Probabilistic Contributing Area Analysis: A GMDSI worked example report

Copyright Flinders UniversityPREFACE The Groundwater Modelling Decision Support Initiative (GMDSI) is an industry-funded and industry-aligned project focused on improving the role that groundwater modelling plays in supporting environmental management and decision-making. Over the life of the project, it will document a number of examples of decision-support groundwater modelling. These documented worked examples will attempt to demonstrate that by following the scientific method, and by employing modern, computer-based approaches to data assimilation, the uncertainties associated with groundwater model predictions can be both quantified and reduced. With realistic confidence intervals associated with predictions of management interest, the risks associated with different courses of management action can be properly assessed before critical decisions are made. GMDSI worked example reports, one of which you are now reading, are deliberately different from other modelling reports. They do not describe all of the nuances of a particular study site. They do not provide every construction and deployment detail of a particular model. In fact, they are not written for modelling specialists at all. Instead, a GMDSI worked example report is written with a broader audience in mind. Its intention is to convey concepts, rather than to record details of model construction. In doing so, it attempts to raise its readers’ awareness of modelling and data-assimilation possibilities that may prove useful in their own groundwater management contexts. The decision-support challenges that are addressed by various GMDSI worked examples include the following: • assessing the reliability of a public water supply; • protection of a groundwater resource from contamination; • estimation of mine dewatering requirements; • assessing the environmental impacts of mining; and • management of aquifers threatened by salt water intrusion. In all cases the approach is the same. Management-salient model predictions are identified. Ways in which model-based data assimilation can be employed to quantify and reduce the uncertainties associated with these predictions are reported. Model design choices are explained in a way that modellers and non-modellers can understand. The authors of GMDSI worked example reports make no claim that the modelling work which they document cannot be improved. As all modellers know, time and resources available for modelling are always limited. The quality of data on which a model relies is always suspect. Modelling choices are always subjective, and are often made differently with the benefit of hindsight. What we do claim, however, is that the modelling work which we report has attempted to implement the scientific method to address challenges that are typical of those encountered on a day-to-day basis in groundwater management worldwide. As stated above, a worked example report purposefully omits many implementation details of the modelling and data assimilation processes that it describes. Its purpose is to demonstrate what can be done, rather than to explain how it is done. Those who are interested in technical details are referred to GMDSI modelling tutorials. A suite of these tutorials has been developed specifically to assist modellers in implementing workflows such as those that are described herein. We thank and acknowledge our collaborators, and GMDSI project funders, for making these reports possible

Modular Reasoning for Actor Specification Diagrams

: Specification diagrams are a novel form of graphical notation for specifying open distributed object systems. The design goal is to define notation for specifying message-passing behavior that is expressive, intuitively understandable, and that has formal semantic underpinnings. The notation generalizes informal notations such as UML's Sequence Diagrams and broadens their applicability to later in the design cycle. In this paper we show how it is possible to reason rigorously and modularly about specification diagrams. An Actor Theory Toolkit is used to great advantage for this purpose. INTRODUCTION Specification diagrams are a novel form of graphical notation for specifying open distributed object systems. Our goal is to define notation for specifying message-passing behavior that is expressive, intuitively understandable, and that has a rigorous underlying semantics. Many specification languages that have achieved widespread usage have a graphical presentation format, primarily be..

Animais gordos e a dissolução da fronteira entre as espécies

Animais de estimação gordos costumavam ser, para muitas pessoas, engraçados e adoráveis; para algumas, os animaizinhos gordos (especialmente gatos) ainda o são: os quadrinhos de Garfield, sobre um gato acima do peso e preguiçoso, venderam bem; há sites e livros dedicados a exaltar a beleza e o encanto dos gatos gordos; e crianças anglófonas são socializadas por meio de livros de leitura fonológicos com títulos como Fat cat on a mat, associando o prazer de ler à fofura de animais de estimação rechonchudos. Tudo isto, no entanto, está mudando. Testemunhamos a transformação da obesidade de animais de estimação de fenômeno trivial ou preferência estética idiossincrática em problema social. Este vem mobilizando os meios de comunicação de massa, a opinião pública e ampla variedade de especialistas, além da intervenção de aparatos de Estado, como os tribunais e a polícia. Este artigo discute as maneiras pelas quais a obesidade ultrapassou a fronteira das espécies. Revisa as provas divulgadas para justificar as cada vez mais comuns - e cada vez mais estridentes - alegações de que estamos em meio a uma "epidemia" de obesidade de animais de estimação (algumas das quais afirmando que os animais de estimação acima do peso chegam a 60% do total), discute a fonte e avalia a credibilidade desta informação. Examina como a obesidade animal é apresentada na mídia por organizações de caridade, como Pet Club UK ou a RSPCA. E oferece reflexões sobre o que a preocupação corrente em relação à obesidade dos animais de estimação pode nos dizer a respeito das dimensões sociais, culturais, médicas, históricas, econômicas, emocionais e subjetivas da obesidade de maneira geral.<br>For many people, fat pets used to be cute, funny and adorable, and for some people fat pets (especially fat cats) still are: the Garfield comics, about an overweight, lazy cat, sell well, there are websites and books devoted to extolling the beauty and allure of fat cats, and children are socialized, through phonics readers with titles like Fat Cat on a Mat, to associate the pleasure of reading with the cuteness of round pets. All of this, however, is changing. We are witnessing the transformation of pet obesity from a trivial phenomenon or an idiosyncratic aesthetic preference into a social problem - one that increasingly mobilizes the mass media, public opinion and a wide variety of experts, and the intervention of state apparatuses like the courts and the police. This article discusses the ways in which obesity has crossed the species boundary. It reviews the evidence circulated to justify the increasingly common - and increasingly shrill - claims that we are in the midst of an "epidemic" of pet obesity (some claims assert that as many as 60% of all pets are overweight or obese) and it discusses the source and assesses the reliability of that evidence. It examines how pet obesity is presented in the mass media and by charitable organizations like Pet Club UK or the RSPCA. It also offers some thoughts about what current concerns about pet obesity can tell us about the social, cultural, medical, historical, economic, emotional and subjective dimensions of obesity more generally