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GC4S: A bioinformatics-oriented Java software library of reusable graphical user interface components

Publishing date: 2018-10-23 Published on: PLOS ONE summary: This paper introduces GC4S, a bioinformatics-oriented collection of high-level, extensible, and reusable Java GUI elements specifically designed to speed up bioinformatics software development.

meaRtools: An R package for the analysis of neuronal networks recorded on microelectrode arrays

Publishing date: 2018-10-23 Published on: PLOS Computational Biology summary: In this paper, Gelfman et al. present an open-source R package ‘meaRtools’ that provides a platform for analyzing neuronal networks recorded on Microelectrode Arrays (MEAs).

Wrangling distributed computing for high-throughput environmental science: An introduction to HTCondor

Publishing date: 2018-10-23 Published on: PLOS Computational Biology summary: Whilst many open source projects enter the spotlight as trend-setting new software packages, it’s nice to appreciate some of the long-lived projects as well.

A low-cost do-it-yourself microscope kit for hands-on science education

Publishing date: 2018-10-01 Published on: SPIE Digital Library summary: A low cost microscope kit “the other way round”: instead of requiring the user to peer through eye-pieces, this design aligns a series of lenses around a sample plane and shines light through the centre to project the greatly magnified image onto a piece of paper that can be comfortably observed with the naked eye.

Adapting open-source drone autopilots for real-time iceberg observations

Publishing date: 2018-10-01 Published on: MethodsX summary: In a nice example of adapting an existing tool, Daniel F.Carlson and Søren Rysgaard used OS control boards for Drones and its respective software as dataloggers to measure Iceberg characteristics (eg movement speed, orientation over time).

Approaches to Open Source 3-D Printable Probe Positioners and Micromanipulators for Probe Stations

Publishing date: 2018-10-01 Published on: HardwareX summary: This review of micromanipulator designs from Iiro Hietanen et al puts three open source alternatives through their paces with rigorous experimental testing, and explains the trade-off and decisions in weighing up cost and precision.

Open source capillary electrophoresis

Publishing date: 2018-10-01 Published on: Electrophoresis summary: Open source paradigm is becoming widely accepted in scientific communities and open source hardware is finding its steady place in chemistry research. In this review article, Petr Kubáň et al provide the reader with the most up‐to‐date information on open source hardware and software resources enabling the construction and utilization of an “open source capillary electrophoresis instrument”.

Haves and have nots must find a better way: The case for open scientific hardware

Publishing date: 2018-09-27 Published on: PLOS Biology summary: Many efforts are making science more open and accessible; they are mostly concentrated on issues that appear before and after experiments are performed: open access journals, open databases, and many other tools to increase reproducibility of science and access to information.

Testing for physical validity in molecular simulations

Publishing date: 2018-09-06 Published on: PLOS ONE summary: None authors: Pascal T. Merz, Michael R. Shirts link to paper: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202764 Icons made by catkuro from www.flaticon.com

ggsashimi: Sashimi plot revised for browser- and annotation-independent splicing visualization

Publishing date: 2018-08-17 Published on: PLOS Computational Biology summary: Garrido-Martín et al. present ggsashimi, a command-line tool for the visualization of splicing events across multiple samples. Given a specified genomic region, ggsashimi creates sashimi plots for individual RNA-seq experiments as well as aggregated plots for groups of experiments, a feature unique to this software.