Successful Research Program Research Articles

Shale gas reservoirs: Theoretical, practical and research issues

AbstractShale gas reservoirs are found all over the world. Their endowment worldwide is estimated at 10,000 tcf by the GFREE team in the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary. The shale gas work and production initiated successfully in the Unites States and extended to Canada will have application, with modifications, in several other countries in the future. The ‘modifications’ qualifier is important as each shale gas reservoir should be considered as a research project by itself to avoid fiascos and major financial losses. Shale gas reservoirs are best represented by at least quadruple porosity models. Some of the production obtained from shale reservoirs is dominated by diffusion flow. The approximate boundary between viscous and diffusion-like flow is estimated with Knudsen number. Viscous flow is present, for example, when the architecture of the rock is dominated by mega pore throat, macro pore throat, meso pore throat and sometimes micro pore throat. Diffusion flow on the other hand is observed at the nano pore throat level. The process speed concept has been used successfully in conventional reservoirs for several decades. However, the concept discussed in this paper for tight gas and shale gas reservoirs, with the support of core data, has been developed only recently, and permits differentiating between viscous and diffusion dominated flow. This is valuable, for example, in those cases where the formation to be developed is composed of alternating stacked layers of tight sands and shales, or where there are lateral variations due to facies changes. An approach to develop the concept of a super-giant shale gas reservoir is presented as well as a description of GFREE, a successful research program for tight formations. The paper closes with examples of detailed original gas-in-place (OGIP) calculations for 3 North American shale gas reservoirs including free gas in natural fractures and the porous network within the organic matter, gas in the non-organic matter, adsorbed gas, and estimates of free gas within fractures created during hydraulic fracturing jobs. The examples show that the amount of free gas in shale reservoirs, as a percent of the total OGIP, is probably larger than considered previously in the literature.

The Department of Medicine in 2030: A Look Ahead

The authors described the features of a hypothetical academic Department of Medicine in 2030 that would be most effective in improving the public health. Future departments of medicine will be compelled to respond to a projected shortage of physicians through augmented training strategies. The clinical programs will be more decentralized and responsive to patient preferences while demonstrating greater value. Departments will create adaptable, accountable structures in which clinicians working in interdisciplinary teams continuously improve processes and outcomes of care, and clinician and patient satisfaction. The restructuring of health care will afford exciting opportunities to align clinical and scholarly activities. The growing ability to link biological and clinical phenotypic information will lead to more effective and efficient clinical care. In view of the funding constraints and the remarkable opportunities for high-impact research, departmental research programs will become increasingly disciplined. Successful research programs will require durable investments in faculty career development, enabling infrastructure, interdisciplinary research teams, and diverse funding sources. The educational programs will demonstrate proficiency of trainees in the 6 current core competencies, as well as in additional areas critical to health care transformation. To improve organizational effectiveness, departments will create more nimble organizational structures led by individuals with diverse backgrounds. Chairs of departments of medicine will be expected to continuously expand their capacity to meet the evolving needs of their departments and institutions. Members of departments of medicine will be continuously fortified by the privilege and obligations of our profession while embracing the risks necessary to meet the extraordinary opportunities in 2030.

Popper and the Omics.

Popper and the Omics.

The Stepping Stone Approach to Teaching Chemical Information Skills

Information literacy is of paramount importance to any successful research program. Information techniques and skills should be infused throughout a student’s undergraduate curriculum rather than being the focus of a single course. To this end, we have created several courses, beginning in the first year, where students review current scientific literature, design experiments, collect and analyze data, and disseminate their findings in both written and oral formats. At the completion of this sequence of courses, students have a greater understanding of all aspects of chemical research from identification of reliable sources through articulation of their findings. Details about the creation and implementation of the Stepping Stone Approach to chemical information literacy are discussed within.

