Browse Skills — Page 17

alterlab-openalex

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Query and analyze scholarly literature using the OpenAlex API across 240M+ works, retrieving papers, authors, institutions, citations, and open access status. Use when searching academic papers, tracking citations, finding works by author or institution, analyzing research trends, discovering open access publications, or running bibliometric analysis. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-opentargets

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Query the Open Targets Platform GraphQL API for target-disease associations, tractability and safety data, genetics/omics evidence, and known drugs. Use when identifying or prioritizing therapeutic drug targets, assessing target druggability/safety, or gathering target-disease evidence for drug discovery. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-opentrons

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Writes liquid-handling protocols for Opentrons OT-2 and Flex robots using the official Opentrons Protocol API v2, with full access to v2 features for production-grade, officially compatible protocols. Use when authoring or running protocols specifically for Opentrons hardware. For multi-vendor automation or broader equipment control use pylabrobot instead. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-paper-2-web

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Converts academic papers into promotional and presentation formats — interactive websites (Paper2Web), presentation videos (Paper2Video), and conference posters (Paper2Poster) from LaTeX or PDF sources. Use when disseminating a paper, preparing for a conference, building an explorable academic homepage, generating a video abstract, or producing a print-ready poster from a paper. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-paper-reviewer

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Simulates a full multi-reviewer journal review PANEL — 5 personas (Editor-in-Chief + 3 peer reviewers + a Devil's Advocate) debate a manuscript and produce a consensus Editorial Decision (accept/minor/major/reject) plus a prioritized Revision Roadmap. Modes: full, re-review (verify revisions addressed prior comments), quick, methodology-focus, Socratic guided. Use for: simulate peer review, mock review panel, editorial review before submission, multiple reviewer perspectives, re-review of a revised manuscript, or 'critique my paper hard'. For a single-reviewer referee report use alterlab-peer-review; for rubric/grade scoring use alterlab-scholar-eval; to write/revise the paper use alterlab-paper-writer. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-paper-writer

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Drafts and revises academic papers through a 12-agent pipeline with hardened LaTeX output (apa7 document class, justified text, table column-width formula, centered bilingual abstracts, standardized font stack, PDF compiled from LaTeX), supporting IMRaD, literature review, theoretical, case study, policy brief, and conference paper structures, APA 7.0 (default), Chicago, MLA, IEEE, and Vancouver citation formats, bilingual zh-TW plus EN abstracts, and multi-format output (LaTeX, DOCX, PDF, Markdown). Use when the request mentions write paper, academic paper, paper outline, write abstract, revise paper, check citations, convert to LaTeX, guide my paper, parse reviews, revision roadmap, or 寫論文, 學術論文, 論文大綱, 寫摘要, 修改論文, 檢查引用, 引導我寫論文, 帶我規劃論文, 逐章規劃, 論文架構, 審查意見, 修訂路線圖. Its citation-check mode formats and inserts citations while drafting; for a standalone anti-hallucination check that cited references actually exist prefer alterlab-citation-verifier instead. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-parallel-web

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Search the web, run deep research, and extract content from known URLs via the Parallel Web Systems Chat API (OpenAI-compatible) and Extract API, returning synthesized summaries with inline citations. Use when running general web searches, current-events/market/technical lookups, broad information gathering, comprehensive research reports, or verifying a specific URL's content (requires PARALLEL_API_KEY). For scholarly paper retrieval or dual-backend academic lookup that auto-routes to Perplexity prefer alterlab-research-lookup instead. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pathml

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Run full computational-pathology workflows with PathML — whole-slide-image (WSI) analysis across 160+ slide formats, multiplexed immunofluorescence (CODEX, Vectra, MERFISH), nucleus segmentation/classification (HoVer-Net, HACTNet), tissue- and cell-graph construction, HDF5 dataset management, and deep-learning model training on pathology data. Use when the user builds end-to-end deep-learning pathology pipelines, analyzes multiplexed or spatial-proteomics slides, or segments nuclei. For lightweight H&E slide preprocessing, tissue masking, or plain Random/Grid/Score tile extraction prefer alterlab-histolab instead. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pdb

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Access the RCSB Protein Data Bank (PDB) for EXPERIMENTALLY determined 3D structures (X-ray, cryo-EM, NMR) of proteins and nucleic acids — searching by text, sequence, or structure similarity and downloading coordinates in PDB/mmCIF format with metadata. Use when retrieving a structure by PDB ID, running sequence or structure similarity searches, or obtaining experimental coordinates for structural biology and drug discovery; for AI-PREDICTED structures of proteins lacking experimental data prefer alterlab-alphafold-db, and for protein sequences, annotations, or accession ID mapping prefer alterlab-uniprot instead. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pdf-explore

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Explore a single PDF in depth — parse it once, then answer questions across its sections, figures, tables, and appendices — comparing methods across sections, extracting every instance of a pattern within the document, and reading values off its charts and tables. Use when interrogating one paper or report end-to-end, pulling every occurrence of something inside a document, or reading data from a figure/table in a PDF, serving the literature-review and paper-review pipeline. To build a comparison table across MANY papers prefer alterlab-pdf-extract; to simply convert a PDF to Markdown prefer alterlab-markitdown; for reference/citation management prefer alterlab-pyzotero. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pdf-extract

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Free Elicit-columns analog — ingest N PDFs (or any MarkItDown-supported document) and build a per-paper evidence table with user-defined columns, one row per paper and one column per attribute/question you want pulled from every source. Use when extracting structured data across many papers into a comparison table or data-extraction sheet (sample size, methods, main finding, effect, population/intervention/outcome, limitations), screening a corpus into a spreadsheet, or pulling the same fields from a stack of PDFs into CSV/Markdown. Routes conversion through MarkItDown; offline heuristic backend by default, optional LLM backend for precise answers. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-peer-review

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Writes structured, checklist-based manuscript and grant peer reviews — assesses methodology, statistical validity, reporting-standards compliance (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA), and gives constructive feedback. Use when writing a formal reviewer report, responding to a journal/grant review invitation, or revising a manuscript against reviewer criteria. For evaluating claims/evidence quality prefer alterlab-scientific-thinking; for a multi-reviewer mock-panel verdict use alterlab-paper-reviewer; for quantitative rubric scoring use alterlab-scholar-eval. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pennylane

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Trains and differentiates quantum circuits with PennyLane, a hardware-agnostic quantum machine-learning framework with automatic differentiation and PyTorch/JAX/TensorFlow integration. Use when training quantum circuits via gradients (parameter-shift, backprop, adjoint), building hybrid quantum-classical models or quantum neural networks, or running differentiable variational algorithms (VQE, QAOA). For IBM Quantum hardware and Qiskit Runtime prefer alterlab-qiskit; for Google Quantum AI or NISQ circuits prefer alterlab-cirq; for open-system Lindblad/master-equation dynamics prefer alterlab-qutip. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-perplexity

