Effective Software Tests (with Python)

Software tests are an important tool for the development of sustainable Research Software. In this seminar we will present the basics for effective software tests - including strategies for handling untested, legacy software systems. We will then continue to present some modern, state-of-the-art tools and approaches to conduct structured tests on Python software

Open Source im BACARDI Projekt

Wir präsentieren den "Backbone Catalogue of Relational Debris Information" (BACARDI) [2]. BACARDI ist Teil eines Vorhabens des Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR) zur Erfassung und Nachverfolgung von kooperativen und unkooperativen Objekten im Erdorbit. Aufbauend auf Open Source Software entsteht mit BACARDI ein System für den Einsatz im Deutschen Raumfahrkontrollzentrum, das Informationen über alle bekannten orbitalen Objekte verwaltet und aufbereitet. Im Vortrag werden wir zunächst erläutern, warum Raumfahrtrückstände überhaupt problematisch sind und welche Gefahren für aktive Objekte und Menschen im Erdorbit entstehen. Daran anschließend werden wir darlegen, warum wir in der Entwicklung Open Source Software und Bibliotheken einsetzen und weshalb wir uns für Django [3] und Apache Airflow [1] als Kernkomponenten entschieden haben. Als Schwerpunkt stellen wir die Eigenentwicklung F2x [4] vor. Diese Open Source Software dient der Anbindung von Fortran-Software an das BACARDI- System. Im Rahmen des Vortrags erläutern wir, welche Vorteile diese Software für unseren Einsatzzweck gegenüber anderen Lösungen bietet und welche Vorteile sie für andere Projekte bieten kann. Auf der BACARDI Datenbank setzen Prozesse auf, die die dort hinterlegten Orbitinformationen verarbeiten um zum Beispiel Kollisionswarnungen zu generieren. Als Betreiber von Satelliten ist das DLR direkt von Gefahren wie Kollisionen betroffen. Es forscht deshalb aktiv auf diesem Gebiet und entwickelt zur Unterstützung der Raumflugbetriebe unter anderem Modelle und Software zur Berechnung orbitaler Flugdynamik

Roles in Research Software Engineering (RSE) Consultancies

Consultation services are an helpful tool to support scientists in developing software. Different types of knowledge are required to perform an efficient and effective consultation. Based on our experience, by providing a consultation service for 18 research centers with over 43,000 employees, we defined five roles and show their relevance on three consultations. Being aware of these roles and trying to cover them when setting up a consultancy, is an important step towards a good consultancy

Towards Specificationless Monitoring of Provenance-Emitting Systems

Monitoring often requires insight into the monitored system as well as concrete specifications of expected behavior. More and more systems, however, provide information about their inner procedures by emitting provenance information in a W3C-standardized graph format. In this work, we present an approach to monitor such provenance data for anomalous behavior by performing spectral graph analysis on slices of the constructed provenance graph and by comparing the characteristics of each slice with those of a sliding window over recently seen slices. We argue that this approach not only simplifies the monitoring of heterogeneous distributed systems, but also enables applying a host of well-studied techniques to monitor such systems

Revisiting Secure Software Engineering for Research Software

In the past years, guidelines for a good practice in Research Software Engineering were established in many research facilities. Examples are applied guidelines at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) or the NL eScience Center. Recently, these guidelines were acknowledged as important by the European Union, the Helmholtz Association, and the Max-Planck Society as well as in their strive to support Open Science. But, most guidelines lack information on how to apply Secure Software Engineering (SSE) methods in Scientific Software. More importantly, it is not even clear what aspects of SSE are of particular interest in Research Software Development. In 2018 we published a position and vision paper at the "1st International Workshop on Security Awareness from Design to Deployment" called "DLR Secure Software Engineering". In this paper we drew an ambitious roadmap towards a structured approach for identification and evaluation of relevant aspects and processes. Since then we gained some insights about what is already possible, what could be done, and what is (yet) beyond our reach. In this talk we want to discuss and raise awareness why Secure Software Engineering is an important factor that needs to be acknowledged in the Research Software Engineering Community. We also want to review certain aspects of our previous work and evaluate on how things could be done (differently)

Let's talk FAIR for research software

The session will cover practices in and handling of research software development and how they relate to the FAIR principles [0]. We will introduce current challenges that we have faced and/or identified in our daily work and research. Using the format World Cafe, we like to discuss such challenges with you to gather your perspectives and ideas. Existing material, e.g. [1], about minimal prerequisites for software publication is discussed and (ideally) improved. The *Findability* aspect is further investigated when we discuss how/why/where we search for software and *Reuse* may be touched upon. The situation in HPC environments may differ from common research labs and we will look at user-oriented services and workflows to make such environments more Accessible* and *Interoperable. The audience is free to focus on any aspect or cover all. [0] https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/fair-research-software-fair4rs-wg [1] https://gitlab.com/hifis/hifis-workshop

Let's talk FAIR for research software

The session will cover practices in and handling of research software development and how they relate to the FAIR principles [0]. We will introduce current challenges that we have faced and/or identified in our daily work and research. Using the format World Cafe, we like to discuss such challenges with you to gather your perspectives and ideas. Existing material, e.g. [1], about minimal prerequisites for software publication is discussed and (ideally) improved. The *Findability* aspect is further investigated when we discuss how/why/where we search for software and *Reuse* may be touched upon. The situation in HPC environments may differ from common research labs and we will look at user-oriented services and workflows to make such environments more Accessible* and *Interoperable. The audience is free to focus on any aspect or cover all. [0] https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/fair-research-software-fair4rs-wg [1] https://gitlab.com/hifis/hifis-workshop

Scientific Software Engineering: Mining Repositories to gain insights into BACARDI

For Space Situational Awareness, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) develops the software system "Backbone Catalogue of Relational Debris Information" (BACARDI), which allows for keeping track of resident space objects. BACARDI's key features are automated processing services which produce orbit information and products like collision warnings. We present how we applied new methods of software analytics to the BACARDI project. BACARDI is an example of a complex software system with large development effort carried out by a team of various specialists. Our goal is to design and implement an efficient software development process, balancing the explorative character of a research project and operational requirements (i.e. tailored from official standards in the aerospace domain). Therefore, we established a software development process for the project where we focus on software quality. We applied methods to structure, communicate, and utilize the diverse skills, knowledge, and experience in the team concisely and precisely. After one year of practical utilization, we analyzed the process based on the repository data. By analyzing these data, we assess and prove the effects of the introduced process on the development of a software, which is used in the aerospace domain

The research agenda for general practice/family medicine and primary health care in Europe. Part 3. Results : person centred care, comprehensive and holistic approach

The recently published ‘ Research Agenda for General Practice/Family Medicine and Primary Health Care in Europe ’ summarizes the evidence relating to the core competencies and characteristics of the Wonca Europe defi nition of GP/ FM, and its implications for general practitioners/family doctors, researchers and policy makers. The European Journal of General Practice publishes a series of articles based on this document. In a fi rst article, background, objectives, and methodology were discussed. In a second article, the results for the two core competencies ‘ primary care management ’ and ‘ community orientation ’were presented. This article refl ects on the three core competencies, which deal with person related aspects of GP/FM, i.e. ‘ person centred care ’ , ‘ comprehensive approach ’and ‘ holistic approach ’ . Though there is an important body of opinion papers and (non-systematic) reviews, all person related aspects remain poorly defi ned and researched. Validated instruments to measure these competencies are lacking. Concerning patient-centredness, most research examined patient and doctor preferences and experiences. Studies on comprehensiveness mostly focus on prevention/care of specific diseases. For all domains, there has been limited research conducted on its implications or outcomes.peer-reviewe