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The title of this page should rather be "Rejected articles of Stanislaw Raczynski", because some of the articles available below have been rejected by professional journals. I have published more that 70 articles in the field of Modeling & Simulation already published, and two books on M&S, so two or three more make little difference. What seems strange to me is that my best works are frequently rejected, while a less significant and less original ones are normally accepted. The text should be treated as a "raw material". Sorry for the grammar and spelling, my English is not perfect.
Of course not all my articles and texts are being rejected.
Also consult the following links, to see a summary of my new book on computer simulation:
http://www.wiley-vch.de/publish/en/books/newTitles200604/0-470-03017-8/?sID=d05b
http://www.superbookdeals.com/cgi-bin/moreinfo.cgi?item=4089659&SEO_TID=1787764&seoid=3
http://www.pcworld-books.co.uk/catalog/browse.asp?template=&ref=787021
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470030178.html
http://www.research-studies-press.co.uk/book_detail.asp?ID=114&category=FORTHCOMING%20TITLES&series=COMPUTER+SIMULATION+&+MODELLING
Click here to consult PSM++ page and free demo.
Consult also the
NEW version of the
fluid flow analyzer FLUIDS5
Below is an example of an
unstable gas stream. This is a projection of a 3D simulation. The 3D images of
FLUIDS5 flow lines show that those are complicated 3D structures, even if the
duct and external excitation are axisymmetric. In other words, 2D flow
simulation models are false and invalid.
Article: Reachable Sets for Flight
Trajectories:
An Application of Differential
Inclusions to Flight Maneuver
Simulation
Article: Simulating
our self-destruction
Article:
On the validity of discrete event models
Simulation Encyclopedia : more than 120 topics, 300 keywords
Article: Simulation
of the dynamic interactions between terror and anti-terror organizational structures
Article: Simulating a trip to the future
(this is NOT science fiction)
Article: A small tool for complex system
simulation
Article: Simulating General Relativity
Article: PSM++ overview
Article: Stock market simulation -
application of differential inclusions
The article rejected by the AIAA JOURNAL OF GUIDANCE, CONTROL, AND DYNAMICS
Reachable Sets for Flight Trajectories: An Application of Differential Inclusions to Flight Maneuver Simulation
Stanislaw Raczynski
Keywords: Flight simulation, differential inclusions
Abstract
The main mathematical tool in flight simulation is the ordinary differential equation. However, in many situations this is not the sufficient way to solve problems. In robust flight control design, safety, missile and aircraft guidance, influence of perturbances or differential games of pursuit-evasion problem more versatile tools are needed. Differential Inclusion (DI) is a generalization of a differential equation that can be extremely useful. The solution of a DI is not just a model trajectory or a set of trajectories obtained by a randomization of the original problem. The solution is a reachable set, and it is a deterministic object.
It is pointed out that the reachable sets cannot be assessed properly while treating the uncertain variables as random ones. The application of the differential inclusion solver can give the proper view of the regions in the state space where all the possible model trajectories belong. In the present paper we are looking for the solution of the corresponding differential inclusion (i.e. the reachable set) and not for application of the DIs in the problems of flight trajectory optimization.
(This article was submitted to the International Journal of Modeling and Simulation, ACTA Press / IASTED, in August 2002. The reviewers needed more than two years to read and to reject it, in September 2004. This makes the reviewer speed equal to 4.26 words per day.)
On the validity of discrete event models
Stanislaw Raczynski
ABSTRACT
Discrete event models are commonly used while
simulating queuing, manufacturing and similar systems. However, in some cases
the concept of events, which duration is equal to zero may be too simplified and
the validity of the model questionable. An alternative approach is proposed,
called semi-discrete events that permits a finite duration of the event
activity. This leads to a model specification where there is no conceptual
difference between semi-discrete and continuous events. It is shown that
discrete event models may be located in the points of discontinuity in the
general space of models (may
form singularities). This may have serious
consequences, namely the validity of such models may result to be false.
Click here to download the complete document
(This article has not been rejected yet by any journal. Perhaps some version of it will be published somewhere)
Simulating our self-destruction
Stanislaw Raczynski
Universidad Panamericana
498 Augusto Rodin, Mixcoac
03920 Mexico D.F., Mexico
Keywords: simulation, social simulation, terrorism, self destruction
ABSTRACT
A simple model of a self-destructing society is presented. It can be interpreted as a game with two players: the society and its subset which tends to destroy the whole society, as well as to destroy itself. The main factor taken into account in the model is the progress of science and technology which provides the destruction tools (new weapons and killing techniques), as well as tools the society can use to defend itself. The simulation experiments show that, in the near future, this progress is extremely dangerous, and it may result in total destruction of the mankind. For the longer time period, however, the conclusion is not so pessimistic. If the society survives during certain time interval, then the probability of survival becomes higher for a longer time horizon.
