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[[2007-2008:2007-2008|back to index]]

**EC and other international projects**


====== EXPReS ======

===== Overview =====

JIVE is the coordinating partner for EXPReS (Express Producrtion Real-time e-VLBI Service), an Integrated Infrastructure Initiative (I3), funded under the European Commission’s Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), contract number 026642.  The project began in March 2006 and will, after a 6 month extension, end in August 2009.  19 partners are part of EXPReS, representing astronomy institutes, network providers and supercomputer centers.  The partners are located around the world, highlighting the inherent distributed nature of VLBI.  The project activities are organized as follows:
     Networking activities
     * NA1: Management of I3
     * NA2: EVN-NREN Forum 
     * NA3: e-VLBI Science Forum 
     * NA4: e-VLBI Outreach, Dissemination & Communications 
     Specific Service activities
     * SA1: Production e-VLBI Service 
     * SA2: Network Provision for a Global e-VLBI Array 
     Research activities     
     * JRA1: Future Arrays of Broadband Radio Telescopes on Internet Computing














===== Accomplishments =====

Over the past three years, EXPReS has achieved the core goal of the project: provide production quality e-VLBI to the community.  The EVN regularly advertises e-VLBI and the quality of e-VLBI has improved both in terms of reliability and observational resolution.  The diagrams below highlight the activities of the past few years through June 2008:

diagrams for [[expres-fishbone-2006|2006]], [[expres-fishbone-2007|2007]], [[expres-fishbone-2008|2008]].  Text hightlights to follow

  note: the above images are 600dpi.  they are big.  great for printing, not so great for wikis.  you have been warned.

  note: 2008 fishbone is not yet complete.  it will be sometime soon...




===== EXPReS Meetings =====








==== Papers and Presentations ====

Members of EXPReS have published a variety of papers and given numerous presentations which are collected at:
  [[http://www.expres-eu.org/papers.html]]
This list is updated as information is provided to the webmaster.  From this large collection, a few of the meetings stand out:
  * International Year of Astronomy Kick-Off, Paris, France (Jan 2009)  [[iya2009_kickoff]]
  * 8th Annual GLIF Workshop, Seattle, WA (Oct 2008)
  * 9th EVN Symposium, Bologna, Italy  (Sep 2008)
  * 7th International e-VLBI Workshop, Shanghai, China (June 2008) [[7th_e-VLBI_workshop_photo]]
  * TERENA Networking Conference 2008, Bruges, Belgium  (May 2008) [[tnc-brugges]]
  * INGRID 2008, Ischia, Italy (April 2008)
  * GÉANT2 a Global Leader, Bled, Slovenia  (Mar 2008)
  * 24th Asia-Pacific Network Meeting, Xi'An, China  (Aug 2007)
  * TERENA Networking Conference 2007, Lyngby, Denmark (May 2007)
As you can see, EXPReS partners are giving talks not only at astronomy meetings, but at networking and computationally focused meetings as well.  This highlights the cross-disciplinary achievements within the project.

==== Sci-Tech Workshop/e-VLBI Workshop ==== 

Although a future event, it is worth noting that EXPReS is organizing "Science and Technology of Long Baseline Real-Time Interferometry: The 8th International e-VLBI Workshop" on 22-26 June 2009 hosted by partner CNIG-IGN at their institute in Madrid, Spain.  This workshop is the opportunity for the project to showcase all of the results as well as gather researchers who were not part of the project to present related activities.  Additional information about the workshop is available via:
  [[http://www.oan.es/expres09/]]


====== RadioNet ======

===== Overview & Management activities =====

The 6th framework programme RadioNet is a so called I3 activity, and it was a vital
programme for the JIVE mission. JIVE staff had a leading role in various activities.

  * Bob Campbell coordinated the RadioNet Trans-National Activity "Access to the EVN"
  * Leonid Gurvits was the project scientist and as such part of the management team
  * Cormac Reynolds (later substituted by Huib van Langevelde) was the leader of the Joint Research Activity ALBUS (for Advanced Long Baseline User Software), which activity employed James Anderson, Stephen Bourke and Mike Sipior.
  * Aukelien van den Poll is the main person involved in handling the reimbursement of travel and other costs associated with the Trans-National and Networking Activities.

All this staff was closely involved in making sure the annual reports for RadioNet were
submitted in time. Most notably they were involved in the RadioNet mid-term review 
which took part in Grenoble on **XX, 2007**FIXME.

//Do we have picture??//

While in 2007 much of the RadioNet management was "business as usual", much of the 2008
activities focused on the definition of the new FP7 proposal and finishing the FP6 work
in good order. Notably much effort went into understanding how to finish the FP6
budget on zero, ie not overspending but also not leaving budget unspent at the EC. Some
problems were encountered related to the indirect costs related to the NA and TNA
funds administered at JIVE. As some of the arrangements for this had not been documented
at the start of the project and no detailed budgets were produced for the all activity
items, the project encountered some real hurdles in 2008. After a number of itereations
compromises were defined that left JIVE responsible for some of the RadioNet activities
towards the end of the project.  


