•Impact of imbibition-profile shape on wettability is investigated thermodynamically.•Wettability is related to change in Helmholtz free energy during spontaneous imbibition process.•Helmholtz free ...energy is related to area under the curve and slope of imbibition profile.•A modified Lucas-Washburn equation is proposed for co-current imbibition process.•A wettability index is proposed using the calculated Helmholtz free energy values.
Spontaneous imbibition profiles are widely used for wettability evaluation of porous media such as rocks. However, mostly the equilibrium imbibed volume is the basis for wettability evaluation. Here, we model the relationship between the shape of imbibition profile and wettability of a medium. We develop a wettability evaluation criterion based on the change in Helmholtz free energy of the system during the imbibition process. The model relates the Helmholtz free energy to the area under the profile, the slope of the imbibition profile, equilibrium imbibed volume, and equilibrium time. We propose a modified form of Lucas-Washburn equation to model the capillary-driven flow of a viscous wetting phase into a porous medium saturated with a viscous non-wetting phase. We introduce a wettability index using the volume-normalized Helmholtz free energy. Finally, the model is tested on imbibition data of eight twin rock samples, and the wettability results show moderate to strong correlations with rock properties. The results show that wettability indices predicted by the proposed technique exhibit more accurate correlations compared with those obtained by the volume-based method.
This study presents a systematic workflow for estimating hydrogen storage capacity for a smooth energy transition from natural gas market to hydrogen market to achieve net-zero emissions. The ...workflow establishes maximum and minimum thresholds for hydrogen storage and considers appropriate storage techniques, including underground or surface facilities. The technique assesses environmental footprint of each storage technique and evaluates associated emission reductions. We apply this workflow to energy market in Alberta and project minimum and maximum storage thresholds of 0.28 and 5 megatonne/year (Mt/year) by 2050. Under three distinct storage scenarios, the storage capacity necessitates 128 salt caverns, 10 million compressed gas tanks, or 78,150 cryogenic liquefied tanks. Salt cavern storage emerges as a promising choice owing to its relatively lower emissions of 0.16 MtCO2e/year and a land footprint of 2.56 km2. The net emission reduction achieved is 1.47 MtCO2e/year, equivalent to 0.8% of Canada's target emission reduction of 190 MtCO2e/year by 2050.
•A workflow is developed to forecast required hydrogen storage capacity in Alberta.•Salt caverns emerge as a reliable and practical technique for large-scale hydrogen storage.•The workflow projects the required number of salt caverns for hydrogen storage.•Supplying stored hydrogen to market reduces 1.5 megatonne/year of GHG emissions.
Recent field reports show the uplift in oil production rate (qo), after the shut-in period, referred to as “flush production”. The conventional hypotheses for explaining this phenomenon are based on ...water-oil-rock interactions such as counter-current oil production and water-blockage reduction due to imbibition of fracturing water. Here, we hypothesize other drive mechanisms responsible for the uplift in qo: 1) pressure buildup near matrix-fracture interface during the shut-in period, 2) increasing oil saturation (So) and compressibility (co) due to an increase in solution-gas content at higher pressures, and 3) gas expansion (solution-gas drive) during pressure drawdown after restarting the well.
We analyzed the production data of two unconventional wells which were shut-in for 194 and 20 days after the primary-production period. Analysis of production data indicates that pressure buildup is the primary mechanism responsible for higher post-shut-in qo, followed by an increase in oil relative permeability (kro). The results of our compositional simulations show that by increasing the pressure near the fracture face during the shut-in period, a fraction of the free gas is dissolved in the oil phase, leading to an increase in So which is considered as the primary factor for kro enhancement. Increasing co because of increasing solution-gas content is the secondary factor that improves post-shut-in kro. However, gas relative permeability (krg) drops after the shut-in period while kroincreases. The reduction of gas saturation because of pressure buildup during the shut-in period and trapping of the gas phase due to hysteresis effect are the two reasons that explain krg reduction.
•Multiphase gas-oil interactions significantly impact performance of unconventional fractured wells after shut-in period.•Pressure buildup is the primary drive mechanism responsible for the observed uplift in oil rate after the shut-in period.•Increase in oil relative permeability and decrease in free-gas mobility are the secondary factors for uplift in oil rate.•Oil swelling and oil-compressibility increase are the main factors of post-shut-in oil relative permeability enhancement.•Shutting in a depleted fractured well at the late life of its production may not lead to enhanced post-shut-in oil rate.
Emotion recognition is defined as identifying human emotion and is directly related to different fields such as human-computer interfaces, human emotional processing, irrational analysis, medical ...diagnostics, data-driven animation, human-robot communication, and many more. This paper proposes a new facial emotional recognition model using a convolutional neural network. Our proposed model, "ConvNet", detects seven specific emotions from image data including anger, disgust, fear, happiness, neutrality, sadness, and surprise. The features extracted by the Local Binary Pattern (LBP), region based Oriented FAST and rotated BRIEF (ORB) and Convolutional Neural network (CNN) from facial expressions images were fused to develop the classification model through training by our proposed CNN model (ConvNet). Our method can converge quickly and achieves good performance which the authors can develop a real-time schema that can easily fit the model and sense emotions. Furthermore, this study focuses on the mental or emotional stuff of a man or woman using the behavioral aspects. To complete the training of the CNN network model, we use the FER2013 databases at first, and then apply the generalization techniques to the JAFFE and CK+ datasets respectively in the testing stage to evaluate the performance of the model. In the generalization approach on the JAFFE dataset, we get a 92.05% accuracy, while on the CK+ dataset, we acquire a 98.13% accuracy which achieve the best performance among existing methods. We also test the system's success by identifying facial expressions in real-time. ConvNet consists of four layers of convolution together with two fully connected layers. The experimental results show that the ConvNet is able to achieve 96% training accuracy which is much better than current existing models. However, when compared to other validation methods, the suggested technique was more accurate. ConvNet also achieved validation accuracy of 91.01% for the FER2013 dataset. We also made all the materials publicly accessible for the research community at: https://github.com/Tanoy004/Emotion-recognition-through-CNN .
