ICAT Project

Search

Meeting 124 – 28th February 2019

Attendees:

Alex de Maria (AM), Maxime, Brian Ritchie (BR), Stuart Pullinger (SP), Rolf Krahl (RK), Chris Prosser (CP), Silvie Da Graca Ramos (SR), Louise Davies (LD), George Christian (GC)

Component Updates

ICAT server (SP):

  • 4.9.3 released
  • Snapshot released for 4.10.0
  • Bug with JSONising Study to be fixed before final release
  • End date also to be added to study table

Topcat (BR):

  • 2.4.3 snapshot released
  • Accounts for schema changes in ICAT server 4.10
  • Made study accessible through topcat.json
  • Fixed bug with metatabs display

ICAT project website (LD):

  • Migration of WordPress site to Github Pages
  • Website being rewritten in the same style using GatsbyJS
  • Allows pages to be written in Markdown
  • Github workflow allows easier modification
  • (RK) Would like to see the inclusion of structured text. ACTION: (LD) to look into feasibility.

IDS (RK):

  • Snapshots for IDS plugin 1.10 coming in March
  • Users will need to recompile plugins for next IDS release

Python-ICAT (RK):

  • 15 being released adding support for ICAT server 4.10.0
  • Next release will drop support for Python 2.6 and ICAT server 4.2

Site Updates

ISIS (GC):

  • Continuing to add support for study DOIs
  • Working on a Topcat plugin that can set permissions on investigation data for use by data analysis systems.

DLS (CP) (SR):

  • Globus increasingly being used
  • Working on making data ingestion more reliable
  • Feedback from Globus workshop: More universities establishing endpoints that are properly configured for best performance.

ESRF

  • ICAT+ ready to be pushed to a GitHub repository on icat-contrib
  • Looking into combining ElasticSearch with ICAT. Principal issue is transferring permissions from ICAT rules to ElasticSearch.

HZB (RK):

  • Student working on an OAI-PMH plugin for ICAT server

Discussion

Schema structure (AM)(Maxime):

  • Study is inadequate because it can only have a single user.
  • Can’t associate samples with a study
  • Can’t associate parameters with a study

Addition of data volume column to investigation and dataset:

  • (AM) ESRF currently using investigation parameters for this purpose
  • (GC) Raised issue #211 on icat.server mentioning this
  • (SR) DLS thinking of running a batch SQL query to update volumes

Next meeting: Thursday 28th March 2019