IVOA Executive Committee Meeting (TM27)

Thurs Apr 24 2008 @ 15.00-16.30 GMT

Logistics

Telecon:

Agenda

1. Roll Call and Agenda
2. Minutes of TM26
3. Project Reports - Significant events only
4. Review of Actions - [NW]
5. Approval of new IVOA Recommendation(s) [Standing Item]
6. WG and IG Updates
   • DAL
   • VOTable
   • Registry
7. Review of WG/IG Chair Rotations - DD
8. Term of IVOA Chair - DD
9. Report of Assessment Committee - DD
10. Final Approval of Documents and Stds Document - BH
11. TCG Charter Status - RW, CA
12. Review of forthcoming recommendation - RW
13. Draft Policy on Inactive Members - DD
14. Seaman Report of UTC - MO
15. May Interop Status - FP
16. Fall Interop Status - BH
17. AOB
18. Review of New Action Items

Reports from the Projects

ArVO

AstroGrid

We announced (1 Apr 2008) our release of the AstroGrid Desktop Suite : get it from http://www.astrogrid.org This was time to coincide with the UK National Astronomy meeting in Belfast.

After various prototypes over several years, this is the first release of a complete set of software and working services. From the user's point of view we released three applications that run on the desktop - VODesktop; Topcat; and AstroGrid Python - and provided links to other Euro-VO tools that interoperate seamlessly - Aladin, VOSpec, SPLAT-VO. We also link to other VO tools - NVO services, VOPlot, etc.

In the background we are operating a number of services - Registry, VOSpace, and Community - in several sites - and we have used our own DSA component to help UK data centres establish working data services. Of course VODesktop also provides access to the thousands of services worldwide

Australia-VO

China-VO

CVO

Euro-VO

France VO

Since no France-VO report was posted on TM26 web page, this report summarizes the activities since the Exec face-to-face meeting held in Cambridge in September 2007 (FM25).

The annual meeting of France-VO was held in Paris on 26-27 November 2007, with ~60 participants. Most French Observatories were represented. The lively presentations (mostly in French) and discussions showed the variety of VO-compliant services in development or at maturity, of technical programs (interoperability standards, workflows) which are presently under way in France, and some examples of science usages.

Two topical meetings have also been organised under F-VO auspices:

• the "Journées briques logicielles" (Software Bricks day), organised by Paris Observatory on 5 December 2007 for VO developers to discuss tools and good practice (30 participants).

• a Planetology VO Workshop, organised by IPSL at Jussieu (Paris) on 13 December 2007, which allowed in particular useful discussions with ESA and the Europlanet European Network

The Action Spécifique Observatoires Virtuels France (ASOV, which is F-VO) has decided that the subject is now mature enough to organise one single AO in 2008 (instead of 2 previously). This AO was opened in December 2007 with a closing date on January 2008. The limited amount of money available will be used to support travel to Interops and to F-VO Working Group meetings, and some collaboration meetings. ASOV Scientific Council also evaluates proposed participation to Euro-VO Workshops (which are then supported on European funds managed by CNRS).

Work on Interoperability standards has continued at a high level and as explained above ASOV will continue to support French participation in the IVOA Interoperability meetings.

F-VO is also active at European level, in particular in the Coordination activities organised by the EuroVO-DCA project: active participation in the Theory and Grid Workshops organised on 7-11 April 2008 at MPE (Garching) respectively by GAVO and VObs.it and in the census of European data centres. CDS organised in Strasbourg the kick-off meeting of the EuroVO-AIDA project (17 March 2008), and the bi-annual meeting of the VO-TECH project, which was also the first Euro-VO Technology Forum of the EuroVO-AIDA project (17-20 March). Paris Observatory, together with Lyon, Besançon and Strasbourg, is actively taking part in the evaluation of the framework for theory in the astronomical VO which is performed under GAVO responsibility in the frame of the EuroVO-DCA project.

GAVO

HVO

Japan-VO

We have successfully implemented the JVO portal system since 2008 March. Visit at http://jvo.nao.ac.jp/portal/. Anyone can access and dowload the observed data from more than 1,300 site in the world. More than 1 TBytes of data have already downloaded. We implemented a prototype for a workflow builder system based on the Taverna in order to easily construct data query and data analysis processes on a graphical user interface. Similar system has also been built in the UK, and we plan to compare our systems toward better, common system.

