Generic SCENARIO Object

The SCENARIO object is used to define, and structure, model scenarios; examples are the main scenarios pages in SIMTRAP, HITERM, ECOSIM, or the ISC model page in AirWare.

The SCENARIO object displays the context (set of input conditions or input sets in parallel with the status of the scenario, i.e., a summary of the results. The summary display of inputs and results can act as triggers (together with the standard icon menus) for a set of methods that provide the editiong functions for inputs, allow to run the model(s), and provide diaply and post-processing options for the results.

SCENARIO objects can include (embed) or refer to (refernce) other objects, including SCENARIO objects; for example, the ISC model SCENARIO object would refer to a meteorology SCENARIO object.

Referencing allows different instances of SCENARIO objects to share input sets, also as a mechanism of enforcing consistency. For example, a meteorology scenario could be shared by several instances of the ISC model SCENARIO objects or similar model SCENARIO objects, e.g., ISC-3 or TIMES; a road network SCENARIO could be shared by several instances of the traffic model, etc.

The Generic SCENARIO object consists of:

a unique name and ID
META data
input sets ,
methods and
results .

RiskWare Implementation

In Riskware, emergency scenarios are related to the Descriptor emergency_type; for each emergency type, a scenario TEMPLATE is defined in the directory: ./data/objects/scenarios. A CONFIG file associates the emergency type and scenarios:

###########################################################
##### CONFIG file for emergency type SCENARIO TEMPLATES
##### contains one record for each legal - and supported -
##### emergency type, defined in Descriptors

toxic_spill      TEMPLATE.1
earthquake       TEMPLATE.2
explosion        TEMPLATE.3
chemical_fire    TEMPLATE.4
flood            TEMPLATE.5
forest_fire      TEMPLATE.6
water_pollution  TEMPLATE.7
explosion22      TEMPLATE.9
toxic_spill2     TEMPLATE.10

Input Sets

Input sets are groups of input elements that can be manipulated or addressed as a set. They consist (primarily) of Descriptors , can be nested, and are able to display themselves using a display method.

Input sets can be

embedded , i.e., their values are part of the SCENARIO object data file and saved as a part of it;
referenced , i.e., they consist, within a given SCENARIO object of a reference to another (SCENARIO) object.

The standard display method is descriptor_list.

Please note that input sets can also include elements that are NOT Descriptors: examples are site names, dates, chemical names, CAS numbers etc.

Alternative display methods can include icons, graphs, etc; as in the example of a specific to meteorological input set.

Examples are the long-term weather display in ISC or the fleet-composition widget in SIMTRAP.

Descriptors are the primary (and preferred) element for the description of the scenario-specific information and can be edited using the XPS edit methods.

Edit methods of derived (not primary) Descriptors (Descriptors for which Rules are defined, summary values, etc.) only display their dependence and can NOT be edited at the summaty level.

An example would the the total amount of substances in a chemical plant: since it is computed as the sum of individual containers with the same substance, this toal can not be edited directly; instead, the container selector (that allows selecting an individual container and changing its contents) should be invoked as the appropriate method.

Exceptions are cases where a proportional re-distribution of a changed total is possible, e.g., in the fleet composition.
The standard edit display method is edit_descriptor.

Methods

Methods are functions that can be applied in the framework of the scenario they are part of. Every method has at least one trigger defined which describes circumstances under which the method is to be applied.

Methods retrieve all the information they need from knowledge base themselves and they may or may not have a graphical interface that is poped up after they are triggered.

Results

Results of individual Methods are saved in the knowledge base and / or displayed on the map and evaluated in the summary.

A Summary is supposed to contain all the critical pieces of information generated by individual Methods such as models.

Scenario Management

Scenarios can be loaded and saved using a scenario manager. All saved scenarios are to be considered read only and cannot be overwritten.

When a scenario (any one of its components) was changed (edited) by the user, upon returning from the respective level (for referenced scenarios) the user is asked by a dialog box whether he wants to

SAVE: make the changes permanent:
write them to the disk; this requires giving a unique name to the new instance of this SCENARIO;
continue unsaved:
keep the changes in memory only; for composit SCENARIOS that include references to other scenarios, this implies that a change at a lower level is lost once the user return unsaved to a higher level;
ABORT: discard the changes.

Model results are NOT saved automatically, but only on request through the SAVE option of the SCENARIO manager.

