Category Archives: presentations

ASCL at AAS 231

It’s AAS meeting time, and that means a busy busy week! There are some of the ASCL’s activities at this meeting; we hope to see you at our posters and in the Special Session!

Poster 150.10: The Astrophysics Source Code Library by the numbers
Tuesday, January 09, Prince Georges Exhibit Hall

Abstract: The Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL, ascl.net) was founded in 1999 by Robert Nemiroff and John Wallin. ASCL editors seek both new and old peer-reviewed papers that describe methods or experiments that involve the development or use of source code, and add entries for the found codes to the library. Software authors can submit their codes to the ASCL as well. This ensures a comprehensive listing covering a significant number of the astrophysics source codes used in peer-reviewed studies. The ASCL is indexed by both NASA’s Astrophysics Data System (ADS) and Web of Science, making software used in research more discoverable. This presentation covers the growth in the ASCL’s number of entries, the number of citations to its entries, and in which journals those citations appear. It also discusses what changes have been made to the ASCL recently, and what its plans are for the future.

Poster 150.28: Schroedinger’s code: Source code availability and transparency in astrophysics
Tuesday, January 09, Prince Georges Exhibit Hall

Abstract: Astronomers use software for their research, but how many of the codes they use are available as source code? We examined a sample of 166 papers from 2015 for clearly identified software use, then searched for source code for the software packages mentioned in these research papers. We categorized the software to indicate whether source code is available for download and whether there are restrictions to accessing it, and if source code was not available, whether some other form of the software, such as a binary, was. Over 40% of the source code for the software used in our sample was not available for download.

As URLs have often been used as proxy citations for software, we also extracted URLs from one journal’s 2015 research articles, removed those from certain long-term, reliable domains, and tested the remainder to determine what percentage of these URLs were still accessible in September and October, 2017.

Special Session: Astronomy Software Publishing: Community Roles and Services
Thursday, January 11, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM; National Harbor 2
Organizers: Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL)/Astronomical Data Group at the Flatiron Institute

The importance of software to astronomy research is well-established, and excellent arguments to reveal these computational methods to support the research record have been advanced and much discussed in recent years. But what avenues are open to software authors to publish their codes, and what roles and services exist in the community to support their efforts? This session, organized by the Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL) and Astronomical Data Group at the Flatiron Institute, answers that question. It builds on previous AAS special sessions and brings together a panel of experts to present on the various avenues for publishing codes and the pros and cons of these avenues, the roles of authors, data editors, and publication indexers in software publication, the benefits of publication to authors and the discipline, and efforts of related community projects to improve aspects of software publication. After the presentations, the floor will be open for discussion and questions.

The topics and panelists are:

Introductory remarks, Peter Teuben (University of Maryland)
The evolution of software publication in astronomy, Matteo Cantiello (Flatiron Institute, Center for Computational Astrophysics/Princeton University)
Software papers and citation in the AAS journals, Chris Lintott (AAS Journals/University of Oxford)
Software policies and guidelines at Nature, Leslie J. Sage (Physical Sciences, Nature)
SpringerNature data and software policies for astrophysics journals, Ramon Khanna (Astronomy, Springer)
Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS): design and first-year review, Arfon M. Smith (Space Telescope Science Institute)
Lessons learned through the development and publication of AstroImageJ, Karen Collins (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
The roles of the AAS Journals’ Data Editors, August Muench (Journals Division, AAS)
The role of the ADS in software discovery and citation, Alberto Accomazzi (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory)
The Astrophysics Source Code Library: Supporting software publication and citation, Alice Allen (ASCL/University of Maryland)
Open discussion and Q&A, Moderated by Peter Teuben (University of Maryland)
Summary and closing remarks, Robert J. Nemiroff (Michigan Technological University)

Astronomy Software Publishing: Community Roles and Services Special Session at AAS 231

THURSDAY, 11 JANUARY 2018
Special Session: Astronomy Software Publishing: Community Roles and Services
10:00 am – 11:30 am
National Harbor 2

The Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL) and Astronomical Data Group at the Flatiron Institute have organized a Special Session at January’s AAS meeting. The session, Astronomy Software Publishing: Community Roles and Services, will be moderated by Peter Teuben (University of Maryland).