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Run AI web searches with real-time, citation-grounded answers using Perplexity Sonar models (sonar, sonar-pro, sonar-pro-search agentic search, sonar-reasoning, sonar-reasoning-pro) via LiteLLM and a single OpenRouter API key. Use when searching for current information or recent scientific literature, getting answers grounded in cited web sources, verifying a claim against current evidence, or reaching information beyond the model's training cutoff. Requires an OpenRouter API key. This is the direct single-backend Perplexity tool: for automatic routing between Perplexity and other backends use alterlab-research-lookup, and for structured per-paper experimental-data extraction (sample sizes, effect sizes, quality scores) use alterlab-bgpt-search. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-phylogenetics

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Build phylogenetic trees end-to-end from raw sequences — MAFFT multiple sequence alignment, optional TrimAl trimming, IQ-TREE 2 maximum-likelihood inference with model selection and bootstraps, FastTree for large datasets, then visualize with ETE3 or FigTree. Use when reconstructing trees from sequences (FASTA) for evolutionary analysis, microbial genomics, viral phylodynamics, protein-family studies, or molecular-clock dating. For manipulating/comparing an EXISTING Newick tree (prune, root, Robinson-Foulds, duplication/speciation events) use alterlab-etetoolkit; for plain sequence parsing/translation use alterlab-biopython. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-plotly

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Builds INTERACTIVE charts with the Plotly Python library (plotly.express / graph_objects) — hover tooltips, zoom/pan, animations, rangesliders, 3D rotation, and standalone HTML/web-embeddable output. Use when a chart must be interactive or web-embedded, for dashboards (incl. Dash), exploratory data analysis, or rotatable 3D plots. For static publication figures defer to alterlab-matplotlib; for static statistical charts (heatmaps, distributions) defer to alterlab-seaborn; for diagrams/schematics defer to alterlab-scientific-viz. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-polars

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Fast in-memory DataFrame analytics with Polars — lazy evaluation, parallel execution, and an Apache Arrow backend for datasets that fit in RAM. Use when pandas is too slow but data still fits in memory, for 1-100GB datasets, ETL pipelines, or a faster pandas replacement. For larger-than-RAM data prefer dask or vaex. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pptx-posters

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Creates research posters in HTML/CSS with responsive layouts and easy visual integration, exportable to PDF or PPTX. Use ONLY when the user explicitly requests a PowerPoint/PPTX/PPT poster, an HTML/web-based poster, or a poster they will edit in PowerPoint, or when LaTeX is unavailable. For a standard/conference research poster with no format named, use alterlab-latex-posters instead; for a slide deck/oral-talk presentation, use alterlab-scientific-slides. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-preprint-deposition

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Drives preprint deposition across servers (arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, SSRN, OSF Preprints): picks the right server by field, prepares submission metadata, sets the license (arXiv offers CC BY/BY-SA/BY-NC-SA/BY-NC-ND 4.0, the arXiv non-exclusive license, or CC0; bioRxiv/medRxiv offer CC BY/BY-NC/BY-ND/BY-NC-ND/CC0 or No-reuse), maps arXiv category taxonomy, handles immutable versioning and preprint DOIs, checks a journal's preprint/self-archiving policy via the Sherpa Romeo v2 API, and links the posted preprint to the published article. Reuses alterlab-arxiv and alterlab-biorxiv for metadata and alterlab-open-science for data-repository choice. Use when depositing a preprint, choosing a preprint server, preparing an arXiv or bioRxiv submission, setting a preprint license, or checking journal preprint policy; for Zenodo/Dryad/Figshare data deposition prefer alterlab-open-science, for TÜBİTAK Aperta prefer alterlab-aperta. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-preregistration-discipline

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Enforces pre-registration discipline with the Iron Law NO DATA ANALYSIS WITHOUT A PRE-REGISTERED ANALYSIS PLAN FIRST, a spirit-vs-letter line, an Excuse-vs-Reality rationalization table, and a Red-Flags-STOP list (HARKing, optional stopping, post-hoc covariates, outlier-dropping, test-shopping). Runs a PLAN/COLLECT/CONFIRM/EXPLORE workflow that freezes hypotheses, tests, exclusions, and stopping rules before data, then forces unplanned findings to be labeled exploratory (their p-values lose confirmatory status, per COS confirmatory/exploratory model). Orchestrates, not replaces, alterlab-open-science (OSF/AsPredicted registration), alterlab-statistical-analysis (test selection, assumptions), and alterlab-scientific-thinking (bias grading). Use when analyzing data without a frozen plan, switching the primary outcome or adding covariates after seeing results, weighing early stopping, dropping outliers post-hoc, pre-registering a study, or rationalizing deviation. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-primekg

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Queries the Precision Medicine Knowledge Graph (PrimeKG) for multiscale biomedical relationships across genes, drugs, diseases, phenotypes, pathways, and biological processes. Use when exploring drug-disease or gene-disease links, building disease-centric knowledge subgraphs, or sourcing relations for drug repurposing and precision-medicine analyses. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-proteinmpnn

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Design protein sequences for a fixed backbone with ProteinMPNN (Dauparas 2022) — message-passing inverse folding that outputs sequences predicted to fold to a given structure, with fixed positions, tied/symmetric chains, amino-acid bias, and a soluble-model variant. Use when inverse-folding a backbone PDB into sequences, redesigning selected positions, imposing symmetry across chains, or generating the sequence step of a design→fold→score loop. For pocket/interface design WITH a bound ligand, metal, or nucleic acid prefer alterlab-ligandmpnn; to GENERATE a new backbone prefer alterlab-rfdiffusion; to refold and validate a design prefer alterlab-alphafold; for generative multimodal design prefer alterlab-esm. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-protocolsio

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Manages scientific protocols through the protocols.io API v3 — search, create, update, and publish protocols (with DOI), manage steps and materials, handle protocol/step discussions and comments, organize team workspaces, and upload/manage workspace files. Use when discovering, developing, publishing, or citing protocols.io protocols, collaborating on protocol steps/materials, recording experiment runs, or integrating protocols.io into lab documentation. Not for general ELN entries/notebooks (use alterlab-benchling or alterlab-labarchive) or lab-instrument/liquid-handler control. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pubchem

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Query PubChem via the PUG-REST API and PubChemPy across 110M+ compounds, searching by name, CID, or SMILES and retrieving molecular properties, bioactivity, and similarity/substructure matches. Use when looking up a chemical compound, converting names/SMILES to CIDs, fetching physicochemical properties, or running cheminformatics structure searches. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pubmed

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Provide direct REST API access to PubMed via the NCBI E-utilities API, supporting advanced Boolean/MeSH queries, batch processing, and citation management. Use when searching biomedical literature by MeSH terms, retrieving abstracts or PMIDs in bulk, or scripting custom PubMed queries over raw HTTP/REST — for Python workflows prefer biopython (Bio.Entrez) instead, use this for direct REST work or custom API implementations. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pufferlib

