Weekly Report for Week Ending September 27, 2001

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  October 1, 2001 will be:

 (Meeting time: 10:30 am Pacific Time)

Open meeting 10:30 - 11:30

1. Announcements
2. LSC Issues (Weiss)
3. Comments on Weekly Report
4. WBS 1 LIGO I Construction (Lindquist)
• Field Change Orders/Contingency Liens/Change Requests
5. WBS 2 LIGO Lab Operations
• Administration (Lindquist)
• Sites (Raab, Coles, Shoemaker, Sanders)
• Detector (Whitcomb, Coyne)
• Campus Research Facilities (Weinstein (40 Meter), Libbrecht (TNI), Zucker(LASTI))
• Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)
6. WBS 3 and 4  Advanced R&D and LIGO II (Sanders)

Special Items:

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Weiss)

From: Rainer Weiss <weiss@ligo.mit.edu>

Subject: Notes from last LSC Executive meeting September 21, 2001
 

Report from Spokesperson
------------------------
The large number of papers being submitted by LSC members requires
an increase in the membership of the LSC Publications and Presentations
Committee. Will ask Jim Brau, Peter Saulson and Joe Romano to augment the
committee. The Amaldi Conference papers, to be submitted to the reviewed
journal "Classical and Quantum Gravity", will be superficially reviewed
by Weiss to maintain a schedule.
 

Report from the Data Coordinator
--------------------------------
Suggests that LSC and the Laboratory begin to address the special problems
associated with GRID computing systems, in particular, the security
questions.
 

The second iteration of the LSC Data Analysis White Paper is close to
completion and will be initially sent to all members of the LSC
Executive Committee for comment.
 

Analysis of TAMA data and proposal for a joint observing run with LIGO
----------------------------------------------------------------------
An offer made by members of TAMA to analyse old TAMA data by the LSC
was not considered interesting enough to divert effort from preparations
for LIGO/LSC data taking and analysis. However, the Committee encouraged
the Laboratory to investigate arrangments with TAMA for a joint run
and data analysis of new data from LIGO and TAMA.
 

Coordination of LSC computing capabilities
-------------------------------------------
The iVDGL (International Virtual Data Grid Laboratory, onetime called
GRIPHYN) grid based computing initiative has been funded. The LIGO
Laboratory, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Pennsylvania State
University and the University of Texas at Brownsille are recipients
of a total of $2M over 5 years. Several of the institutions are already
receiving funds for LIGO/LSC computing needs through other channels.
One of the questions that has been raised is how to coordinate the
new funds with existing ones to achieve the best result for the
Collaboration. The White Paper on Data Analysis gives some guidance.
A small group of LSC members will be pulled together by Al Lazzarini
to formulate a strategy.
 

Proposal by K Riles to couple LIGO shift work with authorship of papers
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The proposal made by Keith Riles at the last LSC meeting coupling
detector shift attendance to the number of authors per research group
was discussed again in the light of comments made by LSC members and with
the benefit of an additional month of pondering. The Executive committee
has not reached consensus. There are still questions of what is the
currency should the idea be adopted. Is only shift work to be recognized?
Is work on other LSC joint facilities equivalent? How does one
count the designers and the builders? How does one treat
surrogates....etc. I have taken on the job of writing a document for the
Executive Committee and clearly need to consult with a good crosssection
of the Lab and LSC.

Proposal by David Shoemaker and Ken Strain for LIGO III White Paper
-------------------------------------------------------------------
With advanced LIGO (LIGO II) research and development
program moving from a conceptual design into an engineering
research phase, it is important to maintain a long term program to develop
concepts for further improvements. The proposal being made is
to begin to outline, in earnest, the long lead research directions and
embody them in a LIGO III White Paper. The first draft projected for
October 2002.
 

Next LSC Executive Committee meeting Friday October 26, 2001 at 11AM EDT.

LIGO I Construction/LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

WBS 1.2 LIGO Operations--Administration

The following topics were discussed during the site teleconference on Thursday, September 27, 2001.

• The projected carry forward for Operations remains at $2.6 million.  We are spending at a rate of approximately $2.2 million
• Florence is preparing a suggested set of ORACLE account numbers for FY 2002.  The intent is to use alpha characters as much as possible to make them easier to understand and remember.  Preliminary worksheets have been prepared.
• We have received a no-cost extension for NSF Cooperative Agreement PHY-9210038 (Construction and Concurrent OPs) through June 2003.
• The results of the bid opening at Hanford are addressed by Ed Jasnow below.
• A draft staffing plan has been issed (see action 100).  However, Ed wants me to keep this action open pending incorporation of staffing changes requested by Mark.

