a. ITER Organization, CS 90 046, 13067 St. Paul lez Durance Cedex, France
b Tessella plc, 26 The Quadrant, Abingdon Science Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 3YS, UK
c projectglobe.com, 108 Totteridge House, 15 Yelverton Road, London SW11 3QH, UK

The ITER Organization, in common with many other fusion laboratories, has an authenticated-access website devoted to the communication of information to all its staff and remote collaborators. In 2007 and 2008, the number of registered users of this site increased by more than a factor of ten, to over 3000 at present, and with approximately 900 unique users using the website per month. In parallel, the project management of the organisation has been put in place.

A decision was taken to move the web platform from simple HTML to Microsoft SharePoint [1] and to web-enable the many applications and databases used for ITER management. This decision has been well justified by the power and extensive flexibility provided by SharePoint, for example it permits different groups to publish their own information and to collaborate, and to consolidate disparate spreadsheet data in linked SharePoint lists to improve quality and maintainability.

This paper examines the use of SharePoint at ITER: why it was selected and what benefits it brings to both the local and remote ITER community. Some active case studies are presented. The paper also looks ahead at what future benefits to ITER this platform offers, and reviews the type of information that the site can profitably publish.

The paper also highlights some of the limitations of the platform, the problems of integration with other ITER systems, and discusses its potential for adaptability in other scientific organisations.

© 2010 ITER Organization. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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Oxford, UK |December 9, 2010. Tessella, the international provider of science powered technology and consulting services is pleased to announce that the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) has chosen to use Mantid software developed for the ISIS neutron source at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) by Tessella. Mantid (Manipulation and Analysis for ISIS Data) is an open source project for data reduction and analysis of neutron scattering experiments. ORNL and RAL have reached an agreement on the resources they will each commit to the ongoing development and deployment of Mantid, and both will be using Tessella to provide some of that effort.

Mark Hagen, Scientific Data Analysis Group Leader for Neutron Scattering Science Division at ORNL commented: “We are very excited by the opportunity, provided by this international collaboration between facilities, to develop powerful new data reduction, and analysis software to benefit neutron scattering researchers.”

Hagen added: “The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), and High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), facilities at ORNL provide scientists, from both the US and internationally, with the most intense beams for neutron scattering research. As such these facilities generate large amounts of data, for a wide range of scientific fields, and there is therefore a wide diversity of data reduction and analysis requirements.”

Mantid was originally developed by a team of Tessella scientists at the ISIS pulsed neutron and muon source in Oxfordshire. It is an extensible, open source framework independent of instrument or analysis technique, built to professional standards of software development, and has a proven track record of flexibility, extensibility and maintainability.

Grant Stephen, CEO at Tessella Inc. said: “We are delighted that ORNL has chosen to join the Mantid collaboration with ISIS and Tessella to work with them on the Spallation Neutron Source.”

Stephen added “Tessella’s unique and unparalleled blend of scientific and software development expertise, combined with our experience from the original development of Mantid, means that Tessella can provide software engineers who can understand the scientific research requirements at SNS and have a detailed knowledge of the existing Mantid framework required to extend and apply it.”

Tessella will be providing a team of software engineers with physics backgrounds working at a combination of ORNL in Tennessee and Tessella’s Boston office. Contractual responsibility for direction of the software engineers lies with ORNL’s Mark Hagan.

-Ends –

Notes to the editor

About Tessella
Founded in 1980, Tessella is the international provider of science powered technology and consulting services. World leading organizations choose our unique blend of science, engineering and sector expertise to deliver innovative and cost-effective solutions to complex real-world commercial and technical challenges. Our people are high achievers from leading universities and are passionate about delivering value to clients. We are proud that our work makes the world a better place to live in: developing smarter drug trials; preserving the digital heritage of nations across the globe; minimizing risk in oil and gas exploration; controlling the orbit and attitude of satellites; researching fusion energy.

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Robert McGreevy will draw on his extensive experience at the STFC ISIS Facility, and explain how these issues are being addressed for the benefit of research science globally. Nicholas Draper, consultant at Tessella, will then expand on this, using the example of the Mantid project at ISIS.

The JET Intershot Analysis (Chain1) generates processed data following a pulse. Maintaining the pulse repetition rate is one of JET’s key success factors, so performance of Chain1 is crucial. This paper will describe JET’s experience of managing Chain1, including a description of the control system used to ensure the analysis chain runs as quickly as possible, and a discussion of JET’s experience of integrating externally developed codes into a standard analysis framework.

The current Chain1 infrastructure was developed in 1999 and although reliable and efficient is starting to prove costly in terms of flexibility and extensibility to meet JET’s current and future needs. For this reason JET is planning to re-implement the Chain1 system. The paper will outline the work done towards this aim, and present a model of the proposed new system. Finally, possible future steps towards an integrated data production chain for JET will be discussed, and the potential applicability to next generation fusion devices will be outlined. Read more.

©Copyright 2010

Tessella’s work will showcased in three separate presentations

• “Development of Generic AOCS Unit Simulation Models”, presented by Matt Pigg of Tessella, and describing an ongoing project being carried out for ESA by a consortium led by Tessella, including Thales Alenia Space and EADS Astrium.
• “Definition and Sizing of AOCS for NEOMEx Nano-Satellites”, which will be presented by Bill Johnson of SEA Group, covering work done by SEA, Tessella, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. and ESA.
• “Human Location Tracking Systems using Low Cost Inertial Sensors”, a poster showing how spacecraft GNC technology can be applied to provide accurate location information in daily life.

Dave Whittle and Matt Pigg from Tessella will be attending the conference, and look forward to meeting many members of the guidance, navigation and control community.

To find out more about the conference visit http://www.congrex.nl/11a01/

Tessella and Physics World free webinar on the current state of scientific research software available on demand

In the 60 years since the invention of the digital computer, millions of lines of code have been developed to support scientific research. Although an increasingly important part of almost all research projects, most research software is barely fit for purpose compared to equivalent systems in the commercial world. The code is hard to understand or maintain, lacking documentation and version control, and is continually ‘re-invented’ as the code writers move on to new jobs. This represents a tremendous waste of the already inadequate resources that are put into its development. We will investigate how this situation has come about, why it is important to the future of research, and what can be done about it.

Robert McGreevy will draw on his extensive experience at the STFC ISIS Facility, and explain how these issues are being addressed for the benefit of research science globally. Nicholas Draper, consultant at Tessella, will then expand on this, using the example of the Mantid project at ISIS.

To listen to the on demand version of this free webinar click here

Tessella and Physics World are holding a free webinar on the current state of scientific research software.

In the 60 years since the invention of the digital computer, millions of lines of code have been developed to support scientific research. Although an increasingly important part of almost all research projects, most research software is barely fit for purpose compared to equivalent systems in the commercial world. The code is hard to understand or maintain, lacking documentation and version control, and is continually ‘re-invented’ as the code writers move on to new jobs. This represents a tremendous waste of the already inadequate resources that are put into its development. We will investigate how this situation has come about, why it is important to the future of research, and what can be done about it.

Robert McGreevy will draw on his extensive experience at the STFC ISIS Facility, and explain how these issues are being addressed for the benefit of research science globally. Nicholas Draper, consultant at Tessella, will then expand on this, using the example of the Mantid project at ISIS.

To register for this free webinar click here