Science In the Cloud (SIC): A use case in MRI Connectomics

Gregory Kiar; Krzysztof J. Gorgolewski; Dean Kleissas; William Gray Roncal; Brian Litt; Brian Wandell; Russel A. Poldrack; Martin Wiener; R. Jacob Vogelstein; Randal Burns; Joshua T. Vogelstein

arXiv · 1610.08484

Science In the Cloud (SIC): A use case in MRI Connectomics

Gregory Kiar·Krzysztof J. Gorgolewski·Dean Kleissas·William Gray Roncal·Brian Litt·Brian Wandell·Russel A. Poldrack·Martin Wiener·R. Jacob Vogelstein·Randal Burns·Joshua T. Vogelstein

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Abstract

Modern technologies are enabling scientists to collect extraordinary amounts of complex and sophisticated data across a huge range of scales like never before. With this onslaught of data, we can allow the focal point to shift towards answering the question of how we can analyze and understand the massive amounts of data in front of us. Unfortunately, lack of standardized sharing mechanisms and practices often make reproducing or extending scientific results very difficult. With the creation of data organization structures and tools which drastically improve code portability, we now have the opportunity to design such a framework for communicating extensible scientific discoveries. Our proposed solution leverages these existing technologies and standards, and provides an accessible and extensible model for reproducible research, called "science in the cloud" (sic). Exploiting scientific containers, cloud computing and cloud data services, we show the capability to launch a computer in the cloud and run a web service which enables intimate interaction with the tools and data presented. We hope this model will inspire the community to produce reproducible and, importantly, extensible results which will enable us to collectively accelerate the rate at which scientific breakthroughs are discovered, replicated, and extended.

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Gregory Kiar, Krzysztof J. Gorgolewski, Dean Kleissas, William Gray Roncal, Brian Litt, Brian Wandell, Russel A. Poldrack, Martin Wiener, R. Jacob Vogelstein, Randal Burns, Joshua T. Vogelstein. 2016-10-26. Science In the Cloud (SIC): A use case in MRI Connectomics. https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.08484

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