Study on Growth and Change of Solid Particles with Water Flow in Oilfield Water-Injection Pipeline

The solid particles in oilfield water-injection pipelines with water flow will continuously grow and change, and the oversized solid particles may block the pores of the formation and reduce the oilfield recovery efficiency. Therefore, the study on the growth and change to solid particles during transportation has become a question of interest in oilfields. However, there is little research on this question currently. Therefore, on the basis of the liquid-solid two-phase flow model and the particle population balance model, a growth and change model of solid particles in long-distance water-injection pipelines flowing along water was established in this paper in consideration of the injected water temperature drop along the path, as well as the growth, coalescence, breakage and deposition of particles. Comparison of the field test results indicated that the average error of the particle size distribution fitting degree calculated by the model is 6.9%, and the average error of median diameter is 4.1%. This model was used for analyzing the impact of the flow rate, temperature and median diameter of the united station outlet in a block oilfield of Shengli Oilfield on the solid particle size of the wellheads, and the critical flow rate, temperature and median diameter of the united station outlet were predicted when the median diameter at the wellheads meets the injection requirement (< 2 μm). The establishment of this model cannot only be used for the study on the growth and change to solid particles in water-injection pipelines flowing along water, but also provides a technical reference for the study on the growth and change to low-concentration solid particles accompanying flow in long-distance liquid/gas phase pipelines

Impacts of emissions trading scheme initiatives on corporate carbon proactivity and financial performance

This study introduces the concept of carbon proactivity and considers not only the quantity of emissions but also corporate carbon-reduction efforts and actions to explore the relationship between carbon proactivity, the emissions trading scheme (ETS) mechanism, and corporate financial performance. A matched-pair approach was adopted to explore the difference in carbon proactivity between ETS and non-ETS firms. The study aims to investigate the impacts of an ETS on corporate carbon proactivity and whether participating in an ETS can help a firm achieve a desired outcome in which it can improve both environmental and economic performance. Using manually collected data on carbon disclosure, it was found that carbon proactivity is higher among firms that participate in an ETS than among those that do not, and carbon proactivity is trending upward for the participating firms. In addition, evidence suggests that while investing more resources in carbon proactivity decreases current financial performance, it will boost future financial performance. This relationship is observed among firms that participate in an ETS. This study extends the understanding of the relationship between ETSs, corporate carbon proactivity, and corporate financial performance. It also provides evidence on how to improve the ETS mechanism

Chilling Stress—The Key Predisposing Factor for Causing Alternaria alternata Infection and Leading to Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) Leaf Senescence

Leaf senescence plays a vital role in nutrient recycling and overall capacity to assimilate carbon dioxide. Cotton premature leaf senescence, often accompanied with unexpected short-term low temperature, has been occurring with an increasing frequency in many cotton-growing areas and causes serious reduction in yield and quality of cotton. The key factors for causing and promoting cotton premature leaf senescence are still unclear. In this case, the relationship between the pre-chilling stress and Alternaria alternata infection for causing cotton leaf senescence was investigated under precisely controlled laboratory conditions with four to five leaves stage cotton plants. The results showed short-term chilling stress could cause a certain degree of physiological impairment to cotton leaves, which could be recovered to normal levels in 2–4 days when the chilling stresses were removed. When these chilling stress injured leaves were further inoculated with A. alternata, the pronounced appearance and development of leaf spot disease, and eventually the pronounced symptoms of leaf senescence, occurred on these cotton leaves. The onset of cotton leaf senescence at this condition was also reflected in various physiological indexes such as irreversible increase in malondialdehyde (MDA) content and electrolyte leakage, irreversible decrease in soluble protein content and chlorophyll content, and irreversible damage in leaves' photosynthesis ability. The presented results demonstrated that chilling stress acted as the key predisposing factor for causing A. alternata infection and leading to cotton leaf senescence. It could be expected that the understanding of the key factors causing and promoting cotton leaf senescence would be helpful for taking appropriate management steps to prevent cotton premature leaf senescence

Maize microrna166 inactivation confers plant development and abiotic stress resistance

