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Large Projects (large + project)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	30%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	30%
Medical Sciences	20%

Selected Abstracts

Why Study Large Projects?

EUROPEAN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2004
An Introduction to Research on Project Finance
G32; G34; L22; G31 Abstract Despite the fact that more than $200 billion of capital investment was financed through project companies in 2001, an amount that grew at a compound annual rate of almost 20% during the 1990s, there has been very little academic research on project finance. The purpose of this article is to explain why project finance in general and why large projects in particular merit separate academic research and instruction. In short, there are significant opportunities to study the relationship among structural attributes (i.e., high leverage, contractual details, and concentrated equity ownership), managerial incentives, and asset values, as well as improve current practice in this rapidly growing field of finance. [source]

LAND RICH AND DATA POOR: MODELLING REQUIREMENTS IN AUSTRALIA'S FAR NORTH

ECONOMIC PAPERS: A JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMICS AND POLICY, Issue 3 2005
Natalie Stoeckl
Economic models have long been used as a way of organising and presenting information for policy makers interested in large regions,e.g. nations,and recent advances in information technology make the goal of developing models for decision makers in other locales a realistic one. The research on which this paper focuses was part of large project investigating the feasibility and desirability of developing a multi-disciplinary computer model of the Australian Savannas. In the large project, researchers were broken in to three teams: those considering the biophysical, demographic, and economic aspects of the modelling problem. This paper presents findings from part of the economic component of the investigation: that which sought information from key local ,stakeholders' about the type of information that would be useful to them. Responses indicate that many of Australia's existing economic models are capable of providing the ,right' type of information; but at too coarse a geographic scale for those in remote regions. Evidently, there is a need for developing other models. [source]

Challenges to achieving sustainable community health development within a donor aid business model

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Issue 3 2010
Helen Ashwell
Abstract Objective: This paper explores the paradox of donor aid being delivered through a business model through a case study in Papua New Guinea. Methods: A retrospective review of project implementation and an outcome evaluation provided an opportunity to examine the long-term results and sustainability of a large project. Analysis was informed by data collected from 175 interviews (national, provincial, district and village), 93 community discussions and observations across 10 provinces. Results: Problems with the business model of delivering aid were evident from implementation data and in an evaluation conducted two years after project completion (2006). Compounding the business model effect were challenges of over-ambitious project goals with limited flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances, a donor payment system requiring short-term productivity and excessive reporting requirements. Conclusion: An overly ambitious project design, donor dominance within the business model and limited local counterpart capacity created problems in the community initiatives component of the project. Contractual pressures can negatively influence long-term outcomes that require development of local leadership and capacity. Future planning for donor project designs needs to be flexible, smaller in scope and have a longer timeframe of seven to 10 years. Implications: Donor-funded projects need to be sufficiently flexible to apply proven principles of community development, build local ownership and allow adequate time to build counterpart knowledge and skills. [source]

Why Study Large Projects?

