DESIGN OF A STATED RANKING EXPERIMENT TO STUDY INTERACTIVE FREIGHT BEHAVIOUR: AN APPLICATION TO ROME'S LTZ

City logistics policies require an understanding of several issues (e.g. freight distribution context, preferences and relationship among agents) seldom accounted for in current research. Policies run the risk of producing unsatisfactory results because behavioural and contextual aspects are not considered. The acquisition of relevant data is crucial to test hypothesis and forecast agents' reactions to policy changes. Despite recent methodological advances in modelling interactive behaviour the development of apt survey instruments is still lacking to test innovative policies acceptability. This paper expands and innovate the methodological literature by describing a stated ranking experiment to study freight agent interactive behaviour and discusses the experimental design implemented to incorporate agent-specific priors when efficient design techniques are employed.urban freight distribution, group decision making, agent-specific interaction, stated preference, stated ranking experiments

The Art of Knowledge Exchange: A Results-Focused Planning Guide for Development Practitioners

Designing and implementing knowledge exchange initiatives can be a big undertaking. This guide takes the guesswork out of the process by breaking it down into simple steps and providing tools to help you play a more effective role as knowledge connector and learning facilitator

Scaling readiness: Concepts, practices, and implementation.

Scaling Readiness is an approach that can support organizations, projects, and programs in achieving their ambitions to scale innovations and achieve impact. Scaling Readiness encourages critical reflection on how ready innovations are for scaling, and what appropriate actions could accelerate or enhance scaling

Optimising economic, environmental, and social objectives: a goal-programming approach in the food sector

The business-decision environment is increasingly complicated by the emergence of competing economic, environmental, and social goals, a notion typified by the current pressures of global economic instability and climate-change targets. Trade-offs are often unclear and contributions by different actors and stakeholders in the supply chain may be unequal but, due to the interdependencies between businesses and stakeholders in relation to total environmental or social impact, a whole chain, simultaneous, and strategic approach is required. After a review of relevant literature and the identification of knowledge gaps, the author introduces and illustrates the use of goal programming as a technique that could facilitate this approach and uses real case evidence for alternative food supply chain strategies, at local, regional, and national levels. It is shown that the method can simplify a complex simultaneous decision situation into a useful and constructive decision and planning framework. Results show how a priori beliefs may be challenged and how operational and resource efficiency could be improved through the use of such a model, which enables a broad stakeholder appreciation and the opportunity to explore and test new environmental or social challenges

Optimal Portfolio Management in Alaska: A Case Study on Risk Characteristics of Environmental Consulting Companies

A Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in Project ManagementSharp declines in global oil prices have led to a marked contraction in Alaska’s natural resource dependent economy. This, coupled with record the State’s budgetary shortfalls and a decrease in incoming federal dollars, has created a climate where environmental consulting companies must accept riskier projects to balance portfolio growth and security. As a result, companies must adopt a risk-based portfolio management approach as both a high level strategy and a core management practice. It is important to specifically identify projects best suited for an organization’s tolerance for risk based off of the supply and demand of the industry in rapidly changing economic conditions. Therefore, the aims of this project report are to help environmental consulting companies identify risk characteristics and manage their portfolio, as well as develop a tool to guide decision-making and selecting projects best suited for a companies’ portfolio strategy. The results of this research may provide Alaska based environmental companies with a clear understanding of the types of projects that offer both development and financial security for an organization. This research paper will present the methodology, results, and an environmental consulting portfolio management tool.Title Page / Table of Contents / List of Exhibits / Abstract / Introduction / Background / Literature Review / Project Methodology / Research Methodology / Presentation and Analysis of Data from Survey / Data Validation From Survey / Conclusion / Recommendation / Project Conclusion / Recommendations for Further Research / References / Appendi

Building Information Modeling as Tool for Enhancing Disaster Resilience of the Construction Industry

As frequencies of the disasters are increasing, new technologies can be used to enhance disaster resilience performance of the construction industry. This paper investigates the usage of BIM (Building Information Modeling) in enhancing disaster resilience of the construction industry and in the establishment of the resilient built environment. In-depth literature review findings reveal BIM’s contribution to the disaster resilience in the pre-disaster and post-disaster phases especially through influencing the performance of the supply chain, construction process, and rescue operations. This paper emphasises the need for BIM’s integration to the education and training curriculums of the built environment professionals. Policy makers, construction professionals, professional bodies, academics can benefit from this research

Virtual Reality Interactive Learning Environment

Open Building Manufacturing (ManuBuild) aims to promote the European construction industry beyond the state of the art. However, this requires the different stakeholders to be well informed of what ‘Open Building Manufacturing’ actually entails with respect to understanding the underlying concepts, benefits and risks. This is further challenged by the ‘traditional ways of learning’ which have been predominantly criticised for being entrenched in theories with little or no emphasis on practical issues. Experiential learning has long been suggested to overcome the problems associated with the traditional ways of learning. In this respect, it has the dual benefit of appealing to adult learner's experience base, as well as increasing the likelihood of performance change through training. On-the-job-training (OJT) is usually sought to enable ‘experiential’ learning; and it is argued to be particularly effective in complex tasks, where a great deal of independence is granted to the task performer. However, OJT has been criticised for being expensive, limited, and devoid of the actual training context. Consequently, in order to address the problems encountered with OJT, virtual reality (VR) solutions have been proposed to provide a risk free environment for learning without the ‘do-or-die’ consequences often faced on real construction projects. Since ManuBuild aims to promote the EU construction industry beyond the state of the art; training and education therefore needs also to go beyond the state of the art in order to meet future industry needs and expectations. Hence, a VR interactive learning environment was suggested for Open Building Manufacturing training to allow experiential learning to take place in a risk free environment, and consequently overcome the problems associated with OJT. This chapter discusses the development, testing, and validation of this prototype

Growing Up Healthy in Minnesota

An evaluation of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation's Growing Up Healthy Program. In spring 2002, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation made grants to nine organizations around the state to improve access to and use of preventive medical and dental services for children and teens. Focused particularly on the needs of immigrant communities and communities of color, the $1.4 million Growing Up Healthy program aimed ultimately to improve the health of Minnesotans at highest risk for lifelong health disparities.In keeping with the goals of the initiative, over 90 percent of children who received or were connected with a preventive health or dental exam were in communities of color. Growing Up Healthy reached an estimated 17,500 people in two years

Value-driven partner search for <i>Energy from Waste</i> projects

Energy from Waste (EfW) projects require complex value chains to operate effectively. To identify business partners, plant operators need to network with organisations whose strategic objectives are aligned with their own. Supplier organisations need to work out where they fit in the value chain. Our aim is to support people in identifying potential business partners, based on their organisation’s interpretation of value. Value for an organisation should reflect its strategy and may be interpreted using key priorities and KPIs (key performance indicators). KPIs may comprise any or all of knowledge, operational, economic, social and convenience indicators. This paper presents an ontology for modelling and prioritising connections within the business environment, and in the process provides means for defining value and mapping these to corresponding KPIs. The ontology is used to guide the design of a visual representation of the environment to aid partner search