A complete example is the SCENARIO object declaration from SIMTRAP:

NA main
ID main
ME  Meta Information 1                 # meta information 1
ME  Meta Information 2                 # ...
ME  Meta Information n                 # meta information n
AU  patel   Thu Feb 23 12:45:55 1995   # automatically inserted

TABLE main.methods
E   icon    # this is a trigger
E   method
E   context 
D   1 rego rego
D   2 evaporation_model none
D   3 isc_model none
D   5 zoom_in none
D   6 zoom_out none
D   7 gis_page none
D   12 exit none
END_TABLE

TABLE rego.methods
E   icon    # this is a trigger
E   method
E   context 
D   12 exit none
D   2  evaporation_model none
D   3  isc_model none
D   4  pop_eval none
END_TABLE

TABLE main.input_sets
E   name
E   parent
E   display_method
D   Network main draw_net
D   Weather main draw_met
D   Multipliers main draw_emissions
D   fleetcomp main draw_fleetpie
D   global_descriptors main descriptor_list
END_TABLE

TABLE rego.input_sets
E   name
E   parent
E   display_method
D   Time      main d_tape
D   Layers    main d_layer
D   Variables main d_vlist
D   Colors    main d_cgcont
END_TABLE

TABLE Variables
E   name    
E   onoff
E   selected
D   NO2     on      y
D   O3      on      n
END_TABLE

TABLE Layers
E   name    
E   onoff
E   selected
D   1     on    y
D   2     on    n
D   3     on    n
END_TABLE

CS  0
RD  0
RE  data/rego_results/out.97081630
NR  50
NC  50
OX  3333424.5
OY  5770371.0
RS  2000


TABLE global_descriptors
E   name
E   value
E   method
D   scaling_factor 1 edit_descriptor
D   day_of_week Monday edit_descriptor
D   time_step 30 edit_descriptor
D   duration 20 edit_descriptor
END_TABLE

TABLE Weather
E   name
E   Air_Temperature
E   Wind_direction
E   Picture
E   Selected
D   Summer_day 25 45 summer_day y
D   Winter_day 2 120 winter_day n
END_TABLE

TABLE Multipliers
E   multiplier
E   value
E   filename
D   NOX_Traffic     1.0     verknox
D   NOX_Traffic_Center_City 1.0     none
D   NOX_High_Stacks 1.0     hsnox
D   NOX_Low_Stacks  1.0     lsnox
D   NOX_Households  1.0     hhnox
D   NOX_Airport     1.0     none
D   VOC_Traffic     1.0     verkvoc
D   VOC_Traffic_Center_City 1.0     none
D   VOC_Traffic_Evaporation 1.0     ruvvoc
D   VOC_High_Stacks 1.0     hsvoc
D   VOC_Low_Stacks  1.0     lsvoc
D   VOC_Households  1.0     hhvoc
D   VOC_Airport     1.0     none
D   CO_Traffic      0.5     verk
D   CO_Traffic_Center_City  1.0 none
D   CO_High_Stacks  1.0     hsco
D   CO_Low_Stacks   1.0     lsco
D   CO_Households   1.0     hhco
D   CO_Airport      1.0     none
D   SO2_Traffic     1.0     none
D   SO2_Traffic_Center_City 1.0     none
D   SO2_High_Stacks 1.0     none
D   SO2_Low_Stacks  1.0     none
D   SO2_Households  1.0     none
D   SO2_Airport     1.0     none
END_TABLE

TABLE fleetcomp
E   FzsID
E   FzTyp
E   percentage
D   1       11      10.6
D   1       12      12.2
D   1       14      18.7
D   1       15      24.6
D   1       17      5.1
D   1       18      6.7
D   1       21      4.3
D   1       24      8.8
D   1       27      2.4
D   1       31      1.7
D   1       32      0.7
D   1       41      3.2
D   1       51      0.6
D   1       61      0.4
D   2       11      1.4
D   2       12      1.5
D   2       13      18.7
D   2       14      0.1
D   2       15      3.1
D   2       16      37.9
D   2       18      0.9
D   2       19      10.3
D   2       21      0.5
D   2       23      5.3
D   2       24      0.9
D   2       26      10.6
D   2       27      0.2
D   2       29      2.9
D   2       32      0.1
D   2       33      1.4
D   2       43      3.2
D   2       51      0.1
D   2       53      0.5
D   2       61      0.4
END_TABLE