Microscopic Studies of Sedimentary Organic Matter: Key to Understanding Organic-Rich Strata, with Paleozoic Examples from Western Canada Basin

Organic matter in sediments and sedimentary rocks provides data and interpretations on biosphere-geosphere interactions. In modern and ancient depositional settings, a combination of anoxia and substantial bio-productivity leads to the preservation of abundant organic matter, which in turn is transformed during subsequent burial into kerogen, the source of oil and gas deposits. Kerogen can be evaluated by organic geochemistry and organic penological methods, whose parameters are used to define organic fades for fine-grained, sedimentary rock sequences. Organic geochemistry uses Rock-Eval pyrolysis and elemental analysis to determine amounts of organic C, H, and Ï in kerogen to assess petroleum potential and origin. Organic petrology uses reflected light microscopy to characterize dispersed organic matter in rocks, in terms of macerals and organic facies, which is then used to interpret the paleoenvironment and paleoecology of organic-rich sedimentary rocks. This paper outlines the organic petrology of several hydrocarbon source rocks from western Canada, illustrating the success of this method in evaluating and understanding organic-rich rocks. Résumé La matière organique dans les sédiments et les roches sédimentaires fournit des données et des informations sur les interactions entre la géosphère et la biosphère. Dans les bassins sédimentaires actuels ou anciens, la présence de conditions anoxiques en même temps qu'une forte bio-productivité conduit à la conservation de grands volumes de matière organique, lesquels se transforment par la suite en kérogène, la source des gisements de pétrole et de gaz. On utilise des méthodes de géochimie et de pétrologie organique pour étudier le kérogène et les données qu'elles fournissent permettent de définir les faciès des séquences de roches sédimentaires à grains fins. En géochimie organique, la pyrolyse Rock-Éval et l'analyse élémentaire permettent de déterminer les quantités de C, H et O organiques du kérogène et d'évaluer le potentiel pétrolier ainsi que l'origine. En pétrologie organique la microscopie en lumière réfléchie permet de caractériser la matière organique dispersée dans les roches. Ensuite, des macéraux et faciès organiques décrits on peut déduire les paramètres paléo-environnementaux et paléo-écologiques des roches sédimentaires riches en matière organique. On trouvera dans le présent article des descriptions abrégées de la pétrologie organique de plusieurs roches mères de l'Ouest canadien et qui illustrent bien l'efficacité de cette méthode dans l'évaluation et la compréhension des roches riches en matière organiques

Методика інженерних розрахунків біореакторів для біологічного очищення природних і доочищення стічних вод

Relevance of research. For the first time  raised the question of the expediency of microbiological methods for purification of natural waters, Professor P.I. Gvozdiak, who claims that the microbiological method can clean any contaminated water, significantly improve the efficiency of water purification, improve the quality of purified water and reduce its cost. With the biological method of neutralizing, the specific Gallonella ferruginea iron bacteria, due to their catalytic action, quickly oxidize Fe2+, and the resulting iron hydroxide Fe(OH)3 accumulate in a compact form, which significantly increases the dirt of contact clarifying filters (CСF) and the duration of the filtration cycle. Principle of BR work. Microorganisms inhabiting a biofilm, which is formed on the surface of filaments of fibrous fluid, oxidize substances that are in the source water, oxygen in the air, while receiving energy for their livelihoods. After intense aeration, the initial water enters the BR and is evenly distributed between the threads of the fibrous boom, flowing over the surface on which the biofilm is formed with aerobic microorganisms. At the same time, processes such as adhesion, sorption, diffusion, destruction, oxidation, etc. occur, which results in the rapid removal of oxidizing substances and the formation of new substances. BR has the following functions: -  biochemical oxidation of impurities present in the source water; - removal of gases from the water to eliminate bubble colmatation in the subfilter space of the CCF; - ensuring a constant rate of water filtration during the filtration cycle due to an increase in the water level in it by changing the pressure loss on the CCF from         hf.0 (at a clean loading) to hf.max (at the end of the filtration cycle). Mathematical model and algorithm of engineering calculations BR. For a mathematical description of the processes of water purification in the BR, it is necessary to establish the balance of the change in the concentration of contamination in the biofilm, the liquid film and the volume of the source water, which is located between the fibrous threads and moves from top to bottom. BR perform the role of air separators, the area of which must be taken from the calculation of the velocity of the downstream water flow not more than 0,05 m/s and the duration of water in it for at least 1 minute. Engineering calculations lead in the following sequence: - for the estimated flow of water through the BR Qe, m3/h, the accepted number of threads of the fibrous load N and the cross-sectional area of one thread, determine the cross-sectional area of the BR and the velocity of water flow in the BR; - to ensure the required time for water in the BR with a duration of te≥1 min at the limit velocity of water in the BR Vl = 0,05 m/s its height should be not less than He.min≥3 m; - for preliminary calculations, we take the estimated values of the output constants and coefficients defined in the special literature: Kc = 0,025 - 0,080 m/h;     A = 0,01 – 0,04 m/h; δp = 0,1 – 0,2 mm; - according to laboratory studies, we find the maximum specific bristle content of BR, the duration of the filtracycle in the zone of accumulation of contaminants and the duration of washing BR in its given intensity; - specify the estimated values of Hb and Cf and the efficiency of water purification in the BR. Conclusions. The required working height of the loading BR depends on the depth of the water treatment C0 / Сf, is directly proportional to the water filtration rate Vf  and inversely proportional to the number of threads in the unit of loading БР. The developed methodology of engineering calculations BR can determine their rational design and technological parameters, based on the requirements of providing the required time for water in the BR at the marginal velocity of the downward movement of water and the calculated efficiency of water purification from impurities.Проаналізовано систему біологічного очищення води з різними домішками в ній при прямоточному русі води через послідовно взаємодіючі споруди: біореактор (БР) – контактний прояснювальний фільтр (КПФ). Розроблена методика інженерних розрахунків БР для забезпечення процесів насичення води киснем, видалення з води газів та біохімічного окиснення домішок, що перебувають у вихідній воді, за допомогою мікроорганізмів, іммобілізованих на волокнистому фільтрувальному завантаженні

