Student Abstracts: Computer Science at BNL

Optical properties of the metal-film-on-silicon system. DIMITRY AVERIN (NYC Technical college, Brooklyn, NY 11201) MYRON STRONGIN (Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973) .
The main focus of this research was to work-out equations for the transmission of light through a thin metallic film on a dielectric substrate. There are approximate equations theoretically developed by R. E. Glover and M. Tinkham; however their precision is limited. The goal of this investigation was to confirm and possibly improve the accuracy and validity of the existing methods. Maxwell's equations and the electromagnetic wave equations were used as the basis for the computations. The main tool utilized in this research was the mathematical software Mathcad 7. It was used to perform complex computation and graphically represent obtained equations. In order to verify the accuracy of the developed equations their outputs were compared with the experimentally gained data. As a result some of the developed equations now can be programmed on a PC this would allow the exploration of a greater variety of cases.

Evaluation of Understanding Processes for the Visualization Theatre. NATHAN BOWER (Jamestown Community College, Jamestown, NY 14701) MICHAEL MCGUIGAN (Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973) .
The knowledge of using the software of the three-dimensional visualization theatre was one of our project's main goals. The software that was used ranged from open source programs from the Internet to package software that came with the Silicon Graphics computers. Some of these software programs include Data Explorer, image viewer, and Image Magick. We learned the process of converting images and models through the Data Explorer program and using the models in the three dimensional projection theatre. Some of the data that was processed included condensed matter data. The images produced were of an iron atom with its outer electrons. This information was important because it was used to help determine why metals such as iron have magnetic capabilities. The other data that was used was Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) related data. This dealt with the theoretical possibilities of subatomic particles such as fermions and gluons. Another important aspect of our project's study was learning how to use some of the hardware equipment in the theatre. The main goal of this project is to learn how to use the visualization theatre, install successfully at our home campus, and stimulate interest in the project from our community.

Computer Hardware and Software Support. ANTHONY IGBOKWE (Bronx Community College, Bronx, NY 10458) TODD CORSA (Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973) .
Today, with computer or network related applications pervading more and more of our lives at work and at home, good support infrastructure has become a major factor in many organizations. Computers break and have problems as it being used during a period of time, one way or the other there is need support and maintenance services. The PC Deskside support group in BNL provides PC hardware and software support for thousands of it's end-users. Many approaches are used to solving computer mishaps. They include defining users computing requirements, specifying appropriate computer hardware and software, identifying sources for equipment and software, ordering necessary materials, receiving and staging computer hardware and software, and installing PC hardware and software and configuring it as required.

Computer Network Guide: Topologies and Network Media Types. TEJASKUMAR JAGANI (Hudson County Community College, Jersey City, NJ 07306) KENNETH TERRY (Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973) .
Computer networking has bring the world closer than ever. About 10 years ago Internet technology was under development. Since then the Internet has become popular all over the world. At home, business, school or bank we can find computer networks everywhere now a days. The Media is a term that largely refers to the cable or wires connecting together the various computing devices that make up a LAN (Local Area Network). There are many different media types in use today in LANs. They are twisted pair, unshielded twisted pair, coaxial and fiber optic cables. There has been much improvement in media cables through out these years. They can carry signals on higher speed than before. LAN topologies define the manner in which network devices are connected. Three most common topologies exist: bus, ring and star.

Enhancement of Data Acquisition Computer Program for Mockup Cooling Unit. . BERESFORD KIRTON III (New York City Technical College, BROOKLYN, NY 11201) HELIO TAKAI (Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973) .
This project is part of the ATLAS (A Toroidal Liquid Hardon Collider ApparatuS) experiment being built at CERN. CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the world's largest particle physics centre. The particular part of the project covered in this document addresses the activities in Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) regarding the integration issues of the liquid argon calorimeter front-end electronics. The mechanical setup in BNL is a mockup of one of the ends of the Barrel Electromagnetic Cryostat. The mechanical assembly will be used to evaluate space problems for cable routing, sensors positioning, power cable positioning, and ease of use and maintenance. The electronics performance is the important part of this project. An important aspect of the ATLAS project is the evaluation of the electronics being built for the liquid argon calorimeter. We will make use of the mockup at BNL to run a series of tests on several electronics boards being built by other ATLAS institutions. For this purpose we will assemble a small data acquisition system. The DAQ is comprised of a personal computer, VME crates, CAMAC crates and custom electronics in ATLAS liquid argon board sizes. My project is to update and enhance the Data Acquisition (GENIE) Computer Program. An attempt will also be made to meliorate the Control System (Adam) and integrate a Laser Compact Vision (fault detection) Alarm System (VESDA) to these data acquisition control devices.

