For decades visual field defects were considered irreversible because it was thought that in the visual system the regeneration potential of the neuronal tissues is low.Nevertheless,there is always some potential for ...For decades visual field defects were considered irreversible because it was thought that in the visual system the regeneration potential of the neuronal tissues is low.Nevertheless,there is always some potential for partial recovery of the visual field defect that can be achieved through induction of neuroplasticity.Neuroplasticity refers to the ability of the brain to change its own functional architecture by modulating synaptic efficacy.It is maintained throughout life and just as neurological rehabilitation can improve motor coordination,visual field defects in glaucoma,diabetic retinopathy or optic neuropathy can be improved by inducing neuroplasticity.In ophthalmology many new treatment paradigms have been tested that can induce neuroplastic changes,including non-invasive alternating current stimulation.Treatment with alternating current stimulation(e.g.,30 minutes,daily for 10 days using transorbital electrodes and^10 Hz)activates the entire retina and parts of the brain.Electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies revealed local activation of the visual cortex,global reorganization of functional brain networks,and enhanced blood flow,which together activate neurons and their networks.The future of low vision is optimistic because vision loss is indeed,partially reversible.展开更多
The task of dividing corrupted-data into their respective subspaces can be well illustrated,both theoretically and numerically,by recovering low-rank and sparse-column components of a given matrix.Generally,it can be ...The task of dividing corrupted-data into their respective subspaces can be well illustrated,both theoretically and numerically,by recovering low-rank and sparse-column components of a given matrix.Generally,it can be characterized as a matrix and a 2,1-norm involved convex minimization problem.However,solving the resulting problem is full of challenges due to the non-smoothness of the objective function.One of the earliest solvers is an 3-block alternating direction method of multipliers(ADMM)which updates each variable in a Gauss-Seidel manner.In this paper,we present three variants of ADMM for the 3-block separable minimization problem.More preciously,whenever one variable is derived,the resulting problems can be regarded as a convex minimization with 2 blocks,and can be solved immediately using the standard ADMM.If the inner iteration loops only once,the iterative scheme reduces to the ADMM with updates in a Gauss-Seidel manner.If the solution from the inner iteration is assumed to be exact,the convergence can be deduced easily in the literature.The performance comparisons with a couple of recently designed solvers illustrate that the proposed methods are effective and competitive.展开更多
In view of high water cut and low oil recovery caused by the unidirectional flow in linear pattern of horizontal wells for the carbonate reservoirs in the Middle East,this paper provides a novel approach to improve oi...In view of high water cut and low oil recovery caused by the unidirectional flow in linear pattern of horizontal wells for the carbonate reservoirs in the Middle East,this paper provides a novel approach to improve oil recovery by converting linear water injection to cyclic alternating water injection patterns including cyclic alternating water injection with apparent inverted seven-spot pattern or apparent five-spot pattern and cyclic differential alternating water injection.The main advantage of using this strategy is that the swept efficiency is improved by changing injection-production streamlines and displacement directions,which means displacement from two different direction for the same region during a complete cycle.This technology is effective in increasing the swept efficiency and tapping the remaining oil,thus resulting in higher oil recovery.Field application with three new patterns in a carbonate reservoir in the Middle East is successful.By optimizing injection and production parameters based on the cyclic alternating well pattern,the test well group had a maximum increase of daily oil production per well of 23.84 m^(3) and maximum water cut drop of 18%.By further optimizing the distance(keep a long distance)between the heels of injection and production wells,the waterflooding performance could be better with water cut decreasing and oil production increasing.展开更多