The importance of software to astronomy research is well-established, and excellent arguments to reveal these computational methods to support the research record have been advanced and much discussed in recent years. But what avenues are open to software authors to publish their codes, and what roles and services exist in the community to support their efforts? This session answers these questions. It builds on previous AAS special sessions and brings together a panel of experts to present various avenues for publishing codes and the pros and cons of these avenues, the roles of authors, data editors, and publication indexers in software publication, the benefits of publication to authors and the discipline, and efforts of related community projects to improve aspects of software publication. After the presentations, the floor will be open for discussion and questions. The presenters and topics covered are:

Matteo Cantiello (Flatiron Institute), The Evolution of Software Publication in Astronomy
Chris Lintott (AAS Journals), Software papers and citation in the AAS Journals
Leslie J. Sage (Nature), Software policies and guidelines at Nature
Ramon Khanna (Springer), SpringerNature data and software policies for astrophysics journals
Arfon M. Smith (STScI/JOSS), Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS): Design and first-year review
Karen Collins (Center for Astrophysics), Lessons Learned through the Development and Publication of AstroImageJ
August Muench (AAS Journals), The roles of the AAS Journals’ Data Editors
Alberto Accomazzi (NASA Astrophysics Data System), The role of the ADS in software discovery and citation
Alice Allen (ASCL/UMD), The Astrophysics Source Code Library: Supporting software publication and citation

And you, astro software authors and users, are as always important participants in the discussion. Please come with your questions, observations, and comments; I hope to see you there!

Software events at AAS 231, National Harbor

The Big List o’ Software Stuff for the January AAS meeting is here; it appears software is taking over the world! if I missed anything, please let me know in the comments below. Thank you!

SUNDAY, 7 JANUARY 2018
Workshops
Introduction to Software Carpentry (Day 1), 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM; RiverView Ballroom 2
Hands-on Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling of Cosmic Populations, 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM; Potomac Ballroom 1
Using Python to Search NASA’s Astrophysics Archives, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM; Potomac Ballroom 2

MONDAY, 8 JANUARY 2018
Workshops
Introduction to Software Carpentry (Day 2), 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM; RiverView Ballroom 2
Using Python and Astropy for Astronomical Data Analysis, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM; RiverView Ballroom B
A Data Science Foundation & Roadmap for Astronomy Instructors, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM; Potomac Ballroom 1

TUESDAY, 9 JANUARY 2018
Splinter meeting: Better Data Visualization and Exploration with GLUE, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM; National Harbor 8 (Note corrected time!)

Poster presentations

Session 150. Computation, Data Handling, Image Analysis Poster Session (39 posters!)

Also:
157.02. Evolving R Coronae Borealis Stars with MESA
157.07. Modeling Protoplanetary Disks to Characterize the Evolution of their Structure
157.15. Case Study of Data Mining in Observational Astronomy: The Search for New OB Stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud
144.12. The evolution of a dead zone in a circumplanetary disk
144.17. Modeling a Large Heterogeneous Set of CIRS Spectra of Titan: The ν4 band of 12C2HD
111.02. Dynamical Studies of N-Body Gravity and Tidal Dissipation in the TRAPPIST-1 Star System
111.03. Phase Curve Analysis of Super-Earth 55 Cancri e
111.04. Statistical Analysis of Hubble/WFC3 Transit Spectroscopy of Extrasolar Planets
111.08. Theory and Simulation of Exoplanetary Atmospheric Haze: Giant Spectral Line Broadening
102.02. The Pan-STARRS pipeline and data products
102.03. Precision Photometry and Astrometry from Pan-STARRS
110.01. Resolving the Circumgalactic Medium in the NEPHTHYS Simulations
115.09. Hydrodynamic Modeling of the Deep Impact Mission into Comet Tempel 1
151.04. A Transdimensional Approach to Modeling the Cosmic X-ray Background
151.05. The VLITE Post-Processing Pipeline
151.07. OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission Image Analysis
147.03. Impact of Fragtal Grains on Protoplanetary Disk Evolution
147.05. Determining Disk Parameters for the Classical Be Star 59 Cyg
147.06. Modeling Protoplanetary Disks
147.09. Characterizing Protoplanetary Disks in a Young Binary in Orion
147.14. Hydrodynamic Simulations of Protoplanetary Disks with GIZMO
153.06. A Search for Cosmic String Loops Using GADGET-2 Cosmological N-Body Simulator
148.04. 3D hydrodynamic simulations of tidal disruption of terrestrial planets around white dwarfs
148.08. BARTTest: Community-Standard Atmospheric Radiative-Transfer and Retrieval Tests
148.13. Modeled 3-D Biosignatures from the Stratospheres of Proxima Centauri b and M-dwarf Planets
148.14. The Exoplanet Characterization ToolKit (ExoCTK)
148.29. Every Cloud has a Silver Lining: Synthesizing Spectra for Exoplanets with Inhomogeneous Aerosol Coverage
149.22. HERA, Methods of Computational Optimization in search for Epoch of Reionization
149.31. A Phenomenological Model of Star Formation Efficiency in Dark Matter Halos
136.02. Simulations of star-forming molecular clouds: observational predictions
158.10. Simulations of Tidally Driven Formation of Binary Planet Systems
158.11. Simulations of Magnetic Flux Emergence in Cool, Low-Mass Stars: Toward Linking Dynamo Action with Starspots
158.16. The Ultracool Typing Kit – An Open-Source, Qualitative Spectral Typing GUI for L Dwarfs
146.01. Binary Model for the Heartbeat Star System KIC 4142768
145.05. Modeling and Analysis of CTIO 1.5m White Dwarf Spectra

