Pore-scale simulation of multicomponent multiphase reactive transport with dissolution and precipitation

Multicomponent multiphase reactive transport processes with dissolution-precipitation are widely encountered in energy and environment systems. A pore-scale two-phase multi-mixture model based on the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is developed for such complex transport processes, where each phase is considered as a mixture of miscible components in it. The liquid-gas fluid flow with large density ratio is simulated using the multicomponent multiphase pseudo-potential LB model; the transport of certain solute in the corresponding solvent is solved using the mass transport LB model; and the dynamic evolutions of the liquid-solid interface due to dissolution-precipitation are captured by an interface tracking scheme. The model developed can predict coupled multiple physicochemical processes including multiphase flow, multicomponent mass transport, homogeneous reactions in the bulk fluid and heterogeneous dissolution-precipitation reactions at the fluid-solid interface, and dynamic evolution of the solid matrix geometries at the pore-scale. The model is then applied to a physicochemical system encountered in shale gas/oil industry involving multiphase flow, multicomponent reactive transport and dissolution-precipitation, with several reactions whose rates can be several orders of magnitude different at a given temperature. The pore-scale phenomena and complex interaction between different sub-processes are investigated and discussed in detail

Orbital density wave induced by electron-lattice coupling in orthorhombic iron pnictides

In this paper we explore the magnetic and orbital properties closely related to a tetragonal-orthorhombic structural phase transition in iron pnictides based on both two- and five-orbital Hubbard models. The electron-lattice coupling, which interplays with electronic interaction, is self-consistently treated. Our results reveal that the orbital polarization stabilizes the spin density wave (SDW) order in both tetragonal and orthorhombic phases. However, the ferro-orbital density wave (F-ODW) only occurs in the orthorhombic phase rather than in the tetragonal one. Magnetic moments of Fe are small in the intermediate Coulomb interaction region for the striped antiferromangnetic phase in the realistic five orbital model. The anisotropic Fermi surface in the SDW/ODW orthorhombic phase is well in agreement with the recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments. These results suggest a scenario that the magnetic phase transition is driven by the ODW order mainly arising from the electron-lattice coupling.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure

Serum metabolic profiling of oocyst-induced Toxoplasma gondii acute and chronic infections in mice using mass-spectrometry

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite causing severe diseases in immunocompromised individuals and congenitally infected neonates, such as toxoplasmosis encephalitis and toxoplasmic chorioretinitis. This study aimed to determine whether serum metabolic profiling can (i) identify metabolites associated with oocyst-induced T. gondii infection and (ii) detect systemic metabolic differences between T. gondii -infected mice patients and controls. We performed the first global metabolomics analysis of mice serum challenged with 100 sporulated T. gondii Pru oocysts (Genotype II). Sera from acutely infected mice (11 days post-infection, dpi), chronically infected mice (33 dpi) and control mice were collected and analysed using LC-MS/MS platform. Following False Discovery Rate filtering, we identified 3871 and 2825 ions in ESI + or ESI − mode, respectively. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS -DA) identified metabolomics profiles that clearly differentiated T. gondii -infected and -uninfected serum samples. Acute infection significantly influenced the serum metabolonme. Our results identified common and uniquely perturbed metabolites and pathways. Acutely infected mice showed perturbations in metabolites associated with glycerophospholipid metabolism, biosynthesis of amino acid, and tyrosine metabolism. These findings demonstrated that acute T. gondii oocyst induces a global perturbation of mice serum metabolonme, providing new insights into the mechanisms underlying systemic metabolic changes during early stage of T. gondii oocyst infection

Anomalies and de Sitter radiation from the generic black holes in de Sitter spaces

Robinson-Wilczek's recent work shows that, the energy momentum tensor flux required to cancel gravitational anomaly at the event horizon of a Schwarzschild-type black hole has an equivalent form to that of a (1+1)-dimensional blackbody radiation at the Hawking temperature. Motivated by their work, Hawking radiation from the cosmological horizons of the general Schwarzschild-de Sitter and Kerr-de Sitter black holes, has been studied by the method of anomaly cancellation. The result shows that the absorbing gauge current and energy momentum tensor fluxes required to cancel gauge and gravitational anomalies at the cosmological horizon are precisely equal to those of Hawking radiation from it. It should be emphasized that the effective field theory for generic black holes in de Sitter spaces should be formulated within the region between the event horizon (EH) and the cosmological horizon (CH), to integrate out the classically irrelevant ingoing modes at the EH and the classically irrelevant outgoing modes at the CH, respectively.Comment: 14 pages without figure, use elsart.cls, to appear in Phys.Lett.

Remarks on self-interaction correction to black hole radiation

In the work [P. Kraus and F. Wilczek, \textit{Self-interaction correction to black hole radiation, Nucl. Phys.} B433 (1995) 403], it has been pointed out that the self-gravitation interaction would modify the black hole radiation so that it is no longer thermal, where it is, however, corrected in an approximate way and therefore is not established its relationship with the underlying unitary theory in quantum theory. In this paper, we revisit the self-gravitation interaction to Hawking radiation of the general spherically symmetric black hole, and find that the precisely derived spectrum is not only deviated from the purely thermal spectrum, but most importantly, is related to the change of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy and consistent with an underlying unitary theory.Comment: 14 page

Aryl hydrocarbon receptor activation mediates kidney disease and renal cell carcinoma.

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a well-known ligand-activated cytoplasmic transcription factor that contributes to cellular responses against environmental toxins and carcinogens. AhR is activated by a range of structurally diverse compounds from the environment, microbiome, natural products, and host metabolism, suggesting that AhR possesses a rather promiscuous ligand binding site. Increasing studies have indicated that AhR can be activated by a variety of endogenous ligands and induce the expression of a battery of genes. AhR regulates a variety of physiopathological events, including cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, adhesion and migration. These new roles have expanded our understanding of the AhR signalling pathways and endogenous metabolites interacting with AhR under homeostatic and pathological conditions. Recent studies have demonstrated that AhR is linked to cardiovascular disease (CVD), chronic kidney disease (CKD) and renal cell carcinoma (RCC). In this review, we summarize gut microbiota-derived ligands inducing AhR activity in patients with CKD, CVD, diabetic nephropathy and RCC that may provide a new diagnostic and prognostic approach for complex renal damage. We further highlight polyphenols from natural products as AhR agonists or antagonists that regulate AhR activity. A better understanding of structurally diverse polyphenols and AhR biological activities would allow us to illuminate their molecular mechanism and discover potential therapeutic strategies targeting AhR activation

Hawking radiation from (2+1)-dimensional BTZ black holes

Motivated by the Robinson-Wilczek's recent viewpoint that Hawking radiation can be treated as a compensating energy momentum tensor flux required to cancel gravitational anomaly at the horizon of a Schwarzschild-type black hole, we investigate Hawking radiation from the rotating $(2+1)$-dimensional BTZ black hole and the charged $(2+1)$-dimensional BTZ black hole, via cancellation of gauge and gravitational anomalies at the horizon. To restore gauge invariance and general coordinate covariance at the quantum level, one must introduce the corresponding gauge current and energy momentum tensor fluxes to cancel gauge and gravitational anomalies at the horizon. The results show that the values of these compensating fluxes are exactly equal to those of $(1+1)$-dimensional blackbody radiation at the Hawking temperature.Comment: 15 pages; references updated and added; to appear in Phys. Lett.