I come from a completely different academic background (economics) and with a different purpose than probably any other post. I am trying to feed the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA logbook entries into an economic model of team performance and I was wondering if someone here (even remotely) knows how projects are organized and whether there is some metric of task completion or failure. After reading the guidelines I still really don’t know if there is a place in this forum for a post like this, so I apologise in advance if this is not the case.
Could you provide detailed information of what you are calling “logbooks”. Given the extent of the collaborations and projects, this could point to several places, some of which might be relevant to your question, and others not. URLs (links to the notebooks in question that you are using would be most helpful)
Hi,
The links helped me understand what you were referring to - thanks!
I’m not an expert and haven’t used this system for many years, bu the closest thing to organization of the information captured is in the top colored bar (the bar above the author and date and time bar). There are likely many hundreds of possibilities for the labels used here across all the different observatories (LIGO’s LHO/LLO, Virgo and KAGRA), plus all the many subsystems. I suspect that you could scrub these out of the logs and bin them up into a histogram and get a pretty good idea of what the majority of use cases are and frequency, but I’m not aware of any concise tabulation of these and suspect that they can change as modifications are needed to the instruments.
As a bit of background, these logs are meant for teams that may be working on the same “aspect” of the instrument to have a way to recognize what activies have been performed. While these logs are publicly accessible the authors are focusing on a target audience of sophisticated colleagues and encouraged to use acronyms well know by colleagues. The goal is to be informative to the future with a reasonable success using the search feature. It is often common to have a summary for each activity which may have some redundancy with prior entries.
I’m afraid this is about the extent of my knowledge on the logs.
PS. I found a list of acronyms with brief descriptions from 2012, which are dated, but should give you some ideas:
40m Lab R&D/Test Facility at LIGO/Caltech
AC Alternating Current
ADC Analog to Digital Converter
ADCU Analog Data Collection Unit
AL Advanced LIGO
AM Amplitude Modulation
AOS Auxiliary Optics System (subsystem in AL)
API Application Programmer’s Interface
ASC Alignment Sensing / Control (detector subsystem)
ATM Asynchronous Transfer Module
BS Beamsplitter (optical component)
BSC BeamSplitter Chamber (large vacuum chamber)
BPCU Beam Pointing Control Unit
BT Beam Tube
BTE Beam Tube Enclosure
CA Channel Access (EPICS Control & Monitoring system network protocol)
CC Civil Construction
CDS Control and Data System (detector subsystem)
CIT California Institute of Technology
CMS Control and Monitoring System (a part of CDS)
COC Core Optics Components (detector subsystem)
COS Core Optics Support (detector subsystem)
CP Chiller Pad (part of FAC)
CP Compensation Plate (optical element part of TCS)
DAQS Data Acquisition System
DC Direct Current (steady state - low frequency)
DCC Document Control Center
DCU Data Collection Unit
DET Detector system
DIA Data Information Area (of reflected memory)
DMA Direct Memory Access
DRD Design Requirements Document
EDCU EPICS Data Collection Unit
EDSU EPICS Data Server Unit
EMC Electro-Magnetic Compatibility
EMI Electro-Magnetic Interference
EOM Electro-Optic Modulator (optical hardware)
EPICS Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System
ETM End Test Mass (optical component)
FAC Facilities (part of CC)
FCMS Facility Control and Monitoring System
FCR Facility Control Room
FFT Fast Fourier Transform
FI Faraday Isolator (optical component)
FIFO First In First Out
FM Frequency Modulation
FM Fold Mirror
FR Faraday Rotator (optical component)
GDS Global Diagnostic System
GPS Global Positioning System
GUI Graphical User Interface
GW Gravitational Wave
HAM Horizontal Access Module
HVAC Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning
HWCI Hardware Configuration Item
HWP Half-Wave Plate (optical hardware)
Hz Hertz
ICD Interface Control Document
IFO Interferometer
IL Initial LIGO
INS Installation
I/O Input/Output
IOO Input Optics (detector subsystem, formerly named Input / Output Optics)
IP Internet Protocol
ISR Interrupt Service Routine
ITM Input Test Mass (optical component)
IXS Information eXchange Services
LA Louisiana
LASTI LIGO Advanced Systems Test Interferometer (test facility at LIGO/MIT)
LDAS LIGO Data Analysis System
LHAM Horizontal Access Module at Louisiana Site
LHO LIGO Hanford Observatory
LIGO Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory
LLO LIGO Livingston Observatory
LSC Length Sensing / Control (detector subsystem)
LOS Large Optic Suspension
LVEA Laser and Vacuum Equipment Area (of the LIGO observatories)
MAP Memory Allocation Pointer (reflected memory)
MC Mode Cleaner
MCM Mode Cleaner Mirror
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MMT IFO Mode Matching Telescope
MSR Mass Storage Room
MTBF Mean Time Between Failures
Advanced LIGO LIGO-E010613-v2
9
MTTR Mean Time To Repair
MZ Mach-Zender Interferometer
NDS Network Data Server
Nd:YAG Neodynium doped Yttrium Aluminum Garnet (laser gain medium)
OSB Operations Support Building
PDD Preliminary Design Document
PDH Pound-Drever-Hall (reflection locking technique)
PEM Physics Environment Monitoring
PM Phase Modulation
POSIX Portable Operating System Interface (IEEE Standard 1003.1)
PSL Pre-Stabilized Laser (detector subsystem)
PZT Piezo-electric Transducer (mechanical hardware)
RAID Removable Array of Independent Drives
RAM Random Access Memory
RC Radius of Curvature of a Reflective Mirror
RF Radio Frequency
RM Recycling Mirror
SAH Sensor Actuator Heads
SCSI Small Computer Standard Interface
SEI Seismic Isolation
SOS Small Optic Suspension
SRD Science Requirements Document
SRS Software Requirement Specification
SUP Support Equipment
SUS Suspension Subsystem (sometimes also Suspension assembly)
SYS Detector Systems Engineering
TBD To Be Determined (or To Be Done)
TCP Transport Control Protocol
TCS Thermal Compensation System
TGG Terbium-Gallium-Garnet (optical material used in Faraday Isolators)
TFP Thin Film Polarizer (optical hardware)
TNI Thermal Noise Interferometer (R&D/Test interferometer at LIGO/Caltech)
UDP User Datagram Protocol
UF University of Florida
VE Vacuum Equipment
VEA Vacuum Equipment Area
VME Versa Module Eurocard
WA Washington
WFS Wave Front Sensors
I am very grateful for your time. I was hoping to find some hint in the logs about project completion or failure. The list of acronyms did help to understand the context of the comments. It is already very insightful to know why are these logbooks there and how do researchers actually use them. Now I will be choosing an alternative research avenue but taking these insights with me. Thank you!