Scientific communication relies on evidence that cannot be entirely included in publications, but the rise of computational science has added a new layer of inaccessibility. Although it is now accepted that data should be made available on request, the current regulations regarding the availability of software are inconsistent. We argue that, with some exceptions, anything less than the release of source programs is intolerable for results that depend on computation. The vagaries of hardware, software and natural language will always ensure that exact reproducibility remains uncertain, but withholding code increases the chances that efforts to reproduce results will fail.T he rise of computational science has led to unprecedented opportunities for scientific advance. Ever more powerful computers enable theories to be investigated that were thought almost intractable a decade ago, robust hardware technologies allow data collection in the most inhospitable environments, more data are collected, and an increasingly rich set of software tools are now available with which to analyse computer-generated data.However, there is the difficulty of reproducibility, by which we mean the reproduction of a scientific paper's central finding, rather than exact replication of each specific numerical result down to several decimal places. We examine the problem of reproducibility (for an early attempt at solving it, see ref. 1) in the context of openly available computer programs, or code. Our view is that we have reached the point that, with some exceptions, anything less than release of actual source code is an indefensible approach for any scientific results that depend on computation, because not releasing such code raises needless, and needlessly confusing, roadblocks to reproducibility.At present, debate rages on the need to release computer programs associated with scientific experiments 2-4 , with policies still ranging from mandatory total release to the release only of natural language descriptions, that is, written descriptions of computer program algorithms. Some journals have already changed their policies on computer program openness; Science, for example, now includes code in the list of items that should be supplied by an author 5 . Other journals promoting code availability include Geoscientific Model Development, which is devoted, at least in part, to model description and code publication, and Biostatistics, which has appointed an editor to assess the reproducibility of the software and data associated with an article 6 .In contrast, less stringent policies are exemplified by statements such as 7 ''Nature does not require authors to make code available, but we do expect a description detailed enough to allow others to write their own code to do similar analysis.'' Although Nature's broader policy states that ''...authors are required to make materials, data and associated protocols promptly available to readers...'', and editors and referees are fully empowered to demand and evaluate any specific code, we belie...
We are developing an approach using Jackson's Problem Frames to analyse security problems in order to determine security vulnerabilities. We introduce the notion of an anti-requirement as the requirement of a malicious user that can subvert an existing requirement. We incorporate anti-requirements into so-called abuse frames to represent the notion of a security threat imposed by malicious users in a particular problem context. We suggest how abuse frames can provide a means for bounding the scope of security problems in order to analyse security threats and derive security requirements. ARMalicious User Machine E3 Victim Domain E2 E1 E3 Agent Vulnerabilities Asset under attack Protected Domain SR Malicious User Machine E3 Assets E2 E1 E3 Agent behaviour Security Measures
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.