It's not news that the application of XML technologies to scientific data continues to be an important focus for the ADC. What is new is the location of ADC's XML web site. Ed Shaya describes the new location and related news in his article.
In this issue Kirk Borne summarizes this Spring's conference "New Astrophysics and Cosmology with a Virtual Observatory" which discussed the scientific potential of the proposed National Virtual Observatory.
Administrative news isn't often featured in this newsletter, but given the importance of NASA Goddard in the space science arena, a change in its leadership is newsworthy. ADC's parent organization, the Space Sciences Directorate has a new Director. Read more in the article below.
The web site of the ADC's XML effort has moved. The top page which lists all of our projects is now at http://xml.gsfc.nasa.gov/. The top page for the eXtensible Data Format (XDF) is now at http://xml.gsfc.nasa.gov/XDF/XDF_home.html. From there you can go to the software download pages or sign up for xdf-dev listserve.
A lot has been happening at the ADC XML project lately:http://adc.astro.umd.edu/viewer/).
2) We have beta version of the XDF Package in Perl and in Java. One can use these packages and the XDF API to connect your applications with XDF documents (a sort of DOM for XDF).
3) The package distribution includes an XDF GUI Viewer/Editor (alpha version) written in Perl/Tk and example data.
4) FITSML pre-release DTD is available. We will soon release a FITSML package that includes FITS-to-FITML translator. This shows how XDF can be extended with another layer of vocabulary/keywords.
5) Schemas, using the recent W3C recommendation, were written for XDF and FITSML. This allows for validation of element structure and CDATA values in the metadata, but it does not check the data values in the datacube.
6) We have been experimenting with an XML scientific manuscript language to replace LaTeX for preparing journal articles (http://xml.gsfc.nasa.gov/article/).
BACKGROUND ON XDF
XDF is an XML data format based on general mathematical principles and object-oriented data models, including concepts such as errors, upper limits, physical units, alignment of axes, parallel vectors, etc). It is capable of handling nearly any species of scientific data. Among the benefits of using XML is the possibility of using a single format from satellite to scientist, to journal publication, to data centers, and to the public.
A workshop was held at the Aspen Center for Physics earlier this summer, from May 29 through June 6, to discuss and define the key science drivers for the new National Virtual Observatory (NVO). For a discussion of the NVO and related activities at the ADC, see the Newsletter articles in http://adc.astro.umd.edu/adc/adc_enews/jul00.enews.html#2 and http://adc.astro.umd.edu/adc/adc_enews/may01.enews.html#1.
An ADC staff member attended and participated in the lively discussions and brainstorming sessions at the Aspen Workshop. NVO science themes that include the large observational data sets that define the NVO as well as theoretical data (typically from numerical simulations) were discussed in depth. Issues related to Education and Public Outreach opportunities were also discussed. To complete the discussions, the various European initiatives (AVO, Astrogrid, Astrovirtel) were presented and described in terms of their relationship to the NVO.
Concurrent with the NVO workshop, a parallel workshop was held on Science with Wide-Field Survey Telescopes. Several joint sessions were held to discuss the synergies and relationships between the planned large survey projects and the science-enabling aspects of the NVO that will provide access to the massive data sets that the surveys will produce.
Among several key science themes for the NVO discussed at the workshop were: exploration of the time domain, near-earth objects, the "Digital Galaxy", dark matter distribution, clusters of galaxies, large-scale structure, microlensing, weak lensing, and precision cosmology. In fact, some of the defining moments of the workshop came when the participants challenged these arguments and arrived at the conclusion that the NVO is not so much about solving any specific scientific problem, but the NVO is more about exploring the totally unexplored regimes of multi-dimensional observational parameter space, answering previously unanswered questions, doing statistical astronomy right (with very large sample sizes), defining strategies for future missions and survey projects, solving long-standing science problems, and enabling all manner of discoveries never before possible without the application of multi-wavelength, multi-mission, multi-dataset observations.
Many related issues were addressed, including how to handle the large quantity of follow-up observations that will be imposed upon existing telescope facilities, and how to assess the efficiency gains in research brought about by the NVO. In the end, the workshop was as much about preparing to delve into this unexplored territory as about preparing to pass the message to our colleagues that the scientific discovery potential of the NVO may revolutionize astronomy in the next decade.
In May of this year, Dr. Jonathan Ormes was named the new Director of Space Sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He replaces Dr. Stephen Holt who retired from the position last year. Dr. Ormes had been serving as Acting Director prior to the announcement of his selection as Director. He had served as the Chief of the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics at Goddard for ten years.
In his new position, Ormes will be responsible for planning, organizing and evaluating a broad program of scientific research, both theoretical and experimental, in the study of Space sciences. The program ranges from basic research to flight experiment development, to mission operations and data analysis.
More information can be found in the official press release. See http://space.gsfc.nasa.gov/ .