Construction of a Wrapper Class Using the CDEV Data structure for . BRUCE KOVALENKO (Fordham University, Bronx, NY 11367) TED D'OTTAVIO (Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973) .
The data transmitted from the accelerators at the laboratory is packaged and analyzed by various data structures before being distributed to the various applications. The efficiency, modifiability and handling of the data structure is very important for faultless data transmission. The data structure that was wrapped was the Value class structure due to the cumbersome instance variable mutability of the Value class instance variables. The CDEV data structure was utilized as a data member of the Value class to allow for easier access to class instances after initial instantiation using the Value class constructor. The project consisted of two phases. In phase one, the methods of the Value class were searched through out the VOBS(versioned object bases) database to figure out which methods were used. This phase required the use of some text processing programs written in C++. The second phase consisted of writing the methods for the new and modified Value class using an instance of the CDEV class data member.

PHENIX Web Communicator: Design and Function. HILARY MERCER (Cumberland University, Lebanon, TN 37087) BRANT JOHNSON (Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973) .
The PHENIX Web Communicator is intended to provide a better way to interact with information in various databases. The PHENIX Web Communicator will help keep the collaborators up to date. To get the project started PHENIX information was worked on first. This included participant documents: Analysis Notes, Draft Physics Papers, Draft Technical Papers and Internal Talks. Other categories available to the general public, which include International Talks, National Meeting Talks, Physics Papers, Technical Notes, Technical Papers, Conference Proceedings, Workshop and Review Talks and Colloquia and Seminars. The PHENIX Web Communicator is a highly anticipated way to interact with databases. It will be able to help with processing new employees, keep up with when they are on-site, and when they are at their home institution and what their home institution is. The PHENIX Web Communicator is based on Perl scripts, which create an html file on the fly. This makes it very easy to have one main file that calls oth er files, instead of having many different files to create one html page.

Security on the Web. BARBARA SIMON (Suffolk County Community College, Upton, NY 11973) KEITH LALLY (Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973) .
Web Security is a major concern for any company or organization that has a network system. Systems and software have many known vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers. It is important for a system administrator to be extremely familiar with the utilities, tools, and methods a hacker uses to infiltrate a network. In fact, these same methods are used to test a system for weaknesses in order to prevent a hacker from gaining access to it. System administrators must constantly keep abreast of software patches, fixes and bug notifications. The network traffic must also be constantly monitored to detect suspicious activity. A well-trained staff and the proper tools are essential for this process. By eliminating holes that allow unrestricted access to and from the Internet, the perimeter's ability to screen or conceal the internal resources is restored, maintaining the integrity of the physical network, the network software, any other network resources, and the organization's reputation. The organization's internal resources are blocked from the general public and only accessible to the organization's associates. Network strategies of the internal and external pages of the site are very important to prevent exposing internal information to the outside, while not restricting the open scientific environment where the free exchange of ideas is encouraged.

The New Linux Image Distribution Software for the RHIC Computing Facility. THERON WEIMER (Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50010) ANTONIO CHAN (Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973) .
In this paper we describe a new Linux image distribution system for the RHIC Computing Facility (RCF) that works well with hundreds of computers. The basis for the image distribution system is a software package called SystemImager. Both the old and new systems are described, including benefits and drawbacks of each. A description of the testing procedure and the difficulties overcome during implementation of the new software system is also given.

Peoplesoft Financial Development. NIKUNJ ZALAVADIA (Hudson County Community College, Jersey City, NJ 07306) GREGORY MACK (Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973) .
All of Brookhaven National Laboratory's departments require Budget Reports. These reports are extremely valuable to the lab, as they exhibit the current state of funding allocation. After analyzing these reports, business office personnel are able to advise Principle Investigators, whom are responsible for the distribution of funding. Since these reports are crucial, there is a continuous demand for these reports to provide more powerful methods of data selection, manipulation, and presentation. BNL's budget data is managed by an Oracle RDBMS (Relational DataBase Management System), which end-users interface with through PeopleSoft, a popular business application. The lab's Business System Division has developed a budgeting system using Peoplesoft, which consists of three major components: budget execution, budget submission, and personnel forecasting. These components are divided into many complex units of allocation, some hierarchical, others independently related. SQR (Structured Query Report Writer) is Peoplesoft's chosen programming language for generating reports. In addition to printing reports on paper, SQR can be used to generate delimited flat files, which Microsoft Excel is able to convert into spreadsheets. These spreadsheets are used for manual data manipulation. My assignment has been to modify the output of existing reports. This was accomplished by using Peoplesoft's Query Tool, to rapidly generate SQL (Structured Query Report Language) and then import the code into SQR programs, thereby altering the selected data. After this, the code necessary to generate the aforementioned spreadsheets had to be written.