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MaSTRI's focus is the solution of critical challenges that have inhibited or prevented the use of modeling and simulation technology in otherwise practical settings. Critical challenges include simulation reuse, multi-resolution modeling, composability, interoperability, visualization, behavioral modeling and integration of modeling and simulation (M&S) into training and education.
Our research is focused on the areas of simulation coercion and simulation coercibility, which we collectively refer to as COERCE. We observe that COERCE has direct application to the challenges of simulation reuse and composability:
- COERCE can minimize problems caused by differences between models of the same phenomenon at different levels of resolution. For example, before replacing a high-resolution model with a more computationally efficient low-resolution model, the low-resolution model can be coerced to reflect the behavior of the high-resolution more closely.
- In the area of simulation composability, COERCE has the potential to increase flexibility of the components comprising a simulation. Using the metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle, COERCE enables the composition of mismatched pieces through flexibility of the pieces, and thus their interfaces. Simulations, carefully designed and annotated by their creators, lend themselves to interactive semi-automated manipulation by experts, for the purpose of making them conform to requirements different from those which they were originally intended to meet.
So far, we have experienced considerable success in coercing individual simulations that were not designed to be coerced, and we are exploring how simulation coercion can become more automated and be facilitated by developing simulations with the specific objective of coercibility.
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