Weekly Report for Week Ending November 13, 2003

The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday  November 17, 2003 will be:

 CANCELLED DUE TO NSF REVIEW

Special Announcements:

Weekly Report Highlights
 

LSC Issues (Saulson)

no report

LIGO Laboratory Administration (Lindquist)

LIGO Weekly Site Telecon (Lindquist)

There was no site teleconference held Thursday, November 13, 2003 (LSC Meeting in Hanford).
The list of current actions revised to reflect the status of open actions assigned through October 30, 2003 may be found at ACTION LIST.

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

• No report this week (Ed will return to work December 1)

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

ACCOMPLISHMENTS (This report reflects activity for the past month.)

Working at the LSC meeting:  Out of 88 presentations, only 22 remain outstanding (presentations not submitted to DCC). Reminder emails have been sent to each for those submittals still needing to be turned in.  This means that 75% of all presentations have been processed and posted before the close of the LSC.  This is a record.  With a bit of effort next week, the goals is 100% compliance within one week of closing the LSC meetings!!

ACTIVITY

• Concentrated on processing MOU and LSC documents.  Organized, sorted and filed documentation..

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>

• Completed processing six requisitions for renewals for Triad.  They have been routed for signatures and approval was given to effect payment.
• Working on change order #3 to LaCour, Lloyd dba Kineoptics, change order #1 to PO #1059663 to Lavallee, change order #10 to Sydney Meshkov.
• Working on closing several subcontracts as directed by Dorothy Lloyd.
• Placed and reconciled pcard orders.

• Successfully Re-negotiated the Northrop Grumman contract.
• Working on additional Sun Microsystems invoices to resolve problems.
• Continuing to work on resolving the Storage Tech invoice problem .

• Responded to a request from Project Accounting for funding realignment.
• Completed report for Visitor Program for October.  Based on current rate of spending, the old award for the Visitor Program, which was on a No Cost Extension through June 30, 2004, is projected to be spent out by the end of this month.  Consequently future charges for visitors will need to be made to the new POETA for the new award - LIGO.VISIT/1 NSFLIGO.VISITO.  Notified Cindy Akutagawa and Irene Baldon to begin using the new account number.
• Reviewed the latest version of FY04 budget 3.2 and prepared a schedule listing increases and decreases from the earlier version.  The net result of the changes is an increase of $1800.
• Prepared an analysis of expenditures in October for FY2003 to try to determine why such expenditures were higher than similar expenditures in the previous year.
• Financial reports can be found at: http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/~fireport

From: irena@ligo.caltech.edu (Irena Petrac)
LSC MOUs / Attachment Updates and Prog. ReportsACIGA:

• The contract with Alliance Spacesystems, Inc., for the Advanced LIGO internal mechanical pre-isolation system prototypes, was executed on Tuesday, November 11.  This contract is for the cost-plus-fixed-fee of $1,778,000.  The kick-off meeting for this contract has been scheduled for December 2 at LLO.
• The two contracts for the Advanced LIGO optical coating research contracts were forwarded to the NSF for review on Wednesday, November 12.  These two contracts were with SMA-VIRGO of Lyon, France, in the cost-plus-fixed-fee amount of $231,286, and with CSIRO of New South Wales, Australia, in the cost-plus-fixed-fee of $322,200.
• Ed Jasnow and Muriel Lampe of Purchasing Services have scheduled a visit to LLO on December 2, for the purpose of converting the petty cash account from a regular checking account over to P-card convenience checks.  This method has worked successfully at LHO for several months.  The existing checking account will be closed.  Additionally, Muriel will conduct P-card training for Mike Zucker so he can get his card.
• Efforts are beginning to re-structure the Excel contract at LLO in order to put in place structured amounts for the various projects being performed by the contractor.
• It has been decided to delay issuance of the RFQ for the LLO electrical contractor until after completion of the HEPI/EPI work currently underway.  This will be sometime after March, 2004.

