Mechanical and Reliability Engineering, The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730, USA.
Biotechnology & Life Sciences, The MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA 22102, USA.
Mil Med. 2024 Aug 19;189(Suppl 3):767-774. doi: 10.1093/milmed/usae265.
Advancements in information technology have facilitated information exchange practices within the Military Health System (MHS), enabling "systems of systems" approaches that broaden and coordinate the set of capabilities available to enhance patient outcomes. This is applicable for MHS modeling and simulation (M&S) applications as well. Learning from successful approaches applied in current interoperability solutions used in the military helps to ensure interoperability practices yield trusted compositions of simulations.
The use of formal methods provides the rigor necessary to unambiguously communicate these approaches across the MHS community. Here, 3 formal methods are proposed to ensure the harmonization of models and alignment of M&S data needed for simulation interoperability for MHS applications.
To clarify considerations relevant for establishing simulation interoperability, the proposed formal methods are examined within a notional example of an injury sustained because of blast exposure. The first method applies the principles of semiotics, addressing the coding of information via syntax and semantics, to understand how to align and transform data across simulations within a composition. The second method applies the concepts of well-specified co-simulations, and the use of different techniques, tools, and algorithms to address the composition and synchronization of M&S components. The third method applies the mathematical branch of model theory to codify expert knowledge about concepts, assumptions, and constraints to ensure conceptual alignment within the simulation composition.
Biomedical research must contend with complexity inherent to computational human body modeling, enlisting expert knowledge from multiple domains supporting the development of cross-disciplinary research tools that resolve research foci and associated differences in underlying theories, methods, and applied tools. This is closely related to the broader context of digital engineering for military systems engineering.
信息技术的进步促进了军事卫生系统（MHS）内部的信息交换实践，使“系统的系统”方法得以扩展和协调，从而增强患者的治疗效果。这也适用于 MHS 的建模和模拟（M&S）应用。借鉴当前军事应用中成功的互操作性解决方案所采用的方法，有助于确保互操作性实践产生值得信赖的模拟组合。
使用形式化方法提供了在 MHS 社区中明确传达这些方法所需的严谨性。这里提出了 3 种形式化方法，以确保模型的协调和 M&S 数据的一致性，从而实现 MHS 应用的模拟互操作性。
为了阐明建立模拟互操作性的相关考虑因素，在所提出的形式化方法内，通过一个关于因爆炸暴露而受伤的概念示例进行了检查。第一种方法应用符号学原理，通过语法和语义来处理信息编码，以了解如何在组合内的模拟之间对齐和转换数据。第二种方法应用了指定良好的协同模拟的概念，以及使用不同的技术、工具和算法来解决 M&S 组件的组合和同步问题。第三种方法应用模型理论的数学分支，对关于概念、假设和约束的专家知识进行编码，以确保模拟组合内的概念对齐。
生物医学研究必须应对计算人体建模中固有的复杂性，从多个领域招募专家知识，支持跨学科研究工具的开发，以解决研究重点和相关的理论、方法和应用工具的差异。这与军事系统工程的更广泛的数字工程背景密切相关。
