This study comprises an analysis of the development of oil and gas in the Scottish sector of the North Sea and its impact on the Scottish economy between 1967 and 1989. It first examines the creation and extension of the power of the multinational oil companies. It discusses the decline of that power as nationalism in the Middle East forced the multinationals to make concessions. The result was a weakening of multinational firms which culminated in the movement to explore for oil in more stable areas. Subsequent OPEC activity drove the price of oil up and created an oil boom in the North Sea, lasting until the end of 1985. The high oil prices that triggered the oil boom in the North Sea had a tremendous impact on the British economy. Increasing oil import prices seemed likely to drive Britain to the brink of bankruptcy, if not into bankruptcy. Consequently, successive British governments adopted a policy of developing Britain's North Sea assets as rapidly as possible, to avert economic disaster. These two factors combined to create a window of opportunity for industry that lasted about ten years. It was expected that Scottish industry would benefit greatly from this unprecedented development. That it did not can be attributed to several reasons including, among others: the lack of abiity to adapt to the specifications of the oil and gas industry; the lack of government action to force greater Scottish content; the well developed, interlocking infrastructure of the major international petroleum suppliers, service companies and operators; and the lack of time to respond before the boom was over. The result of these negative factors was a Scottish content in Scottish Sector North Sea oil and gas development of less than twenty-five percent.

Ingeniero Civil / El oleaje offshore puede ser caracterizado por modelos de generación de oleaje a partir de información de viento atmosférico hindcasting. Los resultados obtenidos deben ser calibrados a través de registros de oleaje para brindarles mayor utilidad en ingeniería. La manera más práctica de obtener una base de datos para realizar la calibración es mediante mediciones de olas con altimetría satelital. El mayor desafío consiste en asociar los datos altimétricos de olas con las salidas de modelos de hindcasting globales, ya que la probabilidad de que el satélite pase por el punto exacto y en el mismo instante de un dato simulado, es muy baja. Dado lo anterior, se deben definir ventanas temporales y espaciales en las cuales se puedan asociar pares de datos de ambas fuentes de información. El objetivo general del presente trabajo es generar una serie de metodologías de calibración de oleaje de aguas profundas mediante altimetría satelital, y estudiar el impacto de éstas en proyectos de ingeniería de costas desarrollados en Chile. Para lograr lo anterior se comenzó por desarrollar una herramienta de calibración de oleaje similar a la que realizan las firmas de ingeniería que venden este tipo de información. Luego se desarrolló una variación de lo anterior donde se pudo verificar si el oleaje de tormenta y de operación, y si los oleajes con diferentes direcciones, y de diferentes periodos requiere ajustes distintos. Se estudió el efecto de estas metodologías en proyectos relacionados con oleaje operacional y en el diseño de estructuras expuestas al oleaje. El trabajo comenzó con una revisión bibliográfica sobre calibraciones de oleaje con satélites. Luego se accedió a las fuentes de información de oleaje medida con satélites y modelada para generar bases de datos con las cuales trabajar. Además, se confeccionaron rutinas de programación para generar climas de oleaje mediante los diferentes métodos de calibración. Finalmente, mediante técnicas estadísticas, se generaron familias de climas de oleaje de aguas profundas. Éstas fueron evaluadas en proyectos de ingeniería de costas.

The health care of those who work in remote places associated with hostile environments is reviewed, concentrating on the offshore oil industry and Antarctic populations. An understanding of associated environmental hazards is essential for adequate health care and particular attention is paid to the hyperbaric environment and to environmental heat and cold. The basic medical problems in remote health care are evaluated in three related studies. The first examines 2,162 personnel who required medical evacuations from the offshore structures of four North Sea operating companies, the second with 5,894 presentations from offshore at the A&E department of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, while the third examines 100 annual medical reports from British Antarctic Survey stations.

Subsea pipelines are used extensively throughout the world’s oceans to transport oil and gas from offshore facilities to land, often hundreds of miles. These pipelines range in diameter from three to sixty inches and are installed in deeper depths every year, currently as deep as 2,900 meters. Pipeline construction and installation costs are a large percentage of offshore projects and thus, methods toward reducing costs is an imperative objective. With pipeline installation projects taking place in harsher environments, vessel operability is vital. This work presents an improved method for determining limiting criteria for pipelay operations to more effectively plan and execute offshore projects. This improvement is based on the consideration of total effective pipeline stresses as the limiting criterion rather than the traditionally used limiting pitch angle. Limiting sea curves based on a sample dynamic pipeline analysis are shown and their incorporation in workability planning is discussed.

