Yes / Crude oil is an unrefined petroleum composed of wide range of hydrocarbon up to n‐C40+. However, there are also a percentage of light hydrocarbon components present in the mixture. Therefore, to avoid their flashing for safe storage and transportation, the live crude needs to be stabilized beforehand. This paper aims to find the suitable operating conditions to stabilize an incoming live crude feed to maximum true vapor pressure (TVPs) of 12 psia (82.7 kPa) at Terengganu Crude Oil Terminal, Malaysia. The simulation of the process has been conducted by using Aspen HYSYS. The obtained results illustrate that the simulation data are in good agreement with the plant data and in particular for the heavier hydrocarbons. For the lighter components, the simulation results overpredict the plant data, whereas for the heavier components, this trend is reversed. It was found that at the outlet temperature (85–90°C) of hot oil to crude heat exchanger (HX‐220X), the high‐pressure separator (V‐220 A/B) and the low‐pressure separator (V‐230 A/B) had operating pressures of (400–592 kPa) and (165–186 kPa), respectively, and the live crude was successfully stabilized to a TVP of less than 12 psia. The impact of main variables, that is, inlet feed properties, three‐phase separators operating pressure, and preheater train's performance on the product TVP, are also studied. Based on the scenarios analyzed, it can be concluded that the actual water volume (kbbl/day) has greater impact on the heat exchanger's duty; thus, incoming free water to Terengganu Crude Oil Terminal should be less than 19.5 kbbl/day (9.1 vol%) at the normal incoming crude oil flow rate of 195 (kbbl/day).

A roller coaster manufacturer became aware that improperly heat treated track couplings were sent to a construction site for assembly. Concerns were that suspect couplings might not meet the engineering specifications and could be vulnerable to sudden failure. A testing company in Oak Ridge, TN that specializes in in-situ and laboratory mechanical testing was contacted by the manufacturer for help in this endeavor. The construction company elected to enlist a local testing firm to perform field tests on the components instead of the company in Oak Ridge. The test methods used are incapable of providing quantitative results that could be measured to the engineering specifications, making it unlikely to identify anything but the worst material conditions. This study is an example that the need for accurate analysis is very important. The manufacturer reported that 60 couplings were replaced, but it is presently unknown how many should have been replaced.

This diploma work is aimed at the use of infrared spectrometry by Fire Brigade Units of the Czech Republic. A new portable instrument True Defender FT produced by Ahura was used for this purpose. It was lent by the Institute of Citizens´Protection in Lázně Bohdaneč. The goal of this work is to get acquainted with this instrument and to evaluate its ability to identify unknown substances. Experimental part was aimed at the testing of this spectrometer with the help of model sample set, containing samples from real situations solved by members of Fire Brigade Units of the Czech Republic. Possibilities of mobile infrared spectometer True Defender FT and mobile Raman spectometer First Defender are finally compared.

<p>Background: Within real estate companies assets according to IFRS/ IAS 40 should be valued at fair value, to compare with previous valuation criteria according to which real estate should valued at cost. Two models can be used within IAS 40, these are value at cost and fair value. When valued at cost the real estate value in the balance sheet should be specified at cost. The method chosen by the company should be used for all real estate within the company except for the premises used by the company. </p><p>Purpose: The purpose of the study is to analyse and evaluate how real estate companies experienced the problems that arose when converting to IAS 40, and to analyse the effects on the companies key ratios as a result of the change of accounting method. Key ratios examined were, return on equity, solvency ratio, P/E-ratio and debt/equity ratio. </p><p>Method: The essay is made on a qualitative effort in the form of four interviews with experts within the chosen subject area. The compilation of key ratio is made in a quantitative form and is made up of secondary data. Conclusions: With the implementing of IAS 40 for real estate accounting, the ability to better compare the accounting between real estate companies increased, even though all companies do not account for their real estate in the same way. It appeared that the regulation requirements need to be adjusted and formed in a way that better matches the reality in which real estate companies act. Valuation with fair value proved to have both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage was that the comparability and the fair picture between real estate companies increased. The disadvantage was that the valuation of the fair value gives an increased risk for the real estate companies to be over- or undervalued. A wrong valuation gives a wrong picture of the real estate companies and effects the key ratios in a volatile manner.</p>

