1. The Taverna Workflow
Management Software Suite:
Past, Present, Future.
Prof Carole Goble CBE FREng FBCS CITP
The University of Manchester, UK
Software Sustainability Institute UK
carole.goble@manchester.ac.uk
http://www.taverna.org.uk
http://www.mygrid.org.uk

2. More of what we generally do!
Prof Carole Goble CBE FREng FBCS CITP
The University of Manchester, UK
Software Sustainability Institute UK
carole.goble@manchester.ac.uk
http://www.taverna.org.uk
http://www.mygrid.org.uk

3. e-Science,
Computational Science, Scientific Computing
• Support global scientific collaboration,
enable large scale resource, tools and
results sharing, assist scientific
processing, avoid unnecessary
repeated work.
• Accelerate scientific discovery,
improving scientific productivity,
stimulate technological innovation.
• Cope with scales and speed of
scientific innovation and data.

4. Data-centric Computation
Scientific workflows over Distributed
Cyber-Infrastructure.
Data sharing Social Methods
libraries and catalogues for all types of
scientific artefacts and all types of
scientists.
Knowledge Management
Metadata, semantics digital exchange,
preservation, publishing
Software Engineering
Software sustainability, software and
data policy, training
Products Methods
Systems Biology
Chemistry
Astro-Physics
Astronomy
Biology
Social Science
Library
Digital
Preservation
Biodiversity
Public Health
Applications

5. Computer
Science
Software
Engineering
Scientific Informatics
Computational Science
THEORY PRACTICEAPPLICATION
fundamental applied
PRODUCT
(Open Source)
PRINCIPLE
Science
“USE CASE”

6. Long Tail Little science
Self-organising groups
Disconnected, independent, distributed scientists
Disconnected, independent, distributed resources
Open in the wild.
Organised science
Organised groups
Clubs of scientists
Organised, planned and in-house resources
Closed and well behaved services.

7. VPH-Share
Models of Human
Physiology
Eagle Genomics
Next Generation
Sequencing
based Patient
Diagnostics
Astronomy &
HelioPhysics
Document
Preservation
Digitisation
Systems Biology
OpenTox Project
Chemistry
Development Kit
Drug Toxicity Ecological
Niche
Modelling
Population
Modelling
Meta-
genomics
Phylo-
genetics
• Data cleaning
• Data movement
• Data retrieval and
annotation
• Data analysis
• Data mining
• knowledge
management
• Data curation and data
warehouse population
• Data visualisation
• Parameter sweeps over
simulations
Drug discovery,
small molecules,
targets,
compounds
OpenPHACTS

8. BioSTIF
Inputs:
data, parameters,
configurations
Outputs
Workflow in a nutshell • Orchestrate series of
automated / interactive
steps
– Process pipelines
– Analytic and synthesis
procedures
– Repetitive code-run
sweeps
• Housekeeping tasks
– Process data at scale
– Auto documentation
• Mix in house & public
resources, native hosting
– Chain and choreograph
components
– Handle interoperability
– Bridge resources
– Shield operational
complexity and change
Services & Resources
Infrastructures

9. Taverna Workflow Management
http://www.taverna.org.uk
• Dataflow
– Computational Lambda Calculus with a monad extension*
– Simple control flows, iterations over collections
– Data type agnostic, domain independent
– Data movement, monitoring, staging, reference
– Custom (VO Tables), XML, JSON
• Mixed steps
– Services, codes & command line tools
– SOAP + REST Web Services
– Scripts: R, “In Workflow Programming” Beanshell scripting …
– Codes: Java, libraries, HPC, Grid and ~Cloud platforms etc …
– Nested workflows
– Interactions and Batch
*Turi et al Taverna Workflows: Syntax and Semantics e-Science 2007: 441-448;
Sroka et al A formal semantics for the Taverna 2 workflow model J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 76(6): 490-508 (2010)

10. • Computational Lambda Calculus
• Visual Programming
• Process mining
• Adaptive & parallel computing
• Cloud computing
• SOA, Semantic Web Services
• Data integration, data quality
• Semantic representation and linked data
• Reporting & tracking, credit propagation
• Workflow reusability, quality, discovery
• Security, monitoring, fault detection
• AI planning, re-run analysis, auto-planning,
auto-repair, auto-composition, auto-
annotation, service discovery, service matching,
auto-substitution
E.Science laboris
Tools
Standards
Services

