered for reuse.

“My research at Argonne led to the physiochemical interpretation of some aspects of this technique that are still poorly understood — for example, the generally unwanted phenomenon known as ‘third phase formation,'” Chiarizia said, referring to a persistent quirk of the separation process in which the organic phase sometimes splits into two other phases that hinder work.

Chiarizia is the fifth Argonne scientist to receive the award since it was created in 1984. Seaborg, the award's namesake and first recipient, worked at the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory ( Argonne 's direct ancestor) from 1942 to 1946. He was the co-discoverer of nine actinide elements.

Local teacher honored for excellence in science education

Mike Kennedy, physics teacher at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville , has received the Ellis P. Steinberg Award for Pre-College Science Teaching presented by Argonne and Argonne 's chapter of Sigma Xi. The award is given to teachers in the state of Illinois who have shown excellence and innovation in teaching the fundamentals of science. Recipients of this award receive a plaque recognizing their achievements and a monetary award of $500.

Kennedy teaches advanced placement physics and honors physics at Neuqua Valley . Beyond his classes, Kennedy also oversees the school's annual bridge building contest, as well as the school's annual rocket launch and a yearly trip to Great America for students to study amusement park physics. In addition, Kennedy is involved in preparing students for the Science Olympiad competition.

Neuqua Valley principal Michael Popp said Kennedy “continues to work every day to refine his instruction to make physics exciting and accessible to all his students. Whether engaging students in a lab or lecture, the journey Mike leads is one students know is worth taking.”

Kennedy's past honors include being named Illinois Physics Teacher of the Year for 2004-2005 by the Illinois Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers and being the Midwest winner of the Subaru National Science Teaching Award. He has also received numerous Most Influential Teaching Awards from Neuqua Valley students.

The Steinberg award commemorates the commitment to excellence in science education exemplified by the late Ellis P. Steinberg, who had an illustrious career in nuclear chemistry and was director of Argonne 's Chemistry Division from 1982-1988. After retiring as division director, Steinberg was very active in the lab's Division of Educational Programs, where he worked to improve the quality of science education. “The Steinberg Award is an outstanding example of the level of commitment of Argonne to science education,” said Harold Myron, Director of Argonne's Division of Educational Programs.

Funds for the award have been provided through the generosity of family, friends and colleagues of Ellis P. Steinberg. The award is jointly administered by Argonne National Laboratory and the Argonne chapter of Sigma Xi.

Chicago high school students learn physics at Argonne

Eva Sylwester

A group of high school students who completed a week-long summer school program in physics at Argonne was commended for its success by laboratory director Robert Rosner.

“We need people like you who love to do science,” Rosner told the students, elaborating that the United States will face strong competition in science from other countries in the coming decades. “The more you love it, the better you do.”

The eight students in the program all just completed ninth grade at Rickover Naval Academy , a magnet high school in the Chicago Public School system that opened last fall with a 110-student freshman class. All Rickover students take physics in their freshman year because its concepts, relevant to everyday things like crossing the street, are more accessible to younger students than those of biology or chemistry, said Rickover Principal Michael Biela.

An average day in the summer program included a hands-on laboratory exercise for two hours in the morning and a lecture from a scientist in the afternoon. Students also received tours of laboratory facilities from the scientists who work in them.

Rickover student Ian Etchingham said the most interesting thing he saw at Argonne was a demonstration of X-ray fluorescence, in which an object such as a ring or necklace is illuminated with X-rays. The chemical elements present in the objects can then be identified by the unique X-ray frequencies emitted by the sample.

“We're actually learning what we use physics for,” said Rickover student Heidi Ramirez.

“We're just really trying to expose them to different options,” said Susan Fischer, a staff scientist in Argonne 's Physics Division who helped organize the program. “Hopefully, they'll think they can do it, too.”

Fischer expressed hopes to continue the program, possibly including more Argonne divisions as Rickover students learn chemistry and biology later in their high school years.

Relief fund set up for Protective Force Officer Todd Brown

A relief fund for Protective Force Officer Todd Brown has been established at the Argonne Credit Union. The fund will help Brown and his family cope with medical bills after the officer was diagnosed with multiple aneurysms. He has undergone one surgery and will need at least two more.

To contribute, visit the Argonne Credit Union.

In memoriam

John W. Boudrot, a retired research administrative manager with 12 years of service in IEP, died April 19. His wife, Helen, survives him.

Josiah A. Browning, a retired painter with 27 years of service in PFS, died Feb. 27. His children, David, James and Carole, survive him.

Malachy Burns, a retired instrument maker with 32 years of service in CS, died April 29. His wife, Mildred, survives him.

Kenneth O. Canner, a retired senior technician with 23 years of service in HP, died Jan. 1. His wife, Amelia, survives him.

Leslie K. Carter, a retired control analyst with 26 years of service in PFS-WMO, died Feb. 25. His daughters, Kelly and Deborah, survive him.

Peter Cooper, a retired site services manager with 10 years of service in PFS, died April 19. His wife, Martha Ann, survives him.

Paul C. Fischer, a retired model fabricator with 22 years of service in CS, died April 16. His wife, Lorraine , survives him.

James C. Hindman, a retired senior chemist with 39 years of service in CHM, died April 2. His wife, Adriana, and children, Sandra, Thomas and Michael, survive him.

Doris Holland, a retired clerk senior with 14 years of service in CS, died May 5. Her husband, Elmer, survives her.