Oral presentations

111.02. Dynamical Studies of N-Body Gravity and Tidal Dissipation in the TRAPPIST-1 Star System, 10:10 AM – 10:20 AM, National Harbor 11
111.03. Phase Curve Analysis of Super-Earth 55 Cancri e, 10:20 AM – 10:30 AM, National Harbor 11
111.04. Statistical Analysis of Hubble/WFC3 Transit Spectroscopy of Extrasolar Planets, 10:30 AM – 10:40 AM, National Harbor 11
111.08. Theory and Simulation of Exoplanetary Atmospheric Haze: Giant Spectral Line Broadening, 11:20 AM – 11:30 AM, National Harbor 11
102.02. The Pan-STARRS pipeline and data products, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM, Potomac C
102.03. Precision Photometry and Astrometry from Pan-STARRS, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM, Potomac C
110.01. Resolving the Circumgalactic Medium in the NEPHTHYS Simulations, 10:00 AM – 10:10 AM, National Harbor 10
115.06. The Deflector Selector: A Machine Learning Framework for Prioritizing Hazardous Object Deflection Technology Development, 10:50 AM – 11:00 AM, Potomac 1-2
115.09. Hydrodynamic Modeling of the Deep Impact Mission into Comet Tempel 1, 1:20 AM – 11:30 AM, Potomac 1-2
116.01. SVD/MCMC Data Analysis Pipeline for Global Redshifted 21-cm Spectrum Observations of the Cosmic Dawn and Dark Ages, 12:00 PM – 3:30 PM; Woodrow Wilson BCD
128.04. Dynamics as a ‘Red Flag’ in Exoplanetary Science, 2:40 PM – 2:50 PM, National Harbor 11
132.07. Time-Dependent Electron Acceleration in Pulsar Wind Termination Shocks: Application the 2011 April Crab Nebula Gamma-ray Flare, 3:20 PM – 3:30 PM, Potomac 3-4

WEDNESDAY, 10 JANUARY 2018
Special Session: Applied Statistical Methods in Astronomy: Gaussian Processes and Machine Learning
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM; National Harbor 2

Poster presentations
Session 239: Applied Statistical Methods in Astronomy: Gaussian Processes and Machine Learning Poster Session

Also:
257.09. Exploring the Internal Dynamics of Globular Clusters
257.11. GalMod: the last frontier of Galaxy population synthesis models
257.22. TYCHO: Simulating Exoplanets Within Stellar Clusters
244.09. The COBAIN (COntact Binary Atmospheres with INterpolation) Code for Radiative Transfer
244.22. Modeling the binary circumstellar medium of Type IIb/L/n supernova progenitors
244.23. Photometric Analysis and Modeling of Five Mass-Transferring Binary Systems
244.26. A Global Three-Dimensional Radiation Hydrodynamic Simulation of a Self-Gravitating Accretion Disk
238.05. The Chandra Source Catalog 2.0: Data Processing Pipelines
246.03. An accessible echelle pipeline and its application to a binary star
246.04. Building Better Planet Populations for EXOSIMS
246.16. Improvements to the Root Finding Algorithm in VBBinaryLensing
258.16. Epoch of Reionization : An Investigation of the Semi-Analytic 21CMMC Code
252.12. Using numerical simulations to study the ICM metallicity fields in clusters and groups
255.01. SkyPlotter: Displaying Source Candidates Near High-Energy Neutrino Events
255.02. A new relativistic model for tidal stream evolution during tidal disruption events
255.05. Modeling Ponderomotive Squeezed Light in Gravitational-Wave Laser Interferometers
255.17. Data Analysis Techniques for LIGO Detector Characterization
243.11. Applying a physical continuum model to describe the broadband X-ray spectra of accreting pulsars at high luminosity
237.03. New Algorithm Identifies Tidal Streams Oriented Along our Line-of-Sight

