Stanislaw Raczynski - Models for Research and Understanding: Exploring Dynamic Systems, Unconventional Approaches, and Applications

The modelling and simulation community extends over a range of diverse disciplines and this landscape continues to expand at an impressive rate. Modelling and simulation is fundamentally a computational tool which has an established record of significantly enhancing the understanding of dynamic system behaviour on one hand, and the system design process on the other. Its relevance is unconstrained by discipline boundaries. Furthermore, the ever-increasing availability of computational power makes feasible applications that were previously beyond consideration.

Simulation Foundations, Methods and Applications hosts high-quality contributions that address the various facets of the modelling and simulation enterprise. These range from fundamental concepts that are strengthening the foundation of the discipline to the exploration of advances and emerging developments in the expanding landscape of application areas. The underlying intent is to facilitate and promote the sharing of creative ideas across discipline boundaries. The readership will include senior undergraduate and graduate students, modelling and simulation professionals and research workers.

Inasmuch as a model development phase is a prerequisite for any simulation study, there is an expectation that modelling issues will be appropriately addressed in each presentation. Incorporation of case studies and simulation results will be strongly encouraged.

Titles can span a variety of product types, including but not exclusively, textbooks, expository monographs, contributed volumes, research monographs, professional texts, guidebooks and other references.

These books will appeal, varyingly, to senior undergraduate and graduate students, and researchers in any of a host of disciplines where modelling and simuation has become (or is becoming) a basic problem-solving tool. Some titles will also directly appeal to modelling and simulation professionals and practitioners.

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In this book, you will find topics in modeling and simulation, both conventional, as well as suggestions about new tools and somewhat wider insight on modeling. Most of the chapters of the book may be used in didactic work, as a textbook or supplementary material. In the text, the student will find explanations of diverse kind of modeling tasks, and examples of models of various types. Ten out of 12 chapters contain also sections of questions and answers that focus on the most essential aspects of the presented modeling methodology.

Models are used by thinking beings, consciously or sub-consciously, to manage their behavior and respond to the events in the environment. The most perfect and huge collection of models is contained in our brains. During years of learning, the humans, as well as most of the animals, created models of their own bodies and objects from the environment, to be able to take decisions and control their behavior. The human brain is increasingly complicated and capable of creating and storing models not only inside it, but also in other media. We create models in the form of written descriptions, drawings, mathematical expressions, or logical structures, and store them for further use.

The appearance of computers provided a new, powerful tool for model storage and processing. In this book, we discuss models that can be used in computer simulation. This kind of modeling is closely connected with simulation on analog and digital machines. The results of creating and using models help us to take decisions, predict, and/or understand the world where we live. Most of the things we observe are still too complex to be understood. The knowledge accumulated in models helps us in taking correct actions, grow, understand, and survive.

In general, models help us to understand how complex systems work. Models of complex systems need not be complex or huge. I remember that in the early 1960s, when we worked on 100kHz CPU, 32kB memory machines, a friend of mine asked me to solve an ordinary differential equation on a computer. The equation was written in one line, with rather simple, but non-trivial formula. The solution was not easy, but finally the program worked. I asked him: