Total (United Kingdom)

ABSTRACT We investigate whether analyst behavior influenced banks' likelihood of winning underwriting mandates for a sample of 16,625 U.S. debt and equity offerings in 1993–2002. We control for the strength of the issuer's investment banking relationships with potential competitors for the mandate, prior lending relationships, and the endogeneity of analyst behavior and the bank's decision to provide analyst coverage. Although analyst behavior was influenced by economic incentives, we find no evidence that aggressive analyst behavior increased their bank's probability of winning an underwriting mandate. The main determinant of the lead‐bank choice is the strength of prior underwriting and lending relationships.

CONTEXT: Selective school-based alcohol prevention programs targeting youth with personality risk factors for addiction and mental health problems have been found to reduce substance use and misuse in those with elevated personality profiles. OBJECTIVES: To report 24-month outcomes of the Teacher-Delivered Personality-Targeted Interventions for Substance Misuse Trial (Adventure trial) in which school staff were trained to provide interventions to students with 1 of 4 high-risk (HR) profiles: anxiety sensitivity, hopelessness, impulsivity, and sensation seeking and to examine the indirect herd effects of this program on the broader low-risk (LR) population of students who were not selected for intervention. DESIGN: Cluster randomized controlled trial. SETTING: Secondary schools in London, United Kingdom. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 1210 HR and 1433 LR students in the ninth grade (mean [SD] age, 13.7 [0.33] years). INTERVENTION: Schools were randomized to provide brief personality-targeted interventions to HR youth or treatment as usual (statutory drug education in class). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants were assessed for drinking, binge drinking, and problem drinking before randomization and at 6-monthly intervals for 2 years. RESULTS: Two-part latent growth models indicated long-term effects of the intervention on drinking rates (β = -0.320, SE = 0.145, P = .03) and binge drinking rates (β = -0.400, SE = 0.179, P = .03) and growth in binge drinking (β = -0.716, SE = 0.274, P = .009) and problem drinking (β = -0.452, SE = 0.193, P = .02) for HR youth. The HR youth were also found to benefit from the interventions during the 24-month follow-up on drinking quantity (β = -0.098, SE = 0.047, P = .04), growth in drinking quantity (β = -0.176, SE = 0.073, P = .02), and growth in binge drinking frequency (β = -0.183, SE = 0.092, P = .047). Some herd effects in LR youth were observed, specifically on drinking rates (β = -0.259, SE = 0.132, P = .049) and growth of binge drinking (β = -0.244, SE = 0.073, P = .001), during the 24-month follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Findings further support the personality-targeted approach to alcohol prevention and its effectiveness when provided by trained school staff. Particularly novel are the findings of some mild herd effects that result from this selective prevention program. TRIAL REGISTRATION: clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00776685.

BACKGROUND: Hospitalisation is often harmful for people with dementia and results in high societal costs, so avoidance of unnecessary admissions is a global priority. However, no intervention has yet reduced admissions of community-dwelling people with dementia. We therefore aimed to examine hospitalisation rates of people with dementia and whether these differ from people without dementia and to identify socio-demographic and clinical predictors of hospitalisation. METHODS: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, and PsycINFO from inception to 9 May 2019. We included observational studies which (1) examined community-dwelling people with dementia of any age or dementia subtype, (2) diagnosed dementia using validated diagnostic criteria, and (3) examined all-cause general (i.e. non-psychiatric) hospital admissions. Two authors screened abstracts for inclusion and independently extracted data and assessed included studies for risk of bias. Three authors graded evidence strength using Cochrane's GRADE approach, including assessing for evidence of publication bias using Begg's test. We used random effects meta-analysis to pool estimates for hospitalisation risk in people with and without dementia. RESULTS: We included 34 studies of 277,432 people with dementia: 17 from the USA, 15 from Europe, and 2 from Asia. The pooled relative risk of hospitalisation for people with dementia compared to those without was 1.42 (95% confidence interval 1.21, 1.66) in studies adjusted for age, sex, and physical comorbidity. Hospitalisation rates in people with dementia were between 0.37 and 1.26/person-year in high-quality studies. There was strong evidence that admission is associated with older age, and moderately strong evidence that multimorbidity, polypharmacy, and lower functional ability are associated with admission. There was strong evidence that dementia severity alone is not associated. CONCLUSIONS: People with dementia are more frequently admitted to hospital than those without dementia, independent of physical comorbidities. Future interventions to reduce unnecessary hospitalisations should target potentially modifiable factors, such as polypharmacy and functional ability, in high-risk populations.

