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openauc-io

Open-source Python library for importing, validating, standardising, visualising and archiving analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) data.

Pre-alpha, version 0.1.0a1, not published

APIs may change without notice. The package is not on PyPI — install from a clone or a locally built wheel (see Installation).

What it does

Capability Status
Canonical in-memory experiment model Implemented
Generic long/wide CSV & TSV ingestion via manifests Implemented
Tiered structural validation Implemented
Analysis-readiness reporting Implemented
Structured, JSON-friendly summaries Implemented
Basic scan plotting Implemented
AUCX archival container (.aucx) Implemented
Deterministic synthetic data generation Implemented
Command-line interface Implemented

What it does not do

openauc performs no scientific analysis, and this is permanent, not a roadmap item:

  • no sedimentation-velocity or equilibrium analysis, fitting or modelling;
  • no convection, aggregation, meniscus or equilibrium detection;
  • no data-quality scoring — scientific suitability is always reported as NOT_ASSESSED;
  • no unit conversion — declared units are retained, never converted;
  • no vendor or instrument formats (Beckman XL-A/XL-I, Optima, OpenAUC, SEDFIT/SEDPHAT are not read).

See Scientific boundaries for why.

Where to start

The vocabulary this project keeps precise

Four ideas are deliberately kept apart throughout the code and these docs:

Term Question it answers
Representation Can the data be held faithfully, without inference or transformation?
Structural validation Are metadata, scans and observations internally consistent?
Analysis readiness Is the metadata a future workflow would need actually present?
Scientific suitability Is the experiment sound? — never assessed by this project

Confusing them is the single most likely way to misuse this library. See Validation tiers.