A Unified Model for Multi-Phase Flow and Heat Transfer in Wellbores

Multiphase flow is a common occurrence in the chemical and petroleum industries. The objective of this study was to apply the principles of multiphase flow to the production of petroleum fluids. A unified model was developed to predict the pressure profiles in wellbores using models available in the literature, which was then used to develop a simulator. A rigorous approach was also taken to model heat transfer and predict the temperature profiles in wellbores unde, various circumstances. Our model is capable of predicting the pressure profiles for various channel orientation and geometries. It can handle flow in vertical, and inclined system. Countercurrent flow and flow in downward direction can also be simulated. With appropriate value for the parameters, the model applies to liquid-liquid systems in addition to the gas-liquid systems. The temperature profile in a wellbore is important to the petroleum industry. Fluid temperature determines various properties such as viscosity, density, the extent of dissolved gases etc. The pressure profile depends on these physical properties. In addition, the temperature profile is important in many production operations in arctic regions. A prior knowledge of the temperature and pressure profile enables the operators to take preventive measures against the clogging of pipelines due to hydrate or wax formation. Accurate temperature estimation is also important during such operations as drilling, cementing etc. Fluid temperature depends orji the extent of heat loss from the wellbore, which in turn, depends on the formation temperature. The present approach of temperature estimation assumes a constant heat flux between the wellbore and formation throughout the entire operation time. However, quite often the heat transfer rate between the formation and wellbore changes with time. We used the superposition principle to account for the gradual change of heat flux with time. Analytical solutions with the assumption of invariant and linear variation of heat flux with depth, and numerical solution of the governing differential equation were obtained. We developed expressions for fluid temperature during production, injection and mud circulation. The results showed variation in the temperature profiles when superposition is used during oil production and in mud circulation compared to solution without superposition. The solutions of linear variation of heat flux with depth assumption were close to the numercial solutions

Phenotypic and functional characterization of cord blood natural killer cells

Cord Blood (CB) has recently been used as an alternative source of transplantable haemopoietic stem cells with a reported lower incidence of graft versus host disease (GVHD). Lack or reduced GVHD is thought to be associated with higher leukemic relapse as a result of a decrease in the graft versus leukemia (GVL) effect. The GVL effect in cord blood transplantation (CBT) has not yet been fully elucidated. In this study, the phenotypic and functional characteristics of CB natural killer (NK) cells have been investigated since NK cells are recognized effectors in the GVL phenomenon. The expression of CD16, CD56, CD57 NK markers, MHC class I receptors (KIRs and CD94), and CD161 of CB and adult peripheral blood (APB) cell were assessed. A three-color fluorescence cytometric analysis of freshly purified NK cells showed the presence of a unique CD16+/CD56- subset and the absence of CD57+ subset in fresh purified CB NK cells. There was no difference in the expression of KIRs receptors but the expression of CD94 and CD161 was higher in CB than in APB NK cells. When the standard Cr51 release assay was used, CB had a significantly lower cytotoxic activity than APB mononuclear cells (MNCs). However, when the newly developed flow cytometric assay to measure cytotoxicity and purified NK cells was used, there was no significant difference between CB and APB in their ability to induce early apoptotic target cell death. Further studies using K562 and Jurkat cell lines indicated that NK cells from CB and APB use both the Granzyme/Perforin and Fas/FasL cytotoxic pathways. Natural killer cells from CB and APB were incubated with IL-2, IL-12, IL-15, and IL-18 cytokines. The cytokine activated NK (ANK) cells were then assessed for NK markers expression, KIRs, CD94, CD161 receptors and for their NK cytotoxic capacity against K562 and Jurkat cell lines. The results showed that there was a shift towards the CD16+/CD56+ phenotype, in addition to the significant increase in the KIRs receptors in CB ANK cells. No difference in the expression of CD94 and CD161 in CB NK cells was noted. The cytotoxic activity of CB and APB ANK against K562 and Jurkat cells was significantly enhanced. The findings presented in this thesis reveal that CB NK cells have the potential to mediate a GVL effect similar to that observed using APB NK cells

Analytical Study of English Linguistic Interference in Jordanian Media: Mohammad Daoudia’s Journalistic Writings as a Model