11. Weeks -> Hours
Surprise predicted result tested in
lab. DAXX Gene
Genetic differences between breeds
Noyes, PNAS 2011 108(22) 9304-9309
BioDiversity Invasive
Species Modelling
American Horseshow Crabs
in the Baltic
Trypanosomiasis
resistance in African
Cattle
Software as a Service /
(Cloud) Appliance
Analytic bottleneck
Repetitive, unbiased,
accurate record,
taming data,
transparency, avoiding
shortcuts.
Interactive steps
Dev. Years->Weeks
Runs. Weeks -> Hours
Generalised ENM data
mapping and overlaying
pipelines.
Workflow-based Computation

12. 15
#SummerSchool 24-Jun-13
VPH-Share @neurist Aneurysm Morphology Workflow
P a t ie n t P s e u d o id e n t ifi e r (P ID )
D e m o g r a p h ic s
H e ig h t
W e ig h t
V it a l S ig n s
H e a r t R a t e
B lo o d P r e s s u r e
F lo w R a t e
T r a n s ie n t P r e s s u r e
A n e u r y s m P r o p e r t ie s
T is s u e P r o p e r t ie s
W a ll T h ic k n e s s
R is k F a c t o r s
M e d ic a l Im a g e s
M e d ic a t io n s
Patients Patient Avatar Disease Simulation
Work ofl w
Systemic Factors
Gene Expression Pro lfie
P a t ie n t P s e u d o id e n t ifi e r (P ID )
D e m o g r a p h ic s
H e ig h t
W e ig h t
V it a l S ig n s
H e a r t R a t e
B lo o d P r e s s u r e
F lo w R a t e
T r a n s ie n t P r e s s u r e
A n e u r y s m P r o p e r t ie s
T is s u e P r o p e r t ie s
W a ll T h ic k n e s s
R is k F a c t o r s
M e d ic a l Im a g e s
M e d ic a t io n s
A n e u ry sm R u p tu r e P ro fi le
M o rp h o lo g y P r o fi le
H a e m o d y n a m ic P r o fi le
M e c h a n o b io lo g ic a l P r o fi le
P re d ic tio n U n c e rta in ity
Patient Avatar
Updated
RISK
Patients Patient Avatar Disease Simulation
Workflow Patient Avatar
updatedSystemic Factors
Gene Expression Profile
RISK
[Susheel Varma] http://www.vph-share.eu/

13. • Morphological, hemodynamic and structural analyses have been linked to
aneurysm genesis, growth and rupture.
• Evidence indicating differences in morphology and flow between ruptured
and unruptured aneurysms have been shown for reduced patient cohorts.
• Structural wall mechanics has been used to justify the growth and
remodelling happening at the aneurysm level.
Confidence in
physical measures
+
images
+ BC,
material
+ BC,
material
Morphological
analysis
Direct
diagnostic power
+
Morphological
descriptors
Structural descriptors
Hemodynamic
descriptors
Haemodynamic
analysis
Structural analysis
Practically,
morphological
characterizations might
currently have the
highest predictive
capabilities with respect
to the other analyses.
Morphological Workflow
[Susheel Varma]

14. Medical image
from imaging equipment
@neurIST
morphological descriptors
Complex indices (Zernike moment invariants)
Basic size indices describing aneurysm sac
depth
neck
Morphological Analysis Workflow
[Susheel Varma]

15. Implementation in VPH-Share
The @neurIST morphological workflow specification in Taverna
[Susheel Varma]

16. Biodiversity
marine monitoring and health assessment
ecological niche modelling
Data Intensive Science
Collaborative Science
Pilumnus hirtellusEnclosed sea problem
(Ready et al., 2010)
Sarah Bourlat

18. Ecological Niche
Modeling
.
Step 1: Explorative modeling
-Use unfiltered data
-Use fixed parameters: Mahalonobis distance
-Native projections
-Test the model, distribution of points, number of points
Step 2: Deep modeling
-Filtering environmentally unique points with BioClim algorithm
-ENM with Support Vector Machine and Maximum Entropy
-Parameter optimization (if necessary) on the model test results
-2 masks (model generate, model project)
Data discoveryData discovery
Data assembly,
cleaning, and
refinement
Data assembly,
cleaning, and
refinement
Ecological Niche
Modeling
Ecological Niche
Modeling
Statistical analysisStatistical analysis
Analytical cycle
Pilumnus hirtellusEnclosed sea problem
(Ready et al., 2010)
The workflows work over large geographical,
taxonomic, and environmental scales, incl.
terrestrial ecosystems
Baltic species invasions of various crabs/sea
creatures
Interactions of different forest insects and trees

