Geothermal studies in oilfield districts of Eastern Margin of the Gulf of Suez, Egypt

AbstractResults of geothermal studies carried out at 149 onshore oil wells have been used in evaluation of temperature gradient and heat flow values of the eastern shore of the Gulf of Suez. The investigations included temperature logs in boreholes, calculation of amplitude temperature, geothermal gradients and heat flow. The results obtained indicate that geothermal gradient values are in the ranges of 0.02–0.044°C/m and regionally averaged mean heat flow values are found to fall in the interval of 45–120mW/m2. Temperature gradients and heat flow values change from low values eastward to high values toward the axial of Gulf of Suez rift. The result of this research work has been highly successful in identifying new geothermal resources eastward of the Gulf of Suez. Additionally, this study shows that the areas with relatively higher temperature gradients have lower oil window, mature earlier, than those with low gradient values. Thus, high temperature gradients cause to expedite the formation of oil at relatively shallow depths and narrow oil windows. On the other hand, low temperature gradient makes the oil window to be quite broad when locate at high depths

HPLC DETERMINATION OF DIMETHYL-4,4′-DIMETHOXY-5,6,5′,6′ DIMETHYLENE DIOXYBIPHENYL-2,2′-DICARBOXYLATE (DDB) AND CO-ADMINSTERED DIURETICS AS AN EXTEMPORANEOUS MIXTURE IN HUMAN PLASMA

Diuretics are co-adminstered with hepatoprotectant drugs for the treatment of oedema and ascitis inpatients suffering from hepatic cirrhosis.This work presents an accurate and simple method for the in vivo analysisof Dimethyl-4,4'-dimethoxy-5,6,5',6'-dimethylenedioxybiphenyl-2,2'-dicarboxylate (DDB), a hepatoprotectantdrug, with hydrochlorothiazide (HCT) and amiloride hydrochloride (AM) diuretics in human plasma using HPLC.Methodology/Principal Findings: The separation was achieved on Spheri-5 RP-8 (5μ) and Spheri-5 RP-18 (5μ)columns (220 × 4.6 mm i.d.) using 0.02 M disodium hydrogen phosphate, 0.12% w/v sodium laurylsulfate, 0.1%v/v triethylamine adjusted to pH 4 and acetonitrile in a ratio 65:35 v/v as mobile phase. The separation was carriedout at ambient temperature with a flow rate of 1.0 mL min-1. Quantitation was achieved with UV detection at 278nm based on peak area with linear calibration curves at concentration ranges 0.03–30 μg mL-1 for HCT and 0.05–30 μg mL-1 for both AM amd DDB. Conclusions: The proposed method was successfully applied to thedetermination of the investigated drugs in human plasma sample obtained from a healthy male volunteer fourhours after single oral dose administration of the three drugs. The proposed method was validated in terms oflinearity, accuracy, precision, limits of detection and quantitation and other aspects of analytical validation

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Validated spectrophotometric methods for the evaluation of Oseltamivir counterfeit pharmaceutical capsules

Four rapid, reliable and economical spectrophotometric methods have been established for the quantitative determination of Oseltamivir phosphate (OST) without the interference of ascorbic acid (ASC) found in some of its counterfeit capsules. The first method involves the use of derivative spectrophotometry with the zero-crossing technique where OST was easily determined using its 1D (Δλ = 3) at 219 nm. The second method is based on a first-order derivative ratio spectrophotometry (1DD, Δλ = 5) where 218 nm was selected for its quantification, while the third method applies a more advanced spectrophotometric method based on the ratio difference spectrophotometry (RD) in which the difference in absorbance ratio was measured between 217 and 210 nm. In the fourth method, difference spectrophotometric method (ΔA) is applied by subtracting absorbance at 252 from that at 263 nm where the difference in absorbance was zero for ASC. The proposed methods were validated for linearity, accuracy, precision and selectivity. Synthetic mixtures of different proportions and commercial capsules were assayed by the proposed methods and the results revealed good accuracy and repeatability of the developed methods

Geophysical assessment of the hydraulic property of the fracture systems around Lake Nasser-Egypt: In sight of polarimetric borehole radar

