Surfactant Induced Reservoir Wettability Alteration: Recent Theoretical and Experimental Advances in Enhanced Oil Recovery

Reservoir wettability plays an important role in various oil recovery processes. The origin and evolution of reservoir wettability were critically reviewed to better understand the complexity of wettability due to interactions in crude oil-brine-rock system, with introduction of different wetting states and their influence on fluid distribution in pore spaces. The effect of wettability on oil recovery of waterflooding was then summarized from past and recent research to emphasize the importance of wettability in oil displacement by brine. The mechanism of wettability alteration by different surfactants in both carbonate and sandstone reservoirs was analyzed, concerning their distinct surface chemistry, and different interaction patterns of surfactants with components on rock surface. Other concerns such as the combined effect of wettability alteration and interfacial tension (IFT) reduction on the imbibition process was also taken into account. Generally, surfactant induced wettability alteration for enhanced oil recovery is still in the stage of laboratory investigation. The successful application of this technique relies on a comprehensive survey of target reservoir conditions, and could be expected especially in low permeability fractured reservoirs and forced imbibition process

Anthocyanin-containing Purple Potatoes Ameliorate DSS-induced Colitis in Mice

Ulcerative colitis (UC), a major form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), is on the rise worldwide. Approximately three million people suffer from IBD in the United States alone, but the current therapeutic options (e.g., corticosteroids) come with adverse side effects including reduced ability to fight infections. Thus, there is a critical need for developing effective, safe and evidence-based food products with anti-inflammatory activity. This study evaluated the antiinflammatory potential of purple-fleshed potato using a dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) murine model of colitis. Mice were randomly assigned to control (AIN-93G diet), P15 (15% purple-fleshed potato diet) and P25 (25% purple-fleshed potato diet) groups. Colitis was induced by 2% DSS administration in drinking water for six days. The results indicated that purple-fleshed potato supplementation suppressed the DSS-induced reduction in body weight and colon length as well as the increase in spleen and liver weights. P15 and P25 diets suppressed the elevation in the intestinal permeability, colonic MPO activity, mRNA expression and protein levels of pro-inflammatory interleukins IL-6 and IL-17, the relative abundance of specific pathogenic bacteria such as Enterobacteriaceae, Escherichia coli (E. coli) and pks+ E. coli, and the increased flagellin levels induced by DSS treatment. P25 alone suppressed the elevated systemic MPO levels in DSS-exposed mice, and elevated the relative abundance of Akkermansia muciniphila (A. muciniphila) as well as attenuated colonic mRNA expression level of IL-17 and the protein levels of IL-6 and IL-1β. Therefore, the purple-fleshed potato has the potential to aid in the amelioration of UC symptoms

Effects of UV-C Light Exposure and Refrigeration on Phenolic and Antioxidant Profiles of Subtropical Fruits (Litchi, Longan, and Rambutan) in Different Fruit Forms

The objectives of this study were to investigate how UV-C irradiation and refrigeration affect shelf-life and antioxidant level of litchi, longan, and rambutan. Three forms (whole, dehulled, and destoned) of fresh fruits were treated by refrigeration and UV-C irradiations. After processing, deterioration rate, phenolics compounds, and antioxidant capacity were quantified. The deterioration rate was recorded as decay index. The results showed that both refrigeration and UV-C exposure extended the shelf-life of the fruits. The refrigeration enriched antioxidant levels of litchi but caused nutritional degradation in longan and rambutan; UV-C radiation enriched litchi antioxidant contents but was related to reduction of antioxidant capacity in longan and rambutan. Removing hulls and stones was associated with the decrease of antioxidants in litchi. The effects on antioxidant levels varied from fruit to fruit, resulting from hormesis phenomenon. The change of phytochemical levels was hypothesized as an accumulative process. The effects of fruit forms were not consistent in different fruits, which could be multifactorially influenced