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Scales reinforcement learning with PufferLib — high-throughput parallel training (PuffeRL), vectorized environments, and native multi-agent systems achieving 2-10x speedups over standard implementations. Use when scaling RL to millions of steps per second, running vectorized or multi-agent setups, building custom PufferEnv tasks, or integrating game environments (Atari, Procgen, NetHack, PettingZoo). For standard single-agent algorithm implementations (PPO/SAC/DQN) or quick prototyping prefer alterlab-stable-baselines3. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pydeseq2

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Run differential gene expression analysis on bulk RNA-seq count matrices with PyDESeq2, the Python port of DESeq2 — size-factor normalization, dispersion estimation, Wald tests, FDR (Benjamini-Hochberg) correction, and volcano/MA plots. Use when identifying differentially expressed genes between conditions from raw bulk RNA-seq counts. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pydicom

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Reads, writes, and manipulates DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) medical imaging files with the pydicom Python library. Use when reading/writing/modifying DICOM data, extracting pixel data from CT, MRI, X-ray, or ultrasound images, anonymizing DICOM files, working with DICOM metadata and tags, converting DICOM to other formats, handling compressed DICOM, or processing medical imaging datasets for PACS systems, radiology workflows, and healthcare imaging applications. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pyhealth

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Develops, tests, and deploys clinical machine learning models with the PyHealth healthcare AI toolkit. Use when working with electronic health records (EHR), clinical prediction tasks (mortality, readmission, drug recommendation), medical coding systems (ICD, NDC, ATC), physiological signals (EEG, ECG), healthcare datasets (MIMIC-III/IV, eICU, OMOP), or implementing deep learning models for healthcare (RETAIN, SafeDrug, Transformer, GNN). Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pylabrobot

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Programs lab automation with PyLabRobot, a vendor-agnostic Python framework that unifies control across Hamilton, Tecan, Opentrons, plate readers, and pumps, with simulation support. Use when controlling multiple equipment types or needing unified cross-vendor programming for complex, multi-vendor liquid-handling workflows. For Opentrons-only protocols with the official API, alterlab-opentrons may be simpler. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pymatgen

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Analyzes and manipulates materials with the pymatgen toolkit — crystal structures and molecules, phase diagrams and thermodynamic stability, electronic structure (band structures, DOS), surfaces and interfaces, and Materials Project database access. Use when working with crystal structures in materials science, converting between structure formats (CIF, POSCAR, XYZ), analyzing symmetry or space groups, computing phase diagrams, querying the Materials Project API, or handling VASP, Gaussian, or Quantum ESPRESSO output. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pymc

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Bayesian modeling and probabilistic programming with PyMC — hierarchical models, MCMC (NUTS) sampling, variational inference, LOO/WAIC model comparison, and posterior predictive checks. Use when fitting Bayesian or hierarchical models, estimating posteriors and credible intervals, running probabilistic inference, or comparing models with LOO/WAIC. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pymoo

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Multi-objective optimization with pymoo — NSGA-II, NSGA-III, MOEA/D, Pareto-front computation, constraint handling, and standard benchmarks (ZDT, DTLZ). Use when solving multi-objective or constrained optimization problems, computing Pareto-optimal trade-offs, or tackling engineering design problems with competing objectives. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pyopenms

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Build complete mass-spectrometry workflows with pyOpenMS — feature detection, peptide identification, protein quantification, and full LC-MS/MS pipelines across many MS file formats (mzML, mzXML) and algorithms. Use for comprehensive proteomics and MS data processing — for simple spectral comparison and metabolite identification use matchms. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pysam

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Read and write genomic alignment and variant files in Python with pysam (htslib bindings) — SAM/BAM/CRAM alignments, VCF/BCF variants, and FASTA/FASTQ sequences, plus region extraction and per-base coverage/pileup. Use when scripting NGS data-processing pipelines that parse, filter, index, or compute coverage over BAM/CRAM/VCF files. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pytdc

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Loads Therapeutics Data Commons (TDC, PyTDC) AI-ready drug-discovery datasets and benchmarks — ADME, toxicity, drug-target interaction (DTI), scaffold splits, and molecular oracles for therapeutic ML and pharmacological prediction. Use when fetching a standardized benchmark dataset, applying scaffold or cold-split evaluation, or sourcing labeled molecules for ADMET, toxicity, or DTI modeling. Sources data, splits, and oracles only — defer molecular featurization (ECFP/fingerprints), model training, and transformers to a molecular-ML skill (e.g. deepchem). Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pytorch-lightning

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Scalable deep-learning training with PyTorch Lightning — organize PyTorch code into LightningModules, configure Trainers for multi-GPU/TPU, build data pipelines and callbacks, log to W&B or TensorBoard, and run distributed training (DDP, FSDP, DeepSpeed). Use when structuring PyTorch training loops, scaling neural-network training across GPUs/TPUs, or adding checkpointing, logging, and distributed strategies. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-pyzotero

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Interact with Zotero reference management libraries using the pyzotero Python client — retrieve, create, update, and delete items, collections, tags, and attachments via the Zotero Web API v3. Use when working with Zotero libraries programmatically, managing bibliographic references, exporting citations, searching library contents, uploading PDF attachments, or building research automation workflows that integrate with Zotero. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-qca

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Runs Qualitative Comparative Analysis — crisp-set (csQCA), multi-value (mvQCA), and fuzzy-set (fsQCA) — for small-to-medium-N configurational research: calibrating raw data into set membership, building and refining a truth table, and Boolean minimization into conservative / parsimonious / intermediate solutions with consistency and coverage. Because there is no maintained Python QCA library, it shells out to R's QCA package (calibrate, truthTable, minimize) via Rscript and documents that dependency honestly rather than faking a Python API. Use when the request mentions QCA, fsQCA, csQCA, configurational or set-theoretic analysis, necessary/sufficient conditions, truth tables, or calibration of conditions. For net-effect estimation of a single treatment prefer alterlab-causal-inference; for interpretive analysis prefer alterlab-qualitative-methods. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-qiime2-amplicon

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Runs 16S/ITS amplicon (microbiome) analysis with the QIIME 2 amplicon distribution (2026.1; renamed to "qiime2" in 2026.4) in the correct order: manifest import, cutadapt trim-paired primer removal BEFORE dada2 denoise-paired (trunc-len chosen from the demux quality .qzv), feature-classifier classify-sklearn against a version-matched SILVA 138 or Greengenes2 classifier, and diversity core-metrics-phylogenetic — teaching the .qza/.qzv artifact-and-provenance model and the 2026.1 feature-table summarize change (the former summarize_plus). Use when the request mentions QIIME2, QIIME 2, qiime, 16S, 18S, ITS, amplicon, microbiome, ASV, DADA2 denoising, feature table, taxonomic classification, or core-metrics diversity. For downstream alpha/beta diversity, PCoA, and PERMANOVA on the exported feature table prefer alterlab-scikit-bio; this is conda-only (no pip install). Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-qiskit