Over the past twenty years, high school students in China have been learning the British Columbia (BC) public curriculum in certified private offshore schools with the intention of attending post-secondary institutions abroad. This internationalization and privatization in the Chinese education system began after critical reforms that allowed non-state actors to own and operate schools or programs that offer foreign curricula and credentials. BC offshore schools (BCOS) are one of the foreign curriculum options available to students in China and are comprised of approximately 12,000 students in thirty-seven certified schools. These students then may become international students when they migrate abroad, often to Canada. Within this setting, this case study explores the perspectives and experiences of five female first-year university students who have just recently graduated from three different BC offshore schools. The theoretical framings of sociocultural theory, second language socialization, community of practice, and transnationalism help situate the perspectives of the students in this dynamic educational phenomenon. The primary data sources include semi-structured interviews at the beginning of their first and second semesters at a large BC university and participant responses to journal prompts through the semester, as well as publicly available BC educational documents. This study’s findings indicate that graduates of BCOS were prepared for undergraduate academic courses because of their socialization into foundational research skills, essay writing, lecture listening, and project-based assessments. The similarities between the BC and university curricula have helped these participants transition from high school to university as well as from China to Canada. Each participant revealed different challenges that they faced including systematic grammar knowledge, increased reading requirements, and socializing with Canadian peers. Overall, Chinese BCOS graduates are a dynamic, diverse, and under-researched population. Participants’ socialization into the learning environments in British Columbia offshore schools has helped them prepare and learn skills necessary for favourable experiences in university. / Graduate

Outsourcing has become a significant factor in the U.S. economy over the past two decades. Annual report disclosures made by a firm related to outsourcing are voluntary disclosures. Understanding the determinants and firm performance implications of initial outsourcing annual report disclosures is important to capital market providers, standards developers, and to the firms themselves. I identify and study firms making initial voluntary disclosures of outsourcing in their annual reports on Form 10-K between 1993 and 2003 after they make non-annual report related public disclosures. Specifically, I investigate if determinants of the initial annual report disclosure decision and subsequent performance are associated with the initial disclosure. This study contends managers disclose information related to outsourcing in their annual reports to reduce information asymmetry and to minimize agency costs. I hypothesize and develop a firm-related variable commonly used in agency theory to test this assertion. Signaling theory and voluntary disclosure theory also explain the determinants for firm voluntary outsourcing annual report disclosures. I develop several hypotheses defining determinants potentially associated with the likelihood of initial annual report outsourcing disclosure decisions, and test these determinants using a conditional logistic regression model and a matched-pair group of firms making public outsourcing disclosures but not making annual report disclosure. Using signaling theory, I also develop hypotheses testing if the initial outsourcing annual report disclosure sends a signal regarding future firm performance--specifically testing firm performance measures related to profitability and cash flow. I test these hypotheses using OLS models and the same matched-pair group of firms. I find firms with high levels of debt, high total cost ratios, and high returns on assets are more likely to make initial annual report outsourcing disclosure. / I also find firms may signal improvements in future levels of profitability when making the initial annual report outsourcing disclosure. / by Ronald F. Premuroso. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, FL : 2008 Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The Supergen wind research consortium is a group of research centres which undertake research primarily aimed at reducing the cost of offshore wind farming. Research is undertaken to apply the WRF mesoscale NWP model to the field of offshore wind resource assessment to assess its potential as an operational tool. WRF is run in a variety of configurations for a number of locations to determine and optimise a level of performance and assess how accessible that performance might be to an end user. Three studies set out to establish a level of performance at two different sites and improve performance through optimisation of model setup and post processing techniques. WRF was found to simulate wind speed to an appreciable level by reference to similar studies, though performance was found to vary throughout the course of the model runs and depending on the location. An average correlation coefficient of 0.9 was found for the Shell Flats resource assessment at 6-hourly resolution with an RMSE of 1.7ms-1. Performance at Scroby Sands was not at as high a level as that seen for Shell Flats with an average correlation coefficient for wind speed of 0.64 with an RMSE of 2ms-1. A range of variables were simulated by the model in the Shell Flats investigation to test the flexibility of the model output. Wind direction was produced to a moderate level of accuracy at 10-minute resolution while aggregated stability statistics showed the model had a good appreciation of the frequency of cases observed. Areas of uncertainty in model performance were addressed through model optimisation techniques including the generation of two ensembles and observational nudging. Both techniques were found to add value to the model output as well as improving performance. The difference between performance observed at Shell Flats and Scroby Sands shows that while the model clearly has inherent skill it is sensitive to the environment to which it is applied. In order to maximise performance, as large a computing resource as possible is recommended with a concerted effort to optimise model setup with the aim of allowing it to perform to its best ability. There is room for improvement in the application of mesoscale NWP to the field of offshore wind resource assessment but these results confirm an inherent skill in model performance. With the addition of further validation, improvements to model setup on a case by case basis and the application of optimisation techniques, it is anticipated mesoscale NWP can perform to a level which would justify its adoption operationally by the industry. The flexibility which can be offered relating to spatial and temporal coverage as well as the range of variables which can be produced make it an attractive option to developers if performance of a consistently high level can be established.

