Kinetic Simulation Algorithm Ontology

To enable the accurate and repeatable execution of a computational simulation task, it is important to identify both the algorithm used and the initial setup. These minimum information requirements are described by the MIASE guidelines. Since the details of some algorithms are not always publicly available, and many are implemented only in a limited number of simulation tools, it is crucial to identify alternative algorithms with similar characteristics that may be used to provide comparable results in an equivalent simulation experiment. The Kinetic Simulation Algorithm Ontology (KiSAO) was developed to address this issue by describing existing algorithms and their inter-relationships through their characteristics and parameters. The use of KiSAO in conjunction with simulation descriptions, such as SED-ML, will allow simulation software to automatically choose the best algorithm available to perform a simulation. The availability of algorithm parameters, together with their type may permit the automatic generation of user-interfaces to configure simulators. To enable making queries to KiSAO programmaticaly, from simulation experiment description editors and simulation tools, a java library libKiSAO was implemented.