Scientific software - Quality not always good
Computer scientists at KIT and HITS develop open-source tool that automatically checks adherence of scientific software to development standards - 48 tools evaluated
2021-05-25
(Press-News.org) Computational tools are indispensable in almost all scientific disciplines. Especially in cases where large amounts of research data are generated and need to be quickly processed, reliable, carefully developed software is crucial for analyzing and correctly interpreting such data. Nevertheless, scientific software can have quality quality deficiencies. To evaluate software quality in an automated way, computer scientists at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS) have designed the SoftWipe tool.
"Adherence to coding standards is rarely considered in scientific software, although it can even lead to incorrect scientific results," says Professor Alexandros Stamatakis, who works both at HITS and at the Institute of Theoretical Informatics (ITI) of KIT. The open-source SoftWipe software tool provides a fast, reliable, and cost-effective approach to addressing this problem by automatically assessing adherence to software development standards. Besides designing the above-mentioned tool, the computer scientists benchmarked 48 scientific software tools from different research areas, to assess to which degree they met coding standards.
"SoftWipe can also be used in the review process of scientific software and support the software selection process," adds Adrian Zapletal. The Master's student and his fellow student Dimitri Höhler have substantially contributed to the development of SoftWipe. To select assessment criteria, they relied on existing standards that are used in safety-critical environments, such as at NASA or CERN.
"Our research revealed enormous discrepancies in software quality," says co-author Professor Carsten Sinz of ITI. Many programs, such as covid-sim, which is used in the UK for mathematical modeling of the COVID-19 disease, had a very low quality score and thus performed poorly in the ranking. The researchers recommend using programs such as SoftWipe by default in the selection and review process of software for scientific purposes.
How Does SoftWipe Work?
SoftWipe is a pipeline written in the Python3 programming language that uses several available static and dynamic code analyzers (most of them are freely available) in order to assess the code quality of software written in C/C++. In this process, SoftWipe compiles the software and then executes it so that programming errors can be detected during execution. Based on the output of the code analysis tools used, SoftWipe calculates a quality score between 0 (poor) and 10 (excellent) to compute an overall final score . (mex/ses)
INFORMATION:
The findings are published in the Nature Scientific Reports journal.
Original publication:
Zapletal, A., Höhler, D., Sinz, C. et al.: The SoftWipe tool and benchmark for assessing coding standards adherence of scientific software. Sci Rep 11, 10015 (2021).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89495-8
Contact for this press release:
Dr. Felix Mescoli, phone: +49 721 608-41171, e-mail: felix.mescoli@kit.edu
Being "The Research University in the Helmholtz Association", KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,600 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 23,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-05-25
BOSTON - Physical activity that conforms to medical and health association guidelines is associated with a lower risk of atrial fibrillation (Afib) and stroke, according to a study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), who analyzed nearly 100,000 individuals equipped with wrist-worn accelerometers to measure their movement. The researchers' findings suggest that data from wearables, including a new generation of devices with sensors that allow for Afib detection, could provide an opportunity for the public health community to promote moderate physical activity as an effective way to improve health outcomes. The study ...
2021-05-25
Digital medicine is opening up entirely new possibilities. For example, it can detect tumors at an early stage. But the effectiveness of new AI algorithms depends on the quantity and quality of the data used to train them.
To maximize the data pool, it is customary to share patient data between clinics by sending copies of databases to the clinics where the algorithm is being trained. For data protection purposes, the material usually undergoes anonymization and pseudonymization processes - a procedure that has also come in for criticism. "These processes have often proven inadequate in terms of protecting patients' health data," says Daniel Rueckert, ...
2021-05-25
From shamans and mystics to cult leaders and divine kings, why have people throughout history accorded high status to people believed to have supernatural powers?
According to a study led by researchers from the University of Oxford, this tendency to attribute social dominance to such individuals is rooted in early development.
