The impact of reservoir properties on mixing of inert cushion and natural gas in storage reservoirs

Underground natural gas storage is a process which effectively balances a variable demand market with a nearly constant supply of energy provided by the pipeline system. Cushion gas in storage reservoirs provide the necessary pressure for the withdrawal of working gas and it makes up for the largest part of investments in underground storage reservoirs. Usually, a part of the cushion gas is replaced by an inert gas such as Nitrogen in order to reduce the investment costs. Due to this replacement there might be problems caused by the mixing of inert cushion and natural gas, which is a cause of concern as it affects the quality of the natural gas.;In this study, the inert gas mixing problem is investigated in storage reservoirs by using a reservoir simulator based on the equation of state. The degree of mixing between the two dissimilar gases was found by the amount of inert cushion that is produced along with the withdrawn gas. Reservoir parameters like Volume of inert cushion, porosity, permeability, reservoir pressure and reservoir temperature were varied to study their effect on mixing.;It has been found that reservoir parameters porosity, permeability and temperature do not impact the degree of mixing to a great extent. However, reservoir pressure has a slight impact on the mixing between these two dissimilar gases. It is evident from these simulations that the degree of mixing is purely a function of withdrawal rate and also the percentage of inert cushion in the storage reservoir to a great extent

Growth and Characterization of Anthranilic acid Crystals

ABSTRACTSingle crystals of Anthranilic acid (AA) have been successfully grown and purity of materials has been increased by repeated recrystallization process. Single crystals have been grown by slow evaporation technique. The grown crystal was characterized by Single crystal X-Ray diffraction, Powder XRD, FTIR, UV-Vis, DTA/TGA, Dielectric studies and SHG respectively. The observed results from various characterization show the suitability of NLO application. The second harmonic generation of the grown crystal was checked using Kurtz and Perry technique. Thermal stability and melting point of the grown crystal were found by thermal analysis. The Physical strength of the grown AA crystal was measured from Vicker’s hardness test.Â

Growth and Characterization of an Organic Nonlinear Optical Crystal: 1-Iodo-3-Nitrobenzene (INB)

The 1-Iodo-3-Nitrobenzene crystal was grown by the slow evaporation method from ethanol solvent. The crystalline structure was identified by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD). The presence of various functional group of the title material was examined by FTIR analysis. The UV-Vis absorption was carried out which shows the fundamental cutoff wavelength around 390 nm and there is no absorption in the entire visible region 390 nm to 1100 nm. The mechanical strength of the grown crystal was measured by Vicker’s microhardness tester. The thermal toughness of the grown crystal was observed by TGA-DTA and DSC studies. The electrical conductivity of the grown crystal is confirmed by dielectric measurement. The nonlinear optical character was assessed by Kurtz-Perry powder technique. This would propose that 1-iodo-3-nitro benzene crystal is a potentially capable in nonlinear optical applications

SUPFAM: A database of sequence superfamilies of protein domains

BACKGROUND: SUPFAM database is a compilation of superfamily relationships between protein domain families of either known or unknown 3-D structure. In SUPFAM, sequence families from Pfam and structural families from SCOP are associated, using profile matching, to result in sequence superfamilies of known structure. Subsequently all-against-all family profile matches are made to deduce a list of new potential superfamilies of yet unknown structure. DESCRIPTION: The current version of SUPFAM (release 1.4) corresponds to significant enhancements and major developments compared to the earlier and basic version. In the present version we have used RPS-BLAST, which is robust and sensitive, for profile matching. The reliability of connections between protein families is ensured better than before by use of benchmarked criteria involving strict e-value cut-off and a minimal alignment length condition. An e-value based indication of reliability of connections is now presented in the database. Web access to a RPS-BLAST-based tool to associate a query sequence to one of the family profiles in SUPFAM is available with the current release. In terms of the scientific content the present release of SUPFAM is entirely reorganized with the use of 6190 Pfam families and 2317 structural families derived from SCOP. Due to a steep increase in the number of sequence and structural families used in SUPFAM the details of scientific content in the present release are almost entirely complementary to previous basic version. Of the 2286 families, we could relate 245 Pfam families with apparently no structural information to families of known 3-D structures, thus resulting in the identification of new families in the existing superfamilies. Using the profiles of 3904 Pfam families of yet unknown structure, an all-against-all comparison involving sequence-profile match resulted in clustering of 96 Pfam families into 39 new potential superfamilies. CONCLUSION: SUPFAM presents many non-trivial superfamily relationships of sequence families involved in a variety of functions and hence the information content is of interest to a wide scientific community. The grouping of related proteins without a known structure in SUPFAM is useful in identifying priority targets for structural genomics initiatives and in the assignment of putative functions. Database URL:

Utilization of Microscale Silicon Cantilevers to Assess Cellular Contractile Function In Vitro

