NPPS Leadership Team

[Torre Wenaus <wenaus AT gmail.com>]

Hi Gene,

I think we're basically on the same page. I can't and won't force STAR to use Dmitri for production. But at a minimum the fact that STAR doesn't want him to do that should be part of the documented case of inadequate performance. And stronger documentation would be asking him to do it and documenting the response or result, obviously done in such a way so as not to actually imperil STAR production. I'm glad STAR is thinking of alternate scenarios. My real point is that I don't see that NPPS has an alternative to offer, and the fact that what we can offer is not acceptable to STAR should be documented and not just resignedly accepted.

Apart from the STAR situation, I'd say the NPPS model has worked well. But then I would say that, wouldn't I ;-)

  Torre

On Tue, Jun 7, 2022 at 11:18 AM Van Buren, Gene <gene AT bnl.gov> wrote:

Thanks for your reply, Torre. I have replied in-line below...

On Jun 7, 2022, at 12:10 PM, Torre Wenaus <wenaus AT gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Gene,

I'm glad to hear that you see ways for Dmitri to be useful to STAR in forward reco. STAR switched off his tracking work some time ago. Switching it on again is fine by me. 

I agree on Victor, Victor has enough self-awareness that he sees it himself also. I expect Lijuan will not want to continue that effort into FY23, and it is at her discretion since Victor's a post-retirement consultant now.

> The argument that STAR is paying for Dmitri isn't sufficient to force the shoe to fit, and hasn't been an argument by which NPPS has strictly chosen course in the past.

I completely disagree with this. The whole story of establishing effort for sPHENIX, since the creation of NPPS, imposed by the department, has been trying to force ill-fitting sPHENIX shoes onto a roster of a priori imposed STAR people.

That has indeed been a difficulty with the NPPS concept from the start. I recall spending an hour with you on the phone before NPPS began where we talked about herding cats.

STAR may not like the shoe being on the other foot this time,

I'll make two points:

1) You have made the point numerous times that the strategy for NPPS is to be somewhat loose with peoples' time so they can work on other projects; we certainly haven't been strict about keeping their time to within 10% of their funding allocation. Even now, all I see from Jason is week after week of sPHENIX work.

2) NPPS has adapted to funded, but problematic work mismatch in the past. Amol was hired and paid in part by PHENIX. It was not a good match, and NPPS accepted this (did not force it to continue) and an alternate strategy was found for Amol where his performance was not problematic. 

but I don't see strong arguments to do otherwise (and I have not heard an alternative scenario).

I have been further discussing alternatives within STAR, as I noted on Friday that I would, before bringing them here. Lijuan may alternatively bring a scenario to you tomorrow before I do.

As you have said, STAR prod is turning the crank on a stable established system. You covered the need with 20% of Amol's time while he was in India and it was, as I understood, a heavy production time for you.

I did some of Amol's work while he was away (25% was not sufficient). I am doing some today as well (if I can stop writing emails ;-) . But it should not remain on my plate.

Dmitri is entirely capable of doing it. If he refuses or does it poorly making himself a nuisance to you, it is one more case of a series of performance issues that we need to deal with.

The STAR Collaboration may have to deal with it too. I'm trying to be proactive on that point.

Thanks,

-Gene

  Torre

On Tue, Jun 7, 2022 at 9:55 AM Van Buren, Gene <gene AT bnl.gov> wrote:

Hi, Torre

I'm not interested in waiting until after the fact (with possible impact on a ubiquitous aspect of delivering physics in STAR) with Dmitri Smirnov by dealing with the mismatch in a performance evaluation. I am being proactive by saying "no", and that is based on past performance / experience in working with him on multiple projects, so it isn't an arbitrary move to refuse this. 

If Dmitri has available time to work on STAR (he seemed to imply that his "infrastructure" work was taking all of his allocated STAR time to date), I stated more than once that STAR's forward reconstruction (tracking and vertex-finding) would benefit from Dmitri's effort, and that hasn't changed in my view as that remains undelivered and unattended by NPPS, and Dmitri has past experience with both tracking and vertex-finding. If someone in STAR has objected to this assignment (not impossible that I missed something), I haven't heard it.

There also remains considerable work to do on the transition to ROOT 6, on which Dmitri could certainly spend more time and on which he has shown some interest in the past. I am not holding my breath for Victor to deliver (his "just 2 more months" has been a recurring message for the past 6 or 7 years unfortunately), so if there's conflict between them, I would give Dmitri the green light.

While I certainly agree that STAR's NP funds from Amol should be spent on someone doing STAR production work, we need to find a better match than Dmitri. The argument that STAR is paying for Dmitri isn't sufficient to force the shoe to fit, and hasn't been an argument by which NPPS has strictly chosen course in the past.

Thanks,

-Gene

On Jun 7, 2022, at 11:26 AM, Torre Wenaus via Phys-npps-mgmt-l <Phys-npps-mgmt-l AT lists.bnl.gov> wrote:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RwX3xS6Aafnh6KQHL-F27Xx1fztqCqfADLl-EZKVwms/edit#gid=0

On Tue, Jun 7, 2022 at 9:25 AM Torre Wenaus <wenaus AT gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

I've been adding to the planning sheet, in particular NP effort under discussion. Please review.

The short of my proposals discussed with Chris and Hong (I talk to Lijuan tomorrow)...

- liberated Amol funds are used to support Xin at 30% and HEP distributed computing effort helping sPHENIX (probably a few 10-15%'s of people)

- Smirnov works on STAR production. He's the available effort. If it doesn't work well, we address it in performance eval.

- sPHENIX is eager to have as much as possible of Jason, as soon as possible, while keeping compatible with his geant4star responsibilities.

   Torre

-- 

-- Torre Wenaus, BNL NPPS Group, ATLAS Experiment

-- BNL 510A 1-222 | 631-681-7892 |  wenaus AT gmail.com | npps.bnl.gov | wenaus.com

-- NPPS Mattermost room: https://chat.sdcc.bnl.gov/npps/channels/town-square

-- 

-- Torre Wenaus, BNL NPPS Group, ATLAS Experiment

-- BNL 510A 1-222 | 631-681-7892 |  wenaus AT gmail.com | npps.bnl.gov | wenaus.com

-- NPPS Mattermost room: https://chat.sdcc.bnl.gov/npps/channels/town-square

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--

-- Torre Wenaus, BNL NPPS Group, ATLAS Experiment

-- BNL 510A 1-222 | 631-681-7892 |  wenaus AT gmail.com | npps.bnl.gov | wenaus.com

-- NPPS Mattermost room: https://chat.sdcc.bnl.gov/npps/channels/town-square

--

-- Torre Wenaus, BNL NPPS Group, ATLAS Experiment

-- BNL 510A 1-222 | 631-681-7892 |  wenaus AT gmail.com | npps.bnl.gov | wenaus.com

-- NPPS Mattermost room: https://chat.sdcc.bnl.gov/npps/channels/town-square