DEVELOPING A NEW FORMULA FOR PREDICTING OIL RECOVERY FACTOR IN WATER FLOODED-HETEROGENEOUS RESERVOIRS

In this work, two sets of empirical correlations were developed for predicting the recovery factor (RF) in water-flooded layered oil reservoirs. The first set of these correlations encompasses four key parameters believed to have a significant impact on waterflooding performance, namely, reservoir heterogeneity (permeability variation coefficient), injected water viscosity, permeability anisotropy (ratio of vertical permeability to horizontal permeability), and water injection rate. This first set consists of two expanded forms, one for predicting the RF at water breakthrough time (BT) and the other for predicting the RF at the end of the project (EOP). Out of the aforementioned four key parameters, the second set of the developed correlations only considers the parameters that have been found most effective in the process of water flooding. Thus, the second set consists of two reduced forms, one for predicting the RF at BT (RFBT) and the other for predicting the RF at EOP (RFEOP). In the development process of the new correlations, the ECLIPSE simulator was used to generate a large number of data points representing, among other profiles, the RF and water cut performances for various combination scenarios of the above key parameters. These simulation-generated data were then processed by the General Linear Model analysis technique to develop the target empirical correlations. When tested against 144 simulation-generated data points used in their development, the expanded forms of the new correlations have been found to give reliable estimates of RFBT and RFEOP with AAPCD of 6.9 and 1.02, respectively. The reduced forms were found to yield a slightly higher AAPCD for the same data set. When tested against 48 simulation-generated data points not included in the development of the proposed correlations, the expanded forms of the new correlations have been found to give good estimates of RFᴮᵀ and RFᴱᴼᴾ with AAPCD of 6.5 and 14, respectively. The new correlations have been found to give more accurate estimates of RFᴱᴼᴾ than for RFᴮᵀ. The highest RFᴱᴼᴾ of 50.6% was achieved for a combination scenario defined by: qi = 10,000 bpd, μw = 1.0 cp, kz/kx = 1.0, and V = 0.1. When tested against two published empirical correlations using a single field data point, the proposed correlations were found to give relatively high APCD but still comparable to the API method

The determinants of forward-looking information in annual reports of UAE companies

Purpose To empirically explore empirically the underlying factors that may affect the extent to which forward-looking information is disclosed. Methodology This study uses a list of forward-looking keywords to demonstrate the differences, if any, in the level of disclosure among firms and between sectors. The sample includes 46 companies listed in either the Dubai financial market or Abu Dubai securities market. Statistical analysis is performed using a backward regression. Findings Debt ratio and profitability are found significant; however, sector type, firm size, and auditor size are found to have insignificant association with the level of forward-looking information disclosed in UAE annual reports. Practical implications A number of users, such as investors, lenders, and auditors, may find these results beneficial. These users may consider the results of this study when they are dealing with firms that have low profitability and high financial risk. Accordingly, they may wish to extend their investigations and verify such reporting practices. By doing this, the quality of information that is available to the public may be enhanced; and hence, users of annual reports may be better served. Originality/value It is important to note that the association between the extent of disclosure and the selected corporate attributes is still ambiguous. There are very limited number of studies that have examined disclosure of forward-looking information in developing countries and even fewer such studies may be found in the Middle Eastern countries. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no study yet has examined the forward-looking information disclosure issues in the UAE or Middle Eastern countries

Handling Unstructured Data Type in DB2 and Oracle

The objective of our work is to determine which mainstream object-relational database management systems (ORDMS) provide convenient facilities for the storage and manipulation of unstructured data objects. These objects, which consist of video, audio, photographs, and even executable code such as Java applets, are becoming readily employed by desktop, network, and Internet applications. Typically, these ORDMSs must store the objects in a manner by which they can be easily accessed, but more importantly, easily processed during either storage or retrieval. Our focus is on two of the ORDMS market leaders: IBM’s DB2 and Oracle. The salient facilities of DB2 and Oracle in handling object types are analyzed, considering their advantages and disadvantages

Interior Design of the Arab Opera House (The Cultural Artistic Center in Jeddah)

