Displaying Statistical Results in Output Controls

When using an output control in a Dashboard, there are two ways to display results:

Monitor Output Value: This is the default, and will display the actual value of the selected output.

Display Monte Carlo Result: This should be selected if you wish to display a statistical result for an output from a Monte Carlo simulation (e.g., the mean value or a particular percentile).

All output controls provide these two options. The second option allows you to display statistical results for an output in your model. For example, after running a Monte Carlo simulation, you might want to display the 95^th percentile of a particular result in a Dashboard:

To display a statistical result in an output control, you must do the following:

1. In the GoldSim model, create a Result Distribution element. The output of interest must be the first result listed in the Result Distribution element.

2. With the Dashboard, open property dialog for the output control.

3. Select the“Display Monte Carlo Result” radio button at the top of the output control’s property dialog.

4. When you do so, GoldSim will display a browser for selecting the element of interest. The browser will contain only the Distribution Result elements in the model. Select the Distribution Result element of interest.

5. After doing so, the upper part of the dialog will look like this:

You must then select the specific Monte Carlo Result that you wish to display. The choices are as follows:

Mean: The mean value of the Monte Carlo realizations.

50%: The median (50^th percentile) of the Monte Carlo realizations.

Specify Percentile: This provides access to a new dialog for defining a specific percentile (a number ranging from 0 to 100).

Specify Result Condition: This provides access to the following dialog:

The displayed result represents the probability (computed over all realizations) that the value of the output satisfies the specified condition. In the example above, the result would represent the probability that the final value of the output was less than 100 m3.

In this case, you will also be presented with the option of displaying the result as a percentage rather than a fraction (Show as Percentage):

Obviously, this only applies to those output controls that would directly display the value (Result Display, Digital Result Display and Thermometer).

Note that one of the options in the list for the Monte Carlo Result to display will be labeled as the “default”. The default statistic refers to the Default Display Statistic in the Monte Carlo Options dialog. If you change the Default Display Statistic, this will be reflected in the Monte Carlo Result drop-list in the output control property dialog

Several points are worth noting regarding displaying statistical results in output controls:

• Output controls can display statistical results only after at least one realizations is available. Hence, they cannot display results in Edit or Ready Mode, or when all realizations have been screened out.

• In order to allow Dashboard users to better interpret statistical results, GoldSim always appends additional information to the user-defined tool-tip for the control: