Risks and decision making in development of new power plant projects

Thesis (Ph. D. in the field of Construction Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 204-209).Power plant development projects are typically capital intensive and subject to a complex network of interconnected risks that impact development's performance. Failure to develop a power plant to meet performance constraints can come at great cost to the developer and other stakeholders involved. In order to develop an investment strategy plan based on their risk appetite, and manage risks effectively, developers must be able to identify and analyze project opportunity risks. This dissertation is motivated by the need to study the nature and impact of risks on a power plant development project, and to demonstrate how proper management of those risks can help mitigate these impacts. The purpose is to feed that information into developer's investment strategy to be able to understand whether or not to participate in particular power plant development projects, and how to participate. First phase of the dissertation is an analysis of power plant investment decisions and development process, followed by identification of risks across all stages of development. Through data mining of performance indicators of around 300 power plant development projects worldwide, clusters of geographical locations, energy technologies, and developer types are highlighted. This helps us understand which projects developers should consider for evaluation given performance trends of geographic locations, and energy technologies. Our research then introduces a novel approach to power plant project risk analysis. We combine a System Dynamics model of the power plant development process with an Analytical Network Process model that enables identification of key relationships among risks and their impact on the development process. The models are used to construct project risk profiles. These three models work together to show how developers can make risk informed decision when selecting amongst power plant project opportunities, how they should best prepare projects to mitigate negative impacts of risks involved, and how they should react to changes in managing development performance over a project's lifetime.by Ásbjörg Kristinsdóttir.Ph.D.in the field of Construction Engineering and Managemen

Assessing the impact of the wetlands program : the effect of wetlands regulations on development - the developer's perspective in Massachusetts

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1980.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH.Bibliography: leaves 133-134.by Stephen R. Cassella.M.C.P

Developing urban design as public policy in China : a case study in Shenzhen

This research explores how China has been developing urban design as public policy in the context of rapid urbanization and radical Socialist market reform. This is not a well developed area in urban research in China, however Western literature provides a good comparative basis through which to develop a more sophisticated system of design control. In pursuing the research objective, a Chinese city - Shenzhen has been chosen as a case study. It is the national exemplar and represents the best Chinese practices. Inspired by international aspirations for good practice in design control, the Shenzhen case study allows exploration of the political and economic influences on design outcomes, reveals the instruments used by planners to promote good design, uncovers the shifting concept of urban design, and assesses the impacts of the permitting process on project design. Some 11 commercial office projects have been selected to provide empirical evidence. They range from masterplanned projects in central locations to individual developments in off-centre locations, from conventional developments to projects involving appeals and illegal constructions, from recently completed projects to the ones still in the planning process. The event-sequence and structure-agency models derived from real-estate research have been used to analyse design processes. To collect the data, a 'snowball approach' mixed with participant-observation, documentary review, interview and design evaluation are utilised. This research reveals that Shenzhen has achieved progressive improvements in developing urban design as public policy. However urban design's public values are only partially embedded in Shenzhen's urban planning system, due to rapid urbanization processes, the significant change of development scale, top-down hierarchy of political control, lack of discrimination among tenants and the partial application of the generic urban design principles in the planning and design process. Shenzhen is facing many challenges when compared with the best international practice in design review. In detail, the city has a strong design vision for its future, but this is not developed with the local communities, and only reflects an elite vision that is both short-term and oriented towards business. The political support, the use of land powers, and discretionary zoning control have provided a solid basis for Shenzhen to pursue higher quality urban design, but a more regulated system is needed to limit political intervention and provide a better research base for planning decision making. Planners are slowly developing urban design principles to address the quality of the public realm, but they need a deeper understanding of the generic design principles and sustainable design. Shenzhen's established planning permission process has been a successful mechanism for design intervention, but it needs to address weaknesses in public participation and in dealing with monitoring, enforcement and appeal. It is argued that Shenzhen is representative of most large Chinese cities, but small or medium size cities and the cities with conservation issues may have slightly different experiences. Future challenges are discussed and practical suggestions are made to better develop urban design as public policy in Shenzhen and more generally in China