In this work, an experimental study combined with numerical simulation was conducted to investigate the potential of chemically enhanced water alternating gas （CWAG） injection as a new enhanced oil recovery method. ...In this work, an experimental study combined with numerical simulation was conducted to investigate the potential of chemically enhanced water alternating gas （CWAG） injection as a new enhanced oil recovery method. The unique feature of this new method is that it uses alkaline, surfactant, and polymer additives as a chemical slug which is injected during the water alternating gas （WAG） process to reduce the interfacial tension （IFT） and simultaneously improve the mobility ratio. In essence, the proposed CWAG process involves a combination of chemical flooding and immiscible carbon dioxide （CO2） injection and helps in IFT reduction, water blocking reduction, mobility control, oil swelling, and oil viscosity reduction due to CO2 dissolution. Its performance was compared with the conventional immiscible water alter- nating gas （I-WAG） flooding. Oil recovery utilizing CWAG was better by 26 % of the remaining oil in place after waterflooding compared to the recovery using WAG conducted under similar conditions. The coreflood data （cumulative oil and water production） were history mat- ched via a commercial simulator by adjusting the relative permeability curves and assigning the values of the rock and fluid properties such as porosity, permeability, and the experimentally determined IFT data. History matching ofthe coreflood model helped us optimize the experiments and was useful in determining the importance of the parameters influencing sweep efficiency in the CWAG process. The effectiveness of the CWAG process in pro- viding enhancement of displacement efficiency is evident in the oil recovery and pressure response observed in the coreflood. The results of sensitivity analysis on CWAG slug patterns show that the alkaline-surfactant-polymer injection is more beneficial after CO2 slug injection due to oil swelling and viscosity reduction. The CO2 slug size analysis shows that there is an optimum CO2 slug size, around 25 % pore volume which leads to a maximum oil recovery in the CWAG process. This study shows that the ultralow IFT system, i.e., IFT equaling 10 2 or 10 3 mN/ m, is a very important parameter in CWAG process since the water blocking effect can be minimized.展开更多
The importance of gold recovery from low grade ores and flotation tailings is continuously increasing due to raising gold demand and thereby high gold prices. However, due to raising social awareness of the ecological...The importance of gold recovery from low grade ores and flotation tailings is continuously increasing due to raising gold demand and thereby high gold prices. However, due to raising social awareness of the ecological impacts of cyanidic gold extraction and environ-mental specifications, the development and the implementation of alternative hydrometallurgical extraction processes have been a focus for many research institutions in last decades. Present work gives a comparison between compatible extraction reagents, with focus on less harmful processes. The target of this review is to point out the best cyanide-free processes of following methods and reagents: Bioleaching, Chlorination, Aqua Regia, Bromine, Thiocyanate, Thiosulfate and Thiourea leaching. For this propose, the gold leaching reagents are described and discussed in terms of their environmental and economical points of view. As result of this comparison, thiourea stands out as the most promising alternative gold leaching reagent to cyanide.展开更多
Wettability alternation phenomena is considered one of the most important enhanced oil recovery （EOR） mechanisms in the chemical flooding process and induced by the adsorption of surfactant on the rock surface. Thes...Wettability alternation phenomena is considered one of the most important enhanced oil recovery （EOR） mechanisms in the chemical flooding process and induced by the adsorption of surfactant on the rock surface. These phenomena are studied by a mesoscopic method named as dissipative particle dynamics （DPD）. Both the alteration phenomena of water-wet to oil-wet and that of oil-wet to water-wet are simulated based on reasonable definition of interaction parameters between beads. The wetting hysteresis phenomenon and the process of oil-drops detachment from rock surfaces with different wettability are simulated by adding long-range external forces on the fluid particles. The simulation results show that, the oil drop is liable to spread on the oil-wetting surface and move in the form of liquid film flow, whereas it is likely to move as a whole on the waterwetting surface. There are the same phenomena occuring in wettability-alternated cases. The results also show that DPD method provides a feasible approach to the problems of seepage flow with physicochemical phenomena and can be used to study the mechanism of EOR of chemical flooding.展开更多
Underground mines in Arctic and Subarctic regions require the preheating of mine intake air during winter.The cold fresh air of those remote areas can be as severe as40℃ and commonly needs to be heated to around+3℃...Underground mines in Arctic and Subarctic regions require the preheating of mine intake air during winter.The cold fresh air of those remote areas can be as severe as40℃ and commonly needs to be heated to around+3℃.This extensive amount of heating is usually provided by employing large-size air heaters,fueled by diesel,propane,natural gas,or heavy oil,leading to high energy costs and large carbon footprints.At the same time,the thermal energy content of a diesel generator sets(gen-sets)exhaust is known to be one-third of the total heating value of its combusted fuel.Exhaust heat recovery from diesel gen-sets is a growing technology that seeks to mitigate the energy costs by capturing and redirecting this commonly rejected exhaust heat to