Two-phase Simulation of Well Control Methods for Gas Kicks in Case of Water and Oil-based Muds

Kick occurrence is a possible event during a drilling process. It is required to be handled immediately using a well control method to avoid blowout, financial losses and damages to the drilling crew. Several methods including driller, wait and weight, and concurrent are applicable in the drilling industry to control a well during a kick incident. In this study, typical well control methods were simulated for both cases of water and oil-based muds, and essential parameters such as the required time were calculated. Additionally, for each well control approach, a mathematical algorithm was proposed to simulate the process. In case of oil-based mud, the flash calculation was utilized in each depth and time by considering the effect of kick fluid dissolution in drilling mud to improve the accuracy of control parameters. Based on the results, when oil-based mud is used for drilling, extra time is required to control the well due to kick fluid dissolution in the mud and extensive changes in the mud density. In order to improve the accuracy of the calculations, critical parameters including temperature changes in the well column, dynamic drilling hydraulics, and pressure drop were considered during a well control process. In addition, the simulation of the concurrent method is one of the study innovations because of mud density alternations especially when the mud becomes heavier by a non-linear or complicated mathematical function during the process

Outcome of children operated for congenital anorectal malformations: A prospective single center study

Introduction: Anorectal malformations (ARM) have an incidence of 1 in 5000 live births and affect male and female almost equally. Operative correction of pediatric ARM is of potential clinical interest; however, longterm outcome of patients in respect to probable complications requires precise follow up and surveillance. The aim of our study was to assess the outcomes of children undergoing surgical correction of ARMs.Materials and Methods: In a prospective follow-up study, we wanted to assess occurrence of incontinence, constipation, soiling, abdominal distension, diarrhea, stenosis, dilated sphincter and failure to thrive (FTT) in ARM patients. In addition, management of these conditions has been discussed. Reoperations have also been reviewed. The primary outcome of the study was determination of occurrence of incontinence at follow-up visits. Secondary outcomes were occurrence of constipation, anal stenosis, soiling, abdominal distension, dilated sphincter, diarrhea and FTT at followup visits. In addition, the decision of research team on patients at followup visits was considered as secondary outcomes.Results: Two hundred and ninety patients were studied. Of the study patients, 174 (60.4%) were boys and 114 (39.6%) were girls. Mean age of boys was 4.8 ± 2.0 years and mean age of girls was 5.0 ± 2.0 years. The mean follow-up period of our patients was 39.5 ± 29.1 months. During the study follow-up period, 63 patients (21.7%) had complications. The most common complication was constipation. It was present in 21 patients (33.3%). Soiling, incontinence, dilated sphincter, FTT, stenosis, abdominal distension and diarrhea were present in 21 (33.3%), 11 (17.5%), 9 (14.3%), 6 (9.5%), 6 (9.5%), 5 (7.9%), 3 (4.8%) and 2 (3.3%) patients respectively.Conclusion: We found that the most common complications following ARM surgery are constipation, soiling, incontinence, dilated sphincter, FTT, stenosis, distension and diarrhea. The overall complication rate was 21.7%. 7.2 % and 3.1% of study population experienced constipation and incontinency respectively. In 3.1% of the study population reoperation was required. We revealed that outcome of surgical correction of ARMs is considerably good and complication rates are acceptable. Continence rate was also acceptable

The Managerial Ability and Value of Cash: Evidence from Iran

This study investigates empirically the value investors place in excess cash holdingand how managerial ability impact on the value of cash holding for Iranianfirms from 2006 to 2014. In this research, managerial ability calculated by usingthe data envelopment analysis (DEA). Following the approach of Faulkender andWang, we find that the relation between managerial ability and value of cash holdingand the level of cash is positive and significant. This result indicates that whenmanagers allocate cash resources efficiently, shareholders consider more value forthe firm cash holding. Also, the result shows that if managers emphasize bothlong-term and short-term of resource management, investors set a higher marginalvalue of cash holdings. In the other words, the able management can improve thevalue of cash holding by the focusing on the spending resource for both long andshort-term periods

Is there any correlation between duration of vomiting before pyloromyotomy and eradication of symptoms after pyloromyotomy in hypertrophic pyloric stenosis?

Introduction: Hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (HPS) is among common GI disorders in young infants, with an incidence of 1-2:1000 live births in the world. In this study, we wanted to investigate the correlation between duration of symptoms before surgery and eradication of symptoms after pyloromyotomy in HPS.Materials and methods: One hundred and twenty five (102 boys and 23 girls) patients with suspected infantile HPS were treated surgically by Ramstedt pyloromyotomy between 2004 and 2014 at pediatric surgery ward of Tabriz Children’s Hospital, Iran. The demographic features, clinical findings, diagnostic work-up and postoperative specifications of the patients were studied retrospectively.Results: We studied 125 patients with HPS. Male to female ratio was 4:1. The patients were 16 to 90 days of old and the mean age was 39±1.42 days. The range of pyloric canal length was 7.60 to 29.00 mm and the mean length was 19.54±3.42 mm. Pyloric muscle diameter was 2.70 to 9.00 mm and the mean diameter was 4.86±1.14 mm. Seventy two percent of patients had episodes of vomiting after operation. Mean time of persistence of vomiting after pyloromyotomy was 15.73±0.15 hours. Mean discharge time was 55.22±0.08 hours. Radiologic findings did not show any significant correlation with persistence of vomiting or discharge time. Conclusion: The present study revealed that duration of vomiting before surgery and continuing symptoms could not predict postoperative symptom eradication after pyloromyotomy in HPS