Oral presentations
Session 213: Computation, Data Science, and Image Analysis 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM; National Harbor 4 (7 presentations)

Also:
211.07. Bayesian Analysis of Hot Jupiter Radius Anomalies Points to Ohmic Dissipation, 11:10 AM – 11:20 AM, National Harbor 11
210.06. Figuring Out Gas in Galaxies In Enzo (FOGGIE): Resolving the Inner Circumgalactic Medium, 11:10 AM – 11:20 AM, National Harbor 10
229.03. Forward modelling techniques for spectra retrieval of circumstellar debris disks, 2:30 PM – 2:40 PM, Potomac 5-6
226.03. Cosmological Simulations with Molecular Astrochemistry: Water in the Early Universe, 2:30 PM – 2:40 PM, National Harbor 3
228.05. pyLIMA : The first open source microlensing modeling software, 2:50 PM – 3:00 PM, National Harbor 11

THURSDAY, 11 JANUARY 2018
Special Session: Astronomy Software Publishing: Community Roles and Services, 10:00 am – 11:30 am, National Harbor 2
Plenary Talk: Astro Data Science: The Next Generation, 11:40 AM – 12:30 PM; Potomac Ballroom AB

Poster presentations
350.01. Looking for Dust-Scattering Light Echoes
350.03. Studying Dust Scattering Halos with Galactic X-ray Binaries
350.05. Markov Chain Models for Stochastic Behavior in Resonance Overlap Regions
340.13. Simulating Supernovae Driven Outflows in Dwarf Galaxies
355.27. Stellar Atmospheric Modelling for the ACCESS Program
351.02. Calculating the n-point correlation function with general and efficient python code
348.12. A Comparison of Mixing in Stellar Evolution Codes Tycho and Geneva
362.08. What Time is Your Sunset? Accounting for Refraction in Sunrise/set Prediction Models
362.09. SpecTracer: A Python-Based Interactive Solution for Echelle Spectra Reduction
362.11. Generative Models in Deep Learning: Constraints for Galaxy Evolution
362.16. Statistical tools for analysis and modeling of cosmic populations and astronomical time series: CUDAHM and TSE
338.04. Simulating nanostorm heating in coronal loops using hydrodynamics and non-thermal particle evolution
338.06. Modeling Solar Atmospheric Phenomena with AtomDB and PyAtomDB

Oral presentations
334.01. Modeling the photo-polarimetric characteristics of brown dwarfs, 2:00 PM – 2:10 PM, Maryland 1-2
334.04. 3D Realistic Radiative Hydrodynamic Modeling of a Moderate-Mass Star: Effects of Rotation, 2:40 PM – 2:50 PM, Maryland 1-2

FRIDAY, 12 JANUARY 2018
Workshop: Hack Together Day, 10:00 am ‐ 7:00 pm, National Harbor 13 (Info and registration)

Special Session: Statistical, Mathematical and Computational Methods for Astronomy (ASTRO): SAMSI 2016-17, 10:00 am – 11:30 am, Grapevine 2

Poster presentations
434.08. Modeling the Effects of Asynchronous Rotation on Secondary Eclipse Timings in HW VIr Binaries
436.05. Real-time Automatic Search for Multi-wavelength Counterparts of DWF Transient
436.16. CosmoQuest Transient Tracker: Opensource Photometry & Astrometry software
437.04. Impact of Ice on Evolution of Protoplanetary Disks and Formation of Planetary Systems
438.02. Tests of Catastrophic Outlier Prediction in Empirical Photometric Redshift Estimation with Redshift Probability Distributions
438.04. Confronting Alternative Cosmological Models with the Highest-Redshift Type Ia Supernovae
439.09. TESS Data Processing and Quick-look Pipeline
439.10. PyKE3: data analysis tools for NASA’s Kepler, K2, and TESS missions
439.18. Open-source Software for Exoplanet Atmospheric Modeling
439.22. Gaussian Process Noise Modeling with RadVel: a Case Study of HD 3167
439.23. Developing Tighter Constraints on Exoplanet Biosignatures by Modeling Atmospheric Haze
440.12. The Effects of Accretion Disk Thickness on the Black Hole Reflection Spectrum
441.03. Large Scale Structure in CHILES using DisPerSE
444.13. Teaching Astronomy and Computation with Gaia: A New Curriculum for an Extra-curricular High School Program
447.12. The Data Calibration Pipeline for JWST/NIRSpec
448.02. Kinematics of Globular Cluster: new Perspectives of Energy Equipartition from N-body Simulations
448.05. Improved Membership Probability for Moving Groups: Bayesian and Machine Learning Approaches
449.10. Employing Machine-Learning Methods to Study Young Stellar Objects
453.09. PINT, A Modern Software Package for Pulsar Timing
428.03. Identifying Likely Disk-hosting M dwarfs with Disk Detective
426.07. Observing Galaxy Mergers in Simulations
426.08. A new 3-D View of Ionized Gas Conditions in Galaxies
424.01. Constraining Population Synthesis Models of Compact Binary Mergers using Supernova Observations