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Builds, transpiles, and runs quantum circuits with Qiskit, IBM's quantum computing framework, including Qiskit Runtime primitives (Sampler/Estimator), circuit transpilation, and error mitigation on IBM Quantum hardware. Use when targeting IBM Quantum backends, transpiling circuits, running Runtime sessions or batches, or applying resilience/error mitigation. For Google Quantum AI hardware and NISQ circuits prefer alterlab-cirq; for gradient-trained quantum ML and hybrid quantum-classical models prefer alterlab-pennylane; for open-system Lindblad/master-equation dynamics prefer alterlab-qutip. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-qualitative-analysis

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Analyzes qualitative data as a dispatched pipeline module — codebook development, thematic / framework / content analysis, and inter-coder reliability computed correctly (Krippendorff's alpha as primary via the krippendorff package or a bundled stdlib nominal calculator with bootstrap CIs; Cohen's / Fleiss' kappa via statsmodels) with 95% CIs and thresholds (alpha >= .80 reliable, .667-.80 tentative). It BRANCHES by design: coefficient-based ICR for codebook / content-analytic coding, versus consensus-and-reflexivity for reflexive thematic analysis where a statistic is not the right criterion. Supports human-vs-LLM double-coding with an alpha check against a human gold standard. Use when coding interviews or open-ended text, building a codebook, or reporting intercoder reliability. For topic modeling / embeddings / supervised text classification prefer alterlab-text-as-data; for the reflexivity gate prefer alterlab-ssci-reflexivity-gate. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-qualitative-methods

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Comprehensive qualitative research methods assistant supporting thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke), grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin; Charmaz), interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), content analysis, narrative inquiry, ethnography, case study methodology (Yin), coding techniques (open/axial/selective), NVivo-style workflows with Python alternatives, trustworthiness criteria (Lincoln & Guba), reflexivity, and member checking. Use when designing or analyzing qualitative research — thematic analysis, grounded theory, coding data, phenomenology, IPA, ethnography, case study, narrative inquiry, content analysis, qualitative coding, NVivo, trustworthiness, member checking, reflexivity, interview analysis, or focus group analysis. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-qutip

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Simulates open quantum systems with QuTiP, the Quantum Toolbox in Python, solving Lindblad master equations (mesolve), Monte Carlo trajectories (mcsolve), and unitary dynamics (sesolve). Use when studying master-equation or Lindblad dynamics, decoherence, dissipation, quantum optics, cavity QED, or open-system time evolution. NOT for circuit-based quantum computing or hardware execution — for IBM Quantum circuits prefer alterlab-qiskit, for Google Quantum AI or NISQ circuits prefer alterlab-cirq, and for gradient-trained quantum ML prefer alterlab-pennylane. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-rdkit

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Provides the RDKit cheminformatics toolkit for low-level, fine-grained molecular primitives — SMILES/SDF parsing, descriptors (MW, LogP, TPSA), fingerprints, substructure/SMARTS search, 2D/3D coordinate generation, similarity, and reaction handling. Use when custom sanitization, specialized fingerprint or descriptor algorithms, reaction enumeration, or conformer generation demand direct API control; for a high-level pandas-friendly wrapper over RDKit prefer alterlab-datamol, and for turning molecules into ML feature vectors prefer alterlab-molfeat. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-reactome

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Query the Reactome REST API for pathway analysis, over-representation/enrichment, gene-to-pathway mapping, disease pathways, molecular interactions, and expression analysis. Use when running pathway enrichment on a gene list, mapping genes to curated biological pathways, or exploring disease pathways for systems biology studies. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-recommendation-letters

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Drafts evidence-anchored academic reference and recommendation letters across types — graduate admission, faculty hiring, tenure/promotion external review, fellowship, and award nomination — from a structured prompt of candidate accomplishments, role context, evaluator relationship, and audience, calibrating specificity and register to the letter type and running a no-fabrication guard that flags unsupported superlatives, unanchored rankings, and claims with no evidence in the supplied dossier. Ships scripts/letter_scaffold.py to emit a typed section skeleton and scripts/claim_guard.py to lint a draft for evidence-free assertions. Use when the request is to write a recommendation or reference letter for a student or colleague, a tenure or promotion external-review letter, a fellowship or award nomination, or to check a letter draft for unsupported claims. For a candidate writing their own CV, research statement, or career narrative prefer alterlab-academic-career. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-redcap-cdisc

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Designs validated research data-capture instruments and aligns them to CDISC submission standards. Builds REDCap projects from a requirements spec: instrument and field design, the 18-column data dictionary (Variable/Field Name, Form Name, Field Type, Choices, Branching Logic, Text Validation, Identifier?), field validation (date_ymd, integer, number, email, phone), branching/show-field logic, longitudinal events and survey settings, and lints a data dictionary for common errors. Maps a study to CDISC: CDASH collection fields, SDTM domain mapping (DM, AE, VS, LB, EX, CM, MH across Interventions/Events/Findings classes), and NCI-EVS controlled terminology. Use when the user wants to build a REDCap project, write or lint a data dictionary, set up branching logic or validation, or map a study to CDISC SDTM/CDASH/CDISC CT. For LabArchives ELN bridging use alterlab-labarchive; for Likert/sampling/reliability use alterlab-survey-design. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-remote-compute

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Dispatch long-running GPU/CPU jobs to remote compute with a provider-agnostic submit → poll → harvest pattern across SLURM/HPC (sbatch, squeue, sacct) and managed APIs (Modal, RunPod, GCP Batch / Vertex AI). Use when submitting a batch job to a cluster, polling job status, retrieving result artifacts from a scheduler or cloud GPU provider, or writing a portable job-submission wrapper; the foundation-model skills (alterlab-alphafold, alterlab-boltz, alterlab-rfdiffusion, and siblings) dispatch their GPU work through this pattern. For Modal-specific serverless container deployment and autoscaling prefer alterlab-modal instead. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-research-ethics

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

International research ethics and compliance assistant supporting IRB/ethics board applications, informed consent drafting, data management plans, Belmont Report principles, Declaration of Helsinki (2024), GDPR compliance for research, HIPAA considerations, vulnerable populations protocols, deception research, confidentiality and anonymity, research integrity (fabrication/falsification/plagiarism), conflict of interest disclosure, and dual-use research oversight. Use when preparing an IRB or ethics board application, drafting informed consent, writing a data management plan, addressing GDPR/HIPAA in research, protecting human subjects or vulnerable populations, handling animal ethics, or disclosing conflicts of interest. For Turkey-specific etik kurul use alterlab-tr-research-ethics; for KVKK data plans alterlab-kvkk-dmp; for survey wording alterlab-survey-design; for qualitative methodology alterlab-qualitative-methods. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-research-grants

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Writes competitive research grant proposals for NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA, and Taiwan NSTC — applies agency-specific formatting and review criteria, prepares budgets, and drafts broader-impacts, significance statements, and innovation narratives that comply with submission requirements. Use when drafting or revising a grant proposal, aligning a proposal to a funding agency's review criteria, or preparing grant budgets and compliance sections. For Turkey's TÜBİTAK 1001/1002-A national proposals use alterlab-tubitak-proposal; to write a reviewer's critique of someone else's proposal use alterlab-peer-review; for a journal manuscript use alterlab-scientific-writing. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-research-lookup

