ANASAC Telecon July 25, 2013

Participants: Al Wootten Carol Lonsdale John Hibbard Phil Jewell Crystal Brogan Edwin Bergin Alberto Bolatto John Carpenter Richard Crutcher Shep Doeleman Kelsey Johnson Dan Marrone Michael Mumma Karin Oberg Dick Plambeck Leslie Looney

1. Status (Wootten) -- There was a power failure on July 10, and numerous power failures since then. This has delayed antenna moves and cycle 1 observations.

Mumma
What is major cause of the power failure?
Jewell
5 or 6 power failures in past 2 weeks. A couple are software controlled system events; others were related to fuel supply. Only 2 of these failures are fully understand; the remaining 4 are under investigation. The JAO is consulting with the vendor, with a site visit from the vendor in 10 days. Hoping to have system back up tomorrow.

Jewell
It takes Two days to cool cryostat; but have to warm antennas back up first. This will take place over weekend, and starting cooling cryostats beginning of next week. Only Five pumps are available to cool the cryostats.

-- 59 antennas at the AOS (47x12m, 12x7m)

-- 4 antennas at the OSF

-- All Band 10 WCAs shipped on 28-June-2013. All Band 4 & 8 WCAs have been accepted by the project. This has completed a major NA contribution.

-- Nutators to arrive at OSF soon (two batches of two).

-- 23rd European antenna to be delivered in a few weeks.

-- Software has been accepted for the 12-m array, with several Cycle 1 Projects as test elements in the acceptance. Expect to be able to start processing & delivering PI data (have 2 datasets ready to go). Software acceptance for ACA observations will be in another month if array gets back on-line soon.

2. ASAC items from 3 July telecon

-- The ASAC was informed that the ALMA Board will support the decision of the Director (Pierre Cox) on the length of cycles in Cycle 2 and beyond.

-- Pierre was not available on the ASAC telecon to announce his decision, and is now tied up with the generator problem.

-- In the long term, the November deadline for ALMA proposals when in steady state is not ideal for North America, given that NSF funding proposals are due in November. The NA members on the ASAC will need to raise this issue.

-- Hibbard: Protocapabilities for the Cycle 2 call has been circulated internally. The downselect is August 29. There will be no limit on the number of science goals; mosaics will be limited to 150 pointings; offsets in mosaics cannot be separated by more than 1 primary beam for mosaics.

3. Meeting September 16-17 -- ASAC meets Oct 9-10 -- ASAC charges -- ANASAC charges

Carpenter will poll the ANASAC offline for meeting topics for the ANSAC face-to-face meeting.

4. ALMA development (Wootten) -- Nine studies proposals received from 8 PIs with teams totaling 41 investigators from 17 institutions. Total funding sought: $1.23M

-- 7 US PI proposals, one Taiwan/ASIAA and one Canada/HIA. Total sought: $1,234,761.08

-- Proposals evenly split between hardware, software, and strategy

-- Al: 5 of the 7 US PI proposals had a PI from NRAO

5. NAASC (Lonsdale) -- People - Leslie Looney has finished his sabbatical at the NAASC; - Paul Martini is in his final weeks; - Chris Wilson has commenced her sabbatical at JAO. - Nathan Brunetti has joined as NAASC Data Analyst. - Arielle Moullet has accepted a term Scientist position beginning in the Fall. - Daniel Espada has joined the JAO early July. - Ed Fomalont received a distinguished service award from NRAO

-- For Cycle 1, all Contact Scientist assignments have made. - Focusing on batch 4 SBs; PI approval by June 10. Batch 5 released by JAO June 1. - in total 48 from Batch 1,2,3 approved by PIs. - batchs 1-4 are 2/3 of the proposals

-- Pipeline: - More NA staff assigned temporarily, to assist with validating regression test datasets. - Some regression test SBs are now being used by CSV, during the C1 lull. - Weblog workshop last month: requirements for user interface and documents. - single dish pipeline is being exercised by non-developers, but testing is still in the early stages

-- Cycle 2 preparation - Continuing on revised schedule, 3 month delay. - Call now forseen 24 Oct 2013, due 5 December. - Technical HB being reviewed. OT phase1 tests next week. - Evaluating technical issues that tripped up or confused Cycle 1 proposers and correcting, updating materials and planning new materials if warranted.

-- Unclear when project tracker will be released

6. Outreach (Lonsdale, Wootten) - Google calendars for ALMA Science and Training events now linked to from Science Portal (under Helpdesk link)

- Topic of next NAASC Workshop is likely Assembly of Galaxies. Kartik Sheth agreed to chair SOC; invitations for SOC members will be sent soon.

- Science Verification data: There are 21 refereed publications. 8 from NA first authors, 8 from EU first authors, 2 from EA first authors, 3 from XX (Mexico) first authors. There are two papers on arXiv which will probably graduate to published (refereed) 1 NA authored and 1 EU authored.

- Cycle 0 PI data as of 7 July: 22 refereed papers from Cycle 0 data, 21 from highest ranked proposals and one from a filler. There are 113 entries in the original list of Cycle 0 highest ranked proposals, so 19% are published (two were canceled). Of those, - NA accounts for six projects published, of 37 uncanceled highest priority. These are projects 142, 191, 206, 236, 243 and 958. - EU accounts for six projects published, of 35. These are projects 131, 259, 275, 294, 635 and 957. - EA accounts for 7 projects published, of 27, and one filler project published. These are projects 101, 108, 115, 199, 268, 467 and 648, with filler 121. - CL accounts for two projects published, of 10. These are projects 367 and 465.

- Program Scientist telecon 12 July. Discussed development synchronization, planned science meetings, SAC plans. - Top of next NAASC workshop complements the conferences planned by the other regions - Planning a series of short webinars focused on specific topics - Will do a series of Community Days this summer / fall - Cycle 2 preparation outreach Splinter session at AAS. OT-focused webinars (90 min) New set of reference simulations

7. Other business Shep would like the ANASAC to discuss ALMA phasing, operations of VLBI, the proper way to have call for proposals, and how to convey suggestions through the proper channels. Shep will distribute background materials and we will discuss this at the next ANASAC telecon on August 15.

-- AlWootten - 2013-07-25
Topic revision: r2 - 2013-07-26, AlWootten
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