The ANDATA Spring Release 2022 presents, as usual, the latest developments in performance and stability for all our tools. In addition, Stipulator now supports multiple sources for each case through its user interface and Expectator is furnished with a now fully integrated interface for post processing functions to be run after a plausibility check.

In the previous releases we have been making changes under the hood in Stipulator to fully support more than one source file for each case. This feature is crucial for being able to use Stipulator's powerful capabilities in a context where data is coming from multiple sources without the need to externally preprocess any data. This functionality has been thoroughly tested in the past few months. Release 5.0 presents a further milestone in this endeavor: every user has now the possibility to define more than one source file for each case comfortably through Stipulator's user interface. The "Edit case" dialog (Cases > Edit > Add or Cases > Edit > Modify) has been modified to allow the definition of several source files, from which data (channels and/or attributes) are read in. In addition, the known syntax for search strings to map data in sources to reference channels and attributes has been generalized to search patterns, which may reference the files where the data is looked for. Please refer to the Stipulator User Guide for more details about the generalized syntax in dialogs File > Reference channels > Edit and File > Reference attributes > Edit.

When it comes to Expectator, its already known functionality of generating an HTML report after a plausibility check has been generalized for running arbitrary post processing functions. This allows interpretation of the plausibility results in the most convenient way for the application at hand. The HTML report is now just one of multiple possibilities. Post processing functions can be made configurable, and Expectator is able to store and manage their preferences, if any.

The following list presents the most significant changes introduced with our release 5.0:

• Stipulator
  
  • (STP-725) Support defining multiple source files per case through GUI. Changes in dialogs Cases > Edit > Modify, File > Reference channels > Edit and File > Reference attributes > Edit. Please refer to the Stipulator User Guide for further details.
  • (STP-793) Attributes of type relative link are continued to be resolved by the path of the first source file. A feature to define any case source file as first has been added to Cases > Edit > Modify dialog.
  • (STP-555) Search fields have been added to both File > Reference channels > Edit and File > Reference attributes > Edit dialogs that allow filtering long lists.
  • (STP-659) Filter fields have been added to the side panel for groups and selectors. Both filters support regular expressions.
    
  • (STP-759) Specific preferences for plotting multi-dimensional channels have been added to Analysis > Preferences, section Multi-dimensional channels. Please refer to the Stipulator User Guide for further details.
    
  • (STP-776) A feature has been added to append a user defined message in the title bar of Stipulator main window. Commands stipulator('setfigureinfo') and stipulator('updatefiguretitle') have been added to manage this message.
    
  • (STP-784) Ensure robust handling of cases with insourced signals if some source files are not found in Signals > Reread. In this case, the insourced signals are kept unchanged.
  • (STP-811) Ensure the same behavior on Attributes > Reread as on Signals > Reread: the attribute values already set remain unchanged even when source files are not found.
  • (STP-745) Speed-up measures have been taken for Stipulator files that deal with a large number of actions.
  • (STP-743) Several Stipulator commands have been modified or extended to support multiple source files per case. Please refer to chapter Command line in the Stipulator User Guide for further details.
    
  • (STP-795) Added new commands stipulator('getCaseSources'), stipulator('setCaseSources'), stipulator('addCaseSources'), and stipulator('modifyCaseSources'). Commands stipulator('setFile'), stipulator('getFile'), stipulator('setType'), and stipulator('getType') will be removed in a future release.
  • (STP-766) Fixed an issue with search strings for attributes being added multiple times from dialog Cases > Edit > Modify.
    
  • (SI-304 / STP-748) Fixed an issue that prevented correct mapping of channels defined from dialog Cases > Edit > Modify.
    
  • (STP-760) Fixed an issue found when importing categorical attributes from files and selecting more than one file.
    
  • (STP-805) Fixed an issue with channel mapping on dialog Cases > Edit > Modify  not being saved if two files with identical names are used.
    
  • (STP-746) Fixed an issue found on dialog File > Reference attributes > Edit where clicking the Edit button allows to set a new default value but the current default value is not visible.
    
  • (STP-771) Fixed an issue on dialog Cases > Edit > Modify where trying to open an attribute of type Link lead to an error.
    
  • (STP-783) Fixed an issue with command stipulator('insourcesignals') not dealing as expected with its optional input argument.
    
