Modelling as a Discipline

My Opinions about Modelling, How to and How Not To

Silvert, William. 2001. Modelling as a Discipline. Int. J. General Systems 30: 261-282. A Polish translation was published  in the "Projektowanie i Systemy" volume XVII in 2004.

Assessing environmental impacts of finfish aquaculture in marine waters

An early (1992)l paper on modelling aquacuture impacts

Silvert, William. 1992. Assessing environmental impacts of finfish aquaculture in marine waters. Aquaculture 107:67-71

The economics of over-fishing

My first paper on fisheries economics

Silvert, W. 1977. The economics of over-fishing. Trans. Am. Fish. Soc. 106:121-130

Practical curve fitting

Nonlinear parameter estimation

Silvert, W. 1979. Practical curve fitting. Limnol. Oceanogr. 24:767-773

Ecology, physiology, allometry and dimensionality

Using dimensional analysis to calculate allometric coefficient

Platt, Trevor, and William Silvert. 1981. Ecology, physiology, allometry and dimensionality. J. Theor. Biol. 93:855-860

The formulation and evaluation of predictions

Uses fuzzy logic to define predictions

Silvert, William. 1981. The formulation and evaluation of predictions. Int. J. General Systems 7:189-205

Object-oriented ecosystem modelling

One of the first papers on OOM in ecology, in 1993

Silvert, W. 1993. Object-oriented ecosystem modelling. Ecological Modelling 68:91-118

The effect of benthic carbon loading on the degradation of bottom conditions under farm sites

Sowles, J. W., L. Churchill, and W. Silvert. 1994. The effect of benthic carbon loading on the degradation of bottom conditions under farm sites. p. 31-46. In Modelling benthic impacts of organic enrichment from marine aquaculture. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 1949. xi+125 p. B. T. Hargrave, Ed.

Dynamic modelling of phycotoxin kinetics in the blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, with implications for other marine invertebrates

Development of a two-compartment model

Silvert, W. L., and A. D. Cembella. 1995. Dynamic modelling of phycotoxin kinetics in the blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, with implications for other marine invertebrates. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 52:521-531

Sublethal hydrocarbon toxicity in the marine unicellular alga Pavlova lutheri Droop

Response of Monochrysis lutheri is strange indeed!

Vandermeulen, J. H., W. Silvert, and A. Foda. 1983. Sublethal hydrocarbon toxicity in the marine unicellular alga Pavlova lutheri Droop. Aquatic Toxicology 4:31-49. [Note - this species is now called Monochrysis lutheri]

Describing benthic impacts of fish farming with fuzzy sets: theoretical background and analytical methods

How to use fuzzy logic to assess ecosystem status

Angel, Dror, Peter Krost and William Silvert. 1998. Describing benthic impacts of fish farming with fuzzy sets: theoretical background and analytical methods. J. Appl. Ichthyology 14:1-8

Review of recent carrying capacity models for bivalve culture and recommendations for research and management

Mainly shellfish farm siting

McKindsey, C. W., H. Thetmeyer, T. Landry and W. Silvert. 2006. Review of recent carrying capacity models for bivalve culture and recommendations for research and management. Aquaculture 261: 451–462.

A spatially explicit learning model of migratory fish and fishers for evaluating closed areas

This paper uses cellular automata for spatial modelling

Moustakas, A., W. Silvert and A. Dimitromanolakis. 2006. A spatially explicit learning model of migratory fish and fishers for evaluating closed areas. Ecological Modelling 192: 245-258.

The Meaning of Biodiversity

How to promote conserving biodiversity

Silvert, W. 2003. The Meaning of Biodiversity. Talk given at EMBS38, Aveiro, Portugal, September 2003. In this paper I argued the importance of  informing the public that "the lowly earthworm has as much importance (actually more) as beautiful egrets and cuddly pandas." The paper was never published -- it was rejected as unscientific. The reviewer objected that words like "cuddly" and "cute" did not belong in a scientific journal, and instructed me that the proper term was "charismatic megafauna". In deference to his judgement I had a T-shirt made up with the slogan "I brake for charismatic megafauna" which I wear to scientific meetings to show my sophistication. But even though the paper did not meet scientific standards, I am rather pleased with it.

A bifurcation model of speciation due to environmental change

A really obscure contribution to evolutionary ecology

Silvert, W. 2002. A bifurcation model of speciation due to environmental change. In: The First Workshop on Information Technologies Application to Problems of Biodiversity and Dynamics of Ecosystems in North Eurasia (WITA ‘2001) Selected Papers. Novosibirsk Institute of Cytology and Genetics SB RAS, p. 363-366.

Complexity

My attempt to define complexity of systems and models

Silvert, William. 1996. Complexity. J. Biol. Syst. 4:585-591. My definition of complexity relates it to the amount of information in the technical sense, so even if there are a lot of variables, if they are not precisely specified the amount of information and thus the complexity can be low.