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System
Dynamics NEWSLETTER Volume 17 –
Number 4 October 2004 |
Thank you
Many thanks to all who
contributed their writing, photographs, and information to this issue of the
newsletter: Nam-Sung Ahn, Monica
Altamirano, Klaus Breuer, Dean Christensen, Brian Dangerfield, Pierre J.
Ehrlich, Valerie Gacogne, Andreas Größler, Burak Güneralp, Gary Hirsch, Wouter
Jongebreur, Birgit Kopainsky, Corey Lofdahl, Ignacio Martinez-Moyano, Geoff
McDonnell, Rutger Mooy, George Papaioannou, Ken Parsons, Anastássios
(Tasso) Perdicoúlis, Scott Rockart, Etiënne Rouwette, Nadine Schieritz, George
Stamboulis, Silvia Ulli-Beer, Qifan Wang, Khaled Wahba, Yan Xing, Carlos Yepez,
and Aldo Zagonel.
Adapted from the President’s Address given at the
International System Dynamics Conference in Oxford, England, July 27, 2004.
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Society President Bob Eberlein |
Dear Members of the System Dynamics Society,
It is an honor for me to present this year’s Presidential Address. I would like to share with you my own reflections on the state of both the System Dynamics Society and the field of system dynamics. I will start by providing a brief history of the Society from my perspective, as well as my own introduction to the field of system dynamics. From this vantage point I will talk about both the good and bad things in the state of our community, and the implications I feel these have for the things we need to do going forward.
Overview
The System Dynamics Society was founded in 1983 during a conference at Pine Manor College in Boston. That conference is now referred to as the first conference of the System Dynamics Society, even though it was organized before the Society existed. It was a small conference, consisting mostly of people who knew each other, and during the conference David Andersen, John Morecroft and others decided it was time to start the System Dynamics Society. I was a graduate student at the time and was one of the people who volunteered to recruit new members. The Society was started with the goal of holding an annual conference. A governing body was elected and eventually a journal was started, but more on that later.
The important thing is that 2004 marks the 21st birthday of the System Dynamics Society. In the United States that is the age at which people can legally drink, and it is expected to be a time when the maturity of adulthood takes over from the folly of youth. This is also happening with the Society, at least the maturity part. The governing body is made up of committed officers and members of the Policy Council. We have a professionally run office with two full time people – Roberta Spencer and Jennifer Rowe - as well as a number of part time people. We have a growing membership that is getting very close to one thousand and hopefully will surpass that number in the near future.
The growth and strength of the Society is a reflection on the field. In the end it is the work that matters. Our ability to improve knowledge, understanding, decision making and design of social and other dynamic systems is what we all work toward. The Society is the most visible aspect of system dynamics, representing a gateway to the work in the field through our journal, annual conference, bibliography, web site and member communication.
The State and History of the Society
In recent years the Society has been growing at a rate of about seven percent and is now approaching one thousand members. We have a dedicated professional staff that, until 2004, had been growing relatively quickly and has now leveled off. In fact, the staffing level for 2004 was slightly below that for 2003, and for 2005 we expect to go back to where we were in 2003. We are also much better positioned to achieve a planned evolution, though there is still work to be done on that. There has, in the last several years, been very significant growth in both Chapters and Special Interest Groups within the Society, an indication of the breadth of interest both geographically and for different areas of application.
When the Society was founded it engaged in a fairly minimal set of activities. The basic aim was to hold an annual conference, and that was done by finding someone willing to take on the responsibility of doing a tough job, but the organizers did it and we had small but great conferences. With the aim of increasing the accessibility of work in the field George Richardson worked extremely hard to launch the System Dynamics Review as a self-published refereed journal dedicated to getting out the best work in the field – the first issue of which was published in 1985. With growing membership there came growing administrative tasks and at about this same time Julie Pugh volunteered to act as the Executive Director of the Society. It was an unpaid position for which Julie worked very hard and one of the special challenges was trying to both understand and follow up on the usually vague decisions of the Policy Council.
