This agenda is available at https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/NaascMinutes2010Nov03

Meeting Logistics:

  • Call date: Wednesday, Nov 03, 2010
  • Call time 13:00 ET or 17:00 UT
  • Duration: 1.0 hr
  • Locations: CV-ER230/TUC-N525/Soc280(SO-conf2)/JAO-Alsacia/JAO-OSF(Science)/NRC
  • Connection for Video:
    • From NRAO select "CV-ER230"
    • hub ip=192.33.117.16
    • alternative ip for Chile only, if above drops: 192.33.117.17
  • USA toll-free Number: 866-675-5385
  • Outside USA Number: +1 517-444-6916
  • Passcode: 8445333#
  • Leader: Hibbard

Attendees:

  • CV: JHibb, MLacy, AWootten, LvSchill, CLonsdale, MHatz, DHalstead, NMarcelino, JMangum, MAravena, RIndebetouw, RFriesen, ARemijan, KSheth, AKimball, RPullium, JBraatz, DCKim
  • TUC: DEmerson
  • Socorro: ALeroy
  • Canada: JdFrancesco
  • Chile: SCorder
  • Other:

Action Items from past meetings (RED=OPEN)

Action Items from this meeting:

  • ACTION: Send reply to ANASAC report
    • WHO: CLonsdale
    • DUE:
    • DONE:
    • NOTES:
  • ACTION: Post NAASC job ads to NAASC sciweb
    • WHO: AEvans/SciComm
    • DUE: ASAP
    • DONE:
    • NOTES:
  • ACTION: Define policy for selecting between multiple institutions that want to host ALMA Community Days, if we can't support them all.
    • WHO: KSheth
    • DUE: Dec1
    • DONE:
    • NOTES:

Agenda

  • Personnel
    • Jim Braatz, Scott Schnee & Stuartt Corder started October 1. Lyndele von Schill started soon after. Nuria Marcelino started Nov 1.
    • Office musical chairs - the music has stopped. Mark Lacy now on 3rd floor; Scott in Mark's old office; Nuria to Adam's old office; Adam moving to 2nd floor (Rm244)
    • Job advertisments for NAASC postdoc (based at NAASC) & ALMA Commissioning Postdoc (based in Chile) (we verified these do appear on the AAS Job Register page - items 26982 & 26983). Need posted to SciWeb (make AI)
      • Upcoming NAASC Science Visitors: Stuartt next week on his way to CCAT meeting. Also JdF and Gerald coming in for TTT next week, along with four visitors from ASIAA, and Tom Wilson on Wednesday (giving CCU talk). Add these to visitors calendar - JH:DONE (see google calendar NAASC Visitors).
  • Project News (SCorder)
    • ALMA Biweekly Calendar
    • Robert Lucas has worked to get online Tsys into CASA. Stuartt will write tools. Availability of array is improving.
  • Group Reports
    • NaascManagement (Carol)
      • Reply to NSF review panel is done. Responding now to NSF call for plan for spending carryover. If anyone has any creative and promising plans that just need short-term funding (i.e. no enduring costs), please send to Carol ASAP.
      • ANASAC (AWootten)
        • ANASAC f2f meeting was Sept 13-14 in Charlottesville (see Agenda). We owe them a reply to their report. Make AI
        • Last telecon: October 27. See Agenda. Main items: Development studies; letter to NSF on grants
      • ALMA Development including text of proposed Call (internal only)
      • Science Communications & EPO (A. Remijan) - Since Tony meets weekly with John Stoke and Mark Adams (Fridays at 2pm), he will now serve as liaison between SciComm and EPO and NAASC (Aaron too, but Aaron can't make Weds meetings due to teaching). NAASC will now contribute monthly piece to eNews. Will have a personal flavor. First one announces Scott Schnee; but also co-opted to give brief description of NAASC training events. Tony will not contribute all of these - others should contribute.
    • News from NRC (Schieven)
      • Hosted visit from Carol & MarkMcK in October. Primer on hold pending definitions from project. Victoria meeting: 120 registered, 45 for tutorials. Registration closed for workshop, but not tutorials
    • UserSupportGroup (Crystal)
      • USG2010Nov01AgendawithMinutes
      • Reviewed items in minutes above. Kartik wrote up more detailed plans for early year community outreach program, for Fred (based on inquiries from various higher-ups). Will announce briefly in current eNews, full plan in next issue. Includes the opportunity for institutions to receive funding to host "ALMA Community Days". Question: how do we down-select if we get more requests than we can accommodate? Need policy. Major considerations: put butts in seats; regional diversity. Other. Make AI
    • DataServicesGroup (Mark)
    • JAOSupportGroup (John H)
      • JAOsupportMinutes2010Nov01
      • Any questions on Readiness reviews? (covered at Wednesday meeting 2 weeks ago)
      • Issues for larger group (see above minutes for more details): IT3 planned for December/January. Policy Workshop next two days. Need plan for Tiger Team to evolve into Pipeline Heuristics effort. To get account in CSV jira to see tickets, go to http://jira.alma.cl
  • Any Other Business

Additional Supporting Material

NAASC items submitted to JAO for October 2010 Monthly report

Hiring activities

Schott Schnee (HIA) and Stuartt Corder (ALMA/Chile) started their positions as members of the NAASC scientific staff, while Ed Fomalont and Jim Braatz joined the NAASC from other NRAO divisions.

JAO support

Tony Remijan finished a 2mo tour of CSV support, and Al Wootten, Crystal Brogan and Todd Hunter traveled to Chile to provide several turnos of support. The NAASC data reduction "Tiger Team" reduced and produced reports on several CSV test datasets and wrote a wiki for how to reduce ALMA data CASA, for internal CSV use. Evaluated the imaging performance and drafted a memo on an ALMA Early Science configuration.

The NAASC staff attended the CSV Status Review and ASAC meetings in Chile, and participated with the JAO in the Science Operations Readiness review. We participated in the final selection and face-to-face interviews for the ALMA "Proposal Handling Team" lead.

Software Development & testing

Much work was done on CASA in preparation for release 3.1 in November. Work on development targets for 3.2 began. The CASAguides "recipes" (http://casaguides.nrao.edu/) were tested and made current with CASA release 3.1 (to be deployed with the release).

Continued development of the ALMA helpdesk, including developing detailed fail-over plans, an evaluation of the world-wide availability, support for Japanese language module, and reporting metrics.

Conferences and workshops

Planning continues for NAASC participation in the January AAS in Seattle WA, including an ALMA Special Session: "Observing with ALMA" on Jan 12 and ALMA Observing Tool demonstrations, and on the NAASC/NRC workshop entitled "ALMA: Extending the Limits of Astrophysical Spectroscopy", to be held Jan 15-17 2011 in Victoria, BC (see http://www.almatelescope.ca/Spectroscopy2011/), which includes a day of tutorials on ALMA Early Science and the ALMA Observing Tool.

Other

A plan for community training activities leading up to the first proposal deadline was drafted, to be finalized and released when the final dates are published. A wiki for the NAASC visitors program was generated. The NAASC organized the first staff training activity to be help Nov 9-10 in Charlottesville. NAASC staff participated in the production of a PBS special an ALMA, that will be aired in 2011.

-- JohnHibbard - 2010-11-04
Topic revision: r3 - 2010-11-08, JohnHibbard
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