Gulf Oil Research Articles

The Revenge Game: U.S Foreign Policy During Afghan-Soviet War and Afghan-Pakistan Falling Into Hell

<p>The U.S Foreign policy during the Soviets encroachment of Afghanistan at the height of Cold War has been evaluated, as well as its negative effects in Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak). During 1979, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R) landed on Afghanistan in order to secure Warm Water Ports and Persian Gulf Oil. (This was called as the “Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan”). By having this situation, The U.S government established a mission in Afghanistan which consisted on two main purposes. One of them was to stand against the invasion of Afghanistan provoked by U.S.S.R. and the second one was to provide Afghan Mujahedeen Movements with some help and be prepared for the coming situation. So, the provision of the most dangerous weapons and the need of billions of dollars were made to these fundamentalist Afghan mujahedeen. Thus, they could protect themselves and fight against the U.S.S.R invasion. As a matter of fact, the Taliban groups were founded due to U.S policy. Nevertheless, the establishment of them has become the biggest general threat to global peace, particularly for Afghanistan and Pakistan. This research consists of three parts which are going to be developed in the order as follows: The internal milieu of Afghanistan and the intervention by U.S.S.R, The U.S policy interests and the outcomes of these policies, The Afghan and Pakistan consequences which were gotten by these policies. This Research is going to be a new source of knowledge for understanding the U.S foreign policy during this War and their negative effects on Afghanistan and Pakistan such as refugee’s settlement and number of other problems. Although Americans just revenge from Soviets but this game also destroyed the Pakistan. Also as an explanation on the nowadays coming international terrorism and how the Afghan insurgents have become strong enough. </p>

Environmental attitudes in the aftermath of the Gulf Oil Spill

In the 1960s and 1970's, prominent environmental disasters seemed to mobilize the U.S. public, and many key environmental laws were subsequently enacted. Theories surrounding public opinion formation, however, generally regard single events as unlikely to impact attitudes in a major way. Given the conflicting evidence provided by anecdotal accounts and public opinion theory, we explore whether the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (Gulf Oil Spill) impacted public concern for the environment in the United States. In this study we use data from a national-level survey implemented before and after the Gulf Oil Spill to examine pre- and post-spill environmental attitudes as measured by a subset of the New Ecological Paradigm scale. We find that there is insufficient evidence to suggest that the recent Gulf Oil Spill had a significant impact on environmental attitudes, a result consistent with theories concerning the influence of individual events on public opinion. Additional findings imply that some types of messages are likely to be more effective than others in public communications about the environment.

Longer-Term Mental and Behavioral Health Effects of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill

Mental health issues are a significant concern after technological disasters such as the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill; however, there is limited knowledge about the long-term effects of oil spills. The study was part of a larger research effort to improve understanding of the mental and behavioral health effects of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill. Data were collected immediately following the spill and the same individuals were resampled again after the second anniversary (n = 314). The results show that mental health symptoms of depression, serious mental illness and posttraumatic stress have not statistically decreased, and anxiety symptoms were statistically equivalent to immediate symptoms. Results also showed that the greatest effect on anxiety is related to the extent of disruption to participants’ lives, work, family, and social engagement. This study supports lessons learned following the Exxon Valdez spill suggesting that mental health effects are long term and recovery is slow. Elevated symptoms indicate the continued need for mental health services, especially for individuals with high levels of disruption resulting in increased anxiety. Findings also suggest that the longer-term recovery trajectories following the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill do not fall within traditional disaster recovery timelines.

Meaning, Resilience, and Traumatic Stress After the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: A Study of Mississippi Coastal Residents Seeking Mental Health Services.

