Agenda
Minutes of the CB sessions November 11 and 14, 2017 (thanks to Francesco Salamida)
Lukas asked CB for approval of Nov minutes and they were accepted with no comments or questions.
Ioana gives the Presentation with particular focus given to these points:
Danilo asked if Belgium sign the international agreement? And reminded the CB that if a country joins later in the collaboration often they contribute an additional investment to account for the years of payment other institutions have already contributed. He then asked if Belgium will do this as well?
Ioana addressed the 2nd question by saying it will be very hard to get money this year, but said she will try, but can not commit. She reiterated that they have very strong support and significant funding commitments very early on. This coupled with as well as strong interest from funding agencies for multi-messenger research, makes this funding a strong possibility.
Ioana answered the first question by stating that she can not answer as it is above her head. Almost positively yes, but said that they are only in preliminary discussions.
Danilo mentions Collaboration leadership should participate. To which Ioana agrees.
Lukas says high level discussions are indeed happening and ongoing.
Lukas proceeds to hold the vote for Belgium’s acceptance into the Collaboration and to give Ioana voting rights on the CB. Vote is carried out by asking for general approval. The CB votes in favor via clapping.
Lukas Nellen states that Belgium has been accepted into the collaboration and Ioana now has voting rights.
Jose Bellido, Carla Bonifazi, Henry Wilczynski, Julian Rautenberg, Roberto Mussa
Ralf asks if there are any questions for the voting procedure, indicates that the vote for CB chair and co-chair will happen before coffee. Vote papers will be handed out, together with the new password which will take effect in November.
Vote is handled by Antonella and follows standard auger procedure. Collection handled by secretary who organized meeting and Dr. Perkela. They collected the ballots into a bag and left the room for counting. They returned an notified Ralf that Lukas was elected as chair for another term. Ralf thanked search committee and candidates. They announced Lukas’ election.
Lukas Nellen
Lukas graciously accepted the reelection and requested to push on with the CB and postpone the coffee break, but said that co-chair would happen after the coffee break.
Collaboration requested to vote for co-chair immediately
The vote procedure was identical to that of the CB chair with the same counters.
Lorenzo Perrone was informed that he was elected for another term which he graciously accepted
Lorenzo Perrone
Lukas thanked the search committee and everybody who ran for the positions. He stressed that it was important to hold formal elections for all posts even if the outcome is expected.
Ingo gave the presentations. He stressed that most of the material (especially side issues: infrastructure, land owners) had already been covered in the opening ant that interested parties should look at the opening presentations for more information. As always he is open to questions.
Ingo ran discussion before the presentation of overview
Markus stated that the CDAS task position has been open for some time without much impact, and asked what is Xavier supposed to do after he is elected.
Ingo stated the the executive committee felt it was important to have a person in this position and that Xavier has already begun to assume responsibilities. For instance, he gave the status review in Nov and has been working on the changes to CDAS
Erdmann asked if Ingo had heard from Radomir about his future contributions?
Ingo stated that Radomir’s future is uncertain, which is why the Exec committee wanted someone to help to make sure if Radomir can not continue that the FD is well supported
Ralf informed the CB that Radomir is moving to Chicago as a research professor and wanted to continue FD, but also will have other obligations and projects in his new position.
No questions or comment.
Lukas asked for a general acceptance from the collaboration board and all were accepted.
The formal presentation of the budget and funding was made at the opening.
Total $1,780,000 + carry over from last year.
Budget closing is still being carried out. Will present in November and to the finance board.
Finance board wants a study on the physics impact of a smaller upgraded array and the study of the decommissioning of the array. Local staff has started on this already. The document that will be presented to the Finance board in Nov will be presented to the CB before the Nov meeting.
They are analyzing the switching of accounting from USD to EUR. If anyone wants to make comment or statement do so now or send project management an email. Presentation of table for funding: The currency is converted to the appropriate currency for each request.
Current funding was then presented.
Ingo highlighted that contributions have not quite kept up with the year. (Half way through year) the payments are quiet caught up. They have reserve, but keep it up. Please inform Ingo if there are issues or mistakes in the funding table.
Looked over previous years.
Columbia: has caught up in payment despite red numbers and will pay remaining balance in June 2018.
Fausto asked what is happening with Spain?
Enrique stated they have been given a very modest grant and that they have some money for operating costs. Stated it is modest budget and that it hasn’t been approved yet so no payment possible yet.
Ingo said that 1 OCL Payment of 9K is being made by Granada, but was unsure which year it was to cover.
Danilo asked about Croatia’s large debt.
Ingo states that Croatia left some time ago and that they are in the accounting tables for accounting reasons. They are not actively pursuing the debt.
Ingo general comment: we are monitoring expenditures. For 2018 the local operations are being kept well within budget.
