Data Preservation at LEP

The four LEP experiments ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL successfully recorded e+e- collision data during the years 1989 to 2000. As part of the ordinary evolution in High Energy Physics, these experiments can not be repeated and their data is therefore unique. This article briefly reviews the data preservation efforts undertaken by the four experiments beyond the end of data taking. The current status of the preserved data and associated tools is summarised.Comment: 7 pages, contribution to proceedings of the "First Workshop on Data Preservation and Long Term Analysis in HEP

The case for preserving our knowledge and data in physics experiments

This proceeding covers tools and technologies at our disposal for scientific data preservation and shows that this extends the scientific reach of our experiments. It is cost-efficient to warehouse data from completed experiments on the tape archives of our national and international laboratories. These subject-specific data stores also offer the technologies to capture and archive knowledge about experiments in the form of technical notes, electronic logs, websites, etc. Furthermore, it is possible to archive our source code and computing environments. The paper illustrates these challenges with experience from preserving the LEP data for the long term.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Data Preservation in High Energy Physics - why, how and when?

Long-term preservation of data and software of large experiments and detectors in high energy physics is of utmost importance to secure the heritage of (mostly unique) data and to allow advanced physics (re-)analyses at later times. Summarising the work of an international study group, motivation, use cases and technical details are given for an organised effort to secure and enable future use of past, present and future experimental data. As a practical use case and motivation, the revival of JADE data and the corresponding latest results on measuring $\alpha_s$ in NNLO QCD are reviewed.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; presentation given at the QCD10, Montpellier, France, June 201

Status Report of the DPHEP Study Group: Towards a Global Effort for Sustainable Data Preservation in High Energy Physics

Data from high-energy physics (HEP) experiments are collected with significant financial and human effort and are mostly unique. An inter-experimental study group on HEP data preservation and long-term analysis was convened as a panel of the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA). The group was formed by large collider-based experiments and investigated the technical and organisational aspects of HEP data preservation. An intermediate report was released in November 2009 addressing the general issues of data preservation in HEP. This paper includes and extends the intermediate report. It provides an analysis of the research case for data preservation and a detailed description of the various projects at experiment, laboratory and international levels. In addition, the paper provides a concrete proposal for an international organisation in charge of the data management and policies in high-energy physics

DPHEP: From Study Group to Collaboration

The international study group on data preservation in high energy physics, DPHEP, achieved a milestone in 2012 with the publication of its eagerly anticipated large scale report, which contains a description of data preservation activities from all major high energy physics collider-based experiments and laboratories. DPHEP will evolve to a new collaboration structure in 2013. The formation of the study group is described, as well as some of the key messages from the report focussing on the physics case for the preservation of high energy physics data and a description of the different preservation models. Finally, the future working directions of the new collaboration are outlined.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Proceedings of a parallel talk given at EPS-HEP 2013, July, Stockholm as well as at DIS 2013, April, Marseille

Four Decades of Computing in Subnuclear Physics - from Bubble Chamber to LHC

This manuscript addresses selected aspects of computing for the reconstruction and simulation of particle interactions in subnuclear physics. Based on personal experience with experiments at DESY and at CERN, I cover the evolution of computing hardware and software from the era of track chambers where interactions were recorded on photographic film up to the LHC experiments with their multi-million electronic channels

Living in Isolation: How language barriers shut immigrant New Yorkers out of critical City housing service

This report confirms that linguistically isolated households ii need greater access to housing services. Yet, these New Yorkers are limited in their ability to access city housing services because of language and cultural barriers. Our data also indicate that linguistically isolated New Yorkers have benefited far less from improved housing-complaint-collection processes than other New Yorkers. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) -- the city agency that works to ensure that tenants live in safe and healthy housing -- has taken some steps to address these barriers. Our data suggest, however, that more needs to be done to improve access to housing services for linguistically isolated New Yorkers