Computer Engineering Commons^™

Back-End Science Model Integration For Ecological Risk Assessment, Tao Hong, Chancellor Pascale, Jonathan Flaishans, Marcia Snyder, S. Thomas Purucker

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) relies on a number of ecological risk assessment models that have been developed over 30-plus years of regulating pesticide exposure and risks under Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Endangered Species Act. Since computing technology have changed dramatically over this time period, constituent legacy models often contain algorithms based on source code with defunct dependencies and/or have been integrated with graphical user interface elements no longer compatible with current operating systems. Model migration to modern web applications creates integration challenges for back-end science model code residing on a server. An example …

Epidemia - An Ecohealth Informatics System For Integrated Forecasting Of Malaria Epidemics, Micheal C. Wimberly, Geoffrey M. Henebry, Yi Liu, Gabriel B. Senay

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Advance information about the timing and locations of malaria epidemics allows more effective targeting of resources for prevention, control, and treatment. However, these predictions must be accurate to ensure that potential outbreaks are not missed and resources are not wasted responding to predicted outbreaks that do not occur. Early warning systems based on environmental monitoring can identify critical risk factors before an epidemic actually starts, but their accuracy is constrained by the complex interrelationships of climatic variability, mosquito population dynamics, malaria transmission, and the resulting risk of human infection. In contrast, early detection of malaria epidemics based on epidemiological surveillance …

Swanp: Software For Automatic Smart Water Network Partitioning, Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso, Francesco Paolo Tuccinardi, Giancarlo Zaccone

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The application of Information and Communication Technology in different assets of urban life has contributed to generating the notion of Smart City in which Smart WAter Network (SWAN) can be assumed as subsystems. The possibility of inserting remote control valves and flow meters in a WDS allows the implementation of the paradigm of "divide and conquer", that consists into divide a large water network into k smaller subsystems, in order to simplify and improve the management and protection of SWAN. Traditional approaches for water network partitioning, based on empirical guiding principles (such as the maximum number of properties or total …

A Chemical Properties Simulator To Support Iem, Gene Whelan, Eric Weber, Caroline Stevens, Mitch Pelton, Kurt Wolfe, Rajbir Parmar, Mike Galvin, Said Hilal, Justin Babendreier

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Users of Integrated Environmental Modeling (IEM) systems are responsible for defining individual chemicals and their properties, a process that is time-consuming at best and overwhelming at worst, especially for new chemicals with new structures. A software tool is needed to allow users to define a chemical structure, predict transformation products within an environmental setting, and calculate relevant physicochemical properties. Independent software provides relevant chemical and environmental descriptors to parameterize IEM systems that support fate/transport of organics by integrating cheminformatic applications and software technologies. These 1) encode process science using SMART reaction strings, an extension of SMILES notation; 2) generate transformation …

Interactive Web-Based Flood Modeling At Country Wide Scale And Plantar Size Resolution, Fedor Baart, Jack Ha, Arthur Van Dam, Gennadii Donchyts, Martijn Siemerink

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The flooding of rural and urban areas is an increasing hazard to society. Accurate and timely predictions are essential for the water manager to prepare and respond to these hazards. Predicting flooding requires a numerical model that represents the physical processes (rain, evaporation, infiltration, overland flow, groundwater flow). This model, fed with measurements, and possible measures, calculates the expected flooding. The traditional working method consists of a three step process: schematization setup, running and post-processing, with a total feedback time of hours. This process is suitable for confirmatory modeling. Most of the time, models are applied exploratory, requiring a different …

Mobile Device App For Small Open-Channel Flow Measurement, Lüthi Beat, Thomas Philippe, Salvador Peña-Haro

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

For effective water management, particularly in irrigated agriculture, it is essential to have reliable open-channel flow data. With present methods, such data is not readily obtained as they require measurement stations, what often results in sparse data. We present a mobile device app to measure runoff in open channels. With this tool flow data can be collected reliably and cheaply.

