bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Disinfection of Endoscopy and Reusability of Accessories
Authors: Rai Praveer
Published: May 2020

Corona viruses are a group of medium-sized positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses with crown-like structure due to projections noted over the surface of the virus. The infection has been declared as a pandemic by the world health organization (WHO) in March 2020. Health care professionals in endoscopy are at high risk of infection by novel corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from inhalation of droplets, conjunctival contact, feces, and touch contamination. Upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy is considered to be a high-risk aerosol-generating procedures (AGPs) and the live virus has been found in patient stool. Flexible endoscopes when contaminated have been considered as the vector for transmission of infections. Infections related to the side viewing endoscopes and endoscopic ultrasound scopes are more frequent than upper GI scope and colonoscopes. Stratifying patients needing endoscopy and deferral of elective procedures will help to decrease the virus spread. Planning and revision of workflows is necessary for safety of patient and staff and to successfully provide infection prevention and control measures, for this a “three zones and two passages” concept should be followed. Manual cleaning followed by high-level disinfection (HLD), effectively eliminates nearly all microorganisms from endoscopes during reprocessing. Transmission of viral infections during endoscopy is quite rare and, it is usually the result of noncompliance from the essential steps of reprocessing. Reuse of any disposable GI endoscopic device is strongly discouraged. Environmental decontamination is essential to reduce the risk of fomite transmission. Noncritical environmental surfaces frequently touched by hands (e.g., bedside tables and bed rails) and endoscopy furniture and floor should be considered heavily contaminated in patients with intermediate or high risk of COVID-19 and should be thoroughly disinfected at the end of each procedure. If available, negative pressure rooms are preferred for endoscopy, as has been advised by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Staff involved in reprocessing and the cleaning of endoscopy rooms should utilize personal protective equipment (PPE) including N95 mask. Reprocessing staff should undergo necessary training and ongoing annual assessment of competency.
Indications for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Authors: Gunjan Deepak , Garg Pramod
Published: May 2020

The global pandemic due to COVID-19 presents an unprecedented challenge to mankind including healthcare providers. Many COVID-19 infected patients may present with gastrointestinal symptoms. Endoscopic services may be required in complicated COVID-19 infected or suspected patients. In addition, resource allocation would demand judicious use of endoscopy services. There is a definite risk of transmission of COVID-19 during endoscopy to healthcare professionals. We recommend that only emergency and life-saving endoscopic procedures should be performed during COVID-19 pandemic, and semi-elective procedures should be performed after careful consideration. All routine endoscopy procedures should be deferred till normal hospital services resume. For emergency endoscopy procedures, prescreening of patients is critical to avoid nosocomial transmission. To prevent cross-infection among healthcare professionals, strict infection control measures should be practiced in endoscopy suite while providing essential endoscopic services to the patients.
Navigating Through the Financial Crisis that may Occur during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic for Gastroenterologists
Authors: Patel Dipam A. , Shah Chirag Narendrakumar
Published: May 2020

Introduction Considering the specific set of gastrointestinal endoscopy practitioners, it is witnessed that the number of patients forelective procedures are being deferred by the patients amid various concerns ranging from financial constraint to the fear of infection from the dreaded coronavirus. With Routine endoscopy procedures recommended to be safely postponed, the impact on the practice of Gastrointestinal Endoscopists shall be magnified.

Assessment and Strategy The article discusses impact and remedial actions that may be taken by Gastrointestinal Endoscopists, which classified into:

- Anindependent practitioner

- A consultant

- An employee

The article further touches upon the difficulties that might be envisaged by the Gastrointestinal Endoscopists, and obtain a financial understanding of what could potentially lead to an existential crisis?

Those with cash reserves sit in a pleasant position i.e. they can buy assets at an attractive price, experiment with new ideas, research and development, etc.
It is imperative in these times to understand the uncertainty cast on operations of Gastrointestinal Endoscopists and prepare a response plan for coming out of this economic crisis. A roadmap also has been devised which provides a possible outline of a plan that can be implemented for handling the economic crisis.

It is also important to answer these two questions:

1. Who do I want to be during the crisis?

2. Who do I want to be when this is over?
Stochastic dynamics of an active particle escaping from a potential well
Authors: Gu Shuting , Qian TieZheng , Zhang Hao , Zhou Xiang
Published: May 2020

Active matter systems are driven out of equilibrium by the energy directly supplied at the level of constituent active particles that are self-propelled. We consider a model for an active particle in a potential well, characterized by an active velocity with a constant magnitude but a random orientation subject to white noises. We are interested in the escape of the active particle from the potential well in multiple-dimensional space. We investigate two distinct optimal paths, namely, the shortest arrival-time path and the most probable path, by using the analytical and numerical techniques from optimal control and rare event modeling. In particular, we elucidate the relationship between these optimal paths and the reachable set using the Hamiltonian dynamics for the shortest arrival-time path and the geometric minimum action method for the most probable path, respectively. Numerical results are presented by applying these techniques to a two-dimensional double-well potential.
Quantization of pseudoclassical systems in the Schrödinger realization
Authors: Allen Theodore J. , Spector Donald , Wilson Christopher
Published: May 2020

