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The selection of casing depths and casing design are considered one of the most critical steps in the well construction process. Inaccurate selection of casing setting depths and casing design can result in many challenges, long time and hence high well costs. "X" oil field was taken as a case study. There is only the exploration well X-1 drilled up to date. The 20˝ surface casing was relatively long because it was set at the top of Dammam Formation. That means deep surface hole, long trip time, large amount of mud, long surface casing, large amount of cement and hence high cost. Also, Hartha Formation was not evaluated because it is isolated with the 13 3/8" & 9 5/8" casing and the perforation through two casing was not available. Another problem, the 9 5/8˝ production casing damaged at the depth 32 m due to failure of tolerating the axial forces before or after the cement job. All data was inputted into the Landmark software to simulate the well. It was found that the surface casing can be set at the top of Lower Faris Formation instead of Dammam Formation. Also, The Hartha Formation can be drilled in the 12 ¼ ˝ hole and isolated by 9 5/8˝ casing instead of drilling it in the 17 ½ ˝ hole and isolating it by the 13 3/8˝ casing. It was also found that the 9 5/8˝ production casing can withstand all loads by selecting casing with higher weight. The cost of the modified design was also checked to study the feasibility of the modified design. It was concluded that the modified design can save around 300,000 USD for each well comparing with the design of well X-1. It is recommended to apply this design on the appraisal well to be drilled. If the design shows no problems, it can be considered the optimum design of appraisal and development wells to be drilled in the future. Also, the slim-hole design can be studied and an economic feasibility comparison can be made with the current and the proposed design in this study.

Substantial economic losses in animal agriculture result from animals experiencing heat stress (HS). Pigs are especially susceptible to HS, resulting in reductions in growth, altered body composition, and compromised substrate metabolism. In this study, an artificial high-intensity sweetener and capsaicin (CAPS-SUC; Pancosma, Switzerland) were supplemented in combination to mitigate the adverse effects of HS on pig performance. Forty cross-bred barrows (16.2 ± 6 kg) were assigned to one of five treatments: thermal neutral controls (TN) (22 ± 1.2 °C; 38%-73% relative humidity) with ad libitum feed, HS conditions with ad libitum feed with (HS+) or without (HS-) supplementation, and pair-fed to HS with (PF+) or without supplementation (PF-). Pigs in heat-stressed treatments were exposed to a cyclical environmental temperature of 12 h at 35 ± 1.2 °C with 27%-45% relative humidity and 12 h at 30 ± 1.1 °C with 24%-35% relative humidity for 21 d. Supplementation (0.1 g/kg feed) began 7 d before and persisted through the duration of environmental or dietary treatments (HS/PF), which lasted for 21 d. Rectal temperatures and respiration rates (RR; breaths/minute) were recorded thrice daily, and feed intake (FI) was recorded daily. Before the start and at the termination of environmental treatments (HS/PF), a muscle biopsy of the longissimus dorsi was taken for metabolic analyses. Blood samples were collected weekly, and animals were weighed every 3 d during treatment. Core temperature (TN 39.2 ± 0.02 °C, HS- 39.6 ± 0.02 °C, and HS+ 39.6 ± 0.02 °C, P0.001) and RR (P0.001) were increased in both HS- and HS+ groups, but no difference was detected between HS- and HS+. PF- pigs exhibited reduced core temperature (39.1 ± 0.02 °C, P0.001), which was restored in PF+ pigs (39.3 ± 0.02 °C) to match TN. Weight gain and feed efficiency were reduced in PF- pigs (P0.05) but not in the PF+ or the HS- or HS+ groups. Metabolic flexibility was decreased in the HS- group (-48.4%, P0.05) but maintained in the HS+ group. CAPS-SUC did not influence core temperature or weight gain in HS pigs but did restore core temperature, weight gain, and feed efficiency in supplemented PF pigs. In addition, supplementation restored metabolic flexibility during HS and improved weight gain and feed efficiency during PF, highlighting CAPS-SUC's therapeutic metabolic effects.Heat stress reduces pig performance due to metabolic responses to heat. During heat stress, pigs lose the ability to metabolize fatty acids for energy and rely on carbohydrates to fuel growth. Evidence has shown that capsaicin, the active ingredient in chili peppers, interacts with heat-sensing receptors to protect against heat stress by preventing changes to metabolism. Artificial sweeteners can also preserve fat metabolism by inducing the secretion of metabolic regulatory hormones from the gut. This study examined a combination of capsaicin and artificial sweetener to restore growth and maintain metabolism during 3 wk of heat stress. As pigs often reduce their feed intake during heat stress, a group of pigs was feed restricted to match the reduced feeding observed in the heat-stressed pigs. Pigs given the feed supplement during heat stress maintained their metabolic flexibility, a measure of metabolic health. In agreement with previous short-term studies, the capsaicin and artificial sweetener supplement improved feed efficiency and weight gain in feed-restricted pigs. This study demonstrated that supplementation with capsaicin and artificial sweetener may prevent metabolic dysfunction during heat stress. This study also confirmed that supplementation with capsaicin and artificial sweetener does improve feed-restricted pigs’ growth and feed efficiency.

Friction is a property of the pavement that provides vehicles with grip to change speed and direction. When the available friction is reduced through the polishing action of traffic, the risk of cr...

Modelling the pavement deterioration process is essential for a successful pavement management system (PMS). The pavement deterioration process is highly influenced by uncertainties related to data...

About 18% of crashes on Virginia’s interstates from 2014 to 2016 were reported to be wet crashes. Although extensive research on crashes has been conducted, limited attention has been devoted to the prediction of wet crashes. The ratio of wet over dry crashes (wet over dry ratio [WDR]) has traditionally been the parameter of interest. In this paper, negative binomial regression is used to quantify the relationship between WDR and traffic and road parameters. One issue with the WDR is the handling of sites with zero dry crash counts. This was addressed by numerically replacing the zeros with 0.5 or by using an empirical Bayes estimate of the expected number of dry crashes instead of the dry crash counts. The empirical Bayes approach resulted in a better model fit as measured using Akaike’s Information Criterion. The negative binomial model developed for wet crashes was used to identify parameters that affect the pavement water film thickness and the expected number of wet crashes. The approach identified the longitudinal grade difference as an important parameter.

BACKGROUND Low-birth-weight (LBWT) neonates grow at a slower rate than their normal-birth-weight (NBWT) counterparts and may develop hypoglycemia postnatally. OBJECTIVE We investigated whether dietary lipid supplementation would enhance growth and improve glucose production in LBWT neonatal pigs. METHODS Twelve 3-d-old NBWT (1.606 kg) crossbred pigs were matched to 12 LBWT (1.260 kg) same-sex littermates. At 6 d of age, 6 pigs in each group were fed a low-energy (LE) or a high-energy (HE) isonitrogenous formula containing 5.2% and 7.3% fat, respectively. Body composition was assessed using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry; plasma glucose and glycerol kinetics were assessed using stable isotope tracers. After killing, weights of skeletal muscles and visceral organs were measured. Data were analyzed by ANOVA for a 2 × 2 factorial design; temporal effects were investigated using repeated-measures analysis. RESULTS Lipid supplementation did not affect body weight of LBWT or NBWT pigs. However, liver and longissimus dorsi weights as a percentage of body weight were greater for pigs fed an HE diet than for those fed an LE diet (4.3% compared with 3.4% and 1.5% compared with 1.2%, respectively) but remained less for LBWT than for NBWT pigs (3.8% compared with 3.9% and 1.3% compared with 1.5%, respectively) (P

Five high-speed macrotexture measurement devices were tested on a variety of asphalt and Portland cement concrete pavement surfaces to evaluate their repeatability and their pairwise agreement. Experiments were run under three speed conditions: highway speed, varying constant speeds, and various acceleration and deceleration profiles. Data were processed and reduced per current industry standards. A novel approach for outlier removal from line laser devices was developed. The pairwise device agreement was evaluated using a limits of agreement analysis. The results demonstrate good repeatability for each of the devices tested. The agreement analysis showed that not all high-speed distance triangulation devices can be used interchangeably for all pavement surfaces. Data acquisition speed was found to be a factor in macrotexture parameter calculation for two of the five devices. The effect of speed was found to be worse on randomly textured surfaces than on transversely textured surfaces. Finally, acceleration was shown to have an effect on the parameters produced by one of the devices, giving further credence to the fact that care should be taken to gather high-quality datasets for the critical pavement characteristic of macrotexture.

