Experimental investigation of shale breakdown pressure under liquid nitrogen pre-conditioning before nitrogen fracturing

Cryogenic fracturing with liquid nitrogen(LN_(2))offers the benefits of reducing the water consumption and adverse environmental impacts induced by water-based fracturing,as well as potentially enhancing the fracture complexity.We performed a series of laboratory experiments to explore the key mechanisms governing the breakdown pressures of shale during cryogenic fracturing.In this study,cylindrical shale samples were pre-conditioned by exposing a borehole to low-temperature LN_(2) for a certain time period,and then,the samples were fractured using gaseous N_(2) under triaxial stress and a high reservoir temperature.The effects of various key parameters on the breakdown pressure were investigated,including the duration of the low-temperature LN_(2) treatment,the confining pressure,the reservoir temperature,and the direction of the shale bedding relative to the borehole axis.The results demonstrate that the injection of low-temperature LN_(2) as a pre-fracturing fluid into a borehole can significantly reduce the breakdown pressure of the shale during subsequent nitrogen fracturing.This reduction in breakdown pressure can be further intensified by increasing the duration of the LN_(2) pre-conditioning.Without LN_(2) pre-conditioning,the breakdown pressure initially increases and then decreases with increasing reservoir temperature.When LN_(2) pre-conditioning is applied,the breakdown pressure keeps decreasing with increasing reservoir temperature.As the confining pressure increased,the breakdown pressure increased linearly in the tests with and without LN_(2) pre-conditioning.The experimental results demonstrate that LN_(2) preconditioning before N_(2) fracturing is a promising waterless fracturing technique that reduces the breakdown pressure and enhances the fracture complexity.

EFFECT OF MECHANICAL PRE-CONDITIONING ON FRACTURE RESISTANCE OF POLYPROPYLENE

The effect of externally applied mechanical pre-conditioning, i.e. pre-impact treatment, on the fracture resistance was investigated for polypropylene （PP）. Impact strength was obtained via notched and/or unnotched samples. It has been shown that the pre-impact treatment is favorable to the improvement of the fracture resistance. The impact strength increases linearly with the applied pre-impact energy. Both optical and SEM results show that there are at least two possible mechanisms for the improvement of the fracture resistance. One is the crack blunting effect which is introduced to notched sample by pre-impact treatment, reducing the sensitivity of PP to the applied notch. The other is the formation of large amount of microvoids induced by pre-impact treatment, which changes the stress distribution and induces intensive plastic deformation of PP at the second impact measurement, leading to the improvement of the fracture resistance.

Hypoxic pre-conditioned adipose-derived stem/progenitor cells embedded in fibrin conduits promote peripheral nerve regeneration in a sciatic nerve graft model

Recent results emphasize the supportive effects of adipose-derived multipotent stem/progenitor cells(ADSPCs)in peripheral nerve recovery.Cultivation under hypoxia is considered to enhance the release of the regenerative potential of ADSPCs.This study aimed to examine whether peripheral nerve regeneration in a rat model of autologous sciatic nerve graft benefits from an additional custom-made fibrin conduit seeded with hypoxic pre-conditioned(2%oxygen for 72 hours)autologous ADSPCs(n=9).This treatment mode was compared with three others:fibrin conduit seeded with ADSPCs cultivated under normoxic conditions(n=9);non-cell-carrying conduit(n=9);and nerve autograft only(n=9).A 16-week follow-up included functional testing(sciatic functional index and static sciatic index)as well as postmortem muscle mass analyses and morphometric nerve evaluations(histology,g-ratio,axon density,and diameter).At 8 weeks,the hypoxic pre-conditioned group achieved significantly higher sciatic functional index/static sciatic index scores than the other three groups,indicating faster functional regeneration.Furthermore,histologic evaluation showed significantly increased axon outgrowth/branching,axon density,remyelination,and a reduced relative connective tissue area.Hypoxic pre-conditioned ADSPCs seeded in fibrin conduits are a promising adjunct to current nerve autografts.Further studies are needed to understand the underlying cellular mechanism and to investigate a potential application in clinical practice.

Low-complexity soft-output signal detector based on adaptive pre-conditioned gradient descent method for uplink multiuser massive MIMO systems

In multiuser massive Multiple Input Multiple Output(MIMO)systems,a large amount of antennas are deployed at the Base Station(BS).In this case,the Minimum Mean Square Error(MMSE)detector with soft-output can achieve the near-optimal performance at the cost of a large-scale matrix inversion operation.The optimization algorithms such as Gradient Descent(GD)method have received a lot of attention to realize the MMSE detection efficiently without a large scale matrix inversion operation.However,they converge slowly when the condition number of the MMSE filtering matrix(the coefficient matrix)increases,which can compromise the efficiency of their implementation.Moreover,their soft information computation also involves a large-scale matrix-matrix multiplication operation.In this paper,a low-complexity soft-output signal detector based on Adaptive Pre-conditioned Gradient Descent(APGD-SOD)method is proposed to realize the MMSE detection with soft-output for uplink multiuser massive MIMO systems.In the proposed detector,an Adaptive Pre-conditioner(AP)matrix obtained through the Quasi-Newton Symmetric Rank One(QN-SR1)update in each iteration is used to accelerate the convergence of the GD method.The QN-SR1 update supports the intuitive notion that for the quadractic problem one should strive to make the pre-conditioner matrix close to the inverse of the coefficient matrix,since then the condition number would be close to unity and the convergence would be rapid.By expanding the signal model of the massive MIMO system and exploiting the channel hardening property of massive MIMO systems,the computational complexity of the soft information is simplified.The proposed AP matrix is applied to the GD method as a showcase.However,it also can be used by Conjugate Gradient(CG)method due to its generality.It is demonstrated that the proposed detector is robust and its convergence rate is superlinear.Simulation results show that the proposed detector converges at most four iterations.Simulation results also show that the proposed approach achieves a better trade-off between the complexity and the performance than several existing detectors and achieves a near-optimal performance of the MMSE detector with soft-output at four iterations without a complicated large scale matrix inversion operation,which entails a big challenge for the efficient implementation.

Exercise preconditioning alleviates ischemia-induced memory deficits by increasing circulating adiponectin

Cerebral ischemia is a major health risk that requires preventive approaches in addition to drug therapy.Physical exercise enhances neurogenesis and synaptogenesis,and has been widely used for functional rehabilitation after stroke.In this study,we determined whether exercise training before disease onset can alleviate the severity of cerebral ischemia.We also examined the role of exercise-induced circulating factors in these effects.Adult mice were subjected to 14 days of treadmill exercise training before surgery for middle cerebral artery occlusion.We found that this exercise pre-conditioning strategy effectively attenuated brain infarct area,inhibited gliogenesis,protected synaptic proteins,and improved novel object and spatial memory function.Further analysis showed that circulating adiponectin plays a critical role in these preventive effects of exercise.Agonist activation of adiponectin receptors by Adipo Ron mimicked the effects of exercise,while inhibiting receptor activation abolished the exercise effects.In summary,our results suggest a crucial role of circulating adiponectin in the effects of exercise pre-conditioning in protecting against cerebral ischemia and supporting the health benefits of exercise.

Effects of Fermentation and Drying on the Fermentation Index and Cut Test of Pulp Pre-conditioned Ghanaian Cocoa （Theobroma cacao） Beans

Investigations were conducted to establish effects of fermentation and drying on the fermentation index （FI） and cut test of pulp pre-conditioned Ghanaian cocoa beans using a 4 x 3 full factorial experimental design with the principal factors being pod storage （0, 3, 7 and 10 d） and fermentation time （0, 3 and 6 d） to study the changes occurring during the fermentation process. The study also used a 4 x 3 full factorial design with pod storage （0, 3, 7 and 10 d） and drying time （0, 3 and 7 d） being the principal factors investigated to study the changes occurring during the drying process. FI and cut test of the beans were studied during fermentation as well as the drying process. FI of the beans increased significantly with pod storage and fermentation but decreased slightly during drying. FI of the unfermented beans increased slightly from 0.674 for the unstored pods to 0.763 after 10 days of pod storage. The FI of the fermented beans （six days fermentation） also increased from 1.390 for the unstored pods to 1.424 for pods stored for 10 days. It decreased from 1.389 at the start of drying for the unstored pods to 1.105 for pods stored for 10 days at the end of drying （seven days）. FI of all the beans were however, above 1.0 at the end of fermentation and drying for all pod storage treatments. Cut test revealed that storage of pods for 3, 7 and 10 days increased the percentage of brown beans by 66%, 94% and 72%, respectively, by the sixth day of fermentation. Percentage of brown beans decreased to 61%, 76% and 63%, respectively, for pods stored for 3, 7 and 10 d at the end of drying （seven days）. Cocoa pods can be stored for up to 10 days, fermented for six days and dried for seven days with the necessary formation of brown pigments characteristics of well fermented and dried cocoa beans.