We examine the quantization of pseudoclassical dynamical systems, models that have classically anticommuting variables, in the Schrödinger picture. We quantize these systems, which can be viewed as classical models of particle spin, using the generalized Gupta–Bleuler method as well as the reduced phase space method in even dimensions. With minimal modifications, the standard constructions of Schrödinger quantum mechanics of constrained systems work for pseudoclassical systems. We generalize the standard Schrödinger norm and implement the correct adjointness properties of observables and constraints. We construct the state space corresponding to spinors as physical wave functions of anticommuting variables, finding that there are superselection sectors in both the physical and ghost subspaces. The physical states are isomorphic to those of the Dirac–Kähler formulation of fermions, though the inner product in Dirac–Kähler theory is not equivalent to ours.
Gated detection of supercontinuum pulses enables optical probing of solid and molten silicates at extreme pressure–temperature conditions
Authors: Lobanov Sergey S. , Schifferle Lukas , Schulz Reiner
Published: May 2020

Optical studies of materials at high pressure–temperature (P-T) conditions provide insights into their physical properties that may be inaccessible to direct determination at extreme conditions. Incandescent light sources, however, are insufficiently bright to optically probe samples with radiative temperatures above ∼1000 K. Here we report on a system to perform optical absorption experiments in a laser-heated diamond anvil cell at T up to at least 4000 K. This setup is based on a pulsed supercontinuum (broadband) light probe and a gated CCD detector. Precise and tight synchronization of the detector gates (3 ns) to the bright probe pulses (1 ns) diminishes the recorded thermal background and preserves an excellent probe signal at high temperature. We demonstrate the efficiency of this spectroscopic setup by measuring the optical absorbance of solid and molten (Mg,Fe)SiO3, an important constituent of planetary mantles, at P ∼30 GPa and T ∼1200 K to 4150 K. Optical absorbance of the hot solid (Mg,Fe)SiO3 is moderately sensitive to temperature but increases abruptly upon melting and acquires a strong temperature dependence. Our results enable quantitative estimates of the opacity of planetary mantles with implications to their thermal and electrical conductivities, all of which have never been constrained at representative P-T conditions, and call for an optical detection of melting in silicate-bearing systems to resolve the extant ambiguity in their high-pressure melting curves.
Formation of laterally ordered quantum dot molecules by in situ nanosecond laser interference
Authors: Wang Yun-Ran , Han Im Sik , Jin Chao-Yuan , Hopkinson Mark
Published: May 2020

We demonstrate the growth and surface characterization of laterally ordered arrays of InAs quantum dot molecules (QDMs) on GaAs (100) substrates produced by a combination of in situ interferometric nanopatterning and molecular beam epitaxy growth. Four-beam ultraviolet laser interference is applied during the growth process resulting in the formation of quasi two-dimensional islands due to localized surface diffusion. With further InAs deposition, the edges of the islands are observed to act as preferential sites for the nucleation of InAs quantum dots. Well-ordered square arrays of lateral QDMs with a period of 300 nm and site occupancy ranging from single dot up to hexa-molecules are obtained by varying the InAs coverage from 1.55 ML to 1.75 ML.
Universal trade-off between proximity and aspect-ratio in optimizing the field enhancement factor of large area field emitters
Authors: de Assis Thiago A. , Dall'Agnol Fernando F. , Cahay Marc
Published: May 2020

The apex-field enhancement factor (aFEF) is regarded as a meaningful parameter to characterize field electron emission (FE) devices. If experimentally extracted from orthodox current–voltage characteristics, this parameter reliably quantifies how much the emitter's sharp tip locally magnifies the applied external electrostatic field. Many experimental works have reported FE from arrays of carbon nanotubes with fixed spacing (c) between nearest-neighbor emitters, fixed apex-radii (r), and various height (h) and claimed the existence of an aspect ratio (h/r) at which a local maximum effective aFEF is achieved. Hereafter, it is shown that those results are not consistent with simulations using basic electrostatics for both finite or infinite regular square arrays of emitters. Quite interestingly, our results show that the aFEF (γa), for an emitter in an infinity regular array, simply saturates at γs for h≳0.7c. Additionally, we found a universal behavior in which γa scales as γa∼γs(h/c)0.84, when h≲0.7c, for h/r≳50. These results provide a practical rule for the design of large arrays of field emitters, which can be used to build FE nanoelectromechanical resonators with both mechanical strength and reduced Joule losses.
Serious Injury and Fatality Prevention (SIFP): a structured program designed to prevent serious injuries and fatalities in the workplace
Authors: Robinson Grant
Published: May 2020

