Tiago Garcia de Senna Carneiro

Dynamical coupling of multiscale land change models

No single model or scale can fully capture the causes of land change. For a given region, land changes may have different impacts at different places. Limits and opportunities imposed by biophysical and socio-economic conditions, such as local policies and accessibility, may induce distinct land change trajectories. These local land change trajectories may, in turn, indirectly affect other places, as local actions interact with higher-level driving forces. Such intraregional interdependencies cannot be captured by studies at a single scale, calling for multiscale and multilocality studies. This paper proposes a software organization for building computational models that support dynamical linking of multiple scales. This structure couples different types of models, such as cell-space models with agent-based models. We show how results in multiscale models can flow both in bottom-up and top-down directions, thus allowing feedback from local actors to regional scales. The proposal is general and independent of specific software, and it is effective to model intraregional, bottom-up and top-down interactions in land change models. To show the model’s potential, we develop a case study that shows how a multiscale model for the Brazilian Amazonia can include feedbacks between local to regional scales.

An extensible toolbox for modeling nature-society interactions

Modeling interactions between social and natural systems is a hard task. It involves collecting data, building up a conceptual approach, implementing, calibrating, simulating, validating, and possibly repeating these steps again and again. There are different conceptual approaches proposed in the literature to tackle this problem. However, for complex problems it is better to combine different approaches, giving rise to a need for flexible and extensible frameworks for modeling nature-society interactions. In this paper we present TerraME, an open source toolbox that supports multi-paradigm and multi-scale modeling of coupled human-environmental systems. It enables models that combine agent-based, cellular automata, system dynamics, and discrete event simulation paradigms. TerraME has a GIS interface for managing real-world geospatial data and uses Lua, an expressive scripting language. TerraME is a toolbox for modeling and simulation of nature-society interactions.Novel abstractions and services support multiscale spatiotemporal modeling.It allows the combined use of several paradigms for model implementation.It provides an extensible high-level modeling language.GIS integration supports real-world case studies.

Seasonal and nonseasonal dynamics of Aedes aegypti in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Fitting mathematical models to trap data

Mathematical models suggest that seasonal transmission and temporary cross-immunity between serotypes can determine the characteristic multi-year dynamics of dengue fever. Seasonal transmission is attributed to the effect of climate on mosquito abundance and within host virus dynamics. In this study, we validate a set of temperature and density dependent entomological models that are built-in components of most dengue models by fitting them to time series of ovitrap data from three distinct neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The results indicate that neighborhoods differ in the strength of the seasonal component and that commonly used models tend to assume more seasonal structure than found in data. Future dengue models should investigate the impact of heterogeneous levels of seasonality on dengue dynamics as it may affect virus maintenance from year to year, as well as the risk of disease outbreaks.

Geographical Information Engineering in the 21st Century

This paper discusses the challenges facing GIS designers in the 21st century. We argue that GI engineers lack a sound theoretical basis that would allow them to make best use of new technologies that handle geospatial data. Considering three important topics for the new generations of GIS (change, semantics, and cognition) we show that GIS theory is in a state of flux. Thus, researchers and engineers need to cooperate more for the new generation of GIS to be built in the best possible way.

DengueME: A Tool for the Modeling and Simulation of Dengue Spatiotemporal Dynamics

The prevention and control of dengue are great public health challenges for many countries, particularly since 2015, as other arboviruses have been observed to interact significantly with dengue virus. Different approaches and methodologies have been proposed and discussed by the research community. An important tool widely used is modeling and simulation, which help us to understand epidemic dynamics and create scenarios to support planning and decision making processes. With this aim, we proposed and developed DengueME, a collaborative open source platform to simulate dengue disease and its vector’s dynamics. It supports compartmental and individual-based models, implemented over a GIS database, that represent Aedes aegypti population dynamics, human demography, human mobility, urban landscape and dengue transmission mediated by human and mosquito encounters. A user-friendly graphical interface was developed to facilitate model configuration and data input, and a library of models was developed to support teaching-learning activities. DengueME was applied in study cases and evaluated by specialists. Other improvements will be made in future work, to enhance its extensibility and usability.

