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. We might change the meeting time next semester. Stay tuned. Check the current schedule, guidelines and requirements (recording is optional) in the link below:

Share Your Work in Progress

News and Updates
Congratulations to Raafat Zaini, Janice Kooken and Ivon Arroyo for your work "Simulating the Dynamics of Self-Regulation, Emotion, Grit, and Student Performance in Cyber-Learning Environments" being accepted for publication. Their pre-print is available online
isee systems posted
"Recorded TA Time: How to Turn Off Loops That Matter"
"Recorded TA Time: What Computers Have My License?"
MindsEye Computing, LLC has a repository of models (e.g. SD molecules and examples from Business Dynamics and the System Zoo books). They will present on PowerSim Studio, model construction practices, and interface design in the December 11th WPI System Dynamics CLM
See the end of this digest for a quote, modeling tip, or poem. Please let me know what you think about this new section
Corrections to last week's digest:
This is the right link to Karim Chichakly's "Systems Thinking for Public Policy: A Case Study in Brazil" presentation
The quote to what Forrester said about intangibles is from Tape 2 of the Forrester Seminar Series on Corporate Growth
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
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
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
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
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
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
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

Upcoming System Dynamics/Dynamical Systems/Systems Thinking Events
MIT System Dynamics Seminar: Collective Action Problems during Market Formation
Mon, Nov 16th 9AM - 10:30AM EST (Boston time)
Details
The Machine Learning and Dynamical Systems special interest group at the Alan Turing Institute's inaugural lecture by Weinan E
Wed, Nov 18th 10AM UK time // 5AM Boston time
Details
University of Hull's Centre for System Studies Seminar: Re-appraising Alexander Bogdanov's Contribution to Systems Thinking
Wed, Nov 18th 11:30AM - 1:30PM (Boston time)
Details
8th Annual System Dynamics Conference in South Africa - Integrated System Dynamics for Investing in the Future
Wed, Nov 18th - Thu, Nov 19th
Details
Climate Interactive's "The En-ROADS Climate Workshop"
Thu, Nov 19th 7AM and 2PM EST? (Boston time)
Details
The System Dynamics Society's Agriculture and Food SIG's monthly meeting
Thu, Nov 19th, 2020 at 10:00 AM CST // 11AM (Boston time)
Topic: Dynamic Beef Cattle Water Footprint Modeling
Speaker: Hector M. Menendez- South Dakota State University
Please email agr.sig.sd@gmail.com to register!
The System Dynamics Society's Water SIG, New Mexico State University, New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute, and WPI System Dynamics host Janez Susnik (j.susnik@un-ihe.org) who will present "SIM4NEXUS: the nexus approach in practice"
Thu, Nov 19th 11AM - 12PM (Boston time)
Details
WPI System Dynamics Collective Learning Meeting
Screening of Forrester Seminar Series: World Dynamics
Fri, Nov 20th 12PM - 1PM (Boston time)
Details TBA
Waters Center for Systems Thinking's 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 Teacher Studio Session
Sat, Dec 5th 9AM PST // 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
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
11th Annual International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management
Deadline: Thu, Nov 20th
Details
2021 IISE Annual Conference & Expo - Modeling & Simulation Track
Deadline: Sun, Nov 29th
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
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 Upcoming Events
AnyLogic Events
Federal STEM Education Strategic Plan: 2 Years Later
Tue, Nov 17th 1:30 PM - 3PM (Boston time)
Details
CoCo Seminar Series hosts Yiding Cao who will present "Visualizations of Collective Activity and Performance in Social Networks"
Wed, Nov 18th 11AM - 12PM (Boston time)
Details / Website
Winter Simulation Conference 2020
Dec 14th - 18th
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
SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems (DS21)
May 23rd - 27th
Details
31st European Conference on Operational Research
Jul 11th - 14th
Details
SIAM conference on Control and Its Applications (CT21)
Jul 19th - 21st
Details
The 39th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society
Jul 25th - 29th
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 believe that fitting curves to past system data can be misleading. Having a model give results that fit past data curves may impress a client. However, given a model with enough parameters to manipulate, one can cause any model to trace a set of past data curves. Doing so does not give greater assurance that the model contains the structure that is causing behavior in the real system. Furthermore, the particular curves of past history are only a special case. The historical curves show how the system responded to one particular combination of random events impinging on the system. If the real system could be rerun, but with a different random environment, the data curves would be different even though the system under study and its essential dynamic character are the same. Exactly matching a historical time series is a weak indicator of model usefulness.

- Jay Forrester
Forrester, J. W. (2007). System Dynamics—The Next Fifty Years. D-4892, MIT System Dynamics Group Literature Collection.

Read the article:
Social Dynamics: 12.2. System Dynamics - the Next Fifty Years
https://collections.systemdynamics.org/ ... -dynamics/
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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