Magmatic Evolution and Rare Metal Mineralization in Mount El-Sibai Peralkaline Granites, Central Eastern Desert, Egypt: Insights from Whole-Rock Geochemistry and Mineral Chemistry Data

The Ediacaran peralkaline granites, which were emplaced during the post-collisional tectonic extensional stage, have a limited occurrence in the northern tip of the Nubian Shield. In this contribution, we present new mineralogical and geochemical data of Mount El-Sibai granites from the Central Eastern Desert of Egypt. The aim is to discuss their crystallization condition, tectonic setting, and petrogenesis as well as the magmatic evolution of their associated mineralization. Mount El-Sibai consists of alkali-feldspar granites (AFGs) as a main rock unit with scattered and small occurrences of alkali-amphibole granites (AAGs) at the periphery. The AAG contain columbite, nioboaeschynite, zircon and thorite as important rare metal-bearing minerals. Geochemically, both of AFG and AAG exhibit a highly evolved nature with a typical peralkaline composition (A/CNK = 0.82–0.97) and formed in within-plate anorogenic setting associated with crustal extension and/or rifting. They are enriched in some LILEs (Rb, K, and Th) and HFSEs (Ta, Pb, Zr, and Y), but strongly depleted in Ba, Sr, P and Ti with pronounced negative Eu anomalies (Eu/Eu* = 0.07–0.34), consistent with an A-type granite geochemical signature. The calculated TZrn (774–878 °C) temperatures indicate that the magma was significantly hot, promoting the saturation of zircon. The texture and chemistry of minerals suggest that they were crystallized directly from a granitic magma and were later subject to late- to post-magmatic fluids. Both granitic types were most likely generated through partial melting of a juvenile crustal source followed by magmatic fractionation. The lithospheric delamination is the main mechanism which causes uplifting of the asthenospheric melts and hence provides enough heat for crustal melting. The produced parent magma was subjected to prolonged fractional crystallization to produce the different types of Mount El-Sibai granites at different shallow crustal levels. During magma fractionation, the post-magmatic fluids (especially fluorine) contribute significantly to the formation of rare metal mineralization within Mount El-Sibai granites

Establishing the feasibility of the dosimetric compliance criteria of RTOG 1308: phase III randomized trial comparing overall survival after photon versus proton radiochemotherapy for inoperable stage II-IIIB NSCLC.

BACKGROUND: To establish the feasibility of the dosimetric compliance criteria of the RTOG 1308 trial through testing against Intensity Modulation Radiation Therapy (IMRT) and Passive Scattering Proton Therapy (PSPT) plans. METHODS: Twenty-six lung IMRT and 26 proton PSPT plans were included in the study. Dose Volume Histograms (DVHs) for targets and normal structures were analyzed. The quality of IMRT plans was assessed using a knowledge-based engineering tool. RESULTS: Most of the RTOG 1308 dosimetric criteria were achieved. The deviation unacceptable rates were less than 10 % for most criteria; however, a deviation unacceptable rate of more than 20 % was computed for the planning target volume minimum dose compliance criterion. Dose parameters for the target volume were very close for the IMRT and PSPT plans. However, the PSPT plans led to lower dose values for normal structures. The dose parameters in which PSPT plans resulted in lower values than IMRT plans were: lung V5Gy (%) (34.4 in PSPT and 47.2 in IMRT); maximum spinal cord dose (31.7 Gy in PSPT and 43.5 Gy in IMRT); heart V5Gy (%) (19 in PSPT and 47 in IMRT); heart V30Gy (%) (11 in PSPT and 19 in IMRT); heart V45Gy (%) (7.8 in PSPT and 12.1 in IMRT); heart V50% (Gy) (7.1 in PSPT and 9.8 in IMRT) and mean heart dose (7.7 Gy in PSPT and 14.9 Gy in IMRT). CONCLUSIONS: The revised RTOG 1308 dosimetric compliance criteria are feasible and achievable

A review of emerging trends in Laves phase research: Bibliometric analysis and visualization

The rapid development of modern aerospace and energy industries requires increasingly high service performance of metallic materials. Laves phase intermetallic compounds with the chemical formula AB2-type have attracted much attention due to their high melting point, excellent high-temperature strength, and oxidation resistance, and are regarded as one of the promising candidates for a new generation of high-temperature structural applications. Although it can be identified that Laves phase alloy research has been an active research field in the last 20 years in terms of the trend of literature volume growth, there is still a lack of systematic descriptions and comprehensive overviews of the latest frontiers and hotspots in the field. In this article, a quantitative and visual knowledge mapping of the articles published in the field of Laves phase research in the last 20 years has been carried out based on the bibliometric analysis methodology of Cite Space software. Quantitative analysis of high-frequency keywords to understand the basic development of Laves phase and the evolution of the main research hotspots in each period of time identified the hotspots of common concern seven themes: Laves phase, electronic structure, precipitation, Inconel 718 alloy, phase diagram, high-entropy alloys, and TiAl-based alloys. The analysis of the emergent keywords shows that electronic structure, high-entropy alloys, total energy calculations, and laser cladding can represent the research frontiers of Laves phases. This study provides systematic and valuable reference information to gain insight into the current state of Laves phase research and the evolution of the theme, which will be useful for further research

Offshore Hydrocarbon Exploitation Observations from VIIRS NTL Images: Analyzing the Intensity Changes and Development Trends in the South China Sea from 2012 to 2019

