SCS: 60 years and counting! A time to reflect on the Society's scholarly contribution to M&S from the turn of the millennium.

The Society for Modeling and Simulation International (SCS) is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Since its inception, the Society has widely disseminated the advancements in the field of modeling and simulation (M&S) through its peer-reviewed journals. In this paper we profile research that has been published in the journal SIMULATION: Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International from the turn of the millennium to 2010; the objective is to acknowledge the contribution of the authors and their seminal research papers, their respective universities/departments and the geographical diversity of the authors' affiliations. Yet another objective is to contribute towards the understanding of the overall evolution of the discipline of M&S; this is achieved through the classification of M&S techniques and its frequency of use, analysis of the sectors that have seen the predomination application of M&S and the context of its application. It is expected that this paper will lead to further appreciation of the contribution of the Society in influencing the growth of M&S as a discipline and, indeed, in steering its future direction

Simulation-driven engineering for the management of harmful algal and cyanobacterial blooms

Harmful Algal and Cyanobacterial Blooms (HABs), occurring in inland and maritime waters, pose threats to natural environments by producing toxins that affect human and animal health. In the past, HABs have been assessed mainly by the manual collection and subsequent analysis of water samples and occasionally by automatic instruments that acquire information from fixed locations. These procedures do not provide data with the desirable spatial and temporal resolution to anticipate the formation of HABs. Hence, new tools and technologies are needed to efficiently detect, characterize and respond to HABs that threaten water quality. It is essential nowadays when the world's water supply is under tremendous pressure because of climate change, overexploitation, and pollution. This paper introduces DEVS-BLOOM, a novel framework for real-time monitoring and management of HABs. Its purpose is to support high-performance hazard detection with Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) infrastructure for dynamic environments

Discrete Event Modeling and Simulation for IoT Efficient Design Combining WComp and DEVSimPy Framework

International audienceOne of today's challenges in the framework of ubiquitous computing concerns the design of ambient systems including sensors, smart-phones, interconnected objects, computers, etc. The major difficulty is to propose a compositional adaptation which aims to integrate new features that were not foreseen in the design, remove or exchange entities that are no longer available in a given context. In order to provide help to overcome this difficulty, a new approach based on the definition of strategies validated using discrete-event simulation is proposed. Such strategies make it possible to take into account conflicts and compositional adaptation of components in ambient systems. These are defined and validate using a discrete-event formalism to be integrated into a prototyping and dynamic execution environment for ambient intelligence applications. The proposed solution allows the designers of ambient systems to define the optimum matching of all components to each other. One pedagogical example is presented (switch-lamp system) as a proof of the proposed approach

Discrete event front tracking simulator of a physical fire spread model

International audienceSimulation of moving interfaces, like a fire front usually requires the resolution of a large scale and detailed domain. Such computing involves the use of supercomputers to process the large amount of data and calculations. This limitation is mainly due to the fact that large scale of space and time is usually split into nodes, cells or matrices, and the solving methods often require small time steps. This paper presents a novel method that enables the simulation of large scale/high resolution systems by focusing on the interface. Unlike the conventional explicit and implicit integration schemes, it is based on the discrete-event approach, which describes time advance in terms of increments of physical quantities rather than discrete time stepping. Space as well is not split into discrete nodes or cells, but we use polygons with real coordinates. The system is described by the behaviour of its interface, and evolves by computing collision events of this interface in the simulation. As this simulation technique is suited for a class of models that can explicitly provide rate of spread for a given configuration, we developed a specific radiation based propagation model of physical wildland fire. Simulations of a real large scale fire performed with an implementation of our method provide very interesting results in less than 30 seconds with a 3 metres resolution with current personal computers

Panel on future challenges in modeling methodology

This panel paper presents the views of six researchers and practitioners of simulation modeling. Collectively we attempt to address a range of key future challenges to modeling methodology. It is hoped that the views of this paper, and the presentations made by the panelists at the 2004 Winter Simulation Conference will raise awareness and stimulate further discussion on the future of modeling methodology in areas such as modeling problems in business applications, human factors and geographically dispersed networks; rapid model development and maintenance; legacy modeling approaches; markup languages; virtual interactive process design and simulation; standards; and Grid computing

Discrete event simulation and virtual reality use in industry: new opportunities and future trends

This paper reviews the area of combined discrete event simulation (DES) and virtual reality (VR) use within industry. While establishing a state of the art for progress in this area, this paper makes the case for VR DES as the vehicle of choice for complex data analysis through interactive simulation models, highlighting both its advantages and current limitations. This paper reviews active research topics such as VR and DES real-time integration, communication protocols, system design considerations, model validation, and applications of VR and DES. While summarizing future research directions for this technology combination, the case is made for smart factory adoption of VR DES as a new platform for scenario testing and decision making. It is put that in order for VR DES to fully meet the visualization requirements of both Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet visions of digital manufacturing, further research is required in the areas of lower latency image processing, DES delivery as a service, gesture recognition for VR DES interaction, and linkage of DES to real-time data streams and Big Data sets