NU Physicist Busy as Liaison Between National Lab and Researchers

Snow Leads Fermilab Users

By Sharon Butler, Office of Public Affairs, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Greg Snow is the first to concede he overextends himself. In between delivering snappy demonstrations of physics principles before hordes of University of Nebraska undergraduates, pondering Run I data on the fundamental interactions between quarks and gluons, and slipping in work on a side experiment to explore the stability of antiprotons, this 40-something particle physicist offered to run for chair of Fermilab's Users Executive Council - and won.

What ever possessed him? He says he was eager to take on the job because it was a "transitional year with lots going on." "Lots" includes the induction of a new laboratory director, the commissioning of the Main Injector and the Recycler, completion of upgrades of the two collider detectors, and heavy contemplation of possibilities for the next-generation particle accelerator.

The UEC serves as a liaison between Fermilab's large "user" community (made up of the scientists from research institutions all over the world who make use of the Laboratory's experimental facilities), the Laboratory and the government agencies that fund the scientists' research. The UEC's most important activities are its Annual Users Meeting and its annual trip to Washington, D.C. Typically during the Washington visit, UEC, members pay calls on Capitol Hill and stop by at Universities Research Association, Inc., which manages and operates Fermilab under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy.

The committee this year, says Snow, is blessed with "several forward-thinkers in high-energy physics," which gives the UEC a chance to make "a real impact."

Snow is already devising the ways it can do that. For one, he'd like to create a subcommittee that will focus on future initiatives at Fermilab. Specifically, the role of the subcommittee would be to get the user community more involved in R&D efforts for a new future accelerator a muon collider, perhaps, or a very large hadron collider.

Snow also believes that the UEC is obliged to help the user community connect with the new director, once he or she is appointed. Snow envisions sponsoring small meetings with various interest groups - scientists involved in fixed-target experiments and collider experiments, theorists, astrophysicists, neutrino physicists, and others. Such meetings would give the groups a chance to discuss their programs and concerns and to hear the new director's views on the Laboratory's future directions.

And rather than just meeting congressional representatives when UEC goes to Washington, Snow hopes the UEC can also meet this year with Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson. As Snow remembers it, when Richardson visited Fermilab in October, the secretary said that he was committed to keeping U.S. high-energy physics first in the world, that he wanted to hear from Fermilab's users, and that "something big" lies ahead for Fermilab in the post-LHC era (the era after the commissioning of CERN's Large Hadron Collider). Snow says he took Richardson's words "as an invitation to the UEC"' to meet with him "so that he can hear from some of the people who will make that future happen."

High-Speed Network Performs for the Arts

Internet 2: It's Gone Beyond the Pocket-Protected Techies

By Tom Simons, Public Relations

A popular image of the use of Internet 2 is of scientists from different parts of the world exchanging huge databases in order to engage in collaborative research.

Indeed, three of the four Internet 2 demonstrations at Nebraska Epscor's annual conference Nov. 17 at the Burnham Yates Conference Center had to do with "hard" science - a biodiversity project at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum, a 3-D climate visualization project from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and a satellite data and visualization demonstration from the Earth Resources Observation Systems Data Center in Sioux Falls, S.D.

The fourth demonstration, though, was of "Variations," a digital library project at the Indiana University Music Library where composers and composition students can log on, select a work and listen to the music while they study the score. It can be seen at http://www.music.indiana. edu/variations/.

Dick Durst, dean of the College of Fine and Performing Arts and assistant to the chancellor for the arts, said "Variations" is one of the "really impressive" arts programs on Internet 2, but just one of many promising Internet-based projects in the arts.

"There's potential for collaboration on research projects, particularly in theater design where it requires this (Internet 2) kind of wide bandwidth and high-speed transmission to make it happen," he said.

"Chuck O'Connor (professor and interim director of theater arts), who's on the leading edge of digital imaging as it relates to the theater, has a counterpart at the University of Kansas, Mark Reaney, who for the last four or five years has been doing a lot of virtual reality design for theater technologies. If we can put the two of them together to try to mix the digital imaging side with some of the virtual reality technology, there might be some interesting possibilities."

Durst said Internet 2 also has potential in the area of dance, particularly in enhancing the work of choreographers. But he said its use in the visual arts remains problematic.

"We're still looking for the way in the visual arts," he said, "but there's a lot of incredible stuff happening in collaborations between sculpture and engineering at schools around the country. (Internet 2) really runs the whole spectrum of the fine arts."

In other words, Internet 2 won't be the exclusive realm of techies and scientists.

"There's some real potential for us to participate with this and extend it beyond the realm of the hard sciences and traditional research and into the realm of the arts," Durst said.

Nebraska Wins Collegiate Computer Programming Regional to Qualify for World Finals

A team of three undergraduate students from Nebraska won the North-Central Regional Collegiate Programming Contest organized by the Association for Computing Machinery. A second UNL team finished third in the contest held Nov. 7

Fifty-nine teams competed from the region that encompasses Iowa, Kansas, Manitoba, Minnesota, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Northern Michigan, Western Ontario and Wisconsin. The event is one of 22 regional contests on six continents to qualify 58 teams for the World Finals to be held April 8-12, 1999, in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

The winning team of Josh Brown, Yixin Guo, and Lucas Sabalka solved five of six possible problems with 656 penalty points. The teams of up to three students had five hours to solve six problems. Teams are ranked according to number of correct solutions and further ranked by penalty points assessed for time elapsed on solved problems and for incorrect answers. Brown is a sophomore computer engineering major; Guo is a junior computer engineering major; and Sabalka is a freshman majoring in physics, math, and computer science. All are from Lincoln.

Charles Riedesel, chief adviserr for the UNL Computer Science and Engineering Department, said all three are eligible to compete next year. "We hope they will be defending not only the regional title, but the world championship. As ACM faculty adviser, Riedesel helped organize the UNL teams and served as regional site coordinator.

According to Riedesel, UNL historically has outstanding teams. Riedesel said that the annual UNL CSE High School Programming Contest will help UNL continue its winning tradition. Earlier this year, Sabalka, then a high school senior, was a member of the Northeast High School programming team that won the high school programming contest at UNL's CSE Day. Sabalka and Brown graduated from Lincoln Northeast High School and Guo graduated from Lincoln High School. Riedesel said he hopes the success of this UNL team will generate even greater interest in the UNL CSE Day activities.

Four other teams in the North-Central Regional also solved five problems. A team from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., edged the other UNL team, 665 penalty points to 737 penalty points. The UNL team of Jeff Epler, a computer science senior, and Jon Travis, a computer engineering junior, participated with only two members.

Travis and Epler surprised the judges by finishing the first problem in only eight minutes to grab an early lead.

Team Coach Steve Goddard, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, said, "It is amazing that they could get to the lab, read the problem, and solve it that quickly. To put that in perspective, only seven of the 59 teams solved a problem in less than 60 minutes."

UNL's two teams qualified to represent UNL in the regional contest by finishing atop a preliminary contest held in September.

By winning the tournament, Brown, Guo, and Sabalka qualify for the World Final. Second and third placing teams might qualify as wild-card entries, but those determinations have not been made.

The CSE Department is working with the University of Nebraska Foundation to establish a fund to support the UNL computer programming teams. Steve Reichenbach, chair of the CSE department, said "Collegiate competitions inspire Nebraskans to excel in many pursuits. It is great that the state will be represented at the World Finals by these talented, hard-working students."