Development of a Successful Scholarly Activity and Research Program for Subspecialty Trainees

Training young physicians to perform research is challenging on many levels. Thus, many internal medicine training programs, including both core and subspecialty programs, struggle with providing a rigorous and successful research experience for their trainees. Here, the authors report on the rationale, design, practical implementation and outcome of a new program that was developed at the University Gastroenterology Fellowship Training Program. Before program inception, 33% of trainees presented original research at scientific meetings or published their work in peer-reviewed journals. After implementation, 100% of trainees accomplished these metrics. Additionally, the proportion of trainees remaining in academic medicine increased from 14% before implementation of the program to 51% after it began. Several elements were viewed to be critically important for the program including the following: communication of expectations and development of a robust program structure, dedicated protected time, a dedicated research curriculum, programmatic support, mentorship and oversight as well as accountability/tracking of accomplishments. The authors conclude that institutions able to adopt these or similar approaches will reap the many rewards of discovery research performed by trainees.

The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions.

Scientific activities take place within the structured sets of ideas and assumptions that define a field and its practices. The conceptual framework of evolutionary biology emerged with the Modern Synthesis in the early twentieth century and has since expanded into a highly successful research program to explore the processes of diversification and adaptation. Nonetheless, the ability of that framework satisfactorily to accommodate the rapid advances in developmental biology, genomics and ecology has been questioned. We review some of these arguments, focusing on literatures (evo-devo, developmental plasticity, inclusive inheritance and niche construction) whose implications for evolution can be interpreted in two ways—one that preserves the internal structure of contemporary evolutionary theory and one that points towards an alternative conceptual framework. The latter, which we label the 'extended evolutionary synthesis' (EES), retains the fundaments of evolutionary theory, but differs in its emphasis on the role of constructive processes in development and evolution, and reciprocal portrayals of causation. In the EES, developmental processes, operating through developmental bias, inclusive inheritance and niche construction, share responsibility for the direction and rate of evolution, the origin of character variation and organism-environment complementarity. We spell out the structure, core assumptions and novel predictions of the EES, and show how it can be deployed to stimulate and advance research in those fields that study or use evolutionary biology.

Creating a research brand.

In my first few years beavering away on the tenure track, I flitted from one research question to another. In an undisciplined pursuit of funding, I wasted my energies—and, sadly, papers—on unrelated topics. I began to understand how a successful research program worked only after I became an associate professor at another university. I realized from observing others that it was critical to find one's focus and voice and have it heard—quickly. Now, when my own students and postdocs ask me how they can stand out among the many young scientists jockeying for position and positions, I tell them to learn from my early struggles, and to define their research brand identity. ![Figure][1] ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER > “Get good results, publish papers, and give talks that all map to your theme.” A research brand identity, in the best scientific sense, is your central mission: the particular branch of research you'd like to be truly excellent in and known for. Equal parts research focus and career vision, a brand identity is a map of a few key subareas where you strive to make a difference over a sustained period. By crafting a research brand, you make it clear to others how they should define you, and you help them remember who you are and what you do. As a young hydrologist, I worked on topics as varied as soil erosion, snow physics, and the remote sensing of water uptake by plants. When I finally found my focus, I concentrated on three simple questions: Where does water go when it rains? What pathway does it take to the stream? How old is the water in our streams? At first these questions were narrow; I explored just beyond the boundaries of my thesis work, in a space where I had established some credibility. Over time the questions broadened. I now explore where plants get water and the role of geology in defining water storage and release. These core issues have sustained me over my career. The trick is to find the optimal research brand width: too broad and you blend in with others and lack a niche to carve out; too narrow and you seem too limited. You want some connection to your adviser's research brand, but you also want to move in a new direction that honors your unique skills. The old adage “only do what only you can do” can be helpful as you ponder this. After you have identified your brand identity, getting it out into the world is relatively straightforward: Get good results, publish papers, and give talks that all map to your theme. But there is much more. The first step is describing your brand succinctly on your research homepage. The second, and more active step, is promoting it through a set of activities directed at your peers. You might write a journal commentary, perspective paper, or review linked to your brand. You might guest edit a journal special issue or edit a research text. Or you could organize a conference session or a boutique research conference focused on your theme. The idea is not to do just one of these things but to do as many as you can. All of these activities build a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Come tenure time, you want to be known for something, and you want external reviewers examining your dossier to know of you. This strategy will almost guarantee that. Finally, a research brand identity remains helpful as you advance. As more opportunities come your way, your brand can help you filter them, keeping your main thing the main thing. The brand helps you determine what to say no to, a skill that becomes much more important as you grow more sought after over time. And just as a research brand identity is a way to describe your ambitions when you start out, it is also a way to sum up your body of work later in your career. [1]: pending:yes

