Contents

1 Introduction

BERT (Batch-Effect Removal with Trees) offers flexible and efficient batch effect correction of omics data, while providing maximum tolerance to missing values. Tested on multiple datasets from proteomic analyses, BERT offered a typical 5-10x runtime improvement over existing methods, while retaining more numeric values and preserving batch effect reduction quality.

As such, BERT is a valuable preprocessing tool for data analysis workflows, in particular for proteomic data. By providing BERT via Bioconductor, we make this tool available to a wider research community. An accompanying research paper is currently under preparation and will be made public soon.

BERT addresses the same fundamental data integration challenges than the [HarmonizR][https://github.com/HSU-HPC/HarmonizR] package, which is released on Bioconductor in November 2023. However, various algorithmic modications and optimizations of BERT provide better execution time and better data coverage than HarmonizR. Moreover, BERT offers a more user-friendly design and a less error-prone input format.

Please note that our package BERT is neither affiliated with nor related to Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers as published by Google.

Please report any questions and issues in the GitHub forum, the BioConductor forum or directly contact the authors,

2 Installation

Please download and install a current version of R (Windows binaries). You might want to consider installing a development environment as well, e.g. RStudio. Finally, BERT can be installed via Bioconductor using

if (!require("BiocManager", quietly = TRUE)){
    install.packages("BiocManager")
}
BiocManager::install("BERT")

which will install all required dependencies. To install the development version of BERT, you can use devtools as follows

devtools::install_github("HSU-HPC/BERT")

which may require the manual installation of the dependencies sva and limma.

if (!require("BiocManager", quietly = TRUE)){
    install.packages("BiocManager")
}
BiocManager::install("sva")
BiocManager::install("limma")

3 Data Preparation

As input, BERT requires a dataframe1 Matrices and SummarizedExperiments work as well, but will automatically be converted to dataframes. with samples in rows and features in columns. For each sample, the respective batch should be indicated by an integer or string in a corresponding column labelled Batch. Missing values should be labelled as NA. A valid example dataframe could look like this:

example = data.frame(feature_1 = stats::rnorm(5), feature_2 = stats::rnorm(5), Batch=c(1,1,2,2,2))
example
#>    feature_1  feature_2 Batch
#> 1  0.7365824  0.2765822     1
#> 2  1.7951968 -2.0328570     1
#> 3 -0.1877207  0.3080448     2
#> 4  0.4261548  0.3485916     2
#> 5  1.0240010 -0.8566198     2

Note that each batch should contain at least two samples. Optional columns that can be passed are

Note that BERT tries to find all metadata information for a SummarizedExperiment, including the mandatory batch information, using colData. For instance, a valid SummarizedExperiment might be defined as

nrows <- 200
ncols <- 8
expr_values <- matrix(runif(nrows * ncols, 1, 1e4), nrows)
# colData also takes all other metadata information, such as Label, Sample,
# Covariables etc.
colData <- data.frame(Batch=c(1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2), Reference=c(1,1,0,0,1,1,0,0))
dataset_raw = SummarizedExperiment::SummarizedExperiment(assays=list(expr=expr_values), colData=colData)

4 Basic Usage

BERT can be invoked by importing the BERT library and calling the BERT function. The batch effect corrected data is returned as a dataframe that mirrors the input dataframe2 In particular, the row and column names are in the same order and the optional columns are preserved..

library(BERT)
# generate test data with 10% missing values as provided by the BERT library
dataset_raw <- generate_dataset(features=60, batches=10, samplesperbatch=10, mvstmt=0.1, classes=2)
# apply BERT
dataset_adjusted <- BERT(dataset_raw)
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:55.286353 INFO::Formatting Data.
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:55.297755 INFO::Replacing NaNs with NAs.
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:55.308515 INFO::Removing potential empty rows and columns
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:55.732253 INFO::Found  600  missing values.
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:55.747743 INFO::Introduced 0 missing values due to singular proteins at batch/covariate level.
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:55.748846 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:55.74981 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics before batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:55.769157 INFO::Starting hierarchical adjustment
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:55.770698 INFO::Found  10  batches.
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:55.771662 INFO::Cores argument is not defined or BPPARAM has been specified. Argument corereduction will not be used.
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:56.984358 INFO::Using default BPPARAM
#> 2025-04-15 19:12:56.985359 INFO::Processing subtree level 1
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:06.453703 INFO::Processing subtree level 2
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.440319 INFO::Adjusting the last 1 batches sequentially
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.44278 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.444174 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics after batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.452141 INFO::ASW Batch was 0.501607033750148 prior to batch effect correction and is now -0.143774730377774 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.453572 INFO::ASW Label was 0.321457476903182 prior to batch effect correction and is now 0.797423189688097 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.455338 INFO::Total function execution time is  20.2440969944  s and adjustment time is  19.6725239753723 s ( 97.18 )