Oral presentations
405.04. Radiation Transport in Dynamic Spacetimes, 10:40 AM – 10:50 AM, Maryland C
412.02.D Illuminating the star clusters and satellite galaxies with multi-scale baryonic simulations, 10:10 AM – 10:30 AM, National Harbor 4
406.01. Phase-space Analysis in the Group and Cluster Environment: Introduction and Application, 10:00 AM – 10:10 AM, Maryland D
406.05. Gas Dynamics in the Fornax Cluster: Viscosity, turbulence, and sloshing, 11:00 AM – 11:10 AM, Maryland D
409.04D. A Modern Picture of Barred Galaxy Dynamics, 10:40 AM – 11:00 AM, National Harbor 10
408.03D. Multidimensional pair-instability supernova simulations and their multi-messenger signals, 10:20 AM – 10:40 AM, National Harbor 3

Also of likely interest is the oral presentation on “Big Data” Teen Astronomy Cafes at NOAO that will take place on Wednesday, 10 January from 10:10 AM – 10:20 AM in Maryland 1-2.

 

ASCL poster at ADASS XXVII

ASCL poster at ADASS XXII in Santiago, Chile

The Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL), established in 1999, is a citable online registry of source codes used in research that are available for download; the ASCL’s main purpose is to improve the transparency, reproducibility, and falsifiability of research. This presentation discusses the 2017 improvements to the resource, including real-time data backup for submissions and newly-published entries, improved cross-matching of research papers with software entries in ADS, and the expansion of preferred citation information for the software in the ASCL.

Alice Allen, Astrophysics Source Code Library/University of Maryland
Bruce Berriman, Caltech/IPAC-NExScI
Kimberly DuPrie, Space Telescope Science Institute/Astrophysics Source Code Library
Jessica Mink, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Robert Nemiroff, Michigan Technological University
P.W. Ryan, Astrophysics Source Code Library
Judy Schmidt, Astrophysics Source Code Library
Lior Shamir, Lawrence Technological University
Keith Shortridge, Knave and Varlet
Mark Taylor, University of Bristol
Peter Teuben, University of Maryland
John Wallin, Middle Tennessee State University
Rein H. Warmels, European Southern Observatory

Download poster

In conclusion 2 …

As promised in a previous post, here are a few slides from the second block of EWASS 2017 software presentations.

Reproducibility in Era of Data-Driven Science, Kai Polsterer (slides: PDF)

Conclusion: publications should be open access. Data should include all raw, test, training, and reference data in addition to detailed results. Software should be put into repositories and registries, and parameters, configuration, and environment needed to run the software should be saved as much as possible.

 

Should short codes used for astronomy research be made public?, Robert Nemiroff (slides: PDF)

Summary and key points. Short codes can be vitally important, yet we never see them, making science less falsifiable. Let's reverse this. Submit your important short codes with your papers, like Figures, OR to the ASCL (at ascl.net). Science, on the whole, will be stronger.

 

Giving credit where credit is due: the role of ADS in discovering and citing software in scholarly publications, Sergi Blanco-Cuaresma (slides: PDF)

SAO/NASA ADS. Identification: What software version? Preservation: Is that version still available? Attribution: Is the right set of authors receiving the credit?

 

Fifteen years of WISE technology software development and operations, Gijs Verdoes Kleijn (slides: PDF)

The future: (Big) Data Science and Education. University of Groningen astronomy student admissions tripled since 2010. Strategy: grow a new generation of data scientists

 

CDS reference services supporting astronomy research, Mark Allen (slides: PDF)

Challenges and Opportunities. Multi-wavelength, multi-messenger and time-domain astrophysics. Changing modes of publication -- data associated with publications. Responding to the change in scale - Big Data. New technologies - not too soon, not too late. Bringing the code to the data. Continued adaptation to meet community needs.

