Agenda

CASA/JIVE VLBI Coordination Meeting

2020 August 12 @ 1400UTC

Logistics

• Future Meeting dates (usually last Wed of the month):
  
  • 2020 Sep 30 @ 1400 UTC
    
  • 2020 Oct 28 @ 1400 UTC

General Admin

• General Status w.r.t. Coronavirus measures
  • NRAO/ALMA:
    
    • NRAO in North America now in Phase 1 of "Return to Full Operations" from June 8,
      • RTFO Phase 2: Dec 1 (earliest) "Steady-state" in "New Normal", maybe some travel, F2F meetings; consider 2021+ according to conditions
    • ALMA has begun reviews considering restart of operations (currently "not yet")
  • ASTRON/JIVE
    • Science/computing staff continuing work-at-home for now
• CASA Release Schedule
  • CASA 5.7/6.1: Pre-release package branch July ~27; public release imminent...
  • CASA 5.8/6.2: Development ongoing. Nominal code freeze: mid/late September
• JIRA workflow migration (simplification) complete
  • Some ticket states have evolved (no "sub-tasks")
  • Package build (CASA 6) triggering ("Package" field via ticket "Edit")
  • Refer any issues/problems to George
• (Mark) Requirements collation status?
  • 2020 May 07 document
  • (George) Should complete re-numbering to better align with prioritization exercise from May 2020
  • (George, Justin) Need to forward Requirements Doc and prioritization to Jen Donovan-Meyer, as input to Stakeholder process for CASA 5.9/6.3
• (Ryan) CNGI Status:
  • In lieu of aborted CoDR, CNGI Study Closeout process (2021+) being prepared, including: prototype demo package of basic flagging, calibration, & imaging; review of C++ code reuse prospects cf demos; concrete ngCASA specification project mapping ngVLA (and retrospective ALMA) requirements, and including a multi-year schedule, staffing plan, etc.
  • FYI: CNGI Development instructions
• Pending admin issues
  
  • DIY casa5 tarball build instructions can be found here (Is this working Des?)
    • (Des) After discussions with Ville, more-or-less working; hopefully not needed much longer
  • casa6 build issues: formal instructions for plotms, CASAshell, casa5/6 co-exist, c++ unit tests in casa6
• Upcoming meetings/workshops of relevance
  • CASA User Committee: 2020 Oct 20-23 (virtual)
  • JIVE VLBI Workshop 2020 Nov 2-6. Virtual, hopefully with an (off-site) in-person component.
    • ASTRON is closed for events, but offsite options (Hotel De Borken) internet-challenged, making virtual component difficult/impossible, exact plan still TBD
• Other admin?

Development

• CASA 5.8/6.2:
  
  • JIRA Status
    • CAS-12736: accor test needs some VLBA data for proper test
      • 43 GHz dataset likely best-demonstrator; may be possible to re-use something from fringefit testing (Justin?)
        • (George, Justin, Neal) Coordinate identification of VLBA test dataset, and update test
        • (George) Continue diagnosis of old VLA dataset test failure
    • CAS-8537: gain curve:
      • Mark has working implementation
        • Merge of current casacore to casa trunk urgently needed (like several other general CASA developments), then easy to commit and PR/merge
      • Adaptations needed in concat, mstransform?
        • (Mark) Close w/ concat, will consider what might be needed for mstransform
        • In general, most users should be satisfied with ordinary (sometimes multi-file) importfitsidi fill, and this calibration established early in processing
      • Caltables use 16 parameters (8 per-pol), so a polynomial of degree 7.
      • How to integrate into gencal?
        • (George) Although transparent adaptation of existing mode desirable, adding new gencal mode probably easiest for isolating and managing required calculations on apply
          
    • (Mark) Polarization basis conversion
      • (Mark) To handle mixed basis EVN arrays, adapt Marti-Vidal code to "calibrate" (within CASA calibration infrastructure) to common (circular) basis via cross-hand gain (slight generalization of XJones) + basis conversion (as an ordered calibration term). For now, an experimental effort, orthogonal/non-distruptive to all else and under the radar; when ready to deploy, offer as a CASA task (with requisite testing, etc.)
    • Other:
      • George to study what is needed in plotms for fringefit (CASR-537; may not require significant effort from Pam)
      • George/Justin to coordinate initial testing on CASR-463 (TEC) to better characterize basic requirements (also CAS-13040 re TEC retrieval changes)

AOB?

• ?