BERT uses the logging library to convey live information to the user during the adjustment procedure. The algorithm first verifies the shape and suitability of the input dataframe (lines 1-6) before continuing with the actual batch effect correction (lines 8-14). BERT measure batch effects before and after the correction step by means of the average silhouette score (ASW) with respect to batch and labels (lines 7 and 15). The ASW Label should increase in a successful batch effect correction, whereas low values (\(\leq 0\)) are desireable for the ASW Batch3 The optimum of ASW Label is 1, which is typically however not achieved on real-world datasets. Also, the optimum of ASW Batch can vary, depending on the class distributions of the batches.. Finally, BERT prints the total function execution time (including the computation time for the quality metrics).

5 Advanced Options

5.1 Parameters

BERT offers a large number of parameters to customize the batch effect adjustment. The full function call, including all defaults is

BERT(data, cores = NULL, combatmode = 1, corereduction=2, stopParBatches=2, backend="default", method="ComBat", qualitycontrol=TRUE, verify=TRUE, labelname="Label", batchname="Batch", referencename="Reference", samplename="Sample", covariatename=NULL, BPPARAM=NULL, assayname=NULL)

In the following, we list the respective meaning of each parameter: - data: The input dataframe/matrix/SummarizedExperiment to adjust. See Data Preparation for detailed formatting instructions. - data The data for batch-effect correction. Must contain at least two samples per batch and 2 features.

  • cores: BERT uses BiocParallel for parallelization. If the user specifies a value cores, BERT internally creates and uses a new instance of BiocParallelParam, which is however not exhibited to the user. Setting this parameter can speed up the batch effect adjustment considerably, in particular for large datasets and on unix-based operating systems. A value between \(2\) and \(4\) is a reasonable choice for typical commodity hardware. Multi-node computations are not supported as of now. If, however, cores is not specified, BERT will default to BiocParallel::bpparam(), which may have been set by the user or the system. Additionally, the user can directly specify a specific instance of BiocParallelParam to be used via the BPPARAM argument.
  • combatmode An integer that encodes the parameters to use for ComBat.
Value par.prior mean.only
1 TRUE FALSE
2 TRUE TRUE
3 FALSE FALSE
4 FALSE TRUE

The value of this parameter will be ignored, if method!="ComBat".

  • corereduction Positive integer indicating the factor by which the number of processes should be reduced, once no further adjustment is possible for the current number of batches.4 E.g. consider a BERT call with 8 batches and 8 processes. Further adjustment is not possible with this number of processes, since batches are always processed in pairs. With corereduction=2, the number of processes for the following adjustment steps would be set to \(8/2=4\), which is the maximum number of usable processes for this example. This parameter is used only, if the user specified a custom value for parameter cores.

  • stopParBatches Positive integer indicating the minimum number of batches required at a hierarchy level to proceed with parallelized adjustment. If the number of batches is smaller, adjustment will be performed sequentially to avoid communication overheads.

  • backend: The backend to use for inter-process communication. Possible choices are default and file, where the former refers to the default communication backend of the requested parallelization mode and the latter will create temporary .rds files for data communication. ‘default’ is usually faster for small to medium sized datasets.

  • method: The method to use for the underlying batch effect correction steps. Should be either ComBat, limma for limma::removeBatchEffects or ref for adjustment using specified references (cf. Data Preparation). The underlying batch effect adjustment method for ref is a modified version of the limma method.