From: Ed Chargois <chargois_e@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Nothing to report.

>From: Linda Turner - turner@ligo.caltech.edu>

Web pages for the DCC give simple how-to's for document numbering, easy access to the latest on-line documents, and search capabilities for the DCC database. Take a look. . .

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• No report this week.  Linda will be out for several weeks but will be checking in with Cleveland periodically as well as keeping up with email during this period.

ACTIVITY

• Activity was light for electronic document submittals.  A total of 8 electronic documents were processed and added online.
• A total of 65 new documents were added to the DCC database.
• 2 DCN's were processed, copied, and distributed.
• Progress continues on converting old account charge files to electronic form.

Press here to access the DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER WEB PAGE.

From: Esther Cunningham <esther@ligo.caltech.edu>

Press here for ACCOUNTS PAYABLE HISTORY DATA.

From: "Brambila, Ruth" <Ruth.Brambila@caltech.edu>

• Processed C/O#4 to Corning.  The documents were sent out to the vendor yesterday.
• Otto to get back to me today with the decision on whether the order for crane should proceed or be cancelled with the vendor.
• Working on a new contract to MLD for Irena.

• Set up preliminary worksheets for new account numbers for fiscal year 2002.
• Prepared and submitted a fabrication equipment request form and request for new POETA for the Seismometer work at the sites done by Szabolcs Marka.
• Submitted cost transfer requests to correct errors in classification of expenditures.
• Responded to a request for funding alignment for a R&D account from Federal Accounting.
• Prepared an analysis of projected underspend of Operations funding on a cash basis as of September 30, 2001, and the anticipated available budget after payment of all expenditures for fiscal period 2001.

From: irena@ligo.caltech.edu (Irena Petrac)

• MLD: PO to initiate optics coating development program aimed at reducing absorption in  ultrahigh reflection mirrors was released to purchasing. An advanced copy was faxed to MLD.
• HPD: CO No. 04, revising the basis of performance form the current T&M to a CPFF contact type for the fabrication phase of the SEI Pre-prototype effort is in LIGO review.
• Corning: CO No.04 for the purchase of additional mirror blank material was released.

• Work on the laser safety implementation systems is continuing at both sites.

SUPPORT (Wood)

Ill today.

Rita Torres

• Returned to my office on 9/26 after sitting at Elizabeth's desk.
• Set up a standing telecon reservation for the CDS weekly meeting.
• Continued to check for incoming LSC reports.  Formatted reports from Harvard-Smithsonian, and ACIGA; these are now in review.  Verified email addresses in Attachments Z with those in the LSC database, updated a couple in the database.  Scanned various documents to electronically submit to the DCC, did 15 this week.
• Placed Pcard orders, including a couple for the LDAS group.  Reconciled a few, including $40 for freight that the vendor forgot to charge us in May.

• Processed the usual requisitions, invoices and receiving on-line. For more detail, see "Cost Schedule Control Systems" report by Esther Cunningham.
• Tracked and followed up on invoice problems.
• Reviewed and recorded payments processed by Esther the week of September 17.
• Continue to monitor contract and blanket order encumbrance and notify task managers when supplements are needed.
• Completed update of PO Log Books.
• Jim continues with data entry in the LIGO database and supports Irene (travel) in the mornings and Linda and Cleveland (DCC) in the afternoons.

• Attended a training session with Criselda the pcard guru on the process of entering and reconciling travel on a pcard using the new travel enhancement.  The travel procedure manual is in the final stages of completion;  we should have access to that manual in the next few weeks.  Everything we could ever possibly want to know about travel in one handy-dandy location.
• I continue to badger the international scholars’ office to communicate with employment so LIGO employees with visas can continue working for Caltech.
• Updated the web roster.

Advanced LIGO (Frey)

Progress Period from 09.21 to 09.27

Accomplishments:

• Weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting not held this week.
• Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal (Highest Priority)
• Continuing the development of the Cost Estimate.
• Continue to pursue all other sub system schedules.
• Updated web site with latest data.
• The following is a summary of status by sub system:
• COC - Work on action items per second review continues.  Provided GB with BOE input template.
• PSL - Issued cost and resource loaded reports and awaiting comments.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
• AOS - Work on action items continues.  Followed up with Mike Smith and work is progressing.
• IO -  Work on action items continues.  Followed up with Dave Reitze and David Tanner and work is progressing.
• SUS - Working with SUS group to incorporate current comments.  Next meeting date has not been scheduled.
• SEI - Efforts continue on action items.  Second meeting scheduled for October 5.  I have now taken responsibility for finishing input of previous comments.  Marcel has committed to providing the BOE, revised WBS, and changes to risk factors.
• All other subsystems have yet to be scheduled for their first review.  These dates are pending per direction from Gary Sanders and Dennis Coyne.
• Continue to update the TNI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Nothing to report.
• Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Nothing to report.
• Project Plan for the 40-Meter Lab Upgrade continues.
• Nothing to report.
• Peter King requested to be relieved of the responsibility to provide PSL status so Alan W. will be taking care of it.
• Continue to test the Cost Book Tool.
• Continue to work with BK executing current action items.  Met with BK and discussed how her new job will impact our current efforts on the cost book and resource database..
• Continue to run tests on reports using other sub-system data.
• Verifying and checking business rules using PSL cost loading as pilot effort.
• Mapping and formatting of OPS cost data for input on hold pending additional changes to budget data per NSF re-submit.
• Development of the Advanced LIGO Project Controls Guidebook continues.
• Project Web Site for posting schedule and progress related data continues to be updated with the latest and greatest.
• See http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/index.html

• Next weekly Advanced LIGO Project Controls meeting is scheduled for Friday, October 5 at 9:30am at the Small SCR.  Focus of the meeting will be the SEI Second MRE Cost Estimate review.
• Advanced LIGO MRE Proposal (Highest Priority Task)
• Highest priority is the development of the Cost Estimate.
• Will continue to pursue all other sub system schedules.
• PSL - Will schedule next meeting.
• AOS - Continue inputting changes to and prepare for next meeting TBD.
• IO - Continue inputting changes to and prepare for next meeting TBD.
• SUS - Continue inputting changes to and prepare for next meeting of October 5.
• SEI - Continue inputting changes and prepare for next meeting TBD.
• COC - Work in action items by Garilynn continues.  Anticipate schedule changes prior to next meeting TBD.
• Will import cost data and complete schedule integration.
• Will Continue to update the TNI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 09.28.01 and  post to site by the 2nd.
• Will Continue to update the LASTI Schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 09.28.01 and  post to site by the 2nd.
• Will continue updating the 40 meter schedule and incorporate any changes.
• Will update the plan with progress as of 09.28.01 and  post to site by the 2nd.
• Cost Book Tool development continues.  (Highest Priority Task)
• Will continue ops cost data input when available.
• Will continue to work with BK importing data and executing action items.
• Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Web Site.

Will continue the development of the Advanced LIGO Project Controls Guide Book.

WBS 1.4.1.2   Project Controls (LIGO Construction)

I have received most of the input required for the end-of-August Quarterly Progress Report, and I am currently assembling the report.

The following Change Requests have been submitted.
 

We scheduled a meeting of the LIGO Change Control Board for Tuesday, September 11, 2001, at 9:00 am PDT. An agenda was distributed electronically (LIGO-M010244-00-P).  This meeting was postponed in light of national events and will be rescheduled.

Press for the latest Contingency Needs Projection.

From: Kris Duncan <kris@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Continued with the August 2001 NSF quarterly report.  Received the actual cost and commitments for month end August 2001 CIT Financial and continued with my monthly reconciliation.
• Continued with construction contract/work package close out.

• I received the MIT invoice and the twonk for the month of August, 2001. The data has been given to Esther for payment.
• I am gathering all the information for the monthly reports on the Construction and Advanced R&D accounts for August 2001. Since the Advanced R&D report has been put into a new format, I will no longer send out the details at a later date. Everything is put on the network at the same time.
• I continue to review the open encumbrances on the Construction and Advanced R&D accounts to see if the requested removals have been made. I will continue to review these accounts weekly until all encumbrances have been removed (Remember, I can only get these errors corrected if the Task Managers point them out to me).

.
• Florence Kaufman and I have decided to put all the reports into one place (for your convenience)...so they can be found at:

http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport

From: Ed Jasnow <jasnow@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Bids for the Hanford OSB East Building were opened at Hanford on Wednesday, September 26, with the following results:

 

 
 
 

Citadel Construction       $2,463,600
Apollo, Inc.               $2,579,072
George Grant Const.        $2,456,000
Chervenell Const.          $2,436,000
LIGO Estimate              $2,841,022

We have requested a Dun & Bradstreet on the apparent low bidders, as well as financial satatements and subcontractor lists.  This information, along with the proposed subcontract, will be submitted to the NSF for approval.
 

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

No report this week.
 

