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By Amy M. Kile
Buried alongside Building 203 under 14 feet of dirt and concrete lies an unusual 40 year-old facility currently being upgraded for possible homeland security use.
With its eight-inch thick walls and four-ton steel doors, the Whole Body Counter (WBC) can detect low levels of ionizing radiation emitted from human body organs and tissues with minimum background interference.
Since it was built in the 1960s, the counter has been visited by persons as diverse as Marshall Island natives exposed to radioactive fallout, radium watch-dial painters and Argonne employees.
But the WBC is far from being a dinosaur -- it is being updated for possible homeland security use.
“Suspected terrorists in U.S. custody could be counted to determine if they have been working with radioactive materials,” said Marcia Torres, dosimetry and radioprotection group leader who is working to upgrade the counter’s instrumentation.
Working with Torres are Chemical Engineering Division’s Luiz Bertelli, an internal dosimetrist; Alan Justus, a radiation detector expert; Al Keane, a biophysicist, and Mike McNatt, an instrumentation specialist.
The WBC comprises three rooms. Each room contains a bed or chair with one or more sodium iodide or germanium detectors. A patient lies or sits in one of the rooms while the detectors measure the gamma rays or X-rays emitted by any radioactive materials that may be present in his or her body. For all or part of a person’s body, the detectors discriminate and quantify gamma-ray emitting radionuclides such as fission and activation products and naturally occurring isotopes of radium and potassium.
In addition, germanium detectors can measure low-energy photons emitted by isotopes of plutonium, americium, uranium and thorium in the lungs or other organs.
“The facility has its own air supply to keep it pressurized to prevent the entry of radon gas into the room,” said Keane. “The whole idea is to lower the contribution of background radiation to the measurements being made by the sensitive instrumentation.”
The data gathered by the detectors is linked to a computer and networked to deliver the readings to analysts outside the WBC. From these measurements, analysts can calculate the amount of radioactive deposits in a patient’s body.
Some of the modules that make up the facility’s electronics are no longer manufactured, so the group will be purchasing upgraded modules to ensure the sustainability of the WBC.
“Some of these detectors are up to 40 years old, but they still work,” said Torres. “Because they’re expensive, if we can keep them going, we will.”
The germanium detectors from one of the rooms are being modified to use either liquid nitrogen as a cooling agent, or so-called “mechanical cooling,” since the detectors must be cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures.
“It’s a very interesting project. In my career as an electronics engineer I’ve never seen anything like this -- it’s almost science-fiction-like,” said McNatt.
The WBC has a rich history. Many hundreds of people from outside of Argonne have been counted at the facility, including the LaSalle County, Ill., radium-dial workers who applied luminous paint to watch dials in the 1920s and 1930s. Argonne’s role in the study is mentioned in the 1999 Ross Mullner book, “Deadly Glow,” published by the American Public Health Association.
Through the years the ultra-low level of background radiation in the facility has attracted non-body-counting experiments by Argonne researchers. For example, Irshad Ahmad and Donald Gemmell of the Physics Division have used the facility for atomic physics and nuclear structure studies. They were able to observe very low-level decays in their experiments, which would not have been possible without the WBC facility.
Whole body counters have been used to count military personnel and radiation workers. They can also measure body potassium-40 as an index of lean body mass and determine potassium levels of muscular dystrophy patients undergoing treatment.
The Argonne Combined Appeal (ACA) has been honored with the 2002-2003 Corporate Leadership Award from Infinitec Southwest, a United Cerebral Palsy Association facility.
Infinitec Southwest is a not-for-profit corporation at helps people with disabilities and their families gain access to new technologies and learn skills to enhance their lives.
Board members Connie Markiewicz (OCF) and Bryan hmidt (IPD) accepted the award on behalf of ACA at a dinner held to recognize the clients, children d young adults who have overcome their challenges and those who made contributions to the corporation.
Since 1998, Argonne employees have donated more than $32,000 to the United Cerebral Palsy Association of Chicago.
“The Corporate Leadership Award demonstrates that ACA has an impact on the care-giving community,” said Schmidt. “It shows that Argonne and its employees go out of their way to make people’s lives better in the Chicago area.”
It was also rewarding, Schmidt said, to see some of the technological advances for which Argonne’s contribution helped pay. Computers that give a voice to children who cannot speak were among the technologies he witnessed at the dinner.