A framework for modeling and simulating aedes aegypti and dengue fever dynamics

Dengue fever represents a great challenge for many countries, and methodologies to prevent and/or control its transmission have been largely discussed by the research community. Modeling is a powerful tool to understand epidemic dynamics and to evaluate costs, benefits and effectiveness of control strategies. In order to assist decision-makers and researchers in the evaluation of different methodologies, we developed DengueME, a collaborative open source platform to simulate dengue disease and its vectors dynamics. DengueME provides a series of compartmental and individual-based models, implemented over a GIS database, that represents the Aedes aegyptis life cycle, human demography, human mobility, urban landscape and dengue transmission. The platform is designed to allow easy simulation of intervention scenarios. A GUI was developed to facilitate model configuration and data input.

TerraME GIMS: An Eclipse plug-in for environmental modeling

TerraME is a platform for modeling and simulation of environmental systems that offers a conceptual basis and services to build environmental models through a high-level programming language called Terra Modeling Language. However, the use of a programming language is still a limiting factor since its main users are researchers with different backgrounds who usually lack basic knowledge of algorithms and programming techniques. So, this work presents the development of TerraME GIMS, an Eclipse plug-in for environmental systems modeling through visual metaphors that graphically represent the model.

Development of a didactic model of the hydrologic cycle using the TerraME graphical interface for modeling and simulation

Many modeling and simulation platforms provide general programming languages as interfaces for model construction. Some offers high-level modeling languages with conceptual basis and services to represent data structures and rules that will determine the model behavior. However, the direct use of a computational language is still a limiting factor to the broad usage of these platforms. Modelers often have different scientific backgrounds, presenting a lack of background on algorithms and programming techniques. Furthermore, there is no established methodology for model development. These problems confuse the modelers forcing them to deviate their attention from the problem being solved. We argue that a visual integrated development environment (IDE) can solve these problems, making easy the understanding and communication of the model conception and design. An IDE can also enforce the use of a common model development methodology. In this paper we describe a methodology for modeling Earth system phenomena using the TerraME GIMS tool, which is a visual IDE for the TerraME modeling and simulation platform. It enables users to build environmental models through visual metaphors that graphically describe models structure. We demonstrate the use of TerraME GIMS and present our methodology for the development of a didactic model for the hydrologic cycle. Future works include the development of diagrams to better describe the model behavior, including agent synchronization and communication.

Assessment of a trap based Aedes aegypti surveillance program using mathematical modeling

The goal of this study was to assess the goodness-of-fit of theoretical models of population dynamics of Aedes aegypti to trap data collected by a long term entomological surveillance program. The carrying capacity K of this vector was estimated at city and neighborhood level. Adult mosquito abundance was measured via adults collected weekly by a network of sticky traps (Mosquitraps) from January 2008 to December 2011 in Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil. K was the only free parameter estimated by the model. At the city level, the model with temperature as a driver captured the seasonal pattern of mosquito abundance. At the local level, we observed a spatial heterogeneity in the estimated carrying capacity between neighborhoods, weakly associated with environmental variables related to poor infrastructure. Model goodness-of-fit was influenced by the number of sticky traps, and suggests a minimum of 16 traps at the neighborhood level for surveillance.

Experiências com um Curso de Modelagem Socioambiental

In a social-environmental modeling course, students need to learn complementary skills that include the conceptualisation of a model, different modeling paradigms, computer programming, and the process of rigorously converting ideas and data into a computational program using a given toolkit. Such topics need to be taught in parallel in order to keep a heterogeneous audience motivated. Based on the experience with multidisciplinary audiences, this paper describes a socio-environmental modeling course that explores three modeling paradigms: System dynamics, Cellular automata, and Agent-based modeling. We also present a small tutorial with some examples developed for the course.