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Project delay and cost overrun are major issues caused by the associated Risk Factors (RFs) in any projects including Oil and Gas Pipeline Projects (OGPPs). This problem is exacerbated by the subjective nature of the identification and quantification of delay factors t at the planning stage. To overcome above issues, this research designs a Delay Analysis Model (DAM) at planning stage of the project by introducing fuzzy logic in delay analysis; hence, systematize and objectify the quantification of the process. The paper presents a step-by-step process of identifying the RFs and quantifying the probability of project delivery. The main inputs of the model are the RFs, level of impact, and the estimated maximum & minimum duration of each task of the project. The model is integrated within @Risk simulator integrated with Monte Carlo Simulation to quantify the delay impact in projects. The key output of the study is a useful delay analysis tool that help to identify and quantify the potential delay impacts and the confidence level of project deliver in time at the planning stage so that proactive measures could be taken in advance. The model was evaluated using a case study of an OGPP in Iraq. The findings suggested that a potential overall delay at all stages of the project was found around 45 days that might occur due to the associated risk factors in the project.

Acute Pancreatitis (AP) is characterized by diffuse inflammatory process of pancreas with variable involvement of adjacent tissues and dysfunction of remote organs. Mortality rate in patients with AP is reported in the range of 9%-27% with two peaks. Nutritional support is one of the key factors in improving outcomes in cases of AP as per the current guidelines. Several clinical studies and meta- analysis regarding the effectiveness of enteral nutrition conclude that enteral nutrition through nasojejunal route is safe and can preserve the integrity of intestinal mucosa to decrease the incidence of infectious complications and other severe complications as well as resulted in better control of blood glucose levels. Enteral nutrition as early as within 24 hours or 48 hours has been recommended in various clinical studies. Though early enteral nutrition has been shown to reduce infectious complications in western literature, in clinical practice, it is not always possible to institute feeds so early. There can be delay due to factors like patient factors and extrinsic factors. While patient factors can include prolonged ileus, patients with altered mental condition patients on ventilatory support etc, extrinsic factors can be non- working of machine, other logistical problems and non-tolerance of feeds. We intended to determine the average time interval between the hospitalization of patients and establishment of feeds in our patients of AP. This was an open label longitudinal study conducted in a single surgical unit at a tertiary referral hospital in Mumbai. The sample size was 61 and study was conducted for a period of 6 months. For statistical analysis, descriptive statistics was used. To find average time, arithmetic mean was used. The average time interval is found to be 4.6 days.

Caesalpiniabonducella Flem. (local name: natalkanta, kutum kanta) isemployed tocure various disorders such as urinary disorders, diarrhoea, dysentery, leucorrhoea, piles, wounds, indolentulcers, skind iseases, leprosy, toothache. The present study was performed to investigate the scientific basis for the traditional uses of the crude ethanolic extract of the plant Caesalpinia bonducella. The crude extract was evaluated for its anti-nociceptive, anti-diarrhoeal and phenobarbitone-induced hypnoticeffects in mice. The extractproduced moderate inhibition of acetic acid induced writhing in mice at the dose of 250 and 500mg/kg body weight which was comparable to the standard drug diclofenac sodium. It decreased frequency of defecation and increased mean latent period at the dose of 500mg/kg body weight comparable to the standard drug loperamide. It also decreased the time of onset of sleep and potentiated the phenobarbitone-induced sleeping time in mice. The results suggest that the crude ethanolic extract of the plant Caesalpinia bonducella (C. bonducella) might possess antinociceptive, antidiarrhoeal andcentral nervoussystem depressantactivities.Keywords: Caesalpinia bonducella, antinociceptive, antidiarrhoeal, central nervous system depressantWest African Journal of Pharmacology and Drug Research Vol. 20(1&2) 2005: 58-61

The aim of this paper is to present the design and specifications of an integrated Delay Analysis Framework (DAF), which could be used to quantify the delay caused by the Risk Factors (RFs) in Oil and Gas Pipelines (OGPs) projects in a simple and systematic way. The main inputs of the DAF are (i) the potential list of RFs in the projects and their impact levels on the projects and the estimated maximum and minimum duration of each task. Monte Carlo Simulation integrated within @Risk simulator was the key process algorithm that used to quantify the impact of delay caused by the associated RFs. The key output of the DAF is the amount of potential delay caused by RFs in the OGP project. The functionalities of the developed DAF were evaluated using a case study of newly developed OGP project, in the south of Iraq. It is found that the case study project might have delayed by 45 days if neglected the consideration of the RFs associated with the project at the construction stage. The paper concludes that identifying the associated RFs and analysing the potential delay in advance will help in reducing the construction delay and improving the effectiveness of the project delivery by taking suitable risk mitigation measures.

