Virtual Environments for Computational and Analytical Modeling: A Telemedicine Application

Virtualization is commonly known in computer science as an abstraction technique of computer resources – physical platforms and resources – so that applications or end-users can seamlessly interact with these resources without the needs to deal with physical requirements. Going beyond the simulation of computer environments and resources, this paper proposes a paradigm for designing complex information systems based upon the concept of virtual modeling. The idea is to allow modelers use a virtual environment that is composed of real modeling platforms to replicate complex real problems, and explore new and virtual problems that might have high potential for real–life applications. Modeling here is not just an effort to find (new) solutions to an existing problem, rather it is also a discovery process seeking to create new (problems). We see this approach as vital in addressing the applications emerging from service science, management and engineering (SSME), which will rely upon computational modeling approaches as much, if not more, than traditional supply-chain based analytical modeling. We illustrate our design methodology with a telemedicine application using Brahms, a multi-agent programming language developed by the NASA.