MicroRNAs are important regulators in plant developmental processes and stress responses. In this study, we generated a series of maize STTM166 transgenic plants. Knock-down of miR166 resulted in various morphological changes, including rolled leaves, enhanced abiotic stress resistance, inferior yield-related traits, vascular pattern and epidermis structures, tassel architecture, as well as abscisic acid (ABA) level elevation and indole acetic acid (IAA) level reduction in maize. To profile miR166 regulated genes, we performed RNA-seq and qRT-PCR analysis. A total of 178 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, including 118 up-regulated and 60 down-regulated genes. These DEGs were strongly enriched in cell and intercellular components, cell membrane system components, oxidoreductase activity, single organism metabolic process, carbohydrate metabolic process, and oxidation reduction process. These results indicated that miR166 plays important roles in auxin and ABA interaction in monocots, yet the specific mechanism may differ from dicots. The enhanced abiotic stress resistance is partly caused via rolling leaves, high ABA content, modulated vascular structure, and the potential changes of cell membrane structure. The inferior yield-related traits and late flowering are partly controlled by the decreased IAA content, the interplay of miR166 with other miRNAs and AGOs. Taken together, the present study uncovered novel functions of miR166 in maize, and provide insights on applying short tandem target mimics (STTM) technology in plant breeding

Screening miRNAs for early diagnosis of colorectal cancer by small RNA deep sequencing and evaluation in a Chinese patient population

Purpose: This study aims to screen microRNAs (miRNAs), for an early diagnosis of colorectal cancer, by deep sequencing and evaluation of total miRNAs using clinical samples from a Chinese patient population. Methods: Total small RNAs from normal colonic mucosa, colonic adenomas, and colorectal cancer tissues were prepared for miRNA analysis by deep sequencing. The sequencing data were then analyzed by bioinformatics for candidate diagnostic miRNAs, which were further validated for their up- or downregulation status. Results: Comparison of cancer tissues with normal mucosa identified 99 upregulated and 90 downregulated miRNAs. Comparison of adenomas and normal mucosa found 114 upregulated and 107 downregulated miRNAs. Comparison of cancer and adenoma tissues found 70 upregulated and 27 downregulated miRNAs. Selected up- and downregulated miRNAs were validated for their expressions in 12 cases of patients with cancer and polyps. Specifically, for the upregulated miRNAs, miR-18a-5p and miR-21-3p were significantly upregulated in adenomas and cancer tissues, compared with the normal mucosa; miR-135b-5p, miR-17-5p, miR-182-5p, miR-200a-5p, and miR-200c-3p were significantly upregulated in cancer tissues compared to the normal mucosa, but their differential expression was not significant in adenoma tissues when compared with the normal mucosa. miR-183-5p and miR-96-5p were significantly upregulated in adenoma tissues when compared with normal mucosa, but these differences were not significant in cancer tissues when compared to normal mucosa. For the downregulated miRNAs, miR-133a-3p was significantly downregulated in both adenoma and cancer tissues when compared to normal mucosa; miR-204-5p, miR-125b-5p, miR-139-5p, miR-100-5p, and miR-30a-5p were significantly downregulated in cancer tissues compared to the normal mucosa, but their differential expression was not significant in adenoma tissue compared to normal mucosa. Conclusion: The findings of this study show that a number of miRNAs might be important in the diagnosis and prognosis of colorectal cancer in Chinese patients using the method of small RNA deep sequencing. Upregulation of miR-18a-5p and miR-21-3p or downregulation of miR-133a-3p in adenoma and cancer tissues may serve as an index for early screening of colorectal cancer. Other miRNAs, such as miR-135b-5p, miR-17-5p, miR-182-5p, miR-200a-5p, miR-200c-3p, miR-183-5p, and miR-96-5p, which were either up- or downregulated, in cancer tissues, but not in adenoma tissues, have limited significance in early diagnosis. Further study is needed to determine a screening index with diagnostic value

PlantES: A plant electrophysiological multi-source data online analysis and sharing platform