The present study examines the relationship between resilience, perceived meaning in life, and traumatic stress symptoms among coastal residents of Mississippi directly affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also known as the Gulf oil spill). The study was conducted as part of a larger project that assessed the spill's effect on the mental health of individuals seeking therapeutic services. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine if resilience and perceived meaning are significant predictors of scores from a measure of posttraumatic stress. Descriptive data, reliability coefficients, and correlations were also calculated. Higher levels of resilience and meaning together were predictive of fewer posttraumatic stress symptoms after controlling for the effect of the spill. Resilience and meaning appeared to be similar predictors of lower posttraumatic stress scores, and meaning appears to be an important facet of what makes a person resilient.

Perceptions of Trauma and Loss among Children and Adolescents Exposed to Disasters a Mixed-Methods Study

The purpose of the current study was to extend knowledge of youth exposed to multiple disasters and the experience of cumulative childhood adversity by analyzing perceptions of trauma and loss in children and adolescents. A concurrent mixed-methods design was utilized to explore an ethnically diverse, predominantly low-income sample of youth (N = 4,154) aged 8–18 years from three parishes (counties) in Louisiana impacted by Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf Oil Spill. Youth completed assessments of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), hurricane exposure and oil spill stress, and responded to an open-ended question regarding lifetime trauma and loss. Independent coders assigned responses to 30 categories using a qualitative codebook based on both predetermined and emerging information. Codes were compared and contrasted for meaning and grouped into broader, organizing themes. Themes of trauma and loss included: death and loss of others, threats to life, family disruption, interpersonal trauma, and life transitions. Trauma and loss predicted PTSS when controlling for hurricane exposure and oil spill stress. Most trauma and loss conferred generalized risk regardless of event typology, although interpersonal trauma had unique effects. Findings improve understanding of the nature and extent of trauma and loss among youth exposed to multiple disasters. The use of a mixed-methods design clarifies prior findings in the broader trauma literature and child disaster studies. Through identification of vulnerable subgroups and patterns in perceptions of trauma and loss, findings have important implications for prevention and intervention strategies that promote long-term recovery.

Technical and economic feasibility study of flue gas injection in an Iranian oil field

Nowadays, the non-hydrocarbon gases are the main sources for gas injection projects in different countries. The main advantages of the flue gas injection are low cost, readily available sources (which consists mainly of N2 and CO2) and low compressibility in comparison with other gases like CO2 or CH4 (for a given volume at the same conditions). In addition, it occupies more space in the reservoir and it is an appropriate way for CO2 sequestering and consequently reducing greenhouse gases. In the aforementioned method, N2 and/or CO2 is injected into the oil reservoir for miscible and/or immiscible displacement of remaining oil. Moreover, a key parameter in the designing of a gas injection project is the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) which is commonly calculated by running simulation case or implementing conventional correlations. From technical viewpoints, the lower MMP values are more flavor for miscible gas injection process due to lower injection pressure and consequently lower maintenance and lower injection costs. The main aim of this research is to investigate various gas injection methods (N2, CO2, produced reservoir gas, and flue gas) in one of the northern Persian gulf oil fields by a numerical simulation method. Moreover, for each scenario of gas injection technical and economical considerations are took into account. Finally, an economic analysis is implemented to compare the net present value (NPV) of the different gas injection scenarios in the aforementioned oil field.

Factors Contributing to Mental and Physical Health Care in a Disaster-Prone Environment

Environment as a contextual factor plays an important role in southeastern Louisiana, as this area represents a major economic hub for the United States port, petroleum, and fishing industries. The location also exposes the population to both natural and technological disasters, including Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill. This study explored associations among hurricane loss, oil spill disruption, and environmental quality of life on mental and physical health on over 1,000 residents (N = 1,225) using structural equation modeling techniques. Results showed that oil spill distress was associated with increased symptoms of mental and physical health; Hurricane Katrina loss; and decreased environmental quality of life. Findings also indicate that mental health symptoms explain the association among oil spill distress and physical health symptoms—specifically, those that overlap with somatic complaints. These findings provide important support of the need for mental health assessment and service availability for disaster recovery.

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Worker Training Program: Perspectives on the Health and Safety of Workers, Volunteers, and Residents Involved in the Cleanup and Rebuilding of New York City Housing Damaged by Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy damaged or destroyed 76,000 buildings with over 300,000 housing units; nine percent of the total housing in New York City. Sandy also damaged 405 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) buildings, affecting 35,000 units. Affected residents were forced to move in with family, temporary housing, or endured long periods without heat or electricity, as most building systems were located in flooded basements. Additionally, workers, volunteers, and residents who engaged in cleanup were potentially exposed to raw sewage, mold, asbestos, lead, dust, carbon monoxide, as well as electrocution; slips, trips, and falls; and construction-related safety hazards. Stress and trauma were also significant. These exposures may cause death, disease, and injury. The need to provide protection programs and effective training crosses a number of populations including day laborers, volunteer groups, and residents who are involved in cleanup and rebuilding. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Worker Training Program (WTP) has provided funding to more than 20 grantees including universities, labor unions, and other organizations to provide effective worker health and safety and disaster preparedness and response training for more than 20 years. This has built a critical infrastructure in the targeted industrial sectors and unions. WTP has also been active in disasters including September 11, Katrina, the Gulf oil spill, and Sandy. Preventing injury and disease in all the groups that are involved in disaster response, cleanup, and rebuilding warrants extending the NIEHS health and safety programs to volunteers, residents, and worker populations who previously have not had access to hazardous materials and related training programs. This can be accomplished by adapting health and safety programs and just-in-time training to the needs and cultures of these groups. These efforts should also further ongoing approaches to empower grantees and end-users so that they can independently build dynamic health and safety and training programs into their disaster preparedness and response work.

Strategy and Manipulation Tools of Crisis Communication in Printed Media

The study deals with the question what communication strategies and manipulation tools institutions use in the field of mass communication, if they are in a given critical stage and solve disturbed relationships with the public through the unconventional forms of crisis communication. The study examines this issue in the advertising product ‘Understanding is everything’ which was published by Gulf Oil Corporation in 1984. The study shows that the tools of semiotic and discourse analysis are able to interpret the mediated contents of media texts when it detects a discursive field and communication processes which the text enters. The study concludes that different discursive fields and different communication processes and contexts which media products enter, generate different and even excluding interpretations of corporate communication and manipulative strategies.

A Geochemical Investigation of the CO2 Injection Effect on Oil Composition in One of the Eastern Persian Gulf Fields

In this article, by using geochemical methods, the effect of CO2 injection effect on the asphaltene precipitation and changing of other oil components was investigated. This study was performed in one of the eastern Persian Gulf oil fields with an API of 30.5. For this subject, gas injection was executed with a slim-tube instrument and minimum miscibility pressure was also measured. An asphaltene precipitation test and liquid column chromatography test were conducted on the oil samples retrieved from the slim-tube instrument. This study indicates that CO2 influences the oil reservoir properties so intensively that all oil components were changed by the injection.

Messy legacy of Gulf oil spill

There's something amiss with iconic marine animals in the Gulf of Mexico. Five years on from the largest oil spill in US history; effects are still lingering. Sea turtle populations are in retreat, dolphins are in poor shape and whales are avoiding their usual hunting grounds. The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig on Apr 20, 2010 killed 11 workers and the subsequent oil spill wreaked havoc on the region's wildlife. There was an immediate reverse in the recovery of the world's most endangered sea turtle. Until that point, the number of nests of the Kemp's ridley turtle, which neared extinction in the 19808, had been growing for two decades.

