NAASC Meeting for April 06, 2011

Table of Contents


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

Meeting Logistics:

  • Call date: Wednesday, Apr 06, 2011
  • Call time 13:00 ET or 18:00 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: John, Rachel, Scott, Mark Lacy, Al, Robin, Amy, Dongchan, Dave, Crystal, Aaron, Kelly, Tony, Todd, Lyndele, Nuria, Adam, Jeff, Aaron, Ed
  • TUC:
  • Socorro:
  • Canada: Gerald
  • Chile:
  • Apologies: Stuartt, Kartik, Brian G., Carol

Action Items

Open Action Items:

ACTION: Get any constraints from Directors Office/OSO about next NAASC workshop
  • WHO: Carol
  • DUE:
  • DONE:
  • NOTES:

ACTION: USG review presentations for final "approved" package on Google site
  • WHO: USG
  • DUE: 4/14/11
  • DONE:
  • NOTES:

ACTION: USG update mousepad
  • WHO: USG
  • DUE: 4/14/11
  • DONE:
  • NOTES:

ACTION: Everyone
  • WHO: Send names of possible SOC members for s/w development workshop to Crystal and/or Mark L.
  • DUE: 4/14/11
  • DONE:
  • NOTES:
Closed Action Items:

Agenda

  • Personnel
    • Recruiting NAASC postdoc & ALMA Commissioning Postdoc (based in Chile). 2 offers out. 1 accepted (Kimberly Scott, Penn). 1 waiting. Kim start July 1. If other PD does not accept, we will not go further down the list. Also coming: John Tobin (Hubble), Amy Reines (Einstein Fellow). Violetta is going to ALMA in July as Commissioning postdoc
    • One Jansky - Arielle Mouleet - will be based in Charlottesville. See eNews article
    • Recruiting 2 Data Analysts.
  • Project News (CSV Liaisons)
  • Group Reports
  • Main Topic: CfP
    • Call for Proposals released March 30, through ALMA Science Portal and various email exploders.
    • Helpdesk up and running, first set of knowledgebase articles written, Proposers Guide published. Technical Handbook held-up till May 15 SP update.
    • Last-minute additions: OST (checked out by EU; where do we stand on cross-checks?); OT Quicklook; new sensitivity calculations in OT and ASC (ASC Guide also posted showing formulae used and constants adopted); "Notice of Intent" form
    • Primer had minor updates. NAASC Guide posted. "New Users" guide to Simdata posted to CASAguides
    • Things to do: make sure correct configs files are posted everywhere. Resolve OT "certification" warning. Refine OT/SP deployment process. New Tsys into Simdata (R3.2; note added to CASAguides). Simdata documentation? Helpdesk tickets/KB articles
    • USG needs to update Mousepad - see Action Items. People should give what we have away ASAP, as they are out of date! JEH needs to tell OST people to include reference to CASA.
  • Any Other Business

Additional Supporting Material

NAASC items submitted to JAO for March 2011 Monthly report

Hiring activities

Job ads for NAASC Data Analyst positions were posted.

JAO support

Stuartt Corder & Kartik Sheth provided support to the JAO Science team in Chile: execution & reduction of Science Verification data; improvement of observing scripts & data reduction scripts; lectures on CASA reduction and Simdata; supported Community Dat at PUC.

The NA Imaging "Tiger Team": review and evaluation ALMA ES configuration candidates and SV datasets.

Contributed and reviewed drafts of Operations procedures for Proposal review, Phase2 change requests, Technical Assessment, and Helpdesk Administrators Guide. Contributed to and reviewed the ALMA Cycle 0 Proposers Guide, Technical Handbook, Call for Proposals, and Science Portal content. Updated ALMA Primer based on final configurations & capabilities as described in the CfP documents.

Software Development & testing

Extensive testing of the local deployments of the ALMA Science Portal and Observing Tool (OT) and of time estimates of the updated OT and Sensitivity Calculator. Software testing for CASA release 3.2 (planned release in April) and planning for R3.3 cycle; refinement of CASA imaging tasks. Planning science input to pipeline group.

Conferences and workshops

More than 70 scientists and engineers attended an ALMA development & studies workshop held in NRAO Charlottesville March 21-22, to present ideas and discuss the astronomical motivation for developing new capabilities for ALMA.

User training presentations were written for ALMA observing capabilities & considerations, proposing tools; these were posted on a project-wide website for use across the project. A new users guide for Simdata, using the ES configurations, was posted to CASAguides.nrao.edu. A "Guide to the NA ARC and NAASC" was produced.

ALMA presentations were given at the CARMA Symposium (Feb28-Mar1), at SUNY (March 4) and at the "Building on New Worlds, New Horizons" conference in Sante Fe, NM (March 7-10). ALMA Early Science "Community Day" events, including hands-on training with the OT and Simdata, were held at the the University of Pennsylvania (March 7; 18 participants), as part of the "Building New Horizons" conference in Sante Fe, NM (March 11; 15 participants), and at Caltech (Mar 15-16; 50 participants).

Other

Wrote "knowledgebase articles" for the ALMA Helpdesk. Contributed articles to the ALMA and NRAO Newsletters.

-- JohnHibbard - 2011-04-08
Topic revision: r1 - 2011-04-08, JohnHibbard
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