In this introduction, we would like to highlight what appear to be the important landmarks in the history of geostatistical applications in the petroleum industry. What do we mean by geostatistics? In this course, this term will cover the petroleum applications resulting from the pioneering work of Prof. Georges Matheron and his Research Group at the Centre de Geostatistique de l'Ecole des Mines de Paris. As far as this course is concerned, the main pillars of this work are the developments of variogrambased modeling applications. Variogram-based modeling applications can be classified in two broad categories, the first of which can be called deterministic geostatistics and is essentially all the development around kriging. We will see later that this covers a very wide number of techniques, including external drift kriging, error cokriging, factorial kriging, and collocated cokriging. Although kriging is a technique based on a stochastic model, it generates one single model as a result, and it is deterministic in that sense. The second category can be called stochastic geostatistics, and it covers the numerous techniques developed around the conditional simulation concept. Conditional simulation is stochastic in the sense that, as with the Monte-Carlo simulation, it generates a family of realizations of 1D, 2D, or 3D models, all compatible with the a priori model and the existing data. With regard to kriging, conditional simulation includes several techniques, such as indicator simulation, collocated cosimulation, or geostatistical inversion. This explains why this one-day course is subdivided in two half-days, the first half-day presenting the basic concepts and the deterministic family of applications, the second half-day covering the stochastic applications (Fig. 1-1). The most complete synthesis of Matheron's work can be found in Chiles and Delfiner (1999). Isaaks and Srivastava (1989), Hohn (1988), and Deutsch (2002) are also other excellent presentations of geostatistics. Following the work of Matheron, petroleum applications went through different episodes (Fig. 1-2). The first one could be qualified as deterministic mapping. This was the first development of kriging for mapping applications; see, for instance, the papers of Haas and Viallix (1974) or Haas and Jousselin (1976). This period saw the development of commercial mapping applications, such as Bluepack (Renard, 1990). Another important step in the development of 2D mapping applications was Doyen's (1988) paper showing the potential of cokriging for mapping porosity using seismic-derived information and well data. The mid-1980s to mid-1990s saw the explosion of 3D stochastic (simulationbased) reservoir modeling.

In recent years there has been rapid growth in diabetes in Japan which now is one of the nations most affected by the worldwide diabetes epidemic. Diabetes has been identified as a healthcare priority by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW). Type 1 diabetes is rare in Japan, and type 2 diabetes predominates in both adults and children. The growth in diabetes is due to increases in the number of people with type 2 diabetes associated with increased longevity and lifestyle changes. Approximately 13.5% of the Japanese population now has either type 2 diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance. This high prevalence of type 2 diabetes is associated with a significant economic burden, with diabetes accounting for up to 6% of the total healthcare budget. The costs of diabetes are increased in patients with co-morbidities such as hypertension and hyperlipidaemia and in patients who develop complications, of which retinopathy has the highest cost. Costs increase with increasing number of complications. Current guidelines from the Japan Diabetes Society (JDS) recommend a target HbA(1c) of 6.5% for glycaemic control. This is achieved in approximately one third of patients with type 2 diabetes, and Japanese patients typically have lower HbA(1c) than patients in Western countries (e.g. US, UK). Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes have better adherence with diet and exercise recommendations than their peers in Western countries. Sulfonylureas have been the most widely prescribed first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes, although there is increasing use of combination therapy and of insulin.

Variously called enterprises resource planning (ERP) systems, enterprise-wide systems, or enterprise business system, these comprehensive, package software solutions seek to integrate the complete range of a business's processes and functions in order to present a holistic view of the business from a single information and IT architecture. The critical success factors for ERP implementation include top management support, a clear business vision and issues specific to ERP such as ERP strategy and software configuration. However, some of the more important factors are the issue related to re-engineering business processes and the integration of various core processes to the ERP system.

