A Study of Hydrocarbon Releases in the Gulf of Mexico, 1996 Thru 2010

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Matilde Smith ◽  
John Rogers Smith ◽  
Lauren Pattee ◽  
Julius Langlinais
Keyword(s):  
Gulf Of Mexico ◽  
Water Depth ◽  
Deepwater Horizon ◽  
Activity Level ◽  
Release Point ◽  
Environmental Enforcement ◽  
The Past ◽  
Operational Risks ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Face

The events surrounding the Deepwater Horizon (Macondo) disaster have changed the face of deepwater operations. Safety and environmental systems (SEMS) plans and capping or containment capabilities are required to meet current Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) permitting requirements for the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). More generally, industry must identify the operational risks associated with future deepwater operations and specify their plans for responding to those risks, in order to maximize the effectiveness of methods to prevent and respond to potential future releases of hazardous, polluting hydrocarbons. This paper describes a study of public BSEE (previously MMS and BOEMRE) data on incidents involving releases of formation fluids to the environment. The purpose of this study was to provide a factual basis for identifying the operational risk of hydrocarbon releases in offshore operations as a starting point for additional work on identifying opportunities to reduce the frequency, severity, and consequences of such releases, especially for deepwater operations. Incidents reported over the past 15 years were reviewed and organized in a spreadsheet. A total of 90 non-pipeline incidents were identified as including enough description to be useful. Most of these incidents were spills greater than 50 barrels (bbls), but blowouts, fires, and explosions are important and included. To the extent possible, the review determined: the flow path taken from the formation to the point in the well or production system where the fluids were released, the release point, the barriers that were used to reestablish control, and what can these events tell us about potential future deepwater events. It is notable that most of these releases occurred in shelf operations rather than deepwater (water depth ≥ 1,000 ft), which was expected due to the much larger number of wells on the GOM shelf. Nearly two-thirds of the releases happened during active drilling, completion, workover, or well-servicing operations. The remaining events occurred during other operations, particularly production, and include two spills after the wells were plugged and abandoned (P&A’d). The number of blowouts per year was relatively small, varying from 2 to 9 for the 15 year period. The number of blowouts has remained roughly constant despite the recent decrease in the rig activity level. Similarly, the size of most spills was relatively small, if the Macondo event is excluded. Nevertheless, the data gives a factual basis for identifying the kinds of events that could lead to future catastrophes if not prevented or identified and controlled successfully.

Archaeologies of risk and wonder

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Alberti
Keyword(s):  
Risk Taking ◽  
Ontological Difference ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Face ◽  
Interpretive Frameworks ◽  
Conceptual Resources

AbstractIn this statement, I argue that one way for archaeology to realize the potential of its materials to tell us something different about the past is to confront the question of alterity, understood as the ontological difference that lies at the roots of much archaeological material. If we accept alterity as a starting point of analysis then we stand a chance of challenging the strictures of interpretive frameworks that foreclose the possibility of encountering something new. Methodologically and theoretically I argue for risk-taking, especially taking on conceptual resources from indigenous thinkers and adopting a stance of wonder in the face of our materials which can open up unsuspected archaeological realities.

The Macondoization of the World

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-78
Author(s):  
Noah J. Toly
Keyword(s):  
Gulf Of Mexico ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Deepwater Horizon ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face

This chapter argues that globalization has made possible both environmental catastrophe, as symbolized by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and attempts to grasp and manage environmental change at the global level. Governing global environmental challenges in the face of the tragic requires some good by which we may discriminate between competing and often incommensurable goods, some mechanism for apprehending the tragic, justifying certain choices in the face of the tragic, and patterning or teaching acceptable responses to the tragic. The rise of religious imaginaries in global governance has opened the door further to religious ways of thinking about the tragic in global environmental governance.