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Look up current research and scholarly papers by auto-routing each query to the best backend — the Parallel Web Systems Chat API (general research) or Perplexity sonar-pro-search (academic paper searches) — and save every result with citations to sources/. Use when finding papers, gathering research data, verifying scientific claims, or assembling citation lists and unsure which search backend fits. For plain general web search or extracting content from a known URL prefer alterlab-parallel-web instead (requires PARALLEL_API_KEY and OPENROUTER_API_KEY). Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-research-pipeline

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Orchestrates the full academic research pipeline (research, write, integrity check, review, revise, re-review, re-revise, final integrity check, finalize), coordinating alterlab-deep-research, alterlab-paper-writer, and alterlab-paper-reviewer into a seamless 10-stage workflow with mandatory integrity verification, two-stage peer review, and reproducible quality gates. Use when the request mentions academic pipeline, research to paper, full paper workflow, paper pipeline, end-to-end paper, research-to-publication, or complete paper workflow. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-results-transparency

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Enforces results-reporting transparency as a discipline gate built on the Iron Law "NO RESULTS CLAIM WITHOUT REPORTING EVERY ANALYSIS RUN" — a numbered Gate Function (IDENTIFY the claim, LIST every test actually run including the ones that did not "work", CHECK assumptions were reported, CHECK effect size with 95% CI is present, CHECK pre-registration deviations are disclosed, ONLY THEN write the sentence), plus an Excuse-vs-Reality table and Red-Flags-STOP list for selective reporting, cherry-picking, and bare p-values. Use when writing up Results, claiming a finding from a subset of analyses, reporting a p-value without an effect size or confidence interval, dropping outliers post hoc, or omitting analyses that did not pan out. Orchestrates alterlab-statistical-analysis (tests, effect sizes), alterlab-preregistration-discipline (the frozen plan), and alterlab-open-science (TOP, disclosure); it does not run the tests itself. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-rfdiffusion

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Generate de-novo protein backbones with RFdiffusion (Watson 2023) — a diffusion model for unconditional monomer generation, motif scaffolding, binder design against a target, and symmetric oligomers. Use when generating a new protein backbone from scratch, scaffolding a functional motif into a fold, designing a binder backbone to a target surface, or building symmetric assemblies; RFdiffusion produces the STRUCTURE, then alterlab-proteinmpnn designs its sequence and alterlab-alphafold validates it. For sequence design of an existing backbone prefer alterlab-proteinmpnn (or alterlab-ligandmpnn with a ligand); to fold a known sequence prefer alterlab-alphafold; for generative multimodal design prefer alterlab-esm. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-rnaseq-quant

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Quantifies bulk RNA-seq transcript abundance with salmon (v1.11.4 selective alignment) and kallisto (v0.52.0, kb-python workflow), builds a decoy-aware gentrome index, runs quant with --validateMappings --gcBias -l A, then imports estimates via tximport/tximeta with a tx2gene map and hands differential expression to alterlab-pydeseq2. Warns that salmon's index format changed to SSHash (rebuild pre-v1.11.2 indices) and that 'salmon alevin' was REMOVED (single-cell now uses piscem + alevin-fry). Use when quantifying RNA-seq transcript abundance, running salmon or kallisto, building a decoy-aware index, or wiring tximport to DESeq2; for differential expression use alterlab-pydeseq2, for FASTQ-to-VCF variant calling use alterlab-nf-core-sarek. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-rowan

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Drives the Rowan cloud quantum-chemistry platform via its Python API for computational chemistry — pKa prediction, geometry optimization, conformer searching, molecular property calculations, protein-ligand docking (AutoDock Vina), and AI protein cofolding (Chai-1, Boltz-1/2), with cloud compute and no local setup. Use when running DFT or semiempirical methods, neural network potentials (AIMNet2), molecular property or protein-ligand binding predictions, or automated computational chemistry pipelines. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scanpy

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Run the standard single-cell RNA-seq analysis pipeline with Scanpy on AnnData — QC filtering, normalization, dimensionality reduction (PCA, UMAP, t-SNE), Leiden/Louvain clustering, marker/differential expression, PAGA trajectories, and plotting. Use when analyzing scRNA-seq data through clustering, cell-type annotation, DE, or pseudotime workflows; for building or reading the .h5ad data structure itself (layers, obs/var, concatenation, backed mode) prefer alterlab-anndata instead, and for RNA velocity from spliced/unspliced counts prefer alterlab-scvelo instead. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scgpt

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Apply the scGPT single-cell foundation model (Cui 2024) to annotate and embed cells — zero-shot and fine-tuned cell-type annotation, gene/cell embeddings, batch integration, and gene-regulatory / perturbation inference from AnnData. Use when annotating cell types with a pretrained foundation model, generating scGPT embeddings, integrating batches with a transformer, or running zero-shot single-cell inference on an h5ad. For probabilistic latent models (scVI/scANVI) prefer alterlab-scvi-tools; for the standard QC→cluster→UMAP→DE pipeline prefer alterlab-scanpy; for the AnnData data structure itself prefer alterlab-anndata; for protein language models prefer alterlab-esm. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scholar-eval

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Evaluates scholarly work with the ScholarEval framework, producing structured assessment across research-quality dimensions (problem formulation, methodology, analysis, and writing) with quantitative rubric scores and actionable feedback. Use when scoring or grading a paper, thesis, or research output against rubric-style criteria, or benchmarking publication readiness across revisions. For checklist-based narrative reviewer reports prefer alterlab-peer-review; for evidence/claim quality and argument soundness use alterlab-scientific-thinking. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scientific-brainstorm

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Creative research ideation and exploration for open-ended brainstorming, surfacing interdisciplinary connections, challenging assumptions, and identifying research gaps. Use when starting early-stage research planning with no specific observations yet — for open-ended brainstorming sessions, exploring cross-disciplinary connections, or finding gaps. For formulating testable hypotheses from observations or data use hypothesis-gen; for grading evidence or spotting design flaws use scientific-thinking. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scientific-schematics

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Creates publication-quality scientific diagrams with Nano Banana 2 AI and smart iterative refinement, using Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview for quality review and regenerating only when quality falls below the document-type threshold. Use when the request is for a technical or scientific diagram — neural-network architectures, system/block diagrams, flowcharts, biological pathways, circuits, or other complex scientific visuals. For general photos, illustrations, or artwork use generate-image, for text-based Mermaid diagrams use mermaid. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scientific-slides

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Builds slide decks for research talks in PowerPoint and LaTeX Beamer, providing slide structure, design templates, timing guidance, and visual validation. Use when making conference presentations, seminar talks, research presentations, thesis-defense slides, or any scientific talk deck. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scientific-thinking

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Evaluate scientific claims and evidence quality using evidence grading frameworks (GRADE, Cochrane Risk of Bias), assessing experimental design validity and identifying biases, confounders, statistical pitfalls, and logical fallacies. Use when judging evidence quality, grading certainty of evidence, spotting design or causal-inference flaws, identifying biases or confounders, naming statistical fallacies, or teaching critical analysis. For writing a formal submittable peer review use alterlab-peer-review; for a multi-reviewer mock panel verdict use alterlab-paper-reviewer; for IRB/consent/conflict-of-interest ethics use alterlab-research-ethics. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scientific-viz