SUPPORT (Baldon, Lloyd, Tischler)

>Irene Baldon

• Processed the paper work for thirty-five (35) new/revised trips and there is one (1) trip completed but awaiting the necessary paper work.  In addition, there are fifteen (15) trips in various stages of completion before ticketing can be done and/or paper work completed.  I continue to work closely with Terry Gunter and LIGO/Hanford personnel in acquainting them with travel procedures, etc.  I will continued to close out existing LHO trips and/or assisting where necessary.  I continue to process and reconcile travel started on Ryan Tischler's P-Card while I was on vacation.
• Completed thirty-three (33) Expense Reports and there are twenty-one (21) reports yet to be done.  I continue to contact travelers who have outstanding Expense Reports (more than one (1) month old) to ask for their cooperation in sending me their receipts so that these can be closed in a timely manner.  Presently there are two (2) reports more than 30 days old.
• Reconciled forty-nine (49) P-Card items which required numerous phone calls to hotels, car rentals, etc., in order to track down which traveler incurred which charge; and the pulling of each traveler's file to assure that charges are correct for each fee incurred.  Still dealing with a few problems associated with the compromise of my P-Card two months ago.
• Worked on the preparation and distribution of the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for November 10, 2003.  Arranged fourteen (14) new or revised teleconferences and three (3) new reservations on the LIGO Calendar.

• No report.

• Matriculation issues; NSF Review, PAC15, details; Press Kits, copyright permissions; Office clean-up
• November LIGOite Birthday celebration will be Friday!

ADVANCED LIGO (Cost Schedule Control Systems) T. Frey
From: Thomas Frey <tfrey@ligo.caltech.edu>
 

Accomplishments:
 

For list of documents that are being used to develop Adv. LIGO Cost and Schedule, see http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/Cost_MTG_082002/
 

Continued development of a proposal for implementing Primavera Project Planner Enterprise.

Continue working on draft / text of implementation.
Clink on links to view the Draft Work-plan and Estimate.
Continue testing of Primavera Enterprise version 3.5.1.  See the links below for information / technology demonstrations: (From Local Primavera Dealer)
Primavision - http://primavision.drmcnatty.com:8080/phoenixwl/login_p3ec  Login using Username:  admin and Password:  admin.

Progress Reporter - http://www.projwebsite.com/GroupServerP3e/en/  Login using Username:  admin and Password:  admin.

Static HTML Example - http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/SUS_WebProj/ (AdL Suspensions Only)  NOTE:  This is after importing and before any data corrections.

Static HTML Example - http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/DAQ_WebProj/ (AdL DAQ Only)  NOTE:  This is after making adjustments to the WBS so that it displays as expected.

Attended the Users conference in November at Orlando, Florida.  See http://www.primavera.com/events/conference.html
Started preparing recap notes and will post proceedings to the web when I am back in the office.

Phone conferences with Carol and the SEI group regarding re-planning and deliverables.

The following is a summary of status by sub system:
COC - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.
http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/COC_AdvLIGO/COC_index.html
PSL -  No action items pending.  Followed up with Peter and Benno has provided data.  Peter has yet to review.  Will be attending meeting at Livingston pending schedule of meeting.

AOS - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.

IO -  Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.

SUS - No action items pending.  Started review of revised progress data / ETCs.

SEI - No action items pending.  Prepared notes from meeting and sent them to Carol.

http://ligo.caltech.edu/~tfrey/SEI_AdvLIGO/SEI_index.html
ISC - Still need completed WBS dictionary and BOE.

LDAS - No action required at this point in time.

INSTALL - No action items pending.

DAQ - No action required at this point in time.

PM - No action required at this point in time.

FAC - No action required at this point in time.

SUP - No action required at this point in time.

ROSTER DATABASE:
Continued input of changes / corrections regarding supervisors and departments.

Corresponded with Roster Database users regarding issue with Seiji's name on the LIGO roster.

COST BOOK DATABASE:
Reconciling cost account listing from cost book and schedule loading.

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

Nothing to report..

The following change requests are open.

