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Calibration Of Complex System Dynamics Models: A Practioner's Report, Rod Walker, Wayne W. Wakeland Jul 2011

Calibration Of Complex System Dynamics Models: A Practioner's Report, Rod Walker, Wayne W. Wakeland

Wayne W. Wakeland

This paper is not a typical academic paper that is solidly grounded in the literature. Instead, this paper reports practitioner’s experiences in rebuilding and calibrating a very large system dynamics model. A prior version of this model had been in use for over 10 years in an ongoing executive training simulation. That model had never worked correctly in several key areas, requiring the outputs to be manually adjusted by very experienced facilitators during the course of the simulation. The present project rebuilt the system dynamics model, redesigned the parts that weren’t working, and calibrated the resulting model to match the …


A System Dynamics Model Of Pharmaceutical Opioids: Medical Use, Diversion, And Nonmedical Use, Teresa D. Schmidt, Wayne W. Wakeland, J. David Haddox Jul 2011

A System Dynamics Model Of Pharmaceutical Opioids: Medical Use, Diversion, And Nonmedical Use, Teresa D. Schmidt, Wayne W. Wakeland, J. David Haddox

Wayne W. Wakeland

Abstract: A dramatic rise in the nonmedical of pharmaceutical opioids has presented the United States with a substantial public health problem. Nonmedical use of prescription pain relievers has become increasingly prevalent in the US over the last two decades, and diversion of medicines obtained by prescription is assumed to be a major source of supply for nonmedical opioid use. Policymakers striving to protect population health by ameliorating the adverse outcomes of nonmedical use of opioid analgesics could benefit from a systems-level model which reflects the complexity of the system and incorporates the full range of available data. To address this …


Veils And Cloaks Of Ignorance: Under-Used Tools For Conflict Resolution, Barry F. Anderson Jan 2011

Veils And Cloaks Of Ignorance: Under-Used Tools For Conflict Resolution, Barry F. Anderson

Barry F Anderson

In his influential work, A Theory of Justice, John Rawls (1971) introduced the notion of a “veil of ignorance” as a conceptual device for promoting just choices. On the premise that getting conflicting parties to think more fairly is a good first step toward achieving agreement, we develop Rawls’s notion as a tool for conflict resolution. However, the interpretation that is usually placed upon Rawls’s “veil of ignorance” is what we call a “thin veil,” and psychological research shows such veils to be generally ineffective. To thin veils, we add the concepts of “thick veils” and “cloaks,” providing examples of …