Spectra DM for theoretical spectra?

Gerard gerard.lemson at mpe.mpg.de
Tue Jun 2 06:21:44 PDT 2009


 Dear Francois
Could you send a link to the provenance model?
I am looking at
http://www.ivoa.net/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/ObservationProvenanceDataMod
el
but do not find it there.
Thanks
Gerard

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carlos Rodrigo Blanco [mailto:crb at laeff.inta.es] 
> Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 3:13 PM
> To: bonnarel
> Cc: 'Gerard'; 'Alberto Micol'; theory at ivoa.net; dm at ivoa.net
> Subject: RE: Spectra DM for theoretical spectra?
> 
> I'm not so sure that we are talking about provenance and not 
> characterization.
> 
> I feel that the sentence "description of a dataset or an 
> observation in the Physical parameter space of the data" 
> describes precisely what we are talking about.
> 
> The physical n-dimensional space where a theoretical spectra 
> is located is a space parametrized by some parameters as 
> Teff, Logg, metallicity, etc.
> 
> when I go to the characterization data model I read:
> 
> ---
> This document defines the high level metadata necessary to 
> describe the physical parameter space of observed or 
> simulated astronomical data sets, such as 2D-images, data 
> cubes, X-ray event lists, IFU data, etc..
> The Characterisation data model is an abstraction which can 
> be used to derive a structured description of any relevant 
> data and thus to facilitate its discovery and scientific 
> interpretation. The model aims at facilitating the 
> manipulation of heterogeneous data in any VO framework or portal.
> A VO Characterisation instance can include descriptions of 
> the data axes, the range of coordinates covered by the data, 
> and details of the data sampling and resolution on each axis.
> ---
> 
> and I also feel that this quite describes what we are talking about.
> 
> But I must say that I have never really understood what 
> "provenance" is and I am not able to find a document 
> explaining it (I've attended some mailing list conversations 
> and I can't see the relation between those conversations and 
> what I'm talking about here).
> 
> Could you please refer me to some document so that I can try 
> to understand the provenance data model?
> 
> You're right: unless we are not able to use the same 
> vocabulary with the same meaning all the conversations are 
> going to be crazy.
> 
> I would really appreciate that you point me to any document 
> that I can study about provenance so that I can fill the gaps 
> in my knowledge.
> 
> Carlos
> 
>   On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, bonnarel wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> >   My personnal view about this.
> >
> >    A ) a question of vocabulary
> >        Up to now an IVOA characterization has been reserved 
> vocabulary 
> > for description of a dataset or an observation in the Physical 
> > parameter space of the data. What Carlos or Miguel would 
> like to call 
> > "characaterization" is more something like the "Provenance" of the 
> > dataset. Again all this is a vocabulary question. But if we don't 
> > agree on the vocabulary how can we do Interoperability?
> >     B ) The spectral DM is conceptually a simple and 
> peculiar case of 
> > an overall Observation or Generic Dataset Model. The 
> current version 
> > of spectrum doen't have the "Provenance " package. But it would be 
> > really easy to add this package in a future version of Spectrum, 
> > because The Obs DM currently being developed (with 
> Provenance in it) 
> > is very similar in overall structure to Spectrum DM.
> >     C ) The provenance that IVOA is currently developing integrates 
> > the software provenance. In the case of a theoretical 
> dataset it would 
> > be a place to hook necessary information described 
> according to SimDB I guess...
> >     D ) a Service giving access to Theoretical spectra 
> compliant with 
> > SSA May really have hooks to Provenance and SimDB 
> information because 
> > additional fields and Extensions resources in the query 
> response are 
> > allowed by the protocol. They may have Provenance or SimDB 
> utypes without difficulty.
> >
> >   So If you agree with this general view It would be nice to have 
> > input on what we could have in Provenance for the use case of 
> > simulated observations...
> >
> > Cheers
> > François
> >
> > -----Message d'origine-----
> > De : Gerard [mailto:gerard.lemson at mpe.mpg.de] Envoyé : mardi 2 juin 
> > 2009 12:07 À : 'Carlos Rodrigo Blanco'; 'Alberto Micol'
> > Cc : theory at ivoa.net; dm at ivoa.net
> > Objet : RE: Spectra DM for theoretical spectra?
> >
> >
> > Hi Carlos
> >
> >>
> >>>> The Spectra datamodel is perfect for most of the issues, but the 
> >>>> characterization in SimDB provides a better description of
> >> what the
> >>>> theoretical spectra is.
> >>>>
> >>> Dear Miguel,
> >>>
