Innovative Fabrication of Hollow Microneedle Arrays Enabling Blood Sampling with a Self-Powered Microfluidic Patch.

Microneedles are gaining a lot of attention in the context of sampling cutaneous biofluids such as capillary blood. Their minimal invasiveness and user-friendliness make them a prominent substitute for venous puncture or finger-pricking. Although the latter is suitable for self-sampling, the impracticality of manual handling and the difficulty of obtaining enough qualitative sample is driving the search for better solutions.

Microstructural changes enhance oxygen transport in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) fruit during maturation and ripening.

Climacteric ripening of tomato fruit is initiated by a characteristic surge of the production rate of ethylene, accompanied by an increase in respiration rate. As both activities consume O and produce CO , gas concentration gradients develop in the fruit that cause diffusive transport. This may, in turn, affect respiration and ethylene biosynthesis.

X-ray computed tomography for 3D plant imaging.

X-ray computed tomography (CT) is a valuable tool for 3D imaging of plant tissues and organs. Applications include the study of plant development and organ morphogenesis, as well as modeling of transport processes in plants. Some challenges remain, however, including attaining higher contrast for easier quantification, increasing the resolution for imaging subcellular features, and decreasing image acquisition and processing time for high-throughput phenotyping.

3D Printing of Monolithic Capillarity-Driven Microfluidic Devices for Diagnostics.

Rapid diagnostic testing at the site of the patient is essential when a fully equipped laboratory is not accessible. To maximize the impact of this approach, low-cost, disposable tests that require minimal user-interference and external equipment are desired. Fluid transport by capillary wicking removes the need for bulky ancillary equipment to actuate and control fluid flow.

Designing Mechanical Properties of 3D Printed Cookies through Computer Aided Engineering.

Additive manufacturing or 3D printing can be applied in the food sector to create food products with personalized properties such as shape, texture, and composition. In this article, we introduce a computer aided engineering (CAE) methodology to design 3D printed food products with tunable mechanical properties. The focus was on the Young modulus as a proxy of texture.

Correction: 4D synchrotron microtomography and pore-network modelling for direct in situ capillary flow visualization in 3D printed microfluidic channels.

Correction for '4D synchrotron microtomography and pore-network modelling for direct in situ capillary flow visualization in 3D printed microfluidic channels' by Agnese Piovesan et al., Lab Chip, 2020, 20, 2403-2411, DOI: .

4D synchrotron microtomography and pore-network modelling for direct in situ capillary flow visualization in 3D printed microfluidic channels.

Powder-based 3D printing was employed to produce porous, capillarity-based devices suitable for passive microfluidics. Capillary imbibition in such devices was visualized in situ through dynamic synchrotron X-ray microtomography performed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) with sub-second time resolution. The obtained reconstructed images were segmented to observe imbibition dynamics, as well as to compute the system effective contact angle and to generate a pore-network to model capillary imbibition.

Pore network model for permeability characterization of three-dimensionally-printed porous materials for passive microfluidics.

Stand-alone and portable lab-on-chips (LOC) can be obtained by exploiting capillary flow in porous media. Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) platforms obtained through powder-based three-dimensional (3D) printing are appropriate for capillarity-driven LOCs. However, fluid flow in such platforms needs to be characterized well.

Computational and Experimental Fatigue Analysis of Contoured Spinal Rods.

Posterior fixation with contoured rods is an established methodology for the treatment of spinal deformities. Both uniform industrial preforming and intraoperative contouring introduce tensile and compressive plastic deformations, respectively, at the concave and at the convex sides of the rod. The purpose of this study is to develop a validated numerical framework capable of predicting how the fatigue behavior of contoured spinal rods is affected by residual stresses when loaded in lordotic and kyphotic configurations.

Residual Stresses in Titanium Spinal Rods: Effects of Two Contouring Methods and Material Plastic Properties.

Posterior spinal fixation based on long spinal rods is the clinical gold standard for the treatment of severe deformities. Rods need to be contoured prior to implantation to fit the natural curvature of the spine. The contouring processes is known to introduce residual stresses and strains which affect the static and fatigue mechanical response of the implant, as determined through time- and cost-consuming experimental tests.