Evidence for endothermic ancestors of crocodiles at the stem of archosaur evolution

Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 77(6):1051–1067. 2004. © 2004 by The University of Chicago.Physiological, anatomical, and developmental features of the crocodilian heart support the paleontological evidence that the ancestors of living crocodilians were active and endothermic, but the lineage reverted to ectothermy when it invaded the aquatic, ambush predator niche. In endotherms, there is a functional nexus between high metabolic rates, high blood flow rates, and complete separation of high systemic blood pressure from low pulmonary blood pressure in a four-chambered heart. Ectotherms generally lack all of these characteristics, but crocodilians retain a four-chambered heart. However, crocodilians have a neurally controlled, pulmonary bypass shunt that is functional in diving. Shunting occurs outside of the heart and involves the left aortic arch that originates from the right ventricle, the foramen of Panizza between the left and right aortic arches, and the cog-tooth valve at the base of the pulmonary artery. Developmental studies show that all of these uniquely crocodilian features are secondarily derived, indicating a shift from the complete separation of blood flow of endotherms to the controlled shunting of ectotherms. We present other evidence for endothermy in stem archosaurs and suggest that some dinosaurs may have inherited the trait.Roger S. Seymour, Christina L. Bennett-Stamper, Sonya D. Johnston, David R. Carrier, and Gordon C. Grig

Improved Efficiency of Miscible CO2 Floods and Enhanced Prospects for CO2 Flooding Heterogeneous Reservoirs. Final Report, April 17, 1991--May 31, 1997

From 1986 to 1996, oil recovery in the US by gas injection increased almost threefold, to 300,000 bbl/day. Carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) injection projects make up three-quarters of the 191,139 bbl/day production increase. This document reports experimental and modeling research in three areas that is increasing the number of reservoirs in which CO{sub 2} can profitably enhance oil recovery: (1) foams for selective mobility reduction (SMR) in heterogeneous reservoirs, (2) reduction of the amount of CO{sub 2} required in CO{sub 2} floods, and (3) low interfacial tension (97) processes and the possibility of CO{sub 2} flooding in naturally fractured reservoirs. CO{sub 2} injection under miscible conditions can effectively displace oil, but due to differences in density and viscosity the mobility of CO{sub 2} is higher than either oil or water. High CO{sub 2} mobility causes injection gas to finger through a reservoir, causing such problems as early gas breakthrough, high gas production rates, excessive injection gas recycling, and bypassing of much of the reservoir oil. These adverse effects are exacerbated by increased reservoir heterogeneity, reaching an extreme in naturally fractured reservoirs. Thus, many highly heterogeneous reservoirs have not been considered for CO{sub 2} injection or have had disappointing recoveries. One example is the heterogeneous Spraberry trend in west Texas, where only 10% of its ten billion barrels of original oil in place (OOIP) are recoverable by conventional methods. CO{sub 2} mobility can be reduced by injecting water (brine) alternated with CO{sub 2} (WAG) and then further reduced by adding foaming agents-surfactants. In Task 1, we studied a unique foam property, selective mobility reduction (SMR), that effectively reduces the effects of reservoir heterogeneity. Selective mobility reduction creates a more uniform displacement by decreasing CO{sub 2} mobility in higher permeability zones more than in lower permeability zones

Diversity of Zoanthids (Anthozoa: Hexacorallia) on Hawaiian Seamounts: Description of the Hawaiian Gold Coral and Additional Zoanthids