Language is a set of signs and symbols that serve as a tool for knowing Language is regarded as the most significant medium of communication and interaction among members of society in all walks of life People s cognitive activity is impossible without language Language is inextricably linked to thinking since human thoughts are constantly formed in a linguistic mold Journalistic writers use a variety of contemporary and historical materials to improve their writing including linguistic vernacular and standard citations and quotations from the native language and its vernaculars as well as foreign languages This study aims to examine the interference of English in Jordanian media through Mohammad Daoudia s articles as a model The study data were written by Daoudia and consisted of articles he published on Jordanian news website in January 2023 as a representative sampl

Discount Bayesian models and forecasting

This thesis is concerned with Bayesian forecasting and sequential estimation. The concept of multiple discounting is introduced in order to achieve parametric and conceptual parsimony. In addition, this overcomes many of the drawbacks of the Normal Dynamic Linear Model (DLM) specification which uses a system variance matrix. These drawbacks involve ambiguity and invariance to the scale of independent variables. A class of Normal Discount Bayesian Models (NDBM) is introduced to overcome these difficulties. Facilities for parameter learning and multiprocess modelling are provided. Unlike the DLM's, many limiting results are easily obtained for NDBMM's. A general class of Normal Weighted Bayesian Models (NWBM) is introduced. This includes the class of DLM's as a special case. Other important subclasses of Extended and Modified NWBM's are also introduced. These are particularly useful in modelling discontinuities and for systems which operates according to the principle of Management by Exception. A number of illustrative applications are given

Cognitive Outcomes and Functional Performance for Patients After Open Heart Surgery

Context: Open heart surgery is a lifesaving procedure for patients who need coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) and heart valve replacement or repair (HVR). However, it also carries a risk of cognitive and functional performance injuries. Between 30% to 60% of patients undergoing open heart surgery worldwide are at high risk of cognitive and functional performance injuries. Aim: The study aimed to assess cognitive outcomes and functional performance of patients after open heart surgery. Methods: A descriptive exploratory design was applied to achieve the aim of this study on a purposive sample of 103 adults who were scheduled for elective open-heart surgery (CABG and valve replacement or repair). Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA); Physical Self-Maintenance Scale (Activities of Daily Living) (PSMS) tests were used to determine the effect of cardiac surgery on cognitive outcomes and functional performance abilities of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Both scales were used twice for each patient (preoperative and postoperative). Results: The current study shows a statistically significant deterioration in all cognitive functions (visuospatial &executive function, naming, short-term memory recall task, attention, language, abstraction, orientation) (p=0.000). A total cognitive score reveals that 68% of the patients had normal cognitive function before open heart surgery, significantly decreasing to 55.3% after surgery. The functional outcomes measured by the assessment of activity of daily living shows that 100% of patient were independent before open heart surgery and significantly decreased to 74.8% postoperatively. Conclusion: It can be concluded that open heart surgery impacts cognitive functions, particularly in domains of visuospatial and executive function, memory, and attention. Besides, the everyday functional performance includes toileting, feeding, dressing, grooming, physical ambulation, and bathing). Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), which include the ability to use the telephone, shopping, food preparation, housekeeping, laundry, away for transportation, responsibility for following their medication regimens, and ability to handle finances, were also affected. Nurses caring for patients undergoing open heart surgery should consider cognitive limitations when giving them health education and discharge instruction, their readiness to learn should be considered before any educational event. Further studies should be carried out to identify the factors that may contribute to the impairment of cognitive function and functional performance for patients undergoing cardiac surgery

Unmasking the Chameleons: A Benchmark for Out-of-Distribution Detection in Medical Tabular Data

Despite their success, Machine Learning (ML) models do not generalize effectively to data not originating from the training distribution. To reliably employ ML models in real-world healthcare systems and avoid inaccurate predictions on out-of-distribution (OOD) data, it is crucial to detect OOD samples. Numerous OOD detection approaches have been suggested in other fields - especially in computer vision - but it remains unclear whether the challenge is resolved when dealing with medical tabular data. To answer this pressing need, we propose an extensive reproducible benchmark to compare different methods across a suite of tests including both near and far OODs. Our benchmark leverages the latest versions of eICU and MIMIC-IV, two public datasets encompassing tens of thousands of ICU patients in several hospitals. We consider a wide array of density-based methods and SOTA post-hoc detectors across diverse predictive architectures, including MLP, ResNet, and Transformer. Our findings show that i) the problem appears to be solved for far-OODs, but remains open for near-OODs; ii) post-hoc methods alone perform poorly, but improve substantially when coupled with distance-based mechanisms; iii) the transformer architecture is far less overconfident compared to MLP and ResNet