Numerical and experimental analyses of rock failure mechanisms due to microwave treatment

Despite the extensive studies conducted on the effectiveness of microwave treatment as a novel rock preconditioning method,there is yet to find reliable data on the rock failure mechanisms due to microwave heating.In addition,there is no significant discussion on the energy efficiency of the method as one of the important factors among the mining and geotechnical engineers in the industry.This study presents a novel experimental method to evaluate two main rock failure mechanisms due to microwave treatment without applying any mechanical forces,i.e.distributed and concentrated heating.The result shows that the existence of a small and concentrated fraction of a strong microwave absorbing mineral will change the failure mechanism from the distributed heating to the concentrated heating,which can increase the weakening over microwave efficiency(WOME)by more than 10 folds.This observation is further investigated using the developed coupled numerical model.It is shown that at the same input energy,the existence of microwave absorbing minerals can cause major heat concentration inside the rock and increase the maximum temperature by up to three times.

Heme oxygenase system in hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury

Hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) limits access to transplantation. Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is a powerful antioxidant enzyme which degrades free heme into biliverdin,free iron and carbon monoxide. HO-1 and its metabolites have the ability to modulate a wide variety of inflammatory disorders including hepatic IRI. Mechanisms of this protective effect include reduction of oxygen free radicals,alteration of macrophage and T cell phenotype. Further work is required to understand the physiological importance of the many actions of HO-1 identified experimentally,and to harness the protective effect of HO-1 for therapeutic potential.

Redox therapeutics in hepatic ischemia reperfusion injury

Ischemia-reperfusion plays a major role in the injury experienced by the liver during transplantation. Much work has been done recently investigating the role of redox species in hepatic ischemia-reperfusion. As animal models are better characterized and developed, and more insights are gained into the pathophysiology of hepatic ischemia reperfusion injury in humans the questions into exactly how oxidants participate in this injury are becoming more refined. These questions include effects of cellular location, timing of injury, and ability of therapeutics to access this site are increasing our appreciation of the complexity of ischemia reperfusion and improving attempts to ameliorate its effects. In this review, we aim to discuss the various methods to alter redox chemistry during ischemia reperfusion injury and future prospects for preventing organ injury during hepatic ischemia reperfusion.

Mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes: The dawn of diabetic wound healing

Chronic wound healing has long been an unmet medical need in the field of wound repair,with diabetes being one of the major etiologies.Diabetic chronic wounds(DCWs),especially diabetic foot ulcers,are one of the most threatening chronic complications of diabetes.Although the treatment strategies,drugs,and dressings for DCWs have made great progress,they remain ineffective in some patients with refractory wounds.Stem cell-based therapies have achieved specific efficacy in various fields,with mesenchymal stem cells(MSCs)being the most widely used.Although MSCs have achieved good feedback in preclinical studies and clinical trials in the treatment of cutaneous wounds or other situations,the potential safety concerns associated with allogeneic/autologous stem cells and unknown long-term health effects need further attention and supervision.Recent studies have reported that stem cells mainly exert their trauma repair effects through paracrine secretion,and exosomes play an important role in intercellular communication as their main bioactive component.MSC-derived exosomes(MSC-Exos)inherit the powerful inflammation and immune modulation,angiogenesis,cell proliferation and migration promotion,oxidative stress alleviation,collagen remodeling imbalances regulation of their parental cells,and can avoid the potential risks of direct stem cell transplantation to a large extent,thus demonstrating promising performance as novel"cell-free"therapies in chronic wounds.This review aimed to elucidate the potential mechanism and update the progress of MSC-Exos in DCW healing,thereby providing new therapeutic directions for DCWs that are difficult to be cured using conventional therapy.

Status and Application of Tobacco Leaf Preconditioning in China

In the process of tobacco production, the moisture content of tobacco leaves directly affects the quality of tobacco leaf. Since the water content in the leaf is low, it needs to process with the conditioning treatment for a short time beforetobacco grading, so as to improve the tobacco moisture content and reduce breakage, as well as ensure the quality and yield of tobacco, ahd meet the requirements of the follow-up process of tobacco. Therefore, a comprehensive overview was given to the pre-conditioning method for tobacco leaf, and the current application status of tobacco leaf pre-conditioning equipment in China was explored.