As part of the study, 48 infants aged 12 to 16 months watched a series of animated videos in which two characters competed for a reward. In each scenario, one character displayed physically counterintuitive methods of making ...
2021-05-25
In a new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI https://doi.org/10.29026/oea.2021.200077, Researchers led by Professor Jeongyong Kim at the Department of Energy Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Republic of Korea review light-emitting MXene quantum dots.
MXenes have found wide-ranging applications in energy storage devices, sensors, catalysis, etc. owing to their high electronic conductivity and wide range of optical absorption. However, the absence of semiconducting MXenes has limited their applications related to light emission.
Extensively reviewing current relevant research, the authors summarise recent advances in MXene quantum dot (MQD) research on the synthesis, optical properties and applications of MQDs as light emitting quantum materials. Research ...
2021-05-25
Graphene is an ultrathin material characterized by its ultrasmall bending modulus, superflimsiness. Now the researchers at the Nanoscience Center of the University of Jyväskylä have demonstrated how an experimental technique called optical forging can make graphene ultrastiff, increase its stiffness by several orders of magnitude. The research was published in npj 2D Materials and Applications in May 2021.
Graphene is an atomically thin carbon material loaded with excellent properties, such as large charge carrier mobility, superb thermal conductivity, and high ...
2021-05-25
When it comes to distinguishing a healthy cell from an infected one that needs to be destroyed, the immune system's killer T cells sometimes make mistakes.
This discovery, described today in eLife, upends a long-held belief among scientists that T cells were nearly perfect at discriminating friend from foe. The results may point to new ways to treat autoimmune diseases that cause the immune system to attack the body, or lead to improvements in cutting-edge cancer treatments.
It is widely believed that T cells can discriminate perfectly between infected cells and healthy ones based on how tightly they are able to bind to molecules called antigens ...
2021-05-25
About 14 billion years ago, our universe changed from being a lot hotter and denser to expanding radically - a process that scientists have named 'The Big Bang'.
And even though we know that this fast expansion created particles, atoms, stars, galaxies and life as we know it today, the details of how it all happened are still unknown.
Now a new study performed by researchers from University of Copenhagen reveals insights on how it all began.
"We have studied a substance called Quark-Gluon Plasma that was the only matter, which existed during the first microsecond ...
2021-05-25
A rare mutation that causes Parkinson's disease-like symptoms interrupts the flow of dopamine in the brain, suggests a study in fruit flies published today in eLife.
The findings provide more detailed insights about why young children with this mutation develop these symptoms. This new information, as well as previous evidence that therapies helping to improve dopamine balance in the brain can alleviate some symptoms in the flies, suggests that this could be a beneficial new treatment strategy.
Parkinson's disease causes progressive degeneration of the brain that leads to impaired movement and coordination. Current treatments focus on replacing or increasing the levels of dopamine to help reduce movement-related symptoms. But these drugs can have side ...
2021-05-25
Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), narrow strips of single-layer graphene, have interesting physical, electrical, thermal, and optical properties because of the interplay between their crystal and electronic structures. These novel characteristics have pushed them to the forefront in the search for ways to advance next-generation nanotechnologies.
While bottom-up fabrication techniques now allow the synthesis of a broad range of graphene nanoribbons that feature well-defined edge geometries, widths, and heteroatom incorporations, the question of whether or not structural disorder is present in these atomically precise GNRs, and to what extent, is still subject to debate. The answer to this ...
2021-05-25
In the latest National Autism Indicators Report, researchers from Drexel University’s A.J. Drexel Autism Institute examined surveys of family members of autistic adults who use Developmental Disability services, and found needs for additional supports like respite care and assistance to plan for crisis and emergencies, especially among families whose adult lived with them.
Data from the surveys showed over one quarter of families with autistic adults who use Developmental Disability services and live with family do not have enough services or supports for themselves, according to the report. And over half of these families ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Scientific software - Quality not always good
Computer scientists at KIT and HITS develop open-source tool that automatically checks adherence of scientific software to development standards - 48 tools evaluated
