Minutes of the Steering Board Meeting of 13 October 2006

Creator: M. Verderi, (23 Oct 2006)

Last revision: J. Apostolakis (31 Jan 2006, 17:30 CET)

1) December release:

· Decision:

o The December release is agreed to be a minor release: 8.2.

· Reported developments:

The parallel navigation introduced in the release is proposed not to be the default behavior for this time, but an option. It is expected to become the default in a following release. Open issues remain regarding the parallel navigation are related mainly to the multiple scattering process which makes significant use of the navigator for tracking, especially to obtain an accurate safety. A new class will enable it to obtain a valid safety for the post-step point, in which it can propose a move, taking into account all the geometries.

· Issues raised:

· Physics lists:

o Testing of physics lists provided with the toolkit must be undertaken for release 8.2.

· Action item 1 (Physics list task force, examples coordinators): Clarify who has the responsibility for undertaking and reporting on testing, timing studies for physics list ‘engines’ provided in the toolkit.

· Track at rest:

o A problem has been reported with some tracks which come to a rest.

· Action item 2 (T. Sasaki, M. Asai): Clarify and document what part of G4 has the responsibility to kill tracks that come to a rest? This responsibility was moved from tracking to processes.

· Interface changes (collated in preparation for release 8.2):

o EM: plan to remove references in physics list builder-components to older versions of processes (including multiple scattering). The processes will be kept until a future release.

o Interface changes are being prepared in hadronic cross-sections, which are not to be visible to users.

o Current methods to create a ghost geometry construction will be replaced and deprecated (kept in release 8.2), and will not be avalable in the next release.

· System test:

o The system test team reports that many tests appear neglected, and suffer from a lack of revision.

o The level of coverage of the system tests was questioned, and the appropriateness of some tests. An example was given: a problem in a Lorentz transformation which could not be detected by the current category-level or system integration tests.

o Can coverage of physics be improved by using existing programs ? Consider including, for example, part of Tatsumi’s test suite contribute.

o Vladimir Ivanchenko reported that for release 8.1 all EM processes were exercised in EM testing.

· Action item 3 (physics coordinators): Verify that all processes are tested in category-level and in system-integration testing.

It was clear that the effort to maintain and improve system tests must shared with the relevant working groups.

o Action item 3: Category coordinators are asked to review and revise the system tests relevant to their areas, assessing whether they are up to date, whether they test all relevant models and key functionalities.

· CLHEP:

o The difficulties in installing Geant4, arising from the installation of the underlying CLHEP package was noted. These installation complications have been reported extensively by many users in diverse user communities. This could potentially be solved by including part of CLHEP in Geant4 installations and providing this as an installation option. Investigating and potentially developing such an option for the upcoming (December 2006) release was judged not to be possible due to the short timescale.

2) Completing the TSB->SB transition:

o Decision:

The new SB chair elections will not happen during the release phase.

o About next SB mandate:

A better communication with Geant4 members and people joining the technical forum has been identified as one of the goal of the incoming SB.

o SB chair election:

SB will nominate the candidates and the collaboration membership will elect. A team with mandate to propose the election rules will be formed. Joseph Perl volunteered to contribute.

The Geant4 membership is to be confirmed in time for the start of the election.

- Action item 4: WG coordinators are to update the current list of contributors in their group.

3) Report from OB meeting (J.Apostolakis):

An Oversight Board (OB) meeting took place at the workshop on Thursday, October 11th. Petteri Nieminen (ESA) chaired. The OB membership is now available at the OB site . J. Apostolakis reported to the OB about the June release and subsequent patch, the license issue and relayed a summary of Geant4-relevant developments from the Hadronic Shower Simulation Workshop 2006 at Fermilab. The OB underlined the need to treat with great case license issues, especially for question regarding potentially sensitive applications.

The main OB item was to start preparations for the next Geant4 review. The review is to focus on physics, usability and CPU performances. The OB foresaw providing time for the reviewers to interact with the Geant4 collaboration before the review, to provide the opportunity for information flow and to address questions and open issues. The duration of this interaction is expected to be about 2 months. The review meeting will take place between March and June 2007.

4) AOB

Makoto suggested that an educational application HyperNews thread be created. Hajime would be in charge of it.