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) Operations (Raab)

NO REPORT

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) Operations (Coles)

Detector: Optics and Installation: Installation of the door hardware for the Laser Safety Interlock system is completed and we're waiting on some hardware that I'm told is delayed because of security issues at the Canadian border. Prepared general arrangement drawings of an acoustic enclosure for our PSL and contacted several manufacturers for quotes. Jonathan Kern

CDS: Rolf is  visiting LLO for upgrade of DAQ system. Replaced all the Baja Mips processors with Pentiums. Tom upgraded the OS on all the mass storage machines to Solaris 8. Installed new reflective memory cards on Frame broadcaster and frame builder. Installed new reflected memory bypass switch unit. Alex
loaded up the FrameBuilder and Daniel is working on the Test point manager and the GDS code. Dave helped setup the Framebroadcaster after the new OS was
installed. We found the existing Gigabit Ethernet card doesn't have a driver for the new OS. Daniel's shipping us a new GE card. New CDS server is ready to go
once Rolf installs the code on it. Upgrade of London will be done later. Battling some problems with the GPS clocks modules at the time of this writing.
Chethan

LDAS - Shipped out the tape library to cybernetics to be inspected so they can renew the service contract. Replaced a failed drive in t3-6. I have bigbrother running at both ldas-sw and ldas.ligo-la. Pulled a fiber channel card out of the data server to let Rolf use it in a blade1000
for t3 testing with CDS. Started configuring the backup scripts on admin in order to do the disk to disk backups on the LDAS systems. Read some of the documentation on restarting LDAS after a reboot of dataserver.  Shannon Roddy

GC: The router equipment for our second T1 line has been installed and we now have two operational lines. LSU is still performing some tests of the routing configuration, but so far there seem to be no problems.We are working on the upgrade of our user file server from an E3000 to a Blade 1000. We are going to take advantage of this opportunity to also upgrade our free-ware software packages. Tom Evans

PEM: Discussed additions and the direction of the PEM reference web pages with Szabi. Began adding new content to the seismic reference pages. Also discussed calibration routines for the seismometers. The two end station Guralp seismometers were reconnected to the DAQ Wednesday afternoon. They were down due to the fact that the Streckheisen seismometers were using the end station data channels for data collection. I have tested calibration routines using the y-end Guralp seismometer before its reconnection. The new version of the DTT has been placed on Decatur. I hope to begin testing the Lidax addition sometime next week after the work on the CDS system is finished. Doug Lormand

Control Room: I'm starting setting up of the electronics rack in the control room, Doing P.M. and cleaning of the sites 3 weather station towers, plus working with
the IFO commissioning team as time permits. Rich Riesen

Other: Edward Jackson, Chancellor of Southern University, toured LLO tuesday morning with Steve McGuire. Chancellor Jackson was very enthusiastic about the project and offered the assistance of his office should we need his help in any way.

Detector/Technical Support (Whitcomb, Coyne)

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• PSL (Abbott, Ugolini, Vass, Smith, King):
• Dennis Ugolini has completed a new set of BeamScan measurements to check the existing mode matching in the PSL Reference Cavity and main beam optical train. The model of the existing (far from optimal) beam profile diverges from the data after the AOM crystal, suggesting that that device is distorting the beam. If this is an aperture effect, better mode matching (see below) could help a lot.
• Dennis, Ben, and Steve are moving on to re-measuring the beam power everywhere on the table, and the visibility of the frequency reference cavity and PMC. Then, they'll re-tune all the servo loop gains and phases, remeasure transfer functions, and then remeasure the in-loop frequency noise, PMC noise, and beam angle/position jitter.
• Mike Smith completed a re-design for the mode matching in the PSL Reference Cavity optical train, based on work by SURF student Tim Piatenko. He will complete a list of lenses to be ordered for both mode matching and beam position/angle diagnostics, and they will be deployed as soon as possible.
• Ben continues to work with the Caltech electricians to get the wiring right on our PSL enclosure.
• Facilities (Vass, Jones, Smith, AJW):
• Larry continues to work with Santa Fe Textiles to get prototypes of 25-conductor twisted-pair in-vacuum cables. The Cooner wire they were braiding has breaks, and it's just knotted together. These are apparently unavoidable, and the breaks must be identified, and that section of cable discarded, when the cables are assembled. Larry will find out how bad a problem this is, and whether it will be necessary to abandon the flexible Cooner wire and fall back on stiffer wire that, at least, has no breaks.
• Larry is also concerned about the stiffness of the braided copper shielding for the cables, and will talk with Jay about the need for such shielding, and how completely it must cover the cables in order to be effective.
• The order for the 5'x12' (more accurately, 59"x144") optical table has finally been placed, and it is expected by the end of October. Custom legs for this and several other tables will be completed by CES, also by the end of October.
• Steve Vass assembled the small mode cleaner chamber seismic stack, and Dennis has bee nmeasuring transfer functions using a shaker. The resonant peak locations don't quite agree with the models, but the qualitative behavior looks right. Dennis attached a 25-conductor cable prototype with clamps designed by Larry, and it had almost negligible effect on the performance. We conclude that these cables are not too stiff, even for this small stack.
• Steve is moving a vacuum line (for the vertex chambers annuli) so that it doesn't bump into one of our new optical tables (near the SV chamber).
• The N2 line for the vacuum valves ran out of gas while Steve was away, and the interlock correctly closed all valves. Steve is back and brought everything back to normal, and Dennis is working on ways to sense and/or predict when we're close to running out of N2.
• Suspension controllers (Ben Abbott, Heefner): Ben is almost done with the ProTel drawings for the 10 digital suspensions, and we are reviewing them to understand where all signals come from and go to.
• Suspensions (Romie): Janeen delivered a complete set of drawings for the test mass suspensions and fixtures to the 40m lab (these suspensions, 4+spare, are in production at CES).
• Scattered Light control (Smith): The scattered light phase noise calculations are continuing for the 40m IFO, with the goal of incorporating the effect of the signal recycling mirror.
• Computing (Bogue, Ugolini, Bork): The 4th IBM disk in our RAID array (out of 8) has failed and has been replaced.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