19. Ecological Niche
Modeling
.
Step 1: Explorative modeling
-Use unfiltered data
-Use fixed parameters: Mahalonobis distance
-Native projections
-Test the model, distribution of points, number of points
Step 2: Deep modeling
-Filtering environmentally unique points with BioClim algorithm
-ENM with Support Vector Machine and Maximum Entropy
-Parameter optimization (if necessary) on the model test results
-2 masks (model generate, model project)
Data discoveryData discovery
Data assembly,
cleaning, and
refinement
Data assembly,
cleaning, and
refinement
Ecological Niche
Modeling
Ecological Niche
Modeling
Statistical analysisStatistical analysis
Analytical cycle
Pilumnus hirtellusEnclosed sea problem
(Ready et al., 2010)
The workflows work over large geographical,
taxonomic, and environmental scales, incl.
terrestrial ecosystems
Baltic species invasions of various crabs/sea
creatures
Interactions of different forest insects and trees
BioSTIF

22. www.biovel.eu
Ecological Niche
Modeling
Workflow (ENM)

23. data
configuration
parameters
steps
Data and Parameter Sweeps

24. Hosted installation
Local installations

25. Taverna:
a Knowledge Discovery Framework
•Asthma sputum inflammatory phenotypes, a transcriptome analysis, Saeedeh
Maleki-Dizaji, Chris Newby,
Rachid Berair, Rod Smallwood , Chris Brightling 2014
(to be submitted)
•A systematic approach to a transcriptome analysis to asthma sputum inflammatory
phenotypes ISMB 2014.
•The Battle of the Sexes starts in the oviduct : modulation of oviductal transcriptome
by X and Y-bearing spermatozoa: Almiñana C, Caballero I, Heath PR, Maleki-Dizaji
S, Parrilla I, Cuello C, Gil MA, Vazquez JL, Vazquez JM, Roca J, Martinez EA, Holt
WV and Fazeli A. submitted to BMC Genomics 2014 ,(In Press)
•transcription regulation network involving E2F6, IRF7 and STAT1, Thomas R.J.
Lovewella ,Andrew J.G. McDonaghb, Andrew G Messengerb, Saeedeh Maleki-
Dizaji, Mimoun Azzouzd and Rachid Tazi-Ahniniaformation submitted to PNAS,
2014
•Kiran, M., Bicak, M., Maleki-Dizaji, S., Holcombe, M. FLAME: A Platform for High
Performance Computing of Complex Systems. Journal of Acta Physica Polonica
2011.
•Maleki-Dizaji S, Holcombe M, Rolfe MD, Fisher P, Green J, Poole RK, Graham AI,
A Systematic Approach to Understanding Escherichia coli Responses to
Oxygen: From Microarray Raw Data to Pathways and Published Abstracts,
Online J Bioinformatics, (1):51-59, 2009
[Saeedeh Maleki-Dizaji]

26. Application
Runtime
Middleware
Resources/Codes/Services Infrastructures
Repositories
Execution Activity Plug-ins
Application
Scufl
Runtime
Middleware
Resources/Codes/Services
Platforms
Repositories
Taverna Desktop
Workbench
Taverna Online
Web Tool
Portals and Applications
Engine Server
Player
Cmd line
Provenance
Third Party
Servers
BioSTIF
Workflows & workflow
components
PROV, OPM
Data
Provenance
Registries

27. Taverna Workflow Management
Open extensibility
• Plug-in framework
– Command line tool
– Data Services: VOTables for AstroTaverna
– Optimisations: E.g. Holl. model parameter sweeps
– Infrastructures: Grid, HPC, Web Services
– Domains: CDK, BioMart, VOTable
– Commodities: Excel Spreadsheets, Open Refine, R
• Plug into other frameworks & platforms
– Portals: Scratchpads
– Interactive platforms: iPython Notebook
– Wfms: KNIME Node, Galaxy tool, Kepler Actor
• Third party applications
– Taverna Online
– XworX
– OGC chainer

28. Taverna Online: 3rd
party app
Dr Vadim Surpin and Vitaly Sharanutsa, Institute for Information Transmission
Problems of Russian Academy of Sciences (IITP RAS)
An online, in-browser application for assembling and running Taverna
Workflows over a HPC platform http://onlinehpc.com/site/main

29. Interoperability: Data format/identity mismatches
Service interface handling
Components: Well described, behaved,
curated, annotated modularised
workflow modules
• Semantic annotations, prescribed
failover, formats, provenance
• Organised into common families

