The members of the IAU Working Group on Numerical Standards for Fundamental
Astronomy (NSFA) met on 24 September from 1400 to 1700.  The meeting was
held to discuss and resolve several issue of interest and to make final
plans to finish the tasks of the working group.

The following were the major points of the discussion and our decisions.
The views represent those of the members present at the meeting.

1.  New IAU Constants?

It was reaffirmed that the WG will be recommending that the IAU adopt a
new set of astronomical constants based on the values assembled by the WG.
B. Luzum will begin to draft the recommendations to be submitted to the
IAU Executive Committee.  There was general agreement that the values
for the astronomical constants would not need to be given to the same
precision as the CBEs.  It is anticipated that the new astronomical
constants will be published in the IAU Transactions and that any future
system of constants will be published in a similar fashion.  The WG
also believes that future lists of CBEs can be provided in electronic
form only.

2.  How to maintain CBEs?

There was a lengthy discussion over how the CBEs should be maintained
in the future.  While everyone agreed that the current process of 
intermittently creating a new WG was not preferable, the current structure
of the IAU does not permit the creation of a permanent WG.  The majority
of the discussion revolved around whether to recommend to the IAU Executive
Committee to revise the structure of the IAU or whether to recommend an
existing body within the IAU (e.g. a commission) to be given the task
of handling standards.  It was finally decided that it would be better
to recommend that a commission take on these responsibilities and the
general consensus was to request that Commission 4 (Ephemerides) revise
its terms of reference so that standards would fall under its purview.
J. Vondrak (President of Division I) has agreed to begin discussions with
T. Fukushima (President Commission 4, member of NSFA WG) about the
feasibility of this option.

3.  How to handle documentation?

After a brief discussion, it was decided that the method used in previous
WGs of documenting constants by providing references is sufficient.

4.  How does electronic information play a role?

It was decided that electronic information will play a much greater role
with the CBEs than with astronomical constants.  While it might be
useful to have the astronomical constants provided on the IAU web page,
it is expected that in the future the CBEs will be maintained in
electronic form only.  In order for this to be feasible, it will be
necessary to establish a formal approval process, implement version
control on the electronic document, and maintain past versions of the
CBEs in a publically accessible location.

To make best use of the electronic media, it would be desirable to
have the web page hosting the CBEs be more extensive and provide
additional background information, references, and possibly additional
information regarding the constants and their interrelation.

5.  Changes to the CBEs?

The longest discussion of the meeting revolved around whether there
should be additional changes to the CBEs.  In particular the way in
which GM_S, au, and k should be treated was debated extensively.
While the majority agree that the preferable way to treat these
constants is to set au as a defining constant, estimate GM_S, and
eliminate k, there is a vocal minority that does not agree with
this option.  It was decided to continue the discussion of this
issue with the entire WG, in an effort to resolve the matter.

It was mentioned that according to H. Drewes, the value of W_0
is not correct.  It was decided that Drewes should be consulted
to determine a better value for W_0.

After a brief discussion, it was also decided that the two constants
that define the relationship between Earth rotation angle and UT1
should be added to the list of CBEs.

6.  Reference for Constants?

After a brief discussion, it was decided that whenever possible only
references appearing in refereed journals will be accepted.  If a
CBE does not appear in a refereed journal, then it would be preferable
to use a CBE that does appear in a refereed journal, even if that
value is considered less accurate.  It is not expected that this will
impact the WG since it is anticipated that all references being
used will either be in print or acccepted by a refereed journal by
the time of the IAU General Assembly.

7.  RIFA/units?

After a brief discussion, it was decided that the term "compatible"
(e.g. TDB-compatible) was preferable over "scaled" or "units".

It was also decided that multiple constants for different time
scales should be provided.

8.  Additional information for constants?

It was decided that additional information relating whether the
constants are primary or derived should also be included in the
table.

9.  Meeting at the IAU General Assembly?

It was agreed that the WG should hold a meeting at the IAU General
Assembly in order to smooth out any last minute problems that might
arise.  [B. Luzum has sent an e-mail to the IAU General Secretary
requesting that we be given meeting space on the afternoon of 4
August.]

10.  What do we do from here?

The following is a timeline that has been prepared for the tasks of the
WG.  The dates listed are last acceptable dates by which the tasks
should be accomplished.

* Reserve room for the IAU GA (29 October 2008) [Already done]
* Draft Journees article (1 November 2008)
* Submit final Journees article (1 December 2008)
* Draft IAU Recommendations (1 December 2008)
  - Adopt new IAU Constants
  - Recommend procedure for maintaining the CBEs
* Provide draft recommendations to the IAG, IUGG, IERS, others?
for comment (1 March 2009)
* Provide draft recommendations at the IAU Symposium (27 April-1 May 2009)
* Submit recommendations to the IAU Executive Committee (1 May 2009)
* Last NSFA WG meeting (4 August 2009)
* IAU General Assembly (3-14 August 2009)