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Model and Simulate Cooling Circuits with the SmartCooling Library

Explore the contents of this article with a free Wolfram SystemModeler trial. The SystemModeler Library Store, launched with the release of Wolfram SystemModeler 4, is continually growing with free and purchasable libraries developed by both Wolfram and third parties. One of our commercial newcomers is SmartCooling, a Modelica library developed by the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) that is used for modeling and simulating cooling circuits. When I was asked to present this library on our blog, my first thought was, "Who better to demonstrate the ideas of SmartCooling than the people who actually developed it?" So I asked Thomas Bäuml, one of the creators of SmartCooling, to help answer some of my questions regarding the principles behind the library and its applications.
Anneli Mossberg
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Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) Import in Wolfram SystemModeler

Explore the contents of this article with a free Wolfram SystemModeler trial. An important emerging standard has been rapidly adopted by industry: the Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI). It's an independent standard allowing model exchange between different tools. We introduced FMI export with Version 4.0 of SystemModeler. Exporting your model as a Functional Mock-up Unit (FMU) serves many purposes. First and foremost, it can be used in other tools and programming languages. It also protects your intellectual property by compiling the model code to a binary, which is useful when exchanging models with customers and collaborators. Now with Version 4.1 of SystemModeler, we are happy to announce that we also support FMI import.
Johan Rhodin, Kernel Developer, Mathematica Algorithm R&D Henrik Tidefelt, Software Engineer, SystemModeler
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Reliability Analysis in SystemModeler 4.1

Explore the contents of this article with a free Wolfram SystemModeler trial. Today we are proud to announce the release of Wolfram SystemModeler 4.1. We will present some of the news in blog posts, beginning with this one, in which we will highlight the new reliability functionality. We will illustrate this with an example, and you can try it out by downloading a trial version of SystemModeler and this example model, and a trial of the Wolfram Hydraulic library. Most people probably have experiences with things they bought and liked, but that then suddenly failed for some reason. During the last few years we have both experienced this problem, including a complete engine breakdown in Johan's car (the engine had to be replaced), and Jan's receiver, which suddenly went completely silent (the receiver had to be sent in for repair and have its network chip replaced). In both cases it caused problems for the customers (us) as well as for the producer. These are just a couple of examples, and we're sure you have your own.
Jan Brugård, CEO, Wolfram MathCore Johan Rhodin, Kernel Developer, Mathematica Algorithm R&D
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Q&A with Michael Tiller, Author of Modelica by Example

Modelica is the object-oriented modeling language used in SystemModeler to model components and systems. When I first learned Modelica, I read all books available about the language (there are not that many!) and found the book Introduction to Physical Modeling with Modelica by Michael Tiller to be the best out there. In 2012, when Michael started a Kickstarter campaign to fund the development of a Creative Commons licensed book about Modelica, I was the first person to back it, and Wolfram Research became one of the gold sponsors of the book. A new key feature in SystemModeler 4.0 is the full Modelica by Example book included in the product. This makes it much easier to get started learning Modelica. I had the opportunity to ask Michael a couple of questions about the new book and Modelica.
Johan Rhodin, Kernel Developer, Mathematica Algorithm R&D
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A Mathematical Modeling Approach to Monitoring Liver Function in Drug Trials

Explore the contents of this article with a free Wolfram SystemModeler trial. Mathematical modeling is not just used for understanding and designing new products and drugs; modeling can also be used in health care, and in the future, your doctor might examine your liver with a mathematical model just like the one researchers at AstraZeneca have developed. The liver is a vital organ, and currently there isn't really a way to compensate for loss of liver function in the long term. The liver performs a wide range of functions, including detoxification, protein synthesis, and secretion of compounds necessary for digestion, just to mention a few. In the US and Europe, up to 15 % of all acute liver failure cases are due to drug-induced liver injury, and the risk of injuring the liver is of major concern in testing new drug candidates. So in order to safely monitor the impact of a new drug candidate on the liver, researchers at the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca have recently published a method for evaluating liver function that combines magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and mathematical modeling---potentially allowing for early identification of any reduced liver function in humans. Last year, Wolfram MathCore and AstraZeneca worked together on a project where we investigated some modifications of AstraZeneca's modeling framework. We presented the promising results at the ISMRM-ESMRMB Joint Annual Meeting, which is the major international magnetic resonance conference. In this blog post, I'll show how the Wolfram Language was used to calculate liver function and how more complex models of liver function can be implemented in Wolfram SystemModeler.
Mikael Forsgren, Senior Applications Engineer, SystemModeler
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Systems Pharmacology—A Case Study on Type 2 Diabetes Using Wolfram Technologies

Explore the contents of this article with a free Wolfram SystemModeler trial. In April this year, I attended the 7th Noordwijkerhout Symposium on Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics and Systems Pharmacology in the Netherlands. The conference focuses on the use of mathematical modeling in pharmacology and pharmaceutical R&D, and this year, the main topic was the emerging concept of systems pharmacology. In general terms, systems pharmacology can be seen as the combination of pharmacometrics and systems biology, with one of its key principles being the integration of biological data and mathematical models describing several different levels of biological complexity—spanning from the molecular or cellular level to that of a whole organism or population. Usually, such integration of data and models is referred to as multilevel, or multiscale, modeling, and has the important benefit of allowing us to translate information on disease and drug effects from the biochemical level—where the effects originate—to changes on the whole body or population level, which are more important from a clinical and pharmacological point of view. In this blog post, I thought we would take a closer look at what a systems pharmacology approach might look like. Specifically, I'll focus on some of the practical aspects of building complex, multilevel biological models, and how these can be dealt with using Wolfram SystemModeler.
Robert Palmer, Applications Engineer
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Machine Gun Jetpack: The Real Physics of Improbable Flight

Explore the contents of this article with a free Wolfram SystemModeler trial. Could you fly using machine guns as the upward driving force? That's the question asked in Randall Munroe's What if? article, "Machine Gun Jetpack." It turns out you could, because some machine guns have enough thrust to lift their own weight, and then some. In this post, I'll explore the dynamics of shooting machine guns downward and study the actual forces, velocities, and heights that could be achieved. I'll also repeat the warning from the What if? post: Please do not try this at home. That's what we have modeling software for. Machine gun with a squirrel on top
Malte Lenz, Test Engineer, SystemModeler
Education & Academic

Deck the Halls with Lines of Coding

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and that means you only have five weeks left to knock out your holiday shopping. Never fear, Wolfram is delivering amazing deals to customers across the globe, including North and South America, Australia, and parts of Asia and Africa to inspire a whole new year of computational creativity.
Wolfram Blog Team
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Using Arduinos as SystemModeler Components

Explore the contents of this article with a free Wolfram SystemModeler trial. With the new, free ModelPlug library for Wolfram SystemModeler, you can connect Arduino boards to simulations in SystemModeler. Arduinos interface easily with input and output components, so you can integrate them into SystemModeler models, for example, to operate lights, run servos, and monitor sensors, switches, and potentiometers. With the ModelPlug library, you can freely mix hardware and software components in your simulations and use the Arduino as a data acquisition board. If you want to follow along, you can download a trial of SystemModeler. It's also available with a student license, or you can buy a home-use license. All hardware used in this blog post can be bought for less than $50.
Leonardo Laguna Ruiz, Software Engineer, System Modeler (MathCore) Johan Rhodin, Kernel Developer, Mathematica Algorithm R&D
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