1,720,988 research outputs found
Power plants as megaprojects: Using empirics to shape policy, planning, and construction management
No full textMegaprojects are historically associated with poor delivery, both in terms of schedule and cost performance. Empirical research is required to determine which characteristics of megaprojects affect schedule and cost performance. Capital-intensive power plants can be understood as megaprojects and time delays and cost escalation during the construction phase can undermine their overall economic viability. This paper presents a systematic, empirically based methodology that employs the Fisher Exact test to identify the characteristics of power plant megaprojects (PPMs) that correlate with schedule and cost performance. We present the results of applying this methodology to a dataset of 12 PPMs using nuclear, coal, and renewable resources as case studies. The results highlight the importance of modular technologies, project governance, and external stakeholder involvement. Key findings both support and contradict the literature. The paper provides two major original contributions. First, we present and apply a systematic, empirical and statistical approach to understanding PPMs planning and construction. Second, we show how this approach can be used to inform public policy and project management with regard to PPMs. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Managing social challenges in the nuclear decommissioning industry: A responsible approach towards better performance
No full textAt the end of their lifecycle, several large infrastructure will have to be dismantled, presenting unfamiliar challenges. Therefore, project management will need to focus extensively on the delivery of successful decommissioning projects to meet stakeholders' expectations and funding constraints. While there is an extensive literature that investigates the techno-economic aspects of decommissioning, social aspects remain remarkably under-investigated. Even if stakeholder communication, involvement and engagement are widely believed to be key enablers for the success of a project, often the needs and preferences of local communities are neglected and a participatory-based form of dialogue averted. Consequently, decommissioning projects fail to meet their intended objectives. Focusing on the nuclear decommissioning industry, this paper addresses the literature gap concerning social responsibility. A deductive method to formulate and validate theories regarding the social challenges for decommissioning is developed through a review and analysis of salient case studies. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. APM and IPMA. All rights reserved
How benchmarking can support the selection, planning and delivery of nuclear decommissioning projects
No full textNuclear Decommissioning Projects and Programmes (NDPs) are jeopardized by several risks, long schedule and cost estimates that lay in the range of hundreds of billions of pounds. Moreover, in some countries, these estimates keep increasing and key stakeholders have a limited understanding of the determinants that engender this phenomena. Benchmarldng refers to the process of comparing projects in order to identify best practices and generate ideas for improvement. However, even if it is the envisaged approach to tackle the decommissioning challenges (and due to the NDPs' uniqueness), until now, benchmarking has been only partially used. This paper proposes an innovative methodology to benchmark decommissioning projects, both from the nuclear and non-nuclear industry, within the UK and worldwide. From this cross -sectorial and cross-country analysis, it is possible to gather a list of key NDPs' characteristic and statistically test their correlation with the project performance. The ultimate aim of the research underpinning this paper is to investigate the possible causation between the NDPs' characteristics and the NDPs' performance and to develop guidelines to improve the selection, planning and delivery of future NDPs. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Project characteristics and performance in Europe: An empirical analysis for large transport infrastructure projects
No full textInfrastructure megaprojects are historically associated with poor delivery, both in terms of cost and schedule performance. Large Transport Infrastructure Projects (TIPs) are amongst the most controversial and are often delivered late, over budget, and providing less benefit than expected. While there is a growing theoretical body of literature addressing TIPs, empirical research is still required to determine which TIPs characteristics affect TIPs schedule & cost performance. This paper addresses this issue, applying an empirically based methodology to a dataset of 30 European TIPs. The results highlight the importance of financial support from the government and the strong influence of both external and internal stakeholders, mainly in relation to their early engagement and to their nationality. Technological characteristics and the presence of Special Purpose Entities are also correlated with the TIPs performance. These key findings both support and contradict the literature, and are relevant for both policy makers and project managers during the decision making process, planning and delivery of TIPs. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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