CR-030015	FY 2003 Livingston Observatory Detector Maintenance Expenses (Increment)	R. Wooley	July 14, 2003
CR-030016	Hanford Facilities 2.2--Divide the Large Equipment Access to Facilitate Movement of Large Items (currently assigned to FY 2004 liens list)	J. Worden	July 31, 2003

From: Cindy Akutagawa <cindy@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Various personnel/payroll /HR related work.  All files are posted and up-to-date on the web page.

Quality/Safety (Tyler)

• Nothing significant to report this week.

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) and Interferometer Operations (Raab)

Summary of S3 Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory  (compiled by M. Landry)

The LSC visited Hanford this week for the November meeting.  Face-to-face sessions
kicked off Saturday (stochastic) and Sunday (stochastic/inspiral/pulsars), followed by
the standard battery of LSC talks during the week.  Thanks to Terry Gunter, Christine
Barker, Richard McCarthy, Linda Turner, Marie Woods, Terry Santini and Co.,
Larry Wallace and others for the fine organization, logistics and catering.

The first week of the science run saw considerable commissioning-like activity (at least
by science run standards), with excursions into the LVEA and noise budget studies
that had the 4K out of science mode for several hours at a time.  This week was
intended to be more typical of quiescent science mode running, with reduced emphasis on
tweaking, however, small fixes were still underway.

A simulated stochastic background signal was added to the pulsar waveforms and injected
into all three IFOs simultaneously.  The correlated noise corresponds to an Omega of
unity, and should contribute to the AS_Q noise budget at the level of the LIGO-I SRD.
The signal was added for ~5 hours and then discontinued.

Hundreds of burst waveforms and some inspirals were also injected.

Earthquakes and incredibly high winds, gusting in excess of 60mph, unlocked IFOs
midweek.

AS_I non-linearity and upconversion was investigated.

The 2k remained locked for ~19 hours today, its longest stretch of S3.

The variable range observed in the 4K Sensemon output is a product of the non-stationarity
of the raw AS_Q noise.  Periods of low range correspond to high noise in band-limited
AS_Q channels. Ranges continue to vary between 1 and 3Mpc.

Noise budget measurements, such as PD shot noise levels, performed with light bulb
calibrators, were performed on H1.  DAQ coil outpt noise measurements were made on
all 4K test masses, and are documented here.
 

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) and Interferometer Operations (Zucker)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
S3
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The L1 interferometer has mostly stabilized after a rocky S3 start.
We still have remnant issues with calibration and DMT monitors, most resulting
from the frantic push to restore the interferometer to operation during what
should have been the E10 engineering run. These should all be worked out
by the end of the week.
 

Science uptime was limited in the first week of the run due to catch-up commissioning
activity each night until Friday 11/7.  Uptime has now begun to slowly approach the
"theoretical maximum" given our daytime anthroseism, earthquakes, and
nightly trains. We really need HEPI; fortunately it's on track (see below).
 

Scientific Community (Abbott, Frolov, O'Reilly)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
We hosted a tour for about 75 members of the Southeastern University
Research Association, the governing body for Jefferson Laboratory and
other national research facilities. We received many highly positive
reports from the visitors.
 

Safety/security (Rich Riesen)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The intercom communications links from the main gate and the main OSB
entrance door to the control room are completed and operational.
 

        #MZ NOTE TO VISITORS: This improves access for cardless visitors.
        Whenever possible, please arrange for Rich to mail you a keycard
        in advance if you will arrive after hours or on the weekend. But if you
        can't, just announce yourself to the operator via the intercom at
        the main gate to drive on site, and then again at the
        OSB main entrance to buzz into the building after you park your car.
 

        Also, a reminder: when you leave PLEASE remember to return your
        keycard! Thanks.
 

Awaiting parts for OSB the side door (kitchen area). This task should be
completed end of next week.
 

Nothing new to report for the weekly site safety tour.
 

Assisting GSA in removing equipment stored at the off site warehouse.
 

Detector commissioning and High Power Laser Facility (Rupal Amin)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Commissioning I have started looking into glitches observed in AS_Q as
well as why the interferometer lost lock following several extended
locks. Thus far I have few conclusions.  However, last night's lock
losses may point towards a large optic, the beam splitter or the
recycling mirror, progressively drifting.
 

