G. Booker,

You could use Simulink but it does not support multi-core computers and is
not as efficient as Ada would be.

It seems to that if your modeling requires a great deal of expression of
concurrent mechanisms then Ada is a good choice. I don't recall ever seeing
anything done like you've stated using Ada but then again I have not done a
comprehensive search.

Will your interactions be event driven or time stepped or both?

Keith R. Dugué


* -----Original Message-----
* From: Team Ada: Ada Programming Language Advocacy (83 & 95) [mailto:TEAM-
* [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jeffrey Carter
* Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 2:53 PM
* To: [log in to unmask]
* Subject: Re: Ada for system biology modeling
* 
* G. Booker wrote:
* 
* > I'm a PhD student in biomedical engineering.  A major part of my
* > dissertation will involve getting various mathematical models, of how
* > parts of the body work, to interact with each other.  The challenge
* > is that the models are working on different physical scale levels
* > (from sub-cellular to the whole body), and on many different time
* > scales (millisecond-duration processes to ones that take months or
* > years).
* 
* > So my question is:  Is Ada's concurrency capability well suited to
* > this type of problem?  Why or why not?  Has it been done before in
* > Ada?
* 
* I'm not sure how concurrency will help you in such a project. You want
* to apply the mathematical models to appropriate data. You may invoke
* some models many times for each invocation of another model.
* 
* I would think that you would do this in a similar manner in Ada as in
* any other language. Ada would be suitable, and would have the same
* advantages of detecting errors early as it does in other domains.
* 
* You might also want to post in comp.lang.ada, especially if you have
* more detailed questions.
* 
* --
* Jeff Carter
* "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."
* Monty Python & the Holy Grail
* 06