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Please find the minutes below and at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://halldweb.jlab.org/wiki/index.php/GlueX_Offline_Meeting,_April_27,_2016#Minutes">https://halldweb.jlab.org/wiki/index.php/GlueX_Offline_Meeting,_April_27,_2016#Minutes</a><br>
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<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" lang="en"><span
dir="auto">GlueX Offline Meeting, April 27, 2016 </span><span
class="mw-headline" id="Minutes">Minutes</span></h1>
<div id="bodyContent" class="mw-body-content">
<div id="mw-content-text" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr"
lang="en">
<p>There is a <a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://bluejeans.com/s/9xG1/">recording of this
meeting</a> on the BlueJeans site.
</p>
<p>Present:
</p>
<ul>
<li> <b>CMU</b>: Naomi Jarvis, Curtis Meyer, Mike Staib</li>
<li> <b>FSU</b>: Brad Cannon</li>
<li> <b>JLab</b>: Mark Ito (chair), David Lawrence,
Paul Mattione, Dmitry Romanov, Nathan Sparks, Justin
Stevens, Simon Taylor, Beni Zihlmann</li>
<li> <b>NU</b>: Sean Dobbs</li>
</ul>
<h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Announcements">Announcements</span></h3>
<ol>
<li> <b>GCC 4.9.2 on farm</b>. Mark went over <a
rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/halld-offline/2016-April/002307.html">his
email</a> describing the use of the <code>module</code>
command to set-up use of GCC 4.9.2 on the farm nodes.
The latest versions of our software have been built
with this compiler and installed at JLab.</li>
<li> <b>Analysis Scripts Moved</b>. Paul led us through
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/halld-offline/2016-April/002310.html">his
email</a> describing the move of plug-in template
generating scripts for use with the Analysis Library.
He received input from Nathan on the destination
location.</li>
<li> <b>New git repository: hd_utilities</b>. Mark has
created a catch-all GitHub repository for
miscellaneous projects. See <a rel="nofollow"
class="external text"
href="https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/halld-offline/2016-April/002313.html">his
email</a> for details.</li>
<li> <b>Bug fix release: sim-recon-1.11.1</b>. Mark
reminded us of the <a rel="nofollow" class="external
text"
href="https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/halld-offline/2016-April/002314.html">recent
release</a> that fixes a now famous initialization
problem that affects tracking in multi-threaded jobs.</li>
<li> <b>GlueX Software Help Email List</b>. Mark
reviewed <a rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/halld-offline/2016-April/002297.html">his
email</a> announcing the list. Collaborators are
encouraged to subscribe.</li>
</ol>
<h3><span class="mw-headline"
id="Review_of_minutes_from_April_13">Review of minutes
from April 13</span></h3>
<p>We went over the <a
href="https://halldweb.jlab.org/wiki/index.php/GlueX_Offline_Meeting,_April_13,_2016#Minutes"
title="GlueX Offline Meeting, April 13, 2016">minutes</a>.
</p>
<ul>
<li> Dmitry reported that the RCDB C++ API has been
built and tested on the ifarm (CentOS 6/5).</li>
<li> Paul is re-doing his study of multi-threaded
behavior of hd_root with the fix to the famous
initialization problem.</li>
</ul>
<h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Calibration">Calibration</span></h3>
<h4><span class="mw-headline"
id="Calibration_Train_Processing">Calibration Train
Processing</span></h4>
<p>Sean brought us up-to-date. He showed a <a
rel="nofollow" class="external text"
href="https://halldweb.jlab.org/wiki/images/5/5e/Sdobbs_OfflineMtg_27Apr16.pdf">slide</a>.
</p>
<ul>
<li> The last launch was done with the famous
initialization bug (FIB) present in the code. Sean
checked with the experts and the BCAL and FCAL
calibration did not suffer much from this.</li>
<li> There were a few small problems with jobs.</li>
<li> He will start soon with calibration of the data
from the last two weeks of the run. He will get the
timing calibrations done first.</li>
<li> There were a few anomalies that arose around the
time of the magnet ramp to 1345 A. In particular the
tagger calibrations shifted by 0.5 to 1.0 ns. Also the
microscope shows a change in the difference between
FADC and TDC times where the change is a smooth
function of channel. Changes are roughly 3 to 4 ns.
This leads to bumps in the tagger vs. RF timing
distributions[?]. Alex Barnes is working on this
issue.</li>
<li> We noted that the FIB was introduced on March 3.</li>
<li> Sean is keeping his jobs at eight threads.</li>
<li> He did some bench-marking on the code after the
JANA locking changes (those that Paul described at the
last meeting). He sees a 10-20% improvement in speed.
He did see instances in some calibration plug-ins
where there was extensive calculation being done while
holding on to a lock.</li>
</ul>
<h4><span class="mw-headline"
id="Time-of-Flight_Calibration">Time-of-Flight
Calibration</span></h4>
<p>Beni has done a TOF calibration using the files from
the calibration train. He sees 100 ps resolution per
counter over the entire detector with some counters a
bit better. The calibration is done by timing one plane
against another, so for a given counter in one plane
comparison can be done with multiple counters in the
other plane. This allows for an easy visual consistency
check of the quality of the calibration.
</p>
<h3><span class="mw-headline"
id="Spring_2016_Run.2C_Processing_Plans">Spring 2016
Run, Processing Plans</span></h3>
<p>We had a wide-ranging discussion on plans for a
comprehensive reconstruction pass on the recently
acquired data.
</p>
<ul>
<li> Sean reminded us that the plans were discussed at
the last Calibration Meeting. See item (3) of the <a
href="https://halldweb.jlab.org/wiki/index.php/April_20,_2016_Calibration#Minutes"
title="April 20, 2016 Calibration">minutes of that
meeting</a>. There is deadline of May 31 for all
calibrations to be complete so we can start the pass.</li>
<li> An accurate estimate of the computing requirements
will come from statistics for the next Monitoring
Launch. We will not attempt to adjust account priority
on the farm until we have those estimates in hand.
That said, Sean thinks that the processing should take
about a month.</li>
<li> We discussed tagging schemes and tag names for
identifying software and configuration parameters used
in the pass. Sean, Justin, Paul, and Mark all had
ideas. We did not come to conclusions and decided to
continue the discussion offline.</li>
<li> Curtis wondered if we can get away with a smaller
number of files per run for Monitoring Launches. We
are now processing the first 20 files of all
"is_production" runs[?].
<ul>
<li> Sean thought that we might only need 2 to 5 or
so. He reported that this is enough to see ρs and
ωs. These signals depends on many parts of the
detector working together properly.</li>
<li> We noted that the faster the turn-around for
the launch, the faster problems can be found and
calibrations adjusted.</li>
<li> Paul will abort the current launch that has
just started. Sean will suggest to Paul a good
number of files to start up with again. The
current calibrations are good enough to learn
something. We do not have to delay further to
finalize calibrations for the last runs of the
run.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li> We discussed the relative priority of producing
REST files vs. calibration/monitoring in the run up to
May 31. There was a consensus that we should
concentrate on the latter.</li>
</ul>
<h3><span class="mw-headline" id="GlueX_TTree_DSelector">GlueX
TTree DSelector</span></h3>
<p>Paul led us through <a rel="nofollow" class="external
text"
href="https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/halld-offline/2016-April/002311.html">his
email</a> describing a new ROOT selector, DSelector
that specialized and improves the ROOT-supplied
TSelector. It is described in detail on its own <a
href="https://halldweb.jlab.org/wiki/index.php/DSelector"
title="DSelector">wiki page</a>. It is meant to be
used with ROOT trees produced by the Analysis Library
and exploits knowledge of the reaction used to
auto-magically provide reaction-specific operations,
including PROOF support, saving work for the user. Brad
has been using it recently and reports an excellent user
experience. [Reminder: Paul pay Brad his $5]
</p>
<h3><span class="mw-headline"
id="Viewing_DEPICSvalue_with_hd_dump">Viewing
DEPICSvalue with hd_dump</span></h3>
<p>David described a <a rel="nofollow" class="external
text"
href="https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/halld-offline/2016-April/002312.html">new
feature of hd_dump</a> that can greatly increase the
speed of retrieval of EPICS information from the raw
data when the program is run repeatedly. He relies on
the native Linux file-caching mechanism to facilitate
retrieval of data from memory rather than from disk.
</p>
<h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Transition_to_C.2B.2B11">Transition
to C++11</span></h3>
<p>For the event-parsing work he is doing, David is
incorporating a lot of C++11 language features. He is
doing this on a branch, since these features are not
supported by GCC 4.4. They will be supported when we
move to 4.8 on June 1.
</p>
<p>He has noticed warning messages compiling our standard
code (not his new stuff) with the new compiler that are
not present with GCC 4.4. He was concerned that other
people may be trying to fix these warnings as well and
that would lead to duplication of effort and merge
conflicts. There was not a lot of discussion, and we
interpreted this as a lack of effort by developers to
squelch warnings from compilers-of-the-future. We
concluded that no group action is necessary at this
time.
</p>
<p>Nathan asked about plans for going to ROOT 6. Mark
thought that once we change to the new compiler, that
step would be take-able. David thought we should wait a
bit after June 1 so that we are not dealing with two
issues at the same time. We agreed that that would be
wise.
</p>
<h3><span class="mw-headline" id="RCDB_Status">RCDB Status</span></h3>
<p>Dmitry updated on the status of RCDB. A lot a work has
gone into it recently. See <a rel="nofollow"
class="external text"
href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_uhBIGhZOFy0v41ihW7RXVvonCy2LjrQ81dOAJ3FcFk/edit?usp=sharing">his
slides</a> for full details.
</p>
<ul>
<li> The RCDB command line is now available. Simple
queries can now be done without having to write a
custom Python script. Dmitry showed some examples.</li>
<li> An RCDB website is on the way.</li>
<li> Simple plotting of values is now available.
Examples were shown. PDF files of the plots can be
created. Dmitry has a lot of ideas for future
sub-features.</li>
<li> Custom definitions of "aliases" (set of logical
conditions to be satisfied) and "views" (lists of
variables to output) can now be defined by the user.
Definitions are kept in ~/rcdb_user_cfg. Dmitry showed
some examples. So now you can save your go-to queries
without having to type them in each time.</li>
<li> He gave a list of items for future development.</li>
<li> He is developing a facility for parsing the
configuration files so that individual parameters can
be extracted and turned into standard RCDB conditions.
<ul>
<li> If you have requests for parameters to extract,
contact Dmitry.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li> Before he leaves (next week, yikes!) he plans to
release version 1.0. He listed the features supported
in this release.</li>
</ul>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:marki@jlab.org">marki@jlab.org</a>, (757)269-5295
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