SA-YSSP

This weekend I was invited to address the first group of SA-YSSP participants at the University of the Free State (UFS)  at the opening ceremony. As a past participant of the YSSP program at IIASA, I was asked to talk to the students on what they should hope to take away from  the experience.

I won't repeat it, but I hope the students embrace the opportunity they have been given and share their cultures, research and life journeys. I hope they soak up everything they are shown and taught, it really is a unique experience.

Following the opening ceremony, I was privileged to talk to the individual participants and hear their plans for the Summer.

The following  two days I got to join the Bloemfontein tour,  lunch and Campus tour.

The UFS Campus is rather spread out, with a wonderful postgraduate library designed to serve their interests! Reminded me of IIASA's library and librarians.

The Bloemfontein tour took us part buildings of interest, the Wildlife Reserve and my mom's old school :)

Zanchieta, the Wild Cat Farm outside of Bloemfontein served as our lunch stop. The cats are rescued, boarded or owned the the family that own the farm. They are beautiful to behold. 

Y-S-S-P

This is compliments of Carl Salk, who wrote the lyrics to the tune of YMCA. Roll on Y-S-S-P.

Comrades, there's no need to feel lost.
I said, comrades, get yourself to the Schloss.
I said, comrades, 'cause you're got a new boss
There's no need to be unhappy.
Comrades, there's a place you can go.
I said, comrades, with the bugs in your code.
You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find
Many ways to make it compile.
It's fun to stay at the y-s-s-p.
It's fun to stay at the y-s-s-p.
They have everything for comrades to enjoy,
You can try out new modeling toys ...
It's fun to stay at the y-s-s-p.
It's fun to stay at the y-s-s-p.
You can learn GIS, you can run GAMS with zeal,
You can do whatever you feel ...
Comrades, are you listening to me?
I said, comrades, what do you want to eat?
I said, comrades, how ‘bout meat wrapped in meat?
But you got to know this one thing!
The chef shot it all by himself.
I said, comrades, grab your dish off the shelf,
And just go there, to the schlossrestaurant
I'm sure they can help you believe:
It's fun to stay at the y-s-s-p.
It's fun to stay at the y-s-s-p.
They have everything for comrades to enjoy,
You can try out new modeling toys ...
It's fun to stay at the y-s-s-p.
It's fun to stay at the y-s-s-p.
You can learn GIS, you can run GAMS with zeal,
You can do whatever you feel ...
Comrades, I was once in grad school.
I said, I was down and out with the blues.
I felt science would never meet art.
I felt the whole world would fall apart ...
That's when someone came up to us,
And said, hop on the 566 bus.
There's a place there called the y.s.s.p.
They can start you back on your way.
It's fun to stay at the y-s-s-p.
It's fun to stay at the y-s-s-p.
They have everything for comrades to enjoy,
You can try out new modeling toys ...
Y-s-s-p ... you'll find it at the y-s-s-p.
Comrades, comrades, there's no need to feel lost.
Comrades, comrades, get yourself to the Schloss.
Y-s-s-p ... you'll find it at the y-s-s-p.
Comrades, comrades, there's no need to feel lost.
Comrades, comrades, get yourself off the Schloss.
Y-s-s-p ... just go to the y-s-s-p.
Comrades, comrades, are you listening to me?
Comrades, comrades, where do you wanna be?

YSSP Awards Dinner

The YSSP Awards Dinner last night was our last chance to party as a group and reminisce about our experiences over the Summer. Some YSSPers interpreted "formal" a little more liberally than over...shorts with sandals or takkies is not formal!

The Director, Alumni president and YSSP Dean all regaled us with tales of past years and memories from this Summer. Each YSSPer received a certificate for completing the program and the official photo taken on the grand staircase off the main entrance.




The YSSPers put together a presentation for the dinner which consisted of a few movies from our time here, a song, a dance and the Y-S-S-P (Think YMCA but with scientists trying to spell YSSP). Our favourite moments were captured on film and there were quite a number of photos of us "working" in our offices :P

The second photo is the African delegation :)

The last photo is the IME group, my fellow survivors of the Summer (the Canadian, the South African, the Chinese and the Ukrainian..sounds the like start of a bad joke)

Last Day @ IIASA

Today is the last day of the YSSP at IIASA. It has been a whirlwind three months here in Vienna and I'm still trying to absorb everything I've learnt while here. I'm happy to be going home to Cape Town and back to my family but I am also a little sad to leave behind this awesome group of talented individuals. Let's hope the reunion is in a place I can actually afford to visit.