<p>Advancements in retinal imaging technologies have drastically improved the quality of eye care in the past couple decades. Scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (SLO) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) are two examples of critical imaging modalities for the diagnosis of retinal pathologies. However current-generation SLO and OCT systems have limitations in diagnostic capability due to the following factors: the use of bulky tabletop systems, monochromatic imaging, and resolution degradation due to ocular aberrations and diffraction. </p><p>Bulky tabletop SLO and OCT systems are incapable of imaging patients that are supine, under anesthesia, or otherwise unable to maintain the required posture and fixation. Monochromatic SLO and OCT imaging prevents the identification of various color-specific diagnostic markers visible with color fundus photography like those of neovascular age-related macular degeneration. Resolution degradation due to ocular aberrations and diffraction has prevented the imaging of photoreceptors close to the fovea without the use of adaptive optics (AO), which require bulky and expensive components that limit the potential for widespread clinical use. </p><p>In this dissertation, techniques for extending the diagnostic capability of SLO and OCT systems are developed. These techniques include design strategies for miniaturizing and combining SLO and OCT to permit multi-modal, lightweight handheld probes to extend high quality retinal imaging to pediatric eye care. In addition, a method for extending true color retinal imaging to SLO to enable high-contrast, depth-resolved, high-fidelity color fundus imaging is demonstrated using a supercontinuum light source. Finally, the development and combination of SLO with a super-resolution confocal microscopy technique known as optical photon reassignment (OPRA) is demonstrated to enable high-resolution imaging of retinal photoreceptors without the use of adaptive optics.</p> / Dissertation

Relevance is an essential concept in information retrieval (IR) and relevance estimation is a fundamental IR task. It involves not only document relevance estimation, but also estimation of user's information need. Relevance-based language model aims to estimate a relevance model (i.e., a relevant query term distribution) from relevance feedback documents. The true relevance model should be generated from truly relevant documents. The ideal estimation of the true relevance model is expected to be not only effective in terms of mean retrieval performance (e.g., Mean Average Precision) over all the queries, but also stable in the sense that the performance is stable across different individual queries. In practice, however, in approximating/estimating the true relevance model, the improvement of retrieval effectiveness often sacrifices the retrieval stability, and vice versa. In this thesis, we propose to explore and analyze such effectiveness-stability tradeoff from a new perspective, i.e., the bias-variance tradeoff that is a fundamental theory in statistical estimation. We first formulate the bias, variance and the trade-off between them for retrieval performance as well as for query model estimation. We then analytically and empirically study a number of factors (e.g., query model complexity, query model combination, document weight smoothness and irrelevant documents removal) that can affect the bias and variance. Our study shows that the proposed bias-variance trade-off analysis can serve as an analytical framework for query model estimation. We then investigate in depth on two particular key factors: document weight smoothness and removal of irrelevant documents, in query model estimation, by proposing novel methods for document weight smoothing and irrelevance distribution separation, respectively. Systematic experimental evaluation on TREC collections shows that the proposed methods can improve both retrieval effectiveness and retrieval stability of query model estimation. In addition to the above main contributions, we also carry out initial exploration on two further directions: the formulation of bias-variance in personalization and looking at the query model estimation via a novel theoretical angle (i.e., Quantum theory) that has partially inspired our research.

The way the economic reality is observed is essential in order to determine decision-making of economic subjects. The picture of economic reality drawn by accounting can be said to be either the true and fair, or biased. If the latter is the case, how much does that bias translate into the quality of economic decision-making? In summary, the paper analyzes whether accounting should provide the fair and true view whether it does, and how it affects the economic behavior when it does not on both micro-economic and macro-economic level. The arguments are built up on a logical structure rather taking a broader multidisciplinary approach to answer the previously stated questions.

The thesis deals with the evaluation of changes in accounting legislation in relation to the informative ability of accounting. In particular, these changes are: - Canceling Reporting Item Separation Reporting alone - Changes in accounting for provisions - Accounting for activation and inventory of own activity - Categorization of entities and related obligations - Cancellation of extraordinary costs and revenues - Amendment to the regulations governing the auditor's audit of financial statements - Canceling the separate reporting of the Trade Margin item As the Czech Republic is a part of the European Union, it is impossible to ignore the effort to unify repor-ting, which is intended to improve the readability of financial statements for users from other countries. The work includes an evaluation of changes from the perspective of various authors and the professional public. Selected statements are verified on selected businesses. The ongoing small legislative adjustments do not fully meet the needs of current businesses, the concept of the new form of accounting, which is currently presented to the professional public for discussion, indicates the future direction of Czech ac-counting. An equally important part of the thesis is the analysis of the questionnaire, which seeks to gain the opinion of the professional public on the issue.

Sistemas de controle distribuídos cujas malhas são fechadas através de uma rede de comunicação são chamados de sistemas de controle distribuídos em redes de comunicação (NCS - Networked Control System). Este tipo de arquitetura permite a divisão do sistema de controle em módulos interconectados através da rede de comunicação, proporcionando a divisão do processamento, a redução de custo e de peso, além de facilitar o diagnóstico e manutenção do sistema e de aumentar a sua exibilidade e agilidade; e por isso seu emprego na indústria está se tornando comum (e.g., y-by-wire e drive-by-wire). Porém, a distribuição do processamento e a inserção de uma rede de comunicação aumenta a complexidade da análise e do projeto deste tipo de sistema. Um dos fatores que contribui para esse aumento da complexidade é a presença de atrasos aleatórios nos sinais de controle, causados pela dinâmica do sistema computacional (conjunto de hardware e software) que serve como plataforma para implementação do sistema de controle digital. Este trabalho faz um estudo sobre este tipo de sistema sob a perspectiva destes sinais com atrasos. Para isso, faz-se uso dos toolboxes para MATLAB: TrueTime e Jitterbug. Através destas ferramentas, mostra-se a existência de uma relação de compromisso entre o desempenho do controle e o desempenho do sistema computacional. Através deste estudo, é proposto uma solução de um sistema de controle do tipo NCS para um ROV (do inglês Remotely Operated Vehicle), modelado através de 6 equações diferenciais desacopladas não-lineares. Este tipo de veículo tem uma relevância econômica significativa para o Brasil, visto que é utilizado em operações de manutenção e instalação de plataformas de extração do petróleo que está depositado em profundidades que variam de mil a 2 mil metros. Para este NCS proposto, são utilizados controladores do tipo PI com estrutura feedback-feedfoward cujos parâmetros de projeto são obtidos em função dos atrasos inseridos pelo sistema computacional. / Distributed control systems wherein the control loops are closed through a communication network are called Networked Control Systems (NCSs). This type of architecture allows the control systems division into modules interconnected through the communication network, providing the processing division, reduction of cost and weight, and facilitates the systems diagnosis and maintenance, and increases their exibility and agility. Therefore its use in industry is becoming common (eg, y-by-wire and drive-by-wire). However, the processing distribution and the communication network insertion increase the system analysis and design complexity. One of the factors that contributes to this increased complexity is the presence of random time delays, caused by the dynamics of the computer system (set of hardware and software) used as a platform for digital control system implementation. This work deals with the networked control systems under these random time delays view. For this, it is used two MATLAB toolboxes: Jitterbug and TrueTime. With these tools, it is shown the existence of a relationship between the performance of control and performance of computer system. With this study, it proposed a solution of a NCS for a ROV (Vehicle Operated Remotely), modeled by 6 differential nonlinear decoupled equations. This type of vehicle has a significant economic relevance for Brazil, as it is used in maintenance and installation of platforms for oil extraction deposited at depths ranging from thousand to 2 thousand meters. For this proposed NCS are adopted PI controllers with feedfoward-feedback structure whose parameters design are given in terms of delay inserted by the computer system.