Abstract This paper describes the results of a two-year EC-sponsored project which uses new information provided by repeated seismic acquisitions (4D seismic data) jointly with production data in an extended, efficient and consistent history matching process. This process involves a simultaneous minimisation of the mismatch between all types of measured and simulated data. A gradient-based technique has been developed and tested both in a prototype and in commercial computer-aided history matching software. We show results on real cases, located in the North Sea and the Adriatic Sea, and discuss key issues of such seismic history matching. Most applications of time-lapse seismic to date have been qualitative or semi-quantitative. We propose a quantitative workflow. The seismic contribution in the objective function is defined in terms of elastic parameter variations within the reservoir and the data have been properly scaled using an estimate of seismic uncertainty (covariance matrix). The "observed" values are obtained by inversion of the seismic signal. For the "modelled" values, the flow simulator is coupled with a petro-elastic model to convert simulated fluid and static rock properties into simulated elastic properties. The techniques described in this paper allow us to reconcile production history matched models with 4D information, and to reduce the uncertainty in reservoir properties, which haven't a real impact on the well history, but which significantly drive future behaviour of the field. This is a further step towards the necessary integration of available data for better predictive simulations. Focusing on quantitative combined with qualitative use of data enhances the multidisciplinary approach.

Our new data address the paradox of Late Ordovician glaciation under supposedly high pCO(2) (8 to 22x PAL: preindustrial atmospheric level). The paleobiogeographical distribution of chitinozoan ("mixed layer") marine zooplankton biotopes for the Hirnantian glacial maximum (440 Ma) are reconstructed and compared to those from the Sandbian (460 Ma): They demonstrate a steeper latitudinal temperature gradient and an equatorwards shift of the Polar Front through time from 55 degrees -70 degrees S to approximately 40 degrees S. These changes are comparable to those during Pleistocene interglacial-glacial cycles. In comparison with the Pleistocene, we hypothesize a significant decline in mean global temperature from the Sandbian to Hirnantian, proportional with a fall in pCO(2) from a modeled Sandbian level of approximately 8x PAL to approximately 5x PAL during the Hirnantian. Our data suggest that a compression of midlatitudinal biotopes and ecospace in response to the developing glaciation was a likely cause of the end-Ordovician mass extinction.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the equity implications of insecticide-treated nets (ITN) distribution programmes that are based on user charges. METHODS: A questionnaire was used to collect information on previous purchase of untreated nets and hypothetical willingness to pay (WTP) for ITNs from a random sample of householders. A second survey was conducted one month later to collect information on actual purchases of ITNs. An economic status index was used for characterizing inequity. MAJOR FINDINGS: The lower economic status quintiles were less likely to have previously purchased untreated nets and also had a lower hypothetical and actual WTP for ITNs. CONCLUSION: ITN distribution programmes need to take account of the diversity in WTP for ITNs if they are to ensure equity in access to the nets. This could form part of the overall poverty reduction strategy.

The selective oxidation of furfural to furoic acid is achieved at mild reaction conditions over an AuPd/Mg(OH)₂ heterogeneous catalyst.

ABSTRACT Full‐waveform inversion is an appealing technique for time‐lapse imaging, especially when prior model information is included into the inversion workflow. Once the baseline reconstruction is achieved, several strategies can be used to assess the physical parameter changes, such as parallel difference (two separate inversions of baseline and monitor data sets), sequential difference (inversion of the monitor data set starting from the recovered baseline model) and double‐difference (inversion of the difference data starting from the recovered baseline model) strategies. Using synthetic Marmousi data sets, we investigate which strategy should be adopted to obtain more robust and more accurate time‐lapse velocity changes in noise‐free and noisy environments. This synthetic application demonstrates that the double‐difference strategy provides the more robust time‐lapse result. In addition, we propose a target‐oriented time‐lapse imaging using regularized full‐waveform inversion including a prior model and model weighting, if the prior information exists on the location of expected variations. This scheme applies strong prior model constraints outside of the expected areas of time‐lapse changes and relatively less prior constraints in the time‐lapse target zones. In application of this process to the Marmousi model data set, the local resolution analysis performed with spike tests shows that the target‐oriented inversion prevents the occurrence of artefacts outside the target areas, which could contaminate and compromise the reconstruction of the effective time‐lapse changes, especially when using the sequential difference strategy. In a strongly noisy case, the target‐oriented prior model weighting ensures the same behaviour for both time‐lapse strategies, the double‐difference and the sequential difference strategies and leads to a more robust reconstruction of the weak time‐lapse changes. The double‐difference strategy can deliver more accurate time‐lapse variation since it can focus to invert the difference data. However, the double‐difference strategy requires a preprocessing step on data sets such as time‐lapse binning to have a similar source/receiver location between two surveys, while the sequential difference needs less this requirement. If we have prior information about the area of changes, the target‐oriented sequential difference strategy can be an alternative and can provide the same robust result as the double‐difference strategy.

Earthquakes occur by overcoming fault friction; therefore, quantifying fault resistance is central to earthquake physics. Values for both static and dynamic friction are required, and the latter is especially difficult to determine on natural faults. However, large earthquakes provide signals that can determine friction in situ. The Japan Trench Fast Drilling Project (JFAST), an Integrated Ocean Discovery Program expedition, determined stresses by collecting data directly from the fault 1–2 years after the 2011 M w 9.1 Tohoku earthquake. Geological, rheological, and geophysical data record stress before, during, and after the earthquake. Together, the observations imply that the shear strength during the earthquake was substantially below that predicted by the traditional Byerlee's law. Locally the stress drop appears near total, and stress reversal is plausible. Most solutions to the energy balance require off-fault deformation to account for dissipation during rupture. These observations make extreme coseismic weakening the preferred model for fault behavior. ▪ Determining the friction during an earthquake is required to understand when and where earthquakes occur. ▪ Drilling into the Tohoku fault showed that friction during the earthquake was low. ▪ Dynamic friction during the earthquake was lower than static friction. ▪ Complete stress drop is possible, and stress reversal is plausible.

ABSTRACT Anisotropic variations in attenuation are of interest since they can give information on the fracture system and may be more amenable to measurement than absolute attenuation values. We examine methods for detecting changes in relative attenuation with azimuth from VSP data, and validate the techniques on synthetic data. Analysis of a multi‐azimuth walkaway VSP data set from a fractured hydrocarbon reservoir indicates that such azimuthal variations in P‐wave attenuation are observable. The effects are localized in the reservoir, and analysis allows the prediction of a fracture strike direction, which agrees with geological information. The observed effects can be modelled under reasonable assumptions, which suggests the validity of the link between the anisotropic attenuation and the fracturing.

Many companies are taking a process view as a result of business‐process re‐engineering exercises, statutory compliance (e.g. Securities and Futures Authority), reaction to market forces (e.g. to achieve accreditation under ISO9001:2000 or BS5750) and the promotion of integrated computer and information systems (e.g. computer integrated manufacture). This means questioning the way in which companies operate and has implications for management. Business process modelling (BPM) and business‐process simulation (BPS) help to facilitate process thinking. BPM provides management with a static structured approach to business improvement, providing a “holistic” perspective on how the business operates, and provides a means of documenting the business processes while BPS allows management to study the dynamics of the business and consider the effects of changes without risk. There are a number of BPM and BPS methodologies, approaches and tools available, each of which may be applicable to different circumstances. This paper briefly reviews the diverse literature in relation to manufacturing management. Evidence from the literature indicates that few tools are available for supporting manufacturing‐business‐process‐management and that, except for a few small‐scale processes, BPS implementations in manufacturing have had limited success. This paper identifies the reasons for this and suggests a practical way forward until hardware and software limitations are overcome.

ABSTRACT We study a new curvilinear scheme for wave propagation modelling in presence of topography. The discrete scheme takes advantage of recent developments in areoacoustics. Our new scheme relies on the conventional grid coupled with optimized filters to remove numerical noise in case of strong material heterogeneity. We used non‐centred stencils for free surface implementation and optimized the explicit Runge‐Kutta scheme for the time differencing. We performed a complete theoretical stability and dispersion analysis of the discrete scheme. Finally, we illustrate the numerical accuracy of the new scheme by intensive experiments.

Hospitalisation of people with dementia is associated with adverse outcomes and high costs. We aimed to examine general, i.e. non-psychiatric, hospitalisation rates, changes since 2008 and factors associated with admission. We also aimed to compare admission rates of people with dementia with age-matched people without dementia. We conducted a cohort study of adults ≥ 65 years, with dementia diagnosed during the 2008-2016 study window, derived from a large secondary mental healthcare database in South London, UK. We used national general hospital records to identify emergency and elective hospitalisations. We calculated the cumulative incidence and rate of hospitalisation and examined predictors of hospitalisation using negative binomial regression, with multiple imputation for missing covariate data. We calculated age-standardised admission ratio for people with dementia compared to those without. Of 10,137 people, 50.6% were admitted to hospital in the year following dementia diagnosis and 75.9% were admitted during median 2.5 years follow-up. Annual admission rate was 1.26/person-year of which 0.90/person-year were in emergency. Emergency hospitalisation rate increased throughout the study period. Compared to controls without diagnosed dementia in the catchment area, the age-standardised emergency admission ratio for people with dementia was 2.06 (95% CI 1.95, 2.18). Male, older, white and socio-economically deprived people and those with clinically significant comorbid physical illness, depressed mood, activity of daily living or living condition problems had more hospitalisations. Emergency hospitalisations of people with dementia are higher than those without, and increasing. Many factors associated with admission are social and psychological, and may be targets for future interventions that aim to reduce avoidable admissions.

