Things have been very busy over the past few months. The Deep South Chapter is hosting the next HPS midyear meeting in New Orleans from Feb. 13 to 16, 2005. Note that these dates coincide with Valentine's Day. Would not a trip to New Orleans with your special partner be just the thing for a romantic February 14th? We invite you to review our chapter web pages to learn more about this exciting meeting venue. There you will find information about dining, museums, and music in the birthplace of jazz. Look back often for ever-changing and interesting articles. As president of the Deep South Chapter, I hope you will consider submitting papers on the topic "Materials Control and Security: Risk Assessment, Handling, and Detection." Although at first the topic might not seem to be related to accelerators, we would love to hear about how the changing climate has affected how business is conducted at the nation's accelerator facilities and how the events of 9/11 and the war against terrorism have impacted your work as a health physicist. The call for abstracts has just gone out.
In conjunction with the midyear meeting, we might meet in Baton Rouge at the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices (CAMD) facility to discuss an accelerator-related topic for a half-day on Saturday, February 12, just prior to the midyear. We have access to a couple of vans to transport people between New Orleans and Baton Rouge--a drive of approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes. Though I suggested this as a possibility once before, there has been no response through the newsletter. This would be an informal round-table discussion--something unique that we don't normally get a chance to do. If you are interested in such a meeting, please do not hesitate to contact me by e-mail or phone (225-578-4616).
Last year, Scott Walker and Bob May gave a good professional enrichment program (PEP) on accelerator safety. We would like to encourage additional PEPs or even an 8-hour submission to the American Academy of Health Physics (AAHP) as a prelude to perhaps finally hosting an accelerator safety summer school. If you would like to propose a PEP or continuing education lecture (CEL) topic, even if it is not accelerator-related, kindly send me an abstract. Recently, I was reappointed to the HPS Continuing Education Committee for another three-year term. We must each work hard to increase the visibility of the Accelerator Section and look toward representation on the board and standing committees, so that the interests of the section are well-defined and highly promoted. It is indeed a shame that through a clerical error, our section nominee for the International Radiation Protection Agency (IRPA) delegation was not selected.
It is time also to begin thinking about a nominating committee and preparing for our annual elections. If you wish to be considered as a board member, or to run for a particular office, please let us know. If you wish to nominate a person, you should begin that process now as well. It would be good to have our elections complete by the end of May, so that everything is in order prior to our section meeting in July.
On a personal note, I'm simply delighted that the section has decided to nominate Scott Schwahn for the Elda E. Anderson Award. Scott's contributions to the Accelerator Section and to the HPS as a whole have been outstanding. His gracious manner, calm professionalism, and utmost integrity are all attributes everyone in the society should strive to achieve. Good luck, Scott. The section is excited about your nomination.
Things have also been hopping at our synchrotron ring. Dr. Victor Suller (Daresbury) has joined us for a year to help optimize CAMD operations and to plan, with others, the possibility for a third-generation light source. Vic and his group of electrical engineers have built some portable (battery-powered) ion chambers connected to their oscilloscope to help define a Bremsstrahlung source from our 200-MeV linac during injection. As in all accelerator facilities, we are starting to have "turf wars" for our wiggler beamlines. A new open-beam tomography beamline is impinging on the protein crystallography (PX) beamline's CAMAC racks, and we still have to accommodate different end-stations, hutches, and shielding. We also need to design the interlock system for two Bremsstrahlung shutters for the new beamline. Time to run--I hear modeling that new Bremsstrahlung cone (new gun, higher energy, larger low-energy tail) calling me.