This week we balanced and aligned the new, lower-finesse South Arm
Cavity.  Some residual steering of the output beam is still needed, but we
have the transmitted spot on a camera.
 

Eric visited Wave Precision on Wednesday, meeting with Ken Scribner, John
Tardiff, and Dennis Hotchkiss.  Sapphire fabrication appears to be
proceeding smoothly, and at its present rate we hope to be able to install
the first Sapphire Arm Cavity in January of next year.

LASTI (Zucker)

LASTI (Fritschel, Harry, MacInnis, Mason, Miller, Mittleman,
Ottaway, Phinney, Rollins, Shoemaker, Zucker)
 

=======================================================================
 

Infrastructure:
 

Grouting of the BSC/HAM piers has slipped to end of
this week due to contractor availability. Meanwhile the LLO HAM and
BSC  pier/support tube installation equipment no longer needed has been
staged and palleted for reshipment to LLO (date TBD but shooting for
early next week).  Myron will coordinate with Gary and Harry to
receive at the LLO end.
 

A cleaning crew has been lined up after grouting is completed to
scrub everything down and restore our low particle counts.  We expect
this will enable incursion into HAM13 for test cavity suspension
installation week of 10/8.
 

Ken received detailed drawings and fabrication bid on the mezzanine
designed to support assembly of the SEI/SUS cartridge at BSC flange
level.  Due to the (upward) revised  estimated weight of the adLIGO SEI
platform plus SUS assembly fixtures and personnel, the steel structure
is about twice as expensive as previously estimated. We are considering
rebidding but have not concluded a course of action.
 

Hydraulic pre-isolators:
 

Ken is working on a drawing set for review
this week.  Joshua is still furiously ordering miscellaneos parts for
the test stand (motor starter/overloads for the pump, NEMA enclosures,
pipe fittings) and expects everything to be in week after next ('just
add oil...').  The piping distance from LVEA mechanical rooms to BSC
actuators at both sites were estimated from site drawings, and will be
simulated with coils of tubing; subject to acoustic noise
considerations, we're now planning to  temporarily situate the
hydraulic pump skid next to BSC0 in the MIT high bay.
 

Prestabilized laser:
 

THE LASTI PMC HAS BEEN LOCKED!  Jamie and Dave managed to work around
the electronic problems reported last week to achieve this very
satisfying result.  In other good news, our repaired MOPA checked out
"better than fine" (more than 11 W with a near perfect Gaussian output
beam) at Caltech, and was shipped this week by Lee Cardenas and Peter
King, to arrive here momentarily.  In the bummer department,
electronics and wiring problems continue, with a blown PA-85 being the
latest issue.  We're consulting with Rick K. about how to deal with
it.
 

Environment:
 

The local contractors have been showing more respect and restraint this
week, although there is still a good deal of shaking from the pile
driving.  We are told this activity will wind up by end of next week
"weather permitting".

