|
|||||||||||||
|
HELIO Science TeamThe HELIO Science Team has been doing its work on an ad-hoc basis with small groups of people. This has worked reasonably well up to a point, but it has become evident that several people who would have been interested in providing input had not been included in the discussions. We have therefore decided that we need to mobilise a wider group and anyone else that is interested on working on this activity is most welcome. The Science Team is working on the following areas, many of which are interconnected: Use CasesWe already have a reasonable understanding of the requirements of the workflow and services associated with identifying the instruments/observatories that could have made the required observations and then locating and retrieving the data. As a consequence, we are beginning to make reasonable progress in the area. It is not nearly so easy, however, to define the workflows for the process of searching for interesting events and phenomena in the 4D heliosphere since this is highly dependant on the science involved. In order to proceed it is important that we define some cross-disciplinary Use Cases and interpret them as requirements on the system and on the types of data that should be included. This activity is closely related to the discussion on the CDAWs and on Data and metadata that should be included in HELIO. Data ModelWe increasingly need to flesh out the Data Model for HELIO; this is needed in several places:
Annotation of files produced by HELIOIt has been decided that any files produced by HELIO should be fully annotated so that it is always clear exactly what the quantities represent. This will make it easier to pass information from one service to another and will ensure that the files are interoperable with other domains. It will also be important if we are to make the project "domain aware".Coordinate SystemsThe choice of coordinate systems is related to the data model, but the issue is sufficiently complex and important in its own right that it needs to be treated separately. There is a discussion document on this topic.Data and metadata that should be included in HELIOThere are many different types of data and metadata that could be added to HELIO. However, we have to make decisions on which can be included given the resources that we have. Which data should be included first is partly driven by the CDAWs. We have been working for some time on a discussion document concerning planetary observations – clarification about the use of data from some type of instrument (plasma wave, radio science, etc.) is required. The discussion is now being extended to geophysical data sets. The discussion on which data and metadata sets could be included in HELIO is ongoing. CDAW PlanningThe Coordinated Data Analysis Workshops (CDAW) are an activity that is important for Dissemination and Networking, but they also help to drive the requirements of the project infrastructure and which data sets should be added when. A group of us has been planning the first CDAW – see the Community pages for details. The discussions have raised a number of issues related to the access to some type of data (particularly planetary data). Release StrategyAlthough the first few releases of HELIO has been define in outline in the Release Strategy document, the detail of what each will contain requires discussion. Currently, we need to start discussing what should be in Release 3 of HELIO. As we move further into the project, the requirements of each Release should increasingly be driven by the science that we want to do. The CDAWs and other items listed above will also help drive requirements. Members of the HELIO Science TeamMost of the Partners of the HELIO Consortium are involved in the Science Team to a greater or lesser extent. They, together other key individuals (including Chris Perry, Michele Gangloff and Baptiste Cecconi) have been contributing to the discussion and form the core group. Where necessary experts that are not part of the project have been added and other are welcome to join the discussion. The additional members include:
|