Materials Science & Technology: Research and Challenges in Nuclear Fission Power

The performance and integrity of structural and functional materials are key issues in the safety and competitiveness of current and future nuclear fission reactors being developed for sustainable nuclear energy applications. The challenges towards development of nuclear structural materials arise due to the demanding hostile environments with respect to radiation, temperature, stress, etc., and requirements of total reliability and high performance over the long service life (say 60 years). A successful materials science research programme in nuclear industry has to take into account these challenges to improve the performance of materials and components in the emerging scenario of extending life of existing plants and realizing advanced reactors. In this study , material challenges associated with water reactors and fast breeder reactors (FBR) with focus on short-term and long-term strategies for materials development are considered. The materials in the existing and proposed future nuclear fission reactors are summarized along with a description of major material degradation mechanisms in different environments. The priority in the nuclear industry is to extend the life of reactors with robust safety features and sufficient cost-effectiveness, beyond forty to sixty years and from sixty to even one hundred years. The importance of modelling and developing predictive tools to estimate materials behaviour for effective computing of lifetime of nuclear reactor components is fast developing to cut down cost and time and also to enhance safety and confidence in existing and new systems. The future FBR technology relies heavily on advanced waste management and effective proliferation resistance. We review advanced reactor concepts of Generation IV forum and the new materials and technologies. Nuclear energy is not the right option for every country . Careful examination of the energy basket and commitment over a long period with effective mechanisms of safety governance is the key to make a decision to harness large amounts of nuclear energy. China, France, India, Russia, USA,UK, etc. are extremely committed to use lar ge amounts of nuclear energy. Japan after the Fukushima accident, faces a challenge of public acceptance though the country has deep and rich expertise in nuclear technology and it is advantageous to produce low carbon power, on a sustained competitive basis from nuclear

Lab budgets: A numbers game.

With careful planning, new faculty hires can stretch their start-up funds to launch successful research programmes.

(Invited) Making Electrochemical Research Accessible to an Undergraduate Audience

In principle, undergraduate students are introduced to electrochemical reactions within the first year of the chemistry program. In practice, the amount of content covered in the second semester of general chemistry is oftentimes limited to oxidation numbers and possibly balancing redox reactions. Coverage of electrochemical concepts in higher level classes seems to be largely dependent on how comfortable the instructor is with the material. Presented here is one approach towards establishing a rigorous research program designed to train and teach undergraduate students utilizing principles derived from Bloom's taxonomy of learning. Development of a successful electrochemical research program has involved several factors, including: the use of active learning strategies; creating learning outcomes based on a cognitive skills framework; incorporation of assessment tasks; developing a sense of community; integrating research into the curriculum; and an emphasis on scientific communication.

Conservation Physiology of an Uncatchable Animal: The North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis).

The North Atlantic right whale, Eubalaena glacialis (NARW), a critically endangered species that has been under intensive study for nearly four decades, provides an excellent case study for applying modern methods of conservation physiology to large whales. By combining long-term sighting histories of known individuals with physiological data from newer techniques (e.g., body condition estimated from photographs; endocrine status derived from fecal samples), physiological state and levels of stress can be estimated despite the lack of any method for nonlethal capture of large whales. Since traditional techniques for validating blood assays cannot be used in large whales, assays of fecal hormones have been validated using information on age, sex, and reproductive state derived from an extensive NARW photo-identification catalog. Using this approach, fecal glucocorticoids have been found to vary dramatically with reproductive state. It is therefore essential that glucocorticoid data be interpreted in conjunction with reproductive data. A case study correlating glucocorticoids with chronic noise is presented as an example. Keys to a successful research program for this uncatchable species have included: consistent population monitoring over decades, data-sharing across institutions, an extensive photo-identification catalog that documents individual histories, and consistent efforts at noninvasive collection of samples over years. Future research will require flexibility to adjust to changing distributions of populations.