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
 

 E2E for LIGO I meeting
 ----------------------
 The monthly E2E for LIGO I meeting was held on Tuesday among hardware and
 detector experts and the e2e team. The details are available in e2e
homepage
 http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~e2e
 

 LSC characterization
 --------------------
 (Luca) The Matlab model reproducing the filtering properties of the LSC
 electronic chain now agrees to within 1dB and 2deg below 1kHz,
 and 5dB and 5deg below 8kHz.
 A Matlab function is now set to give the transfer function of the
 LSC electronics for any digital combination enabled.
 The response of the coil driver and pendulum tf for FMX was
 inferred from a closed loop transfer function measurement recently
 obtained and the model described above.
 

 Mode Mismatch
 -------------
 (Biplab) Running Han2k model and a corresponding hi-finesse cavity and
doing
 some analytical calculations to study resonance points in presence of
 mismatched beams.
 

 E2E @ LLO
 ---------
 (Ed Maros) Installed e2e-1.7.2 at Livingston.
 

 Alfi
 ----
  (Bruce)
- Completed Alfi5 parser read methods.
- Starting work on the display elements of Alfi5.
 

  (Melody)
- Continued working on displaying member nodes in alfi5.
 

LIGO Data Analysis System
 

  Software Systems (Blackburn)
 

  Began developing code within the dataConditionAPI to support the
  emerging one-sided power spectrum standard.
 

  Carefully went through the problem tracking system and closed out
  roughly 20 open problems.
 

  Discovered that the LINUX build of GCC 2.95.3 was faulty. It was
  left over from the Redhat 6.2 and depended on those libraries. The
  compiler has been rebuilt with Redhat 7.1 and all depended software
  has been rebuilt and rsync'ed to the sites. This has introduced a
  need to deliver a new LDAS release as soon as possible. This bug
  also explained strange build behavior reported at several LDAS
  development sites within the LSC.
 

  LDAS hosted Antony Searle from ANU and Duncun Brown from UWM this
  week. Both worked extensively on setting up custom LDAS systems
  on laptops and in addition on tracing down and fixing problems.
  Peter Shawhan worked with Antony and Isaac to get the LDAS database
  up and running under RedHat Linux 7.1. The web page of instructions
  to cover installation of DB2 on both Solaris and Linux are being up-
  dated.
 

  A minor set of modifications were made to the wrapperInterfaceDatatype.h
  file used by both LDAS and the LALwrapper. This has migrated into both
  the LDAS and LALwrapper CVS repositories. New versions of LDAS and LAL
  and LALwrapper based on these changes should be available at UWM and CIT
  later this week.
 

  Revised the "SeqInsert" utility in LIGOtools to allow John to direct
  DMT triggers to different databases.
 

  Added support to the dataConditionAPI to ingest results of arbitrary
  database queries into the dataPipeline for use by the dataConditionAPI
  or search codes running under the wrapperAPI.
 

  New version of SWIG tried and whole LDAS system compiled using it.
  System needs to be tested before new SWIG can be made default. Will be
  performing unit test on genericAPI, not exhaustive. We will also have
  to examine new SWIG-generated code for memory leaks.
 

  Added new user commands addUser, updateUserInfo and createFtpDirectory
  to the set of understood managerAPI commands.
 

  The domain over which LDAS runs will no longer be determined using the
  unix domainname command. Instead a new mechanism will be implemented
  based on a system configuration file.
 

  Finished up nodes monitor function changes by splitting nodes into pages
  to handle all nodes on a system. Looked into cpu data displayed by
  snapSysData but no changes are made since the info from vmstat is correct.
  Tried with top also but top in batch mode did not produce any cpu usage
  data ( 0% idle ). Miscellaneous fixes for cntlmon; closed all cntlmonAPI
  problem reports.
 

  Working on metadataAPI issues: created a script dbUniqueIds to generate
  the uniqueId file for metadataAPI by querying databases for the primary
  keys. A generic dbUniqueIds file is used for all databases that have the
  same schema, and specific one used for each database that is different.
  Removed database specifics on pkgIndex.tcl (Makefile.am); working on
script
  to generate site specific LDASdsnames.ini so user does not have to copy
the
  released LDASdsnames file to edit. Added the key functions to db2utils lib
  file db2static.tcl to add the info to schema web page.
 

  Hardware Systems (Anderson)
 

    Caltech
    -------
    (Dan Kozak)
 

    Some HPSS handholding, reseting error warnings and adding remaining
    tapes to storage classes mostly.
 

    Labeled about half of the (CACR) 9940 tapes and got them into the
    silo.
 

    Worked on a remaining Red Hat sendmail issue--still looking for a
    solution.
 

    Met with Sun regarding SAN topology and T3/QFS performance issues.
 

