James Boyd is from southeastern Louisiana and moved to the Big Island in March, 2017. Currently, he is enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, pursuing a major in Computer Science and hopes to develop software after graduation. He has a particular interest in Python. Presently, James serves his community by picking up rubbish. Outside of his studies, James relaxes by visiting tide pools and playing fetch with his dog, Kyna.
Home Island: Big Island
Institution when accepted: University of Hawaii at Hilo
Akamai Project: Improving YTLee Array Data Storage and Visualization
Project Site: Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA)
Mentors: Ranjani Srinivasan, Geoff Bower
Project Abstract:
The Yuan-Tseh Lee Array (YTLA) is a radio interferometer, located on Mauna Loa, Hawaii. YTLA’s current project involves observations of carbon monoxide from the early universe. To ensure smooth operations, key parameters have to be recorded and archived. At the present, that data is stored in text files and a Redis datastore that resides in primary storage. Primary storage is less abundant than secondary storage, and there is a risk that the YTLA will collect more data than it has primary storage. Right now, there is no interactive user interface for visualizing this data. Visualizing data returned from user generated queries with graphs will expedite analysis and diagnostics. I created a decoupled Python application featuring MongoDB, another data storage solution that writes data directly to secondary storage and is easier to maintain than other databases. I also created a user-friendly interface to Plotly, a Python data visualization library. The future of this project is to use these newly created tools to monitor additional telescope metadata to further augment YTLA’s research capacity.