Computer Engineering Commons^™

The Effect Of Recovery On Modeling Inactivation Of Bacillus Spores On Hvac Filters, Bharathi Murali, Jade Mitchell

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The ability of microorganisms to persist on fomite surfaces is an important component in modeling their spread in physical environment. For example, Bacillus anthracis (Ba) spores have been found to be extremely resistant to inactivation, environmental stresses, and stable over decades. Modeling the inactivation of spores could form an integral element for estimating the exposure and the subsequent health risks posed by them. However, there is a knowledge gap in the quantification of recovery of Bacillus spores on porous surfaces, which may have a significant effect on the quantification of their persistence in the environment. Our work investigates the recovery …

A K-Means Clustering Approach To Assess Wheat Yield Prediction Uncertainty With A Hydrus-1d Coupled Crop Model, Derek Groenendyk, Kelly Thorp, Ty Ferré, Wade Crow, Doug Hunsaker

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Soil moisture, especially under drought conditions, is a factor that is known to impact crop yield predictions. Crop growth models used to make these predictions rely on soil texture estimates, which influence simulated soil moisture and ultimately crop growth. The purpose of this research was to implement a k-means clustering approach to address the uncertainty of the soil texture estimates. By grouping similar soil textures based on their simulated responses, clustering reveals how soil texture uncertainty may impact yield estimates. Wheat growth simulations were conducted using a HYDRUS 1D and coupled crop model for soils defined on the USDA soil …

Gis-Based Environmental Modeling With Tangible Interaction And Dynamic Visualization, Anna Petrasova, Brendan Harmon, Vaclav Petras, Helena Mitasova

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We present a new, affordable version of TanGeoMS, a tangible geospatial modeling and visualization system designed for collaboratively exploring how terrain change impacts landscape pro­ cesses. It couples a physical, three-dimensional model of a landscape with geospatial modeling and analysis through a cycle of scanning and projection. Multiple users can modify the physical model by hand while it is being scanned; by sculpting the model they generate input for modeling of geophysical processes. The modeling results are then visualized by projecting images or animations back on the physical model. This feedback loop is an intuitive way to evaluate the impacts …

Calibration Of Simulation Platforms Including Highly Interweaved Processes: The Maelia Multi-Agent Platform, Romain Lardy, Pierre Mazzega, Christophe Sibertin-Blanc, Yves Auda, José-Miguel Sanchez-Perez, Sabine Sauvage, Olivier Therond

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The MAELIA project develops an agent-based modeling and simulation platform to study the environmental, economic and social impacts of various regulations regarding water use and water management in combination with climate change. An integrated modelling approach has been used to model the investigated social-ecological system. MAELIA combines spatiotemporal models of ecologic (e.g. water flow and plant growth) and human decision-making processes (e.g. cropping plan), socio-economic dynamics (e.g. land cover changes). Due to the diversity and the interweaving of the processes considered, the calibration and evaluation of such a multi-agent platform is a scientific challenge. Indeed, many parameters can reveal to …

An Environmental Modeling Language For Agents And Fields, Kor De Jong, Merijn De Bakker, Derek Karssenberg

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Environmental modeling involves manipulating environmental attributes represented in soft­ware by agents, fields or both, but most modeling environments are designed to be especially useful for either agent-based or field-based modeling. Agent-based and field-based modeling environments have different properties with respect to their ease of use and how well both agents and fields can be represented and manipulated. Most agent-based modeling environments require the modeler to use a general purpose object oriented programming language like Java to express models, while field-based modeling environments often implement a high level, domain specific imperative language based on map algebra, or extent a general purpose …

An Integrated Approach For Including Social Capacities, And Economic Valuation In Risk Assessment Of Water Related Hazards In Uncertain Scenarios, Carlo Giupponi, Vahid Mojtahed, Animesh K. Gain, Stefano Balbi, Claudio Biscaro

