Geothermal resource assessment of the Gueydan salt dome and the adjacent southeast Gueydan field, Vermilion Parish, Louisiana

The fluids heated by the high thermal conductivity and vertical geometry of salt domes in South Louisiana have the potential to be an economic source of geothermal energy. The Gueydan dome is a piercement salt diapir in Southwest Louisiana lying along the Vermilion and Acadia Parish border. Isotherms indicate a thermal anomaly at the crest of the dome with formation temperatures of 62 ˚C recorded at 1346 m, which is too cold for a geothermal prospect. The shallowest salt encountered is at a depth of 1475 m, and the surrounding strata are Cenozoic sand and clay deposits. Previous geothermal assessments in the vicinity conducted in 1979 by Gruy Federal selected prospect locations off the east and south flanks of the dome for the Frio Formation. This study assesses the shallower, brine saturated Camerina A sand of the Frio Formation to the southwest of the dome where existing uneconomic oil and gas wells are shut in. Kehle corrected formation temperatures for the Camerina A range between 129 to 153 ˚C. The regional geothermal gradient for South Louisiana is 23 ˚C/km. Using shallow temperatures as a constraint, numerical modeling of the thermal regime and a temperature depth slice interpretation from well data indicates that the salt does not aid in increasing the thermal gradient for the Camerina A but instead regionally depresses isotherms because heat transport through the salt dome is more efficient. A hingepoint in the geothermal gradient at the top of overpressure reflects an increase in geothermal gradients through the Camerina A. However, limited well control to the north and west requires conservative reservoir volumetric estimates. Therefore, the Camerina A of Southeast Gueydan Field cannot be deemed a potential prospect based on proposed minimum bulk reservoir volumetric requirements of 1 km3 (Griggs, 2004). Numerical modeling of temperature fields around salt at deeper burial depths suggests that minimum temperatures required for binary power production can be reached through the heat focusing effect of salt domes when the rest of the dome is within the 100 ˚C to 120 ˚C range of the regional temperature regime

Knowledge Production and Social Roles in an Online Community of Emerging Occupation: A Study of User Experience Practitioners on Reddit

New occupations are emerging that have high job demand in the market, but lack a coherent body of disciplinary knowledge. For example, user experience (UX) design is an emerging occupation that has not been adequately supported by the traditional educational system. For learners beginning their undergraduate education, there is no concrete path to follow to become a UX professional, due to few UX-focused undergraduate academic programs. Online communities of practices have been recognized as important learning venues, even while institutions of formal education often lag behind in structuring knowledge production and distribution. However, little is known about how knowledge is generated and diffused in online communities in the context of emerging occupations with volatile knowledge boundaries. In this paper, we analyze knowledge production in relation to social roles in an online UX community. We show that knowledge production is highly distributed, involving the participation of community members of varied levels of experience. We discuss how online communities support the development of the UX occupation

Editorial: Ethics, Values, and Designer Responsibility

As we rely upon increasingly complex sociotechnical systems to support ourselves and, by extension, the structures of society, it becomes yet more important to consider how ethics and values intertwine in design activity. Numerous methods that address issues related to ethics and value-centeredness in design activity exist, but it is unclear what role the design research and practice communities should play in shaping the future of these design approaches. Importantly, how might researchers and practitioners become more aware of the normative assumptions that underlie both their design activity and the design artifacts that result

Nicotinamide treatment in a murine model of familial tumoral calcinosis reduces serum Fgf23 and raises heart calcium

Mutations in the GALNT3 gene result in familial tumoral calcinosis, characterized by persistent hyperphosphatemia and ectopic calcific masses in soft tissues. Since calcific masses often recur after surgical removal, a more permanent solution to the problem is required. Nicotinamide is reported to lower serum phosphate by decreasing sodium-dependent phosphate co-transporters in the gut and kidney. However, its effectiveness in tumoral calcinosis remains unknown. In this study, we investigated nicotinamide as a potential therapy for tumoral calcinosis, using a murine model of the disease-Galnt3 knockout mice. Initially, five different doses of nicotinamide were given to normal heterozygous mice intraperitoneally or orally. Treatment had no effect on serum phosphate levels, but serum levels of a phosphaturic hormone, fibroblast growth factor 23 (Fgf23), decreased in a dose-dependent manner. Subsequently, high-dose nicotinamide (40mM) was tested in Galnt3 knockout mice fed a high phosphate diet. The radiographic data pre- and post-treatment showed that nicotinamide did not reverse the calcification. However, the treatment retarded calcification growth after 4weeks, while in the untreated animals, calcifications increased in size. The therapy did not affect serum phosphate levels, but intact Fgf23 decreased in the treated mice. The treated mice also had increased calcium in the heart. In summary, nicotinamide did not alter serum phosphate levels, likely due to compensatory decrease in Fgf23 to counteract the phosphate lowering effect of nicotinamide. Although increased calcium accumulation in the heart is a concern, the therapy appears to slow down the progression of ectopic calcifications