Click here for the complete document
Simulating a trip to the future
This section is a part of an article submitted to the
journal Simulation San Diego, CA, publication of the SCS.
One of the reviewers of Simulation wrote:
This is a most provocative paper that I read with the greatest of
interests. If, what the author claims, is true, this is indeed a
sensationally important paper that most certainly deserves to be
published
The
article was rejected by the editors.
SUMMARY
A simulation of a model with an ideal predictor is presented. The problem is equivalent to the problem of passing the information from the future to the present, or traveling into the past to use the present information and change the model trajectory. It is shown that the uncertainty over the future can be simulated using differential inclusions. A differential inclusion solver is described. An example of continuous simulation with the ideal predictor element is shown.
Full text in PDF format: download from here
The article rejected by Simulation Practice and Theory, International Journal of the Federation of European Simulation Societies.
A
SMALL TOOL FOR COMPLEX SYSTEM SIMULATION
ABSTRACT
A new tool for complex dynamic system simulation is presented. The system
complexity is related to the diversity in the submodel types rather than to the
number of components and the model size. The presented software supports model
coupling as defined in the DEVS (Discrete Event Specification) formalism. Though
the DEVS formalism is used, the model components can be of any type, supporting
discrete and continuous models running in the same simulation program.
Full text in PDF format: download from here
SIMULATING GENERAL
RELATIVITY
Stanislaw
Raczynski
ABSTRACT
PSM++ overview
(new version of the PASION Simulation System)
- - - - INTRODUCTION
A look at the annals of simulation software development could result in the impression that we have too many simulation languages. A beginner is lost learning about hundreds of languages and simulation packages and can hardly choose what he really needs. On the other hand, the personal computers explosion puts simulation methods in somewhat different perspective. Small systems users need software tools that offer a good compromise between simplicity and usefulness.
The didactic aspect of the task is also important. A new simulationist should be given a software tool that contains the main ideas of simulation: parallel processes, discrete events, dynamic creation of objects in operational memory etc. Fortunately, there are some well-structured languages commonly used by small system users.
PSM++ is a new version of the simulation system PASION (this stands for PAScal simulatION) is a result of an attempt of extend PASCAL in order to give its users an easy-to-learn simulation tool that includes all PASCAL features. This relation to PASCAL has some profound reasons.
First, PASCAL is nearly perfect from the didactic point of view, particularly when implemented on small systems. Second, it is an algorithmic language and offers quite good structure to any simulation system related to it. Reading manuals of simulation systems, one might conclude that discrete event simulation software was developed in order to simulate the functioning of lifts, barber shops and clinics. In practice, however, this is not always the case. Consequently, such systems as GPSS are perfect when modeling queues and simple events, but are insufficient when applied to discrete-continuous models or when the processes (transactions) behave according to some much sophisticated algorithms.
The first version of PASION was created using the Borland's Turbo Pascal version 3. The actual version is based on Delhi 3. In fact, I am a Delphi enthusiast. This is an excellent tool and proves that it is still possible to cope with the growing software terrorism of the creators of operating systems.
SIMULATION IS FUN !
This is not my phrase. Dr. Ralph Huntsinger, past president of the Society for Computer Simulation (San Diego CA), actually director of the McLeod Institute for Simulation Sciences (MISS, a part of the SCS) always starts his lectures on computer simulation showing a transparency with these words. Indeed, simulation is fun. The exciting aspect of it lies in its interdisciplinary nature. In few words, one can say that computer simulation is running when your computer becomes a plain, a cow, a growing tree or whole enemy army. The only thing that should be added in order to see a real word moving inside the box on your desk, is your imagination. During my professional experience (believe me, many years!) in computer simulation I had to learn how the shoes are produced, how the rise grows, how our immunological system works, how galaxies are formed, how "oscillons" are formed (see Examples section), how electronic circuits work, and many many other things. Recently we are working (in our MISS Center in Mexico City) on the simulation of legal processes, in collaboration with the Faculty of Law of the Universidad Panamericana.
The majority of the definition of computer simulation refer to the dynamics of the simulated systems.
The common phrase used to define simulation is "to observe the changes of the state of the model from one time instant to another", in other words, to observe the system movement.
Simulation is closely related to modeling. We can say that modeling is looking for the relations between real systems and models, and simulation implements models on computers. The job of the simulationist consists both in constructing models and in implementing them. However, sometimes the simulationist's task is misunderstood. From one side, it is frequently confused with the mathematician's job (looking for system equations, numerical methods etc.), and from the other side the simulationist is treated as a kind of programmer. The aim of any well designed simulation tool should be to remove these tasks from the simulationst activities and let him concentrate on the conceptual work.
HOW PSM++ WORKS
The core of the PSM++ system is the language. The main idea was to implement some basic features of the Simula67 process class. However, it is not a Simula-like language with the implementation of hold, activate, passivate etc. Simula is a wonderful language, but it is rather complicated. What is not very clear in the body of a Simula class declaration is the event specification. The Simula process can not be easily divided into events, at least without careful reading of the code. In
PSM++ the program consists in a sequence of process declarations. Each process has its attribute declarations, and a sequence of events. At the run time objects are created as instants of the processes, the events being their methods. It is easy to translate this structure to Pascal. What the
PSM++ system does is to handle the event queue. The events can be scheduled and put into the event queue. Events can also be of "state" type, activated by continuous processes of other discrete events.
As for the continuos processes, there are two kinds of them. First, a continuous process can be defined as an embedded continuous process. Such process is defined by inserting in any place of the program (inside any event body) a set of RATE instructions that specify the right-hand sides of the set of the first order differential equations of a continuous part of the model. The resulting continuous process runs concurrently with the model events, and is not subject to the event queue mechanism. The other way to define a continuous process is to specify an event that schedules itself repeatedly with a given time step. The event operations consist in calling an integration procedure provided in the
PSM++ environment. The continuous processes of both kinds run concurrently with other (discrete or continuous) objects.
PSM++ inheritance permits to create reusable code. If a process is used as a parent process while declaring other one, then the new process inherits all properties of the parent, i.e. its attributes and events.
But the language is not the most important. As stated before, a simulationst is not a programmer and should not waste his time in writing code.
PSM++ environment helps him to avoid programming, to some extend, of course. The system contains the following modules, most of them being code generators.
EXAMPLES
It is no room in this short article to show many examples and graphical PSM++ output. Only some applications not provided in the
PSM++ Demo are mentioned here. More examples can be seen in http://www.raczynski.com/pn/sumduz.htm.
The PSM++ Demo program it is available from download
demo.zip . To run the demo unzip the file to a separate directory on you HD
and execute DEMO32.EXE.
To execute it, you should have your screen configured to 800x600 resolution with
color of 16 bits (NOT 256 colors or 16 colors ! ). The demo will run with
greater scree resolution, but some parts of it will not.
WARNING : Check this, as well as ANY OTHER program you download from Internet
for virus with your most recent antivirus program.
In the following you will find a short comments on some interesting applications.
Growing populations : (Cats)
This is a simulation of a population of cats. The PSM++ inheritance mechanism is used to define two processes that inherit properties of one parent process.
The parent process named CAT has one string attribute NAME where the name of the cat is stored. The events are: HUNTS (obtain food), EATS, SLEEPS and DIES. Below only a sketch of the program is shown, without event bodies (dashed lines). The actions of the cat are obvious: it must hunt within random time intervals with given expected value and must eat. After eating the cat sleeps during some time interval. Event DIES makes the CAT object disappear from the model. This may be a natural death or a result of fighting with other cats, (only for process HE).
Process CAT is the parent process for the processes HE and SHE.
HE is a male cat. It inherits the properties of CAT
and, in addition, can fight with other cats. This may eventually result in the cat death.
SHE is a female cat and can have little cats (random number of cats between 1 and 7, event CATS).
The declarations PROCESS CAT/HE,50000 and PROCESS CAT/SHE,50000 specify the male and female cats, respectively. They inherit properties of the parent process CAT, and permit to create up to 50000 instances of each of them.
PROGRAM CATS; PROCESS CAT,1; ATR NAME:S20; EVENT HUNTS; - - - - - - (*event body*) EVENT EATS; - - - - - - EVENT SLEEPS; - - - - - - EVENT DIES; - - - - - - PROCESS CAT/HE,50000; EVENT FIGHTS; - - - - - - PROCESS CAT/SHE,50000; EVENT CATS; - - - - - - START NEWPR PSHE; - - - - - -(*initial operations*) $
A simple queuing model
This shows a possible application to mass service or manufacturing systems. Compare this example
with GPSS approach.
In this example the QMGW module was used. The following figure shows the QMGW scheme of the model.

The real system is as follows. Parts of a product enter the simulated area of a manufacturing system at blocks 1 and 3 (object generators). They wait in two buffers of type FIFO with block numbers 2 an 4, respectively. Block 5 is an assembly operation. It needs 4 parts of type 1 (generated by block 1) and 3 parts of type 3 to produce a new part as a product of the assembly operation. The assembled products that appear at the output of block 5 enter the buffer 7 and wait to be processed by the machine (server) 8. After this, they disappear from the system at block 9.
It is very small example. Note that you can define up to 800 blocks in one model. After defining the model structure, the user must provide block parameters. If all block are completely defined, the simulation may be executed. QMGW generates
PSM++ source code for the model, then it is translated to Delphi, compiled and simulation runs. One of the executable code options is to create files for the VARAN utility. If the user requests it, the simulation is being repeated several times and the model trajectories are stored on disk. Each run is shown on-line, the content of the buffers, number of assembled parts, and number of parts going out shown as moving bars, the status of the servers displayed as BUSY or FREE. After this, final statistics are shown as follows:
Final Statistics:
Final time = 480.00 QUEUES: Av waiting time Lmax Lmin Av length Lost QUEUE2 : 0.847 10 0 1.695 0.00 QUEUE7 : 23.254 19 0 2.879 0.00 QUEUE4 : 25.261 116 0 31.616 0.00 SERVERS: Service time Idle time Idle % Lost Served SERV8 : 396.911 83.089 17.31 0.00 55.40 ASSEMBL.: Service time Idle time Idle % Lost Served ASSE5 : 122.530 357.470 74.47 0.00 59.95 TERMINAL: Count(average) TERM9: 52.25 TOTAL Terminal output = 52.25 Total cost = 6783.64 Average time in system = 28.05The above listing may be somewhat unclear while seen on browsers which use a font with variable width (column displacement). Note that the number of served parts are real numbers, being average values from many (100 in this case) simulation runs. The output file also shows the total cost of the system operation. Each block may have assigned the operation cost, per time unit and per operation. The number shown is the sum (average if more than one run was executed) of the costs of all blocks. The results are also shown as time-plots. The following figure shows the changes of the length of queue 4 as function of time, for one simulation run.



Particle movement: oscillons and galaxies
Many industrial processes handle granulated materials like sand, granulated plastic or grain. The analysis of the dynamics of such granular media (GM) is a difficult task. It is known that it can not be treated as a liquid and its mathematical description is rather complicated. Computer simulation can help to point out some interesting properties. One of the most interesting phenomena observed in GM is the formation of oscillons, being local changes in the state of externally excited GM. One of the ways to simulate the material dynamics is to create a set of particles (as objects in the computer memory) and let them move. The only thing that must be specified are the forces of interactions between molecules and the movement rules. This needs only one
PSM++ process declaration. In the main program a set of molecules is created with given initial positions and velocities, and the program runs. The same program, with forces redefined in other way can be used to simulate the dynamics of a liquid or a general, gravitational N-body problems, like formation of galaxies. Of course, due to the number of possible interactions that grows with square N, some additional tricks must be done to accelerate the simulation.
Oscillons
In Scientific American, November 1996, Madhusree Mukerjee [3] defines oscillon as a pile of tiny brass balls that jiggles up and down and joins with other piles to form patterns. The phenomenon was discovered by Paul B. Umbanhowar, F. Melo and H.L. Swinney [5,6] at the University of Texas in Austin. They vibrated a tray with brass balls of 0.1 millimeter in radius up and down with frequencies between 10 and 100 cycles per second. In those articles it was pointed out that serious theoretic difficulties appear while dealing with a sand like GM. Though the media resembles liquid when fed with energy, its dynamics is quite different and somewhat mysterious. Computer simulation can help to prove some properties of the GM. Possible applications of the GM theory in material handling equipment are well known. The knowledge of the dynamic properties of the GM is essential, for example, while designing oscillating conveyors. Important advances of the GM theory has been made mainly by those who work on problems related to such kind of equipment. Consult Gaberson [2], Marcos and Massoud [4].
The following experiment is a simple two dimensional simulation of a set of moving balls. The aim of this task is to point out that the GM can reach at least to steady vibration regimes, when excited by a vibrating tray. The reason for this assessment is very simple: the friction between the particles introduces damping strong enough to turn off oscillations when the particles are close each other. However, if the particles are in faster movement, then the elastic collisions are more frequent than friction-related clustering. As a result, in the regions when the vibration is strong, the damping drops and the vibrations does not disappear (supposing the same external excitation). This means that with the same excitation one could observe a slow damped movement as well as fast vibrations in other regions. The problem is to show that the two steady states can coexist in the same set of particles and that the excitations may be stable, that is, may survive for a long time without changing their shape.
