Nam C. Nguyen

Systemic intervention to tackle the constraints and challenges facing stakeholders and the performance of the agricultural sector in Ghana

Constraints and challenges in Ghanas agricultural industry limit its throughput. A policy constraint is an issue when it comes to agricultural sustainability. A fresh approach to interventions and capacity-building using systems thinking approach; the four levels of thinking and the Evolutionary Learning Laboratory during a stakeholder workshop in Ghana has shown remarkable impact on the ability of the agricultural industry to evolve, improve, and raise its efficacy. With stakeholders interventions, the Bayesian belief network (BBN) models indicated that, agricultural productivity level will rise from 57.5 to 92.2% reducing poverty level from 44.9 to 10.0% below the poverty line. Also farmers yield and profit increased. The BBN revealed the impact of uncertainty on management systems to be accounted for in the decision making process. This means that decision makers can balance the desirability of an outcome against the chance that the management option selected may fail to achieve it.

R&D Productivity in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Scenario Simulations Using a Bayesian Belief Network

The pharmaceutical industry is in a R&D productivity crisis. Rapidly increasing development costs, decreasing profitability of new medical entities and missing breakthrough innovations are negatively affecting the future of the pharmaceutical industry. This complex problem requires a systems thinking approach to find effective solutions. In this study, a general pharmaceutical R&D productivity system has been modeled as a Bayesian Belief Network BBN. This model is based on a literature review and the mental model of experts in the pharmaceutical field. The model does not only support users to understand the system but is also able to simulate different future scenarios. A blockbuster drug scenario, a generic drug scenario, and a personalized drug scenario has been modeled with three different corresponding outcomes. These simulations enables decision makers to identify the leverage points of the pharmaceutical R&D productivity system. These leverage points could be the foundation of any further strategy development. The R&D productivity system archetype is potentially applicable for other R&D intensive industries.

Enhancing the competitive advantages of Vietnamese coffee through the exploration of causal loop modelling in the supply chain

Coffee supply chain management is the global operational strategy for enhancing the competitiveness of coffee companies. Enterprises are attempting to find ways to improve their competitiveness by changing their operation strategy through methods that include the implementation of the supply chain management paradigm. However, a thorough and critical review of existing literature is yet to be carried out in order to identify pertinent factors and gain useful insights into the role and effectiveness of causal loop modelling in coffee supply chain management. In this paper, researchers develop causal relationships among different variables that present enablers and outcomes - operating within many identified feedback loops. The resulting causal loop model provides coffee production managers with a snapshot of the dynamic interactions among elements in the coffee supply chain, which helps to identify proactive action in implementing the coffee supply chain philosophy for increasing the competitiveness of coffee products. Based on this review and analysis, recommendations are made regarding the application of the causal loop method in coffee supply chain management. Important future research directions are also indicated.

Identifying key success factors in supply chain management for increasing the competitive advantages of Vietnamese coffee

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the leverage points in the Vietnamese coffee supply chain (SC) that would be used for increasing competitive advantages of the product. Design/methodology/approach A sequential approach by combining two established modelling techniques (causal loop diagram and Bayesian belief networks) was applied to identify the leverage points in the Vietnamese coffee SC for increasing the competitive advantages of the product. Data for the study were collected from a series of workshops and in-depth interviews with numerous relevant stakeholders of the coffee industry in the central highland of Vietnam. Findings The systems’ archetypes were developed and a sensitivity analysis was conducted to identify potential factors that can increase the competitive advantages of coffee production. The results indicate that higher investment in all elements of the coffee SC will lead to an enhanced competitive advantage. Originality/value Supply chain management (SCM) has become a potentially valuable method for improving competitive advantages, as competition is no longer only between organizations but also among SCs. Therefore, this research focus on enhancing the competitive advantages of production via SCM.

Gastrointestinal: Utility of per-oral cholangioscopy in the diagnosis of portal hypertension associated biliopathy.

Portal hypertensive biliopathy refers to changes seen in the biliary tree as a result of portal hypertension. The most common presentation is biliary obstruction, which may be related to either compression of the bile duct by venous collaterals or formation of fibrotic biliary strictures from recurrent cholangitis and/or ischemic injury. Here, we reported a case of biliary obstruction related to portal biliopathy in a 16-year-old girl with a history of cystic fibrosis complicated by liver cirrhosis. She presented to hospital with several days of right upper quadrant abdominal pain with an acutely elevated bilirubin of 176μmol/L (previously 22μmol/L) but only mildly elevated gamma-glutamyl transferase, alkaline phosphatase, and alanine aminotransferase. Both computed tomography (CT) scan and Magnetic Resonance Cholangiopancreatography showed intra-hepatic ductal dilatation with a biliary stricture just distal to the bifurcation (Fig. 1a,b). Neither portal vein thrombosis nor vascular abnormality adjacent to the biliary stricture was seen on conventional imaging. On endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), there was a 1.5 cm polypoid lesion at the sub-hilar region (Fig. 1c), causing biliary stricture and dilatation of both intrahepatic ducts. Three columns of large esophageal varices were noted on insertion of the duodenoscope. Given the uncertain etiology of the stricture, cholangioscopy (SpyGlass DS; Boston Scientific) was performedwith the view of biopsy for tissue diagnosis. However, no biopsy was taken as the cholangioscopic appearance of the lesion was consistent with a

Using a systems thinking approach to address the affordability of housing for Singaporeans

The Singaporean Government has been attempting to control and stabilise hikes in prices among the private and public housing since 2009. This hike in prices is mainly due to high demand of housing properties in Singapore as a result of the influx of foreigners and economic growth. The increasing housing prices render a substantial negative effect on consumption expenditures of citizens which lead to a drop in average propensity to consume (APC). The purpose of this research paper is to identify the leverage points in the causal loop diagrams for housing affordability by the Housing Development Board (HDB) for Singaporeans. This research therefore uses systems thinking tools embedded in the first five steps of the evolutionary learning laboratory (ELLab) framework to identify the root causes and determine the components and interactions related to the problem of HDB affordability. The results of this research show that, land space availability, technology, disposable income and immigration policy are the keys to leverage affordability of housing prices. The research findings and recommendations can complement the current solutions provided by the HDB and the Singaporean Government.

Risk Management Strategies and Decision Support Systems in Agriculture

Rainfed agricultural production systems in a semi-arid climate operate under high risk. While weather variability is the major source of risk over much of Australia, other sources of risk include finance, markets, human resources, and changes in government policy. Most farmers employ a range of strategies to manage these risks. A comprehensive risk management program has to take many complex interactions into account and decision support systems (DSS) have been designed (as their name suggests) to offer assistance in making some of these decisions. However, DSS are not widely used by farmers as they often address only part of the risk management problem and may do that in a way that is too complex for many farmers to understand. In addition, many farmers believe that their tried and tested strategies for managing risk are satisfactory. For better adoption, each DSS should be easy to use and provide local information. The use of DSS to stimulate discussion and appreciation of the complexity of managing risk by farmers and students of agriculture suggests that ‘discussion support’ might be a more appropriate term. After a series of interactions with a group of rainfed cropping farmers in south-west Queensland, a decision support tool (‘Key to dryland planting decisions’) for rainfed farms in south-west Queensland was developed. It uses Lucid3 software to capture the timing and logic of the decision-making process and structures the process to select preferred crop planting options for both summer and winter planting periods from a wide range of possibilities.