PATT ITAC Report for Semester 95A

The individual partner TAGs hold meetings in their respective countries prior to the PATT session to assess applications from their own country. At these meetings informal numbers of shifts are nominated for each application in a priority order. The Chairpersons of each TAG bring their respective lists to the PATT where the ITAC combine the awards, include discussion of the engineering and commissioning requirements and assess the international applications. The final allocations of shifts are made by the ITAC.

Applications to be considered

UK status			57

Canadian status			30

Netherlands status		19

International status		10

University of Hawaii		9

TOTAL:				125

It should be noted that if the PI on an application is a JCMT staff member based in Hilo, then the application is assessed by the appropriate national TAG. However, by Board rule, International status is given to any application where the only named collaborator from any partner country is such a JCMT staff member. International applications are assessed by the Chairpersons of the national TAGs at the ITAC meeting.

Time Available (in 16-hour nights)

No. of nights in semester 95A	     	181

Engineering and Commissioning 		29

University of Hawaii (10%)          	15

Director's discretionary use          	4

Available for PATT science:		133

Awards (in 16-hour nights)

UK status		69.5

Canadian status		31.5

Netherlands status	25.0

International status	7.0

University of Hawaii	15.0

TOTAL allocation:	148.0

For those not familiar with the JCMT Board formula, the total time requested is divided amongst the PI and collaborators. 50% of the time is awarded to the country paying the salary of the PI. The remaining 50% is divided equally over ALL investigators (including the PI).

Attribute by JCMT Board formula (in nights)

UK		48.0

Canada		27.0

Netherlands	22.0

International	36.0

A graph indicating the instrument distribution by semester since the beginning of JCMT operations is shown in Figure 1. The reduction in allocation of time for UKT14 is again due to reduced request as applicants await the arrival of SCUBA to continue their programmes.

Instrument distribution

UKT14		24%

RxA		27%

RxB		26%

RxC		14%

RxG		8%

Long-Term Status

Application L/M/94A/U19, approved for long-term status for three semesters, was given 3 shifts. This is the final award of time for this project.

Application L/M/95A/U22 was awarded long-term status for 2 semesters with 6 shifts in 95A and a further 6 shifts to be given in 95B.

Engineering & Commissioning

The engineering & commissioning time for 95A includes considerable work to improve the surface, measure receiver characterisations and efficiencies both of which were allocate time in 94B but were subsequently weathered out.

No time has been allocated for commissioning of SCUBA but 10 shifts have been set aside for RxB3. There are non-standard instrument configurations schedule for 95A (SBI, FTS & RxG2) which require set-up and calibration time.

Observatory Backup Programme

The Observatory Backup (M/94B/I09) continues to have long-term status for semester 95A for CO (2-1) and 13CO (2-1) mapping of the nominated sources and any others suggested to the ITAC as long as there is no conflict with future allocations.

All partners agreed to use this programme as a 'last resort' backup when the weather deteriorates sufficiently to prevent observers using their own allocated backup but not sufficiently to justify closing the observatory.

This programme terminates in semester 95A and must be resubmitted for future semesters.

Service time

Allocations for this semester are:

CDN = 8 shifts allocated;

NL = 3 shifts allocated;

UK = 8.25 shifts allocated

Changes to Semester Numbering

By the new convention, semesters that run from February through July are designated as 'A' and those running from August through January as 'B'. These are to be preceded by the last two digits from the year. Applications for the forth-coming semester should refer to semester 95B.

Redesign of the JCMT Application form

A new design of application for observing time form, more appropriate for the JCMT and which can be common to the partner countries, has been devised and approved by the PATT. The form consists of a single double-sided page of questions to which extra pages for scientific case, technical breakdown, etc. can be attached. Questions specific to a particular country have been allocated their own layout on a separate page. A copy of the new form is included within this Newsletter and intending applicants may photocopy the pages and complete them for submission through the usual route. E- mail versions of the form are available on the World Wide Web JCMT home page and via the JCMT_INFO fileserver system.

I would like to thank Jacques Vallée and Gerald Moriarty- Schieven for their able assistance with this new layout.

International Applications on the JCMT

There has been some concern that those applications that do not contain a member of the partner consortium and are thus deemed as 'International' have not been receiving equal treatment through the PATT allocation committees.

Prior to the split into national TAGs the division of applications was made on the basis of the nationality of only the PI. Since the split only those applications with no collaborators from the partner countries are treated as 'International'. Thus the number has decreased. Although the allocation procedures have been modified the statistics show that there has been NO significant decrease in the time awarded to International proposals (see Figure 2), which has remained between 15% and 20% by JCMT Board formula and only slightly lower if the original method of accounting by PI is used.

National TAGs are not allocating their full quota of shifts and ITAC members are coming to the PATT meeting with 'reserve' allocations to fill the gaps if any are left after the International allocations have been made.

The success rate of International applications for semester 95A was about the same as for the various national applications at 40%.

Figures