Owner challenges on major projects: The case of UK government

Many studies agree that owner organisations are important for successful project organising, but they tend to focus on particular aspects of project organising rather than providing a holistic analysis of owners as organisations. Our objective is to collect evidence of the full range of challenges public sector owners face in managing their major projects. After reviewing the literature on owner organisations, we carry out a case survey of 26 major projects to identify the principal challenges using a content analysis of UK National Audit Office Value for Money reports. Our original contribution is that the findings provide the first comprehensive picture of the full range of challenges of project organising faced by owner organisations. These findings push us theoretically to extend the scope of research in project organising to identify an extended core set of dynamic capabilities for project owner organisations to address these challenges

A Just Transition: Why Transitioning Workers into a New Clean Energy Economy Should Be at the Center of Climate Change Policies

With a hostile federal administration, states must take up the fight against climate change. Shortly after the United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, governors from several states announced efforts to meet the targets. This article argues that state level climate actions must consider the economic consequences of climate policy. A shift away from fossil fuels is a fundamentally necessary step in the fight against climate change. However, the economic impact of this shift will be felt most acutely by fossil fuel workers and communities, many of which are already facing economic hardships. Attention and resources must be focused on helping these workers and communities adapt to clean energy in a way that is fair and just, otherwise known as just transition. By failing to address the economic impact of moving away from fossil fuels, climate change will become a driver of inequality. Looking at examples in the United States and Germany, this article presents three elements necessary for a just transition program: dedicated funding streams, strong public sector role, and partnership with non-governmental organizations and unions. This article looks at New York State’s recently announced Clean Climate Careers Initiative and analyzes it through the proposed just transition framework

Labor Leading on Climate: A Policy Platform to Address Rising Inequality and Rising Sea Levels in New York State

With the renewed need for state action, this paper presents a case study of a labor-led initiative in New York State that seeks to address both economic inequality and the climate crisis. It discusses how organized labor, which has historically represented fossil fuel workers and has not been seen as a traditional climate ally, put forth a comprehensive climate jobs plan that could meaningfully reduce carbon emissions while also creating good, family-sustaining jobs to reduce income inequality. As the need for a broader coalition to advocate for sensible climate policy increases, this case study provides a road map for states across the country on how non-traditional allies can come together around a policy agenda that fights both inequality and climate change

Millions to the Polls: Practical Policies to Fulfill the Freedom to Vote for All Americans

Voting is the bedrock of America's democracy. In a government of, by, and for the people, casting a ballot is the fundamental means through which we all have a say in the political decisions that affect our lives. Yet now, without substantial interventions, the freedom to vote is at great risk.This report contains a comprehensive and bold agenda of 16 policy proposals and common sense reforms. It details policies to help us realize the full promise of a democracy

Fresh Start: The Impact of Public Campaign Financing in Connecticut

Connecticut has offered a voluntary public financing system for state-wide constitutional and General Assembly offices since 2008. Through financing from the Citizens' Election Fund, candidates that obtain the required number of small donations can receive a lump sum to fund their campaign. The program is very popular and in 2012, 77 percent of successful candidates were publicly financed. This report looks at the impact public financing has had on campaigning, the legislative process, policy outcomes, and the dynamics of the legislature. Empirical data is supplemented with interviews with current and former legislators from both Republican and Democratic parties, elected state officials, and advocates to highlight the impact of public financing in the state. While only a few electoral cycles in, it is clear that public financing is a fundamental step towards a more representative legislative process that is more responsive to constituents

Safety verification of ADA programs in MURPHY

MURPHY is a experimental methodology, which will include an integrated tool set, for building safety-critical, real-time software. Although it is language independent, many safety-critical software projects are currently planning to use Ada. This paper presents the semantic templates for the verification of the safety of Ada programs using Software Fault Tree Analysis. An example is shown of applying the technique to an Ada program, and the tools in the MURPHY tool set to aid in this type of analysis are described

Primary decomposition in the smooth concordance group of topologically slice knots

We address primary decomposition conjectures for knot concordance groups, which predict direct sum decompositions into primary parts. We show that the smooth concordance group of topologically slice knots has a large subgroup for which the conjectures are true and there are infinitely many primary parts each of which has infinite rank. This supports the conjectures for topologically slice knots. We also prove analogues for the associated graded groups of the bipolar filtration of topologically slice knots. Among ingredients of the proof, we use amenable $L^2$-signatures, Ozsv\'ath-Szab\'o $d$-invariants and N\'emethi's result on Heegaard Floer homology of Seifert 3-manifolds. In an appendix, we present a general formulation of the notion of primary decomposition