Harry H. Hummel, a retired senior physicist with 38 years of service in AP, died Feb. 28. His wife, Virginia, survives him.

Carl A. Hunckler, a retired chief technician I with 31 years of service in SSD, died March 5. His children survive him.

Ward Hubbard, a retired chemist with 26 years of service in CMT, died April 29. His daughters, Loretta Lemmerman and Marlis, survive him.

Jim Matousek, a retired project quality engineer with 33 years of service in QAD, died May 13. His wife, Rose, survives him.

Charles Miles, a retired chemist with 27 years of service in AW, died April 15. His wife, Ethel, survives him.

William Mosevido, a retired associate designer with 27 years of service in NE, died April 1. His daughter, Victoria Pierce, survives him.

Ronald Pesavento, a retired stock handler with 22 years of service in SSD, died April 26. His wife, Lillian, survives him.

Donald Rave, a retired engineering assistant with 29 years of service in CT, died March 8. His children, Sandra Martinich, Debra Condon, Joseph, Linda and Barbara, survive him.

Lenard Ross, a retired laborer with 12 years of service in PFS, died April 3. His wife, Johnnie, survives him.

Alex Stacy, a retired senior technician with 20 years of service in SSD, died April 16. His wife, Joyce, survives him.

Thomas E. Sullivan, a retired mechanical engineer with 31 years of service in EBR II, died Jan. 5. His wife, Lorraine , survives him.

George Thomas, a retired scientific associate with 40 years of service in PHY, died March 22. His son, Michael, and daughter, Laine Vincent, survive him.

Leroy Tuma, a retired assistant division director with 37 years of service in BEM, died April 23. His wife, Ruth, survives him.

Service awards for June:

45 Years

Judith M. Beumer (MCS), Thomas E. Kasprzyk (HEP), Clark Gary Schlesselman (CIS).

40 Years

Mary Ellen Hennebry (AST).

35 Years

Linda M. Graf (TSD).

30 Years

Geraldine D. Agerton (PFS), Andrew P. Bracken (SCD), Ronald L. Gilbert (PFS), Glenn Harmon (PFS), James F. Lucas (PFS), Kenneth J. Madritsch (PFS), Sofia L. Napora (CMT), Leland H. Sprouse, Jr. (EQO).

25 Years

Ronald S. Noble (PFS), W. Elane Streets (XSD), Constantine P. Tzanos (NE),

Thomas D. Veselka (DIS).

20 Years

Thomas K. Begeske (PFS), Ronda L. Knapik (EQO), David W. Leibfritz (AES), Candace M. Rose (EVS).

15 Years

Scott Benes (AES), Tracy Lavaan Ercoli (OPS), Nahum Friedman (AES), Marianne Jaskusz (OTT), Mark Kedzie (PHY), Raymond Klann (NE), Thomas Mullen (PHY), Andrew Stevens (AES), Cynthia Sullivan (HR).

10 Years

Daniel Abraham (CMT), Timothy T. Cundiff (HEP), Bertold M. Kraessig (CHM), Daniel Rosenmann (MSD), Audrey S. Senffner (OTD), Michael A. Skwarek (CIS), Won Sik Yang (NE), Jon A. Zadra (DIS).

5 Years

Sergei Bavykin (ES), Magdalena Bodnar (EQO), Bonnie L. Bullock (PFS), Liaohai Chen (BIO), Yong S. Chu (XSD), Robin A. Colglazier (EQO), Harold E. Dolgner (PFS), Edward J. Listwan (ET), John F. Maclean (AES), Vadim Sajaev (ASD), Joseph L. Sutton (ASD), Laura C. Szot (PFS), Lynn M. Valentini (MCS), John B. Woodford (ET).

Three receive QASR awards

Three Argonne employees have received Quality and Safety Recognition (QASR) Awards for their contributions to safety at the laboratory.

Earl Armand (NOD-WMO) was awarded for recognizing the need for an inspection procedure for body harnesses to ensure their safe use and alerting co-workers and supervisors to that need.

At a monthly safety meeting, Armand brought up the fact that Waste Management Operations (WMO) does not have a procedure to ensure that body harnesses used for confined space retrieval have not exceeded their five-year shelf life. An inspection found that WMO's safety harnesses were, indeed, expired. WMO will develop an inspection procedure and purchase new harnesses.

John Pearson (MSD) and Terry Carbaugh (PFS-BM) were awarded for their immediate, proactive response upon finding hazardous material in an unauthorized location.

Pearson noticed a shiny metallic material in a toilet bowl in Building 223. Concerned that it appeared to be mercury, he alerted building mechanic Terry Carbaugh and the building Area Emergency Supervisor. Carbaugh agreed it appeared to be mercury, so he called 911 and sealed the stall so the toilet would not be flushed.

The awards were presented during a recent management council meeting. Each recipient was given a certificate of recognition and lunch tickets for two at his choice of the Argonne Guest House or the Building 213 Cafeteria. Their names will also be added to the QASR Award Winners' plaque.

The QASR Award recognizes employees' contributions to safety and quality at the laboratory. Safety is vital to the laboratory's ability to conduct research and development on behalf of the nation, and that safety depends on the efforts of conscientious employees who find, report and fix potential hazards and who look out for the safety and well being of their colleagues.

Nominations for the QASR can be sent to EQO Director Bob McCook at mccook@anl.gov.