ExpLabA Tool Set for Computational Experiments

ExpLabA Tool Set for Computational Experiments| A Short Tutorial |http://explab.sourceforge.net/Susan Hert Lutz Kettner Tobias Polzin Guido Sch aferMax-Planck-Institut fur InformatikStuhlsatzenhausweg 85, 66123 Saarbruc ken, Germany[hert|kettner|polzin|schaefer]@mpi-sb.mpg.deNovember 18, 2002AbstractThe Tool Set for Computational Experiments is intended to support the run-ning, documentation and evaluation of computational experiments. Wetake our cues from the natural sciences where experiments are performed in a labthat is equipped with tools designed speci cally for the purpose of supporting exper-imentation and where experiments are fully documented in a lab book. This is doneso the results can be analyzed in the proper context and others can reproduce thesame experiments to verify the results or perhaps test hypotheses about which partsof the exptal context are responsible for the observed results. The informa-tional needs of scientists evaluating computational experiments are exactly the sameas those for evaluating other types of experiments: the context must be known and,to lend credibility to the results, one must be able to reproduce the same experimentin one’s own lab from the data presented.We rst discuss the installation of the tool set (Section 1) and then show throughexamples how the tools might be used to1. run computational experiments such that they can be reproduced at a latertime (Section 2),2. convert (certain parts of) the ...