Subject: DRAFT minutes of Collaboration Board Meeting of 24.03.03 Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 18:41:15 +0100 (CET) From: Chris Booth To: HARP-institute representatives -- Vladimir AMMOSOV , Marco APOLLONIO , Milla BALDO CEOLIN , Giles BARR , Alain BLONDEL , Maurizio BONESINI , Chris BOOTH , Stepan BUNYATOV , Craig BUTTAR , Maria Gabriella CATANESI , Enrico Di CAPUA , Ubaldo DORE , Jacques DUMARCHEZ , Friedrich DYDAK , Rob EDGECOCK , Ugo GASTALDI , Simone GIANI , Sergej GNINENKO , Juan Jose GOMEZ CADENAS , Claus GOESSLING , Ghislain GREGOIRE , Vladimir GRICHINE , Alberto GUGLIELMI , Dimitar KOLEV , Lucie LINSSEN , Maria Teresa MUCIACCIA , Domizia ORESTANO , Vittorio PALLADINO , Jaap PANMAN , Fernanda PASTORE , Georgij SHELKOV , Petar TEMNIKOV , Roumen TSENOV , Francois VANNUCCI Dear Colleague, Please find below the draft minutes of the recent HARP Collaboration Board, Chris Draft minutes of the HARP Collaboration Board Meeting #15 held on 24.03.03 1. Institute Representation The following institutes were represented in person: Bari, Dortmund, Dubna, CERN, RAL, Ferrara, Geneva, Legnaro, Louvain, Milano, Lebedev, Napoli, Oxford, RAL, Roma I, Roma III, Sheffield, Sofia Univ., Trieste, Valencia. Procurations were announced as follows: INR to be represented by Dubna, Paris by Geneva, Protvino by Dubna. Sofia Academy was not represented. 2. Adoption of the Agenda An alternative agenda was proposed. After discussion, it was agreed to use the original agenda with items 7 and 8 changed to read 7. Steering Committee and Role of Spokesperson 8. Physics Analysis Matters The appendix was removed from the agenda. With the adoption of the revised agenda, J. Panman announced that he would be willing to withdraw his resignation as Deputy Spokesperson, if that was the wish of the board. This was accepted. M. Baldo Ceolin and U. Dore were asked to chair the rest of the meeting. 3. Approval of the Minutes of 14th Meeting on 10.12.02 The minutes were approved, after the correction of the date. 4. Financial Matters L. Linssen presented an update on the status of the Common Fund. Following sale of gas, the balance of the fund at the start of 2003 was 22k SFr. Of the 95k budgeted for dismantling, 8-9k had been spent, and a similar amount was required for further manpower. The amount necessary for lost pool electronics (22 items) was not yet known. A paper was circulated showing the 2003 institute common fund contributions, based on the new author list. Bills had been sent to funding agencies. The budget for 2003 electronics pool items could pay for a maximum of two further months for the items not yet returned. It was agreed that remaining items should be returned to the pool or transferred to MICE by 15th April, subject to them not being required for TPC recalibration (see item 6). 5. Author List, Talks, etc. The new author list was circulated. Corrections should be sent to F. Dydak. Lists of thesis titles and HARP talks were also circulated. It was agreed that theses should also be made available on the web, though the question whether they should be password-protected was not resolved. The Spokesperson explained that he had agreed a presentation at the "La Biodola" conference in May on the TPC performance. U. Gastaldi expressed his objection to this procedure, which had bypassed the Editorial Board. Approval for future talks, and the need for practice talks in front of the collaboration, should be handled by the Editorial Board, with advice from the Steering Committee. 6. TPC Calibration A decision was urgent, as we are under pressure to vacate the PS area. It was agreed that if we could afford it, further calibration could only be good. However, the costs of CERN manpower were significant. Thirty man-days specialist technical effort would be required, and the people were already committed elsewhere. Balancing funding would be required to find alternative people for the other tasks. The question whether the rebuilt TPC would be the same as that used in the experiment was raised - repeat calibrations with Krypton and/or cosmics would be required to check this. In a vote, a majority were in favour of proceeding with the calibration. The compensating funding (estimated minimum 4k SFr) was available (from INFN, Geneva and elsewhere). 7. Steering Committee and Role of Spokesman The HARP constitution envisages a Steering Committee (SC) which "supervises the experiment, along the lines defined by the Collaboration Board (CB), prepares decisions and makes recommendations to the CB". Its members include the Spokesperson, Contactperson, Technical Coordinator and others nominated by the Spokesperson and elected by the CB. Until now, the SC has never been constituted, as its need within HARP had not been apparent. However, in recent weeks a conflict had arisen in the area of physics analysis strategy between the Spokesperson, who as the person with overall responsibility for the experiment has to remain involved in all strategy decisions, and the Analysis Coordinator, who had been given a job to do by the collaboration and so, with equal justification, had to be able to implement analysis policy which, after discussion, he felt was most appropriate for the collaboration. This unresolved conflict was becoming seriously damaging to HARP. It was proposed that the SC would have been able to support the Spokesperson, by sharing the load and responsibility, when difficult decisions had to be made. As a mediating body, it could also lessen conflicts between individuals. After lengthy discussion, it was accepted that the way forward was to constitute the Steering Committee as described in the constitution. The Spokesperson agreed that, as well as himself, the Contactperson, Technical Coordinator, Software Manager and Analysis Coordinator, he would suggest a small number of names of additional members. He would prefer to involve people currently active in analysis (the main effort of the collaboration at this stage), rather than representatives of regional blocks. He would consult widely in doing this, but would produce the list rather quickly. The CB will then vote on the proposed names by e-mail. There was a brief discussion of the role of the Spokesperson. It was unanimously agreed that this is exactly as set out in the constitution. He is responsible to the CB for all aspects of the execution of the experiment. 8. Physics Analysis Matters The two approaches of concentrating on developing a full suite of analysis tools and full detector calibration for all settings or pursuing a full analysis cycle towards a physics publication on a short time-scale had been discussed previously. A number of compromises were proposed, where both approaches would be pursued in a balanced way. This strategy was broadly accepted, though concern was expressed that delays in reaching final analysis goals would be inevitable - how these can be minimised is a difficult question which will require careful consideration and the definition of priorities. The importance of working in a way which allows the maximum participation of those outside CERN was stressed, and calibration tasks must be completed before detector experts are lost to HARP. A recommendation on the exact analysis strategy and a decision on priorities were referred to the Steering Committee, for its consideration as soon as it was constituted. It was also suggested that publicised milestones would help in the assessment of progress. 9. A.O.B. There was no other business. (Minutes written by Chris Booth.) ______________________________________________________________________ Chris Booth at Sheffield at CERN Department of Physics and Astronomy EP Division University of Sheffield CERN SHEFFIELD S3 7RH CH-1211 Geneva 23 Phone: +44-114-2223541 +41-22-7677375 Fax: +44-114-2728079 +41-22-7679425 e-mail: C.Booth@sheffield.ac.uk Chris.Booth@cern.ch