Mega-projects in New York, London and Amsterdam

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2008
SUSAN S. FAINSTEIN
Abstract Recently we have witnessed the mounting of very large development projects (mega-projects) in European and American cities. There is a striking physical similarity among the schemes and also a convergence embodied in private-sector involvement and market orientation. They differ, however, as to whether they provide affordable units and tie together physical and social goals. This article investigates new mega-projects in New York, London, and Amsterdam. The dissimilarities among them indicate the extent of variability in contemporary property capitalism. The comparison shows that public-private partnerships can provide public benefits, but also shows that these large projects are risky for both public and private participants, must primarily be oriented toward profitability, and produce a landscape that does not encourage urbanity. Whether the gains from increased competitiveness are spread throughout the society depends on the size of the direct governmental commitment to public benefits. This is greatest in the Netherlands, where the welfare state, albeit shrunken, lives on; it is least in the United States, where the small size of national expenditures on housing and social welfare means that low-income people must depend almost wholly on trickle-down effects to gain from new development. Résumé Les très grands projets d'aménagement (mégaprojets) se multiplient dernièrement dans les villes d'Europe et d'Amérique. On est frappé par une similarité physique entre les programmes, mais aussi par une convergence observable dans l'implication du secteur privé et dans une orientation-marché. Ils diffèrent pourtant par leur capacité ou non à procurer des unités accessibles financièrement et à associer des objectifs physiques et sociaux. L'article étudie de nouveaux mégaprojets à New-York, Londres et Amsterdam. Les divergences entre eux indiquent l'étendue de la variabilité du capitalisme immobilier contemporain. La comparaison établit que les partenariats public-privé peuvent produire des bénéfices publics, et montre aussi que ces grands projets sont risqués pour les participants publics et privés, qu'ils doivent surtout rechercher la rentabilité et qu'ils génèrent un paysage peu favorable à l'urbanité. La répartition, sur toute la société, des gains tirés d'une compétitivité accrue dépend de l'ampleur de l'engagement direct des gouvernements à l'égard des bénéfices publics. Le cas le plus flagrant est celui des Pays-Bas, où l'État-providence subsiste, bien que diminué; le plus limité est celui des États-Unis, où la faible ampleur des dépenses nationales de logement et de protection sociale signifie que les populations à bas revenu dépendent presque totalement des effets de propagation pour bénéficier d'un nouvel aménagement. [source]

Realizing the Potential of Real Options: Does Theory Meet Practice?

JOURNAL OF APPLIED CORPORATE FINANCE, Issue 2 2005
Alexander Triantis
The idea of viewing corporate investment opportunities as "real options" has been around for over 25 years. Real options concepts and techniques now routinely appear in academic research in finance and economics, and have begun to influence scholarly work in virtually every business discipline, including strategy, organizations, management science, operations management, information systems, accounting, and marketing. Real options concepts have also made considerable headway in practice. Corporate managers are more likely to recognize options in their strategic planning process, and have become more proactive in designing flexibility into projects and contracts, frequently using real options vocabulary in their discussions. Thanks in part to the spread of real options thinking, today's strategic planners are more likely than their predecessors to recognize the "option" value of actions like the following: , dividing up large projects into a number of stages; , investing in the acquisition or production of information; , introducing "modularity" in manufacturing and design; , developing competing prototypes for new products; and , investing in overseas markets. But if real options has clearly succeeded as a way of thinking, the application of real options valuation methods has been limited to companies in relatively few industries and has thus failed to live up to expectations created in the mid- to late-1990s. Increased corporate acceptance and implementations of real options valuation techniques will require several changes coming together. On the theory side, we need more realistic models that better reflect differences between financial and real options, simple heuristic methods that can be more easily implemented (but that have been carefully benchmarked against more precise models), and better guidance on implementation issues such as the estimation of discount rates for the "optionless" underlying projects. On the practitioner side, we need user-friendly real options software, more senior-level buy-in, more deliberate diffusion of real options knowledge throughout organizations, better alignment of managerial incentives with long-term shareholder value, and better-designed contracts to correct the misalignment of incentives across the value chain. If these challenges can be met, there will continue to be a steady if gradual diffusion of real options analysis throughout organizations over the next few decades, with real options eventually becoming not only a standard part of corporate strategic planning, but also the primary valuation tool for assessing the expected shareholder effect of large capital investment projects. [source]

Identifying and screening for psychological and comorbid medical and psychological disorders in medical settings,

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2009
Rodger Kessler
Abstract There is increased attention to the medical and economic consequences of psychological problems comorbid with medical issues. There is also a clear awareness that most psychological problems are assessed and responded to in nonpsychiatric medical settings. This has furthered interest and attention in implementing screening procedures to better identify psychological, behavioral, and substance abuse problems in medical settings. Such interest is taking the form of recommendations from federal government task forces, and the funding of large projects to include screening in medical settings. At the same time there has been further attention to brief, valid, and reliable measures with which to capture psychological comorbidities. However, there have been multiple concerns raised about a variety of issues concerning the utility and effectiveness of such screening procedures and the identification of multiple issues to be considered in screening design. The author outlines and reviews the rationale and concerns about screening, identifies the issues that need to be considered in screening program development, and describes the efforts to develop a screening capacity in a rural family practice. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol: In Session 65:1,15, 2009. [source]

Genomics and systems biology , how relevant are the developments to veterinary pharmacology, toxicology and therapeutics?

