SD-cast
SD-cast
“What is your SDory, Khalid Saeed?”
Khalid Saeed is a professor of economics and system dynamics in the Social Science and Policy Studies department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he served as department head and developed new programs in economics, psychology and system dynamics. He earned a PhD in System Dynamics and Economic Development from MIT and is a past-president of the System Dynamics Society.
Transcript: http://bit.ly/SD-cast-Ep5-Transcript
I would like to thank Prof. Saeed for his continuous and longtime support of SD Club activities by presenting in and attending Collective Learning Meetings (CLMs) when he can. Below are links to his papers and book (which we referenced in the interview).
Slicing Complex Problems paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/sdr.4260080305
Slicing Complex Problems video: https://youtu.be/ht3VhcgzWBo
“Cancer as a System Dysfunction” paper: https://doi.org/10.3390/systems9010014
“Why Forrester Wished to Replace Both Differential Equations and Economics?”:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3692759
“Jay Forrester's operational approach to economics” paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/sdr.1525
“Connecting Feedback Map with Computable Model” video: https://youtu.be/mpgSjnPhhRU
Development Planning and Policy Design: A System Dynamics Approach
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GVRQTD2/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_2SZ98VB8PQGEQYZAC7GM
Now, as with the custom of SD-cast, here is a poem I wrote about Prof. Saeed:
Prof. Khalid Saeed
Is a Forrester award recipient
Advised Raafat's PhD on dissent
Has an good sense of humor
Models cancer as a system dysfunction (no tumors!)
Call him for advice on sustainable development
Economics, system dynamics or just to vent
He studied at MIT--the birthplace of SD
Brown bag lunches and table functions
Are where they talked of designing policy,
Feedback, stock-flow and DYNAMO
At WPI, our meetings have been online and free
To be inclusive so people worldwide can see
Or listen to our thoughts on modeling methodology
He documents his thoughts for scientific practice and for history
So others will know about the systems thinking and SD split
Same tools used to different extents. How can we rectify it?
Focus on slicing the problem into pieces?
Test the structure in equilibrium
For any unexpected increases or decreases?
"Keep calm and check DT" says Tim
Who models the dynamics of insurgencies and conflicts
Like his advisor who modeled farmers, soldiers and bandits
To understand what will help tensions cease
And create conditions for world peace
“Farmers, bandits and soldiers: a generic system for addressing peace agendas” paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/sdr.1507
WPI SD Social Media accounts:
https://twitter.com/WPISDclub
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1916314/
Sign up for the WPI System Dynamics Club mailing list:
https://bit.ly/WPIsdMailForm
Music:
“Limelight” by Podington Bear is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License. I cut and moved the music track to fit the intro and ending.
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington
Hello, SD-cast listeners. My name is Christine Tang. In this podcast, I will interview someone in the System Dynamics or Systems Thinking community. This series is called “What is your SDory?”
This is Episode 5. Titled: “What is your SDory, Khalid Saeed?”
Biography
Khalid Saeed is a professor of economics and system dynamics in the Social Science and Policy Studies department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he served as department head and developed new programs in economics, psychology and system dynamics. He earned a PhD in System Dynamics and Economic Development from MIT and is a past-president of the System Dynamics Society.
Thank you for joining us today, Prof. Saeed.
Khalid: Thank you, Christine. It's an honor and I'll try to respond to your questions as best as I can. If I become very long-winded, you can stop me.
Christine: We appreciate long answers. Complete answers.
Interview
Christine: The first question: when and how did you ‘discover’ System Dynamics (SD)?
Khalid: Oh a long time ago. I did a master's in Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Asian Institute of Technology and in one of the courses on operations research, my professor, Donald Drew, introduced a module on system dynamics and I was very excited about it. I went to the library and (tried to) read everything I could find on system dynamics so this was, as I recall, back in 1973 or 74.
Christine: And what was the first model that you encountered?
Khalid: The first model or the first book I could lay my hand on in the library was World Dynamics and I thought it was fascinating. [Re]mind you at that time we did not even have DYNAMO in our system at the Asian Institute. There was one old computer--an IBM...I even forget the number of that IBM. It had a random access memory of 8k. It filled a huge room. We did our programming on punched cards and went to the computer center to pick up our printouts so that was the technology available at that time. The language I learned to use was FORTRAN. Wasn't even familiar with DYNAMO.