Developments and Practices in Astronomy Research Software at EWASS 2017

The annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society (EAS), the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS), was held June 26-30 in beautiful Prague. As mentioned in a previous blog post, Abigail Stevens (U Amsterdam), Amruta Jaodand (ASTRON), Matteo Bachetti (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari), Rein Warmels (ESO), and I organized a Special Session titled Developments and Practices in Astronomy Research Software. Special Sessions at EWASS can be from one to three 90-minute blocks; we organized three blocks, each with its own focus and all scheduled on Wednesday, June 28, which were:

Best practices for code development and management
Perspectives in research software
Astronomy software packages review

The first two sessions opened with review talks, then had a series of slightly shorter presentations, each with a particular focus. Each of these sessions concluded with a 30-minute period in which the floor was open to all to ask questions of the speakers and discuss the issues and information that had been shared during the 90 minutes. The third session offered talks on specific popular software packages and concluded with lightning talks on the software posters submitted to this Special Session. In addition to this series of talks, a Hack Together Day was organized collaboratively that offered more information on and assistance with installing and/or using many of the software packages presented.

Session titles and presenters for the software sessions that Abigail Stevens (U Amsterdam), Amruta Jaodand (ASTRON), Matteo Bachietti (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari), Rein Warmels (ESO), and I organize are listed below, and if you want to read through the Storify of session tweets, compiled by Stevens as a Hack Together Day project, that’s here: https://storify.com/abigailstev/developments-and-practices-in-astronomy-research-s

Best practices for code development and management
Moderator: Rein Warmels, ESO, Germany
This session opened with a talk by Simon Portegies Zwart (Leiden University, NL), author of AMUSE and other astro codes, on Reproducible science in scientific computing. He laid the groundwork for this block of talks by presenting the difficulties of reproducibility in simulation software, the best practices his group uses, and the philosophy behind AMUSE, which includes standardizing interfaces and automating as much as possible. His talk included simulations that made for an extremely large presentation file, so a partial set of his slides is provided.
(slides: PDF)

Simon Portegies Zwart presenting at EWASS

Simon Portegies Zwart

In the interest of time, I will not summarize the other talks in this block, but will say you should have been there! These were excellent presentations with many great practices and ideas shared. In the discussion, moderated by Warmels, someone asked about “short codes,” and as luck would have it, the next block had a talk on just that topic. There was disagreement on some voiced opinions, and many ideas shared that warrant greater discussion.

The other talks in this block were:

Software development best practices from Astropy
Thomas Robitaille, Freelance, UK (slides: PDF)

A Computer Science Perspective on the Astronomy Research Software Process
John Wenskovitch, Virginia Tech & Allegheny College, US (slides: PDF)

TARDIS: A radiative transfer code, an open source community, and an interdisciplinary collaboration
Wolfgang Kerzendorf, ESO, DE (slides: PDF)

Research software best practices: Transparency, credit, and citation
Alice Allen, ASCL, US (slides: PDF, PPTX)

Perspectives in research software
Moderator: Alice Allen, ASCL, USA/
Kai Polsterer (Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, DE) set the stage for the second block in the Special Session with his presentation Reproducibility in Era of Data-Driven Science. He also highlighted the difficulties of reproducibility, among them that different computing environments can produce different results from the same code, and though he acknowledged the difficulties in doing so, advocates that publications, datasets (including raw and training data), codes, component and software configuration, and computing environments need to be shared for full reproducibility. Or as John Wenskovitch summarized in a tweet during this presentation, “Publish everything. EVERYTHING. Architecture, model, code, data, parameters, …” We are not there yet, but must share what we can when we can to increase reproducibility.
(slides: PDF)

Kai Polsterer, image by @K_Bonson

The other talks in this second of three blocks were:

Should short codes used for astronomy research be made public?
Robert Nemiroff, Michigan Technological University, US (slides: PDF, PPTX)

Giving credit where credit is due: the role of ADS in discovering and citing software in scholarly publications
Sergi Blanco-Cuaresma, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, US (slides: PDF)

Fifteen years of WISE technology software development and operations
Gijs Verdoes Kleijn, University of Groningen, NL (slides: PDF)

CDS reference services supporting astronomy research
Mark Allen, CDS, Observatoire Astronomique De Strasbourg, FR (slides: PDF)