Effects of Pulp Preconditioning on Total Polyphenols, O-diphenols and Anthocyanin Concentrations during Fermentation and Drying of Cocoa （Theobroma cacao） Beans

Changes in total polyphenols, O-diphenols and anthocyanin concentrations during fermentation and drying of pulp pre-conditioned cocoa （Theobroma cacao） beans were investigated using standard analytical methods. Increasing pod storage, fermentation and drying led to variable reductions in total polyphenols, O-diphenols and anthocyanins content of the beans. The rates of reduction were however more pronounced during fermentation than pod storage and drying. Storage of cocoa pods between 3-7 days with 6 and 7 days of fermentation and drying respectively retained 85%-90% of the total polyphenol and O-diphenols of the cocoa beans. Similarly, anthocyanin content of beans from the 10 days of pod storage decreased by 70% in the sixth day of fermentation. Pod storage decreased the anthocyanin content at all periods of fermentation. These suggest that the post-harvest treatments of pod storage, fermentation and drying all results in variable reductions in polyphenolic content （total polyphenols and O-diphenols） and anthocyanins content of cocoa beans.

Stem Cell Therapy of Ischemic Heart Disease

Ischemic heart disease (IHD) accelerates death of cardiomyocytes and leads to the onset of cardiac failure. Due to the application of stem cells, there exists a potential for the regeneration of a damaged myocardium. Here we present a brief review of the modern data on the application of various types of stem cells for the IHD therapy. We consider different types of stem cells, which are most preferable for the clinical application, including mesenchymal stem cells, cardiac stem cells, embryonic stem cells, iPS cells and others. In particular, we discuss their advantages and strategies which can be applied in order to boost their regenerative potential, as well as optimization of their delivery. Besides, our review refers to the contemporary achievements in the field of tissue engineering of heart, using both polymer scaffolds and scaffold-free constructs. We also discuss the most prominent known clinical trials on stem cell therapy of ischemic heart disease.

Cryptanalysis of the Double-Moduli Cryptosystem

In this article we present a lattice attack done on a NTRU-like scheme introduced by Verkhovsky in [1]. We show how, based on the relation between the public and private key, we can construct an attack which allows any passive adversary to decrypt the encrypted messages. We explain, step by step, how an attacker can construct an equivalent private key and guess what the original plaintext was. Our attack is efficient and provides good experimental results.

Changes in Nib Acidity, Proteolysis and Sugar Concentration as Influenced by Pod Storage and Roasting Conditions of Fermented Cocoa （Theobroma cacao） Beans

Changes in nib acidity, protein and sugar concentration during roasting of pulp pre-conditioned and fermented cocoa （Theobroma cacao） beans were investigated. A 4 - 4 full factorial design with the principal experimental factors as pod storage （0, 3, 7 and l0 d） and roasting time （0, 15, 30 and 45 min） were used. The roasted samples were evaluated for pH, titratable acidity, protein content and sugars concentrations using standard methods. Increasing pod storage caused consistent increases in pH with concomitant decreases in titratable acidity, whereas increasing roasting time caused only marginal and insignificant changes in pH but significantly decreased the titratable acidity. The protein content decreased significantly （P 〈 0.05） with increasing pod storage and roasting time. Reducing sugars increased marginally with increasing pod storage treatments whiles increasing roasting time significantly （P 〈 0.05） decreased the reducing sugars of the beans for all pod storage. The non-reducing sugar and total sugar content of the beans decreased significantly from 3.493 mg/g to 2.641 mg/g and from 9.284 mg/g to 8.891 mg/g, respectively, for pods stored from 0 to 10 days while roasting time caused slight decreases in non-reducing sugars with a considerable decrease in total sugars. Pod storage up to seven days decreased considerable the nib acidity （non-volatile acids）, non-reducing sugars and total sugars while roasting up to 45 min at 120 ℃ caused dramatic decreases in the nib acidity and reducing sugars with only marginal decreases in non-reducing sugars and total sugars.

