[Cuga] Highlights from the DNP JLab Users Satellite Meeting- A message from John Arrington

[Lorelei Chopard]

Dear Users Group,

Below is a brief update from the Satellite meeting at the DNP conference,
approximately sorted in order of likely interest/impact.  I hope to get the
presentations to put on the web before too long: http://wiki.jlab.org/cugwiki


UPCOMING PAC MEETINGS:
There will be a regular PAC meeting in Summer 2014 (week of July 28th),
accepting new proposals, LOIs, etc...

In addition, there will be a 'reprioritization' PAC scheduled sometime next
year - likely "as soon as possible" meaning sometime before the summer PAC.
This will probably NOT include any presentations by the spokespeople, but
the complete details of what information will be collected has not yet been
fully determined.


JSA INFORMATION:
The Applied Technology group of CSC (which was the group involved with JSA)
was sold to Pacific Architects&  Engineer (PAE).  They have agreed to continue
funding the JSA Initiatives Fund which provides a great deal of support to the
users [see http://www.jsallc.org/IF/IFIndex.html ].  The JSA Program
Committee has been reevaluating the criteria and procedures, and we expect a
call for Initiative Fund proposals at any time.  The initiative fund provides
support for Conferences and Workshops and funds the Thesis, Postdoc, and
Poster prizes, the Users Group Meeting and Satellite meetings, as well as a
range of other user-submitted proposals (including the Junior Scientist Travel
Support Fund, which is has funds to help support travel of students and
postdocs).


12 GEV PROGRESS:
All of the recommendations from the Accelerator Readiness Review
have been implemented and approved, and the Accelerator is now ready to
start commissioning.  As noted in the email sent out last week, the
schedule is being reexamined, but this is still a major milestone in the
12 GeV upgrade.  Overall, the project is 82% complete (90+% for civil
construction and accelerator and ~70% for physics equipment), and funds are 96%
obligated. The lab is also working on mid-term plans beyond completion of the
upgrade (SBS project, target and detector upgrades beyond the 12 GeV scope) and
continuing to work with Newport News, Virginia, and BNL to move forward the
plans for a staged EIC.

OTHER:
The directors of several national labs put together a position paper arguing
for robust science funding, and users made trips to congress to speak with
staffers on funding; feedback from the congressional offices was very positive.
Funding is still uncertain, but the President's request and the Senate and
House markups are relatively good given the overall situation situation.

At the DNP business meeting, there was discussion of the possibility of
initiating a long range planning process in the near future, perhaps next
year.

12 GeV running: Lab had hoped for running 35 weeks/year with an average hall
multiplicity of 3.  Current DOE guidance is 30 weeks with 2.3 hall
multiplicity, which is about a 30% reduction in operations.  This makes
the backlog situation worse, motivating (in part) the reprioritization, but
also makes it clear that the lab is very sensitive to loss of funding for
operations when the 12 GeV project is completed.