As industry continues the challenge to drive down the frequency of low- and medium-level injuries in the workplace, one of the key challenges for safety professionals is in the prevention of serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs). There has been significant research into this area, and it is apparent that the causal factors that often contribute to SIFs are different to those of other less-serious lagging indicators. This presentation describes one approach that has been developed and implemented globally across TechnipFMC to help identify key risk activities and implement a structured mitigation process based on the hierarchy of controls.
Reconciling the marriage of renewables and gas in the Australian energy market
Authors: Stabler Joshua
Published: May 2020

Australian energy markets have been heavily influenced by the rapid rise of renewable energy projects (wind and solar) during the past three years on both the east and west coasts. While the east and west coast wholesale gas prices have followed very different trajectories, the fundamental implications of new competitive zero cost supply to the electricity industry is similar. While primarily focused on the sharper implications on the east coast energy markets, this paper will also investigate the twin case study of Western Australia and investigate the economic case of gas in the very different electricity market of the 2020s.
Use of machine learning on SCADA data for asset's prognostics health management
Authors: Cesa Alexandre , Press Elliot
Published: May 2020

The timely detection of anomalies in the process industry is paramount to ensure effective and safe operation of plant. There typically exists an abundance of historical data recorded in Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, which is most often used for understanding past events through, for example, root cause analysis. It is envisaged that higher levels of insight could be achieved from the same datasets by utilising more advanced analytical techniques such as machine learning frameworks. This would enable moving from a ‘diagnosis–mitigation’ (i.e. a root cause analysis) paradigm to a more desirable ‘detection–prediction–prognosis–prevention’ paradigm. Machine learning techniques can be used on SCADA data to support the detection of plant anomaly conditions that do not necessary manifest as process alarms for example. We used a Bayesian network framework on the Tennessee Eastman Plant benchmark problem to demonstrate the technique’s capability. Our model proved to be effective in detecting anomalous plant conditions in most situations.
A comparison of fractal methods for evaluation of hydraulic fracturing surface roughness
Authors: Movassagh Abbas , Zhang Xi , Arjomand Elaheh , Haghighi Manouchehr
Published: May 2020

Surface roughness is a crucial parameter in the hydraulic fracturing process, affecting rock toughness, fluid flow and proppant transport; however, the scale-dependent nature of hydraulic fracture surfaces is not well studied. In this paper, we examined four fractal methods, compass, box-counting, variation and roughness-length, to evaluate and compare the fractal dimension of the surface roughness profiles created by laboratory hydraulic fracturing. Synthetic surface profiles were generated by the Weierstrass-Mandelbrot function, which was initially used to test the accuracy of the four methods. Each profile had a predefined fractal dimension that was revisited by these methods. Then, the fractal analysis was performed for experimental fracture surfaces, which were created by a hydraulic fracturing experiment in a true triaxial situation. By comparing fractal analysis results, we found that for both synthetic and laboratory fracture height profiles, the roughness-length method provides a relatively more reliable estimation of the fractal dimension. This method predicts the dimension for synthetic surface within an error of less than 1%, considering a wide range of surface heights from centimetres down to micrometres. By increasing the fractal dimension of surface profiles, the error of fractal estimation increased for all four methods. Among them, the variation method provided the closest results to the roughness-length method when considering both experimental and synthetic surfaces. The evaluated fractal dimension may provide a guideline for either field- or laboratory-scale hydraulic fracturing treatments to evaluate the effects of surface roughness on fracture growth.
IOGP Global Production Report 2019 and Production Indicator©
Authors: Checchi Arianna
Published: May 2020

This paper builds on the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers’ (IOGP) Global Production Report 2019, published in November 2019. The Report provides an incisive look at the world’s oil and gas production and demand trends in seven regions: Africa, Asia–Pacific, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Europe, the Middle East, North America and Central and South America. By dividing daily production in thousands of barrels for oil (and billion cubic metres per year) by demand within each region, the Report provides a unique IOGP Production Indicator© (PI), which demonstrates regional self-sufficiency as well as export potential. Based on the latest BP Statistical Review of World Energy, published in June 2019, the Report draws its conclusions from 2018 data. This paper analyses the data and trends supplied by the Report, extrapolating the main messages revealed by the figures. At the core of the paper are analyses of and comparisons among the regional oil and gas PIs of the Global Production Report 2019. Through the PI, this paper looks ahead and considers the implications of regional production versus demand (both oil and gas) for each region, presenting key conclusions stemming from the PIs in different parts of the world.
The Hayfield Sandstone Play: the characterisation of a Mesoproterozoic sourced, Proterozoic sandstone reservoired, tight oil and gas play in the Beetaloo Sub-basin
Authors: Altmann Carl , Richards Brenton , Côté Alexander , Bein Cassandra , Baruch-Jurado Elizabeth , Jenkinson Les
Published: May 2020