Excessive intake of fluoride can cause adverse health effects. Consumption of tea as a popular drink could be a potential source of fluoride exposure to humans. This research aimed to evaluate the ...fluoride concentration in tea among the Iranian people using the available data in the literature and to assess the health risk related to the consumption of tea in men, women, and children. The health risk assessment was conducted using the chronic daily intake and hazard quotient according to the approach suggested by the Environmental Protection Agency. The fluoride content in published studies varied noticeably, ranging from 0.13 to 3.27 mg/L. The results revealed that the hazard quotient (HQ) in age groups of women (21-72 years) and children (0-11 years) was within the safe zone (HQ < 1) which showed that there was no potential of non-carcinogenic risk associated with drinking tea in these groups. However, in one case of the men (21-72 years), the HQ > 1 which shows a probable risk of fluorosis. The order of non-carcinogenic health risks in the studied groups was in the order of men > women > children. The results of this can be useful for organizations with the responsibility of human health promotion.
Recycling is known as a solution for cigarette filter management, but this may cause the release of trapped pollutants in it. Cigarette smoke toxins and chemicals that trapped in the cigarette filter ...can accumulate in the recycling leachate. In this study, littered cigarette filters and freshly smoked cigarette filters were recycled and the resulting leachate was analyzed. The results showed that the minimum and maximum Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) of the studied leachates were 2100 mg/L and 11,300 mg/L, respectively. The maximum temporal variation in the studied leachate quality was 74.28%, but the maximum spatial variation was 314.2%. COD in the freshly smoked sample was 2600-9200 mg/L more than the littered samples. The average concentration of chromium, lead, nickel, and cadmium in littered samples was 0.023, 0.024, 0.045, and 0.019 mg/L, respectively. Environmental conditions such as humidity, the efficiency of the urban cleaning system in reducing the resistance of littered filters, the difference in the quality of the filter and tobacco, and the difference in smoking behaviors were effective in this variation. Reducing the toxicity of cigarette smoke and improving the efficiency of the urban cleaning system can lead to the same quality, but leachate treatment is necessary to reduce the environmental risk.
Prostate cancer (PC) is the most frequently diagnosed non-skin cancer in the world. Previous studies have shown that genomic alterations represent the most common mechanism for molecular alterations ...responsible for the development and progression of PC. This highlights the importance of identifying functional genomic variants for early detection in high-risk PC individuals. Great efforts have been made to identify common protein-coding genetic variations; however, the impact of non-coding variations, including regulatory genetic variants, is not well understood. Identification of these variants and the underlying target genes will be a key step in improving the detection and treatment of PC. To gain an understanding of the functional impact of genetic variants, and in particular, regulatory variants in PC, we developed an integrative pipeline (AGV) that uses whole genome/exome sequences, GWAS SNPs, chromosome conformation capture data, and ChIP-Seq signals to investigate the potential impact of genomic variants on the underlying target genes in PC. We identified 646 putative regulatory variants, of which 30 significantly altered the expression of at least one protein-coding gene. Our analysis of chromatin interactions data (Hi-C) revealed that the 30 putative regulatory variants could affect 131 coding and non-coding genes. Interestingly, our study identified the 131 protein-coding genes that are involved in disease-related pathways, including Reactome and MSigDB, for most of which targeted treatment options are currently available. Notably, our analysis revealed several non-coding RNAs, including
and
, as potential enhancer elements of the protein-coding genes
and
, respectively. Our results provide a comprehensive map of genomic variants in PC and reveal their potential contribution to prostate cancer progression and development.
The orientation distribution of tiny Brownian oblate spheroidal particles suspended in a turbulent channel flow along with their generated non-Newtonian stresses are studied numerically. The direct ...numerical simulation of turbulent channel flow is coupled with a direct Monte-Carlo simulator for the particles conformation. The effects of particle shape factor and the intensity of rotary Brownian motion on the rheology of the suspension are studied. The root-mean-square of non-Newtonian stress fluctuations is computed and discussed. It is found that thinner disks produce higher stresses than thicker disks. Thin disks result in significantly higher normal stress differences. A significant level of shear stress adjacent to the wall is observed for thicker disks, which suggests a significant stress deficit for a suspension of such particles. Unlike rod-like particles, the level of shear stress is always higher than the normal stress differences for disks. It means that the shear viscosity of suspension is always more significant than its extensional viscosity.
•Rheology of a dilute suspension of Brownian disklike particles in a turbulent channel flow.•One-way coupled DNS/Monte-Carlo simulation.•Effect of rotary Brownian motion of particles.•Effect of particles aspect ratio.
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