GENERAL INFOS


1. Aim of the Workshop:

The two-week COSPAR training and capacity building workshop will introduce data analysis of space-based white-light coronagraph observations and radio spectral observations from space and ground to study shocks driven by coronal mass ejections. In particular, the wealth of data accumulated at the CDAW Data Center at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission, NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), NASA’s Wind and Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) missions will be used. In addition, ground based radio data from the e-CALLISTO network and the Radio Solar Telescope Network around the globe will be used for the study. Context information from NOAA’s GOES mission and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) missions will be used. This workshop will enable scientists and students in developing countries where the e- CALLISTO instruments are deployed to use their data in conjunction with space data to study Earth- affecting solar transient phenomena. In particular, scientists from Africa, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka will be targeted as participants. After the workshop, the participants will be able to perform correlative data analysis on coronal mass ejections and shocks, thus contributing to the progress of this important field in Sun-Earth connection.


2. Title, date and venue of the workshop:

The workshop title will be: “Coronal and Interplanetary Shocks: Analysis of data from SOHO, Wind, and e-CALLISTO”.
The workshop will take place from May 21 to June 1, 2018.
The host for the workshop will be the Physics Department, Mekelle University, Mekelle, Ethiopia
The website of the workshop is: http://e-callisto.org/Mekelle/WorkshopMekelle.html
The workshop will take place at the Axum Hotel, Mekelle: http://www.axum-hotels.com/

The above website contains many pictures of the rooms and the conference room of the hotel.
The conference room in the hotel is big enough to hold the workshop comfortably, and provides enough space for the lecturers to work separately from the students during the classes. There is enough space also for the practical part of the workshop using computers.


3. Scientific lead:

Prof. Nat Gopalswamy, from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Dr. Gebregiorgis Abraha, from Mekelle University 


4. Language of instructions:

English


5. Membership of organizing committee (SOC):

Gebregiorgis Abraha, Mekelle University (Ethiopia), co-chair.
Nat Gopalswamy, NASA (USA), co-chair.
Mariano Mendez, COSPAR (The Netherlands), co-chair.
Christian Monstein (Switzerland)
Pertti Makela (USA)
Seiji Yashiro (USA)
C. Kathiravan (India)
A. Nindos (Greece)


6. Opening Ceremony:

The opening ceremony will consist of guest speakers from Mekelle, COSPAR, and the SOC




7. Target Participants:

The participants will be selected among last year undergraduates, master students, Ph.D. students, post-doctoral fellows and young researchers (under 35 years of age; this is not a hard limit but an indication) from Africa (especially the East African region) and South/Southeast/Southwest Asia. The expected number of attendants will be 30 (25 minimum and 35 at maximum; the actual number will depend on the budget available, but notice that increasing the number of students requires enough lecturers to supervise the hands-on part) in order to have a strong interaction between the students and their supervisors. The aim is that about 50% of the participants are from Ethiopia and 50% from other countries in the region. The organisers should also try and have a proper balance among male and female students. These last two aspects are just indicative, since the selection must be based on academic and scientific merits, and not on nationalities or gender. 


8. Lectures and hands-on sessions:

The Capacity Building Workshop will consist of tutorials and lectures in the morning and hands-on computer sessions in the afternoon. The lectures will cover topics of solar physics, data analysis, and instrumental and software issues related to the missions mentioned above. The afternoon sessions will provide the students with experience concerning online access to data and models, state-of-the-art data analysis tools and modelling techniques. All the activities will take place at the conference room of the Axun hotel. The room has enough space to host all the participants and the lecturers comfortably.



9. Tools for the hands-on sessions:


Two software tools will be used throughout the workshop. For data analysis, a web-based tool has been developed. The participants will be able to make measurements from images and movies on the web (e.g., https://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/CME_list) and generate data. For analysing these data, the Python software will be used. Participants will be given instructions beforehand to install the Python code on their computers. Instructions will be provided for various platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux). One of the SOC members will interact with the students.
The participants will be asked to bring their own laptops. On the one hand this is useful cause this way they have the software installed in their own computers when they go home. On the other hand, this could be a problem given that students will have a large variety of laptops types, with different CPU, memory and disk capacity, with different operating systems and, even for the same operating system, they may have different software, software versions, and libraries installed.
For this reason, the minimum hardware requirements (CPU, RAM and disk space) should be carefully discussed among the lecturers and organisers before the meeting and will be communicated to the participants in advance. The organisers have indicated that initially the only software that the students need to have installed in their laptops is a running version of Python. However, it is very important that this topic is discussed in detail before the workshop, and that the students are properly informed of the tools they need to install in their laptops to be able to work on the data during the workshop.
The organisers should carefully discuss these (and any other similar) questions with the lecturers before the workshop, and the selected students should be instructed accordingly, including all necessary information and tutorials on what software to install and how, clearly described on the website.
The host will also make available a few desktops or laptops for those students who do not have a laptop. All the required software will be already installed in those desktops/laptops.



10. Internet connetions: All the participants will have access to the internet via cable or WiFi at the conference room in the hotel. In addition, a local server containing all the data that will be used for the workshop will be provided by the organizers, so that the workshop activities need not depend on the internet connection. Based on the tests done during the site visit, the speed of internet during the workshop will likely be insufficient to download the necessary data, since the same internet connection is shared with all the other guests of the hotel. The organisers may want to consider arranging for an extra, dedicated, internet access point exclusively for the workshop. This would have extra costs, though. The internet speed limitation will certainly be a problem if the students need to download large amounts of data. To mitigate this problem, the organisers bring external disks with the data archives that can be connected to a local server that can be accessed by the students without the need to use the internet connection. Furthermore, if some lecturers need specific material that is not available on line, this can be brought in advance and organized locally as well. There will be a person from the University or the hotel in charge of supporting the computers’ infrastructure during the entire workshop.


11. Travel

The organisation will cover in full the flight costs of all the lecturers, except when their own agencies kindly offer to pay. If that is the case, we should include that agency in the list of sponsors. The organisation will offer to partially cover the travel costs of some (selected) students. The students should apply for this support. The amount offered should be between 25% and 50% of the costs of the cheapest ticket to Mekelle from the place of origin of the student. The rationale for not covering the full travel costs is that we expect that the student’s home institution would make an effort for the student to attend the workshop (the host institution will benefit from this activity). On the other hand, the full lodging and meals costs of all students will be fully covered (see next point).


12. Lodging:

The lodging and meals of the students and lecturers will be covered in full for the 2 weeks. The students and lecturers will stay at the Axum hotel. Lecturers will stay in one-person rooms; students will share rooms (x2). The organizers will take into consideration gender, religion, etc., to organize students rooms. The rooms have both cable and Wi-Fi Internet.



13. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and coffee breaks:


Breakfast: The hotel offers breakfast.
Coffee break: There will be 2 coffee breaks per day, organized at the hotel.
Lunch and dinner: Both will be provided by the hotel.
Banquet: One should be oganied during the second week of the workshop.

The organizers will take into account possible dietary constraints when organizing the meals.

 

14. Visa formalities:

Visa requirements and visa exemptions per country are given on this website from the Ethiopian government:
https://www.evisa.gov.et/

Acceptance and invitation letters will be sent to those participants who need them for visa applications.


15. General arrangements:

There will be a small welcome reception for participants the evening of either Sunday or Monday of the first week, a workshop banquet on the Thursday of the second week, and a half-day excursion during the weekend in between.



Version: 2018/01/15

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