At present, plant electrophysiological data volumes and complexity are increasing rapidly. It causes the demand for efficient management of big data, data sharing among research groups, and fast analysis. In this paper, we proposed PlantES (Plant Electrophysiological Data Sharing), a distributed computing-based prototype system that can be used to store, manage, visualize, analyze, and share plant electrophysiological data. We deliberately designed a storage schema to manage the multi-source plant electrophysiological data by integrating distributed storage systems HDFS and HBase to access all kinds of files efficiently. To improve the online analysis efficiency, parallel computing algorithms on Spark were proposed and implemented, e.g., plant electrical signals extraction method, the adaptive derivative threshold algorithm, and template matching algorithm. The experimental results indicated that Spark efficiently improves the online analysis. Meanwhile, the online visualization and sharing of multiple types of data in the web browser were implemented. Our prototype platform provides a solution for web-based sharing and analysis of plant electrophysiological multi-source data and improves the comprehension of plant electrical signals from a systemic perspective

Uncovering differences in the composition and function of phage communities and phage-bacterium interactions in raw soy sauce

IntroductionAlthough the composition and succession of microbial communities in soy sauce fermentation have been well-characterized, the understanding of phage communities in soy sauce remains limited.MethodsThis study determined the diversity, taxonomic composition, and predicted function of phage communities and the phage-host interactions in two types of raw soy sauce (Cantonese-type fermentation, NJ; Japanese-type fermentation, PJ) using shotgun metagenomics.Results and discussionThese two raw soy sauces showed differences in phage composition (121 viral operational taxonomic units (vOTUs) in NJ and 387 vOTUs in PJ), with a higher abundance of the family Siphoviridae (58.50%) in the NJ phage community and a higher abundance of Myoviridae (33.01%) in PJ. Auxiliary metabolic functional annotation analyses showed that phages in the raw soy sauces mostly encoded genes with unknown functions (accounting for 66.33% of COG profiles), but the NJ sample contained genes mostly annotated to conventional functions related to carbohydrate metabolism (0.74%) and lipid metabolism (0.84%), while the PJ sample presented a higher level of amino acid metabolism functions (0.12%). Thirty auxiliary metabolism genes (AMGs) were identified in phage genomes, which were associated with carbohydrate utilization, cysteine and methionine metabolism, and aspartic acid biosynthesis for the host. To identify phage-host interactions, 30 host genomes (affiliated with 22 genera) were also recruited from the metagenomic dataset. The phage-host interaction analysis revealed a wide range of phage hosts, for which a total of 57 phage contigs were associated with 17 host genomes, with Shewanella fodinae and Weissella cibaria infected by the most phages. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of the phage community composition, auxiliary metabolic functions, and interactions with hosts in two different types of raw soy sauce

Reservoir Permeability Prediction Based on Analogy and Machine Learning Methods: Field Cases in DLG Block of Jing’an Oilfield, China

AbstractReservoir permeability, generally determined by experimental or well testing methods, is an essential parameter in the oil and gas field development. In this paper, we present a novel analogy and machine learning method to predict reservoir permeability. Firstly, the core test and production data of other 24 blocks (analog blocks) are counted according to the DLG block (target block) of Jing’an Oilfield, and the permeability analogy parameters including porosity, shale content, reservoir thickness, oil saturation, liquid production, and production pressure difference are optimized by Pearson and principal component analysis. Then, the fuzzy matter element method is used to calculate the similarity between the target block and analog blocks. According to the similarity calculation results, reservoir permeability of DLG block is predicted by reservoir engineering method (the relationship between core permeability and porosity of QK-D7 in similar blocks) and machine learning method (random forest, gradient boosting decision tree, light gradient boosting machine, and categorical boosting). By comparing the prediction accuracy of the two methods through the evaluation index determination coefficient (R2) and root mean square error (RMSE), the CatBoost model has higher accuracy in predicting reservoir permeability, with R2 of 0.951 and RMSE of 0.139. Finally, the CatBoost model is selected to predict reservoir permeability of 121 oil wells in the DLG block. This work uses simple logging and production data to quickly and accurately predict reservoir permeability without coring and testing. At the same time, the prediction results are well applied to the formulation of DLG block development technology strategy, which provides a new idea for the application of machine learning to predict oilfield parameters

