[en] BP (British Petroleum) Exploration has been engaged in a world-wide repositioning exercise to improve its business performance. Despite a 40% fall in average oil price, the profitability and revenues have both grown, while the workforce has more than halved. BP is now able to test itself against price assumptions as low as $ 14 a barrel and make as good a return as it was near to $ 20. The paper discusses such a process of repositioning

[en] In 2002 the consolidated turnover of Areva reached 8265 million euros, it means a decrease by 7,2% in comparison with 2001. This decrease is due to the sharp drop of the turnover of the connector sector (-20,7%) while the nuclear sector was stable. The bad figure of connectors engineering is linked to a new collapse of the telecommunication market. In 2002 the operational result of Areva reached 180 million euros, that is to say an increase by 48%, which is a consequence of progress made in the nuclear sector. (A.C.)

[en] In radiotherapy the efficacy of medical imaging is central to the selection and delineation of target volume. Of note is that target volume is intended to be larger than tumour volume, including a geometric margin that accounts for the possible uncertainties in patient set-up. However this reduces potential tissue sparing, irradiating not only the target but also normal tissue. Additionally, features of the object that appear in the 2D image display may be influenced by the appropriate window level selection. This is especially critical for target volume delineation in radiotherapy. The present work seeks to assess the effect of window level selection on feature size in CT, MR and PET images, use being made of a NEMA body phantom and ProSoma^TM 3D simulation software. In general, the window level produced discrepancies of up to ±2 mm in all imaging modalities.

[en] The comprehensive approach adopted for the core design of all LFRs investigated within the LEADER project, proved to effectively drive the design to the fulfillment of the aimed sustainability performances, and the respect of the design constraints for the robust implementation of the inherent safety principle: • the ELFR core is able to operate adiabatically, with a very narrow reactivity swing along a 2.5 y cycle; • wide margins are provided for protecting the fuel and the structures even in case of unprotected transients, allowing for very long grace times

[en] The turnover of Areva reached 10.125 milliard euros in 2005 which means a 3.1% increase. The sale of its connector department has enabled Areva to double its net profit to 1.049 milliard euros. This strategic move aims at re-centering the group's activities on the energy domain. Areva foresees a global improvement in the nuclear industry as nuclear energy begins appearing as an adequate answer to the growth of energy needs and to the environmental concerns linked to the emission of greenhouse gases. Areva expects to take one third of the worldwide nuclear market by 2010 with a 2-figure annual profit. (A.C.)

[en] The European Nuclear Education Network, ENEN Association, is an Association established as an international non-profit association under the French law of 1901, on 22 September 2003, as a result of the “ENEN project” funded by the European Commission. Objectives of ENEN: The main objective is the preservation and further development of expertise in the nuclear fields by higher Education & Training: •Promote and further develop the collaboration in nuclear education and training of students, researchers and professionals •Ensure the quality of nuclear education and training •Increase the attractiveness for engagement in the nuclear fields for students, researchers and professionals •Promote life-long learning and career development at post-graduate or equivalent level

[en] Starting with evidence that United Kingdom Continental Shelf oil and gas companies have benefitted very disproportionately from the recent period of extraordinarily high oil prices, this paper traces the history of this weakness in the UK's petroleum fiscal regime. Evidence is provided that the progressive relaxations in the UK's petroleum fiscal regime in 1983, 1987-1988 and 1993 were: largely unnecessary to stimulate the development of new, smaller, 'marginal' fields; misguided in their assumption that such fields were more costly to develop than earlier counterparts or larger contemporary fields; and impotent compared with the effects of oil price movements. The paper concludes with a conceptualisation which illuminates why these failures of policy were not just random: they emerged from the UK's 'non-proprietorial' stance with respect to the country's oil and gas resources, a stance which assumes responsibility for oil company profitability and vainly tries to counter market forces at the expense of government revenues. (author)

[en] In this paper, I introduce oil swaps as financial instruments available to oil producers and to buyers of crude oil and products, and the positive effects they can provide for marketing profitability. In addition, I seek to underline the complementarity of oil swaps, emphasizing the benefits which can result from efficiently monitored use of such tools. I review the various criteria to be considered when implementing swap arrangements and I examine standard and non-standard examples which I believe to be of interest. Due to the unfortunate fact that exchange market liquidity is limited, I am of the opinion that producers, if they think fit, should start with only a limited amount of their availability covered by such swap arrangements. Nevertheless, I wish to draw the attention of producers and buyers of crude oil and oil products to the benefits of swap arrangements, as described in this paper. (author)

[en] Highlights: • Oil return volatility predicts momentum payoffs in the Chinese stock market. • Oil absorbs the predictive power of stock market volatility and state. • Oil's predictive power is robust to the inclusion of key macroeconomic variables. • Predictability comes from winner industries. • Oil-based momentum strategy generates significant abnormal profits. - Abstract: This study provides a novel perspective to the oil-stock market nexus by examining the predictive ability of oil return and volatility on stock market momentum in China. We find that oil return volatility serves as a strong predictor of industry momentum, even after controlling for stock market state, volatility and key macroeconomic variables. We argue that the predictive ability of oil over momentum payoffs is driven by time-varying investor sentiment that relates to excess buying pressure on winner stocks during uncertain times, captured by oil return volatility. Our tests also show that an oil-based momentum strategy wherein the investor conditions the trade on the state of oil return volatility yields significant abnormal returns, more than double that could be obtained from the conventional momentum strategy. In short, the findings suggest that oil market dynamics can contribute to stock market inefficiencies in such a way that these inefficiencies create significant abnormal profits for active managers.

[en] Purpose: The purpose of this work is to develop a method for inverse planning of radiation therapy margins. When using this method the user specifies a desired target coverage probability and the system optimizes to meet the demand without any explicit specification of margins to handle setup uncertainty. Methods: The method determines which voxels to include in an optimization function promoting target coverage in order to achieve a specified target coverage probability. Voxels are selected in a way that retains the correlation between them: The target is displaced according to the setup errors and the voxels to include are selected as the union of the displaced target regions under the x% best scenarios according to some quality measure. The quality measure could depend on the dose to the considered structure alone or could depend on the dose to multiple structures in order to take into account correlation between structures. Results: A target coverage function was applied to the CTV of a prostate case with prescription 78 Gy and compared to conventional planning using a DVH function on the PTV. Planning was performed to achieve 90% probability of CTV coverage. The plan optimized using the coverage probability function had P(D98 > 77.95 Gy) = 0.97 for the CTV. The PTV plan using a constraint on minimum DVH 78 Gy at 90% had P(D98 > 77.95) = 0.44 for the CTV. To match the coverage probability optimization, the DVH volume parameter had to be increased to 97% which resulted in 0.5 Gy higher average dose to the rectum. Conclusion: Optimizing a target coverage probability is an easily used method to find a margin that achieves the desired coverage probability. It can lead to reduced OAR doses at the same coverage probability compared to planning with margins and DVH functions.