I've written a lot about the YSSP experience in the last three months and I'm very glad I can now look back at my musings in fond remembrance of seminars, parties and trips. We're primarily doing admin today (giving in keys etc) before many of us leave this weekend.

I'm off to Italy and Switzerland and probably won't be posting much until I get back to Cape Town (expect a barrage of backposting at this point)

Late Summer Workshop

Today is the start of two full days of presentations by the YSSPs on their research over the Summer. Its been an intense 3 month period and looking back there are many many things I would have done differently. The first was to communicate well in advance with the group I'd applied to. I've noticed that nearly all participants with "Cold Calls" have had far more misunderstandings with their supervisor and spent a lot more time explaining the background to the problem and their motivations.

This year the presentations are grouped a little differently to normal. Presentations are grouped according to research topics instead of research programs. I presented in the "Addressing Selected Problems in Africa, China and India" section along with Arame Tall (Senegal), Nimi Hoffman (South Africa), Xuchao Yang (China), Linke Hou (China) and Sarthak Gaurav (India). Our presentations were 15 minutes long with 10 minutes for questions. As the first group to present, we now can happily sit through everyone else's without feeling any presentation anxiety.

Following our presentations we have an Interim Report to hand in at the end of September which should be more indepth than the presentation.

YSSP Tshirt Design

Thursday night was the unveiling of the YSSP 2010 t-shirt design by Aapo at the football match. We've been brainstorming ideas a lot over the last 2 months and this is the final product. Its a very YSSP joke in some ways as The Sound of Music featured quite heavily on our Zell am See trip. The hills are definitely alive with the sound of science :P or at least the schloss is.

Tomorrow is the start of the YSSP end of Summer Presentations. I have to present first! My friends who know I am a night owl will be laughing at this fact.

A Day in the Life of a YSSPer

Ben wrote a Day in the Life in June when the days were quiet(ish) so I thought I'd write an update now that the our time is coming to an end (4 days til presentation day!) of what we do on the average day.

7.15am The Early Morning M-Bahn (or Tram/Bus combo on party days)

7.45am Arrival at the Schloss
We generally have to unlock the front door as official hours are 8.30am - 5.30pm. Its actually quite sad getting to the office this early in the morning.

Depending on the day, the Schlossplatz is humming with activity as some group set up stages, booths, stalls for whatever event to being hosted there next. On friday morning we have a few farmers market type stalls.
7.45am - 9am Browse webcomics and online newspapers

9am - 12pm Work on stuff, maybe read a paper, annoy your officemates by starting a discussion on a topic you need help with the other YSSP in the office

12pm Lunch
Lunch in the Schloss Restaurant is a rather social event most days. On sunny days we sit outside under the trees and solve the world's biggest problems over some deep-fried concoction ranging from 2.10 euros upwards. Depending on the day we get to puzzle over how the lunch menu fits together and what exactly they decided to deep-fry on the day. The other day was diced celeriac and cheese patties! The presence of a salad bar is much appreciated (except when its all coated in vinegar).
1.30pm Sleepy time after all that lunch...must work...

3.15pm Mid-afternoon snack (Eissalon anyone?)

3.30pm-5.15pm Work stuff frequently studded with mutterings in foreign languages as the model breaks...again

5.15pm Leave time (unless there is a party planned, see below)

5.30pm Party time
On certain evenings STAC/YSSP organises a party which fits into the "work hard, play harder" philosophy here. Its nice to be able to unwind, chat to staff or fellow students and escape the office.

8.50pm Waiting for the bus

As the sun sinks in the "early evening" we seek to catch the last rays of sunshine after being in the office during the day. The IIASA wireless works at the bus stop and provides an excellent opportunity to catch up on FB and emails.

9.20pm The Last Bus

9.25pm The Commute Home



9.45pm Quellenplatz
The commute home takes 45 minutes if everything is timed perfectly but can take up to an hour if the tram arrival does not coincide with the arrival of the bus at Quellenplatz.

10.20pm Simmering again
View from the 5th floor balcony (at 6pm not 10pm, the sun doesn't stay up that late!)