Predicting Oil Flow Rate due to Multiphase Flow Meter by Using an Artificial Neural Network

Multiphase flow meters are being utilized to provide quick and accurate well test data in many oil production applications. These include applications in remote or unmanned locations, topside applications that minimize platform space, and subsea applications. Flow rates of phases (oil, gas, and water) are the most important parameters that are detected by multiphase flow meters. Conventional multiphase flow meter data collecting is done in long periods, because of radioactive sources usage as detector and unmanned location due far distance of wells. In this article, a new method for oil rate prediction of wells based on artificial neural networks due to a real case of multiphase flow meters is presented. Temperatures and pressures of lines have been set as input variable of network and oil flow rate as output. In this case a 600 data set of 31 wells in one of the northern Persian Gulf oil fields of Iran was used, which was collected in three-month periods for each well from December 2002 to November 2010. Alternatively, artificial neural networks can be used confidently without personnel and environmental problems.

The Human Consequences of Ecological Violence and Corporate Victimization

An area of ongoing development within international criminal justice has been “green” criminology. Green criminology examines a range of environmental justice concerns that impact local communities as much as the global village. Green criminology often refers to the ecological consequences that arise from the crimes of the powerful. What has, however, been neglected in that approach are the ways in which the forms of ecological harm and injustice associated with the green crimes of the powerful also produce psychological consequences that debilitate people. Beyond the problem of attending to residents traumatized by environmental (e.g., the Gulf Oil spill) disasters, what role should psychiatry/psychology assume as an evidence-based public sector voice for political activism and justice policy reform? This editorial identifies several strategic areas where the ongoing relationship and delicate balance between people and place is devastated because of corporate globalized interests. The essay suggests that these strategic areas represent a novel basis for advancing a public sector psychology whose clinical research, practice, and pedagogy would specifically address the human consequences of ecological violence and corporate victimization. Green crimes include various forms of violence that directly impact ecological stability. This violence produces secondary harm affecting human and nonhuman species that inhabit these ecosystems. For example, green crimes produce numerous public health consequences for communities, and these consequences can vary in type and intensity for people in different geographical regions. In economically “advanced” (dominant/dominating) societies, a great deal of green harm comes in the form of industrial pollution. For instance, in 2012, U.S. firms required to report waste releases and transfers indicated producing 24.7 billion pounds of waste. This included hazardous chemicals that affected peoples’ health resulting in diseases such as cancer. Moreover, studies outside of criminology indicate that some hazardous waste products can alter behavior. Within these “advanced” nations, the greatest physical and mental health burdens resulting from toxic exposure to hazardous pollutants are differentially

BP’s Reputation Repair Strategies during the Gulf Oil Spill

On April 20, 2010, British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, creating the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Analysis of 1,161 BP tweets during the crisis response reflected unexpected reputation repair strategies and responsibility attribution. Situational Crisis Communication Theory suggests that after an accident, PR messages typically reflect low responsibility attribution. Although the official investigation initially did not suggest a preventable crisis, 90% of BP’s tweets reflected high responsibility.

Investigating the use of oil platform marine fouling invertebrates as monitors of oil exposure in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

The concentration of 51 parent and alkylated PAHs was examined in oysters, Ostrea equestris, and corals, Tubastrea coccinea, collected from oil-rig structures off the coast of Louisiana during April and May 2011 to investigate their potential use as monitors for offshore contamination events. Corals and oysters collected from both sampling trips had lower PAH accumulation than most bivalves collected in previous studies near the shoreline of Louisiana and elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. In April, total PAH (TPAH) concentrations ranged from 8.73 to 15.17ngg−1 in corals and 2.52 to 22.04ngg−1 in oysters. In May, corals and oysters had elevated concentrations of TPAH ranging from 24.28 to 79.23ngg−1 and 7.18 to 95.55ngg−1, respectively. This increase could be a result of Mississippi River flooding that occurred during that time, as evidenced by the high perylene concentrations (3.92–41.49ngg−1) measured in May oysters. Oysters and corals collected in May from MC21B, the closest rig to the Mississippi River Delta, had the highest TPAH concentrations observed among all locations and the only rig to have predominantly petrogenic source inputs. Overall, given the low baseline of PAHs demonstrated in this study and the rapid accumulation of diagnostic chemicals in response to a possible contamination event (i.e. sediment plume from May flooding), oil-rig invertebrates could make excellent monitoring tools to examine the exposure to and recovery from oil (and oil-spill response options) in the offshore Northern Gulf of Mexico. Pre-spill baseline data of chemical and biological biomarkers of contamination is key to better estimating the impacts and recovery of oil exposure. Therefore, this screen of PAH accumulation represents a crucial first step in determining baseline contaminant levels in order to utilize these unique resources as monitors for offshore oil exposure in the Northern Gulf of Mexico.