Remote ischemic preconditioning in lower limb surgery; the hemodynamic and respiratory effects

Aim and Background: Remote Ischemic Preconditioning introduces brief episodes of ischemia and reperfusion which reduces long term ischemia in orthopaedic surgery. The aim of this study was to evaluate hemodynamic and respiratory effects of remote ischemic preconditioning in lower extremity orthopaedic surgeries.Methods: In this clinical trial 40 patients scheduled for lower extremity surgery with pneumatic tourniquet were randomly allocated to remote ischemic preconditioning (RIP group, n=20) and control group (n=19). Patients in RIP group received three “5 minutes” cycles of ischemia, alternating with 5 minutes of reperfusion before extended use of tourniquet. Hemodynamic variables prior to inflation of tourniquet, every 30 minutes during the surgery and 10 minutes after tourniquet deflation and also arterial blood gas sample prior to and after surgery were recorded and compared between groups.Results: During operation blood pressure dropped in the RIP group and variations in heart rate, respiratory rate and pulse oximeter measurements after surgical tourniquet release were not significantly different between two groups. Changes in blood gas parameters were significantly less pronounced in the RIP group.Conclusion: Remote ischemic preconditioning may not attenuate most of the adverse effects of surgical tourniquet deflation including variations in heart rate, respiratory rate and arterial oxygen saturation as well as blood pressure drops. However, RIP may reduce increases in systolic blood pressure and acidosis following tourniquet application.Key Words: Remote Ischemic Preconditioning; Orthopedic, surgery, blood pressure, tourniquet, oxygenatio

Bilateral haptic teleoperation of an articulated track mobile robot

Teleoperation has been used in many applications, allowing a human operator to remotely control a robotic system in order to perform a particular task. Recently haptic teleoperation has focused mainly on improving performance in remote manipulation tasks, however the haptic approach offers similar advantages for teleoperative control of the motion of a mobile robot. This paper describes a prototype system designed to facilitate haptic teleoperation of an all-terrain, articulated track mobile robot. This system utilizes a multi-modal user interface intended to improve operator immersion, reduce operator overload and improve teleoperative task performance. The system architecture facilitates implementation of an application-specific haptic augmentation algorithm in order to improve operator performance in challenging real-world tasks. The contributions of this work can be categorized as the custom mobile platform, teleoperator interface and haptic augmentation strategy.<br /

Investigating the Effect of the Consumer's Perceived Value of Sustainable Marketing Features on the Willingness to Participate in Packaging Container Recycling

Sustainable marketing is one of the marketing innovations that flourished at the same time as environmental protection movements. The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of the consumer's perceived value of sustainable marketing characteristics (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, testability) on the willingness to participate in the recycling of packaging containers. This research is based on practical purpose and in terms of data collection method, it is descriptive and survey of correlation type. The statistical population includes the customers of a number of fast-food restaurants in Isfahan, and using Cochran's formula, the sample size was estimated to be 384 people. In this research, an available sampling method was used to collect data from a researcher-made questionnaire, whose validity was confirmed by calculating convergent and divergent validity and its reliability through Cronbach's alpha index. In statistical analysis, a structural equation modeling approach and Smart-PLS software have been used. The results showed that relative advantage, complexity, and testability have a significant effect on the perceived value of the consumer, but compatibility does not have a significant effect on the perceived value of the consumer. Also, the perceived value of the consumer has a significant effect on the willingness to participate in the recycling of packaging containers. Relative advantage, complexity, and testability have a significant effect on the willingness to participate in packaging container recycling through the mediating role of consumer perceived value, but compatibility does not have a significant effect on the willingness to participate in packaging container recycling through the mediating role of consumer perceived value

IPA: Inference Pipeline Adaptation to Achieve High Accuracy and Cost-Efficiency

Efficiently optimizing multi-model inference pipelines for fast, accurate, and cost-effective inference is a crucial challenge in ML production systems, given their tight end-to-end latency requirements. To simplify the exploration of the vast and intricate trade-off space of accuracy and cost in inference pipelines, providers frequently opt to consider one of them. However, the challenge lies in reconciling accuracy and cost trade-offs. To address this challenge and propose a solution to efficiently manage model variants in inference pipelines, we present IPA, an online deep-learning Inference Pipeline Adaptation system that efficiently leverages model variants for each deep learning task. Model variants are different versions of pre-trained models for the same deep learning task with variations in resource requirements, latency, and accuracy. IPA dynamically configures batch size, replication, and model variants to optimize accuracy, minimize costs, and meet user-defined latency SLAs using Integer Programming. It supports multi-objective settings for achieving different trade-offs between accuracy and cost objectives while remaining adaptable to varying workloads and dynamic traffic patterns. Extensive experiments on a Kubernetes implementation with five real-world inference pipelines demonstrate that IPA improves normalized accuracy by up to 35% with a minimal cost increase of less than 5%