Evidence map›Paper›PMID 23223611›Full record

ArticleMethods of information in medicine2013

Exploiting parallel R in the cloud with SPRINT.

M Piotrowski, G A McGilvary, T M Sloan, M Mewissen, A D Lloyd, T Forster, L Mitchell, P Ghazal, J Hill

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Methods of information in medicine, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors.

M PiotrowskiEPCC, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
G A McGilvary
T M Sloan
M Mewissen
A D Lloyd
T Forster
L Mitchell
P Ghazal
J Hill

Funding

Wellcome Trust 086696Wellcome Trust WT086696MA
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundAdvances in DNA Microarray devices and next-generation massively parallel DNA sequencing platforms have led to an exponential growth in data availability but the arising opportunities require adequate computing resources. High Performance Computing (HPC) in the Cloud offers an affordable way of meeting this need.

objectivesBioconductor, a popular tool for high-throughput genomic data analysis, is distributed as add-on modules for the R statistical programming language but R has no native capabilities for exploiting multi-processor architectures. SPRINT is an R package that enables easy access to HPC for genomics researchers. This paper investigates: setting up and running SPRINT-enabled genomic analyses on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), the advantages of submitting applications to EC2 from different parts of the world and, if resource underutilization can improve application performance.

methodsThe SPRINT parallel implementations of correlation, permutation testing, partitioning around medoids and the multi-purpose papply have been benchmarked on data sets of various size on Amazon EC2. Jobs have been submitted from both the UK and Thailand to investigate monetary differences.

resultsIt is possible to obtain good, scalable performance but the level of improvement is dependent upon the nature of the algorithm. Resource underutilization can further improve the time to result. End-user's location impacts on costs due to factors such as local taxation.

conclusionsAlthough not designed to satisfy HPC requirements, Amazon EC2 and cloud computing in general provides an interesting alternative and provides new possibilities for smaller organisations with limited funds.

Indexed as

Computing MethodologiesGenomicsMicroarray AnalysisAnimalsComputer GraphicsCosts and Cost AnalysisDatabase Management SystemsHumansInformation Storage and RetrievalInternetMedical InformaticsNatural Language ProcessingSequence Analysis, DNA

Identifiers

PMID23223611
PMCPMC3547073

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.