Produced Water from Oil-Gas Plants: A Short Review on Challenges and Opportunities

The produced water, which could be a complex mixture of different organic and inorganic compounds (mostly salts, minerals and oils) is a major wastewater stream generated during oil and gas production processes. Due to increase oil and gas exploration and production, especially from unconventional resources like shale oil and gas reservoirs, the volume of this effluent production is increasing around the world and its discarding to the environment is one of the global concerns. There are various physical and chemical methods to treat the produced water. However, a comprehensive and deep understanding of each issue can lead to a better and more efficient solution. In this study, various physical and chemical treatment methods for produced water have been reviewed based on the latest findings and recently published articles on this topic. Moreover, challenges and opportunities of each of these treatment methods have been fully discussed. Also potential applications for reusing the treated PW have been suggested and discussed finally

Development and prioritization of socio-economic strategies to elevate public participation in natural resource management using TOPSIS approach; Case Study: Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province (Iran)

Proper implementation of the participatory projects to conserve national natural resources has become much more important over the recent decades. This socio-economic research seeks developing effective strategies to increase public participation in experts' opinions of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province (Iran), in order to achieve sustainable and integrated management of natural resources. In the first step, the literature review led to the identification of 57 social parameters influencing public participation in the province. In the second step, from the parameters identified, with the help of the Delphi technique, 15 parameters were finalized by experts. This led to the formulation of the effective socioeconomic strategies in the study area. The next step was to prioritize these parameters. For this purpose, the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was used in Topsis solver software. The study’s statistical population was comprised of the executive experts of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province. The results of the prioritization indicated that the strategy of "the development of alternative livelihoods (A6)" ranks first with normal weight of 0.31, followed by "focus on profitable projects (A2)" with the normal weight of 0.2, and "strengthening social cohesion and trust (A7 )" with the normal weight of 0.12, as the most important strategies to increase public participation. The results of this study can be used by managers and executive decision-makers to protect natural resources and increase feasibility of management activities in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province.Keywords: Strategies effective on public participation, Delphi technique, Executive experts, TOPSIS, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Provinc

Nanocomposite Coating Based on Thermoplastic Acrylic Resin and Montmorillonite Clay: Preparation and Corrosion Prevention Properties

Abstract Different amounts of nanoclay were incorporated into the acrylic resin matrix at 0, 1, 3, and 5 wt.% loadings. The coatings were applied on low carbon steel plates. Optical microscopy, sedimentation test, transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction were employed to investigate the dispersion of nanoclay in matrix. The corrosion resistance of coatings was evaluated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, polarization measurement, and salt spray test. In addition, pull-off and cross-cut tests were used for the assessment of coating adhesion to the substrate. The results indicated that the anti-corrosive properties of the acrylic resin were obviously increased by the addition of nanoclay. The nanocomposite coatings containing 3 wt.% clay showed the best corrosion resistance. Finally, the nanocomposites containing 1 and 3 wt.% showed the highest adhesion to the substrate

Upper bound of second Hankel determinant for subclass of close-to-convex functions / Muhammad Fazrul Azmi... [et al.]

Geometric function theory is an extraordinary area of complex analysis. This area of study is more often associated with geometric properties of analytic function such as extremal properties, radius properties, representation theorem and coefficient bound. Many researchers raised the interest in studying properties in different classes that have been introduced. In this research, we focus on defining new subclasses of analytic functions, L(a,<5,t,s) afterwards determining the upper bound of second Hankel determinant for the selected class of function

Development of fuzzy Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Objective planning Model to Optimize the Portfolio of Investment Companies

Proper management and optimal allocation of financial resources will increase gross national product and growth, create jobs and increase public welfare. The purpose of this study is to present an investment strategy that has tried to pave the way for the development of the investing company in the financial markets. Therefore, the forthcoming research can be considered as applied in terms of purpose. Also, considering that in the present research, mathematical modeling, modeling, artificial intelligence, etc. are used and the optimization of the investor company's portfolio is evaluated with the proposed model, so it is a quantitative and descriptive research. This study evaluated the performance of the proposed model in three modes: prudent, moderate and risky investor company. The results showed that for all three cases, the proposed strategy performs significantly better than the market index and other previous strategies. At the end of the investment period, the risky portfolio was more valuable than other portfolios. On the other hand, a prudent portfolio has achieved a more stable and stable return. These results revealed that the proposed fuzzy programming is able to reflect the characteristics and desires of the investor company in the portfolio composition