Cyanidin-3-O-Glucoside Supplement Improves Sperm Quality and Spermatogenesis in a Mice Model of Ulcerative Colitis

Impaired fertility and low sperm quality are the global health problem with high attention. It has been noted that inflammation may impact fertility by affecting testicular spermatogenesis. Cyanidin-3-O-glucoside is a natural functional pigment with various health benefits. Nevertheless, studies on the mechanism by which C3G protects male reproduction in mice with ulcerative colitis remain scarce. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the potential mechanism of C3G for improving impaired fertility caused by colitis. A DSS-induced colitis model was applied to assess the effects of sperm quality with colitis and the health benefit role of C3G. Results indicated that C3G-treated mice exhibited higher body weight, longer colon length, less crypt damage and focal inflammation infiltration. Being consistent with that, low sperm count, low testis weight, high inflammation levels and abnormal thickness of seminiferous epithelium also observed in the DSS group were significantly recovered upon C3G treatment. These findings suggested that colitis has a close link to impaired fertility. Further analysis found that C3G could significantly suppress the inflammatory mediators in serum. Results conjointly indicated that C3G might improve the impaired fertility of mice with colitis by inhibiting inflammatory cytokines through the blood–testis barrier. C3G could be a promising daily supplement for ameliorating impaired fertility caused by colitis

Surgical Strategy for the Management of Renal Cell Carcinoma with Inferior Vena Cava Tumor Thrombus

The hallmark of renal cell carcinoma is its biological characteristic of invading the renal vein and/or inferior vena cava (IVC), which occurs in 4–10% of patients. Radical nephrectomy (RN) with tumor thrombectomy is the standard approach for treating such challenging cases. Except tumor thrombus height, several factors can determine the surgical strategy, including the effect of targeted molecular therapy (TMT), invasion of the IVC wall, venous occlusion, establishment of collateral circulation, IVC thromboembolism, and primary tumor location. The surgical strategy for patients with retrohepatic vena cava tumor thrombi depends on the upper extent of the tumor thrombus. In addition, the first porta hepatis and hepatic veins are important anatomical boundaries. Based on previous studies, the effect of pre-surgical TMT is limited. The safety of IVC venography, an imaging modality that can observe congestion of the tumor thrombus and show the collateral circulation, has considerably improved. IVC interruption plays an important role in tumor thrombectomy for patients with invasion of the venous walls, complete occlusion of the vena cava, and the presence of distal thrombus. A series of retrospective and prospective studies are needed to be conducted, which will provide our clinical work with more powerful reference and basis

Black Truffle Aqueous Extract Attenuates Oxidative Stress and Inflammation in STZ-Induced Hyperglycemic Rats via Nrf2 and NF-κB Pathways

Background and Purpose:Tuber melanosporum (black truffle) has been considered as a medicinal mushroom for a long time. T. melanosporum has the ability to attenuate oxidative stress and in turn diabetes mellitus (DM). DM has become an awfully common chronic unwellness, threatening people’s well-being. There are nearly 1 in 10 people in the world affected by diabetes. Oxidative stress plays a crucial role in vascular complications related to DM. Our study aimed to attain an effective treatment method to alleviate oxidative stress by scavenging free radicals and reducing inflammation, to display how truffle aqueous extract (TE) attenuates hyperglycemia.Methods: Streptozotocin (STZ)-induced hyperglycemic rat model was accustomed to check the hypoglycemic effect of black truffle by relating it with Nrf2 and NF-κB pathways. Varied biomarkers and inflammatory markers were analyzed.Results: Rats treated with TE showed reduced glucose levels, attenuated oxidative stress through regulation of SOD, CAT, VIT-E, and VIT-C. The gene expression of Nrf2 and NF-κB in rats treated with TE was increased to normal group level. The mRNA expression of inflammatory pathway genes and oxidative stress pathway genes in rats treated with TE was brought back normal. Similar results were achieved in the rats treated with standard drug, glibenclamide (GB). TE conjointly inhibits the state of inflammation within the tissues generally littered with the symptoms of hyperglycemia.Conclusion: The results of our study show the hypoglycemic impact of black truffle on STZ-induced hyperglycemia in rats via Nrf2 and NF-κB pathways, and both pathways have significant improvement that may support the hypoglycemic impact of truffle