(Invited) Making Electrochemical Research Accessible to an Undergraduate Audience

In principle, undergraduate students are introduced to electrochemical reactions within the first year of the chemistry program. In practice, the amount of content covered in the second semester of general chemistry is oftentimes limited to oxidation numbers and possibly balancing redox reactions. Coverage of electrochemical concepts in higher level classes seems to be largely dependent on how comfortable the instructor is with the material. While increased exposure to the topic within the formal curriculum is certainly encouraged, training in electrochemistry is perhaps better served by a more informal undergraduate research learning environment. Presented here is one approach towards establishing a rigorous research program designed to train and teach undergraduate students utilizing principles derived from Bloom's taxonomy of learning. Development of a successful electrochemical research program has involved several factors, including: identifying projects that are accessible to undergraduate students given their limited exposure to the topic; developing tools and resources to facilitate training and learning; establishing forums for formal and informal scientific communication opportunities; and creating partnerships and collaborations that not only appreciate the challenges of undergraduate research, but leverage them in order to add meaningful value to the research program. Strategies for implementing direct and indirect methods to assess scholarly and instructional outcomes will also be presented.

(Invited) Key Barriers to Commercial Deployment of Next Generation Proton Exchange Membrane Electrolyzers

Hydrogen is gaining increased international attention based on the imminent roll out of fuel cell vehicles, as well as the growing need for energy storage to manage high levels of renewable and inherently intermittent energy sources on the electrical grid. Hydrogen from electrolysis based on proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology in particular is of interest due to the lack of carbon footprint, scalability, ability to ramp from near zero output to 100% rated capacity or greater, and the lack of corrosive electrolyte. While electrolysis and fuel cells are not typically as efficient on an electrical round trip basis vs. many battery systems, hydrogen is highly deployable, providing flexibility to optimize the grid system. Hydrogen can be used to crosslink different infrastructures such as the electrical grid, the transportation grid, and chemical processing. For example, hydrogen produced using excess renewable energy can either be fed back to the electrical grid via fuel cells, used to fuel hydrogen-powered vehicles, or used to upgrade conversion of biogas to methane. PEM electrolysis has the technical maturity and reliability to serve these applications, but is still handicapped by legacy materials and manufacturing processes vs. the next generation technology advancements that have been made in fuel cells. Feasibility of translating many of the elements of current fuel cell technology to electrolyzer systems has been demonstrated, but the specific requirements of electrolysis cells provide additional technical gaps which prevent materials developed for fuel cells to drop seamlessly into electrolysis processes. Some customization and optimization of materials and processes are needed to enable implementation in electrolysis cells. There are also areas of development needed including understanding the impact of process scale up on resulting material properties, translation from machined proof of concept prototypes to parts fabricated by high speed manufacturing methods, and integration of research efforts on different components into a cohesive cell design. In addition, scale to larger cell sizes brings new fundamental questions and materials and design challenges. These issues are often masked by the typical metrics and models currently in use for electrolysis, such as the DOE H2A model. The H2A model is a very detailed tool which provides relative comparisons between technologies based on constant assumptions, but does not reflect present commercial production, partially because this information is typically considered proprietary by companies. The H2A model is instead based on technology which has been demonstrated at a high enough technical fidelity to prove feasibility of commercialization within 5 years. It does not take into account the often challenging scale up and manufacturing development, or the investment required for the remaining hurdles to commercialization. It also assumes production of 500 units/year at 1500 kg/day hydrogen output per unit, or almost 2000 MW of annual capacity. No commercial company has reached even 5% of this total annual hydrogen output in sales, and thus large extrapolations are being made at both a manufacturing readiness level and volume production level in the model. Electrolysis also does not currently have the same well-defined material targets and metrics as fuel cells, such as hydrogen and oxygen crossover, platinum group metal loading, electrocatalyst support stability, and bipolar plate resistivity and corrosion resistance. These quantitative metrics would help to highlight specific progress being made in these areas vs. the overall system metrics which dampen the impact of a single component. Balance of plant is also an important contributor to cost, efficiency, and reliability which is not typically addressed in detail in government technology roadmaps. This talk will present the limitations in commercial PEM electrolysis which drive cost and efficiency, the large potential for improvements in these areas for electrolyzers, and remaining technical challenges that need to be addressed to provide a full solution. Specific barriers which remain in translating the output of successful research programs to commercialization will also be addressed, including manufacturing and integration challenges. Finally, comparison between approaches in the United States and Europe in supporting technology development will be presented.

