PISKa

PISKa is a stochastic simulator for rule-based models written in an expanded version of Kappa-Language, which we call Spatial Kappa (see the wiki of this repository). PISKa is directly based on (and forked from) the repository of the simulation software KaSim. The main new features of PISKa are:

1. Models must be written in Spatial Kappa.
2. Simulations will run using an MPI framework, where every compartment or cell (subcompartments defined with an array notation) use an independent core of the computing architecture.
3. To run a spatial simulation you need to use the mpirun tool of your MPI framework, and give as "number-of-cores" parameter (-n X), the amount of compartments or cells of your model.
4. You need to specify the synchronization step for your simulation using the PISKa's argument -sync-t. This argument defines the time step to synchronize compartments; a small value gives a slow but accurate simulation and a large value, a fast but unaccurate simulation.

It is recomended to first read the pdf of KaSim reference manual (available here) to learn about stochastic simulation and Kappa-Language.

Installation

To install you need the ocaml native compiler. To check whether you have it, type

$ ocamlopt.opt -version

Ocaml installation tutorial can be found on its official website. Or in ubuntu and other systems:

$ sudo apt-get install opam

$ opam init

You will also need the ocamlmpi library and an MPI framework like OpenMPI for compliation and for running simulations. It is recomended that you install both ocaml and libraries using Opam.

$ sudo apt-get install libopenmpi-dev

openmpi is installed by default in several systems. (update) ocamlmpi is no longer supported by opam, you will need to install manually:

$ git clone https://github.com/xavierleroy/ocamlmpi.git

$ cd ocamlmpi

Maybe at this step you need to edit Makefile to change the value of MPIINCDIR to your mpi library implemnetation folder. For example: MPIIINCDIR=/usr/include/openmpi

Then you can generate binaries and install:

$ make

$ make opt

$ sudo make install

To create PISKa binaries and install, simply type

$ git clone https://github.com/naxo100/PISKa.git

$ cd PISKa

$ make

$ sudo make install

If make fails, it's probably because it cannot find ocamlmpi lib. Open Makefile and edit the folder of ocampi (find the line that says OCAMLOPT = $(OCAMLBINPATH)ocamlopt.opt -I \`ocamlfind query mpi\` , edit the last part).

To learn more about installation please visit the wiki of this repository. This should produce PISKa binaries. You will need your own plotting program (like gnuplot) to visualize curves.

Usage

In order to run a simulation of 100 time units, type

$ mpirun -n 'num-of-compartments' PISKa -i skappa_file -t 100 -p 1000 -sync-t 0.5 -o data_file

This will produce several (one for each compartment) data files of 1000 point (-p option) containing the trajectory that was produced during the simulation with synchronization step of 0.5 time units (ie. 200 synchronizations).

Type:

$ PISKa --help

for a complete list of options.