I have also begun investigating the low frequency noise by first trying
to correlate AS_DC with other channels that obtain data from the core
optics.
 

WFS 2 and ASC work has halted due to S3.
 

HPLF: The final SOP has been received by LLO and is being evaluated by
the site safety personnel. The high power laser's safety shutter will
arrive within a week +/- 2 days and installation of a connection to the
site's laser interlock has been requested. An air compressor to isolate
the table from ambient seismic activity is also in the process of being
obtained. Currently, we have received shipment of the double walled
perimeter fence that will ring the high power table and are nearly ready
to unpack equipment requisitioned during the summer. We have also
started the tedious process of placing property tags on the various HPLF
equipment.
 

Beyond the trivialities of setting up the lab, UF-LIGO has been
assembling quotes to construct a larger aperture Faraday isolator. The
20 mm clear aperture should reduce difficulties observed after vacuum
incursions and MC beam realignment. Five new Faradays will be built and
ready for installation before any future vents.
 
 

LDAS (Yakushin)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
LDAS data analysis:
Attending LSC meeting at LHO. Made waveburst presentation.
 
 

Inspiral data analysis (YunYong Wang)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I completed  the veto studies with the S2 Inspiral high rate triggers
last  week and posted some interesting results in my LIGO web page:
 

      httP://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/~wangyy        in the title of
 

"Veto Studies with s2 Inspiral playground high rate triggers (2) ".
Now I'm preparing some software and try to use it to check the S3 data
quality during the Science running.
 
 

General Computing (Roddy)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Working with Sean at LSU to coordinate the installation of the new
network connection.  It appears that we will be able to use our existing
firewall, but it will require the purchase of at least two gigabit cards
for it.  Also, we will have to put in a new router between LSU and the
firewall.  When this is over, I will have not only greater bandwidth,
but I will also have greater flexibility and the ability to perform more
comprehensive network security audits.
 

Still in the process of archiving some old files that are stored on the
file server.  I am archiving these on the new file server and also
burning them to DVD. Setting up a new backup process for alix (web
server) primarily to get daily backups of the ilog.  This will be
archived to the new file server nightly.
 

Changing the dhcp server to the PIX.  I am hoping that this will give me
a little more stability out of the dhcp server.
 

Set up a backup disk on Rich Riesen's workstation.  Also set up a
nightly scheduled backup for his machine to this disk.
 

Still compiling many of the applications on the new file server.  This
is a long tedious process...
 

Many of the intended changes to the GC network are on hold until after
S3.
 
 

LLO Seismic Retrofit and L1 Detector TLC (Abbott)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Back to work on HEPI.  Adding additional spare channels to the SEI
interface box prior to releasing schematics.
 

2.  Working with Excel to complete the pump motor controller boxes.
 

3.  Packaged up the failed Lightwave power supply and am shipping it
back to LWE for repair according to the RMA instructions.
 
 

LLO Seismic retrofit (Kern)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The machine shop manufacturing the parts for the first 12 actuators has
delivered almost all of their promised first batch, a few days ahead of
schedule.  Welding assembly of a first article is beginning this week.
Proper generation of a final bill of materials is still in the works but
we've completed 'by the book' documentation of all build to print
components. Striving with all our shops to obtain sufficient parts to
assemble at least one complete HEPI at MIT in early December, for fit check.
Began clearing a suitable area in the new building to stage arriving HEPI
mechanicals, and unpacked and inventoried all of the received COTS parts.
HEPI remains on schedule to begin installation at LLO in January.
 

Marcel and I have turned our attention to completing a draft piping drawing,
for internal review and presentation to the Consultancy Board. Completed an
RFQ (sans drawings) for the mechanical and piping installation at LLO.
Dennis and Ed have weighed in and their comments incorporated. Oddvar has
completed a schematic of the valve test manifold's auxiliary tanks, valves
and hoses and we are working with the shop that manufactured the manifolds
to assemble the various pieces into a deliverable system
 

HEPI Valve Test Station (K. Carter)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The LabVIEW code is fully functional for calibrating the test stand and
the valve.  Colin is currently working on adding a section that will
test the operation of the valve and enable the user to check for errors
in the measurements.
 

