System Dynamics
NEWSLETTER

Volume 21 – Number 4        October 2008

Member News

Kimberly Thompson and Radboud Duintjer Tebbens Win Forrester Award

The Jay Wright Forrester Award recognizes the author/s of the best contribution to the field of system dynamics in the preceding five years. This year the award was presented to Kimberly Thompson and Radboud Duintjer Tebbens for their winning work "Eradication Versus Control for Poliomyelitis: an Economic Analysis" published in The Lancet 369(9570): 1363-137, April 2007. More information on the work can be found at the Kids Risk Project website. The citation and winners' speech (delivered at the award ceremony in Athens) will be published in full in the System Dynamics Review. They can be found by searching the System Dynamics Review page at Wiley InterScience for Volume 23, Issue 2-3 (Summer-Fall 2007); abstracts are available to all; full articles are only available for members to view.

Jac Vennix
Chair, Jay W. Forrester Award Committee

Dana Meadows Award Winners

Out of the over 35 student papers submitted for this year's awards, these were regarded as excellent papers and worthy contributions to system dynamics. The authors are to be congratulated for their efforts and their success in analyzing and providing insight into significant dynamic issues. This year's winner of the Dana Meadows Award for best student paper presented at the annual conference is Antuela Anthi Tako, currently at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Her paper is entitled "Model building in System Dynamics and Discrete-event Simulation: a quantitative comparison"

Honorable Mentions in the competition for 2008 were extremely close in their ratings. In alphabetical order, they are Navid Ghaffarzadegan, Rockefeller College, University at Albany, USA for "Effect of Conditional Feedback on Learning" and Hyunjung Kim, Rockefeller College, University at Albany, USA for the paper "Broadening boundary perception in a multi-organizational context: Study of a community mental health program in New York State."

Congratulations to all the 2008 Dana Meadows Award winners! Their papers, as well as the full text of the Dana Meadows Award Ceremony may be viewed at the 2008 conference web proceedings.

Joel Rahn
Chair, Dana Meadows Award Committee

isee systems Presents the 2nd Annual Barry Richmond Scholarship Award

The Barry Richmond Scholarship Award was established in 2007 to honor and continue the legacy of isee's founder, Barry Richmond. Barry was devoted to helping others become better "Systems Citizens." It was his mission to make systems thinking and system dynamics accessible to people in all fields and professions.

The award is presented annually at the International System Dynamics Conference to a deserving systems thinking/system dynamics practitioner whose work demonstrates a desire to expand the field or to apply it to current social issues. Applicants are considered based on quality of work as well as financial need.

This year, isee systems presented Navid Ghaffarzadegan, a PhD student and Graduate Assistant in Public Administration and Policy at University at Albany, State University of New York, with the $1,000 cash scholarship that helped fund his trip to the conference in Athens, Greece. Navid's work applying system dynamics to decision-making and learning was an area of great personal interest to Barry. It provides insights for improving medical decisions, threat assessment and other key learning problems in our interconnected world. Applications for the 2009 Barry Richmond Scholarship Award will be available soon on the isee systems and System Dynamics Society web sites. Check those sites for more information.

Joanne Egner
isee systems

Lupina Young Researchers Award in Health System Dynamics Presented

The Health Policy Special Interest Group (HPSIG) of the System Dynamics Society was proud to present the first Lupina Young Researchers Award, sponsored by the Lupina Foundation of Toronto, Canada, at the 2008 International System Dynamics Conference (ISDC) in Athens, Greece.

Awards were given for two papers: "Broadening boundary perception in a multi-organizational context: Study of a community mental health program in New York State" by Hyunjung Kim (University at Albany), and "Women with HIV/AIDS in Malawi: The impact of anti-retroviral therapy on economic welfare" by Jennifer Headley, Holly Rockweiler, and Aqeela Jogee (Washington University).

The 2008 award in the amount of CAN$5,000 was split between the two winning papers.

In reviewing Kim's paper, the awards committee commented that it "...was a well structured and clearly written paper. It also does a very good job of demonstrating how organizational processes and boundaries interact, and how misleading a process-only focus can be."