Move all ssd with SiPM to the Kathy Turner area as was approved by TB as well as a commitment to install Amiga and make it work with the new UUB. He reminded that these projects will have low priority against the Auger Prime deployment. And said he is hopeful that they should be low impact and no additional cost.
Technical Proposal for November. There is a note that a major upgrade must be approved by an assessment committee. Ingo proposed to create the assessment committee. To nominate Bruce to head it. Allow him to add 2 or 3 more members. The committee will focus on costs and operating costs as well as potential risks and other issues.
Lukas Nellen stated that a formal vote for the whole committee was unnecessary. Bruce already accepted the responsibility.
Lukas asked for him to be accepted in this CB session. It was granted. The Assessment Committee was formed and Bruce was nominated as chair and thanked for his commitment.
Ingo reminded that slides are on Indico. Ingo stated that the TB accepted the non-interference version which is minimum impact, low priority, no cost to operations. Said it was important for the FAMOUS proponents to collaborate closely with the tasks and operations staff.
Ingo stated that proposal can proceed, but be refined with the involvement of the different tasks. Move on with low priority. Asked to add a decommissioning proposal for Malargue and to better define the scope of the proposal. The proposal will be voted on in November 2018 along with Authorship rules.
Lukas reminded that the proposal requires data sharing and a MOU so must be voted on by CB.
Comment: There are 2 FAST telescopes in TA. It would be good to have in Auger for cross calibration.
Ralf reminded that the proposal is clearly an external proposal and there for the must be a MoU and data-sharing policy.
Critical design review has been ongoing. Thanked review committee. The review committee made recommendations to SDE, but can not continue until UUBs are ready. So for the time being this review is closed but should be reinstated in November.
There will be a follow up reviews in November. There will be a follow up review of SDE, and maybe AMIGA mechanics, SDE production and radio detectors. Ingo will inform the CB in due time.
Markus wanted clarification as for why the review panel for critical design review is being reset.
Ingo stated that you can not ask the reviewers to report for several years running and that some members have asked to step out of review committee. When reformed there will also be some changes to the tasks of the review committee, but will have to consider the findings of the previous review.
Tina and the SDE task thanks SD review committee. Said that the parts were to be in Malargue in August and are waiting only on final tests before shipping. Will install in EA in late August early September. This will give some time to address open issues for the review committee. In particular to check that he noise problem is fixed which lab test show is gone, and to investigate power consumption, but says that it is currently at 12 W it doesn’t look like it will change.
Tina reminds that the current system has taken data for 2 years very stably and is confident review can be finalized.
Daniele Martello stated that the next meeting we must have a way to start deployment. All analysis task leaders need an answer to the question ‘what is the best way to deploy?’, as the deployment can interfere with measurement and could change triggers analysis etc.
Ingo pointed out that in November there will not be many detectors there and that the collaboration should review the process in November.
(Coffee)
Report: Shift problems, particularly current shift. It was filled thanks to local help. There are still shift that are empty this year.
Germany: Wuppertal and Aachen are contributing largely to Germany’s FD shift balance. Germany’s balance however is decreasing quickly.
USA has 2 participating shifters (Chicago) for a large number of authors. Very large deficit and needs to be addressed.
12 remote stations 1 more being added. Reminded that Remote = 0.5 shifter compared to the 1.0 for all. The US is adding remote sifts. Case Western for example.
Bianca is being added to the FD Shift tracking to free Mariano up to take care of his pressing FD responsibilities
Ralf stated that the shift calculation will be made more transparent and that Bianca will help who as already agreed. What this means will be outlined in later discussions.
Markus suggested that on tracking FD shifts that the ‘suggested shifters’ data field should be relabeled as ‘Mandatory shifter number’ and show lacking shifters
Lukas suggested that shift credit and shifters given should be tracked separately as this would be good for accounting.
Lorenzo said it is important for Mariano to continue to keep the issue in the open.
Bianca will be informing people if the are shift short falls and will notify the collaboration.
Fausto stated that if make shift does it make sense to penalize the country and that negative numbers are also built into the system due to some shifts being taken by remote shifters.
Lukas also pointed out that staff shifts are not being accounted for.
Ingo pointed out that Argentina has a negative balance because staff are included as part of the Argentinian members count.
Lukas thanked Roberta Colalillo for organizing the agenda for this meeting as well as the local team for organizing the meeting itself. Also thanked Rogerio de Almeida for accepting to organize the agenda for the November meeting in Malargue. Also thanked those who take the minutes for the meeting.
Lukas put forward the subject of having 2 or 3 meetings for the ICRC year of 2019.