> >>> May I ask you what is missing in the SpectrumDM?
> >>> What is SimDB offering extra, specific to spectra?
> >>
> >> The main point, as I see it, is that the SpectrumDM is designed 
> >> having observed spectra in mind, no theoretical ones.
> >>
> >> The model contains everything that is necesary to describe the 
> >> content of a spectrum (the wavelength, flux and all that, 
> and this is 
> >> the same for observed and theoretical ones) but nothing of what is 
> >> needed to __characterize__ a theoretical spectrum.
> >>
> >> For instance, a theoretical spectra is usually 
> characterized giving, 
> >> at
> >> least:
> >>
> >> - the code used to synthetize it.
> >> - the effective temperature of the star
> >> - the gravity (logg) of the star
> >> - the metallicity of the star
> >>
> >> (and sometimes some other parameters)
> >>
> >> And, in the spectrum data model there is no utype for those 
> >> properties.
> >>
> >> Making a long history short, if two different developers make two 
> >> different services with theoretical spectra and one chooses "Meta" 
> >> for the parameter containing the value for the metallicity and the 
> >> other chooses "Z" for the same parameter, a 
> client/application does 
> >> not have a way to know that both refer to the same concept 
> (and UCD's 
> >> are not enough for
> >> this)
> >>
> >> By the way, I think that SimDB doesn't solve that problem 
> either, am 
> >> I right?
> >>
> > That depends on what you expect from SimDB.
> > That is, SimDB could allow you to define in some detail 
> what code was 
> > used to produce synthetics spectra, though it may need some 
> additions 
> > to the model as discussed in previous emails.
> > The code is represented by the SimDB:Protocol, which contains input 
> > parameters, physics, algorithms and allows you to describe what is 
> > contained in a result (SimDB:RepresentationObjectType). The input 
> > parameters have a name as well as a "semantic label", which 
> may be a 
> > UCD or something more generic. So if metallicity is in that 
> vocabulary 
> > you can describe this. SimDB allows you to find all 
> protocols that use 
> > a metallicity in their list of input parameters.
> > The actual experiment that you run to produce your 
> synthetic spectra 
> > is described amongst others by the values you assign to the 
> parameters.
> >
> > Note that I am not suggesting that there can not be other, possibly 
> > more explicit models for theoretical/synthetic spectra. The 
> SimDB data 
> > model is rather abstract, i.e. not very concrete, as it aims to 
> > support many types of siimulations and simulation codes 
> etc. The SimDB 
> > data model could serve as the basis from which to derive 
> more concrete 
> > models, but it may not serve the purposes of SimDB to do 
> this in SimDB itself.
> > For example if there is a particular set of parameters that all 
> > codes-producing-synthetic-spectra use, one could create a 
> subclass of 
> > SimDB:Protocol that has these explicitly as attributes.
> > For example a SyntheticSpectralModel could (I do not say should! It 
> > seems rather specialised and in need of discussion with a 
> larger group 
> > of
> > astrophysicists) have an attribute "metallicity" for 
> example. Such a 
> > model will now give rise to a corresponding UTYPE. 
> Something similar 
> > occurs in the SimDB data model where the SimDB:Snapshot is 
> a special 
> > type of result (for
> > 3+1D simulations) and has explicit attributes like 
> spatialSize and time.
> >
> >
> >
> >> I think that the spectrum data model should contain a section for 
> >> characterization of theoretical data providing utypes for, 
> at least, 
> >> a minimum set of parameters associated to theoretical spectra.
> >>
> > One may argue that this is not "characterisation" but "provenance", 
> > something that the spectral data model does not deal with in detail.
> >
> >> The fact is that SSAP/SpectrumDM was done for observed spectra, it 
> >> considers a lot of details about them, etc but it included 
> >> theoretical spectra just as a use case in an appendix.
> >>
> >> If it is going to be mandatory to use the same schema for 
> theoretical 
> >> spectra and it is expected that we do it (let's
> >> say) for ever, a little amount of time should be dedicated to fill 
> >> the holes in the protocol/data model when it refers to theoretical 
> >> spectra.
> >>
> > Correct, but I would second Rick in proposing this not be 
> done in the 
> > current effort on SimDB or SimDAP/S3, at least not in their 
> version 1.0.
> >
> > If you can come up with a more concrete model for synthetic 
> spectra, 
> > possibly derived from SimDB/DM, you can easily create a 
> service spec 
> > around this by mapping the model to a relational representation and 
> > using TAP for access.
> >
> >
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Gerard
> >
> 



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