Weekly WPI System Dynamics Digest: Keeping people in the loop

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Weekly WPI System Dynamics Digest: Keeping people in the loop

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Hello, WPI SD Mailing List.

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The WPI System Dynamics Collective Learning Meeting (CLM) schedule for the rest of this semester is full. Check the current schedule, guidelines and requirements (recording is optional) in the link below:

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News and Updates
I decided to make a digest and send it today and not make ones for Nov 22nd and Nov 29th. Happy Thanksgiving (to those who celebrate)!
Anne Johnson presented "Wargaming & System Dynamics Modeling: Preliminary Investigation of Multi-Method Simulation Science & Technologies to Understand & Manage Messy Problems in National Security" at the GlobState III International Research Conference
Nadia Tjahja's "The Internet Governance Ecosystem: Designing a Multistakeholder Framework" presentation video is available.
The Friday WPI Collective Learning Meetings for the 2021 Spring semester will be at 3-4PM ET (Boston time). We plan to host a
Research Methods Series
Model Critique Series
Hector Menendez's "Update on Beef Water Footprint Analysis" video is available
The FishBanks Webinar recording is available for System Dynamics Society members
The Waters Center for Systems Thinking uploaded the following videos to their Thinking Tools Studio
Taking Action: Using Systems Thinking to Tackle Complex Community Challenges
Teacher Studio: Seasons, Salmon and Storms: Integrating Systems Thinking with Science Standards
Maurice Glucksman and Kim Warren's "The COVID-19 Model Localisation Challenge: Webinar 1 (18-Nov-2020): Swindon Data Example" video is available
For COVID agent-based modelers, AnyLogic 8.7's pedestrian library now contains social distancing rules
See the end of this digest for a quote, modeling tip, poem or song.
For other System Dynamics news, see the latest news section on the System Dynamics Society's home page. Here is the link to past WPI System Dynamics Digests

Reminders and Requests
Spring 2021 WPI System Dynamics Graduate Courses
SD 550. System Dynamics Foundation: Managing Complexity
SD 557. Latent Structures, Unintended Consequences and Policy
SD 562. Project Dynamics
If you are not enrolled in a WPI program, you can still take classes as a non-WPI student
Tuition and International Payment Information
3 credit hour/course * $1,610/credit hour = $4,830/course (+ $60 graduate fee)
Review Requests
Khalid Saeed's (saeed@wpi.edu)
People Express
Prof. Saeed will use this in his undergrad course SS 1505: Games for Understanding Complexity
"Fishy" Banks: A Game about Human Trafficking
Developed by two WPI undergrad students
Advised by Prof. Saeed and Prof. Renata Konrad
Working paper "Why Forrester wished to replace both differential equations and economics?"
Francisco "Paco" Araujo's
MIES Project model which investigates the dynamics of research, knowledge, and understanding
Arctic Social-Environmental System model which he built as a result of the International System Dynamics Conference (ISDC) 2020 workshop "Peace Engineering in the Arctic: Accommodating diverse interests in a changing environment"
Büşra Atamer Balkan, Hector Menendez, Andreas Nicolaidis, Kelechi Odoemena, Robert Lamb, Monique Ann Tiongco, Stueti Gupta, and Arpitha Peteru's "Understanding the Impact of COVID19 on Agriculture and Food Supply Chains: System Dynamics Modeling for the Resilience of Smallholder Farmers”
Survey Requests
System Dynamics Society (SDS) survey
SDS Student Chapter survey on the SD Colloquium
Undergrad and Grad students, please help WPI Data Science develop a depression screening tool by filling out the EMU Survey
The Operational Research (OR) Society is looking to create a network of independent consultants working in OR and systems thinking
Listen to or read the transcripts to SD-cast's "What is your SDory?" series using the button below:
SD-cast: What is your SDory?
SD-cast is also available on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts


