Bio101 software testing

To examine the usability and stability of the software Bio101, we design the software testing model. We test the software in the aspects of errors (deletion, insert and substitute) and the distribution of the errors (discrete or successive). We control the conditions artificially so that we can compare the different situations obviously.

Fault tolerance

The distribution of errors

We choose n files including large files (>1M) and small files (<1M), distributing them on 1:1.

We recognize under the equal errors, successive errors which is more than 5% of the sequences length is successive type. The other is discrete type. Especially when we test one type of the distributions, we consider all kinds of errors. For example, when we test the discrete type, we have discrete deletion, discrete insert and discrete substitution equally, then calculate the successful encoding rate. The test of successive distribution is the same.

Here we list the result.

Tab.1.Discrete distribution.

Tab.2.Successive distribution.

* √: successful ×: failed

The conclusion is that the fault tolerance of discrete distribution is better than successive distribution’s.

Fig.1.The result comparison.

Error types

In a similar approach, we deal with the files in the same way to test errors one by one. We choose n files including large files (>1M) and small files (<1M), distributing them on 1:1. The following is the result.

Tab.3.Deletion

Tab.4.Insert

Tab.5.Substitution

* √: successful ×: failed

Fig.2.The result of three tests.

Randomness

In consideration of biological safety, we should produce sequences with sufficient random distributed A, T, C, G. We recognize the successive number of the same bases as the standard to test randomness.

The percentage of normal length of successive bases & the length of the sequence

the longest successive bases & the sequence length

As all these we test Bio101, we have the conclusion that our software has great usability and stability. There may be some unexpected situations happening when users encode the files, you can contact us to solve the problem through our iGEM wiki. We desire to improve Bio101 with users and we are looking forward your feedback!

*Our wiki: https://2016.igem.org/Team:UESTC-software