30. Taverna Directions
AccessAccess
Framework to access and leverage heterogeneous
legacy applications, services, datasets and codes.
Shielding from complexity.
CustomiseCustomise
Rapid development: Flexibility, Extensibility,
Adaptability, Reuse. Reusable Workflow
Components
ProcessProcess
Automated plumbing + Interaction
Systematic, repetitive and unbiased analysis and
processing and error handling
Ensembles, comparisons, “what ifs”
CustomiseCustomise
Rapid development: Flexibility, Extensibility,
Adaptability, Reuse. Reusable Workflow
Components
ProcessProcess
Automated plumbing + Interaction
Systematic, repetitive and unbiased analysis and
processing and error handling
Ensembles, comparisons, “what ifs”
CustomiseCustomise
Rapid development: Flexibility, Extensibility,
Adaptability, Reuse. Reusable Workflow
Components
AccessAccess
Cloud and Scale, Registries
Standards data formats, programmatic interfaces.
Adapting to change. Security.
Governance of components
ProcessProcess
Seamless, pluggable wf as a service.
Scale. Adaptability. Specific-Generic tension.
Easier development, user experience
Workflow commodities, Research Objects
Design practices for reuse. Credit
Executable interactive notebooks. Provenance
A tool for reproducibility
ReportReport
EmbedEmbed
Workflows in common applications
Integration into reporting & publishing
Underpin integrative platforms.
Service based science and science as a service

31. Fix on demand.
Notify as needed.
Monitor for decay
Workflow/Service Monitors
3rd
Party Monitors
Workflow analytics
Detect and Repair
QUASAR toolkit
[Zhao et al. Why workflows break e-Science 2012]

32. The Execution Provenance Gap
Data tracking
Summarisation,
Labelling,
Distillations,
Selective tracking
Filtering
Big
Fine grain
1 White box
One System
Special tools
Collection
A Big Graph
What do I cite?
What did I do?
N Black boxes
Many Systems
My Lab Book
Analytics
Smart in situ Presentation
Why am I citing?
Pinar Alper, Khalid Belhajjame, Carole A. Goble, Pinar Karagoz: Enhancing and abstracting scientific workflow provenance for data
publishing. EDBT/ICDT Workshops 2013: 313-318
Sarah Cohen Boulakia, Jiuqiang Chen, Paolo Missier, Carole A. Goble, Alan R. Williams, Christine Froidevaux: Distilling structure in
Taverna scientific workflows: a refactoring approach. BMC Bioinformatics 15(S-1): S12 (2014)
http://provenanceweek.dlr.de

33. Tracking Provenance
File Stores Lab Books Repositories
• Granularity
• Scales
• Blackbox
• Hybrid

34. Research Objects
• Bundles and relates multi-hosted digital resources of a scientific
experiment or investigation using standard mechanisms
• Descriptive reproducibility
• Exchange, Releasing paradigm for publishing
http://www.researchobject.org/ http://www.researchobject.org/

35. Flexibility
Review, Revise/Discard
Scale
Deploy
into tools
Comparison
Personal
Group
Production
Research Reporting
Harden

36. http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/myGrid/DataHackL
eiden/blob/alan/Player_example.ipynb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVQwSOX5S08 ?

37. Archiving
Publishing
Component Libraries
Preserving
Recording
Storing
Exchanging
Versioning
Sharing
PACKS

38. SEEK4Science
Sharing and interlinking Methods, Models, Data…
Data
Model
Article
External
Databases
Metadata

39. Virtual Liver Network
BMBF “Großprojekt“• ~45 organisations, ~70 groups
• multiscale rep. of the liver
• clinical impact
• general public portal
47
 Same key requirements:
yellow pages, exchange of all
sops/data/models, sharing
rights
 Different biology
• Multiscale data
• Multiscale models
• Imaging
 Different project structure
• Hierarchies (A, A1, A1.2)
• Regional groups of groups
 Flexibility, extensibility, open
sourceness of SEEK key

40. simulate models
project mgt,
access control
reporting, citation
governance &
policies
yellow pages
of peers
projects,
experts
catalogue and link
data, models, samples,
specimens, sops,
experiments,
publications using
standards
curate &
annotate data
and models using
standards
access, link to and
deposit in public
data and model
repositories
manage, store and
exchange different
types and scales of
data
integrate local and
project tools and
data systems
scaled-out
collection &
processing

41. experimentalists,
modellers, X-
informaticians,
computational Xs,
software engineers,
computer scientists,
systems
administrators,
resource providers,
tool builders
social scientists,
librarians, curators
Social Computation
Storing, Sharing and Reusing data, methods, models,
between collaborating and competing scientists
e-Laboratories, collaboratories, VREs, repositories
An ego-system

42. Computer
Scientist
Software
Engineer
Social
Engineer

43. Knowledge Computation
•Accurate, intelligible and comparable descriptions
•Data interoperability
•Machine readable metadata
Semantic technologies, Ontologies,
Linked Data, Data schema