Ralf and the Executive council strongly supports the idea of having 3 meetings. This is mainly because Teamspeak does not and can not support this level of participation. The ICRC needs a meeting for picking subjects (Nov), submission of abstracts (Mar) and review of Material before the ICRC (June). Also pointed out that meetings tend to accelerate physics output.
Fausto asked whether, given the vote last year to go with 2 meetings and now the arguments for three, the collaboration will oscillate between 2 and 3 meetings per year on the 2 year period due to ICRC?
Erdmann pointed out that we went to 2 meeting per year due to # of participants drop off with 3 per year. He pointed out that this meeting had better attendance and more young people and that this was a success. He said that smaller task specific meeting s could fill the void without the significant cost to travel funds that 3 meetings a year represents.
Matias asked if the old scheduled of 2 malargue meetings and one in the north would be resummed? He also asked that if this meeting was only for ICRC why couldn’t it be called an ICRC prep meeting instead of a full collaboration meeting?
Antonella pointed out that after having only one meeting in Malargue this year that there is already a bigger separation between the collaboration and staff. Also that because some people participate in multiple tasks that if you do only task specific meetings that some people will have drastically larger number of meetings to attend.
Markus asked whether the old collaboration meeting model was to be followed and why cant the 3rd meeting be ICRC specific and at a time and place other than Malargue in March.
Carola pointed out that last year there was no topical meetings and that currently there is too much separation from the Malargue staff and that given the pending upgrade, separation is undesirable.
Fausto agreed but said it could be fixed without moving to full collaboration meetings. He also stated that deployment will naturally increase the amount of collaborators in Malargue
Lukas agreed that money is an issue, but pointed out that the rate of communication has dropped and stated that this will decrease publishing and that if we don't publish we won’t receive any funding. Also pointed out that it may sound attractive to have a topical meetings if you are a European because they tend to be close, but for other members the benefit of going to these meetings drops off.
Ralf comment that commitment to Auger seems to be a problem and that many people have multiple experiments. Meetings provide a natural pressure to concentrate on auger and therefore progress happens fastest before a meeting. Also given the cross communication benefits of attending a meeting grow like N^2. Finally he said that doing 3 meetings with only 1 in Malargue would negatively impact local staff.
At this Point the vote was carried out
Seems to be a clear majority. Lukas Lorenzo count:
| FOR: 28 | AGAINST: 2 | ABSTAIN: 0 |
| FOR: 23 | AGAINST: 7 | ABSTAIN: 2 |
MARCH 10-16 (SUN-FRI)
MARCH 6 carnival. The costs of travel increase drastically.
VOTE: YES: ALL No: 0
| June 17-21 | 10 |
| June 24-28 | 20 |
Result JUNE 24-28, 2019
The Dutch collaborators are willing and happy to host the meeting in the Netherlands.
| NOV 11-16 (Mon-Sat): | 14 |
| NOV 16-21 (Sat-Thurs): | 16 |
Result NOV 16-21, 2019
Date change form normal as Malargue day is the 16th and being there is essential for outreach.
Markus commented that due to these changes and the drop off of US participation that meetings now can be adjusted from the “Normal Schedule” in the future.
Lukas stated that we want to have changes this should be proposed so that the Exec Com can consider. Also pointed out that Bruce wants to host meeting in Australia and that requires planning it early.
Simulation production meeting. Working toward establishing a simulation committee. This will help to coordinate the simulation resources of the collaboration
Nothing extra
Jörg thanked the CB for the approval in Paris. Stated that the 3.5 million € advance grant for upgrade already given. That Adding Jacco will further increase available funding streams from the Netherlands. Final decisions on full funding are in July and later in Summer. Nov meeting will notify if success. Aim for CDR in November
Lorenzo is organizing the ISAPP school at the observatory discussed last November. Aiming for February - March 2019 (Will coordinate with the meeting). Stated that there is need for money to support lectures and students.
Joint Xmax analysis presentation
Ralf pointed out that the slides already shown in composition setting. That an MOU in under development and the study is in progress. CB to consider this in November.
Jörg gave the presentation and stated that Jacco is a member of HESS and CTA and will be good for MM studies. He will contribute both a good outside view and with his unique physics knowledge. In Netherlands there is a separation of phys and astronomy this would help to diversify possible funding sources as now there is only access to physics side.
Markus asked what % of time would he commit to Auger over CTA and HESS
Jörg guessed 40-45% no commitment is mentioned in letters
Yes: All, No: 0.
Presentation by Luis Nuñez about the Colombian participation.
Lukas Nellen stated that Columbia is approaching full membership. And is encouraged to move toward a proposal for full membership.
Antonella commented that during the evening meeting on CORSIKA production. Columbia agreed to contribute a person to focus on building Simulation datasets which is a big contribution
Vote: Accepted
None.