Nordic Mid-Sommar Party

I celebrated my first ever Nordic Mid-Sommar Party this afternoon organised by the Nordic YSSP delegates and a few assorted extras.

The party included herring, meatballs, schnapps and a mini traditional pole decorated in flags and flowers. Each person had to bring a flower to decorate the poll.

There were drinking songs, dancing around the pole and apparently a strange occurrence at a mid-sommar party: sunshine :) The Nordic countries normally have rain, very different from a Cape Town mid-summer with blistering heat. In true South African spirit I appropriated Elisabeth's head gear for the party.

MacDonalds goes classy

In one of the main walking streets of Salzburg the shop signs have been integrated with the old trade announcements. Its a very touristy street and the signs caused great amusement such as the one above. Who knew MacDonalds could be classy?

Science on Global Problems Area: Food & Water

IIASA has defined three new strategic research areas: Food & Water, Energy & Climate Change and Poverty & Equity.

Food & Water has been shared by a few groups within IIASA's research groups; Forestry, Ecology and Land Use Change. They reviewed current research activities and highlighted a few key challenges in this global problem area. These include:

• Widespread hunger and rising global food demands
• Agriculture needs to increase 70% globally and 100% in the developing world
• Agriculture currently uses 70% of all anthropogenic water use.
• Fishing currently feeds 1 billion people but won't be sustainable with the current overfishing
• A need for robust expansion of food and bioenergy production with sustainable regulating ecosystem functions protecting the global gene pool.
• Strategies for copying with climate change needs to be location specific.

Each group expounded on possible research avenues. Its quite fascinating what some of the proposed solutions entail. One worrying fact is that the capacity for rain-fed agriculture in Africa is decreasing by 2050, which given that 95% of the crop-land in Africa is rain-fed and contributes 35% to the GDP and 70% of the employment and 40% of the exports (according to FAO in 2000), maybe that should be a major focus on the African agenda.

A glimpse of Salzburg

We had a very quick stop off in Salzburg on our way home from Zell am See and the Salzburg Global Seminar on Monday afternoon. By quick I mean an hour. I did manage to run around the "City Centre" as the tourists brochures describe it. There is a river running through the city, making for some gorgeous riverside views. Salzburg is nestled at the foot of a cliff/mountain and the castles at the top are definitely something I am going back to visit.

The gardens of Schloss Mirabell (yes I know yet another Schloss :P) are picture perfect with manicured flower beds in artistic patterns, a rose garden, sculptures to represent the elements and a statue of Pegasus with the biggest smile I've ever seen on a winged horse.

As you move from Mirabellgarten you get a glimpse of copper domes at seems to typify church architecture here. For a country that is not that religious they have an amazing number of churches per square kilometre.

As we moved into the official city centre we started noticing a few familiar buildings (at least if you're a Sound of Music fan). The fountain I'm sitting on the edge of is where Maria takes the children (that open square) and behind me is the Residence building. After the SGS Schloss and this I can state I've visited about 90% of the places the filmed in.

PPA: Actors and Venues of Policy-Making

Today is the second Public Policy Analysis seminar by Stephen Ney where we discussed actors active or passive in policy making, these could be individuals or institutions at various levels. The diagram below shows the output of the seminar, an idea of the policy network and how they influence each other. Mine looks largely hierarchical and rigid, not as fluid and open as others. Mine also maps funding and knowledge exchanges (in red). Its interesting when writing up your research results with the anticipation that it is policy relevant one can see who to target and possibly how.

Preparatory Readings:
Atkinson and Coleman (1992), “Policy Networks, Policy Communities and the Problems of Governance”,Governance, 5(2): 154-180.
Chris Ansell (2000), “The Networked Polity: Regional Development in Western Europe”,Governance, Vol.13, No.3, pp.303-333.

Salzburg Global Seminar

The Salzburg Global Seminar is an institution that attempts to train future leaders in a diverse range of fields. The YSSP participants had the opportunity to hear Edward Mortimer talk on 'Communicating the Global Agenda', a topic he is well qualified to pontificate on. As chief speech writer for the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan he shared his views on the global media, the pillars of the UN and provoked a quite lively lunch time discussion on how to bridge the gap between global problems (or the UN buzz word "challenges") and local politics.