Paving the Road to Clinical Trial Participation: Removing Road Blocks and Directing Patients Toward Novel Therapies

Paving the Road to Clinical Trial Participation: Removing Road Blocks and Directing Patients Toward Novel Therapies

Counterpoint: moving from potential-outcomes thinking to doing--changing research planning to enable successful health outcomes research.

The potential-outcomes framework is an appealing new approach that imposes a degree of formal conceptual modeling beyond traditional epidemiologic methods for assessing associations between air pollution and health. However, it introduces a number of additional factors to consider when selecting intervention and especially control conditions that call for forward-thinking research designs. We propose that researchers seeking to implement the potential-outcomes framework consider the use of prospective designs that provide more opportunities to establish well-defined intervention and control populations and determine causal relationships between air quality and health. In implementing these prospective research designs, collaboration between researchers and those who implement the interventions can improve the understanding of how a planned intervention actually occurs, thereby improving the characterization of emissions and air quality responses to the intervention. By looking ahead, epidemiologists can take advantage of upcoming regulatory interventions to design successful health outcomes research programs.

Overview: getting involved in research as a busy practicing surgeon.

To succeed in academic surgery in the current era, it is important that a surgeon brings a unique attribute that enhances the mission of the institution beyond the scope of surgical mastery and relative value units (RVUs). Given the increasing pressure on a surgeon to produce RVUs, how can a prospective surgical scientist successfully develop and maintain a research program? The establishment of a successful research program requires planning that begins in surgical residency and careful decision making along the way with clear focus of goals. This article will provide insight into the steps to consider along the way as you work to establish your successful research program.

Establishing a successful clinical research program.

Clinical research (CR) is a natural corollary to clinical surgery. It gives an investigator the opportunity to critically review their results and develop new strategies. This article covers the critical factors and the important components of a successful CR program. The first and most important step is to build a dedicated research team to overcome time constraints and enable a surgical practice to make CR a priority. With the research team in place, the next step is to create a program on the basis of an original idea and new clinical hypotheses. This often comes from personal experience supported by a review of the available evidence. Randomized controlled (clinical) trials are the most stringent way of determining whether a cause-effect relationship exists between the intervention and the outcome. In the proper setting, translational research may offer additional avenues allowing clinical application of basic science discoveries.

Establishing a successful basic science research program in colon and rectal surgery.

Although at first glance, the surgeon-scientist appears to be a rare breed in today's clinical revenue-driven world, with careful planning and mentorship this is still a vibrant career path. If one is considering this avenue, it is important to seize even small opportunities to pursue laboratory work during training-summers in college and medical school, rotation blocks, and dedicated time in the middle of residency. Publications and small grants during these times will lay the ground work for future success. When considering a faculty position, it is essential to identify a mentorship environment that has a track record for success-either in the department of surgery or anywhere in the university. Ensuring adequate support from the department of surgery chair and division leader is essential. Basic science careers take years for the return in investment to be manifested! Also critical is to secure extramural funding early in the faculty stint-first foundation grants and then National Institutes of Health-mentored scientist funding. Surgeons provide a unique perspective in basic science work and it is critical that we continue to support young surgeons in this career path.

Peritoneal Dialysis in China: A Story of Growth and Innovation

Peritoneal Dialysis in China: A Story of Growth and Innovation

Respiratory Medicine at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario: 1968 To 2013