COVID News/Resources
System Dynamics Society's COVID-19 page
COVID models by users of
isee Exchange™
InsightMaker
Feel free to add videos to this COVID-19 simulation models YouTube playlist
Turgay Ayer, Jagpreet Chhatwal, Benjamin Linas, et al.'s COVID-19 Simulator
Mohammad S Jalali, Catherine DiGennaro, and Devi Sridhar's "Transparency assessment of COVID-19 models"
Marichi Gupta, Aditya Bansal, Bhav Jain, Jillian Rochelle, Atharv Oak, Mohammad S.Jalali's "Whether the Weather Will Help Us Weather the COVID-19 Pandemic: Using Machine Learning to Measure Twitter Users’ Perceptions"
Raafat Zaini's presentation videos:
"Simulating the COVID19 Pandemic a Facebook Live AMA with special guest Raafat Zaini on 9/18/2020."
"COVID-10 The Systems Thinking Way: Dynamic Behavior & Feedback Structures Perspective"
Büşra Atamer Balkan, Hector Menendez, Andreas Nicolaidis, Kelechi Odoemena, Robert Lamb, Monique Ann Tiongco, Stueti Gupta, and Arpitha Peteru request feedback on their preprint "Understanding the Impact of COVID19 on Agriculture and Food Supply Chains: System Dynamics Modeling for the Resilience of Smallholder Farmers”
Kim Warren released version 4 of his COVID-19 model and created a short course explaining the model
Maurice Glucksman and Kim Warren's "The COVID-19 Model Localisation Challenge: Webinar 1 (18-Nov-2020): Swindon Data Example" video is available
Navid Ghaffarzadegan's "Simulation-Based What-If Analysis for Controlling the Spread of Covid-19 in Universities" article is available online
AnyLogic blog post on "COVID-19 and Simulation" has videos and links to other posts on System Dynamics and Agent-Based Models. AnyLogic 8.7's pedestrian library now contains social distancing rules
Ali Asgary and Mahdi M. Najafabadi's "Drive Through Mass Vaccination Sim for COVID-19" Agent-Based and Discrete-Event Simulation model
Julie Swann and Pinar Keskinocak presented "How to Model 'Diseases' and Use those Models to Drive Timely Decisions and Actions that Produce Rapid Benefits." Prof. Keskinocak presented an Agent-Based model
Apply your systems understanding & problem-solving skills in full-scale complexity, where it matters. Come help today, join with Yaneer Bar-Yam to end the pandemic at http://EndCoronavirus.org. Humanity will be glad you did. - Tomás Gutiérrez
Join The Modeling and Simulation Coronavirus Pandemic Task Force
Join the COVID-19 Resources (Systems Community) Facebook group
For more COVID-19 modeling resources, see
The "Jamming the Curve” [competition enlisted] over 400 independent video game developers around the world to develop concepts for games that reflect the real-world dynamics of COVID-19 -https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/ ... t-covid-19
COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool
Aroon Chande, Seolha Lee, Mallory Harris, Quan Nguyen, Stephen J. Beckett, Troy Hilley, Clio Andris & Joshua S. Weitz's "Real-time, interactive website for US-county-level COVID-19 event risk assessment" Nature article
The University of Texas COVD-19 Modeling Consortium's Expected number of COVID-19 cases arriving at school tool
CDC spreadsheet-based tools for:
state and local policy makers to compare different contact tracing strategies
hospital admins and public health officials to estimate demand
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's resources page
Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine report in early Oct
Videos to Confronting Urgent Threats to Human Health & Society: COVID-19 and Climate Change (NAM Annual Meeting)
"Putting Games to Work in the Battle Against COVID-19" is an article on the Jamming the Curve COVID video game competition.
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics' (SIAM)
Mathematical Resources to Help Understand COVID-19 page
Report on Future Research Directions for NSF in the Era of COVID-19
Erin C.S. Acquesta, Walt Beyeler, Pat Finley, Katherine Klise, Monear Makvandi, and Emma Stanislawski's "Modeling Resource Demands and Constraints for COVID-19 Intervention Strategies"
INFORMS' Information on COVID-19 and Pandemics page
"INFORMS Journal on Computing has several papers of timely importance given our pandemic / vaccine situation. See INFORMS Journal on Computing: Vol 32, No 4 for the whole issue." - Alice Smith
The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE)'s Coronavirus Resource & Response page