The SGS is housed in yet another castle, Schloss Leopoldskron. I'm getting used to working in grandeur, going back to boring brick and concrete is going to be tough.

Not science related at all, Schloss Leopoldskron's exterior was using for all the garden shots for the Sound of Music (including the gazebo scenes and lake scenes). We had a chance to explore Salzburg in the late afternoon and spotted a few more Sound of Music sights.

After lunch and our exploration of this highly detailed schloss we entered into a very lively debate on the 'Public Understanding of Science & Public Engagement' led by Ian Brown and John Lotherington. This topic was centred around the "Climategate" incident in November 2009 that called into question the validity of climate science and the public's right to data.

Some of the chief points for and against the engagement of the public in science that emerged from this debate are summarised below (in no order):

• Will the public have more trust in scientists if they are more transparent in their methodologies and data acquisition?
• Greater engagement with the public improves the overall level of education
• Peer-review is a process with its own checks and balances and would be undermined by the public
• The allocation of funding is already decided by and large by the public through political appointments (in the case of some countries like USA but not China)
• The extra time and energy commitment needed to reply to all public criticism would hinder scientific progress
• The role of scientists is already mandated by society
• There are drawbacks to the public having access to data, it would become a popularity contest as larger institutions can release more data
• Who holds the Intellectual property rights to data produced by simulations at an government institution and the models developed there?
• Would a premature release of data create more chaos and prepared and filtered data?
• The public has a right to review any tax funded research project?
  

Any thoughts from fellow scientists? Are the public demanding too much?

Salzwelten

Sunday we scrapped our hiking plans (drowned rat is not a good look) and visited the Salzwelten, a salt ("white gold") mine in the mountains near Salzburg. The group has the most amazingly humourous experience of climbing into white protection suits, shown in the pictures. We resembled the KKK with our hoods up or Smurfs depending on your school of thought.


After donning these highly fashionable outfits we were proceeded to the railway entrance into the mine. The railway benches encourage one to get very friendly with one's neighbours (in other words squished) as we journey deeper and deeper into the mountain and the mine. The temperature was meant to drop to 10C but seeing as the outside temperature was 6C it warmed up for us ice blocks.


The tour takes one through the history of the mine and the "new" process of leaching salt from the rock using water. One has to remember new is relative, the first mining by hand was started in 500 BC by the Celts. We even got a boat ride on the 'Titanic' over an underground lake (all of 70m long and 2m deep). The tour came complete with cheasy movies on the history of the mine owner and cut-out cartoon characters pointing to sights of interest.


The best part of the tour were the slide sections, one of which was called "Highway to Hell" (42m long). You speed down the slides at a fast pace with your legs up and leaning back. We started racing amongst the YSSP group (the normal tourists attached to our group were highly amused). Ben and I beat the YSSP Coordinators down Highway to Hell :)


This tour does come with a hefty price tag attached, 18 euros for adults or 16 euros for a group of 20 or more.

Gorge and Glacier: The frosty Alps

Saturday morning were trekked up to the Sigmund-Thun Klamm, a gorge carved out by a glacier. We walked along wooden walkways through these high rock walls with crystal clear water gushing below. The gorge was originally developed as a tourist attraction in 1893 and later the boardwalk had to be condemned in 1938. Reopened in 1992, it is a 320m path through the gorge and about 32m deep. The wall of the gorge have a selection of striking rock formations, eddies and potholes. We noticed a few on the walk, namely the Gorge Ghost and the Gorge Witch complete with hook nose.

The Klamsee is an area in the Kapruner Valley on the outskirts of the Hohe Tauern National Park. The Dam at the top of the gorge has an amazing view of this valley. We stopped at the waterfall/edge of the dam and looked over the lake of blue/green water.










We cut our walk short at the gorge to maximise our time on the glacier. The Glossglockner Glacier is nestled high in the Alps (3798m). We drove up the windy roads higher and higher and ascended into the clouds. The weather has been awful all weekend, it hasn't stopped raining since we boarded the bus in Simmering. The peaks were shrouded in fog and as we ascended the fog got worse until at times we couldn't see out of the bus windows. Miraculously the fog lifted briefly when we arrived to reveal a gorgeous glacier.