Three issues are being dealt with for the physical aspect of the test
stand.  Colin Campbell provided the following update:
 

1.  Problem:  The o-ring grooves on the three plates that mount the
absolute pressure sensor and the inlet and return pipes are half as wide
as they need to be. Solution:  Corwin fixed this by milling out the
center "island" defined by the groove.  The depth of the groove was also
increased from 0.048 to 0.050-0.052 to match the Parker design table for
face seals.
 

2.  Problem:  The holes for the differential sensors were too small for
an o-ring seal. Solution:  We had good success boring out the holes for
the differential pressure sensors and using o-rings.  We bored them out
to 0.232 (following the Parker design table for radial seals) and used a
2-006 o-ring. They have not yet leaked at pressures up to 80PSI.
 

3.  Problem:  The OD of the flow resistor cylinder that drops into the
lower half of the manifold is too large. Solution:  The OD is 1.495,
while it should be 1.475.  The machinist at Stanford was able to turn it
down, being very careful to keep it concentric with the small alignment
cylinder above it that keeps it centered in the hole in the manifold
base.
 

Detector/Technical Support (Coyne)

no report

40 Meter Interferometer (Weinstein)

• Commissioning (Miyakawa, Kawamura):
• Michelson, X-arm, Y-arm all locked simultaneously in CARM, DARM, MICH degrees of freedom.

Osamu and Seiji accomplished this by first locking XARM, YARM, MICH, then moving slowly to CARM, DARM, MICH without losing lock. Longest lock time so far in this mode is 1.5 minutes.
• Before this, they tuned up the FPMI in XARM,YARM,MICH mode, measuring the noise power spectrum in the XARM and YARM as they went along.
• Aligned for both cavities.
• Conpensating filter for cavity pole with zero at 1.6kHz, pole 3kHz.
• Adjusting SP1Q demodulation phase for Michelson to minimize L+ signal at SP1Q.
• FPMI lock with POX, POY and SP1Q signal.
• Low noise FPMI with A.A filter, whitening filter.
• Gain distribution for Michelson servo to remove satiration at feedback signal to BS.
• Filter to remove the violin mode, notch at 884Hz, Q=100, Gain=10.
• Computing:
• Our main "online" disk, op140m:/cvs/cds , died on Monday. Lisa Bogue did some emergeny repairs, and recovered it, backed it up, and copied it to a new partition, on Wednesday. Thanks, Lisa!
• Electronics (B. Abbott, Heefner, Taylor, Nocera, Mageswaran)
• Ben is installing the last EO shutter controller in the 40m lab. There is a slight problem in the power, but that should be an easy fix.
• Ben got the Labview exacutable program for the STACIS controllers at the 40m. So far, the program seems to not be very useful, but a newer version may be available. He is waiting for a call back from TMC.
• Ben put balancing potentiometers on 6 more Universal Dewhite boards, and balanced their regular and bypassed paths for each channel.
• Upon installation, the LR channel for ETMY looked bad. Ben finally traced the problem to a bad connector on the Pentek.
• Ben has been working with Mohana to install her ASC auxillary code and screens. There are some white fields in the WFS screens that will probably be fixed once we figure out what is wrong with two of our 4116 modules.
• Ben, Osamu and Seiji installed filters into one of our digital filter banks with help from Rolf and Alex.
More progress will be reported in the next weekly report.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Libbrecht)

no report

LASTI (Ottaway)

no report

Data Analysis and Computing (Lazzarini)

Simulation and Modeling (Bhawal)
NOTE: Hiro is visiting Virgo this week to discuss modeling
information exchanges and collaboration.
 

Linear Noise Model
--------------------------------
(Matt) Continued work on LinLIGO.  Current version supports point-to-point
 linear transfer functions, which can be used for plotting measured
 and theoretical noise sources, but does not have a functioning integrated
 noise model.  Next major upgrade will read control log (ConLog) data
 files to reconstruct the detector as it was at a specified time (i.e.,
 when I noise curve was measured).  Also working to reduce memory usage
 and increase performance.
 

