NAASC Meeting for July 7, 2010

NO MEETING DUE TO NAASC RETREAT

Table of Contents


This agenda is available at https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/NAASCMtgAgenda

Action Items from past meetings (RED=OPEN)

  • ACTION: Post Simdata walkthrough and 6 recipes
    • WHO: Remy -> D-C. Kim
    • DUE: Jan03 -> June2 -> Sept2
    • DONE: 3 posted; 4 more needed
  • ACTION: Post FAQ for new hires
    • WHO: H. Foster with input from Kartik, Mark L., Aaron, other recent hires
    • DUE: Jan 1, 2010 -> July
    • DONE:
  • ACTION: Develop & deploy staff pages for the NAASC (http://science.nrao.edu/alma/ALMApeople/naascstaff.shtml)
    • WHO: Shanika/Aaron -> D.C. Kim
    • DUE: preliminary page ready Nov13; new scope: include non-CV sites?
    • DONE:
    • NOTES: Carol needs to decide how to incorporate all the different sites & advise Aaron (CV/Soc/Tuc/NRC/Chile)
  • ACTION: Look into documentation solutions (single system that produces both web and hardcopy documents). Define requirements and ask CIS to recommend solutions
    • WHO: JHibbard/MAdams/DHalstead
    • DUE: July 2
    • DONE: Requirements defined by June 16. Systems need to be evaluated - new AI?
    • NOTES: htlatex preferred to latex2html. Used for CASA, AIPS, GBTIDL cookbooks/user guides. Other alternatives have been posted by staff. Update Jul: no time to investigate solns, so each ARC will use whatever they are using so far. Have asked project for guidance on logos, acknowledgements etc.
  • ACTION: Lead group to improve Technical Assessment form for OT
    • WHO: HLiszt
    • DUE: Aug1
    • DONE:

Action Items from Retreat:

  • ACTION: Post Charter, Mission Statement from Retreat
    • WHO: Harvey, Aaron
    • DUE: Aug1
    • DONE: July 30
  • ACTION: Assign tasks and staff to groups
    • WHO: John, Crystal, Mark, Carol, Al
    • DUE: July 28
    • DONE: July 28
    • NOTES: Presented results at July 28 group meeting. Minutes and Document posted to basecamp

Agenda

  • NAASC News (Hibbard/Lonsdale)
    • The Wednesday meetings are moving to 1-2pm ET henceforth
    • NAASC retreat is today and tomorrow
    • Current NA CSV turnos: Manuel Aravena will go July 9-Aug18, followed by Tony (see NAASC2Chile)
    • Scott Schnee and Adam Leroy have accepted NAASC scientific positions. They will start duties in Sept 2010 and March 2011 respectively
    • Next NAASC postdocs have all accepted:
      • Robin Pulliam (UAz) has started
      • Amy Kimball (UWash) will start in Sept
      • Nuria Marcelino (Laboratory for Molecular Astrophysics, Madrid) to start Nov
      • Kartik has a postdoc starting in the Fall to work on S4G: Carlos Munos
    • NAASC Admin has accepted
    • Updated near-term timeline. See ALMALookingAhead

  • NRC News (Schieven)
    • Victoria will host Jan workshop (after Seattle AAS) (more details below)

  • ANASAC (AWootten)
    • Last telecon: June16 Agenda.
    • ASAC f2f meeting TBD

  • Main Event: None. Retreat.

  • Reports from Cognizant Leads
    • ObsPrep (incl. ObsTool=OT) (Harvey)
      • R7.1 ("pre-beta") was used for integrated test. There will be a "Public Preview" release July 20, to be part of Aug staff "training" (will documentation be based on R7.1, or "Public Preview"??). Finally, R8.0 is due to be released Oct 20, just before ESDP (Nov 22).
    • CASA (Crystal)
      • Tutorials given at the upcoming summer school on June 11 & 15. Went very well.
    • Casapy simulator (Remy)
    • Phase I Manager (Ph1M) (Harvey):
    • Project Tracker (PT)
      • Add link?
    • ALMA Archive & Helpdesk (Mark L)
      • Helpdesk used during integrated test. Documents being written.
    • Pipeline (Remy)
      • User Test 6 (UT6) took place May 19- June 21, This external test exercises: mosaics, continuum subtracted imaging, group gain calibrations, improved flagging, and improved imaging algorithms
    • Splatalogue (Tony)
    • EPO (J. Stoke)
      • Writing script for ALMA virtual tour
      • ALMA EPO WG will meet f2f in Chile (when?)
    • Science User Outreach/Webpages (M. Adams/A.Evans)
      • ARC Managers are discussion what to use for documentation. Want a single user-friendly system to edit that will produce acceptable web and pdf versions of documentation.
    • NAASC Workshops (Tony & Al)
      • Next workshop will be ALMA: Extending the Limits of Astrophysical Spectroscopy. See email from Tony under "Supporting Material" below. Needs posted to NAASC science web. Website located at: http://www.almatelescope.ca/Spectroscopy2011. Article has been posted to the recent NRAO eNews and the SOC has been selected. Current status:
        • NEW dates confirmed - Jan 15-17, 2011
        • July 1 - Go "live" with full website with pre-registration option.
    • Upcoming Science Meetings: (Al)
    • Upcoming NAASC Science Visitors (see google calendar NAASC Visitors)

Additional Supporting Material

NAASC items submitted to JAO for June Monthly report

Hiring activities
  • Robin Pulliam (UAz) started her 2(+1) year postdoc assignment

JAO support
  • Participated in a series of tests leading to the acceptance of DV06 & DV08 and produced a series of reports on DV01, DV02, DV03, & DV05.

Software Development & testing
  • Continued support for helpdesk to end of JAO Integrated test & produced final test report
  • Configure ALMA Helpdesk to work with Single Sign-on
  • Six NAASC scientists (Hibbard, Indebetouw, Liszt, Remijan, Sheth, Wootten) and three NAASC-Canadian scientists (Schieven, Johnstone, Matthews) concluded their participation in first JAO Integrated test (OT-phI, helpdesk, Ph1M/PHT, Project Tracker).
  • Two NAASC scientists (Friesen, Indebetouw) participated in Pipeline Heuristics User Test 6
  • Provided input to ALMA-OT group for "public preview" release
  • Testing for CASA patch release 3.0.2 and prioritize targets for CASA 3.1 development cycle

Conferences and workshops
  • 12 NAASC scientists participated in the NRAO summer school (June 8-15, Socorro NM): sponsored a 'Preparing for ALMA' night, gave CASA and simdata tutorials to ~40-50 participants; presented walkthoughs of the ALMA OT & Splatalogue.
  • Finalized the scientific program for the NAASC Workshop 'ALMA: Extending the Limits of Astrophysical Spectroscopy' (Jan 2011, Victoria BC); speaker invited and meeting website and pre-registration completed.
  • ALMA progress was discussed by A. Wootten at the SOFIA Instrumentation Workshop (Asilomar, CA 7-8 June)
  • A. Remijan gave a talk "BROADBAND, HIGH RESOLUTION SPECTROSCOPY WITH NRAO FACILITIES" (including ALMA) at the 65th OSU Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy, in Columbus, OH

Other
  • Oracle database servers installed for NA Mirror Archive
  • Prepared materials for NSF review of proposal for "NA ALMA Operations and the NAASC"

-- JohnHibbard - 2010-08-02
Topic revision: r2 - 2011-01-05, JohnHibbard
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