JOURNAL OF VETERINARY PHARMACOLOGY & THERAPEUTICS, Issue 3 2005
R. F. WITKAMP
This review discusses some of the recent developments in genomics and its current and future relevance for veterinary pharmacology and toxicology. With the rapid progress made in this field several new approaches in pharmacological and toxicological research have developed and drug discovery and drug development strategies have changed dramatically. In this review, the term genomics is used to encompass the three sub-disciplines transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics (or metabonomics) to describe the formation and fate of mRNA, proteins and metabolites, respectively. The current status and methods of the technology and some applications are briefly described. Although the DNA sequencing programmes are receiving considerable attention, the real value of genomics for pharmacology and toxicology is brought by the parallel developments in bio-informatics, bio-statistics and the integration of biology with mathematics and information technology. The ultimate level of integration is now mostly called systems biology, where mRNA, proteins and metabolites are being analysed in parallel, using a complete arsenal of analytical techniques (DNA-array, LC-MS/MS, GC-MS/MS, NMR, etc.). The information thus collected is analysed, integrated, linked to database information and translated to pathways and systems. This approach offers an enormous potential to study disease mechanisms and find new drug targets. Thus far, genomics and systems biology have not been introduced significantly in typical veterinary pharmacological and toxicological research programmes. The high costs and complexity connected to these large projects often form major obstacles for research groups with limited budgets. In other veterinary areas and disciplines, including infectious diseases, animal production and food-safety more examples of application are available. Genomics and bio-informatics provide outstanding opportunities to study pharmacology and toxicology in a more holistic way, taking into account the complexity of biological systems and based on the basic principles of physiology and the concept of homeostasis. Knowledge of biology, in vivo and in vitro models, and comparative pharmacology/toxicology is essential here, creating excellent opportunities for the veterinary trained scientist. [source]

Wetland Restoration in the New Millennium: Do Research Efforts Match Opportunities?

RESTORATION ECOLOGY, Issue 3 2008
Kelly I. Wagner
Abstract Of 311 papers on wetland restoration, only 15 concerned large-scale experimentation in restoration sites. Most papers described what happened, reported on small field experiments, or discussed restoration targets. While these are important topics, our opinion is that we lose significant opportunities to learn how to recover populations, community structure, and ecosystem processes, and we limit our ability to document variability and whole-system responses, when we do not experiment at large scales. We suggest that, wherever possible, large projects facilitate field tests of alternative restoration approaches. Furthermore, we encourage researchers to take advantage of major restoration efforts by conducting large field experiments, assessing multiple responses, and offering restoration guidance in an adaptive framework. [source]

Party Strength, the Personal Vote, and Government Spending

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2010
David M. Primo
"Strong" political parties within legislatures are one possible solution to the problem of inefficient universalism, a norm under which all legislators seek large projects for their districts that are paid for out of a common pool. We demonstrate that even if parties have no role in the legislature, their role in elections can be sufficient to reduce spending. If parties in the electorate are strong, then legislators will demand less distributive spending because of a decreased incentive to secure a "personal vote" via local projects. We estimate that spending in states with strong party organizations is at least 4% smaller than in states where parties are weak. We also find evidence that strong party states receive less federal aid than states with weak organizations, and we theorize that this is because members of Congress from strong party states feel less compelled to secure aid than members from weak party states. [source]