O tema central, enfocado nesta leitura do Mênon de Platão, é a relação entre dóxa alethés e opinião pública. São temas secundários, o ensino da virtude, o contexto político, as matemáticas e a epistéme aplicada à política. A questão nasce da pergunta inicial do diálogo sobre a maneira de adquirir a virtude. Mênon desejava a virtude tal como era concebida em seu meio: a glória, a fama, a boa reputação e, por conseguinte, o poder, ou seja, ele desejava a virtude política. O conturbado processo político da polis rumo à democratização, aliado à noção de virtude como fama, torna evidente a importância da dinamização da opinião pública na luta entre as facções e no reconhecimento da virtude política. Platão admite essa condição da prática política. Segundo o Timeu, o único conhecimento possível do mundo dos sólidos é o conhecimento opiniático. A prática política se desenrola no mundo dos sólidos, portanto é guiada pela opinião. Porém, há opiniões que são verdadeiras e há opiniões que conduzem à aporia, além de serem fugidias, pois o objeto deste tipo de conhecimento são os sólidos, que estão no mundo do devir. O Timeu ensina que o demiurgo tem sempre opiniões verdadeiras sobre o mundo por ele ordenado, porque também repousa os olhos no que é sempre o mesmo, ou seja, ele tem a episteme do que é sempre. O rei-filósofo da República é o demiurgo da cidade; ele tem sempre opiniões verdadeiras na administração da polis, porque tem a episteme. Porém, Platão reconhece, na República, que a verdade conhecida pelo filósofo não pode se efetivar sem a anuência da opinião pública. Freqüentemente, a opinião pública caminha para a aporia, mas não é impossível que chegue ao acerto. É possível conjugar verdade e política. Se a ciência filosófica estiver ausente, resta contar com a proteção divina, que é casual. Sócrates propôs que seu interlocutor procurasse saber o que é a virtude em si. Em razão da aporia de Mênon, Sócrates ensinou o caminho da ciência pela teoria da reminiscência, que principia justamente pelo reconhecimento das aporias. Mênon, porém, não estava disposto a buscar a episteme do filósofo. O último argumento do diálogo conclui que a virtude é opinião verdadeira, que advém por um favor dos deuses. Trata-se de uma segunda via, mais apropriada a Mênon, para manter alguma articulação entre política e verdade. Antes de se despedir, Sócrates avisa Mênon que a investigação deve ser retomada do início. / The central theme which has been put into focus by this reading of Meno is the relation between dóxa alethés and public opinion. The teaching of virtue, the public context, the mathematics and the epistéme applied to politics offer themselves as secondary themes. The question emerges from the initial question of the dialog about how virtue can be acquired. Meno longed for the virtue as it was conceived within its medium: glory, fame, good reputation and, therefore, power; he desired, in other words, the political virtue. The disturbed political process of the polis towards democracy makes clear - together with virtue as fame – the importance of the dynamism of public opinion in the struggle between factions and within the acknowledgment of political virtue. Plato acknowledges these conditions amongst practical politics. According to Timaeus, the only possible knowledge of the world of solids is the opinionated knowledge. The political practice develops itself within the world of solids, and is therefore guided by opinion. However, there are true opinions and opinions which take us to aporia and which are, moreover, quite fleeting – because their object are the solids, which found themselves within the world of becoming. Timaeus also teaches us that the demiurge has always true opinions about the world he has arranged - because he looks at that which never changes, i. e., he holds the epistéme of that which always is. The king-philosopher of the Republic is, so to say, the city’s demiurge; he always has true opinions about the management of the polis - because he holds the epistéme. Nevertheless, Plato acknowledges in the Republic that the truth granted by the philosopher cannot accomplish itself without the consent of public opinion. Frequently, the public opinion leads to aporia but, on the other hand, is not impossible to it to succeed. It is possible to coordinate truth and politics. Without philosophical science, we can only rely on the divine protection, which happens to be fortuitous. Socrates has put forth that his interlocutor should try to learn what virtue in itself is. Due to Meno's aporia, Socrates has taught the way to science through the theory of reminiscence, which sets off precisely from the recognition of the aporia. Meno, however, was not willing to search the philosophical epistéme. The last argument of the dialog ends up saying that virtue is the true opinion – which is granted by a favor of gods. It happens to be a second road - much more appropriated to Meno – in order to keep politics and truth well-connected. Before signing off, Socrates tells Meno that the search must be considered from the start.