AIPS:  2004 Quarter 4

Key Developments

1.   Methods were developed to allow for binary distribution of
AIPS.  This includes enhancing the script which runs each night to
prepare for text updates and installations to force the update of the
standard public versions of AIPS at the earliest possible moment and
then to synchronize them with an area on the main ftp server.  The
AIPS installation script was revised to offer the option to replace
the text installation and compilation with a remote synchronization
with the special ftp disk area in Socorro.  Similarly the update
scripts which allow users to run the latest development version of
AIPS was revised to replace the compilations with remote
synchronization operations.  This capability allows NRAO's users to
run code compiled with better, but moderately expensive, compilers
without having to buy the compilers.  The systems supported are
MacIntosh OS/X, Solaris Ultra, and Linux.

2.   The main calibration task was provided with new, "robust" methods
for gain solution.  In these methods, data which deviate too far from
the solution of the previous iteration are not used in the current
iteration.  This scheme converges rapidly to complex gains which are
not affected by a few bad samples.  The gain solution routines now
return information that allows the bad data to be reported
statistically and even to be flagged.  The spectral bandpass
calibration routine was also provided with the full range of gain
solution methods; previously it used only the most basic.  This task
also offers a new normalization mode of interest for VLBI.

3.   All calibration application tasks were revised to control
spectral smoothing more carefully.  The new choice allows the user to
smooth after application of the bandpass calibration; previously,
only smoothing before the bandpass calibration was available.

4.   Miscellaneous changes included changing contour/grey-scale
display tasks to allow plotting of the beam with or without blanking
of the normal plot.  The precession routines used for old B1950
coordinates were found to be inaccurate and were replaced.  Two new
calibrator models (8.4 GHz, 3C286 and 3C48) were analyzed and released.

5. The roll-over to a new development release (31DEC05) with freezing
of 31DEC04 was completed.  A new issue of the AIPSLetter (Volume XIV,
Number 2) describing developments in AIPS was published.

6.   During 2004, 196 sites downloaded the 31DEC03 (frozen) version of
AIPS and 808 downloaded the 31DEC04 (development) version.  A total of
797 different sites (separate IP addresses) made some use of the AIPS
cvs facility, either during installation of 31DEC04 or running the
"midnight job" to update their copy of 31DEC04.  Overall, 1276
different IP addresses appear in these three lists.


Goals for the First Quarter 2005

1.   Continue user support and bug fixes, as the major portion of AIPS 
effort.

2.   Develop more calibrator models for use in manual and eventually
pipeline data reductions.

3.   Provide support for pipeline data reduction, especially new
automatic editing algorithms.

4.   Begin investigations of new/improved imaging algorithms,
including those dealing with spectral index and multiple pointings.

5.   Add to the task which computes the fluxes of the primary flux
calibration sources new (2004) flux values and interpolation in time
between the tablulated values.