CO2 storage monitoring: leakage detection and measurement in subsurface volumes from 3D seismic data at Sleipner

Demonstrating secure containment is a key plank of CO2 storage monitoring. Here we use the time-lapse 3D seismic surveys at the Sleipner CO2 storage site to assess their ability to provide robust and uniform three-dimensional spatial surveillance of the Storage Complex and provide a quantitative leakage detection tool. We develop a spatial-spectral methodology to determine the actual detection limits of the datasets which takes into account both the reflectivity of a thin CO2 layer and also its lateral extent. Using a tuning relationship to convert reflectivity to layer thickness, preliminary analysis indicates that, at the top of the Utsira reservoir, CO2 accumulations with pore volumes greater than about 3000 m3 should be robustly detectable for layer thicknesses greater than one metre, which will generally be the case. Making the conservative assumption of full CO2 saturation, this pore volume corresponds to a CO2 mass detection threshold of around 2100 tonnes. Within the overburden, at shallower depths, CO2 becomes progressively more reflective, less dense, and correspondingly more detectable, as it passes from the dense phase into a gaseous state. Our preliminary analysis indicates that the detection threshold falls to around 950 tonnes of CO2 at 590 m depth, and to around 315 tonnes at 490 m depth, where repeatability noise levels are particularly low. Detection capability can be equated to the maximum allowable leakage rate consistent with a storage site meeting its greenhouse gas emissions mitigation objective. A number of studies have suggested that leakage rates around 0.01% per year or less would ensure effective mitigation performance. So for a hypothetical large-scale storage project, the detection capability of the Sleipner seismics would far exceed that required to demonstrate the effective mitigation leakage limit. More generally it is likely that well-designed 3D seismic monitoring systems will have robust 3D detection capability significantly superior to what is required to prove greenhouse gas mitigation efficacy

On the zero-dispersion limit of the Benjamin-Ono Cauchy problem for positive initial data

We study the Cauchy initial-value problem for the Benjamin-Ono equation in the zero-disperion limit, and we establish the existence of this limit in a certain weak sense by developing an appropriate analogue of the method invented by Lax and Levermore to analyze the corresponding limit for the Korteweg-de Vries equation.Comment: 54 pages, 11 figure

Determining Segment and Network Traffic Volumes from Video Imagery Obtained from Transit Buses in Regular Service: Developments and Evaluation of Approaches for Ongoing Use across Urban Networks

69A3551747111Transit agencies around the world are increasingly mounting video cameras inside and outside their buses for liability, safety, and security reasons. Some of the cameras provide fields of view that allow observation of vehicles traveling on the surrounding roadways. Such video imagery could conceivably be used to estimate traffic volumes on roadway segments traversed by the transit buses. Transit buses are attractive platforms for acquiring the information that leads to traffic volume estimates, since a fleet of transit buses collectively covers most major surface streets in an urban area and the buses regularly and repeatedly cover the same roadway segments, which would allow for multiple, independent estimates of roadway segment flows across days and by time of day. Since the video cameras are already installed for other purposes, the costs of estimating traffic flows from video obtained from transit buses in regular service would be minimal. Therefore, traffic flows could be estimated with much greater geographic coverage, with much greater frequency, and with much lower cost than is presently available from existing traffic volume observation methods

Global Geometric Affinity for Revealing High Fidelity Protein Interaction Network

Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis presents an essential role in understanding the functional relationship among proteins in a living biological system. Despite the success of current approaches for understanding the PPI network, the large fraction of missing and spurious PPIs and a low coverage of complete PPI network are the sources of major concern. In this paper, based on the diffusion process, we propose a new concept of global geometric affinity and an accompanying computational scheme to filter the uncertain PPIs, namely, reduce the spurious PPIs and recover the missing PPIs in the network. The main concept defines a diffusion process in which all proteins simultaneously participate to define a similarity metric (global geometric affinity (GGA)) to robustly reflect the internal connectivity among proteins. The robustness of the GGA is attributed to propagating the local connectivity to a global representation of similarity among proteins in a diffusion process. The propagation process is extremely fast as only simple matrix products are required in this computation process and thus our method is geared toward applications in high-throughput PPI networks. Furthermore, we proposed two new approaches that determine the optimal geometric scale of the PPI network and the optimal threshold for assigning the PPI from the GGA matrix. Our approach is tested with three protein-protein interaction networks and performs well with significant random noises of deletions and insertions in true PPIs. Our approach has the potential to benefit biological experiments, to better characterize network data sets, and to drive new discoveries

Existence and stability of traveling waves for a class of nonlocal nonlinear equations

