agenda theory session Kyoto

[Gerard Lemson]

Dear Collegues
After receiving some feedback to the email reproduced below I propose the
following
agenda for the theory session in Kyoto, which is scheduled for wednesday
morening.

First we'll have some presentations, each about 15 minutes:

1. Dave De Young on activities regarding a data repository for theory
simulations in the USA.
2. Enrique Solano: PGos3, a prototype for synthetic spectra and evolutionary
model computation in the VO
   (see http://ov.inaoep.mx/)
3. Laurie Shaw on data model and UCDs for theory (see his papers at the
theory TWiki site
   http://www.ivoa.net/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/IvoaTheory)   and/or
   webservices for producing SZ maps and comparig them to observations.
4. Gerard Lemson: theory VO activities in Germany(see www.g-vo.org/mpasims,
www.g-vo.org/planck,
   www.g-vo.org/hydrosims, or http://gavows2.xray.mpe.mpg.de:8080/hydrosims
in case the public site
   is not up yet).
   Upon request I will also present work done by the groups at JHU/Hungary
on theory spectra

These presentations about cover the subjects proposed in the email below,
with some emphasis
on theory spectra, which clearly is of interest for a number of people.
I propose to have discussions about these subjects in the remainder of the
session.
In particular we should discuss:

1. Publishing theory datasets:, how to archive them, how to wrap them with
web services them available.
2. Models for metadata describing these datasets.
   Here we may pay special attention to theory spectra, as it is closest to
the data model that
   is developed furthest in the DM/DAL working groups, but offers different
requirements.
   It would be good if representatives of these working groups could attend
this meeting.
3. Making theory services/application available online, both for
analysing/visualising
   these datasets and simulators for creating new ones. Here we should
address interoperability,
   how to tie different services together. And we should pay special
attention to the interaction
   between observational and theoretical services. I can discuss efforts
that GAVO is involved in
   with both theorists and observers around Munich and in various
collaborations that have this
   as their goal. It would be good if within the IVOA we could organize some
similar projects.

I hope that members of working groups can attend these discussions.

Please send any comments to the mailing list.

Thanks and see you in Kyoto

Gerard



--
* Gerard Lemson                       * Tel: +49 (0)89 30000-3316
*
* MPI fuer extraterrestische Physik   * Fax: +49 (0)89 30000-3569
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* D-85741 Garching, GERMANY           * email: gerard.lemson at mpe.mpg.de
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> Dear colleagues
>
> I would like to know about the plans of any of you to go to the next IVOA
> meeting in Kyoto and your interest in partaking in one or more sessions of
> the theory interest group. In particular I would like to know whether you
> have anything you might like to contribute there, be it a demo or a
> presentation.
> Also, do you have any ideas about specific subjects that you would like to
> see
> discussed?
>
> I think that we should at least have one session there, hopefully two.
> And as a first proposal I would like to suggest the subjects in the list
> below to be discussed. The goal should be the construction of some demos
> that are designed and implemented according to the IVOA philosophy, such
> as the use of common standards, the registration of datasets and services,
> solutions promoting interoperability between different sites, promoting
> the interaction of observers and theorists.
>
> I know that some of you have started projects on theory VO issues and I
> think it would be useful for us to see some of the results already before
> the meeting. GAVO has made some theory services available on its website
> (http://www.g-vo.org, in particular http://www.g-vo.org/planck and
> http://www.g-vo.org/mpasims) and is creating more that will be published
> there soon, at least in a preliminary fashion. Please submit any links
> to result to the TVO wiki page or send them to the mailing list.
>
> The list of subjects I propose we discuss is:
> 1. Availability of simulations online.
> One of the goals of the theory group is to promote the publication of
> simulation results according to standards developed in the IVOA working
> groups. A prerequisite for this is that simulation results are actually
> available online in some form. We need to have examples of this and look
at
> different ways in which simulations results are currently made available
> online, which kinds of simulations are there, what services are provided
> for accessing them. From this we can select a first category for which
> we can look at ...
>
> 2. IVOA compatible publication of simulations.
> We should choose a small set of existing examples which we want to further
> develop and propose as use cases for the standards process. The further
> development
> should consist of work along the lines of the IVOA working groups. In
> particular:
> we want it to be possible to register data sets and services in an IVOA
> registry,
> we want to be able to describe simulations according to IVOA standard data
> models,
> we want to come up with standards for data exchange formats (VOTable?,
UCD),
> we
> may want to see where the VO query language could be implemented and maybe
> there
> are some standard data access services we can define. Some proposals have
> been
> made, for example Laurie Shaw’s contributions on a simulation data model
and
> a
> list of UCDs for simulation data. It would be good if these and other
> proposals
> can be discussed in the forum already before the actual meeting in Kyoto,
so
> that we may come up with some proposals we can make to the other working
> groups.
>
> 3. Theory/observational interface.
> As has often been stated before, the holy grail of the theory work in the
> IVOA
> is to promote and facilitate the interaction between observers and
theorists
> by
> defining and implementing services that make it easy for observers to
> evaluate
> and use the results of simulations. The standard example that is
> consistently
> mentioned is the "virtual telescope". A software component that can
> "observe"
> a simulation and produce mock images that can be directly compared to real
> observations. GAVO is collaborating with a number of groups who have
created
> such tools which GAVO is publishing on its webpage. The planck simulator
is
> one, others are observations of hydro simulations of galaxy clusters and
> mock
> pencil beams through a large scale cosmological simulation. Based on the
> various examples, it seems to me that this virtual telescope concept
offers
> a nice opportunity to come up with a modularized design specification that
> allows explicit interoperability between components designed and
implemented
> by experts on their field. I am writing up a proposal on this that I will
> submit to the mailing list in the coming week (I hope).
>
> Please send your comments, criticisms, additions to this proposal to this
> theory mailing list. Especially send links to examples and other
> contributions
> to start some discussion on these items, in particular about the
> requirements
> on the IVOA working groups.
>
> Cheers
>
> Gerard Lemson