Astronomy software packages review
Moderator: Amruta Jaodand, ASTRON, NL
The third block of talks in this Special Session presented software packages useful for software research, from the well-established AstroPy to, in the short poster presentations, newly-developed software such as SPARTAN. The talks in this 90-minute block were:

The Astropy Project
Thomas Robitaille, Freelance, UK (slides: PDF)

Stingray and Dave: Spectral timing for all
Matteo Bachetti, INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, IT (slides: PDF)

Living on the fringe: Making CASA ready for VLBI
 Ilse van Bemmel, JIVE, NL

Interactive widgets for the Jupyter notebook
 Maarten Breddels, Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, NL (Jupyter notebook, ipywidgets demo (PDF), poster)

Lightning poster talks

Again, you should have been there! One blog post cannot possibly convey everything shared in this Special Session, but the slides the presenters have shared captures some of the great goodness in these talks. My thanks to all the presenters, to my co-organizers, and to the attendees who made this session so interesting and excellent, to EWASS for accepting our proposals, and to HITS for providing the ASCL with funding that allowed us to participate.

ASCL at the 2017 European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS) meeting

The European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS) was held June 26-30 in Prague and attended by over 1,100 people, and the ASCL was there! This post is an overview of the ASCL’s participation in the event; a subsequent post (or two) will provide more detailed information and links to slide decks for sessions the ASCL was involved in organizing.

Program page for software talks

Program page for software talks
Image by Amruta Jaodand

This was my first time attending EWASS, which was initially brought to my attention by Keith Smith (Science). It was also my first time in Prague. My activities since the meeting have included submitting proposals (with others) for EWASS 2018, which will be in Liverpool, and pricing short-term apartment rentals in Prague; clearly, I liked both the meeting and the city very much! My thanks to Keith for cluing me in to this fine meeting.

ASCL Advisory Committee member Rein Warmels (ESO) and I partnered with Abigail Stevens (U Amsterdam), Amruta Jaodand (ASTRON), and Matteo Bachetti (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari) on software-related sessions for EWASS 2017; our collaboration resulted in a day of talks on Wednesday called Developments and Practices in Astronomy Research Software and a Hack Together Day on Thursday, this latter coordinated by Stevens, Jaodand, and Bachetti.

The ASCL was well represented, with ASCL co-founder Robert Nemiroff (MTU) giving a talk on short codes and Warmels and I each moderating 90-minute sessions on software, both with a discussion period; I also gave a presentation on the ASCL and participated in the Hack Together Day.

The Hack Together Day had numerous exciting projects; the ASCL’s projects were less glamorous than most others but yielded really useful information, some of which has already been added to ASCL entries.

Our collective efforts went very well, despite a few worrisome moments along the way. The room our Special Session presentations were in had 98 seats; perhaps 90% were filled for these sessions, and there were people also standing in the room. The presenters/presentations were great and the discussions were lively, and more information about these sessions will be posted soon.

There was of course much much more to EWASS than our efforts; notable for those software-inclined were the astrometry, big data, and astroinformatics sessions and associated posters for all of these sessions. In all, an excellent conference!

Software events at AAS 229, Grapevine

And here it is: the Big List o’ Software Stuff at next month’s AAS meeting. If I missed anything, please let me know in the comments below; thanks!

TUESDAY, 3 JANUARY 2017
Workshops
Introduction to Software Carpentry, 8:00 am ‐ 5:30 pm, Appaloosa 1
Using Python for Astronomical Data Analysis, 8:30 am ‐ 5:00 pm, Texas C

WEDNESDAY, 4 JANUARY 2017
Splinter meeting: Flexible Multi‐dimensional Modeling of Complex Data in Astronomy, 9:30 am ‐ 11:30 am, Grapevine 4

Poster presentations
146.04 Gemini Planet Imager Calibrations, Pipeline Updates, and Campaign Data Process
146.07 Reprocessing of Archival Direct Imaging Data of Herbig Ae/Be Stars
146.13 Finding Planets in K2: A New Method of Cleaning the Data
146.17. Searching for Wide, Planetary-Mass Companions in Archival Spitzer/IRAC Data
154.25 Automated Detection of Dwarf Galaxies and Star Clusters in SMASH through the NOAO Data Lab
154.27 On the Quantification of Incertitude in Astrophysical Simulation Codes
155.13 Spectro-spatial reconstruction of Wide Field Imaging Interferometry Testbed (WIIT) data

Oral presentations
Testing SMBH scaling relations using cosmological simulations and optical/near-IR imaging data, 10:00 am – 10:20 am, Grapevine C
An Empirical Examination of the NEOWISE Results and Data analysis, 10:50 am – 11:00 am, Texas 4
Data Simulation for 21 cm Cosmology Experiments, 2:40 pm – 2:50 pm, Grapevine C

THURSDAY, 5 JANUARY 2017
Poster presentations
Session 236: Computation, Data Handling, Image Analysis & Light Pollution (21 posters)

239.03, The era of synoptic galactic archeology: using HST and Chandra observations to constrain the evolution of elliptical galaxies through the spatial distribution of globular clusters and X-ray binaries
244.05, Three-Dimensional Simulations of the Convective Urca Process in Pre-Supernova White Dwarfs

Oral presentations
Mind the Gap when Data Mining the Ritter-Kolb Cataclysmic Variable Catalogue, 10:00 am – 10:10 am, Fort Worth 6
What drives the kinematic evolution of star-forming galaxies? 10:20 am – 10:30 am, Grapevine 2
Simulating Galactic Winds on Supercomputers, 2:50 pm – 3:10 pm, Grapevine A
Photometric Redshifts for High Resolution Radio Galaxies in the SuperCLASS Field, 3:10 pm – 3:20 PM, Grapevine A

FRIDAY, 6 JANUARY 2017
Special Session: Perspectives in Research Software: Education, Funding, Reproducibility, Citation, and Impact, 10:00 am – 11:30 am, Grapevine 2

Poster presentations
335.05, When Will It Be …?: U.S. Naval Observatory Religious Calendar Computers Expanded
336.09, Variable Stars as an Introduction to Computational Research
345.03, An ALMA Survey of Planet Forming Disks in Rho Ophiuchus
345.19, Chemistry of protostellar envelopes and disks: computational testing of 2D abundances
348.06, Computing Architecture for the ngVLA

Oral presentations
K2 red giant asteroseismology using Bayesian Asteroseismology data Modeling (BAM), 10:24 am – 10:36 am, Grapevine B
Upgrades to MINERVA control software, 2:00 pm – 2:10 pm, Texas D

SATURDAY, 7 JANUARY 2017
Special Session: Statistical, Mathematical and Computational Methods for Astronomy (ASTRO): SAMSI 2016-17, 10:00 am – 11:30 am, Grapevine 2

Workshop: Hack Together Day, 10:00 am ‐ 7:00 pm, Grapevine 4 (Info and registration)

Also of likely interest is the Special Session on The Value of Astronomical Data and Long Term Preservation that will take place on Thursday, 4 January from 10:00 am – 11:30 am in Texas 3.

 

ADASS BoF: Implementing Ideas for Improving Software Citation and Credit

On Tuesday at ADASS, ASCL Advisory Committee Chair Peter Teuben led a Birds of a Feather session intended as a working session to have people put some of the ideas for improving software citation and credit into practice.

ADS now has a doc type called software

Slide from Peter’s opening presentation

He opened the session with a few remarks about last year’s BoF, similar efforts elsewhere, and examples of progress since last year. Yes, there has been progress! He then showed a list of actionable items and asked people to work on them, adding their work to a common Google doc. His slides are here.

And they did! It was the quietest BoF ever, I believe, as Keith Shortridge, Bruce Berriman, and Jessica Mink wrote about their experiences in releasing software; Renato Callado Borges and Greg Sleap provided guidance on the types of software contributions that add value to science; Alberto Accomazzi, Nuria Lorente, and Kai Polsterer listed ways one can publish and take credit for software; Peter Teuben, Steven Crawford, and possibly others pulled together a list of organization web pages about software created at the institutions, this as a way to highlight and recognize scientific software contributions; Maurizio Tomasi added a suggestion for gathering licensing information; and Thomas Robitaille, Ole Streicher, Tim Jenness, Kimberly DuPrie, and I discussed exactly what should be in the “Preferred citation field” of the ASCL and various people listed about a dozen preferred citations to be added to the ASCL and others used the Suggest a change or addition link for several software packages to provide preferred citation information.

Though Peter had asked that people work for about 30 minutes, he monitored contributions to the Google doc and saw work was still being done so did not call us back together until only 15 minutes or so were left in the session. Instead of having people report back on what they had done as originally plan, he asked for other feedback instead, as progress made was evident in the shared document, and after a bit of discussion on licensing and a few other comments, closed the session.

Though the session is over, the next phase is to put this information to use or disseminate it in some way so it can do some good and be the changes we want to see for software!