Theory IG agenda

[Gerard Lemson]

Dear collegues

I have asked the organising committee of the coming IVOA interop
meeting for two sessions of the theory interest group. I think the
goals should be to reach consensus and progress on the requirements
document and on some proposals for standards that have recently emerged.

In order to create an agenda I would like to ask for comments on the
following proposal, and for volunteers for contributions.

During the first session I propose to evaluate where we are wrt
the use case scenarios we started one year ago. In particular
I think we should discuss requirements extracted from the use cases
which are to be posed to the WGs. I will submit a first draft of a Note
containing such requirements by next week. During the meeting I would
like to discuss this further and complete it as much as possible.
To this end if anyone has still things to add to the use cases on the
TWiki pages please do so, particularly paying attention to listing
requirements on the standards as you see them

I hope we can find time duringthe week to continue working on these issues
in some more detail, possibly in smaller groups. The recent theory workshops
in Cambridge and Paris show that it is easier to get results when people can
sit together and discuss things face to face. I understand there are smaller
rooms available where such meetings can take place.

During these meetings we should take the chance to discuss some actual
proposals
that have been produced in the last few months. In particular the meeting in
Cambridge
has produced useful discussions about a SNAP DAL protocol (see the minutes
at
http://www.ivoa.net/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/CambridgeTheoryWorkshopFeb06)
and Laurie is working on a draft of this. Laurie has also produced
work on UCDs which we should discuss and turn into a full.
This all deals with n-body simulations mainly.
I think it would be good therefore to also discuss in more detail what
requirements
can be derived from synthetic spectra, especially in the context of the SSA
protocol
and SED data model, thta are under develoment in the DAL and DM groups
respectively.
As suggested in Paris, we may want to look how the recent draft for the
characterisation
data model can be used for characterising the footprint etc of simulations.

The results of these efforts will be discussed in the second session, likely
on Thursday afternoon, hopefully with attendance of relevant WG members.
Dave DeYoung has suggested the interest group could/should morph into
a working group. Maybe this can be discussed during this session.

The final results will be presented during the closing plenary session.

Please your comments, a note whether you will attend the meeting, whether
you
are willing to contribute anything to these sessions, or
suggestions for more specific topics to talk about within the context
described above.

Best regards

Gerard Lemson

PS
My appologies if you get this mail multiple times.
There is no doubt some overlap between the various mailing lists I am using.

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* Gerard Lemson                       * Tel: +49 (0)89 30000-3316
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