In related news, Mr. John Dalton has assumed the role of Acting Deputy Director of Space Sciences at Goddard. He comes to the Space Sciences Directorate from the NASA Space Operations Management Office. Mr. Dalton replaces Mr. James Barrowman, who retired from the position in June.
The following catalogs and journal tables are currently available from the ADC repository. The ADC gratefully acknowledges the CDS, and individual authors who have recently contributed to our repository.
See http://adc.astro.umd.edu/adc/acq_new_updated.html#new_list for a hypertext version of this article containing direct links to each catalog and journal table listed.
ID# Abbreviated Title (First Author, Year)
1268 UCAC1 Catalogue (Zacharias+ 2000)
3215 7th Catalog of Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars (van der Hucht, 2001)
3218 ELODIE archive (Prugniel+, 2001)
3219 Spectral Library of Galaxies, Clusters and Stars (Santos+, 2001)
3221 Catalogue of [Fe/H] (Cayrel de Strobel+, 2001)
3222 14th General Catalogue of MK Spectral Classification (Buscombe 1999)
5107 MSX5C Infrared Point Source Catalog (Egan+ 1999)
6103 The Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT) (GSFC, 1990-95)
J/A+A/35/393 Westerbork Second Deep Survey (Katgert 1974)
J/A+A/335/85 HST photometry of ESO 338-IG04 globular clusters (Oestlin+, 1998)
J/A+A/361/1023 Evolution models for {alpha}-enhanced stars (Salasnich+ 2000)
J/A+A/363/887 High frequency peakers. I. The bright sample (Dallacasa+, 2000)
J/A+A/365/266 Fe XXIII fine structure level oscillator strengths (Tully+, 2001)
J/A+A/368/835 Soft X-ray sources in the Galactic Center region (Sidoli+, 2001)
J/A+A/369/862 VI light curves of the variable stars in M92 (Kopacki, 2001)
J/A+A/369/932 RI photometry of LMC carbon stars (Kontizas+, 2001)
J/A+A/370/409 New sample of large angular size radio galaxies. I. (Lara+, 2001)
J/A+A/370/426 APM BR J0307-4945 Ly-{alpha} system (Dessauges-Zavadsky+, 2001)
J/A+A/370/765 HI synthesis observations in UMa cluster (Verheijen+, 2001)
J/A+A/371/L5 CCD {Delta}a-photometry of NGC 1866 (Maitzen+, 2001)
J/A+A/371/79 NGC 5548 UBVRI phot. and Halpha, Hbeta fluxes (Dietrich+, 2001)
J/A+A/371/579 Empirical relations for cluster RR Lyrae (Kovacs+, 2001)
J/A+A/371/833 ROSAT Ultra Deep Survey (Lehmann+, 2001)
J/A+A/371/908 Havlen-Moffat No. 1 UBVRI photometry (Vazquez+, 2001)
J/A+A/371/943 Lithium abundances for 185 main-sequence stars (Chen+, 2001)
J/A+A/371/1078 4 normal B and A stars elemental abundance (Adelman+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/L41 NGC 2068/2071 protoclusters (Motte+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/85 Detected sources at 12{mu}m in 47 Tuc (Ramdani+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/95 NGC 2439 ubvy{beta} photometry (Kaltcheva+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/145 Symbiotic stars UBV(RI)c photometry. II. (Henden+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/173 ISOCAM observations of the rho Ophiuchi cloud (Bontemps+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/245 Infrared properties of barium stars (Chen+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/276 Polarization catalogue for NGP area (Berdyugin+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/364 ISO FIRBACK Source Catalog at 170um (Dole+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/391 Spectroscopic Survey of Cl 0024+1654 (Czoske+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/477 ubvy{beta} photometry og h & chi Persei (Marco+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/862 Lithium abundances in IC 2602 and IC 2391 (Randich+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/879 JKBV photometry of NGC 2141 (Carraro+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/1078 IRON Project XLIX (Butler+, 2001)
J/A+A/372/1083 IRON Project L (Butler+, 2001)
J/A+A/373/63 M31 second ROSAT PSPC survey (Supper+, 2001)
J/A+A/373/153 CCD {Delta}a-photometry of 5 open clusters (Paunzen+, 2001)
J/A+A/373/438 X-ray view of M 33 after ROSAT (Haberl+, 2001)
J/A+A/373/536 New galactic bulge PNe (van de Steene+, 2001)
J/A+A/373/576 Detection of Tycho variables stars (Piquard+, 2001)
J/A+A/373/625 uvby{beta} photometry of lambda Bootis stars (Paunzen+, 2001)
J/A+A/373/757 Lyman-Alpha Forest of 3 QSOs (Kim+, 2001)
J/A+A/373/899 New variables in M22 globular cluster (Kaluzny+, 2001)
J/A+A/373/950 UBV light cures of KW Persei (Galis + 2001)
J/A+A/373/987 Non-LTE Ga abundance in HgMn stars (Zboril+ 2001)
J/A+A/374/164 BH Cas VRI differential magnitudes (Zola+, 2001)
J/A+A/374/204 V392 Car light curve (Debernardi+, 2001)
J/A+A/374/227 Radial velocity in multiple systems (Tokovinin+, 2001)
J/A+AS/58/1 1412 MHz catalogue of Westerbork survey. I. (Windhorst+, 1984)
J/A+AS/58/197 11cm survey, 357.4<=l<=76, -1.5<=b<=1.5 (Reich+, 1984)
J/A+AS/58/39 1412 MHz catalogue of Westerbork survey. II (Windhorst+, 1984)
J/AJ/118/2839 BV photometry of NGC 1866 (Testa+, 1999)
J/AJ/121/66 KISS H{alpha} survey list 1 (Salzer+, 2001)
J/AJ/121/1676 ONC low-mass stars photometry (Rebull+, 2001)
J/AJ/121/1840 Galaxies in Q0835+580 and Q1126+101 fields (Hall+, 2001)
J/AJ/121/1872 FIRST radio-selected QSOs (Helfand+, 2001)
J/AJ/121/2032 Direct variables in M33A field (Mochejska+, 2001)
J/AJ/121/2148 Precise spectral types for 372 A, F + G stars (Gray+, 2001)
J/AJ/121/2159 Basic parameters for 372 A, F + G stars (Gray+, 2001)
J/ApJ/504/27 The L<sub>X</sub>-T Relation for Nearby Clusters (Markevitch, 1998)
J/ApJ/549/172 X-ray-detected, poor groups galaxy populations (Tran+, 2001)
J/ApJ/549/441 Chandra observations of Orion Trapezium (Schulz+, 2001)
J/ApJ/549/578 BV photometry of Trumpler 14 and 16 (Degioia-Eastwood+, 2001)
J/ApJ/549/820 H{alpha} flux of ACCG 114 galaxies (Couch+, 2001)
J/ApJS/133/413 Cool white dwarfs BVRIJHK phot. and plx (Bergeron+, 2001)
J/ApJS/134/35 Large Bright Quasar Survey emission lines (Forster+, 2001)
J/ApJS/134/103 IC 2391 probable low-mass members (Barrado y Navascues+, 2001)
J/AZh/72/855 Abundances in eta Piscium (Antipova+, 1995)
J/AZh/72/864 Abundances in gamma Sagittae (Boyarchuk+, 1995)
J/AZh/73/862 Atmospheres of six red giants (Boyarchuk+, 1996)
J/AZh/75/586 Abundances in solar atmosphere (Boyarchuk+, 1998)
J/AZh/77/96 Abundances in Hyades red giants (Boyarchuk+, 2000)
J/MNRAS/306/361 UBVI CCD photometry of M35 (NGC 2168) (Sung+ 1999)
J/MNRAS/324/33 MC WC/WO stars - Colliding winds (Bartzakos+ 2001)
J/PASP/113/10 Sub-mJy radio sources complete sample (Masci+, 2001)
J/PAZh/26/465 IRAS 20004+2955 (V1027 Cyg) chemical comp. (Klochkova+, 2000)
J/PAZh/26/510 Spectrum of bipolar nebula AFGL 2688 (Klochkova+, 2000)
J/PAZh/26/705 UBV observations of post-AGB supergiants (Arkhipova+, 2000)
J/PAZh/27/83 Nuclear activity of NGC 4151 in 1989-2000 (Doroshenko+, 2001)
J/PAZh/27/132 Parameters of RR Lyrae Type Variables (Dambis+, 2001)
J/PAZh/27/187 UBV observations of HD 179821 (Arkhipova+, 2001)
ID# Abbreviated Title (First Author, Year)
Data updated or corrected:
5055 A catalogue of high-velocity stars (Roman, 1955)
7102 Spectrophotometric Atlas of Standard Stellar Spectra (Pickles 1985)
J/ApJ/549/578 BV photometry of Trumpler 14 and 16 (Degioia-Eastwood+, 2001)
J/A+A/361/491 NGC 3109 X-ray sources (Kahabka+, 2000)
J/A+A/363/141 Radio-loud galaxies in the ROSAT survey. IV. (Reich+, 2000)
J/A+A/367/910 UBV(RI)c photometry of active stars. IX (Cutispoto+, 2001)
J/AJ/120/2338 Abell 576 redshifts (Rines+, 2000)
J/ApJS/130/177 Arecibo Dual-Beam Survey (Rosenberg+, 2000)
J/AZh/77/499 Flux densities of 235 pulsars at 102.5MHz (Malofeev+, 2000)
ReadMe file revisited:
4013 HD-DO Cross Index (Nagy, 1983)
9022 Einstein extended deep survey (Primini+, 1991)
J/A+AS/100/47 Lyon Groups of Galaxies (Garcia 1993)
J/A+AS/124/449 Young stars south of Taurus-Auriga (Magazzu+ 1997)
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