US LUAOctober 2010 – News Archive
October 27, 2010
Fermilab Today
Fermilab hosts 2010 USLUO meeting; Brinkman to speak
October 27, 2010
HEPAP and P5 presentations
C. Baltay’s Oct 26 HEPAP talk has been posted to the HEP website as well as the P5 Report
October 18, 2010
Results of the USLUEC Elections
Congratulations to those elected to the Executive Committee for a 2010-2012 term: Joey Huston, John Huth, Boaz Klima, Jane Nachtman, Randy Ruchti, and Sheldon Stone.
October 15, 2010
New DPF newsletter
Check out the new online newsletter from the APS Division of Particles and Fields.
October 15, 2010
Reminder: The USLUO annual meeting will be held at Fermilab 29-30 October.
October 14, 2010
AAAS Policy Alert (excerpts) – Budget News
Congress is on recess until after the November 2 elections. Although the new fiscal year began October 1 without any FY 2011 appropriations bills having been passed by both chambers and signed by the President, the federal government is functioning under a continuing resolution (CR) extending FY 2010 funding levels for most programs until December 3.
SBIR/STTR Programs Extended. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs have been extended through January 31, 2011, after the President signed S. 3839 on September 30, the day the programs were due to expire. The SBIR and STTR programs administer grants to small businesses and small business-university partnerships for R&D activities.
Supreme Court Hears Case on JPL Scientists and Privacy. Last week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a case regarding NASA’s implementation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12, which sets standards for issuing identification badges to all federal employees including contract employees. The plaintiffs in the case involve Caltech researchers who work at the Jet Propulsion Lab and must agree to background checks even though they work on unclassified projects. The central question before the Supreme Court is whether “the government violates a federal contract employee’s constitutional right to informational privacy” when it asks questions of a personal nature (e.g., illegal drug use) in the course of a background investigation. The Supreme Court’s decision could have implications for many other researchers under contract to the government.
GAO Report on COMPETES Act. A new report from the Government Accountability Office analyzed the three agencies funded by the America COMPETES Act of 2007 — DOE’s Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology — and concluded that “it is too early to assess the effectiveness of these programs” (presumably, in improving U.S. competitiveness). However, the report recommended that the agencies should each “set a goal for funding high-risk, high-reward research and that [they] coordinate in doing so.” It further recommended that the agencies include information on such research “with their annual budget requests, which are available to the public.”
People in the News. – Subra Suresh, Dean of the MIT School of Engineering, was confirmed by the Senate on Sept. 29 to be the next Director of the National Science Foundation.
SBIR/STTR Programs Extended. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs have been extended through January 31, 2011, after the President signed S. 3839 on September 30, the day the programs were due to expire. The SBIR and STTR programs administer grants to small businesses and small business-university partnerships for R&D activities.
Supreme Court Hears Case on JPL Scientists and Privacy. Last week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a case regarding NASA’s implementation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12, which sets standards for issuing identification badges to all federal employees including contract employees. The plaintiffs in the case involve Caltech researchers who work at the Jet Propulsion Lab and must agree to background checks even though they work on unclassified projects. The central question before the Supreme Court is whether “the government violates a federal contract employee’s constitutional right to informational privacy” when it asks questions of a personal nature (e.g., illegal drug use) in the course of a background investigation. The Supreme Court’s decision could have implications for many other researchers under contract to the government.
GAO Report on COMPETES Act. A new report from the Government Accountability Office analyzed the three agencies funded by the America COMPETES Act of 2007 — DOE’s Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology — and concluded that “it is too early to assess the effectiveness of these programs” (presumably, in improving U.S. competitiveness). However, the report recommended that the agencies should each “set a goal for funding high-risk, high-reward research and that [they] coordinate in doing so.” It further recommended that the agencies include information on such research “with their annual budget requests, which are available to the public.”
People in the News. – Subra Suresh, Dean of the MIT School of Engineering, was confirmed by the Senate on Sept. 29 to be the next Director of the National Science Foundation.
October 13, 2010
Burglaries in Geneva and nearby
Visitors to Geneva are reminded to take care and use common sense in light of increasing purse-snatching and burglaries in Geneva and Canton Vaud. Please be particularly careful around the main train station (Gare Cornavin) and the Paquis neighborhood.
October 8, 2010
Applications are being accepted for the second International School of Trigger and Data Acquisition to be held in Rome, February 9-16, 2011.
October 7, 2010
Voting for US LHC Executive Committee ENDS FRIDAY 8 OCTOBER
October 7, 2010
APS U.S. – India Travel Grant Program: Deadline November 1
http://www.aps.org/programs/international/us-india-travel.cfm
October 6, 2010
AAAS Policy Alert
Congress passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) just after midnight on Thursday, September 30, to extend federal government funding through December 3, 2010.
Visit the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program Website for additional news on the FY 2011 budget.
October 5, 2010
Tanaka Dissertation Award – application deadline Nov. 1
http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/dissertation/tanaka.cfm
October 5, 2010
USLUO Annual Meeting Oct 29-30, 2010 at Fermilab
Meeting registration and agenda: http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=104297
Poster Contest: http://www.hep.wisc.edu/~dasu/usluoPosterSession.html
October 5, 2010
NSF EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC SUMMER INSTITUTES FOR U.S. GRADUATE STUDENTS – 2011 APPLICATION NOW OPEN http://www.nsfsi.org/
October 4, 2010
New link for “Newcomer Welcome Center” which is a great resource for those relocating to or
visiting CERN http://club-cwc-newcomers.web.cern.ch/club-cwc-newcomers/
October 4, 2010
October 26 HEPAP Meeting
There will be a special HEPAP meeting on Tuesday, October 26, 2010, at the Rockville Hilton Hotel, 1750 Rockville Pike, Rockville, 20852 to consider the science case and impacts of operating the Tevatron at Fermilab for an additional three years beyond its currently planned termination of operations in FY 2011. The meeting’s agenda will be posted at http://www.science.doe.gov/hep/agendas/index.shtml when it becomes available.