2008-04-16: Community Air Quality Data Systems Telecon

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These minutes are by David Mintz and are also available as a word doc.

Ad Hoc Advisory Committee -- Air Quality Data Summit
April 16, 2008, 2:00 – 3:00pm EDT
Conference Room C301A
Call-in 919-541-1595

Conference Call Meeting Notes

COMMITTEE MEMBERS, Attendees 4/16/08 bolded (some may have been missed):

Rich Scheffe, Chair
Jeff Arnold
Phil Dickerson
Tim Dye
Jill Engel-cox
Stefan Falk
Dirk Felton
Neil Frank
Val Garcia
Mike Gilroy / Ken Knowle
Bryan Hubbell
Rudy Husar / Erin Robinson
Terry Keating
Bill Lamason
Sharon Leduc
Frank Lindsay
Phil Lorang
David McCabe
Shawn McClure
Nick Mangus
David Mintz
Tom Moore
Rich Poirot
Betty Pun
Tesh Rao
Bret Schichtel
Uma Shankar
Doug Solomon
Louis Sweeny
Jim Szykman
Joe Tikvart
Gary Walter
Chet Wayland
Rob Willis
Steve Young

NEXT CONFERENCE CALL:

Wednesday, April 30, 2008 in Rm. C300A from 2:00 – 3:00pm EDT; call-in number is 919-541-1590. Conference call meetings are scheduled on a bi-weekly basis through August 2008.

Topics for the next meeting include:

• Further updates on assessment and vision statements placed on wiki
• Carryover items from a previous call could include:
  • Data and interface standards – Mangus, Dye, McCabe, Young
  • Status – UNC/NCState – NASA ROSES
  • Keating update on cyber-infrastructure RFA

MAJOR DECISIONS / CONCURRENCES / ACTION ITEMS:

None identified from this brief meeting.

COMMITTEE DISCUSSION:

Rich announced that we recently posted two draft documents on the wiki for the committee's review: a vision statement and a white paper on the planned assessment. Rich asked, for those who have already reviewed the documents, if there were there any comments.

Steve Young suggested that "architecture" should be addressed in the assessment, especially the major functions to be performed by the network of systems. Rich Scheffe agreed that that is important, but thinks it should be addressed outside of the assessment. Rich referred to item #5 (Desired features/attributes in databases and systems) in the Community Air Quality Data Systems Strategy. The assessment is item #6. Steve reiterated that it's the "what" not the "why" of the architecture that should be part of the assessment... "What are the functions that need to be performed?"... for example "inventorying emissions".

Others indicated that they had provided or would provide comments on the wiki.

Louis Sweeny... It seems that in the assessment we are going back to saying redundancy is bad. David Mintz indicated the assessment is not contradicting the notion that some redundancy is good. However, the assessment will need to identify areas of redundancy or overlap so we can examine these as potential areas for gaining efficiency/saving resources.

Terry Keating gave an example where redundancy was good... helps ensure system doesn't fall apart if one agency loses funding (IMPROVE & NADP). General agreement that there are good reasons for SOME redundancy. Louis started a discussion thread on the wiki so others can add more reasons why some redundancy is good.

Uma Shankar asked if there was a schedule for the assessment. David indicated that the funding vehicle is just getting into place and we plan to have a schedule soon. David will amend the assessment white paper to include the proposed schedule and provide an update on the next call.