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IERS Message No. 37                                       December 13, 2002
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"Visiting scientist" position at the BIPM Time section

IERS Convention Centre

The Bureau International des Poids et Mesures seeks a visiting scientist
to work with the Time section in the frame of the Convention Centre of
the International Earth Rotation Service. This position requires a PhD
and experience in the field of space geodesy or astrometry data
analysis, particularly in an environment related to the work of the
IERS. It is envisioned that the position be filled either at the young
scientist level or by a senior scientist e.g. as a sabbatical leave.
This is not a BIPM staff position but a financial allowance will be
provided. The position is open from spring 2003 for a period of one or
two years, not necessarily continuous. The BIPM is located in Sevres,
near Paris. The work is expected to involve collaboration with other
institutions participating to the IERS, particularly the IERS Analysis
Coordinator team at the University of Munich, where some periods of
stay are possible.

Candidates should send a Curriculum Vitae, information on their expected
situation while being a visiting scientist e.g. if they would be on
leave from another institution and, if applicable, their own direction
of research relative to this project. Applications should be received
before 15 February 2003. For more details please contact

G. Petit, IERS Convention Center co-director

Phone: +33-145077067; Fax: +33-145077059; e-mail: gpetit@bipm.org

E.F. Arias, head of the BIPM time section

Phone: +33-145077076; Fax: +33-145077059; e-mail: farias@bipm.org

BIPM, Pavillon de Breteuil, 92312 Sevres Cedex, France


General description of the work

The BIPM has participated to the Convention Centre of the IERS since
January 2001. One of the goals of the Convention Centre is "to study the
consistency of the procedures used by the IERS analysis centres with the
adopted conventions and study the impact of possible inconsistencies on
the IERS products".

Since the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) and its
relation to the celestial frame are obtained from the combination of
results from different techniques (mostly VLBI, SLR, GPS and DORIS), it
is essential that data processing be carried out in a consistent way by
the different techniques. At the present uncertainty level of below
1x10-9 (below 6 mm at the Earth's surface), a number of factors have an
influence that is poorly understood, specially due to correlation
between parameters of the models and because different strategies are
being used by different analysts. The aim of the project is an in-depth
study of the analysis carried out for the IERS by the analysis centres
and Combination Research Centres in order to contribute to the following
goals:

   a.. study the consistency of the models and procedures with the IERS
       Conventions

   b.. investigate any inconsistencies and estimate their impact on the
       IERS products

   c.. contribute to the definition of conventional procedures for
       analysis.


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