Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 23, 2026

Computational Reconstruction of Pancreatic Islets as a Tool for Structural and Functional Analysis
Published on: March 9, 2022
Challenges and recommendations to improve the installability and archival stability of omics computational tools
Serghei Mangul1,2, Thiago Mosqueiro2, Richard J Abdill3
1Department of Computer Science, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America.
Abstract:
Developing new software tools for analysis of large-scale biological data is a key component of advancing modern biomedical research. Scientific reproduction of published findings requires running computational tools on data generated by such studies, yet little attention is presently allocated to the installability and archival stability of computational software tools. Scientific journals require data and code sharing, but none currently require authors to guarantee the continuing functionality of newly published tools. We have estimated the archival stability of computational biology software tools by performing an empirical analysis of the internet presence for 36,702 omics software resources published from 2005 to 2017. We found that almost 28% of all resources are currently not accessible through uniform resource locators (URLs) published in the paper they first appeared in. Among the 98 software tools selected for our installability test, 51% were deemed "easy to install," and 28% of the tools failed to be installed at all because of problems in the implementation. Moreover, for papers introducing new software, we found that the number of citations significantly increased when authors provided an easy installation process. We propose for incorporation into journal policy several practical solutions for increasing the widespread installability and archival stability of published bioinformatics software.
More Related Videos
07:30Using Archival Japanese Paper and Thermoplastic Resins to Prepare Fossils for Storage, Display, Transport, and Radiography
Published on: November 14, 2025
10:16Automated and High-throughput Microbial Monoclonal Cultivation and Picking Using the Single-cell Microliter-droplet Culture Omics System
Published on: March 14, 2025
Related Concept Videos
Archival Research
Nuclear Stability
To hold positively charged protons together...
RNA Stability
Stability
The stability of an LTI system is determined by the roots of its characteristic equation, known as poles. A system is stable if it produces a bounded...
Stability of structures
Pole and System Stability
Simple poles are unique roots of the denominator polynomial. Each simple pole corresponds to a distinct solution to the system's characteristic equation, typically resulting in exponential decay terms in the system's...