FRAMEWORK FOR RELIABILITY, MAINTAINABILITY AND AVAILABILITY ANALYSIS OF GAS PROCESSING SYSTEM DURING OPERATION PHASE

In facing many operation challenges such as increased expectation in bottom line performances and escalating overhead costs, petrochemical plants nowadays need to continually strive for higher reliability and availability by means of effective improvement tools. Reliability, maintainability and availability (RAM) analysis has been recognised as one of the strategic tools to improve plant's reliability at operation phase. Nevertheless, the application of RAM among industrial practitioners is still limited generally due to the impracticality and complexity of existing approaches. Hence, it is important to enhance the approaches so that they can be practically applied by companies to assist them in achieving their operational goals. The objectives of this research are to develop frameworks for applying reliability, maintainability and availability analysis of gas processing system at operation phase to improve system operational and maintenance performances. In addition, the study focuses on ways to apply existing statistical approach and incorporate inputs from field experts for prediction of reliability related measures. Furthermore, it explores and highlights major issues involved in implementing RAM analysis in oil and gas industry and offers viable solutions. In this study, systematic analysis on each RAM components are proposed and their roles as strategic improvement and decision making tools are discussed and demonstrated using case studies of two plant systems. In reliability and maintainability (R&M) analysis, two main steps; exploratory and inferential are proposed. Tools such as Pareto, trend plot and hazard functions; Kaplan Meier (KM) and proportional hazard model (PHM), are used in exploratory phase to identify critical elements to system's R&M performances. In inferential analysis, a systematic methodology is presented to assess R&M related measures

Incorporating reliability of anchors for proximity-based mobile ocalization in wireless sensor networks

兵庫県立大学大学院201

Incorporating reliability of anchors for proximity-based mobile ocalization in wireless sensor networks

兵庫県立大学大学院201

The Role of Insulin and Glucagon in the Regulation of Hepatic Drug and Steroid Metabolism

The object of this thesis is to ascertain the role of insulin and glucagon in the regulation of steroid metabolism in the rat liver. Most of the previous work performed to observe the effect of diabetes on steroid and drug metabolism was done on liver microsomes prepared from treated animals. As described above, it is difficult to ascribe the effect of diabetes on hepatic steroid metabolism to a single action of insulin or glucagon in an in-vivo study. The use of isolated hepatocytes is essential to examine the effect of one hormone alone. In order to achieve our objective, we had to develop a cell culture system which is hormone- and serum-free. We have developed and characterized four different types of culture medium containing animal serum, synthetic multihormone serum substitute (Ultroser G, LKB ) or bovine serum albumin only. When the liver cells were cultured in basic Ham's F-10 culture medium supplemented with foetal calf and horse serum or with Ultroser G, the steroid enzyme activities were reduced to less than 50 % of control on day 3 of culture in normal male rat hepatocytes. We discovered that the steroid enzyme activities were best maintained in Ham's F-10 culture medium supplemented with 0.1% bovine serum albumin only. The basal level of enzyme activities was maintained for at least 3 days in culture. We, therefore, have a hepatocyte culture method to assess the effects of insulin and glucagon on hepatic steroid metabolism in serum- and hormone-free, chemically defined medium. Only male rats were used throughout the project because previous study had shown that the effect of diabetes on hepatic steroid metabolism is only seen in the male rat (Skett, 1986). The substrate chosen for the investigation is androst-4-ene-3,17-dione because its metabolites are well defined and easily separated and the labelled and unlabelled substrate are easily available. The enzymes involved in its metabolism have been shown to be both cytochrome P-450-dependent and -independent and sex-specific. Moreover, insulin has been demonstrated to affect its metabolism in-vivo (Skett, 1986). The effect of insulin on androst-4-ene-3,17-dione metabolism in normal rat hepatocytes over the period studied was characterized by the presence of two peaks of increased activity at 1/2 and 24 hours. Importantly, these effects of insulin are clearly within the physiological range. The dose-response curves at 1/2 and 24 hour insulin preincubation suggest that these two peaks are probably generated by different mechanisms. Biochemical studies performed indicated that there is no correlation between the increase in enzyme activities by insulin at 1/2 hour and changes in cyclic AMP, cytochrome P-450 concentrations or phosphoinositide hydrolysis. It seems that insulin's effect on androst-4-ene-3,17-dione metabolism at 1/2 and 24 hour involves a phosphorylation reaction since the protein kinase inhibitor, K-252a, completely inhibited the effect of insulin. However, the exact molecular mechanism of action is yet to be determined. Our results did not show any selective changes in the male-specific and female-specific enzyme activities which is in contrast to the result found in-vivo (Skett, 1986). This is probably attributed to the continuous exposure of the parenchymal liver cells to many different hormones in-vivo, which is absent in our system. The data obtained suggest that insulin has a direct effect on hepatic steroid metabolism and the hormone, in-vitro, act as a general stimulator of the enzymes in the liver which metabolize androst-4-ene-3,17-dione. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)

