Directed Research Project Details
Support for the Fast Prototyping of Coupled Models
| Author: | Tom Bulatewicz |
|---|---|
| Date: | June 13, 2003 |
| Time: | 13:00 |
| Location: | 220 Deschutes |
Abstract
A wealth of computational models have been developed over the past decades in many different scientific disciplines. Ideally, scientists should be able to reuse these models by combining them to create more complex models of interacting phenomena that more accurately represent the systems under study. Unfortunately, this task is quite difficult because the individual models are typically developed as complex, special-purpose programs rather than as modular components. Currently, model codes are typically integrated by combining the codes into a single program, requiring a detailed understanding of the model source codes. In this paper, we analyze a new strategy called lightweight model coupling (LWC) in which scientists create coupled models at the conceptual level rather than the code level.
The LWC process has two main steps: (1) the creation of abstract representations of model code, and (2) the specification of how models interact, in terms of their abstract representations. In this paper, we develop software that supports the first step and we analyze the feasibility of the overall approach. Much of the work involves two detailed case studies from the domain of hydrology.