10.30pm Dinner / Evening snack (or Potluck)

10.40pm Check up on stuff at home

11.30pm Whoops!
Realise you're going to have to get up at 6.30am and should really go to sleep

YSSP vs IIASA football showdown

Last night was the YSSP vs IIASA Staff football showdown which I gather has become a tradition over the years. I have also heard that the staff have a few players that actually play for clubs unlike the YSSPers. Knowing this I'm not surprised when past scores have been 9-0, 7-1 etc to the staff. This year the YSSPers have been playing every week and have definitely improved from the first get together in June. They have even had secret meetings and been practicing to take on the staff. Paul the octopus predicted a YSSP win in the 4th half :)


This said, they lost 4-3 but only because they didn't stick to their game plan in the first half. In the second and third halves they played beautifully. Those who came to support who very enthusiastic for every goal they scored and every goal Mikko saved.

The photo documentary of the match below:

The meeting of the leaders, please notice the fancy uniforms handmade with love by Avery, Aapo and Markus and Avery's now green shoes after Aapo and Markus "accidently on purpose" decided that they needed to match his uniform.

YSSP first half meeting, its a very international negotiation going on :)


The supporters came out with their new vuvuzelas from Africa Day and did a few mini Mexican waves to cheer on the YSSP team. The IIASA staff were lacking both the noise makers and numbers to upstage them. Its all about the fan base.

The end of match photo

Asia Day

Asia Day was a gastronomic delight as food from every corner of Asia was prepared for us to feast on. As with Africa Day the food queues were really long as people asked questions about the food and how it is prepared etc. I saw a lot of heaped plates.

I can't even begin to name all the food prepared. I can however name some of the countries represented: Japan, China, Korea (mmm... bbq), Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Nepal.

As with any Asia party, the traditional costumes were beautifully colourful, sort of like birds of paradise. I really wish I had managed to organise a sari for the evening.

The Asia staff and students organised a series of cultural exhibitions which included a play written by one of the staff. Though plagued with a few sound issues, they performed beautifully and it made for some fun.


Cultural Program:

• IIASA-YSSP Musical Group “Pro-Tempore“ : The Snow at the Feet of the Maharaja.
  

The staff and students have been practising in secret for weeks now to present a play. Various members of Forestry were talked into playing bodyguards for the beautiful queen. Our YSSP coordinator even sang for us :)

• HSC: Flash Mob Dance



• Elena Rovenskaya : Belly Dance

• Suchi Subramanian : Bollywood Dance
• Subramanian Family : Indian Melodies
• Haiguang Hao : Tai Chi




• Sarthak Gaurav : Indian Rhapsody

Involved?

I had a discussion the other day about the involvement of graduate students in organisations and societies both on and off campus. This discussion developed out of a feedback session on the YSSP application process and people asking what type of experience is taken into account when selecting the participants.

If you look at the application process, a lot of space is given for previous academic experience in terms of published papers and conference talks but none is given to involvement in your research community or non-profit organisations. Would you could consider this a valid measure? Some students here are very new to graduate research (this is a Young Scientists program) and haven't had time to publish. Do you think involvement in a research community or outreach program important to personal growth?

Another interesting observation are the participants who signed up for the Media Training, nearly all had experience in an organisation that required interaction with a broader community and saw the value of communication. Those who didn't participate were "pure" scientists. A question to those who didn't attend: Is this because you didn't think you'd ever have to communicate to a broader audience or because you've already done a course before?

Finally: If you could add anything to the YSSP application what would it be? I'm curious

Climate Change Negotiation Simulation

Today IIASA staged a Climate Change Negotiation Simulation as part of our YSSP. YSSP participants we assigned a country to represent one of: Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Grenada, India, Japan, Russian Federation, Sweden, Sudan, UK, USA, Australia, Poland, Hungary etc etc. Basically a mixture og G8, G20 and G77 countries.

My initial reason for taking part was to experience a negotiation situation as I am always frustrated by the reports in the newspapers of failure following these negotiations. I can now understand why. We were each assigned a country, or given NGO status to observe the proceedings. I was assigned Australia, an environmental activist of sorts that was campaigning for tough emissions targets and to introduce the concept of "climate change refugees". My simulation tip notes featured some countries I should negotiate with and some that needed more persuasion. I was told to criticise African countries (which goes against my personal feelings) and push for developing countries to accept that they are not exempt from the guilt just because they are still growing economically.

M&M Negotiations

Before the official negotiations began we played a simple negotiaton game where each person is given five pieces of paper in different colours, you have to negotiate to get 5 pieces of the same colour. It was hilarious as some people walked around talking your way into a colour while others just sat and waited for people to come to them. Quite interesting to try.

