Emergent Session 1: The interplay between brain, behavior, and cognition from childhood to adulthood: Panel discussion with independent research groups on simulated datasets
Neda Sadeghi, Isabelle van der Velpen, and Tonya White, Social and Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience, NIMH
12:45 (GMT+9) June 24 (Monday)
Neuroimaging has contributed considerably to our understanding of brain development and its relationship to cognition and behavior. However, despite advancements in neuroimaging, replicability in research remains a key issue and there is no gold standard that can be used to evaluate neuroanatomical correlates of cognition, behavior and their interplay. Researchers from NIMH, McGill, Georgia Tech, Western Ontario, Beijing Normal, the Radboud UMC/Donders, Forschungszentrum Juelich, and University of Oslo have each independently created simulated datasets of the interplay between brain development and behavior. Each group has worked independently and unaware of the approaches and assumptions made by the other groups. Each group was provided the same number of variables and were instructed to create three datasets with each embedding how they envision the interplay between brain development, behavior, and cognition emerges throughout development. We are releasing these simulated datasets to challenge/invite the research community to determine the underlying patterns and assumptions used to generate the simulated datasets. Each dataset contains 10,000 participants over 7 longitudinal waves and ranging from age 7 to 20. During this panel discussion, we will talk about brain development and the challenges and opportunities that modeling offers us, as well as answer any questions the research community might have about the simulated datasets. The code and descriptions of the models that were used to create the datasets will be released at the time of the OHBM meeting in 2025 in Brisbane.
Participating groups:
Neda Sadeghi, Isabelle van der Velpen, Dustin Moraczewski, Philip Shaw, Audrey Thurm, Adam Thomas, Tonya White (National Institute of Mental Health, NIH)
Zi-Xuan Zhou, Xi-Nian Zuo (Beijing Normal University)
Anna Plachti, Øystein Sørensen, Sarah Genon (Forschungszentrum Juelich and University of Oslo)
Vince D. Calhoun, Masoud Seraji, Ishaan Batta, Rogers Ferreira Da Silva, Najme Soleimani, Bradley T Baker, Kyle Joseph Cahill (Tri-institutional Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS), Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Emory)
Rogier Kievit, Léa Michel, Ethan McCormick, Emma Sprooten (Radboud University Medical Centre, Donders Institute for Brain)
Mallar Chakravarty, J Bruce Morton, Ashley Daniel Wazana (University of Western Ontario, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, and McGill University)
Emergent Session 2: Measuring and reducing the carbon emissions of fMRI research computing
SEA-SIG representatives–Nick Souter (University of Sussex), Niall Duncan (Taipei Medical University), Nikhil Bhagwat (McGill University), Polona Kalc (Jena University Hospital)
17:45 (GMT+9) June 24 (Monday)
We represent the OHBM Sustainability and Environmental Action Special Interest Group (SEA-SIG). During this session, we will present recent empirical work we have conducted on measuring and reducing the compute power and therefore the carbon emissions of preprocessing and statistical analysis of fMRI data. In particular, we will discuss how to use multiple carbon tracking tools and real-time carbon intensity task schedulers, including live demonstration of their use to attendees.
Green computing is an increasingly important aspect of socially responsible science, and intersects with a number of open science practices including preregistration of data processing parameters, development of clear data management plans, and reflection on how and where to share data publicly. We will reflect on these intersections and invite discussion on how we should best approach tensions between open science and sustainability.
Speaker Nick Souter will join the session virtually, and Niall Duncan and Nikhil Bhagwat will provide live presenation and demonstration in person in the OSR. Polona Kalc, incoming SEA-SIG chair, will also be present in person to introduce the session.
Goals:
- Learn the source of carbon emissions arise in neuroimaging computing and data storage
- Learn how to measure and reduce carbon emissions in their own neuroimaging data processing
- Reflect on best practice for environmentally sustainable and open neuroimaging research
Emergent Session 3: As open as possible and as closed as necessary - revisited
Gorana Pobric (Manchester, UK), Peter Fox (San Antonio, Texas), David Kennedy (U Massachusetts)
9:00 (GMT+9) June 26 (Wednesday)
The spirit of OS is to reduce obstacles to knowledge, data and tools in an attempt to speed up scientific discovery and promote scientific accountability and collaboration. Whilst we all subscribe and aspire to adhere to these worthy goals, the reality is that not all science is, or should be made open. Increasingly, neuroscience research is funded by industry, commercial companies and governmental bodies. The issues around “openness” arise when Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are involved or when the research study and its findings involve potentially classified data. In this session, we will discuss some obstacles to OS when working with industry and governmental agencies, from different cultural perspectives. We will share our experiences, propose various solutions (e.g. hybrid OS-IP models), and open a discussion about safe research practices in neuroscience for future adoption of OS in a commercial world.
Emergent Session 4: What can generalist repositories do for you? A community feedback gathering session from the NIH Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative program
Ana Van Gulick, Figshare, NIH Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative program
15:45 (GMT+9) June 26 (Wednesday)
The neuroimaging community has been a leader in open science and data sharing for many years and neuroimaging researchers are frequent users of both discipline-specific and generalist data repositories as part of their open science workflows. On behalf of the NIH Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI), we propose this emergent session to learn from the neuroimaging community about how they use generalist repositories (GRs) for sharing data and other research materials and to gather feedback on how GREI could prioritize its work to enhance GR functionality and resources to better serve the needs of this research community.
