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Minimum Information About a Simulation Experiment (MIASE)

2011; Public Library of Science; Volume: 7; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1371/journal.pcbi.1001122

1553-7358

Dagmar Waltemath, Richard R. Adams, Daniel Beard, Frank Bergmann, Upinder S. Bhalla, Randall D. Britten, Vijayalakshmi Chelliah, Michael T. Cooling, Jonathan Cooper, Edmund J. Crampin, Alan Garny, Stefan Hoops, Michael Hucka, Peter Hunter, Edda Klipp, Camille Laibe, Andrew K. Miller, Ion I. Moraru, David Nickerson, Poul M. F. Nielsen, Macha Nikolski, Sven Sahle, Herbert M. Sauro, Henning Schmidt, Jacky L. Snoep, Dominic Tölle, Olaf Wolkenhauer, Nicolas Le Novère,

Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks

Reproducibility of experiments is a basic requirement for science. Minimum Information (MI) guidelines have proved a helpful means of enabling reuse of existing work in modern biology. The Minimum Information Required in the Annotation of Models (MIRIAM) guidelines promote the exchange and reuse of biochemical computational models. However, information about a model alone is not sufficient to enable its efficient reuse in a computational setting. Advanced numerical algorithms and complex modeling workflows used in modern computational biology make reproduction of simulations difficult. It is therefore essential to define the core information necessary to perform simulations of those models. The Minimum Information About a Simulation Experiment (MIASE, Glossary in Box 1) describes the minimal set of information that must be provided to make the description of a simulation experiment available to others. It includes the list of models to use and their modifications, all the simulation procedures to apply and in which order, the processing of the raw numerical results, and the description of the final output. MIASE allows for the reproduction of any simulation experiment. The provision of this information, along with a set of required models, guarantees that the simulation experiment represents the intention of the original authors. Following MIASE guidelines will thus improve the quality of scientific reporting, and will also allow collaborative, more distributed efforts in computational modeling and simulation of biological processes.