Risk Factors (RFs) associated with the design, construction and operation of Oil and Gas Pipeline (OGP) projects have a serious impact on the safety of a project. The limitations of the effective risk analysis techniques due to a lack of reliable risk data - particularly in insecure countries like Iraq where OGPs are suffering from sabotage attacks - frequently cause great challenges in the attempt to mitigate these risk factors and provide a systematic risk management system. This paper, therefore, aims to analyse OGPs' RFs more accurately using a more systematic and holistic Risk Management Framework (RMF). The RMF was designed under three steps. Step 1 focused on carrying out a comprehensive review to identify the RFs in OGP projects in different countries and some of the Risk Mitigation Methods (RMMs) used in these projects. Step 2 used a questionnaire survey to analyse the RFs regarding their influence on OGP projects and to evaluate the RMMs based on their degrees of effectiveness to mitigate the RFs. The ranking of the RFs indicated that proper attention needs to be paid to the question of what motivates third-party disruption to OGPs in Iraq like sabotage, terrorism and theft risks. Step 3 was about recommending some RMMs to mitigate the RFs in these projects based on the results of the survey. The RMF and its recommendations could be used to more effectively manage the RFs in OGP projects in troubled countries that have just begun to address such risks.

Accurate and visual information of working locations is vital for efficient resource planning and location-based scheduling of earthworks, which is missing in existing linear schedules. Thus, construction managers have to depend on subjective decisions for resources allocation and progress monitoring from location aspects. This has caused uncertainties in planning and scheduling, and consequently delays and cost overruns of projects. A framework of prototype model was developed using the theory of location-based planning to overcome the above issues. This paper focuses on a case study experiments to demonstrate the functions of the model, which includes automatic generation of location-based earthwork schedules and visualization of cut-fill locations on a weekly basis. An arithmetic algorithm was developed by incorporating road design data, sectional quantities, variable productivity rates, unit cost and haulage distance. The model provides weekly information of locations, directions and cut-fill quantities of earthwork under different selections: construction sequences of cut/fill sections, site access points and equipment sets. The paper concludes that the model assists in identifying the correct locations and visualizing the space congestion during earthwork operations. Hence, project resources including heavy equipment and construction materials should be allocated more effectively and correctly from the location viewpoints and ultimately to improve site productivity and reduce production cost in linear projects.

The scarcity of data about “the probability and severity” of the Risk Factors (RFs) and “the usability and effectiveness” of the Risk Mitigation Methods (RMMs) in Oil and Gas Pipelines (OGPs) are hindering the efforts of risk mitigations in these projects. Consequently, this paper aims to develop a questionnaire survey to collect these require data to analyze the RFs and effectively evaluate the RMMs. Firstly, documents qualitative analysis were carried out to identify the RFs and RMMs in OGPs projects in different countries worldwide. Secondly, an industry-wide questionnaire survey was found to be an effective quantitative approach to analyze the “probability and severity” levels of the RFs and to evaluate the “usability and effectiveness” degrees of the RMMs. A pilot-like survey was significantly needed to improve the clarity of the questions and revise the ambiguous questions. As well as, to add the necessary queries and discard the unnecessary ones. Moreover, the pilot-like survey was used to test the functionality of the rating scales; and to improve the overall design of the survey. This survey filled by a number of experts in OGPs projects; their feedback was found helpful to write the final draft of the survey. The findings of this paper was a questionnaire survey that will be used in ongoing research about mitigating the RFs in OGPs projects. Furthermore, a few authors explained their procedure of designing such survey. Therefore, researchers in this field could use the findings and comments of this to design their surveys.

Oil and Gas Pipeline (OGP) projects face a wide range of safety and security Risk Factors (RFs) globally, particularly in the oil and gas producing countries having insecure environment and poor safety records. Inadequate information about the causes of pipeline failures and poor knowledge about the safety and the security of the OGP hinder efforts of mitigating such risks. This paper, therefore, aims to develop a risk management system that bases on a holistic approach of identifying, analysing and ranking the associated RFs, and evaluating the possible Risk Mitigation Methods (RMMs), which are the first steps of this approach. A qualitative document analysis was adopted to design a semi-structured industry-wide questionnaire, which was conducted to collect stakeholders’ perceptions about existing RFs and RMMs for the OGP projects in Iraq. The survey results in terms of the probability and severity levels of the RFs were used as inputs for a computer-based risk analysis model. The model used the fuzzy theory to judge the probability and consequence levels of the RFs and rank them regards their degree of impact in the projects. The results revealed that terrorism, official corruption and insecure areas are the most critical risks. Similarly, the RMMs were evaluated based on their degree of efficacy to mitigate the risk in OGP projects. This paper presents a prototype of the risk management system that will be further developed in the next stage of the study.