Using adsorption kinetics to assemble vertically aligned nanorods at liquid interfaces for metamaterial applications

Vertically aligned monolayers of metallic nanorods have a wide range of applications as metamaterials or in surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy. However the fabrication of such structures using current top-down methods or through assembly on solid substrates is either difficult to scale up or have limited possibilities for further modification after assembly. The aim of this paper is to use the adsorption kinetics of cylindrical nanorods at a liquid interface as a novel route for assembling vertically aligned nanorod arrays that overcomes these problems. Specifically, we model the adsorption kinetics of the particle using Langevin dynamics coupled to a finite element model, accurately capturing the deformation of the liquid meniscus and particle friction coefficients during adsorption. We find that the final orientation of the cylindrical nanorod is determined by their initial attack angle when they contact the liquid interface, and that the range of attack angles leading to the end-on state is maximised when nanorods approach the liquid interface from the bulk phase that is more energetically favorable. In the absence of an external field, only a fraction of adsorbing nanorods end up in the end-on state (<=40% even for nanorods approaching from the energetically favourable phase). However, by pre-aligning the metallic nanorods with experimentally achievable electric fields, this fraction can be effectively increased to 100%. Using nanophotonic calculations, we also demonstrate that the resultant vertically aligned structures can be used as epsilon-near-zero and hyperbolic metamaterials. Our kinetic assembly method is applicable to nanorods with a range of diameters, aspect ratios and materials and therefore represents a versatile, low-cost and powerful platform for fabricating vertically aligned nanorods for metamaterial applications

Adsorption trajectories of nonspherical particles at liquid interfaces

The adsorption of colloidal particles at liquid interfaces is of great importance scientifically and industrially, but the dynamics of the adsorption process is still poorly understood. In this paper we use a Langevin model to study the adsorption dynamics of ellipsoidal colloids at a liquid interface. Interfacial deformations are included by coupling our Langevin dynamics to a finite element model while transient contact line pinning due to nanoscale defects on the particle surface is encoded into our model by renormalizing particle friction coefficients and using dynamic contact angles relevant to the adsorption timescale. Our simple model reproduces the monotonic variation of particle orientation with time that is observed experimentally and is also able to quantitatively model the adsorption dynamics for some experimental ellipsoidal systems but not others. However, even for the latter case, our model accurately captures the adsorption trajectory (i.e., particle orientation versus height) of the particles. Our study clarifies the subtle interplay between capillary, viscous, and contact line forces in determining the wetting dynamics of micron-scale objects, allowing us to design more efficient assembly processes for complex particles at liquid interfaces

The confounding effects of high genetic diversity on the determination and interpretation of differential gene expression analysis in the parasitic nematode Haemonchus contortus

