IDIS-DM-SWG News


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Dec. 2011 News

AGU-FM 2011: IDIS related Abstracts

Nov. 2011 News

IDIS DataModel

The current IDIS-DM specification release in Feb. 2011 has been used to assess the requirements in terms of keywords and metadata for planetology. We are now in the process of testing IVOA data models (VOResource, VODataCollection, ObservationCore, Characterization…) to check if they can handle and describe what we need. Up to now, it is going well. We have had one informal workshop in Paris on Oct. 13th 2011, and we will have a second one also in Paris on Dec. 2nd. During these informal workshops, we play with the (very preliminary) draft of the Data Model based on IVOA specifications, and try to fit our datasets in it. If you are interested in participating please let me know.

IDIS Protocols

Two protocols have been identified during the previous meetings and discussions: PDAP and ObsTAP. The first one is promoted and developed by IPDA, while the latter is proposed by IVOA. Concerning PDAP refer to the corresponding section below.
For ObsTAP, it has been decided to alter the protocol definition to meet our needs. This version of the protocol is called IDIS-TAP.
The IDIS-TAP services will be registered in IVOA registries.
A draft version of the protocol specification and of the client/server capabilities and requirements will be presented on Dec. 12th, at the occasion of a "planetology VO" french workshop organized by VO-Paris.

IPDA

IPDA has decided to move on PDAP Extensions specification. Three extensions are now under study, two of them lead by IDIS participants: Please contact these persons if you which to participate.

IAU Astronomical Thesaurus

The question of describing the data and the targets is a long standing problem for VO. As discussed in the IDIS-DM specification published in Feb 2011, we propose a list of Target_Types, and we propose to use an extended list of UCDs to describe the physical content of the dataset. Refining these definitions could be done using "Subject" metadata keywords, taken from the IAU Astronomical Thesaurus, maintained by the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney:
AAO Thesaurus
Search interface
We are currently studying this thesaurus to check if it meets our needs.
You can use the search interface to look for keywords you would use as data providers or users. When you do so, please report to me any comments you may have (positive or negative!).

Oct. 2011 News

PV-2011 papers

The PV-2011 conference will be held in Toulouse next month (15-17 Nov 2011)

PV2011: Objectives
Standards for Archives and Interoperability enabling new added value services
After five very successful events, PV 2002 at CNES in Toulouse, France, PV 2004 at ESA/ESRIN in Frascati, Italy, PV 2005 at DCC in Edinburgh, UK, PV 2007at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany and PV 2009 at ESAC in Madrid, Spain, the conference series is back to Toulouse and continues to address prospects in the domain of scientific and technical data preservation together with value adding to these data.
The amount of digital data increases, the price for storage capacity decreases, the technology is still rapidly evolving offering new ways of storing, publishing and building added value services on top of data. Temptation is high to believe that dealing with massive amount of data is easy, just because data storage gets every day cheaper and the technology more stable. But data management, data description and data curation remain the challenges for building modern archives while keeping in mind their long-term preservation.
Coupled with flexible and open software architecture, these are the basis to allow inter-operability amongst archives while enabling the development of new added value services and applications on top of existing data, ensuring its higher utilization by end (and new) users.

Three abstracts have been submitted from our group:

IPDA Collaboration

Maria-Teresa Capria, Baptiste Cecconi, Michel Gangloff, Thomas Roatsch and Alain Sarkissian participated to the IPDA committee meeting, in Pasadena, last month.
We have discussed PDAP specification and implementation. IPDA have read our PDAP assessment document and included or answered to most of our comments. IPDA also decided to officially release a PDAP-Core specification within the next months, which is good because we have some official specification to implement PDAP.
PDAP is now really organized to include extensions. The PDAP version to be soon released in called PDAP-Core. Further extensions will be proposed to IPDA in the future and will be reviewed by the TEG (Technical Expert Group). At the moment, the plasma node plans to propose "Time Series" and "Spectra" extensions. An extension is a set of metadata keyword that extend PDAP capabilities for some specific kind of data.
Some points of interest that have been discussed:
The last version of PDAP specification (v1.1) is given in the attached documents.

IPDA-IVOA splinter meeting

IPDA representatives presented IPDA and PDS4 status. They presented a summary of the IPDA meeting (see above).
Discussions concentrated on the "name resolver" issue. This subject was discussed in IPDA: PDAP is a computer-to-computer protocol, and thus it only deals with "official" values. It is thus on the client side that the request is correctly formed. For instance: when looking for "Venus Express" data, the PDAP query should be sent with mission_name="VEx". The problem of the solar system small bodies has been raised and should be discussed in the near future.

EPSC-DPS MT1 session

A few highlights from the MT1 oral session I also attached the presentations of B. Cecconi, S. Erard and F. Topf (see below).

Attached documents

July 2011 News

Rome IDIS-DM-SWG Splinter meeting

Please find below the presentation I gave on tuesday morning during the WG splinter, with some notes merged from those taken by Christian and Walter.

AGU FM-2011 SM02 Session

I am co-chairing a session during the AGU Fall Meeting 2011:
SM02: Discovery, Access and Analysis Tools in Solar and Space Physics Research

Here is the abstract of the session:
Existing and emerging services are available to enable solar and space physics research and offer a variety of approaches to find and provide easy access to the data. Virtual observatories (VxOs) and others are unifying the registration of data and are providing ever-better access in multi-mission contexts. These developments, along with simpler and more direct access protocols, promise to provide researchers with the ability to explore data with unprecedented ease, potentially enabling new insights. This session invites papers that demonstrate how the use of VxOs, other services and promising new approaches bring a clear advantage in extracting new science results and enabling science-focused data discovery, access and analysis.

I propose you to submit abstracts (deadline august 4th 2011) to present the prototypes and developments that have been done within IDIS.
We would especially like to have demonstrations (with a laptop) of the prototypes during the poster session. Oral talks (very limited number) will be reserved for "success stories", i.e. talks about science done using heliophysics (= heliospheric + magnetospheric + planetologic) VO tools.

Attached documents

June 2011 News

IDIS-GM Meeting

As the session will be rather informal, there is no agenda. We will discuss the following topics:

May 2011 News

Task 1 Status

I have compiled the inputs I received. I attached a draft version of the document at the end of the email. I have identified a list of resource types that covers the available inputs. Please send me any comment you have on this document.
Inputs from "Atmospheric Node" and "Interior and Surface Node" are still missing. To the WG members from these nodes: if you can't find time to participate, please find somebody else to replace you !
I also would like to remind you that we will meet on Tuesday June 7th from 09:00 to 12:00, just before the IDIS General Meeting.

Attached documents

Apr. 2011 News

Status of WG tasks

Face-to-face meeting

I received messages from several members of the working group asking for the next face-to-face meeting. I propose to meet during the next IDIS-GM in Rome. I propose to meet on June 7th from 09:00 to 12:00. Unfortunately, I don't think our respective agendas (at least mine) will permit a meeting earlier this year.

Meeting at EGU

For those of you who are at the EGU, you can send me an email if you want to discuss our project. I am available on thursday morning (from 10:30 to 11:30). We could meet somewhere around a coffee.