Acoustic impedance inversion of zero-offset VSP data

Highly precise acoustic impedance inversion is a key technology for pre-drilling prediction by VSP data. In this paper, based on the facts that VSP data has high resolution, high signal to noise ratio, and the downgoing and upgoing waves can be accurately separated, we propose a method of predicting the impedance below the borehole in front of the bit using VSP data. First, the method of nonlinear iterative inversion is adopted to invert for impedance using the VSP corridor stack. Then, by modifying the damping factor in the iteration and using the preconditioned conjugate gradient method to solve the equations, the stability and convergence of the inversion results can be enhanced. The results of theoretical models and actual data demonstrate that the method is effective for pre-drilling prediction using VSP data.

Study of the Optimal Precursors for Blocking Events

The precursors of dipole blocking are obtained by a numerical approach based upon a quasi-geostrophic barotropic planetary- to synoptic-scale interaction model without topography and with a localized synoptic-scale wave-maker. The optimization problem related to the precursors of blocking is formulated and the nonlinear optimization method is used to examine the optimal synoptic-scale initial field successfully. The results show that the prominent characteristics of the optimal synoptic-scale initial field are that the synoptic-scale wave train structures exist upstream of the incipient blocking. In addition, the large-scale low/high eddy-forcing pattern upstream of the incipient blocking is an essential precondition for the onset of dipole blocking.

On Numerical methods for determination of Earth gravity field model using mass satellite gravity gradiometry data

On the basis of Space-Wise Least Square method, three numerical methods including Cholesky de- composition, pre-conditioned conjugate gradient and Open Multi-Processing parallel algorithm are applied into the determination of gravity field with satellite gravity gradiometry data. The results show that, Cholesky de- composition method has been unable to meet the requirements of computation efficiency when the computer hardware is limited. Pre-conditioned conjugate gradient method can improve the computation efficiency of huge matrix inversion, but it also brings a certain loss of precision. The application of Open Multi-Processing parallel algorithm could achieve a good compromise between accuracy and computation efficiency.

Short-term memory of danger signals or environmental stimuli in mesenchymal stem cells： implications for therapeutic potential

Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells （MSCs） possess some characteristics of immune cells, including a pro-inflammatory phenotype, an immunosuppressive phenotype, antibacterial properties and the expression of Toll-like receptor proteins. Here we show that, similar to immune cells, MSCs retain information from danger signals or environmental stimuli for a period of time. When treated with the pro-inflammatory factors lipopolysaccharide （LPS） or tumor necrosis factor-a （TNF-a）, MSCs display increased expression of IL-6, IL-8 and MCP-1. Following re-plating and several rounds of cell division in the absence of stimulating factors, the expression of IL-6, IL-8 and MCP-1 remained higher than in untreated cells for over 7 days. A spike in cytokine secretion occurred when cells were exposed to a second round of stimulation. We primed MSCs with LPS and LPS-primed MSCs had better therapeutic efficacy at promoting skin flap survival in a diabetic rat model than did unprimed MSCs. Finally, we found that several microRNAs, including miR146a, miR150 and miR155, along with the modification of DNA by 5-hydroxymethylcytosine （5hmC）, mediate the MSC response to LPS and TNF-e stimulation. Collectively, our data suggest that MSCs have a short-term memory of environmental signals, which may impact their therapeutic potential.

A RELAXED HSS PRECONDITIONER FOR SADDLE POINT PROBLEMS FROM MESHFREE DISCRETIZATION＊

In this paper, a relaxed Hermitian and skew-Hermitian splitting （RHSS） preconditioner is proposed for saddle point problems from the element-free Galerkin （EFG） discretization method. The EFG method is one of the most widely used meshfree methods for solving partial differential equations. The RHSS preconditioner is constructed much closer to the coefficient matrix than the well-known HSS preconditioner, resulting in a RHSS fixed-point iteration. Convergence of the RHSS iteration is analyzed and an optimal parameter, which minimizes the spectral radius of the iteration matrix is described. Using the RHSS pre- conditioner to accelerate the convergence of some Krylov subspace methods （like GMRES） is also studied. Theoretical analyses show that the eigenvalues of the RHSS precondi- tioned matrix are real and located in a positive interval. Eigenvector distribution and an upper bound of the degree of the minimal polynomial of the preconditioned matrix are obtained. A practical parameter is suggested in implementing the RHSS preconditioner. Finally, some numerical experiments are illustrated to show the effectiveness of the new preconditioner.