Despite of the advances in construction planning and scheduling software, construction managers and planners are still facing problems in achieving accurate planning, scheduling and costing due to the one-off nature of the construction projects and the inherently uncertain site conditions and soil characteristics. The aim of the research presented in this paper is to introduce a new methodology for integration of ‘variable producti¬vity’ data with a visualisation model of earthwork operations. To achieve this aim, a number of objectives have been set: identification of current industrial practices and confirming the needs and aspirations of the industry, designing of a methodology and a model to integrated variable productivity with visualisation, and performing a case study to demonstrate and verify the model. The paper presents a prototype of a 4D visualisation model which is designed by integrating the road design data, quantities of cut and fill, productivity model, algorithms for modelling terrain surfaces and a progress profile visualiser. The model generates automatically terrain sur¬faces of progress profiles for earthwork operations and visualises progress profiles throughout the construction operations under different site and soil conditions. It is demonstrated with a real life case study in a road pro¬ject. The paper concludes that the model should be able to assist in producing efficient construction scheduling and resource planning, thereby reducing production cost and improving on-site productivity.

Innovative Visualisation Technologies applied to construction simulation and optimisation have the potential to improve communications and coordination amongst the construction team. In this context and in the drive for innovation in the construction management, a framework for automatic generation and visualisation of construction processes in road construction has been conceived, designed and developed. The framework is composed of road design data, quantities of cut and fill, productivity models, algorithms for modelling ground profiles and road profile visualiser. The paper details a Visual Schedule Model (VSM) that has been developed in the course of this research to realise the framework outlined above. The model is currently being evaluated using real life case study. Conclusions and future development have also been presented.

Innovative visualization technology applied to construction simulation and optimization has the potential to improve communications and coordination amongst the project stakeholders. In this context and in the drive for innovation in construction management, this paper introduces a framework of a 4D prototype for the automatic generation of visual terrain surfaces during earthwork construction processes. The framework has been designed and developed by integrating road design data, quantities of cut and fill, productivity models, algorithms for modelling terrain profiles and a road profile visualiser. The paper details the prototype of 4D visualization model (4DVM) that has been designed and developed in this research using innovative methodology where 4D models of terrain surfaces are generated based on coordinate data and the productivity of earthwork. The model has been demonstrated with a case study that was used to validate the model. The 4DVM is intended to assist project planners/construction managers in logical decision making processes for construction scheduling and resource planning. It will also improve the communication gap amongst the construction team and consequently improve site coordination and operations

The conflict of interest amongst the professionals like client and contractor’s project managers, site engineers, quantity surveyors and designers/architects play crucial roles for the unethical practices, consequently these practices have adverse impact on the product quality, faith of clients and investors’ confidence in the construction industry. Hence, this research is aimed at examining the common forms of unethical practices among professionals in the construction industry as well as revealing the key factors that have encouraged these practices. This study depends on the questionnaire survey amongst professionals of the construction industry. The survey is conducted to recognise the view of key stakeholders from different perspectives of the affected parties on the concept of business ethics in the building and construction industry, which play key role in contributing to the national economic growth of the countries. The survey concludes that untimely legal action including changing project manager’s responsibility and delays in payment processes are key ethical practices from owner/client aspect, while contractor’s unethical practices are under bidding, bid cutting and shopping, bid rigging and over billing. But from the consultant aspect; lack of supervision, poor monitoring and taking bribes under different pretend are found to be the encouraging factors for unethical conducts in the construction industry. It is also found that accepting the bribes, gifts and conflicts of interest are the most common forms of unethical practices. The findings from the study is expected to help as an important eye opener to policy makers and regulatory agencies in detecting and preventing unethical practices. In conclusion, avoiding the conflict of interest and promoting the ethic codes to professionals will help to restore the investor and people confidence, faith of the clients and improve the quality of buildings and infrastructures. The study recommends that promoting awareness regarding the values of ethical behaviour at different forum and ensuring the effective punishment for unethical activities at different stages of project life cycle might reduce the unethical practices in the construction industry.

