📅 Thursday, July 24, 2025
🕚 11 am CET
📍 OCZ Conference Room, C1 Building (1st floor), UPC Campus Nord, Barcelona + 💻 Barcelona
ABSTRACT
Computational modeling helps us understand how decisions influence outcomes by replicating complex processes with the necessary level of detail. Advances in technology now enable increasingly sophisticated models, making it possible to address complex problems that were previously out of reach. A key application is modeling natural and built environments, which function as interconnected systems-of-systems (SoS) with high-impact challenges. By replicating these problems through modeling, users can construct ad hoc workflows, combining models, computing, programming, data resources, and services as needed. Integrating model-based analysis into the study of these challenges shifts the focus from data-driven assessment to model-driven scenario evaluation. This requires predictive tools capable of assessing the consequences of different conditions by facilitating interoperability between resources. However, interoperability in computational modeling remains a challenge, requiring standardized data access, metadata harmonization, and service integration, with much work remaining to be done by the modeling community.
This research aims to analyze, propose, and implement solutions for integrated, model-based interoperability to support the analysis of complex problems. It involves designing a theoretical platform framework that enables the structured interaction of models, data, and computational resources to support both scientific research and decision making. A key aspect of this work is the development of the concept and prototype of a marketplace where stakeholders can integrate, access, and commercialize resources, promoting collaboration and expanding the platform’s functionality. The research includes a detailed analysis of use cases to identify requirements and constraints, ensuring that the proposed solutions address practical challenges. Beyond analysis, it also involves the practical integration of a use case to demonstrate the applicability of the framework in a real world context. The integration of these use cases will validate the concepts explored earlier in the dissertation through practical application in a real-world situation and infrastructure, testing the framework’s effectiveness in a practical context.
The study produces three key findings. First, it presents the theoretical design of an integrated modeling framework that supports interoperability between computational models, datasets, and processing services. The framework establishes a structure for resource discovery, execution workflows, and user interaction while enabling metadata-driven service integration. Second, it demonstrates the feasibility of a modeling marketplace that supports resource discovery, acquisition, and reuse. The marketplace provides access to computational models, datasets, and processing services within a unified environment, allowing providers to distribute modeling resources while ensuring access control and licensing mechanisms. Third, it examines the integration of computational models within the European Commission’s Destination Earth initiative. DestinE’s approach to metadata standardization and service orchestration leads development of integrated modeling environments. These findings indicate that a theoretical framework for integrated modeling, incorporating computational models, a marketplace, and interoperable services, is technically viable. The research contributes to the development of modeling ecosystems that support decision-making through structured data access, model execution, and service integration.
Committee
- President: Dr Jordi Duatis
- Secretary: Dr Ernest Bladé
- Member: Dr Gerard Mor
PhD Advisors
- Advisors: Dr Pere-Andreu Ubach, Dr Javier Mora
- Academic Advisor: Dr. Eugenio Oñate
PHD CANDIDATE
Mr. Laurence Sigler is a PhD candidate in Civil Engineering. He holds an MSc in Geographic Information Systems from Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and Bachelor’s Degree from Albright College (Reading, USA). His experience includes working in various private sector areas as a GIS analyst, database administrator, and developer. He has also been a volunteer for environmental and agricultural development in Latin America.
His research covers IT, GIS, and Digital Twin (DT) technologies for integrated modeling and the analysis of complex problems related to climatology and territorial management. His work centers on advancing content management, enhancing data reusability, and improving the interoperability of numerical models and simulations to tackle system-of-systems analysis on Decision Support Systems (DSS), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Digital Twins (DT), and like platforms.