Holism, Chinese Medicine and Systems Ideologies: Rewriting the Past to Imagine the Future

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Scheid
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Medical Humanities ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Us ◽  
Shared Objective ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter explores the articulations that have emerged over the last half century between various types of holism, Chinese medicine and systems biology. Given the discipline’s historical attachments to a definition of ‘medicine’ that rather narrowly refers to biomedicine as developed in Europe and the US from the eighteenth century onwards, the medical humanities are not the most obvious starting point for such an inquiry. At the same time, they do offer one advantage over neighbouring disciplines like medical history, anthropology or science and technology studies for someone like myself, a clinician as well as a historian and anthropologist: their strong commitment to the objective of facilitating better medical practice. This promise furthermore links to the wider project of critique, which, in Max Horkheimer’s definition of the term, aims at change and emancipation in order ‘to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them’. If we take the critical medical humanities as explicitly affirming this shared objective and responsibility, extending the discipline’s traditional gaze is not a burden but becomes, in fact, an obligation.

Restoring barrier habitat in Louisiana to compensate for natural resource injuries: Shell Island and Chenier Ronquille Barrier Restoration Projects

Shore & Beach ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 65-71
Author(s):  
Whitney Thompson ◽  
Christopher Paul ◽  
John Darnall
Keyword(s):  
Gulf Of Mexico ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Barrier Island ◽  
Deepwater Horizon ◽  
Coastal Protection ◽  
Restoration Project ◽  
Island Restoration ◽  
Barataria Basin ◽  
Outer Coast

Coastal Louisiana received significant funds tied to BP penalties as a result of the Deepwater Horizon incident. As it is widely considered that the State of Louisiana sustained most of the damage due to this incident, there has been a firm push to waste no time in implementing habitat restoration projects. Sustaining the land on the coast of Louisiana is vital to our nation’s economy, as several of the nation’s largest ports are located on the Gulf coast in Louisiana. In addition, the ecosystems making up the Louisiana coast are important to sustain some of the largest and most valuable fisheries in the nation. Funded by BP Phase 3 Early Restoration, the goals of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) Outer Coast Restoration Project are to restore beach, dune, and marsh habitats to help compensate spill-related injuries to habitats and species, specifically brown pelicans, terns, skimmers, and gulls. Four island components in Louisiana were funded under this project; Shell Island Barrier Restoration, Chenier Ronquille Barrier Island Restoration, Caillou Lake Headlands Barrier Island Restoration, and North Breton Island Restoration (https://www. gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/louisiana-outer-coast-restoration, NOAA 2018). Shell Island and Chenier Ronquille are critical pieces of barrier shoreline within the Barataria Basin in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. These large-scale restoration projects were completed in the years following the Deepwater Horizon incident, creating new habitat and reinforcing Louisiana’s Gulf of Mexico shoreline. The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) finished construction of the Shell Island NRDA Restoration Project in 2017, which restored two barrier islands in Plaquemines Parish utilizing sand hydraulically dredged from the Mississippi River and pumped via pipeline over 20 miles over levees and through towns, marinas, and marshes to the coastline. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) also completed the Plaquemines Parish barrier island restoration at Chenier Ronquille in 2017 utilizing nearshore Gulf of Mexico sediment, restoring wetland, coastal, and nearshore habitat in the Barataria Basin. A design and construction overview is provided herein.

Cyber Peacekeeping: Critical Evaluation of Digital Blue Helmets Program

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-27
Author(s):  
Fahad Nabeel
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Threat Detection ◽  
Information And Communications Technologies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Communications Technologies ◽  
Future Potential

In 2016, the United Nations (UN) launched the Digital Blue Helmets (DBH) program under its Office of Information and Communications Technologies (OICT). The launching of DBH was a continuation of a series of steps that the UN and its related agencies and departments have undertaken over the past decade to incorporate cyberspace within their working methodologies. At the time of inception, DBH was envisioned as a team capacitated to act as a replica of a physical peacekeeping force but for the sole purpose of overseeing cyberspace(s). Several research studies have been published in the past few years, which have conceptualized cyber peacekeeping in various ways. Some scholars have mentioned DBH as a starting point of cyber peacekeeping while some have proposed models for integration of cyber peacekeeping within the current UN peacekeeping architecture. However, no significant study has attempted to look at how DBH has evolved since its inception. This research article aims to examine the progress of DBH since its formation. It argues that despite four years since its formation, DBH is still far away from materializing its declared objectives. The article also discusses the future potential roles of DBH, including its collaboration with UN Global Pulse for cyber threat detection and prevention, and embedding the team along with physical peacekeepers.