44. Semantic Description
Describing and linking data in terms of
shared concepts, relationships and identifiers
Data
object property
data property
subClassOf
Ontology
Person
Organization
Place
State
name
birthdate
bornIn
worksFor state
name
phone
name
livesIn
City
Event
ceo
location
organizer
nearby
startDate
endDate
title
isPartOf
postalCode
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5
Bill Gates Oct 1955 Microsoft Seattle WA
Mark Zuckerberg May 1984 Facebook White Plains NY
Larry Page Mar 1973 Google East Lansing MI
[Taheriyan et al
adapted]

45. Curation Knowledge Ramps
Populous
http://www.rightfield.org.uk
Katy Wolstencroft

46. Pathways
Pharmacological
Activities
Biological
Processes
Transcripts
Pathological
Processes
Diseases
Genes
Proteins
Interactions
Clinical Drug
Applications
Indications
Drugs
Compounds
Pharmacological data for drug discovery
combining public and private datasets
Pre-competitive silo-breaking for competitive analytics

47. Pathways
Pharmacological
Activities
Biological
Processes
Transcripts
Pathological
Processes
Diseases
Genes
Proteins
Interactions
Clinical Drug
Applications
Indications
Drugs
Compounds
“Find me compounds
that inhibit targets in
NFkB pathway assayed
in only functional assays
with a potency <1 μM”
“What is the
selectivity profile of
known p38 inhibitors?”
“Let me compare
MW, logP and PSA
for known
oxidoreductase
inhibitors”
Broad data:
combining public and private datasets

48. NanopubNanopub
DbDb
VoIDVoID
Data Cache
(Virtuoso Triple
Store)
Semantic Workflow EngineSemantic Workflow Engine
Linked Data API (RDF/XML, TTL, JSON)
Domain
Specific
Services
Identity
Resolution
Service
Chemistry
Registration
Normalisation
& Q/C
Identifier
Management
Service
Indexin
g
CorePlatformCorePlatform
P12374
EC2.43.4
CS4532
“Adenosine
receptor 2a”
VoIDVoID
DbDb
NanopubNanopub
DbDb
VoIDVoID
DbDb
VoIDVoID
NanopubNanopub
VoIDVoID
Public Content Commercial
Public
Ontologies
User
Annotations
Apps
ChemBio
Navigator
Target
Dossier
Pipeline
Pilot
Under the hood

49. Strict Relaxed
Analysing Browsing
Dynamic Equality
skos:closeMatch
(Drug Name)
skos:closeMatch
(Drug Name)
skos:exactMatch
(InChI)

50. CS
Research
Software
Engineering
Science Engage
Delivery & Support
2001-
2006

51. CS
Research
Software
Engineering
Science Engage
Delivery & Support
2006
-today

52. “Startup-Like”
Balance Innovation with Usefulness

53. Software Engineering
Research Software Engineers.
Sustainable software.

54. Zeeya Merali , Nature 467, 775-777 (2010) | doi:10.1038/467775a
Computational science: ...Error…why scientific programming does not compute.

55. Training
• Training infrastructure
• Scalable training approaches
• Review needs
• Coordinate activities and materials
• Liaise with Nodes and Hub

56. Data-centric Computation
Scientific workflows over Distributed
Cyber-Infrastructure.
Data sharing Social Methods
libraries and catalogues for all types of
scientific artefacts and all types of
scientists.
Knowledge Management
Metadata, semantics digital exchange,
preservation, publishing
Software Engineering
Software sustainability, software and
data policy, training
Products Methods
Systems Biology
Chemistry
Astro-Physics
Astronomy
Biology
Social Science
Library
Digital
Preservation
Biodiversity
Public Health
Applications

57. Lemberger T Mol Syst Biol 2014;10:715
©2014 by European Molecular Biology Organization
Born Reproducible | Exchangeable |
Reusable
Rich descriptions
Open & Available
Transparent
Method
Re-executable

58. • myGrid
– http://www.mygrid.org.uk
• Taverna
– http://www.taverna.org.uk
• myExperiment
– http://www.myexperiment.org
• BioCatalogue
– http://www.biocatalogue.org
• SEEK and SysMO-SEEK
– http://www.seek4science.org
– http://seek.sysmo-db.org
• RightField
– http://www.rightfield.org.uk
• BioVeL
– http://www.biovel.eu
• Wf4ever
– http://www.wf4ever-project.org
• Research Object
– http://www.researchobject.org
• Software Sustainability Institute
– http://www.software.ac.uk