Announcement on CoViD-19 wrt to rules and deadlines

[physionet-challenges]

Dear Challenge participants/PhysioNet Challenge community,

We understand that CoViD-19 will affect many of the participants (and organizers) of this year's Challenge, and we are working as best we can to ensure the success of the competition. As in-person labs are shut, we realise that many more people may pivot to working at home and in the cloud (as we are doing), and as such are anticipating a higher demand than usual for the Challenge.  

Although the global situation is fluid at this moment, at this point in time we don't anticipate altering the deadline for the unofficial phase of the Challenge. We may change this at a later date. We would like to note that you only need one successful entry to qualify to go forward, and it does not have to be 'good' (although the better the entry is, the more we all learn). We anticipate that, absent a large-scale failure of Google Cloud, it should be possible to submit at least one successful entry in the coming 3 1/2 weeks. We use this unofficial phase both to "beta test" the Challenge infrastructure and to help participants prepare their abstracts for Computing in Cardiology. Therefore, we ask all participants to participate in the unofficial phase. It is important that Challengers participate in this peer-supported process to produce a fully viable piece of repeatable research.

We set the deadline for the unofficial phase to be very shortly before the abstract submission deadline for Computing in Cardiology (CinC) so that you can include results in the abstract. We do not control this deadline, and this is a condition of being awarded a prize. (PhysioNet and CinC are partners, but only CinC can change their deadlines.) 

To be clear, your abstract will not contain the final results, so we will not be excluding entries based on performance, but rather on scientific coherence. See: "Advice on Writing an Abstract" here: https://physionetchallenges.github.io/2020/

You are also probably wondering 'what happens if the conference to which we are submitting abstracts is cancelled?' Right now the contingency plan would then be to waive the requirement to attend the conference, but still to require that a full research article is submitted by the deadline posted. All other conditions would remain in place - a successful submission by the Unofficial Phase deadline and an abstract by the conference deadline will still be required. There are, of course, questions around travel restrictions from individual regions, but we do not anticipate that this will affect eligibility for the prize. We will address that issue closer to the conference registration deadline. No-one knows what the situation will be in Italy, or indeed globally, this summer and in September. 

As we've noted, this situation is *very* fluid and all of this is subject to change. We will attempt to be as fair as possible, but as always, the organizers word is final on adjudication and setting of rules. 

We recommend you aim to submit per the current deadlines, using remote resources, including cloud providers, for development of your Challenge entries. Google has once again kindly offered to provide Google Cloud Platform credits to registered participants (and provide additional credits in many regions). We expect that currently registered participants will receive these credits shortly if they have not received them already. If you are unable to use remote resources for some reason, then we recommend that you submit the best model that you can during the unofficial phase and use the official phase to improve on your work, as in all previous Challenges. Please try to avoid submitting your first entry on the deadline of the unofficial phase - this often (~70% of the time) results in failure - we usually have hundreds of entries in the last 24 hours before any deadline, and we will not be able to provide feedback on failures during this period. If you want feedback, try to enter at least a week before the deadline. Remember that you must submit at least one *successful* entry before the deadline.

We are looking forward to supporting your research this year and hope you all stay healthy, safe and practice social distancing and cloud computing! 

All the best from PhysioNet and the Challenge team.

[Nina]

Dear Organisers,

Just a quick question, in the final paper submission(Sep), are we allowed to change the submitted abstract(Apr), as we might change the method or improve it?

[challenge]

Hi Nina,

Yes, we expect that your method and results will change over the course of the Challenge, so your final abstract for Computing in Cardiology can and should be different from your preliminary abstract.

However, your preliminary abstract should highlight and effectively communicate your approach and results so far, including scores for a successful entry during the unofficial phase of the Challenge. In particular, please do not write about the Challenge itself -- use the limited space to focus on your own work. Please see https://physionetchallenges.github.io/2020/#abstract-advice for details about the abstracts.

Best,

Matt

(On behalf of the Challenge team.)

https://physionetchallenges.github.io/

Please post questions and comments in the forum. However, if your question reveals information about your entry, then please email challenge at physionet.org. We may post parts of our reply publicly if we feel that all Challengers should benefit from it. We will not answer emails about the Challenge to any other address. This email is maintained by a group. Please do not email us individually.

[PhysioNet Challenge]

Dear Nina, Challengers

We expect the abstract and your approaches to change significantly by the end of the competition,  both in terms of results and methods. You may also update your title with the caveat that it must not be substantially similar to the title of the competition or contain the words 'physionet' 'challenge' or 'competition'.

The purpose of the abstract is to ensure you are able to communicate a given method with sufficient scientific quality,  and show commitment to the process.

Of course, you may withdraw at any time,  so there is no financial commitment here ... just intellectual. 

We understand that the pandemic is causing researchers to operate more slowly than usual, so we are working on mitigation strategies.  Our goal is to empower you to address the scientific question. This year will be an unusual one! Watch this space for updates in the coming days/weeks.

All the best

Gari

(On behalf of the challenge team.)

https://physionetchallenges.github.io/

Please post questions and comments in the forum. However, if your question reveals information about your entry, then please email challenge at physionet.org. We may post parts of our reply publicly if we feel that all Challengers should benefit from it. We will not answer emails about the Challenge to any other address. This email is maintained by a group. Please do not email us individually. 
   

On Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 09:00 Nina <najmeh...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Organisers,

Just a quick question, in the final paper submission(Sep), are we allowed to change the submitted abstract(Apr), as we might change the method or improve it?

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