A Systemic Approach to Object Oriented Business Process (Re)-engineering

Corporate restructuring, referred to in many circles as Business Process Re-engineering (BPR), Enterprise Engineering , or Business Engineering has become a significant management concern of the 1990\u27s. Hammer and Champy[2] define it as the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed . BPR requires that enterprises take a comprehensive review of their entire existing operation and redesign it in a way that uses new technology. This has become an imperative for western business, not just because of challenges mounted from Asia (Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc.) nor due to the changing face of the third world consumer markets, butbecause time has come for it to change. Business Process Re-engineering is the means to effect such change

Sand production simulation under true-triaxial stress conditions

Sand production in weakly consolidated sandstone reservoirs could result in damaging the production and surface facilities. Sanding includes two stages: the failure of sandstone around the borehole and sand grains being transported into the borehole. The first stage is related to stresses around the borehole whereas the second one is controlled by drawdown pressure. In order to avoid sanding, the stresses around the borehole and the drawdown pressure which initiate sanding are studied.This research simulated sand production through laboratory experiments and numerical simulations. The effect of three independent far-field stresses was investigated which is contrary to most of the current studies being performed under a uniaxial or triaxial stress state. Accordingly, a unique experimental setup and procedure was introduced to conduct sand production experiments under true-triaxial stress conditions. The effect of drawdown pressure and state of far-field stresses on the sanding mechanism and development of the failure zone around a borehole were investigated. The experiments were conducted on 100×100×100 mm3 cubic samples of synthetic sandstones. The samples were manufactured using an established procedure developed to produce samples with properties similar to weakly consolidated sandstone. The properties of the synthetic sandstone samples were determined by conducting a series of standard rock mechanics tests on cylindrical plugs. Using a true-triaxial stress cell (TTSC), cubic samples were subjected to three independent boundary stresses and uniform lateral fluid flow from the outer boundaries. The fluid flows through the sample radially and discharges from a hole drilled at the centre of the sample: this allows the study of sanding initiation by changing the state of stress, sample material and fluid properties.In this research, firstly, the concept of sand production from a geomechanics point of view and a summary of previous sanding experiments are explained. Thereafter, the procedure to prepare a sample suitable for sand production experiments is provided. Subsequently, the experimental equipment, setup and procedure are explained in detail. This is followed by presenting the results of two sets of experiments performed at different states of stress. The effect of changing the lateral stresses on the development of the failure zone around borehole was investigated in these experiments. During these experiments it was observed that a minimum drawdown pressure is needed to initiate sand production, regardless of the state of the boundary stresses. In addition, it was observed that the geometry (i.e. width and depth) of the failure zone developed around the borehole is a function of the state of stresses.The experiments were also simulated numerically using ABAQUS in order to gain a better understanding of sand production mechanisms. The numerical modelling procedure and results are presented in a separate section in this thesis. Good agreement was obtained between the results of both experimental and numerical methods which confirm the importance of the state of stresses on the evolution of sanding. Based on the experimental and numerical observations, it was shown that the effect of the magnitude of the maximum lateral stress on the depth of failure is more significant than the minimum lateral stress

Recombinant Programming

This research report presents a promising new approach to computation called Recombinant Programming. The novelty of our approach is that it separates the program into two layers of computation: the recombination and the interpretation layer. The recombination layer takes sequences as inputs and allows the programmer to recombine these sequences through the definition of cohesive code units called extensions. The output of such recombination is a mesh that can be used by the interpretation layer in many different ways, depending on the context. To further illustrate our model, we present a language called Grapple that supports Recombinant Programming and show possible applications of this language. In particular, we present RJava, the prototype of a recombinant language that uses Grapple in the context of Java-like programs

Proposing a sample preparation procedure for sanding experiments

The Authors, during past few years, have performed research on sand production under true triaxial stress conditions. To simulate sanding, 100x100x100 mm3 cubic samples were placed in a true triaxial stress cell (TTSC) and three independent stresses were applied while the pore pressure was increased inside the cell. This resulted in sand grains to be produced through a drilled hole in the sample centre. The experiences obtained through testing several synthetic samples have indicated the significance of sample preparation to obtain valid results. Therefore, in this paper the procedure for preparation of synthetic samples suitable for a sanding experiment is proposed. Also, details of sample preparation for conventional rock mechanical tests to estimate rock physico-mechanical properties including deformability properties, strength parameters and permeability will be presented

