[FRIAM] One of my projects

[Douglas Roberts]

Shhh!

Someone might hear you!

Seriously, good question, Robert.  The answer, of course, is that it depends
on the questions being asked about the system being simulated.  If the
questions are such that a simple simulation can provide answers, then
force-fitting a large, more detailed simulation to provide results will
probably be of no advantage whatever.

It is for systems -- typically highly complex, dynamic systems -- when
certain questions are asked for which simple simulations can provide no
relevant insight that a larger, more complex simulation can sometimes
effectively be brought to bear.

All the usual codicils apply to the above paragraph, such as

   1. the big, detailed simulation is  detailed in the proper areas to
   address the analysis requirements,
   2. the analysis requirements make sense,
   3. data exists to support the detailed rendering of the physical
   system being modeled, and
   4. the analyst knows what he's doing.

The reality is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for simulations.

--Doug

-- 
Doug Roberts, RTI International
droberts at rti.org
doug at parrot-farm.net
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell

On 3/29/07, Robert Holmes <robert at holmesacosta.com> wrote:
>
> In my role as FRIAM's official Cassandra (I should get a T-shirt printed),
> has anyone ever shown that these highly intensive simulations give
> quantitatively better results than, say, something written on Owen's laptop
> in NetLogo? Do we know that we get a better assessment of (for example) the
> robustness of policies for stopping epidemic spread or do we rely on the
> "more is better" argument? ("Of course, the results are better - we have an
> NSF grant and 15 supercomputers").
>
> R
>
> ============================================================
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>
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