The aim of this study is to propose and test a multi-level methodology for detection of oil slicks in ENVISAT Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) imagery, which can be used to support the identification of hydrocarbon seeps. We selected Andrusov Ridge in the Central Black Sea as the test study area where extensive hydrocarbon seepages were known to occur continuously. Hydrocarbon seepage f...

The most important factor affecting efficacy and drift of pesticide applications is the droplet spectrum. To measure pesticide drift, researchers utilize fluorescent tracers to rapidly quantify spray deposition. Although fluorescent tracers have been used for more than 50 years, no experiments have been performed on the effect they have on the properties of pesticide formulations (density and v...

The maximum spacing (MSP) method, introduced by Cheng and Amin (1983) and independently by Ranneby (1984), is a general method for estimating param­ eters in univariate continuous distributions and is known to give consistent and asymptotically efficient estimates under general conditions. This method, which is closely related to the maximum likelihood (ML) method, can be derived from an approx...

One of the major uses of management games is as a learning tool to improve decisions made under dynamic uncertainty. This paper presents a web-based gaming mode simulation model of a supply chain concerning the procurement and supply of oil. The game mirrors the traditional oil supply chain consisting of Refineries, Storage Points, Depots and Retail Outlets. The computer controls the decisions ...

The rapid increase of palm oil (PO) production in the last 20 years has made it the most important oil in the world. By year 2007, the annual global production of PO reached 40 million metric tons. Currently, Malaysia accounts for almost 50% of world palm oil production. As most of natural oils, PO has only a limited application in their original form, as a consequence of its complex chemical c...

To study oil distribution in fermentation liquid and solids for the purpose of recovering oil from corn stillage by centrifugation, a low-shear single-screw extruder was used to treat corn for dry-grind ethanol fermentation. Five different treatments for corn were used, and their effects on ethanol fermentation, oil distribution, and oil extractability were studied. Extruded corn with different...

Conventional crude oil, as the current dominant energy source, is an unrenewable resource. Despite the improvement of alternative energy technology such as wind and solar, there is still a large gap between the capability of these systems for supplying energy and global energy requirements. Therefore, until technological innovations facilitate sufficient energy generation through alternative fu...

In this paper, we investigated an ensemble neural network for the prediction of oil prices. Daily data from 1999 to 2012 were used to predict the West Taxes, Intermediate. Data were separated into four phases of training and testing using different percentages and obtained seven sub-datasets after implementing different attribute selection algorithms. We used three types of neural networks: Fee...

Lately, renewable resources received great attention in the macromolecular compounds area, regarding the design of the monomers and polymers with different applications. In this study the capacity of several modified vegetable oil-based monomers to build competitive hybrid networks was investigate, taking into account thermal and mechanical behavior of the designed materials. In order to synthe...

This paper evaluated the oil spillage risk in the waters near the island of Changxing in Dalian (China) based on the established risk assessment index. Four wind regimes (windless, northerly wind, westerly wind and southerly wind) were selected as weather conditions for the dynamic prediction of oil drift. If an oil spill occurs near the Koumen (a place near the island of Changxing), the foreca...