In connection with the changes reported in the previous Newsletter, and also because of new tasks that have arisen, a number of task assignments and responsibilities within IRAM have recently been changed. These are the following :
Roberto NERI has taken over the responsibility for the daily operations of the Plateau de Bure Interferometer. He has already assisted Stéphane GUILLOTEAU in this task before. His new assignment includes the handling of all incoming PdB proposals, their technical assessment, assistance to the Programme Committee, informing the proposers about the outcome of the evaluation process, and the scheduling of the accepted proposals. He is also responsible for following up on technical problems that were detected during the execution of projects or the data reduction phase. Roberto NERI will be helped by the astronomers who have been assigned to each accepted proposal as LOCAL CONTACTS (see below), and by the ASTRONOMERS-ON-DUTY, who's tasks remain unchanged.
Starting with the next observing period, a LOCAL CONTACT will be assigned to each of the accepted proposals. This will be one of the IRAM astronomers. Anne DUTREY will be responsible for organising this as well as for the co-ordination of all activities related to the data analysis and archiving.
The LOCAL CONTACTS will help to prepare the observations for the accepted projects, inform the Principal Investigators about the successful completion of the observations, and arrange the visits in Grenoble for data reduction. If needed, they will provide help to get started with the data reduction process, and they will closely monitor it to verify the data quality, completeness etc. as well as the proper functioning of the data reduction tools. This feedback should help us to further improve the system.
Starting with the next observing period, Clemens THUM will take over from Michel GUÉLIN the responsibility for handling the observing proposals for the 30m telescope. This includes the handling of all incoming proposals, assistance to the Programme Committee, informing the proposers about the outcome of the evaluation process, scheduling of the accepted proposals, and the responsibility for following-up on technical problems that were detected during the execution of projects or during the data reduction phase and reported to IRAM. Clemens THUM will be assisted by the scientific secretariat, and by the Station Manager, Wolfgang WILD, who will prepare a technical evaluation of proposals and assist in the scheduling, particularly of those projects that have special technical requirements.
The Newsletter has so far mostly been a forum for IRAM to inform the User Community about recent scientific and technical developments, and to distribute the calls for new proposals. In the future, we would like to develop it into a communication link between the radioastronomical community, the astronomers who use the IRAM facilities already, and the wider astronomical community that works on the same or closely related scientific topics.