other applications such as space heating or pre-heating of the mine intake air.The present study investigated the possibility of employing a simple system based on off-theshelf heat exchanger technology,which can recover the waste heat from the exhaust of the power generation units(diesel gen-sets)in an off-grid,cold,remote mine in Canada for heating of the mine intake air.Data from a real mine was used for the analysis along with environmental data of three different location-scenarios with distinct climates.After developing a thermodynamic model,the heat savings were calculated,and an economic feasibility evaluation was performed.The proposed system was found highly viable with annual savings of up to C$6.7 million and capable enough to provide an average of around 75%of the heating demand for mine intake air,leading to a payback period of about eleven months or less for all scenarios.Deployment of seasonal thermal energy storage has also been recommended to mitigate the mismatch between supply and demand,mainly in summertime,possibly allowing the system to eliminate fuel costs for intake air heating.展开更多
文摘For decades visual field defects were considered irreversible because it was thought that in the visual system the regeneration potential of the neuronal tissues is low.Nevertheless,there is always some potential for partial recovery of the visual field defect that can be achieved through induction of neuroplasticity.Neuroplasticity refers to the ability of the brain to change its own functional architecture by modulating synaptic efficacy.It is maintained throughout life and just as neurological rehabilitation can improve motor coordination,visual field defects in glaucoma,diabetic retinopathy or optic neuropathy can be improved by inducing neuroplasticity.In ophthalmology many new treatment paradigms have been tested that can induce neuroplastic changes,including non-invasive alternating current stimulation.Treatment with alternating current stimulation(e.g.,30 minutes,daily for 10 days using transorbital electrodes and^10 Hz)activates the entire retina and parts of the brain.Electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies revealed local activation of the visual cortex,global reorganization of functional brain networks,and enhanced blood flow,which together activate neurons and their networks.The future of low vision is optimistic because vision loss is indeed,partially reversible.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.11971149,11871381)Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province for Youth(Grant No.202300410146)。
文摘The task of dividing corrupted-data into their respective subspaces can be well illustrated,both theoretically and numerically,by recovering low-rank and sparse-column components of a given matrix.Generally,it can be characterized as a matrix and a 2,1-norm involved convex minimization problem.However,solving the resulting problem is full of challenges due to the non-smoothness of the objective function.One of the earliest solvers is an 3-block alternating direction method of multipliers(ADMM)which updates each variable in a Gauss-Seidel manner.In this paper,we present three variants of ADMM for the 3-block separable minimization problem.More preciously,whenever one variable is derived,the resulting problems can be regarded as a convex minimization with 2 blocks,and can be solved immediately using the standard ADMM.If the inner iteration loops only once,the iterative scheme reduces to the ADMM with updates in a Gauss-Seidel manner.If the solution from the inner iteration is assumed to be exact,the convergence can be deduced easily in the literature.The performance comparisons with a couple of recently designed solvers illustrate that the proposed methods are effective and competitive.
基金Supported by the China National Science and Technology Major Project(2017ZX05030)。
文摘In view of high water cut and low oil recovery caused by the unidirectional flow in linear pattern of horizontal wells for the carbonate reservoirs in the Middle East,this paper provides a novel approach to improve oil recovery by converting linear water injection to cyclic alternating water injection patterns including cyclic alternating water injection with apparent inverted seven-spot pattern or apparent five-spot pattern and cyclic differential alternating water injection.The main advantage of using this strategy is that the swept efficiency is improved by changing injection-production streamlines and displacement directions,which means displacement from two different direction for the same region during a complete cycle.This technology is effective in increasing the swept efficiency and tapping the remaining oil,thus resulting in higher oil recovery.Field application with three new patterns in a carbonate reservoir in the Middle East is successful.By optimizing injection and production parameters based on the cyclic alternating well pattern,the test well group had a maximum increase of daily oil production per well of 23.84 m^(3) and maximum water cut drop of 18%.By further optimizing the distance(keep a long distance)between the heels of injection and production wells,the waterflooding performance could be better with water cut decreasing and oil production increasing.