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Orchestrates matplotlib, seaborn, and plotly with opinionated publication styles to produce journal-ready figures. Use when preparing journal-submission figures that need multi-panel layouts with bold panel labels, statistical significance annotations, error bars, colorblind-safe palettes (Okabe-Ito), or specific journal formatting (Nature, Science, Cell). Does NOT cover raw low-level plotting or fine-grained control of individual plot elements; for building custom plots from scratch or tuning every artist and rcParam prefer alterlab-matplotlib instead. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scientific-writing

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Writes scientific manuscripts in full flowing paragraphs (never bullet points) via a two-stage process — section outlines with key points using research-lookup, then conversion to prose — applying IMRAD structure, citations (APA/AMA/Vancouver), figures/tables, and reporting guidelines (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA). Use when drafting or revising research papers, journal submissions, or any manuscript section (abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion), or professional/technical reports. For a specific venue's LaTeX template and house style use alterlab-venue-templates; to build a BibTeX bibliography or verify reference metadata use alterlab-citation-mgmt. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scikit-bio

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Analyze biological data with scikit-bio — sequence analysis and alignments, phylogenetic trees, alpha/beta diversity metrics (including UniFrac), ordination (PCoA), PERMANOVA statistics, and FASTA/Newick I/O. Use for microbiome and community-ecology analysis — computing diversity, distance matrices, and ordination from feature tables. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scikit-learn

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Classical machine learning in Python with scikit-learn — algorithms, preprocessing, pipelines, and best-practice reference documentation. Use when working with supervised learning (classification, regression), unsupervised learning (clustering, dimensionality reduction), model evaluation, hyperparameter tuning, feature preprocessing, or building ML pipelines. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scikit-survival

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Survival analysis and time-to-event modeling in Python with scikit-survival. Use when working with censored survival data, fitting Cox models, Random Survival Forests, Gradient Boosting models, or Survival SVMs, evaluating predictions with concordance index or Brier score, handling competing risks, or implementing any time-to-event workflow. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scvelo

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Run RNA velocity analysis with scVelo on single-cell RNA-seq data — estimate cell-state transitions from spliced/unspliced mRNA dynamics, infer trajectory direction, compute latent time, and identify driver genes. Use when adding directionality to trajectories or studying differentiation dynamics from spliced/unspliced layers (velocyto/STARsolo output); for the general QC, clustering, UMAP, and differential-expression analysis pipeline prefer alterlab-scanpy instead, and for .h5ad data-structure I/O and layer wrangling prefer alterlab-anndata instead. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-scvi-tools

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Train deep generative models for single-cell omics with scvi-tools — probabilistic batch correction and integration (scVI), reference-mapping transfer learning (scArches), differential expression with uncertainty, and multimodal models (totalVI for CITE-seq, MultiVI for multiome). Use when correcting batch effects, integrating multimodal data, or doing advanced probabilistic single-cell modeling — for standard analysis pipelines use scanpy. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-seaborn

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Builds statistical plots with the seaborn Python library and pandas DataFrame integration, on attractive matplotlib-based defaults. Use for quick exploration of distributions, relationships, and categorical comparisons — box plots, violin plots, swarm/strip plots, KDE/histograms, pair plots, joint plots, regression plots, correlation heatmaps, and faceted small multiples (relplot/displot/catplot/lmplot). For interactive/hover/zoom charts defer to alterlab-plotly; for exact journal/manuscript styling (column widths, point fonts, CMYK, vector export) defer to alterlab-scientific-viz; for low-level custom matplotlib figures defer to alterlab-matplotlib (seaborn integrates with it for fine-tuning). Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-sem-psychometrics

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Fits and evaluates measurement models — confirmatory factor analysis, full structural equation models, exploratory factor analysis, item response theory, and multi-group measurement invariance — using the verified Python stack: semopy (model syntax =~ / ~ / ~~, Model.fit, inspect(std_est=True), calc_stats for CFI/TLI/RMSEA), factor_analyzer (EFA, KMO, Bartlett, ConfirmatoryFactorAnalyzer), and pingouin/girth, computing McDonald's omega from standardized loadings and judging fit against Hu & Bentler cutoffs. Use when the request mentions confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, a latent variable or construct model, factor loadings, IRT, or measurement invariance across groups. For deciding whether a scale is trustworthy at all prefer alterlab-ssci-measurement-gate; for plain regression prefer alterlab-statistical-analysis. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-shap

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Model interpretability and explainability with SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) — feature importance and plots (waterfall, beeswarm, bar, scatter, force, heatmap). Use when explaining ML model predictions, computing feature importance, debugging models, analyzing bias or fairness, comparing models, or implementing explainable AI across tree-based models (XGBoost, LightGBM, Random Forest), deep learning (TensorFlow, PyTorch), linear models, and any black-box model. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-simpy

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Process-based discrete-event simulation in Python with SimPy — processes, queues, shared resources, and time-based events. Use when simulating systems where entities contend for shared resources over time, such as manufacturing systems, service operations, network traffic, or logistics. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-skill-finder

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

The AlterLab front door and multi-agent launcher — routes a task to the right AlterLab skill(s) when the user invokes the suite without naming one, and for a multi-stage goal (or on the keyword 'alterflow', aliases 'alterresearch' / 'ultralab') it CLARIFIES the goal with a few questions, SELECTS the skills the task needs, and runs a dynamic multi-agent workflow composing them (via alterlab-workflow-orchestration, alterlab-research-pipeline, or alterlab-ssci-orchestrator). Triggers on 'use AlterLab skills', 'which AlterLab skill for X', 'is there an AlterLab skill for…', a multi-stage research goal, 'alterflow …', or any generic AlterLab request where the user does not know skill names. It always asks clarifying questions before executing a multi-step run. Use when someone references AlterLab generically, describes a multi-stage goal, or fires the alterflow keyword; when the user already names a specific skill, defer to that skill directly. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-sna

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Applies social-network-analysis method discipline to relational data — degree/betweenness/closeness/eigenvector centrality and PageRank, community detection (Louvain and greedy-modularity native in networkx, Leiden via igraph), and inferential network models (ERGM) — choosing the measure that matches the substantive question and the right dependence assumptions, then routing computation to the existing networkx (and igraph/R) tooling. Use when the request mentions social network analysis, centrality, key players/brokerage, community or cluster detection in a network, ERGM, or modeling ties between nodes. For general graph algorithms and plotting prefer alterlab-networkx; for graph neural networks prefer alterlab-torch-geometric. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-social-science-methods