SUMMARY This paper sets out to review past and current research in operations management, and to explore current and future issues facing the area. It reviews the history of the area, and the patterns of research content and type. It reviews the evolution of lean production connecting the work of Taylor to its development at Toyota, and uses this to propose three key elements of operations management in the 1990s, namely, the core, interfaces and convergence. Current issues relating to research in operations management are explored and it is argued that there is a need for aggressive research agendas. Finally, possible future agendas for the area are explored.

In recognition of JPIM's eleventh year of publication, the editor-in-chief solicited a series of thoughtful contributions from members of the editorial board. Members were asked to reflect upon changes and opportunities that they see influencing our profession during the coming decade. In this issue, Chris Voss examines our growing recognition of the interdependence of a variety of business processes: product innovation, product development, process innovation, technology acquisition, industrial design, total quality management, and quality function deployment. He supports the need to establish tighter linkages among these important elements of a successful new products program, which he labels “total innovation management.” Like earlier contributions, this short essay is designed to introduce new perspectives. It is not essential that you agree with the recommendations, but we hope that you are stimulated as you reflect on the included issues.

Abstract Reservoir modelling is frequently used in the oil industry to measure the risk associated with alternative production scenarios. However, reservoir models themselves contain a high level of uncertainty because of the typically very limited, sparse and multi-scaled reservoir knowledge. The effect of this uncertainty can be assessed by producing a set of diverse models that match the production data reasonably well and using these models to quantify uncertainty in predicting the future performance of the reservoir. Evolutionary and swarm intelligence algorithms have become very popular for history matching due to their simplicity and parallel implementation capacity. This paper focuses on the application of Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) for history matching the Brugge field (a recent SPE benchmark case study). The parameterisation of the model is based on principal component analysis (PCA) for modelling spatially correlated random fields (e.g. porosity, net-to-gross and permeability) applied to the set of initial realisations which describe the range of prior beliefs. The PSO is then used to find the set of possible combinations of parameters, represented by the PCA eigenvalues, which match the historical data and honour the static data from the wells present in the initial realisations. We show that PSO is able to find multiple good and diverse history matched models for the Brugge reservoir without exhaustive sampling of the parameter space. Uncertainty of production forecasts are quantified by P10-P50-P90 uncertainty envelope obtained from the ensemble of PSO models. The history matching results are compared with the ones obtained with Ensemble Kalman Filter data assimilation method. These results show the ability of PSO to handle large history matching problems and obtain results comparable to the EnKF for this case study.

Abstract The use of time-lapse data, or 4D seismic, in conjunction with production data in computer aided history matching of reservoir models requires that the various types of data are incorporated in a single objective function measuring the mismatch between the simulated and measured data. In the context of linear maximum likelihood estimation, the contribution of seismic data and production data to the objective function can be balanced on the basis of the sum of the inverse of the data and model error covariance matrices. Methods to estimate these covariance matrices for the combined set of production data and seismic impedance are presented. Generally, the seismic data will be correlated leading to a nondiagonal error covariance matrix. This matrix will also be very large, and efficient methods to invert this matrix are required. This is done using a very fast discrete convolution inverse based on multiplication of block Toeplitz matrices. It is shown that the regression may converge to a wrong solution if incorrect values for the data correlations are used. The presented methodology is applied to an actual history-matching project using data from a North Sea oil field, and a procedure for mapping the time-lapse seismic data and covariance matrix from the seismic grid to the simulation grid is presented. The data seems to contain information about distribution of gas and oil not recovered by history matching to production data only. However, it turned out to be difficult to obtain a good match to the time-lapse seismic data in the regression. It is not clear whether this is due to large uncertainties in the data, incorrect petroelastic model, or incorrect parameterization. This should be investigated in future work.