rCASC implementation in Laniakea: porting containerization-based-reproducibility to a cloud Galaxy on-demand platform

Integrating rCASC in Laniakea: rCASC, Cluster Analysis of Single Cells [Alessandri et al. BioRxiv], is part of the reproducible-bioinformatics.org project and provides single cell analysis functionalities within the reproducible rules described by Sandve et al. [PLoS Comp Biol. 2013]. Laniakea [Tangaro et al. BioRxiv Bioinformatics] provides the possibility to automate the creation of Galaxy-based virtualized environments through an easy setup procedure, providing an on-demand workspace ready to be used by life scientists and bioinformaticians. The final goal is to offer rCASC as a Galaxy flavor in the Laniakea Galaxy on-demand environment

Laniakea: a Galaxy-on-demand Provider Platform Through Cloud Technologies

Galaxy is rapidly becoming the de facto standard workflow manager for bioinformatics. Although several Galaxy public services are currently available, the usage of a private Galaxy instance is still mandatory or preferable for several use cases, including heavy workloads, data privacy concerns or particular customization needs. In this context, cloud computing technologies and infrastructures can provide a powerful and scalable solution to avoid the onerous deployment and maintenance of a local hardware and software infrastructure. Laniakea is a software framework that facilitates the provisioning of on-demand Galaxy instances as a cloud service over e-infrastructures, by leveraging on the open source software catalogue developed by the INDIGO-DataCloud H2020 project, which aimed to make cloud e-infrastructures more accessible by scientific communities. End-users interact with Laniakea through a web front-end that allows a general setup of a Galaxy instance. The deployment of the virtual hardware and of the Galaxy software ecosystem is subsequently performed by the INDIGO Platform as a Service layer. At the end of the process, the user gains access to a private, production-grade, fully customizable, Galaxy virtual instance. Laniakea features the deployment of a stand-alone or cluster backed Galaxy instances, shared reference data volumes, encrypted data volumes and rapid development of novel Galaxy flavours for specific tasks. We present here the latest development iteration of Laniakea, introducing a novel and strongly configurable web interface that facilitates a more straightforward customisation of the user experience through human readable YAML syntax and a reworked encryption procedure that exploits Hashicorp Vault as encryption keys management system

Laniakea@ReCaS: an ELIXIR-ITALY Galaxyon-demand cloud service

Although several Galaxy public services are available, a private Galaxy instance is still mandatory or preferable for several use cases including heavy workloads, data privacy concerns or particular customization needs. Cloud computing technologies provide a viable way to deploy Galaxy private instances, freeing users from the onerous deployment and maintenance of local IT infrastructures. In the last few years, ELIXIR-IT led the development of Laniakea, a software framework that facilitates the provisioning of on-demand Galaxy instances as a cloud service over e-infrastructures. The user interacts with a Laniakea service through a web front-end that allows to configure and launch a production-grade Galaxy instance in a straightforward way. Through the interface, the user can deploy Galaxy instances over single VMs or virtual clusters, link them to shared reference data volumes and plain or encrypted volumes for storing data. A selection of \u201cflavours\u201d, that is Galaxy instances pre-configured with sets of tools for specific tasks, is also available. When the users is satisfied, Laniakea takes oved and deploys the desired Galaxy instance over the cloud, providing a public IP and full administrative privileges over the new instance. In Dec-2018, we launched the beta-test phase of the first Laniakea-based Galaxy on-demand ELIXIR-IT service: Laniakea@ReCaS. After six months of helpful testing, we are now ready to announce the production phase of this service. Access to the service will be provided on a per-project basis through an open-ended call defining terms and conditions, project proposals will be evaluated by a scientific and technical board. Accepted proposals will be granted a package of computational resources for running on-demand Galaxy instances for a duration compatible with the project requirements

Laniakea : an open solution to provide Galaxy "on-demand" instances over heterogeneous cloud infrastructures