The technology, on which the app is based, is derived from an already implemented and tested similar webcam application. The smartphone app calculates the runoff by analyzing a few seconds of a movie sequence that is recorded by the same …

Modelling Similarities Of Endocrine Disruptors In Pine Needles And Human Breast Milk, Kristina Voigt, Rainer Bruggemann, Hagen Scherb, Ismet Cok, Karl-Werner Schramm

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In a recently performed monitoring project, 18 OCPs (Organochlorine pesticides) in paired samples of pine needles and human breast milk samples were analysed in different regions in the Taurus Mountains in Turkey. The aim of our data evaluation approach is to find out whether there are conformities between the paired human breast milk and pine needle samples. An appropriate data analysis method to identify such conformities and differences is the discrete mathematical method named Hasse diagram technique. The software package used is the PyHasse software. It comprises several modules, which are of great support in the evaluation of environmental data. …

Developing An Aquasim Biofilm Model To Simulate A Novel Batch Biofilm Passive Aeration Technology, Noelle Jones, Maebh Grace, Eoghan Clifford

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Mathematical modelling of biofilm reactors can be complicated and time-consuming due to the complexity of the biofilms and a wide range of models have been developed to simulate biofilm reactors.

The Pumped Flow Biofilm Reactor (PFBR) is a new biofilm-based passive aeration system (PAS) that is an example of a complex biofilm system. The PFBR is a two reactor technology that employs a unique hydraulic regime and enables aerobic, anoxic and anaerobic conditions to be sequenced . Biofilm, growing on plastic media modules within the two reactors, is aerated passively as wastewater is moved alternately between the reactors during an …

Implementation Of Integrated Modelling Approach To Impact Assessment Applications For Lng Operations Using 3-D Comprehensive Modelling Framework, Shwet Prakash, Venkat S. Kolluru

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Natural gas is a premium fuel for both its energy value and environmental friendliness. Worldwide reliance on natural gas and continual discovery of new reserves around the world has spurred increased exploration and production. Offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) developments of a large scale are being operated an built across the world requiring continual assessment of environmental impacts from operational and accidental releases. Physical and chemical environmental impacts on surface waters from these releases should preferably be assessed using a comprehensive modelling approach. In a comprehensive modelling approach, a single model is used to develop the ambient hydrodynamic conditions and …

Data Provisioning For The Object Modeling System (Oms), Jack R. Carlson, Olaf David, Wes J. Lloyd, George H. Leavesley, Ken W. Rojas, Timothy R. Green, Mazdak Arabi, Lucas Yaege, Hom Kipka

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Object Modelling System (OMS) platform supports initiatives to build or re-factor agro-environmental models and deploy them in different business contexts as model services on cloud computing platforms. Whether traditional desktop, client-server, or emerging cloud deployments, success especially at the enterprise level relies on stable and efficient data provisioning to the models. In this paper we describe recent experience and trends with tools and services deployed to cloud platforms. Also, systematic, sustained data stewardship and alignment with standards organizations impart stability to data provisioning efforts.

Multi-Level Automated Sub-Zoning Of Water Distribution Systems, Lina Sela Perelman, Micheal Allen, Ami Preis, Mudasser Iqbal, Andrew J. Whittle

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Water distribution systems (WDS) are complex pipe networks with looped and branching topologies that often comprise of thousands of links and nodes. This work presents a generic framework for improved analysis and management of WDS by partitioning the system into smaller (almost) independent sub-systems with balanced loads and minimal number of interconnections. This paper compares the performance of three classes of unsupervised learning algorithms from graph theory for practical sub-zoning of WDS: (1) Graph clustering – a bottom-up algorithm for clustering n objects with respect to a similarity function, (2) Community structure – a bottom-up algorithm based on network modularity …

Performance And Power Optimization Of Gpu Architectures For General-Purpose Computing, Yue Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Power-performance efficiency has become a central focus that is challenging in heterogeneous processing platforms as the power constraints have to be established without hindering the high performance. In this dissertation, a framework for optimizing the power and performance of GPUs in the context of general-purpose computing in GPUs (GPGPU) is proposed. To optimize the leakage power of caches in GPUs, we dynamically switch the L1 and L2 caches into low power modes during periods of inactivity to reduce leakage power. The L1 cache can be put into a low-leakage (sleep) state when a processing unit is stalled due to no …

Large Wood Flow Hydraulics: A 3d Modelling Approach, Yong G. Lai, David J. Bandrowski

