Virtual Observatories of the Future

The final program

Note: each time slot is for the talk + questions. General discussions follow groups of related talks.

All talks (except for some of the split sessions on Friday) will be held in room 201 East Bridge, on the Caltech campus.

All coffee and lunch breaks will be in the colonnade North of Robinson (Astronomy) building.

All Posters will be in Rooms 112/114 East Bridge.

Conference dinner is in the Beckman Institute courtyard.

Tuesday, June 13:
2:00-5:00 Registration, posters setup, informal discussions
5:00-7:00 Opening reception

Wednesday, June 14:
9:00-9:20 Welcome, opening remarks (SOC, LOC) [G. Djorgovski, R. Brunner]
9:20-9:40 NVO: the genesis of the idea [A. Szalay]
9:40-10:00 Summary of the activities so far [D. De Young]
10:00-10:15 NVO in the NAS Decadal Survey report [T. Prince]
10:15-10:45 Coffee
Brief Overviews of some Existing Efforts
10:45-11:05 NASA (and other HST) mission archives and data centers [R. Hanisch]
11:05-11:25 Ground-based wide-area imaging surveys in the visible and NIR [B. McLean]
11:25-11:45 Astronomical data centers and libraries [D. Egret]
11:45-12:00 AstroVirTel and other European efforts [P. Benvenuti]
12:00-12:15 Microlensing surveys and transients [C. Alcock]
12:15-12:30 Solar system surveys [S. Pravdo]
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-3:00 New Science with a Virtual Observatory (1) [15+3 min each]
  • Precision cosmology (LSS, simulations, etc.) [A. Szalay]
  • A panchromatic view of star formation and AGN [C. Lonsdale]
  • Weak lensing and dark matter [G. Squires]
  • The low surface brightness universe [J. Schombert]
  • Novel approaches: image vs. catalog domains [R. Brunner]
3:00-3:30 Coffee
3:30-5:00 New Science with a Virtual Observatory (2) [15+3 min each]
  • Precision Galactic structure [S. Kent]
  • Microlensing and stellar astrophysics [K. Cook]
  • Exploring the time domain: transients and variables [A. Diercks]
  • Searches for rare or new types of objects [G. Djorgovski]
  • Design Reference Mission for a VO [T. Boroson]
5:00-5:30 Discussion [Leaders: J. Condon, A. Lawrence, B. Madore]
5:30-6:00 Posters, informal discussions
6:30-7:00 No-host bar
7:00-8:30 Conference dinner

Thursday, June 15:
9:00-9:20 The NVO and large-scale numerical simulations [G. Lake]
9:20-9:30 Discussion [Leaders: D. De Young, G. Lake]
Hardware and Network Technologies
9:30-9:50 Emerging data management architecture [R. Moore]
9:50-10:10 Hardware status and forecast: storage, networks, etc. [J. Gray]
10:10-10:20 Joint discussion
10:20-10:50 Coffee
Statistics and Data Mining
10:50-11:20 Review of data-mining methods [P. Stolorz]
11:20-11:35 New clustering techniques in Astronomy [R. Nichol]
11:35-11:55 Statistical methodology for the NVO [J. Babu]
11:55-12:10 Nonparametric statistical inference: a review [C. Genovese]
12:10-12:30 Discussion [Leaders: F. Genova, G. Longo, P. Quinn]
12:30-1:30 Lunch
Quick Summaries of Experiences from some Existing Projects
1:30-1:45 SkyView [T. McGlynn]
1:45-2:00 ISAIA [R. Hanisch]
2:00-2:15 Digital Sky [R. Brunner]
2:15-2:30 IRSA/2MASS/SIRTF [J. Good]
2:30-2:50 Discussion [Leaders: D. Durand, M. Postman, N. White]
2:50-3:20 Coffee
Data Visualization
3:20-3:40 Visualization of large multi-dimensional databases [J. Welling]
3:40-3:55 Large-scale visualisation of digital sky surveys [J. Jacob]
Other Technical Issues and Challenges
3:55-4:10 Some Enabling Technologies for the NVO [J. Kepner]
4:10-4:25 Information models for data sets & collections [R. Williams]
4:25-4:40 Distributed archives interoperability [C. Cheung]
4:40-4:55 Tree-codes and clustering algorithms from CS [J. Schneider]
4:55-5:10 Technologies to mine terabytes of data [A. Wicenec]
5:10-5:30 Discussion [Leaders: J. Gray, M. Kurtz, G. Longo]
5:30-6:00 Posters, informal discussions

Friday, June 16:
9:00-10:30 Split (parallel) Working Group Sessions [Discussion leaders in brackets]

  • NVO architecture [J. Good, R. Hanisch, D. Tody]
  • Standardisation [D. Durand, B. McLean, F. Ochsenbein]
  • Efficient DBMS designs [R. Brunner, C. Cheung, D. Slutz]
  • Data visualisation and exploration tools [F. Genova, R. Plante, R. Williams]
10:30-11:00 Coffee, posters
11:00-12:10 Working groups reports, ~15 min each [D. Tody, D. Durand, D. Slutz, R. Williams]
12:10-12:30 Discussion
12:30-1:30 Lunch
Education and Public Outreach
1:30-1:45 A view from research institutes and observatories [C. Christian]
1:45-2:00 A view from science museums and planetaria [C. Liu]
2:00-2:15 A view from the classrooms [J. White]
2:15-2:30 Joint discussion
2:30-3:00 Discussion: International cooperation/coordination
[Leaders: P. Benvenuti, D. Egret, G. Helou, E. Schreier]
3:00-3:30 Coffee

Lessons learned from some Other Projects
3:30-3:45 Planetary Data System [E. Dobinson]
3:45-4:00 High-Energy Physics (Griphyn etc.) [H. Newman]
4:00-4:20 Discussion of the lessons learned, incl. other projects [Leaders: T. Boroson, R. Hanisch, G. Helou]
Conclusion
4:20-4:30 The view from the NSF [E. Friel]
4:30-4:40 The view from NASA [J. Bredekamp]
4:40-5:00 Discussion: Creating the NVO development roadmap
[Leaders: D. De Young, R. Hanisch, G. Helou]
5:00-5:15 Concluding remarks [A. Szalay, G. Djorgovski]
5:15 Adjourn