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Guides advanced social science research methods — discourse analysis (Fairclough CDA, Gee), conversation analysis, quantitative content analysis, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), process tracing, archival research, participatory/community-based research (PAR, CBPR), Delphi and Q methodology, social network analysis (SNA), bibliometrics and scientometrics, systematic mapping reviews, and program/policy evaluation. Use when designing or conducting any of these studies — choosing a specialized method, building a coding scheme, establishing causal mechanisms in case studies, mapping relational or subjective data, or applying an evaluation framework. For interpretive/qualitative coding (thematic analysis, grounded theory, IPA, ethnography, qualitative content analysis) use alterlab-qualitative-methods; for combining qual+quant strands use alterlab-mixed-methods. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-squidpy-spatial

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Analyzes spatial transcriptomics with squidpy (1.8.x) on AnnData and SpatialData objects, routing platforms correctly: Visium spots use spatial_neighbors(coord_type='grid') and pair with deconvolution, while Xenium/MERFISH single-cell data use coord_type='generic'/Delaunay neighbors and spatialdata-io readers (xenium, visium_hd, merscope). Runs sq.gr.spatial_neighbors, nhood_enrichment, co_occurrence, spatial_autocorr (Moran's I for spatially variable genes), ripley, and ligrec. Use when the user wants spatial transcriptomics, squidpy, Visium/Xenium/MERFISH analysis, neighborhood enrichment, co-occurrence, or spatially variable genes; QC/clustering uses alterlab-scanpy and spot deconvolution (destVI/Tangram) uses alterlab-scvi-tools. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-ssci-design-gate

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Routes a social-science study to its research design — true experiment, quasi-experiment (difference-in-differences, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, interrupted time series, fixed effects), observational/correlational, qualitative, or mixed — by walking the random-selection and random-assignment decisions, then PINS the identifying assumption the causal claim will rest on (parallel trends, exclusion restriction, continuity at the cutoff, selection-on-observables, or qualitative saturation logic) before any analysis begins. Use when choosing a study design, asking what design to use, framing a causal question from observational data, or deciding experiment vs quasi-experiment vs observational. For executing the analysis prefer alterlab-statistical-analysis; for qualitative design depth prefer alterlab-qualitative-methods; for choosing the statistical test downstream prefer alterlab-test-selection-guard. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-ssci-inference-gate

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Audits final inferential claims against the design, sample, and uncertainty before they are written or published — refuses causal language unless the design's identifying assumption is defended (else downgrades to associational), corrects p-value and confidence-interval misreadings (a p-value is not the probability the null is true, non-significance is not proof of no effect, a 95% CI is not a 95% probability the parameter is inside it), demands effect sizes with intervals rather than significance stars, flags uncorrected multiple comparisons and optional stopping / HARKing, and scopes generalization to the sampling frame. Use when writing or checking a results or discussion section, interpreting a p-value or confidence interval, or deciding whether a finding supports a causal or population claim. For choosing the statistical test prefer alterlab-test-selection-guard; to execute the analysis prefer alterlab-statistical-analysis. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-ssci-measurement-gate

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Gates measurement quality before a scale or instrument is trusted — checks that each construct is defined and operationalized, that reliability is evidenced with McDonald omega (not Cronbach alpha alone, which assumes tau-equivalence and is only a lower bound), that reliability is not confused with validity (content, criterion, convergent/discriminant construct validity), and that measurement invariance is tested before comparing groups. Use when asking whether a scale or survey instrument is valid, reporting a Cronbach alpha, building or adopting a multi-item measure, or comparing a latent construct across groups. For designing the questionnaire items prefer alterlab-survey-design; for running the confirmatory factor analysis prefer alterlab-sem-psychometrics; to execute basic statistics prefer alterlab-statistical-analysis. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-ssci-orchestrator

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Coordinates a social-science study through the stage-gated methods pipeline — question then design-gate then measurement-gate then sampling-gate then the right analysis module then inference-gate then reporting — holding a single YAML Design Passport that each gate reads and appends, and enforcing gate order with PASS / WARN / BLOCK semantics (design-gate and inference-gate are fail-closed). It is thin: it routes and holds the artifact, it does not run analysis itself. Use when a researcher describes a whole social-science study end to end, asks to run the methods pipeline or a full methodology review, or wants the design-to-inference workflow coordinated rather than a single step. For a single stage trigger that gate directly (alterlab-ssci-design-gate, -measurement-gate, -sampling-gate, -inference-gate); for multi-agent execution mechanics see alterlab-workflow-orchestration. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-ssci-reflexivity-gate

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Gates trustworthiness before qualitative or interpretivist claims are written — the qualitative analog of the measurement gate. Checks that researcher positionality and role are stated, that the four Lincoln & Guba trustworthiness criteria are addressed (credibility via triangulation / member-checking / prolonged engagement, transferability via thick description, dependability via an audit trail, confirmability via reflexive bracketing), and that reflexivity is evidenced rather than asserted. Fail-closed: interpretivist generalizing or causal language is refused without the corresponding warrant. Use when a study is qualitative / ethnographic / interpretivist, when reviewing trustworthiness or reflexivity, or before writing up thematic or grounded-theory findings. For quantitative measurement validity prefer alterlab-ssci-measurement-gate; for running the coding prefer alterlab-qualitative-analysis; for the final claim audit prefer alterlab-ssci-inference-gate. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-ssci-sampling-gate

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Gates who is sampled, how, and how many before data collection — checks that the sampling FRAME matches the target population (coverage error), that the METHOD is named (probability vs non-probability: simple random, stratified, cluster, systematic, quota, convenience, snowball), that sample SIZE follows the inference paradigm (an a-priori power analysis for hypothesis tests, a precision/margin-of-error target for estimation, or saturation/information power for qualitative studies — never a rule of thumb or collect-until-significant), and that the generalization claim matches the sample (statistical generalization only from probability samples). Use when asking how many participants are needed, planning recruitment, running or checking a power analysis, or judging whether a sample supports a population claim. For questionnaire items prefer alterlab-survey-design; for choosing the statistical test prefer alterlab-test-selection-guard. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-stable-baselines3

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Trains single-agent reinforcement learning agents with Stable-Baselines3 — PPO, SAC, DQN, TD3, DDPG, and A2C behind a scikit-learn-like API. Use for standard single-agent RL experiments, quick prototyping, well-documented algorithm implementations on Gymnasium environments, or adding callbacks and evaluation. For high-throughput parallel training, multi-agent systems, or custom vectorized environments prefer alterlab-pufferlib. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-statistical-analysis

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Guided statistical analysis with hypothesis-test selection, assumption checking, power analysis, and APA-formatted reporting. Use when choosing the appropriate statistical test for data, verifying test assumptions, computing power/sample size, or producing APA-style results for academic research. For implementing specific models programmatically prefer statsmodels. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-statsmodels

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Statistical modeling in Python with statsmodels — OLS, GLM, mixed models, and ARIMA with detailed diagnostics, residuals, and inference. Use when fitting specific model classes for econometrics, time series, or rigorous inference with coefficient tables and confidence intervals. For guided statistical test selection with APA reporting prefer statistical-analysis. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-string-db

