bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Well Testing in Tight Gas Reservoir: Today's Challenge and Future's Opportunity
Authors: Pankaj Piyush , Kumar Vikash 
Published: January 2010

Abstract
With the increase in demand and rapidly diminishing resources in conventional reservoirs, economically producing gas from unconventional reservoirs e.g. tight gas reservoir is a great challenge today. The character and distribution of tight gas reservoirs are not yet well understood. Low quality reservoirs are often seen as involving higher costs and risk than high-medium quality reservoirs. There is no formal definition for "Tight Gas". Law and Curtis (2002) defined low-permeability (tight) reservoirs as those with permeabilities less than 0.1 mD. The best definition of tight gas reservoir is "reservoirs that cannot be produced at economic flow rates or economic volumes of natural gas are unrecoverable, unless the well is stimulated by a large hydraulic fracture treatment or produced by use of a horizontal wellbore or multilateral wellbores."
Unlike conventional reservoirs, which are small in volume but easy to develop, unconventional reservoirs are large in volume but difficult to develop. Improved technology and adequate gas price is the key to their development. Gas production from a tight-gas well will be low on a per-well basis compared with gas production from conventional reservoirs. A lot of wells have to be drilled to get most of the gas out of the ground in tight gas reservoirs.
Testing a tight gas reservoir is a big challenge today but in coming future more and more numbers of wells are expected in tight gas reservoirs. If we want to grab a piece of this upcoming opportunity, we will have to accept the challenge today. More data and more engineering manpower are required to understand and design a well test in tight gas reservoir than a well test in good permeability conventional reservoirs.
In this paper, a possible way to test a tight gas reservoir using hydraulic fracturing will be discussed. Since hydraulic fracturing is one of the most successful ways of producing a tight gas reservoir economically so far, an idea of integrating hydraulic fracturing job with well testing job as a complete package for testing tight gas reservoirs, especially in the exploratory phase, will be discussed.
How Effective Leadership Practices Deliver Safety Performance AND Operational Excellence
Authors: Winter Jim , Owen Keith , Read Brett 
Published: January 2010

Abstract
This paper is based on several long term studies in the energy industry designed to determine if there was a relationship between leadership practices, employee commitment and motivated effort. A survey methodology was used to identify and validate the variables that consistently impacted operational excellence and safety performance. Our research shows that employee engagement is a direct result of leadership practices. Where leadership practices promote and align company values and commitment to safety, the overall performance in both individual and organizational safety is significantly higher. Furthermore, the leadership that creates this increased performance also creates more highly engaged employees that outperform the competition in production, customer satisfaction and overall profitability. The linkages are these. The best leadership practices develop engaged employees. Engaged employees have strong feelings of collective and individual self-efficacy. Engaged employees were observed to have much higher commitment and alignment to the organization’s values and work practices. This high level of commitment and alignment subsequently led to higher performance outcomes. The paper goes on to describe what an organization needs to do to create those effective leadership practices. Our research suggests that behavioral based programs rarely succeed unless fully integrated into a values based safety culture.
Gas Strike in Shale Reservoir in Dholka Field in Cambay Basin
Authors: Sharma SS , Kulkarni PK 
Published: January 2010

Abstract
Cambay is matured petroliferous basin in the western part of India. Dholka is one of the complex oil field in Cambay – Tarapur tectonic block wherein gas has been struck, for the first time, in Shale Reservoir of middle Eocene. In this basin, Cambay shale was thought as cap and source rock. But the gas strike in well DK #30, around 1310 m has opened new frontier for exploration and exploitation of Shale gas and / or Shale oil in Cambay shales, the thickness of which vary from 900 to 1200 m. Conventional testing yielded small quantity of gas. Hydraulic fracturing was carried out in the same interval of 10m which resulted in increased rate of 200 m3 per day gas. The composition of produced gas is totally different from the solution gas being produced from other oil wells of the field. The salient points of this accidental gas discovery need elaborate studies, cost-effective and sound horizontal well completion alongwith multistage fracturing.
Real Time Optimization of Drilling Parameters During Drilling Operations
Authors: Eren Tuna , Ozbayoglu M. Evren 
Published: January 2010

Abstract
Real time optimization of drilling parameters during drilling operations aims to optimize weight on bit, bit rotation speed for obtaining maximum drilling rate as well as minimizing the drilling cost. The process is formation specific. A Statistical method namely multiple linear regression technique is used for the drilling optimization methodology. An extensive literature survey on drilling optimization was conducted for this research study. A model is developed for this purpose using actual field data collected through modern well monitoring and data recording systems, which will be predicting the rate of drilling penetration as a function of available parameters. The rate of penetration general equation is optimized for effective functions at each data point. In order to optimize the parameters in the field, a computer network is required to be developed. The computer network will keep the piped data directly from the data source, and continuously be collecting the new data to be piped. A database present at the central computer will be continuously calculating the developed model parameters by means of multiple regression technique and inform the team at the field. The field engineer will transmit the current drilling parameters back to the central computer, and the headquarters will determine the new model parameters and optimum drilling parameters by including the recently received information. Therefore, there will be a real-time-optimization process. It is considered that this technique is going to be widely used in future drilling activities since it could reduce drilling costs and minimize probability of encountering problems due to working with optimized parameters.
It has been found that drilling rate of penetration could be modeled in real-time environment as function of independent drilling variables such as weight on bit, rotation speed of the string, mud weight, and formation characteristics. The ability to have the drilling rate of penetration with respect to depth characteristically with certain parameters for specific formations on real-time basis could bring new insights to the nature of drilling operations. Any departure from the trend could have significant reasons. The study has also achieved one of its objectives, giving the optimized independent drilling parameters found following statistical synthesis.
What Kind of Job is Safer? A Note on Occupational Vulnerability
Authors: Bardhan Ashok , Tang John 
Published: January 2010

Abstract
The present recession has brought into stark focus this question: Which occupations are more vulnerable to job loss? Since shocks to the economy affect employment across multiple occupations, we employ a new approach to assess the vulnerability of jobs due to such shocks by measuring how diversified an occupation is across sectors. Using U.S. employment data between the years 1999 and 2005, which include the downturn in the aftermath of the internet bust and the subsequent recovery, we find that an occupation spread across multiple industries is less volatile in terms of both numbers employed and the average wage. The result is robust to occupation size. Including various measures of an occupation's "footloose" nature and geographical mobility does not affect the results. The evidence presented distills a key lesson from a previous downturn and recovery, and could improve our understanding of issues relating to business cycles, offshoring and higher education.
IQ and Family Background: Are Associations Strong or Weak?
Authors: Björklund Anders , Hederos Eriksson Karin , Jäntti Markus 
Published: January 2010

Abstract
For the purpose of understanding the underlying mechanisms behind intergenerational associations in income and education, recent studies have explored the intergenerational transmission of abilities. We use a large representative sample of Swedish men to examine both intergenerational and sibling correlations in IQ. Since siblings share both parental factors and neighbourhood influences, the sibling correlation is a broader measure of the importance of family background than the intergenerational correlation. We use IQ data from the Swedish military enlistment tests. The correlation in IQ between fathers (born 1951-1956) and sons (born 1966-1980) is estimated to 0.347. The corresponding estimate for brothers (born 1951-1968) is 0.473, suggesting that family background explains approximately 50% of a person's IQ. Estimating sibling correlations in IQ, we thus find that family background has a substantially larger impact on IQ than has been indicated by previous studies examining only intergenerational correlations in IQ.
Involvement of MicroRNAs in the Cytotoxic Effects Exerted by Proinflammatory Cytokines on Pancreatic β-Cells
Authors: Roggli Elodie , Britan Aurore , Gattesco Sonia , Lin-Marq Nathalie , Abderrahmani Amar , Meda Paolo , Regazzi Romano 
Published: January 2010

OBJECTIVE
Pancreatic β-cells exposed to proinflammatory cytokines display alterations in gene expression resulting in defective insulin secretion and apoptosis. MicroRNAs are small noncoding RNAs emerging as key regulators of gene expression. Here, we evaluated the contribution of microRNAs to cytokine-mediated β-cell cytotoxicity.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
We used global microarray profiling and real-time PCR analysis to detect changes in microRNA expression in β-cells exposed to cytokines and in islets of pre-diabetic NOD mice. We assessed the involvement of the microRNAs affected in cytokine-mediated β-cell failure by modifying their expression in insulin-secreting MIN6 cells.

RESULTS
We found that IL-1β and TNF-α induce the expression of miR-21, miR-34a, and miR-146a both in MIN6 cells and human pancreatic islets. We further show an increase of these microRNAs in islets of NOD mice during development of pre-diabetic insulitis. Blocking miR-21, miR-34a, or miR-146a function using antisense molecules did not restore insulin-promoter activity but prevented the reduction in glucose-induced insulin secretion observed upon IL-1β exposure. Moreover, anti–miR-34a and anti–miR-146a treatment protected MIN6 cells from cytokine-triggered cell death.

CONCLUSIONS
Our data identify miR-21, miR-34a, and miR-146a as novel players in β-cell failure elicited in vitro and in vivo by proinflammatory cytokines, notably during the development of peri-insulitis that precedes overt diabetes in NOD mice.
Surfactant Protein D, a Marker of Lung Innate Immunity, Is Positively Associated With Insulin Sensitivity
Authors: Fernández-Real José Manuel , Valdés Sergio , Manco Melania , Chico Berta , Botas Patricia , Campo Arantza , Casamitjana Roser , Delgado Elías , Salvador Javier , Fruhbeck Gema , Mingrone Geltrude , Ricart Wifredo 
Published: January 2010

OBJECTIVE
Impaired lung function and innate immunity have both attracted growing interest as a potentially novel risk factor for glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. We aimed to evaluate whether surfactant protein D (SP-D), a lung-derived innate immune protein, was behind these associations.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
Serum SP-D was evaluated in four different cohorts. The cross-sectional associations between SP-D and metabolic and inflammatory parameters were evaluated in two cohorts, the cross-sectional relationship with lung function in one cohort, and the longitudinal effects of weight loss on fasting and circadian rhythm of serum SP-D and cortisol concentrations in one prospective cohort.

RESULTS
In the cross-sectional studies, serum SP-D concentration was significantly decreased in subjects with obesity and type 2 diabetes (P = 0.005) and was negatively associated with fasting and postload serum glucose. SP-D was also associated with A1C, serum lipids, insulin sensitivity, inflammatory parameters, and plasma insulinase activity. Smoking subjects with normal glucose tolerance, but not smoking patients with type 2 diabetes, showed significantly higher serum SP-D concentration than nonsmokers. Serum SP-D concentration correlated positively with end-tidal carbon dioxide tension (r = 0.54, P = 0.034). In the longitudinal study, fasting serum SP-D concentration decreased significantly after weight loss (P = 0.02). Moreover, the main components of cortisol and SP-D rhythms became synchronous after weight loss.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that lung innate immunity, as inferred from circulating SP-D concentrations, is at the cross-roads of inflammation, obesity, and insulin resistance.
Barriers to Insulin Initiation
Authors: Karter Andrew J. , Subramanian Usha , Saha Chandan , Crosson Jesse C. , Parker Melissa M. , Swain Bix E. , Moffet Howard H. , Marrero David G. 
Published: January 2010

OBJECTIVE
Reasons for failing to initiate prescribed insulin (primary nonadherence) are poorly understood. We investigated barriers to insulin initiation following a new prescription.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
We surveyed insulin-naïve patients with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes, already treated with two or more oral agents who were recently prescribed insulin. We compared responses for respondents prescribed, but never initiating, insulin (n = 69) with those dispensed insulin (n = 100).

RESULTS
Subjects failing to initiate prescribed insulin commonly reported misconceptions regarding insulin risk (35% believed that insulin causes blindness, renal failure, amputations, heart attacks, strokes, or early death), plans to instead work harder on behavioral goals, sense of personal failure, low self-efficacy, injection phobia, hypoglycemia concerns, negative impact on social life and job, inadequate health literacy, health care provider inadequately explaining risks/benefits, and limited insulin self-management training.

