Overview
HELPMI is an acronym for “HElmholtz Laser Plasma Metadata Initiative”.
At most laser-plasma research laboratories, data and metadata are heterogeneous and complex. They originate from several distinct sources, occur at various levels and at different times over an experimental campaign. Some metadata like project names and proposal IDs appear quite early, exact time stamps of data or acquisition parameters of diagnostics come just along with the experiment. Similarly, data can originate as early from target pre-characterization, during experiment setup and diagnostic calibration runs or ultimately from actual laser shots. Configuration and status of deployed diagnostics and therefore the experimental arrangement is often changed during a campaign.
This is a challenge for the F.A.I.R. principles of data, in particular for metadata enrichment (combination of actual data with metadata) and the use of standaradize data and metadata schemas to allow for the I. in F.A.I.R. , the interoperability.
The HELPMI project wants to accomplish:
Start the development of a data standard for experimental data from laser-plasma / particle acceleration (LPA) experiments
Adopt the NeXus standard for LPA and extend the openPMD standard for custom hierarchies
Start a glossary and an ontology for LPA experiments
The HELPMI project runs from 2023 to 2025 and can only serve as a starting point. A data standard must be driven by the community who is using it.
Members
HELPMI is made up by scientists from GSI, HI-Jena and HZDR .
HI-Jena
GSI
While the project partners are members of the Helmholtz Association, it’s by no means limited to it! We have a number of project observers to provide us guidance from a community point-of-view.
We have an open mindset and will release any outcomes as open material. Any scholarly publications, documentation and training materials will be provided open access.
Get in touch!
We see our project as an initiative for a global and inter-disciplinary, community-wide effort to develop a data standard for LPA experiments and possibly for LPA science at all. We would therefore like to encourage discussion and collaboration around HELPMI and appreciate any feedback you may have on the HELPMI project itself or any of its outputs.
Getting in touch
✉ You can always write the HELPMI team an email at helpmi@hzdr.de.
If what you would like to talk about is easier to do in a video call, you are invited to join our weekly project meetings. These take place regularly on Thursdays, at 11:00 CET/CEST (check to see what this is in your timezone).
If you want to join us, please let us know via email first, so we can share details on how to join, etc. We will also try to find a date and time that suits you, if you cannot make the regular time at all.
Providing feedback
We collect feedback on the HELPMI project in its open project repositories on GitHub. You can create an issue there or simply write us an email at helpmi@hzdr.de.
Acknowledgements
This project (ZT-I-PF-3-066) was funded by the Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association in the framework of the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration’s 2022 project call.