  • qualitycontrol: A boolean to (de)activate the ASW computation. Deactivating the ASW computations accelerates the computations.

  • verify: A boolean to (de)activate the initial format check of the input data. Deactivating this verification step accelerates the computations.

  • labelname: A string containing the name of the column to use as class labels. The default is “Label”.

  • batchname: A string containing the name of the column to use as batch labels. The default is “Batch”.

  • referencename: A string containing the name of the column to use as reference labels. The default is “Reference”.

  • covariatename: A vector containing the names of columns with categorical covariables.The default is NULL, in which case all column names are matched agains the pattern “Cov”.

  • BPPARAM: An instance of BiocParallelParam that will be used for parallelization. The default is null, in which case the value of cores determines the behaviour of BERT.

  • assayname: If the user chooses to pass a SummarizedExperiment object, they need to specify the name of the assay that they want to apply BERT to here. BERT then returns the input SummarizedExperiment with an additional assay labeled assayname_BERTcorrected.

5.2 Verbosity

BERT utilizes the logging package for output. The user can easily specify the verbosity of BERT by setting the global logging level in the script. For instance

logging::setLevel("WARN") # set level to warn and upwards
result <- BERT(data,cores = 1) # BERT executes silently

5.3 Choosing the Optimal Number of Cores

BERT exhibits a large number of parameters for parallelisation as to provide users with maximum flexibility. For typical scenarios, however, the default parameters are well suited. For very large experiments (\(>15\) batches), we recommend to increase the number of cores (a reasonable value is \(4\) but larger values may be possible on your hardware). Most users should leave all parameters to their respective default.

6 Examples

In the following, we present simple cookbook examples for BERT usage. Note that ASWs (and runtime) will most likely differ on your machine, since the data generating process involves multiple random choices.

6.1 Sequential Adjustment with limma

Here, BERT uses limma as underlying batch effect correction algorithm (method='limma') and performs all computations on a single process (cores parameter is left on default).

# import BERT
library(BERT)
# generate data with 30 batches, 60 features, 15 samples per batch, 15% missing values and 2 classes
dataset_raw <- generate_dataset(features=60, batches=20, samplesperbatch=15, mvstmt=0.15, classes=2)
# BERT
dataset_adjusted <- BERT(dataset_raw, method="limma")
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.603304 INFO::Formatting Data.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.605032 INFO::Replacing NaNs with NAs.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.607297 INFO::Removing potential empty rows and columns
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.610889 INFO::Found  2700  missing values.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.633499 INFO::Introduced 0 missing values due to singular proteins at batch/covariate level.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.634615 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.635481 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics before batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.657534 INFO::Starting hierarchical adjustment
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.658763 INFO::Found  20  batches.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.659759 INFO::Cores argument is not defined or BPPARAM has been specified. Argument corereduction will not be used.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.664351 INFO::Using default BPPARAM
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:15.665853 INFO::Processing subtree level 1
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:18.700755 INFO::Processing subtree level 2
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:21.412187 INFO::Processing subtree level 3
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.348774 INFO::Adjusting the last 1 batches sequentially
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.351186 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.352442 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics after batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.372999 INFO::ASW Batch was 0.434831086956634 prior to batch effect correction and is now -0.105071685819914 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.373949 INFO::ASW Label was 0.366350367886154 prior to batch effect correction and is now 0.815607454383876 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.374934 INFO::Total function execution time is  8.77182388305664  s and adjustment time is  8.69260191917419 s ( 99.1 )

6.2 Parallel Batch Effect Correction with ComBat

Here, BERT uses ComBat as underlying batch effect correction algorithm (method is left on default) and performs all computations on a 2 processes (cores=2).