AENet: attention efficient network for cross-view image geo-localization

To address the problem that task-irrelevant objects such as cars, pedestrians and sky, will interfere with the extracted feature descriptors in cross-view image geo-localization, this paper proposes a novel method for cross-view image geo-localization, named as AENet. The method includes two main parts: an attention efficient network fusing channel and spatial attention mechanisms and a triplet loss function based on a multiple hard samples weighting strategy. In the first part, the EfficientNetV2 network is used to extract features from the images and preliminarily filter irrelevant features from the channel dimension, then the Triplet Attention layer is applied to further filter irrelevant features from the spatial dimension. In the second part, a multiple hard samples weighting strategy is proposed to enhance the learning of hard samples. Experimental results show that our proposed method significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art method on two existing benchmark datasets

Characterization and Anti-Inflammatory Potential of an Exopolysaccharide from Submerged Mycelial Culture of Schizophyllum commune

Background and Purpose: Mushroom polysaccharides have attracted attention in food and pharmacology fields because of their many biological activities. The structure characterization and anti-inflammatory activity of exopolysaccharide from Schizophyllum commune were evaluated in present study.Methods: An exopolysaccharide from a submerged mycelial fermentation of S. commune was obtained using DEAE-52 cellulose and Sephadex G-150 chromatography. The molecular weight (MW), monosaccharide compositions, chemical compositions, methylation analysis, circular dichroism studies, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy were investigated.Results: It was a homogeneous protein-bound heteropolysaccharide with MW of 2,900 kDa. The exopolysaccharide contained a β-(1→3) glycosidic backbone, (1→4)- and (1→6)- glycosidic side chain, and high amount of glucose. The anti-inflammatory activity of exopolysaccharide was assessed by inhibiting the production of nitric oxide (NO), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), and 5- lipoxygenase (5-LOX) from macrophages. This exopolysaccharide significantly (p < 0.05) inhibited lipopolysaccharides-induced iNOS expression levels in the cells in a dose-dependent manner.Conclusion: It indicated significant anti-inflammatory effects, which showed that exopolysaccharide might be exploited as an effective anti-inflammatory agent for application in NO-related disorders such as inflammation and cancer

Study on the Relationship of Indoor Air Quality Indexes by Correspondence Analysis and Homogeneity Analysis

We investigated the relationships among air quality indexes, such as the total number of bacteria "BAC", concentration of carbon dioxide "CO2", relative humidity "HUM", concentration of negative ion "NI" and opening time "TIM" in the environment of indoor public place. The data were divided into 3 levels based on its percentile and analyzed by correspondence analysis (ANACOR) and homogeneity analysis (HOMALS) in SPSS 8.0/10.0. Using these methods, we analyzed among 2 variables and their 3 levels, there were the relationships between BAC and CO2, CO2 and TIM, and BAC and TIM. When analyzing by HOMALS, among 3 variables and their 3 levels, there were some similar relationships: BAC, CO2 and TIM; BAC, CO2 and NI. The increase of CO2 and SAC were changed with TIM. The higher CO2 tended to increase BAC and to decrease NI. These results indicated under general conditions, CO2 can show the status of the air BAC. Increasing the ventilation and the relative humidity suitably may raise NI concentration and improve the air quality. Although the analytical results of the air quality by ANACOR and HOMALS are similar to that of chi-square test, ANACOR and HOMALS can be clearly shown in the plots with 2 or 3 axes. These two methods (ANACOR and HOMALS) may be useful to show the relationships among indoor air quality indexes more sensitively and directly