General Information
Who: The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.
Where: Computing Lab 1, Medical Education Centre, Crewe Rd S, Edinburgh EH4 2XU. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.
When: 6 November 2018. Add to your Google Calendar.
Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below). They are also required to abide by Software Carpentry's Code of Conduct.
Accessibility: We are committed to making this workshop accessible to everybody. The workshop organizers have checked that:
- The room is wheelchair / scooter accessible.
- Accessible restrooms are available.
Materials will be provided in advance of the workshop and large-print handouts are available if needed by notifying the organizers in advance. If we can help making learning easier for you (e.g. sign-language interpreters, lactation facilities) please get in touch (using contact details below) and we will attempt to provide them.
Contact: Please email john.ireland@igmm.ed.ac.uk or a.turner@epcc.ed.ac.uk for more information.
The best way to learn how to program is to do something useful, so this introduction to Python is built around a common scientific task: data analysis.
Arthritis Inflammation
We are studying inflammation in patients who have been given a new treatment for arthritis, and need to analyze the first dozen data sets of their daily inflammation. The data sets are stored in comma-separated values (CSV) format:
- each row holds information for a single patient,
- columns represent successive days.
The first three rows of our first file look like this:
0,0,1,3,1,2,4,7,8,3,3,3,10,5,7,4,7,7,12,18,6,13,11,11,7,7,4,6,8,8,4,4,5,7,3,4,2,3,0,0
0,1,2,1,2,1,3,2,2,6,10,11,5,9,4,4,7,16,8,6,18,4,12,5,12,7,11,5,11,3,3,5,4,4,5,5,1,1,0,1
0,1,1,3,3,2,6,2,5,9,5,7,4,5,4,15,5,11,9,10,19,14,12,17,7,12,11,7,4,2,10,5,4,2,2,3,2,2,1,1
So, we want to:
- Calculate the average inflammation per day across all patients.
- Plot the result to discuss and share with colleagues.
To do all that, we’ll have to learn a little bit about programming.
Prerequisites
You need to understand the concepts of files and directories and how to start a Python interpreter before tackling this lesson. This lesson sometimes references Jupyter Notebook although you can use any Python interpreter mentioned in the Setup.
The commands in this lesson pertain to Python 3.
Getting Started
To get started, follow the directions on the “Setup” page to download data and install a Python interpreter.
Surveys
Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.
We will use this collaborative document for chatting, taking notes, and sharing URLs and bits of code.