# import BERT
library(BERT)
# generate data with 30 batches, 60 features, 15 samples per batch, 15% missing values and 2 classes
dataset_raw <- generate_dataset(features=60, batches=20, samplesperbatch=15, mvstmt=0.15, classes=2)
# BERT
dataset_adjusted <- BERT(dataset_raw, cores=2)
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.453612 INFO::Formatting Data.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.455398 INFO::Replacing NaNs with NAs.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.457537 INFO::Removing potential empty rows and columns
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.461013 INFO::Found  2700  missing values.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.497504 INFO::Introduced 0 missing values due to singular proteins at batch/covariate level.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.49903 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.500346 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics before batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.528143 INFO::Starting hierarchical adjustment
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:24.530044 INFO::Found  20  batches.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:25.156405 INFO::Set up parallel execution backend with 2 workers
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:25.157466 INFO::Processing subtree level 1 with 20 batches using 2 cores.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:36.033367 INFO::Adjusting the last 2 batches sequentially
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:36.035548 INFO::Adjusting sequential tree level 1 with 2 batches
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.330584 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.332175 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics after batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.359335 INFO::ASW Batch was 0.45922964254459 prior to batch effect correction and is now -0.128737013233912 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.360992 INFO::ASW Label was 0.3250879326521 prior to batch effect correction and is now 0.803669749723936 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.362821 INFO::Total function execution time is  13.9092721939087  s and adjustment time is  13.8002018928528 s ( 99.22 )

6.3 Batch Effect Correction Using SummarizedExperiment

Here, BERT takes the input data using a SummarizedExperiment instead. Batch effect correction is then performed using ComBat as underlying algorithm (method is left on default) and all computations are performed on a single process (cores parameter is left on default).

nrows <- 200
ncols <- 8
# SummarizedExperiments store samples in columns and features in rows (in contrast to BERT).
# BERT will automatically account for this.
expr_values <- matrix(runif(nrows * ncols, 1, 1e4), nrows)
# colData also takes further metadata information, such as Label, Sample,
# Reference or Covariables
colData <- data.frame("Batch"=c(1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2), "Label"=c(1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2), "Sample"=c(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8))
dataset_raw = SummarizedExperiment::SummarizedExperiment(assays=list(expr=expr_values), colData=colData)
dataset_adjusted = BERT(dataset_raw, assayname = "expr")
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.49127 INFO::Formatting Data.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.492885 INFO::Recognized SummarizedExperiment
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.494215 INFO::Typecasting input to dataframe.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.546722 INFO::Replacing NaNs with NAs.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.548906 INFO::Removing potential empty rows and columns
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.554713 INFO::Found  0  missing values.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.565557 INFO::Introduced 0 missing values due to singular proteins at batch/covariate level.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.567151 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.56862 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics before batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.576385 INFO::Starting hierarchical adjustment
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.57832 INFO::Found  2  batches.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.581412 INFO::Cores argument is not defined or BPPARAM has been specified. Argument corereduction will not be used.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.582583 INFO::Using default BPPARAM
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.583675 INFO::Adjusting the last 2 batches sequentially
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.585204 INFO::Adjusting sequential tree level 1 with 2 batches
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.64908 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.650617 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics after batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.658735 INFO::ASW Batch was -0.00413116746908479 prior to batch effect correction and is now -0.0966243347230158 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.660311 INFO::ASW Label was 0.00460801907608298 prior to batch effect correction and is now 0.0205767716979563 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.662174 INFO::Total function execution time is  0.170845031738281  s and adjustment time is  0.071052074432373 s ( 41.59 )

6.4 BERT with Covariables

BERT can utilize categorical covariables that are specified in columns Cov_1, Cov_2, .... These columns are automatically detected and integrated into the batch effect correction process.

# import BERT
library(BERT)
# set seed for reproducibility
set.seed(1)
# generate data with 5 batches, 60 features, 30 samples per batch, 15% missing values and 2 classes
dataset_raw <- generate_dataset(features=60, batches=5, samplesperbatch=30, mvstmt=0.15, classes=2)
# create covariable column with 2 possible values, e.g. male/female condition
dataset_raw["Cov_1"] = sample(c(1,2), size=dim(dataset_raw)[1], replace=TRUE)
# BERT
dataset_adjusted <- BERT(dataset_raw)
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.748306 INFO::Formatting Data.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.750215 INFO::Replacing NaNs with NAs.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.752613 INFO::Removing potential empty rows and columns
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.756403 INFO::Found  1350  missing values.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.758587 INFO::BERT requires at least 2 numeric values per batch/covariate level. This may reduce the number of adjustable features considerably, depending on the quantification technique.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.792316 INFO::Introduced 0 missing values due to singular proteins at batch/covariate level.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.793923 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.795396 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics before batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.805377 INFO::Starting hierarchical adjustment
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.808983 INFO::Found  5  batches.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.810513 INFO::Cores argument is not defined or BPPARAM has been specified. Argument corereduction will not be used.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.812127 INFO::Using default BPPARAM
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:38.813559 INFO::Processing subtree level 1
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.725159 INFO::Adjusting the last 2 batches sequentially
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.727585 INFO::Adjusting sequential tree level 1 with 2 batches
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.799231 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.800871 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics after batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.811768 INFO::ASW Batch was 0.492773245691086 prior to batch effect correction and is now -0.0377157224767566 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.813317 INFO::ASW Label was 0.40854766060101 prior to batch effect correction and is now 0.895560693013661 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.81503 INFO::Total function execution time is  12.0668280124664  s and adjustment time is  11.9905490875244 s ( 99.37 )

6.5 BERT with references

In rare cases, class distributions across experiments may be severely skewed. In particular, a batch might contain classes that other batches don’t contain. In these cases, samples of common conditions may serve as references (bridges) between the batches (method="ref"). BERT utilizes those samples as references that have a condition specified in the “Reference” column of the input. All other samples are co-adjusted. Please note, that this strategy implicitly uses limma as underlying batch effect correction algorithm.

# import BERT
library(BERT)
# generate data with 4 batches, 6 features, 15 samples per batch, 15% missing values and 2 classes
dataset_raw <- generate_dataset(features=6, batches=4, samplesperbatch=15, mvstmt=0.15, classes=2)
# create reference column with default value 0.  The 0 indicates, that the respective sample should be co-adjusted only.
dataset_raw[, "Reference"] <- 0
# randomly select 2 references per batch and class - in practice, this choice will be determined by external requirements (e.g. class known for only these samples)
batches <- unique(dataset_raw$Batch) # all the batches
for(b in batches){ # iterate over all batches
    # references from class 1
    ref_idx = sample(which((dataset_raw$Batch==b)&(dataset_raw$Label==1)), size=2, replace=FALSE)
    dataset_raw[ref_idx, "Reference"] <- 1
    # references from class 2
    ref_idx = sample(which((dataset_raw$Batch==b)&(dataset_raw$Label==2)), size=2, replace=FALSE)
    dataset_raw[ref_idx, "Reference"] <- 2
}
# BERT
dataset_adjusted <- BERT(dataset_raw, method="ref")
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.926314 INFO::Formatting Data.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.928076 INFO::Replacing NaNs with NAs.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.929995 INFO::Removing potential empty rows and columns
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.932062 INFO::Found  60  missing values.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.938319 INFO::Introduced 0 missing values due to singular proteins at batch/covariate level.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.939735 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.941034 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics before batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.94602 INFO::Starting hierarchical adjustment
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.947593 INFO::Found  4  batches.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.948856 INFO::Cores argument is not defined or BPPARAM has been specified. Argument corereduction will not be used.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.951809 INFO::Using default BPPARAM
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:50.952777 INFO::Processing subtree level 1
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:54.64764 INFO::Adjusting the last 2 batches sequentially
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:54.649888 INFO::Adjusting sequential tree level 1 with 2 batches
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:54.703193 INFO::Done
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:54.70468 INFO::Acquiring quality metrics after batch effect correction.
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:54.709934 INFO::ASW Batch was 0.440355021914032 prior to batch effect correction and is now -0.087480278736629 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:54.711335 INFO::ASW Label was 0.373906827748893 prior to batch effect correction and is now 0.919791677398366 .
#> 2025-04-15 19:13:54.712948 INFO::Total function execution time is  3.78670597076416  s and adjustment time is  3.755784034729 s ( 99.18 )

7 Issues

Issues can be reported in the GitHub forum, the BioConductor forum or directly to the authors.

8 License

This code is published under the GPLv3.0 License and is available for non-commercial academic purposes.

