Monitoring the perfromance of safety barriers in daily operations by using QRA and risk influencing factors indicators

Master's thesis in Risk managementThe concept of safety barriers has become a main focus in the oil and gas industry in the last decade. Accordingly, many efforts are being spent from the risk decision makers to improve the understanding of the different aspects in that context. One of the main challenges is how to integrate the quantitative risk analysis (QRA) with safety barrier management (SBM). The integration of both concepts will result in better management of major accident hazards (MAH) on board the production facilities. However, the integration of QRA with SBM can take several forms when it comes to the operations phase. Condition monitoring of safety barriers’ performance can be a good solution for bridging the gap between both tools. The objective of the thesis is to introduce a methodology for monitoring the performance of safety barriers continuously in daily operations on offshore production platforms. The safety barriers are monitored through indicators. The indicators are representing the critical human, technical and organisational (MTO) factors that could influence the performance of safety barriers dramatically during operations. Further, the critical MTO factors are identified through independent uncertainty and sensitivity assessments of the performance of safety barriers as provided in the QRA results. Afterwards, the different indicators of each factors are linked with a risk barometer in order to indicate the status of the particular safety barrier. Such status, as indicated on the barometer, is providing the concerned parties with early warning signals about the performance degradation of the barrier of interest. Accordingly, the operation personnel and management can take the proper precautionary actions to maintain the performance of the safety barrier within the safe limit. In order to produce the proposed methodology, the thesis has covered different aspects of safety barriers and risk assessment on its context. At the beginning, a literature review of the concepts of risk, risk assessment, and safety barriers is introduced. In particular, this part has introduced the scientific foundation of these concepts, in addition to, their different types and methods of classification. Furthermore, the thesis has introduced a brief description of the relevant regulatory requirements and standards in the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). Subsequently, the thesis has also described the methodologies used for including the performance of safety barriers into QRA model. In this part, it has been recommended that the influence of MTO factors on safety barriers performance should be considered when performing QRA. Moreover, the methods of uncertainty and sensitivity analyses have been described and discussed to identify the most applicable approach for criticality assessment of MTO factors. Finally, the thesis has concluded with a case study and discussion to illustrate the possibility of implementing the proposed methodology for monitoring the safety barriers continuously in operations phase

L’intertextualité intra/interlinguale à travers l’écriture du récit de voyage d’al- TahTāwī.

International audienceLes récits de voyage représentent particulièrement le concept d’intertextualité dans lequel s’inscrit fortement Taḫlīṣ al-ibrīz fī talḫīṣ bārīou de Rifā’a rāfi’al-TahTāwī (1801-1873) de par sa macrostructure, sa langue et les sujets abordés. Cette œuvre s’impose en effet comme une véritable mosaïque de langues et de cultures qui s’explique par son parcours personnel intellectuel. Membre d’une mission composée de 37 étudiants envoyée par Muhamed ‘Ali en France, al-TahTāwī séjourne à Paris entre 1826 et 1831. À son retour en Égypte, il fonde une école de traducteurs, écrit et traduit de nombreux textes scientifiques et juridiques. Reçu à l’Ecole égyptienne de Paris, dans un univers érudit, al-TahTāwī fréquente des orientalistes comme Perceval et Jomard, et des Egyptiens qui ont accompagné Napoléon lors de son expédition. Cette orientation vers l’Occident relevait en effet du projet de Muhamed ‘Ali, qui souhaitait faire de l’Egypte une puissance mondiale. Dans une entreprise de représentation de l’altérite, al-TahTāwī rédige sa relation de voyage où il s’évertue à décrire tout particulièrement Paris et la vie politique, culturelle et sociale de sa destination

Alignment, Clustering and Extraction of Structured Motifs in DNA Promoter Sequences

A simple motif is a short DNA sequence found in the promoter region and believed to act as a binding site for a transcription factor protein. A structured motif is a sequence of simple motifs (boxes) separated by short sequences (gaps). Biologists theorize that the presence of these motifs play a key role in gene expression regulation. Discovering these patterns is an important step towards understanding protein-gene and gene-gene interaction thus facilitates the building of accurate gene regulatory network models. DNA sequence motif extraction is an important problem in bioinformatics. Many studies have proposed algorithms to solve the problem instance of simple motif extraction. Only in the past decade has the more complex structured motif extraction problem been examined by researchers. The problem is inherently challenging as structured motif patterns are segmented into several boxes separated by variable size gaps for each instance. These boxes may not be exact copies, but may have multiple mismatched positions. The challenge is extenuated by the lack of resources for real datasets covering a wide range of possible cases. Also, incomplete annotation of real data leads to the discovery of unknown motifs that may be regarded as false positives. Furthermore, current algorithms demand unreasonable amount of prior knowledge to successfully extract the target pattern. The contributions of this research are four new algorithms. First, SMGenerate generates simulated datasets of implanted motifs that covers a wide range of biologically possible cases. Second, SMAlign aligns a pair of structured motifs optimally and efficiently given their gap constraints. Third, SMCluster produces multiple alignment of structured motifs through hierarchical clustering using SMAlign\u27s affinity score. Finally, SMExtract extracts structured motifs from a set of sequences by using SMCluster to construct the target pattern from the top reported two-box patterns (fragments), extracted using an existing algorithm (Exmotif) and a two-box template. The main advantage of SMExtract is its efficiency to extract longer degenerate patterns while requiring less prior knowledge, about the pattern to be extracted, than current algorithms