Epilogue: On the Current and Future State of Historical Writing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Megill
Keyword(s):  
Historical Writing ◽  
Conceptual Difficulty ◽  
Universal History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Initial Decision ◽  
Future State ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of

This epilogue argues that historians ought to be able to produce a universal history, one that would ‘cover’ the past of humankind ‘as a whole’. However, aside from the always increasing difficulty of mastering the factual material that such an undertaking requires, there exists another difficulty: the coherence of universal history always presupposes an initial decision not to write about the human past in all its multiplicity, but to focus on one aspect of that past. Nevertheless, the lure of universal history will persist, even in the face of its practical and conceptual difficulty. Certainly, it is possible to imagine a future ideological convergence among humans that would enable them to accept, as authoritative, one history of humankind.

‘I AM’: Indigenous consciousness for authenticity and leadership

Leadership ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 174271502199959
Author(s):  
Chellie Spiller
Keyword(s):  
True Self ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Future

This article encourages a move away from the excessively inward gaze of ‘to thine own self be true’ and explores ‘I AM’ consciousness as a starting point. An I AM approach encourages a move from the measurable self to the immeasurable expansiveness and mystery of our own becoming. It is to step beyond the lines drawn around the ‘true self’ or the lines that others would have us draw. I AM consciousness reflects an ancient Indigenous thread that echoes through millennia and reminds humans that we are a movement through time, and each person is a present link to the past and the future, woven into a fabric of belonging.

Maxillofacial Bony Considerations in Facial Transplantation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurora G. Vincent ◽  
Anne E. Gunter ◽  
Yadranko Ducic ◽  
Likith Reddy
Keyword(s):  
Soft Tissue ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
Preoperative Planning ◽  
Surgical Anatomy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Facial Transplantation ◽  
Tissue Transfer ◽  
Reconstructive Ladder ◽  
The Face ◽  
Facial Wounds

AbstractAlloplastic facial transplantation has become a new rung on the proverbial reconstructive ladder for severe facial wounds in the past couple of decades. Since the first transfer including bony components in 2006, numerous facial allotransplantations across many countries have been successfully performed, many incorporating multiple bony elements of the face. There are many unique considerations to facial transplantation of bone, however, beyond the considerations of simple soft tissue transfer. Herein, we review the current literature and considerations specific to bony facial transplantation focusing on the pertinent surgical anatomy, preoperative planning needs, intraoperative harvest and inset considerations, and postoperative protocols.

scholarly journals Deep-Emotion: Facial Expression Recognition Using Attentional Convolutional Network

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 3046
Author(s):  
Shervin Minaee ◽  
Mehdi Minaei ◽  
Amirali Abdolrashidi
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
Facial Expression ◽  
Facial Expression Recognition ◽  
Expression Recognition ◽  
Visualization Technique ◽  
Convolutional Network ◽  
The Past ◽  
Multiple Datasets ◽  
The Face ◽  
Traditional Approaches

Facial expression recognition has been an active area of research over the past few decades, and it is still challenging due to the high intra-class variation. Traditional approaches for this problem rely on hand-crafted features such as SIFT, HOG, and LBP, followed by a classifier trained on a database of images or videos. Most of these works perform reasonably well on datasets of images captured in a controlled condition but fail to perform as well on more challenging datasets with more image variation and partial faces. In recent years, several works proposed an end-to-end framework for facial expression recognition using deep learning models. Despite the better performance of these works, there are still much room for improvement. In this work, we propose a deep learning approach based on attentional convolutional network that is able to focus on important parts of the face and achieves significant improvement over previous models on multiple datasets, including FER-2013, CK+, FERG, and JAFFE. We also use a visualization technique that is able to find important facial regions to detect different emotions based on the classifier’s output. Through experimental results, we show that different emotions are sensitive to different parts of the face.

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