FFT's Matlab interface
-------------------------------------
(Biplab) Continued use and validation of the Matlab code (that calculates
 length and angular sensing control signals) and the new version of the FFT
 code. Some of the sign differences (at field amplitude level)  between e2e
 and FFT still remain to be mystery.
 

Code development and maintenance
-------------------------------------------------------
(Melody) C++ FUNC:
 Work is underway to provide more functionality for the C++ based FUNC.
 Working on the interface design for user defined functions such as
 f(x) in the FUNC body as well as retrieving values from the macro database.
 

LIGO Data Analysis System
 

Software Systems (Blackburn)
The controlMonitorAPI has a new interface for allowing database
queries to be plotted in a histogram. This will allow a selected
table and column with numerical values to be visually analyzed.
This will facilitate both testing and interaction with LDAS.
 

The STLPort testing continues. A hardware failure over the
weekend interfered with our memory tests. We had to start this
up again on Monday. The test needs one week of running to reach
a conclusion concerning memory leaks that may or may not exist
in this library.
 

The frameAPI has been modified at both the TCL and C++ level
to enforce a one-to-one handling of frame data for a single
job being processed in a single thread. Previous code had
the behavior of using one thread per frame query which in
some cases could result in a first in last out race condition.
 

The build rules for LDAS based on the STLPort library have been
added to lowest order. Support for debugging doesn't exist yet.
The build rules don't allow for the use of GCC's STL library
when STLPort is installed in /ldcg. This may not be needed at
this time given the problems with GCC's STL library.
 

Several minor bugs in the LDAS APIs (eventMonitorAPI, frameAPI,
managerAPI and genericAPI) have been fixed this week.
 

The db2utils code that manages the web page summaries for the
database have all now been updated to support all the restored
databases after the migration from solaris database servers
to linux database servers.
 

Hardware Systems (Anderson)
Caltech
-------
(Dan Kozak)
 

* Refined monitoring of unarchived files at sites.
 

* Got HPSS migration working again after dataserver upgrade.
 

* Worked with Ben to try to figure out cause of problems when
  importing/exporting/labeling tapes at LHO.  Checked that the robot's
  FC configuration is the same at both sites (we're not having the same
  level of difficulty at LLO).
 

* Labeled more tapes at both sites.
 

* Transferred S3 full frames from observatories to CIT successfully.
  Discovered that it is still possible to end up with a mix of copy 1 and
  copy 2 on the same tape, despite the "reserved" option.  While this
  is (and was) easily fixed, it's something else I need to check for.
  I suspect that it happens when the system is being worked on for other
  (tape) problems because it's happened so seldom.
 

* Worked on the 'shiptape' script for the sites to automate the transfer
  of SAM-QFS archive tapes to CIT.
 

* Worked on samfsdump scheme to get us hourly, daily, weekly, monthly
  backups and to prune old backups automatically.
 

(Hari Pulapaka)
 

* Published S3 L1 and L2 data at CIT.
 

* Tried out the new VDT for RH 9.0. That didn't build mysql properly.
  But the VDT server and client packages were built without problems. I
  did some minimal testing and they seem to work fine without problems.
  But I did not test condor yet on RH 9.0. But I did install condor on a
  RH 9.0 earlier, and that worked.
 

* Setup GRIS at ldas-grid.ligo.caltech.edu for the SC03 demo.
 

* Updated the LDR Installation at CIT to include the new LDRTranfer,
  LDRSchedule and LDRMetadata files.
 

* Also, I was looking into pyGlobus and investigating writing a small
  FTP utility for directories.
 
 

(Al Wilson)
 

* Check IDE Raid drive for possible bad drives. Also setup a BB server to see
  about added this to BB to automatically check for drive failure.
 

* Repaired Dataserver on ldas-dev. Found bad memory in the Slot B CPU board.
 

* Setup wireless on Kaice laptop.
 

* Another Xserver problem with a desktop machine. Used the latest from Xfree
  to cure the problem.
 

(Stuart Anderson)
 

* Added the DMT SenseMonitor minute trend frames to the LDAS diskcacheAPI
  so they can be used to calibrate on-line analysis jobs.
 