Christine: What was the first model that you built?
Khalid: Good question. Again, it was at the Asian Institute in another course on operation research. My professor (and his name was Sharif) gave us an assignment to construct a mathematical model of the innovation diffusion process. It's a very common model we have now but this was back in 1974. We did not even have DYNAMO but I had had an introduction to system dynamics by then, so I came back and tried to construct that model using differential equations because that's what he asked for and I tried with one first order system and relaxed some assumptions. It became a complex model second order [then] third order and I could solve differential equations. I think I could solve second or third order, but then when I included four stocks, it was not possible to solve it...and actually, Professor Sharif had told us to end the assignment when we are unable to solve the model that we create but I had learned FORTRAN by then. I had become familiar with the system dynamics models that I saw in Forrester's books. I constructed that model in FORTRAN-- this fourth order system--four stock model in FORTRAN and I simulated it (I have described to you the computer we had...used punched cards and then you went and picked up the output) and my professor was very pleased with that simulation so...that's the first model I built back in 1974.
Christine: How did you develop your idea of slicing complex problems?
Khalid: Excellent question. Let's say it was an epiphany [laughs]. One day, I thought I could say something about slicing complex problems but the idea developed over an extended period of time. While at MIT, my thesis chair was Professor Roberts (Ed Roberts) and I defended a proposal and then I would go and talk to him and tell him that I want to look at how income distribution develops, how poverty perpetuates, how resources are depleted, how the political instability in the poor countries comes in the way of economic development and he listened to all that and he said, “Look, Khalid, you do not want to spend 16 years here so you better slice out a piece of these problems and come back to me and you can do the rest later but I want a penetrating research into a slice of what you are thinking.” So I went back and (I’m not describing the many iterations that I went through but) eventually I said, “Okay, I'll take this slice in which I'll investigate how a stagnant scenario of pervasive poverty develops. What underlies it and I'll do the rest later.” So that was the slice I addressed in my thesis and later on I kept thinking about it and one day I thought I had a very bright idea and I wrote this paper and I sent it to George Richardson who was at that time the managing editor--the chief editor of System Dynamics Review. George told this story to me only a few years ago. He kept it to himself. He said he sent it out for reviews and all reviews were negative because this seemed to be a little too abstract...so for some time but he considered throwing it into the trash can. Then he said that “One day, I picked it up and I said, ‘Well, why don't I read it before I throw it away’” and he read it and he wrote me a letter that [said]
Why I liked your article. It's accepted without any changes...only this diagram that you made is not very symmetrical and this is what I suggest you should do.
...so that's how it came about. A lot of stuff that comes about, I guess, in my publication is coincidental. I work on it for some time and [the] average time of my work is like five years or something. Usually, I'm resolving some problems for myself and then an idea comes out which seems robust. Then I find myself ready to share it. A lot of my research is not sponsored research. It's personal research and I had the luxury of conducting that personal research because I got my tenure at a time when your scholarship was measured through your publications not through the amount of money you bring in. It's very different now unfortunately. I think I was fortunate. So most of my work is based on some issue that was bothering me and I tried to resolve that issue. I could take as much time as I wanted to and one day a resolution occurred and I could write about it and I could share it....so “Slicing Complex Problem” was one such thing.
Christine: Thank you and I find it interesting because this paper...you said people wanted to reject it...but from what I understand this is your most famous paper.
Khalid: Yes, I don't have too many citations. It's like 1500 and some. Also it's...my work is a little bit specialized. People interested in economic development and system dynamics are few. I think my most cited artifact is my book Development Planning and Policy Design and “Slicing a complex problem” is the next most cited.
Christine: Yes, it's just this is the first paper I think of when I think of you. May we go back...so can you tell us about your journey from the Asian institute to MIT then back to the Asian Institute because you were tenured at the Asian Institute, correct? And then you went to WPI.
Khalid: Yes, actually I was tenured at Asian Institute. I had full professor rank at Asian Institute also...which is another story how I earned it [laughs] and I earned my full professor rank in 1992. I came to WPI in 1997. They at first said that...well they made me an offer which was full professor’s rank and department head in 1997. They said, “Why don't you come over and we'll put you through tenure.” And I said, “No, I'll not come over. I'm actually quite happy here...so you decide on tenure first and then I'll come over” and it took another three [or] four months and finally they said, “Well, we'll give you tenure too.”