Job or Research Opportunities
Adjunct Part-Time Faculty in System Dynamics
Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Social Science and Policy Studies Department
Positions filled on an add needed basis
Start dates vary by course and semester
Details
Assistant, Associate and Full Professor (tenure track) positions in systems modeling and simulation
Naval Postgraduate School's Operations Research Department
Application Deadline: Tue, Dec 1
Details
Lecturer
Purdue University's Purdue Systems Collaboratory and College of Engineering
Full-time, Academic Year (9 month)
Job Begins: Jan 2021
Details
Full-Time PostDoc in Disease Systems Modeling
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Deadline: Fri, Jan 22nd
Details
Research Associate
Case Western University's Center for Community Health Integration
Details
Assistant, Associate and Full Professor
Case Western University's Center for Community Health Integration
Details
Associate Professor in System Dynamics
University of Bergen
Details
Assistant Professor of Management, Business Analytics or Information Systems
Alfred University
Details
Management Consultants specializing in system dynamics and advanced analytics
Sage Analysis Group
1-page overview
Details
Research Associate
Systems Engineering Research Center
Details
The Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull in the UK has a PhD scholarship to work on "Systems Thinking for Land Use Policy Making"
Deadline: Tue, Jan 5th, 2021
Details
See the SD Society's Career Link page which has more job postings

System Dynamics/Dynamical Systems/Systems Thinking Events
MIT System Dynamics Monday Morning Seminars
The En-ROADS Simulator: December Launch and Updates
"Temperature in 2100 is Reduced by Half a Degree C in New
En-ROADS Baseline"
Thu, Dec 3rd
7AM EST (Boston time)
2PM (Boston time)
Details
Waters Center for Systems Thinking's "These Are a Few of Our Favorite Things..." Open Studio Session
Thu, Dec 3rd
9AM PST // 12PM EST (Boston time)
3PM PST // 6PM EST (Boston time)
Details
WPI System Dynamics Collective Learning Meeting
Peer Tutoring Session
Fri, Dec 4th 12PM - 1PM (Boston time)
Details TBA
Waters Center for Systems Thinking's "These Are a Few of Our Favorite Things … Teacher Edition!" Teacher Studio Session
Sat, Dec 5th 9AM PST // 12PM (Boston time)
Details
isee systems host Ken Thompson
"Leadership Training with Ken Thompson"
Tue, Dec 8th 12PM (Boston time)
Details
One World Dynamics Seminars
Monthly Dynamical Systems (DS) seminars
2nd Friday of each month
Two Talks
9-9:45 AM (Boston time) Talk towards a general DS audience, "set[s] the scene for the"
9:45-10:30AM (Boston time) Specialized talk
Fri, Dec 11th: Ergodic systems
9:45 AM (Boston time)
9:00 AM (Boston time)
Details
WPI System Dynamics Collective Learning Meeting
MindsEye Computing, LLC on PowerSim Studio
Fri, Dec 11th 12PM - 1PM (Boston time)
Details TBA
WPI System Dynamics Collective Learning Meeting
Screening of Forrester Seminar Series: World Dynamics with special guests
Fri, Dec 18th 12PM - 1PM (Boston time)
Details TBA
SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems (DS21)
May 23rd - 27th
Details
The 39th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society
Jul 25th - 29th
Details
Various Systems Thinking Events