Negotiation Simulation

Throughout the negotiation process we discovered other's country mandates, game instructions and a few hidden agendas. Ariel as game master observed the proceedings and pushed forward negotiations with ad-hoc instructions for countries to carry out. Examples of these were criticising the chair for bias, not following due process, changing stance mid negotiation, stage a walk out, start forming a coalition. It made the process quite baffling at times.

There are few keys thing I have learnt from the experience. When negotiating, there must be a clear language for all parties, such as what emissions means vs emissions intensities, what does respected mean etc. I also learnt that one needs negotiators with technical know-how to negotiate, not political figures that do not understand the implications of the various proposals tabled for discussion.

Waving The African Flag Proudly

Africa Day was officially a great success. We ate, danced and drank...a typical African party.

YSSPers and a few staff slaved over stoves, watched ovens, shopped up a storm to bring African cuisine to the IIASA ignorants. Arame and I planned (or were told to plan) for 60 - 70 people and so with this in mind we made enough food for leftovers. The problem was (we don't consider it a problem really) that almost double that number attended, so much for Arame's and my plan to eat the leftovers for lunch. We have absolutely nothing left. There were queues for food! I've never such a thing, though to be fair I think that was because everyone required an explanation of the food which made the selection time a lot longer than normal.

The quiz Ben designed apparently taxed the minimal knowledge people had about Africa, including their flag knowledge. Highest score was 26/100!

























The menu for the evening included:

• Beef Bobotie (South Africa)
• Chicken Tajine (Morocco)
  
• Lentil and Brinjal Curry (South Africa)
• Yassa (Senegal)
• Thiou Guinar (Cote d’Ivoire)
• Ugali/Msima (Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia)
• White Jasmine Rice
• Pine nut couscous
• Malva Pudding (South Africa)
  
• Koeksisters (South Africa)

Drinks:

• Bouye (Baobab Tree fruit drink)
• Bissap (Sweet Hibiscus fruit drink)
• Springbokkies (South Africa)

We had a bit of a music problem, how to represent the entire continent's music in 3.5 hours? Make a playlist of 16 hours worth of all our favourites and put it on shuffle, the computer can be the unbiased selector :P Let the dancing begin!!


My mom posted me a few vuvuzelas which provided much entertainment as partygoers tried to out perform each other, talk about noise!

Overall I think it was a great success and the kitchens of Vienna can breathe a sigh of relief as they go back to being unused.

YSSP Group Photo

Today was the official YSSP 2010 Group Photo on the grand staircase in the Schloss. We all arrived, some of us more awake than others depending on the kitchen we were cooking in last night, to commemorate our spectacular presence here in Laxenburg :P


The funny thing is that some of the YSSPers we hadn't seen in a while, either cause we've been hiding in our offices or they have. It was nice to touch base and hang out for the fifteen minutes it took to organise us all.

If you're wondering why PhD students are suddenly colourful its because most came dressed for Africa Day as it had the directive of the more colour the better :)

Africa Day!

Africa Day has arrived :) The food is all cooked (and there is lots of it) and we're getting into the party mood. The African YSSP participants and adopted African students are going to be frantically setting up for Africa Day this afternoon. If you see a stressed organiser, lend a hand!

Philosophy for a United Earth

Professor Joseph Agassi of Tel Aviv University gave a talk on the Philosophy for a United Earth this morning. While I'm not sure if I would buy into the argument for a global institution I did appreciate his comments on if only... Think back to the last time you said If only, it is an escape clause, something one says when one expects failure. I hadn't really considered this before.

Rate of decay of enthusiasm levels

This is a dedication to all YSSPers and particularly to Stefan who sat through an incredibly geeky conversation with me about decay rates of enthusiasm post-YSSP. I'm sure each of you could add to the graph to make it more accurate. Disclaimer: The numbers are completely false!
I had a conversation last night with Warren about a portal for communication between YSSP 2010 participants post August. He was asking me as a CS geek to suggest possible means to facilitate long-term communication and sharing of news, reunions and resources. Now Facebook does not allow for resource sharing but does provide support to share photos and create events and has a discussion forum. Google groups can cater for both the forums and resources but not the photos. Any suggestions? This needs to be an already developed tool.

Russian Invasion

Today we had a new addition to the YSSP social calendar: Cheburashka Wednesday. The Russian and Ukrainian participants and staff laid out a party full of food, facts and fun.

