How do you approach first steps if you are a client?

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As a modeling client it is important to understand the basics behind modeling. First, we need to define what kinds of problems are being addressed in this paper. There are a wide variety of modeling problems.

• Physical models – These encompass efforts to mathematically model the physical world. These include: biological or bio-medical models wherein an attempt is made to model the underlying biological or chemical interactions of drugs and or chemicals. These also include modeling the physical and/or mechanical world, such as aerodynamics or the weather or geological aspects. These also include queuing models such as the work flow on a factory floor or transactions at a service window or teleprocessing of customer service calls.
• Financial and economic Models – These models typically try to predict things like how much money will be spent or earned by an entity. These are accounting models. The look at and try to predict interest rates, exchange rates and economic variables such as employment rates, GDP, and so forth.
• Human behavior models – These encompass efforts to mathematically model the much more complex behavior of humans. These include things like: risk, response, buying, selling, mating, and so forth behavior.

The physical and bio-stats models require intimate theoretical knowledge process being modeled and familiarity with the medical field. This paper does not address the unique aspects of these kind of challenges; although many of the issues addressed herein can be applied to these other kind of problems.

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