    (Al Wilson)
 

    moves moves and more moves. installed a new system for alex. m27 (an old
    PII) was swapped out for a shinny brand new m27 (2gig P4) it will also
be
    the new build machine. We got replacement for the LCD monitor in the
    machine room. very fast turn around. Thanks sun. But alas the memory for
    the alpha is on back order.
 

    (Stuart Anderson)
 

    Working with Sun on configuring the next major LDAS hardware purchase
    of servers and storage equipment. With the help of Sun engineers we
    where finally able to demonstrate linear scaling of I/O performance
    as the number of T3 RAID systems in a single filesystem was increased.
 

    Enabled software mirroring of pre-built LDAS software to LSC members.
 

    MIT
    ---
 

    troubleshot managerAPI failure
 

    Livingston
    ----------
    (Shannon Roddy)
 

    LDAS - Shipped out the tape library to cybernetics to be inspected so
    they can renew the service contract.  Replaced a failed drive in t3-6.
    I have bigbrother running at both ldas-sw and ldas.ligo-la.  Pulled a
    fiber channel card out of dataserver to let Rolf use it in a blade1000
    for t3 testing with CDS.  Started configuring the backup scripts on
    admin in order to do the disk to disk backups on the LDAS systems.  Read
    some of the documentation on restarting LDAS after a reboot of
    dataserver.
 

    Hanford
    -------
    (Greg Mendell)
 

    1) Upgraded knownpulsardemod DSO code to either output the SFT data in
       frame format or to demod the SFTs and output statistics to the
       SGNL_DPERIOD database table.  (In both case, when run under the
       stand-alone wrapper, the output goes into an ilwd file.)
 

    2) Added code to generate test data.  A simple test verifies that a
       signal is detected when the command line template parameters match
the
       test data parameters.
 

    3) Submitted knownpulsardemod DSO code to the lalwrapper cvs archive.
 

    4) Performed routine sys admin tasks.
 

  Data Analysis Activities
  (Philip Charlton)
  - Finished and submitted FCT group paper for Amaldi 4 proceedings.
 

  - Worked on comparing recovery of SNR via FCT and exact templates, both in
    code and analytically. Currently working on code to study the effect
    of oversampling by taking fixed-length chirps in the time domain and
    padding with zeroes to achieve a longer time-series.
 
 

General Computing (Wallace)
 

MIT:
- Moved machines back into offices (from MDC)
- Added new users (grad students / postdocs)
- Setup Ultra10 machine for postdoc
- Investigated permanent locations for wireless hubs
- Various paperwork:
  MIT property tags
  P.O. changes for equipment sent back to Dell
- Investigated laptop prices/specs for postdoc
 

Livingston:
(Tom)
- The router equipment for our second T1 line has been installed and we
  now have two operational lines. LSU is still performing some tests of
  the routing configuration, but so far there seem to be no problems.
- We are working on the upgrade of our user file server from an E3000
  to a Blade 1000. We are going to take advantage of this opportunity
  to also upgrade our freeware software packages.
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
- Installed the latest patches on all Solaris systems.  Copied most of
  the CDS security measures onto all GC Solaris systems.
- Started setting up a Windows 2000 server.  Installed a trial version
  of the Quick Restore backup software to be used to backup PCs to the
  tape robot connected to the Solaris file server.
- Installed the new tape robot onto the new file server.  Started
  installing the latest version of the Quick Restore backup software on
  the new server.
 

CIT:
 

(Barbara)
- Began work on newest items on costbook to-do list.   Updated the posted
  reports using the 2002 indirect cost, GRA, and staff benefit rates.  Wrote
  a query to update the cost codes.  Began working on report changes.
- Worked with Mike on the rebuild of pc72 and the replacement for pherkab.
- Made web site changes -- LSC reports and talks, postdoc position,
  publications.
 

(Wendy)
- Installed Office on a PC, then worked on other problems with that PC.
- Inventoried the computers in Synchrotron and updated the inventory map.
- Installed windows patches on a few PCs
- Inventoried a few laptops--the laptops on the list I was given are mostly
  traveling at this time, so these will need to be found at some later time
 

(Mick)
- Continued working on inventory data
- Modified web FAQs
- Addressed problem with Helena's ZIP drive, eventually replacing it
- Helped Mike and Larry install new rack-mount PC to become pherkab
- Reconfigured Liz's computer to get her e-mail, rather than Rita's
- Learning to restore files from the daily backups
 

(Mike)
- Getting user and share information together to reload PHERKAB
- Work with Larry to make adjustments on server rack to make room for rack
  mount servers.
- Loaded 2Ghz with all General Computing software and engineering packages
- Working on upgrading ANSYS server to 5.7.1 waiting on License code from
ANSYS.
- PHERKAB, reloaded with NTSRV 4.0 the administrative server which is now
  back-up and running.
- Various user support that included software, hardware issues and printer
  problems.
 