The Hayfield Sandstone is a Neoproterozoic, 10–15 m thick, very fine- to fine-grained sandstone, interpreted to have been deposited in a shelfal-marine environment. The reservoir sandstone is characterised by high porosity and low matrix permeability, which is complimented by partially mineralised open fractures which may contribute significantly to overall system permeability. Hydrocarbon phase across the identified play fairway is interpreted to range from a gas with the potential for condensate and liquefied petroleum gas streams to a light, ~38 API gravity oil. The extent of the prospective play fairway and the distribution and connectivity of reservoir facies is poorly constrained due to a limited number of well penetrations and poor resolution 2D seismic data. From the wells drilled to date, the gross area of the prospective play fairway could be as low as 300 km2 or greater than 1500 km2.
Exploring for the Future—a new oil and gas frontier in northern Australia
Authors: Henson Paul , Robinson David , Carr Lidena , Edwards Dianne S. , MacFarlane Susannah K. , Jarrett Amber J. M. , Bailey Adam H. E.
Published: May 2020

Exploring for the Future (EFTF) is a four-year, AU$100.5 million initiative from the Australian Government conducted by Geoscience Australia in partnership with state and Northern Territory government agencies, CSIRO and universities to provide new geoscientific datasets for frontier regions. As part of this program, Geoscience Australia acquired two new seismic surveys that collectively extend across the South Nicholson Basin (L120 South Nicholson seismic line) and into the Beetaloo Sub-basin of the McArthur Basin (L212 Barkly seismic line). Interpretation of the seismic has resulted in the discovery of new basins that both contain a significant section of presumed Proterozoic strata. Integration of the seismic results with petroleum systems geochemistry, structural analyses, geochronology, rock properties and a petroleum systems model has expanded the knowledge of the region for energy exploration. These datasets are available through Geoscience Australia’s newly developed Data Discovery Portal: an online platform delivering digital geoscientific information, including seismic locations and cross-section images, and field site and well based sample data. Specifically for the EFTF energy project, a petroleum systems framework with supporting organic geochemical data has been built to access source rock, crude oil and natural gas datasets via interactive maps, graphs and analytical tools that enable the user to gain a better and faster understanding of a basin’s petroleum prospectivity.
A regulator's perspective: well integrity considerations in decommissioning
Authors: Hick Claire , O’Keeffe Derrick , Bourne Mark
Published: May 2020

With several petroleum fields in offshore Australia approaching the end of their economic life, it is widely recognised that there is an upcoming wave of well decommissioning. Decommissioning of wells (also known as ‘plug and abandonment’ or well abandonment) presents well integrity and, in some instances, well control challenges. Deferral of well abandonment is likely to make the task more difficult; wells are continually ageing and, meanwhile, the benchmark for what constitutes a compliant abandonment tends to get higher over time. It is a common objective of industry, government and society that wells are decommissioned properly so that they do not present future safety or environmental risk. Decommissioning a well safely requires that it has been maintained properly with a reliable dataset and documentation history. A clear framework for managing and monitoring well integrity in all phases of the well lifecycle is a prerequisite, as demonstrated in international standards and guidelines such as ISO 16530. Well decommissioning requires collaboration across industry partners to foster research and development, reduce risk and lower cost.
Turning the tide: the transformation of the North Sea
Authors: Del Maestro Adrian , Stevens Craig
Published: May 2020

As part of the Sea Change campaign, we looked at the evolution of the UK North Sea, interviewing over 20 senior stakeholders across the value chain ranging from operators, oil services and regulators, to academia, private equity and banks. We collected their views across three themes: (1) Competitiveness of the basin – Recognition that the supply chain in the basin has been exposed to enough pressure and was not sustainable going forward. New business models were required to incentivise collaboration between operators and oil services. (2) Investment in the basin – Respondents confirmed that private equity and smaller operators would continue to play a major role. However, in a post private equity world, the emergence of private capital from developing countries might proliferate in the North Sea. (3) Energy transition and impact on the basin – For investors it was increasingly challenging to justify investments in oil and gas due to commodity price volatility and growing concerns around environmental, social and governance themes. Nevertheless, the sector had a need to articulate the value it brought and the importance of hydrocarbons in facilitating the energy transition. The basin has the potential to become a ‘test laboratory’ for the energy transition – from low carbon solutions to decommissioning. All these themes are extremely relevant to the Australian upstream sector. We explore the emergence of new partnership models between operators and oil field services and how a mature basin continues to attract investment and adapt to a lower carbon world.
King Reef: an Australian first in repurposing oil and gas infrastructure to benefit regional communities
Authors: Florisson James H. , Rowland Andrew J. , Harvey Euan S. , Allen Mathew B. , Watts Stephanie L. , Saunders Benjamin J.
Published: May 2020

The Exmouth Integrated Artificial Reef (King Reef) was deployed in July 2018 and is the first installation in Australia to innovatively combine repurposed oil and gas infrastructure with purpose-built concrete reef modules. The project involved a collaborative approach between industry, government (state and commonwealth), researchers and the community, creating a world-leading engineering solution using science-based habitat enhancement. The project integrated six mid-depth buoys with 49 artificial reef modules, providing more than 27000 m3 of habitat. Once support structures for subsea facilities, the decommissioned assets are now important habitat features that increase ecosystem productivity. The unique design and configuration of the structures on the sea floor resulted in a rapid increase in the diversity and abundance of marine biota, as detected by a collaboration between citizen scientists and researchers. Within 2 years, over 90 species of fish have already been observed, which is much greater than the sand habitat upon which the reef was installed. The results contribute to informed discussions, about the viability and effectiveness of artificial structures providing industry, regulators and the community with confidence around the benefits and effects of various installations. The Exmouth community has been advocating for the installation of an artificial reef for several years. At King Reef, the integration and repurposing of assets provide a range of long-term benefits to communities, including fostering community ownership and stewardship of these assets while providing new, safe and accessible fishing and diving opportunities.
The application of dynamic modelling technique on the pipeline drying operation during pre-commissioning
Authors: Chen Diwu , Duff Andrew , Willcocks John
Published: May 2020

The objective of pipeline drying during pre-commissioning is to remove residual water left in the pipeline after dewatering and desalination operations. Removing the residual water mitigates corrosion and hydrate formation and aids quicker delivery of product to required dryness. The common pipeline drying methods are vacuum drying and convection drying. The convection drying method blows dry air through the pipeline to remove the residual water. Its disadvantages are an inability to adequately dry complex-shaped pipeline networks, significant equipment footprint and expelling air noise during the convection drying operation. The vacuum drying method can achieve low dewpoints particularly for complex-shaped pipeline networks and the equipment footprint can also be smaller than for the convection drying method. Therefore, it is advantageous when facing space restrictions for equipment. This paper introduces a dynamic integrated model to simulate the pipeline drying operation. This model considers vacuum pump performance and gas saturation condition in the pipeline during the drying operation. The modelling results can be used to determine the vacuum drying suitability, predict the drying operation duration and identify opportunities to improve the pipeline drying efficiency, such as vacuum pump performance, dry gas injection and convection dry air flow rate. It also demonstrates where vacuum drying is unlikely to be feasible, i.e. low ambient temperature conditions, and methods for identifying such. An optimisation case study is also presented. The drying duration can be reduced significantly by integrating vacuum drying with dry gas injection. This combined methodology can thus significantly improve the pipeline vacuum drying efficiency, which reduces the project cost and improves and de-risks scheduled and simultaneous operations.
Can Australian LNG continue to be competitive?
Authors: Toleman Daniel
Published: May 2020

Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) has dominated headlines over the last decade for both good and bad reasons. But, the world that Australian LNG will face over the next decade will look very different: the energy transition will accelerate and LNG customers’ requirements will change. Industry must keep pace, as LNG is hugely important for Australia. A wave of new LNG investment is building. It is a distinct possibility that little of that capital will be directed towards expanding Australian developments. Projects in Qatar, the US, Africa and Russia are leading the charge, given their access to cheap gas and/or low construction costs. Australia has several projects vying for final investment decision. Many of these will utilise existing infrastructure, so they should be competitive. However, due to technical challenges and partner alignment issues, many projects are moving slowly and are at the wrong end of the global cost curve. Given these challenges, what can industry do to improve Australia’s competitiveness? To compete in this new environment, Australian investors need to start operating in new ways. This paper will discuss some of the key moves that companies – and other stakeholders – should consider if they want to attract investment in a hyper-competitive global environment. Is collaboration and sharing of infrastructure the answer? Do we need to see more merger and acquisition, first to unblock the log-jam and then to allow new players to unlock the commercial complexity? Are there other non-financial metrics, like carbon or green LNG, that could influence company behaviour, and therefore, give Australian projects a new edge?
Thermal maturity and reservoir quality of the Velkerri Formation, Beetaloo Sub-basin, Northern Territory
Authors: Delle Piane Claudio , Uysal I. Tonguç , Faiz Mohinudeen , Pan Zhejun , Bourdet Julien , Li Zhongsheng , Raven Mark D , Dewhurst David N
Published: May 2020

The Proterozoic (~1.43 Ga) Velkerri Formation (McArthur Basin, Northern Territory) is believed to host one of the world’s oldest petroleum systems. Drilling and production tests demonstrated the encouraging potential of this unconventional gas resource and current efforts are aimed at better defining the extent of the gas and liquid-rich portions of this shale play. In this context, we conducted a comprehensive characterisation of specimens from the Amungee Member of the Velkerri Formation (previously referred to as the Middle Velkerri) sampled along a thermal maturity gradient from wells drilled across the Beetaloo Sub-basin. The scope of our analysis was to shed light on how the organic matter in the Velkerri Formation is affected by thermal maturity and how this affects the pore structure of the host rock. To this end, we integrated light and electron microscopy imaging with Raman spectroscopy and pyrolysis techniques to define the maturity of the sediments and visualise the shale pore network. In concert with the direct imaging, bulk samples were experimentally tested to measure their gas permeability and gas adsorption capacity. The results indicate that porosity is mostly organic-hosted with pore size dominated by meso- and micro-pores (i.e. <50 nm). Methane adsorption isotherms measured at temperatures up to 80°C also show that organic content is one of the main factors controlling the amount of adsorbed gas in the Velkerri shale.
The role of supercritical CO2 in gas well health issue – liquid loading
Authors: Haq Bashirul , Shehiwin Fahad , Al Shehri Dhafer , Liu Jishan , Muhammed Nasiru , Mohammad Emad , Al Hamad Jafar , Al-Ramadhan Ammar , Iddris Abdulsamed , Barri Assad
Published: May 2020

Liquid load or condensate banking is a common well health issue in gas/gas-condensate reservoirs that decreases well productivity by a factor of two to four. Due to the depletion of bottom-hole pressure, the produced liquid accumulates around the wellbore and creates a static column of liquid that reduces gas production until well production ceases. Enhancing gas recovery by CO2 injection is a promising technology because it reduces greenhouse gas emissions and improves CO2 storage. More investigation needs to be conducted to understand the role of supercritical CO2 (SCCO2) in minimising liquid loading. The aim of this research is to examine the impact of SCCO2 in surface tension, condensate viscosity and well productivity. This study consists of simulation and laboratory experiments. Eclipse 300 was used to develop a model that examines the effect of SCCO2 injection on reducing liquid loading issues by varying the well parameters. We found that injecting SCCO2 improved the microscopic displacement efficiency and minimised liquid loading by decreasing the condensate viscosity and the surface tension. The model shows that (1) condensate recovery increases when the injection rate increases up to a limit after which there is no change of production and (2) condensate recovery improves with decreasing production rate.
Collaboration solves long standing corrosion problem
Authors: Brameld M. , Thomas S. , Malab G. S.
Published: May 2020

External pitting corrosion has been a long standing issue for stainless steel pressure equipment systems on Woodside offshore facilities. Experience has shown that this pitting cannot be effectively managed by inspection and, as a result, the current policy is that piping replacement should be planned once the presence of significant pitting corrosion has been identified. All Woodside offshore facilities have 316-grade stainless steel pressure equipment which is experiencing active external corrosion pitting to varying degrees. This represents the potential for hundreds of millions of dollars in piping replacement across the company. STOPAQ is an established product for the mitigation of external corrosion in carbon steel equipment however, it has not previously been used at Woodside on stainless steel equipment to address pitting corrosion. Through collaboration with the Woodside Future Laboratory at Monash University, Materials and Corrosion Engineering, Woodside Energy Limited has challenged the old established theory regarding the mechanism of pitting in stainless steel and a test program has been devised to validate the new way of thinking, which postulates that elimination of moisture and oxygen from the pits, by the application of an impervious layer like STOPAQ, will stifle the corrosion reaction and arrest the pitting. A recently completed test program at Monash which utilised computed tomography (CT) scanning, to very accurately determine the volume of corrosion pits, has confirmed that the application of STOPAQ to pitted stainless steel is very effective at mitigating this type of corrosion.
Two auxiliary factors promote Dmc1-driven DNA strand exchange via stepwise mechanisms
Authors: Tsubouchi Hideo , Argunhan Bilge , Ito Kentaro , Takahashi Masayuki , Iwasaki Hiroshi
Published: May 2020

Significance

Homologous recombination (HR) is highly induced during meiosis as it plays an essential role in segregating chromosomes at the first division of meiosis. Dmc1 is the major enzyme responsible for homology searching and strand exchange in meiosis. However, in the cell, Dmc1 cannot function without two major auxiliary factors, Hop2-Mnd1 and Swi5-Sfr1. How these auxiliary factors collaborate to facilitate Dmc1’s activity remained elusive. Here, we demonstrate that Hop2-Mnd1 allows Dmc1 to access and initiate strand invasion into homologous dsDNA while Swi5-Sfr1 acts to stabilize Dmc1 binding to single-stranded DNA and promote strand exchange with Hop2-Mnd1. Thus, our findings provide fundamental insights into the mechanism of meiotic HR, which is central to inheritance and evolution.
Functional stability of water wire–carbonyl interactions in an ion channel
Authors: Paulino Joana , Yi Myunggi , Hung Ivan , Gan Zhehong , Wang Xiaoling , Chekmenev Eduard Y. , Zhou Huan-Xiang , Cross Timothy A.
Published: May 2020

