From seaman at noao.edu  Fri Dec  2 11:39:01 2011
From: seaman at noao.edu (Rob Seaman)
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 12:39:01 -0700
Subject: Proceedings for Future of UTC meeting
References: <B9F56A54-7B6E-40A1-8604-71713C1C06FC@noao.edu>
Message-ID: <642E0AA3-2D50-43D2-95E7-9BD3AA393209@noao.edu>

Hello,

I'm just working through the list of pre-meeting contacts to announce that the preprints for "Decoupling Civil Timekeeping from Earth Rotation" are now available at:

	http://futureofutc.org/preprints

An excellent meeting that has produced insightful papers and intriguing discussions on an obscure topic.  If the International Telecommunication Union votes to redefine UTC in January, the topic won't remain obscure.

Rob Seaman
National Optical Astronomy Observatory

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.ivoa.net/pipermail/interop/attachments/20111202/a4db2ba8/attachment-0001.html>

From m.b.taylor at bristol.ac.uk  Mon Dec 12 01:48:42 2011
From: m.b.taylor at bristol.ac.uk (Mark Taylor)
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:48:42 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: RFC for SAMP V1.3
Message-ID: <alpine.LRH.2.00.1112090949190.21029@andromeda.star.bris.ac.uk>

Dear IVOA Members,

Version 1.3 of the SAMP protocol, including the Web Profile,
is now available for public review.  The RFC period will run from 
today until 29 January 2012 (the period is extended in consideration
of the Christmas break).  Please contribute comments on the 
following wiki page:

   http://www.ivoa.net/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/SampRfcV13

Many thanks for your consideration.

Mark Taylor
Applications Working Group

--
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/

From seaman at noao.edu  Tue Dec 13 22:36:30 2011
From: seaman at noao.edu (Rob Seaman)
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:36:30 -0700
Subject: Abstract deadline for SPIE 2012
References: <9E3978E7-E7BB-4302-B7A6-0F5BE35AF74E@noao.edu>
Message-ID: <D696D920-2AFB-4E3E-A97C-07890E1DF9E0@noao.edu>

Hello IVOA!

What's true for VOEvent is true for the many and sundry IVOA projects as well:  creative virtual ideas are great.  Actually deploying and using systems layered on all these great IVOA ideas is even better.  The biennial SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation meeting is where the movers and shakers from major observatories come together and make things happen.  The VO has to engage with with these real-world institutions and projects if our shared ambition of reinventing the practice of astronomy is to be realized.

Anything you have to say about operations issues in the VO is likely to be fresh and new again to this audience.  And I guarantee that other projects will have useful things to say that IVOA should be listening to.  In addition to the Observatory Operations conference (thread) described below, the "Software and Cyberinfrastruce" and Systems Engineering conferences will also be of great interest to our community.  And the more traditional engineering sessions often include details about major new astronomical projects that are hard to come across any other way - projects that will steer IVOA activities in future years.

Rob Seaman
NOAO
---

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Rob Seaman <seaman at noao.edu>
> Subject: Abstract deadline for SPIE 2012
> Date: December 13, 2011 10:54:59 PM MST
> To: IVOA List VOEvent <voevent at ivoa.net>
> 
> Howdy,
> 
> The deadline for SPIE Astronomical Instrumentation 2012 is less than one week away (19 December). Please consider submitting an abstract to "Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems IV", the hottest ticket next Summer in Amsterdam:
> 
> 	http://spie.org/as107
> 
> The Observatory Ops conference at the 2010 SPIE in San Diego featured a strong focus on time domain astronomy.  This has if anything been strengthened for the 2012 meeting and other focus areas of interest to the VOEvent community have been added, including operations topics for the Virtual Observatory and for systems of networked telescopes.  Several names from the Hotwired community should be familiar from the Program Committee.
> 
> The future of astronomy over the next several decades will pivot on time domain issues.  It is unnecessary to dwell on the connection of transient response observing modes to this year's Nobel prize in Physics.  Accomplishing the challenging science goals in the time domain will require new infrastructure, new procedures, new systems, new networks.  To be successful, all of these will require a new commitment to coherent operational strategies.  Autonomous technologies such as robotics and semantic technologies such as astroinformatics - and in particular VOEvent and related VO and exo-VO standards such as RTML and SimpleTimeSeries - need to move from the ivory towers to the telescope domes and downtown computer labs.  SPIE in general and the Observatory Operations conference in particular are where creative ideas are brought into the real world.
> 
> Please forward far and wide.
> 
> Rob Seaman
> National Optical Astronomy Observatory
> Tucson, AZ

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.ivoa.net/pipermail/interop/attachments/20111213/c376a0ba/attachment.html>

From sebastien.derriere at astro.unistra.fr  Fri Dec 16 15:31:51 2011
From: sebastien.derriere at astro.unistra.fr (Sebastien Derriere)
Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:31:51 +0100
Subject: VOUnits 1.0
Message-ID: <4EEBD4E7.3020505@astro.unistra.fr>


   Hello,

   It is a time of year when many are busy trying to find nice presents,
so I am happy to share with you the version 1.0 of the VOUnits document,
released as a working draft for discussion within the semantics WG,
and destined to follow the IVOA recommendation process.
http://www.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/UnitsDesc/WD-VOUnits-1.0-20111216.pdf

   It is a major update of the previous 0.3 working draft, revamped to
take into account the TCG, DM and Semantics discussions held during
the last interop meetings.
   I have however kept the original list of authors, so simply tell me
if you wish to be removed. And I wish I haven't forgotten anyone.

   A few points await your remarks and comments. I have set up a wiki page
for this :
http://www.ivoa.net/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/DiscussionOnVOUnits
   You can either post your comments on this page directly or reply to
the semantics mailing list. The wiki page is not the RFC, but will be
used as a justification of decisions made in the document, and linked
from the RFC page when we get there.

   I am awaiting your comments !

Sebastien.

-- 

    (((    Sebastien Derriere     sebastien.derriere at astro.unistra.fr
   (. .)   Observatoire de Strasbourg       Phone +33 (0) 368 852 444
  (( v ))  11, rue de l'universite        Telefax +33 (0) 368 852 417
---m-m--- F-67000 Strasbourg  France