Improvement of The Fresnel Thermal Solar Power System

Solar Energy is one of the cleanest and powerful forms of renewable energy. This project focuses on improving the efficiency of the Fresnel Thermal Solar Power System (FTSPS) by modifying its design and mechanism. The proposed design reduces the overshadowing by minimizing the size and gaps of the mirror strips, and utilizing the Alternating Mirror Arrangement (AMA) method. Using the proposed strip-rotation mechanism makes FTSPS more reliable, durable and energy-efficient while reducing the manufacturing and maintenance cost

Carbon nanotubes composite materials for dipole antennas at terahertz range

This paper aims to present two types of carbon nanotubes composite materials (CNTs-composite) for antenna applications within terahertz (THz) frequency band. These composite materials consist of CNTs coated by copper and silver, separately, to construct CNTs-copper and CNTs-silver composite materials, respectively. The comparisons between the dipole antennas of these structure materials with CNTs dipole antenna and copper dipole antenna are presented to exhibit performance evaluation of the presented new dipole antennas. The mathematical modeling of CNTs-composite material is presented in this paper. The results obtained from the comparisons CNTs-copper and CNTs-silver dipole antennas are presented based on S 11 parameters, gain and efficiency

Quality assurance in higher education in the Maldives: past, present, and future

Quality assurance in higher education is a hot topic with the increased number of students graduating from postgraduate programmes offered by the higher education institutions. This qualitative study aimed to look at the history and the current status of the quality assurance mechanisms in the Maldives; identify its strengths and weaknesses; and make informed recommendations. Critical event narrative inquiry was used and data were collected through interviews and analysis of documents. Content analysis of data collected revealed that Maldives was one of the very first countries in the region to establish such a mechanism and it was very similar to that of Australia. The most significant finding was that the body mandated to assure higher education quality and did not have any power or regulatory authority. Therefore, it is important that the authority be an independent body established by an act of parliament with the regulatory power

The Effect of STEM Curriculum Based on Islamic Perspective on 9th Grade Talented Female Students' Critical Thinking in Gaza

The study aimed to uncover the effect of using a Developed Science Curriculum Based on STEM approach with Islamic Perspective on Improving Critical Thinking Skills among 9th Grade Talented female students in Gaza. To achieve the study objectives, the two researchers analyzed the content "Human body organs" in science course to the ninth grade in the light of critical thinking skills, as its shown that critical thinking skills which are available in the unit are conclusion, deduction, interpretation, Arguments evaluation, and hypotheses. The researchers used the quasi-experimental approach. The study used critical thinking skills test as tool. The study was conducted on 21 female 9th grade talented students in west Gaza Directorate. Results of the study showed statistically significant differences at significance level (α = 0.01) between the average scores of the critical thinking skills of the experimental group in the pre/post application of critical thinking skills test. In addition, the results showed differences in the post application in all critical thinking skills, and that thea Developed Science Curriculum Based on STEM approach with Islamic Perspective has a significant impact (ƞ² = 0.61)

Using E-Portfolio to Enhance Student’s Attitudes Towards Learning English at University College of Applied Sciences.

Attitude is considered to be an essential element of the English language learning process at tertiary level. The present study investigates the outcome of using e-portfolio to enhance students’ attitude towards English language learning at UCAS (University College of Applied Sciences) in Palestine. 60 students (30 males and 30 females) who are enrolled in English Language course (DIPL 1303) at first semester of 2014/2015 academic year were selected as a sample of this study. A Sequential Exploratory Design was used to collect qualitative and quantitative data for one semester. The findings of this study revealed that students’ attitude towards learning English changed positively after utilizing e-portfolio. This has generated several theoretical, pedagogical and policy implications for instructors, universities and researchers. Therefore, it can be concluded that integrating e-portfolio at the tertiary level would enhance students’ attitude towards English language learning and release their potentialities towards the learning process

Radio frequency radiation measurement for base tower station safety compliances: a case study in Pulau Pinang Malaysia

The residence of Pulau Pinang and Malaysia generally are worried with the possible health effects due to Base Tower Station (BTS) radiation. Particularly, the residents of Pulau Pinang are utilizing their mobile phones for multiple kind of tasks including communications, browsing the internet and other applications. With the recent advances in mobile communication technologies, the end user demanded a better coverage, great communication services, and faster speed for internet browsing. To fulfill the demand, service provider and communication companies are providing plenty of communication base tower leading to the beliefs of that the tower emitted radiation and cause harmful effect to human health and voiced out and complain to the municipal councils in Malaysia. In this paper, a measurement was conducted to study electromagnetic fields (EMF) radiation level in Pulau Pinang. The measurement is compared with the international standard provided by International Commission of Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). Far field measurement of different values of long term evolution (LTE) exposure was demonstrated in radiofrequency (RF) shielded environment. LTE850, LTE1800 and LTE2600 field exposure was compared in term of its’ electrical field and power density that adhere to the standard provided by ICNIRP