Sand production simulation under true-triaxial stress conditions

Laboratory sanding experiments were carried out under true-triaxial stress conditions. The objective was to investigate the effect of state of stresses and fluid flow on the mechanism of sanding, and the development of the failure zone around the borehole. The experiments were conducted on 100×100×100 mm3 cubic samples of synthetic sandstones. The samples were prepared based on an established procedure developed to produce weakly consolidated sandstone samples with identical physico-mechanical properties. The properties of the synthetic sandstone samples were determined by conducting a series of standard rock mechanics tests on cylindrical plugs. Using a true-triaxial stress cell (TTSC), cubic samples were subjected to true-triaxial stresses and radial fluid flow from the outer boundaries into the borehole. The maximum and intermediate principal stresses were applied laterally in both cases while the effect of changing the lateral stresses on the development of the failure zone around borehole was monitored. It was observed that the geometry (i.e. width and depth) of the failure zone developed around the borehole is a function of the lateral stresses ratio (i.e. lateral stress anisotropy). The experiments were also simulated numerically using ABAQUS in order to validate and interpret the results from the experiments. A good agreement was obtained between the results of both methods, which confirms the importance of lateral stress anisotropy on the evolution of sanding. The observations and results of these experiments and numerical simulations will be presented and discussed

Numerical Modeling of Methane Decomposition for Hydrogen Production in a Fluidized Bed Reactor

The decomposition of methane for hydrogen production is an attractive alternative to the established method of reforming. This process considerably reduces the emission of greenhouse gases, and its overall efficiency and cost are competitive. The decomposition of methane is performed with a catalyst to produce a substantial amount of hydrogen, and decrease the operating temperature. Between different catalysts available, carbon is selected in this study due to its low rate of decay and advantages such as low cost and availability. Also, a fluidized bed reactor operating in the particulate regime is employed due to the efficient contact between the catalyst and the gas. Consequently, hydrogen production from the thermocatalytic decomposition of methane in a particulate fluidized bed reactor of carbon particles is investigated. To obtain an appropriate design and operation for this process, the effect of different operating parameters and catalyst properties should be investigated on the performance. This aim can be achieved by modeling. A number of models with different complexities have been proposed for this process. Considering the objective of this thesis, a complex kinetic model is required to represent the effect of the catalyst properties. In literature, the kinetics is generally modeled with a global equation using experimental parameters. Since investigation on the effect of the properties of the catalyst is not feasible with this method, the detailed kinetic model with a surface reaction mechanism is employed in this study. Investigation on this surface mechanism is very limited, and only one of the models available in literature is determined to be appropriate. Nevertheless, this model has some important drawbacks. The major problem is that the specific surface area is considered as the only catalyst property affecting the activity of carbon. Experimental studies suggest that the activity of this catalyst is a function of its specific surface area and number of active sites, and neglecting either of these properties can lead to a high inaccuracy. Consequently, a new kinetic model is developed where a modified form of the available mechanism is used, and the number of active sites and the specific surface area of the catalyst are considered in the rate equations. It is noted that although several experimental investigations have been performed on the origin of the active sites, their quantity has not been acceptably determined yet. A method is presented in this study to estimate the number of active sites with the developed model and experimental data. To the best knowledge of the author, this is the first model to incorporate the effect of this parameter for carbon catalysts in the decomposition of methane and quantify its value. Another important problem of the model available in literature is its dependency on experimental measurements for determining the hydrodynamic characteristics of the fluidized bed. In this study, the hydrodynamics of the reactor is modeled with empirical correlations to obtain a complete representation of the process within the required accuracy, with minimal experimental requirements. The model is used to investigate the effect of different operating parameters and catalyst properties on the amount of the initial methane conversion. The operating parameters studied are the temperature, residence time, gas velocity, and composition of the feed gas. The catalyst properties considered are the particle size and pore volume, the number of active sites, and the percentage of fine particles in the bed. The effect of the variations of each of these factors in a certain range is investigated for a fluidized bed reactor operating at the onset of fluidization at nominal condition. The onset of fluidization is maintained by changing the inlet flow rate in a reactor of a specific size. The results show that, considering the range of variations in this study, the procedures that cause the highest improvement in conversion are: increasing the residence time, decreasing the size of particles, adding fine particles to the bed, increasing the temperature, using catalysts with high surface areas or large number of active sites, changing the inlet gas composition, and using catalysts with large pore volumes, respectively. It is noted that all of these improvements are associated with higher initial or operating costs. Therefore, changing each of these factors beyond a certain value is faced with economic and technical barriers. Consequently, the possibility and efficiency of using two factors simultaneously for achieving higher conversions was also investigated. The results can be used as a guideline to choose between several catalysts considering their characteristics, or to suggest appropriate operating conditions.1 yea