===== Access to the EVN  =====


The FP6 RadioNet EVN Trans-National Access (TNA) programme provides funding
to EVN telescopes to provide access to eligible projects, and supports
travel by investigators from eligible projects to visit JIVE or another
EVN institute.  An eligible project is one in which the PI and at least
50% of the author list as a whole are associated with institutes in the
EU member and associated states, excluding the Netherlands as the host
country of JIVE. Table [##tna] summarizes various statistics
from the past two years of EVN TNA activity.


^                                                        ^   2007  ^  2008   ^
| Number of experiments supported                        |     42  |    44   |
|   comprising how many individual researchers           |     77  |    78   |
| Number of different PhD students in supported groups   |     10  |    12   |
| Total number of access hours                           |    492  |   489.5 |
| Number of data reduction visits                        |      8  |     8   |
|   number of data reduction visits made to JIVE         |     7   |    5    |

//Table [##tna]: Annual statistics for various aspects of the EVN TNA programme
over 2007-8.//


===== ALBUS =====

ALBUS (Advanced Long Baseline User Software) is one of the three Joint Research Activities
of RadioNet. It has been managed by JIVE, initially by Huib van Langevelde, handing
over to Cormac Reynolds in 2007, back to Huib van Langevelde in early in 2008.
The project combines efforts on radio-astronomy data processing at ASTRON, MPI Bonn,
and Jodrell Bank Observatory. 

In 2007 James Anderson finished his work at JIVE on ionospheric processing and left
for a LOFAR related position at Bonn. Mike Sipior took over the effort from Mark Kettenis
on developing and maintaining ParselTongue, the common infrastructure of ALBUS that 
allows AIPS users to develop new methods in Python. Stephen Bourke worked on 
wide field imaging in 2008. The results of ALBUS development are listed in chapter ?? FIXME

ALBUS featured prominently in all the RadioNet reports and mid-term review, as well as
all the board meetings.    

===== RadioNet in FP7 =====

JIVE will play a similar role in the RadioNet FP7 program which is starting in January 2009.
During 2007 and 2008 an effort was made to define a follow-up of the successful RadioNet
programme in the 6th framework. The proposal was led by Michael Garrett at ASTRON, and after
a lengthy process of peer review, two Joint Research Activities led by JIVE were selected
to be part of the proposal. The follow-up of ALBUS is called ALBiUS, where the //i// emphasizes
the fact that this software effort will concentrate on interoperability. This effort was first
managed by Cormac Reynold, but Huib van Langevelde took over in the final definition stages.
The other JRA was shepherded by Arpad Szomoru; named Uniboard it focuses on FPGA based digital
processing and will develop a common platform for a range of radio-astronomy applications.  
Of course the successful EVN access program is the most vital part of the new RadioNet formula and this
effort was led by Bob Campbell.

The proposal definition was quite an elaborate effort, but the Feb 29 deadline was met and
a strong proposal was submitted. Huib van Langevelde plaid a coordinating role in defining
and budgeting the JRA activities. Aukelien van den Poll assisted the ASTRON team in shaping
the actual text. There will also, be a substantial role for JIVE in administrating the
RadioNet programme, implementing the TNA travel and NA actvities and maintaining the wiki.

====== ESTRELA ======

ESTRELA is short for Early Stage Training Site for European Long-wavelength Astronomy,
an EC funded Marie Curie network that provides student positions at Manchester, ASTRON,
Onsala, Bologna and Bonn. In 2006, Kalle Torstensson joined JIVE and started high resolution
studies of methanol masers (page ?? FIXME). Also under supervision of Huib van Langevelde
Nikta Amiri started work on circumstellar masers and the non-sphericity of AGB mass-loss.
Hayden Ramparadath works with Mike Garrett on radio studies of deep fields. All three ESTRELA
students are based at Leiden University, but employed by JIVE. Through the reporting period the
necessary reports and financial accounts were produced; the scientific output is described in 
section ?? FIXME


====== SKADS ======

//Some words from Leonid//

====== ESKAC ======

In 2008 the European SKA Consortium was established. In this collaboration European stakeholders
in the SKA participate. The ESKAC appoints the European delegation to the SKA Science and Engineering Committee (SSEC)
and supports the activities of the SKA Programme Development Office (SPDO), currently in Manchester (UK).
In the consortium JIVE has adopted the special role of being the legal entity and banker
for the ESKAC, collecting the European funds for SPDO. During this period the activities
included the establishment of the ESKAC, for which a MoA was formulated. JIVE was also
the signatory on the world-wide agreement for the support of SPDO.

In 2008 JIVE collected the ESKAC contributions and transferred the necessary European 
contribution to SPDO. Aukelien vn den Poll is implementing most of the banker activities,
by sending the invoices. She is also responsible for maintaining the web presence of
ESKAC, where all the meetings are documented. In the future JIVE will be more actively 
involved in ESKAC by administering the European meetings and travel.   


====== PrepSKA ======

In 2007 JIVE became a small partner in the successful proposal for preparatory stdies for
the SKA (prepSKA). This project aims to define and budget the SKA by 2011. JIVE is a minor
parties in studies of next generation correlator concepts and simulations.