FRAMEWORK FOR RELIABILITY, MAINTAINABILITY AND AVAILABILITY ANALYSIS OF GAS PROCESSING SYSTEM DURING OPERATION PHASE

In facing many operation challenges such as increased expectation in bottom line performances and escalating overhead costs, petrochemical plants nowadays need to continually strive for higher reliability and availability by means of effective improvement tools. Reliability, maintainability and availability (RAM) analysis has been recognised as one of the strategic tools to improve plant's reliability at operation phase. Nevertheless, the application of RAM among industrial practitioners is still limited generally due to the impracticality and complexity of existing approaches. Hence, it is important to enhance the approaches so that they can be practically applied by companies to assist them in achieving their operational goals. The objectives of this research are to develop frameworks for applying reliability, maintainability and availability analysis of gas processing system at operation phase to improve system operational and maintenance performances. In addition, the study focuses on ways to apply existing statistical approach and incorporate inputs from field experts for prediction of reliability related measures. Furthermore, it explores and highlights major issues involved in implementing RAM analysis in oil and gas industry and offers viable solutions. In this study, systematic analysis on each RAM components are proposed and their roles as strategic improvement and decision making tools are discussed and demonstrated using case studies of two plant systems. In reliability and maintainability (R&M) analysis, two main steps; exploratory and inferential are proposed. Tools such as Pareto, trend plot and hazard functions; Kaplan Meier (KM) and proportional hazard model (PHM), are used in exploratory phase to identify critical elements to system's R&M performances. In inferential analysis, a systematic methodology is presented to assess R&M related measures

EXPLORING AL -FAUZ AL KABIR’S FIVE THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE QURAN: A PERSPECTIVE FROM SHAH WALI ALLAH AL-DEHLAVI

Purpose: This study explores the contribution of Shah Wali Allah al-Dehlavi’s work on the Quran to classify it into five categories (themes) using a qualitative methodology known as thematic analysis in today’s world of research, in his book Al-Fawz al-Kabir. This paper is an attempt to show the contributions of Muslim scholars in the world of research by introducing the research methodology which is used even in today’s modern world. Methodology: A qualitative comparative analysis was employed by reviewing both the approaches such as Thematic Analysis and the approach applied by Shah Wali Allah to find five sciences. Main Findings: The result showed that both research approaches are similar. This study concludes that [our] classical scholars have formulated and used the research methodologies which may be applicable and relevant to the current research paradigms. Applications: This article can be used as a gateway by academics to review and analyze the work of Islamic classical scholars specifically their research techniques to derive new research methodologies. Novelty/Originality: The work of Shah Wali Allah (SWA) on the Quran to find out the relationship between the research methodology employed by SWA and the Thematic Analysis has been studied

Gas Separation using Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene Membrane

This report is discussing mainly about the permeation of gases using Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) membrane. ABS is chosen because its cost and properties that made it suitable for gas separation. In this project, focus is given fabrication of the said membrane and permeation experiment on the membrane. The gases which are used for the study is CH4, O2 and N2. Two types of membrane are fabricated in the studies which are porous and dense. Solution-casting technique is used to fabricate dense while porous membrane is fabricated by phase inversion (solution precipitation). The membranes are tested for its permeability for the three gases using Gas Permeability Test Unit. Based on the result, dense membranes have better ideal selectivity compared to the porous membrane. The result obtained will be useful in determining the potential of ABS as membrane for gas separation

Polyamines Regulate Chilling Response in Ripening Tomato Fruits by De Novo Transcription

Plants response to various abiotic stress, including chilling injury, by differentially regulating genes responsible for protection against these stresses. Polyamines (PAs); putrescine (Put), spermidine (Spd), and spermine (Spm), are ubiquitous metabolite in all organisms and have been implicated in abiotic stresses in plants. Dr. Handa laboratory has previously developed high Spd/Spm tomato fruits genotypes by expressing yeast S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylase (SAMDC). In present investigation, the role of Spd/Spm in chilling injury was evaluated by using two independent transgenic lines with high Spd/Spm (556 and 579) and isogenic parental Ohio 8245 (WT) genotypes. Fruits at onset of ripening (Breaker, BR) and fully ripe (Breaker+8 days, BR+8) from both transgenic lines and WT were subjected to chilling by storing at 5°C or 8ºC. Results showed that the 556 and 579 fruits exhibit more chilling tolerance phenotype at BR+8 stage but performed poorly at BR stage compared to WT fruit. RNA-seq analyses of transcriptome showed differential expression of a large number of genes in response to chilling treatment of high Spd/Spm fruit compared to WT fruit, which suggesting a significant effect of PAs in chilling response mechanism. PAs are implicated in regulating genes related to redox homeostasis (Thioredoxin family protein), stress signaling pathway (MAPK cascade), various cold responsive genes, protein chaperon (heat shock proteins) and cellular antioxidant system (CAT, SOD and APX). It can be postulated that, being positive charged molecules, PAs bind to DNA, RNA and transcription factors and differentially regulate expression of genes associated with chilling tolerance in ripened fruits that help acclimate fruits to sub optimal chilling temperature