In 1991 publication of the System Dynamics Review was taken over by Wiley, with George remaining on as the Editor. Because we had only volunteer support for Society activities, the agreement with Wiley included them managing our membership list. This lessened the burden on Julie sufficiently that she was able to continue supporting the Society on a volunteer basis, and provided the opportunity to get into the business of selling the Beer Game. Beginning in 1996 we transitioned the position of Executive Director from the volunteer efforts of Julie Pugh, to Roberta Spencer as an employee contracted through SUNY Albany. Roberta actually started half time, but as her activities and responsibilities increased she moved to full time and additional people began to work in the office.
The Central Office of the Society is engaged in three major activities, member support, product sales and conference. To pay for these activities we rely on membership income, sponsorship, product sales and conference revenue. The budget is designed so that sponsorship, product sales and conference revenue can be used to subsidize member support. The intention is to make membership in the Society as accessible and worthwhile as possible to the largest number of people. Though this subsidization is intentional, it is still a challenge to balance it so that unrealistic sponsorship demands are not created and conference fees do not get too high. Up until this year that challenge was getting more and more difficult and we were facing budget shortfalls that meant declining reserves.
This year we renegotiated the Wiley contract to take over the management of membership and change the way payments are made. The net result is that, without changing the membership fee, we will receive substantially more revenue with a significantly smaller increase in the administrative burden. We have decreased the extent to which member services require subsidization. This allows us to more easily balance the budget and move toward a well thought out and sustainable plan going forward.
There is still work to be done on this. We need to put more thought into balancing the subsidization to meet the needs of the Society. At the same time there is a necessity to manage the workload at the Central Office. We need to maintain quality without placing an undue burden on the staff. We also need to plan for the evolution of the Central Office staff and assure that everyone is compensated at a level that is appropriate given their assigned tasks, seniority and performance.
I have been focusing strongly on the Central Office, but the Society is broader than that and there are additional initiatives underway to strengthen the Society. Notable among them is a committee working toward increasing diversity, especially the number of women in the Society. The survey that came with the membership renewal forms was part of this activity. We are also working on making scholarships available. This will be done for conferences by waiving registration fees and when possible, providing some accommodation support (this will be done next year as part of the contract with the hotel). Free membership in the Society will also be made available to a limited number of people who would not otherwise be able to join with the goal of increasing geographic diversity.
So my overall assessment is that the Society is strong and growing. Its organization is good, and getting better. Society members share a strong set of core values including a desire to be inclusive, respect for the work of others and a love of system dynamics.
System Dynamics
With my perspective on the Society in place I would like to share my perspective on the field: what it is to me, how I connected to it, what success means, how we are doing and what we should do.
It has always fascinated me the amount of time we spend trying to decide what system dynamics is. It sometimes shows up as a conference topic, it is constantly being discussed and while there are always points of agreement there are also disagreements. I know that some people get irritated by this; I have myself at times. But fundamentally I think it is a good thing. I don’t think we need a clear universally accepted definition. The ongoing debate can help prevent us from being stifled by our own perceptions of what we do. I would, however, like to share the way I think about the field.
My introduction to system dynamics occurred in 1981. I had done an undergraduate degree in economics and wanted to continue with my PhD but was dissatisfied with what economics had to offer. A friend of mine had met Peter Senge at a World Futures conference and Peter talked about the National Model work being done at MIT. He sent me a short write-up and I became really intrigued. I decided to go to the Sloan School and focus on economics and system dynamics.
Arriving at MIT, I enrolled in a system dynamics course, then went to Jay Forrester and told him I wanted to work on the National Model project. Jay’s immediate response was no! He told me I didn’t have the background and to talk to him in a year or two. I protested, and told him I really wanted to do it, and he gave in. If Jay had stuck to his rule of always saying no two times, I am not sure what would have happened. But it all worked out and here I am.
I think about what I do as the “purposeful study of behavior.” By purposeful I mean the application of the principles of science which have hypothesis creation and rejection at their heart. By behavior I mean looking at interactions and changes over time.
Nowhere in this nutshell of how I think about what I do did I mention feedback or simulation. For me these are simply the most powerful ways to understand behavior in a purposeful way, and that is why I love doing what I do. System dynamics is a means to an end, the best one available, but still a means.
Beyond simply the number of members in the Society how do we measure the success of system dynamics? There are a number of dimensions to this, though they can be summarized by quantity and quality. Quantity is simple the number of people working in the field, while quality includes the areas of application and the correctness of results.