In this article we are concerned with the existence and orbital stability of traveling wave solutions of a general class of nonlocal wave equations: u_tt−Lu_xx=B(±|u|^(p−1)u)_xx, p>1. The main characteristic of this class of equations is the existence of two sources of dispersion, characterized by two coercive pseudo-differential operators L and B. Members of the class arise as mathematical models for the propagation of dispersive waves in a wide variety of situations. For instance, all Boussinesq-type equations and the so-called double-dispersion equation are members of the class. We first establish the existence of traveling wave solutions to the nonlocal wave equations considered. We then obtain results on the orbital stability or instability of traveling waves. For the case L=I, corresponding to a class of Klein-Gordon-type equations, we give an almost complete characterization of the values of the wave velocity for which the traveling waves are orbitally stable or unstable by blow-up

Uniqueness Properties of Solutions to the Benjamin-Ono equation and related models

We prove that if u1, u2 are solutions of the Benjamin- Ono equation defined in (x, t) ∈ R × [0, T ] which agree in an open set Ω ⊂ R × [0,T], then u1 ≡ u2. We extend this uniqueness result to a general class of equations of Benjamin-Ono type in both the initial value problem and the initial periodic boundary value problem. This class of 1-dimensional non-local models includes the intermediate long wave equation. Finally, we present a slightly stronger version of our uniqueness results for the Benjamin-Ono equation

Using diffusion distances for flexible molecular shape comparison

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many molecules are flexible and undergo significant shape deformation as part of their function, and yet most existing molecular shape comparison (MSC) methods treat them as rigid bodies, which may lead to incorrect shape recognition.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this paper, we present a new shape descriptor, named Diffusion Distance Shape Descriptor (DDSD), for comparing 3D shapes of flexible molecules. The diffusion distance in our work is considered as an average length of paths connecting two landmark points on the molecular shape in a sense of inner distances. The diffusion distance is robust to flexible shape deformation, in particular to topological changes, and it reflects well the molecular structure and deformation without explicit decomposition. Our DDSD is stored as a histogram which is a probability distribution of diffusion distances between all sample point pairs on the molecular surface. Finally, the problem of flexible MSC is reduced to comparison of DDSD histograms.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We illustrate that DDSD is insensitive to shape deformation of flexible molecules and more effective at capturing molecular structures than traditional shape descriptors. The presented algorithm is robust and does not require any prior knowledge of the flexible regions.</p

The spectra of harmonic layer potential operators on domains with rotationally symmetric conical points

We study the adjoint of the double layer potential associated with the Laplacian (the adjoint of the Neumann–Poincare´ operator), as a map on the boundary surface Γ of a domain in R 3 with conical points. The spectrum of this operator directly reflects the well-posedness of related transmission problems across Γ. In particular, if the domain is understood as an inclusion with complex permittivity ɛ, embedded in a background medium with unit permittivity, then the polarizability tensor of the domain is well-defined when (ɛ + 1)/(ɛ − 1) belongs to the resolvent set in energy norm. We study surfaces Γ that have a finite number of conical points featuring rotational symmetry. On the energy space, we show that the essential spectrum consists of an interval. On L 2 (Γ), i.e. for square-integrable boundary data, we show that the essential spectrum consists of a countable union of curves, outside of which the Fredholm index can be computed as a winding number with respect to the essential spectrum. We provide explicit formulas, depending on the opening angles of the conical points. We reinforce our study with very precise numerical experiments, computing the energy space spectrum and the spectral measures of the polarizability tensor in two different examples. Our results indicate that the densities of the spectral measures may approach zero extremely rapidly in the continuous part of the energy space spectrum

Derivation of dissipative Boussinesq equations using the Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator approach

The water wave theory traditionally assumes the fluid to be perfect, thus neglecting all effects of the viscosity. However, the explanation of several experimental data sets requires the explicit inclusion of dissipative effects. In order to meet these practical problems, the theory of visco-potential flows has been developed (see P.-F. Liu & A. Orfila (2004) and D. Dutykh & F. Dias (2007)). Then, usually this formulation is further simplified by developing the potential in an entire series in the vertical coordinate and by introducing thus, the long wave approximation. In the present study we propose a derivation of dissipative Boussinesq equations which is based on asymptotic expansions of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann (D2N) operator. Both employed methods yield the same system by different ways.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures. Other author's papers can be downloaded at http://www.denys-dutykh.com

Identifying the Onset of Congestion Rapidly with Existing Traffic Detectors

Highway Administration. The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the data presented herein. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the State of California. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation