[NeXus-committee] Reminder of action items

[Peterson, Peter F.]

Hello all,

The last message that I sent all of you (excluding the vote) was
December 3rd, and the last update to the swiki was December 15th.

This week I was at NIST and had a chance to speak with various people
including Nick Maliszewskyj who reminded me of my duty to remind
everyone else of their duty. So that is what this message is about. The
action items that various people are (ir)responsible for are listed
below. The ones that were finished have been removed from the list. In
addition, I would appreciate if people got started on the new
methodology of making instrument definitions outlined on page seven of
the minutes from our last meeting. I am currently compiling information
on instrument definitions and welcome pictures of instruments and
related descriptions. Assuming that people participate in the process I
will be sending out updates fairly frequently.

Thank you,
Peter Peterson
Executive Secretary, NIAC

- Przemek Klosowski will continue to compile questions and answers for
the frequently asked questions (FAQ) document on the web site.
- Nick Hauser will look into holding the next annual NIAC meeting at or
near ANSTO around the time of International Conference on Neutron
Scattering, being held in Sydney at the end of November, 2005.
- All committee members will look into alternative locations and dates
- If the number of facilities requesting voting members on the NIAC
exceeds twenty, plans to reorganize the committee will be considered.
One proposal is to split the committee into two groups, a larger group
for discussion and a smaller group (elected from the larger one) that is
eligible to vote on policy decisions.
- Anyone adding a page to the NeXus Swiki should ensure that it contains
a list of "interested parties" supervising discussions on that page.
- Stephen Cottrell will add the muon instrument definitions to the swiki
- Peter Peterson will determine a "universal linking scheme" for
locating information located outside of the NeXus file
- There will be an additional API function to open the parent of a group
or field (to open the parent of the "source" of a link).
- Mark Koennecke will add a new function to the NeXus API called
NXopengroup(path), which opens the group above the path specified.
- Thomas Proffen will consider improvements to the NXcharacterizations
base class before it is ratified
- Thomas Proffen will propose a new version of NXprocess to supercede
the existing ratified version.
- Peter Peterson will propose a new version of NXuser that is consistent
with the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative.
- Ron Ghosh will create a clearer definition for the orientation (UB)
matrix that exists inside the NXsample class.
- Peter Peterson will propose a change to the chemical formula to allow
for isotopes.
- Andy Goetz will propose changes to the NXsource class to make it
applicable to x-ray synchrotron facilities.
- Andy Goetz will propose a NXinsertion_device class to add to the
NXinstrument class, to use in synchrotron data files.
- Nick Maliszewskyj will propose changes to NXcrystal to account for the
scattering sense of triple axis measurements.
- Peter Peterson will propose improved documentation for the NXguide
class.
- Ray Osborn will edit all of the base classes to insure that they have
both distance and NXgeometry groups defined.
- Nick Maliszewskyj will propose a NXpolarizer class
- Mark Koennecke will propose changes to NXbeam_stop to make it more
consistent with usage in small angle scattering instruments.
- Nick Maliszewskyj will propose a change to the NXmonitor class to make
it more consistent with instruments that scan for fixed statistics
rather than fixed time.
- Ron Ghosh will propose a change to NXbeam to make it consistent with
usage in McStas.
- Nick Maliszewskyj will consult with a NIST expert on plug-in
architectures to recommend its implementation in NXtranslate.
- Freddie Akeroyd will produce method signatures for a C version of the
NeXus Utility API that duplicates the functionality of the existing
Fortran 90 Utility API.
- Peter Peterson will propose a method for subclassing instrument
definitions.
- Ray Osborn will identify common attributes. The list of common
attributes will be compiled and stored separate from any individual base
class.
- Mark Koennecke will produce a document describing "translation
tables." A short description is that translation tables will work
similar to NXtranslate, except the plugin architecture will exist within
an extended NeXus API.