CONCLUSIONS
Primary adherence for insulin may be improved through better provider communication regarding risks, shared decision making, and insulin self-management training.
Depressive Symptoms and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in a National Sample of Middle-Aged and Older Adults
Authors: Demakakos Panayotes , Pierce Mary B. , Hardy Rebecca 
Published: January 2010

OBJECTIVE
To examine the association between baseline elevated depressive symptoms and incident type 2 diabetes in a national sample of people aged ≥50 years.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
The sample consisted of 6,111 individuals free from self-reported doctor-diagnosed diabetes at baseline in 2002–2003. The eight-item Center for Epidemiological Studies–Depression (CES-D) scale was the measurement of depressive symptoms. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to assess whether baseline elevated (≥4) depressive symptoms were associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes over 45.8 months of follow-up.

RESULTS
The hazard ratio (HR) for diabetes was 1.62 (95% CI 1.15–2.29) in a model adjusted for age, sex, marital status, education, total net household wealth, cardiovascular and psychiatric and other noncardiovascular comorbidities, BMI, and health behaviors for participants with elevated CES-D symptoms compared with those without. Complementary analysis performed for a subsample (n = 5,090) showed that additional adjustment of this model for use of antidepressants did not explain the association (HR 1.58, 95% CI 1.09–2.29).

CONCLUSIONS
Elevated depressive symptoms were associated with a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes after accounting for sociodemographic, lifestyle, and clinical factors in a national sample of people aged ≥50 years.
Magnetic resonance imaging of articular cartilage abnormalities of the far posterior femoral condyle of the knee
Authors: Ogino Shuhei , Huang Thomas , Watanabe Atsuya , Iranpour-Boroujeni Tannaz , Yoshioka Hiroshi 
Published: January 2010

Background: Incidental articular cartilage lesions of the far posterior femoral condyle (FPFC) are commonly detected. Whether or not these cartilage lesions are symptomatic or clinically significant is unknown. Purpose: To characterize and assess prevalence of articular cartilage abnormalities of the FPFC and associated bone marrow edema (BME) and/or internal derangements through magnetic resonance (MR) images. Material and Methods: 654 knee MR examinations were reviewed retrospectively. Sagittal fast spin-echo proton density-weighted images with and without fat suppression were acquired with a 1.5T scanner, and were evaluated by two readers by consensus. The following factors were assessed: 1) the prevalence of cartilage abnormalities, 2) laterality, 3) the type of cartilage abnormalities, 4) cartilage abnormality grading, 5) associated BME, 6) complications such as meniscal injury and cruciate ligament injury, and 7) knee alignment (femorotibial angle [FTA]). Results: Articular cartilage abnormalities of the FPFC were demonstrated in 157 of the 654 patients (24%). Of these, 40 patients demonstrated medial and lateral FPFC cartilage abnormalities and were thus counted as 80 cases. Focal lateral FPFC abnormalities were demonstrated in 117 of 197 cases (59.4%), while diffuse lateral FPFC abnormalities were demonstrated in 24 of 197 cases (12.2%). Focal medial FPFC abnormalities were demonstrated in 23 of 197 cases (11.6%), while diffuse medial FPFC abnormalities were demonstrated in 33 of 197 cases (16.8%). No statistically significant pattern of associated BME, FTA, or internal derangements including meniscal and cruciate ligament injury was demonstrated. Conclusion: Articular cartilage abnormalities of the FPFC are common and were demonstrated in 24% of patients or 30% of cases. Lateral FPFC abnormalities occur 2.5 times more frequently than medial FPFC abnormalities and were more frequently focal compared with medial cohorts. BME is associated in 36.5% of cases.
Non‐speech oro‐motor exercise use in acquired dysarthria management: regimes and rationales
Authors: Mackenzie Catherine , Muir Margaret , Allen Carolyn 
Published: January 2010

