IVOA Exec Telecon TM14

April 13 2005 @ 15:00-16:00 GMT Canceled

Agenda (Draft 20050407)

1. Roll Call
2. Minutes of FM13
3. Review of Actions
4. Reports from VO projects (to be uploaded to web page)
5. Progress on Technical Roadmap
6. Reports from WGs ? not necessary for telecon?
7. Status of Kyoto preparations
8. Status of IAU Symposium Proposal
9. IVOA Calendar
10. AOB
11. Summary of Actions

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Reports from the Projects

(please upload you projects here - or email to Nic Walton) -- NicholasWalton - 07 Apr 2005

Japan-VO - MasatoshiOhishi, 11 Apr 2005

Progress Report (Japanese Virtual Observatory) Jan - Apr, 2005

1) Personnel No change.

2) Development Status The JVO prototype system has been upgraded dramatically since January.

First of all, several databases in Japan were connected to the JVO prototype.JAXA/ISAS has been collaborating with the NAOJ, and their database system -- DARTS (http://www.darts.isas.ac.jp/index.html) that contains satellite data in the X-ray and IR wavelengths -- has been connected through implementing the SkyNode interface, that was developed and implemented with the Java code by the NAOJ, to the DARTS system. Although its access has been restricted to within Japan (because of internal issue in JAXA/ISAS), Japanese researchers now are capable to have smooth and integrated access to the DARTS database through the VO environment.

Secondly we implemented the cross-match function in the JVO SkyNode. Before January the JVO SkyNode had a functionalities corresponding to the Basic SkyNode, but now it is the Full SkyNode. Furthermore JVO SkyNode experimented to accept multiple IVOA standard protocols -- SIAP and SkyNode (SSAP in near future). This is to examine the proposed "Virtual Column Concept" toward integrated query language among the DAL and the VOQL groups. These results will be presented at the Interoperability workshop in Kyoto.

3) Demonstrations of the JVO prototype in Japan Annual meeting of the Astronomical Society of Japan was held between March 28 and 30, 2005, in a suburb city to Tokyo. The JVO group has made a demonstration of its prototype for three days, and many astronomers showed strong interest on the JVO system.

Unexpectedly the concept of VO has gradually prevailed in Japan, and people in other field, such as geophysics and planetary physics, remote sensing, and so on, approached to the JVO group to ask them to give a talk how they developed their systems. People in these field have collected a lot of data, however, have struggled to provide seamless access to these data for their research communities. JVO team members gave some talks on their history, including activities in the IVOA, and stressed that international standardization is one of the key for the success.

4) International Collaborations Two active members from NVO visited Japan in the middle of February, and made very fruitful discussion on ADQL, SkyNode, etc. Some other VO groups, such as CDS, ESA, have contacted to the JVO group for future collaboration. It should be noted that a group in Taiwan shows interest to initiate VO in Taiwan, and two JVO members are invited to Taiwan at the end of April to give a talk not only on JVO but IVOA.

VO-India - AjitKembhavi, 11 Apr 2005

• voi_report.pdf

China VO - ChenzhouCui, 12 Apr 2005

• china_report.pdf

Euro-VO - PeterQuinn, 11 Apr 2005

The final demonstration for the AVO project (and the end of the project) occurred at the ESA Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), Villafranca Spain, from 25-26 January 2005. A full report can be found at http://www.euro-vo.org/twiki/bin/view/Avo/AvoDemo2005. This occasion also marked the initiation of the Euro-VO program. I would like AVO to be removed from the IVOA membership and replaced by Euro-VO (using the existing www.euro-vo.org as the home site for the moment). Euro-VO will be represented on the IVOA Exec by myself and Martin Kessler from ESAC. I ask that the IVOA Exec recognize and accept this transition.

The Euro-VO work program will be executed by three new organizations. The EURO-VO Data Centre Alliance (DCA), the Euro-VO Technology Centre (VOTC) and the EURO-VO Facility Centre (VOFC). A Memorandum of Understanding supporting the Euro-VO program has been drafted between ESO, ESA, PPARC, INAF, INSU, INTA, Max Planck Gesellschaft, NOVA and PPARC and is expected to be signed by mid-2005. A successful proposal (VO-TECH) to the EC FP6 scheme was lead by Andy Lawrence and generated 6.6 million Euro in funds. This contains 12 new software engineering positions who will work with 12 contributed positions from the six partner organizations (U.Edinburgh, U.Leicester, U.Cambridge, ESO, CDS, INAF) to execute a three year work program on VO infrastructure and tool development. VO-TECH is the first project under the VOTC umbrella and successfully started in January 2005. The DCA Executive Board had its first meeting in December 2004. A proposal to the EC FP6 for DCA funding was lead by Francoise Genova from CDS in March 2005. The proposal is seeking approximately 2 million Euro in funds for DCA startup over the next two years. Results from this proposal are expected by mid-year. Start-up activities for the VOFC are foreseen for 2005/2006 under the joint leadership of ESO and ESA. In line with the IVOA roadmap, Euro-VO is endeavoring to make 2005 a year of data centre take-up by hosting a workshop at ESO in June. The workshop currently has 80 registered participants and will conduct a series of overviews, lectures and tutorials aimed at giving data centre and large project staff the ability to publish data within the existing VO infrastructure (see http://euro-vo.org/workshop2005 for details).