We walked down to the glacier (well almost) and then took the Glacier Railway back up to save time. As we returned to the bus the rain started and turned into snow as we started driving home. Nice and chilly.

Zell am See

Zell am See is a quaint little town nestled between the soaring Alps and beautiful lake. We arrived in the early evening and after dinner took a walk around to see the town at night. We found a fountain on the edge of town that is either a Hundertwasser or a monument to him.

The hostel is on the water's edge with a beautiful view of the snowcapped mountains, vibrant green hills and peaceful lake.

Podcasts: The gurus speak

IIASA Podcasts are fascinating to listen to as researchers here discuss the challenges we face within the next decade. The topics are diverse from Global Health to Climate Change. I particularly like the podcast by Buzz Holling on "Living with Transformation". If you have some free time, grab a podcast and become aware.

Vernissage

Tonight saw the opening of the Kasiergang Photo Exhibition by various students of Frank CMYK. The wine flowed freely with some tempting nibbles on the side. The photographs covered a vast spectrum of topics. I particularly liked the black and white shots of industrial sites around Vienna.

The highlight though was the entertainment, a band consisting of various IIASA staff members (Health & Global Change group).

We took advantage of the break in the rain to sit outside and reflect on the process each YSSPer has made in the past 2 weeks (general consensus is not as much as expected).

We have however decided that staging a "Dance your PhD" event would be awesome (youtube it). Though this may be the copious amounts of wine talking.

IME: Multiple Criteria Analysis

Marek Makowski gave a seminar today on Multiple Criteria Analysis for the Integrated Modeling Environment (IME) group.

Integrated model analysis helps one analyse a manageable number of solutions having different trade-offs between (conflicting) criteria. There are two different types available. Descriptive (simulations) which is alternative-focused. The input is the decisions and the outcomes the goals. The other is Prescriptive (optimisation) is goal-orientated. The inputs are the goals (preferences) and the outcomes are the decisions. Where there are goals, one needs multiple criteria analysis.

IME IIASA developed a Multi-criteria Analysis tool for an energy project a few years ago. The tool is fairly easy to use and available to the public (along with some introductory and advanced papers). Our next session is a hands on workshop for using the tool.

In other news I skipped Adaptive Dynamics this morning, the PHD Comic below seems rather apt, the lecture venue is literally just down the hall.

Bioenergy: Musings of Tim Searchinger

Tim Searchinger hails from Princeton University. He gave a talk last night entitled "Bioenergy and Its Implications for Feeding the World Without Cooking the Planet" for IFF and a few YSSPers braved the deluge of rain to hear him. I knew very little going into the talk but he managed to both explain the field and the gaps of knowledge brilliantly. He has definitely been one of the best speakers I've heard this year.

Biofuels is a rather controversial topic if you read about emissions guidelines and the errors in the accounting of greenhouse gas emissions. He highlighted a few areas that the world needs to look at/study. More efficient cropland (increase yields or even look at what crop yields are...the data is terrible or unavailable), catalogue of "other" land and development of new fertilizer production with slow release nitrogen.

Final words: Don't forget the "D" in R&D

PPA: What is Public Policy Analysis

IIASA/YSSP offers students a series of seminars covering a variety of modeling and social topics. Today is the start of a six part seminar series on Public Policy Analysis by Stephan Ney. The overall objective for the course is "to introduce YSSP students to the approaches, frameworks and methods of contemporary policy analysis".

Today we delved into the realm of sociology to public policy analysis. As a scientist with no/little sociology background the question is firstly what is the definition[1], something I discovered is not actually that easy to answer.

Firstly what is POLICY? Try name some examples. You immediately get Health Care, Foreign, Education, Population etc. What about smaller scale? Gun control, Gas Emissions, Public Procurement, the list goes on. What do they all have in common? A set of rules, intentions, sequence of actions, normative and mostly government initialised. We finally agreed that Policy is an outcome/stance/process that has an underlying theory usually with with desired goals and an evaluative standard.