To describe what exactly happens in a GM one has to use a complicated non linear equation of motion of each particle. To simulate a real oscillon is quite impossible for the dimensionality of the problem. However, a simple two dimensional model can be built and run successfully even on a PC. The following experiment merely shows the possibility of the coexistence of the two steady states. The model is very simplified and rather abstract. The rules of movement are as follows. A set of circular particles is subject to gravity acceleration. The collisions between particles are modeled as movements caused by elastic forces that appear when two particles touch each other. The forces generated during spherical particle collisions obey the rules given by the well known Hertz problem. In general, it is known that the force is proportional to x3/2, x being the relative displacement of the centers. The damping coefficient of the movement (energy dissipation) depends on the actual situation. If the particle is in touch with more than one other particles, then the energy dissipation grows considerably. This can be explained by the fact that the friction between particles damps the movement when the particles form clusters, like the sand on a beach. The model was simulated using an object oriented simulation tool (PSM++ simulation system).
Each particle was generated as an instant of a BALL PSM++ process, and activated. 185 particles were launched, each one moving according to the forces it receives. In other words, each particle resolves its own movement equation, integrating it with certain integration step. This approach has several advantages, comparing with the integration of one global system of 370 differential equations of first order. First, the program is very simple and permits to include any other events (discrete or continuous), running concurrently in the same program. Second, the particles are separate objects, each one equipped with its own parameters. The time step for integration of the movement equation can be different for each particle. For example, if a particle moves alone and has no near neighbors, then the step can be greater than that of a particle which is in contact or approaches other ones. This can accelerate the simulation. A disadvantage of such object oriented simulation compared with one Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE) system is that the ODE model may run faster, when an adequate numerical method is used. Note, however, that in this case we need 370 non linear and rigid differential equations. Recall that the collisions between rigid bodies lead to rigid systems of equations that may provoke serious numerical difficulties. Of course, the object oriented approach is not a magic remedy for such difficulties, and the collisions must be modeled as if they occur between particles more elastic than brass balls. Looking at the movement of the simulated GM it can be seen, however, that the particles behave like colliding brass balls. At any rate the model and the results are rather qualitative and are not related to any real physical parameters. Consult Raczynski [1] for more detail of the oscillon simulation.
The simulation scenario was as follows. First, the tray does not vibrate and the balls appear with some initial elevation and fall down. Then, they form a stable layer over the tray. Next, the tray begins to vibrate. The balls vibrate too, but the vibration regime can not switch to the strong one. After some time a short disturbance is applied in certain region. The balls affected by the disturbance "explode" and begin to move fast, colliding with each other. These strong vibrations became stable, i.e. the strongly vibrating region remains unchanged for a long time. The other balls also vibrate, but form a stable cluster. Figure 1 shows the situation on the tray. The balls in the oscillon jump up and fall. If a ball falls out of the oscillon limits, it enters in a cluster and stabilize.
Below you can see an example of particle trajectories in a simulated oscillon.
REFERENCES
[1] Raczynski, S., Simulating the dynamics of granular media, Computer Modeling and Simulation in Engineering vol. 2 no.4, November 1997, Sage Science Press.
[2] Gaberson H.A, 1972, Particle Motion on Oscillating Conveyors, Transaction of the ASME, Journal of Engineering for Industry, February 1972, pp. 50-63.
[3] Madhusree Mukerjee, 1996, Science with Brass, Scientific American, November 1996, pp.19-21.
[4] Marcos W.A. and Massoud M.F., 1969, On the Design of Oscillating Conveyors, Transactions of the ASME, Journal of Engineering for Industry, May 1969, pp.353-356.
[5] Melo F., Umbanhowar P.B, Swinney H.L., 1994, Transistion to parametric wave patterns in a verically oscillated granular layer, Phys. Rev. Lett., 72, 172-175.
[6] Melo F., Umbanhowar P.B, Swinney H.L., 1995, Hexagons, kinks and disorder in oscillated granular layers, Phys. Rev. Lett., 75, 3838-3841.
[7] Janssen M.A. and Gulkis S., 1991, Mapping the sky with the cobe differential microwave radiometers, in The Infrared and Submillimetre Sky After COBE , Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, Les Houches, France, March 20-30, 1991, p. 391.
Raczynski.S., Creating Galaxies on a PC,
SIMULATION vol. 74 no.3, March 2000, San Diego CA, pp.161-166.
Some links:
PSM++ simulation system:
http://www.raczynski.com/pn/pn.htm
Raczynski - Consulting:
http://www.raczynski.com