Now, you asked, Christine, a very interesting question [about] my journey to MIT and MIT System Dynamics. As you know my undergraduate degree is in electrical engineering and my first job was maintaining the television transmitters in Pakistan Television Corporation. Then my family thought that was not a prestigious job [and that] I should probably go into civil service...so I interviewed and joined a civil service position and I was bored to death in that job.
One day, one of my old friends from the military school that we went to, came to see me and I told him, “I'm pretty bored here” and he said, “You know, I just finished my masters at Asian Institute of Technology. If you are selected, they give you a scholarship. They will give you a round trip and living expenses and everything and why don't you apply?” So I applied and I got all the financial assistance that he told me about. This was a school set up by USAID...I think in 1950 something. When the USAID support finished, it became an independent private international institution. It was supported by a large club of countries and my scholarship was from UK so that's how I went there and for my master was on, now, industrial engineering. They did not even have electrical engineering so I thought it was a good change.
After I was exposed to system dynamics, I became very enthusiastic about it and the president of Asian Institute at that time was Professor Hoelscher. Professor Hoelscher came from the University of Pittsburgh. His last job was the dean of engineering at University of Pittsburgh. Very nice guy...would talk to the students and we sometimes had a conversation. There was a canal around the campus and this canal was for saving the campus from flooding. There was a dike around the campus and the flood water would go into that canal and then would be pumped out over the dike. The president's house was along that canal and I had bought myself a canoe and I would sort of canoe in the canal and he would be sitting on his deck at that time and I would usually stop and we'd have a conversation. It was very pleasant now that I'm recalling it. It was [a] really fun place. We talked about system dynamics. One day he said, “You know, you're so much interested in this. I'll write to my friend Gordon Brown about your interest.” I did not know who Gordon Brown was. Gordon Brown was dean of engineering at MIT and Hoelscher's old friend. Gordon Brown also happened to be Forrester's mentor and advisor...so I forgot about it and one day a letter came from Jay that [said]
Well, I learned about you from Gordon Brown and why don't you apply to the system dynamics program?
And I was ecstatic. I of course by then knew Forrester so I applied. I told Professor Hoelscher that I'm applying and he encouraged me to do that. He actually mentored me and guided me on how to prepare my application. You know...such a wonderful man.
I said I should also have some safety net so I applied to three other schools. I applied to Cornell University regional planning program or regional development program. I applied to Wharton School. They had a regional development program and I applied to University of Sussex in England and for the economic development program. Then I sort of got busy with finishing up [my masters] and while I was finishing up, I got accepted in all four places and MIT offered me a fellowship too. I couldn't afford to go anywhere without fellowship. So this was a fellowship that paid my first year's tuition and they said come along we'll find something else for you also for living expenses. This was kind of a dream come true...so that's how I ended up at MIT.
While at MIT, there's a class of something like 20 PhD students at that time in Sloan School and four of us in my batch were in system dynamics and four of us were myself, Peter Senge, John Morecroft, and Barry Richmond.
We talked to other PhD students and they would discuss what area they had joined and what careers are available in that area. They would ask us that “Well, what are you going to do here?” and when we said, “System Dynamics.” They usually asked, “Why?” [laughs]
So over time this question kind of pushed me into creating another safety net here and I enrolled in a second PhD program in economic development. I completed all the requirements in both the departments and then they said that “You can do one dissertation that would satisfy your committee from both the departments.” And so my dissertation applied system dynamics to the income distribution issue so that's how I wear both an economist hat and a system dynamicist hat.
That's the story of my getting into MIT and navigating through MIT. I did not work on Forrester’s national modeling project. I was heavily entrenched in economic development so I supported myself through working as [a] TA at MIT, as research assistant in the Center for Advanced Engineering (Studies) and through consulting but the advantage was that I did my own thing.
Christine: Thank you. What are you currently working on? Are you currently working with Bob Eberlein on The National Model?
Khalid: No. Not really. Actually, Bob and I were working with Jay during his last days. I have Jay's last email [to us]. Let me see if I can find it which is sent to us. Do you want to see it? I can show it to you if you [want]...if I can share the screen.
Christine: Oh. Okay. Will we be able to share it with others though? Or is it private?
Khalid: Hmmm...I...don't know.
