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Modeling food system logistics using ExtendSim
This post is mainly for the Food Systems Modeling, GIS and Data group, but I'm including a few other groups that could be interested as well.
I've used Extend for simulation before and found it to be flexible, open source in that the model building block libraries can be written by anyone and shared with everyone, and intuitively easy for students and others to grasp because of the graphical interface. So it fits the profile that Sam Rose suggested in his idea for group modeling projects. I haven't used it for a while but am in the process of ordering the current version to construct a simple modeling tool to examine the flows of farm energy, nitrogen, carbon, water, etc.
In looking over the "solutions profiles" on the ImagineThat website, one of the projects that has been using ExtendSim is an analysis of supply and delivery logistics of biomass for biofuel production. The model they've developed, Integrated Biomass Supply Analysis and Logistics model (IBSAL), might provide a framework that we could adapt easily enough for modeling supply and logistics for local food systems. I'll try to contact this group to see what the potential is. If you've seen something similar in another arena that might be adapted this way, please let us know.
- Casey Hoy's blog
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I am definitely open to the
I am definitely open to the idea in this case of discussing and working with software that is commercial/technically non-open source. Because, there really aren't many open source software programs for modelling out there that offer a simple user interface. The open source software models and programs are extremely powerful, but do require some programming knowledge. The real goal for this group to me is to put modelling, simulation and datamining into the hands of many more people. Usually that is why I advocate for open source software. But, in the case of modeling, simulation and datamining, commercial software seems to be most within reach of ordinary people. So, I think I should revise what the mission is for this group and say that we would explore "accessible" meaning low or reasonable cost, and within reach of many users.
Although, I am also interested in helping people learn how to create program models with programming languages, or at least creating an enterprise of some kind that provides a lower cost, but extremely high quality modeling, GIS/GEO analysis and data mining, and simulation of local food ecosystems. This is another way to put very high wuality technology into the hands of more people, by lowering the cost of applying this expertise. So, I am interested in creating an actual service/support business, is what I was trying to drive at, that can harness really powerful technologies on behalf of local food system ecology denizens.
Casey wrote: "In looking
Casey wrote:
This looks really promising. Another one worth looking at, that has a gui and is also very powerfil is http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/ also opensource software, deceptively simple, but you can model a surprising amount of complexity with it, and fine-tune it with built in simple Logo programming langauge, or build totally with GUI. Almost all of the models discussed on ExtendSim pages can be created with NetLogo.
Another piece of software I have installed on my Ubuntu Linux computer and am evaluting now is actually from up here at MSU, and is called Avida http://devolab.cse.msu.edu/ Looking at ways to work on parts of models with that software, to rapidly replicate and slightly change, and look for patterns in that way. So, for instance, you can take one model and run it, but then copy the model billions of time, and randomly change random parts of it, then run all of those changed models and see which models "survive" based on whatever criteria you'd like. This is almost a way to "search" based on models (of course you have tostart with a good model). This is getting at what Stephan Wolfram has been proposing in his book "A New Kind of Science"
This could even be applied to models that were intitially constructed in something like ExtendSim. Avida algorithms could be used to rapidly evolve the models through massive replication and adjustment. This could be run on something like http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=201590011 or people could even volunteer extra CPU cycles using something like BOINC http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ to do the massive processing. This would kind of be a discovery-process way of improving models. Just some ideas
In the short term, I am very interested in what you are exploring with ExtendSim, and interested in throwing netlogo on the heap of user-friendly tools, too