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Aligning Corporate Governance Strategy with Sustainability: Managing Oil-Companies and Resource Host-Communities Relationships in the Petroleum Industry in Nigeria
No full textPetroleum discovery has been described as a ‘blessing’ and a ‘curse’ for Nigeria. Whilst oil wealth has been a boon to the economy, oil-companies' unwillingness to be ‘sustainably responsible’ to their resource-host-communities has resulted in multiple problems. This study, focusing on Nigeria's petroleum industry, confirms a framework with genuine potential to favourably impact the industry by validating shared dependency and exploring the relationship between two knowledge areas: corporate governance and sustainability. From the standpoint of resource-host-community ‘risks-and-impacts’, the study's overarching goal is to strengthen the oil-companies'/industry's ability to deliver their businesses on time, within/on budget, and at design capacity. A case study of three oil-companies was used, adopting a qualitative (interpretive) research technique. Study finds that in a turbulent business environment, aligning corporate governance with sustainability and managing oil-companies and their resource-host-community relationships is one attempt to deal with the induced-risks. By analysing the distinction between academic and practitioner research, as well as the tensions from this division, the study shows that a hybrid research merging theoretical and practice-guided study is feasible. The study also contributes to stakeholder theory by offering an empirical description of how resource-host-communities’ impact oil-companies decision-making processes with the potential for collaboration, and to breed and engender trust and unanimity. The findings show that stakeholder theory could be used to solve a variety of organisational problems plaguing the industry. This is the first study in the industry emphasizing the relevance of involving resource-host-communities in Joint-Management-Stakeholder-Committees (JMSCs) concept, demonstrating the influence and practical significance in governance
An experimental investigation on seeded granulation of detergent powders
Get PDFYesGranulation is commonly used as an enlargement process of particles produce granules with desirable characteristics and functionality. Granulation process transforms fine powders into free-flowing, dust-free granules with the presence of liquid binder at certain operating conditions. The main focus of this research is on seeded granulation of detergent powders, a new phenomenon of granulation in which a layer of fine powders surround the coarse particle. This is already proven for calcium carbonate (Rahmanian et al., 2011). Here, detergent granules were produced in a 5 L high shear Cyclomix granulator using different fine/coarse powder ratio (1/3, 1, 3) and different binder ratio of 10 %, 20 % and 30 %. The granules were then characterized for their particle size distribution, strength and structure. It was found that a high percentage (70 wt. %) of granules in the desired size range between 125 - 1,000 µm were produced using the powder ratio of 1/3 and a binder content of 10 %. Low mean crushing strength (3.0 N) with a narrow distribution was obtained using this condition. Structure characterization of the detergent granules produced in the granulator shows that consistent seeded granule structures are produced under the optimum process and formulation conditions of 1/3 powder ratio with 10 % binder
Descriptors for vitamin K3 (menadione): calculation of biological and physicochemical properties
Get PDFYesWe have used literature values for the solubility of vitamin K3 in organic solvents to obtain Abraham descriptorsfor vitamin K3. Although these descriptors themselves are not exceptional in any way, when combined withequations that we have already set out, they lead to the prediction of important properties of vitamin K3.These include the vapor pressure and heat of sublimation (necessary for the analysis of data on the concentrationof vitamin K3 in ambient air), and the partitions air-water, air-blood, air-lung, air-fat, air-skin, water-lipid, water-membrane, water-skin, as well as permeation from water through skin. Values of the partitions into biologicalphases are all quite large by comparison to those for organic compounds in general
Passive RFID Module with LSTM Recurrent Neural Network Activity Classification Algorithm for Ambient Assisted Living
Get PDFYesHuman activity recognition from sensor data is a critical research topic to achieve remote health monitoring and ambient assisted living (AAL). In AAL, sensors are integrated into conventional objects aimed to support targets capabilities through digital environments that are sensitive, responsive and adaptive to human activities. Emerging technological paradigms to support AAL within the home or community setting offers people the prospect of a more individually focused care and improved quality of living. In the present work, an ambient human activity classification framework that augments information from the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of passive RFID tags to obtain detailed activity profiling is proposed. Key indices of position, orientation, mobility, and degree of activities which are critical to guide reliable clinical management decisions using 4 volunteers are employed to simulate the research objective. A two-layer, fully connected sequence long short-term memory recurrent neural network model (LSTM RNN) is employed. The LSTM RNN model extracts the feature of RSS from the sensor data and classifies the sampled activities using SoftMax. The performance of the LSTM model is evaluated for different data size and the hyper-parameters of the RNN are adjusted to optimal states, which results in an accuracy of 98.18%. The proposed framework suits well for smart health and smart homes which offers pervasive sensing environment for the elderly, persons with disability and chronic illness
