Contribution to Theory Interest Group Session

[Tony Linde]

Hi Gerard,

I'll copy this reply to the registry workgroup and invite anyone there to go
along - I cannot make it as I'll be at the DAL session. My own answers:

> - Has theory been taken into account in the Registry efforts 
> already, if so how ?

Not specifically.

> - Do you have plans to do so in future efforts ?

When you tell us what you want :)

> - Do you think theory requires special attention from your 
> group and if so could you give your reasons ?

I don't know - what needs to be registered?

> - How would you like the "horizontal" theory interest group 
> to contribute to your efforts? How should the group let its requirements
be 
> known, how participate actively ?

I think you've touched on it - what are the requirements? The registry
exists to make access, mainly in some automated way, to resources in the
Virtual Observatory. Those resources need to be described so that the user
can identify the right resource and so that the software through which the
user acts can invoke the resource.

There will be some resources which are 'for information only': people,
projects etc, but these are not our priority at the moment.

The Theory workgroup needs to specify what it wants to do, feed the
registry-oriented requirements to the registry workgroup and then get
involved to the extent at least of making sure your needs are taken care of.

> - Do you think it is possible to incorporate theoretical 
> aspects in any of the demos you may be planning ?

I guess the most applicable way would be some theory-based application (data
access seems less applicable but I bow to others' expertise). We are
currently looking at how applications can be described so that they can be
invoked from Vobs services (eg the AstroGrid workflow which you saw last
week) and hope to come up with a workable VOResource extension by the end of
May which can form the basis of demos. AVO will be using the AstroGrid
workflow service for its demos but I don't know if any other project will
create tools to run VObs apps just from their registry descriptions (there
are services to run any *cone search* app but afaik they cannot run other
services).

Best way forward is for your group to come up with VObs-like use cases for
theory-based data and applications and we can then work up some demos which
make use of the registry. The use cases will also help to highlight areas of
the registry spec which falls short.

Cheers,
Tony. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gerard Lemson [mailto:gerard.lemson at mpe.mpg.de] 
> Sent: 13 May 2004 10:58
> To: ael at star.le.ac.uk
> Subject: Contribution to Theory Interest Group Session
> 
> Dear Tony
> 
> I would like to invite you or one of the active contributors 
> to the Registry working group to give a short presentation 
> during the Interop session of the theory interest group.
> We would like to hear about your views regarding the 
> inclusion of theoretical data archives and services in the 
> IVOA Registry process. Feel free to structure this yourself, 
> but maybe you could address the following questions:
> - Has theory been taken into account in the Registry efforts 
> already, if so how ?
> - Do you have plans to do so in future efforts ?
> - Do you think theory requires special attention from your 
> group and if so
>   could you give your reasons ?
> - How would you like the "horizontal" theory interest group 
> to contribute to your
>   efforts? How should the group let its requirements be 
> known, how participate actively ?
> - Do you think it is possible to incorporate theoretical 
> aspects in any of the demos
>   you may be planning ?
> 
> Once I know more about who are willing to make contributions 
> to the session I can give a better indication as to the time 
> that is available for the presentation.
> 
> If you can not find anyone to give a presentation, could you 
> send me a reply to the questions so that I can incorporate 
> them in some other way in the session ?
> 
> Aside from this request I would be interested to hear from 
> you about any persons you know of that are interested in the 
> "theoretical VO", and about existing or planned efforts in this field.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Gerard Lemson
> 
> --
> * Gerard Lemson                       * Tel: +49 (0)89 30000-3316
> *
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