Some project members were invited to give talks on the virtual observatory in several international meetings. It should be noted that the Core-to-Core program members published 104 academic papers, incuding 8 invited talks. We were informed that the Core-to-Core program of the JSPS will continue its support to the JVO for the fiscal year 2008 (April 2008 to March 2009).

Korean VO

NVO

RVO

SVO

VObs.it

The local arrangements for the May 08 Interop meeting in Trieste (May 18th to 23rd at the “Stazione Marittima” congress centre) are being completed. Info are available on the IVOA wiki (http://www.ivoa.net/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/InterOpMay2008) and on the local Web site dedicated to the meeting (http://www.si.inaf.it/ivoa_interop_2008/). Most of the logistics have been settled, an upgrade to the wi-fi provided by the congress centre is being set up. The company providing the booking for participants has proven to be not completely adequate: potential participants are encouraged to register as soon as possible.

VObs.it has been funded by INAF for 2008, even though at an unsatisfactory level: there are funds to cover the May 08 Interop meeting, for travel and for two contracts related to VO activities (in Milan and in Teramo). Additional resources are received through the EU-funded projects (VO-Tech and VO-DCA).

A proposal was prepared to build an integrated e-infrastructure for astrophysics (centered on VObs.it and computing resources) as part of a roadmap for scientific infrastructures to be submitted to the national Ministry of Research (MIUR). The proposal was not supported by INAF and did not reach MIUR.

IA2 continues its collaboration with Heidelberg and Tucson to build a VO-compliant LBT-wide archive; a position for this work is being filled.

Work is continuing within the EU-funded VO-Tech and VO-DCA projects. Two workshops, on Theory in the VO and on Grid and the VO, were co-organised by INAF/VObs.it and MPE/GAVO in the framework of the VO-DCA project, and held back-to-back in Garching during the week from April 7th to 11th (http://www.si.inaf.it/eurovow2008/index.htm). The meetings were well attended (over 70 participants) and successful, judging by the interest evidenced in the discussions.

VO-India

Reports from WGs & IGs(follows order as at http://www.ivoa.net/forum/)

Applications WG

Data Access Layer WG

Data Models WG (MireilleLouys)

• Spectral Line Model: identification of two levels of use-cases and definition of two packages with two levels of complexity and goals:
  1. Simple Spectral Line Data Model, focused on spectral lines recognition in observed spectra, and matching the requirements for tools like VOSpec and the SLAP protocol.
  2. Atomic and Molecular Line Data Model, (for observations and simulations), encompassing more general uses-cases for physics (fine descriptions of molecular physics, atmosphere, etc.). Both packages currently finalised, with description of the existing implementations.
• Provenance DM and relationship with advanced levels of Characterization DM II.
• Syntax definition of UTypes : on going

Interaction with the Theory IG :

• Simulation DM ( numerical simulations), transfered to the DM group for dissemination in the IVOA and standardisation process. Planned the definition of guide-lines for building up models, automated generation for XML serialisations and documentation.

Models in action :

• CAMEA : a user-friendly tool to help to publish observation datasets via their XML characterisation metadata.
• Building up of an interactive mapper from data base columns to Characterisation Utypes in the case of ad hoc heterogeneous data sets in the SAADA environment.

Grid and Web Services Working Group (MatthewGraham)

The main activity for the GWS working group over the past few months has been VOSpace 1.1. A working draft of the specification, WSDL and schema was released on 16 January 2008. Reference implementations have been/are under development at Caltech, UCSD, JHU, Astrogrid and CDS. At least one of these (UCSD) also interfaces with the iRODS software from SDSC. There has also been work on the VOSpace usage document (Harrison, Morris) which describes the core metadata terms that we will be registering.

Members of the WG have been looking at security issues, including delegation (Rixon, Graham), particularly with a view to a more RESTful approach; and authorisation (Graham).

There has also been work on VOSI (Rixon) and CEA/UWS (Harrison).

Registry WG

Semantics/UCD WG

Vocabularies: A WD v1.0 on Vocabularies in the Virtual Observatory has been published recently (March 20, 2008). The WD is the result of a lively discussion, and it seems ready to move on to PR status in May. Cross-matching between vocabularies and use cases are the current open issues, and they will be debated in the coming InterOpMay2008.

VOEvent

VOQL WG

VOTable WG

Astro-RG IG

• The Astro-RG session will be held during the coming OGF23 meeting in Barcelona, Spain. Its schedule will be announced soon by the OGF program committee - see http://www.ogf.org.

Data Curation and Preservation IG

Theory IG

-- NicholasWalton - 14 Jan 2008

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