notes from ANASAC telecon July 19
Attendees:
Rachel, Debbie, Al, Alberto, Gordon, Dick Crutcher, Wilson, Lonsdale, Hibbard, Peck, Alyssa plus others whose names I missed
1. preparations for fall f2f meeting
John Carpenter volunteered to collect feedback on ALMA and the proposal process for a discussion at the f2f meeting. Rachel will be soliciting volunteers/suggested names for the next chair.
some things to discuss:
--PI communication about status of project, ALMA data
--is project tracker good?
--observing schedules for past month
--abstracts of accepted proposals made public sooner
--is executive balance important?
also need to update development priorities at f2f meeting
2. NRAO budget issues
Tony Beasley sent around a note about the NRAO budget. The
NAASC will have a 1 million dollar cut in FY 2012. Ramifications include an admin position not being advertised, 7
NAASC FTEs being eliminated, reduction from 4 to 3 Jansky Fellows, and a 5% cut (doesn't affect Chile). The number of data reduction visits is cut to 50 from a little less than 200. Cut is mostly in front end maintenance and not considered "dire". Implication of cut to data reduction visits not yet clear -- there have only been 3 so far, but as more people get data they will want to visit. Something to keep an eye on.
3. Reports -- construction, operations,
NAASC, ALMA development
Science verification of solar observing coming up.
Science observing scripts to be optimized for Cycle 1.
Dynamic scheduling to be tested.
Calibrator database filling up -- ACA correlator accurate fluxes an issue
13 people coming for data reduction at
NAASC; will perform data reduction, QA2, then redeliver to Chile. Takes 3 weeks once person for data reduction is assigned. Also takes about 3 weeks to assign a person once the last execution of the project has occurred: this is a single point failure as there aren't enough people, have to deal with schedules, availability.
Cycle 1 proposal deadline -- the server went down within 20 minutes of the deadline. Announcement went out, proposal deadline extended, seem to have caught everyone who was affected. Proposal review will be Oct. 1-5 in Chile, and will comprise 11 panels, 77 science assessors. Project is making an effort to expand the number of panels & assessors. The proposal distribution in science areas is roughly the same as in Cycle 0, but roughly 20% more proposals than Cycle 0(about 1135). There were some bugs in the OT -- estimated times in band 7 & 9 for calibrators was longer than they should have been. These times will be recalculated; should be transparent to proposers.
NAASC during early science: special session at Long Beach AAS meeting. Question about whether there will be a data reduction workshop? Advertise capabilities for Cycle 2.
ALMA development: Alyssa Goodman involved in a development proposal, described briefly (high dimensional visualization).
Development priorities (recommended from 2010) need to be updated.
4. ASAC activities (Alberto reported)
ASAC telecom 7/18:discussions included the duties of the ASAC, communications with the board, science impact of decisions taken by the board. Trying to be more proactive rather than reactive.
Other topic for discussion was the science verification plan -- it's unclear what will be executed when, and overlap between SV data and science data needs to be clearer. Need a clear description of SV datasets. There is concern about ARC, JAO personnel doing science on SV datasets, SV targets announced right before
CfP. Are SV datasets to duplicate science, or demonstrate science/push the envelope?
Next telecon will Aug. 16, 2 PM EDT
Rachel Osten
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AlWootten - 2012-08-08