Control-Oriented Modeling and Experimental Validation of a Deoiling Hydrocyclone System

As the treated water from offshore oil and gas production is discharged to the surrounding sea, there is an incentive to improve the performance of the offshore produced water treatment, to reduce the environmental pollutants to the sea. Regulations determine both the maximum allowed oil concentration and the total annual quantity. It is reasonable to assume that when better separation equipment or methods are developed, the regulation will become more strict, and force other producers to follow the trend towards zero harmful discharge. This paper develops and validates a hydrocyclone model to be used as a test-bed for improved control designs. The modeling methodology uses a combination of first-principles to define model structure and data-driven parameter identification. To evaluate and validate the separation performance, real-time fluorescence-based oil-in-water (OiW) concentration monitors, with dual redundancy, are installed and used on sidestreams of a modified pilot plant. The installed monitors measure the inlet and outlet OiW concentration of the tested hydrocyclone. The proposed control-oriented hydrocyclone model proved to be a reasonable candidate for predicting the hydrocyclone separation performance

Oral glutathione supplementation drastically reduces Helicobacter-induced gastric pathologies

Helicobacter (H.) suis causes gastric pathologies in both pigs and humans. Very little is known on the metabolism of this bacterium and its impact on the host. In this study, we have revealed the importance of the glutamate-generating metabolism, as shown by a complete depletion of glutamine (Gln) in the medium during H. suis culture. Besides Gln, H. suis can also convert glutathione (GSH) to glutamate, and both reactions are catalyzed by the H. suis gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase (GGT). Both for H. pylori and H. suis, it has been hypothesized that the degradation of Gln and GSH may lead to a deficiency for the host, possibly initiating or promoting several pathologies. Therefore the in vivo effect of oral supplementation with Gln and GSH was assessed. Oral supplementation with Gln was shown to temper H. suis induced gastritis and epithelial (hyper) proliferation in Mongolian gerbils. Astonishingly, supplementation of the feed with GSH, another GGT substrate, resulted in inflammation and epithelial proliferation levels returning to baseline levels of uninfected controls. This indicates that Gln and GSH supplementation may help reducing tissue damage caused by Helicobacter infection in both humans and pigs, highlighting their potential as a supportive therapy during and after Helicobacter eradication therapy

The Black Bear Undergraduate History Journal

Inaugural Black Bear Undergraduate History Journal. This publication is an initiative of UMaine History graduate students, including Dylan O’Hara, PhD student and chief editor, intended to highlight some of the strongest undergraduate essays from the academic year

Single-center versus multi-center biparametric MRI radiomics approach for clinically significant peripheral zone prostate cancer

Contains fulltext : 239809.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access

Het managen van incidenten in het onderwijs. Praktische governance-lessen op basis van een vergelijkende case analyse

Bij iedere onderwijsorganisatie doen zich incidenten voor. Deze incidenten lopen soms ernstig uit de hand. Er zijn echter ook incidenten die tijdig en effectief worden aangepakt en niet uitgroeien tot echte ongelukken of zelfs misstanden. Aan de hand van zes concrete incidenten binnen het onderwijsdomein is onderzocht hoe dankzij adequaat optreden ongelukken zijn voorkomen en welke mechanismen daarbij een rol spelen