Screening miRNAs for early diagnosis of colorectal cancer by small RNA deep sequencing and evaluation in a Chinese patient population

Purpose: This study aims to screen microRNAs (miRNAs), for an early diagnosis of colorectal cancer, by deep sequencing and evaluation of total miRNAs using clinical samples from a Chinese patient population. Methods: Total small RNAs from normal colonic mucosa, colonic adenomas, and colorectal cancer tissues were prepared for miRNA analysis by deep sequencing. The sequencing data were then analyzed by bioinformatics for candidate diagnostic miRNAs, which were further validated for their up-or downregulation status. Results: Comparison of cancer tissues with normal mucosa identified 99 upregulated and 90 downregulated miRNAs. Comparison of adenomas and normal mucosa found 114 upregulated and 107 downregulated miRNAs. Comparison of cancer and adenoma tissues found 70 upregulated and 27 downregulated miRNAs. Selected up-and downregulated miRNAs were validated for their expressions in 12 cases of patients with cancer and polyps. Specifically, for the upregulated miRNAs, miR-18a-5p and miR-21-3p were significantly upregulated in adenomas and cancer tissues, compared with the normal mucosa; miR-135b-5p, miR-17-5p, miR-182-5p, miR-200a-5p, and miR-200c-3p were significantly upregulated in cancer tissues compared to the normal mucosa, but their differential expression was not significant in adenoma tissues when compared with the normal mucosa. miR-183-5p and miR-96-5p were significantly upregulated in adenoma tissues when compared with normal mucosa, but these differences were not significant in cancer tissues when compared to normal mucosa. For the downregulated miRNAs, miR-133a-3p was significantly downregulated in both adenoma and cancer tissues when compared to normal mucosa; miR-204-5p, miR-125b-5p, miR-139-5p, miR-100-5p, and miR-30a-5p were significantly downregulated in cancer tissues compared to the normal mucosa, but their differential expression was not significant in adenoma tissue compared to normal mucosa. Conclusion: The findings of this study show that a number of miRNAs might be important in the diagnosis and prognosis of colorectal cancer in Chinese patients using the method of small RNA deep sequencing. Upregulation of miR-18a-5p and miR-21-3p or downregulation of miR-133a-3p in adenoma and cancer tissues may serve as an index for early screening of colorectal cancer. Other miRNAs, such as miR-135b-5p, miR-17-5p, miR-182-5p, miR-200a-5p, miR-200c-3p, miR-183-5p, and miR-96-5p, which were either up-or downregulated, in cancer tissues, but not in adenoma tissues, have limited significance in early diagnosis. Further study is needed to determine a screening index with diagnostic value.National Science Foundation of China [30572447, 30973837, 81273944]; Jiangsu National Science Foundation [BK20151081]; Nanjing Science Fundation [201402041]; Nanjing Medical Science Foundation [YKK14140]SCI(E)[email protected]

Expression of Mipu1 in Response to Myocardial Infarction in Rats

Myocardial ischemic preconditioning up-regulated protein 1 (Mipu1) was cloned in our laboratory. Male Wistar rats were subjected to left anterior coronary artery ligation and sham-operation and sacrificed at 1 h, 3 h, 6 h, 12 h, 24 h, 3 d or 5 d after ligation. Expression of Mipu1 mRNA and protein were assessed by Northern blotting, real-time quantitative RT-PCR, In Situ hybridization and Western blotting. Expression of Mipu1 was up-regulated at 3 h and lasted to 12 h with a peak at 6 h. Mipu1 mRNA and protein signals express in the endothelium and myocardium in normal and infarcted heart, mainly in infarcted zone. Fluorescent immunocytochemistry showed that Mipu1 protein was localized to the nuclei of H9c2 myogenic cells and was upregulated after the cells being exposed to H2O2. These observations indicates that Mipu1 may play a role in maintaining vascular homeostasis and protecting the myogenic cells from being injured by ischemia-reperfusion or oxidation stress