Glucoherb versus metformin on glycemic markers and glycosylated hemoglobin in prediabetes patients; a clinical trial study

Introduction: There is a high risk of diabetes mellitus in pre-diabetic patients. Objectives: The aim of the study was to compare the effect of the extracts of these herbs in the formulation of Glucoherb supplementation versus metformin in pre-diabetes patients on glycemic markers and glycosylated hemoglobin. Patients and Methods: Pre-diabetic patients who had indication of drug treatment according to the criteria of the American Diabetes Association, were selected and randomly divided into two groups of Glucoherb and metformin. Body mass index (BMI), fasting blood sugar (FBS), 2 hours postprandial blood glucose (BS2PP) and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) were measured before and after the intervention. Results: The mean BMI, FBS, BS2PP and HbA1c levels were significantly decreased after intervention in both Glucoherb and metformin groups (P < 0.05) without any significant difference between them (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Glucoherb showed similar efficacy to metformin in reducing blood glucose, BMI and HbA1c in pre-diabetic patients

An Overview on the Treatment and Management of the Desalination Brine Solution

Due to the increasing limitations of water resources, application of desalination plants is expanding. One of the constraints associated with desalination plant operation is the production of concentrated solution, which is known as brine and can lead to critical challenges in the environment due to its high level of salinity. In this regard, many different disposal options used recently to control and prevent the environmental issues may be caused by the brine. Evaporation ponds, surface water discharge, and deep well injection are considered as the most well-known options to properly dispose concentrated brine. However, the application of these methods is highly restricted by capital cost and their limited uses. The treatment methods vary in terms of their ability in organics removal and can be divided into three different conventional groups as biological, physicochemical, and oxidation. In recent years, more attention has been paid to membrane-based technologies due to their economic performance in recovering precious resources and providing potable water with high recovery rates. This book chapter provides some critical reviews on recent technologies including treatment operations and disposal options to manage concentrated solutions from desalination plants. Finally, electrodialysis, forward osmosis, and membrane distillation as emerging membrane processes are examined in this chapter

Immune checkpoints in targeted-immunotherapy of pancreatic cancer: New hope for clinical development

Immunotherapy has been recently considered as a promising alternative for cancer treatment. Indeed, targeting of immune checkpoint (ICP) strategies have shown significant success in human malignancies. However, despite remarkable success of cancer immunotherapy in pancreatic cancer (PCa), many of the developed immunotherapy methods show poor therapeutic outcomes in PCa with no or few effective treatment options thus far. In this process, immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment (TME) is found to be the main obstacle to the effectiveness of antitumor immune response induced by an immunotherapy method. In this paper, the latest findings on the ICPs, which mediate immunosuppression in the TME have been reviewed. In addition, different approaches for targeting ICPs in the TME of PCa have been discussed. This review has also synopsized the cutting-edge advances in the latest studies to clinical applications of ICP-targeted therapy in PCa

The effect of seating preferences of the medical students on educational achievement

Background: The seat selection and classroom dynamics may have mutual influence on the student performance and participation in both assigned and random seating arrangement. Purpose: The aim of the study was to understand the influence of seat selection on educational achievement. Methods: The seating positions of the medical students were recorded on an architectural plan during each class session and the means and standard deviations of the students&#x2019; locations were calculated in X and Y orientations. The locations of the students in the class were analyzed based on three architectural classifications: interactional zone, distance from the board, and access to the aisles. Final exam scores were used to measure the students&#x2019; educational achievement. Results: Our results demonstrate that there is a statistically significant relationship between the student&#x0027;s locations in the class and their attendance and educational achievements. Conclusion: Two factors may effect on educational achievement: student seating in the high interactional zone and minimal changes in seating location. Seating in the high interaction zone was directly associated with higher performance and inversely correlated with the percentage of absences. This observation is consistent with the view that students in the front of the classroom are likely more motivated and interact with the lecturer more than their classmates