Background: While the popular workflow manager Galaxy is currently made available through several publicly accessible servers, there are scenarios where users can be better served by full administrative control over a private Galaxy instance, including, but not limited to, concerns about data privacy, customisation needs, prioritisation of particular job types, tools development, and training activities. In such cases, a cloud-based Galaxy virtual instance represents an alternative that equips the user with complete control over the Galaxy instance itself without the burden of the hardware and software infrastructure involved in running and maintaining a Galaxy server. Results: We present Laniakea, a complete software solution to set up a \u201cGalaxy on-demand\u201d platform as a service. Building on the INDIGO-DataCloud software stack, Laniakea can be deployed over common cloud architectures usually supported both by public and private e-infrastructures. The user interacts with a Laniakea-based service through a simple front-end that allows a general setup of a Galaxy instance, and then Laniakea takes care of the automatic deployment of the virtual hardware and the software components. At the end of the process, the user gains access with full administrative privileges to a private, production-grade, fully customisable, Galaxy virtual instance and to the underlying virtual machine (VM). Laniakea features deployment of single-server or cluster-backed Galaxy instances, sharing of reference data across multiple instances, data volume encryption, and support for VM image-based, Docker-based, and Ansible recipe-based Galaxy deployments. A Laniakea-based Galaxy on-demand service, named Laniakea@ReCaS, is currently hosted at the ELIXIR-IT ReCaS cloud facility. Conclusions: Laniakea offers to scientific e-infrastructures a complete and easy-to-use software solution to provide a Galaxy on-demand service to their users. Laniakea-based cloud services will help in making Galaxy more accessible to a broader user base by removing most of the burdens involved in deploying and running a Galaxy service. In turn, this will facilitate the adoption of Galaxy in scenarios where classic public instances do not represent an optimal solution. Finally, the implementation of Laniakea can be easily adapted and expanded to support different services and platforms beyond Galaxy

VINYL: Variant prIoritizatioN bY survivaL analysis

Motivation: Clinical applications of genome re\uadsequencing technologies typically generate large amounts of data that need to be carefully annotated and interpreted to identify genetic variants associated with pathological conditions. In this context, accurate and reproducible methods for the functional annotation and prioritization of genetic variants are of fundamental importance, especially when large volumes of data \uad like those produced by modern sequencing technologies \uad are involved. Results: In this paper, we present VINYL, a highly accurate and fully automated system for the functional annotation and prioritization of genetic variants in large scale clinical studies. Extensive analyses of both real and simulated datasets suggest that VINYL show higher accuracy and sensitivity when compared to equivalent state of the art methods, allowing the rapid and systematic identification of potentially pathogenic variants in different experimental settings

Laniakea: an open solution to provide Galaxy "on-demand" instances over heterogeneous cloud infrastructures

Background: Galaxy is rapidly becoming the de facto standard among workflow managers for bioinformatics. A rich feature set, its overall flexibility, and a thriving community of enthusiastic users are among the main factors contributing to the popularity of Galaxy and Galaxy based applications. One of the main advantages of Galaxy consists in providing access to sophisticated analysis pipelines, e.g., involving numerous steps and large data sets, even to users lacking computer proficiency, while at the same time improving reproducibility and facilitating teamwork and data sharing among researchers. Although several Galaxy public services are currently available, these resources are often overloaded with a large number of jobs and offer little or no customization options to end users. Moreover, there are scenarios where a private Galaxy instance still constitutes a more viable alternative, including, but not limited to, heavy workloads, data privacy concerns or particular needs of customization. In such cases, a cloud-based virtual Galaxy instance can represent a solution that overcomes the typical burdens of managing the local hardware and software infrastructure needed to run and maintain a production-grade Galaxy service. Results: Here we present Laniakea, a robust and feature-rich software suite which can be deployed on any scientific or commercial Cloud infrastructure in order to provide a "Galaxy on demand" Platform as a Service (PaaS). Laying its foundations on the INDIGO-DataCloud middleware, which has been developed to accommodate the needs of a large number of scientific communities, Laniakea can be deployed and provisioned over multiple architectures by private or public e-infrastructures. The end user interacts with Laniakea through a front-end that allows a general setup of the Galaxy instance, then Laniakea takes charge of the deployment both of the virtual hardware and all the software components. At the end of the process the user has access to a private, production-grade, yet fully customizable, Galaxy virtual instance. Laniakea's supports the deployment of plain or cluster backed Galaxy instances, shared reference data volumes, encrypted data volumes and rapid development of novel Galaxy flavours, that is Galaxy configurations tailored for specific tasks. As a proof of concept, we provide a demo Laniakea instance hosted at an ELIXIR-IT Cloud facility. Conclusions: The migration of scientific computational services towards virtualization and e-infrastructures is one of the most visible trends of our times. Laniakea provides Cloud administrators with a ready-to-use software suite that enables them to offer Galaxy, a popular workflow manager for bioinformatics, as an on-demand PaaS to their users. We believe that Laniakea can concur in making the many advantages of using Galaxy more accessible to a broader user base by removing most of the burdens involved in running a private instance. Finally, Laniakea's design is sufficiently general and modular that could be easily adapted to support different services and platforms beyond Galaxy