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Large Wood (LW) has been widely used in stream and watershed restoration projects due to the many ecological benefits it offers. Its use in streams, however, has unresolved challenges with regard to its impact on stream morphology, safety and lack of design guidelines. Laboratory or field study of LW is difficult due to irregular nature of LW structures. Computational fluid dynamics (CFO) modelling, therefore, becomes an attractive alternative. However, CFO modelling of LW has its own challenges: the difficulty of mesh representation and lack of reliable and practical 3O flow and mobile-bed models. In this paper, an LW research and …

A New Evaluation Framework For Input Variable Selection Algorithms Used In Environmental Modelling, Greer B. Humphrey, Stefano Galelli, Andrea Castelleti, Holger R. Maier, Graeme C. Dandy, Matthew S. Gibbs

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Input variable selection is an essential step in the development of statistical models and is particularly relevant in environmental modelling, where potential model inputs often consist of time lagged values of each different potential input variable. While new methods for identifying important model inputs continue to emerge, each has its own advantages and limitations and no method is best suited to all datasets and purposes. Nevertheless, rigorous evaluation of new and existing input variable selection methods, is largely neglected due to the lack of guidelines or precedent to facilitate consistent and standardised assessment. This rigorous evaluation would allow the effectiveness …

A Hybrid, Integrated Iedds For The Management Of Sequencing Batch Reactors, Davide Sottara, Stefano Bragaglia, Dalila Pulcini, Paola Mello, Luca Luccarini

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) is a particular kind of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), where all treatment processes take place in a single reactor tank, according to a fixed temporal sequence. SBR offers several advantages in terms of reduced costs, minor impact and greater flexibility with respect to traditional WWTPs. However, an optimal cost/performance ratio can only be achieved if the treatment processes are continuously monitored and controlled. In this paper, we present a hybrid, distributed, knowledge-based (Intelligent) Environmental Decision Support System (IEDSS) specifically dedicated to the management of SBRs. The IEDSS is responsible for verifying, ensuring and enforcing the …

Interoperable Intelligent Environmental Decision Support Systems: A Framework Proposal, Miquel Sànchez-Marrè

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In this paper, an approach for the development of Interoperable Intelligent Environmental Decision Support Systems (IEDSS) is proposed. The framework is based upon the cognitive-oriented approach for the development of IEDSS proposed in (Sànchez-Marrè et al., 2008), where three kinds of tasks must be built: analysis tasks, synthesis tasks and prognosis tasks. Now, a fourth level will be proposed: the model construction layer, which is normally an off-line task. At each level, interoperability should be possible and inter-level interoperability must also be achieved. This interoperability is proposed to be obtained using data interchange protocols like Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML), …

The Smarth2o Project And The Role Of Social Computing In Promoting Efficient Residential Water Use: A First Analysis, A. E. Rizzoli, A. Castelleti, A. Cominola, P. Fraternali, A. Diniz Dos Santos, B. Storni, R. Wissmann-Alves, M. Bertocchi, J. Novak, I. Micheal

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

SmartH2O is an EU funded project which aims at creating a virtuous feedback cycle between water users and the utilities, providing users information on their consumption in quasi real time, and thus enabling water utilities to plan and implement strategies to reduce/reallocate water consumption. Traditional metering data, usually gathered twice a year, can be used to model consumers' behaviour at an aggregate level, but the motivations and individual attitudes of consumers are hidden. The advent of smart water meters allows gathering high frequency consumption data that can be used to provide instantaneous information to water utilities on the state of …

Towards An Ontology For Situation Assessment In Environmental Monitoring, Markus Stocker, Mauno Rönkkö, Mikko Kolehmainen

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Situation assessment, i.e. the process of achieving situation awareness, is common in environmental monitoring, where assessment occurs predominantly on sensor data and awareness is for the state of environmental phenomena. For a particular location, an environmental monitoring system may measure and compute mean hourly PM2.5 concentration to acquire knowledge for situations of unhealthy exposure by humans to ambient air; it may measure aerosol particle size distribution to acquire knowledge for situations of atmospheric new particle formation; it may measure road-pavement vibration to acquire knowledge for traffic. The process can be divided in four generic sub processes, namely data acquisition, data …