Some nice definitions include: "web of decisions and actions that allocate values" - Easton or "Policy is rather like the elephant - you recognise it when you see it, but you cannot easily define it" - Cunningham.

Moving on to PUBLIC, what makes a policy public? Start with what is not public like corporate. Then there are "Corporate Social Responsibility" policies. It can be argued (indeed it was) that while the corporate is pursuing some private interest it is of public interest. The consensus is that Public means it is of public interest (collective interest), usually requires some sort of oversight or government action and is defined by civil society.

Now ANALYSIS: Why analyse policies? It affects us, to improve things, efficiency, knowledge acquisition, transparency, evaluation, decision-support, effects of. You could probably name quite a few more.

[1] H. Hugh Heclo (1972), “Policy Analysis”, British Journal of Political Science, Vol.2, No.1 (Jan 1972), pp.83-108

Bring out the science heavyweights: Levien and Neureiter

Roger Levien and Norma Neureiter are both on IIASA's Endowment Board of Trustees. Roger Levien is the founder of YSSP and gave a talk on why he felt the world needed a program like YSSP. IIASA was initially founded by 12 National Member Organisations (NMOs) in 1972 as a collaboration agreement for "Applied Systems Analysis". Levien himself had been part of a graduate summer program at RAND in the USA. He describes it as a life changing experience, integrating research and policy, especially around operations research as it was then dubbed.

The funniest thing we learnt today was that the program was meant to be called "Summer Program for Young Scientists" or SPYS, which during the Cold War wasn't the most politically correct name hence YSSP.

Norman Neureiter talks about Science Diplomacy. Can you be diplomatic in Science? Neureiter believes that Science Diplomacy can bridge the cultural divide between nationals who for whatever reason disagree. His examples ranged from China, Russia, Poland and France. Each nation has research projects or exchanges with the USA that has paved the way for more political agreements. It was an interesting trip through politics, science and history from the view of a systems analyst.
Further reading for those interested:

• “The Pervasive Role of Science, Technology and Health in Foreign Policy: Imperatives for the Department of State”, Office of International Affairs, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 1999.
• “New frontiers in science diplomacy”, The Royal Society, Policy Document RS1619, London, 2010
• “Science and technology in the Department of State”, by Norman P. Neureiter, Technology in Society, vol. 26 (2004), pp.303-320
• Speech on science and diplomacy by the UK Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, at the Royal Society, Jan. 12, 2010.
• Assorted articles/editorials in SCIENCE, vol. 315 (2007), p.769; vol. 305 (2004), p. 1677; vol. 326 (2009), p. 1459; etc.

A link in a long chain

The YSSP has moved into its third week of work, activities and seminars. One of the most interesting outcomes for me has been the connections of topics amongst the participants, we're suddenly no longer an individual doing research, but a long chain made up of many small links. I suddenly have this feeling of perspective, I can see a student producing the data I use, talk to someone using the products I'm producing and then seeing how policies are designed based on that product analysis.

The networking opportunities here are also phenomenal. The Council of IIASA (The Powers That Be) met yesterday for their bi-annual review of research and strategic planning. I was lucky enough to be invited to the council lunch afterwards to speak to the South African, German and Indian representatives.

The rest of the week is filled with new challenges.
Today we have a lectures by Roger Levien, the founder of YSSP, on the need for systems analysts and Norman Neureiter on Science Diplomacy.
Wednesday is the start of a course of Public Policy Analysis and a seminar on Bioenergy.
Thursday is filled with a seminars on Adaptive Dynamics (Micro-Evolution to long-term evolution) and on Multiple Criteria Analysis (including Pareto optimisation).
Friday the YSSP group are heading to Zell am See for a weekend of hiking in the Alps.

Somewhere in this we still have to find a full day to do work. Its going to be back to the sleep when you're dead philosophy :)

Madama Butterfly - Vienna State Opera House

Last night I went the Vienna Opera to see Madama Butterfly, the final performance of the season. The Opera House is truly awe-inspiring, with the most decadent furnishings and space. My camera really couldn't quite capture the ambience created.
















