The Impacts of National Culture on Safety Culture in the Global Oil and Gas Industry

Safety culture is one of the most-studied subjects in the safety literature today, although no agreement exists on exactly what it means. Most safety culture research has been conducted in high-hazard industries such as nuclear power, aviation, and offshore oil and gas production. Only limited research has investigated links between safety culture and the prevailing national culture. This paper proposes that efforts to build safety culture and improve safety performance in the global oil and gas industry will be enhanced if the safety culture maturity and the prevailing national culture are assessed and a location-specific plan is developed based on these factors. A model plan to improve safety performance for one multinational oil and gas company is presented.

Sampling scarab beetles in tropical forests: the effect of light source and night sampling periods

Light traps have been used widely to sample insect abundance and diversity, but their performance for sampling scarab beetles in tropical forests based on light source type and sampling hours throughout the night has not been evaluated. The efficiency of mercury-vapour lamps, cool white light and ultraviolet light sources in attracting Dynastinae, Melolonthinae and Rutelinae scarab beetles, and the most adequate period of the night to carry out the sampling was tested in different forest areas of Costa Rica. Our results showed that light source wavelengths and hours of sampling influenced scarab beetle catches. No significant differences were observed in trap performance between the ultraviolet light and mercury-vapour traps, whereas these two methods caught significantly more species richness and abundance than cool white light traps. Species composition also varied between methods. Large differences appear between catches in the sampling period, with the first five hours of the night being more effective than the last five hours. Because of their high efficiency and logistic advantages, we recommend ultraviolet light traps deployed during the first hours of the night as the best sampling method for biodiversity studies of those scarab beetles in tropical forests.

A Survey on FPGA-Based Sensor Systems: Towards Intelligent and Reconfigurable Low-Power Sensors for Computer Vision, Control and Signal Processing

The current trend in the evolution of sensor systems seeks ways to provide more accuracy and resolution, while at the same time decreasing the size and power consumption. The use of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) provides specific reprogrammable hardware technology that can be properly exploited to obtain a reconfigurable sensor system. This adaptation capability enables the implementation of complex applications using the partial reconfigurability at a very low-power consumption. For highly demanding tasks FPGAs have been favored due to the high efficiency provided by their architectural flexibility (parallelism, on-chip memory, etc.), reconfigurability and superb performance in the development of algorithms. FPGAs have improved the performance of sensor systems and have triggered a clear increase in their use in new fields of application. A new generation of smarter, reconfigurable and lower power consumption sensors is being developed in Spain based on FPGAs. In this paper, a review of these developments is presented, describing as well the FPGA technologies employed by the different research groups and providing an overview of future research within this field.

Measuring the effective focal length and shape factor of a thick lens using a microscope

The optical power of a thick spherical lens and its Coddington shape factor are essential magnitudes that characterize its image quality. Here, we propose an experimental procedure and apparatus that allow accurate determination of those magnitudes for any spherical lens from geometrical measurements. The performance of the technique and the used instruments are simple since it only requires a microscope and an optical mouse. The propose overcomes the drawbacks of other devices that need of the refractive index or may damage the lens surfaces, like spherometers, and provides similar results to those from commercial lensmeters.

Staff report on measures for reducing energy consumption for homeowners and renters.

Prepared in cooperation with the Edison Electric Institute and marketing staff of various utilities throughout the country.

The Pacific railroads : suggestions submitted to the Hon. Charles Devens, attorney-general of the United States, on the resolutions of the Senate and House of Representatives in respect to the operation of the Union Pacific Railroad and branches : on behalf of said railroad company /

Mode of access: Internet.

[Culinary ephemera : gelatin and tapioca].

Corporate contributors include: Genesee Pure Food Company; Jell-O-Co. Inc.

Light duty truck weight reduction evaluation. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Research and Development, Washington, D.C.

Journals of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada.

Appendices of List of appendices in each volume, except volumes: 50, 63, 68, 78, 79, 85, 93, 101.

Metallography of thorium : notes from the Fifth Metallographic Conference - Westinghouse Atomic Power Division /

"February 14, 1952."

Boiler and turbine room instruments; serial report of the Prime Movers Committee (1925-1926)

Mode of access: Internet.

Aids to efficient machine design in welded steel.

Cover title.

Report, returns and statistics of the Inland Revenues of the Dominion of Canada ...

"First-[Second] report of the Commissioner of Inland Revenue on the inspection of weights, measures and gas," 1873-1874, were pub. as separate reports and not as supplements to the departmental report.

Before the Interstate commerce commission. In the matter of the application of the Great northern railway company, etc., Finance docket no. 7439. In the matter of the application of the Western Pacific railroad company, etc. Finance docket no. 7440. In the matter of the application of the Great northern railway company and the Western Pacific railroad company, etc. Finance docket no. 7781 ...

Vol. [1]-[2]. Applicants' opening brief. F.G. Dorety, F.M. Angellotti [and others], attorneys.--v. [3]-[5] Brief for Southern Pacific company, Union Pacific railroad company, Oregon short line railroad company, Oregon-Washington railroad & navigation company and Los Angeles & Salt Lake railroad company, interveners. B.C. Dey, G.V. Shoup [and others] attorneys.

National power survey : a report.

Includes bibliographies.