Modeling And Implementation Of A Geospatial Database For Environmental Niches And Potential Geographic Distributions, Gerardo José Zárate, Jugurta Lisboa-Filho, Carlos Frankl Sperber, Flavia Maria Da Silva Carmo

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The ecological niche of a species is defined by an array of biotic and abiotic requirements that allow organisms to live and reproduce in a geographic region. Abiotic data from the ecological niche in combination with occurrence data can be used to predict the potential geographic distribution of a species in different regions. Potential geographic distributions are useful in predicting the extent of invasive species, predict distributions as preparation for climate change and find appropriate regions for endangered species, among others. Geographic entities and environmental variables can be represented with a high-level abstraction in diagrams using formalism dedicated to model …

Eliciting Stakeholder Preferences Through Nonmarket Valuation Techniques, Marit E. Kragt

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

To successfully predict the impacts of environmental change, modellers need to incorporate analyses of human behaviour into their predictions. The engagement of stakeholders, including participatory model development, is now widely advocated as an approach to account for stakeholder preferences. While participatory approaches are suitable to involve targeted stakeholder groups and technical experts, it is typically prohibitively expensive to engage a wide range of communities in the model development process. Many environmental modellers may be aware of social science research methods to participatory research. Socio-economic approaches to elicit stakeholder preferences are, however, less commonly used. This paper presents three stated preference …

Essential Elements For Participatory Modelling: Using Deliberative Engagement And Gesture-Enabled Interfaces To Implement Energy-Mineral-Water Solutions In The Atacama Desert, Chile, Suzanne A. Pierce, Eugenio Figueroa B.

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Sound science and adequate models of systems are necessary for environmental decisions, yet frequently it is insufficient. The ENCOMPASS and ECOGES projects aim to create science-based deliberation among diverse stakeholders about water-energy-mineral use and choices in the Atacama Desert region of Chile. The projects seek to improve levels of understanding and open possibilities for collaborative problem solving by engaging industry, academics, and indigenous communities in a long- term participatory modeling process.

Since 2009 the initiative has brought people into collaborative discussions, building technical knowledge and bridging across sectors that are often at odds over management of earth resources. Today, participants …

Life Cycle Fragments: Development Of An Online Tool For Curating And Sharing Life, Brandon Kuczenski

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Increasingly, policy makers and consumers demand information on the environmental implications of industrial activities. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a standardized methodology to relate the delivery of products and services to the potential environmental impacts from that delivery, both directly and throughout the industrial supply chain. LCA requires extensive information about industrial processes throughout the global economy, and is subject to substantial parametric and epistemic uncertainty. Moreover, results often hinge on modeling decisions, such as the selection of system outcomes. Comparative results from a single study can give policy-relevant insights only if it is possible to review the sensitivity of …

Multicriteria Decision-Making For Flood Management Based On Sustainable Development Criteria, Mohammad Ebrahim Banihabib, Abolfazl Laghabdoost-Arani

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Flood management alternatives are investigated based on sustainable development criteria (SDC) by using a non-compensatory multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) model, ELECTRE- III, to reduce flood damage in a study reach of the Gorganrood River in Golestan Province, north of Iran. The selection of optimal alternative of flood management is a multi-objective issue and thus using MCDM models becomes necessary. Considering the physical, social and economic conditions of the region, a set of structural and non-structural alternatives is proposed for the flood management in the study reach of the Gorganrood River. To model sustainable development, 11 criteria are proposed for decisions regarding …

Towards A Low-Cost, Full-Service Air Quality Data Archival System, Argyris Samourkasidis, Ioannis N. Athanasiadis

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We present our explorations towards a low-cost solution for creating an autonomous environmental data archival system. AiRCHIVE is a software platform for providing open access to sensor data with different ways, that account for machine interoperability. It is built with Raspberry Pi, a low-cost, pocket-size computer, and Air Pi a low-cost amateur sensory kit for air quality monitoring. Raspberry Pi with AirPi allowed us to easily capture raw sensor data and store them in a local database, and with AiRCHIVE we deployed “on sensor” a web server that provides with a set of services for data preprocessing and dissemination, including …

