Abstracts for Applications Interest Group Sessions at the September 2006 IVOA Interoperability Meeting

With the progress of network technologies and astronomical observation technologies, as an example of cyber-infrastructure based sciences, Virtual Observatory is initiated and spreading quickly. More and more on-line accessible database systems and all kinds of services are available. Although astronomers have been aware the importance of interoperability, integrated access to the on-line information is still difficult.

SkyMouse is a smart system developed by Chinese Virtual Observatory project to let you access different online resource systems easily then ever. Not like some VO efforts on uniformed access systems, for example, NVO DataScope, SkyMouse tries to show a comprehensive overview for a specific object, but not to snatch as much data as possible.

Stimulated by a simple ´Mouse Over¡ on an interested object name, various VO-compliant and traditional databases, i.e. SIMBAD, NED, Vizier, DSS, ADS, are queried by the SkyMouse. An overview for the given object, including basic information, image, observation and references, is displayed in user’s default web browser.

In the talk, current status and trends of on-line astronomical services are introduced; architecture, topology and key technologies of the SkyMouse system are described; current functions and future plans are listed. The system is accessible at the address: http://skymouse.china-vo.org.

VOSpec presents a new graphic interface and implements some new functionalities (Plastic, Luminosity difference...) It is also possible to create a fully compliant SSAP Server of your local spectra and have them visible in VOSpec with just few steps using our DALToolKit.

In order to search and find data of interest it is necessary to describe and catalog them in a homogeneous way. The MEx utility is supporting this task for astronomy data products like images and spectra that are stored in FITS format. MEx extracts and transforms keywords and thereby removes the instrument and observatory signature. This is achieved by converting values to physical units and mapping them to standard vocabularies (UCD) and concepts (utype). Users may supply their own mapping and data models. Special purpose s/w modules can be hooked in where simple mapping expressions are not sufficient to compute the desired values. This makes MEx very flexible and versatile.

Since the last interop meeting there have been a number of small modifications to the Plastic protocol to make it clearer and more flexible. This talk will also demonstrate some new applications using the protocol, including a Plastic-enabled web page.

A quick recap of what the Astro Runtime is, developments since the last interop meeting, and a review of how it is being used by 3rd- party applications.