“The computers let children who could not talk communicate with other people. The computers make their disabilities a little less inhibiting,” said Schmidt.
A video of some of the people who have overcome their disabilities with the help of Infinitec can by viewed on the ACA Web site.
Infinitec, Inc. is a joint effort between the United Cerebral Palsy Association of Greater Chicago and United Cerebral Palsy Associations Inc. of Washington D.C. The company builds on technology access programs offered by United Cerebral Palsy affiliates around the nation, bringing new technology to people with all types of disabilities.
For more information on ACA or to volunteer to help organize this year’s campaign, call Bryan Schmidt (IPD) at ext. 2-4122 or John Oras (ET) at ext. 2-5879.
S. Paul Henslee has been appointed to director of the Facilities Division. He will direct the activities of the Facilities Division in support of the Engineering Research Nuclear program at the Argonne-Idaho site.
Henslee joined Argonne in 1984 as a materials scientist. Since then he has held positions of increasing responsibility. In 1997, he was named deputy director of the Spent Fuel Treatment Demonstration project.
He has received two Pacesetter awards: one for his leadership on the Analytical Laboratory Hot Cell Facility Restoration and the other for the successful management of the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II plant closure project.
Henslee is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Tau Beta Pi and a registered professional engineer since 1993.
He received his undergraduate and master’s degree from the University of Texas in Arlington.
Three new members have been named to the University of Chicago Board of Governors for Argonne National Laboratory: Ruzena Bajcsy, director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society at the University of California, Berkeley; Shirley Ann * Jackson, president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and Robert J. Zimmer, provost at Brown University.
The University of Chicago, as a contractor to the Department of Energy, maintains a board of governors for Argonne through which it provides guidance, oversight, direction and advice to laboratory management. The board consists of a broad-based group of eminent individuals, including University of Chicago trustees, officials and faculty; representatives from other universities; and industry leaders.
Bajcsy is the director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). CITRIS brings together four University of California campuses -- Berkeley, Davis, Merced and Santa Cruz -- with private industry in an initiative to develop innovative technology that tackles some of society’s most pressing problems.
Formerly, Bajcsy was the head of the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the National Science Foundation d was director of the General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. She has more than 40 years of research experience in the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence and machine perception. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine.
Shirley Ann Jackson, president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in oy, N.Y., is the first African-American woman to lead a national research university, as well as the first woman and the first African-American to chair the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In 1997, Jackson was elected the first chairwoman of the International Nuclear Regulators Association.
Jackson also has served as a theoretical physicist at the former AT&T Bell Laboratories and as a professor of theoretical physics at Rutgers University. She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2001. She is a fellow of the American * Academy of Arts and Science and a fellow of the American Physical Society.
Robert J. Zimmer is the Provost for Brown University in Providence, R.I. Prior to his appointment at Brown, Zimmer was the University of Chicago Max Mason distinguished service professor of mathematics and the vice president for research and for Argonne National Laboratory.
During Zimmer’s tenure at the University of Chicago, he served in a number of administrative capacities including chair of the Department of Mathematics, associate provost for research and education, deputy provost for research and deputy provost. He is the author of two books and more than 80 research articles. Zimmer has served on the editorial boards of Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, Geometriae Dedicata, and Journal of Geometric Analysis.
A short stretch of Outer Circle between Watertower Road and the Advanced Photon Source north access road will be closed next week while Argonne-East participates in the TOPOFF-2 emergency exercise.
The roadway will be blocked from about noon Monday, May 12, to Friday afternoon, May 16. Parking will be prohibited in the Building 211 south lot during the week. Cars left in the lot will be moved.
The area near Building 211 will be used as a helicopter landing zone. There may be several emergency vehicles and other activity in the area during the exercise.
Co-edited by Argonne’s Beverly Hartline (OTD) and Dongqi Li (MSD), the proceedings volume of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Conference on Women is available on the American Institute of Physics Web site.
“Making the proceedings available beyond the scope of the conference will impact many more people than just those who attended the event,” said Hartline.
The conference, organized by IUPAP, was held last March at the United Nation’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization headquarters in Paris. IUPAP established the Working Group on Women in Physics in 1999 to develop ways to increase women’s presence, contribution and advancement in the physics field.
