Abstract:Integrated environmental modeling (IEM) is inspired by modern environmental problems, decisions, and policies and enabled by transdisciplinary science and computer capabilities that allow the environment to be considered in a holistic way. The problems are characterized by the extent of the environmental system involved, dynamic and interdependent nature of stressors and their impacts, diversity of stakeholders, and integration of social, economic, and environmental considerations. IEM provides a science-based structure to develop and organize relevant knowledge and information and apply it to explain, explore, and forecast the behavior of environmental systems in response to human and natural sources of stress. During the past several years a number of workshops were held that brought IEM practitioners together to share experiences and discuss future needs and directions. In this paper we organize and present the results of these discussions. IEM is presented as a landscape containing four interdependent elements: applications, science, technology, and community. The elements are described from the perspective of their role in the landscape, current practices, and challenges that must be addressed. Workshop participants envision a global scale IEM community that leverages modern technologies to streamline the movement of science-based knowledge from its sources in research, through its organization into databases and models, to its integration and application for problem solving purposes. Achieving this vision will require that the global community of IEM stakeholders transcend social, political, and organizational boundaries and pursue greater levels of collaboration. Among the highest priorities for community action are the development of standards for publishing IEM data and models in forms suitable for automated discovery, access, and integration; education of the next generation of environmental stakeholders, with a focus on transdisciplinary research, development, and decision making; and providing a web-based platform for community interactions (e.g., continuous virtual workshops).

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We study the behavior of Fabry-Perot micro-optical resonators based on cylindrical reflectors, optionally combined with cylindrical lenses. The core of the resonator architecture incorporates coating-free, all-silicon, Bragg reflectors of cylindrical shape. The combined effect of high reflectance and light confinement produced by the reflectors curvature allows substantial reduction of the energy loss. The proposed resonator uses curved Bragg reflectors consisting of a stack of silicon-air wall pairs constructed by micromachining. Quality factor Q ~1000 was achieved on rather large cavity length L = 210 microns, which is mainly intended to lab-on-chip analytical experiments, where enough space is required to introduce the analyte inside the resonator. We report on the behavioral analysis of such resonators through analytical modeling along with numerical simulations supported by experimental results. We demonstrate selective excitation of pure longitudinal modes, taking advantage of a proper control of mode matching involved in the process of coupling light from an optical fiber to the resonator. For the sake of comparison, insight on the behavior of Fabry-Perot cavity incorporating a Fiber-Rod-Lens is confirmed by similar numerical simulations.