Significance

Despite the well-characterized structural symmetry of the dimeric transmembrane antibiotic gramicidin A, we show that the symmetry is broken by selective hydrogen bonding between eight waters comprising a transmembrane water wire and a specific subset of the 26 pore-lining carbonyl oxygens of the gramicidin A channel. The
17
O NMR spectroscopic resolution of the carbonyl resonances from the two subunits required the use of a world record high field magnet (35.2 T; 1,500 MHz for
1
H). Uniquely, this result documented the millisecond timescale stability of the water wire orientation within the gramicidin A pore that had been reported to have only subnanosecond stability. These
17
O spectroscopic results portend wide applications in molecular biophysics and beyond.
Redundant and additive functions of the four Lef/Tcf transcription factors in lung epithelial progenitors
Authors: Gerner-Mauro Kamryn N. , Akiyama Haruhiko , Chen Jichao
Published: May 2020

In multicellular organisms, paralogs from gene duplication survive purifying selection by evolving tissue-specific expression and function. Whether this genetic redundancy is also selected for within a single cell type is unclear for multimember paralogs, as exemplified by the four obligatory Lef/Tcf transcription factors of canonical Wnt signaling, mainly due to the complex genetics involved. Using the developing mouse lung as a model system, we generate two quadruple conditional knockouts, four triple mutants, and various combinations of double mutants, showing that the four Lef/Tcf genes function redundantly in the presence of at least two Lef/Tcf paralogs, but additively upon losing additional paralogs to specify and maintain lung epithelial progenitors. Prelung-specification, pan-epithelial double knockouts have no lung phenotype; triple knockouts have varying phenotypes, including defective branching and tracheoesophageal fistulas; and the quadruple knockout barely forms a lung, resembling the
Ctnnb1
mutant. Postlung-specification deletion of all four Lef/Tcf genes leads to branching defects, down-regulation of progenitor genes, premature alveolar differentiation, and derepression of gastrointestinal genes, again phenocopying the corresponding
Ctnnb1
mutant. Our study supports a monotonic, positive signaling relationship between CTNNB1 and Lef/Tcf in lung epithelial progenitors as opposed to reported repressor functions of Lef/Tcf, and represents a thorough in vivo analysis of cell-type-specific genetic redundancy among the four Lef/Tcf paralogs.
Count and mass nouns in Dâw
Authors: Storto Luciana R.
Published: May 2020

The goals of this paper are to describe the grammatical properties of nouns and number in Dâw (Naduhup family, Northwestern Amazonia, Brazil) using Lima & Rothstein’s questionnaire (this volume) on mass versus count nouns and to contribute to the typological and semantic literature on nouns and number. Our results show that Dâw is a bare argument language, with no plural on nouns or numeral classifiers, in which all nouns can be counted directly without the need of a measure or container phrase. A difference between notionally count and mass nouns can be found only when different sets of quantifiers are combined with mass and count nouns and in comparatives.
Count, mass, number and numerals in Kuikuro (Upper Xingu Carib)
Authors: Franchetto Bruna
Published: May 2020

This article deals with the multiple reflexes of the mass versus count distinction in Kuikuro, a dialect of a southern-branch language of the Carib family, spoken by 600 people at the edge of Brazilian Southern Amazonia. It updates and deepens previous research results presented inFranchetto et al. (2013). It is organized into four sections. After a summary profile of Kuikuro morphosyntax, the second and third sections present, respectively, the resources available for pluralization, with their sensitivity to the animate/inanimate and count/mass distinctions, and the system of cardinal numerals. Both sections are a required introduction to the rest of the article. The relevance of the distinction, which we consider primordial, between count nouns and mass nouns is the first-order question of the fourth section. Here we show not only Kuikuro’s basic sensitivity to this distinction, but also the specific contributions that this language brings to cross-linguistic comparisons and to the revision of possible cross-linguistic generalizations.
A comparative study of compliment responses among Chinese Renren users and American Facebook users
Authors: Eslami Zohreh R. , Yang Lu , Qian Chang
Published: May 2020

Advancements in technology, spread of English language worldwide, increasing use of online social networking sites (SNSs) and globalization are recognized as highly powerful forces influencing everyday language use and practices. This has led to concerns that technologization, in line with globalization, and increasing dominance of English language will lead to the homogenization of the world, reducing cultural and linguistic diversity in discourse practices. which fall within the heart of this interconnectedness (Sifianou 2013). In this paper, we examine if, and to what extent, the use of SNSs lead to homogenization among discourse practices of Chinese and American English users in two similar SNSs (Facebook and Renren [the Facebook of China]), as reflected in their compliment response (CR) strategies. The findings may provide evidence as to the kinds of changes that increased interconnectedness may produce in language use of different speech communities. An analysis of the data revealed that increasing use of online SNSs and interconnectedness does not necessarily mean eradication of cultural differences in discourse practices but does decrease cultural differences in language use. The changes are uni-directional and dominated by the English language and American/Western Cultural values.
The interpersonal effects of complimenting others and self-praise in online health settings
Authors: Rudolf von Rohr Marie-Thérèse , Locher Miriam A.
Published: May 2020

This article investigates the pragmatic functions of complimenting and self-praise in two UK social media forums about smoking cessation, and responses to these speech acts. We compare these insights with other related e-health contexts (advice column, anti-smoking websites). Adopting an interpersonal pragmatics perspective, we focus on how these speech acts are employed for relationship creation. Our findings suggest that complimenting and self-praise are pivotal discourse practices in the forums. The status of the posting quitter – as new, or as successfully quitting – appears to affect the topic of compliments, the functions of third-party compliments and the order in which it is acceptable for initial posters to use self-praise; additional interpersonal effects relate to the overarching purpose of improving one’s lifestyle. In comparison to the peer-to-peer forum context, we find the number of compliments drastically reduced in the professional e-health contexts, which may be attributed to the set-up of practices. This paper adds to previous studies by exploring complimenting and self-praise in (e-health) social media.
Dislocazioni a destra interrogative tra grammatica e discorso
Authors: Crocco Claudia , Badan Linda
Published: May 2020

This article deals with clitic right dislocation (CLRD) structures. The interface examination of the interpretative, syntactic and prosodic properties of CLRDs shows that these constructions can be ordered on a scale based to a minor or greater degree of prosodic and syntactic integration between verb and post-verbal object. This scale of integration is based on the hypothesis that the different dislocations are part of a complex system of resources for the post-verbal expression of topic and focus categories. Crucially, the study shows that in interrogative CLRDs the clitic resumes an accessible referent which is also focal, manifesting the greater intersubjective attitude of the speaker. The work is based on the analysis of spoken data mostly taken from the CLIPS corpus.
Remote imagery to assess water stress variability within the orchard
Authors: Gómez-Candón David
Published: May 2020

This paper describes the current status of the measurement of the spatial variability of water status at tree scale in fruit crops through remote sensing, and discusses the limitations and opportunities of these technologies.

Remotely sensed multispectral and thermal imagery can provide high precision water status maps in orchards through stress indices, which are a very useful tool for irrigation monitoring and deficit irrigation strategies especially in areas where water resources are limited. They are also a powerful tool for breeders working on water stress phenotyping. The data can be obtained from multispectral sensors onboard satellites, airplanes, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

The main limitations of remote sensing, when working at tree scale, can be summarized in the following two points: (i) the processing time required to obtain water stress maps when almost real-time information is required (i.e., for irrigation scheduling purposes) and technical knowledge to interpret them; and (ii) the large costs of the technology. Some possible solutions may include: offering a consulting service that provides technical support, agronomic knowledge and specific training courses, the development and implementation of uniform and cheap standards, and promoting new research on image upscaling methods (sharpening) that, through the fusion of images at different scales, are able to increase the resolution offered by satellites and allow access to data quickly and inexpensively as a complement to UAV. Despite numerous efforts, a powerful and flexible methodology for obtaining evapotranspiration and water stress maps remains the greatest challenge for this technology.
Comparison of acceptability analysis of goat milk yogurt fortification with various rice bran flour
Authors: Ningtyas C K , Haskito A E P
Published: May 2020

Goat milk yogurt is among dairy products with a lot of health benefits, but still unfavorable in the population. To increase community acceptability towards goat milk yogurt, fortification with white, red, and black rice bran flour was attempted. The purpose of this research is to create goat milk yogurt with white, red, and black rice bran flour and analyze acceptability differences between each yogurt type. The yogurt used in this research is milk product fermented in Lactate Acid Bacteria (LAB) Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus, and lactobacillus acidophilus. This research is an experimental research using Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with one factor in the form of fortification with white rice bran flour 4%, red rice bran flour 4%, and black rice bran flour 4% into goat milk, and then fermented with the help of LABs into yogurt. Acceptability analysis was done by using the hedonic test on the following criteria: sour taste, goat smell, rice bran smell, and yogurt consistency. The hedonic test involved 30 panelists. Data analysis used the Kruskal Wallis test followed by the Mann Whitney test. The result of the research showed: (1) significant difference towards sour taste; (2) no significant difference towards goat smell, rice bran smell, and yogurt consistency; (3) goat milk yogurt fortified with black rice bran flour was the most favored by the panelists.
Organoleptic Characteristics of Chicken Meatballs that Using Gelatin as a Gelling Agent
Authors: Hafid H. , Napirah A. , Fitrianingsih  , Efendi A.
Published: May 2020

Meatballs can be identified as a good product if they had chewy property. To make the meatballs chewy, meatballs producers try to add natural and artificial additives. This research aimed to study the addition effect of the natural gelling agents on organoleptic characteristics of chicken meatballs. This research using a completely randomized design with 4 treatments and 25 trained panelists as replication. The treatments were an additional level of gelatin and they controlled without gelatin (P0), the addition of 1% gelatin of meat weight (P1), the addition of 2% gelatin of meat weight (P2), and addition of 3% gelatin of meat weight (P3). The result showed that addition gelatin as a natural gelling agent up to 3% on chicken meatballs making process did not give any significant effect (P<0,05) on color, aroma, flavor, texture and chewy. It can be concluded that the gelatin addition up to 3% is still lacking and need to be added to give a better chewy sensation.