The development of more predictive and biologically relevant in vitro assays is predicated on the advancement of versatile cell culture systems which facilitate the functional assessment of the seeded cells. To that end, microscale cantilever technology offers a platform with which to measure the contractile functionality of a range of cell types, including skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle cells, through assessment of contraction induced substrate bending. Application of multiplexed cantilever arrays provides the means to develop moderate to high-throughput protocols for assessing drug efficacy and toxicity, disease phenotype and progression, as well as neuromuscular and other cell-cell interactions. This manuscript provides the details for fabricating reliable cantilever arrays for this purpose, and the methods required to successfully culture cells on these surfaces. Further description is provided on the steps necessary to perform functional analysis of contractile cell types maintained on such arrays using a novel laser and photo-detector system. The representative data provided highlights the precision and reproducible nature of the analysis of contractile function possible using this system, as well as the wide range of studies to which such technology can be applied. Successful widespread adoption of this system could provide investigators with the means to perform rapid, low cost functional studies in vitro, leading to more accurate predictions of tissue performance, disease development and response to novel therapeutic treatment

Genetic and Computational Identification of a Conserved Bacterial Metabolic Module

We have experimentally and computationally defined a set of genes that form a conserved metabolic module in the α-proteobacterium Caulobacter crescentus and used this module to illustrate a schema for the propagation of pathway-level annotation across bacterial genera. Applying comprehensive forward and reverse genetic methods and genome-wide transcriptional analysis, we (1) confirmed the presence of genes involved in catabolism of the abundant environmental sugar myo-inositol, (2) defined an operon encoding an ABC-family myo-inositol transmembrane transporter, and (3) identified a novel myo-inositol regulator protein and cis-acting regulatory motif that control expression of genes in this metabolic module. Despite being encoded from non-contiguous loci on the C. crescentus chromosome, these myo-inositol catabolic enzymes and transporter proteins form a tightly linked functional group in a computationally inferred network of protein associations. Primary sequence comparison was not sufficient to confidently extend annotation of all components of this novel metabolic module to related bacterial genera. Consequently, we implemented the Graemlin multiple-network alignment algorithm to generate cross-species predictions of genes involved in myo-inositol transport and catabolism in other α-proteobacteria. Although the chromosomal organization of genes in this functional module varied between species, the upstream regions of genes in this aligned network were enriched for the same palindromic cis-regulatory motif identified experimentally in C. crescentus. Transposon disruption of the operon encoding the computationally predicted ABC myo-inositol transporter of Sinorhizobium meliloti abolished growth on myo-inositol as the sole carbon source, confirming our cross-genera functional prediction. Thus, we have defined regulatory, transport, and catabolic genes and a cis-acting regulatory sequence that form a conserved module required for myo-inositol metabolism in select α-proteobacteria. Moreover, this study describes a forward validation of gene-network alignment, and illustrates a strategy for reliably transferring pathway-level annotation across bacterial species.</p

Assesment of Water Contamination Due to Industry Effluents on Noyyal River Basin

The purpose of this study was to assess the water quality of Noyyal river and to understand the impact of anthropogenic activities on the water quality. Water samples were collected from different sites along the river and analyzed for various physical and chemical parameters. The results of the analysis showed that the water quality of Noyyal river was poor, with levels of certain parameters such as pH, electrical conductivity, and total dissolved solids above the limits set. The results of the analysis also showed that the river was polluted due to the discharge of untreated effluents from various industries located in and around the river. The study also showed that the water quality of Noyyal river was deteriorating due to the anthropogenic activities in the catchment area. The results of this study can be used to develop strategies to improve the water quality of Noyyal river and to protect the catchment area from further degradation

Whole genome survey of coding SNPs reveals a reproducible pathway determinant of Parkinson disease

It is quickly becoming apparent that situating human variation in a pathway context is crucial to understanding its phenotypic significance. Toward this end, we have developed a general method for finding pathways associated with traits that control for pathway size. We have applied this method to a new whole genome survey of coding SNP variation in 187 patients afflicted with Parkinson disease (PD) and 187 controls. We show that our dataset provides an independent replication of the axon guidance association recently reported by Lesnick et al. [PLoS Genet 2007;3:e98], and also indicates that variation in the ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis and T-cell receptor signaling pathways may predict PD susceptibility. Given this result, it is reasonable to hypothesize that pathway associations are more replicable than individual SNP associations in whole genome association studies. However, this hypothesis is complicated by a detailed comparison of our dataset to the second recent PD association study by Fung et al. [Lancet Neurol 2006;5:911–916]. Surprisingly, we find that the axon guidance pathway does not rank at the very top of the Fung dataset after controlling for pathway size. More generally, in comparing the studies, we find that SNP frequencies replicate well despite technologically different assays, but that both SNP and pathway associations are globally uncorrelated across studies. We thus have a situation in which an association between axon guidance pathway variation and PD has been found in 2 out of 3 studies. We conclude by relating this seeming inconsistency to the molecular heterogeneity of PD, and suggest future analyses that may resolve such discrepancies