Enhancing graduate student training through collaborative research: Working and learning together in response to the gulf oil spill.

Enhancing graduate student training through collaborative research: Working and learning together in response to the gulf oil spill.

Photocatalytic nanomats clean up produced water from fracking

This paper refers to the transfer of the results of federally funded research towards commercialization in a very short time in order to meet the needs of an emerging and fast growing industry, involving the remediation of produced water from fracking operations on site and at low cost. The focus is on photocatalytic nanogrids: ceramic mats that may be used as covers for produced water stored in ponds and pits. The electrospun mats of the self-supported ceramic photocatalysts are responding to the whole solar spectrum and oxidize benzene and other liquid hydrocarbons in water, turning them into innocuous compounds. There is no hydrocarbon pollution left in the water after catalytic reactions and the nanogrids are reusable. The scalable processing of this technology, as well as the scaled-up proof of concept, is detailed in this work. The pathway from a research funding award in response to the Gulf oil spill remediation, through the inaugural class of the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) cohorts towards a small business development is also outlined. The impact of the visionary and effective I-Corps program on the fast translation of lab-based technology from proof of concept to prototyping for industry validation is also described.

Introduction to Special Section: Behavioral Health and Disasters—Planning for the Next Time

Introduction to Special Section: Behavioral Health and Disasters—Planning for the Next Time

Effects of Stress Related to the Gulf Oil Spill on Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

To examine the interactive effects of stress related to the Gulf oil spill on mental health of children and adolescents on the Gulf Coast who were also affected by previous hurricanes. A prospective design, with n = 1,577 youth (aged 3-18 years), evaluated pre-oil spill and again post-oil spill for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, previous hurricane exposure, and amount of oil spill stress. Stressors related to the spill were common and were associated with PTSD symptoms. Moreover, there was an interactive effect such that those with high preexisting PTSD symptoms, high previous hurricane exposure, and high oil spill stress had the most elevated post-oil spill PTSD symptoms. This study provides initial evidence linking stress related to the Gulf oil spill to youth mental health symptoms. The effects of the oil spill on youth mental health were most evident among those with cumulative risk.

Measuring Resilience With the RS–14: A Tale of Two Samples

The purpose of this study was to systematically examine the psychometric properties of the 14-item Resilience Scale (RS–14; Wagnild, 2009a). Exploratory and confirmatory factor-analytic methods were employed, including an analysis of measurement invariance models by sex and race/ethnicity. Descriptive statistics, reliability, and validity data were also calculated. Analyses were based on 2 samples, one made up of individuals seeking mental health services following the 2010 Gulf oil spill (N = 1,032) and the other made up of university students (N = 1,765). For both samples, all items loaded (>.30) onto 1 factor, indicating cohesive structure for a 1-factor model explaining 53.2% of the variance in the clinical sample and 67.6% of the variance in the undergraduate sample. Further, the examination of measurement invariance indicated that the RS–14 was similarly structured for sex and race/ethnicity. Reliability coefficients exceeded.90 for both samples and also when data were examined by comparison groups. The RS–14 correlated significantly and as expected with measures of positive concepts (such as perceived meaning in life and satisfaction with life) and indexes of psychological distress (such as depression, anxiety, stress, and posttraumatic stress). These data support the utility of the RS–14 with clinical and undergraduate student samples. Implications for these data are discussed.