As I have already said, we are growing as a Society. While the same is true of the number of practitioners, it is also true that we are a tiny number of people in the greater scheme of things. An important question related to the number of practitioners is whether we are a niche field. Is system dynamics something that everyone can and should learn, or is it something that will never be used by more than a tiny fraction of people? That is a question I often ask myself, and I don’t really know the answer. Certainly it is hard work to do good system dynamics and it is not clear how many people are really capable. If we are a niche discipline then we need to focus on influencing others (good presentations). If we are not a niche discipline, than we should grow ourselves with tools for making it easier to do. Either way more education at all levels is likely to be helpful.
It is hard to find fault with the breadth and importance of application areas. There are lots of hard problems and it is possible to make some progress on almost all of them. Not all the hard problems are equally important, and we would do well to stick to the most important ones. Few of us, of course, have the luxury of picking any problem we want to work on. Funding sources, ease of publication, finding a suitable client and availability of information and other constraints tend to push us in certain directions. Work in public policy, organizational issues, resources, energy and the environment is always welcome, and there is a great deal of this work presented at our conference. Good work done in consulting engagements often does not get published or publicized and this is a loss to the field.
A simple definition of quality might be getting the answer right. We continue to make progress in techniques for finding the things wrong with our models and unraveling the insights they contain through behavioral, structural and statistical analysis. Understanding model boundaries, and interpreting and communicating results is key to providing problem-owners with solutions, and there continue to be developments in these areas. Some of this progress rests on corresponding developments in computer technology and some on our own ingenuity, but progress continues.
Getting people to do something about it seems to be a bigger challenge. While many claim to be open to being shown the error of their ways, few people actually are. Most, when confronted with counterintuitive results, are more likely to dismiss the results than their intuition. Doing something about that requires being more persuasive, improving the ability of people to grasp the counterintuitive with education, or changing the rules by which we deal with the people making decisions. All of these are tough, and have potential pitfalls, and all are being pursued. Certainly as more people get actively involved in the practice of system dynamics the implementation challenge becomes less difficult.
State of the Field
In summary, there are many good things about where we are right now.
We have a growing base of practitioners, researchers and proponents in business, public policy, education and basic science. There are a wide variety of problem approaches as demonstrated at our conference and in our journal and we are accepting and open-minded about alternative approaches. We are developing education networks at all levels: primary, secondary, post secondary, graduate and professional. We have a number of subject area and geography specific communities forming within the larger system dynamics community.
Balancing this are some things that are not as good as they might be. We tend not to be sufficiently critical of our own work. We are still a small number of people relative to most academic disciplines. The educational opportunities in the field are not widely dispersed and there are often mismatches between interest and opportunity. There are not as many documented applications as there could be and follow-through is often weak.
So what should the system dynamics community do? In education distance learning, rigorous short courses (boot camps) and more widely available resources can all help to increase accessibility. Great things are happening here, with the WPI distance program and the MIT online course material being two good examples. The more applications that are written up and documented the more visibility and reference material we will have. The work we do outstrips the record we keep of it and we need to write more about applications. Software is fundamental to work in system dynamics and it is important that people who use the software know how to get more rigorous training in the field. Finally as a community we need to make ourselves easy to join, and give people reason to stay.
The Society helps in all of these things, and can help to do more. Community building is a major role of the Society and there are low effort ways through email mailing lists and web support to help with communication. Though the Society is not directly in the education business, we certainly help by making people aware of the opportunities and resources available. One of the key roles of the Society going forward will be to help with coordination and provide an intellectual meeting ground so that all people working in system dynamics can speed their progress.
Finally, what can you do? First and foremost do great work, both applications and theory. You should be proud to show your best stuff. If you are consulting then do what you need to protect sensitive information, but still bring your work forward. Demand rigor of yourself, your colleagues and your clients. Finally, be part of the community building. There are now a large number of Chapters and Special Interest Groups; join one and add to the conversation.
Bob Eberlein Back to Table of Contents
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Executive Director Roberta L. Spencer |
“Owning” Our Membership – A Full Circle
As you know, all Society membership activities are being taken over from Wiley by the Society’s central office. This means that you will no longer receive membership correspondence from Wiley; instead, renewal notices and invoices will be sent directly from the Society’s central office. Though this is a relatively big change for us now, it is not really something completely new. The history of managing our membership, our relation with Wiley, and even why the System Dynamics Review has a gray cover is an interesting one.
