BigSkyEarth is organizing a Working Group meeting in Kamchia, Bulgaria, on October 12 & 13, 2017. The meeting’s main focus will be the work on joint projects and books and online repository. The meeting is hosted by the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics of the Bulgarian Academy of Science.

The meeting agenda and program

The meeting aims and facilitating joint research efforts and work on a book and online repository of training codes and learning material. The working title is “Big Data in Astro-Geo-Informatics: Knowledge Discovery in Earth and Sky Observations“

After the last meeting in Prague many issues about this effort remained open:

• How to balance teaching material and exercises with purely research topics
• How to organize an open call for chapter contributions.
• How to organize the repository published on www.zenodo.org.

The current suggestions for the book chapters are:

• Preparation/pre-processing/handling of Big Data (what to be aware of, columns-vs-rows-vs- unstructured, binning and re-binning, missing values, etc.)
• De-nosing and feature extraction
• Feature analysis, simplification and synthesis
• Simulations of stochastic processes
• Matching data of different structures
• Machine learning
• Visualization
• Data processing architectures and database structures
• GPGPU implementation
• Applied statistics and modelling in astronomy
• Ionospheric studies (relevant in astronomy, planetary science, remote sensing, aeronomy, geophyiscs)
• Operational meteorology, neutral atmosphere, and climate
• Optimization of databases for faster access in geo-astro Big Data applications
• Introduction on Big Data in astronomy and geoscience + examples of codes that enable access to these data
• Programming methods for efficient ways to utilize databases.
• Visualization – form general theory to repository examples of Big Data visualization.
• “New Challenges”: problems in astro-geo that still need to be solved with the machine learning techniques.

At the Prague meeting we selected the main editors, but it remains to be decided who will be the editors of individual chapters.

Meeting reimbursements

BigSkyEarth will reimburse the costs of travel and accommodation to the majority of meeting participants. See below the registration form and the reimbursement eligibility rules.

Meeting venue

The meeting will be held at the Sanatorium and Health Complex Resort “Kamchia”. Kamchia is an unique new facility, which combines a Seaside Resort, a Wellness Center, Children’s Camp, High School, a Palace for Children’s Creative work, Sports and Rehabilitation Center.  The Complex is situated among a preserved nature – clean sea beach, river, forest, neighboring of a Natural Reserve protected by UNESCO.

All buildings are new (2013), situated in an oak forest, a handsome park with botanical zones, eco-trails, summerhouses, places for campfires, zones for relax, sports and entertainment are
carefully maintained. Part of the Complex is the Educational and Teaching Center (School) “Yourii Gagarin”. The Center includes a school with 18 cabinets, teaching and acts hall, sports hall, music hall, dancing hall, exhibition hall, children’s media center, press center, Aerospace center with Planetarium, Observatory, Interactive simulator of the “SOJUZ-TMA” space capsule, Space Museum and other.

Travel and accommodation

The participants will stay at the Hotel Complex Longoz within the Resort Complex Kamchia. The rooms will be reserved directly by the meeting host and participants who register for the meeting (see the form below) do not need to reserve a room prior to the arrival.

However, the participants will need to pay for the accommodation and will be reimbursed after the meeting. The expected price will be below 100EUR/night and depends on the final number of participants.

The local airport is in the city of Varna, but it takes some driving to reach the venue. Therefore, the hotel will organize a pick up service from the airport and for that we will need to know your arrival times (this will be communicated via email). In the worst case there is a taxi service, but it might cost 30EUR or more.

Registration and reimbursement rules

Please register below in case you plan to participate at the WG meeting. Further details about the meeting preparations will be distributed to those who register. Notice that you can also use this form to submit your suggestions for book content even if you will not attend the meeting in person.

BigSkyEarth COST Action will offer reimbursements to participants who will actively contribute to the meeting agenda. Indicate in the registration form that you want to be considered for reimbursement.

NOTE: reimbursements are possible only to invited speakers and to participants coming from institutions in BigSkyEarth member countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, fYR Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, United Kingdom. Members of the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory from Armenia are also eligible for grants.