Submitted by Rosina Valeria Lanzellotti Mattiussi Teixeira (rosina.teixeira@unisantos.br) on 2018-08-21T17:53:31Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodrigo de Farias Julião.pdf: 2312669 bytes, checksum: cbb55dd1bc3b181dd07ac7d4d1da85ab (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-21T17:53:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodrigo de Farias Julião.pdf: 2312669 bytes, checksum: cbb55dd1bc3b181dd07ac7d4d1da85ab (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-05-03 / A presente tese tem como objeto de estudo o amparo legal da saúde do trabalhador offshore, através da análise interdisciplinar do Anexo II da Norma Regulamentadora n°30; de Convenções Internacionais da Organização Internacional do Trabalho e do Sistema da Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series 18001:2007. O estudo aborda os tipos de plataformas, como se estrutura o trabalho offshore na Bacia de Campos (RJ); os principais acidentes no passado e como se encontram, atualmente, as condições de trabalho e segurança nas plataformas e os problemas físicos, emocionais e profissionais do trabalhador das plataformas. A tese também apresenta a atuação da Agência Nacional de Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustíveis na prevenção de acidentes. Apesar de existirem normas nacionais e convenções internacionais, direta ou indiretamente, para garantir a segurança quanto ao ambiente de trabalho nas plataformas, elas não são efetivamente aplicadas pelas empresas offshores, o que se torna também um fator passível de comprometer a saúde do trabalhador e necessitar de normatização efetiva. / The purpose of this thesis is to study the legal protection of the health of offshore workers through the interdisciplinary analysis of Annex II of Regulatory Norm 30; International Conventions of the International Labor Organization and the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series 18001: 2007. The study addresses the types of platforms, how to structure the offshore work in the Campos Basin (RJ); the main accidents in the past and how are currently working conditions and safety platforms and the physical, emotional and professional problems of the workers of the platforms. The thesis also presents the performance of the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels in the prevention of accidents. Although there are national norms and international conventions, either directly or indirectly, to ensure safety in the work environment on the platforms, they are not effectively enforced by offshore companies, which is also a factor that could compromise workers' health and necessitate of effective standardization.

Thesis. 1975. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Ocean Engineering. / Includes bibliographical references. / by J. Kim Vandiver. / Ph.D.

Drawing attention to the material politics of the Saudi regime, this dissertation genealogically explores the ways in which the imperatives of the modern state and its oil economy came to structure the production of Arabia's history, social life, built urban environment and concepts of nationhood and religiosity. It examines cultural artifacts and commemorative spaces as evidentiary networks through which official historical knowledge moves and becomes visible. It does so first through a study of the construction and memorialization of "official" Saudi history via textbooks and archives, and of historical elisions therein. In order to discern how breaks with the past are configured within disciplinary history, the dissertation begins with a sociocultural history of late Ottoman Arabia on the eve of Al Sa`ud's territorial conquest. It reveals the ways in which early twentieth-century Arabia's shared transregional histories and emergent socio-intellectual and political worlds were transformed with the aim of developing Al Sa`ud's territorial empire into a petro-state. In the second venue of inquiry, I analyze spatial transformations characteristic of Saudi Arabia's oil modernity as central to practices of statecraft and capital accumulation by comparing the urban and cultural redevelopment plans of Riyadh and Mecca. The erasure of alternative accounts of state formation through commemoration in Riyadh and destruction in Mecca is, at heart, a continuation of Al Sa`ud's imperial project and its deep-seated violence to the everyday, the spiritual and the temporal. This dissertation is a material and spatial reading of the regime's mechanisms of political legitimation, one that focuses on the infrastructure of Saudi petro-modernity and on sites that are rarely considered in discussions of the state, despite their centrality. From the mundane lifeworlds of archival and planning documents and the spaces that house them to the spectacular commercial and archeological megaprojects, these simultaneously constitute monuments to oil modernity and serve as pillars of political governance. The projects of historical memorialization and urban planning are material realizations of the regime's late twentieth-century strategies for political legitimation and economic diversification, especially following the crisis of the 1990 Gulf War. In highlighting everyday practices of state making, I suggest new sites and modes for reading the Saudi state as an unfinished, unstable work-in-progress. I argue that oil capitalization (which produced the theory of the rentier state) is being eclipsed, increasingly, by speculation, real estate and distinctive logics of built form.