The fluid mechanics of tensioned web roll coating
Get PDFYesTensioned web-roll coating is widely used but has surprisingly received little research attention. Here, a new semi-empirical model that predicts film transfer from applicator roller to web is developed and tested against data collected from a pilot coating line. The film transfer is found to vary linearly with web to applicator speed ratio S. Flow stability investigations revealed three types of defects: rivulets, air entrainment due to dynamic wetting failure and cascade, occurring at different values of S and capillary number Ca. Rivulets occurred at Ca 0.71-0.81, air entrainment at Ca>0.4 and S>0.71-0.83 and cascades at S>1.1 for Ca up to 6. Web speeds at which dynamic wetting failure occurred were, for the same Ca, comparatively higher than those that occur in dip coating. The data show that such hydrodynamic assistance is due to the coating bead being confined, more so with increasing web wrap angle β.Tensioned web-roll coating is widely used but has surprisingly received little research attention. Here, a new semi-empirical model that predicts film transfer from applicator roller to web is developed and tested against data collected from a pilot coating line. The film transfer is found to vary linearly with web to applicator speed ratio S. Flow stability investigations revealed three types of defects: rivulets, air entrainment due to dynamic wetting failure and cascade, occurring at different values of S and capillary number Ca. Rivulets occurred at Ca 0.71-0.81, air entrainment at Ca>0.4 and S>0.71-0.83 and cascades at S>1.1 for Ca up to 6. Web speeds at which dynamic wetting failure occurred were, for the same Ca, comparatively higher than those that occur in dip coating. The data show that such hydrodynamic assistance is due to the coating bead being confined, more so with increasing web wrap angle β.The authors acknowledge the support of the Films R&D Centre of Toyobo Co. Ltd., Otsu, Japan and of the Thin Liquid Films Research Group of the University of Bradford, UK
Developing a modified total interpretive structural model (M-TISM) for organizational strategic cybersecurity management
Get PDFYesCybersecurity is a serious issue that many organizations face these days. Therefore, cybersecurity management is very important for any organization. Organizations should learn to deal with these cyber threats through effective management across all business functions. The main purpose of this study is to identify the factors that affect cybersecurity within an organization and analyze relationships among these factors. The modified total interpretive structural modeling (M-TISM) technique is used to build a hierarchical model and define the common interactions between the factors. This study presents the impact of collaboration, training, resources and capabilities, information flow, technology awareness, and technological infrastructure on effective cybersecurity management. In addition, the study also explains the interrelationships among the identified factors in the M-TISM model
The effect of AI-based CRM on organization performance and competitive advantage: An empirical analysis in the B2B context
Get PDFYesOrganizations have cultural-cognitive and regulative as well as normative elements that impact their employees. Organizations, by definition, cannot achieve a pure, stable state and always go through various change processes, both incremental and radical changes. Moving from legacy business-to-business (B2B) relationship management to an artificial intelligence-based customer relationship management (AI-CRM) is a gradual but paradigm change. AI-CRM leverages intelligent systems to automate the B2B relationship activities where the decision can be taken automatically without any human intervention. Relationship management in the B2B segment is considered a strategic activity of an organization. Moving from legacy to AI-CRM to facilitate B2B relationship management activities is an important decision, and proper implementation of AI-CRM is a critical success parameter for an organization. This study combines institutional theory and the resource-based view (RBV) in B2B relationship management to understand how AI-CRM could impact the firm's performance with varied firm size, firm age, and industry type
A comparative study between sand- and gravel-bed open channel flows in the wake region of a bed-mounted horizontal cylinder
