Steering Group minutes 2023/03/02

Date: Thursday, March 2nd, 2023

Topic	Relevant Links
Peer Herholtz Guest: Discussing two Atlas BEPs	https://github.com/bids-standard/bids-specification/issues/1379

NOTES

Present: Robert Oostenveld, Guiomar Niso, Cyril Pernet, Ariel Rokem, Chris Markiewicz (Maintainer guest), Yaroslav Halchenko, Kim Ray (Secretariat)

Guest: Peer Herholtz

Peer Herholtz - Atlas BEPs

September 2022 BIDS Connectivity Project started an Atlas BEP (led by Peer)

Jan 2023 another community started an Atlas BEP (flyxiaye)

Feb 2023 both BEP leads met, Talo Salo was in attendance, to determine how the teams should move forward

Conclusion:

• Peer’s BEP focuses on storing utilizing writing analyses
• flyxiaye: focuses on how atlases should be characterized, described, and what meta-data is needed to navigate an atlas. (Taylor Salo mentioned this BEP doesn’t follow the typical BEP flow, similar to template flow)
• the two BEPs appear complementary yet distinct. The teams will move forward and collaborate where possible.

Comments:

How much are atlas BEPs tools or extensions? If they are tools, then perhaps they should be BIDSapps.

• The goal of Peer’s Atlas BEP is to provide a way to include atlas/ROI/template information in derivatives for connectivity analyses

Inside the specification - where does the Atlas BEP fit?

• Could be part of BEP 17 connectivity matrices, or statistical models, as well as others

• Should align with other BEPs (e.g. provenance BEP)

• It’s been proposed to have an atlas directory by Peer’s working group, but agrees that the atlas can be applicable in different way

• RAW is defined by something that is provided by ‘hardware’, Derivatives is data that’s been derived from raw - thus atlases should be in derivatives?

• Peer’s Atlas BEP currently suggests storing atlases in derivatives or in subject level

• Could atlas be considered as a separate subject?(Guio)

• Example: MEG has unique file formats, EEG has many caps, but does this need to be stored in BIDS

• BIDS defines standard templates at: https://bids-specification.readthedocs.io/en/stable/appendices/coordinate-systems.html#standard-template-identifiers

• These things (altases, ROIs) are well defined. They should be formalized in BIDS, but clearly it's not yet agreed upon how or where.