[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 163 (Thursday, August 24, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 57940-57941]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-18263]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket Number: 230710-0163]


Request for Information Regarding File Specification for 
Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) Containerized 
Computational Software (FAIR-CCS)

AGENCY: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of 
Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of public meetings; request for information.

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SUMMARY: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is 
evaluating and improving the specification for achieving 
interoperability of containerized computational software. Adherence to 
a specification for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable 
(FAIR) Containerized Computational Software (FAIR-CCS) enables better 
reuse of containerized tools in complex data analyses by chaining tools 
into computational workflows. NIST requests information from the 
community on approaches to achieving interoperability of containerized 
software, designing a container manifest file that meets the community 
needs, and lowering the barrier for constructing such a manifest file. 
Responses to this RFI will also inform a possible revision of the 
current approach to achieving FAIR-CCS via a manifest file, the entries 
in the current manifest file specification of FAIR-CCS, and the current 
tools that aim at automating adherence to the FAIR-CCS manifest 
specification. NIST will host a workshop on FAIR-CCS at the times and 
location indicated below and will discuss the responses to this RFI at 
the workshop.

DATES: 
    For Comments: Comments in response to this RFI must be received by 
5:00 p.m. Eastern time on December 7, 2023. Written comments in 
response to the RFI should be submitted according to the instructions 
in the ADDRESSES and SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION sections below. 
Submissions received after that date may not be considered.
    For Public Meetings/Webcast: A virtual meeting will be held on 
December 5-7, 2023 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern Time. Requests to 
participate must be received via the virtual meeting website no later 
than December 1, 2023.

ADDRESSES: 
    For Comments: Responses can be submitted by either of the following 
methods:
     Electronic submission: Submit electronic public comments 
via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal.
    1. Go to www.regulations.gov and enter [NIST-2023-0003] in the 
search field,
    2. Click the ``Comment Now!'' icon, complete the required fields, 
and
    3. Enter or attach your comments.
     Email: Comments in electronic form may also be sent to 
[email protected]. Include ``RFI Response: FAIR-CCS'' in the subject 
line of the message.
    Instructions: Attachments will be accepted in plain text, Microsoft 
Word, or Adobe PDF formats. Comments containing references, studies, 
research, and other empirical data that are not widely published should 
include copies or electronic links of the referenced materials.
    All comments responding to this document will be a matter of public 
record. Relevant comments will

[[Page 57941]]

generally be available on the Federal eRulemaking Portal at https://www.Regulations.gov and, after the comment period closes, on NIST's 
website at https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/2023/12/2nd-international-workshop-fair-containerized-computational-software. NIST 
will not accept comments accompanied by a request that part or all of 
the material be treated confidentially because of its business 
proprietary nature or for any other reason. Therefore, do not submit 
confidential business information or otherwise sensitive, protected, or 
personal information, such as account numbers, Social Security numbers, 
or names of other individuals
    For Public Meetings/Webcast: A December 5-7, 2023 public meeting 
will be held virtually by NIST. Details about attending the meeting and 
accessing the video webcast are available at https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/2023/12/2nd-international-workshop-fair-containerized-computational-software.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Peter Bajcsy, Project Lead, 
Software and Systems Division, Information Technology Laboratory, 
National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive MS 
2201, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, 301-975-2958, or by email to 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    A virtual software container consists of a package of software code 
with all of the required elements to run regardless of the environment. 
For example, containers for a containerized application include all of 
the application's system libraries and configuration files and can run 
on any host operating system. This process, known as containerization, 
ensures that applications are portable, scalable, and distributed more 
efficiently.
    The usage of software containers has been around for decades but 
has gained more popularity within the last ten years. With this 
increasing popularity of software containers as standardized units for 
deployment, research communities have adopted the practice of 
containerizing diverse software components such as algorithms, tools, 
or modules to run on institutional or commercially available computer 
cluster, cloud, or high-performance computing (HPC) resources, because 
running software containers on these platforms provides more 
opportunity for scalability with minimum resource usage. For example, 
in biomedical microscopy imaging, stakeholders cope with very large 
datasets as the advancements in microscope designs and automated 
acquisition generate terabyte-size image collections in a relative 
short time span.
    Stakeholders also strive to reuse containerized tools and reproduce 
complex workflow analyses through container-based workflows to improve 
researchers reproducibility of research processes to increase 
efficiency, reliability, and collaboration. Accordingly, there is an 
opportunity in biomedical microscopy imaging to improve the reuse and 
reproducibility of analyses via specifications of interoperable 
containerized algorithms (i.e., computational tools or software 
plugins) in order to create these container-based workflows (i.e., 
chained containerized algorithms).
    Given the complex analyses in working with software containers, 
heterogeneous file formats and storage mechanisms, a variety of 
scientific workflow engines, distributed computational and storage 
environments, and application programming interfaces to metadata 
registries and ontologies, the stakeholders are expected to be from 
academia, industry, and government.

Public Meetings

    A public meeting will be held on December 5-7, 2023 as indicated in 
the DATES and ADDRESSES section. Requests to participate must be 
received via the meeting website at https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/2023/12/2nd-international-workshop-fair-containerized-computational-software by December 1, 2023.

Request for Information

    Respondents are encouraged--but are not required--to respond to 
each topic area and to present their responses after each topic area. 
The following topic areas cover the major areas about which NIST seeks 
comment. Respondents may organize their submissions in response to this 
RFI in any manner. Responses may include estimates, which should be 
identified as such.
    All relevant responses that comply with the requirements listed in 
the DATES and ADDRESSES sections of this RFI will be considered.
    NIST is requesting information related to the following topics:
    (1) Approaches to chain containerized computational software.
    (2) Important characteristics of sets of containerized 
computational software for reuse.
    (3) Methods to facilitate the characterization of containerized 
computational software.
    (4) Best practices for containerization of computational algorithms 
and for the interfaces between containerized algorithms accessing 
datasets in heterogeneous storage environments.
    (5) Best practices for finding containerized software tools and 
container-based workflows in online registries using application 
programming interfaces (APIs).
    (6) Best practices for executing container-based workflows using 
workflow engines and job schedulers for computational resource 
management in distributed computational environments.
    Authority: 15 U.S.C. 272(b) & (c); 15 U.S.C. 278g-3.

Alicia Chambers,
NIST Executive Secretariat.
[FR Doc. 2023-18263 Filed 8-23-23; 8:45 am]
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