Author Archives: Alice Allen

WE20211106: This week in the ASCL

This past week, fourteen new code entries were put into production, fourteen entries were curated, and three entries were staged. We also sent numerous emails to code authors. We’ve been working on increasing the number of codes added every month, and that effort is paying off, as you can see in the graph (from our dashboard) below. In 2017-2020, we averaged 21 codes/month; this year so far, we’re averaging almost 28 new entries/month.

histogram showing number of codes added each year, with the column for 2021 showing an increase over the previous three years

We currently provide all of our public data in JSON and individual entries in both CITATION.cff and codemeta.json. This past week, we had some discussion with one of our developers about making all of our public data available in codemeta.json. We don’t have a date for doing this yet, but perhaps will make this change in time for the January AAS meeting.

October 2021 additions to the ASCL

Twenty-two codes were added to the ASCL in October:

ArtPop: Artificial Stellar Populations generator
BASTA: BAyesian STellar Algorithm
BCES: Linear regression for data with measurement errors and intrinsic scatter
exodetbox: Finding planet-star projected separation extrema and difference in magnitude extrema
FEniCS: Computing platform for solving partial differential equations

Flux: Julia machine learning library
GGCHEMPY: Gas-Grain CHEMical code for interstellar medium in Python3
GRASS: GRanulation and Spectrum Simulator
JWSTSim: Geometric-Focused JWST Deep Field Image Simulation
Nauyaca: N-body approach for determining planetary masses and orbital elements

ParSNIP: Parametrization of SuperNova Intrinsic Properties
PISCOLA: Python for Intelligent Supernova-COsmology Light-curve Analysis
PSRDADA: Distributed Acquisition and Data Analysis for Radio Astronomy
PT-REX: Point-to-point TRend EXtractor
pyro: Deep universal probabilistic programming with Python and PyTorch

Quokka: Two-moment AMR radiation hydrodynamics on GPUs for astrophysics
SELCIE: Screening Equations Linearly Constructed and Iteratively Evaluated
swordfish: Information yield of counting experiments
TauRunner: Code to propagate tau neutrinos at very high energies
ThERESA: 3D Exoplanet Cartography

TULIPS: Tool for Understanding the Lives, Interiors, and Physics of Stars
XookSuut: Model circular and noncircular flows on 2D velocity maps

WE20211030: This week in the ASCL

The ADASS conference took place this week. The ASCL presented a poster about SciCodes at the conference. Though ADASS took up most of my time, eight new code entries, three of them submitted by their authors, were assigned ASCL IDs and moved into production. I also wrote and submitted an abstract for an iPoster presentation at the AAS’s January 2022 meeting.

ASCL poster on SciCodes consortium at ADASS XXXI

Poster describing the SciCodes consortium and how it might be of interest to astronomers

The Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL ascl.net), started in 1999, is a free open registry of software used in refereed astronomy research. Over the past few years, it has spearheaded an effort to form a consortium of scientific software registries and repositories. In 2019 and 2020, ASCL contacted editors and maintainers of academic discipline and institutional software registries and repositories in math, biology, neuroscience, geophysics, remote sensing, and other fields to develop a list of best practices for research software registries and repositories. At the completion of that project, performed as a Task Force for a FORCE11 working group, members decided to form SciCodes as an ongoing consortium. This poster will cover the consortium’s work so far, what it is currently working on, what it hopes to achieve for making scientific research software more discoverable across disciplines, and how the consortium can benefit astronomers.

Download poster (PDF)

#ADASSXXXI

WE20211023: This week in the ASCL

This was the week before ADASS! The meeting this year is a hybrid meeting, with some attendees in Cape Town, and the others scattered all over the world. As much as I would love to be in Cape Town, I am attending virtually because of the pandemic. My poster this year involves but isn’t about the ASCL; instead, I’m presenting a poster about SciCodes.

Speaking of SciCodes, this week was our monthly meetings, so I spent time on them, but also had time for working on the ASCL. Random code of the day posts were scheduled through the end of the month and twenty entries were updated. Six new codes were staged, and two were submitted. This coming week, numerous ASCL-involved folks will be at ADASS, and I look forward to seeing them there!

