Critical uncertainty factors for efficient allocation of demand risk in privately financed public infrastructure projects in Australia

Risk allocation in privately financed public infrastructure projects, which are mainly referred as public-private partnership (PPP) projects, is a challenging job due to the nature of incomplete contracting. Among the various risks that may eventually materialise, demand risk is one of the major challenges that PPPs face. Choosing a risk allocation strategy could be viewed as the process of deciding the proportion of risk management responsibility between public and private partners based on a series of characteristics of risk management service transaction in question. These characteristics are more or less related to the various uncertainty factors. In this study, various uncertainty factors have been examined in order to achieve efficient allocation of demand risk and minimise risk management-related costs in a long-term view. Critical uncertainty factors have been identified through an industry-wide survey in Australia. Future research directions are also set out.

Measuring pathways to university : success factors in construction management education

Past research has shown that many students find navigating pathways from TAFE to university difficult. This paper proposes a framework for evaluating the success of the pathways. Student enrolled in higher education courses responded to a questionnaire on the nature of their experiences in VET and how this impacted on their decision to articulate to university. The survey covered a sample of three universities across Australia. The results showed that students generally had positive experiences, but that some pathways had better outcomes than others. The framework developed in this research is capable of identifying issue that lead to poor outcomes. The results indicate that matrix developed contained three factors that were good measures of the success of the pathways. The paper concludes by suggesting that universities need a greater awareness of the impact of pathways on identifying pipelines for their students.

Critical environmental factors for transportation cycling in children: a qualitative study using bike-along interviews

Environmental factors are found to influence transport-related physical activity, but have rarely been studied in relation with cycling for transport to various destinations in 10-12 yr old children. The current qualitative study used 'bike-along interviews' with children and parents to allow discussion of detailed environmental factors that may influence children's cycling for transport, while cycling in the participant's neighborhood.

Water resources management: crisis vs. success: success factors for water management through the examples of São Paulo and Paris

This dissertation aims at giving new insights for governments in understanding efficient water management models, especially in the case of the water crisis in Sao Paulo. Also, other actors dealing with water issues, such as multinational companies, could have new tools to improve efficiency in this field.

Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS): An evaluation of success factors in the agricultural sector. The case of Italy's Emilia Romagna region.

Different tools have been used to set up and adopt the model for the fulfillment of the objective of this research. 1. The Model The base model that has been used is the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) adapted with the aim to perform a Benefit Cost Analysis. The AHP developed by Thomas Saaty is a multicriteria decision - making technique which decomposes a complex problem into a hierarchy. It is used to derive ratio scales from both discreet and continuous paired comparisons in multilevel hierarchic structures. These comparisons may be taken from actual measurements or from a fundamental scale that reflects the relative strength of preferences and feelings. 2. Tools and methods 2.1. The Expert Choice Software The software Expert Choice is a tool that allows each operator to easily implement the AHP model in every stage of the problem. 2.2. Personal Interviews to the farms For this research, the farms of the region Emilia Romagna certified EMAS have been detected. Information has been given by EMAS center in Wien. Personal interviews have been carried out to each farm in order to have a complete and realistic judgment of each criteria of the hierarchy. 2.3. Questionnaire A supporting questionnaire has also been delivered and used for the interviews . 3. Elaboration of the data After data collection, the data elaboration has taken place. The software support Expert Choice has been used . 4. Results of the Analysis The result of the figures above (vedere altro documento) gives a series of numbers which are fractions of the unit. This has to be interpreted as the relative contribution of each element to the fulfillment of the relative objective. So calculating the Benefits/costs ratio for each alternative the following will be obtained: Alternative One: Implement EMAS Benefits ratio: 0, 877 Costs ratio: 0, 815 Benfit/Cost ratio: 0,877/0,815=1,08 Alternative Two: Not Implement EMAS Benefits ratio: 0,123 Costs ration: 0,185 Benefit/Cost ratio: 0,123/0,185=0,66 As stated above, the alternative with the highest ratio will be the best solution for the organization. This means that the research carried out and the model implemented suggests that EMAS adoption in the agricultural sector is the best alternative. It has to be noted that the ratio is 1,08 which is a relatively low positive value. This shows the fragility of this conclusion and suggests a careful exam of the benefits and costs for each farm before adopting the scheme. On the other part, the result needs to be taken in consideration by the policy makers in order to enhance their intervention regarding the scheme adoption on the agricultural sector. According to the AHP elaboration of judgments we have the following main considerations on Benefits: - Legal compliance seems to be the most important benefit for the agricultural sector since its rank is 0,471 - The next two most important benefits are Improved internal organization (ranking 0,230) followed by Competitive advantage (ranking 0, 221) mostly due to the sub-element Improved image (ranking 0,743) Finally, even though Incentives are not ranked among the most important elements, the financial ones seem to have been decisive on the decision making process. According to the AHP elaboration of judgments we have the following main considerations on Costs: - External costs seem to be largely more important than the internal ones (ranking 0, 857 over 0,143) suggesting that Emas costs over consultancy and verification remain the biggest obstacle. - The implementation of the EMS is the most challenging element regarding the internal costs (ranking 0,750).

End-User Development Success Factors and their Application to Composite Web Development Environments

The Future Internet is expected to be composed of a mesh of interoperable Web services accessed from all over the Web. This approach has not yet caught on since global user-service interaction is still an open issue. Successful composite applications rely on heavyweight service orchestration technologies that raise the bar far above end-user skills. The weakness lies in the abstraction of the underlying service front-end architecture rather than the infrastructure technologies themselves. In our opinion, the best approach is to offer end-to-end composition from user interface to service invocation, as well as an understandable abstraction of both building blocks and a visual composition technique. In this paper we formalize our vision with regard to the next-generation front-end Web technology that will enable integrated access to services, contents and things in the Future Internet. We present a novel reference architecture designed to empower non-technical end users to create and share their own self-service composite applications. A tool implementing this architecture has been developed as part of the European FP7 FAST Project and EzWeb Project, allowing us to validate the rationale behind our approach.

Mobile application stores: success factors, existing approaches and future developments

The mobile user experience has been significantly altered with the arrival of mobile broadband widespread deployments, massive improvements in available smartphones, and a shift in user habits toward a more participative, communicative role. In this context, mobile application stores have revolutionized software and content delivery. These stores focus on the applications, building around them an ecosystem of developers and consumers. The store greatly lessens the barrier between these agents, providing significant benefits to both developers and consumers. In this article we analyze this phenomenon, describing its originating factors and fundamental characteristics. We also perform a more detailed study on the two most successful application stores, identifying different approaches to implementing the model.