Agenda

CASA/JIVE VLBI Coordination Meeting

2021 Nov 3 @ 1500UTC

Logistics

• Future Meeting dates (usually last Wed of the month):
  
  • 2021 Nov 17 @ 1500 UTC Technical meeting
    
  • 2021 Dec 15 @ 1500 UTC Coordination meeting (avoiding holidays)
  • 2022 Jan 26 (or earlier?)

General Admin

• General Status w.r.t. Coronavirus measures
  • NRAO/ALMA:
    
    • NRAO in North America now officially fully-vaccinated and "back to work", with masking/SD protocols still in place. ALMA now back to ~near-normal, w/ care.
      
  • ASTRON/JIVE
    • ASTRON (and JIVE) back to work @work, with some (experimental) teleworking continuing. 50% on-site max.
      
• CASA Release Schedule
  
  • CASA 6.4.0: Released Oct 28.
    
  • (CASA 6.4.1: pipeline deployment branch pending.)
  • (6.4.2 reserved for pipeline flexibility)
  • CASA 6.4.3: ~Jan 2022. (6.4.4 in March)
    
  • Release version OS/python matrix
• (Justin) Stakeholder prioritization
  • CASA 6.5 prioritization underway
    
  • CASA 6.5 development work to formally begin ~March 2022
• Documentation and related
  • (Mark) Collated requirements (2021 July 02) ...status? Mark to finalize by Nov 5.
    
  • (Des/George) Fringefit memo...status? George to add some general calibration context (cf for CASA VLBI paper)
    
  • (Justin) VLBA CASA Recipe circulated; comments solicited/received. Incorporating comments from Ilse; will circulate. Anticipating making public in Dec.
    
  • (Ilse) CASA VLBI Paper planning
    
    • Meetings: Oct 5 & Oct 29....many people feverishly composing their contributions...
      
• CASA repo/build logistics
  • (Ryan/George) CASA repo re-org for sunset of CASA 5 (CAS-13461)
    • Seems to have occurred with minimal pain.
      
    • remember to migrate c++ tests as needed.
  • Building c++ unit tests in CASA 6 from Darrell (CAS-13461) (still some issues with google tests?) George to systematically organize calibration-related tests (mostly google tests) in synthesis/MeasurementComponents (including VLBI-related)
  • VLBI Integration Branch: CAS-13295 (deprecated, post repo re-org? Yes.). New one will be generated if/when needed.
  • casa6 build instructions via vmware (from Ville)
    
• Misc. Admin
  • (Ryan) Revised CASA Management Plan (2021 August 30)
    
  • (Ryan) Recruitment process for new VLBI developer underway
    • Interviews proceeding....
• (Ryan) CNGI/ngCASA Status?
  • Demo 'release' of prototype package. CNGI info on casa webpage.
  • FYI: CNGI Development instructions
  • Some casa6 development to be considered using new technologies ("CNGI tech transition"), if adequately isolate-able.
    • (Ryan) Anything to report from Sep 30 meeting?
      
• Meetings/workshops of relevance
  
  • CASA Users Committee: Oct 11-14, including VLBI summary
    • CUC continues to support and applaud VLBI-related work. Interested in a "VLBI/CASA recipe...in the form of a tutorial". Also interested in plotting cumulative calibration (hard)....
  • ADASS: Oct 24-28. (Ryan: lots of visualization, CARTA featured; Des: reusability/accessibility themes, jive with EVN ambitions)
• Other admin?
  • Mark (20%) now co-manager ngEHT data mgmt. group (requirements for online+correlation+init. calibration)
  • George (20%) now member of ngVLA Computing/Software IPT (requirements for calibration)

Development

• CASA 6.3+6.4 prioritization complete
• Ongoing maintenance/development CASA 6.3/6.4 JIRA (VLBI) Status
  
  • Finished:
    • (Des, CAS-13224) memory management improvements in fringefit. Merged to 6.4.0.
    • (George, CAS-12735; 12765,12553; 12954,10276) Frequency meta-info Merged to 6.4.0.
      
      • CAS-13623 (Des, fringefit specifics) merged to 6.4.0
      • CAS-12765,12553? (anything to do?)
  • Ongoing for 6.4.3
    
    • (Mark, CAS-13622) FITS-IDI filler does not always update OBSERVATION table correctly (6.4.3)
      • PR pending now that trunk is 6.4.3.
        
    • (Mark, ticket?) Dysco ("lossy" compression of MeasurementSets) (6.4.3)
      
      • Integrated in casacore now; needs one-line diff in CASA to enable (PR-ready?) Mark to check if casacore has been up-rev'd, and nudge as necessary.
        
    • (Mark, CAS-13266) Per-scan interpolation via overloading per-obs mechanism. (6.4.1)
      • (George) Semantics of "Time Segment" granularity to be generalized by George, to avoid internal confusions.
    • (Des, CAS-13361) Polarization combination for fringefit.
      
      • Des/George converging on approach via a TVI layer (cf frequency averaging)
    • (Des, CAS-13056) Overlapping solution intervals
      • Initial implementation awaiting review by George
    • (Mark, CAS-13003). EOP update (6.4).
      • Investigating using almacalc with Python interface.
      • Related to re-calculation of UVW in CNGI-driven simulator (JWS)
  • Other/Miscellaneous
    
    • (George/Justin) CASR-463 (TEC) Need to follow-up on Justin's initial testing, which indicated edge (near-horizon) effects, spurious but cosmetic VLA-specificity, scientific differences in details? (Also some MeerKAT testing, via Bietenholz?)
    • (George, CAS-13287) AveragingTvi2 problems for certain conditions; under separate investigation (cf CAS-13466)
    • CAS-12485: OTF weight munging for solve (Can we complete validation and deploy? Des seeking interested users at JIVE)

AOB

• n/a