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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- STELLA is a new software program that has been designed to bring system dynamics to broad-based audiences. A series of books is being developed to disseminate STELLA and system dynamics into one of these broad-based groups -- the college educational market. The books center on a "learning laboratory" approach to learning. This approach uses STELLA as the basis for an experiential, learner-controlled learning process. One of these books, "Learning Laboratories In: Physics," is described in this paper. The book contains three sections: mechanics, thermodynamics and electromagnetism. Within each section are five to six lab sessions. The lab sessions progress from simple structural models of fundamental concepts to more complex models that integrate the work from the previous labs. A sample session on Newton's laws is presented to illustrate the approach.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- The question as to how sensitive a System Dynamics Model is to combination parameter changes in general is a complex one. A recent technique due to J.W. Hearne enables one to find the combination of parameter changes to which the system is most sensitive. The technique is applied here to an ecological model and a perturbation of the system along the most sensitive direction in parameter space is compared with single parameter perturbations of the same magnitude. The method may be useful in population control.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- The relationship between system dynamics (SD) .and other research areas is a subject of universal interest. Attention of the paper is to the possible links between SD and GERT (short for Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique). A new simulating design for a class of GERT network is proposed and the equivalence of GERT networks to SD models established, thus a new solution to the network obtained. According to the approach, a GERT network is converted into a SD model in which levels are used to model the random variables associated with the network, such as the expected time to realize a node and the probability that it is realized. The resulting basic model can be used for calculations of any parameter of interest in the analysis of GERT networks. Its advantages and implications are discussed.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- Estimates of petroleum and natura1 gas resources vary substantially, both over time and across estimation methods. This paper develops a simulation model of global oil resources to evaluate different resource estimation techniques. Protocols for the Hubbert life cycle and USGS geologic analogy methods are developed and applied to synthetic data generated by the model. It is shown that the Hubbert method can generate an accurate estimate as early as twenty years before the peak of global production, but the geologic analogy approach overestimates the true resource base over the life cycle of the resource. The results show the applicability of simulation and the synthetic data approach to the problem of evaluating forecasting methods.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- The economic crisis of the 1980s has revived interest in the economic long wave or Kondratiev cycle. This paper describes a simulation game which demonstrates how long waves can arise. The game vividly shows how the investment and production policies pursued by individual firms, though rational from the point of view of the individual actors, interact in the context of the whole system to produce "irrational" behavior--periodic over and under-expansion of the economy. The game illustrates te theory of capital self-ordering developed in the System Dynamics National Model Project. The paper describes the structure and rules of the game, including protocols for operating the game. The game can be played manually or on personal computers. The paper includes virtually all the materials needed to play the game, in either the board version or the personal computer version. The game board, record sheet, and a listing of the computer program (in BASIC and suitable for IBM PCs) are included.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- Increasingly, citizens and policymakers are faced with the results of computer models and must make judgments about the model's relevance and validity. How can such decisions be made in an intelligent and informed manner? Can modeling be made accessible to the ordinary person or will it remain the special magic of a technical priesthood? This paper offers tentative answers to these questions. It first highlights the characteristics and capabilities of computer models such as are used in foresight and policy analysis. The advantages and disadvantages, uses and misuses of formal models are presented. What are the fundamental assumptions of the major modeling techniques? How appropriate are these techniques for foresight activities? What are the crucial questions a model user or model consumer should ask when evaluating the appropriateness and validity of a model? The paper is designed to help model consumers peek inside these computerized black boxes.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- Production of pig iron in a blast furnace is a complex phenomenon. This paper identifies the major interdependencies forming a feed back structure, leading to a system dynamic model of blast furnace. The model has been used to evaluate projects on an overall and long range basis.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- This work is the application of systems simulation to regional analysis and its constains the philosophy and approach of the report dealing with economic growth in the Susquehanna River Basin prepared by Battelle Memorial Institut-Columbus Labs but a new look: the subsystem Input-Output matrix into the framework and with the demands (usually exogenous variables) like endogenous and with no necessarily fixed technical and capital coefficients over the time and its resolved by no conventional methods The application was in the Istmo De Tehuantepec, México.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- The law of the conservation of energy has great practical importance in physics. Is a similar law applicable to economics? For an answer, System Dynamic-related methods were applied to the economic Two Sector Diagram. They show the forces of Supply and Demand operating on the economic flows of money, goods and labor. The demand can be expressed quantitatively by a utility function, which shows that economic forces and flows are informational concepts. Consequently, the two main forms of energy in any economic system are code transport and numerical code values. Only the latter are essential.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1985
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 8cc5e98280358f60c3a33cc99e75a20e, and 11576afb39e5cd4a779a3912c119ca81
- Description:
- The failure rate for small businesses is extremely high. Inadequate financial control is a major contributory factor. The pattern of interactions between a fluctuating sales rate and the levels of receivables, payables, inventory and cash is highly complex. A model is described which simulates the experience of a small business in managing current assets and liabilities. It demonstrates the way in which liquidity changes over the operating cycle, how cash flow, and profit are dynamically different and how the firm's need for financing is constantly varying. System Dynamics is a useful tool for understanding and improving the financial management of small firms.