High-Performance Polymer Blends: Manufacturing of Polyetherimide (PEI)-Polycarbonate (PC)-Based Filaments for 3D Printing.

The demand for high-performance polymers in 3D printing continues to grow due to their ability to produce intricate and complex structures. However, commercially available high-temperature 3D printing materials often exhibit limitations such as brittleness, warping, thermal sensitivity, and high costs, highlighting the need for advanced filament development. This study investigates the fabrication of polyetherimide (PEI) and polycarbonate (PC) blends via melt extrusion to enhance material properties for stable additive manufacturing.

Characterizing multifaceted environmental risks of oil and gas well leakage through soil and well methane and hydrogen sulfide emissions.

Oil and gas wells (OGWs) can lead to soil and well emissions of methane (CH), a potent greenhouse gas, and hydrogen sulfide (HS), a highly toxic gas, both of which reduce air quality and can cause explosions when emitted into confined spaces. Developments have been occurring over OGWs, posing health and safety risks. However, to our knowledge, previous studies have not conjunctively analyzed well and soil emissions while considering development on or near OGWs.

Acoustic leak localization for water distribution network through time-delay-based deep learning approach.

Water leakage within water distribution networks (WDNs) presents significant challenges, encompassing infrastructure damage, economic losses, and public health risks. Traditional methods for leak localization based on acoustic signals encounter inherent limitations due to environmental noise and signal distortions. In response to this crucial issue, this study introduces an innovative approach that utilizes deep learning-based techniques to estimate time delay for leak localization.

Effect of Graphene on the Mechanical Properties of Recycled High-Density and High-Molecular-Weight Polyethylene Blends.

This study uses an extrusion process to formulate blends based on recycled high-density and high-molecular-weight polyethylene (recHDPE, recHMWPE) for the manufacture of rainwater drainage pipes. The main objective of this project is to investigate the effects of incorporating graphene on the mechanical, thermal, and stress-cracking resistance properties of the recycled HDPE and HMWPE blends. Also, it aims to demonstrate that the addition of graphene may enable the use of different recycled polymers without compromising their properties.

Bioengineered yeast for preventing age-related diseases.

The aging process entails a multifaceted decline in the capacity to restore homeostasis in response to stress. A prevalent characteristic of many age-related diseases is the presence of low-grade chronic inflammation, a risk factor contributing significantly to morbidity and mortality in the elderly population. Specific lifestyle interventions, such as regular physical activity, targeted diet, and supplementation, can delay the accumulation of chronic age-associated conditions by mitigating inflammation processes.

Combining Short- and Long-Read Sequencing Technologies to Identify SARS-CoV-2 Variants in Wastewater.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater was used to track the evolution and emergence of variant lineages and gauge infection levels in the community, informing appropriate public health responses without relying solely on clinical testing. As more sublineages were discovered, it increased the difficulty in identifying distinct variants in a mixed population sample, particularly those without a known lineage. Here, we compare the sequencing technology from Illumina and from Oxford Nanopore Technologies, in order to determine their efficacy at detecting variants of differing abundance, using 248 wastewater samples from various Quebec and Ontario cities.

Photoaging enhances the leaching of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate and transformation products from polyvinyl chloride microplastics into aquatic environments.

Increasing chemical pollution is a threat to sustainable water resources worldwide. Plastics and harmful additives released from plastics add to this burden and might pose a risk to aquatic organisms, and human health. Phthalates, which are common plasticizers and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, are released from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) microplastics and are a cause of concern.

Optimal Sensor Placement for Enhanced Efficiency in Structural Health Monitoring of Medium-Rise Buildings.

Output-only modal analysis using ambient vibration testing is ubiquitous for the monitoring of structural systems, especially for civil engineering structures such as buildings and bridges. Nonetheless, the instrumented nodes for large-scale structural systems need to cover a significant portion of the spatial volume of the test structure to obtain accurate global modal information. This requires considerable time and resources, which can be challenging in large-scale projects, such as the seismic vulnerability assessment over a large number of facilities.

Integrated Electrochemical Aptamer Biosensing and Colorimetric pH Monitoring via Hydrogel Microneedle Assays for Assessing Antibiotic Treatment.

Current methods for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) have a long turnaround time as they involve collecting patients' blood samples followed by transferring the samples to medical laboratories where sample processing and analysis are performed. To enable real-time and minimally invasive TDM, a microneedle (MN) biosensor to monitor the levels of two important antibiotics, vancomycin (VAN) and gentamicin (GEN) is developed. The MN biosensor is composed of a hydrogel MN (HMN), and an aptamer-functionalized flexible (Flex) electrode, named HMN-Flex.

Enzyme Catalyzed Formation of CoA Adducts of Fluorinated Hexanoic Acid Analogues using a Long-Chain acyl-CoA Synthetase from sp. Strain NB4-1Y.

Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large family of anthropogenic fluorinated chemicals of increasing environmental concern. Over recent years, numerous microbial communities have been found to be capable of metabolizing some polyfluoroalkyl substances, generating a range of low-molecular-weight PFAS metabolites. One proposed pathway for the microbial breakdown of fluorinated carboxylates includes β-oxidation, this pathway is initiated by the formation of a CoA adduct.

Taxis-enhanced mineralization and co-metabolism of PAHs by bacteria in micrometer-scale environments.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are associated with micropores in sediments and soils. This limits the bioaccessibility of these compounds via existing bioremediation technologies, as biodegradation is strongly influenced by the ability of bacteria to access different sizes of pores. In this work, we employed naphthalene and pyrene as model contaminants to evaluate the transformation capacity of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida G7 (2 × 1 μm) via mineralization and co-metabolic activity, respectively.

Composite Hydrogel Sealants for Annulus Fibrosus Repair.

Intervertebral disc (IVD) herniation is a leading cause of disability and lower back pain, causing enormous socioeconomic burdens. The standard of care for disc herniation is nucleotomy, which alleviates pain but does not repair the annulus fibrosus (AF) defect nor recover the biomechanical function of the disc. Existing bioadhesives for AF repair are limited by insufficient adhesion and significant mechanical and geometrical mismatch with the AF tissue, resulting in the recurrence of protrusion or detachment of bioadhesives.

Electro-Chemo-Mechanically Stable and Sodiophilic Interface for Na Metal Anode in Liquid-based and Solid-State Batteries.

Na metal batteries (NMBs) are attracting increasing attention because of their high energy density. However, the widespread application of NMBs is hindered by the growth of Na dendrites and interface instability. The design of artificial solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) with tuned chemical/electrochemical/mechanical properties is the key to achieving high-performance NMBs.

Fast analysis of short-chain and ultra-short-chain fluorinated organics in water by on-line extraction coupled to HPLC-HRMS.

A rapid on-line solid-phase extraction liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry (on-line SPE-LC-HRMS) method was developed to analyze 11 ultra-short and short-chain PFAS in surface water. Analytical optimization involved screening 7 chromatographic columns and 5 on-line SPE columns, as well as evaluating SPE loading conditions, filters, sample acidification, chromatographic mobile phases, and SPE loading mobile phases. The optimized method was then applied to 44 river water samples collected in Eastern Canada, including sites near airports with fire-training areas.

Centroid of the bacterial growth curves: a metric to assess phage efficiency.

Phage replication can be studied using various approaches, including measuring the optical density (OD) of a bacterial culture in a liquid medium in the presence of phages. A few quantitative methods are available to measure and compare the efficiency of phages by using a single index based on the analysis of OD curves. However, these methods are not always applicable to non-canonical OD curves.

Protein Adsorption on Solid Surfaces: Data Mining, Database, Molecular Surface-Derived Properties, and Semiempirical Relationships.

Protein adsorption on solid surfaces is a process relevant to biological, medical, industrial, and environmental applications. Despite this wide interest and advancement in measurement techniques, the complexity of protein adsorption has frustrated its accurate prediction. To address this challenge, here, data regarding protein adsorption reported in the last four decades was collected, checked for completeness and correctness, organized, and archived in an upgraded, freely accessible Biomolecular Adsorption Database, which is equivalent to a large-scale, ad hoc, crowd-sourced multifactorial experiment.

In Vitro Investigation of Vocal Fold Cellular Response to Variations in Hydrogel Porosity and Elasticity.

Tissue regeneration is intricately influenced by the dynamic interplay between the physical attributes of tissue engineering scaffolds and the resulting biological responses. A tunable microporous hydrogel system was engineered using gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) and polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA), with polyethylene glycol (PEG) serving as a porogen. Through systematic variation of PEGDA molecular weights, hydrogels with varying mechanical and architectural properties were obtained.

Synthetic biology advances towards a bio-based society in the era of artificial intelligence.

Synthetic biology is a rapidly emerging field with broad underlying applications in health, industry, agriculture, or environment, enabling sustainable solutions for unmet needs of modern society. With the very recent addition of artificial intelligence (AI) approaches, this field is now growing at a rate that can help reach the envisioned goals of bio-based society within the next few decades. Integrating AI with plant-based technologies, such as protein engineering, phytochemicals production, plant system engineering, or microbiome engineering, potentially disruptive applications have already been reported.

Correction: Kirigami-enabled stretchable laser-induced graphene heaters for wearable thermotherapy.

Correction for 'Kirigami-enabled stretchable laser-induced graphene heaters for wearable thermotherapy' by Junyu Chen , , 2024, , 2010-2020, https://doi.org/10.1039/D3MH01884A.

Virtual and analytical self-expandable braided stent treatment models.

The Flow Diverter is a self-expandable braided stent that has helped improve the effectiveness of cerebral aneurysm treatment during the last decade. The Flow Diverter's efficiency heavily relies on proper decision-making during the pre-operative phase, which is currently based on static measurements that fail to account for vessel or tissue deformation. In the context of providing realistic measurements, a biomechanical computational method is designed to aid physicians in predicting patient-specific treatment outcomes.

Viscoelastic hydrogels regulate adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells for nucleus pulposus regeneration.

Low back pain is a leading cause of disability worldwide, often attributed to intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration with loss of the functional nucleus pulposus (NP). Regenerative strategies utilizing biomaterials and stem cells are promising for NP repair. Human NP tissue is highly viscoelastic, relaxing stress rapidly under deformation.

Applying the modified UV-activated TOP assay to complex matrices impacted by aqueous film-forming foams.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large chemical family, and numerous chemical species can co-exist in environmental samples, especially those impacted by aqueous film-forming foams (AFFFs). Given the limited availability of chemical standards, capturing the total amount of PFAS is challenging. Thus, the total oxidizable precursor (TOP) assay has been developed to estimate the total amount of PFAS via the oxidative conversion of precursors into perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs).

Anisotropic Morphing in Bistable Kirigami through Symmetry Breaking and Geometric Frustration.

Shape morphing in bistable kirigami enables remarkable functionalities appealing to a diverse range of applications across the spectrum of length scale. At the core of their shape shifting lies the architecture of their repeating unit, where highly deformable slits and quasi-rigid rotating units often exhibit multiple symmetries that confer isotropic deployment obeying uniform scaling transformation. In this work, symmetry breaking in bistable kirigami is investigated to access geometric frustration and anisotropic morphing, enabling arbitrarily scaled deployment in planar and spatial bistable domains.