| abstract |
The present invention describes an integrated computer-based system, methods, and graphical interfaces, providing an environment for development and deployment of visual models of complex systems organized in discrete time and space compartments, used for graphic information storage and retrieval, visual modeling and dynamic simulation of said complex systems. In the current implementation the system comprises libraries of knowledge-based building-blocks that include sets of icons representing chemical processes, the pools of entities that participate in those processes, and the graphical description of those entities, encapsulating both information and mathematical models within the modular components, in the form of attributes or in the form of component icons, and a plurality of methods are associated with each of the icons. The models are built by linking each pool to one or several processes, and each process to one or several pools, resulting in complex networks of multidimensional pathways. A number of functions and graphical interfaces can be selected from the menus associated with each icon, to extract in various forms the information contained in the models built with those building blocks. Those functions include the creation of interactive networks of pathways, complex predefined queries based on the relative position of pools of entities in the pathways, the role that the pools play in the processes, the location in compartments, and the structural components of the entities of those pools, and dynamic quantitative simulations. The system integrates inferential control with quantitative and semi-quantitative simulation methods, and provides a variety of alternatives to deal with complex dynamic systems and with incomplete and constantly evolving information and data. |