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We propose a conceptual framework, KR-FWK (i.e. KULTURisk Framework from the name of the European project within which it originated) and its implementation methods SERRA (Socio-Economic Regional Risk Assessment) for integrated (physical and economical) risk assessment, and economic valuation of risk prevention benefits on multiple receptors. The KR-FWK and the SERRA approach are characterised by: (i) integration of physical-environmental dimensions and the socio-economic ones in risk assessment; (ii) consideration of the role of social capacities (adaptive and coping capacity) in reducing risk and related costs, (iii) quantitative (even monetary) assessment of risks and of the benefits of risk reduction measures, …

Agile Workflows For Climate Impact Risk Assessment Based On The Ci:Grasp Platform And The Jabc Modeling Framework, Samih Al-Areqi, Anna-Lena Lamprecht, Tiziana Margaria, Steffen Kriewald, Dominik Reusser, Markus Wrobel

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Analyzing and assessing potential impacts of climate change are critical and challenging tasks that require the processing of large and heterogeneous datasets. These analyses are particularly demanding because of the multi-scale and multi-objective nature of environmental modeling for climate change impact assessment. The Climate Impacts: Global and Regional Adaptation Support Platform (ci:grasp) is a web-based climate information service for exploring climate change related information in its geographical context. In this paper, we show how the agile workflow development style supported by the jABC process modeling and execution framework permits us to leverage the processes implemented in the ci:grasp platform to …

The Data Processing Inequality And Environmental Model Prediction, Steven V. Weijs

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Prediction in environmental systems, such as hydrological streamflow prediction, is a challenging task. Although on a small scale, many of the physical processes are well described, accurate predictions of macroscopical (e.g. catchment scale) behavior with a bottom-up mechanistic approach often remains elusive. On the other hand, conceptual or purely statistical models fitted to data often perform surprisingly well for prediction. The data processing inequality, from the field of information theory, says that processing data with statistical procedures can only decrease, and not increase the information content of the data. This seems to contradict the intuition that our knowledge of physical …

Managing Agricultural Landscapes For Favouring Ecosystem Services Provided By Biodiversity: A Spatially Explicit Model Of Crop Rotations In The Gama Simulation Platform, Hugo Thierry, Aude Vialatte, Jean-Philippe Choisis, Benoit Gaudou, Claude Monteil

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The need to reduce the use of pesticides in agricultural ecosystems requires studying and developing new pest regulation methods. Individual-based models are useful to better understand how dynamics of insects interact with agricultural landscapes and to study the potential effects of alternative regulation methods, taking into account the spatial and temporal stochasticity of agricultural ecosystems caused by human management. Crop rotations and crop phenology have an important impact on the life cycles of populations of insects. We developed an individual-based model simulating the dynamics of an agricultural landscape from GIS data. The spatiotemporal stochasticity is simulated using typical landcover rotations …

A Cognitive Robotics Approach To Comprehending Human Language And Behaviors, Deryle W. Lonsdale, D. Paul Benjamin, Damian Lyons

Faculty Publications

The ADAPT project is a collaboration of researchers in linguistics, robotics and artificial intelligence at three universities. We are building a complete robotic cognitive architecture for a mobile robot designed to interact with humans in a range of environments, and which uses natural language and models human behavior. This paper concentrates on the HRI aspects of ADAPT, and especially on how ADAPT models and interacts with humans.

Computer Graphics: Conversion Of Contour Line Definitions Into Polygonal Element Mosaics, Thomas W. Sederberg

Theses and Dissertations

There has been a disparity between the conventional method of describing topographic surfaces (i.e. contour line definition) and a format of surface description often used in continuous-line computer graphics (i.e. panel definition). The two differ enough that conversion from contours to panels is not a trivial problem. A computer program that performs such a conversion would greatly facilitate continuous tone display of topographical surfaces, or any other surface which is defined by contour lines.

This problem has been addressed by Keppel and alluded to by Fuchs. Keppel's is a highly systematic approach in which he uses graph theory to find …