ABS Materials (United States)

Abstract Inspecting and managing equipment in real-time with visual dashboards increases organizational visibility and enables optimal decisions. Equipment degradation information must propagate quickly to the shared organizational dashboard to enable better decision-making. This paper outlines the technology components of providing near real-time equipment inspection and tracking. The goal is to reduce inefficiencies and automate mundane, repetitive tasks, encouraging human focus on more intelligent and critical work for the organization. This paper details the AI technologies, and the methodology adopted to enable this vision.

Obwohl die elektronische Urteilspublikation ein zentrales Element von E-Justice ist, fehlt im Entwurf für ein Bundesgesetz über die Plattform für die elektronische Kommunikation in der Justiz eine Regelung dazu. Nachdem eine im ZPO-Vorentwurf enthaltene Bestimmung mit dem Argument verworfen wurde, dass die Frage nicht nur das Zivilverfahren betreffe, erscheint es naheliegend, die Thematik im E-Justice-Gesetz aufzunehmen. Die AutorInnen des vorliegenden Beitrags formulieren einen konkreten Vorschlag.

Abstract Data analytics and Big Data have revolutionized many industries, especially where minor efficiencies result in significant cost savings. While Big Data is very important, this paper emphasizes use of low cost tools and techniques to provide valuable insight into data that organizations are already collecting. Organizations spend extensive effort collecting and managing data to support operational and business functions. These functions involve specific stakeholders making specific decisions within a specific timeframe. Within highly-mature functions, data is collected and processed to provide information, knowledge, and insight to its stakeholders; however, these functions are often siloed, limiting the utility (and sometimes visibility) of the data across the organization. An organization's data is a valuable asset. For limited additional effort, analysts can leverage this asset to provide unique insight. This paper explains tools and techniques that organizations can use to creatively capitalize on untapped potential. Broadly, the approach includes: Visualizing existing data to improve understanding - In recent years, data visualization software has become much more powerful, inexpensive, and easy to implement for generating and sharing results. Employing intuitive visualization enables analysts to consider multiple dimensions of an issue simultaneously to identify findings and anomalies. Identifying potential applications - By interacting with intuitive data visualizations, analysts can think creatively about use of data beyond its intended uses and posit questions for further exploration. Establishing context within and across datasets – Analysts can define relationships across datasets and analyze them collectively. Correlation analysis across datasets can reveal hidden relationships. Expanding or contracting the analysis time horizon of data can also bring trends to light. Depending on the application, analysts can build data-driven predictive models to simulate various scenarios to improve confidence in decision-making processes. This approach represents a philosophical change from "Is the data sufficient to answer a given question?" to "What questions can the given data answer?" This approach encourages exploration to reduce the opportunity cost of untapped data. This paper will illustrate this approach through a case studies using publicly-available offshore production and platform data.

Oil and natural gas producers continuously strive to control costs, and that goal becomes even more important when market conditions are challenging. To maximize the return on their capital investment and continue to extract reserves on legacy fields, many owners and operators are looking for ways to extend the service lives of aging assets. The Neptune Spar was the first production spar platform in the world, when it was installed in 1996. Currently owned and operated by Noble Energy, the unit continues producing at Viosca Knoll 826 in the Gulf of Mexico. As the platform ages, there is an interest in extending its service life to allow continued operation in the field. As requested by Noble Energy, ABS Group initiated a life extension assessment project. This paper describes the process of the Neptune Spar life extension assessments and challenges encountered during the process. One of the critical aspects of the life extension process is regulatory approval. Since the life extension for floating production platforms is a relatively new trend in the offshore industry, the regulatory compliance process is still under development, and this project is providing a significant contribution to the development of guidance and criteria. The purpose of a life extension assessment is to understand the history of the facility and its current physical condition to determine its structural integrity and outline what is needed for the unit to be maintained for safe and responsible extended service. The life extension project began with a roadmap for life extension assessments that included conducting baseline inspections, reviewing historic inspection and repairs records, undergoing gap analyses that compared the spar's current condition with the original design premise and calculations, and performing additional engineering analyses. As part of the regulatory approval process, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) require that a Certified Verification Agent (CVA) verify the entire process of life extension and submit reports that document findings and recommendations. ABS served as the CVA. During the life extension assessment process, ABS Group and Noble Energy consistently coordinated with ABS, BSEE and USCG. Based on the life extension assessments, ABS has granted class certificate for the life extension of this platform. The process of the spar's life extension assessment provides industry with a better understanding of the technical requirements for life extension of other floating production assets, which will have a long-term impact on future asset integrity management for these types of facilities in deep water.