9 Reference

Please cite our manuscript, if you use BERT for your research: Schumann Y, Gocke A, Neumann J (2024). Computational Methods for Data Integration and Imputation of Missing Values in Omics Datasets. PROTEOMICS. ISSN 1615-9861, doi:10.1002/pmic.202400100

10 Session Info

sessionInfo()
#> R version 4.5.0 RC (2025-04-04 r88126 ucrt)
#> Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64
#> Running under: Windows Server 2022 x64 (build 20348)
#> 
#> Matrix products: default
#>   LAPACK version 3.12.1
#> 
#> locale:
#> [1] LC_COLLATE=C                          
#> [2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.utf8   
#> [3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.utf8
#> [4] LC_NUMERIC=C                          
#> [5] LC_TIME=English_United States.utf8    
#> 
#> time zone: America/New_York
#> tzcode source: internal
#> 
#> attached base packages:
#> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
#> 
#> other attached packages:
#> [1] BERT_1.4.0       BiocStyle_2.36.0
#> 
#> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
#>  [1] tidyselect_1.2.1            blob_1.2.4                 
#>  [3] Biostrings_2.76.0           fastmap_1.2.0              
#>  [5] janitor_2.2.1               XML_3.99-0.18              
#>  [7] digest_0.6.37               timechange_0.3.0           
#>  [9] lifecycle_1.0.4             cluster_2.1.8.1            
#> [11] statmod_1.5.0               survival_3.8-3             
#> [13] KEGGREST_1.48.0             invgamma_1.1               
#> [15] RSQLite_2.3.9               magrittr_2.0.3             
#> [17] genefilter_1.90.0           compiler_4.5.0             
#> [19] rlang_1.1.6                 sass_0.4.10                
#> [21] tools_4.5.0                 yaml_2.3.10                
#> [23] knitr_1.50                  S4Arrays_1.8.0             
#> [25] bit_4.6.0                   DelayedArray_0.34.0        
#> [27] abind_1.4-8                 BiocParallel_1.42.0        
#> [29] BiocGenerics_0.54.0         grid_4.5.0                 
#> [31] stats4_4.5.0                xtable_1.8-4               
#> [33] edgeR_4.6.0                 iterators_1.0.14           
#> [35] logging_0.10-108            SummarizedExperiment_1.38.0
#> [37] cli_3.6.4                   rmarkdown_2.29             
#> [39] crayon_1.5.3                generics_0.1.3             
#> [41] httr_1.4.7                  DBI_1.2.3                  
#> [43] cachem_1.1.0                stringr_1.5.1              
#> [45] splines_4.5.0               parallel_4.5.0             
#> [47] AnnotationDbi_1.70.0        BiocManager_1.30.25        
#> [49] XVector_0.48.0              matrixStats_1.5.0          
#> [51] vctrs_0.6.5                 Matrix_1.7-3               
#> [53] jsonlite_2.0.0              sva_3.56.0                 
#> [55] bookdown_0.43               comprehenr_0.6.10          
#> [57] IRanges_2.42.0              S4Vectors_0.46.0           
#> [59] bit64_4.6.0-1               locfit_1.5-9.12            
#> [61] foreach_1.5.2               limma_3.64.0               
#> [63] jquerylib_0.1.4             snow_0.4-4                 
#> [65] annotate_1.86.0             glue_1.8.0                 
#> [67] codetools_0.2-20            lubridate_1.9.4            
#> [69] stringi_1.8.7               GenomeInfoDb_1.44.0        
#> [71] GenomicRanges_1.60.0        UCSC.utils_1.4.0           
#> [73] htmltools_0.5.8.1           GenomeInfoDbData_1.2.14    
#> [75] R6_2.6.1                    evaluate_1.0.3             
#> [77] lattice_0.22-7              Biobase_2.68.0             
#> [79] png_0.1-8                   memoise_2.0.1              
#> [81] snakecase_0.11.1            bslib_0.9.0                
#> [83] SparseArray_1.8.0           nlme_3.1-168               
#> [85] mgcv_1.9-3                  xfun_0.52                  
#> [87] MatrixGenerics_1.20.0