1. Ventana Systems News
2. Vensim 8.2 including Apple M1 processor support
3. Forum daily digests
3. Ventity
4. Online courses.
5. Applications
6. In the Forum.
7. System Dynamics Conference News.
8. Resources for Vensim users.
9. Our official distributors
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1. Ventana Systems News
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Ventana is working on a number of applications that combine models and data to analyze strategies in complex systems:
A state COVID19 response model that interprets test statistics and facilitates resource allocation. The model pools information from the 50 US states, and runs in parallel on HPC servers.
A city/utility low-carbon strategy model that examines relationships among buildings, energy-consuming devices, electric and other vehicles, and utility rates. Key factors influencing the ZNE goal are directly controllable by the utility include pricing, rebate strategy, investment policies, time of use pricing and customer incentive-related policies to accelerate adoption of energy efficient products including tradeoffs between fuel sources and natural gas. Other factors are largely uncontrollable, e.g., governmental policies and technology improvements that lead to market penetration by all-electric vehicles, electric heat pumps and solar energy systems. The utility can incentivize adoption of technology in the city and influence governmental policies in the state. Therefore, it was important for the utility to readily calculate and assess the relative influence of each factor over time to facilitate preparation of rate cases for regulators.
A state energy sustainability platform that allows an energy-producing state to explore alternative pathways that serve de-carbonization, reliability and employment goals, blending CCS and EOR with emerging PV, solar and storage, including a novel statistical treatment of variability.
A model for economic guidance of an economy: In preparation for the country’s strategic plan, upcoming IMF review, and climate commitments to the UN, Ventana was requested to critique a national model through 2045. Review included modeling price formation and market clearing; financing and representation of policy instruments; and representation of poverty and wealth distribution.
An assessment of the science base emerging from the Deep Water Horizon accident, with a meta-model of the Gulf of Mexico’s environmental and economic health. Phase 1 of the task was to capture and synthesize expert knowledge from technical studies of the ten year $500M program. A series of expert workshops facilitated by Ventana captured and diagramed relationships and feedbacks among expert knowledge elements in the major study fields of Physics, Ecosystem, Socio-Economics, and Human Health.
The confluence of challenges we face – COVID, climate, social justice, and political corrruption to name a few, leave us convinced that now, more than ever, technology must support sophisticated, accurate modeling at the breakneck speed of crisis decision making. We remain dedicated to providing tools to support both your most urgent needs and your most important long-term strategies.
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2. Vensim 8.2 Release
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Vensim now runs on the new Apple silicon Macs. The MacOS release of Vensim 8.2 has a universal binary, it runs natively on both Intel and M1 processors. This allows you to use the full potential of the new Apple M1 processor. We’ve spent a lot of time tracking down Mac bugs and idiosyncracies – we think you’ll find performance much improved.
This release continues the rollout of a new graphics framework for model diagrams, with improved looks and usability.
Vensim DSS can now export models to run in web browsers via WebAssembly. Models run on the client side with no latency, so Synthesim provides a good user experience, and you can customize the web side in javascript. You can try one example at http://vensim.com/temp/gomri/ And don’t forget, if you want to run a simulation online with extremely rich output, gaming, and other advanced features, our good friends at Forio can do this (https://forio.com).
Vensim Pro and DSS can now combine submodels. This makes group model development easier and facilitates re-use of models. More details on this and examples are in the help system, browse to “Reference Manual” and then “Sub-models”.
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3. Forum daily digests now available.
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You can now keep an eye on Vensim and System Dynamics related discussions on the forum without visiting it regularly.
More details on how to keep up to date is at http://www.ventanasystems.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&p=29101
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3. Ventity
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Ventity 4.0 Beta 2 will be available shortly, featuring performance improvements for very large models. Diagram behavior now requires fewer clicks, and is a little closer to Vensim. A little further down the road, the 3D data visualizer will be returning.
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4. Online courses.
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We now offer basic, intermediate and advanced online courses in both English and Spanish. Those courses are addressed to students, teachers, researchers, consultants, professionals and public managers.
More information on the web https://vensim.com/vensim-online-courses
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5. Applications
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We regularly see impressive applications of Vensim and note them at Vensim.com or on social media. If you’ve developed something cool, drop us a note and we’d be happy to share your news!
Here are two that can run live, online:
The award-winning C-ROADS climate change policy simulator is powered by Vensim, using Todd Fincannon’s open SDEverywhere transpiler. It runs in a browser with an elegant interface, speed, and interactivity rivaling Synthesim. Its companion En-ROADS, is even more elegant.
Energy Innovation has an Energy Policy Simulator that lets users explore what it takes to achieve energy and emissions targets, in detail. The simulator has a custom HTML5 interface that runs a Vensim model on servers using the Multicontext shared library. The interface was developed by Todd Fincannon. It has extensive documentation, and the Policy Design Guide explains many energy system policies in the internally consistent framework that a model provides. You can also download and run the open source model on your desktop.
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6. In the Forum
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The Vensim support forum at https://www.ventanasystems.co.uk/forum provides quick-turnaround help on a variety of Vensim questions. It now has over 2000 successfully answered queries, and also contains the archive of the SD mailing list.
A sample of recent topics:
Truncated lognormal
How to map one variable to another variable?
Floating point error in vector lookup and subscript
Matlab and Vensim
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7. System Dynamics Conference News
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The 2021 conference is tentatively planned for July 25-29, 2021. We’ll update you as soon as we learn more. More details on this are at the official website, https://www.systemdynamics.org/conference
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8. Resources for Vensim users
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Visit us at https://vensim.com, http://ventanasystems.com and https://www.ventity.biz to keep in touch.
Buy direct at the Vensim store, https://www.vensim.com/store
Get up to speed quickly with Vensim videos: http://vensim.com/vensim-video-library/
Contact sales at vensim@vensim.com for Academic and Public Research discounts, volume quotes and other information.
See the price schedules at https://vensim.com/purchase/
Extend your maintenance for a year of upgrades by logging in with your license key on the download page, http://vensim.com/download/.
Contact us: http://vensim.com/contact-us/
Support forum: http://www.ventanasystems.co.uk/forum
Twitter: @Vensim, @VentanaSystems, @VentitySim
Tom Fiddaman’s model library: http://metasd.com/model-library/
More: http://vensim.com/resources/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VensimSoftware and https://www.facebook.com/VentitySim/
The System Dynamics Society: http://www.systemdynamics.org/
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9. Our official distributors
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We have a number of distributors in many parts of the world (Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom). Some run courses, all can provide tecnical support and help. For contact details, please see https://vensim.com/contact-us/
For our UK-based users, please sign up to the Ventana Systems UK newsletter http://www.ventanasystems.co.uk/. We’ll let you know about upcoming Vensim workshops and any networking events to be help in the UK.