Christine: I don't mind see…
Khalid: Maybe I'll--I should just talk about it. That's a good question. So basically, Jay was very concerned that after he's gone...this letter is actually 2015. Jay passed in 2016 I believe. It's in September 2015 and he says, “My age and health dictates that we get something out as soon and with as little effort as possible. My sight is gradually failing so I must read with magnification which slows my activity. I'm 97 and I've been told that no one lives forever.” So he talks about those issues and in these conversations, I told Jay that I don't think it's possible for me to clean up his work and publish it because I did not work on The National Model but I'm familiar with it through my colleagues. I can write about his work which I will. I'll not write his book but I'll write about him. Bob actually said that he could make his [Jay’s] model work so he [Jay] left his computer with the model to Bob and I think Bob has been working on it. So Bob and I were together in working with Jay but then we sort of went in slightly different directions. He is trying to reenact his [Jay’s] model and I've been working on writing about Jay's work. You might have seen a lot of stuff that I've been working on like why Jay Forrester wanted to get rid of both differential equations and economics, “Jay Forrester's operational approach to economics” [and] the relationship between feedback and stock and flow model and again how Jay thought about it. So that's my part in it. Maybe at some point Bob and I will converge on it but right now we are doing different things on the same subject.
So what am I working on...what one thread is what I have described. After I wrote the article “Jay Forrester's operational approach to economics” ...that term operational economics came to my mind. I think this really describes what Forrester would have wanted economics to be.
I'm taking a sabbatical next year and I plan to make some progress on writing a volume on operational economics. These articles that I've been writing like Jay Forrester's approach and then why Forrester wanted to replace both economics and differential equations and other things will all serve as materials that will go into this volume. (I’ve) also tr(ied) to interpret Forrester’s Urban Dynamics model in the context of economic development. I'm glad he was able to read what I wrote while he was still alive. He actually wrote back saying that he just wanted to scan through it but he read everything and he liked it. I linked his model to Joseph Schumpeter's thinking and I suggested how relevant it is to economic development policies because right now economic development policies are based on [the] assumption that the developing countries are like infants who need to grow up and his [Jay’s] Urban Dynamics model views stagnant sub-economies like--I mean his example is city but it could be developing countries--as old sub-economies which have come to a dysfunctional equilibrium and the policies to come out of that dysfunctional equilibrium would be different from the policies that are needed for an infant economy to grow. So that's one thread of my work. You might recently have seen the article I finally cleaned up and published on “Cancer as a System Dysfunction.”
I think that's another area that's another thread which is very promising that we apply our modeling effort to treatment of human ailments. Before the human trials and animal trials, we could probably try them on a model first. This was just to show how it should be done. It could be done in other ways too...probably better ways but that's another thread that I'm working on.
I would like to develop a course on ecological economics. I've seen the literature on ecological economics. Some of them use some system dynamics but (it) needs a lot more work and I have some ideas in my mind; and I would like to develop possibly a course and a volume on it. I think that should be enough. I mean I don't know how many years I have to live but yeah that should keep me busy.
Christine: I think you've aged very well. I've seen pictures of you when you were younger. I think you look very distinguished right now. Your haircut, I think it looks much better than before but I'm somewhat biased.
Khalid: Thank you. You're very kind. Actually, I haven't had a haircut in one year because of COVID. I bought myself a clipper and sometimes I clip my hair. [laughs]
Christine: What wisdom do you have for students and those new to system dynamics?
Khalid: Oh, students new to system dynamics...I would say that it's a good idea to have a domain to apply it to. That's very important and read some of the classical works. Read Forrester’s work.
Define your problem. Dwell on defining the problem before you proceed. Because if you have done that well, the rest is not that difficult but if you start with a poorly defined problem there might be many dead ends. So these are a few things that I would like to suggest. And while you are building a model keep in mind what problem are you trying to solve. A model is a means not an end...so keep the questions in front of you and focus on questions not on the model. Know your model's limitations and try to understand the contingencies of your influences. Nothing is black and white. Everything is gray.
That's a lot to chew on [laughs] so I'll stop there.
Christine: So what if you cannot define the problem? What if you're working with another group--a stakeholder group and they're defining the problem and they are pushing you towards an answer?