The medical school at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) was conceived in 1965 and admitted the first class in 1969. John Evans became the founding Dean and he invited Moran Campbell to be the first Chairman of the Department of Medicine. Moran Campbell, already a world figure in respiratory medicine and physiology, arrived at McMaster in September 1968, and he invited Norman Jones to be Coordinator of the Respiratory Programme.At that time, Hamilton had a population of 300,000, with two full-time respirologists, Robert Cornett at the Hamilton General Hospital and Michael Newhouse at St Joseph’s Hospital. From the clinical perspective, the aim of the Respiratory Programme was to develop a network approach to clinical problems among the five hospitals in the Hamilton region, with St Joseph’s Hospital serving as a regional referral centre, and each hospital developing its own focus: intensive care and burns units at the Hamilton General Hospital; cancer at the Henderson (later Juravinski) Hospital; tuberculosis and rehabilitation at the Chedoke Hospital; pediatrics and neonatal intensive care at the McMaster University Medical Centre; and community care at the Joseph Brant Hospital in Burlington (Ontario). The network provided an ideal base for a specialty residency program. There was also the need to establish viable research.These objectives were achieved through collaboration, support of hospital administration, and recruitment of clinicians and faculty, mainly from our own trainees and research fellows. By the mid-1970s the respiratory group numbered more than 25; outpatient clinic visits and research had grown beyond our initial expectations. The international impact of the group became reflected in the clinical and basic research endeavours.ASTHMA: Freddy Hargreave and Jerry Dolovich established methods to measure airway responsiveness to histamine and methacholine. Allergen inhalation was shown to increase airway responsiveness for several weeks, and the late response was shown to be an immunoglobulin E-mediated phenomenon. Paul O’Byrne and Gail Gauvreau showed that the prolonged allergen-induced responses were due to eosinophilic and basophilic airway inflammation and, with Judah Denburg, revealed upregulation of eosinophil/basophil progenitor production in bone marrow and airways. The Firestone Institute became the centre of studies identifying the inflammatory pheno-type of patients with difficult-to-control asthma. Freddy Hargreave and others developed methods for sputum induction to identify persisting eosinophilic airway inflammation and documented its presence in the absence of asthma and in patients with persistent cough. Parameswaran Nair has applied these techniques to the management of asthma in routine clinical practice. The Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire and the Asthma Control Tests were developed by Drs Liz Juniper and Gordon Guyatt. The first Canadian evidence-based clinical guidelines for asthma management in 1989 were coordinated by Freddy Hargreave, Jerry Dolovich and Michael Newhouse.DISTRIBUTION OF INHALED PARTICLES: Michael Newhouse and Myrna Dolovich used inhaled radiolabelled aerosols to study the distribution of inhaled particles and their clearance in normal subjects, smokers and patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. They developed the aerochamber, and were the first to radiolabel therapeutic aerosols to distinguish the effects of peripheral versus central deposition. Particle deposition and clearance were shown to be impaired in ciliary dyskinesia and cystic fibrosis.DYSPNEA: Moran Campbell and Kieran Killian measured psychophysical estimates of the sense of effort in breathing in studies of loaded breathing and exercise to show that dyspnea increased as a power function of both duration and intensity of respiratory muscle contraction, and in relation to reductions in respiratory muscle strength. These principles also applied to dyspnea in cardiorespiratory disorders.EXERCISE CAPACITY: Norman Jones and Moran Campbell developed a system for noninvasive cardiopulmonary exercise testing using an incremental exercise test, and more complex studies with measurement of mixed venousPCO2by rebreathing. The 6 min walk test was validated by Gordon Guyatt. Kieran Killian and Norman Jones introduced routine muscle strength measurements in clinical testing and symptom assessment in exercise testing. Muscle strength training improved exercise capacity in older subjects and patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.METABOLISM AND ACID-BASE CONTROL IN EXERCISE: After showing that imposed acidosis reduced, and alkalosis improved performance, Norman Jones, John Sutton and George Heigenhauser investigated the interactions between acid-base status and metabolism in exercise.HIGH-ALTITUDE MEDICINE: John Sutton and Peter Powles participated in high-altitude research on Mount Logan (Yukon), demonstrating sleep hypoxemia in acute mountain sickness and its reversal by acetazol-amide, and participated in Operation Everest II.EPIDEMIOLOGY: David Pengelly and Tony Kerrigan followed children living in areas with differing air quality to show that lung development was adversely affected by pollution and maternal smoking. Malcolm Sears and Neil Johnstone showed that the ‘return to school’ asthma exacerbation epidemic was due mainly to rhinoviruses. David Muir investigated the effects of silica exposure in hard-rock miners, and mortality in the nickel industry.SUMMARY: The Respirology Division has grown to more than 50 physicians and PhD scientists, and currently provides the busiest outpatient clinic in Hamilton, and has successful training and research programs.