ALMA Science Advisory Committee Meeting 9-10 March, NAOJ, Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan

ALMA's three AOS antennas undergo commissioning and science verification tasks.© ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), W. Garnier (ALMA)

Logistics.txt: Meeting Logistics

Direction_to_NAOJ.pdf: Directions to NAOJ

MTK_campus_map.pdf: Mitaka Campus Map

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Attendance

ASAC Members (Attendees in RED):

• Jose Afonso (Lisbon)
• Frederic Gueth (IRAM) (ASAC Vice Chair, EU)
• Michiel Hogerheijde (Leiden)
• Rob Ivison (ROE)
• Linda Tacconi (MPE)
• Nario Kuno (NRO)
• Munetake Momose (Ibaraki U.)
• Toshikazu Ohnishi (Nagoya U.) (ASAC Chair, EA)
• Andrew Baker (Rutgers)
• Jonathan Williams (Hawaii)
• Kelsey Johnson (U. Virginia) (ASAC Vice Chair, NA)
• Doug Johnstone (NRC/HIA, Victoria)
• Gordon Stacey (Cornell)
• Neil Nagar (U. de Concepcion)

9:00 am Tuesday, 9 March 2010

Agenda

1) 09:00 - 09:15 Organization (Closed session) (Ohnishi, Gueth, Johnson)

2) 09:15 - 10:00 Revision of Operations Plan (Nyman)

• A saving of about 20% on operations costs is required. Presentation is here.
• Charge 7. Review the plans for carrying out the initial processing (e.g. calibration, map-making and quality checking) of the Early Science data and delivering it to the user community. Of particular interest are the questions of a) whether there will be sufficient resources (especially staffing) to cover this in the period before the pipeline is ready and b) what level of quality assurance is appropriate. Presentation on this Early Science Data Reduction

3) 10:00 - 10:45 Commissioning Progress (Peck, Hills)

• Charge 6. Continue to review the progress and schedule of the AIV/CSV process, with particular attention to the risks, risk-mitigation and prioritization.
• Alison's Presentation as a pdf.
• Richard's Presentation as a pdf.
  • Tasks presently underway. See ScienceGroupTaskAssignments The gory details are in the Science Journal. Probably the only things worth looking at are the Daily Reports. (At present everything is going into the logs further down but those are not recommended for casual reading.)

4) 10:45 - 11:00 Break

5) 11:00 - 11:45 Project Status (Hills)

• See the Presentation: as a pdf.
• We continue to operate with three antennas (DV01,DV02 and PM03) at the high site in the 'CSV Phase 1' configuration, which gives baselines of 100 to 200. We are hard at work exploring different aspects of this extremely complex system.
• Two further antennas at the OSF are set up to form the OSF Test Interferometer, which is being used for Software Development and Systems and Equipment testing.
• As usual, details can be found in Monthly Reports and the latest one is here.

6) 11:45 - 12:15 Introduction to the EA ARC Staff (Okumura)

7) 12:15 - 13:00 Lunch

8) 13:00 - 14:30 Visit to Receiver Laboratories

9) 14:30 - 16:30 Software (Glendenning, Brogan) (Break at about 15:45 - 16:00)

• Charge 5. Continue to monitor the readiness of the ALMA software system. In view of the ASAC’s most recent report it is clear that the observing tool and the archive continue to be important topics and that the ASAC will also have comments on the overall schedule for the release of the core software packages that the Project is going to deliver to them. The data analysis software deserves particular attention: ASAC should examine the capabilities of the latest release of CASA, and review what further enhancements are planned before the start of Early Science.
  • 2010-03-09-ASAC-CIPT.pdf: CIPT Presentation (Archive, Observing Tool)
  • The CASA update is available at presentation

10) 16:30 - 17:30 Discussion; Closed session if needed

11) 19:00 Dinner

9:00 am Wednesday, 10 March 2010

20) 09:00 - 09:45 Proposal Review Process (Nyman, members)

• Proposal Review Process - Draft distributed. Charge 1. Review the draft document describing the ALMA Proposal Review Process and provide comments to the Board.

21) 09:45 - 10:15 Cost Savings on Construction (Hills)

• Charge 2. The Project is investigating how to make cost savings that would restore the contingency funding to a satisfactory level. Reductions in operating costs are also being considered. In the event that these savings turn out to have implications for either the scientific performance or the operational efficiency of ALMA, the ASAC will be asked to make recommendations on the relative priorities and cost-effectiveness of the proposals.
• A great deal of effort has gone into this costing exercises. As far as the construction costs are concerned, there are at present no proposals on the table that would have a direct effect on the scientific performance. A brief presentation on this is here Cost_to_Complete.pdf

22) 10:15 - 10:45 Scientific Requirements and Technical Issues (Hills)

• Apropos ASAC Charge "Discuss the revisions to Scientific Requirements and Specifications, which are in preparation, and make a recommendation to the Board on approval."
  • As a reminder here is the current document Scientific Requirements (pdf).
  • Efficiency of the system - i.e. what the observing overheads are. There is a particular concern in the area of software and this is discussed in the following note:
    • REQUIRED READING*: Software Latency Requirements (pdf)
  • The detectability by ALMA of the current Milky Way at z = 3 in the CO lines with 24 hours of integration have been checked carefully and it appears that this is indeed out of reach. I believe that the C+ line from the current Milky Way is detectable and that indeed this could probably be done out to z = 4.5. Should first the level 1 requirement be modified or left as it is?
  • The third level 1 requirement is clearly unsatisfactory and should be replaced by one that specifies dynamic range and fidelity. The latter is particularly important in establishing the role of the ACA. We need to decide on a suitable wording and values.
• Other Technical Topics?
• Memo on "Most Important Frequencies for Band 6 Polarization Measurements" memo

23) 10:45 - 11:00 Break

24) 11:00 - 11:40 ASAC Charge on ALMA Development (Hills and Wootten)

• Charge 4. Comment on the analysis that is being prepared on the Development Fund items and on which of these might be considered for a first Call for Proposals.
  • NAASC_NSF_proposal_ALMADevpt.pdf: NA Strawman development plan, from NAASC proposal to NSF 2012-2015, to be submitted end March.
  • ASAC_Development.pdf: NA Strawman development plan

25) 11:40 - 12:10 Regional Reports

• EASAC (Ohnishi)
• ANASAC (Johnson)
• ESAC (Tacconi)

26) 12:10 - 12:30 Discussion

27) 12:30 - 13:30 Lunch

28) 13:30 - 14:00 AOB

• Date of next meeting and Schedule for Meetings Next Year.
  • We are assuming that the next f2f meeting will be at the OSF although Santiago is an option if travel schedules are too tight. The Board face to face meeting is on 16th to 18th November 2010 at the OSF. See Board Meetings 2010. We have the Annual External Review from 16th to 21st Oct. The most natural date for the ASAC would be around 14th October. We have to fit in the Operational Readiness Review as well. Does the ASAC want to be before or after that? Perhaps ASAC should be directly involved in that Review in some way?

29) 14:00 - 15:45 Discussion; Closed Session if needed; Writing of Report

30) 15:45 - 16:00 Break

31) 16:00 - 17:00 Oral Report

Supplemental Material

1. ALMA Board Charges to ASAC. These are the current charges:
   • Charge 1. Review the draft document describing the ALMA Proposal Review Process and provide comments to the Board.
   • Charge 2. The Project is investigating how to make cost savings that would restore the contingency funding to a satisfactory level. Reductions in operating costs are also being considered. In the event that these savings turn out to have implications for either the scientific performance or the operational efficiency of ALMA, the ASAC will be asked to make recommendations on the relative priorities and cost-effectiveness of the proposals. A huge amount of effort has been going into these cost saving exercises. Work is still going on so only a broad outline will be possible. As far as the construction costs are concerned there are at present no proposals on the table that would have a direct effect on the scientific performance. A wide range of options for changes to the operations plan are being considered, some of which would inevitably have an impact on scientific "through-put". Costing these options is difficult and time consuming. This will be a substantial topic for discussion at the face to face meeting.
   • System Requirements. 3. Discuss the revisions to Scientific Requirements and Specifications and make a recommendation to the Board on approval. There has been little progress on this as a result of the pressing demands from other areas of the project.
   • Charge 4. Comment on the analysis that is being prepared on the Development Fund items and on which of these might be considered for a first Call for Proposals.
   • Charge 5. Continue to monitor the readiness of the ALMA software system. In view of the ASAC’s most recent report it is clear that the observing tool and the archive continue to be important topics and that the ASAC will also have comments on the overall schedule for the release of the core software packages that the Project is going to deliver to them. The data analysis software deserves particular attention: ASAC should examine the capabilities of the latest release of CASA, and review what further enhancements are planned before the start of Early Science.
   • Charge 6. Continue to review the progress and schedule of the AIV/CSV process, with particular attention to the risks, risk-mitigation and prioritization. We will be able to report on the early stages of CSV at the f2f meeting.
   • Charge 7. Review the plans for carrying out the initial processing (e.g. calibration, map-making and quality checking) of the Early Science data and delivering it to the user community. Of particular interest are the questions of a) whether there will be sufficient resources (especially staffing) to cover this in the period before the pipeline is ready and b) what level of quality assurance is appropriate.
2. Other ASAC activities which are not formal charges from the Board.
   1. 8. Community sounding on expectations for early science, and ALMA information resources for the general community.

-- AlWootten - 2010-02-12

• Logistics.txt: Logistics

• Direction_to_NAOJ.pdf: Directions to NAOJ campus

• MTK_campus_map.pdf: MTK Campus mP

• NAASC_NSF_proposal_ALMADevpt.pdf: NA Strawman development plan

• Software_Latency_Requirements.pdf: Software Latency Requirement

• Science_ALMA-90.00.00.00-001-A-SPE.pdf: ALMA Science Specifications and Requirements

• 2010-02-25-CIPT-Deliveries.pdf: Software deliveries schedule

• ALMA_Status_ASAC.pdf: General Status Report

• ALMA_Report_2010_01.pdf: January 2010 Report to the Board

• AOP_ASAC_March9-10_2010_v2.ppt: Presentation on Operations Costs

• Early_Science_Datareduction.ppt: Lars-Ake's Presention on Data reduction

• CSVOrg_ASAC.pdf: CSVOrg_ASAC.pdf

• Commissioning_Progress.pdf: Commissioning_Progress.pdf

• Cost_to_Complete.pdf: Construction costs savings

• Early_Science_Datareduction.ppt: Lars-Ake's Presention on Data reduction

• 2010_ALMA_Board_meetings_and_telecons.pdf: Board Meetings 2010

• ASAC_Development.pdf: NA Strawman development plan

• Technical_Issues.pdf: Technical_Issues.pdf