Planning the petrochemical industry in Kuwait using economic and safety objectives

Kuwait, one of the major oil producing countries in the Middle East, is in the process of globalizing its operation in petroleum and petrochemical production. Kuwaiti officials have expressedin terest in acceleratingd evelopmento f the country's relatively small petrochemical industry. The development is to produce new valuable chemicals from the available basic feedstock chemicals. Two of the important planning objectives for a petrochemical industry are the economic gain and the industrial safety involved in the development. For the economic evaluation of the industry, and for the proposed final product chemicals in the development, a long-range plan is needed to identify trends in chemical prices. The chemical prices are related to the oil price, which is considered an important motivator for the whole petrochemical industry. Price trend modelling is performed to be able to forecast these prices for the planning horizon. Safety, as the second objective, is considered in this study as the risk of chemical plant accidents. Risk, when used as an objective fimction, has to have a simple quantitative form to be easily evaluated for a large number of possible plants in the petrochemical network. The simple quantitative form adopted is a risk index that enables the number of people affected by accidents resulting in chemical releases to be estimated. The two objectives, when combined with constraints describing the desired or the possible structure of the industry, will form an optimization model. For this study, the petrochemical planning model consists of a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to select the best routes from the basic feedstocks available in Kuwait to the desired final products with multiple objective functions. The economic and risk objectives usually have conflicting needs. The presence of several conflicting objectives is typical when planning. In many cases, where optimization techniques are utilized, the multiple objectives are simply aggregated into one single objective function. Optimization is then conducted to get one optimal result. However, many results are obtained for different aggregations of the objectives and eventually a set of solutions is obtained. Other tools, such as strategic tools, are used to select the best solution from the set. This study, which is concerned with economic and risk objectives, leads to the identification of important factors that affect the petrochemical industry. Moreover, the procedure, of modelling and model solution, can be used to simplify the decisionmaking for complex or large systems such as the petrochemical industry. It presents the use of simple multiple objective optimization tools within a petrochemical planning tool formulated as a mixed integer linear programming model. Such a tool is particularly useful when the decision-making task must be discussed and approved by officials who often have little experience with optimization theories

Assessment of Arabian Gulf Seaweeds from Kuwait as Sources of Nutritionally Important Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFAs)

Funding: We are grateful to the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) for PhD funding for H.A.-A. We are thankful to the National Unit for Environmental Research and Services (NUERS) at Kuwait University, Project # SRUIL01/13 and the Department of Marine Sciences for providing their facilities and labs. We equally thank the UK Natural Environment Research Council for their support to F.C.K. (program Oceans 2025–WP 4.5 and grants NE/D521522/1 and NE/J023094/1). This work also received support from the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland pooling initiative. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions. PK would like to acknowledge European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 839151 for fundingPeer reviewedPublisher PD

When humans form media and media form humans: an experimental study examining the effects different digital media have on the learning outcomes of students who have different learning styles

A set of computer-based experiments are reported that investigate the understanding achieved by learners when studying a complex domain (statistics) in a real E-learning environment using three different media combinations – Text only, Text and Diagrams and Spoken Text and Diagrams, and the results agree with earlier work carried out on more limited domains. The work is then extended to examine how student interaction and student learning styles affect the learning outcomes. Different responses to the media combinations are observed and significant differences occur between learners classified as Sensing and Reflective learners. The experiment also identified some important differences in performance with the different media combinations by students registered as Dyslexic. The experiment was therefore repeated with a much larger sample of Dyslexic learners and the earlier effects were found to be significant. The results were surprising and may provide useful guidance for the design of material for Dyslexic students

Smartwatch games: Encouraging privacy-protective behaviour in a longitudinal study

While the public claim concern for their privacy, they frequently appear to overlook it. This disparity between concern and behaviour is known as the Privacy Paradox. Such issues are particularly prevalent on wearable devices. These products can store personal data, such as text messages and contact details. However, owners rarely use protective features. Educational games can be effective in encouraging changes in behaviour. Therefore, we developed the first privacy game for (Android) Wear OS watches. 10 participants used smartwatches for two months, allowing their high-level settings to be monitored. Five individuals were randomly assigned to our treatment group, and they played a dynamically-customised privacy-themed game. To minimise confounding variables, the other five received the same app but lacking the privacy topic. The treatment group improved their protection, with their usage of screen locks significantly increasing (p = 0.043). In contrast, 80% of the control group continued to never restrict their settings. After the posttest phase, we evaluated behavioural rationale through semi-structured interviews. Privacy concerns became more nuanced in the treatment group, with opinions aligning with behaviour. Actions appeared influenced primarily by three factors: convenience, privacy salience and data sensitivity. This is the first smartwatch game to encourage privacy-protective behaviour

Multimedia and learning : an empirical investigation for media combinations and learning

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Multimedia and learning: an empirical investigation for media combinations and learning

Developments in distance learning education have revealed difficulties in providing education “at a distance”. It has been suggested that these deficiencies might be overcome through the use of better-designed interfaces exploiting the capabilities of multimedia interface design techniques. A framework for characterising media is identified and the Dual Coding Theory of Cognition is identified as a possible theoretical basis for examining the effects of media on learning. A pilot experiment compared the effects of teaching identical material on statistics in both a face-to-face manner and wholly on-line. The objective of the experiment was to determine what problems emerged in carrying out such experimentation and what the student response would be. This was then followed by a set of empirical investigations on how different combinations of media affect learning outcomes in computer-based education. In particular, it examined if there is a relationship between the media combinations and the learning styles of the students. Specifically the following hypotheses were tested. (1) Presentations using sound and diagrams result in better recall than text and diagrams, and text-only for modules presenting statistical knowledge. (2) Presentations using text and diagrams results in better recall than text-only presentations for each valid learning unit. (3) Specific styles of learning have better recall than others for each valid learning unit. These hypotheses were examined in a large-scale experiment in which three different presentation styles were presented (Voice over+Diagrams, Text + Diagrams, and Text Only) to large numbers of students. The results show firstly that there are indeed media effects when the same information is presented in different ways as predicted by Dual Coding Theory. The combination of voice and diagrams resulted in superior recall of knowledge in all cases and was very persistent over all subject groups and conditions. Finally, a significant effect was observed in recall between Sensor and Intuitor Learners. The work suggests that Dual Coding theory can provide a theoretical framework upon which media combinations can be incorporated into interface design.</p

Technological Transformation and Competitiveness in the Middle East, XXXX 1 Strategic planning of the petrochemical industry

Abstract: The petrochemical industry is a large and complex industry that contributes heavily in the economy of many Middle-East countries. It is an industry that needs strategies for different aspects of planning and production. This work presents the main strategies that must be considered for the petrochemical industry together with the corresponding tools. The strategies are presented in the field of economics, Health Safety and Environmental (HSE) and the long-range planning. The strategies will prove helpful for decision-makers and plant engineers when selecting plants and products for the petrochemical industry. Keywords: petrochemical; strategy; health safety and environmental; HSE; portfolio; cycles; planning; K-wave; index; economy; product selection.