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MIT System Dynamics Seminar | Complex Contagions and the Hidden Influence of the Network Periphery
Please visit the MIT System Dynamics Seminars page for more information.
You are invited to attend the System Dynamics Seminar being held on Friday, April 21st from 12:30-2:00pm EST in the Jay W. Forrester conference room, E62-450, or via Zoom: https://mit.zoom.us/j/99908059742 (Password: SDSP23). Our guest speaker will be Douglas Guilbeault (Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley) presenting Complex Contagions and the Hidden Influence of the Network Periphery (see abstract and brief bio below, announcement attached). Lunch will be provided to those attending in person and a reminder email will be sent out closer to the date.
If you would also like to schedule a 30-minute 1:1 meeting with him before or after the seminar, please fill out the following Doodle poll by COB Tuesday, April 18th and I will confirm times and location with a calendar invite: https://doodle.com/meeting/participate/id/boZ0Rxja. Please notify me if you need to meet over Zoom instead.
Abstract
The standard measure of distance in social networks – average shortest path length – assumes a model of “simple” contagion, in which people only need exposure to influence from one peer to adopt the contagion. However, many social phenomena are “complex” contagions, for which people need exposure to multiple peers before they adopt. In this talk, I argue that the classical measure of path length fails to define network connectedness and node centrality for complex contagions. I provide theoretical and empirical evidence that centrality measures and seeding strategies based on the classical definition of path length frequently misidentify the network features that are most effective for spreading complex contagions. To address these issues, I introduce novel measures of complex path length and complex centrality, which significantly improve the capacity to identify the network structures and central individuals best suited for spreading complex contagions. I validate this theory using empirical data on the spread of a microfinance program in 43 rural Indian villages. Implications for human cultural evolution are discussed.
About the Presenter
Douglas Guilbeault is an Assistant Professor in the Management of Organizations Group at the Haas School of Business. He studies how communication networks underlie the creation and diffusion of cultural content, such as linguistic categories and social norms. This investigation extends to how communication dynamics are shaped by various sources of influence, such as organizational culture and social media. His work has appeared in a number of top journals, including Nature Communications, The Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, and Management Science, as well as in popular news outlets, such as The Atlantic, Wired, and The Harvard Business Review. Guilbeault’s work has received top research awards from The International Conference on Computational Social Science, The Cognitive Science Society, and The International Communication Association. He is co-director of the Berkeley-Stanford Computational Culture Lab, and he is a faculty affiliate of the Berkeley Institute for Data Science. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he trained with sociologist Damon Centola in the Network Dynamics Group.
MIT System Dynamics Seminar | First Look at ReThink Health’s Multisolving Investment Model, Part II
Please visit the MIT System Dynamics Seminars page for more information.
You are invited to attend the System Dynamics Seminar being held on Friday, March 10th from 12:30-2:00pm EST in the Jay W. Forrester conference room, E62-450, or via Zoom: https://rippel-org.zoom.us/j/86004993630 (Passcode: 767250)*. Our guest speakers will once again be Jack Homer, Bobby Milstein, and Chris Soderquist (ReThink Health) presenting First Look at ReThink Health’s Multisolving Investment Model, Part II. Lunch will be provided to those attending in person.
*Please note that we are using a different Zoom link for this seminar
Abstract
Picking up where the Thriving Together Theater leaves off, this session will offer a first look at ReThink Health’s next-generation simulation tool, which we call a Multisolving Investment Model. This new tool will help stewards see for themselves WHY certain investments are especially powerful multisolvers in our quest to thrive together (such as efforts to establish racial fairness as a matter of system design; expand belonging and civic muscle; and secure the other vital conditions). As far as we know, this is the first dynamic model to track population-level changes in well-being separately by race/ethnicity, which in turn lets planners see how everyone benefits we invest more among those who have the most to gain.
During this “First Look” session, we will share (1) the origin story of this new model; (2) design features of a working prototype including a dynamic hypothesis, empirical sources, and calibration; as well as (3) insights from initial tests, including illustrative investment scenarios, optimization, and sensitivity to uncertainties. Together, we will discuss ideas for potential use-cases and facilitation options. But this session will largely concentrate on early insights from the new prototype model.
Technical Background: The new Multisolving Investment Model uses the vital conditions framework and builds upon two prior simulation models built to study investment scenarios. Here are background references about those three elements.
- Milstein B, Payne B, Kelleher C, Homer J, et.al. Organizing Around Vital Conditions Moves the Social Determinants Agenda into Wider Action.
