Notes from 7-8 April 2004 VTC

Present:

TFRI: Hen-biau King, Alan Lai

NCHC: Julian Yu-Chung Chen, Hsiu-Mei Chou, Grace Hong, Fang-Pang Lin, one other

NTL: Tim Kratz, Tim Meinke

U Wisconsin – Limnology Lab: Dave Balsiger, Barbara Benson

UCSD and SDSC: Tony Fountain, Longjiang Ding, Peter Arzberger

Telephone: Matthew Van de Bogert, Bill Chang

Next meeting:

Thursday 22 April, 1700 San Diego, 1900 Wisconsin, 2000 New York and DC

Friday 23 April 0800 from TFRI and NCHC

Topics for Next Meeting:

- Assessment of successes in Taiwan

- From Architecture level 0, what needs to be improved (almost a project list of undone tasks)

- Discussion on expanding project

- Process to create a plan with milestones for the architecture

- Student summer projects

- Web site update

- Next Meeting

- Other

1. Finalize plans for UW visit to Taiwan (Tim K./Chin, others)

Agenda sent by Chin looks good.

2. Review status of buoy equipment and radios. (what equipment should UW team bring with them?) (Charles, Alan, Julian, Tim M., Tim K., Paul)

All ok.

Tim: have not received radios from Freeway, should be in Wisconsin on Friday. Trout Lake team will bring radios even if the order from Freewave is not received in time

Tim Meinke to bring antenna SMA to N-connector adaptors to Taiwan for Julian.

3. Report on Alan and Julian’s work to coordinate programming of datalogger with data retrieval software.

Alan: All sensors that were present were working well. Greenspan was not available, thus could not be tested.

Julian: GSM modem to Freewave connection tested and it works if GSM signal is reliable

Bottleneck: Freeway radio, GSM connection – will this be reliable (one rainy day or in typhoon?)

Need to see how long it will take to download data.

Will try to do the parsing data. Will use Campbell download to get ascii files, then parse into oracle db; later will upgrade software for two way communication to upgrade software, and later to do. [Note: Not a great deal of data.]

Question: How to test system in rainy connection.

Buoy supposed to arrive next week.

Temperature chain is there

Tim’s will bring Greenspan if the ordered one does not arrive by next week. Alan Lai to let Tim’s know.

4. Update on Data interface (Hsui-Mei, Longjiang)

Hsu Mei updated labels in oracle db

Now you can query and download database

Get metadata descriptions from Barbara and integration into query interface.

http://matrix.sdsc.edu:8000/lake0/index.jsp (also on project webpage)

Has YYL data upload been tested? Not yet, still working.

Script will run after data are received.

Within a day, will be able demonstrate the data processing (from data logger through database, then to Longjiang’s interface)

Longjiang will work on metadata next week.

Longjiang – need some time to check that download into files.

In future, need to discuss how to use metadata for applications, including EML.

5. Review of overall system components (per powerpoint slide of 10/11 March meeting) (all)

We have tested or have plans to test all components

6. Status of web page (Dave, Tim K.)

http://lter.limnology.wisc.edu/indexlm.htm

Chinese needed: Who will make Chinese version? Hen-biau King says our information groups (send to Alan Lai, Chin)

Please send in home pages!

Get better name. Leading candidate: www.lakemetabolism.net

7. Possible extensions of the project (Peter, Hen Biau, Tim K)

Hen-biau will send comments to Tim, re Japan, Philippine, Thailand, Australia

Question: Do we want to extend – just to lakes, or to terrestrial

Comments (edited into notes: Peter and Tim): For the next several month, it may be best to stay focused on lake questions. The argument here is basically one of “engineering” and expanding the number of variables in a controlled fashion. The variabless are the technology for pulling in data, the people interactions that are quite good here, the metadata (which gets harder when you have too many areas of science to cover).

Then write one or two page proposal, with objectives – and are they willing to participate.

Topic for next vtc meeting: How to expand.

Tim, Peter group in Australia to do vtc on 26 /27 April

8. Schedule next vtc (April 22/23 last day of UW visit to Taiwan ?)

Thursday 22 April, 1700 San Diego, 1900 San Diego,

Friday 23 April 0800 from TFRI and NCHC

9. OTHER

Need to plan after the visit to Yuan Yang Lake:

o Better engineer what is in place

o Engineer to expand system to more sites

o Engineer to easily add sites

o Plan to set priorities and to allocate resources (including people)

FYI: ILTER Annual Meeting (July 8 – 10, Manaus Brazil)

o Bylaws draft completed – to be circulated

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