Abstract The operator of Well-A, a HPHT gas well in offshore Abu Dhabi faced a difficulty to drill ahead in a high-pressure fractured gas reservoir of "K" formation due to severe lost circulation followed by gas influx into the wellbore, namely loss/kick incident. The sudden and huge amount of mud losses at the bottom part of the reservoir led to gas flowing from the upper one observing a rapid pressure hump in the annulus between the wellbore and drill pipe. The operator then experienced complex well control situations including the burning of the entry gas to the atmosphere. The hole was finally plugged for the sidetracking due to a sticking occasion during the remedial action for the losses. The integrated drilling team recognized a little or no success of drilling to the intended well total depth in case of continuously using conventional drilling methods, began to pursue alternatives and soon initiated Mud Cap Drilling, one of the MPD methods at the multiply fractured reservoir while drilling the 8–3/8″ sidetracked hole. The application of the Mud Cap Drilling permitted efficient drilling resulting in 27 days' time saving compared with the planned duration. Furthermore, it completely prevented the well from flowing and could make the un-drillable well drillable. This successful drilling of the problematic gas reservoir using Mud Cap Drilling in the Well A has made a further encouragement of drilling HPHT gas exploration wells, which contain a lot of uncertainties in the formation pore pressure and fracture gradient profiles. The MPD as a flow control and pressure steering tool will prevent the forthcoming HPHT gas exploration wells from several drilling hazards resulting in NPT such as kick control, losses, wellbore instability, and differential sticking, slow ROP, etc. Moreover, it will allow minimizing the number of casing to be run and reducing formation damage to the gas reservoir. This paper describes the positive impacts of the application using PMCD equipment, lessons learned from the implementation and areas for the further improvement of MPD application in future.

This paper pursues the possibilities of expression capacity of swell paper as tactile material for the blind and visually impaired when adapted to arts such as landscape paintings and photographs. Thus, in this paper Nakamura discusses the limitation of expression by single graphic image. He proposes innovative procedures “Expression by Component Order,” in which art, paintings and photographs would be expressed by plural graphic images. Thus, he proposes the notion of “Expression by Component Order.” There are three types of component orders as follows: 1) Expression by “Value of Component”(VOC) Order 2) Expression by “Distance of Component” (DOC) Order 3) Expression by “Size of Component” (SOC) Order First, the author gave detailed explanations of the three types of component orders, followed by review of various attempts of making tactile samples. Secondly he asked groups of blind people for estimation by asking which one seemed most effective. After a series of experiments and interviews, he has concluded that Expression by “Value of Component” Order is most effective in conveying suffi cient amount of information. Thus, under the cooperation of Yamanashi Prefectural Museum, he established a project team with Kikuchi to develop tactile material and is now completing all Fugaku 36 Kei work to examine its effectiveness and adaptability . The team is pursuing in what fi eld Expression by VOC Order is applicable in our daily life.

Monoclonal 6-19 IgG3 anti-IgG2a rheumatoid factor derived from lupus-prone MRL-Fas(lpr) mice can induce GN and cryoglobulinemia, but the features that confer nephritogenic potential are not completely understood. Asparagine-linked oligosaccharide chains of 6-19 IgG3 mAb are poorly galactosylated and hardly sialylated, possibly contributing to the pathogenic potential of 6-19 IgG3 rheumatoid factors. Here, we used the 6-19 model of cryoglobulin-associated GN to define the relative contributions of galactosylation and sialylation, in relation to cryoglobulin activity, to the nephritogenic potential of IgG3 antibodies. We generated one highly sialylated and two distinct more galactosylated 6-19 IgG3 rheumatoid factor variants. Although the mere extent of galactosylation had no effect on either the cryogenic and nephritogenic activities of 6-19 IgG3 rheumatoid factor, terminal sialylation attenuated the nephritogenic potential of 6-19 IgG3 by limiting its cryoglobulin activity. These data suggest a protective role of IgG sialylation against the development of cryoglobulin-mediated GN, highlighting the anti-inflammatory activity of sialylated IgG antibodies.

The present study developed a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay that amplifies the fragments of O4 Salmonella enterica-specific gene rfbJ and evaluates the potential use in detection of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (ST). The detection limit of the LAMP assay was 10(3) CFU/ml, which was lower than that of the PCR assay with the same target gene (10(5) CFU/ml), confirmed by electrophoresis. The increased turbidity of the final products of LAMP was also observed with more than 10(3) CFU/ml. Furthermore, the LAMP assay took only 60 min for a reaction, while the PCR assay needed 80-90 min for a reaction and approximately 30 min for the subsequent electrophoresis to confirm the specific band. The positive reaction was only observed for 55 strains of 11 serovars of O4 group Salmonella enterica. The LAMP assay developed in the present study is considered to be an effective method for specific detection of the O4 group Salmonella enterica serovars, including ST.

Recently, photomask repairing techniques by scratching fabrication using an atomic force microscopy (AFM) system have been developed. However, the machining method using AFM produces cut debris during photomask repair, which induces problems and errors in photolithography. Here, we describe a novel removal method for cut debris produced in an AFM photomask repair process, The removing method is based on electrophoretic migration. A small amount of aqueous solution is dropped on a cantilever, then two electrodes placed on both sides of the cantilever form an electric field gradient around the cantilever under the liquid condition. Under the condition, the particles of cut debris produced by AFM scratching are dispersed and become spontaneously charged in the liquid, and then the particles can be consequently removed by electrophoresis migration. In particular, smaller cut particles produced by ultrasonic scratching, that is, scratching with probe oscillation, are very suitable for the removal method owing to the ease of electrophoresis migration. These techniques would be very effective in the AFM photomask repair process. (C) 2009 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

The endogenous retroviral envelope glycoprotein, gp70, implicated in murine lupus nephritis is secreted by hepatocytes as an acute phase protein, and it has been thought to be a product of an endogenous xenotropic virus, NZB-X1. However, since endogenous polytropic (PT) and modified polytropic (mPT) viruses encode gp70s that are closely related to xenotropic gp70, these viruses can be additional sources of serum gp70. To better understand the genetic basis of the expression of serum gp70, we analyzed the abundance of xenotropic, PT, or mPT gp70 RNAs in livers and the genomic composition of corresponding proviruses in various strains of mice, including two different Sgp (serum gp70 production) congenic mice. Our results demonstrated that the expression of different viral gp70 RNAs was remarkably heterogeneous among various mouse strains and that the level of serum gp70 production was regulated by multiple structural and regulatory genes. Additionally, a significant contribution of PT and mPT gp70s to serum gp70 was revealed by the detection of PT and mPT, but not xenotropic transcripts in 129 mice, and by a closer correlation of serum levels of gp70 with the abundance of PT and mPT gp70 RNAs than with that of xenotropic gp70 RNA in Sgp3 congenic mice. Furthermore, the injection of lipopolysaccharides selectively up-regulated the expression of xenotropic and mPT gp70 RNAs, but not PT gp70 RNA. Our data indicate that the genetic origin of serum gp70 is more heterogeneous than previously thought, and that distinct retroviral gp70s are differentially regulated in physiological vs inflammatory conditions.