In this paper, the authors evaluate the performance of a spatial multiresolution analysis (SMA) method that behaves like a variable bandwidth kernel density estimation (KDE) method, for hazardous road segments identification (HRSI) and crash risk (expected number of crashes) estimation. The proposed SMA, is similar to the KDE method with the additional benefit of allowing for the bandwidth to be different at different road segments depending on how homogenous the segments are. Furthermore, the optimal bandwidth at each road segment is determined solely based on the data by minimizing an unbiased estimate of the mean square error. The authors compare the SMA method with the state of the practice crash analysis method, the empirical Bayes (EB) method, in terms of their HRSI ability and their ability to predict future crashes. The results indicate that the SMA may outperform the EB method, at least with the crash data of the entire Virginia interstate network used in this paper. The SMA is implemented in an Excel spreadsheet that is freely available for download., Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, 5 tables

Weak joints are the source of most performance problems in jointed concrete pavements (JPCPs) and composite pavements created by overlaying a JPCP. Until recently, it has been prohibitively...

Background: Orogastric tube feeding is frequently prescribed for neonates who cannot ingest food normally. In a piglet model of the neonate, greater skeletal muscle growth is sustained by upregulation of translation initiation signaling when nutrition is delivered by intermittent bolus meals, rather than continuously. Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the long-term effects of feeding frequency on organ growth and the mechanism by which feeding frequency modulates protein anabolism in these organs. Methods: Eighteen neonatal pigs were fed by gastrostomy tube the same amount of a sow milk replacer either by continuous infusion (CON) or on an intermittent bolus schedule (INT). After 21 d of feeding, the pigs were killed without interruption of feeding (CON; n = 6) or immediately before (INT-0; n = 6) or 60 min after (INT-60; n = 6) a meal, and fractional protein synthesis rates and activation indexes of signaling pathways that regulate translation initiation were measured in the heart, jejunum, ileum, kidneys, and liver. Results: Compared with continuous feeding, intermittent feeding stimulated the growth of the liver (+64%), jejunum (+48%), ileum (+40%), heart (+64%), and kidney (+56%). The increases in heart, kidney, jejunum, and ileum masses were proportional to whole body lean weight gain, but liver weight gain was greater in the INT-60 than the CON, and intermediate for the INT-0 group. For the liver and ileum, but not the heart, kidney, and jejunum, INT-60 compared with CON pigs had greater fractional protein synthesis rates (22% and 48%, respectively) and was accompanied by an increase in ribosomal protein S6 kinase 1 and eukaryotic initiation factor 4E binding protein 1 phosphorylation. Conclusions: These results suggest that intermittent bolus compared with continuous orogastric feeding enhances organ growth and that in the ileum and liver, intermittent feeding enhances protein synthesis by stimulating translation initiation. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin DiseasesUnited States Department of Health & Human ServicesNational Institutes of Health (NIH) - USANIH National Institute of Arthritis & Musculoskeletal & Skin Diseases (NIAMS) [AR044474, AR46308]; National Institute of Child Health and Human DevelopmentUnited States Department of Health & Human ServicesNational Institutes of Health (NIH) - USANIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) [HD072891, HD085573, HD099080]; National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney DiseasesUnited States Department of Health & Human ServicesNational Institutes of Health (NIH) - USANIH National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) [DK15658]; United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Agriculture [2013-67015-20438]; USDA/ARSUnited States Department of Agriculture (USDA)USDA Agricultural Research Service [3092-51000-060] Supported by National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Grants AR044474 (TAD) and AR46308 (MLF), National Institute of Child Health and Human Development HD072891 (TAD), HD085573 (TAD), and HD099080 (TAD and MLF), National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases DK15658 (SRK), United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Agriculture grant 2013-67015-20438 (TAD), and by the USDA/ARS under Cooperative Agreement no. 3092-51000-060 (TAD). Public domain – authored by a U.S. government employee