311 research outputs found
Capillary Heterogeneity in Sandstone Rocks During CO2/Water Core-flooding Experiments
AbstractWe have successfully applied a novel experimental technique to measure drainage capillary pressure curves in reservoir rocks with representative reservoir fluids at high temperatures and pressures. The method consists of carrying out 100% CO2 flooding experiments at increasingly higher flow rates on a core that is initially saturated with water and requires that the wetting-phase pressure is continuous across the outlet face of the sample. Experiments have been carried out on a Berea Sandstone core at 25 and 50°C and at 9MPa pore pressure, while keeping the confining pressure at 12MPa. Measurements are in good agreement with data from mercury intrusion porosimetry. The technique possesses a great potential of applicability due to the following reasons: (a) it can be applied in conjunction with steady-state relative permeability measurements, as it shares a very similar experimental configuration; (b) it is faster than traditional (porous-plate) techniques used for measuring capillary pressure on rock cores with reservoir fluids; (c) by comparison with results from mercury porosimetry, it allows for the estimation of the interfacial and wetting properties of the CO2/water system, the latter being unknown for most rocks; (d) by combination with X-ray CT scanning, the method allows for the observation of capillary pressure–saturation relationships on mm-scale subsets of the rock core. The latter are of high relevance as they directly and non- destructively measure capillary pressure curve heterogeneity in sandstone rocks
Use of Prescription Medication by Individuals Who Died by Suicide in Northern Ireland
OBJECTIVES/: To understand medication use prior to suicide in relation to patterns, polypharmacy and adherence.
METHODS: 1,371 suicide cases were coded and latent class analysis used to identify combinations of medications prescribed prior to death.
RESULTS: Two thirds had been prescribed medication with 30.7% prescribed three or more. Latent class analysis revealed three classes: Mixed medication use, primarily mental medication use, and baseline/low medication use. There are potentially high rates of medication non-adherence.
CONCLUSIONS: Both medication use but also non-adherence rates were high in this sample of individuals who died by suicide. Potential implications and areas for future research are discussed
Charting the Chemical Reaction Space around a Multicomponent Combination: Controlled Access to a Diverse Set of Biologically Relevant Scaffolds
The Australian Space Eye: studying the history of galaxy formation with a CubeSat
The Australian Space Eye is a proposed astronomical telescope based on a 6U
CubeSat platform. The Space Eye will exploit the low level of systematic errors
achievable with a small space based telescope to enable high accuracy
measurements of the optical extragalactic background light and low surface
brightness emission around nearby galaxies. This project is also a demonstrator
for several technologies with general applicability to astronomical
observations from nanosatellites. Space Eye is based around a 90 mm aperture
clear aperture all refractive telescope for broadband wide field imaging in the
i and z bands.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, submitted for publication as Proc. SPIE 9904,
9904-56 (SPIE Astronomical Telescopes & Instrumentation 2016
Environmentally sensitive photosensitizers enable targeted photodynamic ablation of Gram-positive antibiotic resistant bacteria
Loggerhead Turtles (Caretta caretta) in the California Current: Abundance, Distribution, and Anomalous Warming of the North Pacific
Environmental variability affects distributions of marine predators in time and space. With expected changes in the ocean climate, understanding the relationship between species distributions and the environment is essential for developing successful management regulations. Here we provide information on an ephemeral but important habitat for North Pacific loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) at the northeastern edge of their range. North Pacific loggerhead turtles nest on Japanese beaches and juveniles disperse throughout the North Pacific; some remain in the high seas of the central North Pacific whereas others transition to the eastern Pacific and forage near Baja California, Mexico. Loggerheads have also been reported along the United States west coast, with the majority of sightings off southern California. Here we describe their demography and distribution in the area, based on two aerial surveys (2011, 2015), at-sea sightings, and stranding records. Our aerial survey during fall 2015 determined density, abundance, and distribution of loggerheads in the area, when anomalous warming of the North Pacific and El Niño conditions co-occurred. Using line-transect analysis, we estimated ca. 15,000 loggerheads at the sea surface (CV = 21%) and more than 70,000 loggerheads when accounting for those that were submerged and not available for detection. Our survey during fall 2011 resulted in no loggerhead sightings, demonstrating a high variability of loggerhead density in the region. We encourage further research on loggerheads in the area to determine the mechanisms that promote their occurrence. These studies should include regular surveys throughout their foraging areas along the west coast of the North America as well as assessments of prey availability and local oceanographic conditions
Rational Design of Phe‐BODIPY Amino Acids as Fluorogenic Building Blocks for Peptide‐based Detection of Urinary Tract Candida Infections
Fungal infections caused by Candida species are among the most prevalent in hospitalized patients. However, current methods for the detection of Candida fungal cells in clinical samples rely on time‐consuming assays that hamper rapid and reliable diagnosis. Herein, we describe the rational development of new Phe‐BODIPY amino acids as small fluorogenic building blocks and their application to generate fluorescent antimicrobial peptides for rapid labelling of Candida cells in urine. We have used computational methods to analyse the fluorogenic behaviour of BODIPY‐substituted aromatic amino acids and performed bioactivity and confocal microscopy experiments in different strains to confirm the utility and versatility of peptides incorporating Phe‐BODIPYs. Finally, we have designed a simple and sensitive fluorescence‐based assay for the detection of Candida albicans in human urine samples
African forest and savannah elephants treated as separate species
The African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG) of IUCN will now treat African elephants as two species: the forest elephant Loxodonta cyclotis and the savannah elephant Loxodonta africana. This will be reflected in IUCN's Red List assessment update for African elephants, and in the next iteration of the African Elephant Status Report, both to be published in 2021. This concurs with Wilson & Reader (Mammal Species of the World, 2005), the primary IUCN reference on mammalian taxonomy, Wittemyer (in Handbook of the Mammals of the World, 2011), and Tassy & Shoshani (in Mammals of Africa, 2013)
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