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Query the STRING API for protein-protein interactions (59M proteins, 20B interactions across 5000+ species), building interaction networks, discovering functional partners, and running GO/KEGG/Pfam enrichment on protein lists. Use when constructing a protein-protein interaction network, expanding from seed proteins to functional partners, or running PPI-based enrichment for systems biology; for curated metabolic pathway maps and reactions prefer alterlab-kegg, and for protein sequences, annotations, or accession ID mapping prefer alterlab-uniprot instead. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-survey-analysis

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Analyzes complex-sample survey data with design-based inference — declares a survey design (weights, strata, PSUs/clusters, FPC) before estimating means, totals, proportions, ratios, and quantiles, computes design-adjusted standard errors via Taylor linearization or replicate weights (BRR, Jackknife, Bootstrap), calibrates with post-stratification / raking / GREG, and fits design-adjusted GLMs (linear, logistic, Poisson). Uses samplics (stable Python), the emerging svy successor, or the field-standard R survey + srvyr via Rscript. Use when analyzing GSS/ANES/ESS/DHS/Eurobarometer or any weighted/stratified/clustered survey, when a dataset ships survey weights, or when someone quotes unweighted percentages from a complex survey. For questionnaire and sampling-plan DESIGN prefer alterlab-survey-design; for the sampling-adequacy gate prefer alterlab-ssci-sampling-gate; for causal identification prefer alterlab-causal-inference. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-survey-design

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Comprehensive survey and instrument design assistant supporting questionnaire construction, Likert scale design, question types (open/closed/matrix), response bias mitigation, sampling strategies (probability/non-probability), pilot testing, instrument validation (Cronbach's alpha, factor analysis), online survey tools (Qualtrics, REDCap, Google Forms), interview protocol development, focus group facilitation, mixed-mode surveys, and cultural adaptation of instruments. Use when designing a survey or questionnaire, building Likert scales, planning a sampling strategy, pilot testing, validating an instrument (Cronbach's alpha, factor analysis), developing an interview protocol, improving response rates, or working in Qualtrics or REDCap. For analyzing interview/focus-group data use alterlab-qualitative-methods; for qual+quant integration alterlab-mixed-methods; for test selection/power analysis alterlab-statistical-analysis; for IRB/consent alterlab-research-ethics. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-syllabus-ai-policy

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Drafts course-level generative-AI use policies and syllabus statements: assigns each graded task a permitted/restricted/prohibited tier (modeled on Cornell's prohibit/allow-with-attribution/encourage framework), writes the disclosure clause with a verbatim APA (OpenAI, 2023) or MLA Works Cited citation template for ChatGPT, and adds assessment-integrity, accessibility, and equity language bound to the institution's own academic-integrity code. Ships scripts/policy_builder.py to emit a paste-ready statement and scripts/policy_lint.py to flag a vague or self-contradicting draft. Use when the request mentions a syllabus AI policy, a course statement on ChatGPT or generative AI, an academic-integrity clause for AI tools, an AI-disclosure rule, or per-assignment permitted/prohibited AI tiers. For full course/backward design, syllabus, or rubrics use alterlab-teaching-design; for human-subjects AI-tool ethics use alterlab-research-ethics. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-sympy

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Symbolic mathematics in Python with SymPy — solve equations algebraically, perform calculus (derivatives, integrals, limits), manipulate algebraic expressions, work with symbolic matrices, and generate executable code from formulas. Use when exact symbolic results are needed rather than numerical approximations, or for physics, number-theory, and geometry computations involving variables and parameters. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-teaching-design

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Designs courses and teaching materials using backward design (Wiggins & McTighe), constructive alignment (Biggs), and Bloom's taxonomy alignment, generating rubrics, formative and summative assessments, syllabi, lesson plans, inclusive-pedagogy guidance, and online/hybrid course architecture. Use when the request mentions course design, syllabus, learning outcomes, rubric, assessment design, lesson plan, backward design, constructive alignment, Bloom's taxonomy, curriculum mapping, course redesign, inclusive pedagogy, hybrid course, or online course design. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-test-selection-guard

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Enforces statistical-test selection as a discipline, holding the Iron Law NO TEST CHOSEN AFTER SEEING THE P-VALUE: routes the choice through a fixed decision tree (outcome type -> groups -> paired? -> normality) terminating in named tests (t-test, Mann-Whitney U, ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis, Wilcoxon, Friedman, chi-square, Pearson/Spearman, regression), gates interpretation behind a mandatory Shapiro-Wilk/Levene/linearity assumption check, blocks test-shopping with an Excuse-vs-Reality table and Red-Flags-STOP list, and applies a 3+-tests escalation gate forcing Bonferroni/FDR correction or an exploratory label. Use when choosing or switching a statistical test, asking which test to run, dropping a test after a non-significant result, or running many tests hunting for significance. For executing the chosen test prefer alterlab-statistical-analysis or alterlab-statsmodels; for the broader frozen-plan discipline see alterlab-preregistration-discipline. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-text-as-data

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Analyzes text as social-science data — topic modeling (BERTopic with embeddings + class-based TF-IDF, LDA/NMF via scikit-learn or gensim), document embeddings (sentence-transformers), dictionary/lexicon methods, and supervised text classification — choosing the method that matches the inferential goal (discovery vs measurement vs prediction) and validating topic reliability rather than trusting one stochastic run. It uses the verified stack (BERTopic, scikit-learn, gensim CoherenceModel, spaCy, sentence-transformers) with pinned patterns. Use when the request mentions topic modeling, text as data, computational text analysis, document embeddings, dictionary/sentiment lexicons, or classifying a corpus. For training or fine-tuning transformer models prefer alterlab-transformers; for humanities close-reading corpora prefer alterlab-digital-humanities. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-thesis-supervisor

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Supervises theses and dissertations end to end — structure guidance from proposal through defense, chapter-by-chapter writing support (introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion), supervision strategies, committee management, defense and viva voce preparation, timeline planning, feedback integration, examiner-expectation guidance, and formatting (APA 7, Chicago, university styles). Use when the request mentions thesis, dissertation, supervision, defense preparation, viva, proposal defense, thesis structure, thesis chapter, literature review chapter, methodology chapter, results chapter, discussion chapter, thesis timeline, committee, thesis formatting, or dissertation proposal. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-tiledbvcf

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Store and query genomic variant data at scale with TileDB-VCF — ingest VCF/BCF into compressed TileDB arrays, add samples incrementally, run fast parallel region/sample queries, and export back to VCF. Use when managing population-genomics variant datasets that are too large for flat VCF, building joint variant stores, or querying thousands of samples by region. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-timesfm

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Zero-shot univariate time-series forecasting with Google's TimesFM foundation model, producing point forecasts and prediction intervals from CSV/DataFrame/array inputs, with a preflight system checker for RAM/GPU. Use to forecast any univariate series (sales, sensors, energy, vitals, weather) without training a custom model. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.

alterlab-torch-geometric

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills

Graph Neural Networks with PyTorch Geometric (PyG) — node and graph classification, link prediction, GCN, GAT, and GraphSAGE layers, heterogeneous graphs, and molecular property prediction. Use when building or training GNNs for geometric deep learning on graph-structured data. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.