IVOA Executive Committee Meeting (TM37)

Monday September 20 2010 @ 15.00 GMT

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Logistics

Telecon:

Agenda - TBD

1. Roll Call and Agenda (MA)
2. Minutes of FM36, Minutes of FM36S (PP)
3. Review of Actions (MA)
4. Project Reports [Significant Events Only]
5. Approval of new IVOA Recommendation(s) [Standing Item]
6. TCG status (CA)
7. KDD Chair, VOEvent vice-Chair, TCG vice-Chair on POC (all)
8. Possible new IVOA members (PP)
9. Inactive IVOA members (PP)
10. Proposal for an IVOA Education Interest Group (CC)
11. Proposal of a joint technical session with IPDA at next interop (CA/MO)
12. IVOA Documents Approval by TCG and Exec (PP, all)
13. Future Interops (MO, FP)
14. Date of Next Exec Meeting
15. AOB
16. Review of Action Items (MA)

Reports from the Projects

ArVO

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AstroGrid

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Australia-VO

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BRAVO

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China-VO

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CVO

We have released a production Table Access Protocol (TAP) service to support querying the Common Archive Observation Model (CAOM) data warehouse at CADC. In addition, most of the source code to implement the TAP specification, including ADQL, STC, UWS, and VOSI, is available through the OpenCADC project hosted at http://opencadc.googlecode.com/. We have also released new implementations of our SIA services using the CAOM TAP service and we provide an (evolving) ObsCore prototype table within our TAP service as part of the ObsTAP science case project.

We have implemented IVOA Single Sign On across all CADC web applications and services. Users with X509 certficates can authenticate using this mechanism if they need to access proprietary data or other restricted resources. We are currently developing a service that implements the IVOA Credential Delegation Protocol (CDP) based on the Astrogrid security library.

We have deployed a partial VOSpace 2.0 service to support collaboration between survey team members, as well as all general storage by CADC users. the VOSpace service is also used as an important component of our cloud computing work, where it is used to store, manage, and share virtual machine images and to persist processing output. We will implement the missing features and achieve compliance with the draft specification before the end of 2010. We have also designed and implemented a prototype Group Membership Service (GMS); this specification will be brought forward for discussion in the Grid and Web Services WG. The VOSpace and GMS source code is also available through the OpenCADC project.

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Euro-VO

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France VO

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GAVO

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HVO

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Japan-VO

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Korean VO

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RVO

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SVO

Manpower: 10 FTEs. The SVO Thematic Network (people from Spanish institutes with interest in the VO) is composed of 177 members in 34 institutes.

Standards: Work on access protocols and models for theoretical data is progressing. Information on this topic can be found at: http://svo.cab.inta-csic.es/modules.php?op=modload&name=phpWiki&file=index&pagename=Projects-Theory

VO archives:

- Technical support for the development of a VO archive for a robotic telescope (in collab. with the University of Cartagena).

- Technical support for the development of a VO service for the MAGIC data (in collab. wth the University of Barcelona).

VO Science:

- New Generation Stellar Physics: Asteroseismology & Virtual Observatory (J.C. Suárez, E.Solano, C. Rodrigo, A. Moya, A. García-Hernández) arXiv:1004.0612

- Identification of blue high proper motion objects in Tycho-2 and 2MASS catalogues using Virtual Observatory tools (F. Jiménez-Esteban, J.A. Caballero, E. Solano) accepted in A&A

Outreach:

- "The Virtual Observatory for the amateur astronomy". Pro-Am workshop. Madrid, Sep 2010. E. Solano, J. M. Alacid.

Education:

- SVO schools: March 2010 (Canary Islands) and June 2010 (Madrid). More information can be found at: http://svo.laeff.inta.es/modules.php?op=modload&name=phpWikiP&file=index&pagename=Meetings

- Assignments under academic supervision (in collaborattion with Complutense University of Madrid): "Development of a VO archive for the UCM sample of galaxies"

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VAO

The VAO officially got started with the award of an NSF Cooperative Agreement to the VAO, LLC on 15 May 2010. Over the summer months all attention was focused on developing a Program Execution Plan (PEP) for submission to NSF and NASA by 13 August 2010. This was completed on time and copies were shared with the IVOA Executive. The VAO team is now engaged in assigning the tasks and activities in the PEP to the individuals who will be actively engaged in the work. The VAO will hold its first team meeting on 30 Sept/1 Oct 2010 at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory headquarters in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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VObs.it

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VO-India

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

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Applications WG

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Data Access Layer WG

The SSAP specification has been clarified to resolve minor inconsistencies, producing SSAP 1.1; the TCG and/or Exec need to decide if the full REC process needs to be followed for such an update.

The working group is currently developing working drafts for PQL and SIAv2. In the longer term we will be analysing the SED science case and identifying requirements for new service specification(s) or new versions of existing specifications. Once the DM WG has made sufficient progress on Photometry DM, the DAL WG will be able to consider the effect on SSAP and decide if we are to work on SSAP 1.2 or 2.0 at that time.

The working group will also be working with other groups (Theory IG and VOEvent) on gathering and analysing use cases for accessing light curves, events, and simulations. -- PatrickDowler - 17 Sep 2010

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Data Models WG

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Grid and Web Services Working Group

Work has continued intermittently since Victoria. Universal Worker Service (UWS) is now complete and on track to become a Recommendation at this Exec meeting. Support Interfaces (VOSI) and Web Service Basic Profile (WSBP) are being revised in light of RFC comments and should proceed to TCG review soon. A number of issues with VOSpace 2.0 WD have now been resolved and a new version of the WD resolving these will be released in a few weeks. We hope to test interoperability between reference implementations before the Nara IVOA meeting and then proceed to PR, etc. VOPipe is currently awaiting the completion of VOSpace 2.0.

This WG has been particularly hard hit by the loss of Astrogrid participation and we ask IVOA Exec members to encourage appropriate individuals within their home projects to join in so that we have good international representation.

-- MatthewGraham - 18 Sep 2010

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Registry WG

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Semantics/UCD WG

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VOEvent

Significant work has been done on the VOEvent v2.0 working draft since Victoria. We plan to release this for comment within the WG in a few weeks. Editing in progress on the Hotwired book. R. Williams chaired the Transient Infrastructure session at the LSST all hands meeting in Tucson - immediately before LSST was announced as the #1 priority of the US Decadal Survey. (VOEvent is baseline technology for LSST.) R. Seaman and R. Williams will conduct a tutorial, "Techniques in Time Domain Astronomy" at the Boston ADASS. Interesting conversations continue with various time domain projects, e.g., through several well attended sessions on time domain aspects of observatory operations at the San Diego SPIE. VOEvent infrastructure is being maintained and extended. IAU Comms. 5 & 6 have reported back to the IAU Exec regarding their positions on a task group addressing the CBAT question. -- RobSeaman - 16 Sep 2010

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VOQL WG

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VOTable WG

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Data Curation and Preservation IG

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Knowledge Discovery in Databases IG

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Theory IG

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