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ASCL News

• July and August 2013 additions to the ASCL

  Twenty codes were added to the ASCL in July, and eighteen in August.

  July:
  AstroTaverna: Tool for Scientific Workflows in Astronomy
  cosmoxi2d: Two-point galaxy correlation function calculation
  CTI Correction Code
  DustEM: Dust extinction and emission modelling
  ETC++: Advanced Exposure-Time Calculations

  FieldInf: Field Inflation exact integration routines
  im2shape: Bayesian Galaxy Shape Estimation
  ITERA: IDL Tool for Emission-line Ratio Analysis
  K3Match: Point matching in 3D space
  LENSVIEW: Resolved gravitational lens images modeling

  MAH: Minimum Atmospheric Height
  Monte Python: Monte Carlo code for CLASS in Python
  NEST: Noble Element Simulation Technique
  Obit: Radio Astronomy Data Handling
  orbfit: Orbit fitting software

  phoSim: Photon Simulator
  PURIFY: Tools for radio-interferometric imaging
  Shapelets: Image Modelling
  SIMX: Event simulator
  SOPT: Sparse OPTimisation

  August:
  APPSPACK: Asynchronous Parallel Pattern Search
  BASIN: Beowulf Analysis Symbolic INterface
  Ceph_code: Cepheid light-curves fitting
  ChiantiPy: Python package for the CHIANTI atomic database
  CReSyPS: Stellar population synthesis code

  CRUSH: Comprehensive Reduction Utility for SHARC-2 (and more...)
  GYRE: Stellar oscillation code
  JHelioviewer: Visualization software for solar physics data
  LensEnt2: Maximum-entropy weak lens reconstruction
  LOSSCONE: Capture rates of stars by a supermassive black hole

  MapCurvature: Map Projections
  MoogStokes: Zeeman polarized radiative transfer
  RADLite: Raytracer for infrared line spectra
  SMILE: Orbital analysis and Schwarzschild modeling of triaxial stellar systems
  SPEX: High-resolution cosmic X-ray spectra analysis

  SYN++: Standalone SN spectrum synthesis
  SYNAPPS: Forward-modeling of supernova spectroscopy data sets
  THELI GUI: Optical, near- & mid-infrared imaging data reduction

  Also in August, we added one very cool web resource, the NASA Exoplanet Archive.

  This entry was posted in code additions, codes, news on August 31, 2013 by Alice Allen.
• Special Session at the January 2014 AAS meeting

  The AAS's Working Group on Astronomical Software (WGAS) and the ASCL are coordinating a Special Session on software at the January 2014 AAS meeting. It will feature several case studies by code authors in addition to broader issues in the development, use, and sharing of software. Watch this space for more information!

   

  This entry was posted in AAS, conferences, news on August 1, 2013 by Alice Allen.
• How long should you keep your codes? And your data?

  I'm currently working on a report for the Preserving.exe: Toward a National Strategy for Preserving Software summit held at the Library of Congress in May. My head is filled with the reasons and ways (and lack of ways) to save software discussed at the meeting, and by software, I don't mean necessarily astrophysics codes, oh no! All kinds of software: mainframe HR software and VisiCalc and Doom and old browsers and dBASE and ... well, everything.

  This has dovetailed nicely, or perhaps alarmingly, with recent readings, including a blog post by Kristin Briney titled How Long Should You Keep Data? and the Retraction Watch post which inspired it, JCI paper retracted for duplicated panels after authors can’t provide original data, about a 2007 paper which recently had one figure retracted because the authors could not provide the data from which it was generated.

  Jon Ippolito of the University of Maine was at the summit and wrote about it in his blog post The Ex-files: how long will our software last?

  How long indeed? And if you wanted to retrieve data from 2007, would you be able to even if you had the data files? Would you still have the tools available to get into them? In astronomy, probably so; with FITS, astronomy is better off than many sciences. Elsewhere, maybe not.

  How long will astronomy software last? That might be unknowable; perhaps a better question, then, is how long should it last?

  This entry was posted in ideas, musings, questions on July 24, 2013 by Alice Allen.
• June 2013 additions to the ASCL

  Sixteen codes were added to the ASCL in June:

  BEHR: Bayesian Estimation of Hardness Ratios
  Bessel: Fast Bessel Function Jn(z) Routine for Large n,z
  grmonty: Relativistic radiative transport Monte Carlo code
  Harmony: Synchrotron Emission Coefficients
  LRG DR7 Likelihood Software

  MADCOW: Microwave Anisotropy Dataset Computational softWare
  MAPPINGS III: Modelling And Prediction in PhotoIonized Nebulae and Gasdynamical Shocks
  Pico: Parameters for the Impatient Cosmologist
  PROM4: 1D isothermal and isobaric modeler for solar prominences
  PROS: Multi-mission X-ray analysis software system

  SAC: Sheffield Advanced Code
  STF: Structure Finder
  Tapir: A web interface for transit/eclipse observability
  VHD: Viscous pseudo-Newtonian accretion
  Yaxx: Yet another X-ray extractor

  ZEUS-2D: Simulation of fluid dynamical flows

  This entry was posted in code additions, codes, news on July 12, 2013 by Alice Allen.
• Starting to release the codes added in June

  I'm behind and am glad my next weekend starts on Thursday and runs for four days; perhaps I'll get caught up! Eight codes added in June are now available and more are coming. Watch this space.