Hydraulic property of the subsurface structures is a complicated mission. In this work, the polarimetric analysis for the measured dataset applied by the polarimetric borehole radar system in order to delineate the characteristics of subsurface fractures. Two different locations in USA and Egypt were selected to perform our investigation. The first polarimetric dataset has been acquired at Mirror Lake, USA which is well known as a standard site for testing the hydraulic properties of subsurface fractures (Sato et al., 1999). The results show the presence of nine fracture zones in one borehole FSE-1. The hydraulic properties were detected and the subsurface fractures were differentiated into four categories fracture zones after deriving the radar polarimetric analysis of alpha, entropy and anisotropy parameters at 30 MHz frequency. The fracture zones at 24.75, 47.8 and 55.2 m depths have the highest hydraulic transmissivity while the fracture zones at 28.5, 36.15 m have the lowest hydraulic transmissivity. These results show a good consistency with the hydraulic permeability tracer test and the structures exist in the area. Similarly, we used the same technique to characterize the subsurface fracture systems detected by geoelectric and geomagnetic methods around Lake Nasser in Egypt using the previous results of Mirror Lake as a key guide. The results show a great correlation with detected structures prevailed in the sedimentary and basement rocks. These results illustrate an ideal explanation for the prevailed subsurface structures and the recharging of the main Nubian sandstone aquifer from Lake Nasser. Also, these results also show that the northeast fracture zone trends are most probably having the highest hydraulic transmissivity whereas the northwest fracture zones have the lowest one. The integration of surface geophysical measurements with the polarimetric borehole radar and the polarimetric analysis of its datasets introduce better understanding of the recharging mechanism between surface water and the subsurface aquifer and also can be used as clue for identifying the subsurface structures for different areas

Corrosion protection and antifouling properties of varnish-coated steel containing natural additive

The corrosion protection and antifouling properties of varnish-coated steel panels containing different amounts of cannabis extracts were investigated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), salt spray and immersion tests in 0.5 M NaCl solution and subjected to a field test in seawater. Analysis of the experimental data showed that the presence of cannabis extract resisted the deterioration (peeling off) tendency of the varnish-coated steel panels exposed to aggressive environments. Visual inspection showed that the cannabis extract also provided good antifouling properties

Spectrophotometric analysis of two eye preparations, vial and drops, containing ketorolac tromethamine and phenylephrine hydrochloride binary mixture and their ternary mixture with chlorphenirmaine maleate

Ketorolac tromethamine, KTC and phenylephrine hydrochloride, PHE binary mixture is co-formulated as eye vial, while their ternary mixture with chlorpheniramine maleate is co-formulated as eye drops. The existing work utilizes different spectrophotometric methods which are considered to be simple and rapid for the determination of both mixtures. These methods include: zero-order (D0), first derivative (D1), derivative (DR) or difference ratio (R.D), delta absorbance (ΔA) and finally convolution of derivative data using discrete Fourier functions (FFD). In the binary mixture, KTC is assayed using D0, D1 and ΔA methods with no interference from PHE, while PHE needed some spectroscopic treatments for its analysis due to the spectral overlap of KTC with its maximum wavelength (λmax) at 273 nm. Such treatments involve D1 R.D, D2R, FFD2 and ΔA methods. In the ternary mixture, KTC is assayed using D0 and D1 with no interference from both PHE and CPM, while R.D, D1R and FFD2 are used to assay both PHE and CPM to resolve the overlap in their spectra. Linear regression lines were obtained over the concentration ranges 1–18 and 6–48 μg.mL−1 for KTC and PHE (binary mixture), respectively and 2–9, 1–18 and 2–9 μg.mL−1 for CPM, KTC and PHE (ternary mixture), respectively yielding high correlation coefficients values (higher than 0.999). The lowest LOQ value for KTC (0.46 μg.mL−1) was obtained upon using the D1 method in the binary mixture while the R.D method yielded the lowest LOQ values for both PHE (0.34 μg.mL−1) and CPM (0.97 μg.mL−1) in the ternary mixture