Health Affairs Forefront. 2023; Feb 2. https://tiny.cc/VitalConditionsHA - Milstein B, Homer J, Soderquist C. How Can a Community Pursue Equitable Health and Well-Being after a Severe Shock? Ideas from an Exploratory Simulation Model. Systems. 2022;10(5):158. https://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/10/5/158 (see also this self-guided online interface)
- Milstein B, Homer J. Which Priorities for Health and Well-Being Stand Out After Accounting for Tangled Threats and Costs? Simulating Potential Intervention Portfolios in Large Urban Counties. The Milbank Quarterly. 2020 February 6:1-27. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0009.12448
Please visit https://sloangroups.mit.edu/saas/home/ for more information on all of the Academic Areas research seminars happening this semester.
INSIGHT 2022
The Midlands Decision Support Network in association with The Strategy Unit are hosting INSIGHT 2022 our annual festival of learning and sharing events for the NHS, local government and other partners across health and care.
This year’s festival is from Monday 21st November until Friday 2nd December and includes a mixture of talks, workshops and panel discussions. The theme is ‘The science and craft of decision making’.
The rest of the content stays the same .. for now. We might add a bit of reasoning for the change but not yet …
Decision-making is a core task of leadership, but one which is often under-examined – the programme will explore what high-quality decision-making looks like and how staff across health and care can make the best use of the analysis available to them.
Sessions will be delivered virtually. The festival is open to everyone working in health and care and every session is free.
Attendees can commit as little or as much time as they’d like. Most of the sessions will be recorded so you can fit them into your schedule in a way that suits you.
Confirmed speakers include:
- Alastair McLellan (Editor, Health Service Journal)
- Nigel Edwards (Chief Executive, The Nuffield Trust)
- Dr Bola Owolabi (Director – Health Inequalities, NHS England and NHS Improvement)
- Sir David Dalton (Governor, The Health Foundation)
- Julian Huppert (Director of the Intellectual Forum, Jesus College Cambridge)
- Ben Marshall and Michael Lawrie (Ipsos UK)
- Rony Arafin (Chief Executive Officer, AphA)
- Professor Angie Hobbs (Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy, University of Sheffield)
- Andi Orlowski (Director, The Health Economics Unit)
- Integrated Care Board Chief Executives from the Midlands region (including Amanda Sullivan, John Turner, Phil Johns, Toby Sanders)
- Eric Wolstenholme (Symmetric Scenarios) will present on
Understanding the links between Delayed Discharges and Hospital Congestion
Delayed discharge is a persistent problem in hospitals and there is growing momentum to address it. However, solutions are still elusive and decisions need to be made on the role of ICSs and government to help fund discharge.
This presentation suggests that the potential savings to health from reducing delays to discharge are being significantly underestimated in current solutions. Solving delayed discharge does directly save bed costs, but can also significantly reduce congestion, the use of reactive strategies to counter congestion and the unintended consequences of these for patients, staff and performance.
The talk will use system maps and archetypes to trace out feedback connections within hospital patient flows which give rise to congestion. It will be pertinent to those interested in the way hospitals function and/or the use of practical systems methods, but minimum analytical knowledge is necessary.
Eric Wolstenholme is a Professor of Management Science and Business Learning and has consulted and published widely in systems thinking and system dynamics. The presentation will allow time for questions/discussion and be available on line.
Associate readings are:
Wolstenholme, E.F. Using Cascaded and Interlocking Generic System Archetypes to Communicate Policy Insights—The Case for Justifying Integrated Health Care Systems in Terms of Reducing Hospital Congestion. Systems 2022, 10,135. https://doi.org/10.3390/ systems10050135 https://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/10/5/135/pdf
Wolstenholme, E., McKelvie, D. (2019). Towards a Dynamic Theory of How Hospitals Cope in Times of High Demand. In: The Dynamics of Care. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21878-2_10
Programme of events coming soon…
#INSIGHT2022, @MidlandsDSN
Health Policy SIG Monthly Meeting
HEALTH POLICY SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MONTHLY MEETING
20220901 11am EDT Tom Fiddaman “Data & Uncertainty in System Dynamics” zoom link(UPDATED LINK)
Join the Health Policy SIG for their monthly meetings where members get to present several works related to health policies, systems thinking, and system dynamics. The Health Policy SIG of the System Dynamics Society promotes and supports the wider adoption of System Dynamics methodology and best practices to inform health policy and provides communication channels for collaboration as well as for recognizing achievements of System Dynamics practitioners in health.
Jay Forrester cautioned that “fitting curves to past system data can be misleading.” Certainly that can be true if the model is deficient. But we can have our cake and eat it too: a good model that passes traditional SD quality checks and fits the data can yield unique insights. With recent computing advances, it’s practical to confront models with all available information, including time series data, to yield the best possible estimate of the state of a system and its uncertainty. That makes it possible to construct policies that are robust not just to a few indicator scenarios, but to a wide variety of plausible futures. This talk will discuss how calibration, Kalman filtering, Markov Chain Monte Carlo and sensitivity analysis work together, with particular attention to Bayesian inference. The emphasis will be on practical implementation with a few examples from real projects.