In the President’s Address Bob Eberlein has mentioned that in 1985 Julie Pugh became the volunteer Executive Director of the new System Dynamics Society. In these very early days, our membership management was a home-based operation. Julie maintained the membership database started by Nathan Forrester on a Mac computer he donated. When the Mac grew too old to continue, Julie’s husband, Jack, converted the database to the PC. In our archives we have all this early membership data on 8” floppy disks accompanied by pages and pages of yellowed-with-age continuous feed paper with dot matrix printing. Julie held this position for twelve years until she retired.
Bob has also told you about the launch of the System Dynamics Review. Just as today, a membership benefit was to receive a subscription to the Review. The members of the brand-new society expected a journal. The recently formed Publications Committee, and the VP Publications George Richardson, set out to produce the first, long-awaited issue. Eric Wolstenholme was the Editor of Dynamica, and its paper backlog was turned over to become the first issue of the System Dynamics Review. Eric became our first Executive Editor, to be followed by George in 1988.
In 1984 and well into 1985, George had been in the process of negotiating with three short-listed publishers: John Wiley & Sons (US based), Elsevier, and MIT Press. Initially, all three were interested, but in May 1985, they all chose not to publish our journal. Shortsightedly, they did not think we were a sufficiently viable growing discipline and not financially promising for them. The membership was anxiously anticipating delivery of the first issue of the journal, it was already May, and there was nothing! Without further delay, George contacted a small publishing firm called Editorial Inc.; they quickly helped locate a designer and copy editor. A printer in Albany was found. With the help of the copy editor the first double issue was produced and mailed by December 1985.
Why is the cover of the journal gray? Was it the knowing insight
of the designer? Is there some special meaning? A piece of memorabilia I’ve
learned sheds light on this. George surveyed the Publications Committee and
others about what the journal should look like. Jay Forrester’s reply: he
didn’t care what color it was so long as it looked like the paint on a Mercedes. With this visual cue, George found just the
right shade of gray.
In a short four years, around 1989, John Wiley & Sons (based in England) became interested in and excited about the System Dynamics Review. They saw the Review as the premiere systems journal in the world and proposed an acquisition. As an added incentive, Wiley offered to manage our membership, lifting a growing burden from a volunteer operation. Volume 7, Number 1 (1991) was published by Wiley and they took over managing the membership/subscription list. Today, Wiley still publishes our journal. Bob reported last month that we now have a new contract with Wiley that will be effective through the end of 2010. This continues to be a strong and mutually beneficial relationship.
The central office’s “owning” of membership activities begins with the renewal campaign for 2005. Last month we mailed each of our members a personalized renewal form. It was in the same envelope with Newsletter #3 and the Boston Call for Papers, so I am hopeful the renewal form was not overlooked. This is clearly the first time we are doing this, but from the responses so far, everything seems to be working! If you have your renewal form, please complete it and send it to us with payment. A US check in dollars drawn on a US bank is the easiest method for us to process. For many of you, of course, that is not practical. We can accept credit card payments either through mailing or faxing the renewal form. Wire transfers can also be arranged. Please call the office for details.
Additionally, Society members may now complete membership renewal and fee payment online. If you have not already renewed, please use the unique link sent to you in the email announcing this newsletter. An online form with a secure payment button is available. We are offering this new service for your convenience, hoping to make renewing easier. Please feel free to try this new service, or simply return the personalized renewal form sent to you last month by post. Also, a generic printable version of the membership form can be found on the Society webpage “How to Join or Renew.”
One of our goals is to provide prompt, accurate and personalized membership services. By bringing home our membership renewals, we can continuously improve our service to you. Any questions you might have on membership status should be directed to the Society’s central office. As always, please feel free to contact the office with any comments or recommendations. We strive to make it as easy and rewarding as possible to become and remain a member of the System Dynamics Society, and we are always interested in your ideas.
Roberta L. Spencer Back to Table of Contents
Dana Meadows Student Award Endowment Fund Drive Announcement
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Dana Meadows Photo by Stuart Bratesman, Dartmouth College |
Matching gift program doubles your contribution!