Centrality Dependence Of The Pseudorapidity Density Distribution For Charged Particles In Pb-pb Collisions At √snn=2.76tev

7264/Mai61062

Measurement of jet suppression in central Pb-Pb collisions at root s(NN)=2.76 TeV

The transverse momentum(p(T)) spectrum and nuclear modification factor (R-AA) of reconstructed jets in 0-10% and 10-30% central Pb-Pb collisions at root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV were measured. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-k(T) jet algorithm with a resolution parameter of R = 0.2 from charged and neutral particles, utilizing the ALICE tracking detectors and Electromagnetic Calorimeter (EMCal). The jet p(T) spectra are reported in the pseudorapidity interval of \eta(jet)\ 5 GeV/c to suppress jets constructed from the combinatorial background in Pb-Pb collisions. The leading charged particle requirement applied to jet spectra both in pp and Pb-Pb collisions had a negligible effect on the R-AA. The nuclear modification factor R-AA was found to be 0.28 +/- 0.04 in 0-10% and 0.35 +/- 0.04 in 10-30% collisions, independent of p(T), jet within the uncertainties of the measurement. The observed suppression is in fair agreement with expectations from two model calculations with different approaches to jet quenching. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

The Galaxy platform for accessible, reproducible, and collaborative data analyses: 2024 update

YesGalaxy (https://galaxyproject.org) is deployed globally, predominantly through free-to-use services, supporting user-driven research that broadens in scope each year. Users are attracted to public Galaxy services by platform stability, tool and reference dataset diversity, training, support and integration, which enables complex, reproducible, shareable data analysis. Applying the principles of user experience design (UXD), has driven improvements in accessibility, tool discoverability through Galaxy Labs/subdomains, and a redesigned Galaxy ToolShed. Galaxy tool capabilities are progressing in two strategic directions: integrating general purpose graphical processing units (GPGPU) access for cutting-edge methods, and licensed tool support. Engagement with global research consortia is being increased by developing more workflows in Galaxy and by resourcing the public Galaxy services to run them. The Galaxy Training Network (GTN) portfolio has grown in both size, and accessibility, through learning paths and direct integration with Galaxy tools that feature in training courses. Code development continues in line with the Galaxy Project roadmap, with improvements to job scheduling and the user interface. Environmental impact assessment is also helping engage users and developers, reminding them of their role in sustainability, by displaying estimated CO2 emissions generated by each Galaxy job.NIH [U41 HG006620, U24 HG010263, U24 CA231877, U01 CA253481]; US National Science Foundation [1661497, 1758800, 2216612]; computational resources are provided by the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem (ACCESS-CI), Texas Advanced Computing Center, and the JetStream2 scientific cloud. Funding for open access charge: NIH. ELIXIR IS and Travel grants; EU Horizon Europe [HORIZON-INFRA-2021-EOSC-01-04, 101057388]; EU Horizon Europe under the Biodiversity, Circular Economy and Environment program (REA.B.3, BGE 101059492); German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF [031 A538A de.NBI-RBC]; Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg (MWK) within the framework of LIBIS/de.NBI Freiburg. Galaxy Australia is supported by the Australian BioCommons which is funded through Australian Government NCRIS investments from Bioplatforms Australia and the Australian Research Data Commons, as well as investment from the Queensland Government RICF program