WE20211016: This week in the ASCL

Writing and organizing seemed to be this week’s theme. Melissa Harrison and I wrote and submitted a proposal for a dedicated working group session at FORCE2021 on behalf of the FORCE11 Software Citation Implementation Working Group and secured a number of speakers for lightning talks. I got a rejection notice on Wednesday for a paper I’d submitted in early September; based on feedback from the reviewers and the to-do list I’d started after submitting it, I edited the paper, intending to post it to arXiv. A couple of people encouraged me to submit it to another journal, however, so I did. I also worked on my ADASS poster and paper. Actual work on the ASCL itself included curating seven entries, processing one submission and assigning the code an ASCL ID, and staging three new entries.

WE20211009: This week in the ASCL

As previously mentioned, curating records in the ASCL is done a number of ways. We ensure that every record gets looked at periodically by querying our database as to which records have not been updated since current year – 3, which this year means  January 1, 2018. We’ve been busy looking at records and can now say that every record in the ASCL has been examined for health and/or curated in some way (or added) since January 1, 2018.With that done, we will now start checking entries that haven’t been updated since January 1, 2019, because curation never ends.

This week, we also sent emails to authors of codes added in September and staged three new entries. I attended the FORCE11 Software Citation Implementation Working Group meeting on Tuesday, and later in the week, talked with several people about possible poster presentations at upcoming conferences.

One sad note: On September 27, ASCL Central became catless, alas. RIP, handsome little cat; it was a lovely 15 years.

WE20211002: This week in the ASCL

Thirty codes were added to the ASCL this week, seven of which had been submitted by authors. Nineteen codes were curated, mostly through our work in creating the daily random code social media posts; we scheduled twenty-three posts. This coming week, we’ll be sending out registration notices for the new entries along with other usual correspondence, and I’ll be attending a FORCE11 Software Citation Implementation Working Group meeting on Tuesday.

September 2021 additions to the ASCL

Thirty codes were added to the ASCL in September:

alpconv: Calculating alp-photon conversion
BHJet: Semi-analytical black hole jet model
BiPoS1: Dynamical processing of the initial binary star population
DviSukta: Spherically Averaged Bispectrum calculator
eMCP: e-MERLIN CASA pipeline

Frankenstein: Flux reconstructor
gammaALPs: Conversion probability between photons and axions/axionlike particles
GLoBES: General Long Baseline Experiment Simulator
gphist: Cosmological expansion history inference using Gaussian processes
Healpix.jl: Julia-only port of the HEALPix library

HSS: The Hough Stream Spotter
HTOF: Astrometric solutions for Hipparcos and Gaia intermediate data
Menura: Multi-GPU numerical model for space plasma simulation
OSPREI: Sun-to-Earth (or satellite) CME simulator
pyFFTW: python wrapper around FFTW

pyia: Python package for working with Gaia data
Rubble: Simulating dust size distributions in protoplanetary disks
ShapeMeasurementFisherFormalism: Fisher Formalism for Weak Lensing
SkyCalc_ipy: SkyCalc wrapper for interactive Python
SkyPy: Simulating the astrophysical sky

SNEWPY: Supernova Neutrino Early Warning Models for Python
Snowball: Generalizable atmospheric mass loss calculator
SNOwGLoBES: SuperNova Observatories with GLoBES
SoFiA 2: An automated, parallel HI source finding pipeline
STAR-MELT: STellar AccrRtion Mapping with Emission Line Tomography

unpopular: Using CPM detrending to obtain TESS light curves
Varstar Detect: Variable star detection in TESS data
VOLKS2: VLBI Observation for transient Localization Keen Searcher
WeakLensingDeblending: Weak lensing fast simulations and analysis of blended objects
WimPyDD: WIMP direct–detection rates predictor

WE202109125: This week in the ASCL

What a difference a week makes! Our paper has been reconsidered and is now with the journal for peer-review. Productivity on the ASCL was lower than usual this week as I took a few days off, but still, nine code records were edited, daily random code posts were made to Facebook and Twitter, and three new entries were written and staged for consideration. I also made note of minor changes to make on another paper that is undergoing peer review. This coming week will be all code entry work, vetting, writing, and curating.