No full textYesIn nature, environmental and geophysical flows frequently encounter submerged cylindrical bodies on a rough bed. The flows around the cylindrical bodies on the rough bed are very complicated as the flow field in these cases will be a function of bed roughness apart from the diameter of the cylinder and the flow velocity. In addition, the sand-bed roughness has different effects on the flow compared to the gravel-bed roughness due to differences in the roughness heights. Therefore, the main objective of this article is to compare the mean velocities and turbulent flow properties in the wake region of a horizontal bed-mounted cylinder over the sand-bed with that over the gravel-bed. Three experimental runs, two for the sand-bed and one for the gravel-bed with similar physical and hydraulic conditions, were recorded to fulfil this purpose. The Acoustic Doppler Velocimetry (ADV) probe was used for measuring the three-dimensional (3D) instantaneous velocity data. This comparative study shows that the magnitude of mean streamwise flow velocity, streamwise Reynolds normal stress, and Reynolds shear stress are reduced on the gravel-bed compared to the sand-bed. Conversely, the vertical velocities and vertical Reynolds normal stress are higher on the gravel-bed than the sand-bed.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Hidden Histories of Environmental Science Project (at Seedgrant Stage) by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI
Analysis of turbulent flow structure with its fluvial processes around mid-channel bar
No full textYesResearchers have recognized that the successive growth of mid-channel bar deposits can be entertained as the raison d'être for the initiation of the braiding process, which is closely interlinked with the growth, decay, and vertical distribution of fluvial turbulent kinetic energy (TKE). Thus, focused analysis on the underlying mechanics of turbulent flow structures in the proximity of a bar deposit occurring in the middle of the channel can afford crucial scientific clues for insight into the initiating fluvial processes that give rise to braiding. In the study reported herein, a physical model of a mid-channel bar is constructed in an experimental flume to analyze the turbulence parameters in a region close to the bar. Notably, the flow velocity plays an important role in understanding the flow behavior in the scour-hole location in the upstream flow divergence zone as well as near the downstream zone of flow convergence in a mid-channel bar. Therefore, the fluctuating components of turbulent flow velocity are herein discussed and analyzed for the regions located close to the bar. In the present study, the impact of the mid-channel bar, as well as its growth in turbulent flow, on higher-order velocity fluctuation moments are investigated. For near-bed locations, the results show the dominance of ejection events in upstream zones and the dominance of sweep events at locations downstream of the mid-channel bar. In scour-hole sections, the negative value of the stream-wise flux of turbulent kinetic energy and the positive value of the vertical flux of turbulent kinetic energy indicate energy transport in downward and forward directions, respectively. The downward and forward energy transport processes lead to scouring at these locations. The maximum turbulent production rate occurs in the wake region of the bar. The high rate of turbulence production has occurred in that region, which can be ascribed to the process of shedding turbulent vortices. The results show that the impact of the presence of the bar is mainly restricted to the lower layers of flow. The turbulent dissipation rate monotonically decreases with an increase in the vertical distance from the bed. The turbulent production rate first increases and then decreases with successive increases in the vertical distance from the bed. The paper concludes with suggestions for the future potential use of the present research for the practical purpose of examining braid bar occurrences in alluvial rivers to develop an appropriate response through training measure
Voltage Unbalance Mitigation in Low Voltage Distribution Networks using Time Series Three-Phase Optimal Power Flow
No full textNoDue to high penetration of single-phase Photovoltaic (PV) cells into low voltage (LV) distribution networks, several impacts such as voltage unbalance, voltage rise, power losses, reverse power flow arise which leads to operational constraints violation in the network. In this paper, a time series Three Phase Optimal Power Flow (TPOPF) method is proposed to minimize the voltage unbalance in LV distribution networks with high penetration of residential PVs. TPOPF problem is formulated using the current injection method in which the PVs are modelled via a time-varying PV power profile with active and reactive power control. The proposed method is validated on a real LV distribution feeder. The results show that the reactive power management of the PVs helps mitigate the voltage unbalance significantly. Moreover, the voltage unbalance index reduced significantly compared to the case without voltage unbalance minimisation.Innovate UK GCRF Energy Catalyst Pi-CREST project under Grant number 41358; British Academy GCRF COMPENSE project under Grant GCRFNGR3\1541; Mut'ah University, Jorda