Here’s a challenge we hope you can’t resist. The System Dynamics Society announces a fundraising drive to permanently endow the Dana Meadows Student Award, given for the best work by students presented at the annual conference of the Society. Through the generosity of a diverse group of Dana’s colleagues, former students, and supporters of the Society, your donation will be fully matched, doubling the value of your gift, until we reach the overall goal of $60,000. Help us permanently endow the Award and support the future of the field of system dynamics—the students.
Background: In 2001 the System Dynamics Society created a new award to recognize the best student work presented at the annual conference. The prize honors the late Dana Meadows, an inspiring and devoted teacher, by encouraging and recognizing the work of students, the future leaders of the field (below is a description of the Award).
The Meadows Award has been a
great success. At the 2004 conference in Oxford there were 40 submissions,
about 10% of all participants at the conference! The quality of the students’
work has also increased dramatically. Even more important, the Award is
catalyzing growing participation and interest in the field of system dynamics
by students from all over the world. It is empowering the newest generation in
our field to become more active in the Society and profession, a wonderful
sign.
Up till now, Jane and Allen
Boorstein have generously funded the Award. We are indebted to the Boorsteins
for their strong and continuing support. However, Jane and Allen have urged the
Society to put the Award on a more sustainable financial footing. In response, the
Policy Council of the Society unanimously and enthusiastically voted to
authorize the creation of the endowment fund and fund drive, and urges all
supporters of the Society and field of system dynamics to give what they can. Our goal is $60,000. To help reach it, a group of Dana’s
colleagues, former students, and supporters of the Society have pledged to
match your donations, until the overall goal of $60,000 is met. Through the generosity of these donors, every dollar you
give will be doubled.
Now it’s up to you, the members of the Society. Please contribute
whatever you can to make this tribute to Dana
sustainable. It would be wonderful to announce that we have met our goal at the
2005 conference, but the campaign remains open at least until we meet our goal.
All contributions are tax
deductible (in the US). You can contribute by check, credit card, wire
transfer, and online. Click here to go directly to the contributions
form that includes payment options. Information about the Award and
how to contribute can be found on the System Dynamics Society website.
The FAQ below provides details relating to the Award, fund management, and contributions.
Many thanks!
John Sterman, Roberta Spencer, Michael Radzicki, Drew Jones, and John Morecroft Back to Table of Contents
Frequently Asked Questions
How is my contribution matched?
A group of Dana’s colleagues, former students, and other supporters of the System Dynamics Society have pledged to match all donations to the endowment fund, until we reach the overall goal of $60,000. Every dollar you give has double the impact.
Is my contribution tax deductible?
Yes. The System Dynamics Society is a non-profit educational institution. All contributions are tax deductible in the United States. Tax laws in other nations vary.
Who selects the Meadows Award winners and sets policy related to the Award?
The Award Committee, appointed by the Policy Council and now chaired by John Morecroft (London Business School), will continue to be responsible for the award competition, judging, selection of winners, and award related policy such as possible changes in eligibility criteria or judging procedures. Following the 2004 conference in Oxford the panel of judges was expanded to provide greater gender, regional and institutional diversity.
Who manages the endowment fund?
The ownership of the fund will be vested with the System Dynamics Society, a not-for-profit organization based in the United States. The Society office will manage the fund, with input from the VP Finance and our accountants. The fund will be invested with the goal of maximizing income while preserving principal.
How may the fund be used?
To the extent possible, the expenses associated with the Award will be paid out of the income generated by the endowment fund. To ensure the goal of the endowment and the Society that the fund remains viable in perpetuity, the principal will not be used to pay awards or other expenses. Earnings in excess of expenses will be reinvested in the endowment fund.
The income from the endowment fund may be used for the prize and travel stipend awarded to the winner(s), and for other direct expenses such as the cost of plaques or certificates given to the winner(s) and runners-up. However, fund income is not to be used to cover administrative or other expenses incurred by the Society, Award Committee or judges. Final authority with respect to issues relating to the administration of the fund rests with the Policy Council.
