Saudi-Yemeni Territorial Sovereignty Disputes Over 'Asir, Jizan, Najran and the Rub' Al-Khali Desert Frontier : Legal Analysis of Some Aspects of Former Claims and the Final Settlement Under the 2000 Treaty of Jeddah

This thesis is concerned with the former disputes between Saudi Arabia and Yemen over title to the territories of' Asir, Jizan, Najran and the Rub' Al-Khali Desert frontier. Although the disputes were settled by the 2000 Treaty of Jeddah, it was possible right until the conclusion of that agreement that one of the disputing states could have submitted the disputes to arbitration, in which case the legal claims made by each state would have been highly significant. After examining the political and historical background of the disputed territories, the thesis examines three legal phases of the disputes. The first phase of the analysis is to identify the nature of claims: were they title or boundary claims or a combination of the two. The analysis shows that the two states asserted claims of both a title and a boundary nature, although the focus of this thesis is primarily on the title claims. It appears from the analysis that the title claims fall into two categories: claims related to international treaties and claims based on title acquisition modes. The second legal phase of the analysis will therefore concentrate on claims related to the two treaties that were pertinent to the disputes: the 1914 Anglo-Turkish Convention and the 1934 Treaty of Taif. The first treaty arguably delimited a boundary line, the 'Violet Line', located in the Rub' Al-Khali Desert. However, this purported delimitation was the subject of a series of claims and counter-claims between Saudi Arabia and Britain from 1934, until southern Yemen's independence in 1967, which put into doubt the continuing validity of the delimitation. This phase of the analysis considers arguments of Saudi succession to the treaty and the validity of the conclusion of the 1914 Convention by the Ottoman Empire. The second relevant treaty was the 1934 Treaty of Taif which was concluded by Saudi Arabia and northern Yemen following a short war, the two states having failed to settle title claims to 'Asir, Jizan and Najran through negotiations. Under the 1934 Treaty, Yemen renounced former title claims to these provinces, which she had formerly raised during the 1927-1934 negotiations. She also agreed with Saudi Arabia on a boundary line. However, from the mid-late 1970s, Yemen resumed its former title claims on various grounds, including the invalidity or termination of the 1934 Treaty. These claims will also be considered in the second phase of the analysis. The third phase of the analysis considers various arguments based on title acquisition/loss modes recognised by international law, such as cession, conquest, and prescription. It seeks to determine which of the two states had stronger claims to title to the disputed territories. Finally, the settlement in the 2000 Treaty of Jeddah is examined and it is asked to what extent the two states respected or ignored their former legal claims in the political settlement. It will also discuss any problems arising from the application of the 2000 Treaty

Algorithmic Monotone Multiscale Finite Volume Methods for Porous Media Flow

Multiscale finite volume methods are known to produce reduced systems with multipoint stencils which, in turn, could give non-monotone and out-of-bound solutions. We propose a novel solution to the monotonicity issue of multiscale methods. The proposed algorithmic monotone (AM- MsFV/MsRSB) framework is based on an algebraic modification to the original MsFV/MsRSB coarse-scale stencil. The AM-MsFV/MsRSB guarantees monotonic and within bound solutions without compromising accuracy for various coarsening ratios; hence, it effectively addresses the challenge of multiscale methods' sensitivity to coarse grid partitioning choices. Moreover, by preserving the near null space of the original operator, the AM-MsRSB showed promising performance when integrated in iterative formulations using both the control volume and the Galerkin-type restriction operators. We also propose a new approach to enhance the performance of MsRSB for MPFA discretized systems, particularly targeting the construction of the prolongation operator. Results show the potential of our approach in terms of accuracy of the computed basis functions and the overall convergence behavior of the multiscale solver while ensuring a monotone solution at all times.Comment: 29 pages, 20 figure

Top-down in-situ combustion in heavy oil reservoirs have strong bottom aquifer support

The underlying sustained demand for oil despite fluctuations in the oil price, and the requirement to replace dwindling reserves, both encourage oil companies to consider developing heavy oil reservoirs through implementation of EOR methods. Injection of air into the reservoir and initiation of a fire front causes the reservoir temperature to increase with a resulting decrease in the viscosity of the oil; this results in higher production rates and a better recovery factor. The main objective of this study is to investigate numerically the potential for applying the combustion process using a combination of real field data (from the Nimr field) and data from the literature, and to evaluate the overall process performance. This entails using a 2D cross-sectional model, which is constructed based on available field properties, to enable a detailed investigation of the fire front behaviour. The optimum operating conditions for the in-situ combustion process are determined by conducting a suite of sensitivity calculations. These sensitivity calculations are divided into two groupings, classified as well configurations and reservoir heterogeneities. Under both groupings, the modelling of the combustion process also considered the presence of the strong bottom water aquifer support. The results of this study suggest that the application of in-situ combustion in the heavy oil reservoir with strong bottom water aquifer is a technically viable proposition. The appropriate choice of well configurations is considered to be a vital component in the successful implementation of the combustion process, and leads to better process performance in terms of increasing the recovery factor. The presence of aquifer support should be regarded as a challenge to the initiation and sustaining of the fire front, and hence a carefully selected well placement plan (e.g. top-down) could make the difference between success and failure of the process. Depending on the well configurations selected, the impact of reservoir heterogeneities on the combustion process varied significantly. The combustion process recovery factor decreased as the fire front velocity changed, which is due to the large volume of coke been produced and deposited. This modelling study demonstrated the main approaches to optimise the combustion process performance, and while some data is field specific, the modelling results are generic

Gender Difference in Relationship of Apnoea/Hypopnoea Index with Body Mass Index and Age in the Omani Population

Objectives: Obstructive sleep apnoea/hypopnoea syndrome (OSAHS) is a disorder characterised by repetitive upper airway collapse during sleep in association with daytime sleepiness. It has an estimated prevalence of 2% and 4% among middle-aged women and men respectively. The aim of the study was to look at the association of body mass index (BMI), age and gender and prevalence of OSAHS in the Omani population. Methods:Polysomnography reports and hospital medical records of all patients who took part in the Sleep Study at the Sleep Laboratory of the Clinical Physiology Department, Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, between January 1995 and December 2006, were retrospectively reviewed. Data from both sources was gathered and analysed. Results: A total of 1,042 sleep studies were conducted with 608 valid studies for analysis. The study showed that the apnoea/hypopnoea index (AHI) >15 was more prevalent in men compared to women (47.9% versus 33.5%, P = 0.001). There was significant correlation of AHI with BMI (P <0.0001) among men compared to women (P = 0.1); however, age was significantly correlated with AHI among women (P <0.0001), but not with men (P = 0.1). Conclusion: The results indicate that there is a gender difference in the prevalence of OSAHS and obesity is a major risk factor for OSAHS among Omani men whereas age is found to be a risk factor for OSAHS among women.

Effect of Moulding Temperature on Mechanical Properties of Pure Aluminum Sand Casting

In this study, mechanical properties (Tensile test, Brinell hardness and microstructure analysis) of pure aluminium after sand casting were investigated. Tensile test, Brinell hardness and microstructure analysis were performed using MAX text software, Universal Testing Machine and Escope with Clemax Imager, respectively. Sand cast aluminium was observed to have good tensile and hardness properties. From the observations, sand cast sample had uniform distribution of aluminium. &nbsp

Managing Transformers Risk through Failure Codification

The fast development and expansion of any service organizations which followed by increases in the asset numbers that’s need to have a proper maintenance strategy which should be cost effective. The aim of any strategy is to have a plan that contribute to improve asset performance by reducing downtime of asset failures. The aim of this paper is to set plan that determine the processes of creating failure code that can create a library of failure modes with its consequences and risk. This allow service provider to quickly understand the problem and any action that can be taken which have already proven by failure mode effect analysis. Also it’s identify most of the functional failures that might happened in the critical asset in the OETC’s network. In this study the transformer asset class was taken into the consideration for full failure mood and fault tree analysis. Defining failure codes can give specific instructions to complete a task to reduce the main time to wait in any failure from the total main time to repair, and any smiler failure mode from other assets the corrective action will remain consistent. The selective processes of creating a failure code give the organization a more holistic view of transformers risk which will be used to improve maintenance strategy by integrate those codes into work order system like CMMS

Impact of change management on the performance of employees in university libraries in Jordan

Summary of the study: The summary of the study problem is that there is a great need for the results that each change look forward to in making a positive change in performance, official university libraries are the only official responsible one on the safety of learning outcomes through services provided to the recipient through its workers.   The importance of the study highlights the fact that libraries in general are affected by a number of external environmental variables, this study derives its importance from the importance of its theme which is change managing and the amount of revenue that can be achieved and reflected on the Jordanian community as a whole if its findings and recommendations were used.   This study aimed to identify the impact of change management on employees performance, through a case study of university libraries in Jordan, three areas of change has been addressed, the change in organizational structure, technology change and change in individuals.   The researcher has designed a questionnaire for the purpose of collecting the raw data, and used the random sample in data collection, 220 questionnaire were distributed on the members of the sample and 200 questionnaire were retrieved and 20excluded because of invalidity, the number of questionnaires acceptable for analyses are 200 which % 95 of the study sample, SPSS were used to analyze data.   The study reached a range of outcomes including: Change in the organizational structure is not flexible, and therefore this organizational structure is not appropriate for the business requirements within the University Library, leading to overlapping powers and responsibilities.There is a positive relationship between the areas of change (organizational structure, technology, individuals) and the performance of workers at a level ? = 0.05 with 0.589, 0.648, 0.711correlation coefficient respectively.   The study found a range of recommendations including: to ensure the success of the change program it is appropriate to focus on organizational structure,  human relations and technology and there must be a  balance between these aspects to improve the performance of employees and this in turn reflects the quality of productivity

The State of Academic Research Advancement in Hospitality: A 5- Year Review From 2018 To 2022 of the Jordanian Universities

Scientific research in the field of hospitality occupies a distinguished position in various research aspects, as it constitutes an important proportion of scientific research related to management, especially business administration, as well as an important aspect of practical research related to social and human sciences. For this reason, this study is presented to track the development of scientific research in the field of hospitality in Jordan and the aspects it touched upon. A comprehensive systematic review approach of five years of hospitality-published research on google scholar was carried out by tracking the official website of scholars in Jordanian universities. A total of 73 hospitality-related articles on Google Scholar by Jordanian scholars at public universities over the past five years were collected and analyzed for this review. The results showed that there is an abundance of research products for the year 2021, that researchers at the University of Jordan are the most scientifically productive in hospitality research, and that most of the research interests were related to human resource management in the field of hospitality. This study provides an important theoretical contribution to guide future researchers to future issues of interest to the hospitality sector in Jordan that were not addressed by the researchers

The impact of incentives on the performance of employees in public sector: Case study in Ministry of labor

The ultimate purpose of this search is to evaluate of incentives on the performance of employees in Jordan Case study :( Ministry of Labor). Results show that Incentives affect the performance of staff in the public sector in Jordan, do not affect the practical experience on the performance of staff in the public sector and the qualification does not affect the performance of  staff in the government sector. And recommendations are made in In order to focus on providing fair and adequate compensation when retired employees and  salaries compatable with the level of their performance at work and the interest in providing moral support and praise for the staff to raise the level of their performance. Keywords: incentives, practical experience, performance of employees