The Astropy Project supports and fosters the development of open-source and openly developed Python packages that provide commonly needed functionality to the astronomical community. A key element of the Astropy Project is the core package astropy, which serves as the foundation for more specialized projects and packages. In this article, we provide an overview of the organization of the Astropy project and summarize key features in the core package, as of the recent major release, version 2.0. We then describe the project infrastructure designed to facilitate and support development for a broader ecosystem of interoperable packages. We conclude with a future outlook of planned new features and directions for the broader Astropy Project.

Context. We diagnose the properties of the plume and interplume regions in a polar coronal hole and the role of waves in the acceleration of the solar wind. Aims. We attempt to detect whether Alfvén waves are present in the polar coronal holes through variations in EUV line widths. Methods. Using spectral observations performed over a polar coronal hole region with the EIS spectrometer on Hinode, we study the variation in the line width and electron density as a function of height. We use the density sensitive line pairs of Fe xii 186.88 Å and 195.119 Å and Fe xiii 203.82 Å and 202.04 Å.Results. For the polar region, the line width data show that the nonthermal line-of-sight velocity increases from 26 km s −1 at 10 above the limb to 42 km s −1 some 150 (i.e. ∼110 000 km) above the limb. The electron density shows a decrease from 3.3 × 10 9 cm −3 to 1.9 × 10 8 cm −3 over the same distance. Conclusions. These results imply that the nonthermal velocity is inversely proportional to the quadratic root of the electron density, in excellent agreement with what is predicted for undamped radially propagating linear Alfvén waves. Our data provide signatures of Alfvén waves in the polar coronal hole regions, which could be important for the acceleration of the solar wind.

Abstract. This paper presents SunPy (version 0.5), a community-developed Python package for solar physics. Python, a free, cross-platform, general-purpose, highlevel programming language, has seen widespread adoption among the scientific community, resulting in the availability of a large number of software packages,

The continuous stream of data available from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) telescopes onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft has allowed a deeper understanding of the Sun. However, the sheer volume of data has necessitated the development of automated techniques to identify and analyse various phenomena. In this article, we describe the Coronal Pulse Identification and Tracking Algorithm (CorPITA) for the identification and analysis of coronal "EIT waves". CorPITA uses an intensity-profile technique to identify the propagating pulse, tracking it throughout its evolution before returning estimates of its kinematics. The algorithm is applied here to a data-set from February 2011, allowing its capabilities to be examined and critiqued. This algorithm forms part of the SDO Feature Finding Team initiative and will be implemented as part of the Heliophysics Event Knowledgebase (HEK). This is the first fully automated algorithm to identify and track the propagating "EIT wave" rather than any associated phenomena and will allow a deeper understanding of this controversial phenomenon.

The CCHIC database is now in use by health care researchers from academia and industry. The 'research ready' suite of data preparation tools have facilitated access, and linkage to national databases of secondary care is underway.