Development Of Data To Support A Software Application For Assessment Of Wind Conditions In The Port Of Rotterdam, Wendy D. Janssen, Bert Blocken, Hermjan Van Wijhe

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Information on wind conditions in harbors and wind loads on ships is important for safe maneuvering and mooring of ships. The wind conditions in harbors are very complex and characterized by a multitude of internal atmospheric boundary layers due to the large variations in terrain roughness. This paper presents the development of data to support a software application for assessment of wind conditions in the Port of Rotterdam. An extensive measurement campaign using ultrasonic anemometers was performed in the harbor during a period of 6 months. These measurements were compared with the numerical simulations with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) on …

Exploring Environmental Model Catalogs, Ilva Zaslavsky, Thomas Whitenack, David Valentine

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

As part of the NSF EarthCube cross-domain interoperability roadmap and the CINERGI (Community Inventory of EarthCube Resources for Geoscience Interoperability) projects, we assembled and analysed several catalogs of environmental models. The goals of this work included analysis of patterns of pre-model data flows from multiple domains and consistent cataloguing models across multiple model collections using a common set of metadata fields. This paper presents status updates and initial analytical results along these goals. We explored model registries assembled by NOAA and EPA, as well as model descriptions created within CSDMS, ESMF and TESS projects. These model metadata collections were visualized …

A Social Metamodel To Control The Participatory Process In Complex System Modelling, Michel Lample, Denis Bailly, Johanna Ballé-Béganton

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The metamodel framework is a new tool for co-construction of models involving societal or political participation. Rather than an attempt to model the social factor by numerical techniques which amounts to project the social paradigm in the model paradigm, the metamodel framework provides a way to overcome the difficulties of social behaviour by an inverse projection of the model paradigm into the social one. The framework asks for a strict methodology based on a suitable agenda, a quality process and the management by an Architect team. Furthermore, this framework accommodates lean modelling techniques that system platforms are able to provide.

Proposing A Framework For Crowd-Sourced Green Infrastructure Design, Samuel Rivera, Lawrence E. Band, Jong S. Lee, Kenton Mchenry, Arthur R. Schmidt, Jack Snoeyink, William C. Sullivan, Mary C. Whitton, Barbara Minsker

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Green stormwater infrastructure (GI) (e.g., rain gardens, bioswales, green roofs, etc.) are decentralized systems that have gained recent attention for their ability to reduce stormwater management problems while significantly benefiting human and ecosystem well-being. Available GI design methodologies lack a participatory framework that considers community-specific social, cultural, economic, and political constraints, critical components for widespread acceptance and effective implementation and maintenance of such systems. A project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation seeks to develop a novel, computational, GI design framework that integrates interactive, neighborhood-scale, collaborative design by multiple stakeholders ("crowd-sourced" design) with multi- scale models of ecosystem and …

Computational Analysis Of The Performance Of A New Facade Concept For Wind Comfort On Building Balconies: Validation And Application, Hamid Montazeri, Bert Blocken, Wendy Janssen, Twan Van Hooff

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

High-rise buildings can cause high wind speed near ground level and on building balconies necessitating remedial action. In order to reduce wind discomfort on balconies, different measures can be taken. This paper presents the evaluation of a new second-skin facade concept to improve wind comfort at building balconies. The concept consists of a staggered semi-open second-skin facade in front of the balconies, which partly shields them from the wind. CFO simulations are performed for the building with and without second-skin facade concept. Validation is conducted using wind-tunnel measurements of surface pressure distribution on a building model with balconies. Next, the …

Bedform-Induced Hyporheic Exchange: Impact Of Porous Medium Permeability, Carto Gualtieri

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Stream and pore waters continuously interact and mix within streambeds due to spatial and temporal variations in channel characteristics. This mixing is termed hyporheic exchange and the zone where groundwater and stream water are mixing is called the hyporheic zone, which can greatly affect water quality in both surface and subsurface water systems.

The paper presents some results of a numerical study carried out to investigate the influence of porous medium permeability on hyporheic exchange. Laminar flow in the water column above triangular bedforms and Darcian flow in the underlying permeable sediments were considered. Numerical simulations were carried out in …