A Novel Spike-Wave Discharge Detection Framework Based on the Morphological Characteristics of Brain Electrical Activity Phase Space in an Animal Model

Background: Animal models of absence epilepsy are widely used in childhood absence epilepsy studies. Absence seizures appear in the brain’s electrical activity as a specific spike wave discharge (SWD) pattern. Reviewing long-term brain electrical activity is time-consuming and automatic methods are necessary. On the other hand, nonlinear techniques such as phase space are effective in brain electrical activity analysis. In this study, we present a novel SWD-detection framework based on the geometrical characteristics of the phase space.Methods: The method consists of the following steps: (1) Rat stereotaxic surgery and cortical electrode implantation, (2) Long-term brain electrical activity recording, (3) Phase space reconstruction, (4) Extracting geometrical features such as volume, occupied space, and curvature of brain signal trajectories, and (5) Detecting SDWs based on the thresholding method. We evaluated the approach with the accuracy of the SWDs detection method.Results: It has been demonstrated that the features change significantly in transition from a normal state to epileptic seizures. The proposed approach detected SWDs with 98% accuracy.Conclusion: The result supports that nonlinear approaches can identify the dynamics of brain electrical activity signals

Ethnopharmacological study of medicinal plants from Khoy city of West Azerbaijan- Iran

251-267The main objective of this study was to gather information on the use of plants by native people along with therapies suggested by the conventional healers of Khoy. It was analyzed and some important indices including, frequency of citation (FC), cultural importance index (IC), use report (UR) and informants consensus factor (ICF) were calculated. A total of 123 plant taxa belonging to 46 families used for cure of various ailments are reported in this investigation. Among the plants evaluated Apiaceae, Lamiaceae and Asteraceae were the dominant families. The most repeatedly utilized parts are aerial parts (23.2%), followed by leaves (18%). Most frequently used method for consumption has been raw (19.7%), followed by infusion (16.5%). Maximum value of ICF was obtained in digestive system category (with 0.81), followed by respiratory and blood use categories (each with 0.80). Malva neglecta Wallr. was the most cited plant, followed by Mentha longifolia (L.) L. and Plantago major L., Cichorium intybus L. and Salix aegyptiaca L. seem to be the most culturally important plants. The indices like IC and FC could be helpful in selecting important medicinal plant species for further pharmacological investigations in order to find new biologically active compounds

Detection of Beta-lactamase gene in the culturable bacteria isolated from agricultural, pasture and mining soils around mines in Hamedan, Iran

Introduction: Growing evidence exists that agriculture affects antibiotic resistance in human pathogens. Beta-lactam antibiotics are the most commonly used antimicrobial agents in many countries. The abundance of beta-lactamase encoding genes can be used as an indicator of antibiotic resistance in the environment. So, to determine the beta-lactamase resistance genes, the abundance of culturable bacteria having bla-TEM genesin the soils under different land uses wasexamined. Materials and methods: 44 Gram-positive and 34 Gram-negative bacteria plated on nutrient agar were isolated from agricultural, pasture and mining soils and selected to study the presence of TEM-class gene using PCR amplification. Antibiotic sensitivity test of bla-TEM+isolateswas done adopting the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method and antibiotic discs used were: ampicillin, amoxicillin, vancomicin, streptomycin, tetracycline and gentamicin. Finally, five multi-drug resistant and bla-TEM+ isolates were identified using universal primers. Results: The highest level of beta-lactamase genes was observed in the Gram-positive and Gram-negative isolates from the pasture soils. In the agricultural and mining soils, a high abundance of bla-TEM+ isolateswasfound which also showed resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics. The identified multi-drug resistant and bla-TEM+ isolates were from these genera: Achromobacter, Bacillus, Brevibacillus, Aminobacter and Brevundimonas. Discussion and conclusion: The high number of bla-TEM+ bacteria in all the soils may be attributed to the other important feature of bla genes which is their capability to extrude toxic compounds like heavy metals in contaminated environments. Sensitivity of some bla-TEM+ bacteria to beta-lactam antibiotics was interesting. This result shows that bla-TEM genes confer resistance to beta-lactamase inhibitors in a different degree. Some of the identified isolates were pathogen. These pathogens in soils can transfer to plants and human which induce health problems. A high abundance of bla-TEM+ bacteria in the agricultural soil indicates the inefficiency of beta-lactam antibiotics