Dynamic pore-scale reservoir-condition imaging of reaction in carbonates using synchrotron fast tomography

Synchrotron fast tomography was used to dynamically image dissolution of limestone in the presence of CO2-saturated brine at reservoir conditions. 100 scans were taken at a 6.1 µm resolution over a period of 2 hours. Underground storage permanence is a major concern for carbon capture and storage. Pumping CO2 into carbonate reservoirs has the potential to dissolve geologic seals and allow CO2 to escape. However, the dissolution processes at reservoir conditions are poorly understood. Thus, time-resolved experiments are needed to observe and predict the nature and rate of dissolution at the pore scale. Synchrotron fast tomography is a method of taking high-resolution time-resolved images of complex pore structures much more quickly than traditional µ-CT . The Diamond Lightsource Pink Beam was used to dynamically image dissolution of limestone in the presence of CO2-saturated brine at reservoir conditions. 100 scans were taken at a 6.1 µm resolution over a period of 2 hours. The images were segmented and the porosity and permeability were measured using image analysis and network extraction. Porosity increased uniformly along the length of the sample; however, the rate of increase of both porosity and permeability slowed at later times

The Hierarchical Formation of the Galactic Disk

I review the results of recent cosmological simulations of galaxy formation that highlight the importance of satellite accretion in the formation of galactic disks. Tidal debris of disrupted satellites may contribute to the disk component if they are compact enough to survive the decay and circularization of the orbit as dynamical friction brings the satellite into the disk plane. This process may add a small but non-negligible fraction of stars to the thin and thick disks, and reconcile the presence of very old stars with the protracted merging history expected in a hierarchically clustering universe. I discuss various lines of evidence which suggest that this process may have been important during the formation of the Galactic disk.Comment: paper to be read at the "Penetrating Bars through Masks of Cosmic Dust" conference in South Afric

Vector meson spectral function and dilepton rate in an effective mean field model

We have studied the vector meson spectral function (VMSF) in a hot and dense medium within an effective QCD model namely the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) and its Polyakov Loop extended version (PNJL) with and without the effect of isoscalar vector interaction (IVI). The effect of the IVI has been taken into account using the ring approximation. We obtained the dilepton production rate (DPR) using the VMSF and observed that at moderate temperature it is enhanced in the PNJL model as compared to the NJL and Born rate due to the suppression of color degrees of freedom.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, conference proceedings of the XXI DAE-BRNS HEP Symposium, IIT Guwahati, December 2014; to appear in 'Springer Proceedings in Physics Series

Screening donors for xenotransplantation: The potential for xenozoonoses

Xenotransplantation is a potential solution to the current donor shortage for solid organ transplantation. The transmission of infectious agents from donor organs or bone marrow to the recipient is a well-recognized phenomenon following allotransplantation. Thus the prospect of xenotransplantation raises the issue of xenozoonoses-i.e., the transmission of animal infections to the human host. Anticipating an increasing number of baboon to human transplants, 31 adult male baboons (Papio cynocephalus) from a single colony in the United States were screened for the presence of antibody to microbial agents (principally viral) that may pose a significant risk of infection. Antibody to simian cytomegalovirus, simian agent 8 and Epstein-Barr virus, was found in 97% of animals tested. Antibody to simian retroviruses and Toxoplasma gondii was found in 30% and 32% respectively. Discordant results were found when paired samples were examined by two primate laboratories. This was particularly noted when methodologies were based on cross-reaction with human viral antigens. These results highlight the need to develop specific antibody tests against the species used for xenotransplantation. © 1994 Williams & Wilkins

An overview of Viscosity Solutions of Path-Dependent PDEs

This paper provides an overview of the recently developed notion of viscosity solutions of path-dependent partial di erential equations. We start by a quick review of the Crandall- Ishii notion of viscosity solutions, so as to motivate the relevance of our de nition in the path-dependent case. We focus on the wellposedness theory of such equations. In partic- ular, we provide a simple presentation of the current existence and uniqueness arguments in the semilinear case. We also review the stability property of this notion of solutions, in- cluding the adaptation of the Barles-Souganidis monotonic scheme approximation method. Our results rely crucially on the theory of optimal stopping under nonlinear expectation. In the dominated case, we provide a self-contained presentation of all required results. The fully nonlinear case is more involved and is addressed in [12]

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis weakens spinal recurrent inhibition and post-activation depression