Khalid: Then you help them define the problem. I've worked with some other groups. They come with a problem and then you work with them to redefine it. One example is a model I built on environmental mitigation banking. There was this group in Nihon University who came to me with a problem that they (had) already defined. They knew what environmental mitigation bank[ing] was. I did not. They wanted to find a way to calculate, to compute, the price of mitigation credits which is something that's part of environmental mitigation banking. So we worked on the problem for some time and I ended up concluding that that was not necessary. That you did not need to develop an instrument to calculate the price because if you implemented the process in a certain way through [the] market, then you can start with an arbitrary price and the market would compute the optimal price. That's one example.
Another example is when I and my friend, Gary Hirsch, worked on a project which was sponsored by HRSA a few years ago. This is Health Resources and Services Administration. The problem that was given to us was already defined. The problem was that there are many candidates for organ transplant and not enough organs. How do you increase the supply of organs? This was the problem that they gave to us. The project lasted two [or] three years and in the end we were able to redefine the problem for them. The redefined problem was that it's a very complex system in which there is a patient aging chain, there is a transplant hospital supply chain and there is an organ supply chain and the interaction of the three has created some bottlenecks and in fact the supply of the organ was not a constraint. There were other constraints that we tried to outline. This was a very enlightening study for myself also. I had not worked in [the] healthcare area. Just like mitigation banking. I had not worked in that area and I learned a lot from the process. We were able to work with a client and help them redefine the problem and then give them recommendations that seemed to gel with that redefined problem. I hope I have been able to respond to your question, Christine.
Christine: Yes. I...
Khalid: Am I on a tangent or…
Christine: I think I was not very clear with my question. I asked like two questions in one too. I wanted to talk about the ethical dilemma that modelers have and also about defining a problem.
Khalid: Yes.
Christine: But speaking of that, you did tell me the story of your working on this organ transplant model and you asked me a very interesting question and it has stuck in my mind for a while. A surgeon asked a group this and you were in that group. The surgeon asked “Is it ethical to delay someone's death in order to try to save someone else?”
Khalid: Yeah. That was a very difficult question. Actually a surgeon said that he believed that it was not ethical to do transplant.
But our job, mine and Gary's, was not going into ethics. We were evaluating the system whether it can deliver--whether it can be improved. The process can be improved. This surgeon felt that when organs fail and someone is dying, they should just go.
There is room for a lot of unethical things in the process like if there's a huge demand for a heart [and] a young person is injured, do you save him or her or transplant the heart? And I understand in some poor countries, there are a lot of unethical things happening like people are kidnapped and their organs taken away because they fetch a high price. There are lots of ethical things but those are outside of the scope of what we did.
Christine: I think I mixed two questions in one again but...well you did answer in the context of your model but in general this is a dilemma actually within a modeling community and especially with data science and algorithms now. Are our models ethical? But I think system dynamics models are very transparent and there are many different policy...
Khalid: Yeah.
Christine: Levers.
Khalid: There is the ethical issue about modeling and there's the ethical issue about the problems so I was probably mixing the two also. The ethical issue about the modeling is that you really need to understand all the contingencies. You need to understand the problem and you need to understand all the contingencies; and you need to lay them out very clearly. Sometimes your client might not like them and Forrester and his war stories actually related these problems a lot of times to us.
Christine: Thank you. The last question is: Do you have any fun or funny SD stories that you're willing to share?
But you have told us a lot. I don't know if you have any more or if you'd like to respond to some of the stories other people have told about you because Raafat, Karim and Professor Radzicki all told stories about you. You are pretty popular.
Khalid: Well, as I said [before the interview started], I didn't get a chance to go over everything. I went over Prof. Radzicki's story [about the Albany trip to move materials for the System Dynamics Society] and that's very true. I was jet lagged. Not only jet lag, I had also [the] flu.
Julie, Prof. Radzicki’s wife, is a nurse. She had given me all these medications to keep me going. So together with the jet lag and those medications, I was falling [asleep] like he has described so it's very correct.