Differential expression analysis between parasitic nematode strains is commonly used to implicate candidate genes in anthelmintic resistance or other biological functions. We have tested the hypothesis that the high genetic diversity of an organism such as Haemonchus contortus could complicate such analyses. First, we investigated the extent to which sequence polymorphism affects the reliability of differential expression analysis between the genetically divergent H. contortus strains MHco3(ISE), MHco4(WRS) and MHco10(CAVR). Using triplicates of 20 adult female worms from each population isolated under parallel experimental conditions, we found that high rates of sequence polymorphism in RNAseq reads were associated with lower efficiency read mapping to gene models under default TopHat2 parameters, leading to biased estimates of inter-strain differential expression. We then showed it is possible to largely compensate for this bias by optimising the read mapping single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) allowance and filtering out genes with particularly high single nucleotide polymorphism rates. Once the sequence polymorphism biases were removed, we then assessed the genuine transcriptional diversity between the strains, finding ≥824 differentially expressed genes across all three pairwise strain comparisons. This high level of inter-strain transcriptional diversity not only suggests substantive inter-strain phenotypic variation but also highlights the difficulty in reliably associating differential expression of specific genes with phenotypic differences. To provide a practical example, we analysed two gene families of potential relevance to ivermectin drug resistance; the ABC transporters and the ligand-gated ion channels (LGICs). Over half of genes identified as differentially expressed using default TopHat2 parameters were shown to be an artifact of sequence polymorphism differences. This work illustrates the need to account for sequence polymorphism in differential expression analysis. It also demonstrates that a large number of genuine transcriptional differences can occur between H. contortus strains and these must be considered before associating the differential expression of specific genes with phenotypic differences between strains

Scientific justification of the use of cone-beam computerized tomography (cbct) for cephalometric analysis in the «audaxceph» programm

Стаття присвячена особливостям розстановки точок в ортодонтії та вивченню цефалометричних параметрів на 3D-реконструкціях. Мета дослідження – розробити алгоритм розстановки основних цефалометричних точок на 3D-реконструкції, отриманій із КЛКТ, і дати порівняльну характеристику вимірювань, проведених на класичних ТРГ і на 3D-реконструкції. Матеріали і методи. Для порівняння було взято основні кутові скелетні сагітальні параметри (SNA, SNB, ANB, SN-Ba), вертикальні (ML-NSL, NL-ML, Facial axis, 0,05). Найбільші показники розкиду помилки середнього (m) встановлені при вивченні різцевих показників – +1/NL, 110±2,72 і 110,2±5,02 відповідно і міжрізцевого кута +1/-1 - 133,8±2,21 і 138±5,79.; Данная статья посвящена особенностям расстановки точек в ортодонтии и изучению цефалометрических параметров на 3D-реконструкциях. Цель исследования – разработать алгоритм расстановки основных цефалометрических точек на 3D-реконструкции, полученной из КЛКТ, и дать сравнительную характеристику измерений, проведенных на классических ТРГ и на 3D-реконструкции. Материалы и методы. Для сравнения были взяты основные угловые скелетные сагиттальные параметры (SNA, SNB, ANB, SN-Ba), вертикальные (ML-NSL, NL-ML, Facial axis, 0,05). Самые высокие показатели разброса ошибки среднего (m) установлены при изучении резцовых показателей – +1/NL, 110±2,72 и 110,2±5,02 соответственно, а также межрезцового угла +1/-1 - 133,8±2,21 и 138±5,79.; This article is concerned with peculiarities of points’ placement in orthodontics and study of cephalometric parameters on 3D reconstructions. The aim of the investigation is to develop out the algorithm of distribution of main cephalometric points on 3D reconstructions, received from CBCT and compare characteristics of measurements done on classic teleroentgenogram (TRG) and 3D reconstructions. Materials and methods. The main angular (SNA, SNB, ANB, SN-Ba) skeletal saggital parameters, vertical (ML-NSL, NL-ML, Facial axis, <G), and dental were taken (+1/NL, -1/ML, +1/-1). The analysis of dental radiographs was done for cephalometry «AudaxCeph». Teleroentgenogram and 3 D reconstructions of 20 patients were investigated. Comparing all indices of TRG and 3D reconstructions statistically significant difference was not revealed (р> 0,05). The most significant indices was established during the study of incisive indices - +1/NL, 110±2,72 и 110,2±5,02 correspondingly inter-incisal angle +1/-1 - 133,8±2,21 and 138±5,79

Pancreatic β-cell imaging in humans: Fiction or option?