The purpose of the fund is to honor Dana Meadows by encouraging the participation of students in the field of system dynamics. In the event that the income from the fund grows to exceed what may reasonably be spent to do so, the Society may, with the approval of the Policy Council, Award Committee, and VP Finance, reallocate the income from the fund to other uses that benefit the Society and field of system dynamics. It is expected that such reallocation would occur only in unusual circumstances, and only after the income from the fund grows beyond what may reasonably be required in the future to increase the Award, travel stipend, and endowment principal to keep pace with inflation and other changes in circumstances.
Yes! I want to double my impact!* How can I
contribute?
You can contribute by check, wire transfer, credit card, or online. Make your check (in US Dollars drawn on a US bank) payable to “System Dynamics Society” and send it to Roberta Spencer, System Dynamics Society, Milne Hall 300, Rockefeller College, 135 Western Avenue, University at Albany, Albany, NY 12222 USA. Click here to go directly to the contributions form that includes payment options. Information about the Award and how to contribute can be found on the System Dynamics Society website. Questions? Email Roberta Spencer at system.dynamics@albany.edu
On behalf of the Society, we thank you in advance for your generous contribution!
* The first $30,000 in
contributions will be fully matched, doubling the value of your gift. Back to Table of Contents
DANA MEADOWS STUDENT AWARD
(From the call for nominations prepared by John Morecroft, chair of the Awards committee)
The Dana Meadows Student Award symbolizes the System Dynamics Society’s commitment to students in two ways. It brings recognition to the very best student work. It also honors, in an enduring way, the life and work of Dana Meadows. For the purpose of the award, a student is anyone enrolled in an accredited program of study, in any subject. The winner receives a certificate, a cash award of $500, and up to $700 toward registration and travel for the conference at which the paper is presented. In addition three papers are selected for honourable mention and the authors receive a certificate. Students are strongly encouraged to attend the conference and present their work. However, under exceptional circumstances the winner or runners-up may be recognised without attendance. A winner who is unable to attend will still receive the cash award but will not receive travel or registration expenses.
Dana Meadows is remembered as an eloquent sustainability advocate and environmental writer. But she was also, and arguably foremost, a teacher -- one exceptionally committed to her students and their development not only intellectually but in all ways. Honoring Dana through this award recognizes her work as an inspiring teacher and mentor of young people, and sets a standard for what good modeling is. The award will help develop the next generation of systems thinkers and modelers according to her ideals. Her unusually high level of integrity in all things extended to high standards for modeling, for documentation, and for exposing assumptions. The words of two of her (now distinguished) former students embody the spirit and intention of the prize:
“On occasions when I might be tempted to cut corners in modeling work (what modeler hasn't faced these), envisioning Dana across the table, posing her gentle but piercing queries, was one of the things that helped keep me honest.”
“Dana knew better than most of us that the leverage points for changing a system often lie far from the symptoms of difficulty. She would understand that an application of system dynamics to issues apparently not connected to sustainability might very well promote her goals, not only her goals of creating a sustainable and just society but of promoting integrity and honesty in our analysis of problems, whatever and wherever they may be.”
For more information, including a list of the past winners, please visit: http://www.systemdynamics.org/conf2004/DHMaward.htm
Member News Back to Table of Contents
Eric F. Wolstenholme Wins Forrester Award
The Jay Wright Forrester Award recognizes the author of the best contribution to the field of system dynamics in the preceding five years. The winner in 2004 was Eric F. Wolstenholme for his paper “Towards the Definition and Use of a Core Set of Archetypal Structures in System Dynamics,” published in the System Dynamics Review 19 (1) Spring 2003. The citation and the winner’s speech (delivered at the Award Ceremony in Oxford, England) will be published in full in the System Dynamics Review. The recipient receives a commemorative plaque and US$5,000.
Below is a short excerpt from the
citation.
One nominator noted that,
“This paper added to our literature in several significant ways:
· It showed that archetypes had a role in both
conceptualizing and communicating system dynamics models.
· It showed that system archetypes can be reduced to a core
set of four totally generic archetypes, consisting of the four ways of ordering
a pair of reinforcing and balancing feed back loops. Thus all existing
archetypes are in fact semi-generic and can be mapped onto the four generic
types.
· It separated for the first time ‘problem’ and solutions
archetypes. Previous drawings of
archetypes had confused problem and solution links.”
David Andersen
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David F. Andersen, Member of the Awards Committee,
and Award Winner Eric F. Wolstenholme |
Dana Meadows Student Prize Awarded in Oxford
This year’s winner of the Dana Meadows Prize for the best student paper presented at the annual conference was Hazhir Rahmandad, MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts, USA. Hazhir’s paper was entitled “Heterogeneity and Network Structure in the Dynamics of Contagion: Comparing Agent-Based and Differential Equation Models.” The awards committee called Hazhir’s paper “An excellent methodological paper on a timely topic, comparing system dynamics and agent-based models…Classic contagion models are well understood in both the system dynamics and agent-based literature. Bridging this literature, Hazhir constructs parallel models to shed light on the implicit aggregation assumptions in system dynamics, the elegant parsimony of differential equation models, the inner workings of agent-based simulators, the conditions under which agent-based models converge exactly with differential equation models, the conditions that lead to significant differences in simulated behaviour, and the potential policy implications of such differences. Because of the care taken in setting up comparable models, the world of agent-based modelling is made much more accessible to the system dynamics community and vice-versa.”
Honorable mentions,
all equally ranked, went to (in alphabetical order):
Necdet Serhat Aybat, Sinem Daysal, Burcu Tan and Fulden
Topaloğlu, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul,
Turkey, for “Decision Making Tests with Different Variations of The Stock
Management Game.”
Gökhan Dogan, MIT, Massachusetts, USA for “Confidence Interval Estimation in System Dynamics Models: Bootstrapping vs. Likelihood Ratio Method.”
Jeroen Struben, MIT, Massachusetts, USA, for “Technology Transitions: Identifying Challenges for Hydrogen Vehicles.”
Building on the success of the award the Society has
launched a campaign to permanently endow the Meadows Prize. Through the generous pledges of a group of
Dana’s former students, colleagues, and other supporters of the Society, your
gift to the endowment fund will be fully matched! To see how you can double the
impact of your gift, scroll up to the announcement, or use this link.
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Award Sponsor Allen Boorstein, Dana Meadows Student
Prize Committee Chair John Morecroft, Sinem Daysal, Necdet Serhat Aybat,
Gökhan Dogan, and Jeroen Struben (Hazhir Rahmandad is missing from the
photograph.) |
New PhD’s Back to Table of Contents
It is our pleasure to announce members of the Society who have recently received their PhD’s.
Kevin Seel
“Boom and Bust” Cycles in Power Plant Construction: A Simulation Study
of the Temporal and Geographical Aspects of the Alberta Competitive Electrical
Industry. Department of Geography,
University of Calgary, 2004.
Lazaros V.
Petrides “Economics, Critical Realism and System
Dynamics,” University of Salford, July 2004.
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David L. Cooke successfully defended his PhD thesis “The Dynamics and Control of Operational Risks” on April 16, 2004. Andy Ford was the external examiner on the committee at the Haskayne School of Business,University of Calgary. Additionally the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) and the Health Quality Council of Alberta (HQCA) are pleased to announce the first HQCA Fellowship in Patient Safety has been awarded to Dr. David L. Cooke in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary. The purpose of the new, one-year fellowship, which is supported by HQCA and administered by AHFMR, is to examine issues around patient safety throughout Alberta’s health system—from regional community health to health services in urban centres. The Council is interested in research that will lead to improved methods of patient safety and can be rapidly implemented into healthcare. Dr. Cooke’s research is focused on safety system dynamics. He will work with colleagues at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary to examine data and systems involved in radiation treatment delivery.
Paulo Gonçalves Receives Dissertation Award
Paulo Gonçalves has received the 2004 Doctoral Dissertation
Award by the Council of Logistics Management (CLM) for his dissertation,
“Demand Bubbles and Phantom Orders in Supply Chains.” In his thesis Paulo
develops system dynamics models of demand bubbles in supply chains, with case
studies in the semiconductor, telecom and hybrid seed industries. CLM provides
an award for a doctoral dissertation in logistics or a related field that
demonstrates significant originality and technical competence while contributing
to the logistics knowledge base. The purpose of the award is to encourage
research leading to advancement of the theory and practice of logistics
management. Paulo received his PhD in system dynamics at the MIT Sloan School.
His dissertation committee consisted of Gabriel Bitran, Charlie Fine, Jim
Hines, Jim Rice, and John Sterman.