Call for Papers/Abstracts/Grants
Policies for Action: Public Policy Research to Advance Racial Equity and Racial Justice Grant
Letters of Intent Deadline: Tue, Nov 24th 3PM EST (Boston time)
Details
Simulation Modeling and Systems Science to Address Health Disparities Grant
Expiration date: May 8th, 2023
Details
2021 IISE Annual Conference & Expo - Modeling & Simulation Track
Deadline: Sun, Nov 29th
Details
11th Annual International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management
Deadline: Mon, Nov 30th
Details
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences Special Issue on Food Loss and Waste Management During COVID-19: Exploring the Major Challenges and Future Directions along the Food Supply Chain
Deadline: Thu, Dec 31st
Details
SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems (DS21)
Deadline for Minisymposium Proposal: Mon, Jan 11th
Deadline for Contributed Lecture, Poster and Minisymposium Presentation Abstracts: Mon, Jan 25th
Details
10th OR Society Simulation Workshop 2021 (SW21)
Deadline for posters: Tue, Jan 12th
Details
2021 Annual Modeling and Simulation Conference
Deadline for Tutorial Proposal: Fri, Jan 22nd
Deadline for Paper Submission: Mon, Mar 1st
Details
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Special Issue on Sustainability and Resilience in Health: The Role of Performance Management
Deadline: Sun, Jan 31st
Details
SIAM conference on Control and Its Applications (CT21)
Deadline for Minisymposium Proposal: Wed, Jan 13th
Deadline for Contributed Lecture, Poster and Minisymposium Presentation Abstracts: Wed, Feb 3rd
Details
Systems Special Issue on System Dynamics and Quantitative Methods for the Analysis of Societal Threats
Deadline: Sun, Feb 14th
Details
31st European Conference on Operational Research
Deadline: Sun, Feb 28th
Details
Other Events
AnyLogic Events
The University of Hong Kong's Systems Analytics Global Leaders' Seminars
RASC: Randomized Algorithms for Scientific Computing (an extended virtual workshop in two parts)
Part 1: Dec 2-3 from 11AM - 3PM (Boston time)
Part 2: Jan 6-7, from 11AM - 3PM (Boston time)
US Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) Applied Mathematics program sponsored
Details
INFORMS Boston Chapter and the Data Analytics Research Team (DART) at Bentley University host Tina Tina Eliassi-Rad
"Just Machine Learning"
Wed, Dec 2nd 6:30 PM (Boston time)
Details
APICS Massachusetts Minuteman, APICS New Haven & South Shore Chapters,
and ASQ host Mark Chockalingam and Ganes Kesari
"Applications of AI in Supply Chain Management –
Hype versus Reality"
Mon, Dec 7th 5:45 PM (Boston time)
Details
Winter Simulation Conference 2020
Dec 13th - 16th
Details
11th Annual International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management
Mar 9th - 11th
Details
10th OR Society Simulation Workshop 2021 (SW21)
Mar 22nd - 24th
Details
31st European Conference on Operational Research
Jul 11th - 14th
Details
SIAM conference on Control and Its Applications (CT21)
Jul 19th - 21st
Details
Provide suggestions for the digest or any type of feedback on WPI SD services by emailing Christine Tang, ctang@wpi.edu, replying to this email or writing anonymously through:

Feedback Form

We prefer sharing free articles/videos/etc. so we do not exclude folks who are interested in SD/ST but do not have access to articles.

Well wishes,
Christine Tang
WPI System Dynamics Social Media Manager


p.s. I wrote this poem for the Waters Center for Systems Thinking's "These Are a Few of Our Favorite Things …" sessions. Refer to the "My Favorite Things" song from The Sound of Music movie.

Systems Thinking Things (My Favorite Things)

Axes on graphs
And labels on loops
Stakeholders and users include the important groups
When defining a problem remember to sing
These are a few systems thinking things
Ladders of inference and our mental models
Perceptions and actions
And beliefs reinforcing
See below (beyond) the tips of icebergs (and their melting)
These are a few systems thinking things

Build a computer model and stock-flow diagram
Check your assumptions and the papers in SIAM
You'll never know what exploring brings
These are a few systems thinking things

When the dog bites
When my mood swings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember system thinking things
And then I don't feel so bad


p.p.s. Some explanations
SIAM = The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics has a Dynamical Systems Activity Group, journal and conference

"When the dog bites" is from the original song. I kept it because it reminded me of a picture of a reinforcing loop (I tried to find the picture but Google results just had a lot of disturbing pictures...) of a dog biting a man --> man hitting a child --> child kicking the dog -> (back to the dog biting the man).

Mood swings and feeling sad refers to oscillations (negative/balancing feedback loops with delays) and reminds me of the various SD models on depression, stress, and worker burnout.
Advice to posters seeking help (it really helps us to help you)
http://www.ventanasystems.co.uk/forum/v ... f=2&t=4391

Units are important!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27509559
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