Frames for Justice Consciousness

We describe how UX design students become aware of citizen-engaged design work, and indicate the extent to which a progression toward social justice-focused design work might be possible in a single project cycle. Our study site is a sophomore-level UX design studio at a large Midwestern US university—part of a five-semester sequence in which students engage in a range of projects that address competence in user research, prototyping, and evaluation. The project cycle we focus on directly challenges the apolitical framing in most foundational UX methods literature, explicitly asking students to engage with issues of power disparities. We analyzed three years of digital civics-focused project work (2018 n=6 groups; 2019 n=7; 2020 n=8) undertaken by students in groups of five over a seven-week period, representing the work of 100 students over three years of this course offering. We analyzed the resulting data that supported the development of the Frames for Justice Consciousness model, mapping a range of trajectories of student engagement with social justice-focused design philosophies, highlighting cases where students were able to successfully “pivot” or re-frame the design situation in ways that were consistent with the digital civics philosophy of engagement, addressing goals of participation and advocacy, as well as cases where students tended to repeat common solutionist framings of work within an “apolitical” or product-focused human-centered philosophy. The model facilitates instructor reflection on differing student trajectories that may inform changes to the types of critique given or instructional scaffolds provided in social justice-informed design work

Dietary phosphate restriction normalizes biochemical and skeletal abnormalities in a murine model of tumoral calcinosis

Mutations in the GALNT3 gene cause tumoral calcinosis characterized by ectopic calcifications due to persistent hyperphosphatemia. We recently developed Galnt3 knockout mice in a mixed background, which had hyperphosphatemia with increased bone mineral density (BMD) and infertility in males. To test the effect of dietary phosphate intake on their phenotype, Galnt3 knockout mice were generated in the C57BL/6J strain and fed various phosphate diets: 0.1% (low), 0.3% (low normal), 0.6% (normal), and 1.65% (high). Sera were analyzed for calcium, phosphorus, alkaline phosphatase, creatinine, blood urine nitrogen, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, osteocalcin, tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase 5b, and fibroblast growth factor 23 (Fgf23). Femurs were evaluated by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, dynamic histomorphometry, and/or microcomputed tomography. Galnt3 knockout mice in C57BL/6J had the same biochemical phenotype observed in our previous study: hyperphosphatemia, inappropriately normal 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D level, decreased alkaline phosphatase activity, and low intact Fgf23 concentration but high Fgf23 fragments. Skeletal analyses of their femurs revealed significantly high BMD with increased cortical bone area and trabecular bone volume. On all four phosphate diets, Galnt3 knockout mice had consistently higher phosphorus levels and lower alkaline phosphatase and intact Fgf23 concentrations than littermate controls. The low-phosphate diet normalized serum phosphorus, alkaline phosphatase, and areal BMD but failed to correct male infertility in Galnt3 knockout mice. The high-phosphate diet did not increase serum phosphorus concentration in either mutant or control mice due to a compensatory increase in circulating intact Fgf23 levels. In conclusion, dietary phosphate restriction normalizes biochemical and skeletal phenotypes of Galnt3 knockout mice and, thus, can be an effective therapy for tumoral calcinosis.We thank Drew Brown and Chris Newman for their assistance with micro-CT scanning and analysis. This work was supported by Indiana University School of Medicine Biomedical Research Grant (to S.I.), Showalter Biomedical Trust Grant (to S.I.), and National Institutes of Health Grant R01AR042228(to M.J.E.). The preparation of this report was partially supported by a KL2 career development award (to S.I.) from the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute funded in part by National Institutes of Health Grant RR025760. Disclosure Summary: M.J.E. receives royalties from and is a consultant for Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co. Ltd. All other authors state that they have no conflicts of interest