The K Desktop Environment

3.4. The Completed Work Units tab

Completed Work Units tab, WU list.

Here you will find all the work units you have processed before sorted with respect to the location. In order to view the logged work units for a specific location, you just have to select the SETI@home location in the tree view at the left (if the tree view is in a collapsed state, double-click on "SETI Locations"). At the right side, you will then find the corresponding list. The following details are provided:

Date Logged. The date and time the work unit was logged. This is taken from the result.sah file.

Name of Work Unit. Pretty much self-explaining.

CPU Time. Amount of time the work unit took to complete.

% per CPU Hour. The rate at which the client has processed the work unit in one hour of CPU time.

Spike. The highest spike found in the work unit.

Strongest Gaussian. The strongest Gaussian with respect to its score value found in the work unit.

Strongest Pulse. The strongest pulse with respect to its score value found in the work unit.

Strongest Triplet. The strongest triplet with respect to its score value found in the work unit.

Recorded On. Date and time the work unit was recorded.

Base Frequency. The base frequency of the work unit.

Angle Range. Depending on the slew rate of the telescope, each work unit has a unique angle range of sky coverage. The client determines on the basis of this value how much work is to be done with the corresponding WU.

TeraFlops. The amount of floating point operations required to process the work unit (given in TeraFlops = 10^12 Flops). The calculation of this value is based on the research done by Roelof Engelbrecht and Lawrence Kirby.

Completed Work Units tab, loc summary list.

Clicking on "SETI Locations" in the tree view gives you a summary list of all SETI@home locations. Here you will get the following information:

Work Units. The number of work units processed by the SETI@home location.

Total CPU Time. The total CPU time consumed by the SETI@home location.

Average CPU Time. The average CPU time to complete a work unit for the SETI@home location.

Record Spike. The record spike for the SETI@home location.

Record Gaussian. The record Gaussian for the SETI@home location.

Record Pulse. The record pulse for the SETI@home location.

Record Triplet. The record triplet for the SETI@home location.

Clicking on "Returned Signals" in the tree view provides some statistics about how many interesting signals have been found and returned to the SETI@home server. By selecting a specific location below the "Returned Signals" entry, you can examine how many and which kind of signals have been found in each work unit.

Completed Work Units tab, signal summary list.

Completed Work Units tab, signal list.

Both the tree view at the left and the list of work units have a right-click popup menu with a few extra functions. Selecting a location in the tree view with a right-mouse-button click and choosing Show on Skymap opens the skymap window with all completed work units of the respective location. Doing the same with "SETI Locations" all logged work units will be displayed on the skymap. Alternatively, choosing Reload Locations updates all entries in the "Completed Work Unit" tab. This may be useful if you think that the displayed list is not up-to-date.

Selecting a work unit in the list of completed work units and choosing Show on Skymap opens the skymap window only with the highlighted work unit. If you leave the skymap window open and repeat the same thing with other entries, these work units will just be added to the skymap (without deleting the old from the skymap). This way you can build a customized view of your favorite work units.

Selecting the Show Logged Signals popup menu item opens a dialog window which presents more details about all the signals that have been returned to the SETI@home server. More details can be found in the following section, Section 3.4.1.

3.4.1. The Logged Signals Dialog

This window allows you to browse through all the signals that have been logged by Ksetiwatch and returned to the SETI@home server. The window basically consists of a tab widget, with each tab showing details about the four different types of signals.

1. Spikes. Logged spike data is presented in a list view with the following columns:

  • Power: The power of the spike in absolute values.

  • Resolution: The frequency resolution of the FFT-generated data set, in which the spike was found.

  • Signal Ratio: By the nature of the FFT, the power of spikes decreases with decreasing frequency resolution. The calculated signal ratio parameter compensates this effect and allows a resolution-independent comparison of spikes. Spikes with signal ratios larger than 22.0 are reported back to SETI@home.

  • RA, Dec: The spike's position in the sky, shown as a right ascension (RA, in hr), declination (Dec, in deg) pair.

  • Frequency: The frequency of the receiver in GHz.

  • Chirp Rate: The chirp (or drift) rate in Hz/s.

2. Gaussians. Logged gaussians are displayed in graphical form. By use of the navigation buttons below the graph, you can browse through the list of logged gaussians. A text box to the right shows the corresponding numeric parameters:

  • Power: The fitted power of the gaussian in absolute values.

  • Mean: The fitted mean value (i.e. the average background signal) of the gaussian profile.

  • Sigma: This parameter represents the width of the gaussian.

  • Fit: The quality of the fit to the recorded data. Lower is better.

  • Score: The score of the gaussian. This value is determined by calculating (power/fit).

  • RA, Dec: The position of the gaussian in the sky, shown as a right ascension (RA), declination (Dec) pair.

  • Frequency: The frequency of the receiver in GHz.

  • Chirp Rate: The chirp (or drift) rate in Hz/s.

3. Pulses. Logged pulses are displayed and can be browsed in the same way as gaussians. Please note, however, that due to limitations of the SETI@home client some pulse profiles may not be available sometimes. The following parameters are listed:

  • Power: The power of the pulse in absolute values.

  • Mean: The average background signal of the pulse profile.

  • Period: The period of the pulse signal in seconds.

  • Score: The score of the pulse.

  • RA, Dec: The position of the pulse in the sky, shown as a right ascension (RA), declination (Dec) pair.

  • Frequency: The frequency of the receiver in GHz.

  • Chirp Rate: The chirp (or drift) rate in Hz/s.

4. Triplets. Logged triplets are displayed and can be browsed in the same way as gaussians. Please note, however, that due to limitations of the SETI@home client some triplet profiles may not be available sometimes.

Logged Signals dialog.

The following parameters are listed:
  • Power: The power of the triplet in absolute values.

  • Mean: The average background signal of the pulse profile.

  • Period: The period of the triplet signal in seconds.

  • Score: The score of the triplet. Identical to power.

  • RA, Dec: The position of the triplet in the sky, shown as a right ascension (RA), declination (Dec) pair.

  • Frequency: The frequency of the receiver in GHz.

  • Chirp Rate: The chirp (or drift) rate in Hz/s.

By clicking the Save.. button, you can save the currently displayed signal to disk. The picture is saved in the png graphics format, adjusted to the standard size of 350x200 pixels.