* Updated ligotools on ldas-jobs at LLO to allow inspiral jobs to
  run on S3 data.
 

MIT
---
(Keith Bayer)
 

* Putting cluster nodes 45-88 online.
* Moving data off of first pcraid in order to upgrade motherboard.
 

Hanford
-------
(Greg Mendell)
 

* Archiving full-frame data, and generating level 1, 2, and 3 RDS
  frames for S3 continues without significant problems at LHO.  (Some tape
  drive and tape problems have been overcome by redundancy of the system.
  An fb3 framebuilder crash did result in a small loss of data; Ben
  Johnson's script that copies data from the framebuilder to ldas now
  automatically fills in these gaps by getting missing data from the fb0
  framebuilder.  Thus, no data is lost as long as one framebuilder is
  running.)
 

* Finished creating L2 RDS of the data for injections done between E10
  and S3 for the stochastic group. These are in the directories
  H-RDS_R_L1-7511 and H-RDS_R_L1-7512 under
  /frame40/S3H1H2StochasticL2RDS, visible from fortress at LHO.  Sukanta
  Bose plans to transfer this data to WSU for analysis.
 

(Ben Johnson)
 

* Newest version of disk2disk copy script is running successfully at
  LHO. It has filled several gaps so far, and verified (FrCheck) every
  file since Nov. 6 2003. The only gaps in LHO data so far are on Nov.1
  when the daq system crashed due to a problem upstream of the framebuilders.
 

* Sent L0 data to Caltech Nov. 11
 

* Ran badblocks on tekoa and defiance, Nov. 12. 3ware card on defiance
  reported that it repaired a sector.
 

* L700: Two tapes, HL0173 on Nov.10, and HL230 on Nov.11 were stuck in
  "Cartridge  In" in the robot. SAMFS thought they were in their slots.
  Tape drives manually cleaned on the 10th. The library was put into "Fast
  Load Disabled" mode on the 11th. These two actions should lessen the
  number of "MEDIA ERROR"s and stuck tapes.
 

* Set up DMT archiving set and rsync cron job, Nov. 11. We are now
  archiving all DMT trends except "spectrumArchiver" data at LHO.
 

* Nodes 29->32 were having network connectivity troubles since late
  October. This has been fixed by moving their cables to another card on
  the Foundry Switch (they are not in the node list yet). I'll contact
  Foundry Networks after S3.
 

Data Analysis Activities (Lazzarini)
Landry:
Mike Landry and I have completed the first version of the stackslide
code that does both stacking and sliding of SFTs.  We have run this code
on the injected pulsars in the E10 data.  Our main effort now is to
debug on simple test data and the S2/E10/S3 pulsar injections.  (Note
that there was some corruption of the E10 injections, due to a floating
point overflow.  Still, we could find the injections we expected to
see.  However, probably we will now focus on the S3 injections.)  We
presented results on the E10 injections at the PULG F2F/NOV LSC
meeting.  See DCC talks G030562-00.pdf and G030575-00.pdf.
 

Lazzarini:
Working to develop a new formulation for the stochastic background search
analysis when all 3 interferometers are operating in coincidence. There is an
improvement in the optimal filtering apprach that one can use to account for
local H1-H2 correlations. This is important for S2, and (hopefully) less important
for S3 and beyond ...
for an early draft of the idea see:
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/docs/T/T030256-00.pdf
 

Shawhan:
* Spent last weekend at the Gravitational Wave Phenomenology Workshop at Penn State.
* Spent the rest of the week at the LIGO Scientific Colaboration Meeting.
* Did further veto studies for the S2 inspiral analysis.  The L1 MICH_CTRL channel,
with a very high threshold (30 sigma), looks promising.
* Did signal injections on a few nights.
* Made some improvements to the conlog software.
 

Weinstein:
- Worked with Szabi and Julien on E10/S3 hardware burst injections,
  and presented some results at LSC meeting; see
   http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~ajw/bursts/injectS3/G030599-00.ppt
- resubmitted Amaldi writup on S1 burst analysis,
  which has now been accepted. See
  http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~ajw/bursts/weinstein_amaldi03.pdf
 

Yakushin:
Attending LSC meeting at LHO. Made waveburst presentation.
 