(Lisa)
- Working on sendmail compile on becrux.  This requires gcc to be installed
  locally.  ver. 8.11.6 compiles fine but I'm getting make errors with
8.12.0.
- Worked on clearing up disk space on sirius and helping the 40meter manage
  their file distribution.
- Rebooted kuma.  This required all of the printers to be re-set.
- Made dns and nis+ host changes for the nt servers.
 

(Larry)
- Started the paperwork for the Foundry order. This was the hardware chosen
to
  replace the ATM backbone system for the LIGO CIT network.
- Resolved a couple of disk related issues. Working on increasing the disk
  storage but also we need people to clean off a lot of their old files.
There
  will be a list generated of old dead accounts, that will be passed around
for
  approval to have those accounts removed from the system. This should
happen
  in the next two weeks.
- Working with a group of people along with the Sysadmin group on getting
some of
  the computer security procedures documented.
- Still working on upgrading and getting a few more support servers on-line.
- Checked on the equipment at Downs in the area that had been flooded. One
of
  the LIGO edge switches was ruined from water dripping on it from the
ceiling,
  other than that things looked OK.
- There was a e-mail message sent to everyone on the project asking for
  assistance in some sort of money scheme. This was turned over to Caltech
  security who informed me that the FBI was already working on this problem.
  Everyone that received the message should just delete it.

LIGO II/Advanced R&D (Sanders)

Adv LIGO SUS
Mark Barton

This week I continued developing a model for use in detailed design of
the Advanced LIGO suspension. I added tools for making easy-to-read
tables and 3D plots of mode shapes, and for doing transfer function plots
and published a version 1 at <http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~mbarton/>SUSmodels>. Since then I've working on adding angular restoring force of
wires near pivot points and improving the calculation of damping and
thermal noise.

From: Helena Armandula <ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu>

"Q" measurements - 3"dia. x .100" thick substrates
Expect to ship 2 thin fused silica substrates to Lyon around October 1st.
The substrates' "Q" has been measured by Gregg Harry and Steve Penn at Syracuse.

Formalized manufacturing specs for sapphire substrates to be used in "Q" studies and sent them to Crystal Systems.

"Q" measurements - 3"dia. x 1" thick substrates
At Sheila's request I am shipping to Glasgow the two extra 3"dia. x 1" thick fused silica substrates that we have at Caltech.
The aim is for Sheila to measure with Jim Hough all 4 substrates in Glasgow during her visit in October.

Advanced LIGO Coatings
Shipped 1" dia. fused silica substrates to MLD for the first run to evaluate coating absorption.
We should receive these parts coated with Ta2O5/SiO2 and annealed at 3 different temperatures within 4 weeks.
 

From: Riccardo DeSalvo <desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu>

Both Lia and Florian flown out home.
 

Charlotte
Problems in getting the effective bending point of flex joints under
different stresses
Studied maximum stress versus connecting radius of flex joint blade to
bulk above and below the joint.
 

Lia, Riccardo
 

The data acquisition card that showed signs of instability suddenly went
completely sick on us, small sudden steps are visible in the DAQ that
mask the logarithmic creep behavior visible the first week The data of
the week appears to be a complete waste.  A new DAQ card was ordered and
installed.
 

Charlotte, Virginio, Lia
Found same problems also in new card, installed new card driver
software, maybe less but still jumps are visible.  Also installed
witness LVDTs and found them to drift (creep-like).
The jumps seem to be a software problem (they jump both high and low so
they are not catastrophic creep events), maybe an offset file
overwrite.  We will try to replace the computer in case its memory has
problems.
For the witness LVDT “creep” only explanation may be that to save on
costs we made them of nylon instead of Peek or Ceramics.  They may be
drying and shrinking in the dry environment of the creep oven.  Will
replace all of them with Peek ones.
 

Akiteru, et al. @ Hongo
At Okinawa for the JPS meeting.
 

Alessandro @ Pisa
Getting bids for the NC-US machine.
Testing the mechanics of a prototype of vertical accelerometer.  Working
fine down to 0.3 Hz.
Broken the last prototype of horizontal accelerometer with ground flex
joints at the end of machining.  Need to revise procedure and remake.

For additional information about this report, contact sanders@ligo.caltech.edu