I do have another story in which Professor Radzicki is one of the stars...so I'll tell you that story. This was 1986. We had a conference in Seville, Spain. At that time, we all came to Seville. I came from Bangkok jet lagged a little bit. Our hosts were very very gracious. Bullfight of course is a big thing from Spain. I think there are some restrictions now but at that time it was a big thing and one evening our hosts organized a little party (informal party) in which they also brought in a bull. We were all invited to take that red blanket and, you know, do a few passes with the bull and so there was an arena down there and some people were sitting on the top. You could jump into the arena and I saw Mike and George (George Richardson and Mike [Prof. Radzicki]) jumping to the arena and taking a few passes. I just sat there and watched. Later on, whenever I heard that story from Mike and George, we had a disagreement about the size of the bull. Both thought it was--both said, there's this huge bull that came charging and what I saw was a little bull...of the size of a cat. [laughs]
Christine: [laughs]
Khalid: So that’s...that's one funny story. There are others like, you know, when I was finishing up my thesis at MIT. Forrester's group was the only one that had a word processor. No one had heard of word processor at that time but Forrester brought in these huge consoles with tapes on them and we could really write our thesis on the computer. Others had to write them on typewriters so one of my committee members was Professor Karen Polenske. Professor Polenske is a world-renowned expert on input-output analysis. She started her career as a research assistant to Wassily Leontief (Nobel Laureate on input-output analysis) and a wonderful person and I really got a lot of mentoring from Karen and Karen kept telling me, “You know, Khalid...you should get a fireproof safe to keep your manuscript. There are some horror stories. Your manuscript gets burnt. You have to really protect your dissertation manuscript. Get a fireproof safe.”
I didn't understand how I would keep my word processing files in that fireproof safe. [laughs]
There was at that time at MIT a sort of technological difference between Forrester’s groups and some other groups which were doing research. Forrester’s group was technologically very advanced so fireproof safe was irrelevant, fortunately. I did have a problem towards the end. There were some...my files did get corrupted and but we had a wonderful wonderful assistant that Forrester had in the group...Sherry. She was an expert in driving boo boos out of your files and she drove boo boos out of my dissertation files.
[Laughs] Right...so that's the terminology we used. She drove boo-boos out of your files.
Christine: Thank you so much for your stories.
Khalid: Thank you very much.
Ending
I would like to thank Prof. Saeed for his continuous and longtime support of SD Club activities by presenting in and attending Collective Learning Meetings (CLMs) when he can. Below are links to his papers and book (which we referenced in the interview).
Slicing Complex Problems paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/sdr.4260080305
Slicing Complex Problems video: https://youtu.be/ht3VhcgzWBo
“Cancer as a System Dysfunction” paper: https://doi.org/10.3390/systems9010014
“Why Forrester Wished to Replace Both Differential Equations and Economics?”:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3692759
“Jay Forrester's operational approach to economics” paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/sdr.1525
“Connecting Feedback Map with Computable Model” video: https://youtu.be/mpgSjnPhhRU
Development Planning and Policy Design: A System Dynamics Approach
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GVRQTD2/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_2SZ98VB8PQGEQYZAC7GM
Now, as with the custom of SD-cast, here is a poem I wrote about Prof. Saeed:
Prof. Khalid Saeed
Is a Forrester award recipient
Advised Raafat's PhD on dissent
Has an good sense of humor
Models cancer as a system dysfunction (no tumors!)
Call him for advice on sustainable development
Economics, system dynamics or just to vent
He studied at MIT--the birthplace of SD
Brown bag lunches and table functions
Are where they talked of designing policy,
Feedback, stock-flow and DYNAMO
At WPI, our meetings have been online and free
To be inclusive so people worldwide can see
Or listen to our thoughts on modeling methodology
He documents his thoughts for scientific practice and for history
So others will know about the systems thinking and SD split
Same tools used to different extents. How can we rectify it?
Focus on slicing the problem into pieces?
Test the structure in equilibrium
For any unexpected increases or decreases?
"Keep calm and check DT" says Tim
Who models the dynamics of insurgencies and conflicts
Like his advisor who modeled farmers, soldiers and bandits
To understand what will help tensions cease
And create conditions for world peace
“Farmers, bandits and soldiers: a generic system for addressing peace agendas” paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/sdr.1507
Thank you for listening to SD-cast. Please subscribe to SD-cast to hear more SDories.
Email me, ctang@wpi.edu, if you would like to be on SD/ST-cast or recommend someone.
See below for the WPI SD Social Media accounts:
https://twitter.com/WPISDclub
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1916314/
Sign up for the WPI System Dynamics Club mailing list:
https://bit.ly/WPIsdMailForm
Music:
Intro and End
“Limelight” by Podington Bear is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License. I cut and moved the music track to fit the intro and ending.
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Haplessly_Happy/Limelight
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/