Taverna Workshop for Heliophysics

Logistics

Date: 01/02/2012
Location: Room Atlas 1, Kilburn Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road M13 9PL
Starting: 9:30 (provisional, may change if many attendees can't make it)
Ending: 17:00

The workshop will be held in the Kilburn Building at the University of Manchester, which is marked as number 39 on the map. The Atlas room is on the first floor.

If you wish to attend but have not registered, please email anja.leblanc@manchester.ac.uk.

Workshop Contents

This workshop will introduce the Taverna Workflow System. We will introduce the general principles of building workflows in Taverna, but also how to use HELIO web services and the use of the MyExperiment repository. This is a hands-on workshop, so bring your laptops.

Workshop Agenda

09:30 Introduction

09:35 Taverna, myExperiment and HELIO resources - Introduction

11:00 Coffee break

11:30 Practical session with introductions to specific areas

Overall aim: construct workflow which looks up events in time range, propagates them to Earth, checks for events at Earth

download and install taverna
import HELIO services from URL/file
call of SOAP service
call of REST service
import nested workflows into a workflow (extract content from VOTable)

13:00 Lunch break

14:00 Practical session continues

iteration strategies (dot product, cross product)
looping and retries
debugging of workflows
writing bean shells
construct workflow for propagation model call (3 steps separately - connect steps to workflow)

15:30 Coffee break

16:00 Practical session continues

call of external tools (topcat)
include IDL/Python scripts?
put together all parts to a finished workflow

16:50 Wrap up and feedback

17:00 End

Coming and staying in Manchester

The best way to come to Manchester city centre (and the University) from Manchester Airport (code: MAN) is by train. From the airport trains to the city centre run every 15 minutes into the main Piccadilly train station; the average journey time is around 20 minutes. Some of the trains will also stop at the Oxford train station, which is also in the city centre and slightly closer to the University. Alternatively you can jump into a taxi which will cost you less than £20. More info on coming from/going to the airport can be found here.

Piccadilly (main) and Oxford Road rail stations are both within the walking distance from the Kilburn Building. If you are taking a train from the airport, it is better to get off at the Oxford Road station as is it slightly closer to the venue and all you'd have to do is walk down the Oxford Road for approximately 10 minutes. Coming from Piccadilly would take you approximately 20 minutes on foot.

Here is a map of city centre, with the train stations and the Kilburn Building clearly marked.

There are many places to stay near the University, some suggestions with approximate prices are:

Manchester Business School (MBS) (60£/night)
IBIS Hotel (65£/night)
Novotel Hotel (80£/night at the best rate)
Palace Hotel Manchester (105£/night)

Attendees