I was late in arriving due to a supervisor meeting and missed the quiz but got to see the games and they provided great entertainment! Musical chairs, egg and spoon races and find the clothes peg on the body while blindfolded.

I'm not going to even attempt to spell the names of the various dishes on offer but one was similar to pasta filled with meat, another was potatoes stuffed with cheese or meat and cooked on coals. The coals were manned by my fellow IME member Sergey who confided that the meat filled potatoes were better because that is more traditional Ukrainian :) and having tasted both I now trust his judgement.

We now have 2 more continental themed days ahead: Africa and Asia. Bring on more good food, music and fun!

PPA: Implementation and Evaluation

This seminar really should be title "Mind the Gap" which fits perfectly with the new overall course title "How to analyse the Ministry of Magic". Public Policy Analysis seminars offer a vast range of odd examples

Today we discussed the Implementation and Evaluation of policies and tools available to facilitate this. There are two approaches; Top-down and Bottom-up that cover the horizontal and vertical policy space.

The top-down approach is the one I am most familiar approach. A policy is formulated by a high-power (government? Ministry of Magic?) and then the orders for implementation are filtered down a change of command. This can lead to a Broken Telephone effect with information leaking at each step (Is it geeky to admit that I like the visual of heat equations that lose energy in each direction?). How can one improve this? Perhaps offer implementation incentives, improve communication channels. This is an ideal type, there is no policy that fits perfectly into this approach but it is interesting to note why policies failed using it such as poor formulation or power issues. The analysis can show the implementation gap...or Mind the Gap!

The bottom-up approach seems to be a bit more haphazard in nature which conflicts with my personality. The policy is dependent on a network of street-level bureaucrats that share resources and have a level of discretion. How do you analyse this? With great difficulty, there is a horizontal layer with weak structure from what I can gather. Policies are negotiated and there is a great deal of uncertainty. Policies have very vague goals with no associated metrics.

What have I learnt from this 6 seminar course dip into the world of social science? I am very much a quantitative scientist who likes structure, people are confusing and politics even more so. Do I ever want to enter the minefield of policy design, probably not. I think I'd offend too many people by telling them their process sucks.

Suggested Reading:
Paul Sabatier (1986), Top-down and Bottom-up Approaches to Implementation Research: A Critical Analysis and Suggested Synthesis”,Journal of Public Policy, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Jan. - Mar., 1986), pp. 21-48.

Is the MEAN meaningless?

After a rather heated debate last night about climate models, betting on the model runs and trying to analyse the data from these massive collections of model runs (ensembles) I have a few thought provoking questions for people:

Is the mean meaningless or useful?
What would you do if the mean is consistently wrong?
Would you bet on the mean of an ensemble?
How do you cater for the variability shown by the forecasts, especially if they encompass extreme that can feasibly happen?
Do you feel its responsible to give a policy-maker or decision-maker the mean without a proper feeling for the envelope of possibilities? Could policy-makers design policies that used that variability? Would these be more robust than the current solutions?

PPA: Decisions: Power and Rationality

Friday our ever decreasing group of public policy students debated the process of making decisions and what types of rationality exist. As the penultimate seminar we have almost completed the policy analysis cycle. Our reading list for the seminar included Lindblom and Dahl. Dahl argues that a key characteristic of a democracy is the continuing responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals. A political system which has the characteristic of being almost or completely responsive to all its citizens.

You can for the sake of argument and analysis divide most governments in four categories based on Contestation (C) and Inclusion (I). High C / High I, High C/ Low I, Low C/ High I, Low C/Low I. From this can further analyse with respect to:

• How the power is distributed
• Role of the state
• Nature of conflict
• Whose interests prevails
• Basis of power

The other topic up for debate was Rationality. Now this interests me, I've been reading up on rationality in decision-making for modeling purposes. The two we explored were Incrementalism (Partisan Mutual Adjustment?) and Bounded Rationality.

I'm really interested in Bounded Rationality and how people cannot considered more than a certain amount of information, important when asking decision-makers to pick based on multiple criteria or systems with multiple implications.

If by this point you're wondering when I became a social science convert I can quite adamantly profess to this being my only foray into the world of qualitative, mumble-jumble in which there are few wrong answers...I'll even take statistics equations over this world.

Reading List:

• Charles Lindblom (1950), “The Science of Muddling Through”, Public Administration Review, (19), Spring 1950, pp.79-88.
• Robert Dahl (1971), Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, Yale University Press, Yale., Chapter 1: “Democratisation and Public Opposition”