基金the EOR Center at University Technology Petronas for providing financial support
文摘In this work, an experimental study combined with numerical simulation was conducted to investigate the potential of chemically enhanced water alternating gas （CWAG） injection as a new enhanced oil recovery method. The unique feature of this new method is that it uses alkaline, surfactant, and polymer additives as a chemical slug which is injected during the water alternating gas （WAG） process to reduce the interfacial tension （IFT） and simultaneously improve the mobility ratio. In essence, the proposed CWAG process involves a combination of chemical flooding and immiscible carbon dioxide （CO2） injection and helps in IFT reduction, water blocking reduction, mobility control, oil swelling, and oil viscosity reduction due to CO2 dissolution. Its performance was compared with the conventional immiscible water alter- nating gas （I-WAG） flooding. Oil recovery utilizing CWAG was better by 26 % of the remaining oil in place after waterflooding compared to the recovery using WAG conducted under similar conditions. The coreflood data （cumulative oil and water production） were history mat- ched via a commercial simulator by adjusting the relative permeability curves and assigning the values of the rock and fluid properties such as porosity, permeability, and the experimentally determined IFT data. History matching ofthe coreflood model helped us optimize the experiments and was useful in determining the importance of the parameters influencing sweep efficiency in the CWAG process. The effectiveness of the CWAG process in pro- viding enhancement of displacement efficiency is evident in the oil recovery and pressure response observed in the coreflood. The results of sensitivity analysis on CWAG slug patterns show that the alkaline-surfactant-polymer injection is more beneficial after CO2 slug injection due to oil swelling and viscosity reduction. The CO2 slug size analysis shows that there is an optimum CO2 slug size, around 25 % pore volume which leads to a maximum oil recovery in the CWAG process. This study shows that the ultralow IFT system, i.e., IFT equaling 10 2 or 10 3 mN/ m, is a very important parameter in CWAG process since the water blocking effect can be minimized.
文摘The importance of gold recovery from low grade ores and flotation tailings is continuously increasing due to raising gold demand and thereby high gold prices. However, due to raising social awareness of the ecological impacts of cyanidic gold extraction and environ-mental specifications, the development and the implementation of alternative hydrometallurgical extraction processes have been a focus for many research institutions in last decades. Present work gives a comparison between compatible extraction reagents, with focus on less harmful processes. The target of this review is to point out the best cyanide-free processes of following methods and reagents: Bioleaching, Chlorination, Aqua Regia, Bromine, Thiocyanate, Thiosulfate and Thiourea leaching. For this propose, the gold leaching reagents are described and discussed in terms of their environmental and economical points of view. As result of this comparison, thiourea stands out as the most promising alternative gold leaching reagent to cyanide.
基金supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (2005CB221304)
文摘Wettability alternation phenomena is considered one of the most important enhanced oil recovery （EOR） mechanisms in the chemical flooding process and induced by the adsorption of surfactant on the rock surface. These phenomena are studied by a mesoscopic method named as dissipative particle dynamics （DPD）. Both the alteration phenomena of water-wet to oil-wet and that of oil-wet to water-wet are simulated based on reasonable definition of interaction parameters between beads. The wetting hysteresis phenomenon and the process of oil-drops detachment from rock surfaces with different wettability are simulated by adding long-range external forces on the fluid particles. The simulation results show that, the oil drop is liable to spread on the oil-wetting surface and move in the form of liquid film flow, whereas it is likely to move as a whole on the waterwetting surface. There are the same phenomena occuring in wettability-alternated cases. The results also show that DPD method provides a feasible approach to the problems of seepage flow with physicochemical phenomena and can be used to study the mechanism of EOR of chemical flooding.
文摘Underground mines in Arctic and Subarctic regions require the preheating of mine intake air during winter.The cold fresh air of those remote areas can be as severe as40℃ and commonly needs to be heated to around+3℃.This extensive amount of heating is usually provided by employing large-size air heaters,fueled by diesel,propane,natural gas,or heavy oil,leading to high energy costs and large carbon footprints.At the same time,the thermal energy content of a diesel generator sets(gen-sets)exhaust is known to be one-third of the total heating value of its combusted fuel.Exhaust heat recovery from diesel gen-sets is a growing technology that seeks to mitigate the energy costs by capturing and redirecting this commonly rejected exhaust heat to other applications such as space heating or pre-heating of the mine intake air.The present study investigated the possibility of employing a simple system based on off-theshelf heat exchanger technology,which can recover the waste heat from the exhaust of the power generation units(diesel gen-sets)in an off-grid,cold,remote mine in Canada for heating of the mine intake air.Data from a real mine was used for the analysis along with environmental data of three different location-scenarios with distinct climates.After developing a thermodynamic model,the heat savings were calculated,and an economic feasibility evaluation was performed.The proposed system was found highly viable with annual savings of up to C$6.7 million and capable enough to provide an average of around 75%of the heating demand for mine intake air,leading to a payback period of about eleven months or less for all scenarios.Deployment of seasonal thermal energy storage has also been recommended to mitigate the mismatch between supply and demand,mainly in summertime,possibly allowing the system to eliminate fuel costs for intake air heating.
