Performance measurement systems and metrics: a framework for monitoring oil operations

Oil operations involve high levels of capital equipment and high capacity production processes for which performance measures can assist with monitoring production throughout the oil industry stages. The approach taken in this paper is to utilise the lifecycle approach of asset management as well as organisational resource factors in an integrative manner. This research will examine the use of performance measurement in both private and public oil companies with a focus on Developing Countries. National Oil companies are of national economic importance in Developing Countries. Thus purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for performance measures of current and future oil operations and the associated asset management for field operations. The approach taken is to recognise the national context and strategic drivers and then to examine within this context the three areas of: Asset Management; Oil Operations (including Technology and Development; Management approaches; Partnerships) and Performance Outcomes

The impact of information technology resources on SMEs' innovation performance

This work aims to develop a research framework to examine the impact of information technology resources on the innovation performance of Saudi small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs). SMEs innovation capability influences growth and technological progress (Bruque & Moyano, 2007). However, many developing countries exhibit moderate or even low innovation performance. For instance, Saudi Arabia is ranked 54th by the Global Innovation Index (GII 2011). Innovation systems studies focus on the alignment between the interactions of innovation actors with their constantly changing environment toward better innovation performance (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000). The dynamic capabilities of organisations have been highlighted as a crucial characteristic that helps to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage (Teece et al., 1997). The indirect impact IT resources on innovation performance represents an attractive research area (Benitez-Amado et al., 2010). Therefore, we argue that a closer look at Saudi SMEs information technology resources and their impact on the firm dynamic capabilities and innovation performance would make a significant contribution to existing knowledge. Areas such as the organisation strategies of developing countries, innovation management, dynamic capabilities, open innovation and strategic information systems are few examples of areas that might benefit from this work

Landau levels, edge states, and strained magnetic waveguides in graphene monolayers with enhanced spin-orbit interaction

The electronic properties of a graphene monolayer in a magnetic and a strain-induced pseudo-magnetic field are studied in the presence of spin-orbit interactions (SOI) that are artificially enhanced, e.g., by suitable adatom deposition. For the homogeneous case, we provide analytical results for the Landau level eigenstates for arbitrary intrinsic and Rashba SOI, including also the Zeeman field. The edge states in a semi-infinite geometry are studied in the absence of the Rashba term. For a critical value of the magnetic field, we find a quantum phase transition separating two phases with spin-filtered helical edge states at the Dirac point. These phases have opposite spin current direction. We also discuss strained magnetic waveguides with inhomogeneous field profiles that allow for chiral snake orbits. Such waveguides are practically immune to disorder-induced backscattering, and the SOI provides non-trivial spin texture to these modes.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures; v2: minor modifications, published versio

Effective low-energy theory of superconductivity in carbon nanotube ropes

We derive and analyze the low-energy theory of superconductivity in carbon nanotube ropes. A rope is modelled as an array of metallic nanotubes, taking into account phonon-mediated as well as Coulomb interactions, and arbitrary Cooper pair hopping amplitudes (Josephson couplings) between different tubes. We use a systematic cumulant expansion to construct the Ginzburg-Landau action including quantum fluctuations. The regime of validity is carefully established, and the effect of phase slips is assessed. Quantum phase slips are shown to cause a depression of the critical temperature Tc below the mean-field value, and a temperature-dependent resistance below Tc. We compare our theoretical results to recent experimental data of Kasumov {\sl et al.} [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 68}, 214521 (2003)] for the sub-$T_c$ resistance, and find good agreement with only one free fit parameter. Ropes of nanotubes therefore represent superconductors in the one-dimensional few-channel limit

Adaptive meshless refinement schemes for RBF-PUM collocation

In this paper we present an adaptive discretization technique for solving elliptic partial differential equations via a collocation radial basis function partition of unity method. In particular, we propose a new adaptive scheme based on the construction of an error indicator and a refinement algorithm, which used together turn out to be ad-hoc strategies within this framework. The performance of the adaptive meshless refinement scheme is assessed by numerical tests

Abelian Hall Fluids and Edge States: a Conformal Field Theory Approach

We show that a Coulomb gas Vertex Operator representation of 2D Conformal Field Theory gives a complete description of abelian Hall fluids: as an euclidean theory in two space dimensions leads to the construction of the ground state wave function for planar and toroidal geometry and characterizes the spectrum of low energy excitations; as a $1+1$ Minkowski theory gives the corresponding dynamics of the edge states. The difference between a generic Hall fluid and states of the Jain's sequences is emphasized and the presence, in the latter case, of of an $\hat {U}(1)\otimes \hat {SU}(n)$ extended algebra and the consequent propagation on the edges of a single charged mode and $n-1$ neutral modes is discussed.Comment: Latex, 22 page