The South China Sea is rich in hydrocarbon resources and has been exploited for decades by countries around it. However, little is known about the hydrocarbon exploitation (HE) activities in the South China Sea in recent years, especially its intensity changes and development trends. Here, a long-time series of monthly Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) nighttime light (NTL)images were applied to observe and analyze the HE dynamics in the South China Sea from 2012 to 2019. A target recognition method combining feature increment strategy and random forest model was proposed to obtain the spatial distribution of offshore HE targets, with an average comprehensive precision of 94.44%. Then, a spatio-temporal statistical analysis was carried out on the intensity changes and development trends of HE activities. The results showed that: (1) From 2012 to 2019, the quantity of HE targets in the South China Sea has increased from 215 to 310, from rapid to stable increasing taking 2014 as a turning point. (2) The distribution density of HE targets increases year by year, with the maximum density reaching 59/ 10,000 Km2, and with the most significant increase in the new hydrocarbon-bearing fields close to the deep-sea. (3) The quantity of HE targets shallower than -300m has been increasing with years, but showing a decreasing proportion trend, falling from 96.7% in 2012 to 94.2% of the total in 2019. (4) After 2015, the exploitation core of most hydrocarbon-bearing basins began to shift from shallow-sea to deep-sea, with gradually increasing exploitation depth, among which the maximum depth reaching −1580 m. Against the background of the changes in international crude oil prices and the vigorous development of deep-sea HE, this research provides important information and methodological references for the formulation and analysis of offshore hydrocarbon resource exploitation strategies

Offshore Hydrocarbon Exploitation Observations from VIIRS NTL Images: Analyzing the Intensity Changes and Development Trends in the South China Sea from 2012 to 2019

The South China Sea is rich in hydrocarbon resources and has been exploited for decades by countries around it. However, little is known about the hydrocarbon exploitation (HE) activities in the South China Sea in recent years, especially its intensity changes and development trends. Here, a long-time series of monthly Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) nighttime light (NTL)images were applied to observe and analyze the HE dynamics in the South China Sea from 2012 to 2019. A target recognition method combining feature increment strategy and random forest model was proposed to obtain the spatial distribution of offshore HE targets, with an average comprehensive precision of 94.44%. Then, a spatio-temporal statistical analysis was carried out on the intensity changes and development trends of HE activities. The results showed that: (1) From 2012 to 2019, the quantity of HE targets in the South China Sea has increased from 215 to 310, from rapid to stable increasing taking 2014 as a turning point. (2) The distribution density of HE targets increases year by year, with the maximum density reaching 59/ 10,000 Km2, and with the most significant increase in the new hydrocarbon-bearing fields close to the deep-sea. (3) The quantity of HE targets shallower than -300m has been increasing with years, but showing a decreasing proportion trend, falling from 96.7% in 2012 to 94.2% of the total in 2019. (4) After 2015, the exploitation core of most hydrocarbon-bearing basins began to shift from shallow-sea to deep-sea, with gradually increasing exploitation depth, among which the maximum depth reaching −1580 m. Against the background of the changes in international crude oil prices and the vigorous development of deep-sea HE, this research provides important information and methodological references for the formulation and analysis of offshore hydrocarbon resource exploitation strategies

Reconstructing High-Precision Coral Reef Geomorphology from Active Remote Sensing Datasets: A Robust Spatial Variability Modified Ordinary Kriging Method

Active remote sensing technology represented by multi-beam and lidar provides an important approach for the effective acquisition of underwater coral reef geomorphological information. A spatially continuous surface model of coral reef geomorphology reconstructed from active remote sensing datasets can provide important geomorphological parameters for the research of coral reef geomorphological and ecological changes. However, the surface modeling methods commonly used in previous studies, such as ordinary kriging (OK) and natural neighborhood (NN), often represent a “smoothing effect”, which causes the strong spatial variability of coral reefs to be imprecisely reflected by the reconstructed surfaces, thus affecting the accurate calculation of subsequent geomorphological parameters. In this study, a spatial variability modified OK (OK-SVM) method is proposed to reduce the impact of the “smoothing effect” on the high-precision reconstruction of the complex geomorphology of coral reefs. The OK-SVM adopts a collaborative strategy of global parameter transformation, local residual correction, and extremum correction to modify the spatial variability of the reconstructed model, while maintaining high local accuracy. The experimental results show that the OK-SVM has strong robustness to spatial variability modification. This method was applied to the geomorphological reconstruction of the northern area of a coral atoll in the Nansha Islands, South China Sea, and the performance was compared with that of OK and NN. The results show that OK-SVM has higher numerical accuracy and attribute accuracy in detailed morphological fidelity, and is more adaptable in the geomorphological reconstruction of coral reefs with strong spatial variability. This method is relatively reliable for achieving high-precision reconstruction of complex geomorphology of coral reefs from active remote sensing datasets, and has potential to be extended to other geomorphological reconstruction applications

A semi-automated tool for treatment plan-quality evaluation and clinical trial quality assurance

The goal of this work is to develop a plan-quality evaluation program for clinical routine and multi-institutional clinical trials so that the overall evaluation efficiency is improved. In multi-institutional clinical trials evaluating the plan quality is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. In this note, we present a semi-automated plan-quality evaluation program which combines MIMVista, Java MATLAB, and extensible markup language (XML). More specifically, MIMVista is used for data visualization; Java and its powerful function library are implemented for calculating dosimetry parameters; and to improve the clarity of the index definitions, XML is applied. The accuracy and the efficiency of the program were evaluated by comparing the results of the program with the manually recorded results in two RTOG trials. A slight difference of about 0.2% in volume or 0.6 Gy in dose between the semi-automated program and manual recording was observed. According to the criteria of indices, there are minimal differences between the two methods. The evaluation time is reduced from 10-20 min to 2 min by applying the semi-automated plan-quality evaluation program