The consequences of delirium in the emergency department (ED) remain unclear. This study sought to determine if delirium in the ED was an independent predictor of prolonged hospital length of stay (LOS). This prospective cohort study was conducted at a tertiary care, academic ED from May 2007 to August 2008. The study included English-speaking patients aged 65 and older who were in the ED for less than 12 hours at enrollment. Patients were excluded if they refused consent, were previously enrolled, were unable to follow simple commands at baseline, were comatose, or did not have a delirium assessment performed by the research staff. The Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU) was used to determine delirium status. Patients who were discharged directly from the ED were considered to have a hospital LOS of 0 days. To determine if delirium in the ED was independently associated with time to discharge, Cox proportional hazard regression was performed adjusted for age, comorbidity burden, severity of illness, dementia, functional impairment, nursing home residence, and surgical procedure. A sensitivity analysis, which included admitted patients only, was also performed. A total of 628 patients met enrollment criteria. The median age was 75 years (interquartile range [IQR] = 69-81), 365 (58%) patients were female, 111 (18%) were nonwhite, 351 (56%) were admitted to the hospital, and 108 (17%) were delirious in the ED. Median LOS was 2 days (IQR = 0-5.5) for delirious ED patients and 1 day (IQR = 0-3) for nondelirious ED patients (p < 0.001). The hazard ratio (HR) of delirium for time to discharge was 0.71 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.57 to 0.89) after adjusting for confounders, and indicated that ED patients with delirium were more likely to have prolonged hospital LOS compared with those without delirium. For the sensitivity analysis, which included only hospitalized patients, the adjusted HR was 0.76 (95% CI = 0.58 to 0.99). Delirium in older ED patients has negative consequences and is an independent predictor of prolonged hospitalizations.

An economic feasibility study for a geothermal community heating system has been made for the residential heat load of Cape Charles, Virginia using the JHU/APL GRITS Computer Program. The effects of inflation, interest rates, wellhead temperatures, and the addition of reinjection wells are investigated.

CO2 production from and uptake of alpha-glyceryl mono (palmitate-1-14C) were studied in an in vitro system using minced rat lung. Monoglyceride radioactivity was readily incorporated into lung tissue lipids. In a time course of 5-120 min, ca. 2.9-21.9% of the initial medium 14C-radioactivity was recovered in tissue lipids, including free fatty acid and monoglyceride, per one g of tissue. From 93 to 72% of the initial radioactivity remained in the medium during the same incubation periods. The ratio of tissue neutral lipid to phospholipid radioactivity decreased from 2:1 at 5 min to ca. 1:2.1 at 120 min. Most of the phospholipid-14C was in phosphatidyl choline, and this accounted for 80% of phospholipid-14C. Analysis of the tissue lipid radioactivity pattern revealed that during early periods of incubation (5-15 min) there was a rapid accumulation of 14C in monoglycerides and free fatty acids, which decreased with increasing incubation time concomitant with increase in radioactivity of tissue phospholipids and triglycerides. During the same time course, 6.5-85.3% of medium-14C was in free fatty acid, indicating the presence of an active alpha-monopalmitin-hydrolyzing system. After 2 hr of incubation, only 1.8% of the initial medium-14C had been oxidized to CO2. Under the same experimental conditions, 14C-alpha-monopalmitin and palmitate-1-14C were almost equally utilized and the patterns of lipid incorporated from both substrates were similar. It is suggested that rat lungs can utilize alpha-monopalmitin in a similar manner as palmitate after the former is hydrolyzed.