Byres Road: Conservation of a Major Shopping Street of West End, Glasgow: An Architectural Case Study

The origins of Byres Road date back to the seventeenth century in which it was a "highway" connecting Partick Cross to the fields to north. Byres Road recently marked its centennial year as a major shopping street of the West End of Glasgow. Since the Second World War the role of the Road as a major shopping street has declined together with its physical and visual quality of its character. The general concern raised by this process prompted this study and its aims are to reverse the decline of the Road. This study primarily seeks to: 1) Trace record the historical development and current role of Byres Road. 2) Identify the dources and factors contributing to the decline. 3) Outline the strategies that would address the identified problems. To achieve these objectives the following research has been undertaken: 1) Identification of its townscape values 2) Data collection on Byres Road regarding: a) the tenant mix b) the change of use c) pattern of ownership d) the influence of rateable value on the mix of tenants, 3) the current retailing patterns in Glasgow 4) case studies regarding competing shopping centres that are considered as the modern "high streets" 5) Study of environmental and physical requirements of High Streets. 6) The role of Byres Road within the context of Glasgow and its future. The study concludes by identifying Byres Road's vital role as a major element in forging a link between Botanic Gardens in the North and River Clyde in the South. Using the concept of "Open Shopping Mall" the shops along Byres Road would be revitalised as a "Speciality Stretch" between the Enlarged Prime Shopping Area in the North and a major shopping development at Partick Cross in the South

Curriculum dissemination in TAFE : a study of the educational change process in the Technical and Further Education sector in Western Australia

This research was concerned with identifying and finding solutions to serious dissemination problems existing in the curriculum change process in the Technical and Further Education (TAFE) sector in Western Australia. It explored the hypothesis that much of the frustration and inefficiency which occurs when TAFE courses are reviewed or upgraded can be eradicated by attention given to a well developed dissemination strategy.The research focused initially on four case studies of TAFE curriculum innovation and on the identification of the dissemination factors which the implementers believe affected them most. The difference between the ideal dissemination factors and the actual situation then was measured, and those considered most important in the dissemination process were identified. The findings then were brought together into a new dissemination strategy which was tested in the field with a newly accredited TAFE course.Three stages of research are reported. In the first stage, data for the case studies were collected through semi-structured interviews and then analysed to provide information for a questionnaire survey. The second stage, the survey, used a preferred and actual situation questionnaire, administered to 100 TAFE lecturers to gather measurable data on the factors affecting dissemination. Third, a dissemination strategy, consisting of tactics derived from the survey, the literature and from Curriculum Services staff, was put into place with the new Certificate of Horticultural Skills and its progress was observed and analysed as it affected the lecturers in the horticulture study area.The conclusions point to the importance of lecturer collaboration in the process of change and the need for TAFE administrators to employ a trained ‘change agent’ to encourage the development of teacher meaning and ownership. Shared development of teaching materials needs to be part of the change process. The existing ‘top-down’ mandated curriculum change process needs to exist alongside a ‘bottom-up’ involvement of lecturers, and change must be seen as a shared exercise between administrators and lecturers. It is recommended that the strategy evolved in this thesis be adopted for further TAFE curriculum projects and that it be evaluated and modified for universal application in the TAFE curriculum change process

Intelligent decision support systems for collaboration in industrial plants

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Sistemas de Informação Industriais, Engenharia Electrotécnica, pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e TecnologiaThe objective of this thesis is to contribute for a structured and systematic decision-making process for industrial companies, particularly involving several actors, helping them make the best use of their resources. The paradigms of how industrial companies operate have been progressively changing over the last two decades. The flexible and dynamic flow of information and persons over companies has created new challenges and opportunities for industry. It is not possible to dissociate an enterprise from its human resources and the knowledge they create and use. Companies face decisions constantly, involving several actors and situations. With the market pressure and rapid changing environments, decisions are becoming more complex, and involving more people with complementary expertise. The knowledge processes are only efficient if the actors can anchor and relate the information handled to the extended enterprise. Therefore, an enterprise model is a fundamental aspect to support decision-making in industry. This work includes an overview of existing modelling methodologies and standards. Afterwards, it proposes an enterprise model to represent an extended or virtual enterprise, suitable not only for decision-making applications but also for others. This thesis considers methods and systems to support decision and analyses decision types and processes. Afterwards, the thesis presents some considerations on decision-making in industry and a generic decision-making process, including, a review of decision criteria commonly used in industry. Two of the methods widely used in some of the mentioned areas, case-based reasoning and the analytic hierarchy process, have been used in the scope of problem solving and decision-making, respectively. This thesis presents an approach based on a combination of case-based reasoning and analytic hierarchy process to support innovation, particularly product design in industry. The combination overcomes shortcomings of both methods to provide the most adequate decision support for multi-disciplinary teams in innovation processes. Moreover, the work presented proposes an algorithm for automatic adjustment of the weight of the actors in the decision process. This thesis includes case studies, developed in the scope of several research projects, used as practical applications of the work developed. These practical applications include seven test cases (with two manufacturing companies, two assembling companies, two engineering services companies and one software company) where the proposed enterprise model and methods have been applied with the purpose of supporting decisions. This highlights the wide application of the proposed model, describing its possible interpretations and the successful use of the decision support approach in industrial companies.Projects PICK (IST-1999-10442), AIM (IST-2001-52222), FOKSai (COOP-CT-2003-508637), InLife (FP6-2005-NMP2-CT-517018), InAmI (FP6-2004-IST-NMP-2-16788) and K-NET (FP7-ICT-1-215584), all of which were partially funded by the Research Framework Programs of the European Unio

Combining SOA and BPM Technologies for Cross-System Process Automation

This paper summarizes the results of an industry case study that introduced a cross-system business process automation solution based on a combination of SOA and BPM standard technologies (i.e., BPMN, BPEL, WSDL). Besides discussing major weaknesses of the existing, custom-built, solution and comparing them against experiences with the developed prototype, the paper presents a course of action for transforming the current solution into the proposed solution. This includes a general approach, consisting of four distinct steps, as well as specific action items that are to be performed for every step. The discussion also covers language and tool support and challenges arising from the transformation

Revenue recognition, January 1, 2019; Audit and Accounting Guide

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_indev/2422/thumbnail.jp

ICSEA 2021: the sixteenth international conference on software engineering advances

The Sixteenth International Conference on Software Engineering Advances (ICSEA 2021), held on October 3 - 7, 2021 in Barcelona, Spain, continued a series of events covering a broad spectrum of software-related topics. The conference covered fundamentals on designing, implementing, testing, validating and maintaining various kinds of software. The tracks treated the topics from theory to practice, in terms of methodologies, design, implementation, testing, use cases, tools, and lessons learnt. The conference topics covered classical and advanced methodologies, open source, agile software, as well as software deployment and software economics and education. The conference had the following tracks: Advances in fundamentals for software development Advanced mechanisms for software development Advanced design tools for developing software Software engineering for service computing (SOA and Cloud) Advanced facilities for accessing software Software performance Software security, privacy, safeness Advances in software testing Specialized software advanced applications Web Accessibility Open source software Agile and Lean approaches in software engineering Software deployment and maintenance Software engineering techniques, metrics, and formalisms Software economics, adoption, and education Business technology Improving productivity in research on software engineering Trends and achievements Similar to the previous edition, this event continued to be very competitive in its selection process and very well perceived by the international software engineering community. As such, it is attracting excellent contributions and active participation from all over the world. We were very pleased to receive a large amount of top quality contributions. We take here the opportunity to warmly thank all the members of the ICSEA 2021 technical program committee as well as the numerous reviewers. The creation of such a broad and high quality conference program would not have been possible without their involvement. We also kindly thank all the authors that dedicated much of their time and efforts to contribute to the ICSEA 2021. We truly believe that thanks to all these efforts, the final conference program consists of top quality contributions. This event could also not have been a reality without the support of many individuals, organizations and sponsors. We also gratefully thank the members of the ICSEA 2021 organizing committee for their help in handling the logistics and for their work that is making this professional meeting a success. We hope the ICSEA 2021 was a successful international forum for the exchange of ideas and results between academia and industry and to promote further progress in software engineering research