I bought a standing ticket (Stehplatz) for 4 euros, for which I had a direct view of the stage but had to stand through the three acts. There are roughly 550 standing tickets sold every performance. You have to start queueing at roughly 5.30pm for an 8pm performance to get a ticket but it is well worth the effort (the only other tickets left were 210 euros).

The singer playing Pickington wasn't as strong as Madame Butterfly which was distracting but overall the performance was beautiful. I'm hoping to catch the last ballet performance next week for the same price, who said culture had to be expensive.

Eisenstadt

Eisenstadt ("Iron City") is well worth a visit for a few hours. Its about an hour away from Vienna and boasts a rather high density of churches and Haydn-named objects. Eisenstadt is a capital of a region in Austria called Burgenland. Markus, Aapo and I took on the 34C heat to wonder the city.

The Schloss Esterhazy is a rather impressive palace for the size of the city. Haydn was neither born nor died in Eisenstadt but his presence is felt everywhere. Joseph Haydn was under the patronage of the Esterhazy family and lived in Eisenstadt while composing. Hadyn's mausoleum is attached to the Bergkirche, a rather eclectic church (note the roof configuration) that looks like they just kept adding the building without a true plan.

The Schlosspark however steals the show entirely. There is a mini-lake (its bigger than a pond) surrounded by soaring trees, a Winter garden/Orangery and a beautiful Leopoldinentempel overlooking a pond. This tranquil setting would make an awesome picnic spot.


The highlight of our day came when we stepped into the church exhibition for which you are meant to pay 3 euros. We had no clue what was on offer in the museum and hence asked the attendant. On realising we weren't religious history fans let us in for free because he felt the exhibit would be of no interest to us...Only the Austrians would charge the interested. We did have to sign the guestbook with our countries though.

Eins...Zwei...Drei...

I'm learning German very slowly. I have opted not to do the formal classes which are an hour each for 10 hours total. Markus (German YSSP) has kindly offered to instruct some of us in German. Yesterday we started with counting. I can now count up to 20 and in theory everything past that too. My pronunciation needs a lot of work. We also covered how to ask for a table in a restaurant and how to order a meal and ask for the bill. I got to try some of this on the barman last night while ordering.

Most important phrase of the day: Entschuldigen Sie bitte! - Excuse me please

The picture attached is a sign from a hotel around the corner from the Naschmarkt. Its a black cat and the story goes that these signs were displayed over shop doors to advertise the trade or services available and the name. They are made from wrought iron and can still be seen in a few places around Vienna. The Wien Museum has an example of a hedgehog and the lantern that gave Schonlanterngasse its name. I'll post more as I see them, I think these signs are wonderful.

Blooming and Booming

Today was a mish mash of various events with a lot of soccer thrown in. The day started with a visit to the Museum of Applied Art (MAK) which is Vienna's answer to the V&A in London. The collection itself if not nearly as impressive but the building itself is a work of art. Marble pillars, painted ceilings, fountains embedded in the walls. The building is worth a visit just to gawk at (and its free on Saturdays). The Design Shop off the atrium is a showcase of how art and functionality can be combined to create quirky yet beautiful practical pieces.

The MAK borders the Stadtpark (City Park) and everything in the park seem to be blooming. The clock above is a perfect example (I wasn't tall enough to get a full picture).

On the way to lunch at Naschmarkt I got horribly disorientated and landed up at the wrong exit at Karlsplatz, not a tragedy because I stumbled across the Opera Toilet. It sings whenever anyone enters the toilet, a highly amusing spectacle. My other discovery was a beautiful fountain in the gardens around the U-Bahn exit.

Naschmarkt is a vibrant market with a mix of fresh produce, flea market junk, foreign cuisine supply stores and pavement restaurants. A group organised to Toko Ri, the Japanese restaurant within the market. Ordering sushi in German with Japanese names is amusing.

What followed was lots of World Cup match viewing...

The final bit of excitement for the day was a thunderstorm that materialised within minutes over the Danube Island (we were having a BBQ with the Forestry group). Stunning lightning and thunderclaps heralded the rain and so ended the day of sunshine and badminton and bbqing.