Background: Non‐speech oro‐motor exercises (NSOMExs) are described in speech and language therapy manuals and are thought to be much used in acquired dysarthria intervention, though there is no robust evidence of an influence on speech outcome. Opinions differ as to whether, and for which dysarthria presentations, NSOMExs are appropriate.Aims: The investigation sought to collect development‐phase data, in accordance with the Medical Research Council (MRC) evaluation of complex interventions. The aims were to establish the extent of use of NSOMExs in acquired disorders, the exercise regimes in use for dysarthria, with which dysarthric populations, and the anticipated clinical outcomes. A further aim was to determine the influencing rationales where NSOMExs were or were not used in dysarthria intervention.Methods & Procedures: Speech and language therapists throughout Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, working with adult‐acquired dysarthria, were identified by their service heads. They received postal questionnaires comprising 21 closed and two open questions, covering respondent biographics, use of NSOMExs, anticipated clinical outcomes, and practice influencing rationales.Outcome & Results: One hundred and ninety‐one (56% response) completed questionnaires were returned. Eighty‐one per cent of respondents used NSOMExs in dysarthria. There was no association with years of speech and language therapy experience. Those who used and those who did not use NSOMExs provided similar influencing rationales, including evidence from their own practice, and Higher Education Institute teaching. More experienced speech and language therapists were more likely than those more recently qualified to be guided by results from their own practice. Input from the attended Higher Education Institute was more influential for those less experienced than for those more experienced. Clinical outcome aims were not confined to speech, but also included improvements in movement, sensory awareness, appearance, emotional status, dysphagia and drooling. NSOMExs were used with many neurological disorders, especially stroke, all dysarthria classes, especially flaccid, and all severity levels. Tongue and lip exercises were more frequent than face, jaw and soft palate. The most common regimes were four to six repetitions of each exercise, during three practice periods daily, each of 6–10 min.Conclusions & Implications: NSOMExs are a frequent component of dysarthria management in the UK‐devolved government countries. This confirmation, along with the details of speech and language therapy practice, provides a foundation for clinical research which will compare outcomes for people with dysarthria, whose management includes and does not include NSOMExs. Speech and language therapy practice may be guided by evidence that speech outcome is or is not affected by NSOMExs.
Chi-square-based Scoring Function for Categorization of MEDLINE Citations
Authors: Kastrin A. , Peterlin B. , Hristovski D. 
Published: January 2010

Summary
Objectives: Text categorization has been used in biomedical informatics for identifying documents containing relevant topics of interest. We developed a simple method that uses a chi-square-based scoring function to determine the likelihood of MEDLINE® citations containing genetic relevant topic.
Methods: Our procedure requires construction of a genetic and a nongenetic domain document corpus. We used MeSH® descriptors assigned to MEDLINE citations for this categorization task. We compared frequencies of MeSH descriptors between two corpora applying chi-square test. A MeSH descriptor was considered to be a positive indicator if its relative observed frequency in the genetic domain corpus was greater than its relative observed frequency in the nongenetic domain corpus. The output of the proposed method is a list of scores for all the citations, with the highest score given to those citations containing MeSH descriptors typical for the genetic domain.
Results: Validation was done on a set of 734 manually annotated MEDLINE citations. It achieved predictive accuracy of 0.87 with 0.69 recall and 0.64 precision. We evaluated the method by comparing it to three machine-learning algorithms (support vector machines, decision trees, naïve Bayes). Although the differences were not statistically significantly different, results showed that our chi-square scoring performs as good as compared machine-learning algorithms.
Conclusions: We suggest that the chi-square scoring is an effective solution to help categorize MEDLINE citations. The algorithm is implemented in the BITOLA literature-based discovery support system as a preprocessor for gene symbol disambiguation process.
FURTHER NOTES ON EXENTERUS (HYMENOPTERA, ICHNEUMONIDAE)
Authors: Cushman R. A. 
Published: January 2010

Since the publication of my revision of the genus Exenterus (U. S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Pub. No. 354, 1940) several pertinent items of interest have come to my attention.From the Canadian Department of Agriculture, through G. Stuart Walley, I have received specimens of two undescribe species, one in considerable nnmbers, the other represented by only a single specimen.