1,350 research outputs found
Evaluating megaprojects: from the “iron triangle” to network mapping
Evaluation literature has paid relatively little attention to the specific needs of evaluating large, complex industrial and infrastructure projects, often called ‘megaprojects’. The abundant megaproject governance literature, in turn, has largely focused on the so-called ‘megaproject pathologies’, i.e. the chronic budget overruns, and failure of such projects to keep to timetables and deliver the expected social and economic benefits. This article draws on these two strands of literature, identifies shortcomings, and suggests potential pathways towards an improved evaluation of megaprojects. To counterbalance the current overemphasis on relatively narrowly defined accountability as the main function of megaproject evaluation, and the narrow definition of project success in megaproject evaluation, the article argues that conceptualizing megaprojects as dynamic and evolving networks would provide a useful basis for the design of an evaluation approach better able to promote learning and to address the socio economic aspects of megaprojects. A modified version of ‘network mapping’ is suggested as a possible framework for megaproject evaluation, with the exploration of the multiple accountability relationships as a central evaluation task, designed to reconcile learning and accountability as the central evaluation functions. The article highlights the role of evaluation as an ‘emergent’ property of spontaneous megaproject ‘governing’, and explores the challenges that this poses to the role of the evaluator
The Heat Kernel on AdS_3 and its Applications
We derive the heat kernel for arbitrary tensor fields on S^3 and (Euclidean)
AdS_3 using a group theoretic approach. We use these results to also obtain the
heat kernel on certain quotients of these spaces. In particular, we give a
simple, explicit expression for the one loop determinant for a field of
arbitrary spin s in thermal AdS_3. We apply this to the calculation of the one
loop partition function of N=1 supergravity on AdS_3. We find that the answer
factorizes into left- and right-moving super Virasoro characters built on the
SL(2, C) invariant vacuum, as argued by Maloney and Witten on general grounds.Comment: 46 pages, LaTeX, v2: Reference adde
Decreased expression of GRAF1/OPHN-1-L in the X-linked alpha thalassemia mental retardation syndrome
Stringy Stability of Charged Dilaton Black Holes with Flat Event Horizon
Electrically charged black holes with flat event horizon in anti-de Sitter
space have received much attention due to various applications in Anti-de
Sitter/Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence, from modeling the
behavior of quark-gluon plasma to superconductor. Crucial to the physics on the
dual field theory is the fact that when embedded in string theory, black holes
in the bulk may become vulnerable to instability caused by brane
pair-production. Since dilaton arises naturally in the context of string
theory, we study the effect of coupling dilaton to Maxwell field on the
stability of flat charged AdS black holes. In particular, we study the
stability of Gao-Zhang black holes, which are locally asymptotically anti-de
Sitter. We find that for dilaton coupling parameter > 1, flat black
holes are stable against brane pair production, however for 0 < < 1,
the black holes eventually become unstable as the amount of electrical charges
is increased. Such instability however, behaves somewhat differently from that
of flat Reissner-Nordstr\"om black holes. In addition, we prove that the
Seiberg-Witten action of charged dilaton AdS black hole of Gao-Zhang type with
flat event horizon (at least in 5-dimension) is always logarithmically
divergent at infinity for finite values of , and is finite and positive
in the case tends to infinity . We also comment on the robustness of
our result for other charged dilaton black holes that are not of Gao-Zhang
type.Comment: Fixed some confusions regarding whether part of the discussions
concern electrically charged hole or magnetically charged one. No changes to
the result
Introduction: looking beyond the walls
In its consideration of the remarkable extent and variety of non-university researchers, this book takes a broader view of ‘knowledge’ and ‘research’ than in the many hot debates about today’s knowledge society, ‘learning age’, or organisation of research. It goes beyond the commonly held image of ‘knowledge’ as something produced and owned by the full-time experts to take a look at those engaged in active knowledge building outside the university walls
The Stokes Phenomenon and Quantum Tunneling for de Sitter Radiation in Nonstationary Coordinates
We study quantum tunneling for the de Sitter radiation in the planar
coordinates and global coordinates, which are nonstationary coordinates and
describe the expanding geometry. Using the phase-integral approximation for the
Hamilton-Jacobi action in the complex plane of time, we obtain the
particle-production rate in both coordinates and derive the additional
sinusoidal factor depending on the dimensionality of spacetime and the quantum
number for spherical harmonics in the global coordinates. This approach
resolves the factor of two problem in the tunneling method.Comment: LaTex 10 pages, no figur
Long gamma-ray bursts and core-collapse supernovae have different environments
When massive stars exhaust their fuel they collapse and often produce the
extraordinarily bright explosions known as core-collapse supernovae. On
occasion, this stellar collapse also powers an even more brilliant relativistic
explosion known as a long-duration gamma-ray burst. One would then expect that
long gamma-ray bursts and core-collapse supernovae should be found in similar
galactic environments. Here we show that this expectation is wrong. We find
that the long gamma-ray bursts are far more concentrated on the very brightest
regions of their host galaxies than are the core-collapse supernovae.
Furthermore, the host galaxies of the long gamma-ray bursts are significantly
fainter and more irregular than the hosts of the core-collapse supernovae.
Together these results suggest that long-duration gamma-ray bursts are
associated with the most massive stars and may be restricted to galaxies of
limited chemical evolution. Our results directly imply that long gamma-ray
bursts are relatively rare in galaxies such as our own Milky Way.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Nature on 22 August 2005, revised 9
February 2006, online publication 10 May 2006. Supplementary material
referred to in the text can be found at
http://www.stsci.edu/~fruchter/GRB/locations/supplement.pdf . This new
version contains minor changes to match the final published versio
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Performed and preferred participation in science and technology across Europe: Exploring an alternative idea of "democratic deficit"
Republican ideals of active scientific citizenship and extensive use of deliberative, democratic decision making have come to dominate the public participation agenda, and academic analyses have focused on the deficit of public involvement vis-à-vis these normative ideals. In this paper we use latent class models to explore what Eurobarometer survey data can tell us about the ways in which people participate in tacit or in policy-active ways with developments in science and technology, but instead of focusing on the distance between observed participation and the dominant, normative ideal of participation, we examine the distance between what people do, and what they themselves think is appropriate in terms of involvement. The typology of citizens emerging from the analyses entails an entirely different diagnosis of democratic deficit, one that stresses imbalance between performed and preferred participation
AdS_3/LCFT_2 - Correlators in Cosmological Topologically Massive Gravity
For cosmological topologically massive gravity at the chiral point we
calculate momentum space 2- and 3-point correlators of operators in the
postulated dual CFT on the cylinder. These operators are sourced by the bulk
and boundary gravitons. Our correlators are fully consistent with the proposal
that cosmological topologically massive gravity at the chiral point is dual to
a logarithmic CFT. In the process we give a complete classification of
normalizable and non-normalizeable left, right and logarithmic solutions to the
linearized equations of motion in global AdS_3.Comment: 39 pages + appendices, 1 eps figure, v2: minor changes in text in
4.1.2, corrected typo in (2.31
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