Steven N. Minton | Searcharxiv

arXiv2025

AI Copilots for Reproducibility in Science: A Case Study

Open science initiatives seek to make research outputs more transparent, accessible, and reusable, but ensuring that published findings can be independently reproduced remains a persistent challenge. In this paper we describe an AI-driven "Reproducibility Copilot" that analyzes manuscripts, code, and supplementary materials to generate structured Jupyter Notebooks and recommendations aimed at facilitating computational, or "rote", reproducibility. Our initial results suggest that the copilot has the potential to substantially reduce reproduction time (in one case from over 30 hours to about 1 hour) while achieving high coverage of figures, tables, and results suitable for computational reproduction. The system systematically detects barriers to reproducibility, including missing values for hyperparameters, undocumented preprocessing steps, and incomplete or inaccessible datasets. Although preliminary, these findings suggest that AI tools can meaningfully reduce the burden of reproducibility efforts and contribute to more transparent and verifiable scientific communication.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2025

DIGMAPPER: A Modular System for Automated Geologic Map Digitization

Historical geologic maps contain rich geospatial information, such as rock units, faults, folds, and bedding planes, that is critical for assessing mineral resources essential to renewable energy, electric vehicles, and national security. However, digitizing maps remains a labor-intensive and time-consuming task. We present DIGMAPPER, a modular, scalable system developed in collaboration with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to automate the digitization of geologic maps. DIGMAPPER features a fully dockerized, workflow-orchestrated architecture that integrates state-of-the-art deep learning models for map layout analysis, feature extraction, and georeferencing. To overcome challenges such as limited training data and complex visual content, our system employs innovative techniques, including in-context learning with large language models, synthetic data generation, and transformer-based models. Evaluations on over 100 annotated maps from the DARPA-USGS dataset demonstrate high accuracy across polygon, line, and point feature extraction, and reliable georeferencing performance. Deployed at USGS, DIGMAPPER significantly accelerates the creation of analysis-ready geospatial datasets, supporting national-scale critical mineral assessments and broader geoscientific applications.

cs.CV↗