These minutes are available at https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/NaascMinutes2008May07

NAASC Organizational Meeting: Wednesday May 07, 1-2:30pm ET (1700-1830UT), CV-ER209/TUC-N525/Soc280(SO-conf2)

Meeting Information

  • Call date: 2008-05-07 (Wednesday)
  • Call time 13:00 ET or 17:00 UT
  • Duration: 1.5 hr
  • Non toll-free number: 434-244-6834
  • USA toll-free Number: 866-675-5385
  • Outside USA Number: +1 517-444-6916
  • Passcode: 8445333#
  • Leader: Hibbard

Attendees

  • CV: JM, AR, RI, HL, CB, RR, JH, EF
  • Soc: CC, DS, SM
  • GB: TH
  • ATF: BG
  • Canada: JdF
  • Tuc: DE

Action Items from past meetings (RED=OPEN)

  • ACTION: provide revised ALMA EPO plan/staff ramp-up for NAASC EPO effort consistent with planned funding level
    • WHO: M.Adams/J. Stoke
    • DUE: Dec 15 -> Sep 15
    • DONE:
    • NOTES: Will reassign this to J. Stoke
  • ACTION: Write revised NAASC proposal: budget methodology; changes from Washington review
    • WHO: Hibbard
    • DUE: Jan-30
    • DONE: New budget done 11/13. Need text.
  • ACTION: Give Nicole names for science advisory groups, so they can all be testers.
    • WHO: Cbrogan
    • DUE: Feb 15 -> after patch 1 released.
    • DONE: N/A
    • NOTES: No longer necessary, as everyone will have access after patch 2
  • ACTION: Review NAASC webpage you are responsible for (see assignments) prior to monthly NAASC Org. Meeting
    • WHO: Everyone
    • DUE: prior to meeting
    • DONE:

Action Items from this meeting:

  • ACTION:
    • WHO:
    • DUE:
    • DONE:
    • NOTES:

Agenda

  • NAASC News (Carilli/Hibbard)
    • NAASC staffing:
      • Offer was declined for staff scientist position as CSV Liaison No. 2. We are awaiting confirmation to make offer to next candidate, pending Harvey's approval.
      • Offer for NAASC CASA Developer has been declined. We are debating what to do with this position.
      • Offer was accepted for ALMA EPO Program Officer. Expect to arrive in August.
      • Ad is out for NAASC Head.
      • Expect to bring on ~2 NRAO staff into NAASC in FY09.
      • JAO is recruiting for ~3 operations astronomers and ~3 system scientists.
    • We are up to our eyeballs in reporting
      • Visiting Committee presentation was April 7-8 in Socorro
      • PEP self-evaluations were due May 1; managers must meet with employees before June.
      • AUI Milkey Committee is May 8-9 in GB & NTC
      • Quarterly report is due May 12
      • SciOpsIPT f2f meeting is May 14-17 in Santiago
      • NRAO Users Committee is May 20-21 in Green Bank
      • ANASAC telecon is May 23
    • Hibbard would like to set up a meeting for FY2009 NAASC staff to discuss functional assignments, hiring strategies, etc. Availability?We met after this meeting. Results posted to NAASC wiki
    • CFP for SIS development work had only one bid received, from UVML. Waiting for NSF to sign off on it.
    • Need to move on CA MOU

  • ANASAC (Carilli)
    • Next telecon: 23 May 2008 Minutes
    • Shouldn't plans be made for next f2f meeting? Being made
    • Working on charge on "Community Support".
    • Charge on ALMA Development was tabled by ALMA Board

  • Main Event:
    • Since we are up to our eyeballs in reporting (see above), so lets just hear briefly on the following items:
      • from Crystal about plans for summer school casa tutorials. Will be ~30 students. CB, EF, SM, DS, GvM, RR will give tutorials. Will be parallel AIPS tutorials. There will be a freeze for the summer school release by the end of the month. All NAASC staff should spend some time testing. Steve and Brian have sent emails saying the best things to test.
      • something about wikis for casa users from John I forget what this even alludes to. My notes say "to cabal. let me know". ???
      • from Tony about efforts on the spectral line front (see report under Working Groups below)

  • Reports from Working Groups
    • Software Testing
      • Pipeline testing: report of last test is in draft stage. See CIPT->pipeline wiki
      • Offline testing: there should be something before the summer school. See main topic.
      • ObsTool. Test 5 scheduled for May. I have seen no instructions yet. Official NA testers are Deb, Jeff, Antonio & James. Unofficial testers are Al, Harvey, Todd & Dana.
      • Casapy simulator:
      • ALMA Archive: Report from last test done and will be submitted soon.
    • Calibration Group (JeffMangum): Calibration
    • Imaging Group (AlWootten):
    • MM Calibrator/Spectral Line Databases (Tony Remijan)
      • Progress continues on Splatalogue for a presentation at the OSU meeting on molecular spectroscopy in June. We may need a few "testers" to check out their favorite species to make sure everything is working correctly and that all the data are entered correctly. We are in the stages of updates. That is, we are including new data into Splatalogue that has appeared on the JPL and CDMS websites in the last year. This often required re-entering the entire species. To do so, takes ~10 mins/species.
      • In response to the "WAG Report" from UVa which (paraphrasing) says "A unique resource to UVa is the presence on campus grounds of the home office of NRAO...Departments should seek out major collaborations esp with the NAASC...which will ensure substantial benefits for UVa." As such, we have submitted a pre-proposal to the NSF for the development of a major astrochemistry department. The pre-proposal can be found: NSF CCI Preproposal. If we are accepted, it will take place in 2 phases. Phase I at the amount of 500K/year to UVa for 3 years will be a proof of concept and setting up the center. Phase II at the amount of 4M/year to UVa for 10 years will be maintaining an active center for astrochemistry centered in CHV. One of the first "hires" to UVa Chemistry may be Sandra Brueken from Harvard. Also, even if the NSF money doesn't come through, UVa and the Chemistry departments may go ahead with some aspect of this initiative.
        • We should hear confirmation of our Pre-proposal by May 25; the Phase I proposal will be due on July 25. Stay tuned.
    • Webpages (Aaron Evans):
      • New NRAO webpage is near beta release. Fred wants NAASC to pioneer science user outreach.
    • EPO (Adams)
      • We need revised ALMA EPO plan/staff ramp-up from Mark by Dec 15 THIS IS STILL NEEDED!!!
    • NAASC Workshops (Remy)
    • Upcoming Science Meetings: (Wootten)

-- JohnHibbard - 27 May 2008
Topic revision: r1 - 2008-05-27, JohnHibbard
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