General Computing (Wallace)
MIT:
(Keith)
- Walking around and patching windows computers
- Attended MIT email session - MIT will no longer allow
  unauthenticated email on it's servers
- Building new NAT wireless router
- Trying to move Marie over to newer desktop
- Trying to build/setup replacement computers for old lab PCs
 

Livingston:
(Shannon)
- Working with Sean at LSU to coordinate the installation of the new network
connection.  It appears that we will be able to use our existing firewall, but
it will require the purchase of at least two gigabit cards for it.
Also, we
will have to put in a new router between LSU and the firewall.  When this is
over, I will have not only greater bandwidth, but I will also have greater
flexibility and the ability to perform more comprehensive network security
audits.
- Still in the process of archiving some old files that are stored on the file
server.  I am archiving these on the new file server and also burning them to
DVD.
- Setting up a new backup process for alix (web server) primarily to get daily
backups of the ilog.  This will be archived to the new file server nightly.
- Changing the dhcp server to the PIX.  I am hoping that this will give me a
little more stability out of the dhcp server.
- Set up a backup disk on Rich Riesen's workstation.  Also set up a nightly
scheduled backup for his machine to this disk.
- Still compiling many of the applications on the new file server.
This is a
long tedious process...
- Many of the intended changes to the GC network are on hold until after S3.
 

Hanford:
(Christine)
- The whole week has been spent on the LSC meeting.  Thanks to Larry for
getting the VRVS and VNC working and for fixing our printer and setting
up phone conferencing.
- Spent a few minutes emailing Lisa B. about what I need to have ready
for her visit on the 19th to upgrade our mail server.
 

CIT:
(Mike)
- Finished loading and swapping out a PC for Fumiko Kawazoe. I loaded this
PC with GC software/engineering packages and transferred over her data from
the old PC.
- Finished loading a visitor workstation. I used it to swap out an older
computer that was up on 3rd floor of Bridge.
- Finishing loading a replacement PC for Cleveland Mak.
- Loaded additional software on Cindy Akutagawa laptop.
- Burned the end of month ghost backups for the NTSRV's to DVD.
- This week I had a lot of user support that included software & printing
issues.
 
 

(Veronica)
- LIGO: Continued working on video editing for Bills Kells. I searched for
ways to achieve the best playback quality for a reasonable file size
suitable for Bill's laptop to handle. I made several versions of a clip
combining edited and trimmed original footage with various degrees of
compression. Burned CDs and DVDs for Bill to use and distribute.
Posted updates to the webpages throughout the website.
Addressed an issue related to maintenance of the roster database.
Met with Karen Willacy of JPL to discuss a setup of a document database
for LISA. Explained the architecture of the DCC and issues of its
maintenance and upgrade.
- LSC website: Installed webpages for the presentations for the meeting in
progress. Posting the talks as they arrive daily.
Supported the VRVS/VNC for the LSC meeting. Larry and I tested the setup
prior to the meeting, and we monitored it here at Caltech during the
plenary session Tuesday afternoon.
Made a massive web posting of MOUs.
- CaJAGWR website: Posted updates and provided user support.
 

(Lisa)
- Worked on a disk problem in the 40m.  Their main working disk had 2 block
errors.  I created a new partition and moved their data over to it.
This is a
temporary measure until the e450's can be put into production.
- Enabled clamav, an open source virus scanner, on becrux.
- Worked on 2 machines that were having problems and verified that they are
having hardware problems that warrant surplusing.
- Began building a test box for the hanford mail server replacement.  I am also
working with Christine so that we are both ready to go when I get up there.
- Spent more time working with the new spam filtering software.  So far I like
it very much.
- Installed latex on canopus.
 

(Larry)
- Spent the week in Hanford supporting the LSC and am now on my way to
Livingston for the NSF Review.  I will give a detailed report next week
 

Advanced LIGO Development (Shoemaker)

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