Objectives: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disrupts motoneurons that control movement and some vital functions, however, exact details of the neuronal circuits involved in ALS have yet to be fully endorsed. To contribute to our understanding of the responsible neuronal circuits, we aimed to investigate the spinal recurrent inhibition (RI) and post-activation depression (P-AD) in ALS patients. / Methods: In two groups of ALS patients, i.e. lumbar-affected (clinical signs in leg muscles) and nonlumbar-affected (clinical signs in arms or bulbar region but not in the legs), RI and P-AD on the soleus muscle were investigated using single motor units and amplitude changes of H-reflex in surface electromyography, respectively. The data were compared with healthy subjects. / Results: Compared to controls, P-AD of H-reflex was reduced severely in lumbar-affected patients and reduced to a certain degree in nonlumbar-affected patients. Similarly, a significant reduction in the duration of RI on firing motoneurons was found in lumbar-affected patients (11.5 ± 2.6 ms) but not in nonlumbar-affected patients (29.7 ± 12.4 ms, P<0.0001) compared to controls (30.8 ± 7.2 ms, P<0.0001). / Conclusion: The current study revealed that spinal inhibitory circuits are impaired in ALS. / Significance: These findings may provide insight for proposing new therapeutic approaches and following disease progression in humans

Magnetars and pulsars: a missing link

There is growing evidence that soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) and anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) are isolated neutron stars with superstrong magnetic fields, i.e., magnetars, marking them a distinguished species from the conventional species of spindown-powered isolated neutron stars, i.e., radio pulsars. The current arguments in favor of the magnetar interpretation of SGR/AXP phenomenology will be outlined, and the two energy sources in magnetars, i.e. a magnetic dissipation energy and a spindown energy, will be reviewed. I will then discuss a missing link between magnetars and pulsars, i.e., lack of the observational evidence of the spindown-powered behaviors in known magnetars. Some recent theoretical efforts in studying such behaviors will be reviewed along with some predictions testable in the near future.Comment: Invited talk at the Sixth Pacific Rim Conference on Stellar Astrophysics, a tribute to Helmut A. Abt, July 11-17, 2002, Xi'an. To appear in the proceedings (eds. K. S. Cheng, K. C. Leung & T. P. Li

A framework for task-based evaluation of robotic coworkers

© 2014 IEEE. Compared to a robotic system that performs a task alone, a robot coworker performing tasks in collaboration with a human operator is subject to additional constraints which can limit the ability of the system to perform the task as required. This work presents a framework for analyzing the ability of a robotic coworker to perform specific tasks in collaboration with a human. The framework allows systematic evaluation of robotic systems based on traditional robot performance measures such as reachable workspace and payload capacity, as well as considering additional factors which arise due to the task being performed collaboratively with a human; such as the reach and strength of the human, human-robot collision, and satisfying desired assistance paradigms. Application of the framework is demonstrated in a case study analyzing a robot designed to assist a human during a materials handling task

Perceptions of oral health practitioners regarding the long-term effects of service learning; a qualitative study

The long-term effects of service learning (SL) have not been explored in the oral health field. Such information has the potential to provide useful feedback to dental educators regarding the effectiveness and impact of SL. This would be relevant in the South African context of inequality and poor access to care. To explore the perceptions of oral health professionals from an academic institution regarding the long-term effects of SL. A case study design was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted. A total of 22 participants from the Bachelor of Dental Therapy, Bachelor of Dental Surgery, and Bachelor of Oral Hygiene participated in the study. The participants indicated that SL is a worthy activity that exposed them to the real world of dentistry and provided them with the exposure that prepared them for work actualities. Four major themes emerged; namely, personal qualities, relationship building, challenges related to SL and strategies to improve the outcomes. Participants found SL to be beneficial in their professional development and practice although they highlighted some challenges in practice. They recommended the improvement and upgrading of the SL program, as well as further research on SL approaches in other environment

Understanding How Components of Organisations Contribute to Attacks

Attacks on organisations today explore many different layers, including buildings infrastructure, IT infrastructure, and human factor – the physical, virtual, and social layer. Identifying possible attacks, understanding their impact, and attributing their origin and contributing factors is difficult. Recently, system models have been used for automatically identifying possible attacks on the modelled organisation. The generated attacks consider all three layers, making the contribution of building infrastructure, computer infrastructure, and humans (insiders and outsiders) explicit. However, this contribution is only visible in the attack trees as part of the performed steps; it cannot be mapped back to the model directly since the actions usually involve several elements (attacker and targeted actor or asset). Especially for large attack trees, understanding the relations between several model components quickly results in a large quantity of interrelations, which are hard to grasp. In this work we present several approaches for visualising attributes of attacks such as likelihood of success, impact, and required time or skill level. The resulting visualisations provide a link between attacks on an organisations and the contribution of parts of an organisation to the attack and its impact