  This entry was posted in code additions, codes, news on July 1, 2013 by Alice Allen.
• Preserving.exe: Toward a National Strategy for Preserving Software

  

  On May 20 and 21, the Library of Congress's Digital Preservation program held Preserving.exe: Toward a National Strategy for Preserving Software, which focused on preserving software as digital artifacts of life in the late 20th-early 21st century. Robert Hanisch, Peter Teuben, and Alice Allen attended, and Peter, chair of our Advisory Committee, presented a talk on the ASCL. The slides from Peter's talk are now available online.

  This entry was posted in conferences, discussion, news on June 22, 2013 by Alice Allen.
• May 2013 additions to the ASCL

  Fifteen codes were added to the ASCL in May:

  AdaptaHOP: Subclump finder
  ESTER: Evolution STEllaire en Rotation
  FITDisk: Cataclysmic Variable Accretion Disk Demonstration Tool
  GaussFit: Solving least squares and robust estimation problems
  GILDAS: Grenoble Image and Line Data Analysis Software

  MapCUMBA: Multi-grid map-making algorithm for CMB experiments
  Merger Trees: Formation history of dark matter haloes
  Non-Gaussian Realisations
  PINOCCHIO: PINpointing Orbit-Crossing Collapsed HIerarchical Objects
  PkdGRAV2: Parallel fast-multipole cosmological code

  Pressure-Entropy SPH: Pressure-entropy smooth-particle hydrodynamics
  pynbody: N-Body/SPH analysis for python
  TAU: 1D radiative transfer code for transmission spectroscopy of extrasolar planet atmospheres
  TPM: Tree-Particle-Mesh code
  YNOGK: Calculating null geodesics in the Kerr spacetime

  We also added ExoVis to our web resources and tools page.

  This entry was posted in code additions, codes on June 16, 2013 by Alice Allen.
• Interesting web resource, interesting paper

  ExoVis, the winner of the 2013 Open Exoplanet Catalogue visualization contest, is an exosystem visualizer programmed by Tom Hands, a PdD student at the University of Leicester. It's quite elegant. ExoVis has been added to our list of Web Resources and Tools.

  Streams Going Notts: The tidal debris finder comparison project popped up on arXiv recently. This paper, which has been added to our thread for papers of possible interest, discusses testing four codes, S-Tracker, VELOCIraptor (formerly known as the STructure Finder, STF), ROCKSTAR, and HOT6D, to determine how well they find tidal debris in a fully cosmological Milky Way type simulation. The paper compares the algorithms used by the codes and quantifies the findings.

  This entry was posted in codes, news on May 15, 2013 by Alice Allen.
• April 2013 additions to the ASCL

  Twenty-one codes were added to the ASCL in April:

  Astropy: Community Python library for astronomy
  Copter: Cosmological perturbation theory
  CosmicEmuLog: Cosmological Power Spectra Emulator
  CosmoRec: Cosmological Recombination code
  DESPOTIC: Derive the Energetics and SPectra of Optically Thick Interstellar Clouds

  Diffusion.f: Diffusion of elements in stars
  GALSVM: Automated Morphology Classification
  IFrIT: Ionization FRont Interactive Tool
  MPgrafic: A parallel MPI version of Grafic-1
  ORIGAMI: Structure-finding routine in N-body simulation

  PEC: Period Error Calculator
  pyCloudy: Tools to manage astronomical Cloudy photoionization code
  PyNeb: Analysis of emission lines
  Qhull: Quickhull algorithm for computing the convex hull
  Sérsic: Exact deprojection of Sérsic surface brightness profiles

  SFH: Star Formation History
  SZpack: Computation of Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) signals
  TPZ: Trees for Photo-Z
  TVD: Total Variation Diminishing code
  VOBOZ/ZOBOV: Halo-finding and Void-finding algorithms

  Wqed: Lightcurve Analysis Suite

  This entry was posted in code additions, codes, news on May 1, 2013 by Alice Allen.
• March 2013 additions to the ASCL

  Thirty codes were added to the ASCL in March:

  2MASS Kit: 2MASS Catalog Server Kit
  ACORNS-ADI: Algorithms for Calibration, Optimized Registration and Nulling the Star in Angular Differential Imaging
  ATLAS12: Opacity sampling model atmosphere program
  BSE: Binary Star Evolution
  CADRE: CArma Data REduction pipeline

  CosmoHammer: Cosmological parameter estimation with the MCMC Hammer
  DPUSER: Interactive language for image analysis
  emcee: The MCMC Hammer
  Galactus: Modeling and fitting of galaxies from neutral hydrogen (HI) cubes
  GaPP: Gaussian Processes in Python

  GBTIDL: Reduction and Analysis of GBT Spectral Line Data
  Ginga: Flexible FITS viewer
  idistort: CMB spectral distortions templates and code
  ionFR: Ionospheric Faraday rotation
  iSAP: Interactive Sparse Astronomical Data Analysis Packages

  MAGIX: Modeling and Analysis Generic Interface for eXternal numerical codes
  micrOMEGAs: Calculation of dark matter properties
  MOPSIC: Extended Version of MOPSI
  pysynphot: Synthetic photometry software package
  SMMOL: Spherical Multi-level MOLecular line radiative transfer

  SSE: Single Star Evolution
  Stellarics: Inverse Compton scattering from stellar heliospheres
  Sunrise: Radiation transfer through interstellar dust
  SWIFT: A solar system integration software package
  TAC-maker: Transit Analytical Curve maker

  TGCat: Chandra Transmission Grating Catalog and Archive
  TYCHO: Stellar evolution code
  UCL_CHEM: time and depth dependent gas-grain chemical model
  UCL_PDR: Time dependent photon-dissociation regions model
  Xmatch: GPU Enhanced Astronomic Catalog Cross-Matching

  This entry was posted in code additions, codes on May 1, 2013 by Alice Allen.