The Opera house has played a great role in the societies due to its impact on many social aspects. It has developed significantly through the years corresponding to the cultural and contextual changes in every region which indicate that developing a country level requires building an Opera house. As such, the Saudi Arabia futuristic vision in 2030 announced the intention to build an Opera house which this study suggested a design proposal for after the investigation and the analysis of the needed requirements and criteria of these type of projects Keywords: Opera House, cultural changes, 2030 vision

Corporate governance mechanisms and capital structure in UAE

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on corporate financial decisions in one of the emerging economies, United Arab Emirates (UAE). In particular, the paper examines the degree to which internal corporate governance mechanisms and an external corporate governance mechanism affect UAE firms' capital structure. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a multiple regression analysis to examine the association between corporate governance and capital structure for a sample of 71 UAE firms listed either in the Dubai financial market or the Abu Dhabi securities market during 2006. Findings – The paper finds that institutional investors have a negative impact on debt-to-equity ratio. This result does not support the "active monitoring hypotheses" where institutional investors are expected to exercise their voting rights effectively in order to prevent managers from reducing their "employment risk" at the expense of the interests of shareholders. It also finds that dividend policy is negatively associated with debt-to-equity ratio, while firms' size is positively associated with debt-to-equity ratio. Research limitations/implications – Empirical analysis suggests that corporate governance mechanisms have important implications for UAE firms' financial policies. UAE managers should be aware of the benefits of the implementation of effective internal and external corporate governance mechanisms while embracing international corporate governance standards. An effective implementation of the codes of corporate governance should improve the efficiency and effectiveness of UAE firms and the UAE stock markets. Originality/value – To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no study that has yet empirically examined the effect of the corporate governance mechanisms on capital structure in UAE or Middle Eastern countries. This study offers the first evidence of the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on capital structure in UAE

Impact of denial of service solutions on network quality of service

The Internet has become a universal communication network tool. It has evolved from a platform that supports best-effort traffic to one that now carries different traffic types including those involving continuous media with quality of service (QoS) requirements. As more services are delivered over the Internet, we face increasing risk to their availability given that malicious attacks on those Internet services continue to increase. Several networks have witnessed denial of service (DoS) and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks over the past few years which have disrupted QoS of network services, thereby violating the Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the client and the Internet Service Provider (ISP). Hence DoS or DDoS attacks are major threats to network QoS. In this paper we survey techniques and solutions that have been deployed to thwart DoS and DDoS attacks and we evaluate them in terms of their impact on network QoS for Internet services. We also present vulnerabilities that can be exploited for QoS protocols and also affect QoS if exploited. In addition, we also highlight challenges that still need to be addressed to achieve end-to-end QoS with recently proposed DoS/DDoS solutions

Fair value accounting and the cost of equity capital: the moderating effect of risk disclosure

Evidence thus far suggests fair value accounting poses risk and affects firms’ returns in some ways. This research, on a sample of Asian banks, improves the understanding of the information risk effect of fair value accounting by examining the moderating role of risk disclosure in the relationship between fair value accounting and the cost of equity capital. The results from a generalised method of moments on dynamic panel data analysis, show that risk disclosure mitigates the asymmetric information problem.Thus the findings contribute towards the standard setters’ effort in improving the practice of fair value accounting, and suggest that there are benefits in mandating disclosure especially for banks

Transition to IFRS and compliance with mandatory disclosure requirements: What is the signal?

The present study examines 153 Greek listed companies' compliance with all IFRS mandatory disclosure requirements during 2005 and complements and extends prior literature in the following way. The unique setting i.e., measuring compliance with IFRS mandatory disclosure requirements during the first year of IFRS implementation, allows for examination of the possibility that the changes in the 2004 shareholders' equity and net income, as a result of the adoption of IFRS, constitute explanatory factors for compliance. Thus, this study hypothesises that, in addition to the financial measures and other corporate characteristics that prior literature identifies as proxies for explaining compliance, a significant change in fundamental financial measures, because of the change in the accounting regime, may also explain compliance based on the premises of the relevant disclosure theories. The findings confirm these hypotheses. This study also makes a methodological contribution on measuring compliance with all IFRS mandatory disclosure requirements by using two different disclosure index methods and pointing out the different conclusions may be drawn as a result