  • (STP-807) A new command stipulator('addattributesearchpattern') has been added to append a new search pattern to an already defined reference attribute through the command line.
  • (STP-715) Fixed an issue where command stipulator('setFile') might corrupt an optional case reading expression
  • (STP-718) Fixed an issue where command stipulator('getFile') might return a non-usable optional case reading expression if it contains / or \ characters.
    
  • (STP-686) Fixed an issue that might slow down selecting cases in Stipulator.
    
  • (STP-767) Fixed an issue that might have caused poor responsiveness in Stipulator main window especially after having a file open for a long time.
    
  • (STP-761) Fixed an issue where attributes not being automatically read after importing cases.
    
• Brainer
  
  • (BRN-536) Allowed the possibility to brush data from a certain set (train, valid, test, all) in Performance CDF plot.
  • (BRN-473) In a Brainer project with more than one parameter defined as output, only those model types that natively support multiple outputs are available to be trained.
  • (BRN-534) Fixed an issue where time reported on a conflict analysis might be wrong if data was missing.
  • (BRN-545) Removed obsolete menu options File > Page setup and File > Print. To print a Brainer plot use the functionality "Create figure for current view" available in plot figures.
• Expectator
  
  • (EXP-375, EXP-376) Support user defined post processing functions with optional preferences to be executed after a plausibility check.
  • (SI-306) Fixed an issue when running plausibility checks from Stipulator. If more than one expectation database was selected, the groups created in Stipulator might have contained the wrong cases.
    
  • (EXP-370) Support a "Must match all attribute tags" option for determining execution of an expectation, as it was already supported for channel tags.
    
  • (EXP-371) Applicability of an expectation is determined by its matching data types with a data set. If required channels or attributes are not present, this results now in a "missing data" result instead of "not applicable".
    
  • (EXP-377) The name of the Expectator file or data base used for a plausibility check has been added to the run metadata in Expectator's result matrix.
    
  • (EXP-373) Added the possibility to attach text-based labels to expectations. These can be used afterwards in post processing functions.
    
  • (EXP-387) Fixed an issue with the filter fields for expectations and data not working as expected.
    
  • (EXP-381) Fixed an issue with required channels for an expectation missing leading to a "not applicable" instead of a "missing data" result.
    
  • (EXP-399, EXP-400) Fixed several issues on adding data when different data sources are using the same file extension.
    
  • (SI-305 / EXP-390) Fixed an issue with selecting several types, channels or attributes in "Show Expectation Settings" panel and selecting a different expectation leading to an error.
    
  • (EXP-366) Command expectator('open') can now be used even if no Expectator session is already open. In this case, a new Expectator figure is created.
    
• Mapper
  • (MPR-141) Fixed an error found when using Postprocessing > Clustering > Cluster data blocks on map on a trained self-organizing map.
    
  • (MPR-142) Fixed an issue found when using command mapper('open') from an app other than Mapper.
    
• General
  • (SST-192) A new class IsoMmeManager has been developed to handle metadata present in ISO/MME files.
    
  • (SST-187) Reader function ssreadiso is now able to read channel metadata from ISO/MME files and store it in the generated signal structure.
    
  • (SST-188) Writer function sswrite2isomme uses ISO/MME metadata in signal structure, if present.
  • (SST-189) A faster and more robust execution of helper function ssreadisoattributes has been achieved by assuming file location after conventions.
    
  • (STP-769) Improved robustness on interpreting parameters containing white spaces in filter functions.
  • (SST-191) Fixed an issue in helper function processing.readCaseSignals if no channels are mapped or one of multiple sources is not used
    
  • (SST-181) Implemented a more robust input argument handling in filter function sssync2channel.
    
  • (SST-184) Fixed an issue that prevented filter function ssfft to operate correctly on a two-dimensional channel
    
  • (SST-186) Extended filter function ssmergechannels to consider an optional field userdata in the signal structures.
    
  • (ALL-267) Several already deprecated functions have been definitely removed from the distribution packages. These functions are: warndlgAndata, errordlgAndata, questdlgAndata, pagesetupdlgAndata, printdlgAndata, uigetfileAndata, uiputfileAndata, uisetcolorAndata. Replace usage of these functions by the corresponding MATLAB native functions: warndlg, errordlg, questdlg, pagesetupdlg, printdlg, uigetfile, uiputfile, uisetcolor.