Regarding the paper by Headley, Rockweiler, and Jogee, the committee said: "This is a thought provoking and ambitious paper, in terms of scope and level of analysis. ...[T]here was great admiration for the way [they] tackled the qualitative analysis...."

This award is given to people at early stages of their careers to encourage them to do further work in health system dynamics. The winners were selected from eight self-nominated papers submitted to the ISDC. Nominated papers must focus on dynamic phenomena in health and are judged on technical quality, clarity of presentation, and originality of insights.

Each winning paper was presented twice at the ISDC; first, at the well-attended Sunday afternoon HPSIG session, and later at a parallel session during the conference.

Congratulations to all on excellent work!

Jack Homer

Best Poster Award

Attendees of the Monday Symposium (July 21, 2008) voted to present the Best Poster Award to Erik Pruyt for his presentation of "Dealing with Multiple Perspectives: Using Cultural Profiles in System Dynamics." The winner, as well as the runners up were the given certificates.

Honorable Mention posters included (not in order):

• Model on Food Security in Development Countries: A Systemic Perspective by Diana Giraldo, Santiago Arango and Manuel Betancur.
• A Dynamic Simulation Model of Academic Publications and Citations by Bilge Kucuk, Nisa Onsel and Burak Eskici

Dr. David Lane Wins Student Nominated Teaching Excellence Award for System Dynamics Course

From LSE, Operational Research Group website:

Dr. David Lane has received a teaching excellence award for his course 'System Dynamics Modelling', after students on the Masters degrees in both Operational Research and Decision Sciences nominated him for one of only five awards given in 2007-8 by LSE's Students' Union.

The Students' Union instituted the LSE Teaching Excellence Awards in order to raise the profile of teaching across the School, and to acknowledge the effort and enthusiasm invested in teaching and the support of learning by academic staff. Up to five awards are made each year. The awards aim to acknowledge any member of LSE staff involved in teaching who has inspired students, helped them get to grips with complex or challenging ideas, encouraged their learning, changed their view on the world or helped them to "understand the cause of things" better.

Students attending the MSc course 'OR431 - System Dynamics Modelling' each wrote in considerable detail about what they believe Dr. Lane brought to their learning. Here are just a few of the comments that they submitted in support of his nomination:

"David's enthusiasm and passion for the subject inspired me."
"Demonstrated professionalism, sense of humour and ability to keep audience attention at the highest possible level..."
"Makes you think more profoundly about everyday phenomena..."
"He has changed the way I think."
"He's all about tough love.. you can't attend his class without attempting the problem."
"Born to share his knowledge, no matter what level you are born with..."

And finally....

"The best teacher I have had and probably will have."
"Makes this MSc course stand out.. compared to other Schools."

Congratulations David!

Website with a Philanthropic Twist

Andrew Ryan has created ChicoGraduate.com, a business website with a philanthropic twist. Along with creating a useful business website for working graduates and businesses he's planning to raise money to help severely injured soldiers. A percentage of the websites profits will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit organization that rehabilitates physically and mentally wounded soldiers. Andrew studied system dynamics at California State University Chico.

Announcements

The proceedings of the PhD Colloquium in Athens are now available

The proceedings of the past PhD Colloquium in Athens are now available on the new Student Chapter website. They contain information on all active participants, a descriptive summary of the colloquium, and the papers of all presenters. You can directly access the proceedings here.

Nici Zimmermann

Special Issue: Journal of Business Research

George Richardson (Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany) and Peter Otto (Union Graduate College, School of Management) served as guest editors for a special issue of the Journal of Business Research (JBR) on applications of system dynamics in business markets.

The special issue of JBR, Volume 61, Number 11, November 2008, consists of 10 articles, illustrating a range of applications of modeling and simulation in marketing and related business areas. The ten papers in this special issue were selected from submissions to attend a two-day workshop on applications of system dynamics in business markets at the Johnson School of Management, Cornell University, in June 2007. A review board comprised of system dynamics and management scholars evaluated the papers. The academic program of the workshop consisted of presentations followed by in-depth discussions of every paper which was presented. The panel also voted on a best-paper award to acknowledge outstanding academic work in the scope of this workshop, which went to Charles F. Nicholson and Harry M. Kaiser for their paper "Dynamic Market Impacts of Generic Dairy Advertising."

