Cooperative Mechanism for Solving Conflicts in Infrastructure Projects

Risks and uncertainties are quite common in projects in general and in large and complex infrastructure projects in special. Sometimes these risks can cause conflicts and disputes, which cannot be solved between the contracting parties. A lawsuit often would be the only way to solve the conflict. To avoid going to court, several variations for conflict solution have been established. After an introduction into the topic of these mechanisms, a research project will be presented. In this project the adjudication model is incorporated into a recent guideline for partnering in the construction of civil infrastructure projects. The findings of the testing phase of this guideline in real construction project are all in all very good. The solutions came faster and the costs were lower than in a court process. Some disputes were even solved without an adjudication process, but with the help of the adjudicators

Managing Stakeholders in Megaprojects.The MS Working Group Report

Stakeholder management (SM) in megaprojects was established as one of four working groups within the Megaproject COST Action. The critical importance of stakeholder management in megaprojects was identified in the first phase of the COST Action‘s research by case studies. It was obvious that stakeholder have huge impact on the performance of megaprojects. Thus, this working group started with the focus on this specific aspect of megaproject management. Thereby, the focus was aligned with the overall aim of the COSTAction: "…to understand how megaprojects can be designed and delivered more effectively to ensure their effective commissioning within Europe. Effective design and delivery means not only insuring that the megaproject is delivered on-time and to budget but that it satisfies the societal and commercial needs that motivated its creation and that it continues to do so throughout its entire life-cycle

Reconciliation of essential process parameters for an enhanced predictability of Arctic stratospheric ozone loss and its climate interactions

Significant reductions in stratospheric ozone occur inside the polar vortices each spring when chlorine radicals produced by heterogeneous reactions on cold particle surfaces in winter destroy ozone mainly in two catalytic cycles, the ClO dimer cycle and the ClO/BrO cycle. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are responsible for most of the chlorine currently present in the stratosphere, have been banned by the Montreal Protocol and its amendments, and the ozone layer is predicted to recover to 1980 levels within the next few decades. During the same period, however, climate change is expected to alter the temperature, circulation patterns and chemical composition in the stratosphere, and possible geo-engineering ventures to mitigate climate change may lead to additional changes. To realistically predict the response of the ozone layer to such influences requires the correct representation of all relevant processes. The European project RECONCILE has comprehensively addressed remaining questions in the context of polar ozone depletion, with the objective to quantify the rates of some of the most relevant, yet still uncertain physical and chemical processes. To this end RECONCILE used a broad approach of laboratory experiments, two field missions in the Arctic winter 2009/10 employing the high altitude research aircraft M55-Geophysica and an extensive match ozone sonde campaign, as well as microphysical and chemical transport modelling and data assimilation. Some of the main outcomes of RECONCILE are as follows: (1) vortex meteorology: the 2009/10 Arctic winter was unusually cold at stratospheric levels during the six-week period from mid-December 2009 until the end of January 2010, with reduced transport and mixing across the polar vortex edge; polar vortex stability and how it is influenced by dynamic processes in the troposphere has led to unprecedented, synoptic-scale stratospheric regions with temperatures below the frost point; in these regions stratospheric ice clouds have been observed, extending over >106km2 during more than 3 weeks. (2) Particle microphysics: heterogeneous nucleation of nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) particles in the absence of ice has been unambiguously demonstrated; conversely, the synoptic scale ice clouds also appear to nucleate heterogeneously; a variety of possible heterogeneous nuclei has been characterised by chemical analysis of the non-volatile fraction of the background aerosol; substantial formation of solid particles and denitrification via their sedimentation has been observed and model parameterizations have been improved. (3) Chemistry: strong evidence has been found for significant chlorine activation not only on polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) but also on cold binary aerosol; laboratory experiments and field data on the ClOOCl photolysis rate and other kinetic parameters have been shown to be consistent with an adequate degree of certainty; no evidence has been found that would support the existence of yet unknown chemical mechanisms making a significant contribution to polar ozone loss. (4) Global modelling: results from process studies have been implemented in a prognostic chemistry climate model (CCM); simulations with improved parameterisations of processes relevant for polar ozone depletion are evaluated against satellite data and other long term records using data assimilation and detrended fluctuation analysis. Finally, measurements and process studies within RECONCILE were also applied to the winter 2010/11, when special meteorological conditions led to the highest chemical ozone loss ever observed in the Arctic. In addition to quantifying the 2010/11 ozone loss and to understand its causes including possible connections to climate change, its impacts were addressed, such as changes in surface ultraviolet (UV) radiation in the densely populated northern mid-latitudes

Reconciliation of essential process parameters for an enhanced predictability of Arctic stratospheric ozone loss and its climate interactions : (RECONCILE) ; activities and results

The international research project RECONCILE has addressed central questions regarding polar ozone depletion, with the objective to quantify some of the most relevant yet still uncertain physical and chemical processes and thereby improve prognostic modelling capabilities to realistically predict the response of the ozone layer to climate change. This overview paper outlines the scope and the general approach of RECONCILE, and it provides a summary of observations and modelling in 2010 and 2011 that have generated an in many respects unprecedented dataset to study processes in the Arctic winter stratosphere. Principally, it summarises important outcomes of RECONCILE including (i) better constraints and enhanced consistency on the set of parameters governing catalytic ozone destruction cycles, (ii) a better understanding of the role of cold binary aerosols in heterogeneous chlorine activation, (iii) an improved scheme of polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) processes that includes heterogeneous nucleation of nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) and ice on non-volatile background aerosol leading to better model parameterisations with respect to denitrification, and (iv) long transient simulations with a chemistry-climate model (CCM) updated based on the results of RECONCILE that better reproduce past ozone trends in Antarctica and are deemed to produce more reliable predictions of future ozone trends. The process studies and the global simulations conducted in RECONCILE show that in the Arctic, ozone depletion uncertainties in the chemical and microphysical processes are now clearly smaller than the sensitivity to dynamic variability

The GRAVITY+ Project: Towards All-sky, Faint-Science, High-Contrast Near-Infrared Interferometry at the VLTI

The GRAVITY instrument has been revolutionary for near-infrared interferometry by pushing sensitivity and precision to previously unknown limits. With the upgrade of GRAVITY and the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) in GRAVITY+, these limits will be pushed even further, with vastly improved sky coverage, as well as faint-science and high-contrast capabilities. This upgrade includes the implementation of wide-field off-axis fringe-tracking, new adaptive optics systems on all Unit Telescopes, and laser guide stars in an upgraded facility. GRAVITY+ will open up the sky to the measurement of black hole masses across cosmic time in hundreds of active galactic nuclei, use the faint stars in the Galactic centre to probe General Relativity, and enable the characterisation of dozens of young exoplanets to study their formation, bearing the promise of another scientific revolution to come at the VLTI.Comment: Published in the ESO Messenge

Looking for Project Success in Infrastructure Projects - How Can We Archive It?

Even though the main aim of project management (PM) is to assure successful projects, the PM literature still lacks a clear definition of project success (PS), since it highly depends on the stakeholders' expectations and the point in time in which the project was evaluated. In this context and due to their specialties e.g. long duration or a large number of stakeholders, the infrastructure projects are subjected to time delays and cost overruns and therefore, criticized in the society and described as failed or unsuccessful projects. This paper hypothesizes the need to adapt our PM approach to follow more systemic methods and presents the main principles of systematic project management (SPM) as a success factor (SF) for infrastructure projects. In addition, a case study about the Gotthard Base Tunnel is presented to verify the literature findings