FinalExam Review Fall2005: Explain It in Your Words

FinalExam Review Fall2005: Explain It in Your Words

Questions? Comments? Answers?
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What do you mean " give an example of a question that you could ask with one but not with the other."? that doesn't make sense to me Removed at KS request

We talked about using the FactorySimulation to answer the question "How long do Distributors wait for their product, on average?" Is this a question you can ask of a Discrete Event Simulation, but not a Continuous Simulation? We talked about asking the question with the DiseaseSimulation "If people die quickly when they get sick, do more or fewer people get sick?" Is this a question you can ask of a Continuous Simulation but not a Discrete Event Simulation? Mark Guzdial

(A):
Discrete event simulations go in order but can skip over irrelevant elements...Continuous simulations also go in order but show each event. Question for a continuous simulation: "Can it simulate in real time?" Question for a discrete event simulation: "Without going through all the events, what event takes place at the second hour?" ummmmmmm I was really confused by what questions you were looking for.....so I took a stab at what you meant. And as far as I know the two questions I asked could have only been done by the simulation I asked it to and NOT the other, but who knows.

(B):
Trees make it easier to see what knows how to do what, and all the different possibilities to create an animation are easily visible.

(C):
Because when you try to insert into the middle of an array, because you have to shift the entire list piece by piece after the index if the added element. It takes a long time, and things can get cut off of it. Easier to insert into a matrix....although I am not altogether sure on why.
Removed at TB request

A – "irrelevant elements"? Hmm – think hard about time. As for the questions – be imaginative about a particular domain. B is wrong. First part of C is okay. Mark Guzdial

A. What's the difference between discrete event and continuous simulations? When would you use each? For each, give an example of a kind of question that you could ask with one but not with the other.

Discrete Event attempts to model on a simpler scale when time in between major events does not matter; use it when it is not feasible from a CPU or programming standpoint to do a continous event simulation. A continuous simulation attempts to capture a fuller picture of an event where every moment counts. Use discrete event for supply chain simulations. Use continous for weather or protein folding simulations. I think you can answer any question with a continuous simulation that a discrete event simulation would answer, however the reverse does not hold. you can answer questions like weather forecast with continuous.

B. Why did we use trees to create animations?

So that we can easily manipulate a particular part of the animation without redrawing the whole frame yourself, it defines relationships that let the computer decide how the other elements will act based on the manipulation on one piece of the scene.

C. Why do we consider it "hard" to insert and delete into the middle of an array? Is it easier or harder with a matrix?

It is difficult because you have to copy the whole array and insert in the proper place which is very expensive CPU wise. In a matrix is it harder because you have to do this on two dimensions.

Kyle DuPont

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Final Exam Review Fall2005 last edited on 5 December 2006 at 11:22 am by r54h53.res.gatech.edu