Special issue on "Supply Chain Forecasting and Planning" in Journal of the Operational Research Society

Papers are invited for a special issue on "Supply Chain Forecasting and Planning" of the Journal of the Operational Research Society. Empirical and theoretical papers that consider this topic and make a significant contribution to the field will be considered for publication. Real-world applications and case-studies are particularly welcome.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Bullwhip effect in the supply chain
• Forecasting support systems
• Hierarchical forecasting
• Knowledge sharing and organisational learning
• Logistic planning systems
• Multi echelon supply chains
• Performance measurement and management
• Product categorisation for forecasting and logistics planning
• System dynamics.

Submission deadline: April 30, 2009

Papers should be submitted through the journal's online submission system on the OR Society's website by clicking on the 'Submit paper - JORS' button (Instructions for authors). Please indicate that your paper is being submitted to the Special issue on "Supply Chain Forecasting and Planning" by mentioning this on the "explanation of the contribution" field on the submission page.

Brian Dangerfield

International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility

The first International Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Conference will be held in Lahore, Pakistan in November 25- 26, 2008. International delegates from various international corporations are being invited to attend as well as present papers. Find detailed information about the conference at the official website of the event.

Seema Arif

ISSS 2009 - Making Liveable, Sustainable Systems Unremarkable
53rd Meeting of The International Society for the Systems Sciences
JULY 12-17, 2009

Hosted by:
The University of Queensland, School of Natural and Rural Systems Management, Brisbane, AUSTRALIA &
the Australia New Zealand Systems Group (ANZSYS)

Some commentators regard liveability as a more local or short-term manifestation of sustainability while others see it as a necessary but insufficient pre-requisite of sustainability" (Brook Lyndhurst 2004). In practice however, this has not prevented unsustainable actions in the name of liveability. Transport, for example is one such area in which the "pursuit of personal 'liveability' can conflict with the liveability of whole neighborhoods and the community, and more widely with that of sustainable development". There are many examples of how liveability, especially in urban and peri-urban areas is affected by the ability of people to have access to and benefit from a physical and cultural environment, key facilities and services, and a secure and supportive community, e.g. environmental markets and emissions trading - Do people want to pay?; the environmental sustainability of increasing longevity through improved health systems; food security and land use; utilizing scarce arable land for food or fuel?

Liveability appears to be a constraint on what sustainability will be. However, it is the question for sustainability to address the issue of liveability related to:

"for whom" (speaks of people prepared to sacrifice for the longer run;
"for how long" (addresses the aftermath of liveability decisions);
"at what costs" (is the cost less than for easy liveability);
"of what" (identification of what comes when a particular liveability scenario is over).

The Question we ask is if liveability can be achieved in cooperation with achieving sustainability or are these concepts in conflict. More important, how can we as systems scientists help to make Liveable, Sustainable Systems Unremarkable - especially in a society where systems thinking is often kept out of science and mainstream problem solving?

Kambiz Maani and Ockie Bosch

Bibliography Update

The System Dynamics Bibliography is updated every six months. Members may download the bibliography for free. Please send your new references to the Society office. We ask your help in improving the accuracy and usefulness of the Bibliography. Please check your entries for correctness; send any edits (including deletions of entries that have been superseded) to the Society office. Find the Bibliography on the Society website; go to Publications/Bibliography.

Membership Renewals

If you have not yet renewed, please do so now to ensure uninterrupted member services! It is simple to renew. Please visit the Society website and click on Members/Join or Renew. You may join using the online process, by mail or fax, or just call!

System Dynamics Newsletter is published four times every. Please send us your letters, news, photographs, and ideas to be included in one of the newsletters! Additionally, if you would like to contribute an article of interest to our community, please send your suggestion to the Society office.

All past newsletters, since January1988, are available on the Society website; go to Publications/Newsletters.

Back to Contents in page 1

How to Contact Us
System Dynamics Society