The first Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) implemented to a UK Railway Bridge was in 2001, since then a number of key railway bridge projects involving FRP have seen completion; six being fully FRP bridges. Although the potential use of FRP on the infrastructure was found in 1998 due to high strength to weight ratio, stiffness and good chemical resistance, the implementation of FRP to small scale rail bridges was found to have several challenges which are faced by industry. Past research studies have predominantly focused on providing further examples of the successful usage of FRP in bridges, the benefits to whole life cycle cost in comparison to steel/timber but fail to address the challenges. In that context, the study is aimed to identify the key challenges for managing the usage of FRP in large scale in UK rail sector and provide possible solution to overcome such challenges so that dependency on traditional materials on railways bridge can be reduced and improve material sustainability aspects. This paper explores the past research and takes a view from the project delivery level. A qualitative approach was adopted to collect the views from professionals associated with clients (Network Rail), designers and contractors using questionnaire. A total of 14 professional’s views were collected through questionnaire and findings outlined. From the analysis, it was found that the lack of standard design codes for FRP, basic understanding of benefits, right price and reliability are key challenges for the management of FRP use in the UK rail sector. The paper concludes that the use of FRP will be an alternate solution in UK rail sector from the material sustainability aspects if confidence of stakeholders can be improved about reliability and the practical benefits of FRP

Building the new Oil and Gas Pipelines (OGPs) without analyzing the potential Risk Factors (RFs) that influence the safety of these pipelines causes time and cost overrun in these projects. Quantifying the impact of the RFs on the duration of the projects is essential to provide an accurate estimate about the project duration and recognize the potential RFs that causing delay and safety issues in the projects. Identifying the RFs in the projects via literature review and analyzing their impact on the delivery time of the projects via a questionnaire survey and computer-based risk analysis model are the key methods adopted in the study. This study uses the Monte Carlo Simulation algorithm, which is integrated within @Risk Simulator to quantify the delay impact of the RFs. The @Risk simulator has the flexibility to integrated different risk distribution methods for each RF, which helps in overcoming the limitations of using ASTA Powerproject risk simulator to quantify the delay the projects, as done in a prior study. The @Risk simulator is useful in analyzing the delay in each task, working stage and overall project duration. The results provided by risk simulator is useful in understanding the sensitivity and the criticality of each RF that might cause delay issues in the projects. The outcomes of this study will help to the stakeholders, the decision-makers and the policy-makers of OGP projects to make sound decisions and enable them to take preventive actions of risk management while starting a new OGP project, which helps in minimizing the delay in the projects

Purpose- Oil and Gas Pipelines (OGPs) are the safest mode of transportation for petroleum products. Yet, OGPs are facing a massive range of safety, design and operational risks such as sabotage, design defects, corrosion, material ageing, poor quality, misuse and geological disasters. These risks have resulted in OGP project management becoming more challenging and complex, particularly in developing countries with poor security systems. Additionally, there are two significant problems associated with OGP projects in these countries. The first is the different characteristics of risk factors, and the second is the real shortage of historical data required for any risk evaluation study. These problems mean that the currently accessible risk evolution methods cannot evaluate OGPs risk factors accurately. This paper aims to provide a proper understanding of the characteristics of OGPs risk factors in these countries. It also aims to identify the critical risk factors and their degree of probability and severity in pipeline projects, to avoid the loss of life and increased costs that result from risks to safety. Methodology- A quantitative research approach is adopted in this paper. Additionally, an industry survey was conducted by using a semi-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed online amongst the people who are associated with OGP projects in Iraq. SPSS 23 was used to analyse a total of 180 successful questionnaire responses. The survey findings in terms of critical risk factors and their ranking in order of risk index of severity and probability are presented in tables and graphs. Findings- A total of 30 risk factors associated with OGP projects have been identified as critical risk factors and ranked them into a scale of probability and severity index. Third-party disruption (such as terrorism, theft and sabotage) was found to be the most critical safety risk factor whereas the failure form pipe corrosion was ranked the top most operational risk. Implications- The list of OPG critical safety and operational risk factors provides the first-stage findings. These findings will be implemented to develop a conceptual framework and a computer-based model for OGPs risk management system at the next stage of the research.

Experiments were conducted to determine the trajectory of a high Schmidt number buoyant jet discharged horizontally in a quiescent medium. The range of Reynolds number from 10 to 900 and Froude number from 2 to 40 were covered. The Schmidt number was 740. The flow in the discharge tube was laminar and fully developed in most of the cases. A new phenomenon of bifurcation in buoyant jets was found. Viscous effects prevent bifurcation below certain Gr and Re. When Gr was below 400, no bifurcation was observed for any Re. When Re was below 100, no bifurcation was observed for any Gr. When Fr was above 20 no bifurcation was observed for any Re. This is because transition to turbulence occurs before bifurcation can occur.