Winter 2008 Newsletter:
Partner Interview with Alvaro Buoro
of Equinocio
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Equinocio is a French
consultancy providing numerical simulation services to
support a better understanding of dynamic systems in
environmental science, management and business. GoldSim is
the primary software used by Equinocio.
Alvaro Buoro is the founder
of the company. He has a B.S. in geophysics, a M.S. in well
logging and a Ph.D. in hydrogeology. He has been working
with GoldSim for over 8 years, and has developed simulation
models to evaluate contaminant transport in the environment,
and carry out engineering risk assessments and economic
analyses.
The need to represent uncertainty in the decision-making
process is one of the main drivers that attracted him to
GoldSim. Alvaro created Equinocio
four years ago to explore new ways of proposing solutions to
complex problems by utilizing decision analysis,
sustainability analysis (integrating technical, financial
and human views), and environmental fate and transport
modeling. The main focus of his approach is to
quantitatively represent the uncertainty in our knowledge of
the world to help gain insight on the real leverage points
for understanding complex systems.
Where do
you envision most of your firm's growth will be in the next
three years?
In
problems where it is necessary to couple physical and social
phenomena. That is, problems which require not only
physical equations, but modeling of the complexity of human
behavior as well.
What has
been one of your more memorable projects for which you
constructed a GoldSim model?
I once
developed a decision analysis model for coupling the
economic and the technical aspects of a river water quality
project. The aim was to minimize the cost and the impact of
waste treatment alternatives that discharged to a small
river. Although some biological aspects were rather new for
me at that time, the model generated interesting cyclic
variations associating higher waste production with reduced
water level in the river during hot periods.
What is a
common modeling mistake that you see new GoldSim modelers
make?
If they
come from a technical/engineering background, they often
approach building a GoldSim model in the same way as they
did before with standard finite element or finite
differences codes. In this way they lose the perspective
of finding new ways of solving the problem in a faster and
more efficient way.
What
advice would you have for beginners learning GoldSim?
You
should think of GoldSim as a baton with which you control
the orchestra. In addition to knowing how to play an
instrument, you should be sure to understand the music you
are playing and where there are the moments of silence. In
other words, it is critical to fully understand the
limitations and simplifications or your conceptual model.
Also,
coupling uncertainty to a simplified model of the problem
you face often provides insights that may allow you to
propose new solutions.
Try to
see if there is a potential for developing a parametric
model of the problem within GoldSim. That is, develop a
model where a few parameters (e.g., flags) can control
changes in many others. This can make it easy to quickly
simulate different scenarios, and greatly increases the
flexibility of the model.
If you
were hiring for a new position in your firm, what skills
would you most look for?
I would look for someone
with no fear of facing new challenges and trying new paths.
What is
something you know today, that you wish you knew ten years
ago?
I know
today that a nice presentation and a good layout of a
model/project is as important (if not more so) than the
precision or the technical capabilities developed inside the
model.
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