In February 2022, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) launched the Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI), which brings together seven generalist repositories (Dataverse, Dryad, Figshare, Mendeley Data, Open Science Framework, Vivli, and Zenodo) to work collaboratively to enhance support for data sharing and discovery in GRs. GREI recognizes that GRs play a key role in the data sharing landscape for the FAIR sharing of data in trusted repositories, offering broad flexibility to publish any file type and any research output alongside discipline- and method-specific data repositories when they are available, especially for researchers seeking to comply with global data sharing mandates and to practice open science. Together the GREI repositories are working to enhance common metadata, persistent identifiers, and standard metrics to support cross repository search to lower the barriers for data sharing and reuse.
In this emergent session we propose presenting a short overview of GREI goals and activities to enhance GR support for data sharing and discovery. We will then facilitate an interactive audience poll activity and audience discussion to learn about neuroimaging use cases for GRs including for sharing non-data materials and to uncover gaps in GR functionality and needs for resources or other support.
GREI would like to learn from OSR participants about their data sharing and repository experiences and hear from researchers what GRs could do to better support them through functionality or resources. Conducting community engagement with disciplinary research communities is a key objective for GREI that the program will use to inform our future work and we recognize that while many data repository resources are available in the neuroimaging community, the volume and diversity of research outputs to share necessitates the use of GRs for some outputs. Neuroscience is a top research category for all of the GREI repositories, often in part because these repositories are used to publish materials beyond data including software and code, images and media files, workflows, posters and presentations, and other supplementary files. GRs are also often used in conjunction with disciplinary repositories and data standards. We believe that as users of GRs and keen practitioners of open science with a wide variety of data types and research outputs to share, the neuroimaging community is an especially valuable group for GREI to engage with to inform our work.
Goals:
- Briefly present the objectives and outputs of the NIH Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative
- Conduct an interactive audience poll exercise to learn how neuroimaging researchers use GRs alongside discipline-specific data repositories to share data and other research materials
- Facilitate an audience discussion to gather feedback about how generalist repositories could enhance their functionality and resources to better serve the needs of the neuroimaging community
Emergent Session 5: Enabling federated analysis using NVIDIA FLARE powered COINSTAC architecture and showcase new algorithms
Sandeep Panta, Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS) Center, Georgia State University
13:00 (GMT+9) June 27 (Thursday)
COINSTAC (Collaborative Informatics and Neuroimaging Suite Toolkit for Anonymous Computation) promotes collaborative research by removing large barriers to traditional data-centric approaches. It allows groups of users to run common analyses on their own machines over their own datasets with ease. The results of these analyses are synchronized to the cloud and undergo aggregate analysis processes using all contributor data. Federated (decentralized) pipelines enable distributed, iterative, and feature-rich analyses, opening up new possibilities for collaborative computation. It also offers data anonymity through differentially private algorithms, so members do not need to fear protected health information (PHI) traceback.
The goal of this discussion is to briefly introduce COINSTAC and its new features/algorithms to perform statistical analysis on various datasets. New features include: Doing statistical analysis using Singularity containers Command line pre-processing tools New algorithms including but not limited to Decentralized Source Based Morphometry New COINSTAC federated analysis architecture powered by NVIDIA FLARE
We would like to hear feedback about our software such as how to improve the experience for researchers. We welcome anyone who wants to contribute to this open source and open data project with their datasets, algorithms, and code. We would also like to work with other organizations to pursue grants together, including small business grants. Collaborating with other organizations is the best way for us to answer interesting neuroscience-related questions that would not have been possible without COINSTAC and COINSTAC Vaults.
New featured session in 2024…5-min Open Mics
This year, we introduce a new format at the OSR: the Open Mics session. In this session, participants from all levels are welcomed to have a 5-minute time slot, from 10:30-11:00 am and from 12:45-13:15 pm on June 25th (Tue.), during which they can express or share what their thoughts on Open Science with the community. It is a good place to promote your software, your research, your ideas, or even your opinions related to Open Science. There will be no Q&A time after each presentation, but we encourage everyone interested to approach the speaker and initiate a conversation. We hope this format allow people to share thoughts and ideas that are less polished but could be worthwhile for the community to know, to think about, or even to contribute.
If you are interested in participating, either virtual or in-person, please fill out this form. The presentation will be planned on a first-come-first-serve basis. The host will call your name when you are the next to present and control the presentation time. For more information, please click here.
Introductions to Emergent Sessions
What are Emergent Sessions?
Emergent Sessions are spontaneous and interactive hot topic talks hosted by OSR attendees. Emergent sessions may last from 30 minutes to one hour (ideally 30 minutes planned talk and 30 minutes discussion). The duration will be set by the participant organizer, or it will run for as long as the conversation is flowing. Emergent Sessions can be framed as conversations held in an open format among peers. These sessions may be used to invite contributions to collaborative projects, hold an open forum to discuss a development in existing projects, hold a panel discussion, or basically anything you would like!
Emergent Sessions are available via application with limited slots.
How do I host an Emergent Session?
Emergent Sessions are bookable during the meeting for times allocated for Emergent Sessions. For 2024, we are opening 2 slots now and 2 slots shortly before the conference. Emergent Sessions can be booked by any OHBM or OSR registered participant at any point during these periods of time (or in the meeting while there is space in the schedule). Submitted Emergent requests will be briefly reviewed and selected by the OSR team for appropriate content (taking into account diversity and how the topics fits), and details communicated regarding how to book a slot in our schedule. We will be on hand to manage the hosting and broadcast of your session on your behalf, and help your participants join the conversation.
How can I attend Emergent Sessions if I am a virtual attendee?
All Emergent Sessions will be live streamed and recorded (unless we have specific reason to think this would inhibit discussion). The recorded sessions will be made available for viewing on Crowdcast straight after the event. Links to this “spontaneously” recorded material will be shared with registered participants.
Program and sign-up
You can request to hold such a session by creating an issue through our github repo template.
The sessions will be reviewed based on their timeliness and interest to the open science audience by the OSR team and we will notify everyone of their assigned sessions in early June.