The proceedings publication reports on the conference, from the opening remarks to invited presentations and resolutions adopted by those who participated. It also includes papers on the status of women in physics in each of more than 60 nations.
Discussions at the conference focused on encouraging girls to take an interest in physics, launching a successful career in the field, involving more female physicists in leadership activities, improving working environments, learning from regional differences and balancing family and career.
The conference also adopted eight resolutions requiring schools, universities, research institutes, industries, scientific societies, national governments, granting agencies and IUPAP to provide women with opportunities to become involved in physics similar to those enjoyed by their male counterparts.
Li will give a speech about the conference at the Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network conference in Chicago on June 9.
The proceedings are available through the American Institute of Physics Web site .
Q: Why, when they have security guard uniforms, are some of our Security Force allowed to wear military camo uniforms when they are not in the military?
I, as a mother of an active military professional, i.e., Green Beret, am offended by this, as I think other people are also. The uniform of the United States military personnel is an earned privilege.
A: We can well appreciate your feelings, and want to reassure you that while we do have members on the Protective Force who have earned the right to wear the uniforms you refer to, the uniforms themselves are not military but rather approved camouflage protective force uniforms.
“Ask the Directorate” lets employees ask senior Argonne management direct questions about the laboratory’s operations, policy, strategy, mission, budget and goals. Employees should continue to refer job- or workplace-specific questions to their immediate supervisors.
Employees may submit questions to askthedirectorate@anl.gov or fax them to 2-5274. Only questions that include the name of the questioner and contact information, such as e-mail address, office extension or fax number, will be answered. Questioners will remain anonymous in the Argonne News and on the Web.
A link to the Ask-the-Directorate Web site can be found on the Inside Argonne home page.
All classes offered by Computing and Instrumentation Solutions are held in Argonne-East’s Building 201, Room 167. Unless otherwise specified, classes are limited to eight participants and cost $215.
June classes include:
* Advanced Word 2000 (ECT378) -- Tuesday, June 3, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m
* Advanced Excel 2000 (ECT379) -- Wednesday, June 4, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
* Advanced Access 2000 (ECT380) -- Thursday, June 5, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
* Intermediate PowerPoint 2000 (ECT373) -- Friday, June 6, 8:30 a.m. - noon. Cost: $140.
* Advanced PowerPoint 2000 (ECT382) -- Friday, June 6, 1 - 4:30 p.m. Cost: $140.
Complete class descriptions, schedules and enrollment forms are available online. For information out enrollment, contact Diane Cavazos (CIS) at ext. 2-7153 or dkcavazos@anl.gov.
A representative from MetLife Auto and Home will visit Argonne-East Tuesday, May 20, to meet individually with employees to offer insurance comparisons and quotes for the “METPAY” group automobile and homeowners insurance program.
To schedule an appointment, call (630) 810-0346, ext. 143. Employees can also receive a quote by phone; call 1(800) 438-6388.
George Cutwright, a representative of the Social Security Administration’s Joliet office, will visit Argonne-East Wednesday, May 21, from 8 a.m. to noon.
To schedule a meeting, call Fran Perri (HR) at ext. 2-2989.
By Jessie Skwarek
Argonne employees helped judge the Chicago Public School system’s annual science fair on March 21 at the Museum of Science and Industry.
Barry Finkel (CIS), Kevin Flynn (DIS), Emil Martinec (retired), Walter Podolski (CMT), Harold Spinka (HEP), William Swift (CMT), Roger Tilbrook (NE) and Harry Youngquist (retired) all participated as judges for the science fair. “Judges looked at six to eight projects, but specialty judges like Tilbrook, who was a judge for the American * Nuclear Society, looked at many more projects,” said Finkel.
Finkel has been volunteering his time to help judge the Chicago Public School Student Science Fair for the past 15 years. He was introduced to the idea of judging by his fellow carpool riders, Youngquist and Flynn.
“I enjoy seeing what students are doing for science fair projects,” explained Finkel. “The projects I did as a kid have been far inferior to those I have judged over the years.”
Employees interested in becoming a science fair judge can register with the Argonne Chapter of Sigma Xi or the Speakers’ Bureau. For more information, or to register, contact Barry Finkel (CIS) at ext. 2-7277or Pat Canaday (OPA) at ext. 2-5562.
