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CASPER 2013 Annual Meeting: 2nd-6th September 2013

Jodrell Bank Control Room

The 2013 Annual Meeting for CASPER (Collaboration for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronics Research) will be held at Jodrell Bank Observatory, the radio astronomy facility of The University of Manchester.

This year's workshop of CASPER (Collaboration for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronics Research) will be held at Jodrell Bank Observatory and the Discovery Centre, Cheshire in the United Kingdom from 2nd to 6th September 2013. Typically attended by about 100 international astronomy digital signal processing experts, the annual meeting of the global collaboration traditionally includes a review of the past year's accomplishments, future plans for development of new instruments and tools, a review of the latest global trends, and hands-on training for old hands and new recruits alike. The mission of CASPER is to streamline, simplify, and thereby accelerate the design of astronomy instrumentation by promoting design reuse through the development of platform-independent, open-source hardware and software.

Historically CASPER DSP hardware has been FPGA-based, but in the recent years, CASPER has explored other options also, such as GPU computing, fast multi-core CPUs, and heterogenous computing that exploits the best of FPGAs and these new techniques. As a result, the annual CASPER workshops have become an excellent forum for fruitful exchange of ideas as well as for learning about the various techniques.

This year's CASPER workshop will be hosted by the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics of the University of Manchester and will be held at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, home of the Lovell and eMerlin telescopes. Located about 20 miles south of Manchester. We look forward to an enthusiastic participation from members and supporters of the CASPER community, including newcomers wishing to join.

Note also there will be a couple of concerts at Jodrell on the weekend before the workshop, have a look at the following website (Live From Jodrell Bank ) for more information if you are interested. A new concert has now been added for the weekend. It is a "proms" concert by the famous Halle orchestra, more details here.

The Scientific Organising Committee for this meeting are: Ben Stappers, Dan Werthimer, Matthew Bailes, Lincoln Greenhill, Yashwant Gupta, Francois Kapp, Jason Manley, John Ford.

The Local Organising Committee are: Ben Stappers, Monika Obrocka, Pat Stanway, Ant Holloway and Christine Jordan.

We are grateful to the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, and the School of Physics and Astronomy for sponsoring this meeting.

Abstract Submission

We are now happy to accept submission of titles and abstracts for talks and posters. All submissions for talks will be considered, however due to the relatively limited time available for talks it may be that you will be offered a poster spot instead. Please submit your abstracts for talks and posters before July 31st.

Abstract Submission

Programme

The full programme will be finalised once all the talks have been decided. However we already have an exciting list of invited speakers and will be adding more in the next couple of weeks.

Phil Diamond --- The Square Kilometre Array
Wallace Turner --- Signal Processing Challenges of the SKA
Roshene McCool --- Data Transport Challenges of the SKA
NVIDIA Representative --- The view from NVIDIA
XILINX Representative --- The view from XILINX
Justin Kasper --- Solar Physics and Low Frequency Radio Astronomy
Dan Thornton --- Searching for Extragalactic Fast Radio Bursts

We also have Jocelyn Bell-Burnell giving us an evening lecture on Wednesday 4th September on the discovery of pulsars and the associated technology.

Registration

The registration deadline has been extended to 21st July 2013

Registration for the meeting is now open here . Please register before the 21st July 2013 so that we can organise the necessary catering and transport in time. The registration cost is £160.00 and this includes, lunches on all days, a conference BBQ dinner and transport to and from the recommended hotel (see below). There is a reduced registration cost of £110.00 for students or those on limited travel funds, please only pay this amount if you are on a restricted budget, we also ask that you email Ben Stappers with details if you do pay the reduced fee.

Travel Assistance

We have some funds available to assist with travel. If you would like to request a contribution to your travel or accommodation costs please email Pat Stanway at the address above with details of your the funds you require and a short description of why you request the assistance. Please do not pay the registration fee until you know that you have the funds to travel. If you can please submit all requests for travel assistance by June 26th so that they can be considered in time for the registration deadline.

Visas

If you need an invitation letter to obtain a Visa to enter the UK please get in touch with Pat Stanway (pat (at) jb dot man dot ac dot uk)

Accomodation and Directions

The meeting is taking place at Jodrell Bank Observatory, located 20 miles south of Manchester.

We recommend that you stay at the Travelodge Macclesfield Central. It is a good hotel at a very reasonable price if you book sufficiently far in advance. We suggest that if you are on a budget and are willing to share a room that you organise to get a twin room. The hotel is located right next to the train station in Macclesfield giving ease of access to Manchester if required. We will be arranging for transport to and from the Hotel each day to Jodrell Bank. You are more than welcome to stay at other hotels or B&B's in the area, but you will either need to find your own transport to Jodrell or to the Travelodge to meet the bus.

By Airplane

The closest airport is Manchester International Airport.

By Train

Transport to the hotel by train can best be arranged by using the National Rail Enquiries website.

By Taxi

If you wish to take a taxi from the airport, then we recommend using Arrow Cars rather than a black cab as they are considerably cheaper. You can find the Arrow Car desk inside the terminals at the airport or you can book them online.