Speaker Bio:
Tom Fiddaman is CTO of Ventana Systems and part of the development team for Vensim and Ventity. He created the Markov Chain Monte Carlo implementation in Vensim that facilitates Bayesian inference in SD models. He got his start in environmental models and simulation games, and worked on Fish Banks, updates to Limits to Growth, and early versions of C-ROADS and EnROADS. He has also worked on data-intensive projects in a variety of health sector problems, including mental health delivery systems, pharmaceutical marketing, state COVID19 policy, and recently Chronic Wasting Disease in deer.
Visit our webpage to learn more: https://systemdynamics.org/special-interest-groups/health-policy/
Contact: wakeland@pdx.edu
Health Policy SIG Monthly Meeting
HEALTH POLICY SPECIAL INTEREST OCT 2022 MEETING link to agenda
Join the Health Policy SIG for their monthly meetings where members get to present several works related to health policies, systems thinking, and system dynamics.
The Health Policy SIG of the System Dynamics Society promotes and supports the wider adoption of System Dynamics methodology and best practices to inform health policy and provides communication channels for collaboration as well as for recognizing achievements of System Dynamics practitioners in health.
Visit our webpage to learn more: https://systemdynamics.org/special-interest-groups/health-policy/
Contact: wakeland@pdx.edu
Health Policy SIG Monthly Meeting
HEALTH POLICY SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MEETING
link to flier for 03Nov2022 presentation by John Ansah
Join the Health Policy SIG for their monthly meetings where members get to present several works related to health policies, systems thinking, and system dynamics.
The Health Policy SIG of the System Dynamics Society promotes and supports the wider adoption of System Dynamics methodology and best practices to inform health policy and provides communication channels for collaboration as well as for recognizing achievements of System Dynamics practitioners in health.
Visit our webpage to learn more: https://systemdynamics.org/special-interest-groups/health-policy/
Contact: wakeland@pdx.edu
Health Policy SIG Monthly Meeting
HEALTH POLICY SIG MEETING Dec 1, 2022 11am EST
Presentation by Tom Fiddaman on Modeling in Ventity – what’s Different? link to flier
The Health Policy SIG of the System Dynamics Society promotes and supports the wider adoption of System Dynamics methodology and best practices to inform health policy and provides communication channels for collaboration as well as for recognizing achievements of System Dynamics practitioners in health.
Visit our webpage to learn more: https://systemdynamics.org/special-interest-groups/health-policy/
Contact: wakeland@pdx.edu
Health Policy SIG Monthly Meeting
HEALTH POLICY SIG Jan 5, 2023 MEETING: Tom Fiddaman
“Modeling in Ventity – what’s Different?” link to flier
Join the Health Policy SIG for their monthly meetings where members get to present several works related to health policies, systems thinking, and system dynamics.
The Health Policy SIG of the System Dynamics Society promotes and supports the wider adoption of System Dynamics methodology and best practices to inform health policy and provides communication channels for collaboration as well as for recognizing achievements of System Dynamics practitioners in health.
Visit our webpage to learn more: https://systemdynamics.org/special-interest-groups/health-policy/
Contact: wakeland@pdx.edu
Health Policy SIG Monthly Meeting
HEALTH POLICY SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MEETING
Join the Health Policy SIG for their monthly meetings where members get to present several works related to health policies, systems thinking, and system dynamics.
The Health Policy SIG of the System Dynamics Society promotes and supports the wider adoption of System Dynamics methodology and best practices to inform health policy and provides communication channels for collaboration as well as for recognizing achievements of System Dynamics practitioners in health.
This month’s meeting will be a networking session! RSVP here. We’ll host an online networking event for you to get to know people in the field and share your work experience with those keen on System Dynamics. Using the wonder.me platform you will be able to bump into people and share experiences!
You’ll have the chance to really connect! Join us Friday to:
- Get to know people in the field
- Explore different perspectives
- Learn about System Dynamics projects
- Share your experience
- Build relationships
Visit our webpage to learn more: https://systemdynamics.org/special-interest-groups/health-policy/
Contact: wakeland@pdx.edu
Health Policy SIG Monthly Meeting
HEALTH POLICY SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MEETING
Join the Health Policy SIG for their monthly meetings where members get to present several works related to health policies, systems thinking, and system dynamics.
The Health Policy SIG of the System Dynamics Society promotes and supports the wider adoption of System Dynamics methodology and best practices to inform health policy and provides communication channels for collaboration as well as for recognizing achievements of System Dynamics practitioners in health.
Visit our webpage to learn more: https://systemdynamics.org/special-interest-groups/health-policy/
Contact: wakeland@pdx.edu