Enhanced facial expression using oxygenation absorption of facial skin

Facial skin appearance is affected by physical and physiological state of the skin. The facial expression especially the skin appearances are in constant mutability and dynamically changed as human behave, talk and stress. The color of skin is considered to be one of the key indicators for these symptoms. The skin color resolution is highly determined by the scattering and absorption of light within the skin layers. The concentration of chromophores in melanin and hemoglobin oxygenation in the blood plays a pivotal role. An improvement work on prior model to create a realistic textured three-dimensional (3D) facial model for animation is proposed. This thesis considers both surface and subsurface scattering capable of simulating the interaction of light with the human skin. Furthermore, six parameters are used in this research which are the amount of oxygenation, de-oxygenation, hemoglobin, melanin, oil and blend factor for different types of melanin in the skin to generate a perfect match to specific skin types. The proposed model is associated with Blend Shape Interpolation and Facial Action Coding System to create five basic facial emotional expressions namely anger, happy, neutral, sad and fear. Meanwhile, the correlation between blood oxygenation in changing facial skin color for basic natural emotional expressions are measured using the Pulse Oximetry and 3D skin analyzer. The data from different subjects with male and female under different number of partially extreme facial expressions are fed in the model for simulation. The multi-pole method for layered materials is used to calculate the spectral diffusion profiles of two-layered skin which are further utilized to simulate the subsurface scattering of light within the skin. While the subsurface scattering is further combined with the Torrance-Sparrow Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) model to simulate the interaction of light with an oily layer at the skin surface. The result is validated by an evaluation procedure for measuring the accountability of a facial model via expressions and skin color of proposed model to the real human. The facial expressions evaluation is verified by calculating Euclidean distance between the facial markers of the real human and the avatar. The second assessment validates the skin color of facial expressions for the proposed avatar via the extraction of Histogram Color Features and Color Coherence Vector of each image with the real human and the previous work. The experimental result shows around 5.12 percent improvement compared to previous work. In achieving the realistic facial expression for virtual human based on facial skin color, texture and oxygenation of hemoglobin, the result demonstrates that the proposed model is beneficial to the development of virtual reality and game environment of computer aided graphics animation systems

Standards of Multimedia Graphic Design in Education

This study aims to determine Standards of Multimedia Graphic Design in Education through the analysis of the theoretical basis and previous studies related to this subject. This study has identified the list of standards of Multimedia, Graphic Design, each of which has a set indicator through which the quality of Multimedia can be evaluated in education. These course standards are: General Standards, Standards for using colors, Printed text, Illustrations and photographs, Cartoons, Video clips, using vocal sound, Sound effects and Music. Keywords: standards, Graphic Design, Education, Multimedia

Taxonomy of subfamilies Melolonthinae and Rutelinae in Malaysia

Most of the species in Scarabaeidae are economically important all over the world and especially in Southeast Asia. Hence, it is important to identify, construct keys and also develop a checklist of Malaysian Melolonthinae and Rutelinae. This study establishes the current taxonomical status of 15 species of these two subfamilies in Malaysia. A total of 320 specimens were collected from 10 states (Selangor, N. Sembilan, Melaka, Johor, Pahang, P. Pinang, Kedah, Perak, Sabah and Sarawak), 22 area and 72 sampling points. Four species recorded for the first time in Malaysia: Anomala shainica, Mimela malaise, Schoenherria vervex, Lepidiota leai. All genera and species have been described and illustrated. Taxonomic keys were constructed based on morphological characters particularly the mouth part, pronotum, elytra, front tibia and male genitalia. The latest checklist was developed for Malaysian Melolonthinae and Rutelinae. The total number of Melolonthinae species is 166 belonging to 22 genera and the total number of Rutelinae species is 165 belonging to 14 genera. Therefore this study successfully provides a taxonomical information on both subfamilies in Malaysia which will be a basic knowledge for further applied field studies