Paulo is now a faculty member at the University of Miami (Paulo Gonçalves paulog@miami.edu). Congratulations to Paulo for a job well done!
Brian Dangerfield Gave His Inaugural Lecture
Late last year Brian Dangerfield gave his Inaugural
Lecture. This is a public lecture and is a custom in the UK in many
universities following promotion of the individual to full professor. Brian was
promoted in August 2000 and the delivery lag of 3 years is not untypical!
An Inaugural Lecture is designed to appeal to a lay
audience as well as informed specialists. With three mayors and their wives on
the front row, not to mention Brian’s three daughters, one stepdaughter and all
their boyfriends it was as well that this maxim was adhered to!
The lecture title was “The Pursuit of Understanding:
modelling dynamic behaviour in disease, life and love”. Brian firstly reviewed
the basics of system dynamics including stock-flow diagrams, delays and the
ways in which interaction effects generate adaptive feedback in a system so
making it difficult to fully understand its behaviour without the aid of a
model.
He then recounted various examples of applications of the structure
of coupled positive and negative loops which has coincidentally been the
structure underpinning a number of models developed in his research. Thus the
HIV-AIDS epidemic model was described charting its progress from a student
project model of 13 equations in 1987 to a fairly complex model of some 360
equations when used to examine health resource implications and the effects of
HAART in 2001.
“Life” was given
coverage by reference to a simple model of a short-term fashion item, the
diffusion of innovations, the prospects for sustainable tourism in island
tourist economies, the rise and fall of superclubs (house music dance clubs) in
the UK and Brian’s current research on modelling the management of economic
growth in Sarawak, E. Malaysia.
Finally, his treatment of “love” explored the dynamics of
male-female relationships. He identified four reference modes: two were
sustainable futures “Golden Wedding” and “Ami et Odi” (Love and Hate) and two
were endgames “We’re still good friends” and “Mutual Loathing”. By reference to
various UK and European statistics on marriage, divorce and co-habitation,
Brian speculated on the likely frequencies of
“sustainable futures” and “endgames”.
Brian Dangerfield Back to Table of Contents
Photos from the Oxford Conference are posted on the Society
website at http://www.systemdynamics.org/conf2004/pictures/index.html–please take a look.
From the 2004 Conference Organizing Team, thanks!
PhD Colloquium (Sunday)
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The International PhD Colloquium is an event of the System Dynamics Student Chapter. It has been organized by PhD students and held on the Sunday before the conference week every year for the last five years. Its objective is to bring together PhD students who are involved in System Dynamics research and to give them the opportunity to raise key questions and/or concerns related to their research and discuss these in depth in a constructive and enjoyable atmosphere.
This year, the 5th International PhD Colloquium was organized by Burak Güneralp from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The all-day colloquium was held, as usual, on Sunday, July 25. It started at 9 in the morning and ended at about 6:30 in the evening.
This year’s colloquium has been the most versatile ever! First, there was a panel session in the morning, followed by three oral presentation sessions in the afternoon; and the final event of the day was a poster session. Conveniently scheduled coffee-breaks gave the participants a chance to refresh themselves once in a while. The meal, at lunchtime, was also superb…
The colloquium opened with a panel on “the Career Options for Life after PhD”. The panel was organized by Birgit Kopainsky of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The panelists were two academicians and one consultant: Etiënne Rouwette from the Nijmegen University, Oleg Pavlov from the WIP, and Dennis Sherwood from the Silver Bullet Machine Manufacturing Company. In the accompanying lively discussion environment, they shared with us their experiences and their views on both academic and non-academic career issues.
Three oral presentation sessions followed the panel in the afternoon. At each session, there were two back-to-back 20-minute presentations followed by two parallel 35-minute workshops, one for each presenter. During the workshops, the presenters were able to discuss issues related to their research topics in more detail with the interested participants and get feedback from them.
Finally, there was a one-hour poster session scheduled in order to give all the students who have submitted a proposal the chance to present their work. There were five posters in this session. Though scheduled to last one hour the poster session actually lasted two hours as a result of the continuing rigorous interaction between the participants.
The participation level was quite satisfactory. At times, we had some 50 people in the room. The participants, with diverse backgroun