Diabetes mellitus is a growing worldwide epidemic disease, currently affecting 1 in 12 adults. Treatment of disease complications typically consumes ∼10% of healthcare budgets in developed societies. Whilst immune‐mediated destruction of insulin‐secreting pancreatic β cells is responsible for Type 1 diabetes, both the loss and dysfunction of these cells underly the more prevalent Type 2 diabetes. The establishment of robust drug development programmes aimed at β‐cell restoration is still hampered by the absence of means to measure β‐cell mass prospectively in vivo, an approach which would provide new opportunities for understanding disease mechanisms and ultimately assigning personalized treatments. In the present review, we describe the progress towards this goal achieved by the Innovative Medicines Initiative in Diabetes, a collaborative public–private consortium supported by the European Commission and by dedicated resources of pharmaceutical companies. We compare several of the available imaging methods and molecular targets and provide suggestions as to the likeliest to lead to tractable approaches. Furthermore, we discuss the simultaneous development of animal models that can be used to measure subtle changes in β‐cell mass, a prerequisite for validating the clinical potential of the different imaging tracers

Impact of Surface Ligand on the Biocompatibility of InP/ZnS Quantum Dots with Platelets

InP/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) have received a large focus in recent years as a safer alternative to heavy metal-based QDs. Given their intrinsic fluorescent imaging capabilities, these QDs can be potentially relevant for in vivo platelet imaging. The InP/ZnS QDs are synthesized and their biocompatibility investigated through the use of different phase transfer agents. Analysis of platelet function indicates that platelet-QD interaction can occur at all concentrations and for all QD permutations tested. However, as the QD concentration increases, platelet aggregation is induced by QDs alone independent of natural platelet agonists. This study helps to define a range of concentrations and coatings (thioglycolic acid and penicillamine) that are biocompatible with platelet function. With this information, the platelet-QD interaction can be identified using multiple methods. Fluorescent lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) and confocal studies have shown QDs localize on the surface of the platelet toward the center while showing evidence of energy transfer within the QD population. It is believed that these findings are an important stepping point for the development of fluorescent probes for platelet imaging

Biomorpher: interactive evolution for parametric design

Combining graph-based parametric design with metaheuristic solvers has to date focussed solely on performance based criteria and solving clearly defined objectives. In this paper, we outline a new method for combining a parametric modelling environment with an interactive Cluster-Orientated Genetic Algorithm (COGA). In addition to performance criteria, evolutionary design exploration can be guided through choice alone, with user motivation that cannot be easily defined. As well as numeric parameters forming a genotype, the evolution of whole parametric definitions is discussed through the use of genetic programming. Visualisation techniques that enable mixing small populations for interactive evolution with large populations for performance-based optimisation are discussed, with examples from both academia and industry showing a wide range of applications

The evaluation of heads of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) position in patients with malocclusion

This article is concemed with the evaluation oftemporomandibular joint position, symmetrical heads position, timely diagnostics ofdentofacial abnormalities. The aim of the investigation is to study position and evaluate symmetry of condyles of temporomandibular joint of dentofacial abnormalities based on Angle s classification of malocclusion (the first class includes normal jaw relations; the second one contains distal position of mandible, the third class includes medial position of mandible). Materials and methods. 70 patients were involved in the investigations that have dentofacial abnormalities. cone beam computed tomography was also used. Based on Angle's classification, all patients were divided in three groups: 1st group included 34 patients (the first class), 2nd group included 30 patients (the second class), 3rd group included 6patients (the third class), 34 male patients and 36 female patients were involved in the investigation aged from 8 to 29 years old. The reveal of heads of temporomandibular joint position was done by H Gelb in medial sagittal plane ofjoint. Results. Based on results of our investigation, it has been established that patients having bite abnormalities and correct position of temporomandibular joint heads on either side of position 4/7, only 8 patients are involved in this group (11.43 %). Based on Angle's classification (the 1st class) symmetrical position of heads of that joint in 4/7 was indicated 17.65 %, the second class includes 6.67 %, the third one contains no one case was established. Despite bite abnormality, number of patients with correct position of condyles in segment 4/7 from 20 % to 5 % is decreased. Besides pathology is caused by increase of asymmetrical correlations of condyles of the joint in the segments with 6.67 % to 50 % (based on Gelb). Conclusions. Despite class of bite pathology symmetrical position of heads in position 4/7 is occurred only in 11.43 % cases, and it indicates the correlation between dentofacial abnormalities and temporomandibular joint pathology, correspondingly complex approach to treatment of orthodontic patients is simply correct. Number of patients with optimal position of heads of the joint in segment 4/7 with 17.65 % based on 1st Angle's classification, to 6.67 % based on 2ndAngle 's classification, absence of patients of the 3rd class is decreased. Age dynamics of rotational displacement of the centre of condyles is pointed, and it can affect negatively joint function