The Hawaiian gold coral has a history of exploitation from the deep slopes and seamounts of the Hawaiian Islands as one of the precious corals commercialised in the jewellery industry. Due to its peculiar characteristic of building a scleroproteic skeleton, this zoanthid has been referred as Gerardia sp. (a junior synonym of Savalia Nardo, 1844) but never formally described or examined by taxonomists despite its commercial interest. While collection of Hawaiian gold coral is now regulated, globally seamounts habitats are increasingly threatened by a variety of anthropogenic impacts. However, impact assessment studies and conservation measures cannot be taken without consistent knowledge of the biodiversity of such environments. Recently, multiple samples of octocoral-associated zoanthids were collected from the deep slopes of the islands and seamounts of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The molecular and morphological examination of these zoanthids revealed the presence of at least five different species including the gold coral. Among these only the gold coral appeared to create its own skeleton, two other species are simply using the octocoral as substrate, and the situation is not clear for the final two species. Phylogenetically, all these species appear related to zoanthids of the genus Savalia as well as to the octocoral-associated zoanthid Corallizoanthus tsukaharai, suggesting a common ancestor to all octocoral-associated zoanthids. The diversity of zoanthids described or observed during this study is comparable to levels of diversity found in shallow water tropical coral reefs. Such unexpected species diversity is symptomatic of the lack of biological exploration and taxonomic studies of the diversity of seamount hexacorals

An Empirical Study of the I2P Anonymity Network and its Censorship Resistance

Tor and I2P are well-known anonymity networks used by many individuals to protect their online privacy and anonymity. Tor's centralized directory services facilitate the understanding of the Tor network, as well as the measurement and visualization of its structure through the Tor Metrics project. In contrast, I2P does not rely on centralized directory servers, and thus obtaining a complete view of the network is challenging. In this work, we conduct an empirical study of the I2P network, in which we measure properties including population, churn rate, router type, and the geographic distribution of I2P peers. We find that there are currently around 32K active I2P peers in the network on a daily basis. Of these peers, 14K are located behind NAT or firewalls. Using the collected network data, we examine the blocking resistance of I2P against a censor that wants to prevent access to I2P using address-based blocking techniques. Despite the decentralized characteristics of I2P, we discover that a censor can block more than 95% of peer IP addresses known by a stable I2P client by operating only 10 routers in the network. This amounts to severe network impairment: a blocking rate of more than 70% is enough to cause significant latency in web browsing activities, while blocking more than 90% of peer IP addresses can make the network unusable. Finally, we discuss the security consequences of the network being blocked, and directions for potential approaches to make I2P more resistant to blocking.Comment: 14 pages, To appear in the 2018 Internet Measurement Conference (IMC'18

Acoustic Emission Source Location Using Finite Element Generated Delta-T Mapping

Supplementary Materials: The following are available online at www.mdpi.com/xxx/s1, Figure S1: 505 title, Table S1: title, Video S1: title.Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. One of the most significant benefits of Acoustic Emission (AE) testing over other Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) techniques lies in its damage location capability over a wide area. The delta-T mapping technique developed by researchers has been shown to enable AE source location to a high level of accuracy in complex structures. However, the time-consuming and laborious data training process of the delta-T mapping technique has prevented this technique from large-scale application on large complex structures. In order to solve this problem, a Finite Element (FE) method was applied to model training data for localization of experimental AE events on a complex plate. Firstly, the FE model was validated through demonstrating consistency between simulated data and the experimental data in the study of Hsu-Nielsen (H-N) sources on a simple plate. Then, the FE model with the same parameters was applied to a planar location problem on a complex plate. It has been demonstrated that FE generated delta-T mapping data can achieve a reasonable degree of source location accuracy with an average error of 3.88 mm whilst decreasing the time and effort required for manually collecting and processing the training data.Lloyd's 513 Register Foundation; Brunel University London; National Structural Integrity Research Centre, NSIRC studentship - Condition bases monitoring techniques for the early identification of stress corrosion cracking

Gill Function in an Elasmobranch

Highly efficient oxygen uptake in elasmobranchs, as indicated by frequent excess of PaO2 over PEO2 has previously been ascribed to the operation of multicapillary rather than counter-current gas exchange by the gills. Analysis of models shows that, at maximum efficiency, a multicapillary system cannot account for values of PaO2 greater than (PIO2+PEO2)/2. In Port Jackson sharks Heterodontus portusjacksoni) PaO2 commonly exceeds (PIO2+PEO2)/2, which indicates the operation of a functional counter-current at the respiratory surface. The anatomical basis of this counter-current is provided by the demonstration that a continuous flow of water passes between the secondary lamellae into septal canals and thence via the parabranchial cavities to the exterior

Nanoscale study of the as-grown hydrogenated amorphous silicon surface

A scanning tunneling microscope has been used to study the topography of the as-grown surface of device-quality, intrinsic, hydrogenated amorphous silicon deposited by rf discharge from silane. The substrates were atomically flat, oxide-free, single-crystal silicon or gallium arsenide. No evidence for island formation or nanoscale irregularities was seen in studies of 100-Å-thick films on either silicon or gallium arsenide. The topography of 1000- and 4000-Å-thick films has much variation; many regions can be characterized as rolling hills, but atomically flat areas have also been observed nearby. Generally, it appears that surface diffusion plays a role in smoothing the film topography. In most regions, the observed slopes were 10% or less from horizontal, but some steep-sided valleys, indicating incipient voids, were observed. The effect of the finite size of the scanning tunneling microscope probe tip is considered; this has an effect on the observed images in some cases

The UK's Global Health Respiratory Network: Improving respiratory health of the world's poorest through research collaborations.

Respiratory disorders are responsible for considerable morbidity, health care utilisation, societal costs and approximately one in five deaths worldwide [1-4]. Yet, despite this substantial health and societal burden – which particularly affects the world’s poorest populations and as such is a major contributor to global health inequalities – respiratory disorders have historically not received the policy priority they warrant. For example, despite causing an estimated 1000 deaths per day, less than half of the world’s countries collect data on asthma prevalence (http://www.globalasthmareport.org/). This is true for both communicable and non-communicable respiratory disorders, many of which are either amenable to treatment or preventable

Change Point Estimation in Monitoring Survival Time

Precise identification of the time when a change in a hospital outcome has occurred enables clinical experts to search for a potential special cause more effectively. In this paper, we develop change point estimation methods for survival time of a clinical procedure in the presence of patient mix in a Bayesian framework. We apply Bayesian hierarchical models to formulate the change point where there exists a step change in the mean survival time of patients who underwent cardiac surgery. The data are right censored since the monitoring is conducted over a limited follow-up period. We capture the effect of risk factors prior to the surgery using a Weibull accelerated failure time regression model. Markov Chain Monte Carlo is used to obtain posterior distributions of the change point parameters including location and magnitude of changes and also corresponding probabilistic intervals and inferences. The performance of the Bayesian estimator is investigated through simulations and the result shows that precise estimates can be obtained when they are used in conjunction with the risk-adjusted survival time CUSUM control charts for different magnitude scenarios. The proposed estimator shows a better performance where a longer follow-up period, censoring time, is applied. In comparison with the alternative built-in CUSUM estimator, more accurate and precise estimates are obtained by the Bayesian estimator. These superiorities are enhanced when probability quantification, flexibility and generalizability of the Bayesian change point detection model are also considered

Adsorption and wettability study of methyl ester sulphonate on precipitated asphaltene

Asphaltene precipitation from crude oil and its subsequent aggregation forms solid, which preferentially deposit on rock surfaces causing formation damage and wettability changes leading to loss of crude oil production. To resolve this problem, asphaltene inhibitor has been injected into the formation to prevent the precipitation of asphaltene. Asphaltene inhibitors that are usually employed are generally toxic and non-biodegradable. This paper presents a new environmentally friendly asphaltene inhibitor (methyl ester sulphonate), an anionic surfactant, which has excellent sorption on formation rock surfaces. Result from adsorption study validated by Langmuir and Freundlich models indicate a favourable adsorption. At low volumes injected, methyl ester sulphonate is capable of reverting oil-wet sandstone surface to water-wet surface. Biodegradability test profile shows that for concentrations of 100-5000ppm it is biodegradable by 65-80%